Chapter Text
“Are you sure?” Taerae’s response to his master plan was less encouraging than Zhang Hao was hoping for, but what did Taerae know about love? Or SpongeBob?
“ Yes . Obviously. It’s perfect. I just need to get cast as SpongeBob or Squidward-”
“Definitely Spongebob. You don’t have the chops for Squidward,” Taerae interrupted.
Zhang Hao rolled his eyes at him. “Fine. I just need to get cast as SpongeBob, seduce the guy playing Squidward who’s probably already gay because it’s musical theater, have my perfect kiss and then, boom, Chapter 56 of Not a Simple Sponge here we come. It’s classic method acting. I just can’t talk in the voice too often because then I might need to get coached out of it like Austin Butler and no one’s gonna want to kiss me if I sound like SpongeBob.”
“You don’t know that. They might be into it if they signed up to be in Spongebob the musical.” Taerae leaned against the hallway wall. Zhang Hao had practically dragged him out of class to relay this scheme and he was starting to get worried they might never return to PreCalc, seeing as the fire ignited in his best friend’s eyes from this idea was still far from going out. He was pacing in front of him like a crazy person, making nondescript hand gestures and whispering something about costuming. “Can I point out a few flaws in your plan?” Taerae prodded, hoping to dilute some of Zhang Hao’s furious excitement.
Sure enough, Zhang Hao stopped mid-pace and looked at him, confused. “Flaws?”
Taerae shrugged. “I mean, you’ve never done a musical before, and according to the flier, Byun Baekhyun is directing, and he’s, like, known to be a stickler for perfection. My sister’s friend practiced her audition song for two years just to get into his production of Newsies and he didn’t even let her finish Watch What Happens before telling her she sounded like a dying bird. And SpongeBob is, like, the lead, I’m assuming, and you haven’t even started preparing yet and auditions are tomorrow. Also, most of the talented men nowadays are only pretending to be gay to weasel their way into the confidence of the dancer girls, so the odds that both you and the guy who plays Squidward are real life homosexuals are very low. I don’t know, dude, I just don’t want this to not work out and make you worse off than before.”
Zhang Hao stared off into the distance, appearing deep in thought, for long enough that Taerae began to worry he had rebroken the boy’s spirit. “Sorry if that was a little harsh, dude,” he mumbled, awkwardly shifting his position.
“No… no you’re right,” Zhang Hao said, locking their eyes and staring intensely at his best friend. Taerae was shocked his spiel had actually made an impact, and equally shocked Zhang Hao was willing to admit it.
Now that that idea was out of his head, they could actually begin some serious conversation. “Well, yeah, I mean, I do know some-”
“I need to go prepare if I have a prayer of being SpongeBob! Thanks, Taerae!” And with that Zhang Hao charged out of the building, leaving all his stuff in PreCalc.
Taerae sighed.
—
“Name?” the woman behind the check-in desk groaned, clearly thrilled with her role as check in-er. Not really. Hao was being sarcastic.
“Um, Zhang Hao,” he said, trying to sound friendly and inviting to distract from him wringing his hands out of anxiety. The woman’s uncongenial attitude wasn’t helping.
She glanced down to her sheet, laboredly flipping the pages, before lazily reaching for her pen and making a mark, supposedly next to his name. Then, she wrote a number down on a sticky note and stuck her hand out, letting it hang in the air, the sticky note dripping from her red nails. She sighed. “This is your number. Put it on and go wait in the auditorium. The director will call it when it’s your turn to sing. Then there’ll be a dance combo to learn and perform. Then the director will decide if he wants to keep you to read lines. He’ll call your number if he does.” She spoke as if each word was an inconvenience. The sticky note still hung in front of Hao, who grabbed it and nodded.
“Thank you so much! Have a phenomenal day!” He stuck the number to his chest and made off towards the auditorium. Phenomenal? Really Zhang Hao? Way too friendly and inviting. He tugged on the hem of his yellow shirt (if he was gonna be SpongeBob, he had to prove he looked good in yellow), staring at the ground and trying to still his beating heart.
He was almost successful before he walked right into a hard surface, falling backwards and landing on his ass. “What the fuck?” he muttered under his breath, looking up to meet the eyes of the hard surface - another boy with a sticky note stuck to his chest, clutching a binder labeled “Voice”. Shit. These kids were no joke.
“Watch where you’re going, cunt,” the boy hissed with what could only be called a very obvious gay accent. “And if you think you think that hideous yellow… thing you’re wearing is gonna help your chances of getting SpongeBob, you’re sorely mistaken. Not only does it make you look jaundiced-” he spat (literally, a fleck of saliva landed on Zhang Hao’s forehead), pausing for dramatic effect as he checked his well-manicured nails before turning back to glare and Zhang Hao, “But Baekhyun as good as promised me the role after snubbing me in Annie over the summer. So think again.” And with that, the boy turned his nose to the sky and sauntered off to the check-in table to verbally assault the utterly bored woman behind the desk.
Was his shirt really that ugly? Hao looked down at his frock. He really didn’t think it was that bad. And it did not make him look jaundiced - in fact, a professional color consultant on CraigsList had told him it enhanced the glow in his face. Zhang Hao collected himself, trying to shake off his new enemy’s words. He could get SpongeBob. He knew it. The other gay boy was probably just jealous he was cuter. Or maybe he was in love with him. Either way, he didn’t mean it. He got up and finished his journey to the auditorium, sheepishly opening the embarrassingly squeaky door.
As soon as he opened it, he regretted it. The obnoxious sounds of scales and arpeggios sung on every possible syllable all at once thundered in his ears. He tried to ignore the dissonance in tones - clearly some people in the room were utterly tone deaf - and tiptoed to an open seat on the left, sitting down and repeating encouraging affirmations to himself under his breath. The room was more full than he’d expected, full of kids who seemed to know what they were doing way more than he did. Maybe Taerae was right, maybe this was a stupid idea.
No. He could do this. “I am good enough to be Spongebob. I am good enough to be Spongebob,” he whispered, trying to get himself to believe it. “I can do this. I can do this. I can do-”
“Never seen you here before!” a cheerful voice chirped, interrupting Hao’s mantras. He looked up to find the voice belonged to a smiling boy standing over him, staring. The smiling boy stuck out his hand. “I’m Matthew, nice to meetcha!”
Hao awkwardly and weakly shook the boy's hand. “Haha, hey, I’m Zhang Hao,” he said, faking a smile. He was sure his friendliness was all too obviously a guise, but the other boy - Matthew - didn’t seem to take notice, enthusiastically shaking his hand. “Yeah, it’s my first show.”
“Oh, very nice! You’ll love it. Being part of a show is such a wonderful experience for everyone. Mind if I sneak past ya and sit? I always like making newcomers feel welcome!” Without waiting for a response, Mattthew tiptoed past Zhang Hao’s knees, maintaining eye contact the whole time, before reaching the seat next to him and plopping down. “So, you got any roles you got your eye on? Me personally, I’m just tryna get lines, but if I’m guessing correctly based on the color of your shirt, you’re going in for SpongeBob himself! Am I right or am I right?” He grinned, staring into Zhang Hao’s soul once again.
“Haha, yup, you got me!” Zhang Hao was getting tired of the fake laugh already. “Either SpongeBob or Squidward.”
Matthew nodded encouragingly. “Totally sick! You know, I wanted to-” He was cut off by an ear splitting whistle that Hao was, for once, relieved to hear. A hush fell over the auditorium as the scales stopped and all eyes turned to the whistler: a middle aged man with a thin black scarf tied around his neck and a fedora placed delicately on the side of his head, standing in the front of the room, just in front of the stage.
“Hello, prospective members of Bikini Bottom!” the man bellowed, the sound of his voice echoing off the walls of the room. “My name, in case you didn’t know, which I find highly unlikely… is Byun Baekhyun. It is I, and only I, who will be deciding your fate, not only in casting this show, but also in directing it.” He stopped as if he was holding for applause. None came. “I’m sure my wife informed you how this will work, and if you weren’t paying attention, then I don’t need you in my show. Number One!” And with that, Byun Baekhyun took a seat at his folding table facing the stage.
The first person up to sing - if you could even call it singing - was a girl named Sakura, who screeched out a horrific attempt at Chop to the Top. She only got 8 bars in before Baekhyun stopped her, telling her that would be quite enough out of her. Next came a boy named Wooyoung, performing an actually very decent rendition of Super Sea Star Savior , then a girl named Chuu, demonstrating what Chop to the Top should actually sound like.
Zhang Hao quickly stopped paying attention to the auditions and only paid attention to the numbers being called, his heart beating out his chest each time. He focused on replaying his song ( Just a Simple Sponge , obviously) in his head, going over every lyric, every note he’d given himself, rehearsing as much as he could without getting up and belting over someone else’s audition.
His focus was broken by a noise, and not the unavoidable endless sound of chatter coming from everyone sitting in the auditorium - “the peanut gallery”, as Byun Baekhyun had referred to it multiple times while asking them to shut up. Hao looked for the source of the noise and to his surprise, it was coming from Byun Baekhyun himself. The noise was applause. He was applauding an auditionee. “Bravo, Sunoo! You, my friend, have outdone yourself - all I can say is incredible . Truly. Wonderful job!” Zhang Hao whipped his eyes to the stage, ravenous with curiosity about who could’ve possibly done so well, they’d pleased the unpleasable (according to Taerae, anyway), and was filled with an interesting combination of dismay and rage when he saw it was his enemy - the boy who had bumped into him in the hallway and basically threatened him. Maybe he’d been right all along.
Sunoo, however, looked only distressed at the feedback, not even bothering to thank his potential director and merely trudging off the stage, each step heavy with disappointment. Was he expecting something more? Why the fuck isn’t he basically jumping for joy right now? Weirdo.
It wasn’t long before Zhang Hao’s own number was called and he blacked out. He remembered Matthew giving him vague words of encouragement and climbing the stairs onto the stage, but as soon as Byun Baekhyun had disinterestedly told him to start whenever he was ready, it was as if there was a gap in his memory. He went into a performance trance, not able to recollect if he had even gotten the lyrics right or taken the notes he’d given himself. All he could remember was standing, looking out into the auditorium, his mouth open and maybe the distorted sound of his own voice if he focused hard enough on the image, and then he remembered snapping out of it - maybe at the end of the song, who’s to say - and looking back at Byun Baekhyun, awaiting feedback, hoping with his might that it would be positive, that maybe Byun Baekhyun would applaud for him too, maybe even offer him the role right then and there, or even just smile at him, give him some sign he wasn’t completely out of the running.
“Okay, well, thanks.”
Zhang Hao’s heart sank. “Thank you so much!” he responded, trying to stay friendly and inviting, trying to ignore his heart breaking, not just for him, but for every reader that relied on him and Not a Simple Sponge to get them through their day, for SpongeBob and Squidward who would have to live in a world in which they never got their perfect kiss, for Taerae who would never stop hearing about this despite losing interest before the first word would even leave Zhang Hao’s lips. He focused on keeping his back straight, on maintaining a friendly and inviting look as he walked off stage and back to his seat, watching the girl after him sashay up to the stage and confidently flip her hair over her shoulder before announcing that her name was Wonyoung and she, too, would be auditioning for the production of SpongeBob, jealous of her soul that had yet to be ripped out of her by Byun Baekhyun’s cold rejection. Taerae was right. He hated this guy. He got back to his seat and finally allowed himself to slump over, defeated.
“Dude, that was so good!” Matthew’s genuine cheer came at an utterly unwelcome time. Zhang Hao wanted nothing more than to crawl into himself and brood. His plans had once again failed. “You sounded so good! Baekhyun loved you too. You’re for sure gonna get SpongeBob. I’m so happy for you!”
Huh? “I don’t know about that,” Zhang Hao nervously responded. “He applauded and stuff for that other guy.” Sunoo . It’s okay. He can live with this. Not all dreams come true. It’s just a stupid show anyway.
“I know, he’s for sure not gonna get it now! Poor guy. Trust me, it’s gonna be you. You got the golden three-word response! Baekhyun reacted just like that when he casted Yuri as Veronica in Heathers last summer and when he made Yedam Jean Valjean in Les Mis that winter. It’s like his new thing! All that positive feedback is a nail in the coffin when it comes to trying to get a lead. It usually means he’ll give you some shitty, basically ensemble part. But you - you’re gonna be the lead in your first show! How does it feel to practically be SpongeBob already?” Matthew stared at him, world’s biggest grin draped from his face, basically golden-retriever panting at Zhang Hao. It made him feel validated but slightly uncomfortable. Is this how celebrities feel?
However, all of the damage initially done to Hao’s mental state and self confidence by Byun Baekhyun’s response - or lack of response - had magically healed itself. If what Matthew was saying was true, then he had a chance, hell, more than a chance, at really being SpongeBob - at finishing Not a Simple Sponge ! Maybe God was real! Maybe this was it!
He felt a joy bubbling up inside him as he turned to Matthew and said, “Haha, thank you…!”