….
A Week Later.
….
Tom Holland sat in the waiting area outside Regal Seraphsail's office, trying very hard not to bounce his leg.
He failed spectacularly.
The nervous energy had to go somewhere, and his leg was the unfortunate victim, tapping against the floor in a rhythm that would probably annoy anyone within earshot if there was actually anyone around to be annoyed.
But the waiting area was empty. Just him, his anxious thoughts, and the increasingly loud ticking of the clock on the wall.
Thirteen minutes until three.
He had been called in with zero explanation. Just Samantha's professional voice on the phone yesterday: "Mr. Seraphsail would like to see you tomorrow at three PM. Please arrive on time."
With no context or hint about whether this was good news or bad news or just some administrative thing that required his physical presence for reasons beyond his understanding.
Tom had spent the entire night oscillating between hope and dread.
The audition had been two weeks ago.
…and he has been waiting, checking his phone obsessively, refreshing his email every hour, driving his mum absolutely mad with his anxiety.
"They will call when they call." she had said with the patience of someone who'd been through this before. "Worrying won't make it happen faster."
Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one who had just auditioned for the biggest role of her life.
The waiting area door opened.
Tom's leg stopped mid-bounce.
Samantha walked in, leading–
A girl. Tall, confident stride, wearing jeans and a casual top, hair pulled back in a way that looked effortless but probably wasn't.
Tom recognized her immediately.
Zendaya.
They had done the chemistry read together during callbacks, but that had been such a blur of nerves and script pages and trying not to mess up that Tom hadn't really processed much beyond 'do not forget your lines and try not to look like you're about to vomit'.
Their eyes met.
She looked just as nervous as he felt, though she was definitely hiding it better.
"Wait here." Samantha said to both of them. "When I call you, come inside together. Not before."
Then she disappeared back into Regal's office, leaving them alone.
Silence.
Awkward, thick silence that seemed to expand to fill the entire room.
Tom's brain screamed at him to say something, anything, but his mouth had apparently forgotten how words worked.
Zendaya sat down three chairs away from him, close enough to be polite, far enough to maintain personal space.
More silence as the clock ticked louder.
"Hey." Zendaya said finally.
"Hey." Tom replied, his voice coming out slightly higher than normal. He cleared his throat. "Hi. Yeah. Hey."
Real smooth, Holland.
Another pause.
"So..." Zendaya started, then seemed to realize she didn't know where that sentence was going.
"Yeah." Tom agreed, which made no sense as a response but was apparently all his brain could produce.
They both looked away, then looked back at the same moment, caught each other's eyes, and both looked away again even faster.
"You are here for—" Tom started.
"The movie thing—" Zendaya said at the exact same time.
They both stopped.
Tom laughed nervously. "Sorry. You first."
"No, you go ahead."
"I was just, are you here for the pancreas movie?" Tom asked, then immediately cringed at his own phrasing. "I mean, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. The actual title. Not just... pancreas."
Zendaya's expression shifted from nervous to amused. "Yeah. The pancreas movie. That's what I have been calling it in my head too because the actual title is kind of long…"
Actually they still didn't know the full script so does the meaning behind the title.
They sat with that for a moment, both clearly wondering what the full story actually entailed.
"Can I ask you something?" Zendaya said.
"Yeah, of course."
"Is this your first big audition? Like, for a lead role?"
Tom nodded. "Completely. I have done theater back in London, but this is my first film audition for anything beyond like, background kid number three. You?"
"Same. I mean, from a different background, I have done singing and dancing stuff, some TV work…. but nothing like this."
Tom's phone vibrated suddenly.
The Spider-Man notification sound echoed through the quiet waiting room, that distinctive web-shooting thwip sound he had set for Instagram notifications because he was, apparently, seventeen years old.
Zendaya's eyebrows raised.
Tom's face went red. "I… that's just… I am a bit of a Spider-Man fan. Like, a big fan. Possibly an obsessive fan. The notification sound is probably excessive but—"
Thwip.
Another notification.
Thwip.
And another.
"What the—" Tom pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Instagram notifications were flooding in. New followers. Dozens of them. More appearing every second.
"That's weird." he muttered, scrolling through. "I never get… why are so many people suddenly—"
Zendaya's phone buzzed.
Then buzzed again.
And again.
She pulled it out, checking the screen. "I am getting follower notifications too. Like, a lot of them."
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Tom's phone wouldn't stop. The counter kept climbing, fifteen new followers, twenty, twenty-five—
"This is so strange." Zendaya said, her own notifications still coming in rapid succession. "Did something happen? Did we get mentioned somewhere?"
"I have no idea. I haven't posted anything in days."
They both stared at their phones, watching the numbers climb, completely baffled about what could be causing this sudden surge.
The office door opened.
Samantha stood there, professional as always. "You can come in now."
Tom and Zendaya exchanged glances, still confused about the phone situation but clearly deciding to deal with it later.
They stood, pocketing their phones despite the continued buzzing.
Tom's leg immediately wanted to start bouncing again.
Zendaya noticed, gave him a small smile that seemed to say I'm nervous too, and somehow that helped.
They walked into Regal's office together.
….
The office was less intimidating than Tom had expected.
Regal Seraphsail sat behind that desk, as Samantha took a position near the window.
"Tom. Zendaya. Sit down." Regal said, gesturing to the two chairs facing his desk.
They sat.
Tom's leg started bouncing again. He forced it to stop, which just made his hands fidget instead.
Regal studied them for a moment that felt like it lasted several years.
Then he smiled slightly and asked: "What do you guys think? You make a good couple?"
Tom's brain short-circuited.
His face went from normal to tomato-red in approximately point-five seconds.
"I…. we… that's not…. we just met." he stammered, hands gesturing wildly at nothing. "Like, properly met. Today. In the waiting room. So we're not… I mean, we did the chemistry read but that doesn't mean…. and I am not saying there's anything wrong with…. but we don't really know each other—"
Zendaya, significantly more composed, just raised an eyebrow. "Did you seriously just ask us that as an opening question?"
"Regal, stop teasing them." Samantha said from her position by the window, though she was clearly trying not to smile.
"Okay, okay." Regal said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
He leaned back in his chair, still studying them with that assessing look.
"Yep." He said, more to himself than them. "They really do look kind of made for each other."
"Are you—" Tom started, then stopped, completely lost.
Samantha sighed. "He's doing this on purpose. Ignore him."
Tom looked at Regal with an expression that clearly conveyed: Is he trying to ship us? Are we being shipped by the director before we're even cast?
Regal caught his look and gave a small wink.
Tom's internal monologue spiraled: Isn't this too soon? What am I supposed to tell my mum? 'Hey Mum, the director thinks I make a good couple with a girl I met twenty minutes ago?'
"Alright, alright." Regal said, finally taking pity on Tom's visible distress. "Let me actually get to the point."
He pulled up something on his laptop, glanced at it, then looked back at them.
"I am talking about the movie." he clarified. "You both seem to match the character descriptions. The way you looked together during the chemistry read, the dynamic you created - it worked."
Tom's brain was still trying to recover from the shipping comment.
Zendaya was more focused. "So..?"
"You both passed the auditions." He said. "So you're in. You will be playing the lead roles - unless you don't want to."
Complete, absolute silence.
Tom's brain rebooted slowly, processing the words, trying to understand if they meant what he thought they meant.
Zendaya made a small sound - half gasp, half laugh.
"Wait." Tom managed. "We… both of us?"
"Both of you." Regal confirmed.
Tom's natural, unfiltered reaction kicked in before his brain could engage any kind of filter.
He jumped up from his chair and went for a hug with Zendaya - pure instinct and joy–
Then paused mid-motion, suddenly realizing they had literally just met properly twenty minutes ago and maybe hugging was too much–
Pivoted awkwardly into offering a high-five instead–
Which Zendaya, still processing the news herself, took several seconds to register–
Leaving Tom's hand hanging in the air in what was possibly the most awkward high-five attempt in human history–
Until she finally raised her hand and connected with his in a slap that had absolutely zero coordination or rhythm.
The entire sequence took maybe three seconds but felt like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Samantha observed this from the sidelines with barely concealed amusement.
She didn't usually involve herself much in casting decisions, that was Regal's domain, his particular genius for seeing things in people that others missed.
But she had had initial doubts about this pairing when Regal first suggested it.
The height difference, for one thing. Zendaya was visibly taller than Tom, which wasn't necessarily a problem but could be depending on how it read on camera.
And Tom was just so... bright, energetic.
Could that kid really play someone as closed-off and isolated as Elliot was supposed to be?
She had kept those doubts to herself, obviously.
Regal had a track record of being right about these things, and questioning his casting choices without seeing the result felt premature.
But now, watching them–
The awkward high-five attempt.
The way they had been talking in the waiting area before being called in, Samantha had seen them through the window, noticed how the initial awkwardness had shifted into something more natural…
The chemistry that existed even in their complete lack of coordination.
There was something weird, unpolished and genuine.
If that could be captured on camera, if Regal could harness that specific energy…
Yeah. It might actually work.
"Congratulations." Regal said, clearly amused by the high-five disaster. "You're officially cast as Elliot and Sakura."
"Holy shit." Tom whispered, then immediately panicked. "Sorry! I mean…. sorry for swearing…. I just… this is—"
"It's fine." Regal assured him. "You're allowed to have a reaction."
Zendaya was smiling now, a genuine, bright smile that transformed her entire face. "We actually got it… I guess."
Tom felt something tightening in his chest - not anxiety this time, but something bigger and more overwhelming.
"When do we start?" he managed.
"Pre-production begins in two weeks." Regal said. "Script read-through, rehearsals, chemistry building exercises, though based on that high-five, we clearly have work to do in the coordination department."
Tom's face went red again. "That was…. I didn't mean…."
"Relax. I am joking." Regal pulled out two bound scripts from his desk drawer. "These are for you. Full screenplay…. well for the most part. Take them home, read them, start getting into your characters' heads."
He slid one to each of them.
Tom picked him up with both hands, like it might disintegrate if he wasn't careful.
His name was written on the cover beneath the title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas - Elliot Chen
"Mostly full?" Zendaya asked, noticing the qualifier.
"There are some elements we're still refining." Regal said smoothly. "But everything you need to understand your characters and their journey is there."
What he didn't mention, what Samantha knew because she had prepared these copies herself, was that the ending in these scripts was different.
A happy ending.
Sakura survives. Elliot and Sakura get their future together. Exactly the kind of Hollywood conclusion that the actual film would never, could never have.
Regal hadn't changed his mind about the real ending. That was set in stone - Sakura dies, Elliot learns to live, tragedy and beauty intertwined.
But he was hiding it, deliberately.
Especially so from Tom.
Because no one might know at this point, but Regal does…
Tom Holland, whose enthusiasm and genuine emotion were his greatest strengths as an actor, was also famously incapable of keeping secrets.
The kid was a walking spoiler machine, a loose-tongue champion, someone who would absolutely, definitely, without question accidentally reveal major plot points in interviews if he knew them.
It was part of his charm. His complete inability to filter or hide his feelings made him genuine and relatable and perfect for roles requiring emotional transparency.
It also made him a nightmare for spoiler-sensitive productions.
So: fake ending for now. Real ending revealed later, when they were closer to production and media obligations were minimal.
Also he believes the magic that Tom might bring without knowing the ending is something Regal is looking forward to.
"I have one question before you both leave." Regal said.
They looked up from their scripts.
"This film is going to be emotionally demanding. Heavy subject matter, intense scenes, living in these characters' headspace for months. Can you handle that?"
Tom thought about what he had read in the audition sides. The hospital scene's underlying sadness. Sakura's determination to live fully. Elliot's gradual transformation.
"Yes." he said without hesitation. "Absolutely yes."
Zendaya nodded. "I can handle it. I want to handle it. This story matters."
Regal smiled. "Good. Then welcome to the film. Samantha will coordinate everything with your representatives - schedules, rehearsals, all the logistics."
"Thank you." Zendaya said, her voice thick with emotion she wasn't quite hiding. "Seriously. Thank you for this opportunity."
Tom stood, still clutching his script like a lifeline. "We will. Make something that matters, I mean. We will give it everything."
"I know you will." Regal said. "That's why you're cast."
They headed for the door, still processing, still half-convinced this might be an elaborate dream.
"Tom. Zendaya."
They turned back.
Regal was watching them with that assessing look again. "You're about to become scene partners for months. Sakura and Elliot only work if you two trust each other completely. So get to know each other. Build that foundation before filming starts."
"We will." Zendaya promised.
"Good. Now go celebrate. You've earned it."
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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