[Nguyen]

"Ohmygod he's just looking around hopelessly like a lost kitten," Liz angsted whilst picking at her cheese fingers. "I can't look any longer. He needs his husband! Where the hell is the husband?!"

Sitting across me was an increasingly irritable Brendon, who seemed to be feeling the guilt on his shoulders grow heavier every passing second. I don't blame him.

"He can't find a seat," Evans continued to narrate beside me, craning his neck as he observed a wandering Mr. Honeycutt in the most discrete manner. "Oh he found one. He's walking towards it. Oh—oh wait, no." The abrupt change in his tone compelled the rest of us to follow his gaze, only to catch a very tragic scene of Mr. Honeycutt looking at Mr. Jaxon from afar—finding that the latter had joined a table of other gym instructors.

"What is this," Brendon hissed bitterly, "a soap opera?"

"Shut up Brendon," Liz rolled her eyes. "It's all your fault. Look, just look at the number of people staring at Honeycutt. The table behind you proves my point." Brendon didn't dare turn around. He knew Liz was right.

We sort of went back to our lunch very quietly, afraid that another word would ruin the mood entirely. Shin who sat across was looking around nervously, feeling the tension in the air just as much as I did.

"He's still finding a seat—" Evans was about to launch into another unbearable commentary when I stood up and got to the other side of our class' table. "Nguyen?"

"Yvonne, is that seat free?" I went up to ask, referring to the chair beside Yvonne that had her book bag on it.

She nodded. "Yeah, it's Layla's but she's absent today so it's free. You need it?"

"Can I...have the chair?"

Yvonne grabbed her bag and placed it behind her, leaving the chair empty. "Sure. Who's it for?"

"Uh...well," I didn't know how to respond. "I'm not sure yet." I left her confused, scurrying back to our side of the class table. It sat about twenty people.

Brendon's eyes popped as soon as he saw me carrying a chair over, rejecting my idea completely. "You're not doing what I think you're going to do, right...?" Liz was, very naturally, all for it.

"Give me that," she took the chair from my arms and placed it at the end of the table. "You go invite him over."

"W-what?" I panicked. "Me? I was thinking Evans could do it since he's all...I don't know, talkative—I mean I barely talk in class no shit."

Evans burst into laughter and elbowed Finn (my fangirl instincts tingled there for a second), turning to me with a thumbs-up. "Yeah but Honeycutt's kinda creeped out by me hundred-percent of the time. It'll be good if a model student like you asks."

Model student? Me? Yeah right, if only I could get an 'A+' just by writing gay fanfics in my exams, I'd be the best model student anyone's ever had. God.

"I'll try," was all I managed, really. So much for having an idea but being unable to execute it. That's like my entire life—heart's like: get rich, get famous. Brain's all: Execution error. Unable to perform function. You suck.

I sucked in a breath and gathered every bit of non-existent courage I had, going up to Mr. Honeycutt to offer him a seat at our table. At least Liz was nice enough to present me a double thumbs-up. Clearly, Evans doesn't matter.

I mean, everything doesn't matter except gay things, right?

*

"Hi sir, uh..." I glanced around nervously. "Would you like to sit with our class?"

Mr. Honeycutt froze as soon as he turned around and I couldn't tell if this was the biggest mistake I would ever come to make in my miserable, boring life. Probably not. I make mistakes just about as often as Liz recommends me a new original gayfic—which is very often, I might add. She sent me one yesterday about a cute teen baker and a volleyball-playing jock but I wasn't too sure if I should start on it. I mean, what if they don't end up together? What if it has an angsty ending and I have to wait for the next book or something? The daily worries of a boring fangirl.

"S-sorry?" Mr. Honeycutt blinked adorably and looked very confused. "Could you repeat that?" Lol wait, how is it possible for a blink to be adorable? Hmm, might be his lashes. Yeah, it's his lashes alright.

"We, uh, as in. My class. Or part of us. Thought you might want to sit with us. Like, no obligation to talk or anything. Just sit and have your lunch. The cafeteria's packed today because the seniors have career coaching at one, so. We share lunch period on Fridays."

Either my explanation made absolutely no sense or I had unconsciously started speaking Vietnamese because Mr. Honeycutt did not respond very much. My mom does that a lot. Cursing in Vietnamese, I mean.

"Is it...really alright?" Our substitute home economics teacher looked as though he was about to cry and for a moment there I was scared that he would.

"Yes! Of course, sir. Ohmygod, are you okay? You don't have too force yourself to sit with us if you don't want to."

"I would love to sit for a while," Mr. Honeycutt smiled shyly. "Should I follow you to the table? I'm just afraid that you and your friends might feel uncomfortable sitting with a teacher..."

"Lol sir, you're like the cutest teacher we ever had so none of us are going to care," I blurted out absentmindedly and burned bright red as soon as the words began to sink into my shallow mind. Brain: wtf u doin. Mouth: woohoo.

"I, uh, meant that you are generally very friendly. We like your company," I stopped myself before Mr. Honeycutt settled into a seizure. "Not in a creepy way, or anything. Okay I should shut up and lead you to the table."

Mr. Honeycutt laughed good-naturedly—meaning he was just trying to ensure I wouldn't feel embarrassed by my sheer stupidity and cold jokes—and followed me to our class table.

I have to say, the table was very well-prepared for Mr. Honeycutt's arrival. I make it sound like he's the president of Cuteland (which he actually is) but the table was cleared of all tiny balls of tissue and Kleenex wipes, leaving a relatively huge space at the end of the table between Liz and Brendon, who each shifted to leave more than enough room for Mr. Honeycutt. He's actually really slim anyway, so. Generally, smol.

"Thank you for letting me join you guys for lunch," he said very gratefully, settling into the chair I moved over and placing his very cute and healthy lunch tray on the table. It was then that he started to notice the number of stares he was getting. Truth to be told, I didn't know whether the stares were part of the complaint, or only because a teacher was sitting with his students.

I returned to my seat and worked on finishing my serving of fries. Evans was busy inspecting Mr. Honeycutt's choice of side dishes and appeared to be judging him very strictly.

"Sir, you like baby carrots?" He shot immediately, and our teacher who was about to nibble on them had to stop midway.

"U-um, yes I do!"

Evans made a face, and Finn flicked his forehead. "Hurry up and finish your own food." I calmed my fangirl instincts and prayed that Mr. Honeycutt would be able to at least have his lunch in peace or I'd be eternally sorry for inviting him over.

"Is there something wrong today?" All of a sudden, it was Mr. Honeycutt himself prompting a conversation, and we were all too stunned to speak. "Did your class get scolded by another teacher? U-um, not to say that you are the type to misbehave, it's just—I'm just worried since most of you aren't like your usual selves." The bunch of us exchanged looks to see who would respond first. Liz took responsibility.

"We...kind of..." Brendon was straight on glaring at Liz and begging her not to speak another word but she ignored him completely. "We sorta knew about the complaint that you and Mr. Jaxon received. About, you know."

Mr. Honeycutt seemed hundred-percent sHoOk himself, since he stopped nibbling on his baby carrot to stare at us. "H-how did you know? Does...does the whole school know?"

"No no," Liz sought to calm him down. "They've only heard dumb rumors. We are the ones who know about the...the complaint. Specifically. Don't worry! We think it's completely dumb and stupid shit," she went on with an obvious jab aimed at Brendon. He rolled his eyes.

Evans jumped onto the bandwagon. "She's right. It's like the lamest complaint I've ever heard. Can't believe people actually complain about that. My mom's a staunch herself, but like she doesn't go around poking her nose into other people's businesses." Brendon was (by now) glaring at every single one of us at the table, and Evans wouldn't stop there. "We're human enough to understand everyone's plight, so."

"Oh no no," Mr. Honeycutt was shaking his head and waving his hands in an embarrassed manner. "I don't mean to say it's stupid or anything...I'm sure the family has their reasons for filing a complaint! We can't expect everyone to think on the same grounds, you see. I-in the end, we all have different minds."

Literally, I felt as though I had swallowed a mouthful of rainbows and sprinkles just from hearing his cute speech. "You're right sir. But it's still very nice of you to try and understand the point of view of others. I mean, it's clear that the people who complained didn't actually bother doing that."

Brendon's glare was now on me. I shot him my cheeriest grin. HA! Serves you right for stereotyping Asians as nice.

Thankfully, Mr. Honeycutt didn't pry into the source of our information (Brendon). He seemed to understand that it wasn't necessarily something we wanted to reveal in the first place, since we were reluctant to speak about the complaint before lunch. We spent the rest of the time talking about other important stuff. Aka Mr. Jaxon.

"Mr. Jaxon gives us extra rounds every time we disobey him," Evans was the first to protest, as though filing a direct complaint through said husband. I have to say, it was a clever plan. This was probably the most effective way to stop Mr. Jaxon from spamming extra rounds before our game time.

"That's so unreasonable!" Mr. Honeycutt actually sided us, his expression supposedly indignant but was comparable to a strawberry's rage. "I'll talk to him about it, don't you guys worry."

"Honestly speaking, Jaxon's not all that bad," Finn the sTuPid jock had to put in an off-handed remark amidst our silent celebration. "It's just two rounds. You should see how much of a demon he can get in our training."

"God damn it Finn, you're representing the school in volleyball matches, no one cares about how tough Mr. Jaxon can get during your training. It's just P.E for some of us, okay? Like. P.E," I laid out clearly, one of the main supporters of 'no extra rounds'.

"Yes, it's unreasonable to run two extra rounds!" Mr. Honeycutt agreed whole-heartedly, sounding genuinely upset. Phew, someone who understands my pain!

Shin however, decided to speak up after some time and defend said gym coach. "Mr. Jaxon can be very reasonable! He allows me to sit out during ball games."

"Yeah!" Evans backed him up, as though he had a sudden change of mind regarding his opinion of Mr. Honeycutt's husband. "Shin has ball phobia, and like, most teachers don't give a damn but Mr. Jaxon understands and actually allows him to sit out!" Our home economics teacher seemed a little startled at the sound of sitting out, but a pleased smile crossed his features soon after.

"R-really? That...that's nice of him."

And so Mr. Honeycutt therefore spent the remaining fifteen minutes of lunch time listening to yet more complaints (our complaints about Mr. Jaxon) and allowing us to confide in him. Despite him being our teacher, he was like, the sweetest listener I've ever come across. He didn't show a single sign of protest throughout our petty teenaged complaints even though he was going through so much worse.

Again, why are the lemons in life so sour? Ugh.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Anyone going for Zeth's party tomorrow night?" Brendon posed to the few of us, all party mode by the time our classes came to end and it being a Friday, he was ready to roll—all guilt naturally forgotten. Lol boys.

Liz shrugged, fixing her hair through the blank screen of her phone. "I don't know, staunch Christian. Maybe you shouldn't be partying every weekend and sleeping with a new girl so often, God might punish you with STDs." I gave her a well-deserved five.

"Quit going on about that, you sound like you're sixty. Grudges are not cool, okay?" Brendon snapped with a hiss and Shin actually laughed at him. Yeah, at him. I know when he's not being the good-two-shoes he tends to be ninety-percent of the time.

We were heading home after school; Brendon, Liz, Shin and I, since we lived in the same general direction—a bunch of trees.

"Maybe I am sixty," Liz fired back. "And yeah, maybe I'll let my boyfriend know you don't like grudges. I'll tell him tomorrow at the party. And while I'm at it, I'll text Layla about it too."

That shut Brendon up. I mean, it works that way for the majority—Liz's boyfriend, Josh, was a senior basketballer and a well-known starter on the school team. No one messes with starters. Oh, and Brendon has a crush on Layla, our classmate.

Naturally, he was too much of a wimp to confess.

"Fine. Leave it," jock decided to give in to all-too-powerful cheerleader Liz. "And you two?" Brendon turned to Shin and I. "Not having fun on a Saturday night at Zeth's?" Clearly, he didn't understand us one bit to be asking that kind of question.

"Not my kind of fun," I shrugged and he gave up, rolling his eyes and turning to Shin instead (as though Shin would give him a better response, ha).

"U-um, I'm not too good with loud music and alcohol," Shin explained with an awkward smile, holding up his hands to decline politely.

"Then you should learn! With your kind of face, you'd go far. Some girls actually go for the shy type."

Lol, he sort of indirectly said that I was ugly, but nevermind. Liz appeared very tired of Brendon's shit, shutting herself from his every word as she walked infront, texting on her phone. We spent the rest of the walk and the bus ride listening to Brendon rave about parties and the best part of them being the "social interaction" bit which sounded vErY fishy to me but who cares. I party with gay fantasies and ship wars on tumblr. Eat that, Brendon.

"I'm getting off here," Liz announced all of a sudden, referring to the next stop, and I was kinda worried because that wasn't where we'd always alight together. "Hanging at Jem's place."

"Jem?" I blinked.

"Cheer." Oh, she's from cheerleading...was Liz legit mad at Brendon? Sometimes I just can't tell what she's thinking at all. "Nguyen, I just sent you the link to the fic I told you about yesterday. Better read it over the weekend and text me about it or I'm putting an end to our friendship."

"Alright, alright," I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You're a hundred percent sure it wouldn't flood my room with tears...right?" I frowned in dismay when Liz pulled her lips into a sly smile.

"You never know."

I screamed internally. Brendon was still talking to Shin about parties (the latter party—HAHA PUN—obviously uninterested), completely oblivious to whatever Liz and I were saying until she up and went, alighting the bus and heading down the hill to wherever she was meeting her friend.

"Where'd she go? That's not our stop."

I rolled my eyes at his pure idiocy. "She's not going home. Meeting her friend...either that or Liz is tired of hearing you speak nonsense." I assumed Brendon would protest, or at least disagree and say something clever (or dumb, in his case) but he didn't. He actually appeared a little concerned.

*

"Which reminds me," I said to Brendon as we headed down the street and towards his place. It was the closest to the bus stop out of all three of ours. "You borrowed my portable charger on Monday."

"Ooh yeaah..."

"Ooh yeaah," I mocked his clueless pretense. "Where is it? You said you needed it because you had training that day and were too much of a wimp to ask Layla."

Brendon clicked his tongue. "Not true. Yeah, it's in the duffel bag that's probably...somewhere in my room. The blue one, right?"

"Yes. I hope it's not wrapped up in your dirty gloves or stuck somewhere in your helmet," I feared for my portable charger, having to bear with the stench of Brendon's gear from ice hockey.

He actually didn't bother reassuring me, which was a very bad sign. "Relax, I'll find it in seconds. Just wait for me at my doorstep."

"Oh. Are non-Christians not allowed to enter your house? It sounds like something your family would say," Shin was being low-key savage and Brendon was sHoOk. Sad to say, I was one of the rare few who had already gotten used to Shin's passive-aggressive-savage tendencies. Not a good thing.

"There's no such rule, Shin," Brendon clicked his tongue and looked at him as though he was a forgotten species. I mean, Brendon was one of the uninformed few who actually thought Asians were the minority hAhA in yer face. "You can come in if you want to."

"Yes, but you didn't invite us," Japanese boy pointed out with a very straight face and I let slip a laugh. Brendon held up his hands in defeat and probably figured that keeping quiet would provide much more benefit to his sanity than coming up with any sort of clever response. Meanwhile, we came to a stop at the fanciest house I've ever seen.

I gawked at the five-storey bungalow before us that looked newly designed and fresh out of the...oven, or whatever that made houses.

"Does your church bathe in gold?" Brendon was fishing for his keys as I admired his spacious front lawn, enough to hold a barbecue for at least three senior classes. "Sign me the hell up."

"That's a paradox, Nguyen," Shin pointed out. "You can sign the hell up for church."

I groaned, exasperated. "It was intended, Shin. Anyway," I turned to Brendon as he finally got this weird card-key-thing out of his bag and unlocked the gate with a tap. "Is this completely new or what? Seems like you just moved in."

Brendon shrugged.

"I just moved in a couple of weeks ago. Two months, I think. Or was it three?"

"Why'd you move?"

"My granddad became the pastor of the church and my dad's been earning more from handling the church finances," he walked us up to the front steps (which took ages, did I mention? His front lawn was bigger than my house already and that's dumb. INCOME DISPARITY). "Also, my sister somehow made it big. She moved out though, as soon as we moved here. I don't see her much, only at church on Sundays."

There was not one, not two, but four garden swings in his lawn. "What does she do?"

"Er...good question."

I looked at him as if he were a strange species from Mars. "You don't know what your sister does?"

"She's four years older than I am," he said this as if it were a good excuse. I rolled my eyes and Shin looked genuinely concerned (I have to add genuine 'cuz he might just be doing the savage thing again). "We barely talk, unless it's about God and she wants to tell me how blessed I am, or she is. I know she's talented, that's it."

"Talented," I repeated after him, wondering if Brendon would ever see how vague his entire sentence about his sister was. "Very specific."

We finally arrived at Brendon's doorstep and he was about to fish out for another set of keys when the door opened very abruptly, sending us a step back.

"Rachel?" There was a young lady holding open the door and Brendon did not look very pleased to see her. In fact, he seemed to me...kinda shocked. "Wait. You're home?"

She brushed aside his question and responded with one of her own instead. "Are these your friends?"

"Uh...yeah, yeah. They are." Brendon must be feeling hella grateful he's got the class' two best 'model students' accompanying him home for some sort of convincing power. Proof that he's behaving himself in school. "This is my sister," he said to us very shortly, and did this stiff 'cut-throat' sign to express what he would most likely do to us if we expose his true (aka wild) nature in school.

"Why're you here today?" He went on to add after turning back to sister Rachel. Lol I'd kick the shit out of him if he was my brother and said that to me. RoOd.

"I was waiting for you!" See, she's so nice. Er, even though she sorta filed that complaint on Mr. Honeycutt and Mr. Jaxon without knowing who they were and did not bother trying to put herself in their shoes. Yeah, she's still okay. I mean, you can't judge someone purely based on one incident, that I know...and any sister who waits for their brother to come home should have some minimal decency at the very least—

"How did the complaint go? Did the school do something about it?"

"Uh..." I began to understand why Brendon didn't exactly have the closest relationship with his sister. "Did you come home just to ask me this?"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A/N: !!! Alright, I mean—Brendon isn't exactly the best brother either if he doesn't even bother about his sister and minds his own business; living his teenaged life by partying it away (which isn't the best way to live life my dears! The best way is, of course, Nguyen's way of life *muehuehuheuheuheuheue*)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter ^^ I'll see you next week! Much love (' v ')/

-Cuppiecake