unedited, please shield your eyes! :((

dedicated to kim seokjin and his dad jokes

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01: THEY'RE LOOKING AT YOU LIKE YOU'RE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING

• supervillains, ukuleles, and a take on wordplay •

Jesse O' Connor was at it again.

"What do you call a pig that does karate?"

His lips pressed into a thin line, anticipating Derek's resounding 'what.' The latter just shook his head, however, clearly unimpressed.

"Pork chop!" Jesse's hands flew up, his fingers stretched taut, and palms wide open. Slicing unseen things in the air, he began emulating a rather exaggerated version of karate noises. "Huwayah!"

Derek stood still, the look on his face wedged between horrified and plain embarrassed. "Dude," he managed to say after a moment of recovery. "Stop it."

Unluckily for him, the word 'stop' was beyond the lexical knowledge of people like his friend. The command simply passed through the left ear and exited through the right. People like Jesse just didn't stop. They hadn't bothered to know, in the first place, where their limits stood.

If anything, telling them to stop was a trigger; a button pressed that essentially unlocked full-screen mode.

Jesse proceeded to projecting some flying kicks, and bending over to his back to form a body arc. "Fuck, Jess!"

Feigning ignorance, he inched closer to Derek and began slicing his neck.

The recipient of the karate chops tried swatting away his arms, hoping inside that they wouldn't catch attention for the silly fight. But people in the hallway soon grouped to watch, much to his chagrin. "I'm serious man! Stop!"

By now Jesse had lost it, and was laughing so hard his shoulders rocked like they might cause an earthquake. He dropped his hands to the side, deciding he traumatized his friend enough.

Simultaneously, Derek reflected on revoking his friendship with Jesse.

"I must be the only sane person left in Creek," he mused.

Jesse wiped a tear from his cheek. "W-what?"

Derek rolled his shoulders back, frowning. He wiped off the sweat that beaded on his forehead and proceeded to take things from his locker.

"I'm sorry, that was-," Jesse let out one last chuckle, "Okay, I'm over it."

"Look at them," Derek said, twisting to notion to some people by other side of the hallway. "The ladies and the rest of them? They're looking at you like you're a normal human being."

"What?" Jesse was laughing again.

"Plus, they're looking at you adoringly, and I don't get that part the most."

"You tell me, Team Captain," Jesse shrugged off, "It's you they're definitely sending the looks at."

"They send me looks all the time, alright," Derek shut his locker. "But that's not the point. With all those jokes, you're impossible, Jess. But people choose to ignore that and follow you around like you're some hot boyband shit."

"Honestly, I don't really understand that follow-around part either." Jesse replied, looping his fingers through his backpack straps. "My jokes are great, though. Why would people ignore that part about me? If anything, they must be Creekwood's secret fetish."

"I'm not as smart as you are, but hell do I know your jokes can never be a fetish. Take it from a guy who's the usual main object of fetishes."

Making a face at that last bit, Jesse landed a quick punch on his friend's arm. "Some still say I'm the whole package, though."

"Yeah man," his friend returned the punch, "the total package, except there were shipping problems. You know, casual deformities."

Deep down, he knew Derek was speaking the truth. Like the guy said himself, Jesse was smart. He knew these things. His comedy, well, definitely was the last thing about him that's going to leave a mark on people's lives.

He bit his lower lip, feeling a rush of denial from his inner ego. He thought about the girls who smiled and playfully tapped on his shoulder. They were amused by him, right? He was no Bill Murray, but he did make them giggle. Maybe he wasn't the funny type. But he was funny. Somehow.

Right?

OK, he thought. Maybe they'd laughed not necessarily because they'd gotten the joke or found it funny. Maybe they hadn't meant it when they said he was hilarious.

Did it really matter, though? He barely knew these people. He could bear the judgment. It was nothing to take personally.

But the thing was, people whom he loved and loved him didn't exactly like his quirk either- Derek as one example.

You see, whenever he'd deliver a punch line, he could almost feel his friends wanting to punch him. No joke. He'd once saw one hand fisted, shaking, seeming like it was aching to shut him up once and for all.

(Figures. There were loads of hands that fisted and shook and ached. Jesse just missed them all the time.)

Jesse was awfully aware of the pained faces his grandma made whenever they were eating at the dinner table and he came up with food puns, too, thank you very much.

All these things had never discouraged him, however. He believed everyone's opposition made his existence shine, the way a supervillain did. He had raw potential, he was exercising it, and people reacted to it negatively on a large scale.

See? Supervillain.

Jesse wasn't exactly planning on quitting. He had this thing going for some time now, and he believed that he'd come to his prime soon. He just had to keep trying.

Besides, more often than not, supervillains had underlying motives for the greater good.

"You really should stop it, you know. All the stupid jokes."

"Sure thing, Fetish King." he grinned, pleased that what he spat just rhymed.

Derek didn't get to catch it though, as his attention was already on someone else. Jesse followed where his eyes strayed, and saw that he was sending appreciative glances to a girl from across the hallway. The girl, whom Jesse later identified as Beth from History class, was not returning the look, however. She was squinting, scowling at something in the distance.

Jesse squinted and looked in the direction in which she'd been scowling at and raised his brows. It occurred to him that there were a whole bunch of girls who had been scowling, too.

Walking through the hallway, was Rae Williams.

Wearing all black, she walked as though she held fire in her hands- ultimately paving a way for her to walk through. Chin to her neck, she went straight, paying no mind to the hateful glances thrown her way. Though the air surrounding her was tense -almost dark and unforgiving- Jesse wasn't intimidated. When he saw the way her ukulele was loosely hung behind her, and the way her chestnut brown hair was tucked behind her ears and just softly cascaded down her back, he couldn't possibly be.

She looked so peaceful.

At that moment, Jesse thought, Rae Williams was best described with oxymorons.

And no, not whatever people had been calling her. Not "Big Baby" or the more unnecessary, worse versions of that.

At that moment, she looked like the calm before the storm. She looked like controlled chaos, the first frame of a captured hurricane.

He found it almost comical, realizing how ironies surrounded Rae Williams like flies in the May summer.

Her very name was an irony, for pete's sake. Why was she called Rae when all she did was brood? Rays of sunshine were supposed to spread warmth. They were an image of warmth. They gave you a sense of familiarity, the sense of belonging that enamored all of us. They shone, and made it so that flowers bloomed.

Rae was just.. cold. Through and through. 

She definitely did not shine, as she chose to be dull. She only grew weeds, and never gave space for flowers to grow.

Chuckling to himself, Jesse found himself making his way towards her, not even thinking through what he was about to do.

Supervillains took risks. And this was one of those opportunity ridden ones that could definitely change the game.

He was right in front of her now.

"Excuse me," she muttered with an edge to her tone.

Jesse shifted his weight on another foot.

"You're blocking the way."

He raised his brows. "Would you prefer I whiten it?"