CHAPTER V

- because you think you're cooler than me –

[Liam]

Listening at the door to room 8B, he could just make out sound, muffled slightly but still discernible. His watch read 5:05; he was a little late, but this way he could hear what he was getting into before he walked in. The blend of voices beyond the door, a smooth blend of melody and harmony, slow, wistful and mellow, made his breath catch in his throat for a second. 

They sounded really, really good. 

Excited now, he carefully pushed down on the handle and let the door swing open, walking into the room. Everyone broke off abruptly and looked at him, their expressions a mix of startled and confused. 

For a second there was a tense, awful silence.

"Hey, you're here!" Dom said happily, coming over to him and nudging the door shut with his foot. "Guys, say hello to Keats."

"Huh." Someone said, disapproving: a boy, slightly taller than Liam was, with brown curly hair and dark eyes. Arguably, not quite the reception he'd been expecting.

"Wait, Dom," someone else asked loudly, raising a finger. With tanned skin, hair half-hidden under a fedora and a tartan scarf around his neck, Liam was getting pretty strong hipster vibes from him. "You just asked someone here and didn't tell us?"

"I thought you said we needed a sixth person."

"Yeah, but I figured you'd be responsible enough to talk to us first," he answered. "I didn't sign up for this just to let you go around behind our backs and make decisions for us. What if he rats us out?"

"Well, why would he do that?"

"Why wouldn't he? When did you meet him?"

"Like, last Tuesday..."

He threw his hands up in the air. "Well. That's just great."

Dom shrugged. "Well, either we take him or we don't. If anyone else has anything against him, say so."

There was a short silence. The guy who'd spoken earlier looked annoyed, but didn't raise any further complaints. Finally, the only girl in the room, a tall anglo-chinese girl, spoke up.

"To be honest, I'm totally fine with getting a new guy," the girl said. And then, to Liam: "Don't worry about Wolfgang. He acts like a dick, but secretly, he's a dick."

Some of the guys laughed, and immediately the tension in the room eased off. Liam smiled. "That's reassuring."

"So, Keats, looks like you're in," Dom said, ruffling his hair. Liam blinked; the gesture was oddly affectionate, and threw him off guard for a second. "Let me introduce you to the gang. Of course, you know me. And then we have Chen," he pointed at the girl, "who is in charge most of the time, so you have to listen to her."

"Most of the time?" Chen asked, dismissively. "Please."

"Aaand then we have Scottani, Tweety and Wolfgang, who sing accompaniment, bass and vocal percussion respectively."

"Vocal percussion?"

"He doesn't even know what it is," Wolfgang said, exasperatedly. "Why is he here again?"

"Wow, give the poor guy a break," Chen said, and then to Liam: "It's basically beatboxing. We sing acapella, so we don't use instruments."

"Though Wolf is basically a drum kit, so feel free to hit him at anytime," Tweety put in, punching him in the shoulder. Wolfgang scowled at him.

"Grow up, would you?"

"I'm very happy with my mental age," Tweety said shamelessly.

Liam laughed, feeling slightly more at home. He'd been worried for a second by Wolfgang's reaction, but the others seemed ok with him. This could work out. "So you guys are big on secrecy, is that it? With the code names and everything?"

"Dom thinks it's more fun that way," Chen said, smiling.

"We're practising a song we've already learned," Dom said. "You can do warmups with us, if you want, just to get a feel for things. We'll start a new song next week, so you can properly join in then, but you're more than welcome to stay and watch us practise if you're not busy."

Liam nodded; all he had to do at home was assignments. This was much more interesting. After warm ups, Liam sat on the table and listened to them practise. They sounded even better without the door between them.

"Alright guys, take five," Chen said, after a solid half an hour of singing, and the others scattered, grateful for the break. Chen worked them hard, but the song was definitely shaping up well.

"How long have you been working on this song for?" he asked Chen.

"We had a couple of rehearsals on it over summer, but everyone's forgotten it over the holidays," Chen said, sighing. "And we're gonna start two new ones next week so I'd like to get this finished by the end of the rehearsal."

"I think it sounds good."

"Good to hear," Chen replied with a quick smile. She stood up suddenly, brushing down her skirt. "Hey, I'm gonna talk to Dom about something, but stay here if you want, get to know the others. We'll start up again in a bit."

Liam looked around: Tweety had gone out to get a drink or something. Wolfgang was still there, but Liam didn't think starting a conversation with him would be a good idea, so he headed over to Scottani instead, who was sitting on one of the desks, eating a packed lunch.

"Hey."

Scottani looked at him for a minute without saying anything. "You're new here, aren't you?"

It must be a pretty tight-knit school, if people could recognise him being new just on sight. "Yeah. How long have you been with these guys for?"

"Couple of years."

"Ok. Cool. Do you like it?"

"Yeah."

Another silence. There was something standoffish about him that made it hard for Liam to think of things to say. Scottani took a forkful from the plastic box perched on his knees: pasta and prawns and a lot of green stuff. Was that spinach? Did people eat spinach voluntarily?

"You don't talk a lot, do you?" he went with, finally.

Scottani glanced at him, his dark eyes scornful now. "Not to you, no."

"Wow, ok," Liam said, taken aback. "What did I do?"

"Huh." He pretended to think about it. "You showed up?"

"Why didn't you say anything earlier, then? Now you're stuck with me."

He shrugged. The silence was decidedly hostile this time. "Alright, I get it," Liam said finally. "I'm gonna go get some water."

"Good," he muttered, without looking at him.

Geez. Liam thought, pushing open the door, irritated. What was his deal? I've been here for what, half an hour?

He bumped into Tweety coming back in from the vending machines with a can of Fanta and a pack of Oreos.

"Whoops! Sorry, didn't see you there," Tweety said, holding the door open for him. He was slightly stocky and tall, with short blonde stubble on his chin. "Where you off to?"

"Just gonna get something to drink," he said, still slightly pissed, and Tweety nodded.

"Alright. See ya soon, kid!"

Tweety's casual demeanour cheered him a up a little, and he walked slowly, weighing everything up. This was why he didn't like working with teams: there were always going to be assholes. Liam wasn't sure he could deal with two people having a problem with him. But neither of them had said anything when Dom gave them a chance, and he'd never spoken to either of them in his life, so he had no idea what he'd done to offend them. Besides, he thought, as he reached the water tap, the others seemed totally fine with him being there.

He paused to take a drink, relishing the taste of the cool water. Don't forget about the singing... he reminded himself. Just listening to it gave him the shivers. He'd never wanted to be a part of something as much as he wanted this. He'd just have to ignore the others, and then next week when he started singing, he could prove to them he deserved to be there as much as they did.

When he got back into the room, instead of getting back to rehearsing, Chen called them all over.

"Okay, change of plan," Chen said. "Remember that song we learned at the end of last year, the Bastille one?"

"Didn't we drop that one?" Scottani asked, and Dom nodded.

"Yeah, we're gonna do it again," he said. "Real quick, you guys pretty much had it down. Keats is gonna do the harmonies now, so Chen's back on accompaniment with you, Scottani."

Liam was surprised. "I'm singing? Which song?"

"Oh, Pompeii by Bastille," Dom told him. "You know it, right?"

"Um..."

"Seriously?" Dom said. He sang a line of the chorus and then looked at him expectantly. "No?"

"Do you just never listen to the radio or something?" Scottani asked. "It was playing for months."

Liam sighed.

"It's cool," Chen said. "Normally we send you the songs in advance so you have a rough idea of the parts you're doing before rehearsals, but we sort of sprung it on you, so have a listen with Dom and then we'll regroup at quarter past and run through it the last half an hour, ok?"

Dom took Liam aside as the others split up to practise their separate parts. Liam glanced around the room: Tweety had his headphones on, his head bouncing and humming the bass, while Wolfgang was slouched in his chair, tapping impatiently on the desk. Chen and Scottani were going through the accompaniment, sitting together on the table at the front where Mr Maddison sat earlier. Scottani was singing quietly, intently, focused on Chen, who was keeping time for them. The two of them were precise, never missing a beat, hitting the notes with a scarily accurate synchronisation.

Probably not in a bad mood, then, he figured, still trying to work out what he'd done to make Scottani act so unfriendly earlier.

"Why'd you have a change of plans?" he said, turning back to Dom.

"Chen wants to hear you sing," Dom explained, typing the song into YouTube. "That way she'll know what kind of songs work for you. So we're just gonna pick up something the others know already. I can't believe you don't know this song."

"I don't really listen to music that much, I guess," Liam replied.

"Really? What do you do when you're on the bus home? Or doing homework?"

"Just...think?"

"Weird." Dom dug out his headphones, shuffled closer to Liam and placed them carefully over Liam's head, his sleeve tickling the side of his face. "Ok, have a listen. Don't worry, the melody is really easy to pick it up. Make sure you pay attention to the harmonies in the chorus and the second verse, that's your bit."

Liam pressed 'play' and let the music fill his ears. The intro was catchy, and he found himself tapping his foot slightly to the rhythm before the lyrics even kicked in. Dom was right; he got a grasp of the melody by the end of the song, and was pretty confident with it the second time round. He took the headphones off and nodded at Dom.

"Got it?" he asked.

"Yeah," Liam replied confidently, "I'll probably need the lyrics, though. Why'd you decide not to do this song in the end, then?"

"Not enough voices. It was hard to get the harmonies and the accompaniment and stuff all in," Dom said. "It kept happening last year; Chen and I wanted to do songs but we couldn't make it work out. That's why we started talking about getting an extra person this year. And so...here you are," he added.

They had just enough time for a quick run through together before they got back with the others. "Go from the chorus," Chen said, holding up a pencil like a conductor's baton. "Notes?"

They sang their starting note, the notes occluding to form a single, coherent chord. Chen nodded, raised her hands and counted them in – "one, two, three," and a silent four – and then they launched straight into the chorus.

"And if you close your eyes," Dom started, and the room filled with the sound of voices. Liam took a quick breath and joined in with the harmonies: "Does it always feel like nothing's changed at all..."

It was scary how quickly he got into it. He went from neutral to dizzy, elated, in maybe the space of a couple of seconds. He was almost disorientated when Chen cut them off abruptly at the end of the chorus: he'd wanted to continue, keep singing, letting his voice carry on indefinitely.

"Good. Good," she told them, nodding.

"Wow, Keats," Tweety said, whistling appreciatively. "And you've never heard it before?"

"See, I told you he was good," Dom said, patting his shoulder. Liam grinned, pleased. Take that, he thought to himself, looking over triumphantly at Scottani, who frowned a little and glanced away. "And you guys doubted me," Dom added, a touch of mock hurt entering his voice. "For shame."

Tweety raised his hands. "Hey, that was all Wolf, man. I loved the little guy from the start. Come here and give me a hug to prove my point, Keats."

Liam looked at him. "Um...I'm fine, thanks."

Dom laughed. "Awkward."

Chen tapped the pencil on the edge of the table to get their attention. "If you're finished," she said pointedly, and then raised her hands, "from the top please. Watch me for dynamics. Wolfgang, you were speeding up a little, keep it nice and slow, ok?"

Wolfgang looked a bit surly. "Whatever you say."

So they went through it from the start. The others were clearly a bit rusty the first time round, and for the first few times round it was jolting, stopping and starting, going over certain parts until they were ready to move on. Chen was scarily efficient – despite the fact she was singing along with them she didn't miss a single error: a slight slip in timing, someone coming in a fraction too early, one person singing slightly off-pitch – and she made sure they knew their parts inside and out before she was satisfied.

But when they focused on getting it right and put everything they had into it – all the feeling and emotion in the music swelling up and bursting out – wow. Liam was electric with adrenaline, shivers of something, a creeping, intense thrill, shooting up and down his body, his voice interlaced with Dom's as they sang the lyrics, melody and harmony combining, soaring over the accompaniment. Finally, they rounded off the last song, their voices echoing slightly into the sudden silence, letting the song dissolve into the air between them.

Liam couldn't help grinning.

"There you go," Chen said. "That was brilliant. Good work, you guys." The others relaxed a bit, started talking again, getting their bags and getting ready to leave for the night. "Now don't just go home and forget everything. Dom and I will text you guys the song we're starting next week," Chen said, over the noise, "and make sure you listen to them, okay? No slacking off like you always do."

"Aw, Chen, you know you love us really," Tweety said sweetly, pulling his backpack over his shoulders and moving towards the exit.

"That comment was mostly aimed at you," she replied. Tweety gave a mock bow and pushed open the door with an amiable 'See ya!' and was gone.

"So, Keats," Chen said, once the others had left. "What did you think?"

"I don't know," he said. "It's great. I love the singing. But..." he shrugged, awkwardly. "I guess I feel like some people don't want me here."

Chen smiled. "Don't worry about Wolfgang," she told him. "His problem's not with you."

"And Scottani?"

Dom and Chen exchanged glances. "What about him?"

"I don't know, he was kind of moody when I talked to him earlier," Liam said.

"Weird," Chen said, frowning. "He was fine with me. I'll keep an eye on him."

"But don't let that stop you coming," Dom told him, and Chen nodded.

"You shouldn't let other people stop you doing something you like. You're good at this."

"Thanks," Liam said. "And you guys sound incredible."

"We try," Dom said, modestly. "It's gonna be so much fun this time round. Chen doesn't like singing the lyrics, so now that we have someone like you who can sing the higher notes we can do loads more songs this year."

"That's where you come in, Keats," Chen said. "Most of the stuff will be in your comfort zone, especially when we need to learn stuff quickly. We might try mix things up this year though, seeing as it's our last–"

"NO DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT," Dom said quickly, cutting her off, and she smiled.

"Sorry. I forgot about your little Peter Pan complex."

"Doesn't it make you feel weird?" Dom asked. "Not being here anymore? Going somewhere completely different and starting again?"

"I'm looking forward to it, actually. Finally we get to be independent."

"The whole idea of it just makes me feel all...blehh." He shuddered, flailing his hands. "It's horrible."

"I think you're blowing this out of proportion. Knowing you, you'll settle right in," Chen told him, reassuringly. "Anyway, Keats. Good to have you here. I'll see you next week, okay?"

Liam nodded, already excited for it. Next week couldn't possibly come any sooner. "Yeah, see you."

He was still on a high from rehearsal the next afternoon, drifting his way through lunch at their usual table while the others talked over him, lost in the song. He'd looked it up when he got home and downloaded it onto his phone so he could familiarise himself with the melody for next time.

"You'll probably run into Gordon and Kim sometime soon," Esther was saying to him, when he finally zoned into the converstaion. "It's nearly been a week now, hasn't it?"

"Who?" he asked, completely lost.

"They're these idiots who run the school newspaper. They usually do this spread on the first issue of the year. 'First Impressions of Foxhill' or something," Eli said, with her mouth full of pasta. "If they haven't tracked you down, they will soon, don't worry."

"And then they'll just never leave you alone." Robin added.

Liam looked alarmed. "How long do I have to hide from them?"

"You're never safe, Liam," Eli grinned. "THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE."

"To be fair, they probably do," Esther said. "I heard Gordon broke into the record room once to get someone's address so they could interview them."

"Those guys are crazy dedicated," Robin agreed. "Okay, Liam. We'll prep you. I'll be Gordon. Esther can be Kim." He cleared his throat and raised his hand as a microphone. "Hey, good to meet you. Can we ask you a few questions? What's your name?"

"Ummmm...Liam."

"Liam, nice to meet you!" Esther burst in, uncharacteristically enthusiastic. "So, you've been at college for almost a week! Are you excited!"

"We'd like to know. From a fresh perspective, what do you think of Foxhill?"

"It's ok, you don't have to hold back or anything! We'll still like you just the way you are!"

"We want raw, honest opinion."

"And it's all anonymous so you don't have to worry about people beating you up or anything!"

Robin frowned. "Shh, Kim, don't scare him off. People don't get beaten up here."

"But what about that guy earlier–"

"So." Robin said quickly, cutting her off. "First impressions. Go."

Liam thought it over.

"Hmm. Well, the work isn't as bad as I thought it would be, which is a relief."

"He says one sentence and I already feel bad about myself," Robin sighed. "I thought GCSE's were bad; AS's are killing me."

He smirked. "You thought GCSE's were hard?"

Robin put a hand to his heart. "Self-worth...fading fast..." he said, clutching Esther's shoulder. "Wait. I'm better now. Keep going."

"Um...the teachers are pretty cool so far. Way better than my old school. All the teachers at my old school were evil. The food is kinda shit, but in all honesty I wouldn't want it any other way."

"Gives us something else to complain about," Esther said, and Liam smiled.

"Exactly. The people are actually really nice. I thought everyone would be really competitive and get jealous when you did better than them, but it turns out it was just Anthea."

"You scored a point higher on an introductory quiz, kid," Anthea said, apparently unfazed. "Don't get your hopes up yet."

Eli burst out laughing. "Anthea, better get your game back on. You can't let your own child show you up."

"I'm lulling him into a false sense of security," she assured her. "It's all in the game plan."

"It's the short people uprising," Liam said emphatically. "It's happening, Anthea. Watch your back."

"Wow, is this a thing?" Eli asked, excitedly. "I wanna get in on this. Where do I sign up?"

Robin grinned and looked at Anthea. "I want to be worried but I can't take them seriously."

"You're going on the lynch list," Liam said. "You'll regret this."

He attempted to do an evil laugh, which came out more like a cackle and then a cough and made everyone laugh.

"Anything else, then?" Robin prompted.

"Um...well, actually, there was this crazy girl I met the other day..."

"Oh, is this what happened to your pencils?" Anthea asked and the others looked at him, interested.

"What happened to your pencils?"

Liam dug out his pencil case from his bag to show them. "Look," he said, emptying out his stationery all over the table and picking out the broken pencils. "You know how hard it is to write with half a pencil? Really goddamn hard."

"Why'd you break all your pencils in half?" Esther asked him.

"I didn't, these crazy girls in the year above me did."

"Put 'em on the lynch list," Eli demanded. "They'll hang for their crimes."

"Who was it?" Robin asked, picking up one of the snapped pencils and turning it in his fingers.

"Ally. And Jen and Diana, but Ally was the ringleader. I'm not even sure of the others did it or not, actually."

"Holy shit, you got into a fight with Ally?" Eli grinned. "Those three are like the coolest girls in school."

"Wow. That explains so much. Ally was basically acting like I was supposed to worship the ground she walked on."

"The sad thing is, people do. I'm pretty sure all of the others just spend their lives trying to suck up to her," Eli said, dismissively. "Look at them now."

She glanced over at the table at the side of the room, where Ally was sitting with a group of girls. He saw Diana and Jen there, joined in the conversation, but didn't recognise any of the other girls except Pearl, sitting uncomfortably right at the edge of the table. Ally and Diana were pretty much leading the conversation, and the other girls just took it in turn to agree with them.

"Looks like an easy life," he commented.

"Nah, they all hate each other," Esther replied. "It's kind of sad, in a way."

"Why?" Liam asked, and then immediately regretted it as Eli started to talk.

"Well...Aaron was going out with this girl Ell and then he dumped her and started going out with Ally," Eli explained eagerly. "Then Martine, who used to be Ell's best friend, took Ally's side in the argument that followed, so to spite her Ell made up this rumour that her and Paisley were going out, and Paisley didn't like that at all, so she..."

The saga continued, Eli rattling off a list of little grievances and slights they all had committed against each other in deep and surprising detail, a web of interlocking stories starting to build around her words.

"...Pearl wouldn't say anything about it, of course, but Martine knew, and she let it slip to..."

Liam looked over at them again. "It's weird...they look like they're getting along."

"...and then Aaron might have cheated on Ally with Ell again at Victor's 17th birthday party; of course, she denies everything, but Ally and her don't talk to each other anymore..."

"It's a skill we have," Esther murmured mysteriously. "Pretending to like people."

"Sounds complicated," Robin said, making a face.

"...obviously Imogen wasn't happy, but she wanted Jen to like her, so she had to go along with it. Poor girl, I think it was only when she'd completely burned Soph that she realised she never stood a chance, and by then it was too late..." The list was mounting and Eli didn't show any signs of stopping anytime soon, until Anthea tapped her on the shoulder.

"I think they get it, honey," she said, and Eli grinned.

"See? Lots of beef. It's a mess over there."

"Long story short: they're all terrible people," Robin said, with a kind of aggressive apathy that Liam wasn't expecting from him.

"To be fair, Diana didn't even say anything," he said. "And ...Jen was actually pretty cool." Even mentioning her name made him feel slightly giddy all over again. 

He really needed to stop that.

Eli folded her arms and grinned at him. "Why're you smiling like that?"

"Like what."

"Don't act all innocent. You like her."

"I said like four words about her," Liam replied defensively. "Where did you pull that out from?"

"Trust me, Liam, you should see the look on your face when you started talking about her. It was like a light poured forth from heaven, all angelic choirs and shit-"

"Gah," he said. "I was thinking about something else."

"Course you were," Eli smirked.

"Don't worry about it," Anthea said. "She probably won't even talk to you anyway."

He blinked. "Wow, that's kind of harsh."

"Besides, her last boyfriend was a second year Uni student," Eli said. "He took her to the Summer Ball last year. Tall, had a piercing, looked kind of moody. So you're obviously not her type."

"So she's single right now?" Liam asked, perking up a little.

"Yeah, I think they went out for about three months and then she bailed."

"Maybe he wasn't her type, either."

Robin grinned. "Look at this one-track mind," he said. "It's a thing of beauty."

"Did you even talk to her?" Esther asked him dryly.

"I totally talked to her. She's so cool."

Eli shook her head. "Trust me, Liam. I had GCSE psych with her and she totally ratted me out in the prisoner's dilemma exercise."

Liam shrugged. "The rational option is to rat out your partner. That's the point of the exercise, isn't it?"

"Well, if you try at rationalise it out on your own you both end up worse off than if you'd trusted each other and stayed silent," Anthea pointed out. "The point of the exercise is that two apparently rational individuals–"

"That exercise is just a plan to weed out who actually trusts you and who has commitment issues, and Flood and Dresher knew it," Eli declared, cutting her off. "Practically everyone else picked stay silent. I'm still working off my jail sentence from that class."

"You guys are so pessimistic," Liam said. "I think she'd talk to me if I talked to her."

"Then talk to her," Esther advised.

"But don't go crazy," Eli said. "I don't really think you have a chance with her. I'm not being mean, I swear."

He pointed a finger at her. "You're on the lynch list."

"What? No fair!"

The others were right: he'd just come out of his last lesson of the day when he spotted two kids in the year above him: one heavy-set and serious, with messy brown hair underneath a beanie and a Triforce hoodie and a Korean guy with dark hair, tipped orange at the ends. Both armed with a scrap of paper with the pictures the new kids had taken on their first day, for their ID cards, and were looking around intently, clipboards in hand. 

Thankfully, he saw them a second before they noticed him, and by the time they'd looked down at their sheet and verified he was eligible for an interview he'd made a dash for the hedges and ducked behind an ornamental shrub before they could corner him.

Running was a mistake, though, especially in this cold: by the time Gordon and Kim had given up on him his chest was tight and his breathing was coming out in thin, painful wheezes. He gave a weak, strangled cough, squeezing his hands together to stop the instinctive, 'oh-shit-i-can't-breathe' panic he always got whenever his asthma flared up. 

Calm down, sit up, and keep still, he felt a voice say – always his mother's, who used to do this for him when he was younger – and focus on your breathing. 

In, out. 

There you go...

While he waited for his breathing to return to normal, he absently watched the school file out of the main building, walking towards the bus stop outside the gates or to the train station downtown, heading home. Wyatt and some of the other skaters were practising tricks on the concrete pavilion, hopping down the stairs and down the railings on their boards and yelling at the other kids to get out of the way. Ally and her friends were the easiest to spot: they took centre stage, hanging around the large fountain at the centre of the pavilion that led into the main school block. It hadn't taken him long to learn all their names from the constant gossip going round school about them.

Of course he knew Ally, who was sitting on Aaron's lap, her arm across his shoulder, talking loudly and excitedly. He recognised Emmett, tall and toned with straight brown hair and intense blue eyes, an easy lopsided smile on his face as he chatted with Jen and Diana, occasionally looking up and giving a little finger-wave to one of the girls making their way out (invariably making them dissolve into giggles). Liam tried to catch Jen's eye but she either didn't see him or didn't want to see him, and after a while he gave up.

Then there was Victor, a tall Indian boy with glasses, engaged in conversation with Win, who was sitting cross-legged on the fountain, talking and texting rapidly on his phone with apparent ease. Win looked a bit like Dom, Liam thought, watching them absentmindedly: with the same pale skin, dark hair and the same slightly lanky frame, and all of those brightly coloured bracelets – and then Victor said something that made him look up and laugh and–

Holy shit, Liam thought to himself, recognising him immediately. Dom caught sight of him, wedged between the hedges, and looked slightly surprised for a second, then raised his hand and waved cheerfully. Liam was too stunned to move for a second, and then he smiled and waved back, surprised and confused, thoughts running through his head.

The whole thing was bizarre. Everyone in the school knew Win; he had no doubt that the others in Fives did as well, so why go to all the trouble of having different names when they knew who he was? The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

Weird. He thought, and then shrugged. Names or no names, he was in, and that was all that mattered.

a/n:

Heyyyy thanks for reading Chapter Five :D (it's kinda long, sorry ;-; but hopefully it's a good kind of long amirite)

and so! we meet the rest of the mysterious acapella group! (they're not really that mysterious i made that last bit up). First impressions? No impression like the first impression XD 

The song this chap is Falling (incidentally another Bastille song, ft. Ralph from To Kill A King). It was gonna be Pompeii initially, but everyone knows that song (except Liam lmao).

Liam's a bit weird. I don't understand people who don't listen to music in their spare time. Like, I'll be on the tube and looking at people without headphones in and just thinking 'what are you thinking about? i don't understanddd' 

anyway, this is the song I imagine them singing at the beginning of the chapter. There weren't any acapella renditions on youtube so I sort of had to imagine how it would go myself. But nonetheless, it's a really, really nice song (you will notice i say that about most songs on here. i may be a little biased XD) But I mean, I don't really like slow, quiet music, and I like this song, so that just proves my point :)

Basically, what I'm trying to say is Other People's Heartache is a really great album (all three of them!) I love love covers/remixes that stay true to the song(s) but at the same time completely change it up, and some of the songs they do just make me...wow. 

Exactly.

:)

anyway, thanks so much for reading! Chapter  is on it's way, hope you like it~