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“Hey, Jules, can you queue up Monster Mash?”
Jimmy nodded and, with a voice somehow strong enough to be heard over the music, replied with a, “yup! Uhh… California Gurls is up next, though.” The other kid—whose name Jimmy had either never been told or had forgotten—groaned.
“That is nowhere near Halloween themed!” He complained, already drifting away and towards the crowd. They’d been here nearly an hour, as Jimmy’s Musix history so helpfully showed. Jimmy wasn’t quite sure how they still had energy. Cupid Shuffle was up soon… he’d probably join that one.
“Not my fault, man!” Jimmy called, not bothering to follow him.
Jimmy just sighed, moving over to the table he had set his soda can on. Table 4, if you were to check the cafeteria placement label. He’d never sat there during lunch period. Taking a sip, Jimmy haphazardly typed “nonster masj” into the search bar and queued the first result. This was exhausting and his soda was going flat. Just great. At least it wasn't warm.
Look, Jim was well aware he’d signed up for this. However, he was neither part of the student government nor was he ever the centre of a dance floor. He’d made a premade playlist for this. His plan was not DJ, it was “this guy is the only one with a subscription, get him to run the music so we don’t get ads.” The playlist he had made, however, was quickly thrown out, replaced, altered, and added to, though, and thus he earned the honorary DJ role. And he’d had to pay to come in here. Great.
Late (ish. By normal standards) at night, bright, colour-changing lights, and loud-arse music. Just wonderful. At least he got some crisps, a soda, and attention out of it. A bit too much attention, but attention nonetheless. Oh, and he was allowed to wear his headphones tonight! Genuinely the best thing to happen so far, other than maybe Scott and Martyn’s outfits. They made for some fire pirates.
Speaking of, Scott was coming over. “Hey, Jim,” he greeted, and Jimmy had somehow forgotten how nice it was to hear his actual name. “How’re you doin’?” Jimmy just sighed.
“Talk to Gri about how he somehow convinced me into blummin’ DJ’ing,” he said, in lieu of a real answer. Scott knew him well enough by this point, or at least he’d hope so. He should know that Jimmy was sending out a quiet plea.
Scott rolled his eyes. “I cannot imagine,” he muttered, and Jimmy could barely hear him. Curse his awful hearing; he really should stop listening to his headphones at 100.
“Scott, Tim, get on over here!” Martyn ended up yelling, poor Oli strung along by his arm. Both Jimmy and Scott moved to get with them, Jim setting his phone down at the table. Martyn and Oli were already holding hands and spinning around each other while jumping. Jimmy cringed. He was only wearing his socks right now, he’d probably fall…
Eh, fuck it. He was here for his friends, after all.
———
Well, good news: he didn’t end up slipping. He nearly had multiple times, but both the strength of his friends and crouching to slow down occasionally had stopped him from completely falling and breaking his head open.
Bad news: Jimmy was now dizzy, and it did not help with the changing lights and loud music. Ughhh, he had a killer headache.
That didn’t stop him from laughing his arse off though, pretending (probably very poorly) that the world was not tilting on its axis as he moved to pick up his phone. He checked the queue again one more time before closing it, just checking that Señora wouldn’t overhear anything explicit and yell at them again.
Jimmy cringed at the memory from only probably a few minutes ago, shoving the phone in his pocket. Still very tilty and uncoordinated, he made his way to the door into the commons, hoping to get out far enough where the music wasn’t shaking his skull anymore. He’d forgotten his soda, he realised, only looking back for a fraction of a second before realising it was not worth it. He’d be going back in soon anyways.
———
Jimmy sighed, sinking to the floor along the wall opposite of the bubbler in the hallway. He would sit at the table that’s closer to the door of the cafeteria, but there were already some kids there making friendship bracelets. Ash, maybe, he thought, trying to remember if he knew their names. And Zam. Right.
Out here, in the quiet, his headache only got worse. Something about the overwhelm drowning out the pain a bit or something. How was he to know? Either way, his head hurt and there was no comfortable way to lean against this wall that didn’t hurt his back a bit.
Absolutely fried and manifesting that he gain some more spoons out here, the blond took out his phone and went to go start up a game. Then, he realised that the game audio would also go into the speakers and interrupt the party. Shit. Was there any games here that didn’t have audio?
Minecraft? No. Among Us? Who would he play with? Cats & Soup? Last he could remember, he’d spontaneously changed the language to Brazilian Portuguese and didn’t know what anything meant. Also it was just a boring idle game.
Jimmy snarled quietly. Ugh. Seriously? Was there seriously nothing he could do? He looked through the list again, mostly just to mourn what he couldn’t have. Jimmy rubbed his face. Jimmy’s terrible, no good, very bad day was only made worse by the evil and intimidating DJ duties. Again. How wonderful.
“Uhhhh, Jules? Juuuuullllles?” Jimmy shook his head, brain kicking into gear as someone called for him. He looked up, and they were way closer than he’d expected, crouched down at his height. His hair was dyed like a fire, almost, his eyes a rich brown that totally didn’t make Jimmy feel anything. “Ya good, buddy?” The kid asked.
Jimmy sighed. “Y- yeah, I’m fine. Ya need some’n?” Probably a bit blunt, but he really was too tired to care.
“Uh, no! Not really,” they replied, to which Jimmy let out a quiet “oh, thank goodness,” before he could stop it. “Just noticed you mopificating super sadly when I came outta toilet. Wassup, dude?”
Jimmy hummed, nodding. Honestly, he would ask how this guy knew what “his name” was, but that was par for the course. Somehow, Jimmy of all people was a popular kid known in amongst every year. Do not ask how, he has no answer whatsoever.
Instead, he opted to turn the question around. “Sorry, man, I genuinely have no recollection of ever meeting you in my life,” he said. “What was your name again?”
The other guy sat down, laughing a little. “Ohh, ow, burned. I’m Tanner, but everybody calls me Tango. Only the teachers will ever say Tanner.”
“Mhm,” Jimmy hummed, nodding. “In that case you can just call me Jim then. I don’t like Jules nearly as much.”
“Fair ‘nough, I s’pose,” Tango agreed. Jimmy almost considered telling them that he wasn’t a girl. That’d probably be awkward though. Was there any way to really work it in? It wasn’t exactly like Jimmy knew Tango’s pronouns either, maybe he could work off that.
“Uh… What pronouns do you use, if ya don’t mind me askin’?” Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, that was so awkward and out of the blue and also what if he was a shitty transphobe like Winsten? Well, he did have died hair, and technically everyone had pronouns, so hopefully not, but that didn’t actually mean anything!
“Oh!” The other guy said, seeming shocked. They thought for a moment, sliding down their sunglasses that had been propped on their head. “He, probably! You?”
Jimmy raised his eyebrows. “Probably? What doe- y’know what, nevermind. He for me too, Tango.” Tango seemed pretty chill. Hopefully he wouldn’t point out that Jimmy’s name in the system was Jules or that he had an annoyingly obviously female body. Every girl’s dream body and they gave it to a boy for some reason. Ugh.
“Neato!” Tango beamed, and Jimmy tried very hard to convince himself that his heart didn’t skip a beat because of it. He was probably just super anxious about making friends while hardly able to think. Yeah! Right! “You want a friend, or just… Like, I’m down for either. I absolutely do not wanna go back there, though. All the lights flashificating and people kept bumping me! Just–” Tango cut himself off with a shudder.
“Solidarity, dude,” Jimmy agreed, stretching his legs out a bit. He made sure not to accidentally kick Tango, though. “I get that so hard.”
“Yeah!!” Tango agreed, voice a bit shrill, and Jim smiled a bit. There was something about Tango that gave Jimmy distinctly friend-shaped vibes. “So, what have you been up to? I only really came here for my brother, honestly. I grabbed a snack and went to hide out here pretty quick.”
Jimmy groaned. “I somehow got appointed DJ. Don’t ask how and I hate it.” He complained. “I did not sign up for this. Ran away because holy fuck is it loud in there.”
Tango nodded. “Mhm!” He pointed to his ears. “I actually got earplugs. Seems you do too, with those headphones.”
“Yeah, a bit. They’re not the best, though.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Jimmy’s mind spinning. It always spun, actually, and never stopped. Very loud and always running every possible scenario that could happen and has happened while tracing the patterns in the carpet and watching as a kid he’d never met before ran up the stairs yelling about their locker. Wasn’t the upstairs closed after hours? Whatever, that really wasn’t his problem.
Which was how he eventually got to asking, “you have a phone or anything? Maybe we could play some games. My phone’s all used up by the party.” Tango hummed, looking in his purse.
Actually, looking at it closer, Tango’s outfit seemed to be matching with one of the many people that Jimmy’d interacted with earlier. Pink leather jacket, some black slacks with pink knee patches, and pink boots. He also had a heart-shaped pink bag and some earrings that had arrow hearts dangling from them. Damn, he was cute. Jimmy could respect a guy who rocked some pink.
“Yes, I diddly do!” Tango said, zipping his purse back up and setting his phone on the ground. “Don’t have many games, though. Zed is always saying I should branch out, but there is no way in actual hell I am ever doing that. All I have is Minecraft, Stardew, Among us, and the built in stuff on my phone. Lame, I know.”
“Hmm…” Jimmy hummed, thinking over the options. Among Us would need two screens and for them to not literally be right next to each other. Minecraft was really hard to play mobile, at least for Jimmy and his crap eye sight, as well… That only really left Stardew, which Jimmy hadn’t played in literal years. Also, they couldn’t do co-op with only one screen, since there was no split screen on mobile. Or in the game at all, if Jimmy remembered correctly.
“We’d have to do Stardew, right?” Jimmy checked. “Not sure how we’d manage that, with one screen and all.”
Suddenly, another guy came around the corner, also wearing pink. He had marks on his skin—Jimmy couldn’t quite tell if they were natural or not—and no sleeves. “Zed’s been complainin’.” He said, seemingly at Tango. Who was this Zed fellow they were all talking about? Maybe that was the brother Tango mentioned. “We might head out soon.”
Tango nodded, looking up at him. “Uh, yeah, totally. Can absolutely do. See ya later, Skizz!”
“You too, Top! Hopefully not too long, though. Everything’s dying down,” he remarked, already walking away.
“Well that was something,” Jimmy muttered.
“Yeah, that’s just Skizz for ya.” Tango had that grin from before. “Too bad we can’t play today, though. We should totally be ranchers together sometime! I’ve never played co-op.”
Jimmy chuckled. “Honestly? Haven’t played in literal years, probably,” he said. “So, can I, uh, get your number, mate? Maybe we can meet up sometime over the break.”
Tango stood up and stretched. Shit, Jim. This was why he didn’t usually talk to the people he found hot. This shit was highkey embarrassing. Flustering. Whatever the word was. “Totally, totally…” Tango muttered, scrolling through his phone. “Geez, where is the stupid numberficator? Aha!”
Jimmy took the phone that Tango was offering him, copying the number into his own. “Alright, and… there ya have it! Message sent. Boom.” He handed Tango’s phone back, grinning.
Tango grinned back, stuffing the phone in his pocket. “Alrighty! See ya soon, future rancher! Zed will probably throw a fit if I hold him any longer.”
And with that, Tango was off.
…
Did Jimmy just make a new friend for the first time since year six? Holy shit, he did! This was a momentous occasion, one to share with the lads.
Jimmy pushed himself off the wall, standing up. Time to head back to the cafeteria. Joel was absolutely going to tease him for this, wasn’t he?