Chapter 20

-June-

I BET YOU DON’T know who I am. It makes sense though; I’m not so main in this story anyway. But you should know who I am. My name is June Applegate, ick, I hate that name: Applegate. It sounds like some dork award they give away at libraries. Anywho, I am the captain, the president, the chief general, of the Justin Hue fanclub. I know what you’re thinking though. ‘Justin Hue fanclub? Wow that’s so stupid, why worship him like he’s some God? He’s just a normal boy! Stop stalking him. You’re so over-obsessive!’ Well I bet you’d do the same for the one you love. I may only watch him from afar, but that’s enough to get my heart pounding.

            Our club consists of 6 members: Me, Lauren Hill, Sienna Grey, Jordan Himptin, Amanda Valdez, and Joy Po. I know it’s not very big, but that’s just the perfect amount. Any more girls would just cause some kind of jealous riot.

            We gather every Tuesday and Thursday after school in the computer lab and from 3:30 to 5:00 we talk about everything Justin Hue related. It may be rumors we heard, pictures we took, things he did… Anything. We put together charts and make posters of him, just so we can keep track of things and decorate them around the club room (but the janitor always makes us take them down before going home). And Joy is so good with crafts, she made little Justin key chains! They’re really adorable!

            Of course, our club needs to make money for it to keep progressing, so we stock up on good pictures, hair locks, used pencils, all that jazz and sell them to other girls with a passion for this bravo Romeo. Every other Thursday we hold a special meeting were we collect all the Justin items together and decide on which ones to sell and which ones to keep for ourselves…

“Ok ok, attention everyone!” I slammed a ruler on the desk and everyone looked up. “We’ve gotten low on Justin supplies… Why is this?” I glared across the room at the scared eyes. No one sasses their club leader.

“W-well, Ms. June, Lauren and I may have an idea.” Amanda and Lauren got up in front of the other members.

Lauren pulled down the projector screen, except when its club time a big fat chart was taped over it. The chart showed 3 different graphs, those graphs showed all our sales, days Justin had attended school and number of fans of our club.

Amanda took the ruler and pointed it at graph #2. “If you see here, you can tell that Justin’s attendance at school has dropped tenfold!”

Then the whole room gasped.

“So we’ve gotten low on chewed up gum, pictures, and all sorts of things.” Lauren shot the chart back up and both girls sat down. I took the ruler from Amanda and got up in front of the group again.

With a sigh, I started, “Well this isn’t good… Where has our beloved Prince Justin gone to?” I slid my fingers through my long, silky, brown hair. The room stayed silent for a while.

“Oh, well this meeting isn’t a total let-down! I have some good news too!” Sienna finally brought up.

“Well, what is it?! Wait, before you say… Is this something that can benefit us? Benefit the club, or our buyers?”

“You most certainly bet! I had an underground source dig up some information for me, I got Justin’s locker combination!” She smiled wide, and so did everyone else.

“SIENNA, YOU GENIOUS!!” Everyone stood up and applauded. Then I clapped my hands and everyone shut up. “Listen, did you open his locker yet?”

“N-no, that would be disobeying club rules!” She sat down slowly.

“That’s good.” It was. The number one rule of the club is that none of us were to get close to Justin because then it wouldn’t be fair to the others. If we wanted to talk to him, another club member had to be there or at least 1 feet away. We do not go to his house alone or meet with him secretly. If so, we will be punished and kicked out of the club. So going to his locker, were all his sacred accessories (textbooks, sweater, comb, maybe even pictures, remained) was something for ALL fanclub member had to see.

            The 6 of us walked down the hallway and up the stairs to the second level of the school. Locker 2203 A: Justin’s locker. I took the combo written on a piece of paper from Sienna and began to spin the lock. I heard a click… then another… and then another!

“Phew, ok, this is it girls!” I was so eager, and everyone else was too. My fingers trembled as I pushed up on the lock. Finally, the lock unhooked, and the door creaked a little bit open.

“Well,” Joy asked from behind. “What are you waiting for? Open it!” She was practically begging. And so I did. I threw the door wide open, and to my surprise…

“What…?”

… The locker was completely empty, except for a few note cards.

“This is it?!” I exclaimed, unhappy and not satisfied.

“Wow. I, I thought there would be more in here!” Sienna apologized.

“No no, it’s not your fault,” I tried to calm myself down. “maybe he’s just one of those people who takes all their stuff home.”

The other girls nodded. But before shutting the locker, I took another look at the notes that lay at the bottom of this locker. I stopped, and picked them up.

Joy gave me an unsure look. “What are you doing, June? Those are his notes.”

“Yeah, but I bet it’ll give us something to talk about for the rest of this meeting. We came all this way and I’m not going to stop now that we’ve got something on our hands.”

“B-but what if it’s personal?”

“How are NOTES personal, Joy?” I flipped through the 5 little cards, and was heart-broken. I slid to my knees.

“Club president!” Amanda gasped. “What’s wrong? What’s in the notes?!”

“I knew that was a bad idea…”Joy covered her ears, like she didn’t want to hear anything.

I crumpled the notes and threw them on the floor. “I�" I think we might have a rival.”

“What do you mean?” Jordan asked. Then she picked up the notes and read,

 

 

To do list:

Buy flowers (notes: she likes roses, but those r expensive, maybe I’ll get tulips instead)

Get sweets (notes: from the Tulip Pastry shop, she likes the cinnamon rolls)

Meet her after school, Friday (by the tennis court. Don’t forget!)

Make sure to get out of the house unseen. Maybe borrow Kevin’s jacket.

 

            Sienna gasped then she passed the note around. One-by-one the other girls fell apart.

“So, this means that, he has a girlfriend already?!” Jordan began to sob.

“No, don’t think of it like that! Maybe, uh, maybe he’s just asking her out! There’s the possibility she might say no!” Joy added, trying to reassure everyone.

“No, every girl in this freshman class, even some older, are in LOVE with him. No one can turn down a confession from him.” It was the sad reality. That some girl has won his heart, and soon she would be his.

            The 6 of us walked back in gloomy shame to the club room. We sat back down at our desks, expressionless. I tried to think. Who? Which girl is so perfect for him that he would want to confess to her? I mean, usually it’s always been us girls confessing to him, and he turned us all down. So then, who is this lucky girl?

            The clock ticked and ticked, before I knew it, a whole hour had passed! Only 20 minutes left in the meeting, but a lot of us were thinking of just going home now.

“I… I don’t know anymore, about this club…” Lauren admitted, in a kind of silence.

I looked up fast and eyed her lowered head. “What?”

“I mean, if he… If he likes somebody already, wouldn’t that make us look like fools still trying to go after him?”

Soon all the other club members looked up. Some even nodded! Did this mean, my precious club, along with my precious heart, was going to disband?

“I think I’m going home, Club President. I don’t really need to be here any longer.” Lauren got up and headed for the door.

“WAIT!!” I shouted at her. “Wait! Everybody, just, just sit down and listen to me.” And so everyone did.

“Don’t you at least want to know who this girl may be?”

And then a spark drove off in everyone’s head. Or at least, it looked that way.

“Yeah, I guess so.” The group said in unison.

“Then, our work as the Justin Hue fanclub is not finished yet! Besides, shouldn’t our fans want to know about this little charade too?” I drew a little smirk on my face, which caught everyone else’s attention.

“But, we don’t even know all the details yet!” Sienna brought up.

“Hmm, well you’re right there. And that’s our job! To get the inside scoop on everything Justin Hue!” I held my fist in the air like how a knight would raise his sword before battle.

“YEAH!!” All the girls’ confidence was brought back, and we assigned roles.

I would be the head of operations, Lauren was the photographer, Joy would assist her, Sienna and her underground agent would get some information for us, Amanda would take notes on gossip or rumors she hears, and Jordan would collect any ‘scraps’ along the way (help cover up some stuff, in case things get ‘dirty’).

Whoever this girl was, I’m going to track her down like a dog. No way she’s going to escape me.

 

                     -Mason-

JEALOUSY… It looks bad on a lot of people. But I never knew it could happen to me. I guess I’ve always envied the celebs on tv, or maybe some kids in my English class because they have better grades in there than I do. But, this was different. I envied… my best friend. Aika Pasion.

            Who knew the day would come? We had always fought over imaginary boyfriends and cute boys on the computer or from magazines or on tv, but nothing like this. Ok, maybe we haven’t actually fought over him… yet. Actually, I don’t even think I told her that I liked him… Justin Hue. But it kind of, how would I say it, hurts me inside, whenever I see him and her together.

            I guess I never really noticed how much I liked him, until the day I saw those two in the hallway. He was so close to her, their chests almost touched! Not like I was looking at it, I mean.. well, it was just noticeable OK! His head was just hung slightly over hers. I swear, if she got on her tippy-toes their lips would meet just perfectly!

            And then it hit me: They really do look good together! Then when she, Diane, and I were talking about him in our next class, I felt like breaking out into tears of rage. Talking about those two going to homecoming together, being together, and then even worse… Seeing them on a DATE. My heart ached, and I wanted to scream at them in the coffee shop.

            But, I just couldn’t… I’m happy for Aika, she finally found the boy of her dreams, like she was always telling me about; Her real-life Kida Masaomi. I always knew and told her that she’d find him some day, but who was I to think that I’d be falling for him too.

“Mason, you have to tell her!!” Kaitlin exclaimed over the phone.

“I want to. But then at the same time I don’t want to.”

“I know what you mean, but I think it’s kind of weird that your best friend is dating the one you love and you wont tell her that you do.”

“First of all, it’s not LOVE, but I really do like him. And second, the way you worded that sounded like a bad soap opera!” Her and I laughed at that last part, but the first part, I was serious. I wouldn’t say I loved him, but I do care about him.

“… And so that’s why I’ve felt, kind of cautious when he hasn’t been coming to school.”

“Well I cant explain why he isn’t coming to school, but I don’t think he’s spending his time with Aika.”

“But, I saw them together at Starbucks just the other day! If he hasn’t been coming to school, yet can make time for Aika, then… Ughh, I don’t know!”

“I don’t know either Mason. Sorry. Man, I wish I was a high schooler, then I could help you guys!”

Oh boy was she wrong. “No way, you’d wish to go right back to a 7^th grader again after just a WEEK of being a freshman.”

“Eh, I can handle it.”

            We talked and talked for almost 2 hours. I guess it’s a good thing your other best friend is also your cousin. It makes things like this a whole lot easier to talk about.

 

            On the other hand, not a lot of people know about me being bi-sexual. Not even my own parents (like hell am I ever going to tell them any time soon). If I could have a nickel for how many people know my secret, I’d have 25 cents on me. Hey that’s a quarter! Lucky me… It was a big surprise to those people though, but it was even a surprise to me.

            I wasn’t always like this. Actually, there was even a time when I didn’t even like boys. I was all about the girls. I think it was 6^th grade when my appeal for girls started to drop and soon I started to prefer boys. I don’t know what got me into it… Maybe it was all the good-looking anime boys.

            Anyways, I guess I should just be happy for Aika and wait until my man comes along. Or, woman. I’m bisexual after all. If I just keep thinking of this, soon my heart will ache so much I’m going to have to punch someone. That’s like, full jealousy rage right there. Man, I don’t want to become this, but if I’m that serious about him… I guess that’s just how emotions work. Curse the man who created emotions.

--Diane Turner has logged in�"

Diane: Hey hey hey!

Me: hey

Diane: wats mr. mason doing? Lol

Me: Just thinking bout stuff haha

Diane: ohh like wat stuff?

Me: things.

Diane: ohh is it too personal??

Me: yeah it is

Diane: oh nevermind then! Hey, did u hear about aika and that justin kid??

Me: uhh, wat?

Diane: they’re totally a couple now!! I heard from Austin who heard from issac who heard from nick who heard from Bea!

Me: Oh

Diane: I know ryt? I’m so happy for them, they look really cute together.

Me: that’s good

Diane: sooo good! She has a bf now, n hes sooo cute! All the girls at homecoming r gonna envy her!

Me: I think I gotta go

Diane: oh, why???

Me: I just have to. Ttyl

Diane: aw, ok!

--Mason Kwang has logged out�"

            “Damn. Why do I feel like breaking down right now?” I slapped my hand on my forehead then shut off the computer. I walked over to my bed and sat right at the edge… And thought.

‘Mason you have to tell her!’ Kaitlin’s voice replayed in my head like a scratched disk. It was 10:46, not exactly time for me to go to sleep, but I thought if I shut my eyes for a while, I’d be able to think peacefully and at ease. So I pulled over the covers, turned the lamp next to my bed off and got swept away into a diligent slumber caused by a drawing darkness.

            Maybe, if I tell her, she wont be so mad. I mean, she couldn’t be. But now then if she knows, would she be more cautious with him? Like Bea? I don’t think so, but… This is her first boyfriend after all.