Chapter Text
Logainne speedwalked as fast as her little legs could carry her. She was slowly realizing that every competitor here was almost insane as her. Will clearly had at least 5 mental disorders (which was fine with her, fyi!!!), Marcy had basically no personality, Butter kept annoying Chip, Leaf was...Leaf, Ted and Olive barely spoke, and Chip...well, he wasn't as weird as she had though thus far. It was more like he was just going through something at the moment, and not """"mentally challenged"""" as Olive had said.
"Chip- are you alright?" She managed to call after him. He didn't respond, typical. It's not like anyone ever listened to Logainne. They always underestimated her. She wasn't 100% sure who 'they' were, though. Nobody ever took her seriously, but if she could make real friends, maybe she WOULD have some cool people in her life other than her dads.
They finally arrived in the back area, and Chip finally turned around. "Are you okay?" Logainne asked softly, genuinely concerned at this point. "William isn't THAT annoying, he's just dramatic-" "Oh my lord, YES HE IS. You don't know him like I do. He's the worst person ever and I want to shove an AK-47 down his throat and then shoot at him from the inside," Chip snapped, clearly having kept these feelings bottled up for a while. "Oh, wow, okay," she stammered in response. She glanced down at Butter and Ted, who were sitting against the wall and watching TikToks or something.
"I want to shoot him with a comically large rifle. I want to- I dunno...make him wear a Wendy's uniform and then throw a pipe bomb at him!!!" Chip continued, seemingly getting more and more angry as he went on. Logainne just smiled and nodded. She wasn't sure what would happen if she didn't. "Do you wanna talk about it?" she asked once he was done. "I- ... Yes please." "Oookeee, when did you meet Will for the first time?" Logainne asked calmly, trying to find the source of the hatred. "Like..second grade? I'unno."
"Were you guys ever friends?" Chip nodded slowly, seemingly ashamed of his friendship with the guy. "When did you start hating him, then?" "Uhh, around la-" Something from Butter's phone sang, What can I say? What can I do? I'm tryna be the girl that you're talking to. And baby, you ca-, before they shut their phone off completely. "sowwy. did i intewupt," they almost squeaked barely audibly. Logainne shrugged. "No, it's fine. We have all of the time in the world. No wait I think we have 10 minutes left." "Close enough...?" Ted giggled quietly. Butter made the 'budum ss' sound with their mouth and Logainne cleared her throat. "Okay, so when did you start hating him?" "Last February." "And what happened?" "hemadefunofmeforhavingacrushonaguyandoutedmetotheentireschool," Chip said quickly.
"What-?" "He bullied me for liking a guy and outed me to everyone in our school, okay?!" he snapped very VERY loudly. Butter and Ted both murmured 'ooooo', before Chip turned to them and said, "If you guys don't shut the fuck up in the next 5 seconds, I'm going to find your addresses and murder your entire families." "Wow, okay. Rude much. Bold of you to assume that I like my family, though," Butter replied snarkily, and Ted literally could not physically sustain his giggles.
Logainne groaned. "Here, do you want my number?" She asked Chip, who nodded gratefully. She reached her hand out and he gave her his unlocked phone. She put in her phone number as quickly as possible because his phone was wet, likely from how sweaty Chip was. She watched him text her a simple 'hi' just to make sure that it worked, and her phone buzzed in her pocket. "Okay, coolio! We can talk after the bee," Logainne chirped.
*** *27 minutes later*
Ding! "Sorry, the correct spelling was C-H-I-N-C-H-I-L-*L*-A, two Ls," Mr. Panch squeaked tiredly. "Awh..man," Leaf grumbled. He wasn't too sad about being eliminated, to be honest. He had made it to the top 5, and that was good enough for him. "Ehh, whatever, I already know that I'm awesome!!" He mumbled to himself as he grabbed his stuff. He made sure to give everybody a hug, including Mitch (who seemed very uncomfortable), ask for apple juice, and wave to the audience. "Bye, everybody!" he chirped, before skedaddling away.
When he entered the back room, he quickly took notice of the fact that Chip was sitting about 5 yards away from the other people in the room, Ted and Butter, who were sitting very close to each other and whispering. Leaf usually was good at picking up information he wasn't supposed to hear (an essentail skill to have if you're a Coneybear), but this time, he could only pick out snippets, like "Will...tsundere...extra...zest," and, "Everybody...mentally...needs...serious help."
He really didn't want to interrupt their gossiping, so he went to sit next to Chip. "Hiii, Chip!!!" Leaf squeaked as he sat down on the dirty floor. "Oh- shit- uh- heyyyy!! Leaf!! What's up...bro??" Chip stuttered awkwardly. "Nothin much. I got out though." "Oh, what a shame. So sad. What word'd you get out on?" "Chinchilla." "Really-? You misspelled CHINCHILLA??" Chip looked genuinely confused. Leaf shrugged and reached into his backpack, bringing out his chunky purple iPad. "What are you doing?" Chip asked, tilting his head. "Playing Total Roblox Drama. It's like my favorite game right now. I usually-" "YOU'RE PLAYING TRD???" Butter very loudly interrupted. "Butterrr, shut upp.." Ted snickered from beside them.
Butter scooted right up to Leaf and looked over his shoulder. "Who do you main? I main Nolan and Leanna!" "Mm, usually Cory." "Oo, cool!" The three kids watched as Leaf loaded into the game. He somehow had voice chat, so tons of other people in-game were talking loudly. "Oh you have VC?? You should totally roast the shit out of everybody if they vote you out. Cory is highkey so goated," Butter said, and Ted quietly scooted over as well. Leaf was the center of attention now. Chip sighed. "Butter, that'd be mean. Plus, what would he even say?" Butter shrugged. "He could call them racist or something." Chip rolled his eyes. About 45 minutes later, the bee was somehow still going, and Leaf had actually ended up winning the jury vote. Logainne and Marcy were in the group now, and they all cheered as quietly as they could. "Thank you, thank youuu!!" Leaf said triumphantly.
***
Maybe Leaf wasn't that annoying. He seemed to actually have things he cared about and was good at. For example, TRD. He won almost every challenge. (Except for Math Mania.) And he was really good at Avacado, the game Logainne had taught him. Chip wasn't really paying attention to the interactions between the kids around him, but he sure enjoyed watching Leaf have fun. Chip wished he could be that happy. About 5 minutes after Logainne came in, the gym doors opened, and both Olive and William stood in the doorway. Everybody jumped to their feet immediately. "Who won?!" Logainne chirped excitedly. William pulled out the large trophy from behind his back. Everybody erupted into cheers and congratulations. Chip didn't say anything. Will noticed. They both made eye contact for a solid 15 seconds, and it was extremely awkward.
After everybody had stopped tweaking, it was time to go home. Chip ended up getting Butter and Leaf's phone numbers (they both really liked Chip for reasons unknown), and he was exhausted. He was about to leave, when he heard someone call his name. "Charles. Charlie. Charlito." Chip turned around. Of course it was William, the only person who somehow knew Chip's legal name other than his mom. "What the fuck could you possibly want right now?!" Chip whined. Will kicked the ground. "I wanted to apologize. For making fun of you. If I hadn't made fun of you, then you wouldn't have made fun of me, and then we wouldn't have fought earlier, and maybe we'd still-" "William Barfée. Are you crying." William wiped his face with his sleeve. "NO, CHARLITO!!! I AM *NOT* CRYING!!!" "Really? Because it seems like-" "SHUT UP!!!"
Will crossed his arms and growled, and Chip couldn't help but laugh. "Look, if you're sorry, then I'm sorry, okay? I felt bad, I just thought that if I apologized, then you'd make fun of me," Chip mumbled, eyeing the ground. Will blinked. "Oh, damn. We really have an unhealthy relationship here, huh?" "Yeah..well the only way to fix that is to try to get better, right?" Chip said. "Yeah. I guess." "I'll unblock you and we can talk when I get home, kay? " "Oh, okay. Bye..Chip." "Bye, Will."
***
789-234-5012 (1:05 pm): hi
789-107-9219 (3:08 pm): Hiii Chip!! :3
789-234-5012 (3:09 pm): oh hi,, kinda forgot i texted you earlier haha
789-107-9219 (3:09 pm): Oh np! Actually wait should we make a gc with all of the spellrz? I mean I think we have everybody's #s and we're all friends
789-234-5012 (3:09 pm): i mean ya sure ig
789-107-9219 (3:10 pm): Oh wait sry! I don't think we have William's # and you don't like him anyways so it wouldn't work :((
789-234-5012 (3:10 pm): oh no i have his number. and we sorta like..worked it out ig??? we talked after the bee
789-107-9219 (3:11 pm): Oh YAYY!! You add everybody you have the # of and I'll add Marcy :)
789-234-5012 (3:11 pm): i have wills, butters, and leafs, and will 100% has olives and butter 100% has teds so i think we're set
789-107-9219 (3:11 pm): Yayyyy!!! :D