Chapter Text
JD’s POV:
JD walked into the assembly. Judging by everyone’s faces, it was fairly obvious no one wanted to be here. No one really cared about Connor Murphy, to JD, he was just the weird kid in the back of his English class. Although, that was probably the way most people saw him as well. The assembly hall was remarkably big, big enough to fit both the junior and senior years. The walls were a boring grey and the floor had as many rows of chairs as possible so that everyone would have a seat.
Most of the jocks were sitting at the back of the assembly, there was Kurt, Troy, Ram, Chad, Zeke and everyone else on the team. Even if they were assholes, it must be nice to have a small group of people with you. Always with you. JD usually just sits near the middle of the hall, that way he’s not near the jocks at the back, or have to sit at the front where everyone can see him.
He sat next to a girl in a pink top with a unicorn on it, childlessly nice. He thought he recognised her from somewhere… oh yeah, Martha, from history, of course. He didn’t really know the names, or bother with faces because he moved so much. After all, there was no point in trying when he moved so much.
The principal, Dave Matsui, came up to talk to the school.
“Hello everyone, we are here today to mourn the loss of Connor Murphy. He was lost to suicide and was valued in this school.” He said to everyone. Valued? No one even knew his name, no one ever noticed him, or was friends with him, what's the point of having a whole assembly about it?
“Coming up to talk with us about it was his supposedly best friend, Evan Hansen.” Dave stepped aside so that Evan Hansen could speak to the school about Connor; he was dressed in a standard blue shirt with black trousers. There was sweat falling down his face and he was shaking whilst holding a piece of paper with his speech on it. He walked up whilst being followed by a short girl who was dressed in a smart uniform with a blazer, tie and jumper.
Evan started speaking“H h hello everyone we’re here to talk about my frien-” He tried to speak but was cut off by the girl.
“About his best friend, and my best acquaintance, Connor Murphy. We want to make the school more aware of suicide.” The jocks at the back of the hall were laughing and mocking the speech to each other, but not loud enough that people could hear them. JD could though, and it pissed him off. He just wanted to make the world a decent place for people who were decent. And that perfect world didn’t include those assholes at the back.
“My name is Alana and this is, as you already know, Evan Hansen. I feel the same way that Connor did, invisible, and if you do, then don’t let it make you feel the same way that it made him feel. Help us fund the Connor project, which is being run by me and Connor. We will use the money donated to help fund the apple orchard being reopened, which was, according to Evan, Connor’s favourite place.”
“A… and don’t forget, th… that when you d d don’t feel great… y you will be found!” Evan Murphy said to finish off the speech.
Principal Dave Matsui came up to finish it off. “Thank you for listening to what they had to say. Now, we hope you have a good lunch. We all cared so deeply about Connor Murphy which is what makes this so sad.” Bullshit, JD thought, he seemed like a nice kid, but the principal was obviously just pretending people cared about Connor so no one would get mad at him, Evan would care about it, of course, after all, they were best friends. “Goodbye everyone.” He finished.
Everyone began rushing out, pushing each other around. “Get out of my way nerds!” Ram shouted at everyone while pushing them all out of his way. He pushed people away so he could make room for himself, the jocks, the Heathers and Veronica Sawyer, who were following behind them. Veronica only became part of Heather Chandler’s gang recently, she had a good heart, she just needed to remember to keep it clean.
Everyone created a path for them to go through so that they could minimise the amount of bullying they get from them. JD watched from the other side of the hall. He couldn’t care if they were coming through or not, they were all just dicks to him, why should he have to make a path for them.
Everyone waited for them to come through before immediately pushing each other to get out of the hall. After waiting for most people to finish getting out of the hall, JD walked out, he didn’t wait because he thought they were better than him, just that he did not want to be part of the pushing and shoving.
After getting lunch, a cheeseburger, he sat at the back of the hall, reading a book he had borrowed from the local library. He watched from afar as Kurt and Ram walked up to Martha as she was about to sit down with her food. They smacked her tray out of her hands. “Oooppsss. Sorry I didn’t mean to do that.” Kurt said in a sarcastic way. He laughed to Ram as Martha went to pick up her tray. From across the room, Veronica began walking to them but was stopped by Heather Chandler who grabbed her shoulder to pull her back.
While Ram and Kurt played a different sport to Troy, Zeke and Chad, they were still really good friends, and tried to ease each other into their respective sports. But if no one else was going to stand up for Martha, JD might as well try.
Ram and Kurt saw JD walking up to them and Kurt joked to Ram, saying “Hey who does this kid coming up to us in the jacket think he is anyway, Bo Diddley?” He kept walking up to them.
“Get away from her, Because I don’t know what your problem is, but it must be pretty hard for you to pronounce.”
“Get his arms.” Ram ordered Kurt.
JD used his quick reflexes to wack Kurt in the face with his book. Chad and Troy saw this, and immediately rushed over to help their friends. JD noticed and kicked Chad in the balls.
Troy went for him and Veronica watched from afar and stood there, practically drooling at the sight of this new kid having the bravery to fight against the jocks. The Heathers, who were all slightly behind Veronica, laughed to each other about this.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, JD had all of them on the ground whilst Evan and Jared, Evan’s family friend , had gotten Ms Flemming who went to separate them.
Veronica’s POV:
“Hurry up Veronica! We’re nearly at Rams’s homecoming party!” Heather Duke yelled. Veronica finished getting her shoes on in Heather Chandler’s car and stumbled out so she could get into Ram’s house, where the party was going to take place.
“I hope you're excited! Everyone will be here!” Heather Macnamara said to Veronica.
“Who does ‘everyone’ encompass?” Veronica asked.
“All of the jocks, Ram, Kurt, Zeke, Chad, Troy and everyone else in their group.” Heather responded. “Basically any of the popular kids.”
They walked into the house, inside were many people, doing an array of things, drinking, dancing, there was even a karaoke microphone. It was a surprisingly big house. Veronica never thought Ram was the type to own a house of this size, his parents must be fairly wealthy.
Ram walked up to them and was holding a red party cup of beer. “Hey ‘Ronica,” He said, obviously drunk.
“Eww you stink of alcohol.” Veronica responded, walking away. She walked down a hallway to get away from Ram where a glass door was. Outside was the pool.
She watched Chad and Zeke, who were taking turns throwing a basketball into Ram’s basketball hoop next to his pool while Troy sat against it. Many people were swimming in the pool but Veronica didn’t feel like it, so she just sat by on a seat and overheard Troy’s, Chad’s and Zeke’s conversation as Sharpay jumped into the pool.
“Why don’t you come and play with us Troy?” Chad asked Troy.
“If you want to tell us something, then tell us, we don’t care.” Zeke said.
“Well, to be honest, I was kind of thinking of auditioning for the school musical.” Troy admitted. Chad and Zeke stopped throwing the basketball around and looked at Troy for a moment before letting out seconds of pure laughter.
“Seriously, you in the musical?” Chad laughed. “You’re not made for singing, you need to keep your head in the game!”
Not long after Troy’s conversation, Sharpay climbed out of the pool to talk to the Heathers who had just walked into the garden where the pool was. “Hi Heather, good to see you again!”She said.
“You too.” Heather Duke replied.
“She was talking to me, Heather.” Heather Chandler said angrily.
“Sorry Heather.” Heather said, sounding pissed off.
“Are you going to run for the school musical?” Sharpay asked her.
“No, I don’t like that stuff.” Heather Chandler responded. “I’m guessing you are, you always do.”
“Yeah!” Sharpay said, confirming it.
Kurt walked up to the bench where Veronica was sitting and sat uncomfortably close to her. His face was red and sweaty from all the beer he was drinking. “Don’t sit so close to me!” Veronica said.
She stood up and Kurt quickly grabbed hold of the back of her blue blazer, and cried out, drunkenly “Don't leave, I wanna kiss.” He smiled and Veronica looked at him, disgusted.
“Ew, let go of me, jackass.” Veronica said with disgust, she walked away from the bench but Kurt wouldn’t let go of her blazer and just fell on the floor. Veronica shook him off and ran off to where Heather Chandler was, but she was no longer there.
She ran back into the hall through the glass doors and yelled out her name. “Heather!”
“Hold on Veronica!” She saw Heather, but there was someone with her which put Veronica in shock, Martha Duntstock. Martha was her friend, but she didn’t want people to know or she might not be ‘popular’ anymore. But she also didn’t want to let Martha down.
“Ram!” Heather Duke called out. “Someone’s here to talk to you.”
“I’m not going to talk to her, she’ll turn my muscles into fat.” He said rudely. Martha’s face was saddened and Veronica wanted to run and help her, but there was something at the back of her mind telling her not to, was it the feeling of being popular?
“How about Martha hits the pinata?” Heather Macnamara suggested. People came stumbling out of the pool and the hallway, most of them drunk. Troy, Chad and Zeke walked in, Chad and Zeke were still laughing at Troy, who looked despondent.
“Come on Martha!” Heather Duke shouted.
Veronica knew she needed to try and help her friend, so she ran upstairs. There was a long hallway, she searched many rooms, a bedroom, a living room, another bedroom, oh wait, there it is. She grabbed it, and ran downstairs again, a different way. She ran out the glass doors again and felt Heather Chandler’s grip on her shirt collar.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She asked. “Don’t you dare throw that in the pool.” Veronica didn’t listen and just threw it in the pool.
“Swim for it, bitch.” She smiled.
Evans POV:
While Ram’s homecoming party was happening, the nerds who weren’t invited, were in their own nerd club, held by Gabriella, where they’d do science, but people were open to do things that were equally nerdy. Evan and Jared were standing at the back where people couldn’t hear them.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t even know the kid who died, you’re such a dick.” Jared teased Evan.
“It’s not my fault. I was called to the principal's office to talk to Connor's parents, and they got the wrong impression that I was his friend, and now it’s just all a mess.” Evan rambled quickly.
“Aannndd, you still didn’t say anything?” Connor continued.
“Well, you know how I am, sometimes I just freeze up and can’t do anything.” Evan exclaimed.
JD walked in, drinking a slushy, and sat down on a stool.
“I didn’t know you liked science JD.” Gabriella said to him.
“I’m not.” He responded. “There’s just nowhere better to be. I didn’t get invited to that god awful party, not like I wanted to go in the first place, and I’ll do anything to not be at my dad’s, and I thought the people here seemed decent.”
“Fair enough.” Gabriella responded.
“Let's go and see what they're doing. I'm bored” Jared said to Evan.
“They’re doing some kind of quiz.” Evan responded. They both walked over to sit down on two vacant seats next to where JD was sitting.
“Gabriella! Are you gonna participate in the pop quiz or not?” Taylor said, nagging Gabriella. “You haven’t been doing as well in your tests and quizzes recently.”
“Well, the thing is, the truth is that I haven’t been trying as hard in science recently.” Gabriella replied. “I’ve been practising for the school musical that’s coming up. I’m thinking of auditioning!”
“Are you serious! You’re the best member of the maths and science club. You can’t flake out now!” Gabriella looked up at Taylor, she looked slightly let down, as if that wasn’t the response she was looking for.
Evan got up from his seat and pulled his laptop out of his bag before walking outside to sit down on a bench.
“Jared?” He said, having to speak up so Jared could hear him.
“What.” Jared said, sounding annoyed that Evan wanted him to get out of his seat already.
“I need to talk to you outside, about you know what.”
“Ugh, fine.” Jared reluctantly got up and walked outside. JD looked at them both, curiously, wondering what the secret between them was. He looked back forwards towards the science group doing the pop quiz.
Veronica walked in, puke dripping out of her mouth, and with her face stained with tears. She sat down to the left of JD with her head in her hands.
“Are you alright?” JD asked Veronica. “Why are you here? I would've thought you’d be at Ram’s party instead of a boring science club.”
“I was at that party, but they were all being dicks to Martha, so when I stood up for her by throwing the pinata into the pool, they threw me out.” Veronica answered.
“Huh, I never thought of you and Martha as friends, you’re both at the complete opposite of the social spectrum.” JD responded. He expected an answer from Veronica, but she had got distracted looking at him. JD waved his hand in front of her face. He realised she was distracted by him and smiled, flattered. “Hey!” He said. Veronica snapped out of it and continued telling him about her and Martha.
“We used to be really good friends. But now after all this high school bullshit, everything changed. Now the Heathers hate me simply for liking her.” Veronica said miserably.
“Huh.” JD exclaimed. He rested his elbow on the table in front of him with his hand resting in the palm of his hand. He thought about all this for a few seconds and then smiled, deviously. “Well what if we tried to get back at Heather Chandler.”
“And how would we do that?” Veronica asked.
“Well, we could try to-” JD tried speaking but was interrupted by Taylor.
“Listen, this place is getting too crowded, so could anyone who isn’t participating in the science and maths activities leave please?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah we’ll leave.” JD replied.
“So what are going to do about Heather Cha-”
Veronica tried asking before JD pressed his index finger on her lips and said “ Shush. I’ll tell you outside. “He gestured for Veronica to leave the room before turning his head backwards and looking at everyone, suspiciously, before grinning and walking out.