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Misha sings in choir. Noel, coincidentally, also sings.

Misha has a great voice, even if he's hesitant to use it. He probably thinks it's not worth his effort, just for choir rehearsal. He sings quietly, and he's been told repeatedly that this actually draws more attention to him than if he just sang loudly and fearlessly - but Misha isn't shy. Misha isn't trying to avoid drawing attention to himself. Misha just doesn't want to be here and isn't afraid to show it, mumbling lyrics with his arms crossed. It's a stunning sort of confidence.

And the best of Misha's voice, of course, is reserved for his YouTube channel.

Noel stands next to Misha - a little too close for comfort - and sings with him. He's basically carrying the tenor part in the absence of Misha putting in any effort. It's infuriating. He's too frozen to do anything to reprimand Misha for it.

And at the end of the school day, Misha gets up the second the bell rings, to storm out of the room to do whatever Misha does after school. The door slams behind him. 

In Misha's absence, Noel spends several long, drawn-out moments gathering up his belongings, and Ocean waits at the door with her arms crossed.

Here are some fun facts about Misha Bachynskyi:

• Misha Bachynskyi came to St. Cassian's about a year ago, and joined the choir a few months after that. All of this happened against his will and he seems intent on making it everyone else's problem.
• Misha has never felt any shame, about anything, ever, in his life.
• Misha has a YouTube channel where he posts his music. It's kind of like if there was an explosion in the autotune factory and someone happened to be recording. His lyrics are invariably about how awesome his life is and how much money he has, which Noel would resent on principle, except he's pretty sure Misha is lying about most of the money he supposedly has. Noel's not even sure what to make of that.
• Misha sits in the back of every classroom until Ocean prods him into standing in formation to rehearse. He barely talks. He hates everyone. Famously the angriest boy in town.
• He is probably going to be the fucking death of Noel.

Noel walks home with Ocean, not because he enjoys her company but just because they live vaguely near each other. They started walking home from school together at some point in grade school, when neither of them had parents who could drive them and they both seemed too young to walk alone. It's just part of their routine now, they walk to and from school together every day, even though they barely talk and Noel's sneaking suspicion is that Ocean doesn't enjoy it any more than he does. This is a ridiculous problem that Misha has probably never had, because Misha is so much better than this, and Misha doesn't go along with stupid routines that benefit nobody.

"Do you have something on your mind?" asks Ocean, and Noel tries to shrug nonchalantly, as though he's had a single thought in the last three hours that hasn't somehow connected back to Misha Bachynskyi. 

"No, why?"

"You just seem... distracted."

Yes. Because of Misha fucking Bachynskyi. 

"I just," says Noel sheepishly, clearing his throat. He coughs a little. "Oh my God, why do you always interrogate me?"

"I'm your friend and I'm checking that everything's okay, is that such a bad thing?"

Ocean is not Noel's friend. "Well, maybe everything is okay and I'm just distracted by my parasocial crush on a YouTuber, do you ever think of that before you decided to hold an unwanted intervention?"

Ocean blinks a couple of times, slowing down as she walks with Noel.

"Is that just a random hypothetical example you came up with," she asks, judgement clear in her eyes and her voice. "Or are you crushing on... what, Mr. Beast? Dream?" 

Sweet Jesus Christ on a bike, this girl is offline. Are those the only YouTubers she can come up with off the top of her head? Unlike some people - Misha - who Noel privately thinks desperately need to get offline and touch a little grass, Ocean seems like she actually needs to get inside and look at some fake grass on a screen. She thinks she's so much better than everyone else, and it's so obvious.

"Not every YouTuber plays Minecraft all day, you know," he snaps, even though he's not actually sure if Mr. Beast does Minecraft, and he definitely doesn't want to find out. "There's also, like... Ukrainian rap on YouTube."

Oh. Noel has said too much.

And Ocean is giving him this absolutely piercing look, like she has the right to fucking judge, and - and is his obsession with Misha really that obvious? Noel's face is burning. If Ocean says even one mildly judgemental thing then he's surely going to physically combust from the shame of it all, burst into flames and then disintegrate into ash right in front of her - and maybe that would be a good thing, actually, because the pile of Noel's ashes wouldn't have to continue this conversation. It's simply over for Noel. There's no coming back from humiliation like this.

He'll simply have to pack up and move to France, right now, immediately. Otherwise he'll never recover from this. He'll be forty, and living in his mother's basement dreading this one specific interaction that singlehandedly ruined his psyche and social life. His mother doesn't even have a basement. He'd have to do so much fucking digging.

Except - Noel realises - there is more than one Ukrainian rapper on YouTube. And when you listen to Misha Bachynskyi's unwanted passionate rants about music as intently as Noel does, well, you tend to memorise a few names.

"I'm obsessed with the band хейтспіч," he admits, absolutely flying by the seat of his pants.

Ocean narrows her eyes. Noel stands his ground. He took a drama class specifically to improve his lying abilities and, more importantly, he would actually rather die in a hole than admit to being obsessed with Misha.

"Are you now?" asks Ocean.

"Yeah?" says Noel, as though he can't think of why she would be doubtful about this. Maybe in context it seems like an obvious lie but Ocean doesn't know enough or care enough to pull the thread on this, if Noel just keeps insisting that he is obsessed with хейтспіч, then at some point she's going to have to accept it as the truth.

Ocean just rolls her eyes emphatically. "...Whatever, Noel."

Here are some fun facts about the band хейтспіч:

• It's pronounced like hatespeech.
• It's Ukrainian.
• They make like... probably the sort of music Misha likes? Rap maybe. 
• That's all Noel knows.
• Whatever, a little white lie has never hurt anyone.

Uranium City, boring as it is, never has too many performance opportunities. There are church events, which Noel resents, and then there are occasional excursions. Then there are stretches of months where there is nothing to do, no show to prepare for; choir rehearsals run like clockwork, in an attempt to keep the routine, but all they do is run through the same vocal warm-ups on repeat until Misha inevitably derails the session by refusing to participate.

Father Marcus occasionally tries to come up with activities to fill in the time.

"Here's my latest idea," he says, at the beginning of a rehearsal that Noel was actually planning on spending daydreaming about Monique doing unholy things with a character that acts as a very blatant Misha stand-in. "How about you split off into three pairs and each do a group project? It could be a good friendship-building exercise."

The suggestion is met with expectant results - annoying enthusiasm from Ocean, a middle finger from Misha, and apathy from the rest of the choir.

"You could do the projects on something music-related that you happen to be passionate about," he continues. "Like your favourite musical artist."

"Everyone here except me has shit music taste," protests Misha, not looking up from his phone. "There is nobody here I can work with for music project."

"Don't you and Noel both like хейтспіч?" asks Ocean.

Misha swivels around to face Noel in shock at that, and Noel swivels around to face Ocean in shock and offense. From the look on her face he can't tell whether she genuinely believed the lie a bit too well, or whether she knows exactly what she's doing. Perhaps, under that poker face, she's taking some sadistic glee in forcing him to work with Misha based on a stupid, stupid lie. 

But Misha asks, "Yo, for reals?", and he seems genuinely interested in hearing Noel's opinion in a way that he never thought Misha would ever be genuinely interested in him. And his face is burning but his heart is pounding, he's getting dizzy from the exhilaration and he wants, no, needs to chase the feeling. And besides, the whole choir is looking at him now, and he would never recover from the embarrassment if he tried to explain that he just lied about liking a Ukrainian band, let alone that he lied about that to avoid admitting that he was head-over-heels for Misha goddamned Bachynskyi.

It's far, far too late to back out now.

So Noel looks Misha in the eye and says, "Yeah, I'm into хейтспіч."

"Yo!" Misha is excited, earnestly. Noel definitely can't back out of this now. "We are homies now. Yo, why did you not say something about your mad wicked music taste before now?" 

Noel chuckles and scratches the back of his neck nervously and tries to avoid having to answer the question. Father Marcus, luckily, spends the whole rehearsal explaining the project so that Misha doesn't have any time to interrogate further.

Noel actually has work tonight, but he's going to have to call in sick so he can finally listen to at least one song by the band he's supposed to be obsessed with.

Here are some fun facts about Noel's manager at work:

• She is about thirty, short and muscular. She got stuck in the job as a teenager and, in the absence of an idea of what else to do with herself, ended up in increasingly managerial roles, until eventually the store depended on her. She is a perfect example of what you should not do with your life.
• She is generally forgiving about having to call out of work at short notice.
• Noel could absolutely never look her in the eye again if he had to explain that he needed time off to prepare to fake an obsession with a Ukrainian band so that Misha Bachynskyi wouldn't find out he lied about something so fucking stupid. 

Noel gets home and, instead of quickly changing into his work uniform like he's supposed to, thinks about Misha Bachynskyi and tries to will himself to do what must be done.

He calls his manager.

"I'm really sorry," he lies. "But I can't come into work tonight." As he's saying it, he realises he's forgotten to fake sounding sick, so he has to come up with some other excuse. "I'm throwing a birthday party for my cat."

Noel's not sure why he said that. He doesn't even have a cat.

He guesses Misha Bachynskyi is just fucking doing something to his brain.

His manager, luckily, is stunningly forgiving. "Aww, that's adorable!" He can just hear the grin in her voice. "Take photos to show me next shift, okay?"

"Okay," lies Noel, remorselessly. Anything for Misha.

Here are some fun facts about Ricky Potts:

• He has fourteen cats.
• Because of the above, he probably has the exact resources necessary to help Noel with his insane scheme to lie about liking a band to impress Misha.
• Because of the above, he probably has several follow-up questions.

Noel has one of хейтспіч's songs relentlessly stuck in his head the next day at school. He wonders how Misha lives with these constant earworms.

He approaches Ricky at lunch.

"Can I borrow one of your cats?" he asks, quickly. "I need to fake a cat birthday party at my house."

Ricky tilts his head. Without him needing to say anything at all, several follow-up questions seem to fall out of his ears.

"What?" asks Constance softly.

Constance has been sitting with Ricky, lately, whenever Ocean is busy with some sort of extracurricular. Which is most of the time. It's... odd, Noel didn't really realise they were friends. Ricky pretty openly hates Ocean so it's kind of an odd friendship. But Noel doesn't have time to focus on that right now, he has to focus on lying to Misha.

Misha, Misha, Misha. Good Lord, what has Misha done to him?

"I called in sick for work last night," he explains, breathlessly. "Because I needed to listen to хейтспіч. Like, all afternoon. For the project with Misha. So I called in sick for work and I lied to my manager, saying I was throwing a birthday party for my cat. I don't have a cat. So I need your help."

Constance frowns deeply. "But none of Ricky's cats even have a birthday coming up..." Why does she even know that?

Ricky, meanwhile, blinks at Noel incredulously several times, before eventually looking down to type a response on his AAC app. The synthesised voice says, "Wait, did you lie about liking that band to impress Misha?"

Noel feels himself burning once again. He freezes where he stands, digging his nails into his palms. He can't look Ricky or Constance in the eye. "I did not lie about liking хейтспіч to impress Misha!" he insists, feigning offense. He dramatically raises a hand to his chest in fake shock. There. That should do it.

He pauses, and looks around to make sure Misha isn't within earshot.

"I lied about liking хейтспіч for a different, stupider reason," he confesses sheepishly. "And then Ocean bought up the lie in front of Misha, and I realised it was impressing Misha, and so I decided to continue the lie to impress Misha."

Ricky looks at him as if to say, come on, dude, seriously?

"So basically," he asks. "You are lying about liking the band to impress Misha?"

"I am, arguably, technically lying about liking хейтспіч to impress Misha."

"No, no, this is not a technicality, you are blatantly lying to impress Misha."

"And are you going to help me lie to impress Misha or not? Because I need a cat or my manager's going to get mad."

Ricky sighs. "Fine."

"Thank you! Owe you my lives." He clears his throat. "Now I have to go and... study хейтспіч. So I can convince Misha I've totally been obsessed for months."

Here are some fun facts about the band хейтспіч:

• They make pretty much exactly the sort of music Noel expected from Misha Bachynskyi's favorite band. High-intensity, full of rage, with some autotune and rap for good measure.
• If Noel had to talk to Misha about his opinions on хейтспіч without lying at all, he would say, "Well, whatever floats your boat." He would then say, under his breath, "Or whatever tips your ship," which is a phrase he's made up as the opposite of 'whatever floats your boat', for when the thing that would float your boat is simply not very good. Hopefully Misha wouldn't understand the joke well enough to catch onto being insulted.
• Luckily, Noel does not have to talk to Misha about his opinions on хейтспіч without lying at all, because he has already lied to Misha repeatedly and he isn't stopping any time soon.

Noel sits down with Misha during choir rehearsal.

Misha gets out his laptop to prepare a PowerPoint presentation.

"Since when are you into хейтспіч?" Misha asks, and he's just so earnestly excited. Noel didn't fully realise it was possible to coax excitement out of the angriest boy in town. He has to keep up this lie, for Misha's sake.

"I, uh, I got into them a few months back," he lies. "Just showed up in my recommended videos and I gave it a shot."

Misha tilts his head at Noel, oddly.

"Do you... understand the lyrics?" Misha asks.

"Uh, kind of? Like, I ran them through Google Translate." Luckily, he actually did do that last night. He went to no great effort to memorise any of it but he could probably bullshit his way through in an emergency.

Misha scoffs. "Google Translate is dogshit, bro, you gotta get human for that shit. What is your favorite song?"

Noel freezes.

The problem isn't that he hasn't remembered any song titles - he has, he would know them if he saw them. The problem isn't that he can't pick a relatively inoffensive song to say he likes - he made an active effort, during his study session last night, to pick songs that he didn't totally hate and that he thought Misha would probably like.

The problem is that he can't read the Cyrillic alphabet for shit, and he has almost no ability to draw a connection between the syllables he hears and the letters in the on-screen lyrics, and he cannot pronounce a single song title.

"Uh," he lies, thinking quickly. He opens his phone's music app, which is open to the latest songs he's played. "This one," he says, pointing at random.

It's the one titled попсова пісня про нещасне кохання з незрозумілою кінцівкою. 

Noel doesn't even like that one. At all. It's so intense.

Once, when Noel was feeling bored and mischievous, he struck up a conversation with a particularly annoying coworker who was known for asking for everyone's star signs constantly so she could use that information to make weird assumptions about them, and to be weirdly insistent that her assumptions were correct. Noel told her, proudly, that his birthday was December 15th. He watched with great amusement as she ranted on about how this explained so much of his personality including his sexuality and his other, in her opinion, failings in life. Everyone agreed to simply not tell her that Noel's birthday was in March and her whole analysis was based on a spur-of-the-moment lie.

Misha, stars in his eyes, says "Yo, I knew you would like попсова пісня про нещасне кохання з незрозумілою кінцівкою!"

Noel blinks. "You did?"

"Yeah!" Misha insists. "It is so you."

Noel listens to classical music. And bland pop. The intensity of попсова пісня про нещасне кохання з незрозумілою кінцівкою makes him feel... overwhelmed.

And God, he tries to judge Misha for the ridiculous music taste, but right now, Misha just seems so interesting. Misha isn't confined to this town and his music taste isn't defined by what plays on the shitty radio in the mall where he works, or what he thought was cool when he was fourteen. Misha isn't like that at all. He doesn't just like whatever the rest of Uranium fucking City likes, and he seems like he's never even felt like he has to.

Noel is interesting only in his daydreams, as Monique Gibeau. In a town where the most exciting thing to happen all year is free Slurpees from 7/11, Misha's willingness to be himself is admirable.

Maybe Misha's life really is as awesome as he brags about in his rap. Minus the money.

Misha makes the PowerPoint. And starts Googling pictures of dinosaurs to put in it. Noel doesn't even think that's relevant to the band.

"How about you write out the basic info and I focus on like, audio-visual stuff?" Misha suggests.

"Sure," says Noel, with all the confidence of a man who doesn't already have his afternoon booked for a fake cat birthday party.

As far as Misha knows he doesn't even have to do any frantic research for this at all. He's supposed to be obsessed with this band. 

God damn his life.

Here are some fun facts about Savannah Catherine Jennifer Sally Potts:

• She is the youngest of Ricky's cats. She turned a year old a few weeks ago, which makes her the best candidate for this fake birthday party thing.
• She cannot be trusted to walk alongside humans without running off to devastate the local bird population. She needs to be carried, and Ricky cannot carry her while walking because he uses crutches.
• She scratches. Relentlessly.

"Thanks," he says, once he's at home and struggling to get a party hat onto the restless cat with several scratches on his arms seeping blood. "For this."

Ricky looks at him like he's a train wreck, probably because he is.

"I have to do this," he says stubbornly, unprompted. He's not just doing this to impress Misha. At this point it's not about impressing Misha, it's about protecting his honor. And good lord is his honor in need of protection. "I promised my manager cat party photos, I'm getting her cat party photos."

"I feel like this is past the point where you should just stop lying."

"And devastate Misha? You want me to do that?" Not looking at Ricky, he starts to take photos of the cat in the hat. "Did you see how happy Misha was when I told him I liked хейтспіч? The look on his face? I can't crush that excitement now."

"Okay, so he doesn't have a lot of people in his life who are interested in his music taste or his language. Doesn't that make it worse to lie about it?"

Noel glares. "Well, if you want to watch Misha be absolutely devastated by the idea that nobody likes хейтспіч at all, go ahead and tell him I'm a liar."

Ricky gives him a look.

"Listen," says Noel, through gritted teeth. "I know it seems like I'm doing all of this to impress Misha. In a really weird, ethically dubious way. But, like - it's not going to impress Misha. Not that much. Misha, is like - way too cool to actually be friends with someone just because of a fake shared music taste. Misha is not that easily impressed. He's just, like... kind of surprised that I don't have the music taste he expected me to have..."

"Because you're lying," interrupts Ricky.

"...and as soon as this project is over - heck, probably halfway through - the novelty is going to wear off and he's going to go back to ignoring me and hating everyone. We're not even really friends. This is just... a little bit of self-indulgent fun. For both of us. And even if we did become friends after this, Misha is the straightest guy I've ever met, so like - it's not like I'm trying to get into his pants. This is barely even manipulative at all."

"Can I have my cat back?" asks Ricky.

Right. The cat.

Noel decides, as he picks up Savannah, that all of this is actually Misha's fault, for him being Misha. God damn Misha Bachynskyi. How dare he? He's probably doing it on purpose.

"Can you get a lift home?" asks Noel, as gently as possible. "I'm super busy tonight, I have to write a presentation on a band I'm supposed to be obsessed with."

Here are some fun facts about the band хейтспіч:

• The main vocalist is named Dmytro Odnorozhenko. This is presumably the guy Noel is lying about having a crush on. He hasn't thought about that part in a while, honestly.
• The other musician is someone named Alex Yefimov.
• They're based in Odesa.
• Noel had to find this information by shoving a Ukrainian Wikipedia article - there was no English version - into Google Translate and hoping it was accurate. He takes some solace in the fact that if information on the band is this obscure, maybe he doesn't have to have an encyclopedic knowledge to fake an obsession - maybe he's being a devoted fan by knowing about them at all. With that said, if Misha isn't impressed by the knowledge he can translate from Wikipedia, he's not sure what he'll do.
• The worst part is that he must be going insane from prolonged Misha Bachynskyi exposure (a very real illness) because the more he listens to this music, the more he feels afraid that he might actually like it.

To work on the project, the pairs are each allowed a classroom to themselves so they can easily talk to each other without getting distracted. They do this often for choir, since it runs after most classes are finished and there's plenty of empty rooms nearby. Noel dreads the day when someone thinks to question if it's really responsible to leave Misha Bachynskyi in a room without adult supervision.

It is not really responsible to leave Misha Bachynskyi in a room without adult supervision.

They don't need this much time for the project, so there's plenty of time to waste, and Misha is an expert at wasting time.

"We have to do spinny chair bit from гейтспіч official flex video," Misha announces, sitting back in a teacher's spinning chair. Noel, vaguely, remembers a few scenes of the guy singing while spinning in a chair in that song's "official flex video". He's not sure what an official flex video is, or how it's different to a music video. He's sure he doesn't want to know.

But Misha is giving him that look. He's beginning to feel like, regrettably, he would do anything for that look on Misha's face. Besides, Misha's enthusiastic about something school-related for once, shouldn't he be trying to encourage that?

"Alright," he concedes. "Do you want me to film you?"

Misha nods eagerly.

They re-watch the "official flex video" to refresh their memory on the shots in question. Misha laughs a little too hard at a comment that says "Хейтспіч, дякую за вашу музику, тепер я гей" and then refuses to explain what it means. It takes several minutes for them to figure out how to get the right lighting setup with their limited resources - Misha wants to get a video-accurate lighting setup with their limited resources - but eventually, the music is playing and Misha is frantically spinning the chair while lipsyncing in an attempt to replicate his favorite musician's shenanigans. 

Misha looks ridiculous.

Noel... can't wipe the grin off his face.

When it's finished, Misha grips the desk in an attempt to stabilise himself and he still looks downright nauseous. 

But Misha forces a grin anyway. "How was that?" he asks, cockily. "Do I look like your celebrity crush?"

Noel nearly fucking chokes on that, on the idea that Misha knows, before remembering that he's pretending to have a crush on Dmytro Odnorozhenko. It's getting kind of hard to keep track of all the lies at this point.

"Yeah," he lies, because what's one more stupid pointless lie to add to the pile. "You looked just like him." In actuality Misha looked ridiculous the whole time.

Whatever, this whole project is ridiculous.

Here are some fun facts about the final presentation that Misha and Noel present:

• Misha does most of the talking, earnestly enthusiastic. Father Marcus and Ocean, both of whom normally want to make sure everyone does their part equally in group work, encourage him instead of expecting Noel to talk, because it's the only school activity that Misha hasn't hated in a long while.
• With the little time he does spend talking, Noel thinks he successfully convinces at least half of the choir that he really is obsessed with хейтспіч and he really is crushing on Dmytro. He's no longer sure why he lied about this in the first place.
• Now he never has to think about this fucking band again.

On the weekend, Noel stops by Constance's family café to grab a snack on his way to work. He takes out his phone to pause his music so he can talk to Constance. He's had customers come up to do a transaction with him without taking out their headphones even once, and he always thinks it's rude.

"Why are you still listening to that?" asks Constance.

Noel looks down at his phone, which is openly displaying the paused попсова пісня про нещасне кохання з незрозумілою кінцівкою.

Fuck.

"The project's over," says Constance. "You don't have to keep doing this."

Noel, obviously, has Prolonged Misha Bachynskyi Exposure Sickness. That's the only possible explanation. That must be why he's listening to попсова пісня про нещасне кохання з незрозумілою кінцівкою when Misha's not even around to be impressed by it. That must be why he's unironically appreciating the lyrics that he ran through Google Translate to understand, nodding along to the song that he used to hate. It's Misha's fault. He's sick, he can't be held responsible for his actions or music taste. It's Misha's fault.

Constance's eyes widen. "Wait. Noel. Are you, like... pretending to lie about liking хейтспіч to impress Misha, to cover up the fact that you secretly just like хейтспіч?" 

"No," protests Noel, weakly. 

"Oh my gosh, that's totally what you're doing. Isn't it?" Noel feels his face burning. "Okay. Wow. That's kind of ridiculous."

"Shut up." 

"At least you're not lying to Misha anymore? Kind of? Oh my God, this is insane. Um, maybe at this point just ask him out already?"

Noel rolls his eyes. "I cannot just ask Misha out. Do you have any idea how insane that sounds? Asking Misha out? He's, like, the straightest guy I know."

Constance smirks.

"Are you sure about that?" she asks.

"Am I sure Misha's straight? Yes. Reasonably so."

"Maybe... maybe you won't necessarily feel that way when you get to know him better."

Noel frowns.

Here are some fun facts about Misha Bachynskyi: 

• Despite all of Misha's hypermasculinity on display in every music video, he's actually a devoted fan of RuPaul's Drag Race, and it's not even an embarrassing secret. "YOU CANNOT PUT MISHA BACHYNSKYI IN A BOX, YO!" are his words on the subject.
• Misha has, according to rumors, been caught lamenting that his current crush is probably totally unattainable, on account of the crush being preoccupied with a parasocial affection for Dmytro Odnorozhenko.
• How did Noel end up in this situation, again?

Misha clears his throat loudly at the end of choir one session. "I have announcement to make," he tells the group.

Well, this is as good a time to come clean as any, Noel supposes.

"Me too," he admits, uneasily. "But you go first, Misha."

Misha takes a deep breath. 

"I cannot keep this secret any longer. I need to be true to myself. I have been... spending more time with Noel..." Noel blinks. Misha takes another deep breath. "And you have inspired me, yo! You have made me realise I have to always be myself, never - never try to hide my passion from the world." Well, Noel supposes being yourself isn't a bad message. Although he's not sure if Misha realises that he's talking about someone who can't be himself enough to wear the clothes he wants to wear, or tell anyone about his fantasies about Monique Gibeau, or even be vaguely honest about his music taste. "I am bisexual!"

The room is silent for a brief moment.

"Whoo," says Misha, breathlessly. "Glad to get that shit off my chest, yo!"

"We all support you," says Ocean, with a sort of forceful calm that clearly indicates she wishes Misha would also calm down. She clears her throat and turns to Noel. "What did you need to announce?"

Noel takes a deep breath. Nails digging into his palm, he can only hope Misha doesn't completely hate him. "I've been lying about liking хейтспіч," he admits.

The room is silent for a long time.

"What?" chokes Misha, sounding like a kicked puppy.

"I think you're just confused," says Ocean.

Noel blinks a couple of times, swivelling around to face Ocean. Misha swivels too. "What?"

Ocean sighs. "Listen, Noel, sometimes when people are in our age group, they get... curious. And... experimental. You're at a point in your life where you're trying new things and discovering who you are, and that's - and that's fine! But I think when you're this young, you shouldn't be making, like, life-altering declarations about your identity. Like saying you never liked хейтспіч."

"What?" asks Noel.

"You're too young to know. You're probably just confused. You need to pick a side."

"What?"

"He's lying," adds Constance. "He listens to хейтспіч even when he thinks he's alone. There's no way he's that committed to lying."

Noel feels his face burning. "No, no, I just - I lied to Ocean about liking хейтспіч as a joke. It was a joke that she took seriously. And then Misha seemed so excited about having the same music taste as me that I felt like I had to-"

"But we did that whole project together!" protests Misha incredulously. "You wrote all the info. How could you have possibly faked that?"

Noel shifts his weight from foot to foot, unsure exactly how much to tell Misha. Misha's eyes widen.

"Ah," says Misha, smugly. "I know what this is."

Noel blinks. "Do you?" he asks dumbly. He's not sure how Misha could possibly understand what's going on right now considering he doesn't.

"Yes!" insists Misha. He's grinning ear-to-ear. "You are embarrassed. I get it! You are scared of getting judged for your music taste. You are scared of people telling you it is just swearing stacked on swearing stacked on swearing, but I am here to tell you - swearing is fucking awesome! Хейтспіч is dope as hell, and you should never, ever be ashamed of yourself. And you should never hide what you like to avoid being judged by other people, yo! You made me feel ready to accept myself for who I am, and it is important to me that you can admit freely that you like хейтспіч."

"But I don't-"

"Ah, ah, ah," interrupts Misha. "You like хейтспіч. And that is nothing to be ashamed of! I want you out of denial." 

With that look in Misha's eye, that grin on Misha's face, there's simply no point in arguing. Noel gives up.

He walks home from school while listening to the band that he is now, against his will, officially a fan of.

Here are some fun facts about Noel gruber, apparently:

• Хейтспіч is now on far too many of his playlists, including ones that he would never show to anyone. It's official. There's no going back now.
• The choir, sans Misha, now disagrees on whether he was initially lying about liking хейтспіч and, if so, when the lie became the truth. Noel dodges all of the questions. It adds to his mysterious air.
• Rumors certainly say that Misha is into him, but he doesn't like to assume, doesn't want to get his hopes up before anything has actually happened. Sometimes he feels slightly guilty about the dishonesty but there really is no convincing Misha he was lying in the first place.
• All's well that ends well, he guesses?
• His manager at work really liked the fake cat party photos.

Misha taps Noel's shoulder after choir one session. "Yo," he says, uncharacteristically nervously. "You - you doing anything tonight?"

Oh, Noel realises, with a sort of paralysing mix of relief and excitement. This is it. It's finally happening. He's heard the rumours but here it is, in the flesh - Misha Bachynskyi, against all odds, likes him. Here he is, nervous and self-conscious in a way Noel never thought Misha goddamned Bachynskyi was even capable of, and it's really not hard to guess at the explanation. Misha is finally taking the plunge, finally afraid of rejection because he doesn't want Noel to reject him. Probably they'll get coffee or something. The хейтспіч lie has really spiralled out of control at this point but Noel thinks it's mostly water under the bridge.  

"I'm free," he admits, trying to seem casual. "Why?" 

"Ah, just, you know. Wanted to show you some more music, that I thought you would like." He clears his throat nervously. "Some of mine."

Huh. So apparently the dates are also going to be music-themed. Noel can work with that.

And Misha mumbles, under his breath with a red face, "It was all... made with passion." 

He laughs nervously. The sunlight from the nearby window falls down onto his face.

"You know what," says Noel. "Yeah, I think I would like to hear that."

And they leave choir, arm in arm.