Chapter Text
This was Jeremy’s fifth attempt this week to ask Christine out. Much like his other attempts, this one was planned to perfection.
First, write a note. Admittedly, the idea was a bit risky. For this to work, he needed to see which class had the best seating arrangement. He couldn’t be too far from Christine, couldn’t have any of his popular peers between him and her. The perfect class was eighth period, biology. Here, his biggest opponents were all sitting somewhere to the side, so the chances of them intercepting the note were low. As for the ones passing the note, they looked deadly tired. They wouldn’t bother reading it. (If Jeremy wasn’t deadly tired himself, he would’ve noticed just how much trust he was putting into his peers and immediately rethink this entire plan.)
From here, Jeremy imagined the classroom as if it were Battleship. Jeremy was in seat G-4, Christine was in seat C-5, and Michael was in E-5. Naturally, Jeremy would hand it to the person to his right and have them pass it to the person in front of them until it reached Christine. (The second glaring issue: having a column of teens look and reach behind them at least three times would bring attention to the teacher. And knowing his luck, the teacher would read out the note. Now it’s not a joke between the popular kids, but between the entire class. Luckily, she looked especially exhausted. The previous periods must’ve been a chore.)
“Hey,” Jeremy whispered, looking at the teacher’s sloppy handwriting on the whiteboard but leaning to his right. “Can you pass this to Christine?”
A small piece of paper folded four times. The only visible part was a ‘From Jeremy’ with a smiley face. The confidentialities were only visible once the paper was unfolded. The classmate took it and shrugged, tapping the shoulder of the person ahead of her.
Jeremy sat in a hushed cacophony of “pass this to Christine” for a few seconds. No one was as subtle as Jeremy was, but that could’ve been expected. He was still the one whose ass was being risked by having the note moved around because everyone knew who it came from. The note got passed to E-5 without Jeremy hearing them say who to pass it to. Luckily, it was two seats behind Christine, with Michael. This is why Jeremy handed it to the person beside him and not in front of him, because, of all people, Michael wouldn’t open the note. And he probably knew who it was for anyway—
“Why’s he opening the note?”
Well, maybe he did think it was for him. Hell, Jeremy had to write notes to him in class just because his iPhone 5c didn’t reliably receive texts—shocker.
Okay, so this wasn’t a cause for concern. If anything, Michael would open it, turn to silently laugh at Jeremy, and pass the note on to Christine—
“Why is he writing on it?”
It was one of those “Will you go out with me? Check yes or no” sort of notes. And there Michael was, seemingly checking one of the boxes. Fine, still not a cause for concern.
When Jeremy gets it back, he expects there to be a bold check under a new “no lol” box, and the two would talk about how it was a misunderstanding after class. There wasn’t anything to worry about. Except for the fact that the teacher was changing topics and Jeremy had no idea what she was on about now. Best to ignore the note until it was back to him.
⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆
It never came back to him.
The bell sounded throughout the school. And instead of Christine, Michael was the one walking toward Jeremy. It’s whatever, really. Jeremy had waited years for the moment to ask Christine out; what’s one more weekend, right? In the midst of organizing his backpack, Jeremy briefly looked up to meet Michael’s, who was faintly smiling. He looked back down.
“Look, man, about the note—”
Michael cut him off, “Didn’t think people still passed around these sorts of notes.”
Jeremy chuckled a bit, because yeah. Normally, someone walked up to their crush and openly confessed their love. Then there was Jeremy, submitting to his diffidence and trusting his classmates to pass around a dumb note. So, sure, Michael was in the right to think this idea had gone extinct. “Yeah, yeah. I just didn’t know how else to—”
“I mean, something’s better than dancing around it,” Michael cut him off once more. Now sitting on Jeremy’s desk, facing him, Michael handed him the now unfolded note. Jeremy glanced at it, then returned his gaze to the myriad of papers on his desk. A beat, and Jeremy allowed his gaze to drift back to the note.
This time, Jeremy’s eyes all but bulged out of their sockets. The damned gaiety on Michael’s face confirmed that this wasn’t a joke—at least, not to him.
“Not the answer you expected?”
There was a new box, as Jeremy had expected, but under it said “Hell yeah” in Michael’s handwriting.
The box had received a check.
Goddammit…