(Featuring the ever-innocent sailor of our ship, Christine, and our fav chaotic good, Rich (bitch) Goranski)

(Also high-key inserting Les Amis- if ya don't know them then you won't get some of the jokes later on, don't worry)

(Michael's POV)

I spot Christine on her way to rehearsal, and run up to her as fast as I can (which isn't very fast).

"Christine!" I yell. She turns to me, and cracks a big, bright grin.

"Hey Michael! What are you doing still at here? You don't do any after-school things, right?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to... ask you something."

"Oh! Sure, what is it?"

"Uh..." I take a breath. "When you... dated Jeremy... what did he like?"

She looked at me, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Like... when you'd flirt... and what he'd like on dates... and stuff?"

"Oh," she said, finally understanding. Then her eyes widened as another wave of realization hit her. "Oh. Are you asking me for... dating advice? For Jeremy?"

"Uh... Yeah?" I knew I was blushing a little, and rubbed my arm nervously.

She giggled. "I knew it! Alright, when are you free?"

"Pretty much every afternoon. Jeremy told me he's probably gonna be busy this week, so..."

"Okay, so I am coming to your place after rehearsal. We have work to do! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to be late!"

With that, she ran away.

—

(Jeremy's POV)

I said goodbye to Christine (who had been acting very strange at rehearsal all today, but wouldn't say why), then looked around for Rich.

When I saw him, I called him over to me.

"'Thup, man?"

Him and his slang.

"You dated Michael, right?"

He visibly cringed. "Yeah, for like, a month. Why?"

"I need some..." I looked around to make sure no one could hear me. "...Some advice? On getting him to like me? And... date me?"

Rich's eyes went wide. "You like Michael?? Yeth!!! Oh, everyone'th gonna be tho thiked!"

"No, you can't tell anyone! This has to be just between you and me, alright?"

He sighed. "Fiiiiine. But theriouthly, everyone shipth it tho hard. When you guyth get together, people are gonna lothe it."

I laughed. "You seem to have a lot of confidence that this'll work."

"Of courthe it'll work. Why wouldn't it?"

"Well, he could... not be interested in me. At all. I could just be completely wrong for him. Or..."

"Thtop right there, bro. If anyone in thith whole thchool ith gonna like you, it'll be Michael Mell, let me tell you that. Tho, when do you wanna thtart? I'm free anytime."

"Uh... right now would be good. If that's cool with you. I told Michael I'd be busy all week."

"Dude, now ith killer! C'mon, let'th go! We have a boy to thwoon!"

With that, he grabbed me by the arm, and ran out to his car, with me in tow.

—

(Narrator POV)

Over the next week or so, both boys talked to their respective mentors, learning all about how to get the other to fall for them.

Neither of them knew that the other was doing the same thing.

As they began to use their newfound flirting techniques on eachother, nothing much changed on either end. This was due to the fact that each of them, caught up in their own world of advice and how-to's, didn't pick up on the other's signals.

Of course, both 'mentors' did.

"Hey, Rich!" Christine called.

"Oh, hey Chrithtine. 'Thup?"

"I wanted to ask you if..." she checked that nobody could hear her. "If you're... helping Jeremy? I know you used to date Michael, and Jere's been acting kinda strange around him lately."

He grabbed her arm, and pulled her into an empty classroom.

"Ith he really that obviouth? I wath hoping it jutht theemed that way becauthe I knew."

"No, he's... not subtle. At all."

"Yeah, well neither ith Michael."

"Yeah... we've been working on that."

"It'th you? Oh, that maketh tho much thenthe! How did I not guethth it wath you?"

"I don't know, but I think we really need to help our friends, before they drive themselves crazy, or give up."

"Yeah. But how?" Rich looked completely lost.

It was a good thing Christine had a plan.

"Well, here's what I was thinking..."

—

Christine: hey Michael, lets go to the Musain café for lunch today. We can work on the thing with Jeremy there.

Michael: okay c u there

—

Rich: hey Jere
Rich: bro

Jeremy: yeah what

Rich: for our next meeting we can go to the Musain, okay?
Rich: we can do date etiquette then

Jeremy: k sure

—

(Jeremy's POV)

When I walked into the Musain, I immediately felt like I shouldn't have been there. it was sort of dark, and it seemed like I'd just taken a step back in time- to, like, the 1800's. A blond-haired man with a ponytail stopped yelling at everyone from his perch atop a table in the middle of the room, and looked at me harshly.

"What are you doing here? Are you a new recruit for the movement?"

"Um, no? I'm here to meet my friend-"

"Are you sure? You could go down in history! You could be one of the many civilians who aid in-"

"Apollo," called an obviously drunk man, from the back of the room, "stop, you're scaring the poor boy."

"My name is not Apollo! How many times must I tell you, Grantaire?!"

I shuffled over to a seat by the front window, tuning out the argument that commenced. It honestly sounded like the darker-haired man- Grantaire, was it?- was trying to compliment the other man, and the latter was having none of it.

They sounded like an old married couple, but angrier.

I gazed out the window, waiting to see Rich.

Instead I saw Michael.

I stood up and ran out the door. "Michael? What are you doing here?" I called down the street. I was panicking a little bit.

"Jeremy? What the fuck?" He pulled out his phone, and furiously typed and sent what I assumed was a text.

"Michael... why are you here? This place is... weird. It's not your style."

"I could say the same for you."

Just then, his phone buzzed with a text. He read it, gasped, and showed it to me.

Michael: hey so Christine what the fuck why is Jeremy Heere??
Michael: *here

Christine: Okay so now that you two are both there, the plan starts.

The plan? I looked up at Michael questioningly. He just shrugged.

This time, my phone buzzed.

Rich: okay so now we're gonna do date etiquette call me and put in one earbud, then bring Michael into the cafe

Jeremy: okay why

Rich: you'll see

"So... I'm gonna take a call... with one earbud... and also talk to you, I guess?"

"Yeah... Christine's having me do the same thing."

"Why do you think they're having us call them? While we're here? I mean, Rich said we'd meet here to work on... a project..."

"I don't- wait. Why were you meeting Rich?"

"I said, it's... a project."

"Since when does Rich work on projects?"

"Um... I don't kno-" my phone buzzed with the call from Rich. I plugged in my headphones, which I always keep with me, and put one earbud in my ear.

Michael was doing the same thing. Why did Christine and Rich keep making us do the same things? It was damn weird.

"Okay, bro." I heard Rich say. "Take Michael into the cafe. Maybe put your arm around hith waitht, he liketh that."

I was starting to think maybe Rich set me up. But how did Christine come into all this?

—

(Michael's POV)

"Alright." Christine said. She was talking kinda quietly, like she didn't want someone to overhear. Why, though? "Michael, walk close to him. He likes being near people, he was always kinda touchy with me."

"Ew, Christine, I don't need to know about that." I whispered.

"You know what I mean. He's affectionate. Now get near him!"

I did, and I felt Jeremy's hand tentatively touch my back, waiting for confirmation. When I didn't flinch, his hand snaked farther around me, and his grip tightened. It felt good. I thought that, if anyone saw us, they would think we were a couple.

I liked that, too.

When we went inside the café, I saw a mob of about ten people, who mostly all looked like they were about to kill someone.

"Just ignore those guys," Jeremy whispered in my ear. "I think they're planning to overthrow the government or something."

I laughed quietly as we sat where Jeremy's stuff was. I was across from him.

We ordered our lunch from a waitress named Musichetta, and waited in a very uncomfortable silence. Then, Christine spoke in my ear:

"You don't really like talking on dates, right?"

"Yeah... why?" Was this a date? What was going on??

I saw Jeremy flinch, putting a hand up to his ear.

"Uh... so... er-" he looked around the room. Then, his eyes caught on something, and he smirked. He leaned closer to me, and whispered, "You think that guy over there... that really drunk guy? With the beanie? His name is Grantaire- You think he's flirting with the blond guy?"

I looked at who he was pointing at, unconsciously leaning in to see things from a similar angle to him.

"Oh, yeah, totally." I paused, watching the two men, then went on, "And the blond guy totally likes him back! You see the way he tenses up whenever he speaks? How he always sorta has one eye on 'im?"

"Yeah... Oh, we totally need to go set them up."

"What? No way, we can't do tha-" As I turned to face him, I realized how close we were to eachother. My face was only inches from his. I saw him blush, and I was sure I was doing the same.

Then, someone awww-ed. We both jerked to see who it was, and saw one of the guys- this one with long, reddish-blond, braided hair- with his hands over his heart.

Jeremy cleared his throat. The sound was so close to my ear, it sent shivers down my spine.

"What?" He asked, loud enough for the man to hear. the whole room went dead silent as people stared at Jeremy and I.

"It's just... young love is so sweet... the mind fills with fuzz, and-"

"Jehan, stop with your love poems." Grantaire said, his voice gravelly and low.

"You're one to talk, what with your moon-eyes for Mr. Revolution over here."

The whole room burst out in giggles, except Grantaire and the blond man.

"Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, kid?"

"I mean, I'm no expert in Greek Mythology, but you called..."

"Enjolras." said the blond man. He pronounced it 'Ahn-jol-ras.'

"Okay. You called Enjolras here 'Apollo,' and Apollo is said to be quite attractive... and he does bear a resemblance to Enjolras..."

"Grantaire..." began Enjolras, "What's he saying? Are you... do you like me?"

Grantaire sighed. "I won't remember any of this in the morning, so does it matter what I say now?"

"I'm recording!" Yelled a man with dark curls.

Grantaire glared at him, then looked back at Jeremy. "You two aren't dating, are you?"

"No," we both replied.

"Well, then. I'll tell mine if you tell yours."

What did that mean? But Jeremy seemed to understand, and he nodded. "After three. One, two three-"

"I like you." Both Grantaire and Jeremy said- Grantaire to Enjolras, and Jeremy to- me?

"What?" I stared at him in disbelief. Had mine and Christine's work paid off this quickly?

"I..." he glanced over at the other two men, who  were already passionately kissing, while the whole room was yelling and cheering. I even could hear a few "finally"s. "I like you. Have for a while now."

Damn. "Thanks, Christine," I said into the mic on my headphones. "This work-"

"Bro, he'th liked you for, like, a year."

"Rich? Wait, what?"

"Christine's in mine now." Jeremy said.

"Guys... I'm unplugging my headset." I pulled the headphones out of the jack, "now, explain what's going on."

"We... uh... we thet you guyth up?"

"Obviously. But why?"

"Well, because you both were asking for help to get the other to like you, but neither of you noticed the other heavily flirting." Christine this time. "We did, though."

Me and Jeremy looked at eachother.

"You... asked Christine... for dating advice- on me?"

"...Yeah? But that's not so weird. You asked Rich! Why R- oh." I remembered the short time when me and Rich were together, and shuddered. "Man, I wish I could erase that from everyone's memories- including mine."

"Bro, me too." Came Rich's voice from the speaker. "Now, kithth or thomething."

"What?!"

"Come on, guys, it'll seal the deal."

"Christine??"

"Jutht do it."

I looked up at Jeremy. He was looking at me.

"Do you wanna?" I asked.

"More than anything."

That was all the confirmation I needed. I leaned over the table and connected our lips. He was surprised for a minute, but then grabbed the back of my head, connecting our lips. I crawled over the table and got in his lap. The kiss got stronger and stronger, until-

"No sex in my café." It was the waitress from earlier. "All four of you, get out."

Grantaire, although shorter and less built than Enjolras, picked up his new boyfriend with seeming ease, and carried him out of the cheering café. Enjolras giggled, burying his face in Grantaire's chest.

Jeremy looked at me questioningly. "One minute." I grabbed our phones, ended the calls, and stowed them in my pocket.

"Alright, now you can pick me up."

He did, and carried me out of the café, wearing the biggest grin I'd seen on him in a long time.

I bet I had one to match.