Today is the day, boyos and gorlos and everything in between and beyond...os. Today is the day I kick Aiden out of the club. I've learned from my mistakes, I had a good 37 hours coma of rest, I wrote every inch of my long, meaty, beefy plan on my trusty binder, and I have all my ducks in a row, to kill them with one stone, because animal cruelty seems to be the most effective metaphors we can come up with. 

Wait, wait, don't go, keep reading. I know it has been a weird few chapters, but you get me, right? Aiden is a danger to my — our — way of life. Sure, some might say I have developed a slight obsession, or that I'm a stalker for keeping tabs on his every move, or that offering sexual favors as a quid-pro-quo is a crime, but I like to see myself as a passionate man. For revenge. A revenge over something that hasn't happened yet. I'm about to Minority Report this shit.

I grab the bucket of sand and the fake birth certificate from the ground, key items for the plan to come, when I receive a text from Hayden. 

"Brother, come meet us at the club room. We have to put an end to this today. Love, H." 

Finally, he's come around! I knew he only needed some time to understand my position. I don't really need him for this new plan, but I guess the balloon handlers could use an extra set of hands to make all those balloon giraffes I'll need for phase three of this plan. 

After sending a message to the Ned Flander-styled metal band I hired for phase two, and putting my bag of Furbies on a bush outside the school, I go to the clubroom, binder ready to spring into action to go over my five-step plan to expel Aiden and why is he here? 

There, in the clubroom, sitting next to Hayden and Brayden, is Aiden, carefully munching on Kale chips like the washboard-abs, kale-munching, ass eating, teeth-flossing fuck he is. Eat a potato like the rest of humanity, you pedantic SoCal lib-fart!

Interestingly enough, it is not the only weird thing in the room. All the furniture has been pushed to the back, making way for six chairs in the middle of the room on a semi-circle, occupied by Jungkook, Harry, Brayden, Hayden, and the fart-gobbling. A single empty seat stands in front of them. A table stands between that lonely seat and them, filled to the brink with assorted pastries, a teapot, macaroons, and toilet paper. Just, rolls of it. Oddly enough, there is a bucket next to the empty chair. 

"Hello, Ayden," says Hayden, mildly standing up from his chair. "Why don't you take a seat? Would you like some scones? I made them from scratch this morning." 

It is to note that the room is dimly lit, dank, and the few light bulbs it does have are flickering with every sway of the old lamp. I feel like I'm talking to a Bond villain. 

Well, I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I haven't eaten today yet, so I take a scone and shove it in my mouth as I take a careful seat. I was careful, the seat was not, screeching under the weight of all the ferrets I taped to the underside of my leather jacket. They will come in handy for later. 

"So, what's the occasion?" I ask, placing my hand on my back pocket where my kazoo is hidden. Not to be confused with the phase 5 kazoo that is hidden behind the hollowed-out Bratz doll near the water fountain. 

Hayden looks troubled, pensive, even. Positively abstracted, as if his sober contemplation had absorbed his every idea. He leans forward, hand in hand, resting his whole weight on his knees. Taking a deep breath, he stares at my eyes, even beyond my glasses, to speak directly to my soul. The soft shimmering of his hazelnut orbs pierces me in—

"Are you describing things right now?" he asks, interrupting my monologue. Rude. Wait, my monologue?

"I said," he repeats, making emphasis in the last word, "are you, Ayden Gomez, describing things right now?" 

"What are you talking about?" I say, leaning back on the chair.

Hayden copies my moves, a cheap technique to make my subconscious sympathize with his views, usually made by people trying to sell you a timeshare, Herbalife, or downsizing you. "When you entered the room, there was a pause. In that pause, you stared at everything and everyone here. So, I'll ask again. Are you describing things right now?" 

His tone is strong and firm, like a Jell-o made of meat. There is no wavering, nor accusation, just a simple statement of... oh, God, I'm doing it! I'm monologuing and describing things as... as... as a protagonist of a cliche story! 

I think I'm going to be sick. 

"Bucket," is all Hayden says, almost as if he can read my mind. "No, I can't read your mind. You're just monologuing out loud." 

Shit, it's worse than I thought. I'm definitely... literally... just... ugh.

I grab the bucket and release all my sick into it, praying to Walter, Colombian God of Barfs, to let me be clean of my sins.

"Walttttt...er," I say, spitting half a scone, a pint of Redbull, and some beef jerky into the world's most metal Slurpy. I feel like shit. I even used the word "orbs" to describe Hayden's eyes. 

Do not try to say Walter's name in vain, as you will find yourself gagging as well. It is only a prayer one does as a last resort. 

"That's right, let it out, let it all out," says Hayden, not moving from his seat, but I kinda think he wants to. "Better?" 

"The fact that I said Orbs in a monologue shall be burned in my memory until the day I die," I say, making one last dry heave over the slush. 

"Well, that's what we are here, brother. This is an intervention. We have seen you monologue more and more during the past few chapters, and that's concerning to us." 

"you gotta stop, bromer simpson," says Brayden, sporting a sweater that says "MILF: Man, I Love Fannies." Kinda inappropriate if you ask me. "you're now even describing my sweater. that's cool and all, but unnecessary. what's next? you gonna tell everyone our style of hair? eye color? our smirks? you're doxxing us all, brosef stalin." 

It's true, it's all true. I've been blinded by my blind rage of blindness that I could see is nothing, and that nothing was Aiden. Kinda got lost in my metaphor there. See? This is what happens when I don't use animals to describe things. Basically, I got lost in the sauce. The Aiden sauce. 

No, not working. I'm an ant, and a child, that is Aiden, is using a magnifying glass, and-

"Stop it with the monologue!" says Hayden, smashing the table in front of us, making a single pink macaroon have a panic attack. 

"Shit, sorry," I say. "But I'm not the problem! That dillhole there, eating Kale chips while smirking, he's at fault! If it weren't for him..." 

Hayden snaps his fingers, demanding my attention back towards him. "Hey! This is your intervention, not his'. This is us, all who love you, trying to tell you that you have a problem."

"No, this is bullshit!" I yell, which reverberates in the tiny room, 12 ft by 20 ft, with a popcorn ceiling and I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sweet first deodorant of tween Jesus, I'm fucking it up today. "I don't have a problem, I have an issue. An issue that he started." 

Aiden coughed up, surely an errant piece of bitter plant got stuck in his throat. Good. Oh wait, it was only to clear the throat. "Brah, I just wanted to hang out with my new bad boy brahs. I never had bad boy brahs before 'cuz they all thought they wanted to fight them, or steal their significant others. I just wanted to fit in, brah. That's all I wanted." 

Hayden places one of his prime cut hands over his', which makes me... mad, for some reason. Can't put my finger where. "That's all we all wanted. You might have fucked up, but we all fucked up at some point, and we forgive you. Right?" 

"i had mad engagement from that party, so i'm cool," says Brayden, fiddling with his smartphone while slowly caressing the panicked macaroon. With his teeth. 

"Okayden?" asks Hayden. 

"Me and May are tight,
I have a new friend, new feet, 
All thanks to him," he says. Also, I think that's illegal. How old is Okayden again? 

"Anyone else?" 

Harry looks about nervously, face still red and bruised from his brief encounter with the Queen B, before standing up. His chair cracked so much that it briefly made the tune of "Totaka's Song." He takes a piece of paper from his sweater, alongside a pair of comically small reading glasses, which barely fits over his rotund face. 

"Life is about mistakes," he reads, all the while shuffling his weight from left to right, "for mistakes are what tells us what is wrong and what is right. Like a baby bird learning to fly, one has to hit the ground over and over again, maybe hurting each time, but, in the end, one of those tries will make us soar high into the air, and all those failures would seem like a memory from a distant past. We as a society should not shame the baby bird for trying, but encouraging it to move forward, to carve a place in life. While it is true that I cannot condone your actions that day, like the baby bird, I cannot say you did it out of malice, but as a way to carve yourself a space here in our little community. I do not even believe that your failure to do so is something deserving of apologies, for you did nothing wrong. You took a risk and got hurt because of it. If anything, we have to celebrate your perseverance. Slay, queen, slay." 

And with that same impetus, he sits back down, giving Jungkook a smooth, if silent, high-five. 

Sure, just pile on the weird shit. I don't care at this point. 

"See? He fucked up, knew what went wrong, and we forgave him. Simple enough," says Hayden, taking a Kale chip out of Aiden's bag. Another tinge of madness takes over me. Hu. "Now, can you forgive him as well, just as you have forgiven our transgressions in the past?" 

Okay, okay, I can be the first to admit that I have been what is medically known as kind of a douchebag, with a hint of pisswanker, but this doesn't sound unreasonable. I can understand that this might have been misconstrued as, you know, an honest mistake. I still can't help but feel that there is something wrong with how he acts, but I'm willing to give him one chance, one which I admit should've given him a long time ago. 

Maybe, just maybe, I overreacted. 

"Knock knock," says a dulcet, velvety voice behind me. We should really Ishtar a door between the vending machine and the room itself. Of course, one can easily understand that this voice belongs to the velvety bitch that is Lee Vazquez. "Sorry for my tardiness. I was held up in a meeting." 

"And what are you doing here, if I may ask?" I ask, signified by the way I said ask in the dialogue. Those are the simple minutiae that make this story great. 

"I was asked by Mr. Wilson to oversee this intervention," she says, taking a few tentative steps in and leaning on the nearest wall. "The students' council must mediate any inter-club conflict that may arise, after all. Please, pretend I'm not here."

Great. Now I have a peanut gallery to my misery. 

"So, what's it gonna be?" says Hayden. "Everyone here has forgiven him, and frankly, he didn't do anything worth forgiving, as Harry so eloquently said. What beautiful words, what beautiful soul." 

I feel like I'm getting bullied here. I feel that, if I say no, I'm gonna just get more and more pressure until I cave in. On the other hand, they are right in saying it wasn't that bad. 

For the sake of maintaining peace, I have to leave this hill. The hill I was gonna die on. The death hill. 

"Okay, you're right," I say, putting the hurl bucket down. "I grossly over-reacted. I thought of you as a plot rival, when in fact, you have been nothing but sweet, and anybody can make a mistake. I forgive you."

Everyone erupts into a half-assed clap session. Well, erupting might be a little too much. Slightly sputters like a cheap back-alley firework would be the best description.

Hayden looks smug and proud of himself, nodding with a smile while seeing himself a cup of tea. "Good, now, don't you have anything else to say?" 

No? What else is there to say? I already forgave him, against my tingling bad boy senses. Don't know what else to say. 

"Maybe ask us to forgive you for what you did?" says Hayden, both puzzled and nonplussed, which means the same thing, for some reason. Also, what?

"Excuse me?" I say. 

"Excuse you for what?" says Hayden. "You have to be specific." 

"Yeah, exactly. Excuse me for what? What did I do that you need to forgive me?"

"what didn't you do?" says Brayden. "we know all about your little ruse to try and make us go against aiden."

Oh no, the thing I said wasn't going to bite me in the ass has come to bite me in the ass!

"Don't panic," says Hayden, giving me the cup of tea for me to drink. Fuck that imperialist leaf water. I'm American! Give me coffee and some rattlesnake venom, with a squirt of oil. "I, too, have fallen prey to the disgusting hands of a bad boy rival before, as you might remember." 

"I would not say rival," says Okayden, giving us a rare, toothy smile from beyond his scarves. "I would say, amusing fool,
That tried to kill me."

"Potato, tomato, same difference," says Hayden. "Point is, we forgive you... but you have to be repentant." 

Fine, I was a huge tool, and got carried away, and did sole minor misdemeanors, but hey, who hasn't right? 

"Okay, you're right. I'm sorry," I say. 

"Sorry for...?" ellipses Hayden. Damn his motherly demeanor, scolding me and making me feel like a child. I don't even get scolded by my own mother! Granted, she died protecting me from a terrorist group trying to kidnap me as they believed I was the reincarnation of their God, but still! 

"Sorry for being a douchenozzle." 

"And?" 

"And for riding your Dick-mobile in an inappropriate manner."

"And?" 

"And stalking Aiden, and having Jungkook and Harry get beaten up, and making Brayden wake up earlier, which is not a bad thing, by the way, boy needs some sun. And also thinking Okayden was a figment of my imagination." 

"Good," says Hayden, now giving me a motherly, warm smile. God, I wanna sleep on his bosom. "Now, can I trust you two to get along?" 

"Fine by me, I guess," I say. I'll have to be a little less prejudicial. You know, this might be a good thing, confronting my hidden prejudices. I have to-

"Of course, brahs! You're my brahs!" he says. "With that out of the way, there's something I wanted to get off my chest. Hayden, wanna go have some lunch with me? My treat! I know a hella dope place that serves some deconstructed onion soup to die for." 

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Did he just... did he just ask Hayden on a date? My ears must be bad from all this leaf juice steam in the air. That couldn't be, right? 

There is no way I actually hear it ri-

"Eh, sure. Why not?" says Hayden, giving him that smile. That warm smile. That carefully, loving, mother smile. Why? Why am I mad? 

Why do I feel this... ellipsis rage? And why am I flying over the accouterment table to where Aiden is? Why am I pinning him against the floor while slowly choking the bejeezus out of him?

"Hayden in mine, you blue-haired freak!" I yell? Why? "He is my king, and I am his queen, and God save those who get between me and him! This is a chess metaphor by the way!" 

I don't give too many chokies before Jungkook and Harry pull me away from him. For some reason, he is smiling, and looking somewhere behind him. To where Lee is. Oh, no. 

I quickly turn around to see Lee share a complicit smile with Aiden. 

It was a trap. A bad boy honeypot trap, and I fell right on it, didn't I?