"I'll kindly give you 20 bucks to fuck off and never do that again," I say, slamming a twofer on the table.

Aiden grins, tilting his head sideways to allow his hair to fall in front of his head, only to whip it away like a cheap shampoo commercial at the last minute. I can hear a girl in the front point a cell phone at him while swooning. Sounds suspiciously like Laila. Wait, no, that's Leeland... with long, blue hair. God dammit, is he a Broopie for Aiden now? He stole one of my TAB/Gs! "I don't know what you're talking about, brah."

"The fuck you are. You just finished my chapter!"

"Ah, you mean by commercial break, right?" he says. "I didn't want my viewers to get bored during the ads. Showbiz 101, brah. Always end on a high note and keep 'em wanting for more, right?"

He then turns around at a wall and winks at it. Wait, does he have a T.V show? Why in the sweet bepis of Al Gore does this fuck have a T.V show and I'm stuck in a subpar online serialized book? This is bullshit.

"Look here, you rejected blue-man group reboot prototype. My readers," I say. "I am the protagonist of this story. I get to say when this story ends."

"Sure you are, brah. Sure you are," he says, grabbing the seat next to him and pulling it for me. "Now, take back your money, sit down, and let's have a nice conversation, just you and I. We've never had an episode to ourselves."

"A chapter," I correct. "Because this is a book, not a show."

"Tell that to Paramount," says Aiden.

"Dicks to that," I say. Really, dicks to that. I'm not taking any chances. "Hey, teach. Sure I can't just make the assignment alone?"

Mrs. Fannybottom turns around in a flash, her bodacious badonkadonk bouncing a bunsen burner from a table across the room, hitting Leeland straight in the face. Nice. "I'm very sure, Mr. Gomez. You are a Taurus, and the horoscope today says that being alone will bring you great chaos. Also, your lucky number is 20. You can change partners if somebody is willing to do it, but groups have been assigned for a few weeks already. I'm sure-"

So, 20 is my lucky number, right? Let's put this one to the test. I take the twenty bucks and raise it into the air. "Who wants to trade partners for twenty bucks?"

I barely finish speaking when the bills are taken from my hands, followed by an arm grabbing me by the neck and pulling me closer to them. I can smell the exposition from here.

"Hi, hello, friend, friendo, buddy, best bud!" says the milquetoast voice of gonorrhea made human, because you always think it goes away, only to return worse than ever: Billiam Exposito. "I'll do you a solid and take that Aiden fella out of your hands. And those twenty bucks. You can take my partner."

He points with his thumb behind him to reveal a very fidgeting Laila, beet red, and whispering something about how soft is my smell or some weird shit.

"No, thank you," I say, sliding away from him. "I prefer to brave my chances with the bad boy."

He places the bills in his pockets, slipping away with a cha-cha-cha in his step. "Hey, no backsies! I don't offer refunds. Besides, the money feels so good in my pocket. So warm."

Fine. 20 is my lucky number, after all. If fate wants it.

I go and take a seat with... ugh, Laila, which makes her shiver like a chilly tomato.

"Ohmygosh, Ayden is sitting next to me! Look out, the beaver dam is gonna burst!" she whispers/yells.

I immediately regret my decision.

Suddenly, I see a hand touching Laila's shoulder. I swear I can almost see her eyes roll back from pure ecstasy. Of course, the hand is followed by a tuft of blue hair fuckery with a smirk and a can-do attitude. "Hey, baby. Wanna be a doll and trade partners with me?" To punctuate his douchebaggery, he grabs her by the chin with a finger, lifting her up. Why does it suddenly sound like a waterfall? "Pretty please?"

"Ohmygod, Aiden is touching me! I'm gonna totally text Kimanthera about this!" she yells in that weird whispering manner. "Of course, anything for daddy, I mean, daddy. Sorry, daddy. I mean, sorry, daddy. Sorry, da-"

With that, he pulls her out of her seat and sits down. "Why is this seat so wet, brah? No matter. You and I need to talk."

"You both need to finish this assignment before the bell rings!" says Mrs. Fannybottom, the force of her cake cracking the wind with a clap. "Now, the next step is to add the hair of a fair virgin, unspoiled, and 5mg of potassium sulfate. Now, I won't dare assume anybody's virginity here, and the state demands me not to ask unless I open a can of legal trouble that we don't have the budget to fight, so you will find on the table a napkin with a virginity-certified hair you can use."

I feel a sharp--ouch, you bitch! Aiden plucks a hair out of my head and tosses it into a cauldron thingy in front of us. The liquid turns a metallic pink, followed by a deep red after he adds the potassium sulfate.

"The fuck you think you're doing?" I yell. That was hair #356781-3. I've had it since I was a baby. A hot, sexy baby with silky-smooth hair.

The dingus smiles while shrugging his shoulders. You know that kinda smile that only your mouth does but never reaches your eyes? That kind of smile. The smile of a predator. "Sorry, brah. Just assumed you were a virgin. Bad boys are often virgins, weirdly enough. Unless they are mafia bad boys, or jock bad boys. But us? We are loners. We don't let anyone close enough to do such things as smashing uglies."

"Then, use your own fucking hair! And I already have a boyfriend," I say.

"Because, I dye my hair," he says as he stirs the pot. It smells like gooseberries. The fuck is a gooseberry anyways? "Kinda defeats the purpose of the whole unspoiled thing, doesn't it, brah? And it doesn't matter that you have a boyfriend. I have a girlfriend, and you don't see me dipping my pen in the forbidden ink."

I hear a gasp in front of me. A TAB/G gasp, naturally. "Omg, does it mean I have a chance to get my chocolate starfish glassed?"

I'll let you guess who said that.

"Everyone is free to make their asshole a candle holder if they want, dude," I say. "I haven't done the deed because I'm waiting for the right time."

"Now, if your mixture is bright red," says Mrs. Fannybottom, "it's time to add a rune. Please, scribble the 'Wealth' rune on a piece of paper and toss it into the pot and chant something. It doesn't have to be anything specific, but it has to be from the heart."

"Care to do this one?" says the dingus.

"Care to fuck off?" I say while I scribble the rune. Thanks, American education system. Don't know how the fuck I should do my taxes, but runes? Those are carved into my mind. Literally. Botched lobotomy by kidnapping cult Nr. 7. "My sex life is none of your business. And I certainly don't care to know about yours."

"Ah, but you do, brah," says Aiden, grabbing a pen and flipping it between his fingers. "You see, you and I are the same. We don't have partners, we have people we use when they are convenient. You think Lee and me love each other? Our partnership is purely transactional."

"Who the fuck is asking you any of this? Leave me alone." I grab the paper, toss it into the cauldron, and say 'Ravioli, Ravioli, Give me the Formuoli' a few times. "If your insistence with talking to me was to tell me all about how loveless your relationship is, I suggest r/RelationshipAdvice on Reddit. It's full of weird incels like you."

"Brah," he says, fake-wincing and grabbing his chest in mock pain, "you're killing me. Here I'm trying to tell you that we are kindred spirits."

"You are telling me that my relationship is a farce. You're lucky I don't punch you in the heart for real."

"Now, children," says Mrs. Fannybottom, literally stirring a pot with a wooden spoon stuck between her asscheeks, "we are in the last stretch. The last step is easy. Put the liquid in a flask while adding one silver nail to it. It will add to the warding effects, and will be good against evil spirits, vampires, werewolves-"

Okayden screams almost immediately. I can see smoke coming from his hands. Poor baby.

"...And others."

"I'm not saying it's a farce, brah. I'm saying that it's more transactional than you think. After all, you do need him and his support to get your dream club. If you were to break up, it would be fair to say that your dreams of having a support group would fall apart, right?"

I don't like where this is heading. "I mean, sure? But that happens to be just a... not a coincidence, but... how can I put this?"

"A convenience," he says, leaning in, almost touching my face. Swoons from weird broopies can be seen all around. "It's convenient. One comes from the other. A quid pro quo."

He smells like blueberries and cheese funk. And entirely too close. "That would be a very sad way to see any relationship. People using each other."

"A realist way, maybe," he adds. He grabs the pot and puts the liquid on a thermos. Okay? "You are using Hayden the same way I'm using Lee. It is our bad boy way."

"So, what do you get out of this weird je ne se why with Lee?" I say. I don't think I'm using Hayden, am I not? Of course not! I love the dingus. Even though I sometimes don't see his point of view. And diminish his dreams. And maybe but heads with him more than I want to. Hmm...I'm really not liking where this is going.

"Well, she gets an agent she can use to cause a little bit of chaos while protecting herself, and I... well, that's for me to know, and you to find out."

The bells ring right there and then, moving the students out, and the plot along with it.

"Look, brah, all I'm saying is that you can't escape being a bad boy forever," he says, grabbing his back and putting it over one shoulder only, like all cool kids do. "Someday down the line, things will get dicey. You will have to either accept the reality that there are things we can't change, or go mad trying to escape your reality. After all, isn't the point of Camus' Sysiphus parable that one has to find happiness in the certainty of absurdity? The only way you are happy, my dear Sysiphus, is to accept that the rock will always fall. Don't fight the rock. Embrace it. And when you're ready to admit that, I'll be here, being a friendly brah."

And with that, he makes like tree and fucks off, leaving me with a cauldron, and a seed of doubt. There's no way I don't love Hayden! He's my bear. My Babyboo. My chocolate thunder. I won't betray him or use him in any way. Our relationship is as strong as bricks. Thick bricks.

Right?

Right?

Suddenly, Brayden. Just, Brayden, all over my face with his hot, thick, smelly... sweater. Standing right in front of me with his phone in his hands.

"so, anything good happened in the last 4 minutes or so?" he asks with a grin only reserved for gossipy old Asian ladies.

"What now?" I ask as I scoop my trusty binder and try to shimmy some potion in it, to no avail.

"nothin', nothin'," he whispers. "it's just... wanna explain to me why y'all the most popular ship on Twitter all of a sudden?"

I'm about to ask what kind of patchouli he's been smoking when he shows me his phone. There, Leelan's Twitter account, with a picture of both me and Aiden, close. Very close. With the hashtags #ayai #ship #chokemedaddy.

Well, fuck me.