I slam my hands against Leeland's locker, trapping the whelp between my arms. "What the shit you think you're doing tweeting slanderous shit?" I yell at him.

Leeland, on the other hand, almost pees himself as he jumps from fright. "It's not slander if it's written. It's libel! Libel, I say!"

I grab him by the collar, raising him tomy eye level. "So you know it's bullshit! I should libel your face against the floor right now!"

"Semantics, semantics!" he says while covering his face. "Look, I'm just doing my job!"

"Your job?"

I get a tap on my shoulders. It's Brayden, shoving his cellphone all up in my face. "you might wanna read this."

Another tweet, this time from the Hill Valley Mountain Woods High's Newspaper, with a photo of me, lifting Leeland, taken from behind reading "BREAKING NEWS: Notorious Bad Boy Ayden Gomez THREATENS Local Journalist For Reporting FACTS and LOGIC!"

The fuck? Who even took this photo? "You're a journalist? Fuck off! You ain't shit!"

"It's true! I'm even Twitter verified!" says Leeland.

"he do be verified," says Brayden. "not even i'm verified. i should get verified. how the fuck you dweeb get verified?"

"I'm verified!" says Harry behind Brayden. "I stream on Twitch while painting Warhammer figurines. Not to toot my own horn, but I get at least 1000 subs per month."

"no cap?" says Brayden with puzzlement in his eyes and perspiration on his pits.

"No cap, boss!"

"See, I told you your fingers are magic!" adds Jungkook.

Leeland perks up, taking out his phone in a second. "Oh, we have a niche microcelebrity in our midst! Can I interview you for the Hill Valley Mountains Wood High Gazette?"

I gently, very gently, slam him against the lockers, snapping at him. "Look, you soft bottom. You either retract this shit, or..."

"Or what?" says Leeland. "You're gonna choke me harder, daddy? Too late. I'm already rock hard."

I get another tap on the shoulder, and once again, is Brayden, with his phone on hand. "Lemme guess, I should read this as well?"

"wow, you're a bona fide nostradamus," says Brayden, licking a lollipop in the least heterosexual way possible. Where did he get that lolli from, anyways?

The new tweet reads "DEVELOPING STORY: Noted Hill Valley Mountain Woods Douchebag Ayden Gomez SEXUALLY ASSAULTS LGBTQ+ JOURNALIST On BROAD DAYLIGHT!" with the same picture as before, but with Leeland sporting a very visible erection. Wait, no, this photo was taken much closer than the last one. Much closer. Almost as if the one who took it was right behind me. And the only one behind me is...

"Brayden, you gossipy bitch!" I yell.

"hey, don't diss the grind. i just became an associate journalist for the school's newspaper!"

"Why the fuck would you do that?"

"what can i say? i wanna get that dopamine rush of owning that sweet blue checkmark."

I tighten my grip around Leeland's collar, pulling him closer to me. "See what you did? Also, I'm not doing anything remotely sexual. Stop being so sexual!"

Leeland leans towards me, yelling/whispering something with his moist, twinky breath. "Don't worry, daddy. CNC is my kink."

"Gross." I immediately drop him like a mediocre rap album. I don't have time to deal with this. But, yet again, I feel a tap on my shoulder and I don't even speak to Brayden anymore, I just grab the phone and see "Breaking: Popular PREDATOR AYDEN GOMEZ Kink Shames Local Journalist. 'It's Horrible,' says Handsome Bystander."

"Oh, dip, huf-po wants to license my photo!" says Brayden. "blue checkmark, here i go!"

I'm not going anywhere with these two. I gotta go to the source if I want this taken down. "I need a word with your editor-in-chief, pronto. Who are they?"

I feel an arm snake around my neck for the second time today, oddly enough from the same person. "Hey there, friend, buddy, besto friendo, my soul sister. Heard you wanna talk to me?"

Of course, Billiam is the editor-in-chief. Kinda forgot that little detail from two seasons ago. Funny how it's biting me in the beezwax right now. I grab him by the collar, spin him around and slam him right next where Leeland was before. The impact is strong enough to open an adjacent locker.

By sheer coincidence, or maybe an act of fate, there is a man sitting on said locker with a jacket over his head and slowly laughing in a very "fufufu" manner. But only for a second before I slam the locker shut.

"What was that?" asks Jungkook.

"What what?" I ask.

"The man. Sitting there," says Harry.

"I ain't see no man nowhere," I say. "And you didn't either."

"nah, there was def a dude there," says Brayden. "no cap."

"Nu-uh. No dude. Hella no cap," I say.

"It could've been a girl, or a non-binary individual," says Leeland. "But I definitely saw he/him/there as well."

Billiam almost beams with joy, mostly because he is slathered in sunscreen. Ginger people, I swear. "Leeland! I need an article about the mysterious locker man, pronto!"

I slam him, gently this time, to get back on track. I don't wanna deal with two weirdos at the same time, let alone three. "Look, you slanderous bitch-"

"Libelous bitch!" he says.

"Semantics, shemantics. You're spreading lies about me, and I want them down!"

"Which lies?" he asks. "I haven't spread any lies so far."

I grab Brayden's phone, much to his protest, and scroll Twitter until I find the image. "This. This thing about me and Aiden."

"What about you and Aiden?" says Billiam.

"This... this..."

"Perfectly innocent image that says nothing but an innocent ship and in no way gives any info or pretends to establish any fact," says Billiam. "Which, may I add, is not hosted on the Hill Valley Mountain Woods Gazette Twitter account, and as such, I am not obliged or required or even allowed to interfere in a third party's social media account. And even if I did, I only see a picture, nothing more."

"The hell you do! You know exactly what this entails, don't you? And how can you say Dickwad McGee here is a third party when he's writing for you?"

"I'm actually an independent contractor," says Leeland.

"And the only thing that matters is what others see," says Billiam. "See, it's not libel if we don't say anything. We just show the image, and let people fill in the blanks. Such is the magic of journalism. That is, if we were to do it, which we didn't, because Leeland is an independent contractor."

"Which I am," says Leeland.

"So... that means that I'm..."

"fucked," adds Brayden.

I drop Billiam, who lands gracefully on his knees. 8.9/10, could use a little more grace on the dismount.

Okay. I don't have a leg to stand on. Great. I tried to use the carrot, and now I'll use the stick. The slamming stick. Saint Don Bosco, forgive me for dipping into my bad boyness, but I have no choice. I cannot let this affect my relationship with Hayden.

I pick up Billiam again to slam him against the table locker when I feel a warm, loving hand on my shoulder. A beefy, sirloin hand, slowly massaged my shoulder. "Babe? Calm down. Look at me. Relax. You're not like this. Calm down. It's me. You're not like this."

Oh, my, fuck. Hayden is doing the 'look at me, calm down' thing to me. To me! Where did he come from? Shit, I went full Morbius mode in front of him. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Babe, I... sorry, but they are being mean to us on Twitter!" I sputter.

"Babe, we don't have Twitter," he says. "Why do you care? Why do we care? I only care about what you think of me and that's it."

"But, Twitter!"

"My love, Twitter is not real," says Hayden. "It's all made up, full of people yelling at each other about racist things they might've said 15 years ago while ignoring droves of pedophiles and rich millionaires making memes and tanking the economy. Touch grass, babe. Who the fuck cares? I care about you, not some image someone posted without context. Let them eat cake and let's love one another. Okay? So what if they want to be mean? Violence will never be the answer. Instead, kill them with kindness."

He's right. God, I feel so dumb, fighting for Twitter posts of all things. I've never been violent, and yet, this was my tipping point? What did I think would happen? Hayden is not gonna un-love moreover some silly Twitter shipment. I gotta learn from him and let it go. He's so wise. I love his butt. His firm, bouncy butt. I have to kill them... with kindness.

"you might wanna read this," says Brayden as he hands his phone to Hayden, who reads it out-loud, for the consideration of our audience.

"Extra: Local Meathead And Partner Of Convicted Sexual Predator Hayden Wilson Advocates For Murder Of Detractors."

Hayden tosses the phone aside and pushes me aside to grab Billiam himself to do what you should never do with any baby: shake him. "You fuck! 'Kill them with kindness' is a saying, not a threat!"

Okay, maybe he's not as funky-fresh zen as I thought. Still, violence will not shut this down, so, let's do the kind thing. A violent kindness.

"Hey, Billiam, buddy, friend, friendo, my best pal," I say as I grab Hayden's arm to signal him to stop. "I have a question for you: isn't the Gazette technically a school club?"

"Yessss," he says as his head lolls back and forth.

"And you know that all school clubs have been disbanded due to funding, right?"

"Yesss," he repeats.

"So, it would be a safe bet to say that you are running an illegal school newspaper, since you are not a club. Right?"

"The word you're looking for is 'unsanctioned,' not illegal," says Leeland.

"That. So, what would you think would happen if word of this reaches the student council? An unsanctioned club running against the wishes of the administration would surely put a big,big damper on the prospects of one editor-in-chief's record that would surely prevent him from getting into the journalism school that he so badly wants to get into, right?"

Billiam's signature grin, for the first time since I've known him, disappears into a serious scowl. "Are you blackmailing me, old pal?"

"See, it's not blackmailing if I don't state a quid-pro-quo. I'm only saying the facts, and letting you fill in the blanks. Such is the magic of journalism. Babe, please release the dingus."

Hayden does as I say and drops Billiam, who has a 4,7/10 landing. Terrible form right there. "Fine, you win. Journalism is once again censored by people in power. I'll delete everything."

"And issue a retraction," I say.

"And issue a retraction," says Billiam. "On the footnote of another unrelated article."

"Fuck off. Full retraction or I'll go to Lee."

"What if I return your 20$?"

"Hmmm... I dunno..." I say.

"I'll even throw a couple of entrances to the Shitti State Fair. It's coming to town today and my cousin, Dee Exposito, is a carny there. You can take Hayden there is you want. I'll be a good date!"

"i'm also here," says Brayden.

Hmm, a carnival date? That would be fun. Haven't had a date with Hayden yet, so this is a good chance. "What do you say, babe?"

"It sounds fun," says Hayden. "I've never been to a carnival."

"Then, it's settled," I say.

I soon have 20$ and two fair tickets in my hand, along with a half-assed apology.

You know, this might be fun! A date with Hayden, a fair, food, possible amebiasis. This is gonna be fun!