this one shot was written for Amindaya for her latest fanart given to me for Rasta Guy (the link is the last on my profile). it takes place at a Solo and Ensemble choir competition, which i have attended several times (much like drama one i had to staff in my freshmen year), so i drew on my bits of background info for this.

and what can i say, the scenario given to me was too cute to pass up! so, here it is.

friday, march 23, 2007. 8:17am.


"Justin, what did you think of that last group, the one from Norman?"

"Their shirts suck."

The girl with the tidy mass of little braids running amok over her scalp wrinkled her round nose. "God, will you be serious for once in your friggin' life?"

"Jilly, I am always serious." Maybe it was a bad moment in choosing to cross one eye and roll the other in a circle, my mouth twisted into something silly and probably annoying; yeah right, I'm never serious.

"Oh my god, I give up! You can walk to the score boards by yourself, you burke."

I relaxed my face with a laugh, lightly tugging on her retreating braids; "Hey, Jilly, c'mon...I'm only messin' with ya!"

Flicking a glare over her shoulder at me, she spouted off, "That's what I'm talking about. Catch ya later."

Hmph. Some people just don't get a good joke. I mean...the Norman choir were wearing maroon shirts with the school logo printed on the left breast. L-ame. Although, our choir outfits aren't that great either. They're this red-black iridescent dress-shirt thing, and we are all required to wear black slacks and shoes to complete the picture; the number of tomboys in our choir ensured that the girls weren't stuck wearing skirts this year. I'm a tenor, which means I'm in the third row, middle section, so what I wear isn't really as important as the sopranos and altos of the front rows. Still; we have to all wear the same thing so that we can appear to be uniformly retarded.

Walking towards the courtyard that exists in a square right smack in the middle of the school, I was just glad that I at least know my way around; I go to school in this building, after all. The local Solo and Ensemble is being held at my school this year, which pretty much sucks in that we had to be here at five-thirty in the morning, because the first group was scheduled to go at just after seven. Yaysville.

So. I'm spending my Saturday here at school, competing against who knows how many other schools, trying to get Ones in all our categories. If I remember correctly, we have two solo entrants, one duet, one quartet, and then the whole group. I've participated in the group over two hours ago, but one of my friends was in the duet, so I thought to go check out the scores posted in the cafeteria.

I passed the concession stand being run by STUCO, and since cans of pop are only fifty cents, I bought two. Vault; drinks like a soda but kicks like an energy drink. Yeah, baby.

There were people hanging out at the boards, looking at the scores and pointing out ones they had some interest in, while others just glanced and drifted off. But, let me see--ah, they haven't posted the duet score, even though it was almost half an hour ago. Maybe it was a tough call, or something. Deciding to stick around for a bit, I noticed that the Norman choir, despite having dorky shirts, have been scoring a solid One in every category; with the exception of receiving a Two in their duet category. I heard that they sang something from some movie on that one, but that one of them was a bit off-key; Jilly went and watched that one, I think.

Our choir received a One in group and in the quartet, but I seriously doubt that they'll announce it over the intercom on Monday; they only ever announce the band scores at their competitions, because nobody ever seems to give a rat's ass about choir. Morons. At least our band and orchestra are just as good as the choir. Our football team, however; that's a whole different story. We lost homecoming. Homecoming. To a loser team. Because we suck.

One of the board officials went up and started entering scores, and I waited to see how the duet scored, chugging the last third of my can before crinkling it up into my fist.

"Hey."

The woman was still writing out some other school's name.

"Um, hey!"

Finally realizing that someone was talking to me, I tore my attention from the boards and looked at the teen standing just in front of me; my god, that's some red hair. Ok, so it's orange hair; even gelled, a chunk of it fell into his eyes, causing me to self-consciously shift my weight to my other leg.

"Yeah?"

His teeth flashed slightly as he gave a little smile, relaxed as he stated, "See over by the trash can?"

I lazily glanced that way and noted the cute-enough girl standing there with her long brown hair in two braids and her hands clasped in front of her; "Yeah?"

He shifted slightly, seemingly growing embarrassed the longer he stood there; his hand reached up for the back of his neck and hair, a light pink tingeing his face and causing the small band of freckles over his nose and upper cheeks to stand out from his otherwise crystal clear skin.

"Well, she thinks you're pretty cute, and was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving her your email address or something."

My shoulders rolled into a liquid shrug; "Sorry, I don't date-"

He immediately backed off, raising a hand and giving an apologetic grin; "Ah, I'm sorry for bothering you the-"

"-Girls."

Startled, he froze into place, his grin melting off as he blinked at me; "Huh?"

I cocked my head to the side for a moment, seemingly in thought before I straightened and asked, "You have a cell phone?"

Puzzled, his posture relaxed as he answered, "Why?"

I ignored the question, asking, "Do you?"

Frowning slightly, he looked at me; "Yeah, but-"

"Can I see it?"

"No." He was staring at me as if I were a freak, but he's just too cute to allow him to walk away!

"Please? For a moment? Here, you can have this Vault for the trouble."

A light of pleasure ignited in his eyes when I held out the can, before it dulled back into suspicion. "What are you gonna do to it?"

I flashed him my 'sweetest' smile and hoped that he wasn't diabetic; "Nothing bad, I promise."

He gave a glance towards the girl before he turned back to me and gave in with a sigh, digging into his pocket and producing a silver flip-phone. I handed him the can and took the warm phone into my hand, flipping it open and smiling a bit at the picture of the girl by the trash can giving a goofy-anime face. You know, where they drag down the eye and corner of their mouth.

"She's not an ex-girlfriend, is she?"

His face turned dark even as his nails picked at the tab to the can; "No, Amber's my cousin."

I was still smiling even as I began pushing the button that brought up his phone menu; Contacts was the one I was looking for, so I pressed it.

"She is pretty cute, though."

"Uh, ok...what are you doing?" He tried to get close to see what I was messing with, but I pulled back and smoothly pressed a hand to his chest, keeping him at bay. He jerked away from my touch with an even darker face than before, looking down at the can a moment before glaring at me.

"What's your name, by the way?"

He frowned at my question, but answered, "Finley."

I flashed him an exuberant grin; "Justin."

And with a few more 'pips' and clicks, I flipped the phone shut and handed it back to him, saying, "Thanks, Fin. Keep the can, all right?"

He stared at me, and I couldn't help giving a faint flush; I might be smooth, but I can still become flustered.

"What did you do?"

I shrugged slightly; "Put my number in there. It's under Justin Krueger."

Mouth falling open in surprise, his light-blue eyes widened. "Why?"

Being impulsive, I ducked forward and pressed a damp kiss onto his parted mouth, my hand lightly gripping his side before I pulled back with a grin; "My dad might have said that I can't date girls until I'm eighteen, but he never said anything about kissing cute boys."

He was frozen into place, his eyes unfocused as he refused to look at me; even as I walked away, I glanced back to see a smile flickering across his face, his knuckles pressed to his mouth. And he finally collected himself enough to dash off, running to the girl by the trash can, their heads pressing in close together as she chattered off excitedly.

He'd look a lot cuter if he didn't have to wear one of those lame maroon shirts.

---

"Justin! Hey, Jus!"

I glanced up, seeing Jilly and Greg heading in my direction, weaving through the crowd to my side.

"Hey guys, how'z it goin'?"

Greg popped his neck with a grimace; "I'm sick of this already."

Jilly rolled her eyes and elbowed me in the side; "You see the score for the Duets?"

"Uh, no, I got distracted."

My smile was slick enough that she narrowed her eyes, asking, "With what? You didn't push someone into a trash can again, did you?"

I laughed; "Nope. I kissed a guy instead."

"My god, will you be serious?"

"I'm not lying! He's a guy from Norman-"

Speaking of which, I noticed a head of carrot-colored hair moving within a tight band of people wearing maroon; I pointed quickly, saying, "Look, the one with orange hair!"

Seeing her incredulous expression, I cupped my hands around my mouth and called, "Oi, Finley!"

He jerked his head up, whipping his face in my direction and going rigid at seeing me, his mouth falling open in shock. I waved, and his whole face and neck turned a dark red even as he ducked away. Aw, don't turn away!

Pouting, my arm drooped back to my side; "Well, I never thought to ask if he wanted me to kiss him."

"Dude...you are something else." Greg's arm draped over my shoulders as he sang this into my ear; I laughed and pushed him off me, my palm going up to his stubbly cheek as I shoved him away. Glancing back towards Finley, I saw him subtly watching me, his eyes jerking away from mine when our gazes caught.

Oh sweet, he's interested.

---

A buzz startled me, my fingers hurriedly digging out my vibrating phone from my pants pocket; an unknown number stared at me from the display, and I hit the button to answer it, bringing it to my right ear as my other hand covered my left. "Hello?"

There was a slight pause, and then a voice said, "Justin?"

"Yeah...who's this?"

"Um...Finley."

I jerked away from the brick wall that had supported my leaning back, a grin spreading across my face. "Hey, what's up?!"

"You uh...you know where the trophy cases are at?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Can you...meet me here?"

"Yeah! Ok!"

"All right."

He hung up quickly, and I couldn't help pumping a fist and hissing a quiet 'yesssss!' Pulling away from the cafeteria, I smoothly walked down the hallway to the one that leads to the student parking lot; I ran my fingers through my dark hair and adjusted my shirt, glancing down at my pants to make sure that I didn't have anything to be ashamed of sticking to my legs or something.

And yeah, my stomach was fluttering when I turned the corner and saw orange hair standing by itself in a mostly empty corridor; most of the schools have left by now, just a few of the last ones to compete. Forcing my gait to remain suave, I walked over to where he was humming something to himself and bouncing lightly on the pads of his feet.

"Fin?"

Startled, he looked over and gave a nervous smile, saying, "I hate that name."

"Oh...so just Finley?"

"Or Ley, whichever." He shifted his weight back to and forth, his hands held behind him.

My fingers ran up and smoothed back my hair from my forehead; "So..."

Pink was on his face again, but he didn't seem to hesitate in finally moving forward, his arms reaching out and bringing me in for an easy kiss, his fingers cupping the back of my neck. Oh hell yes. Lips moved against each other for a few sizzling moments, and then he pulled back, his eyes laughing.

"My bus is waiting, but I thought I should return the favor."

For once, I felt flabbergasted; "Why?"

Grinning, he looked me in the eyes and winked; "Because my mom might not like me kissing boys, but what she doesn't know, can't hurt me."

Hell, I'll kiss to that.


A/N: ah, the cuteness abounds! (short circuits)