Hello guys/gals/people/aliens, this is my first fanfic, so please leave comments, criticisms, advice on how I can get better at this regarding anything from grammer, plot, pace, formatting etc. Thank you all for reading :)

Even if I can't be a Trebles, I can still be part of a capella life, Benji thought as he signed up to be a backstage assistant at the ICCA semi finals. He contented himself with the brief interactions with all these talented a cappella groups and being part of the work behind the scenes that made performances possible.

The Bellas had just finished their set, which was a slightly changed rendition of what they previously performed. The commentators didn't miss it and though they implied it was a bad idea, Benji thought that Beca's addition certainly improved it.

"Trebles…." Benji's voice falters as he approaches Jesse and the rest of the Treblemakers, who seem to be in a familiar stand-off with the Bellas. Yet something was very wrong, Beca was standing so far apart from both the Bellas and Jesse, his room mate who has been crushing on her all year. Jesse's face was a mask of pain, Beca's slowly morphing into the stony look of contempt that was her defensive mechanism.

The rest of the Bellas were looking anywhere but the confrontation between Aubrey, Beca and Jesse. Benji couldn't blame them, Aubrey Posen was already intimidating at the best of times and now her rage was a terrible thing to behold. Her jaw trembled, struggling to form coherent words to hurl at Beca, or more likely, to stop from puking.

"It's time to bring the pain" Benji awkwardly mumbled in an attempt to move things along. The Treblemakers roused themselves, shouting words of encouragement to each other as they prepared to go on stage.

"Well, if this is what I get for trying". With a shrug of her shoulders to conceal her hurt, Beca strode away as swiftly as she could, leaving Jesse and the Bellas behind.

"Beca! Beca, wait!" Benji called as he went after Beca, her footsteps echoing in the corridor. She did not turn nor stop and he only wanted to offer words of assurance without intruding her private space. So Benji could only look on with frustration as Beca left to goodness knows where. His best friend was going to be devastated, even if they do win the semi-finals. He could understand Beca's pain; she chose to seclude herself most of the time like he did and now that she opened up to the Bellas, they turned on her, or at least failed to support her when she needed it. Life was cruel to those who were different, Benji reflected sadly.

He turned back dejectedly to the backstage and finish up his shift, giving a wan smile to Timothy, the lead singer of the Footnotes, who was leaving with his parents. They did sound really great that night but in his opinion, it was nothing on the best of the Bellas he saw during the riff off.

The bag Timothy's mother was carrying caught his attention. It said "My child is an honor student at JFK high school." The cogs in his head turned and he grinned. He was going to pull off his grandest magic trick yet.

The Trebles unsurprisingly won the semi-finals and the Footnotes took second place, leaving the Bellas third. Nodding to himself, Benji's face was a look of determination as he sought out the organisers. He would be depriving an entire group of their victory on a technicality, but this was for the people he loved and felt kinship with.

Suffice to say, the organisers were embarrassed that they had let a high schooler take part in a collegiate a cappella competition and immediately disqualified the Footnotes, though having left, needed someone to contact and inform them. Gail and John seem to relish that task.

And to Benji's relief, the Bellas were declared second place and could move onto the finals. Now, all he had to do was help his best friend and his crush get back together.

I'm kinda leaving this open to a follow up. It can go either way based on the reading of the last line :) PM or review about it?