A week after the freshman move-in and activities fair, Barden University had begin to settle down. There was a bit of a scramble from the freshman the day classes started, but now the students had transitioned into the college life.
Donald breathed in the fresh air of fall as he walked through the quad towards the parking lot to meet up with Bumper.
"H-hey! Excuse me, Donald?"
Donald turned to find the weird illusionist from the activities fair trailing behind him. Not looking forward to the awkward social interaction, Donald puffed his cheeks out and put on his best smile.
"Hey, Benjamin Applebaum right?"
"You... you know my name?" The boy grinned, unable to hold in his delight.
"And apparently you know mine." Donald observed.
"Ha ha, yeah, I made sure to remember all of the Trebles' names- current members and former members."
"That's... that's a little creepy."
"Sorry, I'm probably coming off a little too strong."
Donald slowly nodded in agreement.
"I'm just so thrilled to finally meet you guys in person. You all changed my life. Even the small things. For instance, that hair product advice you posted on your blog! My hair has been as moisturized and curly as I could have ever wanted it."
"... You read my blog?" Donald knew he had a pool of readers, but he never expected to meet a fan who actually took his advice. He was suddenly thankful that he hadn't posted about the awkward situation from the activities fair.
"So, I bet you guys are excited for auditions? Looking forward to having new members to crush the competition?"
"Yup. Always looking forward to memorizing new Treble names. Are you going to be auditioning?"
"Yes!" Benji answered in disbelief. "It has been my dream to become a Treble. I just hope I didn't get off to the wrong foot the other day."
Donald nodded once again in agreement. "Well, I mean, sometimes Bumper can get his ego too over inflated when fans come up to talk to him after he has performed. He doesn't know how to handle compliments nicely. You aren't the only person he has shut down."
"I don't blame him, he is an astounding talented person."
From the parking lot, Bumper felt a shiver. It was a terrible shiver. It was one of those shivers he felt when he was creeped out by something. Looking for the source, he spotted the weirdo magician who had asked for his e-mail speaking it up with his best friend.
"Awww hell nah." He muttered under his breath. But wait, why was this weirdo talking to Donald? Maybe he was trying to get more information on Bumper? He did send a friend request on Facebook after all...
"Donald!" He yelled in panic.
Alerted by the frightened call, Donald quickly did a 360 scan of the area. He spotted a waving Bumper motioning him to come over.
"Look it's Bumper!" Benji exclaimed as he began walking over to the Treble leader who suddenly began shaking his head no. Confused with the situation, Donald followed after the fan boy.
" 'Sup Bump." Donald greeted as the two fist bumped.
"Hey Donald." Bumper snapped his head towards Benji. "Billy right? Look kid, Donald and I have some important Treble matters to attend to, do you mind if I steal him away from you?" He decided to let the kid down easy this time.
"Oh no, no! I don't want to interfere with any Treble matters! It was nice talking you you Donald."
Bumper recoiled in disgust when Benji patted Donald on the back and Donald actually responded with, "You too, seeya."
Horrified, Bumper quickly dragged Donald out of ear shot of Benji. "You better thank me, I totally saved your ass back there."
"Hey he isn't that bad you know. He kind of reminds me when you were fan-boying the Trebles when you first came onto campus."
Bumper gasped over dramatically, "You take that back."
"He reads my blog!"
"I do too!"
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It had been a good fours days after aca-initiations. Benji was still bummed out. Jesse tried to comfort him, but he understood. The Trebles needed the best of the best, he just needed to train harder and audition again next year. Sick of seeing Benji play half heartedly with his Star Wars action figures, Jesse had kicked his roommate out of the room to get some fresh air.
Walking with his head down, Benji aimlessly followed the brick paths decorated around the campus. As he neared the library he heard "oohhs" and "ahhs". He looked up to see a crowd gathering around next to the library. Curious, he joined into the crowd.
"Pick a card! Any card!"
It was Unicycle, he was performing tricks and cracking jokes. Benji felt a pang of sadness hit him, seeing the happy Treble reminded him of his failure, however as the performance went on, Benji found himself caught into the crowd's excitement.
Nearing the end of his performance, Unicycle noticed Benji in the audience. If he remembered correctly, Benji had auditioned for the trebles. His info sheet said his hobbies included close-up magic.
"Hey!" He pointed at Benji. "You're Benji right? The one into magic? Would you like to entertain the audience with a trick before I close up the show?"
Benji was shocked. He had never performed for an audience this big before. But he knew what to do, this was his calling after all. "Ah! But I'm not even prepared to do any tricks. It's not like I can just pull flowers out from thin air!" Quickly reaching into his sleeve, he pulled out the small bouquet of flowers that were hiding in his sleeve compartment. He handed the flowers to a girl who was standing near him. The audience cheered. He performed two other tricks before giving the show back to Unicycle who finished by making a bird disappear from its cage.
After fans finished meeting and greeting with Unicycle, Benji got the chance to approach him.
"Good job out there Benji, we should perform together some other time." Unicycle grinned.
"Thank you, I would love to very much." Benji bowed to the older boy. "But, how did you know I had tricks ready?"
"C'mon man, a magician always knows when another magician has a trick up their sleeve."
The two continued to talk about their favorite tricks and how they had learned. From the second floor of the library, a suspicious glare hovered over the two of them.
"That weirdo is trying to wiggle his way into my life." Bumper snapped the book he held open closed as he dramatically turned away from the window. "I can't let this continue."
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"Greg! Steven!" Benji huffed as he jogged to catch up with the two blond Trebles.
"Hey Benji!" The two greeted happily. Despite Bumper telling them not to interact with Benji, they had gotten themselves acquainted with the freshman. At first they were hesitant and dodgy when he came up to them and other Trebles to chat, but he talked with them so often now that they disregarded Bumper's commands.
"Congrats on winning Regionals guys. I heard about the fight though, did anyone get hurt?"
"Nope, just the window." Greg laughed.
"Oh, phew, that's good. Man, sometimes I wish there was more I could do to help you guys out."
"Well, actually..." Steven started. Greg and Steven exchanged similar glances. Steven continued, "You can apply to the ICCA as a student volunteer to help with tech stuff at competitions. It's a small job and you would be helping out other groups too, but you'd be able to see us backstage before we perform."
"That's perfect! I'm going to go apply right away!" Benji dashed off to his dorm.
"Do you think we did the right thing?" Greg pondered. The two exchanged looks again and shrugged. They knew Bumper would kill them for this if he found out it was them who suggested it, but they also thought it would be funny to watch a fuming irritated Bumper every time he saw Benji.
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"What the hell is this?" Bumper barked. He had just entered the Treble house to find Benji playing video games with Michael, Brian, and Hat.
"Uhm, we're playing video games Bumper." Michael answered with a matter-of-fact tone.
"With this kid? No non-Trebles in the house!" Bumper shouted angrily.
"Wow. Calm down Bumper, he's a good friend." Brian piped up this time.
"He's a good friend? Good friend? Good friend?" Bumper thought in deep breaths Bumper tried to calm himself down.
"Treble rehearsals in ten minutes, get your asses ready. You." Bumper pointed at Benji. "Outta here."
The guys groaned as they turned off their system and said good bye to Benji.
"We were just trying to have fun." Hat mumbled.
"YOU'RE RUINING MY LIFE HAT!" Bumper screeched.
He had to come up with a solution to this.
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"...Bumper. Ae you kidding me. This is just mean." Donald stated as he stared at the poster Bumper had just tacked to the Treble house's bulletin board. It was a picture of Benji with large bold words declaring: "BEWARE BENJI. DO NOT TALK TO OR INTERACT WITH."
Jesse stared in disbelief. "Yeah, what the hell Bumper? He's my friend and my roommate, you can't just go bullying him like that."
"Yeah Bumper, that's completely unfair. He's a good guy." Unicycle protested.
"Yeah!" The rest of the Trebles chimed in. All of them but Bumper had made friends with Benji at one point during the year. Sure Benji got a little weird at times, but he was still a good fun guy to them.
"Shut it. I'm the leader. These are my rules. Finals are soon. I don't want this fool taking up our time anymore. If you have any complaints, there is the door." Bumper firmly planted his feet on the ground, prepared to cut losses.
Jesse was ready to stomp out of the Treble house, but before he could make a move, Donald ripped the poster off of the wall and crumbled it in front of Bumper's face. He shoved the ruined paper into the trash can on his way to the door, slamming it closed as he left.
The Trebles stood speechless and shocked. They couldn't do anything but stare at Bumper. They needed Donald for beat boxing and rapping- Unicycle, Kolio, and Jesse weren't ready to fill in his shoes yet.
"Shit." Bumper muttered. He quickly made for the door. The other Trebles could hear Bumper calling Donald to come back as he ran after him.
"Should we go with him?" Jesse finally asked, breaking the silence.
"No... Mom and Dad will make up." Greg answered softly. "They always do."
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When Bumper left to become a back-up singer, none of the Treble's were against it when Jesse suggested bringing Benji in to replace Bumper, in fact they welcomed it. Benji had no problems fitting in with the rest of the Trebles, he was practically an honorary one throughout the year. They were glad to have Benji on the team- although it did get weird when Benji sniffed Kolio during practice and announced that they were using the same deodorant.
End.
Notes: I hope I didn't make Bumper into too much of a huge jerk (although he kinda is).
- I'm assuming Unicycle knows magic tricks since he went to clown camp (which was said in the deleted scenes).
- Also about the Mom and Dad thing with Bumper and Donald, I kinda envision since they are the only seniors that Bumper would be the tough-love Dad who only cares about results while Donald actually took care of the boys and got to know them well.