Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Zoey 101.
A/N: Hello again to those of you who are still reading. :) Today's update is a bit short, but I need a head start, because I wouldn't like reaching the end of what I've written so far and leave you with nothing for weeks. I've been accepted into the university I wanted and need to prepare life abroad, so free time is rare. As always, the feedback I have received is very much appreciated!
4. Decisions
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It was a lovely, sunny day outside, but then again, there was apparently no time of the year when that wasn't the case at PCA. Stumbling his way over various items and gimmicks that Michael, but mostly Logan had left on the floor; Chase sat down at their dorm's desk, grabbed a piece of paper and cast a glance outside.
The mess in their dorm irked him. One of these days he would have to force his roommates to clean up after themselves (and of course that meant, mostly Logan). But he dreaded the conversation already. Michael was great, however, he enjoyed his freedom of being in an all-male environment a bit too much and Logan…well, he was Logan. He'd already found out who on campus to pay whatever it was he needed to get done and he sometimes expressed genuine disbelief when they asked him to do something himself.
Focusing back on his paper, Chase let the past three and a half week pass through his mind, absent-mindedly nibbling on his pen. Of course it would have been simpler and quicker to write an e-mail, but there was something about putting his thoughts on paper that he liked. He supposed he took after his grandmother in this respect.
"What are you doing?"
Chase slumped back in his chair when the unfortunately already all-too familiar voice sounded from their dorm's entrance and rolled his eyes. "Hello again Logan."
Logan took a bite out of an apple and came over to him. He tried to glance over Chase's shoulder.
"It's awesome weather outside and you're sitting in here, writing? That is so lame on so many levels."
Chase bit back a nasty comment that resurfaced in his mind, and instead calmed himself enough to reply:
"Well, what are you doing here, then?"
"Picking up my basketball?"
If there was anything that Chase had learnt during the short period he'd already spent at PCA it was in how many ways a person could convey both obviousness and the message of 'You're dumb' in one tone of voice.
"Anyhow, what're you writing? Your diary, perhaps? Like a good little girl?"
Logan batted his eyelashes mockingly, before breaking out into self-satisfied laughter. Chase sighed.
"No, Logan. If you must know, I'm writing a letter back home."
Logan furrowed his eyebrows together, uncomprehending. "Why?"
"Because, it is a nice thing to do." Chase said with fake patience."I am a nice person so it follows that I like doing nice things. I know, these things aren't easy to grasp, when you're an uninvolved party, but…"
"Didn't you parents call you, like, yesterday?"
Chase looked up at him, taken aback. It seemed unlikely his self-centered, never too long in their dorm roommate would even take notice of such things, let alone remember them.
"Uh, yeah…" he answered, shifting a little bit uncomfortably in his chair." But we just talked for a couple of minutes, or so. I'm just…you know writing a bit in detail about my first impressions of PCA, the people I've met, what we do for fun, all that kind of stuff. My mom and my gran like to know every last bit. It's a bit annoying, but what can you do? "
"In detail?" There was still an utter lack of comprehension plastered all over Logan's face. "Why would they care that much about what you do when they're not around?"
"Because…well, because…" Chase was flabbergasted at how a person could not grasp the concept of something that simple. He extended his arms in a helpless gesture. "'Cause they're my family, that's why. They're supposed to care about these sorts of things! Maybe you should try it sometime, you know."
"What? Write to my dad?"
"Yeah, why not?"
Logan chortled, before giving him a disbelieving look. "My dad's been in Japan shooting a new blockbuster movie fortwo months now. You really think he's gonna care about a girly letter about the color of our dorm?"
"Hey, that's not the sort of thing I write about-wait." Chase's eyes widened. "Your dad's in Japan? But…didn't he see you off or anything on your first day here?"
"No." Logan replied with a casual shrug. "But I got Chauncy to look after my stuff, so it's cool."
"It's cool?" There were all sorts of things wrong about a father not seeing his son off on his first day at a boarding school, Chase was sure of it. He couldn't imagine his parents traveling around on another continent on such a day, knowing they wouldn't see him for the next few months.
"Yeah, what's the big deal?"
"Uh, nothing…nothing." A small stirring…the tiniest flicker of sympathy flashed through Chase's mind, but it died down quickly, when Logan threw the remainders of his apple in the trash, picked up his basketball and remarked tauntingly:
"Well, have fun writing to your momsy and gramsy! Oh, if you're wondering; while you're in here being a sissy, I'll be out there, being awesome."
Chase rolled his eyes. Perhaps he couldn't blame Mr. Reese for being glad to be rid of this boy for a whole semester.
But the next night, Chase swore he spotted a crumbled paper in the trash with a lot of crossed out lines and a word looking suspiciously close to 'dad'. It could've been Michael's, but there was one line that was neither crossed out nor smudged and it read: 'Forget this. I am awesome.'
.
.
"You ever thought about it that the banana is a really funky fruit, Chase?"
"Uh, no Michael." Chase shifted in his bed, slightly confused. "Can't say I have."
"Well, it is." His friend's voice rang from above. "Do some thinking now. For one thing, it's yellow, right?"
"And…?"
"Yellow's a funny color. I mean, just say it: yellow. Yellow. Yeellooww."
"Yeah. Yellow. Pretty funny. I…guess."
"Okay then. Next…" Michael continued. Chase shook his head. His friend sometimes had the weirdest things to think about. He appreciated that, because their humor was pretty similar and Michael's amusing ramblings were pretty inspiring, when he tried to think of a small sketch or whatever, but sometimes it was downright strange. "It's shaped like a bow. Why would anyone shape a fruit like a bow, if they didn't think: 'Hey, let's make people stop to think about why that fruit isn't straight, but curved?"
"Uh…yeah…"
"The banana's like the ultimate troll in the realm of fruits, is all I'm saying."
"Okay."
"And it's already packed up for you in a way that makes it really easy to open it. As if somehow, the banana tree knew that hungry people were gonna come to eat its babies and it just thought: 'Well, they don't got much time, so I'm gonna package it really user-friendly.'"
"Sure."
"Well, all that put together, is just funky. Don't you think it's funky?"
"It's funk-tastic, I think."
"Yeah."
A loud, exasperated groan interrupted their musings.
"Don't you two clowns ever shut up?"
Chase rolled his eyes (which had become a real habit now), before rolling over his side to look over at the single bed. "We're trying, to have a conversation here, you know."
"Yeah." Michael's outraged voice chimed in. "Why don't you just go back to sleep and have little Logan dreams about yourself and….yourself? Like you always do."
Logan propped his upper body up and glared at them. Which was pretty impressive, seeing as their dorm was already pitch-black.
"I was trying to sleep here. Until your stupid chit-chat woke me up."
"Hey!" Michael defended angrily. "We were talking about really important things here."
"Oh, yeah. "Logan mocked back mercilessly. "Like how the banana's just so funky?"
"Oh, come on now, Logan." Chase tried to pacify the argument that was on the brink of breaking out. "You never talk about random, silly stuff with your friends just because?"
There was a pause, which was somewhat unexpected. Then, Logan's voice rang back over to them, louder, more annoyed and laced with more blatant obviousness than ever before.
"No."
"Uhm." Chase stuttered intelligently, a bit taken aback. "Oh."
"So what do you talk about then?" Michael asked confused. Sure, there were a lot of topics that most boys loved to talk about like sports, games, girls whatsoever, but that was stuff you could always go on about with your acquaintances, too. The cool thing about Chase was that he never minded any of the utterly random and quirky topics that came to Michael's mind at the moment. That was how he knew he'd found a friend. This easy comfortableness to talk about anything and nothing.
"What's this, the twenty questions?" Logan answered rudely. "We play sports, we play games, we hang out and we bug nerds. Who needs talking? We're guys."
Chase didn't really know how to reply to that. He didn't really care what Logan did as long as he paid somebody to clean up after him, but well, he couldn't help but think…were his cronies his friends? Admittedly, it seemed unlikely. Who would want to be friends with that? And did he even need them? The answer to the second seemed to be a resounding 'no', too.
"Besides." Logan suddenly spoke up again. "I still say that your so-called 'conversation' was just really stupid."
"It was a quality conversation!" Michael fired back immediately. "Maybe you're just a lousy audience!"
"Oh yeah? Well, why don't you two losers get your faces on camera and make a show where you chatter on about your 'quality' topics? Then we'll see what a real audience thinks! You could call it 'The Chase and Michael Super Lame Night Show'."
"Okay, now you're just being…"
"Look boys!" Chase interrupted his friend's impending rant, because frankly, it was going to grate on his nerves if the other two boys started to fight now. "I think we should all just keep it down now and fall asleep, alright?"
"Hey, what I've been saying this entire-"
"Quiet, Logan."
There were faint chuckles coming from the upper bed bunk. Chase raised an eyebrow in the dark.
"You too, Michael."
"Oh, man."
He sighed. "Good night, everyone!"
"Night."
"Whatever, losers."
It was only in that half-asleep state before he drifted off completely that a sudden thought sprung up in Chase's mind.
'The Chase and Michael Show', hmm?
His roommate was stupid, but perhaps he was on to something.
.
.
Two days later, they were running across the campus. Evidently, this didn't stop Michael from regaling one of his one thousand and one tales of the weird things that happened to him all day.
"So anyway, I was all like 'no way, man!' and he was all like 'yes, way man!' and then I said 'Dude, that doesn't even make any sense, so he said-"
"Hey, Michael!" Chase interrupted his friend and nudged his elbow to wait. They had overslept a little and were on the verge of running late for English class (their first period), but he still stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted the assembled crowd near the fountain. "Look at that!"
"What—Why?"
Despite themselves and their tardiness, they made their way over to the crowd. Today, they were in high spirits, anyways, because after the initial shock of having missed their alarm clocks going off, they had to discover that the space normally occupied by Logan's single bed was vacant. Apparently it hadn't taken longer than three and a half weeks for the boy to tire of them and ask to be moved out of their dorm. They'd been positively ecstatic.
That feeling of general euphoria wilted in a split-second when they managed to push through the laughing and hollering crowd and came face to face with that very same single bed. Around them, people were pointing at and taunting the person huddled under the blanks. They shared a look, sighed and simultaneously said with an air of resignment:
"Prank week."
For a couple of minutes they just stayed there, watching the scene. As the panicked cries from under the blanket grew quieter, however, it seemed that the majority of spectators lost interest. Among the slowly dispersing crowd, Chase spotted several faces of the boys Logan hung out with after classes. None seemed very much inclined to help, or at least feel sorry for their… acquaintance?
"Well, I could pretend that I didn't enjoy this." Michael remarked with a grin as most of the audience had scampered off and turned to leave. "But my momma taught me not to lie."
"Yeah…" Chase agreed, but suddenly, something clicked in his mind. "Hey. Wait a minute. There's no way he's gonna make it back to our dorm and to English class on time! I mean, we're running late already!"
Michael sent him a funny look. "So? He never shows up on time."
"Yes, but Mr. Fetchers said that if he showed up late just one more time, he is going to give him detention all Friday afternoons for the next three weeks."
His friend still didn't know what he was trying to tell him.
"And I repeat: So?"
"So…" Chase drew out the word, uncertain himself why he was even bothering. "The try outs for the newcomer's basketball team are the Friday after next Friday!"
They'd all been looking forward to that, ever since it'd been announced three days ago. Even though he was typically not much of a sportsman, Chase did enjoy basketball a lot and Michael had told him that he had two grand passions when it came to physical activities: throwing the round orange thing and football. Logan, the designated jock, of course, had talked of nothing else but how he would totally rock their basketball team.
It was tempting to make him pass up the chance to join. Even though Chase didn't like to admit it, from what he'd seen of Logan's play, there was no way that they would not let him enter the team. Unless of course, he spent the day of the try-outs in detention.
"Well…" Michael looked around helplessly, trying to appear indifferent, but Chase had learnt enough about him to know that it wasn't in Michael's nature to hold serious grudges against anyone and be petty about something like this. "Why would we care about that?"
"Oh, you know…he's our roommate…" At Michael's deadpanned expression, Chase faltered. "Okay, I know he's not a good person at all….like… really at all… but…we are."
His friend made a last attempt to appear uncaring and shrugged. "He wouldn't help us."
Chase laid his hand on Michael's arm. There was a melodramatic tone in his voice (because frankly, all horrendously stupid decisions should be celebrated with some drama).
"We are good people."
A loud, unhappy groan escaped Michael's lips and he glared disdainfully at the blankets hiding their roommate. "Alright. But he better be grateful."
Chase grimaced. "Not likely."
"Yeah, I know."
With a sigh, they walked up to the bed.
"Hey Logan! It's us. You can come out now. Everybody's gone."
He seemed to hesitate for a second, but after a few breaths, Logan peeked out from under the blankets. His cautious gaze flickered over their faces.
"Uh…"
In an exercise of utter selflessness and magnamity, Chase slung his backpack from his shoulder, rummaged through its pockets and pulled out his English textbook and a pen. Bewildered Logan sat up, the blanket slipping to the ground.
"Here, you can take my book." An alarming thought flittered through Chase's mind. "And my shirt and shoes! You can borrow Michael's pants."
"Dude!" Michael yelled and Chase flashed him an apologetic smile. Logan just continued staring at them, as they shrugged off the respective pieces of their clothing.
"What…what are you doing?"
"Saving your hiney, that's what." Michael snarled through gritted teeth, while sending Chase another death glare. Clearly, taking off his pants in the middle of campus had not been in his plans for today.
"Here." They shoved the things into their completely taken off guard roommate's arms. "Now get yourself to English class, before it's too late!"
An undefined expression passed over Logan's face, before he shook himself, leapt off the bed and hastily dressed. Faint disbelief was audible in his voice, as he turned to look at them.
"You…you are so stupid."
Shaking his head, he whirled on his heel and raced for the English building. Chase pointedly kept his gaze anywhere except on his friend, but he felt the nonverbal expression of 'Didn't I tell you?' conveyed in the look Michael gave him.
"Maybe… that's his way of saying thanks?" he tried weakly and wasn't even surprised when the inevitable slap to the back of his head came.
"Yeah. Wonderful." Michael rolled his eyes. Resigned, they both lifted the single bed off the ground and carried it towards their dorm. "And now I'm not only a delinquent, but also out in public without my pants! You know what my grandma's gonna do to me, if she finds out?"
"Nope." Chase shook his head. They both blushed bright red when the first wolf whistles and giggles came their way. "But you're allowed to take me down with you, when she does. If that makes you feel any better."
Michael gave him a look.
"Barely."
.
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A/N: I found the prank pulled on Logan the funniest, if only because he acts so terrified in that one short flashback in 'Prank Week'. :) I don't have much else to say this time around, so I'll just say thanks for reading and hopefully till next time!