Annoying A/N: Where is the HUMOR, people? (dodges ninja stars) No, I didn't mean forgiving me in any way for being too slow. I mean, where has the humor gone from this story? I was rereading chapter 4 and 5 and almost peed myself. Even I was shocked that I was so funny (no matter how much of an overestimation this must be)! I mean seriously? "Mitch, you have gotten nine over one fifty on the test, and you are therefore expelled." LOLOLOL.

It'll be hard work to revive it, but I'll try!

I also noticed that it's annoying to say "lol" in between paragraphs of the story, and that the dashes didn't appear after being published. I can't edit them anymore-the documents have been deleted-but I'll keep a keener eye from now on!

Recap: The photo was dimly lit but each seemingly erotic feature of Blossom's upper body angle was distinct, complete with her waves of red bed hair strands cradling her face and tumbling over her milky white skin. She looked as if they were in the middle of…

Boomer slapped the photo from his brother's grasp and began to tear it in half. Brick laughed, pausing Boomer and making him seem smaller. "I've got copies. I'm not stupid."

"W-what do you want?" Boomer stuttered.

Brick only smirked in reply.

Chapter 14: Now I Understand

Brick released him, and Boomer resisted tumbling to the floor on his rear like a weakling. Brick started to walk away, leaving Boomer against the wall, but stopped when Boomer called after him.

"You don't know what you want!" he yelled. "You just want to torture me with that photo and—and—"

"Well, it looks like you figured it out," Brick flatly said. "Now that wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Boomer's jaw quivered.

Brick spat at the ground near his brother's feet, and hands in pockets, left with no intrusions.

Blossom's POV

"I'm definitely with you, Blossom," Mary Thompson told me as we headed towards our classroom, pushing her glasses up her nose. "And Elmer is with you, too. Right, Elmer?"

"Uh-huh." Speaking as if there was phlegm clinging to the back of his throat, he nodded with a geeky smile on his face. I grinned at them both. As we grew from the children we once were, the Mary's self-consciousness increased extensively, meaning she improved herself a lot from when we first met. She is now petite, learned how to use makeup, and keeps her smooth brown hair neat at the nape of her neck. Still, though a timid-looking thing, she speaks her mind.

It really wasn't a surprise that Elmer Sglue got over his teeny crush on Buttercup and moved to Mary instead. Her confession was straightforward and almost publicly announced—and his answer was straightforward, too. He fainted.

But despite how much prettier Mary's gotten, Elmer doesn't seem to have upgraded himself at all. Still constantly picked on and always being saved by girls (Mary, my two other sisters and myself), I wonder why Mary doesn't set her standards higher.

However, I'm ashamed to admit I wouldn't be able to imagine Mary with a cool guy at school. After all, she doesn't negotiate with men unless directly involved with them. She gives her male lab partners a hard time, too.

"Eh? What's so funny?" Mary blinked at me.

"Oh. Nothing." The classroom was getting nearer.

"S-so how are you going to campaign for your position, Blossom?" Elmer asked, almost surprised at his daring to speak.

"I'm not actually that sure. I'll think of something."

"Oh come on! She's a Powerpuff! She can't get any more popular than that," Mary said. "Those other kids are morons for wanting to start uproar by voting for someone they don't even know, a potential troublemaker. People can't get enough of having spice in their lives."

"Hmmm," I said, as we entered the door.

The shock was electrifying.

"EEEEE!" A hyperactive brunette jumped in my face, screeching with a few others behind her—a number of people I couldn't count, because, after all, she was in my face. "Ohmigawd, ohmigawd, ohmigawd, is it truuuueee you and candidate Brick used to daaaate?" she cried. The others hopped up and down. I could tell by the tufts of hair that rose and descended above her head as my gaze whipped around.

This was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. I could hardly understand it, let alone find the words to say, even with my advanced way of thinking. "Where did you—I mean, what are… Who-who are you?"

"Sinchn! Snschihanakow!" She screamed again. Elmer and Mary cupped their hands over their ears. "I've been a fan of yours since I was born!"

Mary stepped up. "Then that means you voted for her, right?" she asked.

"No! I voted for Brick, and so did all my friends!" she said excitedly. This time, because of Mary, she stepped back a little, so I was able to get a better glimpse of her "friends". They were still forever hopping up and down. To add more pressure to my sanity, some of them were boys.

"What did you say your name was, again?" I asked her wearily.

"Sinshana!" Tiny bits of spit sprayed onto my face. "Sinshana Coe!"

What a common name.

I rubbed my temples. Elmer cowered from the bouncing crowd before us, and Mary looked so agitated and so confused that I made sure to speak before her. "And why was it again that you voted for Brick despite being a fan of mine… since you were… born?"

Sinshana was still excited at the prospect of even speaking to me. "Because!" she finally squealed after hopping about three times. "Since you and Brick might have a bit of romantic spaaark, maybe this feudal atmosphere will kick it up a notch! Huh? Riiight? Am I riight? Yeah!" The group behind her cheered.

I sighed. "May I remind you that in whatever relationship Brick and I are in, it will not affect the quality of the candidates. Also, voting should not be a matchmaking—"

"OHMIGAAAAAWD," Sinshana cried, cutting me off. (A nerve popped on Mary's right temple.) "I toootally forgot about the other candidate! Gosh! Two boys fightin' fer Blossom's hart! 'Course, you'd want him to be runner up (vice president), then you'd two'd go with your buddy-buddy thiiiing." All of a sudden, she let out an extremely exaggerated gasp, and my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

"But then—if Brick got to be pres, and you vice pres, he'd have his way with you!" she squealed, and the group accompanied her. This girl probably hasn't taken a single thing serious in her life. And the rest… they're just messed up. She gasped again. "But—if the two boys grabbed the positions, then they'd KILL EACH OTHER!"

They all screamed like girls in a horror movie.

"Argh! All right, back to your seats!" I cried out in frustration, and stamped my way forward, parting them like the Red Sea. They watched in admiration as I thumped past, Mary and Elmer following closely behind before returning their seats, because just then the teacher arrived, along with a flurry of students who followed her to class.

Boomer and my sisters all took their seats with me. I gazed over at my fellow candidate. Luckily he didn't get caught up with Sinshana, especially with me there. It would have been an even bigger mess than it already was… though maybe my talk with her (if what happened back there could even be sensibly considered a "talk") did expose me to the different aspects and the situations likely to occur depending on each outcome.

"Bloss?" Boomer blinked at me. "You okay?"

"Ah." I hadn't moved my gaze from his face. Heat rising, I turned away. "Yeah. M'okay."

He followed suit, and as I side-glanced at him, I noticed blooms of red spreading across his cheeks. I sighed and attempted to focus on class. Talk about awkward.

In the shadows, a red figure in the dark, leaning with a foot against the wall, held what looked like a small stick. Holding up a small, rectangular object, he used it to light a red and orange flame. He gazed closely at it, observing that the flare looked like it was dancing like a red flower with petals tugged in the breeze.

But he noticed something else. Something that made him scowl and look over at it in deep hate. And that was in the core of the flames waltzing harmoniously with red to red, was blue. Blue, disturbing the dance. Blue, in the very middle, as if it were its intention to disrupt them.

He cursed and threw the matchstick on the concrete floor. The smoke was put out momentarily, and a string of smoke drifted upwards. He stared at it for a while.

"Tch," he muttered, and lit another. He transferred it to his cigarette and popped it into his mouth, throwing the matchstick on the floor without so much of a glance. Of course.

"She must be looking for me right now," Brick thought as he blew out a long string of silver from his mouth, the cigarette between his fingers. He wasn't sure when he started smoking. He just accepted a piece one night off the street from a stranger who offered it to him, as if reading everything written in his face. Was it last night?

Brick procured a picture from inside his jacket. He stared longingly at it, and slowly passed his fingers over the redhead in the picture with desire. He pressed it to his mouth, and put it back. He lifted his cigarette to his lips again, hoping Blossom was thinking of him at the same time, with not bitterness nor spite.

Back in the classroom, Blossom sneezed, ran her fingers over her nose, and continued to take down notes. Boomer glanced over at her, but when she did not sneeze again, he returned to his work.

She was not thinking about him at all.

A green figure approached the red.

"Go away, Butch."

He didn't.

"Butch, you're hardly even a main character in this story. Go away."

"I have something to tell you."

Sighing with a single roll of his eyes, Brick planted his other foot on the ground and removed the cigarette. "What?"

"It's about Him."

Class has just ended. The gang grabs their things and prepares to leave the classroom.

"He has a really strong opinion on who should win the role."

Boomer is reminded that he is an assigned cleaner of the classroom that very day of the week, and so is Bubbles.

"Heh. Buzzing in my matters now, is he."

Buttercup marches off to the volleyball court. Mary and Elmer meet up for their date.

"He wants the red Utonium to be vice."

Blossom manages to avoid Sinshana and her groupie, then she is left alone.

Brick tosses the burnt cigarette on the ground and stares at Butch with a narrowed eye. "You seem to talk differently today, Butch. Did your talk with Him sober you up?"

"No."

"Hm?"

Blossom sighed. Alone again. She considered visiting Buttercup and maybe joining in, but it was evident that after their match with the boys, which had taken place during the third chapter, the club had gained a lot more members, and it looked like Buttercup had just occupied the remaining slot.

Blossom gazed down over them, inserting her fingers through the wire net. Buttercup was already their V.I.P.

She smiled lopsidedly to herself, then turned and walked away.

Should she go and fetch Bubbles and Boomer?

She seemed reluctant, but determined to go all the same.

Boomer sweeped the floor, Bubbles dusted the chalkboard erasers.

For a while, the only sound that filled the science was the sound of the broom passing over the floor beneath it and the erasers pounding softly against each other.

"It's been sometime since we've been alone together, huh?" Boomer said nervously, first attempt.

"Mmm. Yeah," she replied. "I can't remember the last time."

Great, the conversation was progressing. "I think I remember," Boomer said, thoughtfully. "It was a night. We were both on our way home." He dropped his gaze and swiped the dust he had collected into the dustpan. "That was when I was still with the boys."

"Ah... yeah." Bubbles' expression fell. As soon as he mentioned the memory, strands of hair shot up at her neck and she had completely frozen. But all he thought of it was the memory he had of still being with his brothers.

All she could think of was how close she was to kissing him. Apparently, he thought nothing of it.

And that wasn't the last time they were alone together. The last time, he was asleep...

The two went on in silence, both lost in different memories.

She was sure now. She was sure of what she was feeling. No more asking herself the question "Why?".

She finally understood.

"Boomer," she began sternly, setting the erasers down on the windowsill.

"Yeah?" He lifted his head to look at her. She stared at him with piercing sky blue eyes, while the sky itself was splotched with red, a glow falling over the both of them. It caught his attention for a moment, the magnificent sea of red.

"Boomer." She called him again.

"Ah-yes?"

This was it.

Somewhere else...

"I didn't speak with him." Butch answered Brick with grave certainty.

A single red eyebrow was raised. "Then how did you..."

His words trailed off, leaving his mouth open slightly as Butch's emerald eyes glowed a sinister green, and an unmistakably effeminate voice exited Brick's younger brother's lips.

"I am Him."

Annoying A/N: Dun-duru-run-dun-duuunnn! I update faster when you guys review. I got one just yesterday and here's what I have, a chapter that gives birth to more questions.

Note: There are some facts in here that were conveniently affirmed by a PPG Children's book (#2 All Chalked Up) by Amy Keating Rogers, published by PSICOM PUBLISHING INC. Good thing I asked to have it bought when I was a kid!

+ Him's eyes are most definitely green, a convenient fact.

+ Mary's last name is Thompson. (I'm so lucky she was called in attendance!)

+ Elmer's last name is Sglue.