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[reallydumbdannyphantomaus]

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ok ok ok so as promised!! here’s chapter 10, the last chapter of part 1! ahhhhhh i’m so excited to move into part 2. i’ve never gotten this far in a fic before and i’m hype. i hope you all enjoy this bitch as well!

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Part 1, Chapter 10

“Fuck,” Kwan said, flapping his hand, “it still hurts.”

He’d been up until the early hours of the morning, writing personalized apology notes for everyone he’d hurt and-slash-or bullied, and even now, walking to school, his hand ached. 54 notes in total, a number his mother had called horrifyingly large. She wanted him to grovel, to beg and plead for forgiveness from each individual person; he was lucky she hadn’t insisted that he actually get on his knees, but still. Today was going to be humiliating.

Next to him, Danny pulled at the hem of Mom’s shirt, stretching it over his hips. His own shirt had been ruined yesterday, and Kwan’s shirts were way too large. Kwan couldn’t imagine Danny much liked wearing women’s clothing again, though. He didn’t even have his binder on—though he’d said he had an extra one in his locker, at least.

“That’s what you get for being a massive tool for four years,” Danny said with a snort.

Kwan rolled his eyes even as he smiled. For the first time since he’d started avoiding Danny, the dork’s witty remarks were being directed at him with humor, not just anger. It was a nice step forward—especially since he’d just lost all his friends. He did not want to be the kid who sat alone at lunch.

(And he maybe enjoyed Danny’s company. A little. The nerd could be kinda sorta cool sometimes.)

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Laugh it up. Get it all out of your system.”

“No way. You’re about to humiliate yourself in front of the entire school, for the whole day. I’m going to milk this for all it’s worth. I will keep it in my system, thank you, until you’re begging for the sweet release of death.”

Kwan groaned. “Dude, I performed emergency surgery on you. Doesn’t that earn me some kinda relief?”

“Your mom did that; you just held stuff for her. Besides, you’ve got four years of bullshit to make up for. One surgery isn’t going to do it.”

“Okay, then how many surgeries will it take to get some sympathy around here?”

“Six.”

“Six? Six? How many times are you planning on being impaled?”

“I’m not planning on it! You’re the one who asked the question of how many surgeries!”

“I didn’t think you’d answer me with a real number! I was being facetious.”

“Well so was I!”

“Seems like you two are getting along.”

And there was Manson, her voice cold and cutting. Kwan felt it shiver down his spine like hands of ice, evaporating his good mood. She and Foley stood in front of them, blocking their path to the school, arms crossed and frowning. Beside him, Danny hunched in on himself.

Kwan grimaced. Oh boy, this looked like a shit-show in the making. Time to hand out his notes and run for cover.

“Uh, here,” he said, shuffling through his backpack for the envelopes labeled “Sam Manson” and “Tucker Foley” and passing them out. His words tripped over themselves and he spoke. “I’m very sincerely sorry for being such a massive tool for years. I hope you can someday forgive me, I understand if you can’t, have fun love you bye!”

His cheeks burned. Fuck, did he really just say that? The humiliation really was starting early.

Manson and Foley furrowed their brows and pursed their lips in synch, which might have been funny in any other situation.

“Uh, okay,” said Foley, staring at the envelope.

“Yep!” Kwan said, moving to step past them.

“Wait!” Manson held out her arm and stopped him in his tracks. “This concerns you, too.”

“It does?”

“The two of you vanished together yesterday, without a word to anyone. No text, no snapchat, nothing! Meanwhile, a science lab is destroyed and apparently someone got in a fight out back. And you—” she pointed at Danny “—couldn’t be bothered to tell us if you were alive because you were too busy skipping school. With Kwan. Who you hated yesterday morning. So yes, Kwan, it involves you.”

Kwan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, whatever you’re thinking, I promise it’s not what happened.”

“Then what did happen?” Foley stared at Danny, who avoided his gaze. “We want to understand, dude. We want to help.”

“I—nothing happened. I just—worked things out with Kwan. He’s resolved not to be a dick anymore. We were just… talking about that. That’s all.”

“Then why didn’t you reply to us? Someone was seriously injured here yesterday! We thought it was you. We were terrified, and you couldn’t be bothered to text!”

Kwan shuffled his feet. He did not want to be here for this conversation, but every time he made to leave, Manson glared at him until he stopped moving. Did she want him to feel as awkward as possible? Was it some kind of punishment?

“You literally just told us like two weeks ago that you wouldn’t vanish on us anymore. I get needing your space, but you could’ve just… told us,” Foley said.

Danny winced at that. “It’s not that I couldn’t be bothered! I just…”

He’d just been recovering from surgery, Kwan thought. Not that you’d know it to look at him; he walked like nothing was wrong. Mom said she should be able to take out his stitches after school today. She’d even washed all the blood and green goop out of Kwan’s varsity jacket. It was almost like it had never happened.

Except that it had. Kwan couldn’t put on that jacket this morning. He couldn’t forget the blood pouring over his hands; first slippery, then sticky, then tacky as it dried. Danny’s shirt was in pieces in his trash can. And Danny couldn’t have answered his friends because he’d been passed out on Kwan’s kitchen counter with a stick in his side.

“You just what?”

Danny stared at the ground. “I… had other stuff going on.”

Manson rolled her eyes. “Riiiiight. We’re back to your mystery problem. Except Kwan apparently knows all about it. What, Kwan-fucking-Huang gets to know what’s up, but we, your supposed best friends, just get bullshit and avoidance?”

Kwan cringed. Why did she keep bringing him into this?

“This isn’t about Kwan!”

“No, it’s about you!” Manson was yelling now, chest heaving. “Something’s going on with you, but you refuse to tell us anything or let us help or— or— or be your fucking friends! It’s almost like you don’t—”

Manson cut herself off, eyes widening. “No,” she said, “it’s exactly like you don’t trust us.”

“I trust you!”

“Then why won’t you tell us anything?”

“Sam,” Foley said, tugging on her sleeve, “this isn’t the issue.”

“The hell it isn’t! It’d be one thing if he didn’t tell anyone, but Kwan knows.” She turned back to Danny. “You’d rather we think that you just ditched us to fuck around with Kwan than tell us the truth! You don’t trust us, still, after all this time. No matter how many times we apologize, no matter that you said you forgive us, it’s never enough, is it?”

Kwan almost mentioned that he had never actually been told anything, since he’d known from the start, but the last thing he wanted was for Manson to get laser-focused on him again. God, this was like those trashy reality TV shows Dash always made him watch. Kwan prayed he wasn’t getting in the middle of some weird Manson/Foley/Danny love triangle; things were complicated enough for him.

“Sam!” Foley tugged on her sleeve again.

“Fine! Maybe it is about that. Maybe I didn’t forget all about it yet. Sorry that I can’t just move on like nothing happened.”

“Wait, seriously?” Foley whipped back toward Danny. “Dude, you can’t say you forgive us and then keep holding it over our heads like this! Either actually forgive us, or be mad. You don’t get to have it both ways!”

It was like watching a train wreck, horrifying and enthralling in equal measure. He shouldn’t be watching this. He couldn’t look away. Other students had also stopped, staring and whispering in clusters.

“Fine! Then I guess I’m mad. And I’m done with this conversation.”

Danny shouldered past his friends, grabbing Kwan’s arm and dragging him along into the school. Kwan looked back as they entered and saw a sea of students rushing past where Manson and Foley still stood, frozen in place.

------

As soon as they stopped at Danny’s locker, Kwan rounded on him.

“Dude,” Kwan said, “what was that about?”

Kids passing by stared and whispered; Kwan felt their eyes like spiders crawling on his skin. Some of them had seen the fight outside. Others were talking about the wrecked science lab and Kwan getting kicked out of the A-Listers. Somehow, he and Danny had become the most infamous students at Casper High.

Danny didn’t look at them, spinning the padlock dial to seven, then eleven, then to fifteen. “Uh, it’s a long story.”

“I was just forced to sit through the most awkward experience of my life, and yes I am including the time I walked in on Dash’s parents having sex. What the fuck was that about?”

Danny sighed. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything, I guess. Do you remember when I first came out?”

“Yeah, it was middle school, right?”

“Sixth grade, to be exact. Sam was the first person I told about it. I knew she wouldn’t judge me, right? Except I didn’t think about her kind of obsessive need to fix things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she wanted me to immediately come out to the world. That I should be proud, y’know? Which, like, I wasn’t ashamed; I just wasn’t ready. But she pushed and pushed and I kept saying no. And eventually…”

Kwan’s stomach dropped. “She didn’t tell someone for you, did she?”

“She told Tucker, and he… didn’t react well. He wasn’t ready to hear it, y’know? And he said some things. Sam went off on him, told him he was being a tool and shit. And I ran away.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I mean, he was young, and he was repeating things adults had told him. When he thought about it for a bit, he realized he was being an asshole and tried to apologize. But by then the damage was already done. I screamed at both of them for like ten minutes straight, and then I stopped talking to them at all for like a month

“It’s kinda funny because now Tuck is my biggest supporter with this stuff. But, fuck, it was messy. That’s the biggest fight the three of us have ever had; they had to do a lot of groveling to get back in my good graces. Even so, it took me a long time to get over it and be friends with them again.” Danny hugged himself. “I guess I’m not as over it as I thought.”

Kwan whistled. “Can’t really blame you. That’s rough.”

“But Sam and Tucker are also right; I can’t say we’re good and then keep holding it against them.” Danny groaned, burying his face in his hands. “They’ve done everything they could to make it up to me, and it’s been years. Why can’t I let it go?”

“I dunno, dude, we usually can’t control how we feel. It just is what it is.” The first bell rang overhead, sending students scurrying to class. “Anyway, I’ve got to find Ishiyama and ‘confess’ before she comes and tracks us down.” There was a good chance he’d be walking straight back out of school with a shiny new suspension, now that he thought about it. At least he’d get out of groveling for the day.

Danny’s face took on the pinched quality it did whenever Kwan mentioned what Paulina had done, but he didn’t say anything. Kwan mumbled a quick “see ya” before heading toward the principal’s office.

He’d only gone five steps before a hand reached out and pulled him into a dark janitor’s closet.

“Jesus Christ, who the fuck—”

There was a click as someone flicked on the light, and Kwan blinked at the sudden brightness. In front of him, arms crossed, stood Star, Dash, Valerie, and Paulina. In fucking formation, like a dance troupe, or a flock of geese. Was it really just yesterday that he was a part of that?

“We’re giving you one last chance, Kwan,” Paulina said. “You can go to Principal Ishiyama and tell her that Fenton wrecked the lab, all on his own. Valerie will back up your story, and we’ll be good.”

If the Kwan of two days ago had been offered this, he would’ve jumped at it. The Kwan of right now couldn’t think of anything he wanted less.

Kwan snorted. “Why should I? You’re the ones who smashed everything.”

Paulina raised a single perfectly-styled eyebrow. “That’s never bothered you before.”

“And I was an asshole before.”

“It’s what has to be done!”

Kwan remembered his flute, stashed in the back of his closet. The bruise on Danny’s face, because Dash took out his problems on him. Valerie’s karate classes, stopped last year, because they weren’t feminine enough. Now that he’d taken a step back from them, none of this struck him as necessary.

Star looked at him, big blue eyes behind blonde hair. “Please, Kwan. We don’t want to lose you.”

“What, so I rat out Danny and I can sit with you at lunch again?”

“What are you being so uptight about?” Valerie poked him in the chest. “It’s just a nerd. We’re your friends.”

“Yes, exactly! Kwan, you’re our friend.” Paulina’s eyes were glassy as she spoke. “You’re my friend. You’re one of us. I don’t want to kick you out! I’m trying to help you.”

“Are we friends? Because the last time I checked, friends don’t give each other ultimatums.”

Dash stepped forward, glaring. “Yeah, well, you also shouldn’t abandon your friends when they need you.”

“Oh, really? So us beating up other kids, everyone spreading rumors, framing other kids for stuff we did—all this somehow protects Paulina?” Dash opened his mouth, but Kwan cut him off. “No, dude, you have to know that doesn’t make sense. It’s not protection; it’s just fucking mean.”

“It isn’t—it’s not just to be mean!”

“Yes it is! Quit lying, Dash; yes it is.”

Silence fell, and the weight of it almost forced Kwan to his knees. Oh fuck, was he really doing this? Was he really calling them out like this? Fuck, he knew what Paulina did to people who got in her way. It was one thing to leave, but it was another thing entirely to flip her off on his way out.

“So I guess that’s your answer,” Paulina said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re ditching us for Fenton.”

She said Fenton like it was a slur, like it meant the worst kind of bottom-feeder parasite loser, like Danny hadn’t almost died yesterday saving Kwan’s life. Anger bubbled in Kwan’s chest, boiling over his fear.

“No, this is my answer.” Kwan pulled his varsity jacket out of his backpack. With his mouth dry, his palms slick with sweat, his heart pounding, he stalked toward Paulina. “You came here to give me an ultimatum? Well I’ve got one of my own: get your act together, or I’m going to make you.”

He shoved the jacket into Paulina’s chest, stormed through his former friends and out of the closet, and slammed the door behind him.

The late bell rang, and the last stragglers slipped into their classes. Kwan leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths to steady himself. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. “I did not just do that.”

Back in the closet, he knew they had to be huddled together, gameplanning for whatever he was going to do to them. Not that he had a plan in the first place. He’d painted a target on his back now, and panic at the thought choked the air from his lungs. He knew better than anyone what the A-Listers were capable of, and now it was directed at himself.

“Fuck,” he said again. He let out a strangled laugh. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

Something slick coated his hands. Looking down, he saw red and green blood stained up to his elbows. He blinked, hard, and it was gone.

Kwan shook himself. All of his problems were his own fault; he didn’t get to fall apart yet. Not when he still had so much to make right.

Okay, one thing at a time. He had to confess to wrecking the lab first and foremost. On the plus side, at least his impending suspension would give him time to figure out how he was going to back up his stupid big mouth.

One thing at a time. Right.

He walked toward the principal’s office in the now-empty halls. Time to face the music.

-----

“Tell me something, Mr. Huang,” Principal Ishiyama said, steepling her fingers on her desk. “Why is it that, in the two months or so since this freshman class has come to my school, we’ve had more security footage be mysteriously corrupted than we’ve had at any point since we hooked up the system?”

Kwan squirmed in his seat. The answer to that question was that Valerie paid off one of her dad’s cybersecurity guys to give them a backdoor into the security system. Paulina mostly used it to delete footage of her and Star, but deleting evidence of her smashing beakers was par for the course as well.

“What do you want from me? I already told you I did it.”

“Yes, you did. Which I find interesting, because the last thing we see of you on the video is you, running after Mr. Fenton, towards the opposite end of the school from Mr. Fonda’s lab. However, the dumpsters are in that area, without any cameras around either. Yesterday, I had some sort of federal officers crawling all over there after we found blood and some weird green goo. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.”

Oh, shit. This was the only thing she could suspect that was actually worse than the lab. Even ignoring the whole ghost-secret, he wanted to stay a thousand yards away from the feds. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all.

Kwan shrugged, attempting nonchalance. “Look, I told you: I ran after Danny to try to get him to listen to me. I wanted to apologize, but he didn’t want to talk to me. I got frustrated, ran back to Mr. Fonda’s room, and smashed some beakers to vent. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry! But I have no idea about blood or cops or… whatever.”

“Ah, yes, of course. You ran back to the other side of the school and ‘smashed some beakers’ in a classroom before disappearing for the rest of the day. Of course, we have no evidence one way or the other except that of you and Mr. Fenton in the halls during lunch. But if you’re claiming to have vandalized a classroom, you must be telling the truth. Why would you lie?”

“Exactly!” Kwan said, leaning forward. “My punishment for vandalism must be a lot worse than whatever happened at the dumpster. Plus, do I look like I’ve been in a fight recently?”

He gestured at himself. His bruises from the ectopus had long since faded, and Danny had saved him from being hurt yesterday; no one would think he’d been involved by looking at him.

Principal Ishiyama hmmed. “Right, so you were spraying silly string on Mr. Fonda’s desk. Where’d you get the silly string?”

Fuck, this was probably a trick question, wasn’t it? He'd say "Oh I got it at Dollar General" and then she smack down a picture of broken glass and a wrecked whiteboard with no silly string. Why did she have to be nosy? Why couldn’t she just accept what he said at face value like every other school administrator?

“Uh, what silly string?”

Principal Ishiyama pulled a picture out of the folder on her desk. It was Mr. Fonda’s room, covered in pink and blue strands. Kwan winced.

“So,” Principal Ishiyama said, “would you like to try that again?”

Kwan let out his breath in a woosh. “What do you want from me, ma’am?”

“I want to know what happened in my school yesterday.” She leaned back in her chair. “I want every student to feel safe in this school. That’s why I didn’t call the cops about the vandalism, and that’s why I hate the presence of those feds. No one is giving me any information, and I can’t make this a safe environment if I don’t even know what’s going on.”

“Principal Ishiyama, I can’t give you the answers you want. I don’t—I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”

“Why not?”

“I don't have any answers for you! I've got nothing to say about any of that."

“Not even if it could save you a suspension?”

If there was one thing Kwan could do, it was keep a secret. He crossed his arms and stared at the floor, silent.

“Well, if you aren’t interested in talking now, maybe you’ll change your mind after a few weeks of detention with Mr. Lancer.”

Kwan snapped his head up. “Wait, what?”

Principal Ishiyama closed the folder on her desk. “I’m not suspending you—yet, at least. For now, your punishment will be an hour of detention every day after school until you tell us the truth, and of course you’ll lose your spot on the football team. If you want your afternoons back, you should reconsider who or what it is you’re protecting.”

Apparently, today was bribe-slash-threaten-Kwan-into-betraying-Danny day. It was like the universe had heard about his resolve to suck less and was throwing every test it could think of at him.

“I’m not protecting anyone, I’ve just got no information for you. And you can’t keep me in detention forever for not telling you what you want to hear!”

“The detention is for the vandalism you insisted on confessing to. How long it lasts is entirely up to you.” She met his eyes. “Now run to class, and report to Mr. Lancer immediately after the final bell.”

He stood and moved toward the door, pausing as Principal Ishiyama spoke again.

“Mr. Huang, I do hope whatever you aren’t telling me is worth it to you.”

So do I, Kwan thought. So do I.

-----

“It feels like everyone’s staring at us,” Danny said, peeking at the throng of students in the cafeteria. Three tables away, a group of basketball players snapped their heads towards their plates just as Kwan met their eyes.

Kwan and Danny’s table had been given a wide berth; word of Kwan’s spat with the A-Listers must have spread, along with rumors of what had happened yesterday. No one wanted to be caught associating with the two of them right now. It would be social suicide.

“We’re infamous now, I guess.” Kwan was more-or-less used to attracting attention, but that was usually because he was with Paulina. He and Dash and Star and Valerie had always been side characters in her high school story. Now he was drawing eyes because he was Kwan, not because he was Paulina’s friend. It was disconcerting.

Danny groaned. “It was just yesterday that I was invisible. How do I go back to that?”

“I don’t know; you’re the one with the ghost powers.”

“Har har.”

On the other side of the cafeteria, Manson and Foley paid them no mind, mingling amongst some of the loner crowd. A few tables away from them, the A-Listers were raucous and exuberant—a show of how little Kwan’s leaving had affected them. It stung more than Kwan wanted to admit.

“So,” Danny said.

“So,” Kwan said.

“It’s just the two of us now?”

“Looks like it.”

“This is gonna get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?”

Kwan sighed. On top of all their school drama, they now had the possibility of invading ghosts hanging over their heads. Doing the right thing was making his life so much harder.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Shit’s gonna get weird.”

END PART ONE