#chepak

“Good Morning, A. Nigma High!” a boisterous voice called out as Chaz Moneranian burst into the news room by kicking the door open. The gust of wind it brought blew straight into co-anchor, Tina Kwee’s face and pulled her papers off of the desk, scattering them across the room.

She yelled out in anger, “Chaz!” before kneeling to the ground and beginning to pick up her script. Stepak, who had been recalibrating his camera, quickly moved to help her organise the pages.

Once they were again in order, Tina turned to Chaz, face twisted into a furious expression. It was just her luck to be antagonised by Chaz today of all days; after all, it wasn’t as if today was supposed to be good or anything.

Lee kept on avoiding her and she had started to think that it was because of something she had done.

She cursed her reporter’s instinct of keeping up a chase, feeling like a paparazzo or some sort of rabid fangirl while she chased after a story- and a boy she had known for years- that would probably never be hers.

After what seemed like an eternity of being pushed around by everyone, Tina snapped.

“You… are such a jerk!” Tina yelled at the taller boy, slamming her script onto the table behind her. Chaz jumped at the loud slam, but managed to keep his cool facade.

Stepak took a tentative step towards Tina, worried about this temper that was beginning to sprout from her. She continued to speak, rage growing with each word.

“You are self-centered, arrogant, pretentious, and 2-dimensional!” she ranted, “no one likes you, Chaz!”

The room seemed to drop 10 degrees as she said that. Chaz took a step backwards as if he had been burnt. Although he kept himself stone faced, Stepak could see the boy’s eyes fill with tears and his body tense up.

Tina didn’t seem to notice the change in atmosphere in the middle of her anger, “You think everyone loves you, but they don’t! No one does! Especially not us!”

Chaz turned from her, muttering a short ok before running out of the door, which slammed behind him with a tone of finality.

It was at that moment that Stepak decided to take action.

“Ok, that’s enough!” the cameraman shouted, moving so that he towered over Tina. His sudden change in demeanour shocked the girl out of her mindless anger. Had she ever seen Stepak look this mad before?

The behind-the-scenes boy seemed to darken as he began talking in a low voice, “You can insult Chaz about a lot of things. His obnoxious hairstyle, his choice in clothing, those framed pictures of himself that he gives to people for their birthday. But do not say that he is unloved. You may be the voice of the people, but you aren’t my voice.”

And with that, Stepak was out the door searching for Chaz.

Tina Kwee stood in the news room alone, thinking over what had happened with a look of forlornness.

                                                    .........

The hallways were devoid of any students, which would have been weird if it hadn’t been half an hour before school was supposed to start. This information was useless to Stepak, who was trying to figure out where Chaz would go.

“If I was Chaz, then where would I be?” Stepak asked aloud as he ran through the halls. He checked off some of the more obvious places until it finally hit him.

“Of course!” he shouted, taking a sharp right and running in the direction of the auditorium.

Where else would Chaz go to be alone than in a room filled with mirrors?

The cameraman made it to the auditorium, jumping onstage and racing through the curtains to get backstage. He then found his way through the green room to the men’s dressing rooms.

Without so much as a second thought, Stepak knocked the door open and stepped inside.

He let out a sharp gasp at the scene before him.

The room was dark, that was the first thing he had noticed. Another was the fact that the objects inside were in horrible disarray, most likely caused by the figure huddled on the ground. Chaz Moneranian knelt on the ground, staring down at his reflection through a shattered hand mirror.

Stepak’s voice was soft as he edged his way inside, “…Chaz?”

“All my life, I’ve been alone. When I was little, my parents would always be at dinner parties or on the scene. I would never get to actually, truly, just BE with them. I would always see them on TV. It felt as if they never actually loved me. It still feels like that, really. They don’t come to my performances or watch my news footage or anything! But, I never should have expected them to care.”

Chaz let out a short, bitter laugh, “I’ve always liked to perform and be in front of people. I guess it’s a side effect of always being alone; you just want one person to notice you and tell you that you aren’t alone,” at this moment, his voice cracked with emotion, “but I guess I’ll always be unloved!”

Stepak could feel his feet slowly step towards the other boy. He dropped to his knees, crawling closer to the anchorman so that he was right in front of him.

Slowly, holding his breath, he laced his fingers with Chaz’s, pulling the broken compact from the boy’s hands and throwing it behind him.

Chaz jumped when he heard it shatter, tearful brown eyes lifting to look first at Stepak and then at their interlocked hands.

“Chaz, you aren’t alone,” Stepak whispered, “I’ve been here the whole time. Maybe I was just invisible behind that old camera of mine.”

Chaz was incredulous of his teammate’s words, “Huh? Steppy, you love that camera! Why would you call it old, despite your obvious affection towards it?”

Stepak chuckled softly. Even in his lowest time, Chaz was still a natural-born reporter. He was good too; Chaz always ended up getting the information he wanted.

The cameraman adjusted his hold of Chaz’s hand and pressed a kiss atop his tan knuckles. Chaz’s dark skin was set afire with a powerful blush, something that neither Stepak nor anyone else had ever seen.

Suppressing the urge to cuddle the adorable boy, Stepak questioned in a low voice, “Is that enough evidence for your story?”

Those words burned Chaz’s face even more, silencing him long enough for him to nod his head. Stepak helped Chaz up from his spot on the floor. The two boy’s eyes met and they became enraptured by each other.

Both were jolted out of their stupor-like states by the first bell’s shrill ring. Remembering their broadcast, they raced back to the news room, hands still laced together.

                                                    .........

“And before today’s edition of CHAZ’S CORNER ends, I would like to make a special announcement!” Chaz’s exuberant voice echoed throughout the school, eliciting groans from many of the students and faculty.

To the surprise of many, the normally effervescent reporter became solemn before their very eyes as he began to speak. It made his words seem like the most important words ever spoken.

He turned to face a somber Tina, who was still regretful and embarrassed about the events of that same morning. She jumped in shock when feeling Chaz’s hand clasp her shoulder.

“I would like to take this time to say that I am sorry, Tina Kwee, for insulting you so much. And also, you should probably get a new hairdresser because your bangs are not working for you at all.”

… And there was the Chaz that they all knew and tolerated. Tina huffed and quickly thanked him- she guessed it was the nicest he would ever get.

                                                    .........

As Tina began collecting her materials for her next class, she observed Chaz and Stepak’s behaviour.

The two boys appeared to be engaged in conversation, but about what, Tina wasn’t sure. Stepak said something that must have annoyed Chaz, because the cameraman was soon hit with their script for the day before being ignored in favour of Chaz’s compact.

It seemed Stepak wasn’t giving up on what he wanted to say, because he quickly turned the compact to show both Chaz and himself in the mirror. The two boys closed it simultaneously before grabbing their bags and heading out of the door. The last thing Tina noticed was that they had not moved their hands from the closed compact, which was in between both of their palms.