Chapter Text
Three days after settling into his new routine, Max realized that Johnny could get a little over dramatic, especially when it came to things, but not as dramatic as Isaac and Ed.
As it turned out, Ed and Isaac were Max’s two other roommates, who Max was cool with, until Isaac started talking about anime and Ed about super obscure video games.
“So you’re telling me that you’ve never seen First Friday?! But it’s a classic!”
“You’ve never played or even heard of Burnhounds VS Shockodiles?? But you said you played video games!”
Johnny’s version of overdramatic, thankfully, was much less subdued. All the red head did was gape wide eyed at Max until Max rolled his eyes and continued talking. At least, that’s how it was with Max. With the others?
Jeez the kid was reckless in everything all right.
Johnny got, well, Max didn’t know if angry was even the right word. More like… well, he couldn’t put a word or a phrase to it besides ‘recklessly something’.
It was the first day of actual classes, and while Max appeared incredibly nonchalant and perhaps a tad disinterested on the outside, he was oddly nervous internally.
His first four classes were actually school subjects. Well, regular non-dance-school subjects. First Max had his science class with Mr. Gracia, who ended up calling on him a total number of zero times during warm ups thank everything that is good in this world, and then promptly talking about the sub atomic structure of popcorn. Overall, it wasn’t too bad, until Garcia started mumbling about why brains were so interesting and “what if they could leave your body and possess someone”. So that was, interesting, but after that Mr. Garcia actually started teaching, and as it turned out he was a pretty good teacher.
Math was, a little bit different. First, Johnny couldn’t stop laughing whenever Ms. Baxter pronounced something different than how the dictionary told you it was pronounced, and then there was the fact that Jeff would ask questions about stuff that had nothing to do with any kind of math. It was a little entertaining, but then the bell rang and he went to English, where absolutely nothing interesting happened besides the teacher giving out gold star stickers to anyone who answered a question right.
Then there was history with Mr. Spender, and he wasn’t all that bad, ‘cept for the sunglasses. Inside.
By lunch Max was exhausted.
“So, Max, you ready for dance lessons after this? I mean, it’s the reason you’re here after all.” Suzy asked, sitting beside him and munching on a granola bar.
“No, pretty sure you blackmailed me.” Max deadpanned, grabbing some more spaghetti on his fork.
“Did I?”
Max paused. Chewed, swallowed, and then replied, unsure.
“You know I don’t really remember what about. But I’m pretty sure you did.” Max said, frowning.
“Woah! Why are you frowning like someone just splashed you with tomato soup Maxy boy?” Johnny’s voice asked as the teen sat down on Max’s other side.
“Leave tomato soup alone Johnny, it’s pretty decent.” Max replied and Johnny just laughed, his shoulder shaking.
The others soon filled in the table, but there were some others that Max didn’t recognize until Suzy started talking to them.
“Collin and Dimitri, in the flesh, has long has it been?” Max chuckled, a usually rare thing for him to do.
He didn’t notice Johnny’s face as soon as he did said rare thing, but Suzy sure as hell did.
“Hey man, didn’t know you’d be here.” Dimitri said, honest surprise threaded through his greeting. Collin huffed, and elbowed Dimitri.
“Suzy texted us about it yesterday. Did you even check your phone?” Collin asked, but shot a smile at Max, who gave a two finger salute.
Isabel interrupted them as she cleared her throat, and Max noticed just how long her hair was. It had been in a bun the first few time he had seen her, but he could still tell even then it was long. Max wondered if she ever cut her hair.
“Yeah Iz?” Isaac asked her, and then grabbing a fry off of his plate.
“I think a congratulations is in order for Max. He did very well at auditions, and considering he was one out of two people that got in, well.” She said, tossing an abnormally large strawberry at Max, who caught the fruit with just a little bit of trouble, considering he had not been expecting that.
“Who was the other one?” Ed asked. RJ nudged their boyfriend, and fingerspelled a name that didn’t ignite any recognition in Max’s brain.
“Alex? Really? Well, I’m not too surprised, she was pretty good too. Didn’t she audition last year too?” Ed asked, but not receiving an answer from his significant other, RJ just leaning on Ed and continuing to play on their Game Boy.
“Mm. Sounds about right.” Ollie added.
Soon the bell rang and the group discarded their trash, and headed for the studio.
Which was more like two gyms put together.
“You okay Max?” Johnny asked, having hung back behind the group with Max, talking about whether or not frogs could eat more than two flies at one time. Max assumed the guy had asked since Max had stopped walking mid step, eyes wide and a small, tiny, tiny voice telling him to back out and leave, to quit.
Max felt a shoulder bump into his, and he broke out of his trance. He looked at Johnny and was taken aback at how worried the red head looked. While Johnny’s frown was kinda cute – no no no not right now Max pull yourself together.
“Uh,” Max swallowed.
“I will be yeah. Let’s go, shouldn’t keep the others waiting.” Max rushed out, and walked ahead of Johnny.
For the second time that day, Max didn’t see Johnny’s face when he probably should have. Except this time Johnny looked worried instead of pleasantly surprised.
What has my heart gotten me into? Johnny thought to himself, rushing after the other boy.