The Offer

-Cinema, Shueset Mall-

Joanne is standing nervously beside Alfred as they wait in line to get tickets for the movie. She is fighting to hide her silly smile that she covers her lips with her hands often. Suddenly, a familiar voice appears and breaks the awkward silence between Alfred and Joanne.

"Jo! Whaddup!" Caleb shouts in delight.

Joanne startles and asks while confusedly smiling, "Caleb, what are you doing here?"

"Well, on a date..." he says while smiling flirtatiously at her date.

His date gasps merrily and shouts with heart eyes, "Aww, so it is a date!"

Joanne and Alfred just smile and giggle at the view in front of them.

"Oh, this is Caleb, my best friend and this is Alfred a guy from the science club. And she is...?" Joanne starts to introduce them to each other but gets stuck at the other girl's name.

Caleb, who is panicked, smiles awkwardly and wonder if he had messed things up badly right there. 'Who am I? What am I doing here?' he wonders in his thoughts.

He stutters and nervously answers Joanne, "Oh.. this... is... Tiffany!" he randomly thinks of a name.

The other girl looks up to him while smiling creepily and says, "Erm, it's Megan,"

That is the moment where Caleb realizes that he messed up very badly that Joanne is struggling hard not to laugh at him in the attempt of being polite toward Megan.

Caleb still smiles awkwardly and tries to take a look at Megan, who is not surprisingly upset at him. She glares at him, ready to throw water on him at any time. Rather than throwing some water on him and make it go to waste, she takes one step closer to him.

She looks him in the eye and says, "You are such an asshole. I bet that you're not even a good kisser!"

She turns her body hardly so that her hair can flip him on the face and it sure does.

Joanne and Alfred who have been holding on to their laughter just burst it out from watching that scene.

Not so poor Caleb just smiles to accept his fate and pulls out two tickets from his jeans. "I guess we only need one more ticket then!" he cheerfully says from the heartbreak that he doesn't have.

Joanne gives him death glare while eyeing him, "Oh, don't you dare, Farrell..."

Caleb eyes her back and his face tells, "Oh, I dare, Jo... I do..."

Alfred who doesn't know what Joanne has in mind just nonchalantly accept Caleb into their date. "Sure, let's watch it together," he says calmly.

Joanne goggles her eyes and changes them into smiley eyes in a second when Alfred looks at her.

She sends a telepathic message to Caleb again while making a face that says, "Oh, I am going to kill you after this, Caleb"

"Oh, you won't dare, baby" his face responds and he looks at Alfred, trying to tell Joanne that he has some dirt to threaten her.

-Auditoriums-

They walk up to their seats. Joanne takes the first left. However, Caleb who cannot take a hint just sits in the middle which means that he's meddling between them.

He nonchalantly sits there while hugging his box of popcorn.

Joanne glares at him with a disbelieving look hoping that it could reach to Caleb. Alfred just stares at him with a slight sorrow, but trying to hide it with a pair of sad smile.

Caleb just cheerfully look at them and shouts, "Well, isn't this fun!"

Alfred answers him sincerely while still smiling, "Well, it actually is..."

Joanne still glares at him with a pair of eyes that are about to fall off any second.

"Oh, guys... I think I gotta go to the bathroom..." Alfred says.

When he leaves them, Joanne finally snaps, "Really, Farrell, Really?!"

"Oh come on! Without me, you would've been sitting here awkwardly!" Caleb complains to justify himself.

"And it would've been a date!" Joanne whispers loudly with a disagreeing look.

"Well, we are having a tri-ate now..." Caleb jokes with the words and continues, "You get what I'm doin' here..." while smiling proudly at his own joke.

"Urgh, at least you didn't mention a threesome," Joanne rolls her eyes.

Caleb suddenly gets excited and screams, "OOH-" and gets totally cut off by Joanne saying, "Oh, don't even think about it, Caleb!"

Caleb looks away with sulk in his face while whining, "Hmph, you're no fun..."

-Night, Kai's room-

"Hey, hey, hey! Homecoming, baby!" Caleb shouts flirtatiously to all of them.

They just laugh seeing his shameless and ridiculous flirting.

"So, you guys have any idea on who to ask?" Felix asks them while pausing his video game.

"Hey, don't pause it!" Val complains to Felix. Felix just smiles and jokingly pushes her head for being whiny about a stupid video game.

While Val and Felix look like they have no idea on the lists, Beca, Joanne, and Kai are smiling nervously.

"Oh, so you three already know who you wanna go with..." Caleb smiles flirtatiously and winks his eyes hilariously.

"Kai, you got someone? Well, I don't have one! Who am I going with, then?!" Val shouts with a betrayed expression.

"Ooh, you can go with the hot guitarist, Val!" Beca shouts in delight while imagining things.

Kai scoffs and yells, "Ew, no!"

"Why are you worked up?" Caleb disses him for a second and continues to tease Joanne flirtatiously, "So tell me, Jo. Who do you wanna go with?" Joanne looks away while smiling widely.

"Well, it's obvious that she can't talk right now. She's too busy to smile and imagine on things," Val jokes sarcastically.

"I am not!" Joanne complains while pouting.

"Preposterous!" Beca shouts in delight.

The moment of silence fills the air. Maybe a sound of crow can fill it. They take a second to digest what just happened.

"Beca... that's not how you use, 'preposterous' in a sentence..." Joanne corrects her with confused eyes.

Her correction totally cracks them up out loud.

"Pfffftt! Tch hahahahahhaaha!" Val loses it.

"Oh, man! Good thing I didn't use that word in front of some hot guy!" Beca complains.

Joanne stares at her with a disbelieving look and mumbles, "뻔뻔하다 (you are so shameless)", which obviously puts Kai to laugh because he understands it.

"Hey, iin't fair! You know I don't know Korean! What did she say, Kai???" she dramatically asks Kai.

Kai smiles sweetly to her and nonchalantly lies, "She says you're doing great."

"Awwww, really?" she responds delightfully.

Val and Felix secretly lean to Kai and ask at the same time, "Seriously, what did it mean?"

Kai smiles to hide his laughter and whisper, "She's shameless," that cracks them both so hard that they both push Kai to the extent that he back rolls.

Kai lies down with a flat face, probably wondering what he is doing in his life or why are things happening to him, and suddenly sings "Well, you didn't have to push me off!" to Goyte's song.

They burst to laugh after hearing his sudden improvisation. At that night, they might have some worries about the word homecoming. However, they just laugh things out to forget about those worries for a moment. With having each others' backs, they know that they can let their future's selves to take care of those worries. In that moment, they just want to laugh and feel the warm night in Shueset while making a mess of Kai's bedroom.

Val walks out of Kai's bedroom to check his fridge.

Suddenly Ethan is in front of her. They both take each other by surprise.

They startle and nervously smile at each other.

"Oh, hey... you're here..." he greets her sweetly while putting his hands in his back pocket.

Val smiles back at him and says, "Well, I thought we were kind of loud in there... I think they're still loud in there," playfully to break the awkward tension.

It's not that they're uncomfortable around each other. It's just that Ethan has been giving some signal to her. He's been staring sweetly into her eyes lately, not like how they used to play around as kids and that is confusing her to some extend.

"Hey, Val... do you might want to come... to homecoming... with me...?" Ethan asks her cautiously with hope in his eyes.

Val, surprised, just smiles and is out of words at the moment. The thought of Kai having somebody on his mind is bothering her for a bit. She struggles to answer Ethan's offer.

However, little did Ethan and Val know, Kai has been hiding--standing-- near enough that he could hear the whole thing. Kai takes a peek as he waits for Val's answer.

What will Val do? Will she accept Ethan's proposal or will she wait until Kai ask her? It's too confusing for her at the moment. She just stands there in front of him with doubts in her eyes.