ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴏʙʟᴇᴍꜱ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀ ʜᴏᴘᴘᴇʀ

ᴇᴘɪꜱᴏᴅᴇ 10

this chapter may be long but it'll make sense for the next chapter :)

tw- homophobic slur

(3rd person pov)

The gang was just walking to their classes, dropping each other off one by one. Sadly, Vance didn't have classes with any of them after art. The art teacher said she was going to hang up our paintings on her wall but she suggested that Vance takes his home with him. She says, "This beauty is what will wake you up every morning." Some inspirational quote that she had made up her self. "Alright Vance. I'll see you at lunch, okay?" Bruce says hugging Vance. "Alright, love you." Vance says walking away not realizing what he said leaving Bruce outside of his class. The next class Vance had was chemistry. You usually needed to have a partner in chemistry but none of his friends was in that class. And he didn't needed to be humiliated by the teacher asking, "does anyone want to Mr Hopper's partner." That'll be embarrassing for him. Vance takes a left into the bathroom and sees Finney's bullies. They probably need a name at this point. Finney bullies just sound lame to be honest. The bullies then turn their head to look at Vance and one of them smirks. It was moose. "Hey Hopper. What brings you here?" Moose lights up a cigarette. "Nothin much. Just skipping." Vance says putting his back towards the wall. "Oh? Skipping? That's not very classy of you." Moose says taking an inhale on his cigarette. Vance then looks at moose's little goons to see them staring at him. "What do you want." Vance says rolling his eyes. "Nothing. Just want to know what's going on with you and Yamada." Moose says taking the cigarette out of his mouth. Vance heart dropped for a second. "What are you talking about." Vance crosses his arms. "You guys are just very touchy, you know?" The orange haired boy then looks down to the floor. "Well we're friends. What do you expect." Moose then lets out a light laugh. "That's not what my dear friend Spencer told me." Moose says patting the orange haired boy on the shoulder. So that's his name. Vance lets out a sigh. "Your really going to believe a orange haired boy you've just met this year?" Vance laugh. Moose then grinds his teeth. "Don't play that way Vance. I just wanna know." Moose says walking up to Vance. "You and Yamada a thing? A couple of fags? Vance was taken back by this. He looks Moose up and down and then looks at his little goons. "Yeah right. If anything, it's you and little goons kissing all up over eachother." Vance then flicks the cigarette from out of Moose's hand. Moose didn't say anything but his friends made a small gasping sound. "What? You guys scared of him?" Vance says with a smirk on his face. "You scared of a little dweeb named Moose?" Vance says. He then scoffs. "That's fucking pathetic." Vance says about to exit the bathroom. "What about this?" Moose says holding up a picture behind Vance. He turns around to see Moose holding up a picture of Bruce kissing his hand. "I thought you two were only friends?" Moose says talking in a sweetish evil voice. Vance was silent he didn't know what to do. He tried snatching the paper away from Moose but Moose puts it on his other hand. "Nuh uh uh." Moose says putting his hand up to Vance's face. He then sighs. "It'll be a real shame if everyone at school will see this lovely photo of you and Yamada." Moose says walking back to his group. "What do you want dickhead." Vance says walking up to them. "Nothing. I just find it funny how your "friends" only stick around you for protection." Moose says with a smirk on his face. "That's not true. They're my friends because they choose to be." Vance says trying to snatch the photo once again but missed. "Really? I find it hard how anyone would want to be friends with you. Right guys?" Moose says. "You really think they're going to disagree with you?" Vance says with attitude. "I'm not playing whatever shitty game your going Moose. Give me the god damn photo." Vance says clenching his fist. "Now don't get violent Vance. I printed out several photos of this. And if you lay a pinky on me, im releasing it to the public." Moose says pushing Vance back. Vance sighs. "What do you want." Moose then laughs. "Tomorrow, me and my friends are going out and we need protection." Moose says. "So your doing all of this just because your weak and need protection?" Vance says. Moose grinds his teeth once more. "Just fucking do it Hopper. Or i'll tell everyone that you and your shitty little friend group are a couple of fags." Moose then pushes Vance out the way leaving him with just Spencer and the other boy. Spencer started speed walking but was stopped by Vance grabbing onto his wrists. "What the fuck is your problem bitch." Vance then swings his arm hitting him in the face. The other boy runs up behind Vance trying to get him from off of him but was pushed into the sink hitting his head. Vance then grabs Spencer and starts grabbing onto his throat. "Your a piece of shit. You got bullied last year so why are you acting like such a bitch." Vance yells in his face spitting on him so. Tears fall down Spencer's face before Vance punched him in the eye. "Fuck you. And fuck your shitty ass life." Vance gets up leaving the bathroom, leaving both boys in pain. Now, Vance thinks that they deserved it and that they don't. He knows that they're being manipulated by Moose but cmon now. Vance looks down at his knuckles to see them bloodied up. Shit. Vance mutters. He hears the bell ringing which means that class had just started. Now he has to go to chemistry because the bathroom doors all automatically lock whenever the bell rings. Which is a weird feature that the school has just recently added. Vance sighs walking down the hall to chemistry class. He makes it at the door twisting the door for it to open. Eyes fall on him once he enters the room. "And this is what we would call a late student." The teacher turns around to face Vance. "Any reason why your late?" Vance shakes his head no. "Sit." The teacher says earning a few giggles from students in the back. The bad thing about chemistry is that Vance sits in the middle. Even though the people infront of him can't see what he's doing, he still feels like he's being watched. "Partner up people. We're going to dissect a frog." The teacher says. A few students groan and a few students started to talk in excitement. Vance places his head down because it wasn't like anyone was going to ask to be his partner. Vance was about to close his eyes to take a nap but felt a couple of taps on his shoulder. Vance looks up to see a black haired girl with emerald eyes, kinda similar to Bruce's. "Hi." She says stuttering a bit. "Hey?" Vance says sitting up correctly. "So you probably heard of me. Probably not.. But i'm Bruce's brother." She reaches her hand out for Vance to shake. "That's why you look so familiar." Vance shakes her hand growing a small smile on his face. "Really? I see you talking to Bruce sometimes." She says smiling. "Well, not sometimes. All the time." She says giggling. Vance face heats up like a tomato. "He talks about me?" Bruce sister then rolls her eyes. "Yeah like all the time. I think he's obsessed with you or something." Hearing that Bruce talks about him all the time just makes Vance feels special. Bruce could talk to his sister about anything and he choses to talk about him. "So are you going to help me cut open this frog?" Amy says. "Oh, sure." Vance and Amy then make it to the back where the tables where seated and where the frogs where. "I want to pick the ugliest frog. I'll feel bad for cutting open a cute one." Amy says shivering. She then looks at one and sees that it's already missing an eye. She frowns. "That's so sad." She guides Vance to look at the frog. "I don't understand how people can hurt animals." She sighs. "Don't you eat chicken?" Vance raises an eyebrow. Amy opens her mouth and laughs. "Now that's a different story."
They then find a frog and starts getting the small knife.
"Alright kids. Now start by placing the knife on the heart. Gently."
Amy then looks at Vance. "Aren't you gonna do it?" Vance rapidly shakes his head no. "I'm not gonna place a fucking knife on a frog." He hands the knife to Amy. "Didn't you pull a knife on a random dude because he messed up your pinball game?" Amy places a hand on her hip. "That's totally different. That's my game that some idiot messed up." Vance rolls his eyes. "Also, I didn't catch your name miss yamada." Vance says with a smirk on his face (NOT IN A LOVING WAY LIKE A JOKINGLY WAY.) "It's Amy mister hopper." She rolls her eyes in return. "Alright Amy. Place the knife on the frog's chest." Amy then places the knife on the chest slowly trying her best not to injury it. "Jeez it's not gonna cut that easily." Vance says laughing. "You don't know that! It could be fragil."
"Alright students. Now, get your partner to hold the frog down while you cut into the stomach.
Vance and Amy felt chills going down their spines. "Fuck is he say hold it down for? He's basically making us commit a murder." Vance says. "Literally! This poor poor frog has just been kidnapped from its natural habit and is now being cut open." Amy says with a sad face. A girl behind Vance and Amy lets out a large groan. "Can you stop complaining and shut up." Her friends then laughed along with her causing Amy to look down. Vance turns around looking at the girl up and down. "Who the hell do you think your talking to?" Vance says in a mean voice. The girl was too stunned to speak. "I-I was talking to-"
"You wasn't talking to Amy. I know that for sure." Vance says making sure to look her deep in her eyes. Vance usually looks people deep in their eyes to scare them off, and it works almost all of the time. The girl then shuts up looking away from Vance. She mutters dickhead as if Vance couldn't hear her, but he did. But chose to ignore it.
"You didn't have to do that." Amy says.
"I didn't have too. But i wanted to." Vance then starts holding down the frog. Amy lets out a loud sigh sliding the knife into the frog. She immediately pulls it out the second she starts to dig deep.
"I can't do it." Amy places down the knife.
"It's okay. You don't have to." Vance puts his hand on his shoulder. The teacher then walks over to Vance and Amy. "What do you mean she doesn't have to? It counts as you guys grade." The teacher says clearly upset.
"Your making us cut up animals. That's some psychopath shit." Vance says
"I thought you guys would be grateful. For once i'm not telling you guys to mix chemicals together and now your complaining like a baby." Vance looks over to Amy to see her hands shaking with the knife in her hand.
"It's not that hard. Just cut the frog to see the insides." The teacher says while grabbing Amy's hand with the knife. Vance looks down to see the teacher grabbing her hand and grabs the frog and slaps it across his face. The room went silent.
Vance grabs Amy's hand dragging her out of the classroom. It was almost time to leave anyways and almost lunch. Vance walks Amy to the cafeteria siting her down.
"Are you alright?" Vance says grabbing her shoulder trying to calm her down. Amy then puts on a smile on her face that is obviously fake.
"Yeah i'm alright. Just didn't want to cut open a frog." Amy then with a nervous laugh.
"You don't have to lie Amy. That guy is a freak." Amy nods her head. "And i'm probably getting a phone call home." Vance says with a small smile that was joined in by Amy.
Amy was about to say something but then the bell rings, which means it's lunch.
"I should probably go. Gwen is waiting for me." Amy smiles at Vance. "Lab partner tomorrow?" She holds up a pink for Vance.
Vance smiles softly at Amy pinky promising her. "Lab partner tomorrow." Amy then leaves Vance going to another table.

(3rd person pov)

I had my head down on my phone scrolling through old messages of me and my mom. I smile looking at the cheeses jokes my mom used to make. She used to say serious as cereal, she used to send facebook means, and she took photos of stupid snapchat filters. She still uses serious as cereal in any situation though. Good and bad, she knew how to make a bad situation feel better. I feel a tap on my shoulder to see that it was Finney. "Oh, hey Finney." I sit up to see Finney correctly. "Hey Vance. They're coming soon. Just getting food." Finney says with a nervous laugh. "Is everything alright?" Finney then sits down to me looking around. "I have to tell you something important." Finney then starts fiddling with his fingers.
I look at him confused. "What's wrong?"
"So, there's been something that i've been meaning to tell you for a really really long time but I couldn't bring up the courage too because I know you probably won't care but-"
"Finney just tell me." I say jokingly.
Finney then takes a deep breath.
"okaysoimtransandiknowyouprobablywontcarebutmydadrecentlystoppedbuyingmepadsandidontknowwhattodo."
He tilts his head down breathing out.
I didn't know what to say. Not in like a mean way but I was proud of Finney for telling me. He could've told Robin but he chose to tell me.
I put my hand on his shoulder smiling at him.
"Thanks for telling me Finney." He then looks back up to me growing tears on his face. I was confused and a little bit surprised.
"Wait, Finney i'm sorry."
I didn't know what I was saying sorry for but I didn't know what to say. Finney then takes his hand whipping the tears from off of his face.
"No your okay." Finney says with a light laughter. "I didn't have anyone who really cared about me being trans other than Gwenny." He says whiping tears from off of his face.
"Oh, we'll im proud of you?" I say pulling him into a small hug.
I then hear a small sob coming from Finney.
"You alri-"
"Shut up." Finney says pulling away from the hug whipping his tears.
"You can come over my house after school so I could hand you some." Finney then rapidly nods in return smiling. I then hear Robin and Billy arguing over something stupid. "Hey Vance!" Bruce says running towards me.
Finney gets up so Bruce can sit next to me and Bruce wraps his arms around me. "How was your classes?"
"It was interesting." I say hugging Bruce back.
"Thats new. You usually tell me that all of your classes are boring." Bruce chuckles.
"Finney had you been crying?" Robin says shaking Finney rapidly. Bruce then looks at Finney.
"Yeah Finney had you? Your eyes are red." Bruce tilts his head getting a better look at him.
"No! I just woke up!" Finney says trying to get Robin to stop shaking him. I just sit back talking to Griffin and Billy as they try to figure out if Finney was crying or not. Only I knew.
"So me and Griffin was working together on this project right? And then all of a sudden, BOOM!" I got startled a bit. "Griffin trips and ruins the whole shit!" Billy says.
"It's not my fault my shoes got untied!" Griffin says pouting. I was about to say something but then the alarm goes off causing everyone to jump.
"AH ITS A FIRE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE."
Billy screams out.
"Billy don't say that your gonna cause people to-" Bruce didn't get to finish his sentence because a couple of girls started screaming running out of the cafeteria. "Look at what you started." Finney says standing up.
"It's just another stupid fire drill." I say rolling my eyes. Bruce then grabs my hands as we walk out of the cafeteria.
"Bruce, your holding my hand."
"Hm? Yeah I know." He says smiling.
"You know, they can se-"
"I don't care about people seeing us Vance. I don't have anything to be ashamed of."
While we was walking out of the school, that's all I could think about. That someone actually cares about me enough to not feel embarrassed walking around with me.
"Vance?" Bruce says grabbing one side of my cheek.
"You dozed off. Are you okay?"
I smile and nod.
"Alright good. I don't need you turning sad on me." Bruce says chuckling.
"Enough love birds, we have to keep walking." Robin says pushing us to keep walking again.
"Imagine if we just skipped school from here." Billy says smirking.
"No! That's a terrible idea!" Griffin says kicking Billy.
"Is it though? Tomorrow's the baseball game so we can stay at school for the whole day tomorrow." Robin says whining."
"Even if we do, how are we going to do it."
Bruce looks around to see if any teachers was looking.
"Alright we go in 3...."
"Guys this is a bad idea."
"2...."
"If we get caught my dad is going to kill me."
"1!"

We all then start running in the opposite direction as everyone. We didn't know where we was going but we just knew it was far away from everyone. Finney was riding on Robin's back, Billy and Griffin were trying to race each other, and me an Bruce was holding hands while running. I'm pretty sure this is one of my happiest moments so far. But happy moments doesn't last forever. Because there's always someone or something that has to ruin it. Sooner or later, we're not going to know each other anymore. We're only friends temporarily. One of us might die, and one of us might go missing. But as long as we stay together, nothing can break this friendship apart.