Limelight

Chaz and Mackenzie: Pining

(The BG zombies one-shot collection begins! I've brought them up in previous fics before but just in case you haven't read those and you don't follow me on Tumblr, the BG (background) zombies are the nameless zombie characters in the movie who I have been giving headcanon names and personalities. People seem to like them so I decided to write some stories about them! I'll include a quick description of who's who before each one, but I have reference screenshots on my Tumblr blog (unusual-ly) under the tag #bg-zombies, plus each of them have a tag under their individual names where you can find more info on them)

CHAZ: the zombie who shouts "football!" at the start of My Year
MACKENZIE: the zombie in shorts to the left of the screen in the first chorus of My Year
MITZI: the long-haired zombie next to Mackenzie in the same shot
AZURE: the zombie with long braids, wearing green coveralls and grey sleeves
CORTEZ: the zombie sitting opposite Azure in the first cafeteria scene

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"Hey, don't look now, but Chaz just walked in."

Mackenzie's eyes went wide as Mitzi took another sip of her drink and glanced past her. She leaned forward across the table. They were sitting opposite one another in one of Zombie Town's only decent cafés. One of its only cafés at all, really. And the only one, so far, that hadn't suffered some damage from one of the more unfortunate visits from the zombie patrol or some human teenagers.

"Is anybody with him?"

"Cortez and Azure." Catching the eye of one of them, Mitzi gave a small wave and a smile.

Mackenzie had to stop herself from turning around, "Chaz?" She couldn't help sounding hopeful.

Mitzi shook her head, "Azure," then put down her cup and propped her chin up on her hand, "He's not looking."

That was all it took for Mackenzie to whip back around. Chaz was at the counter, his back to her, next to his friends. Forgetting herself for a moment, she let out a sigh and tilted her head, pouting. Mitzi rolled her eyes but smiled anyway; she might tease her for it, but as far as she was concerned, her best friend's crush had to be the sweetest thing she had ever witnessed. And soon enough, she was distracted, watching Chaz going to sit down. Her hand was loosely cupped around her bowl of melon eyeballs, and Mitzi knew she was protective of her food. Time to test just how much attention Mackenzie was giving him.

Mitzi stretched an arm across the table, keeping an eye on Mackenzie as she stabbed a fork into a ball and snatched it away.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Wow.

Mitzi sat loudly chewing on the (fruit) eyeball and she didn't even notice. Not until Mitzi laughed at her obliviousness.

"Kenzie, you are in love with that boy."

The look on her face was priceless. She was blushing, as much as a zombie could blush, looking from Mitzi to her bowl and back up again. She gaped at her.

"Did you take one of my eyeballs?!" she hissed and Mitzi nodded, still laughing, "You can't just steal a girl's eyeball when she's busy staring at a cute guy! How could you? You have to buy me something to make up for that now."

"Whatever you say, Ken." Mitzi just shrugged and took another sip from her cup.

For a few minutes, Mackenzie let her thoughts of Chaz go and continued to talk and eat, though she was guarding her melon eyeballs much more vigilantly now. But at some point, she glanced over to Chaz, Cortez and Azure's table. Right as Chaz glanced over to her and Mitzi's. They made eye contact and Mackenzie almost jumped, quickly looking down again. Her heart was beating, still slow but it was enough for her to feel it, and she had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Was he still looking? She was too scared to find out. Avoiding the temptation to turn her head even the slightest bit, Mackenzie gave Mitzi a pleading look.

"What?"

"Help...!"

"With what?"

"With... Chaz...!"

Mitzi tipped her head to one side, her voice soft but jokingly condescending, "I have no experience with this kind of thing, what makes you think I can help?"

"Because!" Mackenzie spluttered, "You help... everything...!"

Mitzi heaved a dramatic sigh and gently patted Mackenzie's hand.

"I'm sorry, Kenzie. You're hopeless."

If only she had heard the conversation on the other side of the café.

Twenty minutes earlier

Azure, Cortez and Chaz were right outside the café, Chaz poised to open the door, when he saw something, or rather, someone through the window. He froze. Azure and Cortez frowned and looked at each other. Cortez nudged him.

"Chaz? We going in or what?"

Azure took a sweeping glance through the window and slowly nodded.

"Right... Mackenzie's in there."

The mention of her name seemed to snap him out of it.

"Is she? Huh. Didn't notice."

"You're a terrible liar, Chaz."

With that, Azure pushed him out of the way and opened the door. Chaz took a calming breath and followed her and Cortez inside. He forced himself not to look over at Mackenzie while they were at the counter, and that proved difficult when she was right there. He did see Azure waving at someone in that direction, though.

"... Mackenzie?"

Azure shook her head, "Mitzi."

Cortez lightly smacked Chaz's arm with the back of his hand. "You're way too obvious, man."

"Hey, I think he needs to be more obvious, if anything," Azure said, "She has to know he's interested."

"How can she not know by now?"

"He keeps avoiding her!"

"Yeah, and it's obvious he's avoiding her!"

"Do you have to talk about me when I'm right here?" They both ignored him.

"Chaz," Azure prodded his chest, "You need to step up, alright?"

"What do you expect me to do? If she wants me, she can come and get me!" he said confidently. But as his friends walked away to sit down with knowing smirks on their faces, Chaz risked turning towards Mackenzie. Luckily, she was busy eating and he took the chance while he had it to just look at her, muttering under his breath, "Please..." before he hurried after Azure and Cortez.

He kept glancing over at Mackenzie the whole time, thinking he was being discreet. Azure smiled and shook her head, but said nothing. Cortez, on the other hand, let out a short laugh.

"You're not fooling anybody, you know."

Chaz scoffed and turned back to Mackenzie, who was looking right at him now. He quickly looked away and Cortez snorted, "Really?"

"Shut up."

He had seen, briefly, when he looked at her, that they were both eating melon eyeballs. Somehow, by some weird law of the universe, that had to be a sign.