paper crown | mike chang | DISCONTINUED

auditions

I hum softly as I lean against the lockers and Mike puts his books in his locker. I groan softly when I see Jacob Israel with his dumbass camera. I grab Mike's hand and tug him away from his locker.

He closes his locker and gives into me trying to drag him away from Israel. He chuckles and kisses my forehead and I grin up at him, forgetting all about Israel. "Mike Chang, Ruby-Grace-"

"Just Ruby," I snap at him, Mike pulling me a little closer. Israel rolls his eyes and I glare at him. "Is it true that you two started dating?" He asks as he holds a mike out to us. "What does it look like?"

Mike chuckles and kisses the top of my head. "Yes, we are." He answers. "When will you accept that your part of the loser club?" I growl and roll my eyes, grabbing Mike's hand as we walk away, Israel following.

"Go away Israel!" I snap rudely, but I didn't care. I don't like him. "How do you feel that your uncle is a failure at teaching?" He asks and I stop in my tracks. I spin around slowly, anger bubbling inside of me.

"Uncle Will is not a failure!"

Mike gently pulls me away and kisses me, anger melting away. "Hey, don't get upset, okay? Ignore him. He's just someone who wants to get you riled up." He whispers as he rests his forehead on mine, which must've been hard because I barely come up to his shoulders.

"I love you." I mumble softly as I look him in the eyes and he smiles at me gently. "I love you too." His lip meet mine softly and I melt into the kiss.

[•]

I rush into the choir room, late and with soaked hair. "I'm sorry I'm late Uncle Will." I rush quickly and sit next to Mike, breathing uneven. "Why is your hair wet?" Mercedes asks. "Oh ya know, Karofsky slushed me and I had to wash it before it got all sticky and gross."

I sigh and pull my hair up, tying it with a hair tie. Mike kisses my cheek and I smile softly at him. "It's okay Ruby," Uncle Will chuckles and I smile at him.

"Now that we're all here," Uncle Will starts. "Here are the comments from Jacob Ben-Israel's most recent Glee Club blog. "Glee is a giant ball of suck"." I roll my eyes and Mike squeezes my hand.

"We get it, Mr. Shue. Everyone still hates us. So what? So we're plankton on the high school food chain? Only difference now is that none of us really care." Kurt says and I nod in agreement.

"Kurt's right." Mercedes agreed. "We're a family. They can bring it all they want. None of it's going to break us." Maybe not you, but there's a chance it might break me. I'm already broken enough, so I'm going to try and let it not get to me.

Uncle Will sighs. "Okay, I'm really happy that you guys have all bonded. The problem is that all of this negative stuff is keeping other students from auditioning."

"Maybe that's a good thing?" I ask unsurely. "Yeah," Tina agrees. "Why do we need new members?"

"Well Well, since Matt transferred, we only have 12 members, and if we want to go to Nationals, if we want to beat Vocal Adrenaline, we have to go from a small rebel force to a giant wall of sound." Uncle Will explains.

"Yeah, Mr. Schuester's right, you guys. You didn't see Vocal Adrenaline at Regionals. They were epic. We're going to need more voices in order to beat them." Rachel says in her bossy voice, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Yeah. I'm with Rachel on this one." Finn agrees, causing me to roll my eyes. Of course he would agree with his girlfriend. "Gross." Britney says and my lips tug upwards into a smile.

I lean my head on Mike's shoulder, bringing our entangled hands on my lap. Mike kisses the top of my head, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. I sigh contently, relaxing.