Welcome back to another monthly update of 'Starburst', now this is gonna be more of a short/breather chapter with the Golden Trio...before whatever happens next go crashing down
Disclaimer: I do not own 'High School Musical: The Musical: The Series' or Ten from "Weightless". Ten and Jeonghan belong to my friend @zealous_light. I only own my original characters. Enjoy the chapter.
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EJ had been the first to bolt out of class the moment the school bell had rung. He's always been a punctual guy, whether it's for auditions or being the first to volunteer at the Soup Kitchen on holiday seasons.
"Finally, class is over!" Cress stretched out her arms and cheered.
"I'm pretty sure I stopped paying attention halfway through class." A tall girl with short wavy hair (Marisol Martinez) chimed in.
Cress absent-mindedly nodded in agreement with the tall girl.
"This is why you're failing Algebra, Sol." Another girl with straight hair tied into a ponytail (Amelia Palmer) responded.
"Can you both stop flirting in front of me?" One of their classmates (Marina Martinez) playfully groaned at her sister's relationship. "I mean I get it, you're happy and in love. But please tone down the PDA!"
"Today's Readthrough Day, right?" Another classmate (Marissa Martinez) remembered, "Must be why Caswell was in a hurry to leave."
"But you got casted as Sharpay's understudy. I don't see you leaving in a rush." One classmate (Anthony, EJ's water polo teammate) pointed out.
"Haven't you heard of being Fashionably Late?" Marissa winked at him, causing the jock to blush.
"Oh gosh, stop flirting in front of me! I'm the fifth-wheel now!" Marina complained, throwing her hands into the air. She motioned to Marisol and Amelia holding hands on one side, and then motioned to Marissa flirting with Anthony on the other.
'Welcome to my life...' Ten silently thought, he and Marina exchanged a mutual solemn nod of acknowledgement. He's been third wheeling most of EJ's dates, and occasionally the fifth-wheel if EJ and Cress had gone out with double-dates.
EJ used to try setting Ten up with girls (and occasionally guys if Ten is ever open to the idea of dating any gender) if his girlfriend at the time had a friend who's interested.
This may backfire immensely if said girlfriend was only ever interested in dating EJ just to get closer to Ten. Which has happen twice or thrice. Cress had personally revenge-pranked those exes in retaliation for taking advantage of her two best friends.
But Ten has continuously stated and reaffirmed that he's not looking for a romantic relationship right now. Honestly, Cress even discusses with EJ if Ten could be ace-aro himself. Caswell has toned down the matchmaking for the most part, but would still keep a candidate or two in mind.
"Did you jot down the notes for the upcoming quiz?" Ten turned over to talk to Cress.
"Oh shoot! I knew I forgot something!" Cress groaned, smacking a hand against her forehead.
"I'll lend you my notes later." Ten commented, keeping his things into his bag. He noticed Cress was just dumping everything into her bag to zip it up.
"Come on, let's head to the bomb shelter." Cress grinned, quickly getting up.
"Why do they call it a bomb shelter?" Ten wondered out loud. The auditorium they were using for rehearsals looked nothing like an actual fallout shelter.
Outside the hallways, Cress and Ten saw EJ's cousin, Ashlyn Caswell. Ten gave Ashlyn a small wave as they walked over to her.
"Hey Ash, have you seen Caswell?" Ten asked.
"The guy left in a hurry the moment the bells rang." Cress rolled her eyes.
"He's over there." Ashlyn spotted her cousin in front.
Down the halls, EJ had decided to do a livestream on his phone. I'm not sure if that's even allowed but EJ does have the best publicity and most followers, so I guess every bit of promotion helps.
"Yo, what's up? I'm trading in my East High Leopards gear to be a Wildcat, starting today." EJ started live streaming with his charismatic smile.
A few comments started popping in, some of them are his followers from school while some of the DMs were from fans. Though a couple others were familiar faces that made him smile.
GriffintheGuitarGod commented: Congrats, cousin!!
ValentineRostand214 commented: Congrats, EJ 🥳🥳
LucastheBetterLookingMendoza commented: Congrats, man! #GoWildcats
MadGadgeteer commented: Way to go, Rocketman! 🤩🤩
J3rryChan1128 commented: Bruh, aren't you supposed to be in class right now?? Why are you livestreaming?? lol
EvanChan1128 commented: Oh my gosh, congrats EJ! So happy for you!
KatieCooper0421 commented: Congrats EJ!
AlexaMendoza commented: You're gonna be awesome onstage, man
CyrusVirus commented: Go #wildcats
"I just finished my last class of the day, Jer." EJ responded with a playful huff.
"It's the day of read-through! Blessed to be playing Chad. Link's in my bio to buy the tickets." EJ continued.
Ten, Cress and Ashlyn were walking by.
"Hey Caswell," Ten nodded at his friend.
"Hi!" Ashlyn leaned into the frame as well.
Cress is short, so she just popped up from underneath EJ's frame view like a Jack in a Box.
"What up!" Cress grinned.
"Say hi to my two best friends and my cousin, they're the best." EJ leaned the camera over his shoulder to view the other three teens.
Ten gave a tiny wave at the camera.
As if the universe is showing its bias, EJ (alongside Cress and Ashlyn) noticed a sudden surge in people viewing his livestream.
Some of EJ's followers are probably Ten's fans, but it's weird how his best friend keeps downplaying his popularity.
It doesn't help that Ten usually keeps his social media account on Private and is more selective when it comes to following people online. Therefore, following Ten's sociable best friends online is probably the closest way you can get a peak of him.
"Hello world, EJ here doesn't wash his lucky swim trunks after every water polo game." Cress chimed in with a smug grin.
"Stop spreading false information about me!" EJ jokingly elbowed Cress in the shoulder. The shorter girl stuck out her tongue in response.
GriffintheGuitarGod commented: Wyatt and Zoey are whining if you're picking favorites over the rest of your cousins
"No, I am not picking favorites, you two. But Ash is the only cousin I see on a regular basis. You two are still my favorite twins." EJ stated. "And you're still my favorite guitar hero, Griffin."
J3rryChan1128 commented: Wow, I am so hurt you have your own favorite set of twins, EJ.
"Hey Griffin, hey Wyatt and Zoey! Tell Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ben I said hi." Ashlyn waved at one of her cousin's comments.
Those three are technically second cousins from their moms' side of the family in Chicago. As strange as it seemed, EJ's mom and Ashlyn's mom happened to be cousins who coincidentally married the Caswell brothers. Their aunt Sarah and her husband Ben sometimes babysit EJ and Ashlyn when the Caswell parents are out of town.
"Hey Ev, Ten's here. You sure you don't want to chat with him?" EJ leaned the camera over to view Ten.
"Oh gods, please stop trying to set me up with your friends." Ten shook his head.
EvanChan1128 commented: Stop trying to set me up with your friend already! I got SATs to worry about!
LucastheBetterLookingMendoza commented: Wow, what a bold move, Caswell 🤭
"See? I'm not interested in being set up, and neither is your friend." Ten refuted.
"See you next time. Say bye, guys. Peace!" EJ smiled at the camera. His three friends waved at the camera as the livestream ended.
"You're in a good mood." Ashlyn commented, she seemed glad that her cousin was being optimistic.
Cress and Ten shared a look. They knew that EJ was hiding more than he's letting on. He was good at masking his emotions like that.
"It's just for the fans, the fam and the friends. Deep down I'm a bucket of sadness." EJ corrected, a flicker of his solemnness showed in his eyes but he quickly put on a brave face.
"You're still not over the whole 'Not Getting Troy' thing?" Ashlyn asked.
"I put 3 years through the drama department, and now I have to understudy my girlfriend's ex." EJ pointed out.
"And all in all, he made a rather poor first impression on a lot of people." Cress added, listing out a few reasons, "The dude shows up unannounced, cuts in line before all the other Chad auditionees without a number, serenades his ex's love song in front of everyone, and basically makes himself known as the desperate jilted lover who's here for all the wrong reasons."
Ten nodded, silently agreeing with Cress's points. She could honestly make it to the Debate Team if she'd want. But she probably wouldn't join since she dated and broke up with the current Debate Team captain last semester.
"Life sucks sometimes...But maybe it'll be good for you to not get what you want for once?" Ashlyn sympathized with her cousin. She then proceeded to walk into the bomb shelter for the read through.
Ten had stopped on his tracks when he heard Ashlyn's remark.
"That only matters if Ricky is much better than EJ." Ten said, but loud enough to be heard by Cress. "But I supposed we'll only find out in the Read-Throughs."
"If Cress had gotten Troy, I wouldn't be that mad. Heck, if Ten got Troy, I'd be enthused to understudy for him." EJ pointed out.
"Aww, nice to see that you wouldn't mind getting your dream role." Cress teased.
"I know a worthy opponent when I see one. And you two, are the few people I deem as equal opponents." EJ playfully ruffled Cress's short hair.
"Hhm it's true, I do have better hair for the role." Cress joked back, causing EJ to smile a little.
Cress knew that EJ was still feeling bitter about losing his dream role to some skate-rat, so she just let him mess with her hair for a change.
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Yeah it's one of the shorter chapters, since the Bomb Shelter segment deserves its own separate chapter. It's fun to include more stuff going on in EJ's classroom because the show primarily focuses on the theater club (and personal lives/relationship drama) of the cast.
Chapter Talk:
(1.) Since we know very little about the Senior Class (aka EJ, and also Tonya Freeman), I decided to expand more of them. Some of these OCs take on the role of EJ's friends/mutuals in class. We have the Martinez Triplets, Amelia Palmer, and a few of EJ's water polo teammates (Anthony), Kaison and Lauryn. The Martinez triplets dabble in theater as well with Marissa being cast as Sharpay's Understudy (but unlike the other Wonderstudies, Marissa takes it in stride). Since the show is too big of a coward to give EJ an actual support group (sans Val and Ashlyn), some of these OCs will take on the roles of becoming his friends.
(2.) Ten's sexuality is ambiguous in 'Weightless' (again this is my friend's story so I respect her writing choices and it's honestly a refreshing take), since that story mostly focuses on Ten growing as a person and his relationship with his best friends. Cress personally thinks Ten could be either Demi or Grey, since he's the only single Chaste one out of the trio. This is basically how Cress broke EJ's mind at suggesting Ten to date: -
EJ: I don't get it, why wouldn't Ten want to date anyone? Doesn't he want a love life? Doesn't he want to be happy??
Cress as an Aromantic Bisexual: Maybe Ten's idea of a good love life is No Love Life? Plus, he's probably gonna be like a Crazy Cat Owner or something.
EJ: (gets Vietnam flashbacks of the time Cress came out as Aromantic) No love life can be good love life. No love life can be good love life...
Ten: (watching this discussion from halfway across the room) Yeah I think you broke Caswell, Cressie
(3.) An early cameo from a few eventual season 3 summer campers (Val, Maddox, Evan) and other characters from my other story (#Love Is In The Air, or as I call it LIITA). EJ is noted to have the most Instagram followers in the show, so why not expand the multiverse theory? Here are some extra facts about this crossover-verse: -
~> Val from summer camp is cousins with Roxy Rostand and Gwenny Thompson. Val is the cool cousin, Roxy is the sweet one who's friends with everyone, and Gwenny's a bit mean but still means well.
~> Val's short for 'Valentine' instead of 'Valarie', mostly because in LIITA there are 2 other girls with the same name (Evan's friend Valarie Nyugen, and Alexa and Katie's classmate Valery)
~> If it's not obvious, Lucas and Evan ended up dating in LIITA season 2 (early 2019) but had broken up on mutual terms when the fall semester began. So EJ is shamelessly trying to set up his friend with Ten
~> Evan and EJ have a very comfortable/playful dynamic. She and him got casted as Mother and Son in one of Shallow Lake's summer plays when they were 12 and 13 respectively. So she mom-zoned him real quick and took the maternal responsibilities seriously after that. I have another divergent AU story for that (Swap AU, whereby Ten had moved to Wellard instead of SLC and the Chan twins grew up with EJ instead)
~> EJ has a sibling-like dynamic with his younger cousins. I just really love Big Brother EJ headcanons, ok?
(4.) If you've read my stories for a while, you'd notice that I have a habit of making crossover connections that turn into its own shared universe. So here's the HSMTMTS x Secrets of Sulphur Springs crossover nobody even asked for. Long version short, Sarah Campbell is cousins with Penelope (EJ's mom) and Debbie (Ashlyn's mom). Ergo, making EJ and Ashlyn cousins of Griffin, Wyatt and Zoey Campbell.
(5.) I've mapped out the aftermath of season 3 already and it ends with 2 possible outcomes: Going to Sulphur Springs is just one of the two possible routes. And yes, I have already written a few scenes for those two spinoffs:-
~> One has a more Slice of Life genre (AKA the Wellard AU) which is most likely to happen if you stick to the show's direction with Rina happening.
~> The other one blasts off to Sci-Fi Time Travel with an extra dose of time-travel induced trauma (AKA the Aunt Sarah AU) with a hint of Portwell reunion [Spoiler Alert: I will be posting that story later on, so keep an eye out]
Anyways, that's all for this chapter. Feel free to leave a comment down below and let me know your thoughts. See you next time, and have an amazing day.