Mason glanced, bored, around the school cafeteria that was exceptionally rowdy today, with more kids than usual milling aimlessly about.

Mason sat with his buddies, who consisted of the dudes on the Basketball team, and unfortunately, their annoying, clingy girlfriends.

Boring. Everything about this school was boring. The people, the teachers, the subjects, even basketball. Though basketball, at least, was tolerable on a good day.

"Dude." Some idiot he vaguely recognized smacked his arm. He'd shoot him a glare in response, but said idiot probably wasn't worth his time.

Idiot leaned in too close for comfort, and Mason had to shove his intruding head back a couple of inches. "Are you even listening?" he pressed with an annoyed sputter.

"Obviously not. What is it?" Mason sighed, temporarily stepping out of his self-imposed zero-contact zone.

"Candice was staring at you, bro, hard." Another idiot interjected.

“Good for Candice,” Mason replied, dismissive.

“I think you two would be a cute couple,” First Idiot’s girlfriend chimed in eagerly. “I mean, she’s hot, you’re hotter. It’d be, like, supernova levels of hot—”

"Uh-huh," Mason mumbled, his gaze locking onto something better; some kid in a faded Metallica shirt weaving through the crowd, food tray in hand. He was bored and needed some form of amusement posthaste, any kind at all. Metallica Shirt was walking straight into the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and Mason wasn’t about to let fate waste such a gift.

“…She even asked me to put in a word with you.” For God's sake, the girlfriend was somehow still talking.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up now,” Mason muttered, sliding his foot out just in time. The Metallica kid tripped hard, crashing down with a massive splat, food flying everywhere, and instantly killing every conversation in the cafeteria mid-sentence.

Then laughter exploded from Mason’s table.

Second Idiot slapped him a high five that Mason barely returned before the fallen kid swung the tray right at his face. Metallica’s spaghetti smashed into his face, warm sauce coating his cheeks and dripping down into his jacket.

Gasps rippled through the room as his table immediately went quiet, their laughter dying a quick death. Idiot One's girlfriend clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

Oh, so that's how Metallica wanted to play?

Wiping sauce from his eye, Mason stood, fist already cocked back and ready to swing when someone---Jameson, Jefferson? Grabbed his arm.

He turned his now red eyes to Jimmy, who was now apparently suicidal, about to verbally abuse him, before physically abusing him, instead meeting Jackson's face of pure, wide-eyed panic.

"D-dude, that's a girl!" J-guy quickly spat out, sensing he was about to be the new recipient of Metallica's blows.

Mason froze, arm going slack. What the actual fuck?

He whipped back around to where Metallica had been, but she was gone, vanished into the crowd.

“Enjoying the show?” Second Idiot’s voice rang out, mercifully loud enough to get the rest of the cafeteria moving again, snapping everyone back to their chatter and shuffling.

Mason stood there for a long moment, ignoring the endless wad of tissues Idiot’s girlfriend kept shoving his way, before finally heading toward the washroom.
What bothered him most wasn’t the sauce, the stares, or even the near-fight.

It was the fact that he hadn’t been able to tell that Metallica was a girl.