[Hyde POV]
I sat on a giant boulder and drank my fourth cup of beer. Chuck charged 1 dollar per beer, and I paid for all of my friends too.
"Ugh. My bladder is full."
I stood up, walked to the side of the party– a cliff overlooking the town, and unzipped my pants.
While I was pissing, someone else did the same beside me. It was Eric.
Then, it was Fez.
"Urrrhhh…" Fez moaned as he pissed which made both Eric and I look at him with disbelief.
"Hey, there's a cup on the boulder there." Eric saw something and began aiming at it.
"Let's pee in it." Fez said excitedly.
"It's on." I agreed.
We aimed at the cup ten meters down and nearly filled it with our pee. Three streams of urine basically drenched the boulder.
"Ah. It's finally done." Eric said and zipped his pants back. We all did it.
Suddenly, we saw something curious. A drunken senior walked groggily to the boulder with the cup on it.
"Hey… Wait…" Eric widened his eyes in shock.
"No. Dude!" I shouted.
"DON'T DRINK IT–" Fez shouted in horror. The man picked up the cup, sipped it and spewed the drink all over the ground.
"What the fuck is this?!" He shouted and looked around angrily. He smelted it, and fumed even more. "Is this piss?"
All of us retreated back and went to mingle at the party.
Ophelia approached me as I sat on a tree stump near the open fire.
"Hey. Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot." I sipped my beer as I replied to her.
"Is there a next project? Or should I go to California now?"
"You're not waiting till you graduate?" I asked.
"No. I'm going to go right away." She shook her head slightly. "I'm going to work as a waitress while I'm auditioning."
I nodded and said, "That's a plan."
"Not a good one?"
"Not really." I shrugged slightly. "Hollywood is highly nepotistic after all. Unless you have connections, you will be waitressing for a long time."
"I don't mind that." She replied with a smile. She touched my shoulder slightly and asked, "Are you sure you're not making anything?"
"I'm clueless." I shook my head. "I still have a lot of things to do. I can't focus on making an actual film."
Her eyes widened slightly. "Wait. So you do have a plan. But you're not doing it because you're too busy."
"I have… intention. Not plans." I replied.
She suddenly burped. Not like a cute burp. But a long, old-guy burps.
"Sorry." She covered her mouth quickly, blushing in embarrassment.
I laughed, "That's amazing. I think I can beat that." I did a long burp myself.
Ophelia was stunned and she laughed heartily.
"What the hell is even that?" She giggled.
"I won." I replied with a grin.
I was quite drunk, so my inhibitions were lowered. After this, I sort of blacked out and didn't even remember how I got home.
…
Before I could go to school, Jackie came to the basement. Eric and Donna were there too, nursing a hangover.
"Steven! I heard! Oh you're a horrible boyfriend!" She said with annoyance.
Eric and Donna turned to me.
"What did you do?" Donna asked me angrily.
"I don't know. What did I do?" I asked Jackie with confusion.
She stepped towards me and crossed her arms together. "You don't remember what you did?"
"No. Not at all." I was confused.
Jackie's frown turned upside down. She grinned and sat on my lap, shocked Donna and Eric.
With her hands wrapped around my neck, she said while looking at me intently, "You rejected the senior at the party last night. You told her, 'I have a girlfriend'... loudly. You're so loyal!"
The memories came flooding to me as she said that.
And no, it wasn't Ophelia.
A blonde girl was trying to kiss me while I was drunk. I pushed her away and snapped at her.
"Hyde. You really did that?" Donna looked amused.
"Get off me." I pushed Jackie away and said, "I only said that because I'm under contract."
"No. You did that because you love me!" She swooned.
I grimaced and said, "No, I don't."
"Your mind can reject it all it wants, but your heart… that heart is reaching out for my love." Jackie sat on top of me again.
I said uncomfortably, "No touch. No touch."
The system chimed in at this moment, but I didn't care about it. I pushed Jackie off me again and ran to my car.
"Steven! I'm going to school with you!" Jackie followed me from behind.
"NO! Go with Forman!" I shouted and drove off in a hurry.
I decided to check the system when I was driving.
[Episode 24: Basement shift.
New rating: 7.7
Love letter: 3
Available Rating point: 20.3]
The system showed my date with Jackie.
The episode included the part where I told her to raise her standard and that I was trying to prevent her from turning into my mother.
They even included the field party, and the last part where I rejected another girl while I was drunk.
Jackie was worried about me going to a party that night. She came to speak with Mrs Forman about it. The payoff was about me rejecting the girl.
Now I remembered how I got home. Jackie told Mrs Forman, and she came to pick us up from the field party.
Mrs Forman even got drunk, and puked all over her couch when she got back.
Red sighed and finally changed his mind about getting new furniture for the living room.
'So we're going to end up with the puke couch.' I thought wryly.
I replayed the part where I was drunk. They made it seem like I rejected that easy girl because I was in love with Jackie.
"This is system manipulation. That's not what happened at all!" I protested angrily, but the system didn't respond.
"Fuck this." I rubbed my sore forehead in frustration.
I calmed down a bit as I got to school. At the very least, I got a lot of rating points with these new plots.
I was pretty sure there would even be a fan shipper edit of me and Jackie on Youtube later on.
"Should I just skip school? No, this is my final day. So I should go."
The gym was already closed off in preparation for the senior dance. I already got all of my hours, and I didn't have to attend summer school anymore.
I slept in all of my classes, and even skipped lunch since Jackie was trying to search for me.
But before I could leave, she cornered me near my car.
"Where do you think you're going?" She asked, smiling slightly.
"Oh god damn it." I cursed my fate.
"The vote is going on in a few minutes." She approached me, hands on her back and twisting her upper body girlishly.
"I need you to take your place as my boyfriend now. Watch me become the first ever head cheerleader who got the position… in her junior year." She grabbed my arm and dragged me away.
At the football field, the cheerleaders were all dressed in their cheerleaders uniform, yet they didn't practice or tumble to show their abilities.
No, instead, they were networking, like it was a party.
"Did you bring your camera?" Jackie asked.
"It's in my car. Let me go get it–"
She held my hand before I could run, forcing her fingers into mine and interlocked it roughly.
"You're not getting away that easily. Oh hey Jessica. This is my boyfriend Steven." Jackie greeted the pretty girl who walked towards us.
Jessica was in the same year as me. In fact, she was in the gym during the badminton tournament, not participating and only talked with the other rich girls at the side.
She had a neat hairstyle, slightly curled with a headband, like Daphne from Scooby Doo. The color of her headband matched the cheerleader outfit.
"Hello Steven." Jessica greeted me, waving her hand flirtingly while moving her right shoulder a little closer to her head.
Jackie was quite irked, yet still kept a smile on her face. "Didn't you bring your own boyfriend today?"
"Yes. I do." Jessica said smugly. "He's a very successful businessman."
"Oh. What kind of business does he have?" Jackie asked.
Jessica smirked and said, "He opened a bulb supply company. He even has business with various major chains. It's called the New York Light, have you heard of it?"
I widened my eyes in shock. Then, I got confused.
'That's my company though?'
A man in a leisure suit, who wore sunglasses, had curly hair and a pork chop sideburn swaggered next to Jessica. She leaned in close to him, and he put his arm around her.
"Hey. I'm Stefan. Stefan Hyde–"
The man flinched as he saw me. I recognized who he was. He was a newbie at my Greenbay bulb company. He just became a salesman there two weeks ago.
His forehead glistened in sweat. I smirked at him and mouthed a threat.
'Expose me. And you're fired.'
His back was drenched. His eyes shifted around nervously.
Jackie laughed and said, "That's really funny. My boyfriend's name is Steven Hyde. You're Stefan Hyde. Are you two related?"
Jessica gasped and said, "They even look the same."
"Wait, if we get married with our partners… will we become relatives?" Jessica added, looking at Jackie with disgust.
Jackie laughed derisively and said, "Are you excited for it? You can be connected to someone like me. This must've been a dream come true to you."
Jessica's forehead vein throbbed. Jackie's smile turned faker, more biting and cold.
I glanced at the sweaty salesman and gestured to him to come to the side.
"Ladies. If you'll excuse us. We men need to talk about some business in private." Stefan– or his real name, Vick.
I popped out a cigarette and lit it. He waited anxiously as I exhaled a puff of the smoke.
I offered him a cigarette, and he took it with both hands, looking incredibly polite.
Jackie grinned as she saw it from afar. It was as if she knew I was the dominant one here.
"So. Did you do this a lot?" I asked him as he lit up his cigarette.
"No. Not at all." He shook his head immediately. "This is just a misunderstanding."
"Really?" I gestured to his clothes, "Because this seems like a very conscious impersonation."
He went silent for a bit. "Impersonation?" He gulped his saliva while maintaining a nervous smile. "No. This is just a coincidence."
"Did you fuck her yet?" I asked crassly.
He wiped the sweat on his forehead. "No. I haven't."
"Hmm." I glanced at Jackie and said, "That makes your crime less bad. You know what? I'm not going to rat you out. I think you just finished school, right?"
He applied for the job after he got his SAT result and didn't wait for his graduation.
"Yes." He said desperately.
"But if you kept doing this, impersonating me to fuck some gullible girls, I'm going to make your life a living hell. You got me?" I said with a cold tone and vicious eyes.
He lowered his gaze and said, "I understand."
"Good. Now. Don't squander your last chance. Tell her the truth today, after everything is done. Even if my girl doesn't like her, I can't let her think she's actually dating me."
"I… Okay." He sighed and replied begrudgingly.
Suddenly I heard a shriek coming from the side of the football field.
"Steven Hyde! Are you seriously smoking on school grounds right now?!" Mrs. Ling snapped at me.
I quickly dropped my cigarette and ground it out while waving at her awkwardly.
Time passed by quickly.
Everyone was sitting on the bleachers while the previous head cheerleader was handed the result of the vote.
"The next head cheerleader, who won the position with a record-breaking margin, is… Jess— Jackie Burkhart?"
The senior cheerleader reading the result was stunned. Jackie squeaked and hugged me.
"Oh my god. Steven! I won!"
She kissed me on the cheek and quickly went to the front of the crowd.
"Thank you, everyone, for your confidence in me. Next year, we're going to move away from the 'fun' training our previous head thought of, and we're going to become the biggest cheer team in Wisconsin," Jackie said confidently.
Jessica raised her hand and asked, "How?"
"How what?" Jackie asked, confused.
"How are we going to win the competition? Are we hiring a new choreographer? Who's going to pay for that?" Jessica asked, purposely picking on Jackie.
Jackie just grinned and said, "I'm not going to give you the plan right now. That's what the summer is for—preparation."
She added, "I'm not dumb enough to spout nonsense with no backing behind it. So during summer camp practice, I'm going to show you a real plan for us to win the district, and then, the states!"
I clapped for Jackie, and the others followed me. She winked at me, thanking me in secret.
The vote was finally over. I could finally go home.
"Now. We're over, right?" I asked Jackie as I stood in front of her before we got to my car.
She shook her head and said, "No. We said one week. I still have three more days left!"
…
That evening, we watched TV together. All of my friends were in the basement, sitting on a new sofa while I sat on the green chair.
Kelso sat on the patio chair and looked at us enviously.
"Why do I need to sit on the old chair?" he whined.
Eric, Donna, Fez, and Jackie could sit perfectly on the three-seater couch together, with Jackie on my side, and Eric and Donna in the middle.
"Because. You suck," Jackie said casually without even turning to him.
"When is the commercial coming? We've been waiting for hours!" Eric complained, rolling his eyes slightly.
I laughed at him and said, "It's been twenty minutes. I think it's the last commercial break."
The TV show I Dream of Jeannie was playing on a rerun on a small regional station.
Finally, the RadioShack commercial aired.
Everyone laughed when they saw Kelso rolling into the DJ booth, and then laughed again when they saw Jackie beating up her partner.
Then, when the trashcan hit the dancers, making them fall down like bowling pins, Kelso almost fell to the ground laughing.
{"RadioShack. Be the Hero."}
The tagline came out, and everyone applauded it.
"Hyde. That's amazing," Eric said, his face beaming, impressed.
"Yeah, Hyde," Donna teased me, "you're so amazing. Who's our amazing director boy?"
"Shut it," I scolded her.
Fez said, "I am on TV. I'll be drowning in whores!"
Eric asked, "Fez. Who is the most amazing commercial actor you know?"
"Um." Fez paused and thought, then came to a horrible realization.
"That's right. No names come to mind. You're not popular, Fez," Eric teased.
Fez deflated immediately.
"Don't do that, man. Fez, you can get lucky if you play it right," I turned to Fez. He looked at me with anticipation.
"Don't go advertising it. If someone comes up and says, 'Hey, are you in that RadioShack commercial?'. Say something like, 'I didn't think anyone would notice.'"
Kelso lit up and took over. "Ooh! Say this—'I only had a small part… but I guess I made an impression.'"
He tried to sound smooth. Jackie recoiled. "Ugh."
"That won't work," Eric said, wincing, then glanced at Donna. "Will it?"
Donna smirked. "If he's actually smooth? Yeah. If he's all sweaty and weird, no chance."
"Damn it. Sweaty and weird is my whole thing," Fez muttered.
I laughed and said, "I wonder how other people reacted to it."
Mrs Forman suddenly ran down the stairs.
"Eric! Steven!" She shouted. "That commercial, is that the one you made?"
"Yes Mrs Forman! Steven made that." Jackie stood up first. "Isn't he amazing?"
"That's right. Steven! You're so amazing!" Mrs Forman hugged me from behind and kissed the top of my head.
I grimaced, recoiling slightly at the affection bomb, but I couldn't do anything against Mrs Forman.
"Ooh! I'm going to call everyone I know and tell them to watch it!" Mrs Forman remembered something and went back upstairs, passing through Red who was going downstairs.
"Steven." Red called me. "I see you're enjoying the chair."
"I'm not giving it back." I said abruptly, guarding the chair with my life.
Red sighed in disbelief and said, "I'm not taking it back."
"Because Mom puked on it?" Eric asked skeptically.
"No." Red replied, avoiding his gaze. "She only puked on the three seater."
"Ugh." Jackie and Donna stood up with disgust.
"Anyway. Steven. Nice job." Red said gruffly and went back upstairs.
"Thanks Red." I laughed slightly.
"What about me? I shot it." Eric whined.
"You're just a glorified cameraman." Jackie admonished him.
Red smiled and said, "That's true." He agreed with Jackie, which made Eric throw his hand in disbelief.
"Ugh. I can't take this. Donna. Let's spend the money I made from being the cameraman." Eric stood up.
Donna laughed and said, "Sure. I've been wanting to try Red Lobsters."
"Hey. I want to go there too." Fez asked with a pitiful face.
"I'm also in!" Kelso stood up, acting as if someone had invited him.|
"Jackie?" Donna turned, inviting her best friend.
Jackie scoffed condescendingly and said, "Well. You can all go. I'm just going to stay here and hang out with Steven."
She patted my leg slightly. I sighed and said, " Maybe the little princess should go home, since she thinks Red Lobsters is underneath her."
Jackie was flabbergasted. Everyone else laughed.
"Yeah. I remembered her calling you low class for going there." Fez laughed.
Jackie's eyes shifted frantically. "WHEN DID I SAY THAT?! Let's go Steven!"
"I never said I'm going. I have to work on something, so I'm staying in." I stood up and stretched my arm high.
Jackie grimaced while Donna laughed at her.
"Hey! I'm still your girlfriend! Take care of my needs!" Jackie stood up and scolded me.
I pretended to be taken aback. Then, I leaned in close to her face and teased, "Are you sure? I can take care of all your needs... Although, it'll be hard for you to walk out of here…when I'm done taking care of you."
"What?" Jackie blushed.
"What?" Fez was confused.
"WHAT?!" Kelso snapped angrily.
I injected the idea explicitly to their brains. Now everyone would think we did it if Jackie stayed behind.
That's why Jackie was blushing hard right now.
Donna froze and Eric was disgusted.
"Hyde. Seriously? That's Jackie." Eric asked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jackie immediately snapped at Eric.
"Jackie. Come with me. Kelso, you're not coming." Donna said, clutching Jackie's arm and pulling her away.
"Aww." Kelso whined and sat back on his seat.
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