"What the hell is going on?" Harmony asked, half to herself and half to the other two.
Blindly running her hands against the wall, she cursed under her breath until her fingers eventually found the light switch. “Got it!”
The lights flipped on to reveal that they were not alone in the chorus room, and that the room didn’t even look like itself. There was a giant cut-out heart taped to the piano and a couple of vases with (fake) flowers sitting in them. In the back of the room sat a grinning Glee club and in the middle…
Kitty and Jake were sitting on two stools.
For a moment, Harmony just stared at the odd sight before the three friends, her eyes widening as she took it all in. Having the glee club stare silently as she walked through the door? It hadn’t happened in a while, but it wasn’t unusual. Seeing her best friend, Kitty, and her boy…thing, Jake, sitting in the middle of the choir room? The one that they shouldn’t even know she spent her time in? Yeah, that was really strange. And what was odder still were the colorful decorations in the room. The more she stared at it, the more confused Harmony got. Until…
Okay, so usually she wouldn’t let something like that slip out, but this was weirder than Ali’s need to organize everything. But all that Harmony got in response was a smile from the two in the middle of the room, and Brittany’s forceful arms pushing her across the room into a seat. She followed dumbly, unable to process enough of the current situation to protest the shoves.
Once the raven-haired Cheerio was seated, Jake cleared his throat and looked at the club sitting in front of him, his eyes quickly gliding over Harmony. The group all turned their own eyes in his directions, waiting for either him or Kitty to say something.
"So, uh, I’m not really sure how these audition things work," he started, the word audition catching Harmony’s attention, “but yeah, I’m Jake, this is Kitty and we’re going to, you know, sing or whatever.”
Everyone in the room shifted in their seat, clearly uncomfortable with the two new ”popular” kids in the room, but not so uncomfortable that it outweighed their curiosity. That's when Jake picked up the acoustic guitar thsy had been sitting on the piano (the same guitar thay Harmony had overlooked at first), and began strumming the openong chords to The Fray's Look After You.
Harmony watched as his fingers made their way across the guitar, but her eyes didn't stay there once he began to sing. The intro to the songs was pretty short, and in no time Jake had started singing, and he could sing. Very well.
This came a surprise to everyone in the room, Harmony included. She had heard Jake hum to himself whenever he thought nobody was listening, but never would she have pegged him as someone this talented. His eyes locked with hers, and the surprised look on her face brought a smirk to his own. And for a moment, it seemed like they were the only two people in the choir room.
But as the chorus of the song began, her attention was temporarily driven away from Jake. Kitty had joined in, and hearing the same voice that was generally used for harsh words be used for such a beautiful love song and sound really good was probably the biggest shock of the evening.
Jake's voice faded out, allowing for Kitty to take the lead on the next verse as his fingers continued to dance across the guitar. And through it all, Harmony's gaze stayed locked on him, and his would alternate from the instrument and the blue-eyed girl. Each time he looked up at her, Harmony felt a light fluttering in her chest, something that Jake had never made her feel before today.
Soon the song came to a close, and Harmony was the first to her feet, giving the pair (okay, mostly Jake) a standing ovation. The rest of the group followed, and they all moved to swarm the soon-to-be new additions of their merry band of misfits. Voices filled the room, complimenting Jake and Kitty.
"Alright, alright!" Jake laughed, wrapping his arm around Harmony. "If you could all stop talking for five seconds, I have something that I want to say."
Once by one, the group fell silent. It wasn't because he asked them to, though, but more because of how he had asked. They'd gotten so used to the idea of everyone wanting to join the New Directions actually being nice to one another that it was kind of a shock.
Satisfied with the silence, Jake turned so that he was facing the girl that had been on his arm. "Harm, I gotta say that when I first found out you were in this club, I was pretty damn surprised. But after some time, I figured it was pretty cool of you, and Kitty and I were inspired," there was a scoff from the blonde, "to check it out too."
Harmony smiled proudly, happy to hear that she was the reason her two closest friends decided to give the "loser club" a try.
"You also had a lot to do with that song. I mean, The Fray is pretty fuckin' awesome, but I picked it because I figured it would be the right way to ask you to be my girl."
"Asking me out through song in front of everyone?" She took a step forwards, making the space between the pair almost nonexistent. "Smart move, Puckerman."
With that, she closed the little distance between the two of them, giving him her silent yes. The girls in the room, with the addition of Blaine, let out little "Awwwww's," and as soon as the new couple split apart, they were engulfed by the glee club.
Nobody seemed to notice anything besides Harmony and Jake at that point, especially not Ryder and Marley standing off to the side, exchanging worried glances.
__________________________________________________
The next couple of days at William McKinley High School seemed to be about the same. Everywhere you went, people were gossiping about the newest "it" couple, and anytime you ran into Jake and Harmony, they would be joined at the hip. And whenever the couple was around, someone else wasn't.
He had learned about Jake asking out Harmony almost immediately after it happened. After the rehearsal that afternoon, his good friends Marley and Ryder had called to give him a "warning," so that he didn't have to hear some twisted version of it in the halls.
And since learning about it, it was he who had gone out of his way to avoid the two. It was easy, really. You could tell they were on there way in somewhere based on the way other people were talking about them. The less ridiculous the rumors sounded, the closer the couple was.
It was a great system, really, and it never failed.
Until one terrible Thursday.
See, Jake had chosen to skip that day, something Bennett learned from listening to conversations since everyone is so freaking obsessed with that guy, and he assumed that Harmony would have followed along. So, thinking it was his lucky day, Bennett had let his guard down, openly wandering the halls of McKinley High all day without fear of running into the power duo.
But luck, of course, was never on Bennett's side, and Harmony had stayed at school that day instead of cutting class to be with her boyfriend, because Coach Sylvester had said something about a surprise inspection that week and there was no way that she was missing a single day this week.
And that is exactly how the pair ended up literally running into each other at the end of the school day.
"Watch where you're goi-," Bennett stopped, noticing who he was speaking to. Immediately he closed his mouth, but his face went from kind of annoyed to more of a kill me now look.
Harmony, on the other hand, was looking up at him with large, apologetic eyes. "I'm so sorry, oh my gosh, I was just trying to get out of here before Kitty ended up dragging me off
All he could do was nod in response, because as the Cheerio was dusting off her skirt, he was looking for the fastest way outta there. It had been almost two weeks since they'd last spoken, and there was no way in Hell that he felt like playing catch-up with her. But, again, luck never seemed to be with Bennett, and Harmony started talking before he could located an escape route.
"Is there a chance that I can walk with you? Just in case Kitty is still lurking around?"
Now, every part of Bennett's brain was screaming that it was a bad idea, because this is exactly the sort of situation that he had managed to avoid. It would be smart of him to say that he was busy or stoned or something.
"Sure, I was about to head to my Jeep anyway."
Well...he never really was all that smart when it came to decisions involving girls.
