Chapter Text
The action around her speed up as someone yelled “One minute left!” in the back of the set she saw MK hurrying what looked to be a guy in the tech department, rushing him to finish up and away from the camera. The podiums set up indicated 3 contestants and a host, the host being first to arrive with a particularly impressive afro, comb in hand. Next to arrive was 2 of the contestants, their podium lighting up with there name after they picked where to stand. One was a loud blonde-haired woman, the podium indicated to be called Sugar, the second being a man in sports gear looking the most nervous of everyone on set called Brick. The third podium clearly belonging to Chase as he stumbles in from behind a curtain, his brows creased in concentration until he slaps his face to smile. Scary Girl took note of it, she also took note that it was probably just Chase being nervous in a new setting, it definitely wasn’t camera shyness. When Chase spotted her in the crowd he waved frantically, Scary Girl stood up to wave him back, shooting a death glare to the complaints from those behind her.
When it came to the start of the show Chase ended up almost jumping with the anticipation of playing the game. The man introducing the show, and the contestants called himself ‘The Earl’ clearly used to hosting he didn’t hesitate to cut off Sugar’s own introduction. Brick was able to stammer out his appearance on the show mainly being for promoting his new sports clothing brand, quickly cut off as he went to explain the fabric used for his clothing. Chase’s introduction went how anyone who knew Chase would expect, he spoke about his channel, about the new member Scary Girl and listed many unique but not useful talents. Despite being terrible at trivia Chase boasted he would win the gameshow as the best total drama contestant, Scary Girl made a show to be positive even with her doubts.
Lucky for Chase the first round was true or false, it didn’t take long for it to devolve into who could hit their button to answer fastest. In the beginning Chase would at least hear out the whole question before buzzing in to guess the answer, Sugar beating him twice in a row pushed him to buzz even earlier. Finding it funny Sugar kept on pushing the button as early as possible, much to the dismay of Brick as even if one of them answered wrong the other would be next to buzz in correctly. The host’s attempts to slow them down was met by the buzzer, at the end of the round Chase was in the lead by one point followed by Sugar and Brick last with a whole 5 points behind Sugar.
For the next round it was individual trivia for the contestants to answer as many questions as possible in one minute to boost their score. This round showed why answering questions as if they were a coin flip doesn’t work. Brick took his time as he answered, holding knowledge for both sports and fashion working well to get him back in the game with his points. Chase and Sugar both mostly saying pass for their minute cost them their lead against Brick, Chase still barely holding onto his lead as Sugar moved to last place.
Reaching the final round Brick looked smug, Chase and Sugar fully concentrated to what was next. Split from a 50/50 choice the next set of questions came with 4 options, 3 different category’s set around the contestant’s own expertise. Chase inwardly prayed Julia had made his easy, no longer button spamming each contestant answered independently. Brick was stumped on a few of his own, clearly upset that Chase and Sugar had guessed right on a few of the questions he got wrong. Being around Scary Girl’s sense of fashion surprisingly being perfect for some of Brick’s questions, Sugar’s set kept a theme of farms that was perfectly broad to create a level playing field of questions. Especially Chase was nervous for his set of questions, that soon dissipating at his first question describing a prank that only Chase correctly identified. Brick exclaiming “Is that even English?” to the next question giving acronyms used online. At the end of the round Chase was grinning, declaring his win as the host began declaring the scores. Face dropping further than Sugar’s as Brick was named the winner of the show, Brick moved to stand by the host, even as he thanked the host for his prize trophy, he robotically promoted his clothes brand. Chase’s dejected expression switching as he was handed a much smaller trophy for second place, bursting out into laughter at the comically small trophy Sugar received.
The moment a woman behind a camera shouted cut, Scary Girl jumped onto the stage to congratulate Chase. “It’s too bad you didn’t get first place, want me to get that trophy!” Scary Girl gestured to Brick, ready to bolt off and take it. “Don’t worry, my trophy’s still awesome, at least I didn’t get that one!” the 2 snickering at Sugar complaining to an employee about the size of her trophy. In the quiet as the laughter died down Scary Girl thought she saw Chase lean closer to her, his arms slightly raised, Chase moving back to keep the distance after that instant. Scary Girl concluded Chase was acting strange after coming back from makeup to which Scary Girl could hardly tell he was wearing, Chase did always initiate hugs, maybe he thought it was weird of him to do now. Scary Girl sucked in a breath, bringing Chase away from looking around him to watch her yank Chase toward her in a spine crushing hug. Releasing a now winded Chase Scary Girl put a finger to her chin “Huh, I think you’re better at hugging than me.”
Chase’s eyes widened, Scary Girl maintaining a close distance after letting go, Chase’s face felt burning. Catching his breath, Chase quickly spoke “Oh, I think I left my… car keys in the dressing room, be back in a minute!” His exit halted by Scary Girl’s grip on his arm “Wait, sorry if I did it wrong, don’t run,” the twinge of sadness in Scary Girl’s voice made Chase’s own panic turn to worry. “I’m not leaving because you hugged me, I just said about my car keys. I thought the hug was… cool, a little bit too tight sure, you didn’t do anything wrong I only want to make sure my stuff doesn’t get stolen from the dressing room,” Chase felt a pang in his chest, he really needed to go to that dressing room. After some internal debate Scary Girl accepted his reasoning “Okay, I’ll meet you by the car so we can head back, text me if you get held up again. I’ll keep in mind how tight to hug you for the future…” Chase gave back a smile that he hoped hide his crisis that was expanding in his head at the speed of light, trying not to run to the dressing room, ignoring the fact that halfway there he heard the faint jingle of keys in his pocket.