003 ,, eddie munson

001

JUNO WHEELER woke up to the sound of her alarm going off. 7:58 am. she groaned. it wasn't the first time she was late, but now she had to really hurry if she didn't want nancy to scream at her. she was nice enough to give mike and her a ride to school, but that also meant getting yelled at for being late at least once a week.

she got up from her bed and ran to her closet to find an outfit that looked somewhat pleasing to her, before running out of her room and to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and put some mascara on her eyelashes. for someone being in a rush, she didn't look that bad.

"what the hell are you doing, it's ten after," juno hears her sister, nancy wheeler, scold her brother before saying, "you have thirty seconds or im leaving without you, okay? thirty seconds! you too, juno!"

the girl rushes out of the bathroom and into her room again, quickly putting on her shoes and grabbing her bag and her house keys, before running down her carpeted stairs and walking out the door, not before stealing one of mike's pop tarts. she hears a muffled hey! as she walks through the front door, and into the passenger seat of nancy's car.

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AS JUNO walks from the parking lot to the school gymnasium, she hears someone call out, "j! how are you on this fine morning?"

"steve! i'm doing great, thanks for asking." she replies sarcastically, before turning to him in his car, "i really have to go, but i might see you after school?"

steve grinned before nodding to juno in response, before driving away and letting juno walk into the gym.

the girl grinned slightly as she saw the school's cheerleaders do all kinds of flips and tricks in the air, getting the crowd excited to see their basketball players.

one by one, the school's basketball players ran into the gym, looking at the crowd with wide smiles. "good morning, hawkins high!" jason carver, a well known basketball player for the hawkins tigers, began. " i'd like to thank each and everyone of you. without your support, we wouldn't be here. give yourselves a big hand!" everyone in the crowd cheered, except for juno, who just looked around annoyingly. it is way to early for this shit.

"and of course, i have to give a special shout-out to the best, and the prettiest fans of all time, the tiger cheer squad!" he wasn't wrong about the pretty part, juno thought. as far as she, and steve and robin, knew, juno liked not just boys, but girls as well. "chrissy, chrissy, i love you babe."

juno inhaled deeply.

"you know, i think i can speak for all of us when i say it's been a tough year for hawkins. so much loss. and sometimes i wonder, "how much loss can one community take?" in dark days like this, we need something to believe in. so, last night, when we were down by ten points at half to christian academy, i looked at my team, and i said, "think of jack. think of melissa. think of heather. think of billy. think about our heroic police chief, jim hopper. think about each and everyone of our friends who perished in that fire. what did they die for? for us to lose to some crap school? no. for us to return home with our head hung low in defeat? no. let's win this game, for them. and that's exactly what we did." the crowd cheered.

juno couldn't comprehend this. does he really think they died for some stupid basketball game?

the brunette girl doze off into space. she couldn't bare listen to a guy who thinks that basketball is what mattered more than lives that we're sacrificed that day. that tragic day.

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"THAT WAS A WASTE OF TIME." robin nodded in agreement. they were currently walking to their first class of the day, and the first of the last day of the semester, english. though juno hated pep rallies and waking up early for school, she loved learning. there was something about academic validation that made juno feel a sense of pride whenever she did good in school. she almost had straight a's, except for having a b- in math, but she still was extremely proud of her grades.

they walked in, and took a seat next to each other on the chairs of the rectangular table. that was the weirdest thing about english class, they didn't have separate desks like juno's other classes.

curious and bored, juno looked around the room, before meeting the eyes of someone else. eddie munson. she had a few conversations with him in the past, and he wasn't a bad person. she enjoyed his company.

smiled at him, and he grinned in return.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE
this took so long to write for no reason so y'all better like it

(edited!)