Loud music played, she could hear that it was rock but she couldn't distinguish it. If you thought the outside of the room was whack with it's multi-coloured lights glowing on the spotless floors, the inside was a rainbow mess of neon circles. The lights bathed Max in colours and so did it bath the dancing boys in front of her.

Unexpectedly, Max laughed. Her pink mouth split open and and a husky laugh spilled forth. Her head was thrown back, thumbing red locks spilling over one shoulder to hang down her back. Boys dancing like never before to rock had never amused her so much as it did now.

Amongst the boys, she recognised bicycle boy and stalker, staring wide-eyed at her. Their jaws hung open as they stared at her.

Blushing a bright red, she immediately returned back to her hunched position, noticing movement near her left. "Ah, i'm so sorry for the dance-off you've caught us in." The teacher laughed. Massive Goggles covered his eyes, but it didn't hide the curled moustache that made him look a little like her dad.

"It's fine." She mumbled, staring at her dirty red sneakers, slightly intimidated by the tall figure.

When she looked up, Mike and Lucas looked away, their eyes looking at the walls an ceilings. The man, the teacher, walked closer to her and stuck out a friendly hand. "You can call me Mr Clarke. I'm the AVA head, and i am also your teacher for science tomorrow." Mr Clarke winked and laughed at the red blush that coated Max's freckled cheeks seconds later.

"I'm here because i want to join the AVA club."

Me Clarke stood, dumbfounded. His jaw dropped, surprise in his eyes. But the surprise cleared a second later, happiness and excitement shining from them instead.

"You like messing with tech, huh? Well you've found the right club then! Here in AVA, we expand our knowledge about the science behind the machinery we take for granted in our everyday lives. From radios to transmitters, AVA explores what isn't normally explored in Hawkins."

"Right." Max mumbled, her hands in her pockets. Her dads denim jacket suddenly felt too heavy on her, weighing down on her small form like a ton of bricks. "I just want to know where i can sign up." she said.

"You don't have to sign up here. If Principal Coleman already knows your club, that's the only kind of sign up you'll need." A small boy piped up from behind Mike, his form covered with a tent-like tan jacket and his pale face was framed by a neat bowl-cut. He looked anxious and tired mostly, but he didn't seem like he was scared or mousey. He reminded Max of Nate.

"Okay. Well..."

"Well, we were having a dancing party to test out these new disco neon lights, powered by rainwater and made from the parts of a camera! Join us..." Max shrugged off her large jacket, revealing her form-fitting jumper underneath, "Max. Max Mayfield."

"Well, Max, join us in our rainwater-powered organically-sourced-from-an-old-camera neon light disco ball dance party!" Mr Clarke let out a roar and took to doing the shimmy and some odd twist-tap movement. His face was hot and sweaty, but he seemed to be having the time of his life dancing in his tweed jacket and pants and goggles.

Stalker and Bicycle boy weren't moving, just watching her like predators. Ha, maybe she should have called them stalker #1 and stalker #2.

Max's eyes danced over towards the small boy and the broad sunny one, both dancing together and laughing. Awkwardly, she tried to mimic Mr Clarke's shimmying and his weird slap-step movements, failing beautifully but having fun.

Soon, she was flying across the classroom. Dancing wildly and doing the most horrendous dance moves that were sure to be mocked of if anyone outside of the AVA club saw made Max feel as if she was one of them already. Part of a group. Like she belonged.

"You like dancing, huh?" Lucas crept up to her sneakily and tried to twirl her like a Princess. Max leaned out of his grasp at the last minute, grabbing his hand before he could fall to the ground. She heard him gasp at her touch and she quickly moved her hand up to his clothed arm. "No not really, i'm not that great on the dance floor." Max sighed and watched how relaxed the people around her were.

"Just let loose." Lucas suggested, before crowding the small boy across the other side of the room and striking up a dance off.

"Hi."

"Hi." Bicycle boy, her mind acknowledged. Leia, his own acknowledged.

"You like to dance?" Max chuckled, launching into a workout-type of dancing next, "Nah, i'm really tense sometimes and i'm not good with following the flow." she admitted. Bicycle boy, Mike, smiled down at her and did his own little shuffle-and-clap. She thought he looked adorable. Like a fumbling puppy that didn't know what it was doing here.

"Me too." he admitted.

"But it's okay, we can just do our own thing, and we don't have to think about anything." he assured Max, watching her long ginger hair sway with her. He wanted to comb her hair back into a ponytail so that he could count her freckles, scattered around her face like stars in a night sky.

"It's okay because we're doing our own thing." Max added, Smiling up at him like he was the only one with her.

It's okay, because it's just you and me.

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