I don't own Homestuck or any of it's characters.

Chapter 1: Otaku Anthem

Dirk POV

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I groaned as I rolled over to shut off my totally awesome Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff alarm clock. My bro gave it to me after I found out about his web comic. It's one of his "ironies".

Anyways, I sat up and stretched, finding a kink in my neck from sleeping in an awkward position. Damn it.

I blearily pried open my eyes to glance at the clock. 7:15. Perfect. I could actually take a shower this morning. I swung my feet out of bed, only to have them land on something amazingly soft. What the-? Oh, just a smuppet. I stayed up making one of them all night. I looked at the lime green plushie. Okay, not my best work, but come on. It was dark when I was sewing.

I tossed the smuppet in the mountain of other plushies like it and trudged towards my bathroom. My robot Squarewave zoomed up to me, hopeful for a rap off. "Not now," I muttered pushing past him. I felt kind of bad about that, but it was way too early. Not that I couldn't kick his ass, I had some pretty sick rhymes even though I just woke up, but I really wasn't in the mood. Squarewave rolled away looking about as disappointed as a robot could be and I shut the bathroom door behind me.

Grabbing a towel, I turned and- oh God. Wait. Nevermind, it's just Cal. I gave my man a fist bump before stripping off my clothes, including my kickass anime shades, and stepping inside the shower. The hot water poured down my back and steam flowed out the top.

"Today's the day," I muttered. 'The day for what?' you ask. The day I would finally confess my love to the hugely annoying, oblivious derp known only as Jake English. Gog, I sounded like a teenage girl. I rolled my eyes and squirted some shampoo into my hand before putting it in my hair.

'What if he rejects me? What if I ruin our friendship? What if he's disgusted and-…' I stopped that train of thought. "Striders don't worry," I told myself, sounding far more confident than I felt. With a sense of conviction, I washed the shampoo out and shut off the water. I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my middle section. Before leaving the bathroom and glanced at the fogged up mirror, piercing orange eyes glared back at me.

With a sigh, I left the bathroom to look for something to wear. 'I really am acting like a teenage girl. Since when did I ever give a damn about how I looked? I'm too cool for this,' I thought, sorting through my outfits. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, outfits, plural. You may hold your applause.

I finally settled on my white T-shirt and black jeans along with some black converse. Why mess with perfection? I slipped the tee over my torso and glanced down at the orange hat printed on it. People trying to be bros wear hats. People who are bros wear hats on their shirts.

When I was done dressing, I went back to the bathroom to finish getting ready. This consisted of a majority of my morning rituals. I grabbed a bottle of hair gel, squirting a generous amount into my hand before styling my hair into my trademark anime spikes. I brushed my teeth and put on my glasses, hiding my orange eyes. "Don't let bro know you've been acting like a girl," I muttered to my reflection, putting on my black fingerless gloves. "He'll definitely kick your ass into next week if he finds out."

"Cal bro," I called to my man who was chilling on the bed. "You're in charge." I headed down the stairs, forcing my face to be expressionless.

When I arrived at the kitchen, my bro was already at the computer, probably working on his ironic web comic. Next to the computer was his breakfast, toast and a half gone bottle of apple juice. My bro has a weird obsession with apple juice. He looked up when I entered, gave me a nod and looked back down at the computer.

"Sup?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

"Gotta go to work today," he replied, his fingers working furiously.

"Cool," I replied, pouring myself some milk. My bro nodded absently, but after a few minutes his head popped up and he looked at the clock. I could never exactly determine his train of thought, but he looked a bit annoyed.

"Shouldn't you be at school or whatever?" he asked, leveling his gaze at me.

"What?" I glanced at the clock. 7:30. "Shit!" I yelled, quickly downing the last of my milk and snagging a piece of toast from the toaster. "I'll be home as soon as school ends!" I yelled, half out the door and struggling with my backpack.

"Okay." I faintly heard his reply as the door slammed behind me. I sprinted down the sidewalk to school. So much for getting there early for once…

~~~~~At School~~~~~

I breathed heavily and checked my watch. 7:45. "Oh, thank gog," I breathed, almost collapsing. I strode down the hallways towards my lockers while watching groups of people drift by me. Goths. Preps. Hipsters. It was a huge melting pot of people trying to be "cool". I rolled my eyes, not that anyone would see that.

Suddenly, I was shoved towards the lockers. A couple of jocks leaned over me. "What's with the stupid shades, freak?" One of them asked. I guess I could've totally wasted them if I was allowed to bring my sword to school. I certainly wasn't weak from all the time my bro and I spent strifing on the roof, but I decided to play nice.

"I have an eye condition," I ground out through gritted teeth.

"Freak," he repeated.

"Spectacular comeback," I snorted. "Want an award for thinking so hard?" He shoved me harder against the lockers.

"You better watch yourself," he snarled before slinking away with his friends in tow. I sighed and brushed some stray hair out of my face.

"Meatheads," I muttered as I watched them go. I turned around toward my locker, when I saw my friend waving to me from the side of the hall. I walked towards her. "Hey Roxy," I said casually, façade in place.

"Hey Dirk!" she said happily, drinking from a coffee container, one of those stainless steel ones where you can't see what's inside. An awful thought hit me.

"Oh gog, please tell me you aren't drunk," I said, staring disbelievingly at the girl.

"Fine, I won't tell ya that 'm drunk," she said, grinning widely. I facepalmed.

"Roxy, it's not even eight," I stated, trying to snatch the container away from her. She swatted my hand and pouted.

"Oh c'mon friend! Loosen up!" she said, drinking again. "But anyways," she masterfully changed topic. "Arent'cha gonna confess to Jakey today?"

I felt my cheeks heat up. "Uh…y-yeah. I guess."

"Are you embarrassed?" she asked sounding both sober and shocked. She leaned in closer to my face and squinted hard before backing off slowly with an expression of disbelief. "Ya ARE embarrassed!" she said triumphantly. "Who woulda guessed? The great emotionless stone that is Dirk Strider is finally embarrassed!" she laughed loudly.

"Shut up!" I muttered, hoping no one heard her.

"I'm just teasin' ya," she slurred. "I'm really happy for ya, believe me."

"Thanks… I guess," I responded, at a loss.

"Oh look," she said, glancing past me. "Looks like Jakey finally got here!" I whirled around to see, indeed, that Jake English had arrived. He opened his locker and hunted around for his books.

"Oh gog," I buried my face in my hands. "I can't do this."

"Sure ya can!" Roxy announced, a little too loud for my taste. "Ya just gotta go over there an' talk to 'em!"

"It's not that easy!"

"What're ya talkin' bout? Haven' you been crushin on 'em for months?" She asked.

"Yeah, but-"

"But nutin'!" she said with absolute conviction. "Ya need ta go tell him… tell him how ya feel." She started looking a little tipsy.

"Ah, shit, Roxy. I'll take you to the nurse," I began, but she waved me off.

"No! M' fine! Ya gotta tell 'em!" she yelled, pointing at Jake. I knew it was useless arguing with her and dutifully trudged towards my crush.

"Jake," I began, causing the other to jump.

"Ah! Strider! You scared me!" he laughed. I felt my cheeks heat again.

"Bro? I kinda need to talk to you…" I started, trailing off a little.

"Yes?" he asked with that innocent derpy expression. Gog dammit, why was this so hard?

"I kinda… you know… like you?" I said, almost asking it as a question. "Would you, um… go out with me sometime?" He gave me a blank stare. Oh shit. Did I just do a world class foul up? "I-It's okay if you don't want to," I stammered, backing away. "You know what? Forget I asked." Oh gog, what was wrong with me? I turned to head to class when I felt someone tugging on my shirt. I turned to see it was Jake grabbing it.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked, staring at me with those innocent green eyes. I blushed even more.

"Uh…yeah," I muttered looking away. For some reason, Jake started laughing. My cheeks got even hotter.

"W-what?" I asked, probably crimson by now.

"It's nothing, Dirk," he replied, wiping away tears. "It's just…I never thought you would actually ask."

"So… is that a yes?" I asked, feeling hopeful. He lifted a hand and promptly thwacked the back of my head. "Ow!"

"Of course it's a yes." He gave me a lopsided smile.

"What was that for?" I complained, rubbing my new injury.

"For making me wait so long," he stated. "Now, if you don't hurry, you'll be late for class too." And he walked away, just as the bell rang. I felt a sense of joy well up inside me and turned to look for Roxy, but she was no longer leaning against the wall.

I shrugged. Someone had probably hauled her to the nurse, no doubt it was probably Jane.

BRIIIIIING!

Oh shit! Was that the bell? "Of all the times," I muttered, scurrying down the hallways towards my first class.

A/N: Okay so that's Dirk's POV of the incident... Now we gotta see what some of the other sides of the story are :D

Yay! First only Homestuck fanfic! Yeah, Dirk might be a little OOC... I tried to keep it in character, but I don't know how well I did. Sorry... *sweatdrops*

Anyways, review please! Please?