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Chapter 2 – Note

Tweek slowly shuffled towards his locker, his head down, trying to hide the tears that were still there. He thought back to just a few minutes ago in the cafeteria. Why had Craig been staring at him? There was no way he was interested in Tweek, right? He was straight and already dating Red, the prettiest girl in school. Maybe he had been staring past Tweek at something behind him. Yeah, that had to be it.

Sighing, Tweek finally reached his locker and put in the combination. When he opened his locker, a scrap of paper fluttered out and fell to the floor. Confused, Tweek picked it up and unfolded it. He read it and his heart instantly shattered.

"Hey! You don't know me, but we all know you! You're such a loser and a spaz! And don't think we haven't noticed you staring at Craig. You really think he would go for a twitchy loser like you? How pathetic! No one wants you here! No one wants you to be near them! You just make things worse for everyone, so why don't you just kill yourself? No one would miss you, and you'd be doing us all a favor!"

Fresh tears came to Tweek's eyes. What had he done to deserve this? He had never been mean to anyone, never shunned anyone. Why did everyone hate him? Why couldn't just one person give him a chance?

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. With a heavy sigh, Tweek slowly made his way to his next class, which was a psych class. Tweek had signed up for it in the hopes that maybe he could learn how to understand people better and figure out what he was doing wrong. It was a tough course, as it was only offered to seniors, but Tweek found it to be his most interesting class. He worked hard in it.

Another reason Tweek enjoyed the class was because Craig was in it, and it was one of the few times he didn't have Red hovering by his side. She was too dumb to take psychology. This gave Tweek the chance to safely watch Craig from where he sat in the back of the class.

Usually Craig sat in the front of the class, but Tweek, who was sitting in the back corner, was quite surprised when today he walked to the back of the class, taking one of the desks there. While Craig didn't sit right next to Tweek, he sat two desks away, and the class was fairly small, so there was no one in between them.

Tweek tried not to shake as he carefully looked at Craig out of the corner of his eye. Craig was pulling his notebook from his backpack and setting it on his desk. Then he paused and, as if sensing that he was being watched, looked over at Tweek.

Quickly, Tweek returned his gaze to his desk. That was the second time today he had been caught staring at Craig!

Luckily, Tweek was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of the teacher. Mrs. Themark was a nice enough woman, but she preferred to teach a book than real life. And whenever the book she was teaching called for a group project, even if it didn't have to do with anything, she would assign it. Like today.

"All right, students, we're going to start our next project!" Mrs. Themark announced when everyone was sitting, "You get to partner up and conduct some social experiments together! Isn't that exciting?"

No one said anything. Tweek sat nervously in his seat, his hands twitching. He hated when they chose their own partners. No one ever wanted to pair with him, and he was always just put with whoever had been unlucky enough not to call a partner in time. And his partner usually made him do all the work.

"Okay, everyone!" Mrs. Themark exclaimed, "Choose your partner and then I'll tell you the assignment."

Everyone started scrambling to get their partner so they wouldn't be stuck with Tweek. The blond sat miserably with his head in his arms, waiting for whoever was last to moan and complain that they had to be with Tweek.

"Hey Craig!" Tweek heard one of the girls say flirtatiously, "You want to be my partner?"

Tweek looked over at Craig, knowing he would say yes. Craig stared at the girl with a bored expression as she twirled her hair on her finger.

"Not really," he replied, leaving both Tweek and the girl shocked. Craig got up and deliberately walked over and stood in front of Tweek's desk. "You want to be partners with me?" he asked.

Tweek stared at him surprise. Was Craig, the boy he had been secretly pining after since fourth grade really asking him to be his partner? He felt like he was about to pass out from nervousness, but he managed to regain his composure. He was about to say yes when he was interrupted by an annoyed huff from the girl.

"Really?" she scowled, "You're choosing that loser over me?"

Craig whipped around and glared at her. The girl immediately shut her mouth with a nervous squeak and shuffled away. He turned back to Tweek.

"So, will you be partners with me?" he asked again.

"Y-Yes," Tweek managed to squeak out, his voice barely audible. Craig grinned lazily.

"Awesome," he replied. He sat down at the desk next to Tweek, who was trying desperately not to let his nervousness show.

"Okay, class! Has everyone picked a partner?" Mrs. Themark wondered. When she was met with positive replies, she smiled. "Excellent! Now on to the assignment!" She started passing around a stack of papers explaining the project.

Tweek quickly read it over and instantly felt nervous again. They had a choice between three prompts. They could do a study that involved polling random people on the streets. But that involved talking to strangers. And if there was one lesson Tweek's parents taught him that he took to heart, it was never talk to strangers.

So, that one was out. The second one involved the two students testing to see how they reacted to certain stimuli. It listed several things to try, such as your partner lightly running their fingers over your skin. Tweek shuddered just thinking about it. He didn't want to come off as creepy or weird to Craig.

The third one involved participants taking a quiz to determine their personality and getting friends and family to take the quiz as well, then comparing results and trying to determine how compatible the personalities are to one another.

None of them sounded like much fun to Tweek. He didn't have any friends, and his only family was his mom and dad. He looked over at Craig, deciding to go with whichever one he picked. Craig looked over the paper, then turned to Tweek.

"So, which one do you think we should do?" he asked in that drawl, monotone voice of his. Tweek startled a bit.

"GAH! I-I don't know!" he stuttered, "They all sound horrible!" He shook a little and tried to calm down. "Um, I guess the third one sounds like the least painful."

The very edge of Craig's mouth curved into a tiny smile. "All right," he said, "We'll do that one."

"U-Unless you want to do one of the other ones!" Tweek blurted out. What if Craig actually wanted to do one of the other ones, but only asked him out of pity?

Craig let out a very soft chuckle. "No, the third prompt is fine," he replied, "I was actually hoping you would choose that one. I don't really feel like talking to random strangers, and the second one just sounds weird."

Tweek felt himself calming down at his words. Perhaps this project wouldn't be so bad. Maybe this was the chance he had been pining for all these years to get to know Craig better and maybe even become his friend. His heart started beating faster just by the thought of it.

The rest of class was spent with all the pairs discussing how to start their projects. Craig got out his phone to look up the quiz the paper was talking about and scrolled through the questions to see what they were like. Half of them were multiple choice, and the other half was short response. Most of the questions weren't so bad, but some were deeply personal. The question Tweek dreaded the most, knowing he and Craig were going to have to fill out this test and compare results, was the one asking to define the test tasker's sexuality.

If Craig saw that he was gay, he might think Tweek was trying to go after him. Then he wouldn't want to be partners anymore and demand to get a new partner. Then Tweek would be even further away from him than when all of this started. And he knew he couldn't bring himself to lie on any of the questions. He was too honest for that.

"Some of these questions are kind of stupid," Craig commented, snapping Tweek out of his thoughts, "I think whoever made this test needs to update it. It was confirmed quite a while ago that the glass half full question doesn't actually mean anything. And how does knowing a person's favorite fruit determine personality?"

Tweek stared at him, not knowing wat to say. "Y-Yeah," he decided to agree, "If anything that would determine a person's taste more than personality."

Again, the corner of Craig's mouth curled into a smile. He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Tweek quickly shoveled his things into his backpack as Craig calmly did the same.

"So," Craig started as they packed their things, "You want to meet up after school to go over this test?"

Heart pounding, Tweek nodded. "S-Sure," he replied nervously, "We could meet at my parent's coffee shop, if you want. But we don't have to!"

"That sounds good," Craig told him, "That's Tweak Bros, right? I'll be there. How about we exchange numbers so we can work out the details."

Tweek tried not to let his excitement show on his face. The only numbers he had on his phone were his parents and his doctor. He had always dreamed of getting Craig's number.

"Y-Yeah," he answered and dug into his backpack, "Let me just get my-"

He stopped when a piece of paper fell out of his pack and landed on the floor. He froze up when he saw it. Why had he kept that?

Craig stooped and picked it up. Probably to make sure it wasn't too dirty or anything, he flipped it over and saw the note on the other side. The note Tweek had found in his locker that morning. The one telling him he should kill himself.

Tweek didn't know what to do as Craig read the note. Suddenly, his expression changed. Tweek had watched Craig long enough to know that his neutral expression never changed very much. Even when he was happy or sad or angry, he usually only showed it with a twitch of the eyebrow, or curve of his mouth. But Tweek had never seen the furious look full of rage that crossed his face. It frightened Tweek a little. Especially since he had no idea why Craig looked so angry. Was he really mad about something in the note? Oh God! It was the part that revealed that Tweek had been staring at him! Now he knew his dirty secret!

Without any warning, Craig suddenly started angrily ripping up the note, the look of fury never leaving his face. Tweek watched him with slight horror. After Craig had torn the paper into the smallest bits he could, he tossed them to the floor.

Neither of them said anything. Craig had closed his eyes and was breathing heavily, trying to calm himself down. Tweek shook with nervousness, but didn't want to say anything in case Craig snapped at him. After a minute, Craig spoke.

"Listen to me," he said in a low voice, almost like a growl, and Tweek was sure he was going to get it, "Don't ever listen to anything anyone says about you!"

Tweek stopped shaking. Wait, wasn't Craig mad at him for staring at him?

"W-What do you mean?" he wondered nervously.

"You're not a loser," Craig clarified, "And you shouldn't kill yourself. No matter what anyone says, you're perfect the way you are! So don't let anyone tell you otherwise! And if anyone has a problem with that, then fuck them!"

With that, Craig snatched up his bag and stormed out of the room, leaving Tweek utterly shocked and confused.