AN:

Thanks for the reviews! Posting my work – whether it be written or drawn – online really stresses me out, thanks to a little thing called social anxiety. But the reviews really helped inspire me to write you all another chapter! C:

(Also it won't let me add the less-than sign before the bracket face so it can't be a true Terezi face and I am pissed. :[)

Chapter 3

"HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY" read a large banner over the front doors to the school. It was February 14th, and Karkat's high school would not stop reminding him. He felt that they always went a little overboard on holidays. Terezi, however, thought it was hella cool, probably due to the constant smell of pink and red candy, strawberries, and everything else that was pink and red. Mostly red, though. It was almost like she could smell the colors instead of see them. Karkat just thought she was a weirdo. What a dork. It was kind of cute though.

No, wait, shut up. Keep typing, you stupid writer.

Valentine's Day. Love was in the air. At least, if love smelled like chocolate and sweaty, nervous teenagers. The night before, valentines that had been handed in yesterday were delivered to their rightful lockers by the janitors, slipping them in little slits in the locker doors. This normally resulted in a bunch of papers fluttering out of the popular kids' lockers, and a disappointing single or maybe even zero envelopes sadly falling at a less popular teenager's feet.

Karkat wasn't expecting to get any, honestly, and he could really care less. So having two little envelopes fall out of his locker was kind of a surprise. He saw Terezi to his right sort of tense up at the sound of the papers hitting the floor. Karkat's locker door blocked her face from his view, but he heard her stop trying to unlock her locker for a moment, just to resume doing so a few milliseconds later. His face flushed (he didn't know why), and he scooped them up, muttering some obscenity. If she had gotten any, she caught them before they could fall to the ground, since he never heard nor saw them.

Later that day, in study hall, Karkat was sitting beside Sollux in the library and Vriska was next to Terezi on the other side of the room. Karkat tried to nonchalantly pull his valentines out of his binder to open them, but Sollux of course was looking over his shoulder instantly.

"Ooh, KK has some admirers." His blond, hacker friend with glasses and a lisp whispered.

"Okay, Sollux, shut the fuck up and let me read these, and then we can make fun of me and whoever these are from together, okay?" he hissed back. "Besides, I'm sure you got one from Aradia."

That shut him up. "All right, fine. But you have to show them to eventually."

Karkat scooted away from him, muttering something along the lines of "yeah right, fuck you man" under his breath before actually looking at the envelopes for the first time.

The first was just a pink envelope, and the other was a bright red. Letter #1 had his name written on it in cute, petite cursive, while the other was like it was written by an idiot, or a blind person. It was probably the latter. Who was he kidding, he knew who it was from. Who else would write "K4RK4T V4NT4S" on a letter with a little bracket face underneath?

He opened the pink one first. It was a really good drawing of a kitten with a pink bow around its neck, and beneath that in the same cursive handwriting was the pun: "your purrfect for me!" It didn't say who drew it, but he knew who that was from, too. Nepeta had always liked Karkat, and it had always been unrequited, and he felt like total shit for it. He always just tried to avoid it. She was an okay person, but, shit man he did not like her in that way at all.

Karkat then turned to the red envelope. Opening it, he was very nervous. Fuck, why was he so nervous? It was just a bunch of paper. Get your shit together, Vantas, you can handle a bunch of fucking paper. Inside the envelope was a piece of black paper, and on it was a crude chalk drawing of him and Terezi holding hands. She had a huge grin on her face like she was ruler of the whole fucking world, with her cane flailing around in her left hand. Karkat, however, was drawn looking as if he was trying to appear very grumpy and annoyed with her, but could not help smiling a little all the same. Under the drawing she had written in red chalk:

TH4NKS FOR B31NG SUCH 4 GR34T FR13ND YOU DORK

:]

He smiled a bit, but then the realization that he was a total fuck-up made Karkat sit back and groan.

"What is it?" Sollux asked.

Showing him the paper, Karkat said, "I never made her one."

"Soooooo?" Terezi asked Vriska while Karkat was busy opening letters across the room.

"So what?" Vriska whispered back.

"I know you gave John a card. What happened?" Even if Terezi was just curious, she still sounded like she was teasing her.

"Oh, shut up…" Vriska feigned annoyance, then smiled, saying, "Okay, so I gave him this shitty store bought card that said 'You know what?' on the front, and then 'You're a pretty okay guy.' on the inside, and all I wrote on it was '::::)' and he gave me a note when we passed each other in the hall today saying: 'you know what? you're kind of okay, too, Vriska! ::::)'. So this means war, right? So this has been going on all day actually."

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Terezi giggled, rather too loudly, as Vriska slapped her wrist with her folder.

"Did you get any cards?" Vriska asked her, and Terezi just sighed.

"Oh…" Vriska looked away, deciding to watch Karkat and Sollux instead. Karkat was extremely flustered about something (as always) with a candy red envelope clutched in his hand, and Sollux was trying to calm him down at the same time as low key making fun of him (as always). Sollux pointed at Terezi, and when Karkat saw Vriska watching them his face turned red and he freaked out some more and started beating Sollux's arm down with his binder.

Vriska just smirked at him, turning to Terezi and saying, "I wouldn't worry about it."