A/N: I've pretty much finished writing this entire story so yeah the ending is decided upon and I wont change it. Ive written up to chapter 8 so far so that's why the chapter's are coming out so quick. Thanks for the continued support. The story is heading towards an interesting direction.
Trigger warnings: Bullying, fowl language, Eddy (he's pretty much a walking trigger warning LOL) and Nazz.
Discailmer: I don't own Eddy, Edd n Ed..
The following Monday came quicker than accepted for Eddward Stuart. It was the same fall grey sky and the same 90% chance of rain. The same street leading to the same corner leading to the same old Peach Creek High School.
Yet somehow just by knowing he'll be able to sit at the Royal Table with Nat, Kevin and that aweful Nazz, it all felt very different.
But Edd knew not to drop his guard. He had his trusty umbrela with him, and eyed the main road carefully. It rain yesterday. There were puddles every where. If his understanding of Kevin is strong as he had anticipated, Double D knew what was coming next. Well it did happened every other morning since the first time, so the odds were on the genius' side that he'd be able to predict it.
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The roar of that Kawasaki Ninja HR2 suddenly sounded so… benign.
Within moments the helmeted Kevin had pulled over to the side of the road and stabilised himself over a muddy puddle. It appeared that he was ridin' silo this time and there was no sign of Nazz.
"Hey dork!"
Eddward's thumb was hovering over his umbrella's automatic unfolding butten. He was on standby. Eddward Stuart was born ready to defend himself against Kevin Barr's obnoxious and tired might.
"Why the hell ya so early? It's 7:30 now. The dweeb club starts at 8 and ends at 3:30. So excited you couldn't stay put? Ha ha!" Kevin laughed at his own joke.
Edd ignored Kevin's unmature jibe. "Good morning, Kevin. Why are you so early?"
"I-um…" Kevin stamered, caught completely off-guard by Double Dork's totally out-of-field comeback. He couldn't… he couldn't tell that nerd that he… "Fucking damn it! How does he get to me this way… Fucking dork! Fucking loser! Arrrgh!" Kevin's mind was a mess, but he managed to suppress all that with just his usual indifferent scowl. Before Eddward could possibly pick up on what he's really thinking, Kevin made sure his helmet was on proper again- he was going to take off! He scrambled around desperately trying to rev off as quick as he can. Double D just stood and watch Kevin in complete mysterification. "Eat dirt, Double Dweeb!" Kevin rode off as fast as he could.
This was the moment!
Just a split second before Kevin had sped off, the Harvard-student-to-be had unleashed his umbrella into its open glory, and shielded him from the highly unsanitary and messy, messy, mossy muddy water that came his way. In the end it was an umbrella and not a bomb shelter so it wasn't perfect. Some droplets ended up splashing over the edges. However, it was a far, far cry from what had happened on his second morning on the way to Peach Creek High School during the previous week.
His hands shaking in revulsion as he shooked off the excess water on his brolly. While grimacing in disgust at the murky liquid, a black, rectangular object with a dull shine made it into the corner of his eye. Double Dee closed in on this sight, and noticed what appeared to be a black smart phone misplaced towards the edge of the puddle Kevin had used in his attack against Edd.
"I do not recall seeing this before. Kevin must have dropped it."
Edd got a hand towl out of his messenger bag. He folded it once, quivering at the thought of touching that dirtied device. Does Kevin even disinfect the touch screen?! Being careful not to get any of corner of the towel on the puddle (as that would suck up the disgusting water), Edd scoped up the mystery cell phone. He didn't have the correct equipment to disinfect the phone, which was a crying shame, but at the very least, he could wipe off the sandy water with the towel. He press the largest butten, which was the round 1 just below the touch screen. The phone's screen lit up, revealing the time, weather, general location of the nearest phone tower and notifications on the top left-corner.
It appeared that Edd would have to tap in a 4~6 digit code to gain further access, but that wasn't this morally-upstanding do-gooder's goal at all. He noticed that the wall paper of the lockscreen was a much younger-looking Kevin standing in the middle of two adults- on the left, a gentleman who looked very much like Kevin, save for his strawberry blond hair and on the right, a lady with the same flaming red hair as Kevin's. They were obviously his parents, or at the very least, non-parental family that Kevin heavily resembled. They all looked happy and appeared to be posing at the front entrance of what Kevin recognised as his home city's Central Park Zoo in New York.
"THAT Kevin Barr uses a family photo as an wallpaper? My word, that is undeniably adorable." Eddward chuckled to himself.
Well, the not-so-mysterious mystery of whose cell phone this is has been solved. Carefully wiping more of the dirty water off of it, Edd continued his trek to Peach Creek High School.
It was just past 7:50 by the time Double D arrived at the school building. Though he now knew where all of his classes and the key rooms of the entire school were, he never dropped his habit of cautiously checking each wooden plaque above the top of the doors that labelled the rooms as though it were his very first day at Peach Creek High. "Classroom 1-A, classroom 1-B, classroom 1-C…"
Classroom 1-D, where rather fittingly, homeroom 1-D's morning homeroom periods were always took place. Before he went inside, Edd had to put his bag away and collect his gear for the first two lessons of the day: Advanced Mathematics until 9:25 and then Biology from 9:30 until 10:25. Then there was a short recess before the pre-lunch classes began, but Double D plann on using that time to go to library and get started on his first English Literature asessment… which wasn't due in roughly 2 months, but to him, it's better to be ridiculously organised than a 5 minutes late.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ… Dad's gonna kill me…"
Eddward's heart skipped a beat. His heart always knew when a certain red headed jock was around. His locker wasn't far away from Kevin's, so Eddward could still hear what he's saying if Kevin is loud enough, but not close enough to pick up on everything at a quieter tone of voice.
He watched Kevin shake the jacket the jock was wearing when riding his Kawasaki to school. All it achieved was making Kevin look like a matador swishing his cape about. "Fuck! As if I forgot to close the zip pockets!"
It did take a genius of Eddward's level to work out that Kevin had likely lost something, most probably on his ride to school. "Of course, the cell phone," Double D didn't even need a second to realise what Kevin had lost, given that he's the one who picked it up. Edd carefully examine the contents of his bag, and found the lost phone securely nestled in an isolated compartment. "Good morning, Kevin."
Kevin abruptly stopped his manic shaking of his jacket as the smart Ed approached. "Fuck off, nerd. Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?"
Edd ignored Kevin's rude response to his greeting. "I have something that you lost. It is a cell phone, is it not?"
"Give it to me!"
Wearily, Edd handed over Kevin's lost property. The Peach Creek High #1 jock snatched his precious phone out of Doubld D's hands and inspected his retrieved phone for any damage. When he confirmed that nothing was wrong with it, he breath a sigh of relief. "Phew. I couldn't think of a new excuse for loosing my phone for the third time in 10 months." He then felt a warm feeling in his heart. As if this idiot would give him back the phone- intact, at that- after the way he has been treating him? Kevin suppressed the smile that tried to creep its way across his chiselled features.
"I hate to sound rude, Kevin, but you should be more careful. Losing a cell phone twice in 10 months is abnormally scatterbrained."
"Fuck of."
"You must be more careful, as a lost cell phone could wind up in the wrong hands and cause you much grief."
Kevin glared at Double D. "Shut the fuck up. You don't have the right to lecture me."
"In your opinion, nobody seems to possess this 'right' you speak of."
Kevin gut slightly sunk when Double D bullseyed the jock's thoughts. Not wanting to look uncertain, Kevin figuratively puffed his chest in an effort to look more threatening and sure of himself. "And? I'm Kevin Barr. Who else is captain of four different varsity sports teams, is the most popular guy here, has the hottest girlfriend AND is pals with all the other cool dudes? If you can top that, feel free to lecture me until Rolf's cows come home from the Old Country." Kevin then regretted mentioning Rolf. His childhood friend, Rolf Schäfersohn… The Son of the Shepherd. He's been gone for just over 6 months now. He was strange, yeah, but he was a good friend, an all-around good dude and didn't deserve getting blown up to the point of not being able to recognise him. And here his name slips out, of all places, just when Kevin finally stopped thinking about Rolf's unfair, untimely death. More importantly… How does that fucking nerd get under the King's skin so much?!
"Rolf? I do recall Eddy mentioning him…"
"Who cares!" Kevin interjected, not wanting to open old wounds. "You gave me back the phone like the goody-goody two-shoes you are. Your job is done. Now fuck off!"
Kevin's poor attitude didn't bother Eddward as much as it did in the beginning. Kevin was a complicated guy. Edd didn't want to push anything. If Kevin had to be abusive in order to cope, that's his prerogative.
"Thanks, Eddward…"
Double D could not believe his ears. Did Kevin… just say thanks?!
Embarassed, Kevin heaved a huge sigh, wanting to emphasise just how badly this annoying him. "Y-you shoulda been quicker about giving it back, OK?! Don't think I'm thankful or anything… you… you s-stupid idiot nerd!" the redheaded star quarterback of the Peach Creek football team crossed his arms, and turned away from Double D, trying to hide his pinking face. "I mean, yeah, you like… You like, saved my ass and all… so you should have lunch… on… me… I-I meant "onme", as in, "it's on me", not on top of me so don't get any w-weird ideas 'cause th-there's no way I like you like that…" Kevin's voice was barely audible towards the end of what he had to say.
"Pardon? I could not make out what you said towards the end, Kevin. You were too quite."
"I-I said… I said…" Kevin stammered, still refusing to face Eddward. There was no way his pride would allow a loser like Eddward see how nervous and embarrassed he is making The King!
"Kevin, excuse me, but why don't you turn around? I would be able to hear you better that way," Edd suggested, trying to be helpful.
"N-no way, d-dork!" Kevin turned around to shout at Eddward… and immediately realised his mistake. He quickly turned back around again. At this rate, this was never gonna end, and they'll be late to home room… which would be odd considering there literally under a minute away from 1-D's door. He had no choice. Kevin composed himself, and calmly turned around again. His arms were folded across his chest tightly as though he were trying to tie himself together from collapsing in a heap. He made it a point to not make any eyecontact with Double D. Just looking at those green eyes for a second would destroy his façade. "I said- you deaf dork- that seeing as you were a good little boy for giving me back my phone, it's not totally out of the question for me to get you something at the cafeteria- but only if you don't piss me off from now until lunchtime. Got it, loser?! I could change my mind at any moment so don't push it!"
"How adorable!" the black-hatted teenager put a hand over his mouth to conceal his smile. Even though Edd was set to go to the Royale Table anyway, he felt more privilege than ever. "His face is red and he's terrible at expressing gratitude. How very innocent and cute."
"Wow, Kevin. Seriously. How old are you? Like 5 fucking years old? It's not hard to just say "thanks", y'know." Not at all caring about the atmosphere, Eddy cut between them and opened his locker. The metallic door hit Kevin in the face, but it wasn't clear if Eddy intended that or not.
"Good morning, Eddy," Double D greeted brusquely.
"Yo, Double D. Where are you going for rece-"
Eddy was cut off by Edd walking into classroom 1-D. Fine. That's all Eddy needed to know. He gave the dork a final chance after being brushed off by him so many times. But enough is enough.
Ever since their disagreement during Edd's second ever morning homeroom last week, Eddy and Double D's friendship was strained, to say the least.
On the other hand, Kindhearted Edd made all the back-breaking attempts to mend it as best he could- every morning in homeroom, he'd glance at Eddy, say a quick hello to give Eddy a brief window of time to reply and then immediately start chatting away with Nat. Yet Eddy still wouldn't apologise. Nice guy Edd is opening the door to conversation, yet Eddy still won't even apologise. He'd try chatting to Double D as though nothing had ever happened. Then Eddy would get in a huff as soon as Eddward would devote all his attention to Nat when the shorter Ed tried to reply to Eddward's morning greeting!
The nerve! Oppressive, pointlessly mean people like Eddy didn't deserve the enriching experience of Eddward Stuart's loyal friendship anyway.
The morning lessons were a drag. Double D usually loves all of his classes (well, except for brainless activities like P.E., Drama, etc.), but he just wanted to hurry up and have lunch with the ever increasingly enigmatic Kevin. As he was going through the lunchtime motions of putting his things away in his locker, Peach Creek High's #2 coolest guy showed up.
"Yo sweetie, you still remember right?" Nat asked Edd, though honestly, it wouldn't really be a big deal if Eddward had forgotten.
"Of course I do, Nat. Today is the day that I shall understand Kevin better. He is a complicated individual, and will need the utmost patience in deciphering his many complex layers. It could take many chapters of the long, long book known as "Life.""
"Yup. So whenever Mr. Chiselled Good Looks' being a dick, just ignore it… Like I do!" Nat declared proudly. "Underneath it all Kev's nothing like Eddy. So Kev's still a good guy. Don't forget that!"
"I am sensing that already, Nat. In record time, in fact. It feels almost unatural and out of this world how quickly I have grown to acept Kevin's short comings."
"I'll say. It must be luuurve, sweetheart," Nat cooed, earning a laugh out of Double D. "Hey, you're not denying it!"
"Why should I? To become truly knowledgeable, one must not deny every possibility without adequate proof. At present, I don't have enough proof to categorically deny that I have feelings for Kevin."
"LOL, ya such a nerd, but it's part of your charm, sweet-Edd. I mean, sure, any and every other nerd in this school cops it hard, but you don't deserve it. I mean, you're just so nice, smart, adorkable, caring, understanding… and adorkable! Very adorkable. It's like, you're one defining trait, I'd say. Plus your butt is kinda adorkable too."
"Oh my, thank you very much, Nathan. Shall we head to the cafeteria?"
"Yeah, let's hurry up and try to spend as much time with Kev at the table before that slut-of-a-girlfriend shows up."
And hurry up the two did. As the pair walked towards the cafeteria, nervousness and excitement swirled inside Eddward Marion Harvard Stuart's gut.
