"Alfred! Alfred!"

"Hey!" The blond college student looked over at his friend, grinning. He stopped walking to face his peer, wanting to listen to what he had to say.

"You'll never guess what I got on the bio exam!" declared the smaller blond proudly, green eyes aglow with pride, a great smile that was larger than Alfred's on his face.

"What?" Alfred was excited for his friend, who in the past was struggling with exams in their biology class. "Tell me, tell me!"

"Eighty-five!" he announced, crossing his arms. "That's way better than what you got, isn't it?"

"Arthur…?" Alfred chuckled. "I've got some, uh, bad news for you. I got a ninety-eight."

Just like that, Arthur's smile vanished, the sparkle in his eyes fading as well. "…Ninety-eight…" he whispered, almost as if he was in disbelief. "…Well, you were always smarter than me, weren't you?"

Alfred's eyes widened at his friend's distress. "Hey, Artie… Don't take it personally. What do you say I help you study next time, huh?"

"No," Arthur murmured, looking away. "No, thanks. I'll find another way to raise my grade. I'll impress the teacher, like you do every day. I'll do my work and be a good student, like you."

"Artie…" Alfred reached out to touch his shoulder. "Come on, you're doing just fine! Seriously, I can help you study if you want!"

Arthur declined by promptly turning and walking away, no longer speaking to Alfred.

The next day, he showed up in class his usual bright self, sitting next to Alfred with a smile. "Hello! Nice day today, isn't it? Aren't you excited to learn new things?"

"New things?" Alfred gave him a confused look, one eyebrow raised. The young man was acting very different from yesterday. But nonetheless, he smiled and replied, "Sure."

Arthur took his notebook from his bag, setting it on the desk and motioning to the page he had opened it to. "Look! Last night, I started some experiments. Here are the results!" Curious, Alfred looked over at it. "See, I found a frog in my backyard, and started to do some experimentation!" Alfred noted a sketch of the frog, amazed by all of the detail that Arthur had managed to put into it. Arthur definitely should have joined an art class; his drawings were always phenomenal. But when he saw the second picture, his mouth dropped open. In this sketch, the frog's eyeballs were extracted from its skull, though remained intact thanks to a few blood vessels. He had even gone through the trouble to add the splatters of blood around the poor thing.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Arthur pointed to the data he had recorded. "See how long it took for it to die of blood loss!"

Alfred chuckled nervously. "Arthur… Man, that's kind of creepy. Maybe you should stick to more humane experiments."

"Human experiments?" Oddly, Arthur perked up.

"Humane," Alfred repeated firmly. "Was there even a point to torturing that frog?"

Arthur had no reply at first. He gazed down at his gruesome drawings, and answered, "I don't know. I just wanted to impress the professor…"

Alfred patted his friend's shoulder. "Uh, hey, Artie, it's okay. Maybe the prof can find a good use for your experiments on frogs. You never know…"

"No, what's the use?" Arthur closed his notebook, standing up suddenly. "I'm skipping the lecture today and going to the lab. That frog experiment? Completely useless. I need to find out something that people can use. See you later."

After Arthur left, Alfred didn't see his friend for another two weeks, not even in the dorm room. So when he walked into their room suddenly, Alfred perked up. "Arthur! Bro, where have you been?"

Arthur turned, gazing at Alfred. "I've been experimenting." Dark circles were clearly visible under tired green eyes. He dropped a stack of papers and notebooks on the floor, walking over to his bed and collapsing on it promptly. "…I need to get back to work soon… But first, a break…"

"Are you okay?" Alfred hurried over to him, taking off his glasses and brushing his bangs from his forehead. "Just how long have you been working without sleep?"

"Too long," Arthur mumbled in response, closing his eyes. "The experiments… Immortality…" After uttering those words, he promptly passed out, leaving Alfred in a state of confusion.

And, a month later, Arthur was physically dragged from the university's laboratory while he was kicking and screaming and protesting. "Stop! You don't understand! I'm so close! I'm so close to finding the key! The secret to immortality! Can't you hear me, you fools?"

Those who were taking him away didn't listen to Arthur's mad shouts. Eventually, he was sentenced to a stay in the asylum after murdering two university students for his "studies" on immortality.

One night, a few years later, Alfred lay on his bed in his comfortable apartment, about to go to sleep, until he was interrupted by a knock at his door.

"Arthur?" Alfred stared at the all-too-familiar person standing at his front door. "What…? Why? I thought you were in the asylum!"

Arthur smiled. He was dressed in a white lab coat over casual clothes. Pushing up his glasses, he said softly, "I'm not insane, Alfred. They let me out, because they saw that there was nothing wrong with me. Don't be afraid…"

Not convinced, Alfred stepped back. "Dude, no. I know what you did to the students at the school. You got two of them killed, and scarred several others for life after using them as… as guinea pigs… for your sick experiments. Fuck off, okay? I don't know how you found my house, but you need to fuck off right now, or I'm calling the police."

"Oh, Alfred," Arthur purred, entering his former friend's home. "Alfred, Alfred, Alfred… My dear roommate… You were always the smart one. You got better grades. You got on the professor's good side. You graduated college." He chuckled softly. "I didn't. But who was the one doing the good research to benefit all of mankind? Who stayed up for weeks and weeks trying to find out how to make humans immortal? It was me, Alfred. Me!" Suddenly, his voice turned vicious, and he grabbed Alfred's bathrobe, yanking him forward. Despite his thin frame, he was surprisingly strong, especially so when Alfred was caught off-guard. "You didn't deserve any of the recognition that you got!"

"Let go!" Alfred said, not having the heart to shove Arthur off. He was always smaller and weaker. "Artie, I'm gonna call the police on you if you don't leave!"

Arthur's eyes gleamed, and he reached into his back pocket with one hand. "Be quiet, pig," he said, stabbing the syringe he was holding deep into Alfred's neck with great precision.

Alfred cried out in pain, shock and horror, all of those emotions swelling inside of him as some sort of liquid was injected into his bloodstream. "Arthur-" he said, before falling limp in Arthur's arms.

Though he struggled to hold him up, Arthur eventually managed to throw Alfred's unconscious body over his shoulder, bringing it out to his car. After securing him in the trunk, he turned off all the lights in Alfred's house, wiped his fingerprints from the doorknob, and locked and shut the front door. "Alfred," he murmured as he drove off. "I'm so jealous of you. You got the good looks and the good grades and all of the women. But now, all you have is me…"