The only light visible in Kevin's room was the light coming from his tv screen as he watched Rod enter his younger brother's room and apologized, beginning a strange yet catchy collage of the brothers repeating "cool beans" over and over again like some underground track.

This is what defeat looked like. Sprawled across an unmade bed with the lights off, windows closed, and even his most favorite movie playing but ignored because there seemed to be something more fascinating in the white nothingness of his ceiling. It was Saturday night, near the end of a week filled with an endless game of playing cat and mouse with Edd. Because every time Kevin would try to have a word with Edd, or even try to exchange a glance with Edd, the other boy would run down the street or speed across the school hallway. Kevin just wanted to talk to Edd again, to make amends and return to falling in love. Maybe it was really Edd this entire time who was afraid of falling in trouble. But even then, Kevin couldn't help but think, didn't Edd like all the times they would spend making out? Because Kevin sure as heck did and that was enough reason for them to stay together.

Inside his pants pocket, Kevin's cell phone vibrated. He took it out and saw its screen notify him that he had a new text message from Nazz. It read:

"Kev! I cant find you are you at WF?"

Winter Formal was that night and Kevin didn't even care because he was tired of chasing Edd ever since the day he turned away from him. It was like everywhere Kevin expected Edd to be, the other boy was one step ahead and hiding at the other side of the building. Why did Kevin have to fall for someone so smart?

His phone buzzed again with another text from Nazz:

"Cmon Kev! Have at least one dance with a friend youve loved since 5eva?"

Kevin tossed his phone off his bed and on his bedroom floor. Winter Formal was the last thing he could care about at the moment, especially when all it ended up doing was reminding him of who he care about most. A wave of over dramatic teen angst washed over Kevin as he thought about how much time and effort was wasted trying to ask Edd out to Winter Formal. If Edd hadn't managed to follow exactly what his drunk self said, then maybe Kevin would have known better than to try to win the love of a boy with something big and chasing him everywhere. If Kevin knew, he wouldn't have tried. But also if Kevin knew, he wouldn't have fallen. And Kevin liked knowing that the person he was falling for was Edd. Even when Edd was drunk, everything he said all seemed so right. Why did Kevin have to fall for someone so smart?

Suddenly, the ground began to shake. Kevin hung his head off the edge of his bed and saw his phone's screen light up and vibrating rapidly to an influx of text messages. "God. Just shut up, Nazz!" Kevin grumbled as he rolled back onto his bed and smothered his own face under his pillow. But no matter how much air he was preventing himself from breathing in, the muffled sound of his phone vibrating across the floor could be head. Kevin took the pillow off his head and sat up. He didn't understand why someone needed to be texting him that much under one minute, but he knew he shouldn't be directing all of his frustration towards one friend who didn't even do anything to him.

He crawled back to the edge of his bed and stretched his arm and fingers until he could reach his phone. As expected, all of the text messages received were from Nazz:

"I say 5eva cause its longer than 4eva! XP"

"Are you hiding near the punch bowl again?!"

"I hope you got that the freind I was talkin about was double d"

"I think ed and eddy dragged him along? Better to go stag together than go stag stag?"

"Poor double d. He doesnt look like hes havin much fun. :'("

"Its youre chance Kev! Swoop down and gET A PIECE OF DAT!"

"Dude! I just requested that one song we tried learnin when we were tryin to make a band. Rember it? Dance with double d all night, but save one dance for lil ol me :D?"

Kevin stopped looking at the rest of the texts Nazz had sent him. Edd was at the Winter Formal?

He jumped off his bed, opened his closet door, grabbed whatever sweater was within his grasp, and began running out of his house. His motorcycle was still in the shop and he didn't bother trying to figure out what buses would take him towards the school. All Kevin knew was that he just had to run, performing Olympic skills as he pulled his sweater over his head and dodged any oncoming cars from getting hit by them. The night was cold and the air was brisk. For the first time Kevin had noticed, the sky seemed to be filled with stars that were shining with support, like cheers from an audience at the sidelines of one of his games. As Kevin kept running, he could feel the cold cutting into his face and when he looked down, he realized that the sweater he grabbed was the one he wore when he watched movies at Edd's house for the first time and Edd stretched a hole with his thin fingers.

The stars above him were aligned to form different constellations, but there were two stars across from each other in that night sky, not forming any constellation with any others but simply connected to one another.


The students around were scattered to form different groups, but there was a single student between follies in the form of tall and forgiving and the other shorter and still yet to forgive, not forming any group with any others but simply standing among them in an isolation that happened to be surrounded.

It was just like every other dance he had been going to since junior high, minus the anxiety attacks that began the first few he attended. Edd was standing beside the wall that was the backdrop for one of the dj's speakers, his back straight and arms folded across his chest. He had been dragged along to this dance by an over rambunctious Eddy who donned his hair slicked back with an unnatural shine and amount of hair gel as his eyes watched the dance floor before him, looking for another single visitor that he could grab and dance with, but always backing out right after verbally announcing he would. Nearby was Ed with his hair neatly combed to the side and a starchy suit confining his limbs from making any comfortable movements, having been dressed by his mother this time because it was a chance to make sure that Ed took a bath and prove that he could wear something formally, and as years have shown, there was no way of denying a mother's wishes when it came to Ed.

Edd shifted the weight in his stance. It was hard to recognize the other faces in the gym since the regular lights were off and the only lights came from the dance floor lights, but he couldn't help but feel as the people around him would every now and then glance at him, making Edd feel uncomfortable and as though they were just waiting for him to do something. To keep his mind off of the possible faces, Edd looked back at Eddy. Eddy was wearing another outfit he probably took from his older brothers closet since it was too large and unfit at certain parts, but Edd knew how important it was to Eddy to be able to match up to his older brother, so Edd didn't say anything about that. Instead he said, "The dance floor won't dance to you, Eddy. You have to have to dance if you wish to enter the dance floor!"

Eddy turned around and stared at Edd. "WHAT?"

The speaker near Edd was blaring loudly with remixes of top forty tracks, so Edd stopped standing against the wall and leaned closer to Eddy, "The dance floor won't dance to you, Eddy! You have to dance-"

"WHAT?" Eddy whipped his attention toward Ed, who was trying to stretch his tuxedo collar away from his neck so he had room to breathe. "WHAT WAS THE FAG SAYING?"

Edd stopped crossing his arms across his chest and heavily placed them on his hips. "Eddy! You must cease addressing me as-"

"I THINK WHAT DOUBLE D SAID," Ed's voice overpowered Edd's as he answered Eddy. "WAS THAT HE WOULDN'T CONSIDER JONAH A ROLE MODEL!"

"No! What?! I didn't say-"

"WHAT?" Eddy, getting fed up with the entire conversation, grabbed his friends by their coat sleeves and dragged them towards the punch bowl across the room and away from the speakers. He looked back at Edd. "What did you say?!"

Edd planted both feet on the ground. "I said that-"

"Double D!"

Both Edd and Eddy turned to the side, managing to hear the sound of a friend approaching over the music of the dance, and found Nazz. Her blonde hair cascaded into waves in their short length and her dress swayed as she squeezed through the dance floor and made her way to the Eds. At the sight of Ed and Eddy, she gave a friendly wave hello and then returned her attention back at Edd. "Yo, Double D! I hope you don't mind but I just texted Kevin that you have to let me have at least one dance with him. Of course, that also means I gotta have at least one dance with you-

"Kevin's here?" Although Edd knew it was rude to cut someone off in the middle of what they were saying, his mind began running towards places he was trying to avoid. "Kevin's here? At this dance? Right now?"

Nazz put both hands around the frame of her red lips so that her voice would become louder than the noise around them. "Isn't he? I thought he would be here with you! I've been looking for him all ni-"

"HOLD UP!" Eddy entered the conversation and pushed Edd away from Nazz. Even though he was still shorter than both of them, pushing Edd away was easy for anybody. "This is not happening again! You came here with your friends, Double D, and if we don't have dates, then neither do you!"

"Excuse me?" Edd could feel the rage inside of him beginning to boil and turn his face red. "Do I need to remind you that I was the only one of us who had a date because I had the honor of being asked by somebody. And what did you do? You just continued utilizing derogatory nomenclature to your own friend when you could have been using that time actually proposing someone you wished to escort to Winter Formal to like a decent human being would have!"

As the heat of the words being thrown at each other like knifes began to sharpen and burn, Nazz took a step back. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip, uncomfortable and unsure of where to escape. Normally she would take the role of trying to break up fights, as she has grown to naturally try and do since they were young, but another part of her understood that perhaps leaving Edd and Eddy to work out their argument their own way was probably the best thing to do. Nazz took a glance at Ed who was trying his best to loosen his bow tie. It seemed like none of them would even notice if she stepped away, so she slowly made her exit before heading back to the dance floor.

Because of his height, Edd was able to tower over Eddy and pour down his anger in bucket loads. "I cannot even comprehend why you chose to become a bane to the formation of a relationship with someone who was so nonpareil to me!" Edd continued, his voice becoming scratchy from yelling but still not louder than the dance music. "In fact, at this point, I'm beginning to wonder if all this is just an outward displacement towards homosexuals! Are you really as much of a bigot as your actions project you to be, or are you just unacceptable to desires that are actually of your own? Because I have always known you to be extremely shallow and boorish, but this... This profuse ignorance you are emitting is getting extremely out of hand and there has to be a reason for it!"

Eddy stared directly at Edd in the eyes for a long moment, trying to understand the wave of dialogue being pushed against him. He gave up and yelled back, "NOTHING YOU ARE SAYING IS MAKING SENSE."

"Eddy," Edd took a deep breath and mentally closed the thesaurus hidden in the back of his head. "Why are you doing this? Why did you do all this? Why would you hurt someone who has been nothing but your friend since the beginning? Are you really only acting this way because it's something your older brother would do?"

The mention of his older brother made Eddy furrow his eyebrows and look away. Edd saw this and then continued, "Eddy, you have to stop this reaction formation, this 'believing the opposite' you have of your older brother. We've all met him and we all know how rude he can be, and especially to you. Why do you want to become like that? You can be so much more-"

"So what, Double D?" Eddy crossed his arms, but he still couldn't look at Edd anymore. "Just because you're in love and you think you have someone who loves you back and will never leave you, you think you're better than the rest of us?"

Inside the school gym, the music continued playing and clouded the rest of the students with a sense of oblivion towards the conversation happening near the punch bowl.

Edd was beginning to finally understand what this was all about. "Eddy, please," he repeated. "Please listen, because I am speaking to you as a friend, as even a brother, and I wouldn't be telling you what I'm about to say if I was anything else: I will never leave you. You and I have been friends that have been invested in each other for far too long. I've sacrificed an entire relationship I could have had, just to stay friends with you and Ed. We will always be friends and Ed and I will never leave you."

"Yeah?" Eddy stared back at Edd. "How do we know that you aren't just saying that? You're different now, Double D. Everything's been different ever since that day we caught you screwing around with Kevin. And things don't change unless the people do."

"You just have to try and understand for once," Edd stared back at Eddy. "Because if you don't change yourself, then everything else may stay the same for the worse."

"Whatever."

Eddy turned around and began to walk away. He walked past Ed, who finally stopped fiddling around with his bow tie and looked up. Ed looked at Eddy, and then at Edd, and then back at Eddy, and then at Edd. "You are very loved, Double D," he said as he had once before. "Double D, you are very loved."

If it was anyone else, a heavy sense of sarcasm and hostility could have fueled those words. But because it was Ed and the look he exchanged with Edd said so much more than those twelve words, Edd could feel a sigh of relief lifting off his chest. Even though Ed never seemed to have any logic, he had a sense of reality towards his friends that Edd could always tell. Ed said what could have been the most responsible thing Edd ever heard him say, besides dealing with Sarah, in that lovable oaf manner that is only known for because of Ed, "I will come around and get Eddy. If not, Eddy will come around and finally get it."

Edd nodded before Ed also turned and began to walk away towards the direction Eddy was last seen going. Even though there was hardly an resolution, there was a feeling of conclusion that he was satisfied with for the moment. Edd walked to the punch bowl and grabbed himself a cup, gulping down his thoughts and concerns.

But right when he thought it was over, the crowd of students near the gym's entrance turned and looked over their shoulders, almost in a cascading effect, and they began to move away from the doors and made a pathway to the center. As the crowd move away from the entrance, like curtains opening to a show, the dancing slowly began to reach a halt. The sound of dancing bodies and heels on polished floors grew quieter and quieter, until a familiar voice finally shouted:

"MOVE."

The sound continued falling into a decrescendo.

"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"

The mass of people began to pull away. The dj even stopped playing music when he began to wonder why everyone had simply just stopped.

"HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO BE WITH EDD AT WINTER FORMAL IF YOU'RE ALL IN MY WAY?"

Edd put his cup down and walked toward the source of the voice. He pushed past bodies and then there, in the middle of the gym floor with a crowd around him like a performer on a theatre in the round, was the brash, yet extremely conventional, athlete in a crew neck sweater with a tacky knitted pattern and a ripped hole that was all too familiar to Edd.

"Kevin?"

The sound of Edd's feeble voice was enough to make all attention fall on him. Everybody who was standing near Edd took several steps back so there was no one blocking the way to Edd from Kevin. And that was when Edd understood that all those times he felt as though everyone was watching him and expecting him to do something for them was actually for this single moment.

"Double D, I just-" The look in Kevin's face made Edd understand that Kevin also felt the pressure of everyone else watching. Kevin, who had always tried to keep his cool and not ruin the status he had already built up so high at school, began to realize how much attention he was getting doing something so unusual in front of his classmates, and was suddenly becoming anxious. "I just..." He looked to his side, but the faces around him were just blurs ready to judge him. "Sorry, Double D. I just ran in here, and you don't even want me here in the first place. Sorry for just going in here like this, I just, I don't know, you were probably having fun without me, and then I just-"

"No, no! It's fine, Kevin!" Edd lifted both hands to try and calm Kevin. The truth was that Kevin had never said anything so wrong in his life.

Kevin stared back at Edd. He stared at Edd and only at Edd. And he didn't need anything else to push him to actually do something.

"Look. Double D," Kevin took a deep breath because even though he had it all in him to say it, he was still in the midst of trying to figure out what he was going to say. "I'm sorry for being an asshole and not understanding how much your friends mean to you. Really. But I can work with that, I get that they're important to you, but you know what, you're really important to me and I, I just don't like not being with you. So can't we just, you know, work something out so that you can still be with your friends, but I can still be with you? Because it doesn't have to be one or the other, it's possible to have both, if we just work it out," The words were coming out in strangled clauses, but Edd listened wide eyed and nodded with each stumble he heard. "And I know it'll work out because, like you said, I'm just the brawns and you're the brains, and things will just work out just because. You're the smart one, Double D, and I need you because everything you say it right. Look at me. I am just the dummy, I'm the dummy who's running back to you and will keep running back to you and trying to win you over with something big, like this, and-"

Edd just couldn't stand hearing Kevin ramble on at this point. He stepped forward, grasping the collar of Kevin's sweater, and pulled him close until he could feel the tenderness of his lips against his. It was warm and welcoming, a familiar smile of spontaneous love erupting within their mouths.

When they pulled apart, Kevin looked into Edd's eyes, a wave of confusion beginning to wash over his expression. "I thought you said I kiss you, and then you kiss me back..?"

"Just because I'm smart, doesn't mean that everything I say is correct." It was something Edd never expected himself to say, but it felt right. Things felt like they were beginning to change. "Let's just say this is us starting all over again."

"So we're all good now?"

Edd nodded and Kevin pulled him into a hug, burying his face in the crevice of Edd's neck. They had forgotten where they were for that moment until they could hear a squeal of glee from within the crowd, perhaps from Nazz as she watched her favorite friends making up. The dj finally continued to play another track and the students began to disperse, gradually dancing once again and forgetting about the entire scene that just happened before them. Kevin still kept Edd within his arms.

"Cool beans."

"What?" Edd pulled away, unsure of what he heard was what he heard because of the dance music playing.

"I mean-" Kevin looked away, wondering what made him expect Edd to repeat the same two words with him until they created some catchy underground-like track. "I'll tell you later."

They stared at each other, and smiled, and simply captured the moment.

"No, wait," Of course, Kevin let go of Edd and took a step back. "I have one little thing to ask you to do."


If you walk down the halls of Peach Creek High School, you will eventually find a locker where a new beginning waited for a student, whether it be the day he found the word "FAG" vandalized across his locker or the day he found a redheaded boy waiting with a bouquet of roses for him is up to you to decide. But during the night of the Winter Formal dance, if you head down to the locker just a few doors down, you will find a blue haired vixen with one hand on her hip and the other shaking a can of spray paint.

The color of the paint was red and although she would have gone with a trademark blue that matched her hair and eye shadow, the color of the red matched the color of her nails and the color she smeared on her lips and it would get the right kind of attention she expected to receive. She took the cap off the spray paint can with just her thumb nail and then began spraying lines that formed letters on the locker.

"Suspended for a week for wrecking the library yet got away from wrecking my ride, banned from attending the Winter Formal, and where do I manage to find you?" A voice spoke from the end of the hall, approaching the vandalism in the work. "Of course, putting graffiti on Eddy's locker. Can't expect any less from you, Marie."

Marie stopped spray painting and turned her head, finding Kevin standing beside her with both hands in his back jean pockets, admiring her work in progress. She squinted her eye at him. "It's called getting revenge for my boyfriend. You know, something you've failed to do these past weeks."

"I don't know." Kevin kept focusing on trying to figure out what she was putting on Eddy's locker, only making out the words 'small' and 'pen' sprayed on so far. "I still woulda gone with writing something more creative..."

"Like what?" Marie snarled at him. "'Dork'?"

"How about 'dweeb'?" He immediately replied back with a smug expression on his face.

"Quit it, Kevin." Marie bent down and picked the spray can cap off the ground and put it back on. "You already won the war, you won Double D, and you won the happy ending. What else do you want?"

Kevin shrugged. "I don't know. I'm in the hallway, not at the school dance, no where near the gym, and there's this really cute sock head wanting to dance with somebody but there isn't anyone near him for him to dance with... Anyone good enough for him and wouldn't care entering a dance they're banned from, I mean."

She didn't get it at first, but then there was a sudden gleam in her eyes, and then it disappeared as she automatically suspected strings to be attached. "Why?"

He laughed. "Because, Marie," Kevin took his hands out of his back pockets and just answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, "You and I are a lot more alike than you think. I'm just a dumb guy who likes to let my enemies win in the war, too, even for just a little."

Marie smirked at this and repeated, "You and I are a lot more alike than you think." She tossed the can of spray paint to Kevin and he caught it with both hands. "So while I'm dancing with my boyfriend and you decide you get bored outside in the hallway by yourself, you won't go back into the gym and get pissed off in jealousy and wreck the entire building when you see us dancing together?"

"Nope," Kevin tossed the can from hand to hand. "Well, if I do get bored, I still owe Nazz a dance, so I'd be preoccupied for a while." He then added, "I'm only giving you two songs, though."

Marie smile and turned around, walking out into the hallway and towards the gym. Without even looking back, she rose one hand in the air and flicked her wrist in a wave goodbye. "I've always liked a cheater."

Kevin watched as she kept walking, taking her last sentence as her way of expressing gratitude and nothing more. He looked back at the locker, knowing that he promised he'd work out the way he acted around Ed and Eddy for Edd, but Marie was right to some extent. It wouldn't hurt helping her finish her work and get a little revenge. He took the cap off the can of spray paint and wrote the remaining, 'is' in Marie's message on Eddy's locker.

He then took a step back and looked at what he had just done, expecting himself to admire it, but there just still wasn't anything right about it after everything that just happened that night. Kevin, knowing that there was something that had to be changed and it was him who had to change it, spray painted more on Eddy's locker and changed to message from 'small penis' to:

'a small pen is still mightier than any sword'


Outside the world seemed silent, with only the sound of fallen snow and music muffled by the gym walls. The moon was out, but only enough for it to be peeking behind some clouds. Sitting on the bench behind the gym was Edd and Kevin, beside each other and huddled from the cold as Kevin hummed the tune of another song that Edd had never heard of.

The two had escaped the dance during one of the raunchier songs, slipping past all of the grinding bodies and sweat that was making Edd feel a little more paranoid than normal, and had been spending the rest of the night outside in the enjoyment of their own solitude.

"So, is this really it?" Kevin questioned his own state of bliss.

Edd shrugged one shoulder. "Perhaps," he answered. "Who is there to say? Well, at least we know that what ever happens, we'll just-"

Kevin's cell phone suddenly rang. His jean pocket lit up and began to vibrate and play the verse of some uncensored rap song. He stood up, gave an apologetic look towards Edd, and then took his phone out and answered it.

He mumbled some words into the other line, even chuckled a few times, slowly drifting away from Edd and the bench and leaving behind foot steps in the snow, before hanging up and then turning back around to face Edd. Edd waited for Kevin to explain.

"It was nothing, really," Kevin put his phone back in his pocket. "You know that shop I left my ride in to get fixed? They just called and said they finally finished, free wax and polish since it took them so long. The shop was suppose to close an hour ago, but since they were working so hard tonight, they said they were willing to wait if I wanted to go pick it up right now-"

"So why don't we?"

Kevin stared at Edd. He shrugged. And then waited for Edd to convince him, even though Kevin was already ready to do whatever Edd suggested them doing.

Edd stood up from the bench and patted the snow off his clothes. "We can go retrieve your motorcycle. It'll be a far trek, but once we've arrived there, you would be able to return us back." He walked towards Kevin and once he was in reach, Edd held one of Kevin's hands and used his other hand to trace circles on the area where he would feel Kevin's heart beating. "Then perhaps you can take us back to my house, where my parents have taken another absence, and we can inspect if they really have repaired your motorcycle, to see how well your motors are still running..."

Kevin stared at Edd. "Double D, quit shitting me."

Edd laughed. Kevin did, too.

Edd lifted his hand off of Kevin. He held on tight to Kevin's hand as they began walking away from school and into the darkness of the night, knowing that which ever direction they would take, they were at least together and that was something they couldn't have asked more of.

END.