A/N: The reason this chapter took so long to write is because I burnt out halfway through and decided to take a break from the internet, so bear with me as I try my best to update swiftly from now on. I can't make promises, though.

Also, thanks to everyone who follows this story, whether you're a silent reader or you left comments and follows and all the other awesome stuff! I really appreciate it. :-D

I Wish That I Knew

Disclaimer: They're all Craig's.

Song: Love Like You by Rebecca Sugar

I could even learn how to love

"You know Blossom wanted you to be here tonight."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'll make up for it."

I sigh and lean against the boys' kitchen counter as I listen to the Professor chastising me for ditching Blossom's dinner. Brick's on the other side of the kitchen, a soda can in one hand and a book in the other. He might be subtly listening to my side of the conversation, but I'm not sure. Butch is... somewhere; he murmured an excuse and ducked away once the Professor called.

"Come on, Buttercup. The least you could do is be present, to support her at the very least," the Professor says, and the frustration in his voice stabs at my conscience. I'm glad I'm not listening to him in person, or else the disappointed look on his face would have me powering through Blossom's dinner for the next two months, of my own free will. "Making up for it won't amount to actually being here at the right time."

"Yeah, I know, Professor," I reply. "I just got caught up in my plans with Butch and it totally slipped my mind."

"Butch," he says, his voice taking on a slightly darker tone. Oh, crap. "You've been having a lot of plans with Butch lately. Maybe these aren't just friendly meetings anymore, hmm?"

"No!" I blurt out quickly, wincing as my brain suddenly supplies a very recent memory with both Butch and romantic feelings involved. Brick turns to me and raises an eyebrow. I clear my throat. "No, we're just studying, Professor. Final exams, college applications, homework. Just... normal educational stuff." I cringe. If there's anything more suspicious than that sentence, I've never heard it.

There's a pause, and then a sigh. "Alright then. But no matter what you're doing, you need to be home at six-thirty. Any later and we're going to have a problem."

"Got it."

"Alright," he says. Then there's a distant clattering sound, and he sighs again.

"You should probably go check that out," I tell him. "I'll see you later."

"Six-thirty!"

I chuckle. "Six-thirty. I promise."

"And this is the last time you ditch Blossom's dinner, alright? And you have to apologize to her when you get home."

That's like saying sorry to someone because you didn't get bitten by their unleashed, feral dog, but I don't think telling the Professor that will go down well. So I reluctantly respond, "Okay. I will."

"Okay—" he cuts off as yet another suspicious noise comes from the background. "I have to go. Love you!"

"Me too. Bye."

He hangs up barely a millisecond after I've spoken. I shake my head and tuck my phone into my pocket, wondering what kind of carnage Blossom has proabably already dealt to our poor kitchen.

"What was that all about?" Brick asks, taking a sip of his soda.

I shrug my backpack onto my shoulders and head for Butch's room. "Got chewed 'cause Blossom's making dinner and I can't make it."

He makes a face. "Blossom's making dinner and they're gonna actually eat it?" he asks. I don't know how he knows about Blossom's cooking skills (or rather, the lack thereof), but then again, he probably heard about it from either Butch or Boomer. "If I were them, I'd start writing my will."

"It's not that bad," I retort, narrowing my eyes at him.

"You ditched, didn't you?" He smirks. "I think it is that bad."

He's right. It absolutely is. But everything sounds so much meaner coming from Brick's mouth that I can't help but defend Blossom. I tell him, "Well, your opinion doesn't really matter, considering you're the only one who hasn't actually tasted Blossom's cooking."

"True." He nods as I walk off.

The door to Butch's room swings open just as I reach for the doorknob, causing me to nearly smack right into the dork. I stumble back, and his hands shoot out to steady me.

"Soz," he says sheepishly. I cringe.

"Please never say 'soz' ever again."

"Heh," is his response. I shake my head and push past him into his room.

I notice of the lack of clothes strewn across the floor and the neatness of the bed, and I raise an eyebrow. He came in here to clean up? That's new. My brain helpfully supplies because he likes you, and I wince.

"What?" I turn to see Butch standing by his desk in the corner of the room, staring at me quizzically.

"Nothing," I say a little too quickly, and then launch into the quickest excuse I can think of: "I'm just feeling a little sorry for Bubbles."

"Oh, yeah." he smirks. "She's probably thinking up ways to kill you right now."

"Yup," I say, flopping onto his bed and pulling off my backpack. Better to get to the order of business before I end up thinking about last night again—and I've thought about it so many times that I'm starting to get angry at myself.

Why do I refuse to let Butch's stupid words die? He's said worse, by a long shot, but for some reason a stupid confession he made when he was plastered—a confession that he couldn't possibly have meant—is sticking with me.

It's not like I want him to date me. I'm not sure I want to date anybody yet, after last time. I mean, obviously the prospect of us dating isn't unthinkable. Butch is my best friend, so if I were to date anyone again, he could be a possible option. And there's the fact that our relationship wouldn't really change; we'd still act the same way, just with romantic stuff like holding hands and kissing and—

I blink.

What. The fuck. Am I thinking.

I want to facepalm myself into a wall. This is why I don't want to think about last night. Because my train of thought always moves to scenarios I'd much rather not think about.

I open my backpack with such force that the zipper breaks. I ignore it. "I have to get home by six-thirty, so that gives us two hours. What do we do first?" I ask Butch. "Study? Homework?"

"Homework," he responds, pulling out one of his textbooks and hopping onto the bed beside me. "I need to get it all outta the way so I don't end up forgetting later."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me," I say, sitting up and pulling out my own Calculus textbook. "You've gotta help me with this, dude."

He rolls his eyes. "It's probably not that hard."

"It's differentiation, Butch. Nobody understands differentiation."

"I do."

"Well, you're a freak of nature who is somehow good at both science and art," I retort.

He snorts. "Math and science are two different things, Butters. I suck ass at science subjects just as much as you ace them."

"Whatever!" I throw my hands up in the air. "Point is, me and Math have never mixed, so are you gonna help me out or not?"

He thinks for a second. Then he replies, "Only if you help me study Chemistry."

"Say less."

We spend half an hour working on the Calculus homework which, per usual, is easy for Butch and hell on earth for me. Then we start studying, which is only slightly easier, because Butch is appallingly terrible at even the easy stuff. Within twenty minutes he's grinning sheepishly as I'm staring at him in aggravation.

"How the fuck do you not know the types of chemical bonds!?" I nearly scream in exasperation.

"I know one of them!" he defends, as if that redeems him in any way. "The covalent bond, right?"

"You should know the other two, you weirdo! It's basic fucking Chemistry!"

"I thought we'd already established that I'm not good at Chemistry, Butterbitch!" he retorts, making me twitch at the nickname. "Unless, of course, we're talking about the attraction kind."

"Oh, god," I groan, picking up my textbook and pressing it into his face. He chortles, grabbing at my wrists.

"It's not my fault!" he says in between snickers. "My brain is unable to absorb information that I will probably never use for the rest of my life."

"What if you have a bunch of shitty trade subjects to choose from in college, and you have no choice but to pick Chemistry?" I ask. It's kind of an unrealistic question, but I'm not really thinking about that right now.

He suddenly pulls my wrists down, peering at me from behind my book. Expression serious, he asks, "And what if I go to art school?"

I freeze, staring at him. "You're going to art school?"

"No," he says. Then he sighs, flopping flat onto his back and staring at the ceiling. "Well, I don't really know yet."

As far as I know, there aren't any art colleges in Townsville. The prospect of Butch moving away hasn't ever occured to me, but in the span of a second it's suddenly become a possibility. That catches me way off-guard and I'm not entirely sure why.

I set my book down and lay down too, right next to him. "Are you thinking about it?" I ask.

"... Yeah." he turns his head, and we stare at each other for a few seconds. His hair's falling all over his eyes; I wonder why he hasn't cut it yet. "I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. But I don't think I'll go through with it. Or like, write out an application or whatever."

"I think you should go for it," I say, and his expression turns uncertain all of a sudden.

"Really?"

"Yeah, totally. You've obviously got what it takes." My lips stretch in a smirk. "I don't think everyone in the art class calls you Deadass Skill for nothing."

He smiles at that. I smile too, because Butch's genuine smiles are surprisingly hard to come by. But then he sighs and closes his eyes, and his face turns conflicted. "I'm not questioning my abilities, Butters," he says.

My eyebrows furrow in confusion, and I question, "Then what is it?"

He doesn't respond for a few seconds. I wait, watching as he fiddles with his fingers and stares at the ceiling again. When he finally speaks, it's quiet, like he doesn't really want to say it out loud: "It's the moving-away part."

"The moving-away part?"

"Yeah. It's like—if I move away, I'll probably want to come back," he says softly. "Because even after all those years where I was an asshole and a villain, Townsville's still home, y'know? I'll miss my brothers, I'll miss you, I'll miss your sisters slightly more—" he cuts off into a chuckle when I elbow him in the side. Then he mellows out again, suddenly.

It feels strange to see him go through all these emotions, since I'm so used to the goofy, derpy way he normally acts. My thoughts from last night reemerge suddenly; how I brushed off his confession because there weren't any changes in his usual demeanour to back it up. Looking at him now I'm reminded that goofiness aside, he's still a human being. Just because he isn't usually contemplative or conflicted doesn't mean he can't feel those emotions.

The problem with this realization is that it makes his confession last night all the more genuine. And as much as I don't want to admit it, that terrifies the shit out of me.

"I'll even miss the little things," he carries on. "Like walking home from school, or buying groceries at Malph's, or hiding in my tree when I want to skip class. And," he says, his voice rising slightly. "There's a bunch of stuff I haven't done, too."

"You know you could just do that stuff at college, right?"

"I could, but it wouldn't... it wouldn't hold the same weight, I guess?" He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, clearly trying to find the right words. "Like, I could get my first car at college, but it'd be just another new thing in a new place, so it wouldn't feel like as much of an achievement. I could rent my first apartment while I'm in college, or have my first kiss in college, or get my first job in—"

"Wait, what?"

He looks at me. "What?"

I let out a confused, singular laugh, because I couldn't have heard that right. "Sorry, I thought you said 'have my first kiss', heh."

He blinks. "... Oh."

I laugh again. "That's not possible though, because you boast about kissing girls all the time." I add.

He stares. I gape.

"Dude, you're kidding."

He snorts. "Nope. These lips are virgin, baby," he says with a nonchalant shrug, but I notice that his cheeks are pink. He's embarrassed about it. And if I wasn't as weirdly observant as I am when it comes to him, I wouldn't have noticed it and just straight up figured he was messing with me. But despite the fact that Butch is an incredbly good liar, I can tell when he's telling the truth. He is now.

"... Huh."

He narrows his eyes at me. "What?"

"Nothing," I reply, and his eyes slit in suspicion. I chuckle and add, "I guess I am pretty surprised that you lied about it for so long, but I kinda get it."

And I do. All of a sudden the plethora of stories he's told me about his numerous trysts with the opposite sex kinda make sense. As weird as it is to lie about it so constantly, I get that it wouldn't exactly be a great thing to shout to the heavens that he's never even kissed anyone, even if he didn't have a reputation as the school sleazebag.

He raises an eyebrow. "You get it?"

"Yeah. Nobody in high school wants to admit they've never been kissed, you have a reputation to uphold, so... I get why you lied, I guess." I hold my textbook out at arm's length so it blocks out the room's lightbulb, my gaze skimming over a random paragraph on a random page. Then I smirk. "Still makes you a total weirdo for lying about your seven big tiddy goth GFs, though."

He cringes to high heaven and I howl with laughter, shifting out of reach when he swipes at me so I don't end up with a faceful of textbook. When he realizes I've avoided his attack, he throws a pillow at my head, which I valiantly accept.

"You're a fucking asshole, Butterbitch," he grumbles, picking up his own textbook and glaring intently at it. I notice the smile playing at his lips, though, so I stick my left foot out and poke at his cheek with my big toe. He slaps it away, and I kick his arm in turn. He casts me an unamused glare, and I snicker.

"You know you love me," I say, crossing my legs and slowly flipping through the pages of my book to find where we left off.

He stubbornly stays where he is—for about a minute. Then he finally caves under the weight of flunking Chemistry, sits up and scoots backward until he's sitting beside me again. For a while we just stay there in comfortable silence, with the only sounds being the muffled noise of the city from outside the window and the ticking of Butch's bedside clock. It's when the silence starts to get awkward that I speak up.

"I don't think it matters," I say, and he turns to look at me.

"What does?"

"The moving-away part." my gaze moves to meet his. "It only matters if you're not thinking about coming back."

"I do want to come back," he says.

"Then Townsville's still your home, no matter where the hell you are. Problem solved."

"And the second problem?"

I pause for a second, thinking over his words from before. Then I shrug and say, "I think doing all the shit you want to do in a new place makes them more memorable. It's a blank slate; you don't have to think about all the stuff you've done before, because it doesn't matter in a new place. Everything's new, everyone's new, and you can do whatever you want. So..." I flick him hard on his temple, and he winces.

"Ow! What the fu—"

"Shut up, I'm making a point," I cut him off. "You need to stop overthinking shit and just go do it. Get a job, even if it's cleaning food spills at a Mickey D's or something. Live in a dorm or rent a shitty one-bedroom apartment with that good old janitor cash,"—he chortles at that, shaking his head—"And kiss a girl, dude. Hell, kiss a guy if you want, who cares?"

"If said guy is Xavier Samuel, not me," he cuts in. I stare at him for a good five seconds, and then we both burst into fits of laughter.

"EW! Dude, he's like, forty!"

"Thirty-seven, for your information." he tries to sound confident, but his voice breaks mid-sentence and sends us both rolling again. "A-and I'm turning eighteen in like seven months, so we will legally be able to get married."

I nearly choke, and he cackles so loudly that there's a scream from down the hall for us to shut the hell up, presumably from Brick. That only makes us laugh more, and we end up shushing and kicking each other into silence. It doesn't work very well, and we only start to regain our composure after nearly ten minutes.

"The point is," I say, turning his head to face me when I've stopped laughing enough to be coherent. "If you really want to go, then go. You'll be doing what you really want to do. All the other stuff is an added bonus."

He stares at me for a while; the last time his gaze was this intense was when he was slurring weird, terrifying shit to me as I tried to get his plastered ass home. I hate how almost everything he does now makes me think of that night, but my brain sucks and I can't help it, so I stare back.

Then he grins. "I'll think about it," he says, reaching up to ruffle my hair.

"That's good enough, I guess," I reply with a smile of my own. And then I grab him by the neck of his shirt and growl, "Now tell me the fucking types of chemical bonds, Butch."

"Agh—dude, what the hell!?" he pushes me away, scrunching his nose in protest. "We were having a bro moment and you ruined it!"

"We both know you were just trying to stall. Chemical bonds."

"Venting is not stalling—OW! Stop fucking assaulting me!"

I leave the boys' place at 6:15, having drummed enough Chemistry jargon into Butch's head. I try to remember the sheer amount of complicated math equations he talked me through.

Instead, I think about college dorms. Hanging out with Mitch and the others, sans one member. Seeing only two Rowdyruffs around town.

Hearing Butch's voice over telephone static. Listening to him talk about school, and friends, maybe work. Maybe someone pretty whose number he scored at a party.

The last one makes my chest constrict, and I'm so startled that I trip over my own feet. I slam my hand into a stop sign pole to steady myself, and the metal dents around my grip.

I'm going to miss him. That's normal. Butch is my best friend of four years and we've been joined at the hip for just as long. I'm going to miss him.

For some reason that thought feels incomplete.

I force myself to think about Calculus instead, focusing on imagining numbers in my head and solving them haphazardly with barely any regard for accuracy. It's enough to keep me occupied throughout my walk home. It works a little too well, in fact; I nearly smack my head into the front door of my house trying to solve for dy/dx in an aggravatingly simple-looking equation.

I hear the TV blaring in the living room as I walk in, but I'm not too keen on getting a reprise of the Professor's lecture from earlier, so I kick off my sneakers and head for the kitchen instead.

There's a covered plate on the counter and the faint smell of smoke lingering in the air. Blossom's doing the dishes. She's alone, which is rare; Bubbles would normally be hovering around to dry and put away the plates while Blossom rinsed.

She doesn't move, but I know she heard me come in, so I say, "Hey."

"Hey," she replies. "I heard you outside. Math?"

"Calculus, but yeah. Butch helped me out, but I'm still stuck."

"Hmm." she places a freshly rinsed plate on the counter. "I could help later, if you want."

"Sure. Um... it's differentiation?"

Her face scrunches up, and I smile despite myself. "In that case, I retract my offer," she says with a chuckle.

"Oh, come on," I protest, shrugging my backpack onto the counter and walking up next to her by the sink. I grab a cloth from one of the hooks near the stove and reach for a plate. "Are you saying that because you're mad at me, or because the topic just sucks?"

She hums. "A bit of both," she says, picking up the last of the dishes and languidly scubbing at the ceramic. "But mostly the former, because differentiation isn't too hard."

"Of course you'd say that." Blossom takes freaking AP classes. She probably knows how to work this stuff out in her sleep.

We finish up in tentative silence while I try to psych myself up to swallow my pride and apologize. I don't even know if she's really mad or not; Blossom started keeping to herself more once we started high school, and I'm not exactly good with feelings. It's been a mindfuck trying to figure out her emotions ever since then, and it's made us awkward in ways we shouldn't be. In ways we weren't before.

All I know is that I should have been here, and as much as I don't regret talking to Butch about all the shit on his mind this afternoon, I know that I should have been around for Blossom too.

I'll have to work on that.

I glance at the covered plate. My dinner, probably. I put away the last dish and grab a spoon from the utensil drawer before walking over to it.

As I remove the cover and set it aside, Blossom says, "It's fried rice and chicken." she pauses. "Or it's supposed to be, at least."

The chicken is charred beyond recognition and tastes like pure smoke. The rice is so saturated with water that it might as well be porridge, but it actually tastes fine.

"How is it?" Blossom asks.

"Mediocre at best," I reply. "C plus."

She hums again, but her eyes gleam like they always do when she's genuinely glad. "I'll take what I can get."

A/N: I'm really glad I got to write Blossom here, since I've written her the least out of the whole sextet altogether. I really do love her though, please believe me TT