"What part of left foot versus right foot is not understood!? Take it back to the top." Groaning and moaning was the popular response Kermit had gotten, but it was practically white noise to his hearing. His face hardened, as annoyance spiked in the curves and edges of his features. "Move it! I'm not paying you to breathe!" A few of the dancers gave dirty eye rolls, hardly hidden from the frog's view, but swiftly arranged themselves with the other girls. Over the period of the morning, Kermit's voice seemed to grow more coarse and infested with each word. It only added to his stretch of temper.

The practice rooms never had enough light to see one's own hand, and the stage never had enough shadows to anyone's covet. One side of the theater was stained with mops and buckets of sweat, while the other side was too cold for even the penguin actors to dwell in. One room didn't have enough moldy chairs, another didn't have enough shiny ones. One costume was too itchy and another was too soft. No flowers. Not enough flowers. Ban the use of cannons, allow the use of canons. The frog could hardly take it anymore. Want, want, want. Need, need, need. It's all he was ever told since his tadpole days!

"No! You spin after the kick. How hard is it to know that!? Do I need a giant hat on my head that says so? Again, and do it right!" This time the dancers wanted to practically pounce on him like lions, maybe it was even for the better. Before Kermit could spit another yell, he felt something grab his heavy shoulder. If the frog had fangs, he wouldn't have hesitated biting off the hand that touched him. But when he flipped around, he merely saw the orange face of his young gofer. "Uh, chief?"

Scooter snapped his arm back, faster than a fly foreseeing a swatter; his gaze adopted a governed one, shrinking under the frog's hot scrutiny. Despite Kermit's short size, he could look deadly enough when he wished to be. The tone of his words only proved that theory. "What?" The frog hadn't meant for the word to vibrate the way it did, chilling the spines of those who heard it. Out of the corners of his vision, he could even see the dancers attempting to slip away from the practice session, while others stood frozen in time. He brushed the feeling away, in an attempt to avoid the guilt trip.

The young, orange, man tugged at the collars of his shirt with clumsy fingers, glancing at the clipboard he held for dear life support. "J-James called. I missed it, but he left a voice message. He'll be the guest star for next month's show." Kermit faltered for a moment, recalling who "James" actually was. The memory hit him like hail to the head; Scooter was referring to James Courtmen. The guy wasn't very well known, most hadn't even known he existed, but he often wrote poems and acted to them with a comical performance. The odd thing was that the "man" was actually just a young teenager, but Kermit didn't figure that out until after he made James the request to be the guest on the Muppet Show. It was a last resort solution, as the frog was being turned down left and right from the more well-known role models. It had just been that time of year, when all the vacant spots left no room for even mice leftovers.

Kermit just hoped that what was left of their audience wouldn't give too much backlash, their dreams crushed at seeing a "famous icon" they had never even known was breathing. Tickets had been selling short that year, and it was to be expected that the outcome would not be a walk in the park. Granted there was no park to walk in–life was full of mountains and avalanches. Kermit rubbed his face into his hands, mustering out the best response he could morph into words. "I'll get to it later."

Scooter dared to meet the frog's eyes, only to glance them back down at his empty clipboard. "That, and your nephew's school called." Kermit could nearly feel his heart stop, and for a moment he thought it did. His consciousness was brainwashed from the dance routine he had led, James Courtmen, and the future bankruptcy from little sold tickets. A familiar soreness flickered within him, crashing and burning him into a land that was forgotten to ancient times. It was like he was a young boy again, emerging into the surface, where his lungs struggled to formulate how to breathe air and not water for the first time. Kermit wished his lungs were full of water.

"Are you alright, chief?" Kermit's focus snapped back to reality, adopting a stressful formality. He blinked, only to meet the sensitive gaze of the gofer. It was almost as if Scooter had forgotten the clipboard he held throughout the conversation, no longer feeling the need to study the blank paper that sat on it. Whether it would have happened or not, the frog sensed the young man attempting to touch him again for reassurance; he backed away with unease. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You look a little-"

"I'm fine, Scooter. What did the school say?" Scooter lingered on the question for a moment, before finally submitting defeat from pushing Kermit any further. He readjusted his glasses, his lively expression growing solemn. "They wouldn't tell me, since I'm not his legal guardian. They told me to have you call them back. The woman said she tried calling you before personally, but you couldn't answer." This time, the guilt trip was inevitable; the moment Robin needed him the most, Kermit wasn't there. The frog glanced back at what was left of the dancers, as half of them already escaped his tortuous dance practice. The woman stared back, many with frightful eyes, while others wore bored ones. He sighed.

"Take a break." It had been a rough enough morning for all of them anyway, no point in furthering that destruction.

Robin had always been a good kid, so it was safe to say that Kermit didn't expect the words "boy fight" to come across the other end of the phone line. In a comical way, however, the teacher sounded just as aghast as the frog uncle felt. "What happened?"

"To be honest, the story sounds a little lopsided to me." The thought soaked through the frog's skin, before he registered the next sentence. "The boy that fought with him is also a well behaved student, and claims that Robin had been punting him to the concrete until one of our staff came. But your nephew tells us that the boy was who started the fight, and Robin was just attempting to get away. He says the people who dealt with the fight were misunderstanding the situation." The reasoning sounded legitimate enough that Kermit was ready to biasly believe Robin's side of things. That little frog couldn't even hurt a fly, not to even eat one; Kermit had a really hard time learning that one since Robin grew his first legs. It made sense that Robin would at least try to avoid any sort of violence, if it ever came to the point.

Yet, the teacher didn't sound as sure.

"Do you want me to come down there?"

"We've thought about it, but our staff thinks that the boys can learn from this. We put them both in one of our counseling groups, and hopefully they can learn from their mistakes that way." Kermit thought he had already heard the dumbest ideas: Crazy Harry blowing up the girls restroom, Rizzo attempting to eat an eight-month molded pizza, Fozzie's jokes. This one, this was way out of what the frog had anticipated without mercy. He strangled back a cold scoff, and stilled his voice to a monotone that was deemed respectful. "Really."

"I just thought to notify you, so that you're aware, Mr. Frog." It was sickening just how much consideracy vibrated through the line. None of what the school was doing made sense, at least in Kermit's mind. The kids needed to be sent home, and at most a conference with the parents, not the darn kids. Like little preschoolers knew the difference between a chocolate bar and nose boogers. Kermit peered around him, accidentally locking a deadly gaze with poor Scooter; the gofer paled, itching the hesitation that he had done something beyond unacceptable to his boss's standards. Despite the antagonized conversation on the line, the frog cringed a stout smile, freeing the rabbit from its cage. Scooter resumed his work.

"It really wouldn't be an issue, I can take Robin home. I can even talk to the kid's family, and figure out what's going on."

"Mr. Frog, that really wouldn't be necessary. I'm sorry to bother you." Mr. Frog. The pleasantry of that name seemed to mock Kermit's existence. He fingered the phone cord between his trembling fingers, digging into the coating that housed the wires of the device. There wasn't any point in apologies when it didn't change the very thing the apology was for. Apologies were merely excuses for the offset of one's behavior, and it was a tick that drove Kermit's clock insane, the hands spiraling and spiraling out of control. It was only a matter of time before the clock struck one and crashed to the ground.

"I'll…talk to Robin about it then, this evening." After a much more generous departure, Kermit practically slammed the telephone back onto the receiver. This was enough idiocy for one morning.

"Kermie!"

And then there was another kind of idiocy, a "swineful" kind. It was an idiocy that Kermit tried daily to save himself from, and this time was no exception. He blocked out the obvious calling of his name, and headed for the staircase that trailed itself to the dressing rooms. "Kermit!" The frog skipped the first two steps with a single hop, his legs sensing themselves into a near bolting. "Oh no you don't, buster!" The frog gagged as a grabbing hand threw him back against the stairwell railing, feeling the old wooden structure creak under such a force. The amphibian glanced down below, silently dreaming that he could have launched enough weight to fall over the thin, wooden, beams. At least having a broken limb or two would have been better than what was about to take place.

"What are you, deaf?!" Despite her azure gaze, Kermit could have sworn he had seen a tint of rose behind Piggy's eyes. She was still gasping for air, as if running the short distance after him nearly drowned her in a pond of water one-inch deep. The obscene whiff of perfume clogged Kermit's senses, causing his stomach to dance in turmoil. He scrunched back his lips at the shock of the sensation, which only added to the yet making list of the pig's reasons to actually let him fall off the railing.

"Pardon?"

"I said-"

"Sorry, I'm deaf." He couldn't help his own sarcasm, even if it meant a woman's wrath. Piggy visibly fumed, her face setting into a hard cement of ice. But then it wasn't. Slowly, but surely, her eyes became enamored. Her daunting frown puzzled into one of deceit. Her grip on him became stationary, a bond that could never be broken no matter the strength. Kermit felt himself shiver, his heart blaring loud in his hearing. He knew these patterns. He knew what was coming.

"No, I'm doing this agai-" Kermit could only squabble the last of his sentence into an unforgiving kiss. The perfume was everywhere now. Sweating through the air, seeping into his skin, Kermit could even practically taste it off her lips. Every time he re-lived this moment, it felt almost traumatizing. Somewhere within him, Kermit never could pinpoint where, was something that had been hollow as long as he could remember. Yet through these seconds, whenever Piggy deemed that could come by, that hollow part of him was poured with something sizzling.

It was like sticking a fingernail into a scab. The dull pain that was never known would resurface with each touch. But what Kermit was feeling wasn't pain, it was something else entirely. But whatever that something was, it felt odd within him. He didn't like it. He was so used to numbing himself against such a dead world, that the thought of feeling anything horrified him. It was something Kermit agonized for, but refused to accept. It was something he desired, but forced himself to starve of. He didn't know what was filling that hollow part of him, but he knew it had something to do with these moments. When Piggy held him, and wouldn't let go. When she showed him a light he never found.

Kermit was scared of that light, in fact, he hated the thought of it.

The frog hadn't known how long it lasted for, but he didn't know whether to be glad or pained that it was over. Whatever it was, he merely stoned the emotion. "Who threw that!?" The scream had blared Kermit out of his muddled world, seeing a show a few steps away from where he stood. Piggy was already man-hunting the fool who had thrown it at her, disturbing her personal bliss. Within a blink of an eye, she was gone as swiftly as the moment. Kermit was still in an odd haze, but quickly blinked himself out of it. When would she get the memo that he didn't want her? She had plenty of other celebrity men to toy with, and yet she chose Kermit out of all things. Her obsession for him fueled his own obsession in escaping both her wrath and affections. He spat out the kiss bitterly.

The frog's chest ached as he did so, and rubbed it to soothe the ache. The hollowness had returned, removing whatever feelings he had before into a pit of fire. He felt cold. He felt alone. He refused to let himself think about it. Instead, he glanced to pick up the shoe that had been thrown earlier. Who in their right mind would-

"Hey, you found it!" Gonzo out of all people, Kermit should have guessed. The scrunchy man bounded up to him, already eyeballing his missing shoe with a demented glee. He blinked, finding the frog's pitiful stare aimed at his foolish motives. "Gonzo, are you trying to make a death wish?" The blue man nearly grinned at the thought, a thought Kermit punted himself for even thinking of.

"That depends, are we talking grenades or anvils?" This really was a long morning.