After a tiring day of schooling, Gumball, together with his brother, Darwin, made their way to their bunks almost by crawling. Their face, where a pinch of maturity emerged, were holding a weary expression.
"Ugh, how can schools be so boring?" The cat in blue fur kvetched, mildly annoyed.
"Ughhhhh, I'm bored stiff." The orange, walking fish responded with an impatient groan.
Dropped their bags on the ground, kicked off their shoes casually, they nestled in bed (or fishbowl) almost in a flash.
"Not bad! We made it less than 30 seconds." Gumball, who'd been panting heavily, mumbled.
"Yeah, I know, we're awesome!" Darwin said bubbly because of the water.
Since then, silence reigned. It seemed that the day drained Darwin, indeed. Through a layer of transparent glass, Gumball gazed at his rosy cheeks, with a subtle smile lingering on his face. "Wow," he exclaimed inwardly as a trail of moonlight cast on both Darwin and him. Gumball only to find the cutest… guy he'd ever seen. He froze in place, panicked. Why did he just found out? Struggled to regain composure, he still can't take his eyes off the gorgeous, adorable, stunning masterpiece, who held a placid face. He crept out of the bed, trying his best to stifle the noise he might make. It didn't take him an effort, he's a cat, after all. Oh yeah, he's a CAT. How could a cat fall in love with a fish, despite the fact he's his own sibling? "Is my love even possible to exist? How could I?" The idea struck him, reduced him to tears. Stifling his sobbing, he gave Darwin a kiss, with the glass pane separated, only to leave a steam mark, which was bound to vanish into thin air soon. Again, he crept back, buried his head in the pillow, sobbed as low as he could, and eventually it lulled him to sleep.
Mindlessly strolling through the hallway, he fixed his eyes on the floor intently. He walked up to his locker, staring at his piles of books, being utterly oblivious of the fact someone was approaching him. As the moment he closed the lockers' door and turned around with a few books holding in his arms, his eyes met with other fierce ones, giving him a startle.
"Penny…?Hi…" Gumball uttered with a state of shock.
Penny's glaring sparked off a sense of primal fear around the atmosphere. With a shiver down his spine, he was trying to avoid making eye contact with the vexed girl right in front of him. The girl in the shell held an irritated face but somehow mixed with a touch of sadness. Neither of them had talked, even without exchanging an emotion. Gumball tried to flee but to no avail. On the verge of having a panic attack, Penny abruptly uttered," Why.", with a crude tone. "I'm the one falling in love with you! Why… Do You Ditched me?!" She ended up crying and shrieking that filled him with remorse and angst.
Inundated with tears, his last defense tumbled and fallen, with shards and debris scattered all over his heart. Is his love changed? Did he actually fall in love with Darwin? Didn't he love Penny anymore? Even the thought of that made his heart twisted and turned. He just hates to admit it, but he had to. "I'm …incredibly sorry …for …that" He muttered, but barely audible. No response, no more shrieking he found himself alone in the hallway, again. He stood up, with his paws leaning on the locker. Another deathly hush surrounded. He looked around for Penny, but found a figure he can't be more familiar with, showed up. Seemed in a hurry, Darwin strode through the hallway. But Gumball wasn't in the mood to confront him. So he ran to the door, relieved when he saw Darwin wasn't gaining on him. Before he could catch his breath, a seemingly bottomless pit emerged underneath him, only a distorted feline scream could be heard.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Shrieking at top of his lung, he sat up with a start, while grabbing his sheet with his sweaty paws. Out of his breath, he stared at his blanket with a blank expression on his face. His heart was still making pounding beats, stirring up his head. "Gumball! Are you okay?" A soft voice whispered. Turned his head towards the sound, he saw Darwin glancing at him, concerned.
Gumball stuttered," Y-yeah, I'm f-fin-ne."
"But, did you cried yourself to sleep?" Darwin asked, with a deepened concern in his voice. Clearly, he noticed there were streaks of dried tears on his blue fur, leaving it with tress.
"M-maybe, just because of the bad dream, I guess…" He mumbled under his breath.
Not until he finished his mumble, Darwin's arm softly surrounded his torso, patting slightly on his head."It's alright, my cute little guy. No matter what happened, I'm here with you." He said reassuringly.
The blue feline closed his eyes, enjoying the moment of intimacy with his adorable brother. Darwin's hands are actually pretty squishy when they're petting him like that, Yeah, He liked that. "There, my boy! Here he comes again!" Darwin stood back, cheered as Gumball's face lit up. Feeling a little dizzy, though, he had a hard time standing upright on his feet. As he gazing at Darwin, putting their miscellaneous stuff into his bag, he felt a surge of emotion. He made up his mind to keep a lid on his uncontrolled love, both for Penny and Darwin. He just hates to see someone broke heart, including himself.
"Get a move on, sweeties! You're gonna running late for the school!" A shout made him lost his train of thought. Their mother, Nicole, yelled, hurried them to have breakfast. "Be right there, Mrs. Mom!" Darwin responded cheerfully, like the way he usually spoke. Then he turned back to Gumball, "Stay strong, Gumball, I'll always be there for you! And don't forget to get our clothes on!" Stumbled a little, Gumball put his usual outfit on, a brown sweater with a pair of faded blue jeans.
At the bus station, Anais, Darwin, and Gumball were standing side by side in lengthy silence. Nine times out of ten, Gumball would try to make small talks to fill the vacancy so it wouldn't be that awkward. Today, however, it surprised him nothing sprang to his mind, which would make it weird for Darwin, He thought to himself. Just by his pure luck, the school bus made it to the Wattersons pretty early today. Such a weight down to him. Oh, wait, "Penny!" His heart sank. Despite the daunting thought, he still stepped onto the bus with all the courage he could muster.
At the backseat of the bus, Penny reached out, waved at him. "Hey, Gumball!"
"Ohhh, Hi, Penny…" He reacted with a forced smile on his face. His heart was beating wildly in his chest while he's trying to act as if nothing had happened. Gumball was a terrible liar, apparently. It's as easy as pie for Penny and any other one to tell Gumball was hiding something.
Oblivious of Penny's perplexed expression, he sat down, next to Penny. "Gumball, are you alright? You seemed a little bit uncomfortable." She could tell there's something wrong. Scooting back and forth in his seat, he appeared somewhat vaguely surprised. "Who, are you talking 'bout me? I'm perfectly fine!" He blurted in one breath, giving a brief glance to Penny. She sighed, "It's nothing Gumball, you can tell me whenever you feel ready." But Gumball hardly perceived her sigh.
"So…Penny, did you dreamed last night?" Which is a dreadful thing to mention, he cringed. "No, not really, I did had a good night's sleep last night, the first time this week." She commented. "What about you?" He shouldn't have asked her in the first place, but a little quip may just help. "Ah, you know, just dreamin' about 'going places' in my sleep." He answered jokingly. That little pun worked smoother than his thought. "I'm quite sure you would go places someday." Penny giggled. Gumball also seemed to be amused by his quick wits, and he spent the remaining trip with Penny, no sweat involved.
The bus screeched to a standstill, everyone was chattering, flooded out of the bus. "See you later, babe!" "Bye, Penny!", he kissed goodbye to his love. "C'mon Darwin, let's go to class!" He said as he took Darwin by the hand. Darwin fixed his eyes on the blue feline, grinned, then held on his hands tighter as they walking towards the classroom together.
By a strange quirk of fate, even though they've graduated from Elmore Junior High, and got admitted to Elmore High, all of his junior high friends, like Penny, Carrie, Banana Joe, etc. were still his classmates now, which is peculiar. What's even more peculiar, or I should say, "more terrifying", Miss Simian was still, for crying out loud, their teacher.
The first class is geometry, which Darwin performed relatively better. "On plane a, there is a point A, and a ray BC. AD is perpendicular to BC. Angle ABC equals 30 degrees. So…" Miss Simian's voice came to a halt all of a sudden, then she turned her head to Gumball in a blink of an eye. "Gumball!... Gumball?" She's stunned to realize he wasn't misbehaving in her class, for the record. "What's the matter, Miss Simian?" Gumball looked her in her eyes, bewildered. "Oh…nothing…that's actually pretty great. K-keep it g-going!" She stuttered and blushed due to awkwardness. Then she turned to the blackboard and continued her long-winded speech. Gumball exchanged a look with Darwin knowingly, both snickered. "Psst!" A voice whispered into Darwin's ear. "You wanna come over and pick me up to the movies, this weekend?" Carrie, who sat behind Darwin, was winking whilst whispering softly. After blaring a victorious melody in his head, a blush came to his cheeks. "Ab-b-solut-tely!" He stammered, with his heart leaping on high hopes. "I knew you would agree, my Darwin. Saturday 5 p.m., don't be late!" She cheered. "O-ok!" Still overwhelmed by excitement, he slurred on his words. "Darwin Watterson! Why don't you come up here and solve this incredibly tricky question for us!" Miss Simian squealed, snapped him out of being lovestruck. "Fine, I'll give it a shot." He walked up, with a dash of impatience.
As the bell rang, all of the students, even Miss Simian rushed out of the classroom madly. "Why, she has such an abrasive manner!" Darwin whined. "You're saying it as if it's a surprise or something," Gumball commented. "But it's truly awesome you solved that 'incredibly hard' question in no time! You should've seen her face! I'm sooooo proud of you, Darwin!" He said gleefully as he gave Darwin a loving but quick hug.
"Hmm!" Darwin whooped. "Hugging with my brother always makes me feel special!" Then he hesitated, "Speaking of which, It has been a while since you and Penny hang out, I wonder if there's…"
Gumball suddenly interrupted, "Eh…, we're just fine! As you can see, we were talking on the bus joyfully, and …, never mind…" Then he glanced at Darwin, and changed the topic, "Carrie! Are there any further moves?" He rambled.
"Oh!" It's like he suddenly recalled something, "I forget to tell you…" He could detect a flicker of excitement in Darwin's eyes.
"Tell me!"
"Just 10 minutes ago, when we're at the class, she INVITED ME TO WATCH A MOVIE WITH HER!" He screamed with abandon. A wry twist to his guts.
"Oh, C-congrat-tulations, bro!" He responded, trying to act cool. "It's such an opportunity of a lifetime, after all." He added. While his eyes began forming tears, he struggled to fight them back. To his dismay, it didn't work too well. "Bye, Darwin, I've got something to deal with right now." Suppressing his emotions, he uttered. Turned his back to Darwin, he ran away in panic.
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A big thank to those patiently read my story! It's my first story so there may be errors present. Constructive crticism is welcomed!