Chapter 1: This Group Project was Clearly Conceived for the Pure Purpose of Causing Pain and Suffering

In all honesty, Matthew was just hoping they wouldn't spend the entire period talking about dick size... again. That had been both awkward and a bit aggravating… But mostly awkward. Matthew couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment when he thought about it. He'd been pretty excited when his health teacher decided to let them make their own groups for once. It would be the first time he'd get the chance to work on a project with Gil but that was the only upside to the whole thing. The actual assignment was to make a skit about an STD from the last lesson. Thank God they were allowed to make videos instead of being forced do it in front of the class. Matthew would have died of embarrassment otherwise. The only saving grace this project had was getting a chance to work with Gilbert and a few of his friends.

... Or so he had thought but life just loved to prove him wrong didn't it.

Group Chat: The Secret Society of Artist and Nerds

sarcastic_pancakes: Hey guys

emo_puffin: hi…. wait aren't you still in class?

sarcastic_pancakes: ...yes :T

sarcastic_pancakes: Well, technically at least…

feliks_the_fabulous: omg what this? is the ever pure pan breaking the rules?

feliks_the_fabulous: the plot thickens

quiet_wolf: *peaks on from hell* hi

quiet_wolf: Do my eyes decive me? has Pan crossed over to the dark side? O^O

sarcastic_pancakes: No I'm not, I'm just working on this on this group project, but all the member of my group just keep talking about dick size and at this point I've kinda given up on getting them to concentrate.

feliks_the_fabulous: pfffft

emo_puffin: ugh that sucks

emo_puffin: group projects are the worst

quiet_wolf: Yeah, that sucks pan

feliks_the_fabulous: *pats the suffering child*

sarcastic_pancakes: It's alright… I kind of signed myself up for this one. We were aloud to choose our own groups so I decided to be in one with my friends…. I knew they wouldn't be the most focused people but not this bad

emo_puffin: ah im sorry, that really sucks

sarcastic_pancakes: It's not so bad... I'm drawing in the meantime. I'm just worried that we won't be able to get the project done in time…

Matthew let out a sigh and put down his phone so he could turn his attention back to his sketch. He'd been trying to challenge himself to draw more people lately because, it seemed like, when he was left to his own devices, he drew nothing but landscapes. Sure, he'd been told plenty of times that he was very good at it but Matt didn't want to be a one trick pony. But drawing people was hard. He'd looked up plenty of tricks online but the lines and proportions still felt strange and it showed. The figure of the man standing in a wood, hit by autumn with full force, was distorted and overworked. Nevertheless, Matthew wasn't about to give up. He furrowed his brow and leaned in, only a few inches above his work, slowly adding and changing things to try and make them fit like they were supposed to.

"I love how Matt is just quietly drawing over there while we talk about this." Lars commented offhandedly.

Matthew looked up, somewhat startled by his sudden inclusion in the conversation. Maybe he could use this to get the group back on track and get some actual work done; that would be nice. "Well, it's just because no one want to get some actual work done." He had been quite, in all honesty, he'd almost thought he hadn't been heard at all.

"Matthew does have a point, maybe we should try and get some work done before we waste the whole period." Matthew smiled at that. Lars was a good friend, he was someone Matt knew he could count on. A real best friend, something Matthew had never quite had sense he'd always seemed to drift between different groups.

But then, his hopes were dashed by Gilbert of all people. "Oh come on Lars, stop avoiding the question!"

And with that, it seemed as though Matthew and the Project were forgotten again. He wasn't angry at them, though he probably should have been, instead he felt strangely hurt and flooded with a sudden surge of bitter nostalgia. It almost felt like he was back in middle school. Matthew shivered at the thought.

Middle school… hadn't been very kind to Matthew. Somehow over the course of those years he found himself morphing into a ghost. The bright, enthusiastic kid he'd been in elementary school became a distant stranger and there was nothing Matt could do to stop it. Not even halfway through his three year sentence to that prison, he'd become an extra in his own life. It had got so bad that when Papa had kept him home for over a week with an ear infection, the only one who noticed his absence was his friend that he'd accidentally called one morning while he was away.

He knew none of his friends meant it that way. But for some reason he couldn't stop himself from taking it personally. Matthew had spent the whole year painfully forcing himself to not be invisible anymore. It was a slow and agonizing process, but now that he had successfully survived most of the year… It felt like all his efforts were suddenly all for naught.

Matthew shook his head, he didn't want to think like that. He was better now and those days where far behind him.

He took a long deep breath and set his pencil down. Quietly, he watched as his friends. Life seemed to slow for a moment, like some sort of movie or perhaps God was just messing with the remote again. Matthew had developed a crush on Gil pretty much since the first moment he saw him and no matter how hard he'd tried, ever since, he couldn't get those feelings to die. Every time he got close to letting go something would happen, Gilbert would break up with his girlfriend, only to be back with her a few weeks later, Matthew would get another glimpse of the tender caring side that Gil rarely showed, or he'd hear Antonio and Gilbert talking in hushed tones, Antonio trying to tell his friend that the relationship he had wasn't healthy; whatever it was that happened, Matthew was helplessly pulled back in every time. All the while, a small part of him knew that they were so very, very different. He wasn't obvious to the looks of complete and utter disbelief and confusion that his teachers would give then when they first realized they were friends.

Somehow that fact had never fully sunken in... Until now, as he sat and watched them, the churning whirlpool of emotions that he associated with Gil finally felt at peace. He'd never loved Gilbert like he'd thought he had. Matthew had fallen in love with a piece of him, a mere idea of him really, the soft, tender side that he'd see on occasion and from there an entirely separate person grew. He'd made the mistake of confusing that ideal with Gil. Perhaps he should have felt guilty or sad at the realization but in all he felt was a faint sense of happy relief. Matthew knew that he'd still care about Gilbert as a friend but now he could let go of the rest. Matthew was free…

Matthew kind of wanted to tell someone. Though, he had no idea why. But it wasn't like Matthew could blurt it out... Maybe he could mention it in the chat then? He picked up his phone again and went back into Skype.

It looked like the chat had picked up after he'd left, confusing_metephore was online, which was pretty rare, and so was the_smol_one. He thought about jumping in but... they seemed to be in the middle of talking about something and he didn't want to interrupt. Besides, now that he thought about it, it would be incredibly awkward to just send something like that into the group chat. His mind immediately turned to Puffin. Oddly enough he was the only one Matthew talked to outside of the main chat… for whatever reason. Not that he minded of course.

PM: emo_puffin

sarcastic_pancakes: I'm not sure if I mentioned it earlier but… My crush is in my group…

emo_puffin: ack

emo_puffin: really? that must be awful

sarcastic_pancakes: ...Yeah, it was.

The peaceful residue of his realization was fading fast, leaving Matthew right back where he had been before, annoyed and hurt by his friends' disregard of his existence.

sarcastic_pancakes: It's like I don't even exsist… I mean i know I'm quite and all but still…

emo_puffin: oh thats terrible

emo_puffin: im really sorry about that

sarcastic_pancakes: *sigh* its fine, really… And if nothing else, I think I was finally able to kill my crush on him

And just like that his anger joined by a strange mix of emotions leaving Mat struggling to find his bearings. Gil had been his first real crush and he'd liked him for so long that it felt strange to suddenly… not. It felt right for it to end like this despite everything. He remembered back, all those months before the beginning of freshman year, having what he supposed was a bit of a lucid dream about a boyfriend he'd someday have, who somehow looked startlingly similar to Gilbert despite Matthew having not met him yet. At the beginning the whole thing had been filled with this intense, unshakeable infatuation but when all was said and done the boy in the dream never truly loved him back, and left him alone and broken. The dream had stuck with him all this time because he couldn't shake the bizarre resemblance of the boy from his dream and Gil. To be completely honest Matthew was really freaked out by it. Now, it made sense somehow, like his dream had stemmed from some sort of sixth sense or something, though Matthew wasn't even sure that he believed in that sort of thi-

His phone buzzed again, breaking him from his thoughts. It was Puffin.

emo_puffin: wow. is it really that bad?

sarcastic_pancakes: No… I mean yes, but it wasn't really like that… I sort of just realized that it wasn't meant to be

emo_puffin: hm

emo_puffin: well i suppose thats good.

Matthew smiled slightly as he put his phone down and refocused his attention on his drawing. There wasn't much of a point in trying to get any work done, there were only fifteen minutes left in the period and Gil was still as persistent as ever about continuing the most uncomfortable conversation Matthew had ever had to sit through.

Wait, why was he thinking about this now? Matthew shook his head; he needed to focus and make sure they got some work done. He followed the rest of his group to the place they were working just outside of the classroom. They only had one more period to work on this, granted it was a two hour period thanks to them being on block schedule due to some testing for the juniors. God, Matthew was nervous, he couldn't let what happened before repeat itself.

"Hey, guys," Matthew was trying his best to come off as assertive, he really was, too bad he wasn't all that great at it. He took a deep breath and raised his voice a little, "Look, we really need to get this done, we only have this period to work on it."

Antonio cocked his head a little at that "Don't we technically have the weekend to work on it too?"

Matthew buried his face in his hands. "But I can't work this weekend."

"Why not?" Lars asked as he lifted his head, suddenly interested.

He let out a long tired sigh, this was going to be fun to explain. "Look, my dad, Arthur, is trying to convince the court to dock Papa's child support… again, for wanting to delay the court date because of how he'd injured his back at work a while ago and the only open appointment that he could get just so happened to be on the court date. So Papa needed to leave town sense the court is stupidly far away and I've been staying with my grandmother. And she doesn't know any of you so there is no way she'd let me go over to one of your houses, even to work on a project."

Lars nodded. He was the only person who really knew about Matthew's family issues. In short: Arthur was a dick who was never around because he cared more about work, couldn't keep his own house clean, lied, blatantly cared more about Alfred, and so many more things that Matthew would rather not think about. Even now, with Matthew living at his Papa's full time, Arthur refused to pay the proper child support leaving him and Papa struggling to make end's meet. Fucking asshole.

"Either way Antonio, we should get to work. I don't know about the rest of you but I am too awesome to spend my weekend working on some stupid project," Gil drawled as he sauntered back over to the rest of the group, seemingly content with the amount of interference he'd caused in the group working next to them.

Matthew couldn't help but smile a little as a bit of the hurt from the other day began to dissipate… but only slightly. Maybe this project wouldn't be so bad after all.

"So, anyone have any ideas for the video?" Gilbert's question was met with a collective shrug.

Matthew actually did have an idea. He wasn't sure though… The rest of the group probably wouldn't like it. Hell, he wasn't even sure he liked it either. No. Come on, you've been working this entire year to speak your mind, to stop being invisible. Just say it.

He took a deep breath. Calm down you don't need to be so nervous. "Hey, um… I might have an idea." Matthew bit his lip and started at his fellow group members for a response but they just kept talking like he hadn't said anything at all.

Perhaps God accidentally put him on mute?

What… was happening? How did it turn from everyone working together and making actual progress to this? Everyone was being so loud, telling him that he had to text his grandmother and pretty much fucking guilt her into letting him come over to one of their house's to work on the project over the weekend. Why? Because they'd screwed up. Because despite Mathew trying his fucking hardest to get stuff done, everyone else was always too busy goofing off. Worst of all, now that the fact that they'd wasted all their time finally sunk in, suddenly Matthew was the bad guy because he wasn't sure if he could go.

Everyone was getting irritated at him, even Lars. Sure he was trying to keep his cool, but Matt could tell it was getting to him too. Fuck, he was so close to saying screw it because the whole thing was starting to feel like it wasn't worth it. He just wanted it to be over.