Mended Hearts.

Part VI.

A sweet and zesty scent of freshly done lemon lime cupcakes and the ever-present aroma of roasted coffee beans was wafting through the small back room of Tweek Bros. coffee shop, which definitely contrasted the gloomy and mundane atmosphere that had been present throughout the vast majority of that particular October day.

Apart from several customers popping in and out of the coffee shop and either one of them taking the orders, the best friend duo of Tweek Tweak and Wendy Testaburger had been rather busy with making numerous batches of cupcakes and various other pastries, as well as snacking on them and just having a genuinely good time during the afternoon shift they were working in together.

''Ngh, Wends! Don't eat those!'', Tweek said as he sipped on what must've been his second or third cup of coffee that day, twitching slightly at the sight of his closest female friend simply ignoring his words and grabbing another cupcake from the most recent batch that had been made.

''Oh come on, why shouldn't I try my best friend's famous lemon lime cupcakes?'', Wendy smirked before biting into the delicious pastry and wiping off some of the frosting that got stuck to her bottom lip. ''You have to give me a recipe for these! My mom's been asking me for one for weeks at this point. She says these are pretty much the only reason why she goes here, and not the coffee.''

''Well, I have the recipe screenshot somewhere on my phone. Will send it to you later, just remind me, 'kay?''

''Sure thing.'', Wendy winked as she peeked her head outside the back room and noticed that the coffee shop had still been relatively empty – well, empty besides the two customers that had gotten their orders earlier and had been completely tuned in their own little worlds.

''Hey Tweeks, are you sure that more customers are gonna' come? We've been working for nearly three hours, and we've maybe had like ten people come in so far. I know the weather outside has been quite shitty, but I was expecting more people to come. No joke.''

''Hnh, it's usually a bit quieter now, but the place can often get packed during the evening hours. So yeah, I guess it will get a bit livelier later.'', Tweek explained as he finished the rest of his coffee and tossed the used coffee cup into the nearby trash can.

''Well, if you say so...'', the dark haired girl shrugged her shoulders, putting the cupcakes onto their designated tray and setting them aside for later.

Wendy sighed as she leant against the stainless steel countertop, suddenly realizing that yet another month of her living again in South Park had flown by surprisingly fast, as it was now reaching almost three months since she and her parents had moved back to the podunk little mountain town after living in Tampa for nearly six years.

The teenage girl initially, on top of having to adjust to her new-old surroundings and a completely new high school, had also had one more thing she wanted to take care of: finding a part-time job in order to save up enough money to buy herself a car, so that she didn't have to rely on either of her parents lending their cars to her, or carpooling with her friends anymore.

In usual circumstances, she would've been just fine by living off of her parents giving her a pretty decent allowance every week, but because she had been wanting to buy herself a car pretty much ever since getting her driver's license all the way back in February, Wendy had found herself looking for a student job that she could do at least twice a week and earn enough money to put aside for a car – as well as be left with enough money to spend on other various necessities and wants.

Although she hadn't initially been that lucky with finding a job, it wasn't until she told her twitchy blonde best friend about her plans, so he then without any hesitation told his parents about Wendy needing a job and him wanting someone he knew very well to work in his parents' coffee shop as an extra helping hand.

Tweek and Wendy helping each other out on numerous occasions definitely hadn't been anything new, since they had been the best of friends pretty much ever since the fourth grade.

While they initially had very little to no interactions with one another and rarely spoke about anything that wasn't related to school, they started their friendship on a total whim and due to everything that had happened after Tweek and Craig's 'breakup' all the way back in fourth grade. And even though Tweek didn't really want to spill the beans and say that the whole situation had actually been staged, he still felt glad that at least someone like Wendy went after him and attempted to comfort him. They had only grown closer ever since, hanging out even more through the fifth and sixth grade, and with Tweek becoming a staple part of Wendy's closest group of friends. He, alongside Bebe and Red, had also been someone with whom the teenage girl spent most times talking to when she had lived in Florida.

And at seventeen years of age, the still slightly twitchy teenager was doing rather well for himself, as he had a much better part-time job working at his parents' coffee shop than when he was younger, was a member of the school's drama club and had been able to keep a stable relationship with Craig going on for years now. And naturally, with him becoming older and not wanting to often be the sole work force in his parents' coffee shop, Tweek had started to focus on more important things in his life and seemed to only change for the better – significantly cutting down on the amount of coffee he was drinking, attending numerous therapy sessions that had helped him deal with his anxiety better and most importantly, improving his relationship with Craig as years went by.

Although he was really sad after his best friend's move and her not being by his side anymore, the rest of the girls from his class had still put in a lot of effort to make Tweek feel as included as they possibly could, especially showing their support for him when he had officially come out in eighth grade – as well as effectively putting an end to the rumors about him and Craig still faking their relationship for the town's sake.

And speaking of working in his parents' coffee shop, Tweek was glad that at least someone he knew very well was now working alongside him during most of the afternoon shifts, which meant that they would definitely be quite a bit more fun and that the time spent working at the coffee shop would pass faster.

''I will try to ask my parents if you can work with me in the same shift next week.'', Tweek said as he took a big bite out of his lemon lime cupcake, despite initially not wanting to taste it, as well as to keep the entire batch solely for the customers.

''Gladly, but we'll have to talk to them about that. I think they are both aware that we can only work the afternoon shifts during the week, and morning shifts on the weekend if we're not busy with other things.'', Wendy replied.

They continued their easy back and forth until it was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, which prompted both teenagers to stop their conversation and decide which one of them was going to be at the service of their potential customers.

''I'll take this one, and then I'll come back to help you finish making those strawberry cupcakes.'', Wendy said with a renewed spring in her step, tightening the hair elastic and running her fingers through her raven black locks which were kept in a neat ponytail. She grabbed her usual white apron and tied it around her waist, stepping to the front counter to see who her new potential customers were.

Normally, she wouldn't be that surprised to see some of her classmates popping into the coffee shop and ordering something to drink, but when her new customers happened to be none other than her ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend, Wendy barely contained herself to not roll her eyes at the sight of Melissa clinging to Stan so unnecessarily much.

She noticed that Stan was wearing the usual getup he wore to his football practices, but still had his typical red and blue poofball hat on his head. He was clearly too busy with looking at the menu to notice that his ex-girlfriend was standing right behind the front counter, but did avert his gaze once he heard Wendy calling his name.

Taking a deep breath, the ravenette put on her best fake smile and greeted the couple who had stumbled into the coffee shop. ''Hey Stan, hey Melissa.''

''Oh hey, Wendy.'', Stan said in a surprised tone, suddenly feeling that the grip his girlfriend had on his bicep had become noticeably tighter. ''Didn't know you work here.''

''Well, I do.'', Wendy confirmed with a chuckle, promptly ignoring the look of displeasure that had crinkled across Melissa's face.

''Here we go again, I guess. Not even here I can't be without her looking at me like I just killed her entire family.'', the raven haired beauty thought to herself.

''Is Tweek here too?''

''Yeah, but he's currently busy baking more pastries. I'm currently in charge of taking the orders, so what can I get you?''

''Tall caramel macchiato with some extra whipped cream on top.'', Melissa said with a surprise note of cheerfulness in her voice, locking her green eyes with the chocolate brown ones of her supposed love rival.

''Nothing for me.'', Stan smiled apologetically as he reached for the wallet that was inside the front pocket of his black sweatpants. ''How much is that?''

''Four bucks.''

''Here's five. Keep the change.'', the dark haired teenager said with a gentle smile as he handed over a slightly crumpled five dollar bill to Wendy.

She said a quick 'thank you' to Stan and went over to the cash register to put the money inside, but inconspicuously stuffed the extra one dollar bill inside the pocket of her jeans. She then went on to make Melissa's drink order in relative peace, definitely not wanting to screw it up and then be subjected to incessant bitching about how the drink wasn't good, or how it tasted like pure garbage – which were pretty much the usual Karen-esque things people would say when they weren't happy with their order.

After being done with making Melissa's order and Stan leaving the premises with his girlfriend, Wendy said goodbye to both of them and rolled her eyes as soon as the couple went outside. Although she knew damn well that she had to act nice not just towards Stan, but also towards Melissa, the teenage girl was glad that she could simply ignore her ex-boyfriend's main squeeze whenever she saw her at school and not keep up the whole friendly girl façade – because frankly, Wendy knew she had much better things to do than trying to befriend Melissa and be on her good side.

And since the coffee shop had been completely empty now, Wendy decided to take a little break and walked into the back room again, plopping herself down onto the nearest chair and pulling out her phone to see if she had any new messages. She scrolled through some social media apps to see if she could find anything interesting, but when that proved to be quite fruitless, the dark haired girl then went on to see if she had received any other notifications apart from the usual app notifications and the notifications from the various group chats she was in.

But much to Wendy's delight, a certain text message immediately caught her eye, as it was from one person whom she had met nearly a month and a half ago and whose text message would definitely be enough to make her day a bit better.

David Reynolds.

After accidentally bumping into him in the school library and getting to know him a bit better during their short walk towards the English class, she managed to form a relatively easy friendship with David. While it wasn't long before they added each other on both Facebook and Instagram, what truly surprised Wendy was when the teenage boy went one step further and sent her a completely unexpected text message – explaining that he had felt a bit shy to ask her directly for her phone number, so he instead got it from one of her best friends.

Opening the conversation she had going on with David, Wendy smiled softly to herself as she read the message that he had sent her.

'Whatcha doing?'

Feeling her grin growing wider, it didn't take the noirette that long to type out a quick response and hit the 'send' button.

'Currently stuck at work, but it's been nice so far, how bout you?'

'Just done with my basketball practice for the day'

'Nice :)'

'Where do you work anyway?'

'At tweek bros coffee shop'

'Hmm, that's quite close to me actually. I guess I should maybe stop by then? ;)'

Left stunned by the bluntness in David's response, Wendy chewed down on her bottom lip as she was trying to come up with a quick answer to his message, but eventually came to terms with the fact that him popping by wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. She quickly typed out her message and hit the 'send' button, patiently waiting for him to text her back.

'Whatever floats your boat, I wouldn't mind it'

'Then see you in 15 ;)'

''Someone's looking a bit chipper.'', Wendy immediately jumped in her seat as she noticed Tweek standing right behind her with an obvious smirk on his face, shamelessly glancing over his co-worker's shoulder and reading the conversation she had with her possible future love interest.

''Well, you can say so.'', she said as she put her phone back into her jeans pocket and stood up from the chair. She looked over at Tweek and noticed that he still had a cheeky smirk plastered across his face, feeling eager to tease his best friend further. ''What?''

''Is it David?'', Tweek replied. ''Come on, don't be shy.''

Deciding that she might just keep this one secret to herself, Wendy opted to give the blonde teenager at least half a decent answer. ''Maybe yes, maybe not.''

Somewhere on the road towards Breckenridge, Stan was currently busy with driving his girlfriend home after what had been a rather underwhelming date with her – despite him being quite exhausted after having another football practice that week, the teenage boy still caved into Melissa's wish for them to go on a date later that afternoon.

Although he didn't really feel like going anywhere else other than straight to his house and plopping down onto his comfortable bed, Stan still decided to pick up Melissa and drive them over to Tweek Bros. coffee shop for a cup of coffee, as he hoped that at least one shot of caffeine would be enough to give him some energy to get through the rest of the day and not have him falling asleep as soon as he got home.

And as if the whole day hadn't already been weird enough, what Stan didn't really expect to see and find out was his ex-girlfriend working in Tweek Bros. Coffee of all places, and that they actually happened to visit the coffee shop right during her shift – causing him to internally groan at the thought of Melissa again potentially acting possessive whenever Wendy happened to be around him, or even worse, talk to him.

But much to his surprise, his girlfriend actually was acting like her usual cheery self and didn't even attempt to act overprotective of him, despite squeezing his forearm a bit more than he would've liked to.

The car ride from the coffee shop to Melissa's house had been unusually quiet, except for the typical rock music Stan liked to play in his car and the brunette teenager occasionally rambling about something that had happened to her earlier in the day, but her boyfriend hadn't really been in the mood to listen to her due to just how exhausted he was and how much he wanted to get home as soon as possible.

''So yeah, I got eighty-eight percent on my Physics quiz.'', Melissa said as she took the last sip of her caramel macchiato and set the now empty cup onto the car floor mat. ''Mom was so proud of me that she told me we might go shopping this weekend as a reward.''

''Really? That's great babe. I'm so glad you've been doing better at Physics.''

''Yeah well, I gotta' thank Lauren for explaining everything perfectly. I swear that she's helped me much more with Physics than I ever could. I don't even understand half the shit we learn.'', she said with a proud smile. ''And what about you? Didn't you say that you have some group project thing going on?''

''Well, I do.'', Stan explained briefly as he took a sharp right turn and started driving towards his girlfriend's neighborhood. ''We haven't come up with our project theme just yet, but I do have some ideas that might be good.''

"So, who are you paired with for the History project?", Melissa asked as she glanced over at the raven haired teenager.

"Tweek, Craig, his cousin Red and Wendy.''

"Wendy? Seriously?", Melissa said in her typically exasperated tone, huffing out at the thought of Stan working on a group project with his ex-girlfriend of all people. "Why her? Couldn't your professor pair you up with someone else?''

"Mel...'', finally reaching the driveway of her house, Stan could slowly feel his blood boiling over the fact that Melissa had yet again brought up the topic of conversation that obviously had to be about Wendy. After stopping his car and pulling up the handbrake, he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a faint groan. ''What are you getting so worked up about? It's just a fucking history group project."

''Besides, it wasn't my wish to be paired with her. Our professor made all five of us be in the same group together, so it's not like I was able to choose with who I will do this project.'', he continued further, feeling quite stupid over the fact that he had to go through the same thing over and over again – which had been happening on a pretty much weekly basis at this point. ''Be honest with me, what's your problem with her?''

''Guess.'', Melissa cocked an eyebrow, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.

''Mel, we've gone through this before. For the last fucking time, Wendy and I are just friends – nothing more, nothing less.'', Stan explained to his girlfriend, hoping that maybe this time she would finally come to her senses and stop being so goddamn jealous over absolutely nothing. ''And just because we used to date for three years back in fucking elementary school, it doesn't mean I still have any feelings for her, jeez.''

''Great.'', grabbing her handbag and unbuckling her seat belt, Melissa sank into the driver's seat and rolled her eyes. ''But who says that she's only being friends with you because that's literally the only thing she wants?''

''Because that is literally the only thing between us. I don't see you acting this way towards any other of my female friends, but only towards her.''

''Maybe because none of them happen to be your ex?''

''Mel, you can't just judge someone whom you're never even spoken to.'', Stan argued. ''I'll never try to force you to be best of friends with Wendy, but these little snide remarks you make about her are kinda' starting to annoy me. I know her better than you do and you can rest assure knowing that there's nothing between us. Zip, zilch, zero."

''But, Sta – ''

''I don't care, okay? Look, I'm getting pretty sick of having these conversations almost every single day. And did you happen to forget what you promised to me when we got back together in April – that you would stop being so goddamn jealous and actually let me have some space! Or did you decide to backflip on almost every single promise you've made to me after that?''

After several seconds of almost complete silence, Melissa wholeheartedly decided that the best option possible was not to say anything, as she ripped the passenger side door open and climbed outside of Stan's car. Her display of passive aggressiveness was then followed by a rather loud slam of the car door, causing the teenage boy to slump his head against the steering wheel and let out a loud groan.

Deciding that he really shouldn't waste any more of his precious time arguing with Melissa about such petty things, Stan put his car in reverse and slowly drove out of the driveway. He turned up the music from his radio and started his route back towards the Tegridy Farms weed farm, wanting to clear his thoughts as best as he possibly could – only to be disrupted by the sound of his phone ringing and forcing him to pull over at the side of the road.

Stan saw that he was receiving a phone call from none other than his super best friend, feeling a bit more at ease and actually glad that it wasn't Melissa calling him this time around.

''Hey dude.'', he replied.

''Hey dude! Wanna' go with us to Raisins?'', Kyle said in an excited tone. ''Clyde got his paycheck today, so he's paying for everyone's food and drinks!''

''I'm not really in the mood. I've had quite an exhausting day and all I really wanna' do is go home and just get some sleep, okay?''

''We haven't hung out properly for weeks now. Can you at least blow your girlfriend off for once and come hang out with us? You don't even have to spend any money.''

Taking his best friend's idea into consideration and contemplating whether he should drive all the way over to Raisins, Stan drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and chewed the inside of his mouth in pure thinking mode – but it didn't really take him that long to come up with an answer, deciding for once not to care about what his girlfriend was going to say and how she was going to react to him ignoring her due to the temper tantrum she had thrown earlier that evening.

''You know what, I'll actually come. See ya' in thirty minutes.''

Things are certainly getting spicier and spicier, am I right?

I know that I haven't really made any big plot twists so far, but Melissa is out here causing problems in hers and Stan's relationship yet again! I'm not sure if you guys can recall it, but I did briefly mention earlier that something happened between Stan and Melissa during the Spring break and how they managed to fix their relationship after some long, heartfelt talks – well, I haven't forgotten about it and I plan on revealing what exactly happened, as well as everything that led up to it! Some flashback scenes will be added, which means I'll have to think about how they'll be incorporated into the plotline.

And we can clearly see two things going on right now – Wendy and David's budding friendship that could probably lead to them becoming more than just friends, and Stan and Melissa's seemingly strong relationship starting to show its first cracks after what have been steady several months!

Also in this chapter, I really wanted to give some spotlight to Tweek and Wendy's friendship! I feel like those two would be really close friends and potentially bitch to one another about their boyfriends (although we can all agree that both Craig and Stan love their significant others quite a lot!). It's not like their friendship will play a huge part in this story, so I'm using this chapter as more of an opportunity to write about my favorite South Park friendship.

But enough with my ramblings for now! I hope you guys will enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)