It was a new Monday since he'd seen Penguin in the lunchroom, and he was losing his mind.
Now, he saw her everywhere. And not just her as a person — since he definitely spotted her in the hallways, during lunch, and sometimes when he walked into their shared class — but also in symbols. Objects. Patterns.
Walking home and spotting a flower? Penguin. His Sanity Falls poster with the spiral background? Penguin. Ash's star-shaped earring? Definitely Penguin.
Fuck, one time he went outside during the night to smoke just to clear his head, looked up at the moon and stars, and spent half an hour losing it and mentally screaming at the sky.
Those little doodles she left in her drawings were messing with his head. They kept popping up in his mind at the worst times — during class, on the walk home, in the middle of sleeping. It wasn't fair. She was just some random girl, and now he was starting to associate her with damn near everything.
He wasn't sure how much more of it he could take.
What the hell was happening? This couldn't be a crush, he didn't even know her name! She just left him little gifts, he'd seen her a handful of times, and now she was everywhere. Everywhere. Stuck in his head.
He groaned out loud and shook his head wildly, hoping that maybe if he physically shook the thought out, it would leave him alone. It wasn't like she'd done anything crazy to get this stuck in his thoughts, just some cute little sketches, some bracelets, and way too much detail in those drawings of him.
Totally normal, right? People did that all the time.
Except they didn't. And they definitely didn't spend this much time obsessing over normal.
He huffed and leaned back in his lumpy bean bag, his fingers tugging at the bracelet on his wrist. It was somewhat of a nervous habit now, twisting the threads back and forth, running his thumb over the little knots. He didn't even know why he was wearing it again. He could've shoved it in a drawer somewhere, but no. He slipped it on without thinking, like it belonged there.
Which it shouldn't.
And yet there he was, twisting the bracelet on his wrist.
It was the only thing Penguin gave him that wasn't stuffed away from prying eyes and hidden. Everything else she had ever given him was shoved to the back of one of his drawers as neatly as he could manage. Pebbles, bracelets, folded papers, wood chips, those little felted animals, what was once a somewhat pleasing-looking leaf that was currently dying, and a carefully made Sanity's Fall sticker that he was unreasonably nervous to stick anywhere.
In that same drawer, tucked inside a thin folder, he had all the drawings carefully opened and straightened. He couldn't leave anything out in the open because if Sal saw them, he'd tease him mercilessly, and god forbid his mom found out.
If Lisa figured out he was keeping gifts from a girl, he'd never live it down. She'd probably tell everyone — Sal's dad Henry, the neighbors, the cashier at the grocery store. Hell, he could already imagine her voice in the cereal aisle, loud and clear, telling some poor random woman reaching for Cheerios, "My son has a secret admirer, can you believe it? She leaves him little bracelets and drawings. It's adorable!"
He'd never recover.
With that horrifying thought, he pushed himself up from his bean bag and started getting ready for school, because, apparently, he was up at the ass-crack of dawn thinking for some god-forsaken reason.
He yanked a shirt out of the pile on his little couch, giving it a sniff check and tugging it over his head before even bothering to check if it matched the jeans he planned to wear. It wasn't like he cared about that sort of thing anyway. He just needed to be dressed. That was it. Like a normal person.
But then he noticed it was all wrinkled — obviously, it had been sitting in a pile — and his hand smoothed over it before he even thought about it. When it didn't flatten all the way, he frowned and tried again. He tugged sharply at the hem, like that'd somehow fix it, and then tugged it again for good measure. It still didn't look right.
"Seriously?" He muttered under his breath.
With a huff, he gave up and put on his jeans before moving onto his hair. It was always a mess, and he liked it that way. A couple of rough ruffles through it to untangle it usually did the trick, so why was he now leaning in closer to the mirror, tilting his head, and—
"Oh my god."
His hands dropped immediately and he pulled back like the mirror had burned him.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Fixing himself up? Worrying about wrinkles? Trying to make his baby hairs lay flat against his head instead of sticking up every which way?
What was he doing — trying to look nice for her?
Christ, he didn't even know her.
And yet there he was, staring himself down like his reflection would suddenly give him all the answers. Like looking just right would somehow make her stop hanging around Travis and come talk to him instead.
He groaned and scrubbed his hands through his hair hard enough to make it stick up worse than before. Better. Fine. Whatever. He was done thinking about this.
Except that's exactly what he was still doing when there was a knock on the doorframe.
"You planning on being late today, or is this the start of a new grooming phase I don't know about?"
He spun so fast that his hip hit the edge of the dresser. "Mom!"
Lisa raised an eyebrow, one hand against the door frame with her coffee mug in her other hand and a smirk on her face. "Not that I mind, but if you're trying to impress someone, a little cologne wouldn't kill you."
"I'm not trying to impress anyone! I'm just—"
His voice cracked. His voice cracked.
He needed the carpet and floorboards to open up and swallow him whole.
Larry cleared his throat so fast it almost hurt. "I'm just… trying not to look like a mess, yeah."
That was awful. Horrid.
When had he ever cared about looking like a mess? He might as well have walked out of his room with a flashing neon sign that said: LOOK AT ME I'M ACTING STRANGE.
He could tell Lisa didn't believe a lick of it, if the widening smirk on her face said anything.
"Oh yeah? Trying not to look like a mess, huh?" She leaned against the doorway, swirling her coffee cup a little and clearly enjoying herself. "Because I seem to remember someone calling ripped jeans and a paint stained band tee being 'dressed up' just last month. But sure, you're 'just trying not to look like a mess.'"
He grunted, tugging a hand through his hair and immediately cursing himself when he caught his reflection smoothing it down again.
"Ma," he said, voice halfway between a plea and a growl, his ears burning. "I'm not — just drop it, okay?"
His mom only hummed, obviously not buying it. "Whatever you say, Lar-Bear. But if you're gonna keep fussing with your hair like that, you might wanna borrow my brush."
"Mom!"
He swatted her out of the doorway and slammed the room door shut, the sound of her laughter ringing down the hall.
He's done for.
Oh my god, he's so done for.
Now she'll think he's cleaning up for someone. Which he isn't.
He is not.
Moving back, he braced his hands on the dresser, glaring at his reflection like it might have answers. This wasn't about anyone. It wasn't. He just didn't feel like looking like he'd rolled out of a dumpster today — totally normal. Totally fine.
And yet, the longer he stared at himself, the more he wanted to bash his head against the mirror. Because, god, this wasn't normal, was it?
Not the brushing his hair or smoothing out wrinkles or tugging at his shirt to make sure it didn't hang weird. Not the double-checking that the chain on his jeans wasn't twisted up and then immediately hating himself for caring.
It wasn't normal for his stupid face to flush as he pictured her noticing.
Jesus Christ.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, biting down on the groan bubbling in his throat.
It means nothing.
That's what he tells himself. Over and over.
It's nothing.
When he leaves and his friends immediately notice he looks just a smidge more put together? Nothing.
When they tease him relentlessly, throwing out whistles and winks and calling him pretty-boy? Still nothing.
When he catches himself tugging at tangles in his hair he wouldn't have cared about before — and then does it again five minutes later? Absolutely nothing.
And when he scrubs furiously at the food stains on his pants in the bathroom — the same ones he would've ignored on any other day — and mutters curses under his breath the whole time?
Okay. Maybe something.
But by the time the day's winding down, he's finally starting to believe it. His friends have stopped pointing things out. He's stopped fussing with his hair. Everything is back to normal.
It's the end of the day, and he's walking to the exit with Ash and Sal at his side. The crowd's thick, but it's easy to stick together, their conversations weaving in and out of the buzz of voices and shuffling footsteps.
Larry's only half paying attention. Semi-turned toward them, relaxed and joking, he almost convinces himself that today was just another day.
But as the halls close in near the doors, the crowd swells, and it's harder to keep track of what anyone's saying. Ash and Sal's voices blur together, just more noise in the mess of people.
And maybe that's why he doesn't see it coming.
There's only a flash of movement in his peripheral vision — just enough for him to brace right before someone slams into his side.
The breath knocks out of him as he stumbles, catching whoever-it-was by the shoulders to keep them both from going down.
"Woah!" He starts, automatic smile already in place. "Careful where you're going, you could—"
And then he actually looks at them.
The words stick in his throat and die.
She's short. Shorter than he expected — though it's hard to tell if it's because she's actually short or if it's the hunch in her shoulders as she clutches at the bridge of her nose under her glasses.
Probably the hunch.
She looks… soft. Round cheeks flushed, wide eyes blinking up at him behind even bigger glasses. Her dark hair frames her face, and when she moves, the faint sway of her moon earrings catches his eye.
He comes to and realizes, too late, that his hands are still on her shoulders, holding her steady.
He doesn't let go.
He should. He really, really should.
But instead, his brain short-circuits, and he tries to salvage the joke he'd started, words tumbling out before he can stop them.
"—could, uh, flatten someone like — like a pancake—"
Oh god.
Why did he say that?
She doesn't say anything. Just winces as she lowers one hand and uses the other to push her glasses back into place, blinking up at him again with watery eyes. He can't tell if it's the pain, if she's about to cry at being near him, or just from how stupid that sounded.
Shit.
It's her.
It's Penguin.
He's sure of it.
And he has no idea what to do.