"Look, I'm really sorry, Shake", Frylock said in an apologetic voice.

Shake looked down at the floor before returning eye contact with the floating box of french fries in front of him.

He closed his eyes for a second and let out a sigh before replying back.

"And I'm sorry too", was Shakes' reply.

Frylock was truly shocked to hear him say that. Shake never apologized, and if he did, it wasn't usually sincere. This, however, sounded somewhat sincere.

Frylock turned his head and looked into the kitchen that was to the right of him. He noticed the clock on the stovetop. It read "5:15pm". He thought it'd be the perfect time to start preparing dinner, well more realistically, anything they could find in their fridge or pantry to eat.

"Well, I better go tell Meatwad that I'm gonna start making dinner".

With that, Frylock floated down the hall to Meatwad's room. The door was still closed, and he assumed that Meatwad was just in there playing. It was, however, very quiet when he got to it though. He assumed maybe he was just playing quietly, or even taking a nap, perhaps.

"Meatwad, I'm gonna start dinner soon, okay?"

He waited a minute for a response. Usually, Meatwad would pounce up immediately at the mention of food.

No response.

He called out again.

Still no response.

Maybe he was napping, or what if-

No!

He couldn't be-

Frylock shook that notion out of his head.

"That can't be it", he thought

He opened the door, expecting to see the little ball of beef peacefully asleep, but to his surprise, he was nowhere in sight.

Panic hit him like a train running fast on a track.

"Meatwad!", yelled out Frylock; panic detected in his voice.

He checked every inch of his room; from his closet full of sand to behind his door.

No luck!

Frylock floated into his own room, thinking maybe Meatwad was in there.

"Meatwad, are you in here?", the floating box of fries called out as he entered the door.

Shake, who was still in the living room, quickly heard his oldest brother calling out the little wad of meat's name, and decided to see what all the yelling was about.

Annoyed, as he easily got, Shake angrily asked Frylock what the noise was all about.

As he got to Frylock's room, he could see him frantically going through, and checking, items in his bedroom.

"What is this? Some sort of treasure hunt?", Shake asked.

Frylock ignored his brother's passive tone and question.

"Meatwad, where are you? This isn't funny!"

Frylock flew out from underneath his bed, having just finished checking there, and met eye contact with Shake.

"Shake, man! I can't find Meatwad anywhere! I checked his room, in here…."

Shake had left Frylock's room and started screaming at basically nothing, trying to "help out" in the search.

"If you can hear me, you better come out from wherever you're hiding, you little turd or else I'm…"

Shake hesitated for a minute, trying to come up with some fake threat that would more than likely scare Meatwad, especially enough to scare him to come out, if he was hiding, that is.

"I'm gonna call Dracula and he'll eat you up!"

While Meatwad was sometimes quick to catch Shakes' antics, there were still times where he was scared by "threats" like these.

"Meatwad, if you can hear us, please just say something, or at least give us a signal that you can hear us, please", begged Frylock.

Still nothing.

Frylock thought of the attic above his room, and decided to go check there next. Frylock knew that Meatwad sometimes liked going up there, whether it was if he needed some alone time, or simply just to play with his toys in a different scenery.

Frylock carefully opened the attic door and expected to hear the squeaky, high pitched voice from the ball of beef.

When he flew up, and turned on a light, his expectation was shattered. Meatwad wasn't up there at all.

His heart dropped even more than it already had. He was now scared and worried. He just wanted to know where his little brother was. Frylock took a seat on the attic floor for a second. He needed to gather himself and take a second to breathe. Tears started accumulating in his eyes. Somehow, Frylock thought that this was his fault. For most of that day, Frylock was barely paying attention to Meatwad. Sure, they saw each other in the morning for breakfast, but he was busy doing some day trading later in the morning, then he had to do some work for his online classes, had to run out to do errands…

And after that was when he got into the argument with Shake-

Frylock realized that he and Shake had been getting into arguments for the past couple of weeks over the stupidest things.

He'd also been keeping the arguments from Meatwad, and making sure he didn't get involved with them. He knew that if he was aware of the arguments, Meatwad would get very upset, as he didn't like seeing them like that. Plus, it wasn't any of his business, and he didn't need to be exposed to all the inappropriate words and verbal abuse.

God, Frylock felt like such an ass in the moment. Since Meatwad was spawned, all he did was try and protect the little thing, and be somewhat of a father figure towards him, but behind the scenes, he was a pretty big hypocrite; involving himself in the situations and words he tried to keep Meatwad far away from.

He sat up there in silence before he thought of another place to look. Well, for someone else to look. He just wanted to stay up there for a minute, and let the hard truth that he was a bad father figure sink in.

"Shake", he called out, "go check the crawlspace, and see if Meatwad's down there".

"Alright", was Shake's response.

Frylock could hear him moving, signaling that he might actually be doing what he was told, which surprised Frylock until he heard the familiar sounds of squeaky springs, crunches, and what sounded like muffled voices.

He flew down from the attic, not surprised to see what he saw. Shake was in the recliner, eating a bag of chips and watching TV.

He sensed Frylock's presence, and turned to see the angry box of french fries.

"What?!", he asked in a surprised tone, with a handful of chips in his mouth. "You didn't say do it right this instant", he said, responding to his own self.

Frylock turned to look at the clock on the kitchen stove. He realized it had been an hour that they'd spent looking for him, and it was getting dark out. Seeing as Shake was probably going to sit in front of the TV for the rest of the night, eating chips and all, and eventually falling asleep, he told himself he should probably have something to eat, rest, and continue the search for Meatwad in the morning.