Chapter Text
Aged 5- Tweek
“No I’m not going” I protested pulling against my fathers hand
“Come on Tweek, all the other boys and girls have to go to school, so do you” He said pulling me towards the car
With a final tug I ripped by hand free from his and ran back to the door where my mother was watching, I hid myself in the length of her dress and begged her to not make me go.
She dropped down to my level. “Tweek, baby” She said as she ran her fingers through my soft childish hair “Ill be there to pick you up and if you behave yourself we can go to Casa Bonita tonight”
I thought for a moment before nodding and reluctantly retaking my fathers hand as I dragged my feet to the car. My mother waved us off and my father spend the whole short car ride convincing me of how much fun I would have at Kindergarten. I sat in the back of the car fidgeting with the straps of my back pack which was nearly the same size as me. At 5 I was just an average kid. Nothing yet distinguishing me as what I would come to be known as. I wore a green t-shirt with the teenage mutant ninja turtles on it and little blue jeans, my hair not yet thick and unruly.
My dad parked outside the building and walked me to the door.
“Ill see you at 3 son” He said as he kneeled down and kissed my forehead and I wrapped me arms around his neck “I love you dad” I said “I love you too son” He smiled.
I watched as a girl about my size with long blonde hair walked through the door and I took it as my sign it was safe to enter. I looked back at my father as I disappeared inside.
“I wish my son was more like yours” A tall man with ginger hair said to my father
“In what way?” My father asked confused
“I just wish my son would tell me he loved me instead of taking this as the first chance to get away”
“Don’t over think it Thomas” A heavily pregnant blonde said “He’s just a boy”
“Yeah maybe this one will like me more” He said caressing his wife's stomach
“How sweet” My father said
“Do you have any other kids?” Laura Tucker asked my father
“No just Tweek” My father said
“Where is your wife?” Laura asked
“Shes running our coffee shop” My father said
“Oh you’re the owners of Tweek Bros. arnt you” Thomas said
“Indeed we are”
“How cute, you named your business after your son” Laura said
“Actually the shops been in our family for generations, Tweek is named after the shop”
“Oh” Thomas said and that seemed to be the end of their discussion.
Inside the tall building I stood looking around at the other children waiting in huddles for our teacher to come out and tell us what we will be doing.
A tall thin lady with long black hair stepped out of a room to our left. “Well don’t you all look adorable” She said as she took in the group of rural mountain children she was in charge of educating. Most the kids he already knew at least one other kid here. Mostly because they went to pre-k which my parents skipped out on or they attended some other club for children which my parents again skipped out on.
She instructed us on how to properly hang our bags and coats on the little pegs with our names on them and once we had done that we all got a chance to enter the room in which she had come from. The tall white walls were yet to be decorated and the 6 square tables each with 4 chairs to each were all different colours. “Now boys and girls” The teacher said “Find the chair with your name on it and sit down” She said as she watched over us as we scrabbled across the room searching for our names I found mine and sat down reluctantly as I realised I was sat beside a girl with long light brown hair “Hi, I’m Heidi Turner” She smiled “Im Tweek Tweak” I smiled back
“Your last name is the same as your first name?” The girl sitting across from me said “Oh, I’m Wendy Testaburger by the way” She said and all eyes turned to the fourth kid in this class who was unfortunate enough to have a last name beginning with T and therefore was sat at the aforementioned Blue table. “I’m Craig Tucker” He said with a straight face, no smiles like the girls had trying to make our little blue table as welcoming as possible.
“Anyway Tweek, why is your first name the same as your last name” The curious girl with the long dark hair asked.
“Im named after my parents coffee shop” I said nervously
“Your parents own Tweek Bros.?” Heidi asked
“Yeah” I said feeling more nervous as the realisation hit the 3 other kids at the table.
“Cool, my dad loves your coffee” Heidi said
“He does? Why?” I asked which earned a small laughed from the kids at my table including the straight-faced boy with the dark hair.
“Now everyone” The teacher said getting all our attention.
“I would love to welcome you all to Kindergarten” Her warm and welcoming smile never left me even after all these years. She was one of the few adults ive had in my life who never wronged me. Maybe it was because I only saw her a handful of times outside of my Kindergarten year but that’s besides the point. She had done something this day which set on course the rest of my life- without even knowing it she had set of a chain reaction. She had introduced me to Craig Tucker. And what she done next this day was the push that knocked the dominos “I need you all to pick a partner at the table you are sitting at and once you have I need you to come and get one of these from me” She said as she held up a large white sheet of paper and a box of pens.
“Do you want to work with the person were beside” Wendy asked
“No way im not working with a smelly girl” Craig said which earned him a stern look from the two girls.
“Tweek ill work with you” He said
“Um, okay” I said as I stood up and swapped seats with Wendy.
“Go get the pens and paper from the teacher” Craig said to me
“No way”
“Why not”
“I don’t know her”
“Non of us do”
“Too much pressure” I said for the first time as I grabbed my own hair
“calm down ill get it” Craig said
The teacher instructed us that she knew how frightening first day introductions can be so that if we done it in pairs it might ease some pressure. It was like she could read my mind. We had to draw pictures of things we liked as well as attempt to write our own names for the first time. We all used the little name tags given to us by our teacher as reference. I say all but I watched across from me as Wendy wrote in big purple letters her own name with ease. “Wow” I said “How did you do that” I asked
“I practiced” She smiled and I began to panic that I should have practiced writing my own name before coming here.
“Can you write your name?” The boy beside me asked
“No” I admitted
“Me neither” He said
“Lets try copy these” I said picking up the name tags
Beside his drawing of a space ship Craig copied is down name prompting me to do the same I wrote my name with a shaky hand low key thankful that my name consisted of mostly line based letters so messing up could be too bad. I hadn’t drawn anything beside my name like Craig had though.
“What are you going to draw?” He asked
“I don’t know” I said
“What do you like?” He asked
“Red racer” I said
“Me too” he said almost leaping from his seat
“Really?” I said amazed that I had met another boy on my first day with something I common with me.
“Why don’t you draw a character from that?” He said
“I would mess up” I said
“… You could draw a space ship like mines”
“I don’t really like space- it scares me”
“Do you have any pets?”
“Yeah a fish named Goldie”
“Is it a gold fish?” Heidi asked
“Yes” I laughed awkwardly as I realised the girls had been listening to us this whole time.
“Draw Goldie then” Craig said he went back to colouring in his space ship
I did what he said and drew my pet fish the best I could beside my crudely drawn name. Done.
When it came time to introduce ourselves to the class one by one- or two by two I should say- We stood In front of our classmates and introduced ourselves. I was relieved when a kid known as Butters stood up and introduced himself- at least I wasn’t the only kid with a bad name.
“I recognised some of the kids from when they had accompanied their parents into my parents shop a few times when on the many days of my childhood thus far I had spent at one of the tables colouring in or watching an old TV with episodes of red raiser in the backroom- they had come in.
Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Clyde Donovan- all names I didn’t know now attached to faces I did.
“Now Tweek and Craig” This was the first time our names had been strung together- the first of name times soon to come but I didn’t know that then. All eyes in the room turned on us. This was in the days before my anxiety controlled my life and was merely something which pestered me.
I stood up with Craig for comfort and memorised what Craigs said so I could follow the same script. My turn “My name is Tweek Tweak and I like my pet gold fish- His name is Goldie” I said and the teacher thanked us for introducing ourselves and I sat down happy with myself that I had done that.
The bell rang for recess and The teacher one by one made sure our jackets were zipped up before letting us run wild on the kindergarten playground. I looked around- everyone had a friend except me- Even my new friend Craig was standing with a boy in a purple coat who I had learned was named Token and Clyde who was bundled up in a red puffer jacket.
I walked around alone until I got to an empty swing set and sat down. I now had on a green coat which I hated to protect me from the falling snow. Its South Park so snow in September isn’t a surprise to anyone. I kicked my legs on the swing set just waiting to go back inside when a boy with a name as equally as silly as mines came and sat beside me.
“Im Butters” He said
“Tweek” I smiled
“I guess no one wants to hang out with the kids with funny names” He said
I shrugged awkwardly.
“My real name is Leopold but my dad is the only person who calls me that, whats your real name?”
“Tweek” I sighed
“Oh”
“Yeah”
“Ill be your friend Tweek” Butters smiled
“Thanks Butters, ill be your friend too” I said as we both kicked our feet on the swings.
Back in the classroom I retook my seat beside Heidi. The rest of the day went by as I had expected it to. We learned numbers 1-10 and by the time I had re-joined Butters at Lunch he had invited another kid named Kevin to join us too. Kevin wasnt very talkative but i didnt mind because nor was I.
I felt like one of the kids you see on TV. My school experience so far had been just as my dad had promised. I ran out the building and into my fathers arms.
“Good day son?” My father asked
“Yes” I said excited. I looked over and my eye caught on the first boy I had met today- Craig Tucker. He walked unenthusiastically beside his father into the car waiting. I wonder if his parents were taking him out tonight, I thought.
I told my father all about my new friends and how I had introduced myself to the class all by myself and that I could write my own name and count to ten. My father seemed impressed and congratulated me on my good day. We returned not home but to the coffee shop where my mother was waiting and I regurgitated all the details of my day which I had already told my father to my mother.
When- as promised- they took me to Casa Bonita I was so excited. The bright street lights captured my attention against the dark sky as I looked out the window. Casa Bonita was just as I remembered it being. The food was amazing and the decorations and activities were more than little me could handle. I didn’t know it then but this would be the last time I would go to Casa Bonita or any other restaurant with my parents until I was in my teenage years.
I slept all night when I got home, something I hadn’t done since I was probably a baby. Relaxed, eager and refreshed for another day at my new favourite place- School.
But my love for the place was short lived.
By day 3 the teasing had started. Nothing too bad. A chubby kid named Eric wouldn’t stop calling me Kevin and Butters Snap, Crackle and Pop with me being Snap- and I don’t even know why. What I do know however was that this was the day Kenny McCormick came to our rescue and by rescue I mean I pushed Eric over and he scraped his knee on the concrete resulting in his crying so loud I’m pretty sure the earth shook.
Kenny invited us to join his lunch table but we declined due to the presence of Eric. Kenny never stopped being our friend though, he would often leave Stan, Kyle and Eric’s games of whatever at recess or lunch time so he could run on the trim trail or spin around on the roundabout with us. I knew Kenny before starting school although I had never had the courage to speak to him before. He had once tried to start a convocation with me about how much parents suck but I ran away and hit behind my mom. That’s how we knew each other. His parents done business with mines- what business they done exactly neither of us knew at this point but we did know that our parents done business and every 2 weeks he along with his older brother would appear at the shop door with their father carrying boxes.
Craig and I’s friendship at age 5 consisted mainly of chats about red racer while we done our work and waving to each other when we saw each other in public. Only 2 times outside of school did I see Craig Tucker for more than a second. The first time he accompanied his father into my parents shop. I was sitting at an unoccupied table colouring in a picture of a kitten when he came over and complained about the spelling homework which probably just consisted of words such as By, I, Him and As but to 5-year-old that was probably more than our little heads could handle. I remember him sitting on the seat beside me and telling me all about his new baby sister. I remember asking my parents for weeks after this for a baby sister but to no avail. They told me they were too busy for another baby and in all honesty i thought they were too busy for one- im 99% sure i was an accident.
The second when I was invited to Craig’s 6th birthday party which I felt particularly excited about as aside from Clyde, Token no one else was invited. I think I only got invited because by this point our fathers had become good friends but much like the other men in South Park the only time they ever saw each other was when they picked up their kids from school or at Skeeters.
By the time we finished Kindergarten to say Craig and I were friends would be a stretch. More like relatively good acquaintances. Also by the end of Kindergarten my hair had become so long it started sticking in different directions but it was nothing hair gel couldn’t fix. I was taller than I was at the start of the year- not quite 6 years old yet but I was still just a little boy. I controlled my anxiety, I wore t-shirts with my favourite cartoons on them, I had 2 real friends and I loved my life.