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“I double dog dare you. You won’t, no balls.” Craig grinned mischievously, sitting across from Clyde in the school lunch tables with a plate of a mixture of food forcibly combined by Craig, Jimmy, and Tolkien. This is what the group did with any leftover food or untouched food during the last few minutes of lunch. They mixed watermelon into lasagna, pouring a half empty carton of chocolate milk, smushing and squeezing them together to make the most questionable and disgusting meal and daring someone in the group to eat it.
Unfortunately, Clyde was the victim since he hadn’t participated in making the dish. “Nuh-uh! I’m not eating that!” Clyde argued, crossing his arms after pushing the plate away from him. “P-pu-pu-pussy alert!” Jimmy snickered, elbowing Clyde to tease him. Clyde stuck his tongue out at Jimmy, scooting away from him and then explaining why he shouldn’t be the one to eat the horribly made meal. “I am not eating this! I can’t even call this a meal! It’s just gross!” Clyde exclaimed, seeming like he was about to burst into tears, his voice breaking proving that he was. “Don’t cry, man. We’re just messing with you.” Tolkien sighed once he saw tears pool in the brunettes’ eyes.
Craig was about to insult him, probably call him a crybaby but then a familiar face walked past him, hearing an even more familiar yelp in reaction to when they twitched. Craig turned his head over to the person, suddenly feeling a warmth in his heart when he saw Tweek handing Wendy a book he had probably borrowed or found and wanted to return. They chatted for a little and after a while, couldn’t help but notice the sudden silence that took place at his table. He turned back to look at his friends who all looked at him blankly and then giving him a knowing expression.
“Jeez, Craig. Maybe you should be the one to eat this for being such a simp.” Clyde chuckled maliciously, sliding the cardboard plate in front of him. Craig internally cringed at the use of the word “simp” and he saw Jimmy physically cringe. “Hell no!” He said, giving it back to Clyde. Then Clyde slid it angrily to Craig and Craig slid it back to Clyde, the two going back and forth, putting all their forces on their side of the plate, refusing to be the one to take it. Then Craig suddenly stopped pushing at the call of his name, catching Clyde off guard, who had put all his might into pushing the plate, even going out of his way to straighten his posture for a better angle.
Then, the plate flipped over, and landed all over Craigs hands and jacket sleeves. Craig looked at his arms in horror, gritting his teeth at the lasagna that slipped down the palm of his hand and landed on the upside-down plate. “Shit! Craig! I’m so sorry!” Clyde apologized immediately. Tolkien rushing out of the table to find napkins and Jimmy laughing his ass off, having no type of sympathy or remorse for Craig. “Fucking!—” Craig was about to tackle Clyde right then and there but then he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Craig! What happened!? What even is that!?!? Oh no, is it toxic acid!? Are your hands going to burn off!?!?” Tweek yelled in panic, looking around to find something to clean it with and then he saw Tolkien walking back to them with a handful of brown cheep napkins that were far too rough to be even called napkins. Craig then felt something odd, he felt something was out of the ordinary, but he soon forgot about it when Tweek took the half that Tolkien handed to him and hurriedly cleaned the mess off of Craigs hands before moving onto his sleeve, cleaning to the best of his abilities with his shaky hands and aggressive twitches.
When Tolkien pressed down on his sleeve to clean it, Tweek doing the same a second after to his other sleeve, he felt the cold and wetness of the food against his skin, his stomach turned, and he held himself back from gagging. “Fuck this!” Craig quickly removed his jacket, taking it off over his head, not bothering to zip it down and take it off properly. He threw his jacket on the floor, trying his best not to rub his arms because his dirty hands will only make things worse. He couldn’t stand the feeling of the food on his hands any longer, so he ran to the bathroom, pushing past anyone who stood in his path.
As soon as he reached the bathroom, he wasted no time to open the faucet and drown his hands in them, scrubbing as hard as possible to get the food out of his hands as quickly as he could. He saw his hands were clean, but he decided to leave them sitting there for a while, sighing to himself and no longer feeling dirty, letting himself return to a calm and collected state. He turned off the faucet with his wrist and then ripped out a paper towel to dry his hands with. “Craig?” He heard Tweek call his name as the door opened, he peaked his head through the door and then walking in completely once he spotted Craig.
“Hi.” Craig greeted, throwing the paper towel away in a trashcan next to the door. “Craig! A-Are you okay?” Tweek asked worriedly, looking down at his hands and taking them into his own to examine them. “I’m fine, honey.” Craig reassured, giving Tweek a short, small smile before cupping his face and pecking his forehead. Then the odd feeling of something feeling off returned. Something about Tweek was different, he just couldn’t figure out what it was, even when he searched desperately to see something different with Tweeks appearance, he couldn’t figure out anything and it troubled him because usually Craig was so on point when someone changed anything about themselves. Even if it was simply the color of their nail or the brand of their clothes. The bell rung just as Craig was going to speak up to ask if Tweek had changed anything about himself so his question would have to wait until after school.
Craig didn’t have time to ask Tweek his question afterschool. Tweek had to stay back a couple of minutes to retake a test he accidentally ripped in class halfway through it so it slipped Craigs mind as he waited while talking with his friends who always stayed late afterschool for some odd reason. Clyde explained how it made them feel independent walking around the school with no teachers or parents to tell them what to do but Craig couldn’t relate so he didn’t feel interested, his parents didn’t tell him what to do often and he always felt as if he’s been independent his whole life, he still struggles to admit when he needs help because he’s never had someone to give him help until Tweek arrived and his friends started to notice that Craig wasn’t just some emotionless guy they were close to.
But when Tweek laid on his shoulder on his bed, the two of them wrapped in each others arms being tired from school and just wanting peace and quiet, he felt it again. The strange off-putting feeling. Craig then took a deep breath in, inhaling the scent of Tweeks hair, who was slowly drifting off to sleep, he expected the smell of vanilla just as he always did but instead, it was different. He smelled something else something coconut like, and he grimaced at the unfamiliarity. “Are you using a different shampoo?” Craig asked, turning his head and he genuinely thought Tweek had fallen asleep with how still he had become but when Tweek lifted his head to turn it around and look him in the eyes, he didn’t look like he had fallen asleep at all nor did he look like he wanted to.
“Yes… how did you know?” Tweek asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. He really hoped Craig wasn’t some type of stalker. “It smells different, is all. I don’t like it.” Craig explained, admitting his opinion on the smell. It’s not that it smelled bad but more of the fact that he had already linked the vanilla smell to Tweek and didn’t feel that coconut suited him very much. “That’s… actually kind of creepy.” Tweek laughed lightly, his words contradicting his playful and kind tone. Craig froze at the words though, ignoring the tone and focusing on just what had come out of Tweeks mouth. He felt a sense of shame wash over him, ‘I’m creepy…’ he thought to himself in horror.
Craig would never point out change ever again.