The Tree in the Forest

Chapter Twenty-Five

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Months of mundane school work went by and Karkat's hair started growing at an exponential rate and it was the first time you'd seen him smile at his bare reflection since you were thirteen.

It still wasn't enough to style, but he stopped wearing the wig to school. Everyone looked at him, but no one acted douchey about it. Your friends gave him big smiles and a few hugs from some of them. Well, what can you say, John's a hugger.

You remember when he showed you. You gave him a big hug and peppered kisses all over his face again. He laughed and batted your face away gently.

Karkat kept feeling at his hair, almost as if he were scared that it would fall out. You ran your hands through the short strands yourself, reveling in the feeling of touching his hair. You haven't seen his real hair since you were kids, and now you feel it and see it all at the same time. It was soft, just like you thought it'd be.

Your life was going pretty good. Nothing major had happened. Well, there was one thing. Roxy finally quit her excessive drinking. She had started recovery years ago, but now she fully kicked it. You had hugged her tightly and Rose was way happier than she was letting on, even when she held her mom as tight as she could.

Bro finally got the courage to ask the guy he's been staring at to go on a date with him. The guy agreed and Bro came home, babbling on about how much he loved the guy's accent and how he was going to give that date everything he had. It reminded you of yourself when you were still stuck in Karkat's friend-zone.

The night Bro brought the guy, Jake, over, Rose and I threw a laughing fit. We told him how we knew that it was Jake. Bro just shot us a glare and we tried to hold in our giggles. Jake just told Bro that everything was alright.

You, Jade, John, and Rose made this massive inside joke about their relationship, too. Every time someone said 'Jake' one of the others goes 'from State Farm'. You're pretty sure that everyone gets the joke, but it's still funny.

You've started looking into colleges, too. There were a lot of choices, but you think you know which one you want to go to. It's a few cities away, though. That's a long distance considering how massive Texas is.

You applied for West Texas A&M and you're planning to major in Arts & Humanities. Your aunts, whom you'd stopped talking to, but we're still alerted of your plans for college via Roxy, asked you if you were going to get a real job. Of course you're going to get a real job.

At the moment, you were just sitting around at home, messing with your phone. There wasn't anything important or interesting to do, so why not?

Your phone vibrated in your hands as a notification lowered from the top of the screen.

Kat: Hey
Kat: I should come over
You: Yeah, fine
Kat: I'm not impeding on anything super fucking private with your bro and his boyfriend, right?
Kat: God damn. Remember when we were little and we literally would just let that shit slide without a second thought?

Oh yeah, those days.

You: Ha. Yeah. He doesn't do that anymore though. You know that.
Kat: Well no shit, Sherlock. You told me way back when he quit the job. But I'm leaving my house now. Expect me.
You: Fine. I'll be here. I'm the only one here anyways. Rose is out with Kan, Bro's out with Jake
Kat: From State Farm
You: Dammit, that's not your joke.
Kat: Oh shut up. Where's Roxy?
You: Probably at her friend's house or something.
Kat: Ah. I'll text you when I get to your apartment.
You: Mkay, see ya then.

You liked texting Karkat. He would either say random shit, bring up something serious and then not call you about it because it was super late at night, or just send you stuff that made your insides all fuzzy and warm.

He texted you when he got there, as promised, telling you that he was in the lobby. He also asked where the normal receptionist was because the new one wasn't letting him in like the old one did. You decided to tell the new receptionist to just let him through when he came over because he'd be there a lot. She took note.

You led him up the stairs, dragging him by his hand. You were going to cuddle the shit out of this dude right on the fucking couch. Yes, lewd.

  Karkat was able to slow you down enough when you got to the top of the stairs. He had lost his breath. You can't blame him entirely since your apartment is on the fifth floor and you made him run up all those flights of stairs. He's not as light on his feet as he used to be.

  "Jesus Christ, don't pull me up five flights of God damn stairs," Karkat said, gasping for a moment before slipping past you and down the hall. You followed, slipping your hand gently into his.

You shit the door behind you two before yanking him over to the couch and huddling him into your arms. Karkat laughed, but didn't move from the spot you placed him at. He did move his body a little to be able to fit on the couch. He ended up sitting on your lap.

Karkat's really light and you don't think that you've acknowledged this until now. He did, however, gain a little weight, so that was good.

You pressed a small peck to his temple before turning the TV on and flipping through the channels for something bearable. You stopped at some channel with some crime show on it. Terezi would love this shit, but neither you nor Karkat were really all that interested in it. You two just ended up smooching up a storm on the couch.

Yeah, totally better than watching Investigation Discovery.

       ~~~
I'm not grounded get, but I don't think report cards have come in. I may have until the end of spring break idk. In the meantime, I'm going to keep posting chapters for this story.

Ahhhh. Another filler. Kill me.

I just don't want to end it yet, but at the same time I'm contradicting myself and telling myself that I want to end it so that I can move on to other projects.

Ugh.

There isn't much to say. They makeout a lot. No sex though bc I can't write that for shit. Also they're like 16 so that's a little weird.

I say that like it isn't legal to drink alcohol at 16 where I live. (I don't drink tho. I think it's gross. Maybe it's an acquired taste idk)

Alright. I'm gonna leave now. Bye. (I promise next chapter will be something that'll be important to the end of the fanfic)

~Ghostie