Hiraeth Of The Heart (Tweek X Craig)

Chapter 12, Lunch?

For the time being, it was just Craig and I. Of course, who else would there be? I don't necessarily have any close friends. I've never had close friends. I had managed to ignore most of the squealing people around me. Why are they so loud? I guess having friends automatically turns you into squawking birds; obnoxiously flapping their wings up and down the hall. Shouldn't they still be mourning? So far I had made it through half of the day without saying much of anything.

"Um. Tweek?" Scratch that, I made it until fourth period, honors algebra.
I turned my head back swiftly, removing my hand that once stood sturdy under my chin in a way that screamed 'unamused'. It was Wendy.

"About yesterday," she scratched her head under her purple hat, removing her eyes from me briefly to something else in the noisy room, only to avert them back to me as if eye contact was vital to the situation.

"I'm really sorry about what happened. I really am! Everything was a bit . . unexpected."

I threw a fake smile to her and did my best to restrain my body from shaking; yet I still failed to do so miserably.
"It's ok. Really, It wasn't your fault." I spoke with a shy tone.

Happy with the outcome from the apology, she opened her mouth to continue the conversation. The bell rang loudly, interrupting her and signaling the release of the raging students who already began flooding out into the hall. I gathered my binder and made my way out of the room without another word. For the past few hours I had completely brushed off the fact that Craig wasn't beside me, or maybe I just didn't notice his absence. Prior to going missing, he had stayed quiet most of the day. I got curious - and maybe a bit anxious. I pulled open the door to the boy's bathroom and stepped inside to the sinks, letting the door fall back into its frame behind me. I breathed in and shut my eyes, rocking back and fourth from the tips of my toes to my heels. A nervous tick I guess you could call it. Or maybe a characteristic of a mentally unstable teenager. Either way, I probably looked dorky doing it. Standing directly in front of the sink, I heaved a fog of anxiety from my lips to the mirror in front of me. I didn't dare look at that mirror.

"Craig?" I called out. I was actually insane. I could only pray that no one would walk in on this. God knows what kind of harassment a kid who calls out a name in a bathroom that doesn't breathe a soul would receive.

"Yeah?" A deep nasally voice answered.

"GAH!!!" I squealed after facing towards the left side of the room, only to see the man I had called out to lying on top of the walls of the bathroom stall. I felt like I could have a heart attack from his surprising arrival, and I was already a bit more tense then usual - Since the entire day I had been pushed through halls, forced into conversations, and bombarded by yells of teenagers until the point my ears rung.

"C-Craig," I whisper screamed while lowering myself a bit in submission, "You're still here?!" My hands shook; I tucked them under my arms that were now folded on my chest.

"I've been here the entire time." He looked unamused, chin resting on the palm of his hand, and his torso laying against nothing but thin air as he supported himself with the mid section of his legs that rested on the top of the other bathroom stall's walls. In a way he looked cool, I admired him. I also admired his will to look at me and not cringe at every breath that leaves my pothole of a mouth.

"I haven't seen you at all."

"I'm just kind of watching. Don't want you to look crazy talking to yourself after all." He smirked. I sighed plainly with a twitch following it. The warning bell rang that symboled I should be on my way to lunch. I grasped at the shirt fabric covering my stomach in a thinking manner; aka. My face towards the floor like a sulking emo kid.

"I'm not hungry."

Craig lifted a brow at my sudden statement.

"When did you last eat??" He asked me, raising a tone of curiosity from his throat and into the air.

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Then you've had plenty of time to digest." He jumped down from his seemingly comfortable position, and onto the white tile floor of the bathroom. Craig took my arm with his own, wrapping them around each other like tying a loose knot. I flinched as if I had been touched by a ghost.

"Eating isn't gonna kill you, Tweek." Craig said while using his free hand to open the bathroom door, dragging me behind him with a high-held yet tilted chin.

"I have no one to sit with!!"

"Sit with me." Craig said blankly, now dragging me down the hall and towards the increasing noise of hundreds of students in one room together. I rolled my eyes, picking my feet up sloppily as I tried to keep up with the consistent pace that Craig's lengthy legs built for him.

"Not sure sitting with an invisible dead guy is necessarily even considered as sitting with another person."

"Maybe," I viewed Craig's side view to reveal the side of his lips that I could see slide upwards into a smile before glancing around at me. "But at least you'll be sitting with a friend."

Of course I was taken back by this, but I didn't have much time to think about Craig's breath taking smile, or his deep ocean eyes, and I didn't even have a second to spare to contemplate how I hadn't screamed my lungs out at the fact that we had just bumped hips while walking - A result of him pulling his arm linked with mine towards his figure.

As we got to the entrance of the lunch room, I let out a long shaky sigh, and of course couldn't help tugging at my already messy hair.

I was a nervous wreck, and this guy didn't help that fact at all.

I looked down only to realize that my heart was beating faster then usual.

Was it cause I was nervous? Or maybe it was because Craig was being too touchy.

Either way, I just wanted to go home.

This is way too much pressure.