Ike and Georgie sat across from each other in the noisy cafeteria. Luckily Frank, the kid with a bad case of dandruff, was off sick so that Ike could steal his seat for the day.

“Is it really necessary to talk about schoolwork during lunch?” Georgie groaned as he finished swallowing down a spoonful of yogurt.

“Well it means less work for us to do during class,” Ike lied.

Georgie shrugged, turning his attention back to the half empty pot of peach flavoured yogurt before him. Ike watched, waiting for a moment until he was sure that Georgie would be able to answer him without his mouth being full.

“So… how are you going to go about doing your painting?”

Georgie thought for a moment, “I dunno. I’ll just look for a tree somewhere and take a photo of it to modify and paint.”

“I know the perfect tree!” Ike exclaimed.

Georgie looked up at him sceptically, “Oh… kay?”

Ike laughed, “You’ll see what I mean when I show it to you. Say today after school?”

“I don’t know… I mean, I have a lot of homework,” Georgie shifted awkwardly in his seat, looking away from Ike.

“Oh okay,” Ike smiled, “Some other time, then.”

Georgie nodded slightly as he fiddled with his spoon. He still didn’t look Ike in the eyes, conscious that he was some sort of human lie detector. He didn’t seem to notice, however, so Georgie continued eating.

“What about the boy from the story, then?”

“Hm?” Georgie looked up at Ike with his spoon hanging out of his mouth.

Ike laughed, “How are you going to draw him in with the tree?”

“I could always just-”

“Use a model? I’d make a great model, don’t you think?” Ike joked as he struck a pose and pursed his lips.

Georgie replaced a potential laugh with a roll of his eyes.

“Oh come on, I’m just having a little fun,” Ike pleaded, “Besides it could be a lot of help.”

“I’m not going to paint you, Ike. That’s just sad.”

“It’s not sad! Besides you won’t be painting me, you’ll be using me as a reference so that you can paint the boy.”

“We’ll see,” Georgie responded bluntly.

Ike watched as Georgie went back to his lunch, completely ignoring Ike. He found it amazing how Georgie could be so uptight at times. He was determined to get past that side of him, however. His cold attitude towards him had already begun to melt from time to time and those times gave Ike the confidence to carry on chasing after Georgie. He would never have softened up for anyone else, so it meant something to Ike.

“What are you looking at?”

Ike jumped. He hadn’t noticed that Georgie was looking up at him curiously now, nor did he notice that he himself had been staring for so long.

“Um n-noting. I was just daydreaming.”

Georgie gave him a strange look before glancing back down at his food. Ike smiled. Every expression that Georgie pulled seemed to be pulled with grace. His smooth pale skin never crumbled under any sort of ugly frame and his green eyes sparkled with every little emotion he spent so much time trying to hide. With both the gloom and the secrets, Ike had decided long ago that Georgie was pretty, if not, beautiful.

“You look good today.”

Georgie’s eyes snapped back up to Ike immediately. Ike began to cough and clear his throat as though he hadn’t said anything at all.

“What did you just say?” Georgie demanded.

“Huh?” Ike replied nervously, “I didn’t say anything.”

Georgie glared at him for a moment. Ike waited anxiously for him to return to his lunch, but he seemed to be taking his time. He felt like he was about to burst under Georgie’s gaze, almost as though the morbid minded Goth was trying to make his head explode by staring at him suspiciously. Ike gulped, he needed to change the topic fast.

“So umm… sit beside me in History?” he smiled uneasily.

Georgie drew his eyes off of him, “No.”

Ike frowned. There was that icy coldness again, as though Georgie had been completely frozen over during the time he spent staring at Ike. Georgie pretended not to notice Ike’s disappointed reaction, but he couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of guilt. He felt compelled to make up an excuse.

“Because… because I won’t be there in History.”

“You won’t? Why not?”

“Because I’m going out back for a smoke.”

Ike grimaced. He had always known that Georgie was a smoker, but he had never actually seen him do it. He even forgot that he smoked sometimes, mostly because he didn’t like the idea.

“That really can’t be good for you, Georgie,” he gave Georgie a concerned look.

Georgie scowled defensively, “Did I even ask you?”

“I was only saying,” Ike shrugged as he looked down, regretting even falling back on the subject.

“Well don’t.”

Georgie stood from his seat, shaking his head at Ike as though he were sick of him before he waltzed out of the cafeteria. Ike sighed, looking down at the remains of Georgie’s lunch that had just been left there.

‘Damn… things were going so well too. Why did I have to be so stupid and try to preach to him like that?’

He thought about where Georgie had gone. What he was even doing now. Then he remembered the presentation their class groups were forced to sit through the year before. Abusing Your Body.

‘Oh yeah… that’s why.’


Georgie sat at the back of the school, bored out of his mind and staring up at the clouded sky above. It was cold, but that never seemed to affect him. He took another long draw from the cigarette in his hand, savouring the tainted flavour before blowing it gently out of his nostrils.

‘God I hate Ike,’ he thought as he tilted his head back in relief.

At least he could think it; he couldn’t quite say it though. He slumped forward, resting his elbows atop of his parted knees. He tapped at his cigarette, letting the excess ashes fall to the ground.

‘I can smoke if I want to fucking smoke. So what if it’s “bad for me”? I don’t care, why should he?’

Georgie sighed, bringing the cigarette to his lips again. All this ranting and raving just made him crave the sick mix of nicotine, tobacco and carbon monoxide all the more.

‘Well hey, if he hates smoking then he hates smokers. That’ll get him off my back,’ he inhaled the smoke, allowing it to slowly fill his lungs.

‘Besides… I already have a black heart. I might as well have a pair of black lungs to match.’


Ike walked out of class triumphantly, sighing with relief. He didn’t really expect it to work, but when you’ve been a good student all of your life, behave well and always do your work then a teacher will believe anything that comes out of your mouth. He scurried past the toilets that he should have been throwing up in and skipped the nurse’s office which he would have visited, making his way through the school quietly. He came to the large double doors that led out to the back of the school and pushed them open.

Immediately he could see Georgie, or rather the back of him, sitting on the steps right before where Ike stood. The boy froze up straight away, not due to the cold but due to the sound of the doors as they had burst open. He thought he had been caught. Noticing the thin trail of smoke floating up into the air, Ike’s hazel eyes followed the misty grey down to the half-cigarette which was wedged between Georgie’s two fingers.

“Hi Georgie,” he muttered as he sat down beside the boy, holding his breath from the stench of the smoke.

Georgie didn’t move, but Ike could tell that he was subconsciously glaring at him in distain. There was a long pause before he spoke.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t.”

Ike watched the cigarette in Georgie’s hand for a moment. As Georgie glanced at Ike he found his eyes drawn to the cigarette also. He began to bring it to his mouth. Ike looked away.

“We should be getting back to class…”

“No point,” Georgie managed before he sucked the end of the cigarette longingly.

Ike frowned, careful not to watch. Georgie blew the smoke calmly out of his mouth, tauntingly slow.

“Not for me anyway.”

“Let’s just go back. Please.”

Georgie turned to face Ike, who was looking at him pleadingly. For some reason, he couldn’t stand that look. But it wasn’t that he found it annoying; that’s all he knew.

“Alright…” he threw the rest of his cigarette to the side, standing up and grabbing his bag from beside his feet.

Ike smiled, somewhat relieved that he had prevented his crush from lighting up another cancer-stick. He stood up, ready to follow Georgie back into the school.

Georgie turned to face him, “I need to redo my eyeliner, though,” he said as he pushed the doors open and stepped into the school.

“I don’t see why you wear makeup anyway. You look just fine without it.”

“Listen Ike, I smoke and I wear makeup. You don’t. But I do. So don’t go preaching on me all the bloody time.”

“Sorry,” Ike sighed, looking down at the ground, “I’m just saying that you look good even without makeup.”

Georgie grimaced, “Fuck up, Ike.”

Ike was silent, making a mental note and adding to his list of things he should and shouldn’t say to Georgie. There was a short pause between the boys.

“I don’t know why you say stupid shit like that.”

Ike smiled deeply to himself, “I have a feeling that if I told you you’d just kick my ass.”

Georgie gave him a peculiar look. Ike knew it probably wasn’t the best thing to say, but he had felt compelled to say it anyway. They continued walking through the halls in silence. Ike halted as he noticed that they had passed the boy’s toilets.

“Georgie, aren’t you going in there to put your makeup on?”

Georgie looked back at Ike and the bathroom door for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders carelessly and continued on his way.

“I couldn’t be bothered anymore.”

Ike smiled and rushed to Georgie’s side. His hexing eyes were still and non-caring, but Ike could detect a shimmer of a little white lie in them. Georgie pretended not to notice that Ike was watching him, trying to concentrate on walking.

“Georgie?”

Georgie stopped to see that Ike had too.

“What?”

Ike thought for a minute. He wanted to say something to Georgie about the way he smoked, but he didn’t want to anger him or creep him out.

“If… if you go about tasting like an ashtray all day then nobody’s going to kiss you.”

Georgie raised an eyebrow at him before rolling his eyes and turning back around to resume to their journey to class. Ike followed.

“I’m serious!”

“Serious? Fine, let’s both be serious. Who would kiss me in the first place?”

Ike bit his lip, trying desperately to refrain himself from uttering the answer he felt bubbling up inside him, ready to pour out. He swallowed, pushing the slightest bit of consideration out of mind.

“Someone lucky.”


“Kyle? What was it like when you knew you really liked Stan but you didn’t know whether he did or not?”

The redhead glanced from his book to his little brother for a brief moment, “Why do you ask?”

“Just.”

Kyle grinned. He knew exactly what was going on and he couldn’t help but think it was incredibly adorable. He attempted to hide his smug smile behind his book.

“It’s not funny, Kyle! I’m serious.”

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Kyle taunted, “I think it’s cute.”

“Kyle!”

Ike was red now. It was risky enough even asking his older brother for help on this kind of topic, but the last thing he needed was for Kyle to tease him like this.

Kyle laughed, “Ok ok, I’ll stop.”

“Good,” Ike growled, trying to sound at least slightly threatening.

“So what was that question again?”

“What was it like before you and Stan were together?” Ike groaned impatiently.

Kyle smiled, placing his book down onto the small table before him and sitting up in the single armchair he had nestled himself in. He leaned forward, resting his elbow on his thigh and his cheek against his hand. Ike watched the nostalgic look that grew on his brother’s face and his green eyes flickered with light as the memories replayed in his mind.

“It was ok… I mean, things were a bit hard. I always thought he was straight. I was so jealous of Wendy and I hated every other girl that tried to flirt with him or even talk to him. I always worried about what he’d think. What would happen if he knew. If I should tell him or not… but it was so amazing knowing that I was his best friend. I loved that I got to spend every day with him and that we were so close. I always thought that there was no way he would ever love me, but I still knew that I was the most important person in the world to him and that was just… incredible.”

Kyle sighed dreamily, losing himself in the memory.

Ike rolled his eyes, “It’s a bit different from that for me, Kyle.”

“Don’t worry, Ike,” Kyle smiled, “Georgie likes you.”

“How do you even know that he’s who I’m talking about?”

“Because the fact that you like him is just as obvious as the fact that he likes you back,” Kyle winked mischievously as he pulled himself up from the sofa.

Ike watched as he began to make his way out of the room.

“That wasn’t very helpful!” he called after him.

Kyle stopped, leaning gently against the door frame and glancing coolly at his flustered little brother.

“You want help?” Kyle smirked, “You don’t need any help, Ike. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Ike raised an eyebrow at his cocky brother. Kyle was a smart guy, much like Ike and had always been first in his class at everything and anything academic. Right now, however, it seemed like the entire world had completely forgotten that.

“Trust me. He’s melting like butter,” Kyle winked once more as he slithered out of the living room slyly.

Ike blinked, giving himself a chance to process what Kyle had just said.

‘Maybe he does know everything…’