Chapter Text
“Listen, I’ve just… never met anyone like you. You make me feel some type of way that I didn’t even know I could feel, and… and I never wanna stop feeling like that,” he said, staring into the other boy’s dark, glittering eyes, his stomach turning. Somehow, this felt right.
The shorter boy was taken aback, not expecting this kind of confession from his friend/coworker/he didn’t really know what. This was exactly what he had been chasing since the moment they first locked eyes. There was something addictive about his presence, something that drew him in and made him never want to look at anyone else. “Squidward, I… I don’t know what to say-”
Squidward interrupted him. “You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know that you’re really special, Spongebob.” He turned to go, tears pricking at the sides of his eyes, but an unmistakable warm feeling emanating from his every pore, the way he felt whenever he was in Spongebob’s presence.
“Wait.”
Squidward turned around, and without missing a beat, Spongebob got up on his tippy toes and connected their lips.
“Is that too casual?” Zhang Hao muttered to himself. His SquidBob forum on the Spongebob database he’d founded had garnered over 100k readers and this was THE first kiss - the big moment. He couldn’t let down all his loyal fans with a subpar description of them locking lips.
He frustratedly hit the backspace button. “Connected their lips” was much too formal and unceremonious, not reflective of the passion he had so carefully spent the last six months building. He stared angrily at the blank white space on his Google Doc and the blinking cursor taunting him for his lack of romantic experience before grunting and closing his laptop, hard. Maybe if he’d ever experienced a confession in the rain and a romantic kiss he’d be able to give his audience what they deserved. But no, he was a lonely loser who spent more time writing fanfiction for an animated kids show than looking for hoes.
“Ugh!” he yelled, throwing himself from his desk chair to his bed and burying his face in his pillow. How was he ever going to deliver a worthy ending with no experience of his own under his belt? Sure, he’d read plenty of SquidBob kiss scenes (for research, definitely not because he liked reading about a sponge and a squid making out), definitely enough to work out the motions and then some, but there was no way he could write the perfectly zealous tongue play without trying it out himself. And if he’s being honest, how would he ever get someone to partake in perfectly zealous tongue play with him? Maybe his fanfiction - the one deemed THE SquidBob fanfiction by many commenters - was doomed to remain unfinished for eternity, the fate of all too many gripping pieces of writing. Maybe he would have to ghost the database that was his entire life and return to watching Spongebob episodes illegally by himself.
No. What was he thinking? His readers relied on him, he couldn’t let them down. He flipped over on his bed, staring at his ceiling, racking his brain for a solution. Then - voila, he had it. He sat up straight in bed, alarmed by his own genius, and grabbed his phone.
—
“Taerae, will you make out with me?”
Taerae had heard his fair share of odd ideas and requests from his best friend over the years, but this one had to take the cake. “What the fuck? Dude. No. Obviously not.”
“Please?” Zhang Hao practically begged. “It’s for research.”
Now Taerae was even more confused. He could fathom the idea of his best friend waking up one day and suddenly being in love with him, the seemingly only other gay man in a 20 mile radius, but he could not fathom the idea of Zhang Hao ever willingly researching something - the same Zhang Hao who blackmailed his guidance counselor into getting him out of Chemistry I when it was revealed their final was a research paper. “Research? What in the world are you researching?”
Hao sighed on the other end of the line. “It’s for Not a Simple Sponge. Squidward and Spongebob have to have their first kiss and I have no idea how it even works, and I can’t let down my loyal fans twice.” He was referring to when his comment sections were overflowing with smut requests and he had to post an announcement saying he didn’t feel comfortable writing a sex scene between a squid and a sponge. He lost over two thousand readers and it broke him for like three days.
Now it was Taerae’s turn to sigh. It made sense, all too much sense. Taerae was the only one who knew about Hao’s double life as a SquidBob celebrity, which means he was the only one he came to with his stress or the drama that may have erupted on the database or whatever theory he might have been obsessed with at the moment. He knew how all-consuming this stuff was for Zhang Hao, and in all honesty, he was worried about how this could affect his best friend's life long-term. He had been subtly trying to separate Hao and his beloved SquidBob, but all his efforts were once again proven in vain. “Dude, you gotta let it go. The kiss scene doesn’t have to be perfect. All the readers care about is whether or not they kiss in the first place, if it’s mid writing no ones gonna care.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Zhang Hao muttered, clearly defeated. “Maybe I care too much about Bob and his squid suitor.”
Taerae nodded, knowing not to get excited. They’d had this conversation before. “Yeah. Maybe you should take a step back and, you know, focus on other things for a second.”
“Alright. Thanks, Taerae.”
—
As soon as Zhang Hao hung up the phone, he knew he wouldn’t be able to just care less about the two sea creatures he’d devoted the last few years of his life to. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he grumbled, letting his phone fall to the ground with a clatter. Focus on other things? What was there to focus on? All he knew now was his grand plan had failed and he was back at square one as far as getting to the climax of his fanfiction.
He lay huddled on his side for the rest of the night, unable to sleep, stress seeping out of his body in the form of hot tears and pathetic whimpers. Even he knew how ridiculous he was being, but he couldn’t help it. He just cared too much.
When the sun rose and illuminated his crumpled up form, he forced himself to get up and confront his damp, tired, unattractive self. His face was red and puffy yet somehow gaunt, with dark circles he could drown in and a signature splotchy flush. On any other day, this would be cause for panic and a lengthening of his 13-step skincare regimen, but not today. Today there were things even more important than his beautification weighing on his mind. He splashed his face with cold water and brushed his teeth, not even bothering to restore a glow to his complexion or dress himself in his signature “brat y2k” garb before beginning his trek to school. His legs felt heavy and his whole body was sore, but he hardly noticed. He spent his journey on autopilot, much too focused on his underwater dimension to notice almost getting hit by 3 cars and walking through a puddle, soiling the bottoms of his pants. By the time he reached school and deposited his body in his seat next to his best friend, his mind was only in more knots than it had been at the start of the day, his stress magnifying with every passing second.
“You look like shit,” Taerae whispered, startling Zhang Hao out of his self-pitying haze. “And you smell like shit. Are you, like, seriously okay? Do you want to see a counselor or something?”
Hao turned to his best friend, and was met with one of the most seriously worried glances he’d ever seen him wear. “You know I’m not,” he whispered back. “The counselor can’t help. He could never understand.” That was probably true. The 70-something-year-old might have had another stroke if he heard the cause for such a severe bout of depression were two gay sea creatures.
Taerae nodded sympathetically. “Well, you should at least go to the bathroom and freshen up a little. That’ll make you feel better. And it’ll make everyone else feel better too. Seriously, you smell really bad.”
A warmth came to Zhang Hao’s face as he glanced around the classroom, noticing a few kids in his vicinity holding their breath and even more around the room shooting him awkwardly concerned looks. “Do I really smell that bad?”
“Yeah. Especially in comparison to how you usually smell.” He usually smelled like a Bath and Body Works unicorn. “I have extra deodorant in my locker if you want it.” Taerae gave him a tight lipped smile, urging him with his eyes to leave as soon as possible before his scent seeped into Taerae’s own clothing. Zhang Hao took the hint and left the room as inconspicuously as possible, heading for his best friend’s locker. He’d embarrassed himself enough.
Running his hands along the lockers, Zhang Hao hummed the SpongeBob opening, not sure if he was more preoccupied with his situation or the utter embarrassment of his current state. He imagined himself leaving a trail of stench behind him, warding off any potential research partners for his fanfiction. His fingers traced the familiar bumps of his high school’s lockers, the rhythm coinciding with his humming, a sensation that momentarily calmed him. He tried to get himself to focus on the miniature hills and valleys of the wall instead of his world crumbling around him, allowing his eyes to flutter shut, his breathing to slow for the first time since the previous night, the-
Suddenly, the familiar texture stopped, jolting Zhang Hao out of his trance. His eyes shot open and his heart rate shot back up as he stopped walking, facing the party at fault for his lack of calm: a bulletin board. He stared angrily at the board - who does it think it is for interrupting the only moment of peace he might get for the rest of his life? It’s useless anyway, the only fliers pinned to it being out of date or stupid - a talent show from months ago, a lost cat from 2017, a reminder to bring your chromebooks fully charged for standardized testing long completed, a musical demanding auditions.
Zhang Hao’s eyes stopped. A musical demanding auditions. But not just any musical. The 2016 sensation Spongebob Squarepants the Musical. His hands, shaking, reached up and tore the flier off the board, holding it out in front of him and rereading the dates over and over again in disbelief. He couldn’t believe his luck. Maybe God was real after all. Thank you, bulletin board! Thank you a million times!
This was it. This was how he would finish the fanfiction that meant everything to him. This was how he would rebuild the life that had threatened to shatter. This was his answer.