A wonderful Authornon is writing this for this little plotbunny of mine! Anon I wish you weren’t so anon, because this is shaping up to be all kinds of adorable ;u;
—-
Karkat was just the little troll next door.
Grouchy. Angry. Foul-mouthed. Rage was his only company, and that much was obvious by the way he never had friends over and never went out on the weekends and always came straight home from school.
He was like you in a lot of ways.
You’d only ever seen Karkat’s father breezing through the neighbouring house’s front door, once in the morning when you left for classes, once in the late evening when you took out the trash.
You had a feeling that his father only worked so hard because he cared for Karkat very much. Your father had been the same way when he was alive.
But you knew the message wasn’t one someone Karkat’s age would understand.
You often spotted him walking home from school, red-and-black backpack slung around a shoulder, his knuckles bruised and his cheek bloody and his expression maintaining his trademark scowl.
You wanted to do something, perhaps try being his friend, but there was a bit of an obstacle barring you from making the first move. An obstacle in the form of a good six-year age gap.
You were in your second year of University. Karkat, on the other hand, was barely out of seventh grade.
So you hold off on intervening, seeing as this situation really wasn’t any of your concern in the first place. The most words you’d exchanged took place last fall, and it was less of an exchange and more of a scolding from Karkat to “KEEP YOUR DAMN GRASS CLEAN, I’VE GOT ENOUGH WORK TO DO OUT IN THE YARD WITHOUT YOUR FUCKING LEAVES IN MY FRONT LAWN, TOO.”
He’d raised the handle of his rake up to hover beneath your chin, and he stomped away with such pent-up frustration you couldn’t help but smile at his back.
One day, you watch him return from his bus stop, limping moreso than walking, his top lip bruised, his right eye nearly swollen shut.
His normally strong expression had wavered in its will, and you finally decide to take it upon yourself and try to find him a new hobby.
