Dib-Stink, what're you doing?" he asked with a sniffle. "Oh this? It's called a hug. It's something humans do to comfort someone or show affection," Dib said with smile. Zim nodded and slowly hugged back. "I...like this hug thing." The pair hugged for a few minutes before letting go of each other. "Do you feel any better?" Dib asked. "Yeah..." Zim said looking at the floor. Dib nodded and checked his watch. "Well, I'm going to go home before Dad gets worried," he said with a chuckle. He walked towards the door and turned to Zim. "See ya later invader!" And with that he was gone. Zim shook his head. Humans were so stupid with their words. And yet, despite what he thought, he couldn't help but giggle.

{~}

As the week progressed, it became more and more apparent that the boys were becoming closer. While they did still call each other names, it was all in good fun. You see, there was no reason for them to be enemies ever since Zim learned the hard truth. So, they became friends. And, although he didn't want to admit it, Zim liked it better this way. "Zim!" Dib yelled from outside the alien's home. "I'm coming!" he yelled back. Ever since he had that talk with Dib, he walked to and from school with him. He assumed it was something that friends did. Zim finished putting his diguise on and opened the door to meet Dib. He was wearing similar clothes to what he wore back in middle school. The only difference was that now he wore a magenta sweater in place of his invader tunic. He also took off his gloves since the sleeves would cover his claw-like fingers. Along with those items, he also wore his human disguise. "Ready?" Dib asked, in which Zim responded by nodding. 

As they walked to school, the pair talked about random things on their minds. Of course, most of the things Dib said were theories. However, Zim didn't really mind it, as he thought Dib's theories were intriguing. Sometimes, he would even add to them with his knowledge from the Irken Academy. This, of course, would encourage Dib making their classmates resent their friendship. When they got to the school building, they said their goodbyes and parted ways, as they didn't have homeroom together. Really, the only classes they had with each other were Culinary, Calculus, and Astronomy. While that was a shame, it kind of was for the best, as they would goof during the classes they did have together. Anyways, during homeroom Dib tried his best not to fall asleep. The whole atmosphere of the classroom wasn't helping him at all. For some reason, the teacher liked to turn off the lights for 1st period. Besides that, she was playing a history video. And everyone knows that history videos are the most boring forms of media to ever exist. Just as Dib was about to fall asleep, he felt something touch his head. The object fell on top of his desk, revealing it to be a scrunched up piece of paper. Somebody must've thrown it at him. He opened it up and read the message on it.

'stop breatheing so loud nerd'

Dib scoffed. Whoever wrote the note had bad grammar. He decided to write a note of his own. He scribbled something onto the same sheet of paper, and tossed it in the direction of where it came from.

'It's called sighing you smooth-brained diploid. And I'm trying not to fall asleep.'

He could hear a low growl emit from behind him, so the culprit was definitely pissed now. He heard some scribbling before another paper was thrown at him. He winced as he noticed it was written in all capital letters. This wasn't good...

'U THINK YOUR SO SMART DONT U? ILL SHOW YOU WUT WE DO TOO PEEPLE LIKE YOU'

Great. He was going to get into another fight. He had already been in about 3 of them this year, not counting the ones with Zim. He sighed as he threw the paper away. He just hoped his injuries wouldn't be too bad. After a while, the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Dib slowly walked out of the classroom, hoping that whoever threw those notes had amnesia or something. As soon as he left the room, he was slammed into a locker. "How dare you call me a flat-brained dipfloid!" the bully yelled. Dib immediately knew who it was. It was the one and only Torque Smackey. He was known as the school's number one bully, as he was super aggressive. He usually took his anger out on the pipsqueak of the school, Poonchy, but he was absent today. So, he jumped at any opportunity to start a fight. "First of all, I called you a smooth-brained diploid. Second of all, this is ridiculous! We're seniors, Smackey. We're too old for this!" Smackey responded to Dib by punching him in the arm. "You're just trying to sound smart! It's time that someone puts you in your place!" he yelled. He then raised his fist, ready to punch him in the face. 

However, that stopped when he felt a sharp pain on his cheek. "What the..." he put his hand over the spot that hurt and felt blood spill out of three small cuts. "Who the hell scratched me?!" Smackey looked around to find his attacker. "I did!" said a voice. He looked down next to Dib to see Zim. As soon as he saw him, he let go of Dib and formed fists with his hands. "You're the one who scratched me, skank?" Zim nodded. "Zim doesn't want you hurting his 'friend'." Torque scoffed. "Of course you losers would be friends. Freaks attract freaks!" he started laughing, attracting more people to the already forming crowd. Then, he swung his fist with full force at Zim, expecting the hit to land on his face. Of course, he didn't know about how much training Zim endured thanks to the armada, so he was quite surprised when he dodged. "Wait, how did you...?!" Torque didn't have much time to react, because as soon as Zim dodged the punch, he kicked him in the crotch. He fell to his knees and groaned. "You little..." he stopped halfway through his sentence. "Whatever. You aren't worth my time. Just... watch your back," Torque said before stomping away. 

"Are you ok, Dib-stink?" Zim asked the taller male. Dib nodded. "Yeah...thanks for that by the way." He was going to say more, but was stopped when Gretchen hugged him. "Oh my God, Dib are you okay?!" she asked In a worried tone. "Eh, yeah," Dib said pushing her away from him. He had nothing against her personally, he just didn't like getting too close to people. Then again, he did hug Zim a couple days ago... so maybe he was an exception? Dib shook his head and focused on the present. He could think about Zim later. "He only punched me once, and it wasn't really that hard. If Zim wasn't here, I probably wouldn't have gotten off so easy." He lightly chuckled to himself. To think the one person who helped him was his enemy. How ironic. "Well," Gretchen started, holding both of his hands, " I hope one day I can save you, just like Zim did!" She giggled and then skipped away. Dib smiled. She had been his best friend ever since kindergarten, and she still acted the same. Dib turned to see Zim walking to his next class. "Wait...uh, Zim!" He called out. Zim turned to him with a confused expression. "What, Dib-stink?" Dib fiddled with the thumbs. "I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my house, since that's what 'friends' do." Zim responded to him by shrugging.

"If that's what the Dib-thing wants."