Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this story.

They all belong to their rightful owner: Craig Bartlett.

Title: "Lovely misandry"

Summary: Being in love for the first time is never easy, but to Arnold, it's downright torment. Not only has he been in love with her his whole life. Not only is she his best friend. She hates and distrust men with her entire being. He is the only exception, but how much of an exception is he really? Can he win over the girl whose heart has turned to stone by the men in her life?

Author's 1st note: Hey-hey-hey! Missed me? I know some of you missed me so much that you even wrote to me ha-ha x'D The messages have been much appreciated, but don't get me wrong; this hiatus wasn't due to stress or pain from gallstone attacks (those are mostly done, thank god) but simply because my attention shifts. Remember those times where I basically uploaded a chapter for a story day? Well, that's periods where I'm very focused on my writing and am totally forgetting my other hobbies, like editing for my YouTube channel. And other times, I'm more focused on editing and that was the case this time. I have, hopefully, entered an editing competition so you can root for me there if you're subscribed to me! Ha-ha xD

Well, enough with that! This is the long term project I've wanted to start since… a year ago maybe? xD The document I have with notes for this story was created in January, but I think the idea is older than that. I can't say how long it will be, but it will be a long-termed project so hold onto your hats and your glasses (is that even an English expression too?) because this is gonna be a bumpy ride!

[Please notify me if you notice any grammar mistakes. This isn't my first language, so there's bound to be mistakes.]

Chapter 1: "Accidental love confession"

"Hey, Arnold."

The boy, whose name was just called, looked up from his phone and was met by the scrutinizing eyes of his male classmates. They all had those smirks on their faces that told him he wasn't gonna like what his best friend Gerald, who was the one who had called his name, was gonna say.

"What color are Helga's eyes?"

Arnold heard his phone give a complaining beep when he tightened his grip on it and misclicked on the keyboard. "How would I know?" he lied and looked down on his phone again, pretending he didn't know why they were asking him such a random question.

"I think they're brown." Harold said thoughtfully.

Arnold looked away from his phone. What?

"No, man! They're totally green!" Sid insisted playfully.

Arnold frowned. Are you kidding me?

"No, I think Harold's right. They gotta be brown. They're pretty dark, right?" Gerald asked, the smirk never leaving his face.

"Wait, I'm confused." Stinky muttered and scratched his head. "Aren't they pretty light and all?"

"I'd say so too!" Eugene interfered with his perky voice. "They are quite light. Like grass, I think!"

"No, they're not!" Arnold shouted, unable to listen to the nonsense anymore. "Helga's eyes are blue, they're freaking blue, they're the bluest thing I've ever seen! They're blue like the sky, blue like diamonds, blue like – "

Arnold's heated rant was instantly stopped when he noticed the grins on his friends' faces. It was then he knew he had walked right into their trap. He gave them a warning glare.

"Don't." he hissed and looked at his phone again, wishing he could crawl into a hole.

"Dude," Gerald said calmly and sat down next to the blonde, flustered boy. "you have to tell her."

Arnold sighed and finally put his phone away in his pocket. "You know why I can't."

The boys looked worriedly at each other. They knew very well indeed. Helga wasn't the kind of girl you just went up to and confessed your undying affection to. Especially not when you were her childhood friend and basically the only boy she would give the time of day to. Arnold was already a million levels higher in Helga's book than any boy could ever hope to be so wishing for more was almost greedy. But Arnold had been in love with Helga since they wore diapers and hitting that wonderfully horrible age of 16 years old was not making the hiding easier.

"Well, she's gonna find out on her own anyway." Harold insisted and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"How?" Arnold asked. "If I never tell her, she'll never know."

"Arnold," Gerald said comically seriously and put his hand on the shorter boy's shoulder. "you just described the girl's eyes as sky-blue diamonds…"

Arnold's eyebrows knitted together. He wanted to argue against Gerald, but the dark-skinned boy just kept looking at him with that piercing look. So Arnold sighed, unsure of what else to do. He let his oblong-shaped head, or Football Head as Helga had nicknamed it, fall onto his desk. Gerald patted his back soothingly, but it didn't bring much comfort. Arnold's situation as stagnant as it had his entire life.

"Helga probably won't ever figure it out though." Harold said, obviously changing his mind. "She doesn't even see Arnold as a boy."

Arnold visibly cringed at the reminder. It was true after all. One of Helga's biggest arguments to why she was hanging out with him was that he wasn't like other boys. It was true that he perhaps wasn't as masculine as most boys in his class, but he was still a boy and he was very much in love with her like only a stupid love-smitten boy could be.

"Is that why she still sleeps over at his place?" Gerald asked teasingly.

"What?!" Sid bellowed and slammed his hands on Arnold's desk, getting his attention immediately. "You let her sleep over? How do you stop yourself from touching her?"

"I have self-control and I care about her!" Arnold answered a bit angrily.

"Is that why you said no when she asked if she could sleep over yesterday?" Gerald asked, still with the smirk on his face.

Arnold looked guiltily at his friends before looking away. "I just don't feel like it."

The boys snorted in unison.

"There's no such thang as you not wanna hang with Helga." Stinky said while he laughed.

"I just…" Arnold said and tried to come up with an excuse, but he couldn't think of anything. He let his head fall down on his desk again. "I just can't take another sleepless night."

"Aww, the cry of a horny cat that's been rejected too many times." Sid joked and laughed loudly when Arnold glared at him.

"He's never gotten far enough to be rejected!" Harold said and laughed as well.

"I'm glad my pain is amusing to you guys." Arnold said a bit bitterly, but he wasn't truly angry.

Gerald patted his shoulder again. "Maybe you really should consider telling her. Before she finds out in a bad way."

"Any way Helga might find out I have feelings for her would be a bad way." Arnold argued. "I could show up with WrestleMania tickets, an autograph by Ronnie Matthews and a two pound bag with pork rinds and she would still bite my head off."

"Aw, come on. She wouldn't kill you." Sid insisted.

"Maybe smack you around a little though." Harold added and nudged his elbow against Sid's arm and they laughed maliciously.

"It'd be funny if it wasn't true." Arnold muttered sourly and rested his chin in his hand.

"It's still funny." Sid insisted as he kept chuckling.

"I think you're wrong though." Eugene interfered to everyone's surprise. "I think Helga cares too much about you to ever really hate you. I truly believe that if you just told her honestly how you feel, she'd understand."

"No way." The other boys stated blandly.

"Oh, come on, you guys!" Eugene insisted. "Arnold is the only boy Helga even talks to. Don't you think that means something?"

"She won't talk to any boy if he tells her he sees her that way." Sid said as he crossed his arms, suddenly serious. "Naw, if you want my vote, Arnold, I'd say keep your mouth shut."

"You're kidding!" Gerald insisted. "What if Helga finds out on her own?"

"She won't." Sid insisted. "If she hasn't for 16 years, she's not gonna figure it out now."

"I say tell her." Gerald argued. "There's a bigger chance that she'll forgive you if just tell her honestly."

"He doesn't need to be forgiven! Love is a wonderful thing and shouldn't be excused!" Eugene complained.

"Problem is that's how Helga will see it." Gerald pointed out. "She'll see it as betrayal."

"And that's why I'm not telling her!" Arnold said, getting fed up with the conversation. "There's no way I could ever tell Helga how I feel! I don't want to lose her friendship, I can't risk that, it's not worth it!"

"So you'll just live in torment the rest of your life?"

"Living in torment would be living without Helga."

The boys cooed teasingly. All except for Eugene, who was cheering for Arnold and Helga to get together, and Gerald, the one who truly knew how painful it was for Arnold to be constantly around the girl he was pining so much for. That he was willing to go through this year after year was testimony to the depth of his feelings. And it worried Gerald.

Outside the classroom, where the troubled blonde boy sat, the source of his problems was sitting completely unaware. She was sitting among the girls, but wasn't listening. She was pouting. Or rather, Helga Pataki wasn't much of a pouter, she was more of a scowler. Most of her friends hadn't noticed her sour mood because she wasn't a cheerful girl most of the time, but her best friend Phoebe noticed a long time ago. She had currently mustered enough courage to ask her what was wrong.

Helga sighed. "Arnold's angry at me." she said.

"Angry? With you? He's never angry with you." Phoebe insisted in confusion.

"I know!" Helga declared loudly enough for her other friends to notice her outburst. "But he must be! I can't think of what I've done wrong though."

"There's no way he'd get pissed now." Rhonda, the self-proclaimed fashion queen, stated. "You've been rude, obnoxious and vulgar for years. There's no way he suddenly grew some balls."

"Yeah, so what the hell is his problem?" Helga asked, deliberately ignoring Rhonda's snide comment.

"Are you sure you haven't done anything ruder lately?" Nadine asked.

"If I had, I sure as hell didn't notice."

"Whatever makes you think Arnold could be angry with you, Helga?" Lila asked sweetly.

Helga rested her chin in her palm. "He won't let me sleep over."

The girls blinked and turned to look at each other in perfect unison.

"Uh… sleep over?" Sheena repeated with a slight blush on her face and Helga nodded. "Isn't that… a little odd at our age?"

"Arnold and I grew up together!" Helga insisted as if her friends were insane.

"He's still a boy, Helga." Rhonda tried to argue.

Helga shook her head. "No, no, no. If Arnold even remotely resembled other boys I wouldn't go anywhere near him. Something else is wrong." She insisted.

"Not like a boy, huh…" Nadine mumbled and sighed with Sheena. "That poor kid."

"Patty!" Helga said and got the attention of the slightly older girl sitting next to her though she hadn't been listening so far. "Play hooky with me."

"Sure." The girl agreed sluggishly and stood up from the bench.

"Where are you going?" Phoebe asked worriedly.

"Bon-Bon."

"Oh, no. Helga!" Phoebe called and took the blonde girl's hand. "Please don't go there again!"

"And why not?" Helga asked and ripped her hand out of Phoebe's grip.

"Well, first of all, it's in the middle of a school day!"

"So? I'm ahead of everyone else anyway, and same with Patty."

"And second of all, they serve alcohol to minors!"

"That's why we're going. See ya, ladies." Helga said, waved with a two-fingered gesture and followed Patty out of the school yard.

"Helga…" Phoebe sighed and slumped back in her seat.

"Oh, come on. You don't think anything would happen to Helga and Patty of all people?" Rhonda said with a snide grin.

"No, I guess not." Phoebe muttered and sighed once more.

"So, you really think Arnold's fed up with you?" Patty asked as she sipped from her beer bottle.

Helga sighed before she paid for the beers and then shook her head. "No, it must be something else. Arnold's put up with me for years now. If something finally made him sick of me, it'd be big enough for me to know what it is."

"You think he found himself a girlfriend who doesn't want him to hang out with another girl?"

"If he got a girlfriend, I'd be the first to know about it! Or maybe the second after Gerald." Helga said before chugging down half the content of her bottle. "No, it's gotta be something else… You think her parents told him to give up on me?"

"Could be." Patty said with a shrug. "But his grandparents wouldn't let them do that."

"True. Arnold's parents still feel guilty about abandoning him after all so they wouldn't rock the boat, I guess."

"I thought they left for 10 years to save an entire civilization?"

"Same shit." Helga answered crudely.

Patty snorted before giving a hearty laugh. Helga laughed along with the bigger girl before clinking her bottle against hers and then chugging down the last bit of the beer. She ordered another one, thanking her lucky stars that the police hadn't found this rat hole yet. The sleazy old man served her another beer with a wink before walking away to serve someone else. Helga shivered and tried to distract herself by chugging from the bottle again.

"Men are disgusting."

"What, you don't find a man who willingly serves teenagers beers on a school day charming?"

"Am I being picky?"

Patty snorted. "Well, given that you don't find any men charming, maybe a bit."

"Hey, baby." A male voice said behind the girls and put his hand on Helga's shoulder affectionately. "Did it hurt when you fell down from heaven?"

Helga glared at Patty. "Picky?" she whispered in disbelief, but Patty just smirked. "No, hot-shot"—the blonde girl twirled around in her chair, successfully knocking the guy's hand off her shoulder—"but I did scrape my knee when I crawled outta hell."

The boy clearly got pissed when he heard his friends' snickering behind him. "Didn't Titanic bang into you?" he said snidely, trying to save what little pride he had left.

"Those words are the closest you'll be to banging me." Helga hissed and pushed at the boy. "Get away from me!"

"Helga—"Patty grabbed the girl's arm—"I really don't feel like fighting tonight."

"Oh, listen to her! Sounds like she's pretty sure she can kick your ass, mate!" one of the boys said challengingly.

"The hell she can!" the guy said and pushed his sleeves up his arms, clearly getting ready for a fight.

"Hey, no fighting in here!" the bartender warned. "If anyone calls the cops on you, it'll be the skin off your asses too and then you can't drink here anymore! Don't make me kick one of you out!"

"You hear the man?" Helga asked and got in the guy's face, showing no fear. "He's not gonna kick me out. I'm a regular. So if you wanna get banned, try and land a punch on me."

The guy's eyes showed a clear struggle between his pride and reason. It lasted a few seconds before his reason won and he went back to his friends who immediately started bullying him for letting a girl get the last word. Helga ignored them, until one of them said that she and Patty needed to get muzzled. She then grabbed her bottle and threw it at the boys. It smashed against the wall above them and its contents trickled down the wallpaper and some of it splashed onto the boys as well.

"Crazy bitch!"

"Helga—" the bartender said in horror.

"Don't worry. I'll pay."

"You'd better!"

"Let's get outta here!" one of the boys yelled and ran out with his friends in tow.

"Remind me again why it's so wrong to hate men?" Helga asked while she sat back down next to Patty and threw a bill at the bartender who grabbed it begrudgingly.

"Because not all boys are like that."

"Sure as hell feels like it."

"You know, I prefer to hang out with the boys most of the time." Patty admitted and Helga shot her a glare. "Except for you, of course. Girls care so much about gossip and make-up and cry if you tell them the truth and shit like that. With boys, you can say whatever the hell you want and they don't judge you for it."

Helga snorted. "What do you call what happened just before then?"

"That was different. Those boys were drunk."

"That's their alibi?"

"I'm just saying, you can't hate men the rest of your life just because your dad sucked."

"It wasn't just Bob, remember?" Helga said. "It was every man my mom dated after him along with all of Olga's boyfriends. The guy she's married to now beats her up every now and then and she just keeps smiling and accepts it like the fucking idiot she is instead of kicking his ass to the curb."

"How about you kicking her husband to the curb?"

"Tried to, but Olga insists he's a blessing in disguise." Helga answered and snorted again. "A very good disguise."

Patty bit on her lower lip before she took Helga's new beer away from her. "Think about it, Helga. What is the common thing between Olga's relationships and Miriam's relationships?"

Helga blinked in confusion. "That they all sucked?"

"Besides that."

"They were all with men?"

"No! Olga is the common thing and so was Miriam!"

Helga blinked again before she got threateningly close to Patty. "Are you saying that all the shit that's happened to my family is their own fault?"

"No!" Patty shouted. "It's never the victim's fault, but they don't exactly learn, do they? They still date the scum of the earth, desperately trying to save men from their pitiful lives instead of finding someone decent!"

"So you're saying that my sister and mother continuously date the scum of the earth instead of finding all the decent men out there?" Helga asked sarcastically.

Patty sighed before she gave her blonde friend the beer back. "I'm just saying that you shouldn't judge men on just the men your mom and sister have dated. Arnold's always treated you nicely, hasn't he?"

"He's an exception." Helga insisted and Patty gave her a smirk. "Well, he is! He doesn't think or act like a boy at all."

"Ok, so he might be slightly more feminine than the other boys in our class, but fact is that he is a boy and your misandry can't change that!"

"My what?"

"Misandry. You are a misandrist."

"I'm a misandrist?" Helga asked in slight horror. "Oh, whoa. That's really cool; calling your friend a misandrist."

Helga pulled out her phone and started tapping on it. Patty kept her face straight while her friend looked up the word she had just been called. After reading the definition, she put the phone back in her pocket.

"You're not denying it?" Patty asked.

"Nope, I do hate men." Helga admitted bluntly and chugged down the rest of her beer.

"Look… at least consider seeing a therapist about it, for your own sake. It's unhealthy." Patty insisted.

"I am not gonna go to some brain twister—"

"I know someone. She's the one who helped me." Patty interrupted.

Helga looked her friend over. She knew Patty grew up with somewhat of an identity crisis due to the fact that her parents were little people, while she wasn't. It hadn't helped that she was in fact very tall, taller than Helga even. It was in 7th grade that they told her she was adopted as well and she ended up being held back two years back due to stress. It was a psychologist named Dr. Bliss who helped Patty cope with everything and Helga had gotten respect for the woman despite having never met her herself.

"Gimme your phone." Patty said and snatched it from the blonde girl as soon as she got it out of her pocket. "At least see her once. For your own sake."

Helga didn't have it in her to argue against her friend though she had very little interest in seeing a shrink of all people. She took her phone back and saved the number just to satiate her friend though. She then clinked her bottle against Patty's bottle and ordered another beer, having already lost count of how many she'd had.

"Goodnight, everybody." Arnold said tiredly before hugging his mom as the last one.

"Goodnight, Short Man!" Phil said and neighed teasingly.

"You really shouldn't call him short." Miles insisted.

"It's not my fault he's short!" Phil argued and stuck out his tongue childishly.

Arnold just shook his head in amusement before heading upstairs. He gave a sigh once he was safely in his own room. Phoebe had told him Helga had gone with Patty to that Bon-Bon place where they served alcohol to teenagers. He had honestly considered calling the police and tell them about the place a few times, not because he cared whether a bunch of minors were drinking, but because he was worried something would happen to Helga someday. Well, he was worried about Patty too of course, but he'd be lying if he said it was the same kind of worry. He couldn't bring himself to do it though because 1, it was none of his business and 2, Helga loved the place. In the long run, he couldn't do anything that would hurt her in any way.

Arnold threw his shirt off along with his jeans and went towards his bed, but stopped when his eyes caught sight of a framed picture on his desk. It was a picture of him and Helga back in 6th grade. Arnold couldn't help but give a bit of a dreamy sigh as he grabbed the picture and looked at it. Helga was resting her arms on his head, grinning from ear to ear while he was smiling goofily, trying to look up at her. Helga didn't smile very often so for him to have a picture with an honest smile on her face was basically a rare treasure.

A harsh knock against glass caught Arnold's ears. He looked around in confusion before he finally did the logical thing and looked up towards his skylight. Above him was a girl with her blonde hair wet due to the rain. She had a big, childlike grin on her face, much like the one in the framed photo, and she was holding her palms against the glass. Arnold could feel his heartrate speed up at the sight of the familiar girl. It felt like forever since he had seen her last, but it was only this morning. He was just so relieved to see that she was ok.

Helga moved her hands out, silently asking him why he wasn't letting her in. Arnold put the picture back and jumped onto his bed to open the skylight. The rain started trickling on his face while Helga threw her backpack onto his bed and then jumped into his arms. They fell onto the bed, Helga laughing and Arnold already blushing as he felt her wet clothes on him.

"Took you long enough!" Helga declared with the wide grin still on her face before she rolled off him and unzipped her backpack.

Arnold sniffed the air. "You're drunk." He stated when he detected the smell of beer.

"Yeah, why aren't you?" Helga asked sarcastically and turned around, showing several bottles of beer in her hands.

"Because you've been at Bon-Bon and I haven't." Arnold stated matter-of-factly. He could see that Helga wasn't very drunk though. She had a pretty big tolerance for it while he didn't. "I'm guessing you still want to drink?"

"Bingo! And I wanna do it with my best drinking buddy!" Helga insisted and pushed a bottle at Arnold's chest, which he accepted without question.

Arnold couldn't help but feel his heart swell at her words. It was a strange and bittersweet feeling being called her best buddy. It hurt because she didn't like him the same way, but it felt amazing because he was still someone important to her.

"Bottom's up!" Helga declared, clinked her bottle against his and let its contents travel down her throat.

Arnold had a hard time tearing his eyes away from her. The sight of her throat bopping whenever she swallowed did things to his body he didn't want to admit. When the bottle left her lips he quickly lifted his own bottle to his mouth. The taste hit him like a knock-out punch and he started coughing.

"You're never gonna get used to the taste, are you?" Helga laughed.

"Probably not." Arnold answered. Yet, I'm still drinking it, he thought as he tried drinking it again.

Arnold didn't like alcohol. He didn't like feeling drunk and he didn't like the kind of parties most teenagers went to. But if Helga brought alcohol over, which she did occasionally whenever she was angry, sad or bored, he just couldn't say no to her. He couldn't deny anything she wanted and it scared him how much of a pushover he was around her. He could say no to anyone else but her.

"Why have you been avoiding me?"

Arnold choked on the beer, but not due to the taste this time around. "What?" he asked before he coughed again. Helga started patting his back harshly and even that made him feel a little warmer on his cheeks.

"You have." The girl insisted once Arnold's coughing fit had stopped. "I asked if I could stay over yesterday, but you said no. You never say no."

"I—I had to." Arnold lied.

"Yeah, I know, but your excuse made no sense."

Arnold had said no to Helga when she asked him if she could sleep over yesterday. It was the first and only time he had ever denied her anything his entire life. He just couldn't handle yet another sleepless night of trying to ignore her sleeping right next to him as if they were still kids and there was no difference between sleeping with her or one of his guy friends. It was different, but he couldn't tell her that. She trusted him too much or rather, she didn't see him as a threat at all. Not that Arnold ever would or could hurt her in any way. It was a compliment that he was the only boy she trusted at all, but she trusted him too much sometimes.

Helga lifted Arnold's bottle up to his mouth and tipped his head backwards, forcing him to drink from the beer. He gasped in surprise and almost choked on the beer once again. He pushed her hand away, holding it away from him as he coughed again. He glared at her as hatefully as he could, but she was laughing so heartily that his anger subsided immediately. He wiped his mouth before he smiled warmly.

It didn't take long before Arnold was thoroughly drunk. His tolerance level was way lower than Helga's so while she felt tipsy, she was 100% aware of her surroundings and could think logically. That wasn't Arnold's case. He had trouble even sitting still without swaying as if he were on a boat. He was also grinning inanely, in the way only a drunk man or man in love could, and he was both.

"You're 16, you should be able to drink more than three beers before getting like that." Helga insisted before Arnold giggled. "Criminy, you look dumb!"

Arnold giggled again while he started swaying from side to side. Helga shook her head in amusement.

"Your folks treating you well?"

"Huh?"

"I mean…" Helga said and then scratched her head awkwardly. She wasn't very good at showing her more caring side. "Are you bonding or whatever?"

"Yeah," Arnold said and grinned again. "they took me to Dinoland a few days ago."

Helga smiled. "That's good."

Arnold smiled back before his head fell down on her shoulder. "You really are sweet, Helga…"

"Sweet?!" the girl repeated in shock, thanking her lucky stars she hadn't been in the middle of drinking because she would have spit it out right then. "You're the first person who's ever called me that!"

"But you are! You really are." Arnold insisted and nudged his nose into Helga's neck.

"That tickles, you dumbass!" Helga giggled and tried to get away, but she ended up falling down on the bed with Arnold on top of her instead. "You're heavy!"

"You are so sweet…"

Helga groaned, realizing Arnold was beyond comprehending anything but the intoxicated sky he was floating on. She rolled him off her and placed him gently on the bed next to her. She plopped down next to him, looking at him as he struggled to keep his eyes open. She told him to go to sleep, but he wasn't done talking it seemed.

"I like hanging out with you, Helga…" Arnold said with a dreamy smile on his face before he hiccupped.

"Yeah, yeah…" Helga answered and closed her eyes, feeling the need to sleep wash over her as well. She had been drinking for quite a long time after all. She was barely listening to Arnold's drunken blabber at this point.

"I like you, Helga… Really like you…" Arnold whispered in such a low voice that only someone close to him would be able to hear it. "I'm in… love with you…"

If someone had been watching the two blondes, they would have thought they were both asleep by now. But only a second after Arnold's accidental love confession, Helga's eyes sprung wide open, showing a mix of absolute disgust and total horror.

Author's 2nd note: – Insert stock horror noise here –

Yeah, we're off to a great star! As you can see, I'm experimenting with Arnold being in love with Helga and her not exactly feeling the same way in this one. The details of her hatred towards men will be specified more through the story, but I just want to say right now that this is not a femi-nazi story and shouldn't be interpreted as such. Helga has simply gone through some things from a very young age that has unfortunately twisted her view on men, but we all know Arnold will fix that! OwO

This story will probably be a bit more angst-filled than most of my stories, but I've never been much for the gut-wrenching kind of angst so if that's not your thing either then don't worry! There'll be a good amount of sadness, anger and frustration, but the fluff and sweet moments will make up for it! Cx

As always, if you're inspired to do some fanart for this, you're more than welcome to and I'd love to see it or maybe even use it as the cover for the story with your permission! :D