"Why?"

That was the word that Tobias found himself using time and time again as he reflected upon his love life. Every time he forced himself to flirt with a girl like Penny, or a girl like Masami or, when he was feeling extremely desperate, a girl like Tina. Every time he used a pick-up line that he was pretty sure had been used in a movie from a decade before he was born he wouldn't be thinking of the attractive girl he was attempting to impress, he was thinking about a little fish named Darwin Watterson.

"Why?" He would ask himself. "Why him?" Out of all the boys and girls at his school he had to fall in love with Darwin Watterson. He had to fall in love with the boy who he could never stop loving no matter how hard he tried, yet try he did. Every night he would walk up to the mirror in his room and repeat a simple mantra of "I do not love him" over and over again, knowing full well that every word was a lie. He also knew, as he repeated the mantra over and over that again that if he removed the words 'do' and 'not' then his obvious lie would transform into an obvious truth.

A few years later in high school Tobias' crush still remained strong, and him and Darwin became much closer friends. Darwin started dating Anais, much to the chagrin of his adopted mother, and every moment he spent watching them kiss was a moment that he was forced to search for the internal strength that he needed to not ask Darwin if he would be willing to allow him to have a turn. Yes, he was still very childish.

He felt like a child as well, holding on to his crush like a child holds onto his stuffed animal or like Anais held onto Darwin when she was frightened and needed comfort.

When Darwin died halfway through his third year in high school everybody was depressed, yet no one was surprised. Darwin's lifespan as a fish was fairly short and quite frankly it had been a miracle in itself that he had lived as long as he had. The funeral was short, and the eulogy that Anais and her family had written was heart-breaking. When Anais was killed a month later when a speeding car hit her while she was crossing the street it was believed that fate had intervened to allow them to meet again in the afterlife. It was more likely that she saw the speeding car and stepped in front of it.

When Tobias started dating Gumball and asked him to wear Darwin's shoes on all of their dates, everybody simply thought he was weird. When Gumball asked Tobias to wear Anais' dress when they were alone, Tobias simply thought that he was in mourning. The one question none of them ever asked during their newfound relationship that built on the foundation of shared grief was the question that Tobias had vowed never to ask again.

"Why?"