A/N: For Foodstamp's (imaginaaation at DA) South Park fanfiction contest. The theme for the contest was "the boys i mean are not refined", from the poem of EE Cummings. I really don't like this, but this is what came out, and since I (unfortunately) have no time to write another entry, I'll just go with this one. Critisism and comments are much welcomed – and as English is not my native tongue, grammar/spelling corrections too!

And also, much thanks to Fletset for beta-reading!

Pairings: very, very mild StanKyle.

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park, and neither I'd like to. I'd just mess it up if I did.

Frozen

by eishi (2008)

You should drop it.
Yeah, just leave it be, dude.
Are you serious?
C'mon, stop joking. Of course it is.
Just... just drop it. I don't know.
I don't know.

Kyle wakes up every morning at six forty-five to the sound of his alarm clock, snaps his eyes open and bolts upright. He picks his clothes from his couch and gets changed in the bathroom, takes his schoolbag and tiptoes downstairs. His mother usually is already there, making them all breakfast and greeting Kyle with a sing-song voice, as if the pitch-black morning is the best moment of the day. Kyle leaves every morning at seven twenty-two to walk to the bus stop, where he waits from one to four minutes for his friends.

Kyle comes home usually after three twenty every day, if he hasn't told his mother that he's going to Stan's beforehand. If he goes to Stan's, or on sparser occasions, to Clyde's, Token's or Butters's, his mother calls him at seven o'clock and tells him to come home before nine thirty.

Kyle goes to sleep after ten, after exchanging thoughts with his father, ruffling his brother's never-growing hair and wishing good night to his mother. His mother is always reading the paper, and thus looks up from it, always wearing that same expression of brief confusion, takes off her reading glasses and says, "Good night, bubbeh."

Kyle's last thought before he falls asleep is usually the next morning, and how his family would react if he didn't come downstairs one day. Sometimes he dreams about his own funeral, and wakes up sweaty, his heart thumping loudly, because he isn't sure did he or did he not see his mother within the group of mourners.

You should drop it.
I am serious, dude. Are you?

Kyle has stopped going to the synagogue with his family altogether. To his brother he said that he felt more like being Jewish ethnically, not religiously. To his father he said that he wasn't quite sure whether or not he agreed with the commandments. To his mother, he said nothing. She didn't ask. She looked at Kyle that morning, blinking rapidly, and nodded and said that it was fine. That he was old enough to make such decisions on his own.

To himself, he confessed that he needed to be away from a place that demanded honesty from those who stepped in its domain.

C'mon, stop joking.
Stop giving me that look.

Kyle knows that he definitely loves Stan, and he loves Ike, and he loves Kenny. He loves Clyde, and Token, and probably Butters as well, but not quite as much, and knows that they feel the same way about him too. He trusts his father, and he respects Cartman, even if he hates the boy at the same time. He likes Wendy, and he smiles politely at Red. He knows there is this one girl at their school who likes him more than he likes her, but is kind-hearted enough to ignore her. He has a strange rivalry with Craig, but he is wise enough to know it's a good-hearted one. All those everyday expressions and gestures and words tell him that they think likewise, and he knows that his feelings aren't unrequited.

But with his mother, it is all blurred and uncertain, and he isn't even sure does he love her or does she love him at all.

You know it's true. You should.

She pets him. She cooks for him. She smiles around him. She washes his clothes. She buys him books. She cheers on his grades.

He laughs with him. He tells everything. He cheers him up. He watches TV with him. He cries with him. He smiles at him.

It is unfair to compare them, and the results aren't valid; he doesn't know what she is like with her friends or with her husband, and he doesn't know how the other acts around his family or sister. They should represent very different characters in his life, not compete in the same category.

What binds them together is the fact that both of them are always there – whether or not out of free will.

Maybe that is why he can't help but wonder: is it enough?

Just... just drop it, dude.
Just forget it.

Kyle is broad-minded enough to know that stereotypes have nothing to do with reality. Stereotypes are made up by humans to help them survive, to categorize minor matters in their minds so that they can store the information away and forget about it – so that they don't have to remember each and every thing individually and use all of their brain capacity. This is why he isn't worried when he realises that Kenny might be the only one to relate to him in this matter, because Kenny has suffered from the same thing with his parents for his whole life. What they show and what they feel underneath is different, as Kenny has painfully noticed years ago.

Kyle doesn't want to talk about it with Kenny, however. Kenny is a great guy, but Kenny doesn't know how to handle his emotions and usually prefers suicide to talking about his problems. He wants to share his thoughts with Stan, but Stan is blinded by his own prejudices. Stan doesn't understand.

"You can't test love," he says severely, "so just forget about it."

Kyle disagrees. You can test love. You can. But if you do, you've already lost the game.

Just... I don't know, dude.

Kyle tells his mother one morning that he has a big secret he doesn't want to carry around anymore. She looks at him, earnest interest in her eyes, and says that she's there to listen. Kyle blurts it out in one, swift sentence.

"I'm gay."

She blinks once, then twice, then thrice, like she did the morning Kyle told her that he didn't want to attend the prayer. Kyle responds with firm, confident look, she finally smiles.

"That's alright, bubbeh."

That is all she says.

How could I?

Cartman ridicules him about it. The news has spread fast, like it does in a small town, and one or two people at the school are no longer talking to him at class. Stan still doesn't know, and is very confused when Butters clasps his hands together happily at the lunch break and congratulates Kyle loudly.

Kyle tells Stan and Kenny the truth on their way back home the next day. Kenny's eyes harden and he says nothing, the stiffness of his shoulders signalling that he is not okay with it at all. Stan's eyes widen, and he is immediately troubled by Kyle's new reputation in school.

"I don't care," Kyle answers.

"You should!" Stan insists.

"What if I really don't?"

Stan responds no more. Kenny waves his hands, crosses the railroad and leaves the two to a painful silence. Stan kicks the snow with his boots – Kyle stands straight, waiting for Stan's rejection.

"I don't know, dude," Stan finally says. Kyle remains silent.

"It's... You should know... I mean... — You should know it without all this."

"I don't, Stan," Kyle silently says. "Do you?"

Stan looks at him, finally seeming to understand Kyle's intentions.

"I... I don't know, dude."

I just...

Kyle receives all kinds of treatments the following week. He is suddenly in the spotlight of the town, and even if he expected it, he isn't sure can he handle it after all. Kenny's not talking to him anymore, and Kyle feels bad when Craig glues himself to his and Stan's company all the time. Cartman taunts him endlessly, but that hardly bothers Kyle, as he has endured the fat sociopath all his childhood. Stan is quieter, but whenever Kyle asks about it, Stan shakes his head and tells him that he's alright. Kyle disagrees, but doesn't want to bring up the topic of Stan constantly puking in the school bathroom at recess.

Kyle finally decides that enough is enough when a total stranger on the street yells at his whole family that they're all going to hell for protecting a corrupted human being that should be fixed. His father yells in defence that "hell" as they know it is a bedtime story for children to make them obey, and even if Hell did exist, such narrow-minded idiots as the yeller himself would be burning there instead of them. Kyle looks at his mother from the corner of his eye for the whole time, observing how she shakes a little and bites her lip.

I don't know.

Kyle is not a naturally compassionate person. He knows he needs harsh stimulations to feel and show vulnerable emotions like sorrow, sympathy and ignorance – but unlike Stan, he has no trouble in showing his fierce resistance or stating his opinions. He doesn't envy Stan for being able to feel somewhat more, because on the other hand, he can block bad things out of his mind until they become unbearable.

Kyle isn't the one usually to notice when people are secretly depressed, but seeing as his mother can't even answer to the random idiot on the street, he knows that something must be really wrong. He waits to the next morning, and then, in the idly lighted kitchen, he says that he wants to tell something to his mother.

He tells her that it is not true. That it has all been a lie. That he only told her that to know would she still care. That he was more scared with the result than within the lie.

She freezes.

Then she cries.

I don't know.

End.