Author's Note: It's practically illegal to do this, I KNOW. I'm super sorry for ditching my other fan fiction for weeks and suddenly reappearing with a slash South Park fan fiction. It's just, ever since I got into Yaoi and Slash, I just can't seem to write heterosexual anymore. For the sake of you people out there I'll try to work on it as fast as possible. Crap, I'm writing a South Park fan fiction when I should be mugging hard for my exams on Monday. I'm so screwed. If you liked this chapter drop me a comment. :D This is my first fan fiction for SP, so I'd be happy to receive any constructive criticism.

Episode One: Pieces You Can't Put Back

When he finally got together with Wendy, there was none of that shock or gasps of surprise. It was expected of Stan to go out with Wendy. Stan and Wendy, the perfect match made in heaven. According to everyone at South Park. Or at least what I had thought.

But when Kyle came over to my house that very night when they'd announced their relationship to the whole school looking like he'd just woken up from a nightmare where everyone he'd ever cared about in the world had died and he was the only one left, I was taken aback.

I had expected him to be all excited and happy for Stan and go all, "Good on you, dude!" while slapping him on the back.

But all I saw was a boy with a tearstained face standing alone below my bedroom window, with his ever-in-place green cap taken off, his curly red hair looking utterly unruly under the dim streetlights lining down the street.

And that was when I saw and realized.

X

My cheap mobile phone rings and I shoot a glare at it, reluctant to lift my head off the comfortably pillow it was resting on. A glance at the time displayed on the screen and the identity of the caller made me twitch with annoyance. What the fuck?

"Kyle, you ass, it's 2 in the bloody morning and you're calling me." I snap into the receiver upon clicking the 'answer call' button. "There's fucking school tomorrow."

Actually, I don't give a damn about school. I'm just using it as an excuse to return to my sleep, and the boy who's on the phone with me knows it too.

"..." He doesn't say anything. I sigh.

"Dude, what's wrong? If you don't speak up in ten seconds I'm hanging up. Ten...nine...seven..."

"K-Kenny, c-can I come in for a m-moment?"

That's when I nearly drop my phone out of shock, and I pull it away from my ear to stare at it to make sure I'm not hallucinating or dreaming. Kyle Broflovski, calling me at 2 in the morning. Was his voice trembling because he was crying? I don't know for sure.

But I roll out from under my covers and walk over my window, looking down from the clear glass to check. He's standing under my window, the light reflecting unshed tears in his wet eyes. "Oh, fuck." I utter, forgetting for a second that he's still on the phone with me.

"Kenny? Please?" He sounds like he's pleading with me. I wonder why he doesn't just go to Stan if he's got problems; they're Super Best Friends, after all.

"Why don't you go to Stan?" The words leave my mouth before I can think about it.

"I'm-this-this is about Stan, that's why." Anguish, that's what I'd call the element in his pained voice.

My throat feels dry. I stare down at him for a moment, and groan inwardly. Mom and Dad are going to throw a shit fit if they get woken up by me smuggling Kyle in. "Fine." I slide open my bedroom window as quietly as I can, and quickly grab a long-sleeved, plain white shirt off my bed to pull over my naked top.

From afar, you can't really see the scars that my dad gave me, but once up close...well, it's not very pleasant. That's why when I go out I normally wear that orange hoodie of mine—because it's long-sleeved and you can't see any of those scabs or bruises or cigarette burns on my arms. I have enough to put up with without having my best friends worry over my abusive parents, so I don't let anyone know.

"You're going to have to come in through my bedroom window though." I tell him, and flip my phone shut before I can catch his words of thanks.

Kyle's only scaled the outer walls of my house once, but since he's done it before, it makes sense that he can do it again. So I plop myself back onto my bed and rest my head on the pillow, waiting for him to let himself in.

Maybe I was just seeing things. It makes sense, after all. Waking someone up so early in the morning was bound to mess with their heads a little. Yeah, I definitely imagined seeing those tears on his face. When he climbs in through the window he's going to be smiling like usual and acting perfectly normal.

...My ass.

Kyle drops himself on my bedroom floor the second he enters my room, not even bothering to close the window. I cross over to close it, and stoop down so that we're on about the same eyelevel. It's practically dawn and not the ideal time for him to pick if he wanted to me to play the part of a best friend. Still, I remind myself of the time when he was there for me after the incident with Cartman and my parents and force myself to ask in a gentle tone, "Kyle. What happened?"

That's right. It doesn't matter even if he did wake me up at an unearthly hour. He was the only one there for me when I needed support that my family couldn't give, that the rest of our group couldn't bother to give me. I owe him at least this much. Maybe he was only there for me for that one incident, but either way I still needed to repay the debt.

"Fuck," I groan, leaning back against the tree trunk and staring at my left fist with sick fascination, watching as the blood from my knuckles slowly fell to the snow on the ground, staining the pure white colour with a colour so crimson that it made one feel sick.

Drop by drop, it fell. I clench my fist tighter and observe as the bleeding sped up.

"Shut the fuck up, Cartman! You don't know shit about what it's like!"

He doesn't know. He doesn't know what it's like to grow up in a family like mine, where your dad beats you up every night after getting drunk on cheap booze, where your mother comes home so wasted that she just drags herself upstairs to hit the sack and you realize that there's nothing in the fridge except for ice and maybe one or two cans of beer.

Where your brother's out partying at another friend's house because he knows there's no point coming home so early because he's just going to face another night without home-cooked food and an empty fridge, and parents who yell you but don't even know what they're getting so riled up for, but they just do, and it always ends up with you getting whipped by dad's belt.

I've gotten used to Cartman's stupid jibes about me being poor. This morning shouldn't have been an exception. But the whipping I got from last night still hurt in the morning and I recall staring in the mirror at my back after wincing when the hot water came in contact with it to see huge, ugly red welts on it.

It reminds me of how pathetic life is. Going downstairs to be greeted with Mom's screaming at Kevin for getting an extremely bad hangover isn't the most ideal morning greeting, either. I'd call her a hypocrite, but she might just rip my hair out of my scalp if I do.

"...'cause you're poor."

Probably a bad move, but my body reacted on an impulse and before I'd realized it I had thrown a punch in his face and Cartman probably had a bad morning, too, because we ended up rolling on the floor and throwing wild punches at each other.

The pain from my back when I was on the floor and scuffling with Cartman was pure agonizing and had it been anyone but Cartman, they would have recognised the expression on my face as pain right away.

Kyle tried to placate me after he saw my black eye, but I shoved him off and stormed away. Once the dismissal bell rang, I dashed out of school and towards the park. The sudden drop of snowflakes surprised the shit out of me until I remembered it was about winter or so already.

Then I spent some time punching the tree trunk until my knuckles got cut open and blood started to really ooze out. Painful, but it sort of drains it out of you. The anger, I mean. Maybe that's why those emo kids do it. It makes you too tired to even be angry anymore.

So I sat there and watched my blood drip from my wounds, watching as I stained the snow surrounding me a bright red. I probably would've continued doing what I was doing, if not for a familiar voice yelling my name.

I jump, and Kyle's face pops out at me. If it weren't so fag-like to scream, I would've done it. Instead, I feel my heartbeat go so fast it's almost like it's going to jump out of my chest and I snap at him, "What the hell do you want, Kyle? I told you I'm fine."

I'm not in a sociable mood today. So unlike on those days when I'd put my arm around him and try to loan money from him to buy cigarettes or something, I put my left hand behind my back and try to hide my injured hand from him. But Kyle's an observant guy, and he notices the red spot on the soft, white snow instantly.

"Oh god. What the hell's that?" He looks slightly sickened at the sight of it, and the swift movement of me putting my left hand behind my back tips him off and he reaches for my arm and yanks it out from behind me. "Shit, Kenny! What're doing this for?"

His concern looks real, and I find myself wishing and hoping that he's actually sincere about this because god knows I've had enough of all this bullshit with life and could do with someone who actually cares.

"You-you did this to yourself." He states, looking shaken. Slowly, he lets go of my hand and I jerk it away, breathing heavily as I did so. "Kenny..."

"What?" I sound harsher than I intended my tone to be, "Everyone's been asking me what's wrong with me lately—you accept the Goths for drinking excessive coffee; you treat Mrs. Garrison being gay as normal, but nobody can cut me some slack just for once, not even when I just want to release all my fucking pent up anger!"

"I wasn't-I wasn't going to say that." He scowls slightly, and the scowl, I notice, makes his lips look more noticeable than ever. Maybe it's the weather that's got it so pink, but right now it's all luscious-looking and I just want to reach over and—wait. What the fuck was I thinking just now?

I stare at the boy with the green cap in front of me and feel like smacking myself. Shit. Did I just have some fag-like thoughts earlier? Fuck.

"It's just...Hey, dude, wanna come over to my house today? I've got a new game for my Xbox console." He offers, the corner of his mouth upturning a little in hope, but the worried look in his eyes doesn't disappear. I hate the feeling of being pitied. I hope he's not pitying me.

"Shut the fuck up," I grumble, jerking away from him and unsteadily get up. "I don't need your pity."

"Stan...got together with Wendy today."

I bite my lower lip. "Yeah, dude. I was there, remember? Everyone was at the cafeteria." That's right. They held hands and held them high above in the air for everyone to see.

"Shit." He buries his face in his hands, running his fingers through his hair. "Shit."

I sigh and sit down on the floor next to him. The next thing I knew, tears were running down his cheeks and Kyle's got this expression on his face—it's like he's getting torn apart. My jaw drops.

I get a few good metres away from him and a shoe hits me in the back of my head. "What the fu-" I start, turning around to glare at him when I realize he's got this scowl on his face. A scowl that he only gives Stan, mostly because Stan's pissing him off.

So imagine my surprise when I see him scowling at me like that. "I'm not pitying you," he spits out the word like it is poison to his mouth, "I'm being nice to you because you're my friend. But if you can't be bothered that's fine."

"You..." I start, feeling slightly horrified, "Dude!"

"Shut up, Kenny!" He growls in a low voice, "LOOK AWAY!"

Dad might be stirring in his sleep now, but I don't care. Not right now. "Hey, man, what's with you?" I tentatively place a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugs it away.

"Don't you at least have the decency to look away while I'm crying?" He half-whines and half-shouts.

I still don't get what he's so mad about, so I merely plop back down in my sitting position. "Fine."

Might as well keep my mouth shut while I'm at it. Looking away from his sobbing self, I mean. Being a good friend is harder than it looks. Especially since nobody's ever come to my house at the crack of dawn seeking comfort before.

He stands up and is about to get on his way, when I pick up the shoe he's thrown at me and aim it at his back. Thwack! I'm a pretty good thrower too, if I may add.

"Kenny-" Kyle looks aggravated and I manage a reluctant smile at him that quickly wipes off the surprised fury on his face.

"Is it a fighting game?"

Suddenly the sky seemed lighter, somehow. His stupid white teeth are blinding me.

"You know I'd only offer to play fighting games with you."

There's nothing in the fridge except for a can of beer, but I have to leave that alone because Dad would throw a shit fit in the morning if he opened it to find it completely empty, so I can't offer Kyle anything. I ask if he wants water, but he merely shakes his head and buries his face in his arms on his knees.

"Shit. Kenny. I'm so fucked up." He mutters, his fists clenching and unclenching.

Tell me about it, I think, everything's so fucked up right now.

"I think..." He clears his throat and corrects himself, "I know...that I'minlovewithStan."

I stare at him for a long moment, and the one thing that's going through my head is: Holy shit.

"WHAT?" I think my voice came out a little sharp because he winced a little at my reaction.

My good friend, Kyle Broflovski, has just confessed to me that he's in love with his best friend, Stanley Marsh, who is also my good friend. I might be going through shock.

Episode One: End.