On the twelfth day of January, Kyle felt as though he should have gone into school wearing full body armour. He wasn't an unaffectionate person – he was happy to hug his friends and his family – but he drew the line at being kissed by everybody, many who he didn't even know, had never even talked to. Some would call him odd; he would call himself hygienic. He had no idea where anybody's lips had been, and he didn't want to know – he just wanted them away from him. But they had other plans.

"Happy Kiss A Ginger Day," Craig drawled as he laid one on Kyle's head in passing. Craig wasn't even the kissing type – he was just doing it to rile Kyle up, he knew. Kyle glared over his shoulder at a laughing Craig as he kept walking, growling and furiously scrubbing at his forehead with his sweater sleeve, trying to rub away his latest kiss.

While he was distracted with that, Bebe came along and kissed him on the cheek. She hurriedly wished him a happy day with a sly giggle and hurried off before she could be berated by an obviously already agitated Kyle. As he changed his attention to his cheek, rubbing it raw, he wished that he had dyed his hair the night before.

Soon, yet another asshole, Dogpoo, came and kissed Kyle, on his other cheek, and he cried out in frustration. He couldn't take it anymore, so he pulled his sweater up over his head. He looked dumb, and lots of people laughed as he continued to march like that to his locker, but at least he couldn't be assaulted anymore. Enough was enough. There had been Kenny at the bus stop, Stan and Wendy in the parking lot, Clyde and Jimmy standing like smooching sentries at the doors to the school, and a plethora of other people on his way down the halls.

The funny thing was that Kiss A Ginger Day was supposed to make minorities like Kyle feel loved, but he had never felt more mocked before in his life! Already he had been kissed more than he ever had in all of his seventeen years, and it was only the morning! Curse whoever had come up with the idea for this damned day…

"Hey, Jew. The fuck is up with that fashion statement?"

Kyle, sweater still over his head, looked away from entering the combination to his locker to see Cartman standing beside him, smirking at his appearance. That smirk… it always riled Kyle up the most. His face turned hot, and he frowned deeply and turned away again.

"Like you can talk," he grumbled. "You look like a fucking turd every day." Cartman always wore the same red hoodie, which Kyle doubted that he ever washed, and the same ripped jeans and scuffed sneakers. His hair was slightly shaggy, too, and looked messy almost on purpose, as though Cartman ruffled it just so every single morning…

…Kyle hated that he thought that that look had a sort of incomprehensible charm to it.

"Pot calling kettle," Cartman said, opening his locker too. Damn whoever had decided for the lockers to be in alphabetical order; theirs were too damned close to each other. It sucked having to deal with Cartman whenever Kyle wanted to put away or take out his books. "But really," Cartman continued, "what's up with you? You look like a wiener pulling a scared turtle."

Kyle couldn't deny that. He hated the comparison, and he guessed he really couldn't go around school looking like that all day – a teacher would have something to say about it sooner or later – so he begrudgingly decided to pull his sweater back down, freeing his unfortunately ginger head and making it a perfect target for kissing once more.

"Don't you know what Day it is?" he sighed as he began pulling books out of his locker.

"Uh… Friday?" Cartman answered genuinely, his face screwing up in confusion as he paused in pulling a book out of his locker to think.

"No, not the day! The Day!" Kyle groaned, exasperated. Cartman raised a scrutinising eyebrow.

"…Is it not Friday?" Cartman asked, sounding unsure now. He was probably starting to question everything he had ever thought he knew, so Kyle decided to put the poor thing out of his misery with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, and it's Kiss A Ginger Day, dumbass."

"Oh…" Cartman said, getting it at last. He paused again in thought. "…Wait, I thought it was Kick A Ginger Day?"

"You think every day's Kick A Ginger Day," Kyle muttered, going back to his books.

"Heh! True," Cartman murmured, smiling fondly, surely at memories of trying to kick Kyle. There was silence for a few seconds, as they both sorted through their books, but that was never to last so long as Cartman was around. "So, like, what? Have people been kissing you?"

"Lots of people," Kyle answered, not even trying to hide his grimace.

"Gross!" Cartman laughed unsympathetically.

"Tell me about it," Kyle grumbled. Cartman shut his locker, the books he needed in his arms, and spun round to lean against his locker, looking Kyle up and down as he continued.

"Who'd wanna kiss you? Don't they know the diseases they could catch?"

"Probably not," Kyle replied boredly, not rising to the bait. "Try telling everybody for me. That might make them stop."

"Aw, what?" Cartman chuckled, finding Kyle's misery all too funny. "Does the Jew not like being kissed? I suppose some human things are foreign to your cold, cruel kind."

"Maybe," Kyle agreed. In the past, he might have vehemently denied being anything other than human, tried feebly to talk some sense into Cartman, and gone into somewhat of a rage when he couldn't. Now, Kyle figured that the best thing was to let Cartman have his little joke. He had become passive with age, perhaps, but that was better for his stress levels when he lived in such a crack-pot place as South Park with whack-job neighbours like Cartman.

Kyle finished retrieving his books, shut his locker, and headed off towards his first class. Cartman, who was done by then but had been waiting for Kyle, wasted no time in following after him. He was grinning like a madman as he caught up, keeping in stride with Kyle, obviously delighted to have found yet another thing to rip on him for.

"What does it feel like? Does being kissed, like, melt you, like acid? Does it make you feel like you've been burned? Is it like chucking holy water on a demon?"

"No," Kyle sighed, tired of but not surprised by Cartman's implications. "I just don't like it. Random people kissing me makes me uncomfortable. I was fine with Stan and Kenny doing it, but it's not just them doing it, it's everybody."

Just then, as if to prove his point, Annie pecked Kyle on the cheek as they passed her. Kyle didn't even stop to react – just kept walking with a bored expression while Annie sang her wishes for a happy day to his back. Kyle was expecting Cartman to laugh uproariously at that, but he had actually gone quite quiet. It wasn't normal for him, so Kyle glanced over at him, and was thrown off to see him glowering silently at the floor as they walked, squeezing his books so tightly to his chest that their spines bent and their pages wrinkled.

"Are you alright, dude?" Kyle enquired, because even if it was Cartman, he couldn't help caring.

"Hmm?" Cartman seemed to snap out of it, looking up again at Kyle. "Oh… Yeah. Fine," he gritted out in a way which suggested that he wasn't at all. He looked back down at the floor, and Kyle raised a disbelieving brow.

"You sure?" he asked again.

"I'm as sure as you are lame," Cartman replied, which sounded more like him, so Kyle shrugged the matter off and let it go, continuing to his classroom.

Clyde was waiting by the classroom door with Token when they got there. His face lit up when he spotted Kyle, and he tapped Token on the shoulder to alert him to his presence. Kyle could see what was coming, but he chose to accept his fate. He just stopped in front of them and kept still, his expression impassive, as Token strode forward and kissed his forehead before wishing him a happy day, with Clyde standing behind him and laughing the whole while. He seemed to be having a happier day than the actual gingers of the school.

"Well," Kyle sighed as Token and Clyde left, their duty done, walking back into the classroom, "I guess the sooner everybody kisses me, the sooner nobody will be left to kiss me." He turned back around to Cartman to hear his opinion, and was surprised to see him looking even more so stony-faced than before, if that was even possible. Kyle cocked his head in confusion. "What? What's that face for?"

Cartman looked to be in deep thought for a moment. Kyle waited, but in the end Cartman didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Hold these," and suddenly shoved his books into Kyle's arms. Kyle scrabbled to keep a hold of them while not dropping his own. As soon as he was sure he had a grip on them all, he allowed himself to get angry.

"What the hell?! Cartman, I'm not being your mule today! Carry your own stuff, you lazy-… Why are you stripping?"

Once more, elusive and mysterious as ever, Cartman didn't answer. He just silently continued to pull his hoodie off over his head, and Kyle stood there dumb-founded, feeling slightly awkward and hot in the face as he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. Man, that baggy hoodie did Cartman's physique no favours, which was a shame because, with his white t-shirt underneath clinging to his body like that, he actually looked…

"Agh!" Kyle cried as Cartman's hoodie was suddenly being shoved over his head. It was so big and baggy, it was like being stuffed in a sack. For a moment, he feared that Cartman was going to kidnap him like that – pick him up and carry him out to the trunk of his car and drive him to a lake and dump him there. Well, he wasn't going without a fight! He squirmed uselessly, blinded and immobilised with his arms trapped inside the hoodie. "What are you doing?! Get this off me!"

"Chill out," Cartman said calmly, sounding far from mischievous or malicious and making no move to grab Kyle and enact the redhead's prediction. Kyle actually listened, stunned to stillness, and simply stood there as Cartman pulled the hoodie the rest of the way down over him until his head popped out of the hole at the top. "There," Cartman said, seemingly satisfied for some reason, and Kyle could only blink in bafflement. With hands which Kyle didn't notice were shaking slightly, Cartman pulled the actual hood further down over Kyle's face, hiding him. "That should stop people kissing you. And you don't look like a dumbass this way."

Kyle's eyes widened at the revelation. So that was it. With his ginger head hidden by the hood of Cartman's too-big, baggy hoodie, Kyle was safe from being spotted in the school as a kissable ginger. Although Kyle didn't actually know why Cartman was going out of his way to help him, he was too relieved and grateful to question it. Besides, if he questioned the rare act of kindness, then it might make Cartman change his mind and revoke it. So instead, Kyle just smiled and said, "Thanks, Cartman."

"Yeah, whatever," Cartman mumbled, and if Kyle hadn't been so busy pushing his arms through the hoodie's sleeves, he might have noticed that the brunet was blushing a bit. "Just get your ass to class, Ginger."

"You get yours, Lard-o," Kyle bit back, finally using his freed arms to pull the books out from under the hoodie and pass Cartman's back to him. "I'll see you later."

"I dread it," Cartman said as he took the books underarm, although he was smiling.

"The feeling's mutual," Kyle said, but he was smiling too. He waved at Cartman as he turned and headed into the classroom, just in time before the bell could ring. "Bye."

"Wait!"

Kyle stopped, blinking in surprise. He hadn't expected such an urgent outburst from Cartman. He was looking at Kyle in the strangest way, with what looked like a concoction of fear and doubt swirling in those cognac irises.

"Uh, yeah?"

"I…" Cartman raised his hand, as though about to reach for Kyle. Then he dropped it again. "Um…" He took a step forward, towards Kyle. Then he stepped back again. "You…" He stood still, those eyes still swirling like a whirlpool, descending into dark depths. Kyle waited. Soon, Cartman's mouth twitched into a belated smile – unconvincing.

"Bye," he said at last. Somehow, Kyle could tell that that wasn't what he had really wanted to say. Somehow, Kyle knew that he didn't want to ask. So he smiled too, and carried on into the classroom, deciding to forget all about it.

Even after Kyle had gone, and the classroom door had shut in his face, Cartman stayed standing outside. He lowered his head, glaring down at his feet and clenching his free hand into a fist at his side, and muttered under his breath.

"You fucking coward. That was the perfect chance…"

Author's Notes:

Yes! My second upload of the month! I'm on a roll! ... Okay, no. I have to come clean. I'm kind of cheating a bit with this fic since it's one I actually wrote a couple of years ago, pfft! I don't know if anyone who follows my Tumblr remembers it, but I posted it there first. My old friend EggyEgg brought my attention to Kiss a Ginger Day back in 2016, and on this day two years ago I wrote and published this fic. I didn't upload it to my account, though, because I wasn't too proud of it back then. I whipped it up thoughtlessly in only about two hours, in a mad rush to get it out before Kiss a Ginger Day was over. And God does it really fucking show in the writing! Still, I like it a little more now, so I think it's time to post it on this platform.
I'm sorry that our beloved Kyle is being tormented in this fic. I realise that I tend to make him suffer a lot in my stories, huh? Sorry, Kyle! Know that I do it out of love, son! Also, speaking of love, does Cartman having a secret crush on Kyle do it for anyone else? Huh? How about Cartman totally needing to go to Jelly School over his feelings for Jew-boy? No? Just me? Alright then.
Thank you! I hope you liked reading this as much as I liked writing it!