Love or Hate?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own South Park or any of the appearing characters. South Park belongs to its creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Chapter 1: Stan
Stan Marsh was staring out of the window in his room. He was looking at the trees and fields, which were all covered with a thin layer of snow. "Stanley, have you done your homework yet?" his mother, who had just entered the room, asked. Stan turned around and shook his head. He knew that he could work harder, and that he wasn't the most assiduous pupil in his class. He wasn't even close to this. But who wanted to end up like one of those geeks who didn't have a life beyond school. He didn't really mind that he wasn't one of the smartest kids in class. In his opinion, studying was boring and unnecessary, because the stuff they learned in school just didn't interest him. The thing he liked was sports. One day Stan wanted to become a soccer player, and he was training for that almost every day with his friends at the sports field in front of their school.
When his mom had left the room, he continued looking out of the window. There was an old weeping willow right in front of his house. It was the place where he had first kissed his former girlfriend, Wendy Testaburger. He liked to think back to that moment. It happened last year, in July, 1942, when it had been very hot. Wendy and Stan were having a picnic. They had been talking to each other for about three hours, and also telling each other jokes. Stan had had a crush on Wendy since he had first seen her. Till then, he didn't dare to tell her, because he had been afraid that she didn't feel the same way for him. That day, though, he had bought a bouquet of red roses, and had wanted to confess his love to her. When he had given her the flowers, she was very happy. "Oh thanks, Stan", she said in her soft and lovely voice, "These are the most wonderful present a girl could ask for!" Then she had pulled him really close, and pressed her lips against his. This was the best feeling Stan had ever had. He still could remember every detail of that moment. Wendy's warm lips on his, the gentle touch of her hand on his cheek, and the joyful twittering of the birds in the tree upon their heads.
Last week, though, Wendy and her family had moved to Berlin. The day before they did, she told him they couldn't be together anymore. That day had been the saddest one in his whole life. Stan still missed his ex-girlfriend very badly, and his biggest wish was that the two of them would get back together one day. But this year, everything got a lot more complicated. The Second World War has been lasting for more than three years now, and most of the men had already had to leave their families to fight in the German Army. Not many of those who Stan had known, though. The Marshes lived in a very small village called Niederneukirchen in the Ostmark, where most of the people were farmers, and therefore didn't have to fight. Stan's parents, too, owned a small farm. They only had some chickens, cows, and goats. There was also an old dog, Sparky, living with them. When Sparky was younger, Stan used to play with him very often, but these days, the dog just wasn't in the mood to play anymore. All he did was spending the whole time on the living room couch, sleeping. But Stan didn't want to play either. He was still very frustrated from the breakup with Wendy. Now he liked to spend his spare time in his room, looking out of the window, and thinking of the old days. Usually Stan was working at the Mayers' farm to earn some extra money for his family. Mr Marsh and Mr Mayer had already been friends since they had been in elementary school together. Stan hated to work for them, because they made him, who was the youngest worker at their farm, do the shittiest jobs, like cleaning the cow or the pig stable. But he knew that his family needed the money he earned. His father had lost his job about two weeks ago. The shop in which he used to work was closed down, and he hadn't found a new job yet. His older sister, Shelley, was too lazy to find a job. She was pretending to make efforts to get one, in order to avoid getting hit by their father. Mr Marsh also hit Stan sometimes, mostly when he was drunk. Every evening, his father used to go to the inn on the other side of the village, and drank beer while playing cards with some of his best friends. The thing that made him angry the most was, when Stan didn't go to work, like this day. He wanted to avoid getting hit, so he just told his parents that he was not feeling well. His mother insisted on him doing his homework anyway, which would have been great for him if she didn't. Normally Mrs Marsh was very busy doing the housework, and had no time for him, but she did have time to come to his room every ten minutes to ask him if he had finished his homework yet, or if he had already studied for his tests. She just couldn't get that Stan didn't care about anything except Wendy. He knew that it would maybe be good if he talked to them about their breakup, and how this had affected him. But would they even listen to him? Would they care about what he felt like? Eventually he decided to give it a try anyway when they would have dinner. So he considered what exactly to say.
When he was sitting at the dining table with his parents and sister, he didn't want to tell to them right away. He prayed that his mother would bring in something delicious to eat, and he was disappointed when he saw it was soup again. He was sick of eating soup. They had had nothing else to eat for a very long time, and Stan prayed that his mother would cook goulash, his favorite food. Out of disappointment, he stirred the soup with the spoon. This made his father angry and he shouted, "Stanley, eat your food!" "Don't shout at him all the time, Randy", his wife said to him, and turned to Stan, "Is there a problem, dear?" At first he didn't know what to say, but then he told her the story about his breakup with Wendy. His father, still angry, reacted to his story with, "See, that happens when you're dating girls at such a young age! I started having my first relationship when I was, like, 18 or 19." "Thanks for making me feel better, dad", Stan said, sarcastically. "That's enough now, Stanley! Go to bed! Without dinner!", Mr Marsh shouted. Stan's sister, Shelley, who was five years older than him, laughed at her brother.
The two siblings had never had a good relationship with each other, and when Stan was younger, she beat him up very often. The thing that had been even worse than her beats was the fact that Stan, too, had always been punished with her for fighting.
Stan quickly left the table before his father would get angrier and hit him. He went upstairs to his room where he drew the old curtains, and lay down on his bed. He was still thinking about Wendy. When she had still been living next door to him, he used spend most of his spare time with her, and didn't know who he shall hang out with now. He closed his eyes, thought of his first kiss again, and soon fell asleep.
A/N: I hope you liked the first chapter of my story. I know, it may be a little boring to read that much about Stan's life, but most of it is being relevant in the next chapters of my story (btw, there's gonna be some Kyman in it later, I promise).
Niederneukirchen is an actual village in Austria. My grandmother used to spend her childhood there (she was born in 1940), so I've asked her to tell me something about her life there, because I'm trying to be historically accurate. Austria was part of the Third Reich in the war, and the country was called Ostmark. Later, its name was changed to Oberdonau (=Upper Danube or something like this in English), because the Ostmark resembled the German name for Austria (Österreich) too much. The thing that most inhabitants of Niederneukirchen were farmers, and didn't have to fight in WWII is also true. Later, those people with a smaller farm (like the Marshes) also had to join the Army, like from 1944 to the end of the war in 1945 also most of the males aged 14 or older.
Thanks for reading! :) Review please. I'll update the story as soon as possible.