His whole body was shaking from the strength of his sobs, but he didn't notice. How could he? He had other things on his mind . . .

The gun was still somewhere in the room. Where had it been dropped? The knife was somewhere by his feet, he knew. The bloody knife . . .

Would he be morbid for the rest of his life? Would he be crazy? Depressed? Would he go into permanent shock?

He couldn't think about himself though. The body was still in sight; he had closed his eyes, but there it was, behind his eyelids and in his mind. Would he ever stop thinking about it?

"Come on, we need to get out of here."

The other person was still there, he realized with a shock. They were shaking him; he was shaking just fine on his own, he didn't need their help, whoever it was. They were holding themselves together well, weren't they? Didn't they realize that there was a body right there? That someone would never see another sunrise? Would never get to say goodbye? Would never . . . would never . . .

The sobbing grew worse than it had been before.

Chapter Two

The Monday Following the Party

Lunch had once been his favorite period of the day. The food wasn't the greatest—he missed Chef—but he got to see his friends for a while, and it was after his most stressful class of the day—drama, which he had with Cartman. He had trouble tolerating one, but throwing them together?—so it gave him a bit of time to wind down. Of course, Cartman was also there, but he could look over the boy for half an hour if it ment he got to see Stan and Kenny.

Correction: he used to be able to tolerate Cartman for half an hour, and lunch used to be his favorite period of the day. It had grown to be unbearable during the first week of Buttman—that was what Kenny had labeled Butters and Cartman's relationship; personally, Kyle would rather reffer to it as Cutters, since watching them together made him want to cut his eyes out, but that was irrelevant. It wasn't that they were mushy; Butters sometimes got that way, but Eric Cartman would die before he ever got mushy over anyone. It definitely wasn't because they were gay—though, in all fairness, Kyle had the sneaking suspicion that they were both bi, even though neither mentioned it. It was because . . .

Kyle couldn't believe the reason. Kenny had pointed it out to him, and Kenny was almost always right about these things, but . . . Him? Jealous? Of what? Cartman was fat. Cartman was an asshole. Cartman was a Nazi, for fucks sake!

Eric Cartman was overweight, but not to the point where he was unhealthy, like he had been when they were children. He was an asshole, and he probably always would be, but at least he spoke his mind, right? Kyle couldn't stand two-faced people; it's part of the reason that even if he wasn't gay, which he was one hundred percent sure he was, he would never date Bebe. Sure, the guy was manipulative, but at least with Cartman, you knew where you stood—usually; the guy could be really hard to figure out at times. As for being a Nazi . . . He still made remarks—Kyle doubted that would ever change—but he had never actually done anything; the few times that he had tried to kill Kyle over the years hadn't been about religion, they had been about other—why was he doing this to himself? Why was he going through a mental list of Cartman's flaws and pointing out the reasons why they weren't so bad?

Self-loathing was going to become a constant for him, it seemed.

He had been agitated throughout all of lunch, and he was sure that Stan and Kenny had both noticed. Great. They would probably want to talk to him about it later, he was sure, to make sure that he was okay. At least Cartman didn't notice; he was too busy with Butters—was the boy rubbing his crotch under the table? It seemed like something was going on down there, but Kyle didn't want to look to make sure—and his food to notice anything else.

"The movie was really g-great last night, Eric. Thank you for taking me to s-see it."

Butters' stutter was doing nothing to calm Kyle's agitation; his voice alone was enough to annoy the redhead.

"No problem, Butters."

Dates. They were actually going on dates. Kyle couldn't picture Cartman dating. He was still having trouble picturing Cartman even being in a relationship, despite it being in his face for at least half an hour five days a week. Pretty soon he would start letting Butters tag along with him when the group—even after making it to high school, Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and him hung out together—did things together.

Kyle was making it a habit to grit his teeth together when annoyed.

It was when Butters kissed the larger boy on the cheek that Kyle decided he had had enough for the day. It was almost time to go to their next block—a Cartman free one luckily—and if he left to go to the bathroom, it wouldn't look suspicious if he didn't come back. Besides, Kenny had been eying his lunch tray the whole period, and the boy looked like he could really use some food. Pushing his tray towards the skinny boy—Kyle knew, despite him wearing a hoodie all of the time, that Kenny was severely under weight—he announced that he was going to the bathroom and left without another word.

"What's his problem? Sand in his vagina again?"

Cartman had noticed his behavior, though Kyle was too aggravated to notice the larger boy noticing him.

"Who knows? I'll talk to him about it later. Just stay out of it, Cartman."

Stan was, naturally, coming to the rescue as the best friend. Kenny was smirking, but he was too wrapped up in his lunch to say anything. Butters was too preoccupied with something under the table to make any input. And Eric? Eric was annoyed. He didn't like being told to fuck off, which was pretty much what Stan had said to him.

"Whatever, hippie. I don't want in your boyfriend's business anyway."

That, naturally, set Wendy off on a whine/rant. Cartman, being in no mood for it, ignored her, his eyes focusing on the door that Kyle had went out of.

"Here, Eric! I finally found—"

Butters had been digging around his school bag for a box of Pocky he had promised Eric (the hand movement that Kyle had seen), but the boy had forgotten about it; he stood up from his seat, interrupting the blond mid-sentence, and pushed his own tray towards Kenny; he would usually throw it away just to be cruel, but his mind was elsewhere.

"I need to take a piss."