Disclaimer: South Park is probably lucky I don't own it.
Author's Note: I'm sorry this took so long to put up! I had surgery yesterday, and I thought I would have time to finish it while I was lying in bed...wrong. The piankillers made me drowsy and I actually slept for a total of about 6 hours of daylight - not counting the other 8 hours of sleep I got at night. Which meant that today, since I'm now off the painkillers, I got to work on this. It still took forever. This isn't exactly how I had planned this chapter, but I still like it a lot actually...I think it turned out quite well. So enjoy!
Chapter 3: Football
Kyle was awoken the following morning not by his much-hated alarm clock, but by the voice of his mother. "Come on, Bubbie!" his mom called. Kyle blinked and looked at the clock. What time was it? He groaned as he realized it was 2 whole hours before school starts. "Mom, why do I have to wake up this early?" he asked her, biting off a swear word at the last second. "Don't you remember? You have to go to debate club this morning!" Fuck! He had completely forgotten. "Thanks, mom," he said, although he wasn't really that grateful.
About half an hour later, he walked downstairs still in a sleeping state. As he stumbled towards the kitchen a paper airplane crashed into his head. He turned around in confusion and spotted Ike. "You're no fun," the ten year old Ike pouts. "What? Ike, why not?" "You're supposed to be mad, not happy that I threw that at you." Kyle rolled his eyes. Kids. "I'm sorry Ike, I'm still kind of asleep. I promise, I'll be properly angry at you later." Satisfied, Ike headed back towards the kitchen. Kyle did a quick survey of the cereal that was in the house. Not finding anything satisfying, he decided that maybe he would have something while he was at school – maybe Stan brought food with him. His stomach grumbled as he remembered he would be seeing Stan a little later than normal, today. It would have to do, though. He grabbed his backpack and headed out the door.
"Hey, wait!" Ike called, running after Kyle. "What?" Kyle asked, a little annoyed. "You forgot this, it was sitting on the floor in your room. It has Stan's name on it so I assume you're giving it to him." Kyle checked to make sure the note had not been read before he turned back to Ike. "Thanks, Ike, you're the best little brother around," and he gave him a hug before heading out the door. It would take him probably the full half hour to walk to school, but that was fine by him. As he walked past Craig's house, he decided not to bother him today. He was getting to school so early, he could easily put the note in his locker himself. Besides, Craig was getting a little fed up by the whole thing, and he didn't want him to get so annoyed that he told Stan about it. He didn't doubt for a second that Craig would do it, either. Maybe it wasn't the world's smartest idea to trust him, but at the time he didn't think he had a choice.
Arriving at school, the first person he saw as he walked through the door was Cartman. Great. What a wonderful way to start the day, he thought as he tried to ignore him. "What's wrong, Jew?" Cartman inquired as he followed him. "Fuck off, Cartman." Kyle wasn't in the mood today to put up with him – correct that. He was never in the mood to put up with him. He was almost to Stan's locker when he turned around. Cartman was still following him. He nearly screamed in frustration, but managed to hold his tongue. The note could wait until later. He would just head to the debate club classroom.
Kyle finally managed to shake Cartman off at the classroom door. He could tell that Cartman wasn't too keen on leaving, but wasn't desperate enough to stick around and watch "fags arguing about the rights of their homosexuality with creepy old guys", as he said. Well, as long as it got rid of him. Kyle couldn't concentrate on debate, though. Why did he even join the debate club? It was boring. Sure, he loved arguing points as much as the next person, but did it have to go along with memorizing speeches and discussing boring topics? Why couldn't they just have a general argument about what color is prettier or something like that? He knew full well why he joined the debate club. His mother had been on the debate club when she was in high school, and she was forever wanting her kids to be just like her. "Come on, Bubbie, it'll be fun!" she told him. And for a time, he believed her. He started to look forward to being on the debate team. But all that changed at his first meeting. Perhaps it would be better if the teacher in charge wasn't so strict. Maybe it would be more fun if the kids weren't all Melvins. But it was too late to back out now. Kyle Broflovski was stuck on the debate team, like it or not.
After 45 minutes of pure torture, Kyle ran out of the room and practically threw himself at Stan's locker. It was too late, Stan could see him, he was walking towards him…Kyle sighed in relief as Wendy started talking to Stan. They had been in an on and off relationship since the third grade, but right before they all got into high school they broke it off for good. Kyle didn't know all the details, mostly because Stan wouldn't tell him much and now that they weren't together, Kyle didn't really have any reason to talk to Wendy. They had remained friends, though, much to everyone's surprise. They could still remember how upset Stan was every time they weren't together, and didn't realize that he could even stand to be her friend now. Kyle took this opportunity to stuff the note in Stan's locker. Thank you, Wendy, he said silently in his mind. It would have been pretty bad if Stan caught him putting the note in.
Just then, Stan walked up to him. "Hey!" he greeted him, and started punching in his locker combination. "Hey, Stan, what's up?" "Not much. Where were you yesterday after school?" he paused from putting in the combination to look at him. "Oh, sorry, dude…Butters wanted to know if we could hang out, and I felt sorry for him so I said okay." "That's cool, I guess." Kyle felt bad, because Stan looked a little upset that Kyle would choose Butters over him. "Well, we can hang out after school today, I promise!" Now it was Stan's turn to feel bad. "Um…I have to stay after today. Football practice, you know. We have a game tomorrow night." Kyle had completely forgotten about the game, even though he knew he would be going, to cheer Stan on. The team was probably one of the best that had been put together for a while. Stan was the quarterback, and that was about the only position that Kyle could remember. He didn't really care about sports all that much; he found that he couldn't keep up with his grades if he did too many extra activities. He knew that Clyde and Token were also on the team, though. "Oh…sorry…forgot…" Kyle mumbled. Stan wasn't listening, though – he had just discovered the note. "Stan..?" Kyle questioned the silence. "Look, Ky!" Stan said, with tears in his eyes. "They're so sweet! So amazingly sweet! They even typed the note up in my favorite color!" Kyle refrained from jumping up in joy, and settled for rolling his eyes in mock sarcasm. "Stan, you can be so emotional sometimes," he said. And that's what I love about you, he thought.
The next day, Kyle woke up in a panic. What time is it? he thought. I can't be late! And he almost was late. He ran out the door and arrived at the bus stop just as the bus was leaving. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled after it. The bus stopped and Kyle ran on. The bus driver didn't say anything, but gave him an evil glare as he ran to sit down. "Dude, what took you so long?" Stan said, trying to hide his laughter. Kyle glared at him. "It's not funny, Stan. For some reason my alarm clock didn't go off." Stan was still laughing, and it didn't look like he would stop anytime soon, so Kyle continued to glare at him. "I'm…sorry, Ky…" Stan said, pausing in between words to laugh. "But…you made it…so lighten up!" and he hugged him. Kyle immediately stiffened, and looked at him. "Um…sorry, dude." Stan had finally stopped laughing. "No," Kyle said. "It's okay. You just caught me off guard." He let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and within a few minutes he and Stan were talking and joking around like normal.
All that day, Stan was worrying about his football game. He was also wondering if his secret admirer would be there, and if maybe they would talk to him and tell him who they were. He hoped that his thoughts about the notes didn't distract him from playing the game to the best of his ability. He worried about football a lot. When he was younger, he was a great player, but he didn't have much confidence in his abilities anymore. He thought that he probably just got placed on the team for sake of tradition, and that he didn't have any real talent.
All too soon, though, his worry was replaced with excitement as he went to pick Kyle up over at his house. "Be there in a minute!" Kyle called from his bedroom window. "Just wait!" Stan rolled his eyes and grinned at his best friend. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you always say. Just hurry," he called up to him, still smiling so that Kyle knew he wasn't angry at him. This time he guessed accurately, though, because he was out the door only 30 seconds later. To Stan's surprise, Ike was following his brother. "Hey, Kyle…Ike," he greeted the two of them. "I hope you don't mind, Stan, but I promised him he could come…he wants to learn how to play, and besides since you'll be playing I would have been all alone. It'll be more fun for me with Ike there," Kyle said, ruffling his little brother's hair and smiling at him. "No, that's okay," Stan said. Ike was a fun kid to be around, even though he was supposedly a genius he was still as random as he was when he was very young, and it always made for interesting conversations.
When they arrived at the school, Stan had to leave the two of them alone so that he could change into his uniform. Kyle searched around for seats, and they finally found an open spot only about 5 benches away from the field. That would make it easier for Kyle and Stan to talk during halftime. "So…what's up with you and Stan?" Ike asked his brother. Kyle jumped; he had nearly forgotten Ike was there. "What do you mean?" he asked, gazing down at Ike. "You seemed relaxed, but tense." "Oh yeah, Ike, that really makes it clear what you mean." "No, I'm serious! Like you acted all cool and everything but you were on guard. Why?" Kyle knew he could trust Ike. If he couldn't trust his own brother, who could he trust? "Promise you won't tell mom?" he asked, already knowing the answer. "Of course not, Kyle. If you don't want me to tell them, I won't." He nodded in thanks and acceptance. "Well…okay. Remember that note you handed me the other day, the one with Stan's name on it?" Ike looked a little confused. "Yeah…" "Well, it was a love note." At this, Ike begin to choke a little. "What?" "Ike, are you okay with this?" "You…you're gay..?" Ike didn't look freaked out, merely confused. Kyle just nodded his head as an answer. "You could have told me before!" Ike finally spit out. Kyle looked at him in disbelief. "Excuse me? Here I thought you were going to tell me you're homophobic and it turns out you're just mad that I didn't tell you?" Ike looked rather ashamed. "Yeah…I'm not homophobic, I can't believe you would think that! But please, continue on with your story," he said, curiosity once again winning out over anger. "I've been leaving notes for Stan for a few months now, usually only one note a week. But then I got sick last week, so I decided to leave two that week to draw suspicion away from myself. I've been getting someone else to leave the notes. And now, I have someone who is letting me use their locker so Stan can write notes back to me…only he thinks he's writing to a girl. I'm just letting him think that for now, so that he can fall in love with what I'm writing. Then I'll let him know that he's writing to a guy, and if that doesn't freak him out then I'll let him know it's me."
Ike just stared in disbelief at his brother. "Kyle…you're so stupid," he said, shaking his head. "What?" "If Stan only wants to be with girls, then it doesn't matter how much he likes your writing, he's going to be upset. So I would tell him in your next note, if I were you. And whose locker are you using? He's going to find out who they are eventually, curiosity will get the better of him. From there, he might even be able to figure out it's you. Last but not least, Stan and you are super best friends, right? And nothing can change that! Not even you telling him you have feelings for him!" Well, I feel foolish now, Kyle thought. But out loud he said, "Ike! I'm not going to just tell him! And he won't find out who is leaving the notes by finding out whose locker I'm using!" "Well, do what you want, Kyle…I support you no matter what your decision is. I'm just saying, it's not the way I would do it." "Well, fuck you!" Kyle said a bit louder than he meant to, drawing the attention of the people surrounding them. He felt his face grow red. "Nice one, Ky," his brother smirked. "Real graceful." But he gave him a hug to make him feel better, and then they paid attention to the game, with Kyle explaining the rules to Ike.
The end of the game was close, and there was a tie between their "Mixed Park" team and the Denver school team that was competing against them. One minute before the game was over, Stan got the ball. "Go, Stan!" both Kyle and Ike shouted. A few seconds later he made a touchdown; the winning score. "Yes!" The two brothers danced with joy under the now-dark sky and stars. "So, Kyle…want to go talk to Stan?" Ike smirked. "Ha ha, very funny. Yes, actually. Let's go!" Kyle said with sudden enthusiasm, grabbing Ike's hand and dragging him down to the field. He walked up and down, looking for Stan. "Looking for me?" he heard a soft voice behind him. "Stan! You won! You won!" he was jumping up and down, and ran to hug Stan. "Dude…that was so totally gay," he said, in the gayest voice possible. "And that wasn't?" Kyle asked. "Well duh! Of course it was!" Stan once again said in his gay voice, and laughed. Ike rolled his eyes. He couldn't figure out why Kyle didn't just tell Stan that he liked him, they seriously were perfect for each other. But it wasn't his decision to make, so for now he would keep his mouth shut about it. There was plenty of time for the two of them to figure it out themselves, later.
Author's Note: Chapters will probably be beginning with Kyle waking up, always. Well, if someone's starting their day I think it's a good way to start the chapter! That could change, at one point. Also, I needed Ike in this chapter. Just needed it, because Ike is one of my favorite characters and I always think about how he'll be when he's older. And no story is complete without him...so I added him! Admit it, his character fit in so perfectly you're jealous you didn't think of it. Anyway, that's all...once again, all comments are appreciated...yes, even hate mail! So go ahead! Hate this story? Tell me why! Besides, then I get the fun of making it better. But tell me if you love this story, too...and if you have any suggestions, go ahead and let me know.
