-1Disclaimer: South Park and all characters in it are copyright Matt Stone and Trey Parker, not me.
A/N:
This one is one of the weird type of ones I like to write. YEAH YEAH. Its super long, it makes up for Furniture being so short. XD
…no, I mean it, its really, really weird.
It's ALMOST but NOT QUITE Memento type weird… D: Watched the movie? Then you'll have an idea… or something…
…yep, still weird…
I'M STILL THANKING YOU GUYS CUZ YOU ROCK:
Zakuyoe
Milkshakehobo
Ttchaku
Title: The K Squared 100
Author: Zoshi the Confused
Rating: Ranging, mostly PG-PG13
Category: South Park
Genre: General/Romance
Collection may contain: Shounen-Ai/Boy Love, Violence, Adult Situations, Swearing, SUPER WEIRDNESS
Theme 4: Retained
(retain: to keep in mind; remember)
The cup of coffee stood on the cafe table. Next to it lay a brown paper napkin imprinted with the recycle logo. A few spots of coffee stained the napkin where it had been used to mop up a small spill. A hand picked the cup up to the mouth of the blond who'd bought it near half an hour ago. He took a sip, frowning when he found that the liquid had cooled too much to taste good. The man stood and headed for the door, the cup ending, still half-full, in the garbage can right next to it.
Outside the world was shades of gray. An overcast sky meant that the only light to reach the ground was filtered, half-gone. A memory tugged in the back of the man's mind; ten years ago on a day like this...
...on a day just as overcast and cloudy, he'd been accompanying his friends to the newest film out in the local movie theater. The light had just changed from red to green, and they'd bolted off across the street. On those first steps his fingers had brushed those of the boy next to him; he liked to think it had been accidental. The redhead had given him a quick, shocked look before pointedly glancing away. By the time they'd reached the other side their fingers had touched half a dozen times more; those definitely hadn't been his fault...
The man jerked out of the memory. His eyes narrowed as he strained to focus on the lest remnants of the image. A redhead with gray eyes... a movie theater with neon lights half a block down... Harris and Main...
The image slipped from his grasp before he had good focus on it. A moment later and he stood there, wondering what it was he had been wondering about. His hand moved to his jacket pocket of its own accord, and he was surprised to find himself holding a piece of paper. After studying it carefully for a moment, he nodded and tucked it back in his pocket, heading on down the street.
It was early evening; around him people left jobs, headed home. Some left homes to head for work. He passed a family with two young children in tow, both sporting paper crowns and a handfull of balloons. A man left a flower shop as he stepped past, and for a moment the fragrance of roses, lilies and lilac invaded his senses. It was like stepping into a garden...
...the botanic gardens, where he wandered around with the rest of his class. The field trip was boring; he must've said so because the redheaded boy next to him laughed and rolled his eyes. They were alone in that part of the gardens. Roses mingled with lilies around them; red and orange and yellow and white. They were passing between two rows of lavender that bordered the roses and lilies when he let his fingers brush those of the boy next to him. The hand wasn't pulled away, and he made the seemingly drastic move of twining his fingers with those next to them. For a long moment they walked so in silence, until the calls of their fellow classmates forced them to pull their hands back to their own sides. He liked to think that he hadn't done anything wrong, but the other boy still wouldn't look in his direction...
The man was still staring at the door of the flower shop. He frowned at it before moving on through the growing crowd. The remnants of the memory were already escaping his mind; he couldn't remember what types of flowers they were, and... and what it was that had made him stare at the flower shop. There had to be something.
He was still trying to remember what it was when he reached the front of the building who's number was on the piece of paper in his pocket. He reached into his other pocket (an action also noted down on that same piece of paper) and pulled out a set of keys on a keychain. Each of them had their own marker.
The first said "Front-Outside". He pushed it into the slot of the lock, twisted, and pushed the door open. After entering he pushed the door closed with a loud clunk. Looking at it for a moment he turned the little handle on the inside and locked the door.
The second key on the keychain said "Front-Inside". He held it for a moment, then noticed a line of metal mailboxes. An apartment house, then. He turned to the second door and inserted the key into the door's lock. A twist, and he pushed it open and entered the main building. This door closed behind him, locked as it did so.
He turned to the third key on the keychain. "Apt. 3F". Looking at the first door, he saw that it was 1A. Deciding that the numbers stood for the floor number, he headed towards the stairs. Slowly he moved up through the building, checking the doorways he passed to be sure of his destination. On the third floor he moved past the A, B, C, D, and E doors, stopping at the one that matched the notation on his key.
The key fit the lock, and when he twisted it he could hear the lock open. That was good, he hadn't made any mistatkes along the way. Pushing open the door he closed it behind, locking it before he turned forward. A plaque hung next to the door, the word "Keys" painted on in flowing calligraphy above four small hooks. A set of keys already hung on one of the hooks, and the man looked at them curiously as he hung his own set on the neighboring hook.
A coat hanger stood in the corner of where the wall the door was on met another, and he took his jacket off and hung it up. His shoes, he saw, were supposed to go on a mat next to the coat hanger. There they went, and after that he made his way further into the apartment. There were some noises coming from the room adjacent to the living/dining room, which is where he ended up. Curious, he entered through the doorway to see that it was a kitchen. A redheaded, curly-haired man was pulling an aluminum foil covered pan out of the oven. The blond waited while the other man placed the pan on top of the stove, peeling back the aluminum foil and inspecting the contents closely before nodding and pulling off the oven mitts on his hands. The man turned around finally, and noticed the blonde standing by the entrance to the room. A small, uncertain smile crossed his face.
"I'm... Kenny," The blond said, watching the man curiously.
"I... yeah...," The redheaded man said. "Hi Kenny..."
He seemed about to say more, but his voice faded out.
"I know you...?" Kenny's words turned into a question towards the end. The man nodded.
"I'm Kyle," The man said. "We're roommates."
"Oh." Kenny said. A stiff moment passed. "I don't remember."
"I know." A pained expression crossed the man's – Kyle's – face, but it was replaced quickly with a smile. "Dinners ready. Are you hungry?"
Kenny walked over to look into the pan on the stove. There were two chicken breasts, steamed with vegetables. The smell was tantalizing.
"It smells good." Kenny said, then looked over at Kyle. "Should I set the table?"
"Sure," Kyle grinned. "The plates are in the cabinet over the microwave, the forks and knives are in the shelf under it."
"Okay," Kenny moved towards the indicated cabinet. In a few minutes he'd set up the table with two plates, two knives and two forks. By that time Kyle had transferred a pot full of whole, young potatoes onto a serving dish. He motioned for Kenny to sit, and then served the chicken onto the plates, dividing the vegetables among them evenly. Kenny looked down at his plate, noticing that Kyle had given him more carrots than anything else. After taking a bite of one, he realized that they tasted better than anything else as well.
The meal was mostly silent. Every now and then Kenny would look at Kyle, about to say something, but realize that he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. Each time the other man would wait expectantly, more often than not fork held in midair, as if he was afraid that any movement he made might interrupt Kenny's train of thought. It didn't matter much, either way whatever it was that wanted to come out of the blond man's mouth got lost somewhere along its path from his brain to his lips.
The meal was familiar, however. Kenny found it strange, since almost nothing was familiar anymore. The steamed chicken and vegetables struck a chord somewhere in his mind, the taste was something could remember liking, although he honestly thought this was the first time he tasted it...
...and it was the first time he tasted it, even if the redhead sitting across from him didn't believe it. A poor boy didn't get much chance to try anything as complicated as this dish. He commented that it was probably the best dinner he ever had, to which the redhead blushed deeply, attempting to hide it behind a can of suger-free soda he suddenly decided to take a sip of. That moment, along with the facts that it was the redheaded boy doing the inviting, and that said boy's family was nowhere to be seen, made the blonde decide this was more than just a pity party. He wondered, briefly, whether the other boy had made the dinner himself...
"I remembered something..." Kenny said suddenly, before he'd even realized it. Kyle looked up from his plate, eyes almost painfully focused on the blond. Kenny opened his mouth to speak, but his mind drew a blank. There had been something there...
"...I... I did, I just... it..." He tried to pull something back, anything, if he could only grasp it again.
"It's allright, Kenny," Kyle said softly. "It's all right..."
"Shouldn't... Shouldn't I be more... surprised by things?" Kenny looked at the man across from him. His blue eyes met worried gray ones, but Kyle smiled.
"You said, once, that maybe a part of your brain actually does remember things, but its just... sleepwalking," Kyle explained. Kenny wondered about it; maybe that was why the memories that surfaced disappeared so quick. Maybe that's why he wasn't as shocked by the appearance of what would be an unknown man in an apartment that was apparently his home.
"Harrison... and, and Main," Kenny said suddenly. He was a little puzzled, where had that come from? "And... botanic gardens..."
Kyle was staring at him, eyes wide in surprise. Kenny frowned, then shook his head.
"Sorry, that... just came out of nowhere..." He turned back to his chicken, prodding it with his fork.
"I... I'll get us something to drink..." Kyle stood up suddenly. His voice sounded strained, but he grinned at Kenny as he returned with the glasses. "I totally forgot about that..."
The rest of dinner passed more or less quietly. After the dishes were done Kenny wandered out into the other hallway of the apartment. There were two bedrooms, it seemed, and a bathrom at the end. He stopped at the door with the sign on it that said "Kenny" and entered what he guessed was his room.
It was clean, and neat. There was a bed on one said, with a nightstand next to it. A lamp and an alarm clock were all that were on the nightstand. Across from the bed stood a dresser, and next to that was the door to the closet. Across from the doorway a window opened up onto a view into the garden at the back of the building. Under the window stood a desk, with a desk lamp, a holder full of pens and pencils, a day-by-day calendar, and a single black book on the top.
Walking over, Kenny picked up the black book and began flipping through the pages. The front page had his full name, Kenneth McCormick, written along lines indicated for that purpose, along with the address of the building he was currently living in. Below that were lines for an emergency contact, the name Kyle Broflovski on the line that followed, along with the same address, and two phone numbers.
A few pages further he came upon a list. It was titled "Retained", and underneath that were dates, each followed by a few words. The first date was almost -he checked the calendar on his desk- three years past. Flipping forward he came to the end of the list. Pulling a pen out of the holder, he wrote in that days date, then turned around and walked out of the room.
The TV was on in the main room, and he found Kyle seated on the sofa across from it. The redheaded man put the TV on mute as soon as he saw him, looking up with a grin. Kenny sat down on the couch next to him.
"What did I remember?" He asked. Kyle stayed silent for a moment, giving him a long, steady look.
"Harris and Main, you said," He answered finally, "They're probably streets... And botanic gardens."
Kenny noted the two things down on the list. He looked down at it for a long moment; he couldn't remember remembering those things at all.
"Do you think I'll ever remember?" He asked, still looking down at the list.
"Someday... probably..." Kyle answered softly. Kenny looked at him, seeing the tiredness in his eyes.
"It doesn't matter what you say, does it?" He said, "I'm not going to remember it tomorrow anyway..."
"I... I guess..." Kyle answered. His voice wavered slightly as he said it.
Kenny nodded, closing the book. He leaned against the back of the couch, looking over at the TV.
"What's on?" He asked.
"Oh... uh, a documentary about sharks..." Kyle said, turning the sound back on.
"Looks interesting..." Kenny said. He'd really have to try to make an effort to remember something...
Harrison and Main... Botanic Gardens...
...what had he been thinking about?