Kyle had always been the most intuitive one in their group. From the time when his biomes had told him about the bookcase, to him accidentally correctly predicting how the pilgrims and Native Americans had actually been aliens, Kyle had often had his intuition lead him. It was ironic how he loved rationalizing everything and yet often had to deal with things he couldn't rationalize—only feel, like his Jersey side coming through.
This time, though, he didn't know what it was trying to hell him.
There was a girl at the other end of the aisle, in a pink parka, loitering before an instant noodles selection with a pondering expression. Kyle froze where he was standing as he stared at her. He didn't know her but for some reason, she really reminded him of something...someone?
"Kyle?"
Kyle realized he was spacing out. Stan and Cartman, already a few yards ahead, were looking at him.
"Hurry up, Jew," Cartman mumbled, arms full of snacks.
Kyle wanted to retort but blinked when he noticed that the pink parka girl was now gone. Was she even there in the first place? He wasn't sure anymore. A weird, wormy feeling had settled in the pit of his stomach, and he shook his head in an attempt not to think about it as he caught up with his friends.
It wasn't just that one time.
Occasionally, Kyle would see or hear something and he would snap out of whatever he was doing at the moment, furrowing his brows and trying to catch the chimera itching at his brain. He had no idea what this weird feeling was—a vestige of an emotion, a blotted-out memory at the periphery of his mind? Sometimes, even though but for a second, he could almost smell or see fragments of it: the cloying greasy odor; small hands in brown gloves, and the metallic scent of blood, for some reason. Those would flash in his mind like a bolt of lightning and then disappear just as abruptly.
What was worse, it seemed that in their group of three, he was the only one who felt it.
It was especially cold once, and Stan's mother insisted on wrapping him up in a big knit scarf—Cartman would call him a pussy obligatorily later, of course. With the lower half of Stan's face concealed, his voice sounded kind of muffled.
"Mom, I'm not ten years old!" he protested; Sharon ignored him. The phrase sounded more like "mphmph" because of the scarf but Kyle somehow understood it, and what's more, something seemed to click in his brain.
Snapshots flashed through his mind again: a dirty, ratty smell; low superhero-like voice; truck running over someone. The fragments inundated Kyle's memory, swirling like a carousel, but he didn't recognize any of them.
"Goddammit," Stan said once they were out the door and he pulled the scarf off in an annoyed gesture. The carousel of images in Kyle's mind shattered instantly.
"Who was it?" Kyle blurted out. Stan looked at him.
"Who?"
"Didn't that remind you guys of something? When you had this scarf on, your voice… muffled… doesn't it remind you of anything?"
Cartman snorted and said something offensive. Stan just looked confused.
"Not really, dude. Who are you talking about?"
Kyle sighed.
"Nevermind."
When they were in high school, Kyle excavated an old Monopoly from the depths of his room one evening and as an homage to the good ol' days, they decided to play it. There were four tokens inside though obviously, they only needed three.
Something tugged at Kyle's chest. He frowned.
"Didn't there used to be no extra tokens when we played it as kids?"
"So who did we play with, that fag Butters? Pfft."
Kyle looked at Stan, a feeble hope quivering at the back of his mind. Surely Stan would remember something like this?
Stan regarded the pieces of the game in deliberation, then just shrugged. "Honestly, I don't remember, dude. It was like years ago. I think it's always been just the three of us, though."
They started playing, and it was just like in the old days: him and Stan having to always stop Cartman from trying to cheat them. But for the rest of the evening, Kyle couldn't shake off the feeling that there used to be a person on each side of the board.
.
.
It never really quite went away.
Looking back, Kyle had figured out that something had happened when he had been thirteen. There was a void in his memory, an empty space where he knew something had happened but didn't know what. No one else remembered, of course. The seventh grade had been like usual, they all said, what was he talking about?
He went through high school, then through college. He had to leave South Park and move to Boston to be able to pursue the career he wanted. He and Stan had initially promised each other to stay in touch no matter what but soon, real life rolled around, and daily messages turned into texting the other once a week, and that gradually turned into awkward exchanges of congratulations on social media on Christmas Eve and birthdays. Their childhood misadventures had faded to sepia pictures in the back of his mind. Rent payments, annoying coworkers, and the hustle and bustle of the big city he wasn't used to soon took their place, and on some nights, lying on the couch after work, Kyle even wondered whether that all had really happened or it had all been just some bizarre, lucid dream.
Sometimes, however, when the redolent sounds of Con Te Partiro wafted out of one of the sidewalk cafes into the street, or he put a cold slushy pop tart into his mouth, the old familiar feeling of deja vu would hit again like lightning. And once a year, for reasons Kyle couldn't explain or comprehend, he bought a single—always orange—rose and put it in a vase on his windowsill and looked at it for a long, long time.
He wished he remembered.