Raisins.

Just… raisins…

It was a beautiful day in South Park. Recess was in full swing, the boys engaged in a game of football. Kate was sitting on the sidelines, engrossed in another romance novel, occasionally glancing up to make sure nobody got hurt.

"All right, you guys, it's first down," Stan told his team in the huddle. "I'll hike the ball on the third 'set hut!' Kyle and Cartman, go deep post out. Kenny, run a slant down the middle. Butters, be ready for the screen."

"Right," Cartman replied. "What are we playing again?"

"Football."

"Got it."

Both the teams got into position, and Stan prepared to call the play. Bebe was walking up with an expression that said she had bad news. Kate put down her book to see what would happen.

"Okay, 23!" Stan yelled. Bebe tapped him on the shoulder. He ignored her. "Blue, 23! Set hut! Set hut!" Bebe tapped him again and this time, he turned to look at her.

"Wendy breaks up," Bebe told him.

"What?!"

"Wendy breaks up with you." Kate gasped and walked over, prepared for the emotional fallout as Bebe turned to leave.

"Oh, whoa, wait a minute! What did I do wrong? I haven't even talked to Wendy for weeks!"

"She just doesn't want to be with you anymore. She still wants to be friends, though."

"Whatever, Bebe!" jeered Cartman. The other boys had noticed the conversation and turned to watch. "Like Stan really cares! Just get out of our football game, you stupid skank!"

"Fuck you, fatass!" Bebe snapped. "You guys are assholes!"

"Oh, yeah?" Butters shot back. "Well, at least we have assholes, you dumb girl!"

"Yeh-heah, right!" Cartman snickered.

"God, you guys are so stupid!" Bebe walked away, leaving a shell-shocked Stan.

"What a whore," sneered Cartman, not noticing his sister walking up.

"Yeah!" Kyle agreed. "Like Stan gives a crap if Wendy breaks up!" The boys (except Stan) went back to their game. "Stan?"

"Come on, Stan, it's first down still!" Cartman groaned. Stan walked away, a shocked expression still on his face.

"What's the matter with him?" Clyde asked.

"Poor guy," Kate sighed.

"He's just being a wuss," Cartman told her. She whacked him on the back of the head with her book. "OW! GODDAMMIT, KATE!"

"He's not being a wuss! He just lost someone he really cared about! Heartbreak isn't easy to get over, you fucking self-centered prick!"

"But Stan's not an emotional person!" Kyle protested.

"Actually, I'd say Stan's the most in touch with his emotions out of all of you. He was the first to get a girlfriend, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, because you won't give Kyel and Kinney an answer!" snorted Cartman. She glared.

"That's besides the point. Stan just needs time. Time heals all wounds."

"Unless you're dead."

"Shut up, Cartman."

"No! Stan needs to get over it so we can finish our game!"

"You're such a good friend, Cartman," she muttered, shaking her head.

The next day, Stan attempted to get Wendy back by sending Kyle and Jimmy to talk to her, but that ended in disaster. Stan ended up moping in his bed back home, a blanket over the window to prevent sunshine from getting in. His friends (sans Kate, who had excused herself due to having a job) came over to try and cheer him up.

"Jesus," Kyle murmured, looking at the state of his friend.

"We came to cheer you up, Stan!" Butters announced.

"Go away," Stan croaked.

"Stan, you can't keep doing this to yourself," Kyle declared. "You have to go live."

"Why? What's the point of living if the only girl I ever loved is gone?!"

"(I wish Kate was here,)" Kenny whispered. "(Stupid job.)"

"You guys have no idea how this feels," Stan continued, his voice cracking with emotion. "It's like, you always hear songs about a broken heart and you think it's just a figure of speech? But it's true. My chest hurts. I feel like, this sinking feeling where my heart is… It's broken."

"I agree with Kenny," Cartman hissed. "This is a job for a girl."

"No, it's not," sighed Kyle. "Look, as amazing as Kate is, she doesn't handle guy issues very well. We just have to show him that's there's other girls out there. I say we take him to Raisins."

"What's Raisins?" asked Butters.

Raisins, it turned out, was like a kid version of Hooters. Cute waitresses were walking around, flirting and serving big plates of wings while a sports game played in the background. One, a peppy blonde (Mercedes), walked up and welcomed them.

"Hi, welcome to Raisins!" she declared. "Follow me to your table!"

The boys followed her as she went over to a decent-sized table and set out menus.

"Your waitress, Caddy, will be with you in just a minute! It's her first day, so don't be too hard on her!" She walked away and the boys started looking at the menus.

"What do you think, Stan?" Kyle asked. "These girls are pretty cute, huh?"

"Jesus Christ, I think I've… died… and gone to heaven!" Jimmy commented.

"This place is awesome!" Butters agreed.

"How do you know?" Cartman sneered. "We haven't even tried the food yet!"

"Hey, guys!" a familiar voice said. "Welcome to Raisins!"

The boys looked at the end of the table to see Kate in one of the waitress outfits, her face having rather sparse amounts of makeup compared to the other waitresses. Kyle's jaw dropped.

"KATE?!" he yelped. She looked up and her eyes widened. However, she put on a fake smile and pulled out a pen.

"What can I get you today?" she asked.

"How about your number?!" called a boy at another table. She shot him a flirty look then turned back to the boys.

"Okay, um, we're gonna get the zingy-tangy wings," Cartman began, "and mozzarella tasty tarts, and uh, OH! A pitcher of lemonade!"

"Comin' right up, hon!" She walked away after writing down their order.

"I-I didn't know Kate worked here!" squeaked Kyle.

"Neither did I!" Cartman added. "God, I knew she was a whore."

"She's not a whore!" Kyle hissed. "Anyway…" He glanced around the room and noticed a Raisins girl with long black hair. "Hey. Hey, look over there, Stan! That Raisins girl is really cute, huh? Why don't you say hi to her?" He waved at the waitress. "Excuse me!" She walked over.

"Hi, guys! My name's Porsche."

"Hey, uh, this is Stan."

Porsche started blabbering about inane subjects while Kate brought out the food. One of the guys at another table tripped her, probably hoping that she'd end up soaked in lemonade. He didn't realize Katherine Marie Cartman didn't go down easily, or that she had ninja/cat-like reflexes. The food went up in the air and she gasped. As quickly as she could, she extended the tray and caught every bit of food, including the still-full lemonade pitcher. A bunch of people started clapping and a tough-looking guy came over to 'escort' the patron out.

"Holy shit," Kyle whispered, staring at his crush.

"Here you go, guys!" she sang, setting the food on the table.

"Hey, can I talk to you?" Kyle asked.

"Sure!" Kate replied, the stupid fake smile still plastered on her face. He could tell that she didn't want to act like an airhead; in fact, he knew she wanted nothing more than to go beat the shit out of the guy who tripped her.

"CADDY!" called Mercedes.

"Oh, sorry! Duty calls!"

Later, the Raisins girls did a whole little song-and-dance routine to The Village People's "Y.M.C.A". Kate ended up joining in, although Kyle was still confused as to why she was working there. Cartman stuffed his face, as per usual, and Stan ended up walking out even more depressed than before.

"Bye, guys!" Kate called, still acting as chipper as the other girls. Kyle knew he was going to have to talk to her later, so he shot her a text as he and the others left.

Meet me under the big tree at recess tomorrow. We have to talk.

Meanwhile, Stan went to talk to Bebe about getting Wendy back. Her suggestion of holding a boombox above his head and playing Peter Gabriel didn't go as well as he'd hoped. In fact, it led to him finding out Wendy was now going out with Token. He felt his heart shatter into a million pieces.

"All right, kids!" called Mr. Garrison. "Out on the gym floor for P.E. class!"

Most of the boys left their gym lockers to go out into the gym. Stan, on the other hand, remained in the locker room, wearing nothing but a towel and his hat. Kyle shook his head as he came back in.

"Come on, Stan! We're going to play dodgeball."

"I can't believe it," Stan croaked. "She's in love with somebody else."

"Dude, you need to snap out of this! So Wendy left you for Token. What are you going to do, be miserable your whole life?"

"There's nothing else I can do. She was my whole life."

"Aw, c'mon, dude! All you've done for the past four days is mope around. You might as well hang out with those Goth kids who dress in black and talk about pain all the time!"

"Maybe I should. At least they'll understand me. Maybe I should hang with the Goth kids…"

At recess, Kyle met up with Kate under the tree, like they'd planned.

"What'd you wanna talk about?" she asked, sitting down.

"It's about… you working at Raisins."

"It's not a permanent thing. I hate every single bitch I work with, except maybe Mercedes and Maury. It's a decent job, though, especially with all the tips I get."

"It doesn't bother you when other guys hit on you?"

"I get worse from Kenny with thinly-veiled innuendoes. The whole tripping thing yesterday? That's actually the worst that's happened. Most of the time, they just want to talk to me the entire time they're there, so no, it doesn't bother me."

"Well, it… kinda bothers me."

"Why?"

"It's just… I like you, okay? I didn't know how to tell you before, so I'm just hoping this doesn't change things."

"It doesn't. Kyle, I'm not an idiot. I've known you've liked me for a while now."

"Oh."

"Plus, Cartman's always making jokes about how you and Kenny are competing for my affections."

"Okay. Uh, hey, remember how you said Stan needed time to get over his heartbreak?"

"Yeah?"

"He's really depressed over Wendy, and I was hoping you could talk some sense into him."

"Why me?"

"You're a girl. You're better with emotional stuff."

"That's true. I'll talk to him when I get a chance."

"I heard him say something about joining the Goth kids…"

"Ugh. Those assholes. Stan's not going to join them for good. He'll snap out of it in a few days."

"Wow. You are observant."

"Life is pain. Life is only pain." Pete flipped his hair. "We're all taught to believe in happy fairy-tale endings. But there's only blackness. Dark, depressing loneliness that eats at your soul."

"Who needs that kind of Barbie love, anyway?" Michael sneered. "Everyone's just walking around like a bunch of conformists. Go ahead and wear your business suits so you can make thirty-four thousand dollars a year to buy your condominium. They're all zombies racing towards their graves. Love didn't work for my mom and dad; why should it work for me?"

"My dad is such an asshole," Henrietta declared. "Drunken bastard doesn't even know I exist. But then he won't let me go to the Skinny Puppy concert because my heroin-addict aunt is coming over for dinner. Dinner? That's a laugh. Just an excuse for my mom to bitch at me for not wearing girly clothes like all the other Britney Spears wannabes at this school."

"They're all a bunch of Nazi conformist cheerleaders," Firkle agreed. Stan bit his lip.

"But if life is only pain… then what's the point of living?" he asked.

"Just to make life more miserable for the conformists," Pete explained, flipping his hair back again.

"All right, so how do I join you?"

"If you want to be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do," Michael sighed.

"'K…" Stan agreed.

"Oh my God." Kate facepalmed as she got a look at the new 'Goth' Stan.

"I told you," Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "How bad is it?"

"That boy is going to end up with the wrong group if someone doesn't snap him out of this."

"Weren't you going to do that?"

"I'm going to give him a couple days to be all dark and moody, like a wannabe vampire. Then I'll snap him out of it with a hard dose of reality. That's the best way to do it, and this way he doesn't have to go through the emo phase of his teen years."

"Wow, how do you know all that?"

"You think I read romance novels for my health? It's so I can help people with relationships. And also because Susane Colasanti is a damn good writer."

"Oh."

That afternoon, the Goth kids (now including Stan) hung out in Henrietta's room after school. Now, with most people, hanging out would mean doing things you enjoy. With the Goth kids, it meant reading depressing poetry then smoking cigarettes.

" 'Shallow life./ Drowning alone, I gasp for air./ Coldness creeps over pale skin./ There is sadness so deep it pulls me down/ Happiness dies in a deep, dark sea.' " Henrietta sighed and took a drag on her cigarette.

"Yeah, happiness dies," agreed Pete.

"Yeah," Stan echoed.

"All right, your turn, Stan," Michael announced. "Read one of your poems about pain." Stan nodded and stood up.

" 'There is darkness all around me/ Deep, piercing black, I cannot breathe/ My heart has been raped.' "

"Whoa," marveled Henrietta.

" 'The pain is everlasting./ I miss you so much, babe./ Want to hold you in my arms again, girl. Want to—' "

"Whoa, whoa!" Pete called. "Dude! Those last two lines aren't goth!"

"They're not?" Stan asked.

"No, dude!" Michael agreed. "You can't say, 'I miss you so much, babe./ Want to hold you in my arms again.' "

"Make it, 'I miss seeing you so much that I want to slash my eyes out with razor blades'," Henrietta suggested.

The door opened and Mrs. Biggle popped her head in.

"Henrietta! Hi, sweetie!"

"Go away, Mom!" Henrietta snapped. "Leave me alone!"

"Daddy and I just got your birthday present! But you can't see what it is until tomorrow!"

"You'd like to wait until I was dead, wouldn't you?! You'd like to see maggots eat my face!"

"Ee—you're so creative, honey!" She closed the door and left them alone.

"Conformist bitch."

"Yeah," the other goths agreed.

At Raisins, Kate was hard at work. She was certainly professional at what she did, owing to her skill at acting and her ability to react quickly to falling dishes. Before long, closing time came and Kate was helping close up.

"Caddy, you're the best employee we've ever had!" gushed Mercedes.

"Thanks, Mercedes," Kate sighed as she set a chair on one of the tables.

"Seriously! A bunch of guys have requested to be in your area! Only the best Raisins girls get that!"

"Well, I'm not planning on working here forever."

"Of course you aren't! With your skillset, I wouldn't be surprised if you went on to become a manager or a hostess, like me!"

"I'll definitely keep that in mind when I start looking for a promotion."

"In fact, how about you take tomorrow off? Porsche can cover your section so you can spend the afternoon with that boy in the green hat."

"Wait, what?"

"You know, the boy who was freaked out when he saw you working here! Your boyfriend!"

"He's not my boyfriend. We're friends, but we're not dating."

"Oh. Well, you can still take tomorrow off. You've been working hard and you deserve it."

"Thanks, Mercedes."

I have to resolve the 'Goth Stan' situation, anyway.

"Hey, can we get more coffee over here?"

Michael flagged down a waitress, who looked annoyed and exasperated.

"Dammit, are you kids going to sit here all night again and drink six dollars' worth of coffee?! Why don't you get a life?!" She walked away after refilling their mugs.

"Conformist," Michael spat bitterly. "Have fun in your rat-race life, living paycheck to paycheck for corporate gains."

"Yeah," the others agreed. Stan was staring at his cup.

"Dude, you haven't drank your coffee," Pete said, flipping his hair back.

"Well, I don't drink coffee," Stan replied.

"You can't be a non-conformist if you don't drink coffee." Stan sighed and took a sip.

The little bell above the door rang as Kyle entered, Kate right behind him. She had her hair in a messy bun instead of her normal side-ponytail, and she was wearing a black dress under her normal purple coat.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, I had to see it to believe it!" Kyle groaned. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Breathing deep in darkness that envelops my soul," Stan sighed.

"Goddammit, dude!"

"Your mom and dad want you to come home," Kate tried, pulling Kyle away.

"So they can fill my head with more Disney lies about how perfect the world is? I don't think so!"

"Yeah," Pete agreed. "Why don't you just go back to your Justin Timberlake and your homework, you conformist assholes?" He flipped his hair (again). "You just don't know what real pain is."

Kate could sense Kyle brimming with anger, so she grabbed his arm to try and calm him down.

"You know what?" she said with her Raisins-girl grin. "Life is pain, guys, but that doesn't mean there aren't things to fix it. Our world is fucked up. Our lives are fucked up. Our families and friends are fucked up. But it's by working through it that everything seems a little less fucked up. Isn't that why you guys stick together?"

The Goth kids looked at each other in surprise. They hadn't expected this little conformist bitch to have insight on the world like that.

"Stan, come back to us," Kyle urged. "Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone cares about you and everyone wants you back."

"What about Wendy?" Stan asked. "Isn't she still with Token?"

"Yeah. She is."

"Then people shouldn't care about me-eeeh. Because I don't care about them. What's the point of caring if all it brings is pain." Kate narrowed her eyes.

"Because, Stan, when people care, it makes some of that pain go away. So Wendy's with Token now. So what? Are you going to let someone else dictate the course of the rest of your life? You just need to take it into your own hands."

"That's rich, coming from the girl whose dad chased her around the country for four years. It's safe to say you have daddy issues." Kate stared at the floor and sighed in frustration.

"Okay, I have daddy issues. Unlike you, I didn't have a complete family. I still don't, but at least I appreciate what I have instead of whining about it like a spoiled brat."

"Get out of here, conformist!" sneered Michael.

"Oh, and you? Fuck your 'non-conformist' philosophy! By telling him what to do, you're telling him to be a conformist." She sighed and turned away. "Let's go, Kyle."

"But—"

"Trust me. We can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Have fun being miserable, Stan."

Kyle nodded and followed her out the door, sending Stan one last look.

"What conformist assholes," Michael declared.

Stan, on the other hand, realized what Kate was trying to say.

Wow, no wonder Kyle and Kenny like you.

The next day, the guys (excluding Stan) were playing football, Kate sitting on the sidelines with a book.

"Okay, it's third down!" Kyle called. "Somebody make a play."

"Hey," Stan said, walking up. "Can I join?" He was back to wearing his normal clothes. Kate hid her smile behind her book.

"What happened?" Kyle asked. "Aren't you still wallowing in pain?"

"Yeah, it still hurts a lot, but… I realized there's gonna be a lot of painful times in life, so… I'd better learn to deal with it the right way." Token and Wendy walked by. "Hey, Wendy! You're a bitch! And Token?" He flipped him off. "Right here, buddy!"

"Jesus Christ," muttered Kate.

"Well, it's good to have you back, dude," Kyle commented.

"Yeah, let's play ball."

And that's my adaptation of "Raisins". Like I said before, I completely replaced the Butters subplot because it was painful to sit through. Instead, the subplot is Kate working at Raisins. Don't worry; she quit after this chapter was over.

Stan: I thought for sure you were going to make me have a rebound crush on Kate.

Me: Fuck no! We already have a love triangle with her! Besides, I ship you with Wendy. You'll get back together with her eventually.

Kate: So do I pick Kenny or Kyle?

Me: We don't know yet. We won't know until I close the poll on February 7. That way, I have a solid week to write the Valentine's day chapter. See you next time! So long and thanks for all the fish!