Kenny set off for school in high spirits on Thursday morning, which hardly ever happened. He didn't mind the sullen gray color of the sky or the fact that it was cold as balls outside or even that one group of Goth kids passing by him on the opposite side of the street, looking right at home in the sinister weather. They took one look at his bright orange jacket and gave a collective eye-roll, of course, but Kenny grinned at them anyway.
"Party at Token's on Saturday," he called and continued on his way, not really in the mood for a diatribe about how parties that consisted of more than one person dancing alone in their room to Skinny Puppy were for Nazi conformist bastards.
Kenny stepped over a frozen patch of sidewalk and sighed, pulling his jacket shut tighter. He was so busy trying to think of creative ways to ask Stan for beer money that he was only peripherally aware of someone hurrying up to fall in step beside him rather awkwardly.
"How do you think Stan feels about giraffes?" he mused, half to himself and half to whoever was next to him, figuring it was Butters because he lived closest.
"Ah," said the person, and Kenny started violently at the sound of Christophe's voice. He was breathing kind of hard and there was a large spreading stain that looked suspiciously like blood on his pants. Kenny figured it would probably be best not to ask questions.
"You scared the shit out of me, dude," he said instead, trying to ignore the tiny balloon of joy that appeared to have begun inflating itself inside of his chest.
"Sorry," said Christophe, not sounding particularly apologetic.
"No, it's cool," said Kenny, fighting the urge to beam crazily down at his shoelaces. This was getting ridiculous. "I was just trying to figure out the best way to hit up Stan for booze money for the party." Christophe made a thoroughly unconvincing face of confusion. Kenny rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he said sternly. "You're going." The look of confusion turned abruptly into a frown.
"I thought maybe you would forget," said Christophe in a way that suggested he hadn't really thought that at all.
"No such luck, I guess," Kenny said cheerfully. "Anyway, what are you even doing here?" The high school was in an okay part of town, but it was like two and a half miles away from Kenny's house and he'd only made it about a mile in before Christophe joined him. In fact, they had literally just walked by a dirty-looking homeless dude passed out in the snow and clutching a bottle of Everclear. Kenny hardly noticed, but Christophe had glanced down at the guy in distaste.
"Business," said Christophe haltingly.
"I see," said Kenny, even though he didn't. He thought that the bloodstains probably had something to do with it, but Christophe didn't really seem like he was open to questioning about it. Kenny tried rather desperately to think of something else to talk about instead. God, this sucked. Usually he could just say whatever and it would turn itself into a conversation, but apparently with Christophe this was not the case. Since his brain was totally failing him, he turned to the weather for inspiration.
"Looks like it's gonna rain," he remarked, looking up at the still-gray sky.
"Could be," said Christophe, without looking up. Kenny resisted the urge to bang his own head on the nearest flat surface and wondered when he turned into such a boring douche. They walked in silence for a few moments, the houses around them gradually getting bigger and the storefronts less shoddy. A couple other kids that Kenny sort-of knew saw him and Christophe walking together and gave them weird looks. One of them called out something that was most likely obscene in some way or another. Kenny glanced covertly over at Christophe to gauge his reaction and was surprised to see that he was sort of glaring at them.
He stopped when he saw that Kenny had noticed, rubbing the back of his neck almost self-consciously. "Sorry," he said again, more sincerely than last time.
"Don't even worry about it," said Kenny, rolling his eyes. "God, some people here are fucking stupid."
Christophe made a scoffing noise at that, and Kenny looked at him quizzically. "God," he said contemptuously by way of explanation. "That cocksucking son of a bitch."
After that, it was like a switch had been flipped. Kenny spent the rest of the walk to school listening to Christophe rant about hell and God and coathanger abortions. Kenny listened attentively the entire time, and past the accent and creative profanities he wasn't surprised to find considerable thought and insight.
Christophe walked Kenny all the way to his locker, talking all the way, and he only stopped once he saw Stan. He was leaning against the locker next to Kenny's and and looking a lot less tense than he usually did in the mornings, which meant that Kyle had managed to make sure he finished all his homework on time for once.
He greeted Kenny and Christophe with a wave and a knowing grin. Kenny considered violent suicide. However, Christophe just nodded at Stan and gave Kenny a barely perceptible smile before walking off. Kenny's stomach did some weird swooping thing. He hoped that didn't mean it was going to explode the way it had in January. It had looked pretty cool, but hurt like a motherfucker.
Stan grinned and waved at Christophe some more before turning back to Kenny.
"You're lucky Kyle wasn't here," he said, looking smug and somehow like he knew something that Kenny didn't, which was ridiculous.
"Whatever," Kenny scowled, before remembering that he still needed to get beer money from Stan. His mood changed abruptly as he grinned up at Stan and slung an arm around his shoulder.
"Stan, dude," he said. "How do you feel about giraffes?"
--- --- ---
Kenny spent his next few classes feeling slightly dazed and not knowing why. He'd wanted to go and talk to Christophe some more, but judging by the look that Kyle shot him in the hallway as fourth period ended and lunch began, he couldn't afford to miss another day that week of eating with his friends or there would be hell to pay in the form of Kyle's rather indomitable wrath.
Kenny slid onto the cafeteria bench and rooted around in his backpack, vaguely hoping that a sandwich might have found its way in there by magic and wondering if Christophe would notice he wasn't there. Probably not, which was sort of depressing. Before he could think about it too much, Cartman leaned across Butters in order to address him from the other side of the table.
"I see you decided to join us," he said, and Kenny stiffened, terrified that he was going to ask where Kenny had been all week and everyone would get all interested and he would have to make up something on the spot while they all stared at him expectantly. Thankfully, Stan came to his defense by loudly announcing that everyone had to give Kenny a couple bucks for beer. Kenny, who had felt kind of bad for trying to bum it all off him earlier, felt greatly relieved. Everyone groaned and made belligerent noises, but most of them still rooted around in their pockets for the money, and Kenny gleefully accepted handouts for the rest of lunch. He'd give the money to his dad later, and as long as there was extra for him to get a six-pack for himself he wouldn't make a big deal about getting the booze for them.
--- --- ---
The next day was Friday, and as Kenny set out for school he felt irrationally nervous. He didn't see Christophe or the Goth kids or really anyone else on his way there, probably because the weather was even more abysmal than it had been yesterday. It was so cold outside that Kenny was, perhaps for the first time in his life, actually relieved to get into the blessedly heated school building.
Once he was there, Kenny tried to hide his surprise at seeing that Christophe was waiting for him at his locker. He was slouched against it and picking at a flake of green paint on the door, looking so nonchalant that Kenny almost would've believed he was there by accident if it weren't for the way he straightened up when Kenny came near.
"Hey," said Kenny, trying simultaneously to stop his teeth chattering and not show how thrilled he was.
Christophe nodded, fiddling with the handle of his shovel and looking as though he didn't quite know how he was going to word the next thing that he said.
"You weren't at lunch yesterday," he said at last, "and I wanted to make sure you 'ad not died before I could visit your friend's backyard."
"For once I'm alive and well," said Kenny, biting his tongue so he wouldn't start grinning like an idiot. "And you wouldn't get out of the party that easy anyway. You don't know how to get to Token's house, do you?" Christophe shook his head. "Here, give me your number and i'll text you the directions tomorrow," said Kenny, feeling what was probably a disproportionate amount of excitement at something as stupidly insignificant as getting Christophe's phone number.
Surprisingly, Christophe didn't put up a fight about it, instead pulling a phone out of his pocket that looked almost new, giving it a suspicious look as he passed it over to Kenny.
Kenny couldn't resist scrolling through Christophe's address book when he was supposed to be putting himself in there, and he frowned as he saw that nearly all of his contacts had either a single letter or a sinister-looking code word in the place of a name. Figuring the list could use a little bit of livening up, Kenny added a couple exclamation points after his own name, threw in a smiley face for good measure, and handed the phone back to Christophe after texting himself to get the number.
Christophe glanced down at the screen after Kenny gave it back, then looked back up at Kenny and smiled. It was only for a second, but that was still twice as long as his usual ones. The sight kind of made Kenny want to disregard all of Kyle's ideas about friendly bonding and spend the rest of his time just sort of following Christophe around a little.
"Uh," said Kenny, trying to mentally slap some sense into himself. "So. I'll see you on Saturday?"
"You might," said Christophe amusedly, turning around to go to his class and leaving Kenny to stare after him while trying not to be too obvious about it.
the next chapter will be the last, so. plan accordingly, i guess?