Motivation

All throughout elementary school, it was a well-known fact that Kyle Broflovski was highly intelligent and always top in the class. Even though he played some sports and video games like the rest of his friends, he kept his nose to the books, and it payed off. He strove for his high grades, and every A+ supplied him with a sense of well-deserved satisfaction. He was proud of his achievements; there was no reason not to be.

High school started out much the same. After all, he was still competing - yes, it was always a competition for him - with the same group of kids he'd been classmates with since kindergarten. Sure, the material was a bit more challenging, but not much changed other than that.

He expected a continuation of this trend in college. After all, it had been all he'd known.

Oh, how wrong he'd been.

He no longer saw the faces of every other student in his year, no longer knew what he was up against, no longer had a sense of class rank, and it was only a matter of time until he freaked out. Cramming, cramming, always studying and cramming, but it was never enough to assure him that he was the best.

Eventually, he lost the energy to cram every weekend.

Eventually, he stopped caring about rank. The competition was no fun anymore, not when he couldn't guess all the cards his opponents held.

Soon he fell into the same rut that seemed to plague most of campus. The lazy bug had bitten him and spread its disease through every vein. As long as he got his assignments in on time and completed to a decent extent, everything was fine. Didn't mean that he wouldn't push those assignments to the last minute. There had been numerous occasions where he'd skipped a morning class or two in order to finish an essay or other assignment for a class later that very afternoon. But he somehow always managed to pull something out of his ass when down at the wire.

Speaking of asses...

It was late Sunday afternoon. Kyle had an essay due Monday morning, but he just did not feel like doing it at the moment. He had the whole thing planned out in his head; what would waiting a few more hours to put it to paper hurt? So he surfed the internet, checked his email a hundred times only to delete spam cluttering his inbox every ten minutes, and was ultimately bored out of his skull. So of course, his mind wandered. Technically, his eyes wandered, following a certain someone's jean-clad rear around the apartment they shared.

"I'm bored," he announced with a yawn, setting his laptop aside on the already cluttered coffee table in front of him.

"So?" Stan raised an eyebrow. He was rifling around in the kitchen, probably looking for a snack. "I'm hungry, and I'm doing something about it. 'Sides, shouldn't you be writing your essay?"

"If you're hungry, you're looking in the wrong place."

"Oh, very subtle. Dude, seriously, write your goddamned essay."

Kyle sighed. Not just any sigh, oh no; it was his exasperated, over the top 'why must you persecute me?' sigh, reserved specially for moments of pure melodrama. "But I don't want to. I'll do it later."

Stan just eyed him. "Dude. Just do it. Do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to listen to you freaking out that you don't have enough time at four in the morning?"

"Aw, come on, dude," Kyle pleaded, watching Stan disappear momentarily behind the refrigerator door. "I need some... inspiration." Cheesy, but it was worth a shot.

The faint pop and hiss of an opened soda can was his only response for several seconds, followed by several more seconds in which Stan downed at least half the can. "That's a funny word for it."

"Stan! I'm dying here!"

"All right Kyle, you know what?" He paused to finish his drink, before crushing the aluminum in his fist and tossing it into the recycling bin. "You write your paper first, then we'll do whatever you want. Okay?" He didn't wait for an answer, just turned down the hall and headed into the bathroom. Within minutes, Kyle heard the hiss of the shower starting.

Kyle didn't know how long it took to spit out his essay, and he certainly didn't bother to proofread it, but he was damn sure that it was the fastest he'd ever written a paper; the showerhead hadn't even shut off by the time he was dashing down the hall after Stan.