Side-by-side in a neat little row, Kenny and Kyle flanked either side of their female companion as the principal stared them down, demanding to have answers. Principle Victoria (whom had stepped up to the position of high school principle after the old one retired last year) looked at the students before her desk, fingers steepled together. The boys had been fairly common fixtures since their childhood, but more often than not, they didn't seem to get into trouble individually. And this new boy Hunter, his record had been immaculate since enrolling into the basketball team in middle-school. So why where they in here?

"Boys, Mr. Garrison tells me that you were disrupting his class?" She spoke after a long moment of silence.

Face-to-face with the ugly head of trouble, much of the wind had been sapped from Hurricane Hunter. Good, Kyle thought to himself, that might teach her better than to go around petitioning for the paradox that was fairness in high school. "Yes, Principal Victoria." Kyle could see it coming before she had even opened her mouth. "But Mr. Garrison was discriminating Kenny! I told him that I didn't mind switching seats with Kenny, but he wouldn't listen to me!"

That sounded about right. "Be that as it may, you were still disrupting class, so I'm afraid that we can't just let this go." They probably could have, but being so determined to have a winning team, the silvering blonde had an idea. "I'll tell Mr. Garrison that you can both sit on the floor for the rest of the quarter, and after that, you and Kenny will switch places until we can get the budget figured out." Victoria could almost hear Hubert's outraged reply as he made the formal announcement, 'Fine, you can both sit on the floor and waste your lives together!'. "On the condition that Hunter joins the team, and all three of you join the dance committee."

They could have pointed out that Hunter had already replaced Cartman, and that the winter formal wasn't for another few months, in which time everyone would probably forget that they had been volunteered. But why do that when they got off basically scotfree?

"Ok, Principal Victoria, I agree to your terms." Hunter waited only long enough to make it look like she had to consider it, that she wasn't obvious in her haste.

"Sure." Kenny didn't have to think twice about his answer.

Kyle wanted a bit more justice than that, but there was no guarantee that it would work in his favor, so he gave in with moderate reluctance. He had put up with a lot of Cartman's shit, so in comparison, this was nothing; and anyways, it wasn't like Garrison actually taught them anything, but he liked to strive for high marks in all his classes, nonsensical as some of them were. "Fine."

Beaming, the older woman held out her hand, "Welcome to the team, Mr. Bloodworth."

Shaking hands and sealing the deal, the trio departed from the office in relatively high spirits - they got off, and more than that, they were unscathed, because there was no way that anyone would remember that they had to help out the dance committee set up the formal. Thank God that the Principal was such a pothead and the system was so ineffectual...

Seeing as there was still plenty of time left before they had to get to their next period, Kenny slunk away from the other two and departed just outside the office, not one word exchanged. Kyle knew better than to ask questions lest he not like the answer, and Hunter was hot for answers from the Jew, so she wasn't about to blow this chance. Heading for a more private place to talk without running the risk of getting caught out of class, Kyle and Hunter found themselves outside of the janitor's closet.

Skepticism running equal to his own irritation on her face, Hunter gaped at Kyle, mind racing to the possibility that his hat was just a bit too tight over his head and was overheating his brain. "Seriously?"

He had a simple explanation, if she could stand to listen to reason. "Someone could see us in the bathroom; besides the door is never locked, because someone stole the only set of keys." That someone was Craig. "So do you want to talk or not?"

Opening the door as if expecting a party of serial killers and slashers on the other side, Hunter bit her lower lip in uncertainty as it opened and revealed a perfectly ordinary storage space. On one hand, she really did have to talk to someone about this growing monster calling itself sheer, unbridled terror, but on the other, that room looked just a little bit bigger than two full-length lockers put together, and they could smell the ammonia-heavy window cleaner already.

Looking over at Kyle again, the girl realized that her chance would soon be spent if she didn't get to it. Footsteps muffled by the powdered chemicals that had spilled-over, she headed into the closet, mute as Kyle joined her in the darkness. Nose-to-nose, the hollow was smaller than anticipated, and as he closed the door, the last thing that either could clearly make out was a whitish, crystalline haze. They couldn't really know it at the time, but going into that closet was one of the stupidest decisions possible; the room was poorly ventilated to begin with and ill-needed them to stir up the chemical fumes and floating sawdust.

"I know that I keep coming to you, and bet that its really annoying, but you have to understand that I have no one else to turn to... My..." Her voice became clipped, and it sounded hollow. "My family really doesn't approve of me because they are just so perfect and devoted to God," It was obvious that she was speaking with drenching irony, that her family was far from it. "So besides Avery, there really isn't anyone else I can turn to. It was never easy for me to make friends because we kept moving, and I was part of the reason that we kept moving. And the friends I thought I had... Well, they were my friends as much as anyone you meet on facebook."

Pity was something that the kids of South Park all knew very well - largely in part of Cartman - but it was somehow different what Kyle was feeling. Maybe it boiled down to knowing that Hunter was really a female, but it also could have been the fact unlike Eric, Kyle actually liked Hunter. "Maybe things will be different here, better even."

Too dark to see, she flashed him a wan smile. "I hope so. That's why I'm so scared about being alone with him - I've been the cause of so much turmoil, and I'm sick of uprooting my brother."

"Then why do you keep lying?" Everything else seemed to be lining up in a relatively cohesive manner.

Having the impression that it wasn't just the ammonia working, Kyle could hear her voice cracking around the edges. "Maybe I'm a pathological liar. I hate feeling like I fit in better as a guy, and I hate that I can never open up and be myself, because every time I do, I get hurt. But I know that that's selfish to my family. I tried to stop, that was last time, and it just became so much worse. They always said that the truth was supposed to set you free, but they were wrong."

Fear was a powerful enemy, and worse, it was one that you could only overcome on your own.

As a secret-keeper, it was against his morals to just confide what wasn't his to tell, but the boy had to tell her something that could help ease her trepidations. "Kenny's totally into tits-"

Forlorn at the fifth confirmation (today) of that fact, Hunter couldn't help but to look down at her own tightly bound chest, hidden beneath layers and layers of cloth and lies. "I know that already. That's one of the reasons he can never find out what I am..." By this point, it felt there could have been a whole book filled with reasons.

"Yes, he likes huge breasts, but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't date a girl with a smaller chest." He thought back to an old girlfriend of Kenny's. "Jessica Duke was almost completely flat-chested, and they went out for three months." Come to think of it, Kyle could not remember for the life of him why they had even broken up. But that wasn't important right now anyways. "It all boils down to confidence."

Hunter clicked her tongue impatiently. "I know that I have to have more confidence in myself as a girl, or else no one will ever like me."

"Actually, I was going to say that you should probably have less confidence in yourself, if you really want to date Kenny." Kyle realized how backwards that sounded, but almost all of Kenny's girlfriends had been train-wrecks in one way or another.

Tammy Warner, despite being poorer than Kenny and a complete slut that was notorious for giving guys blow jobs in the T. G. I. Friday 's parking lot, was probably one of the more decent girls he had dated. Oh, wait, there was that other girl from that "Getting Gay with Kids" choir thing... She wasn't so bad either. Wait, why did they even break-up? Fuck, come to think of it, Kyle could barely remember why any of Kenny's relationships had failed...

That was just retarded, and she was nowhere near that desperate yet. "Yeah, I think I'll not do that." The misty-eyed lass looked at Kyle hopefully. From the looks of it, the ammonia was really aggravating her eyes, but class wasn't over just yet, so they had to remain in that sliver of a room for just a little bit longer. "Any other advise on what I should do to get through this visit?"

There was one thing that might have helped her, in the event that her secret should come out somehow. But it was a long-shot anyways, and not to mention a really dumb idea. In fact, Kyle had no clue as to why something like that would even cross his mind in the first place... Honestly, who would kiss Hunter without questioning it? And who was to say that a single meaningless kiss would help her have the balls to deal with it if Kenny found out that she was a girl? Kyle really needed smarter friends. Thankfully there was one other thing they could try. She could try. Obviously he thought that it was something she could try.

"Listen, all you have to do is act like it's me." Thinking of a platonic friend normally did the trick in the movies, so surely it would work for her, if she really didn't want to try the other thing about ditching all confidence. "Think of me, and just be yourself, and it should all work itself out."

Think of Kyle? Well, it was better than abandoning any shred of confidence she had that wasn't sports related. "I guess I could try that." Hunter smiled at him, truly grateful that she had met someone like Kyle. "Thanks Kyle, for helping me like this."

He returned the grin with a dull sinking sensation in his stomach, praying for her sake that it worked...

Wow, this chapter went through three different paths and what feels like a hundred incarnations before finding this... And obviously, Jessica Duke is just a random name I came up with for the sake of the story. There might have been more I wanted to address, but I don't recall now...

I do not own South Park, that's all on Matt and Trey, but I do own Hunter and Avery!