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“Hiya, Kyle! I didn’t know you were a faggot!”
Kyle froze with his hand on his locker door. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Butters smiling, offering a wave, as he continued walking down the hallway. It wasn’t the first time Butters said something off-color —t hey were all guilty of that more often than their parents would ever realize — but that was a new one.
As he slammed his locker closed, there was one thing he knew with absolute certainty: Cartman was behind it.
There was still a few minutes before the first bell, and Kyle didn’t want to be late to Garrison’s class even if Garrison hardly gave a fuck about anything. The distance from his locker to the classroom wasn’t far at all, but it felt like the lengths of several football fields as he hooked his thumbs beneath the straps of his backpack and made the trek.
It wasn’t just the feeling that eyes were on him; if he looked in either direction, he knew it was true. The hall was hushed, the other students frozen in their places as they watched him. It was like they all remembered that he was once (falsely) ranked as the ugliest boy in the entire fourth grade.
One thing Kyle had learned in his ten years of life so far was that it could always get worse. The moment he opened the door to his classroom only confirmed that.
“Hah! I always knew you were a pillow-biter, Kahl! ”
He let his backpack drop onto his desk with a thump as he narrowed his eyes at his classmate. His — frenemy, for lack of a better term. “What did you do, Fatass?”
Cartman chortled, leaning back in his seat, tucking his hands against the back of his head. “Oh, Kyle,” he said in that tone he always had when he felt like he was at some sort of advantage. “I didn’t do anything. But I think I speak for all of us when I say I’m disappointed you didn’t tell us sooner.”
The answer for all this fuckery didn’t come until much later in the day. It was torture. He couldn’t concentrate on Garrison’s disjointed and inaccurate lectures. The skin on the back of his neck prickled and burned. A lesser boy would have tugged on the ear flaps of his hat in an attempt to hide it, but Kyle endured.
He got his answer to what the fuck was going on ? en route to lunch. Garrison texted with disinterest as he led the class to the cafeteria. Kyle was at the end of the line, purposefully letting himself fall behind in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
That was when it happened.
On the opposite side of the hall, another class headed back from the cafeteria. One of the girls carried a sketchbook with a loose piece of paper wedged beneath the cover. It wasn’t quite secure enough, and when the girl stumbled over her shoelaces, the paper dislodged and slid onto the floor.
It landed in the middle of the hallway. Kyle made eye contact with the girl. He looked at the paper. There was a splattering of red with his name on it. The two dashed for the drawing at the same time, both touched it at the same time, but Kyle had no qualms about snatching it right out of her grip.
“Hey!”
He ignored her and stared at the picture. It was a drawing of him —he assumed, anyway. One of the boys in the drawing had a jacket just like his. The hair was red like his, but the illustrated hairstyle was literally impossible. But the other boy, the boy that his caricature was kissing? Craig. Motherfucking. Tucker.
“What the fuck!”
That caught Garrison’s attention. “Kyle!”
“Sorry, Mr. Garrison,” came his immediate response. As he was about to question the girl, he turned to find her already gone. Goddamnit.
He pulled Craig aside at recess. It was the first time he had a chance to talk to him, and after having acquired the picture, he assumed this was why Craig was avoiding him. He grabbed Craig’s elbow, tugging him to an isolated corner of the courtyard. Thrusting the paper in Craig’s face, he was determined to get to the bottom of this bullshit. “Care you explain this bullshit?”
Craig’s face scrunched up in that way it did when he was close to losing his temper. Kyle didn’t care; in a battle against tempers, he knew he’d win. “I don’t have to explain a goddamn thing to you, Broflovski. I had nothing to do with that.”
“I didn’t either! Why would I want anyone to draw me like that ? I’m not gay!”
“I’m not either!”
Tempers flared, but little more happened in that moment other then the two glaring at one another. Finally, Kyle suggested that they root out the source. When it came to the girls, Kyle was certain that it had to be much deeper than one person drawing this crap. He wished he wasn’t right about this, but he was more right than he ever wanted to be.
It wasn’t just one girl. It was all the Asian girls at the school making this “art.” It spread to the other kids who liked to draw. Kyle was certain he was going to lose his mind; no matter where he turned, there was a piece of artwork of him and Craig. He confronted the artists, but got no answer as to why this came to be in the first place.
What was even worse than that was how widespread it was. The pictures were everywhere . All the other students had copies. The staff did. Seemingly every adult in town had them. Even his parents , who were certain to pull him aside and assure him that they were very proud of him, and would support him no matter what.
Kyle simultaneously wanted to punch something and bash his head into the wall. He did neither; rather, he was perplexed when his parents handed him a hundred dollars. His Bar Mitzvah was still three years off, and his allowance was never this much. It was out of the realm of normalcy, but Kyle wasn’t going to complain.
About that , anyway.
What he did have a problem with was Cartman. Of course he did. It came as absolutely no surprise; and easily the worst part of the entire scenario was just how utterly gleeful he was about it. Cartman wasted no time in ragging on Kyle over this in any way he possibly could.
There was only so much he could take until he finally snapped.
They hadn’t made it further than the bus stop when it happened. Cartman trailed behind him, chiding him for not wanting to engage in a conversation about recent events. “Gawd, Kya-luh, don’t be such a Tom Cruise!”
That was when Kyle turned on his heel and decked him. The fight, if it could even be called that, didn’t last long. Stan and Kenny had the sense to stop them as the bus pulled into view. They boarded, Kyle disheveled with a shiner; Cartman with a bloody nose.
“I understand that you are a protected class, Mr. Broflovski,” PC Principal adjusted his Oakleys. “I respect and support your choice to be open and rest assured South Park Elementary will always be a safe space for our LGBTQ youth.”
“I’m not gay ,” Kyle informed him through gritted teeth.
PC didn’t seem to hear him and carried on. “As proof of solidarity, here’s $100. But you still can’t go around punching other students. That’s not PC, bro.”
“This is such horseshit.” Craig kicked a rusted aluminum can that some vagrant must have left at some point prior. He glanced over at Kyle, who planted himself on a rather large rock overlooking Stark’s Pond. They never spent time alone together, not without their friends. This was weird, but it was the only guaranteed place to talk with eavesdroppers. “We have to find a way to stop this. Neither of us are gay, and we aren’t together.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Kyle shot him a glare, though it was a fleeting one. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. We could do that if you wanted, but there’s an untapped opportunity here.”
“I’m not buying into one of your bullshit schemes again.”
Kyle couldn’t roll his eyes harder than he did in that moment. “Stop being an asshole and listen. People keep giving me money because they think I’m gay. That’s the same for you, isn’t it?” He paused. When Craig didn’t contest the assumption, he continued. “I’ve gotten over $200. If we keep this charade up, we can easily get a thousand dollars in no time.”
Craig squared his jaw. “Give me a hundred.”
“What? No, dude! Get it yourself.”
“You owe me. Do you remember fucking Peru ?”
Kyle cringed. He had far too many bad associations with that place at this point. “I’ll give you twenty-five. That’s more than fair.” Craig held his hand out expectantly, and as Kyle fished the wallet out of his pocket, he sighed.
Kyle internally celebrated his piggy bank filling up. It was nice to have extra cash. He had a plan for saving most of it, but it was nice to be able to do things with his friends without having to beg his parents for money. He could treat his friends to movies, to ice cream. Sometimes he did these things with Craig, as public appearances together were important to keep up the illusion of their being a couple.
Sometimes that alone meant getting more money. Sometimes it meant getting comped snacks at the cinema, or dessert at their restaurant of choice.
But it didn’t take him long to come to the realization that there was something very wrong with this. There was only one day to address this: a press conference. He already had the skills necessary to organize such things, but it was even easier to do now.
Seemingly the entire town was invested in what he had to say.
Stepping up to the podium, he adjusted the mic, and after assuring that it was running, he began speaking. “Thank you for coming. I’ve called you all here today to discuss something very important, that has affected all of us in our small mountain town.” He cleared his throat.
“Ever since the Asian girls started creating ‘yaoi’ of Craig and I—” He had to pause due to the round of awwws from the crowd. “Every single one of you have taken this too far. We’re ten. We’re not gay, and we’re not together.” To the side of the stage, he heard Craig’s stage whisper what about the money?
But this was bigger than money, as much as it pained him to say. “All of you invested in that art and acted as though it made you special, or ‘woke.’ It made you feel better about yourselves, you let it excuse any unacceptable things you’ve said in the past as if gay kids existing makes you a better person.
It doesn’t. We’re still the same. Our town isn’t more progressive because of this, and it’s ignoring the gay adults who’ve lived here longer than I’ve been alive.” He took a deep breath. “What this is, is exploitive. You’re putting stock in a fabricated relationship that neither Craig nor I consented to for the sake of your own happiness. We’ve financially benefited from this as well. It’s fucked up. We should all take a good, hard look inside of ourselves and reflect. We should be better than this. All of us.”
Kyle fell quiet, allowing the crowd to digest what he said. They’d understand, he was certain of that. But he couldn’t have been more wrong; barely ten seconds passed before there were calls of awww, how cute! Kyle is so cute!
“We’re not together!” He yelled it into the mic and stormed off the stage, away from the podium. The sky broke, an uncharacteristically heavy rain showered the town, and only then did the town realize their reason for hope and happiness was gone.
Days passed. Weeks. South Park suffered a depression greater than the last economic bust. Kyle steeled himself, determined not to let himself be emotionally manipulated to continue a fake relationship for the benefit of grown-ass adults. It wasn’t easy; he did feel bad. Especially when he heard his mother crying downstairs.
But he was left alone. There were no invasive questions or comments. No cooing.
When he crossed paths with Craig one afternoon, his step slowed. They made eye contact. Those around them paused, waiting with baited breath for a shred of hope that didn’t get. The boys continued on their separate ways.
Because none of it was the business to anyone else. No one needed to know that they had found a friend in one another, that they gamed together, or sent each other science memes.
Because they were just ten, and deserved the same amount of privacy, the same opportunity to just be a kid, as the rest of their peers.