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Kyle did not know why he was still playing this damn game. He hated baseball. He hated watching it and above all else; he hated playing it. But here he was, spending his time doing anything else, playing one of the most boring sports.
He didn’t even really like sports anymore, but it was this or be forced to stay at home where he would be forced to help while family was visiting. And he really didn’t want that. So he was stuck on the field.
It’s not even like he was doing much. When he wasn’t up for the bat, he was stuck standing around waiting to pretend like he was going to actually catch the ball and then do something with it. Which meant that he got to stand out in the hot sun sweating for hours.
It wasn’t much different from when he played briefly in elementary school, as they still didn’t want to play that badly. The big difference is that the team they were playing against was made of people who actually wanted to play for some reason.
And they were not that good.
Which was good for Kyle. It meant that he didn’t have to do much in terms of actually playing the game. He could rely on the others who actually cared about the game to understand what the hell was going on, even if they didn’t like the sport.
The only real good thing about all of this was that he wasn’t the only one out of his friend group who was forced to play this dumb sport.
He and Cartman had been getting closer over the last year, ever since he was forced to go to therapy. He had been getting better since so it didn’t entirely surprise Kyle was Cartman said he was going to join as well although he said that Kyle wasn’t an influence in it. He spent most of his time complaining that he was there, even if he could have chosen any sport.
While of course, he was glad that someone else had to suffer with him, it’s not like he got to stand there complaining the whole time. Most of the time he was staring into space, waiting until he was forced to go up to bat.
Then of course there were the days where he was spending his time sitting out. While everyone on his team was bad, he was one of the worse ones, but there hadn’t been many choices when he had been trying out.
This was their last chance to not have to move on. And they were currently doing pretty badly and there wasn’t much time left in the game. Kyle spent most of his time watching Cartman, who was still playing as catcher the same as he had in elementary school.
There wasn’t much to do when you weren’t actively trying to win. So he would watch Cartman, one of the few ones who had to at least kind of try at his job. Or at least, Kyle thought. He’d been playing the sport for long enough that he should probably remember the rules, but really it was just all too boring for him to go out of his way to remember every single position’s role.
It wasn’t really something new for him. He has kept a close eye on Cartman since they were young. But it was different now. Before he was watching, waiting for Cartman to do something. He was always planning something in Kyle’s head, even when he pretty clearly wasn’t. But it was different now. They were more friends than enemies now.
Which was weird. It was still weird to hear Cartman not refer to him as jew or some other thing that was just to piss him off. All of this was so weird that he was still calling Cartman by his last name. He had tried at one point to at least call him Eric in his head, but it still sounds so weird.
He just couldn’t do it. But he knows things are changing between the two of them. In a kind of significant way too. And it really became clear to him during this time that he was at practice when the only thing to do was to stare at Cartman and go over study material in his head. Although he couldn’t do much of the latter right now with the fact that they weren’t in school.
But Kyle was pretty sure that he was starting to actually get a crush on Cartman.
If you had told him at the age of ten, the height of Cartman doing stupid shit to piss him off, that he would have a crush on him in middle school, he would have laughed at you. But he was a logical person. And that meant that he had to accept the truth when it was in front of him. And the truth was that he had a slight crush on Eric Cartman.
It wasn’t the end of the world, of course. There was no way that he would ever act on it, of course. But he had to acknowledge it. He would also tell no one about this. While Kenny might just laugh at him, he was pretty sure that if he was ever to tell Stan, it would break his best friend. He was pretty sure that Stan wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about it.
Not that Stan was normally someone who would tell secrets to everyone, but there is no way that Stan wouldn’t need to talk this out. Which he would obviously do with Wendy, who would probably tell Bebe, and then everyone would know.
And this was something that he would rather that no one ever knows about. He was planning on keeping it buried deep forever and then it would finally go away, eventually.
He was brought back when the game finally ended, and they lost. They all tried to pretend they were upset, of course. They were a little older now, and it might seem a little weird if they were obvious about the fact that none of them wanted to be there.
So they all made their way back to the locket room before they all got to celebrate.
They didn’t have long before their couch would come in and try to console them, so they were quick about their celebrations. Although it’s not their celebrations were anything more than just a brief congratulation to each other.
After a few moments, they all had to pretend to be disappointed as their couch came in to console them, but he didn’t stay for long so that they could all get changed. Half of them had a long drive ahead of them.
Since the high school was in North Park, so were the games that they played most of the time. And while North Park wasn’t that far away, it was an hour. Which was a while long drive.
Kyle still couldn’t drive, he didn’t really care to learn. He was lucky that Cartman did and since they were no longer enemies trying to thwart each other’s plans (although it was mainly one-sided) Cartman had agreed.
The drive was mainly quiet as they drove, neither of them really having anything to say after games. The road was pretty dark, meaning that Cartman had to focus on driving a bit more than normal. Kyle didn’t mind, although he did almost always feel like he was going to die when he got in the car with Cartman driving.
He was a terrible driver.
But because Kyle didn’t want to learn, he had to stick it out if he didn’t want to have one of his parents come and drive him back and forth. He would much rather ride with Cartman, who sucked at driving than his dad, who he really didn’t get along with anymore.
“I’m so glad that we don’t have to go to any more practices,” Cartman said, breaking the silence between the two of them. Kyle nodded.
“Baseball is just such a boring sport. But it was really the only way to politely get away from family.” Kyle said.
“Oh, just tell them to fuck off,” Cartman said, taking a hand off the wheel to wave Kyle off.
“Yeah no. Not all of us can get away with shit like that with our parents.” Kyle said rolling his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that I would get killed if I did that.”
“But it would be worth it. Because then you wouldn’t have to hang out with them or have to play the world’s most boring sport.” Cartman reasoned.
“Still, I’d like to live thank you very much,” Kyle said as Cartman pulled into his driveway. He hesitated for a moment before opening up the door. “See you tomorrow?”
“I’m pretty sure that McCormick is going to drag me there whether or not I want to go,” Cartman said, shrugging, making Kyle laugh softly.
“Night,” Kyle said, finally closing the door and walking to his door. He had his hand on the knob before he heard the car door open. He turned around just to see Cartman stalling over to him.
He was about to ask what was wrong before he was interrupted with the other’s lips on his own. Before he could do anything back though, Cartman was already pulling away before saying, “See ya,” and running back to his car and driving a house over.
Kyle quickly rushed into his house wondering what the hell just happened and how the hell he was going to face not only Cartman tomorrow but Kenny and Stan as well. Tomorrow was going to be hell.