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Stan is fortunately with him when he opens his locker and the note falls out. Kyle and his best friend exchange looks of confusion and the redhead bends over to retrieve the lone paper that had tried to escape.
“Who is it from?” Stan asks.
Kyle unfolds the paper and to his disappointment it’s unsigned, but the message is blindingly clear.
I like you, but I’m afraid you won’t like me. This is the only way for me to reveal my secret.
Kyle turns the paper over and checks for any signs of who it could be from, but there’s no signature. The writing is unfamiliar, so he’s wondering if it’s from someone in another grade.
“No idea,” Kyle says as he folds it carefully and sticks it in the pocket of his jacket. He wants to keep it safe because he wants to investigate who it could be from. The probability of finding out who it was from is slim, but Kyle’s curious, and he’s got friends who have way too much free time on their hands.
He grabs the books he needs and slams the door shut. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”
The next day he’s by himself when another note flutters out, and he stares at it in disbelief as the message scrawled on it is revealed.
You are so many amazing things, and I feel so insignificant compared to you. I wish I could do half the things you do.
He feels his face burn, and he quickly scoops up the paper, folding it carefully before he sticks it in his pocket with the other note.
Kyle later shows it to Stan and Kenny during lunch, and Stan is visibly excited. “Any new clues who it could be?!”
“Same person,” Kyle pulls both notes out and lays them side by side. “Same handwriting.”
Kenny stares at the paper. “Someone mad crushing on you?”
The redhead shrugs as he tosses a fry into his mouth. “I guess.”
The blond hums and nods once, staring at the paper with a visible squint. “Sounds like this person has self-esteem issues.”
Stan picks up a paper, questioning the validity of that statement and Kyle runs it through his mind repeatedly.
It makes sense. Whoever wrote it bluntly said they felt insignificant compared to Kyle.
“Do you recognize the handwriting?” Kyle points to the paper and Kenny shakes his head.
“Nope, but I’ll keep an eye on notebooks for you.”
Kyle smiles and pushes his tray of pizza towards the blond, who accepts it gratefully.
The next note is carefully folded into a pristine square, and Kyle takes care to unfold it. When he does, it’s unsurprisingly another note from the same individual.
You have a big heart. You care about everyone’s well-being, and that’s admirable. I wish I could wear my heart on my sleeve as well as you do.
Kyle blinks at the message, rereads it once, twice, and then has to close his eyes and clear his mind before reading it once more.
He never thought he handled his emotions well. He was a volatile individual, quick to temper and even quicker to throw a fist when need be. While he did care about his friends, he didn’t think it was that obvious. He wasn’t the type of person to call and check up on people if they were out sick or drop by when they hadn’t heard from someone in a while.
He rubs his chin. Were these notes really for him or was it a case of mistaken identity?
He shows it to Stan and Kenny again at lunch, and Cartman slides onto his seat just as he unfolds the other notes for comparison.
Cartman loudly chews on his food, staring at the notes. “That’s Craig’s handwriting.”
Kyle stares at him in bewilderment. “What?”
The larger teen rolled his eyes and points at the paper. “That’s. Craig’s. Handwriting. Asshole sits next to me in several classes.”
Kyle stares down at the paper, suddenly feeling very disappointed. Was it a prank? Or did Craig get the wrong locker?
He folds the notes and puts them back into his pocket. “I’ll talk to him later.”
Later ends up being the next morning before he even hits his locker. He corners the dark haired teen in the hallway and gulps as the other stares down at him with an air of indifference. “Can I help you?”
Kyle wishes he hit a growth spurt like Craig did, but alas, he was shorter and it was evident by how he had to crane his neck back to make eye contact. “Did you write these?”
Craig waits silently as Kyle pulls the papers out, unfolds them to reveal the writing inside. He scoffs. “Do I look like I write shit like that?”
Kyle should’ve known that Cartman was leading him on, and feels his face flush as he pockets the papers. “Sorry, just uh—trying to cover all the bases, you know?”
The tall teen made a noise of disbelief before he adjusts the strap to his backpack. “We done here?”
“Yeah, uh—sorry again, didn’t mean to waste your time.” The redhead turns to walk away, but Craig’s voice makes him pause.
“Hey uh—good luck.”
Kyle turns and Craig is already walking away.
When he gets to his locker, there’s another note waiting for him.
I’m afraid that if you learned who I was you’d be disappointed. You’re so amazing compared to me.
This time he doesn’t even bother telling Cartman, but he shows Stan in the lunch line.
“So this person has self-esteem issues and looks up to you,” Stan says as he collects his lunch tray. “They also have to be smart cause they use words like ‘admirable’ and ‘insignificant’.”
“You can use those words and not be smart,” Kyle argues, but Stan just grins at him knowingly.
“Kyle, you’re talking about the kids of South Park. No one uses big words unless they’re smart.”
Kyle sighs and collects his tray and moves onto another topic.
In a last ditch moment of desperation, Kyle goes to the girls before school is dismissed and asks them for help.
Bebe and Wendy stare at the papers with matching expressions of glee before the blonde smirks. “Kyle, honey, please, I’m going to only say this. If you want to know who it is, come to school twenty minutes earlier.”
He squints at her, but she winks without comment.
Wendy nods and Kyle just accepts that he’ll have to come to school twenty minutes earlier.
He camps out the classroom closet to his locker, watching through the blinds. There’s very few students already here, most of them in the cafeteria eating breakfast or in the computer lab watching videos.
And then he sees it.
Craig is slowly walking down the hallway, long strides but at a slow pace. He stops in front of the wall of lockers, looking back and forth before he pulls something out of his pocket.
Kyle knows his eyes are wide like saucers, and he knows he’s gaping as he watches Craig Tucker stuff a familiar item into the slits of his locker.
He debates whether he should throw open the door and confront him for lying to him, or if he should just let this remain a secret and take it to the grave.
He chickens out, waiting for Craig to disappear from the hallway to finally brave opening his locker.
Once again there’s a single piece of paper, same handwriting, and he stares at it in disbelief.
This will be my final note. Thank you for letting me share my secret. I hope you find someone amazing. You deserve the stars.
He can feel his face burning. He wants to say something, but Craig had outright said it wasn’t him.
He decides to share the note with Stan, but keeps the additional tidbit to himself.
“So, it’s over?” Stan asks, expression crestfallen.
Kyle hums. “I want to try something.
Stan just gives him a look of confusion but doesn’t ask for an elaboration.
Kyle waits until he knows Craig is stuck in detention before he slides up to the dark haired teen’s locker and slips his own note through the slit, scrambling out of the building before he’s caught.
He can barely sleep that night, wondering what Craig’s reaction is when he finds his own note.
He makes it to the school early again, camping out by his locker.
He’s pleasantly surprised when Craig’s rounds the corner and freezes, eyes widening when he takes in Kyle’s presence.
Kyle smiles at him. “Good morning.”
Craig’s cheeks start to flush and he diverts his gaze. “Morning.”
Kyle calmly opens his locker and puts on a performance. He immediately makes a crestfallen face, a loud disappointed noise escaping his throat. “Damnit, no note!”
Craig is staring at him as he tears his locker apart. “What?”
“There’s no note,” Kyle says as he goes through his belongings. “Every morning there’s been a note from the mystery person, there’s nothing.” He sighs. “I was hoping they would keep writing.”
Craig keeps silent, watching as Kyle stares forlornly at his locker. “Maybe they ran out of things to say,” He finally suggests, and Kyle feels victorious.
Kyle feigns a sigh. “There’s so much they could’ve talk about, like their favorite color, maybe do they have pets, just—little things like that, you know?”
Craig averts his gaze. “Wasn’t the purpose of the notes to get a secret off their chest? At least that’s what the ones you showed me said.”
Kyle has to force himself to keep a straight face with disappointment lacing his features, and he slowly closes the locker door. “Yeah, you’re right. It was nice while it lasted. I just—I hope they’re okay.”
The other teen looks clearly confused by his last statement, but Kyle leaves before Craig can say anything.
Even though he didn’t have a note in his locker that day, he spies Craig pulling out a familiar sheet of paper during their math class and staring at it with a tiny curl of his lips.
He ducks his head to avoid being detected, and continues jotting down notes and thinking of different messages he could send Craig.
Turns out, he only had to leave two more messages before Craig runs out of patience or comes to a startling revelation.
Kyle scoots into school early yet again but Craig is already waiting by his locker, a frown marring his otherwise undecipherable face and his eyebrows are furrowed in thought.
The redhead stops and stares, and it takes the other teen a moment to realize he’s there. He blinks, a flush spreading across his cheeks. “How long have you been standing there?”
Kyle allows his mouth to quirk into a half-smile. “Barely a minute. You okay?”
Craig hesitates, then pulls out the stack of letters and holds them out. “Did you write these?”
Kyle feigns ignorance long enough to stare at his familiar scrawl, eyes roaming the paper. Then he leans on the backs of his heels and smiles. “Yup.”
The dark-haired teen clearly wasn’t expecting that response as he accidentally releases the papers and scrambles to collect them before they reach the floor. He stares, wide-eyed, at Kyle, who just continues to smile at him, immune to his antics.
“You wrote these?”
“Yup,” Kyle reiterates, then calmly pulls out his own stack of letters. “My turn. Did you write these?”
Last time, Craig kept a poker face and denied composing the very letters in his hands.
Now, Craig’s eyes avert towards the exit and his face colors, lips drawn into a thin line.
Kyle feels victorious at the sight of Craig Tucker being embarrassed.
“Yeah,” The tall teen finally confesses, still avoiding his gaze. He kicks at the floor tiles, scrubbing his shoe along the unblemished tile. “I did.”
“Why?”
Craig sighs and turns away from him. “Shit, this is embarrassing,” he covers his mouth and breathes heavily into the appendage, closing his eyes.
Kyle’s patient though, and he waits for Craig to finish his internal feud with himself.
It’s not long, and Craig turns back to him, wariness on his features and nervous energy pulsating under his shoulders. “Because I like you.”
Kyle can’t help that his mouth continues to curl upwards, and he must look like a psychopath because Craig looks more nervous now than he did twenty seconds ago.
“Why did you write those letters?”
“Because,” Kyle starts, then pauses. “You wrote to me first.”
Craig stares at him, frozen in place. “You wrote…to me…you knew…wait…”
“No one had ever said those things you wrote in those letters. They—they meant a lot to me. From your tone, it seemed like you had very little assurance in your own worth, and I wanted to make sure someone said good things to you too.”
The dark-haired teen’s expression crumbles to defeat, and that wasn’t what Kyle was expecting. “You…wrote back…cause my self-esteem…seemed like shit…”
This is clearly going down a path that Kyle hadn’t planned, so he regains control quickly before Craig gets the wrong idea. “Not really my end goal. I wrote them because I wanted you to actually come to me, to say it to my face that you like me. I didn’t want you to hide. Craig Tucker isn’t supposed to hide.”
Craig is staring at the floor again. “Craig Tucker also doesn’t have issues with his self-worth, but here we are.”
Self-deprecation wasn’t his strong suit, and Kyle wasn’t having it. He steps into Craig’s space, alarming the other teen at his close proximity, and he grabs the collar of his jacket before he tugs him down so they’re face to face.
“Craig Tucker also doesn’t know that I like him too,” he confesses, and he feels his cheeks burn at the admission.
It’s fine because Craig’s blushing as well, eyes wide once more. He works his mouth several times before he settles for a simple, “Oh.”
Kyle smirks. “Oh? Is that all you have to say?”
A fire lights in hazel eyes, and he closes the distance between them. His lips are incredibly soft, so soft, and before he knows it, they’re pulling away, and Craig is staring back at him nervously.
“Kyle?”
Kyle licks his lips, still in a daze. “Oh.”
Craig finally grins, then parrots back at the redhead. “Oh? Is that all you have to say?”
Kyle snaps out of his fog and bares his teeth in a fierce grin, wrapped his hand around the back of the other teen’s head. “I have so much to say, but I’d rather do this.”
When their lips collide once more, neither of them speak much about anything.
Bonus:
“Say it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Say it, Kahl.”
“Shut up, fat ass.”
“Kaaaahl.”
“FINE. You were right.”
“Mmm, once more? I couldn’t quite hear you…”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“No, not that.”