Chapter Text
A blonde-headed boy walked into the school building with his hands in the pockets of his orange parka, eyes looking towards the ground. On his side walked a tall boy with curly red hair, then a slightly shorter boy with ruffled black hair that hung loosely from his hat. Slightly ahead of the rest of the teenagers was a chubbier boy with lighter brown hair; excessively rambling about something stupid. It was Kenny McCormick, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Eric Cartman. The group of kids everyone knew, they had been friends practically their entire lives, and it seemed that friendship wouldn't end anytime soon. "Whats got you so down today, don't got anymore food at home again?" Eric suddenly spoke, snickering as if he had said the funniest joke ever thought of. Kenny rolled his eyes at him, not taking his comment harshly. "Just tired as hell, was up all night." Cartman seemed uninterested in hearing about it, though Kyle cocked his eyebrow at the boy. "Again? Damn Kenny, you need to get more sleep." Kenny knew he should, but everything was stressing the boy out; he barely had time to relax.
"I had to help Karen with some of her homework, then do my own. Craig is paying me to do his Chemistry homework for all of this week so that too." Kyle stopped as the group had reached his locker; quickly unlocking it to grab his stuff. "Craig is always gettin' someone else to do his Chem shit for him, isn't he?" He muttered. "Well its extra money for me, I don't care too much." Kenny shrugged. "You that desperate for money?" Eric snickered, Kenny chose to ignore that comment. He wasn't desperate but he wouldn't turn down an opportunity for some extra cash; he could always use the money. Craig was paying him $40 so he definitely wanted to get all the homework done for him. It was Wednesday so he wouldn't have to bare through it much longer, and maybe he could get some more rest.
Stan was absent in the conversation until then, he had seemingly been scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up at the group, he moved some of his hair out of his face before speaking. "aye guys look." He said, showing them the phone. Kenny glanced over, and Eric pushed his way to see it because he was a nosy bitch. As his eyes adjusted to the light of the phone screen Kenny seen a TikTok edit with pictures of Stan and Wendy together, with some cheesy love song playing behind it, causing the blonde to roll his eyes. "What are you? A 6th grader?" Eric laughed loudly. "Cringe." Kenny joked, before looking away from the phone. After speaking Kenny stopped paying much attention to what the boys began rambling on about, his thoughts drifting to a certain blonde boy. It was Butters, one of his friends. Though Kenny didn't really call the kid Butters like most people did. He had always just called him Leo, since that was quite close to his actual name. He had known Butters as long as he did Cartman and the other guys, but they really only became close in the 4th grade.
The pair didn't seem like the type to ever be friends however, they were polar opposites. Butters was kind and caring, a huge people pleaser. He was innocent and practically never did anything wrong, though he was gullible as shit, and was quite pretty for a guy. Kenny, on the other hand, treated others the way he got treated, and would never go out of his way to please someone just for their gain. He was dirty-minded and didn't know how to keep himself out of trouble, and he was definitely not pretty, let alone attractive. He had horribly cut hair, and a gap between his front teeth. The boys teeth were one of the things he was most insecure about, and he hated smiling because of them. He always caught himself covering his mouth with his laughed subconsciously. He had been asked why his parents didn't get him braces a handful of times, and it was because they couldn't afford it. He had tried saving money to get braces when he was in like, the 7th grade, but his dad had found the money and used it on what he usually fucking did; alcohol and drugs. His mind drifted back to butters after a moment, wondering what the boy was doing right now.
He was likely around the hall somewhere, maybe talking to Tweek, or Pip. Part of the boy felt, jealous, almost? He wasn't sure why. He wished he was talking to Butters right now, it was always nice to see the enthusiastic boy. His happy mood was bound to rub off on you if you hung around him for a bit. Kenny's mind has been clouded with Butters recently, it was distracting. He sometimes found himself dozing off, just thinking about the shorter male and being completely unaware of his own surroundings. It was nice, it helped him escape his hellhole of a reality sometimes. Suddenly he felt himself being shoved, "What the fuck!" He half-yelled looking to see who had shoved him. It had been Stan, who had an annoyed expression on his face. "Bell rung already bro, get your ass moving and quit day dreaming about sex n' shit" He said before booking it down the hall to catch up with Kyle.
Kenny watched silently, had he been zoning out that long? They got here way earlier, it felt like it had only been 5 minutes. Kenny groaned in annoyance and began to make his way to class. His first class was Algebra 2, one of his least favorite classes. The boy wasn't bad at it, but that didn't mean he liked doing it. Though there was a plus to the class, and that was Butters. That was the only class the two had together, aside from their lunch hour. He would always go to him with group work or projects in Algebra 2 because he wasn't really friends with any of the other kids in the class. He knew Jimmy, Heidi, and Bebe but they weren't really close with each other. Kenny silently entered the classroom, seeing the around half of the kids were there already. So, he surprisingly wasn't late to class. Not that he ended up being late often, more due to the fact he was day dreaming the whole way down the hall. The blonde fell into his seat tiredly and looked up at the board. It had something about the assignments for today but Kenny didn't bother reading them. He wasn't in a great mood today, and a math class wasn't going to make it any better.
The teacher wasn't at her desk, so either she was going to be in here soon or they were having a substitute. Another thing Kenny noticed was that Butters wasn't in class yet, he wondered where the boy was? He may not be at school today, but Kenny didn't think that was likely considering Butters was perfectly fine the day before. He didn't have to wonder very long, because there was suddenly the sound of footsteps making their way into the classroom. As they got closer Kenny glanced back, and he was pleased to see Butters happily making his way to his seat. The boy flipped his hood over his head subconsciously, and as the boy sat down Kenny spoke up. "Hey Leo." He said casually, which resulted in a smile from Butters. "Well hey there Kenny!" He said happily, "How's today been treatin' you?" Kenny ruffled his hand in his blonde hair from under his hood, "Pretty good I guess, a bit tired though" Butters expression turned to a more worried one as he stared at Kenny. The taller male knew it must be obvious how tired he was.
The bags under his eyes had become a dark purple, it had been hard to look in the mirror at himself that morning, but then again it was always a pain for him to do that. He had a horrible self-image. "don't look like just a bit to me" He remarked, his concern obvious. "I had a lot of homework to catch up on last night, and I didn't get much time to sleep." Butters frowned, and he began to speak but Kenny didn't understand a word of it. He had begun to daze off, partly from his pure sleep-deprivation. He stared off into nothing for awhile, mind blank. His eyes slowly began to close, he could feel himself slowly falling asleep; "Kenny!" A voice woke the boy back up, it was Butters. Suddenly Kenny realized he had happened to be staring directly at butters lips. Kenny felt his face get hot and he quickly looked away. "Oh, hamburgers" The shorter boy gave a sigh; "You must be exhausted." Kenny was glad Butters hadn't noticed exactly where he had been staring that entire time, he hadn't even noticed where he was looking himself. Out of all places his eyes could've drifted off to it had to be there.
That didn't mean anything, right? "Of course not, staring at someone's lips by accident when your dozing off doesn't mean nun' " He thought silently. Then, the teacher finally decided to show up. He wondered for a moment what took her forever, but at the same time he didn't really care. "Hello class, sorry I came in a bit late." She said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. The teacher was quiet until she sat down behind her desk. "I'm sure all of you have read the board and know what you should be doing, atleast I hope you have." Kenny blinked, eyes quickly moving to the board. He cursed under his breath as he seen they had an assignment, that said it'd be due by 8:30 today. "Well that don't make any damned sense." He grumbled, they had the whole class period so why'd they only get a half-hour for whatever this stupid assignment was? His hands fell onto his desk, louder than he would've wanted them to. The teacher looked up from whatever she was doing and gave Kenny a look.
That caused Kenny to get more pissed about the class, and he decided to lazily put his head down. He reached for his phone to check the time, 8:20. No way he'd finish that assignment in just ten minutes, so why bother? He looked at Butters, who seemed content as he started on the work. Kenny couldn't help but admire his motivation, especially to be doing this so early in the morning. Kenny never did things because he had the motivation to, but more so because he had to. "Kenny McCormick." The stern voice of his teacher shook him from his thoughts. "Get to work, now." Kenny mumbled something inaudibly before getting out his work, making sure to take his time. He might aswell try to start on it, turning the work in late was better than a flat out 0%. Butters kept glancing back at him as he was working, Kenny had begun to notice. Then the teenager sneakily passed a paper onto Kennys desk. Curiously, Kenny grabbed the piece of paper and looked at it. He smiled slightly as he realized, it was the answers. "Damn, thanks Butters." Kenny whispered.