Chapter Text
Kyle didn't know how the topic came up during a relatively unremarkable and normal Monday - maybe it had been because of Butters, whom he vaguely remembered overhearing from his spot five lockers down, excitedly speaking to Bebe about some concert. He and Kyle didn't share too much in the way of music, so for the most part, their conversation was white noise as he pulled out his history textbook. He did catch snippets of words like 'Army' and 'No Jams,' which the latter didn't make much sense, but... Kyle shrugged his shoulders. Slipping his small pile of books into his backpack, he closed the zipper and swung a strap over his shoulder, grunting as the heavy weight settled on his back. He left the embers of interest fizz out as he walked to his first class, wishing the weekend had been longer.
While Mr. Garrison prattled off about the Civil Rights movement, Kyle tried his best to keep up, brows furrowed as he wrote his notes down. Only the task was more difficult than it should've been. In the back of the class, there was an incessant whispering that was constantly breaking his concentration. Muscle under his left eye twitching, he paused his writing and gingerly twisted around in his seat to catch the eye of the two chatters.
Ignorant of the frown being levelled their way, Bebe and Wendy kept giggling to themselves. Kyle's eyes narrowed. He could understand Bebe; she was notorious for her big mouth - a fact that Kenny liked to describe in great detail with a perverse dreamy look on his face. Wendy, on the other hand? Now that was a surprise. Light kick to his leg, Kyle blinked, turning back to stare at the person who'd tapped him. Seated at the desk to his right, Stan's eyes were downcast on his paper, but he mumbled from the corner of his mouth, confirming that it was him. "Ignore them, they're just talking about K-pop again."
"K-pop?" Kyle repeated, brow furrowed in confusion. He'd never heard of that word before - or... He searched his memory for a second, concluding that he might have heard that phrase said at the lockers. Stan lightly nodded, roughly erasing the word he'd just written. Kyle blinked, struggling to understand what it meant and why they were so happy over it. As though he could read Kyle's mind, Stan shrugged, wordlessly saying: I don't know either, dude.
Mulling this over, he let it muddle his thoughts for a few more moments before he gave his head a shake and rejoined the lesson. Well, he tried to. The bits and pieces he continued to hear through the rest of class didn't help in the slightest. Curiosity mounting as the time sluggishly tredged forward, and not able to search it on his phone in between running before the next bell rung, he had to wait until lunch to quench his thirst.
His dropped backpack thudded as it hit the tiled floor of the cafeteria, loud enough that Kenny and Stan paused talking about some television to glance up as his shadow loomed over them. Bracing his hands on the table, Kyle leaned forward, studying their reactions as he asked Kenny, "Have you heard about K-pop?"
The blonde's eyebrows shot up at the pointed question, the wordless weight behind it having him answer slower than he usually would have. "Yes?" He eventually said, face dropping to a cautious pout. "Is that a trick question?" His gaze darted to Stan for help, who shook his head.
Kyle sighed, plopping down on a chair with a huff. "No, but everyone seems to be talking about it today." He shot a frown at his other best friend, challenging him with a "How do you know about it? You only listen to divorced dad rock."
Stan hummed, taking another bite of his ham sandwich. "Yeah, but-" Crumbs rolling down his lips in between mouthfuls. "Everyone knows about it." As soon as the words were said, he knew the redhead was going to take offence to it, and he was right. Straightening his spine with an undignified squawk, Kyle hurriedly pressed "Not everyone!" He spun around to Kenny. "Right?"
Kenny's gaze drifted upwards to a deflated balloon that the janitor still hadn't gotten down from its place on a light fixture. "Well," he mumbled, drawing out the sound. "Maybe not hermits?" He looked back down to his bristled friend, trying to be helpful when he added, "And the dead?"
"Kenny!"
"What? I was dead."
Kyle sighed in exasperation. "That doesn't count!" He rolled his eyes when he noticed his friends sharing a look. "Whatever. I don't see the point in liking it anyway."
"Careful," Stan warned, eyes growing wide as he took stock of who sat within earshot. "You're going to get us jumped." Frowning when the genuine concern was waved away.
"Oh, please. It's true! I bet most of the people listening to it can't even understand Korean."
"And?"
"And?" He parroted, frowning at Stan. "Then how can you even enjoy the music you're listening to?"
"It's not like that, Kyle," Kenny interjected. "It's this whole vibe."
"Vibe?" He dumbly repeated, in disbelief as he watched Stan firmly nod.
"Yeah, and it's okay, dude. If you don't get it, you don't need to."
"But-" He broke off, mind overheating as it tried and failed to catch up. Frozen in place, he blinked at nothing as a set of footsteps approached their table.
"Who broke the jew?" Eric called out, hands full of his meal tray, as Butters peered over his shoulder. Sneering, he took the place beside Kenny, letting the blonde swipe a few fries and dunk them into his container of ketchup.
"No one," Kenny mumbled, a piece of fry dangling from the corner of his mouth. "He just learned that he's the last to know about K-pop." At the word, Kyle rebooted into the present, swivelling to redirect his hopeful, glittering eyes at Cartman. Who promptly cringed from the attention, leaning away like he was about to have a maniac episode.
"What?" He whined, nose crinkling in disgust.
"Cartman, you're not into K-pop, are you? You like stuff like Rammenstein, right?"
"I..." The rest of the words the brunette was going to say died in a big puff of hot air. Everyone watched as he grew curiously quiet, glaring at his burger and fries as he refused to reply. Kyle blinked, opening his mouth again when his gaze slid to a grinning Kenny.
"Speaking of-" A large hand slammed on top of his mouth, keeping the rest of his words buried as Eric growled in the blonde's face.
"Shut up!" He hissed into those smiling blue eyes, the tips of his ears growing warm. Pressing harder down into his best friend's jaw when he didn't listen but kept trying to speak, voice muffled by his palm. "Kenny!" He warned, promising endless pain. For a moment, it seemed to have its intended effect, and he cautiously withdrew his hold. With one last blistering glare, he begrudgingly admitted to their group, "Yeah, Rammenstein is cool."
A slow frown crept on Kyle's face, the rest of their friends wearing matching visages. "What was that?" He softly asked, speaking as if to a skittish animal.
"Nothing," was Eric's lightning-fast response.
Butters, who was sitting at the edge of their table, agreed with a hum. "Yeah," he softly added, "he was probably only talking about the photocard. Nothing important."
Several things happened at once, Eric grabbing ahold of a sealed can of cherry cola. Kenny was dying from laughter as he wrapped both arms around Eric, weighing him down so he couldn't whip the can at Butters's skull like intended. The other teen, now realizing his mistake, ducked under the threat with a squeak while Stan stretched his half-eaten sandwich in front of him - as though that could cushion the projectile.
Meanwhile, Kyle blinked. Photocard? "Photocard?" He finally said aloud. "What the fuck is a photocard?" The inquiry only seemed to throw fuel onto that fire. Baffled to see Eric's cheek flush a deep red and try to climb to his feet, anchored by a giggling blonde.
"Photocard?" Came a monotone voice from behind. Kyle met Craig's gaze when he turned around, who'd been walking by to join his own friends. "You mean the one for idols? Tweek has some." He jutted his thumb to a table over; the jittery teen speaking with Clyde, his messenger bag hanging from the back of his chair, was in their line of sight. Giving Kyle a firsthand example of what exactly Eric was trying to gatekeep.
In a plushy, alien-themed, lime-green holder, there was a selfie of Craig. He had that same sly smile he always had, but it was heavily edited to the point of being near unrecognizable. Basking in the blue stars and hearts surrounding their classmate's head, the understanding that Cartman owned a photocard as well was a nauseating reality. There was this pit in the bottom of Kyle's stomach, worsening when he knew that he couldn't write this off as some weird scheme by the brunette. That would have made it easier to swallow - that this was all for some attempt to mess with them.
Kyle's gaze slowly slid back to Eric, who was still fighting with Kenny to escape from their table. Only... that reaction said otherwise.
"Who?" He finally said to himself, unaware how loudly he had said it, flabbergasted that Eric had been carrying a photo of someone around and that Kenny and Butters knew about it. Granted, the pair were less likely to rip on him for it - but still... Cartman tensed at the question, as though he'd been dreading it. There was this pregnant pause where his flushed cheeks deepened in colour, and his gaze refused to meet his; instead, they flickered to Kenny's grin with a look of betrayal.
Eric loudly sighed, screwing his eyes closed for a moment. When they opened, he gave his arm one final rough swing, at last, dislodging his barnacle. "It's Felix from Stray Kids," he said with a sneer, raising his chin in defiance to the group's combined weight of attention. He then proceeded to shrug lazily, saying, "He's hot" as if that made perfect sense and nothing more could be added - as if that simple statement wouldn't unravel everything Kyle thought he knew about the brunette and that he wouldn't cause many sleepless nights over it.
It took ten seconds, ten long seconds, before everyone lost it. Correction - everyone did freak out, but in the kind of way you do with your friends when they say something ridiculous but will forget about the next day. Kyle was the exception, knowing that Eric Cartman had a secret photo of a Korean idol that he'd been carrying around was turning his mind into goo.
"Do you have it?" He croaked, in between the others' boisterious laughter and jokes. "Here, right now?"
Eric finally looked about him, brow furrowed as he debated whether he could lie about it or not. Probably not, by the way Kyle was staring at him. "Fuck," he hissed, cursing his luck. He reached for his backpack, placing it on his lap, and he unzipped the front compartment. The lights from the cafeteria fixtures seemed to hone in on the pale yellow of the holder, glinting as though it were made from magic. The group was leaning away, partially blinded from the intensity until Eric turned his wrist half an inch.
Like everyone else, Kyle leaned in, clenching his hands on the table as he tried to see what Eric labelled as 'hot.'
Long sunshine-blonde hair framed a soft-featured young man, his big eyes creased in a cat-like smile as he stared up at the camera. He was... fuck- he was beautiful. Kyle tore away from that gentle confidence with a jolt, dazed as he looked up at the photo's owner. "Why?" He begged, still not understanding. It had always been hard to narrow down Eric's type; he was never in a relationship with anyone long before he or they broke it off. But still, no one in South Park looked like that.
Felix, or whatever his fucking name was, looked like some character out of The Lord of the Rings. Not like a person - a human that Kyle expected, something like the rest of them, but a fairy. It wasn't achievable. Kyle's mind strayed to his own appearance, freckled tan skin from playing basketball and the mess of red curls that never did what he wanted them to do. Fuck, he looked like shit compared to that.
Unaware of his sudden bout of bewildering self-consciousness, Eric shrugged. "He's pretty."
Kenny slapped a hand on his shoulder, smiling up at his best friend's glare. "That's right, buddy. And there's no reason to be ashamed of it," He said with a grin, as if he wasn't the one who revealed the photocard's existence. "Who cares if some K-pop idol is your type. Different strokes for different folks."
"Yeah," Butters piped in, trying to be helpful when he added, "you shouldn't have to hide it anymore."
"I didn't hide it." Eric hurriedly argued, his ruddy face growing mullish. "There's a ton of thieves who'd love to get their grimy paws on him." He flipped the photocard around, slightly softening at the idol. Absently rubbing a thumb along the border, every pass of his digit made Kyle feel more ill by the second.
"Right," Kenny assented, strangely agreeable. "You were right to hide him for months in your bag."
Months?
Kyle blinked.
"Months?" He said aloud, stupefied for the millionth time during this lunch break. The idea of Cartman owning a photocard had only begun to digest, now to know that this wasn't a new purchase but, in fact, the bigot he sometimes called a friend had been secretly carrying a photo of a Korean idol in his backpack for months? One that he was interested in - that he liked and found attractive?
Kyle's eyes locked onto the object, realizing that for practically every day for the past couple of months, Felix had been there with them - every morning waiting at the bus stop, after school hangouts, during shared classes. Felix from Stray Kids had been the third wheel - or he'd...
The chair violently scraped against the tiled floor when he stood up. Everyone was staring at him now, a strange mixture of confusion and concern. Feeling the brush of Stan's hand on his sleeve, he brushed it off, not needing the comfort - at least, not now. The only thing on his mind was to get out there before he puked his breakfast all over their table. Mumbling an excuse, he snatched his bag from the door and fled.
Ignoring the calling out of his name, he breathed heavily through his nose, every step jostling the painful roll of his stomach. Shoving his way through the people in the hallways until he reached a set of heavy metal doors, Kyle stepped into the chilly outside with a shaky inhale. Greedy for the cold to burn his lungs and to get rid of the acidic taste on his tongue, he gulped down as much oxygen as he could.
This was crazy! He always knew that Eric was messed up; it would be insane not to know. But this? Kyle pressed his palms into his eye sockets, trying to calm his pattering heart. He was horrified to be friends with a crazed fanboy, obsessed over someone he didn't even know! Had never even met! And he knew for a fact that the brunette had never even been to Korea. Hell, he probably couldn't even spell it.
"Wait," Kyle mumbled, peering over his fingertips. "This could still be a prank." Right? He didn't know what it meant, but... His mind went back to Eric's earlier expression; the shame was too good for even Eric to fake. Okay, maybe he had been carrying the photo around. He'd accept that, but not because Felix was his type or whatever bullshit Cartman was trying to spout. He wouldn't allow that - for whatever reason, Eric was lying about his love for Felix, and he was going to find out why. But first, he'd need to do research. A lot of it.