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The boys were playing Mario Kart together at Cartman's house. Well, not ALL of the boys. Cartman retreated to his room after getting 12th place on 3 grand prixs in a row.
Stan, Kyle and Kenny were finishing up another grand prix (Kenny won btw) as Kyle spoke to Stan.
"Dude, I haven't seen Cartman in like 20 minutes."
"He's probably still sulking about losing 3 times in a row."
"Heh, yeah, what a sore loser..."
They finished their round and Kyle couldn't help but be bothered by Cartman's prolonged absence, as much as he'd hate to admit it. He sighed.
"Ugh, he's such a baby. I'm gonna go get him. You guys do the next one without me."
The two on the couch would indeed Starr another grand prix without Kyle as the ginger boy went up to Cartman's room. He knocked on his door.
"Cartman!"
No response.
"You've been in there long enough, fatass. Come on! Play with us again!"
Still no answer.
"Ugh, dammit Cartman..."
Kyle decide to simply open the door. When he did, he found the fat boy sitting in a chair. He had no angry expression, no tears, just two eyes staring like daggers into Kyle's eyes.
"Hello, Kahl. Please, take a seat."
It was then that Kyle noticed a stool facing where Cartman was sitting. Reluctantly, Kyle sat down on the stool, facing Cartman.
"Very good, Kahl. There's something I've been meaning to ask you for a while now..."
Kyle was very much at unease by his weirdly formal tone, but he let him ask anyway.
"What's that?"
"...what's your opinion of the Isreal-Gaza issue, Kahl?"
Kyle froze. Why the hell was Cartman of all people aware of relations in Gaza??? The fat boy continued anyways.
"Please, do tell. It's been happening for almost 2 years. Surely you must've picked a side by now."
Kyle was breathing deeply, trying to think about what to say just in case this was a trick as Cartman continued.
"As we know, Israel has been blowing up Palestinians for an unacceptable long time because of one day in October. You of all people would agree that's unfair, right?"
Kyle nodded, nervously.
"Yes, I completely agr-"
"HOWEVER."
Kyle paused. Cartman spoke again.
"This is Israel we're talking about. All Israel wants is to exist and expand. And ya wanna know why? It's Disneyland for jews, Kahl. It's YOUR homeland. It's YOUR people. And would you really betray YOUR people, Kahl?"
Cartman got up from his seat, revealing a gun on his nightstand. Kyle shivered as the fat kid got behind him and held his shoulders.
"If you choose Isreal, you're a murderer, but if you choose Palestine, you're a traitor. There's no way to fence sit either. You're either with or against. With that being said... which side will you support, Kahl?"
Cartman rubbed his shoulders as Kyle tensed up. It remained silent for about a minute as Kyle swallowed the bile in his throat.
After a while, Cartman let go of him and scoffed.
"I knew it."
Cartman's tone stopped being formal and became more spiteful. The fat kid walked away by a few feet, getting Kyle all confused.
"What?"
"I knew you would do that. Do you think I actually care about that crap? I was only asking that to see if YOU cared, and clearly you do not."
"But Cartman, I d-"
"If you really cared, you would've said something right away!"
Cartman pointed at him, then gave him another look of judgement.
"But no, you just HAD to think it over, just to see which one made you look more... morally acceptable. But of course, that's what you do with everything, don't you?"
That statement made Kyle quite defensive. He got out of his seat to defend himself.
"I do what I do because it's right! I'm the one who tries to best to stop you and stop anyone from getting away wi-"
"We all know it's an act, Kahl!"
A silence filled the air for 5 seconds as Cartman was closing in on him.
"What?"
"Let's face it, Kahl. You're ten years old. Would a ten year old boy REALLY care about preaching to the town? Being a good example? Doing good and expecting nothing in return? You don't really believe in all that crap. You just want people to think of you as someone like that so people can think you're better than them! You're a faker, Kahl."
Kyle was somewhat speechless after that. Usually Cartman would just result to antisemitic comments, but somehow he's making a valid argument.
No, no he's not, he's just being an asshole. Kyle kept defending himself.
"I'm not faking anything!"
"Oh really, because I can see right through you. You remember that time you basically told the president to nuke Canada?"
"I didn't tell him, I just-"
"And you seemed very dead set that Canadians were in the way of your so called perfect world where everyone is nice to each other, huh? Not very moral of you, Ky-"
"I was in a bad place! All I wanted to to was get Terrence and Phillip off of Netflix and shed light o-"
"Don't lie to me, you just did it because of Heidi."
Kyle paused at that moment, so Cartman reiterated.
"You only did that because of Heidi, right?"
Kyle just looked over to the gun on the nightstand purely to change the subject.
"Why do you have a gun?"
Cartman knew he was stalling, yet he played along and faced his gun.
"This thing? It's just something I pulled out while cleaning my drawer a few minutes ago. It's been a while since I saw this. I remember putting a bullet in there, I just don't remember which chamber. Life is funny, isn't it?"
Kyle had no idea if Cartman was gonna shoot him with that thing or not, but he tried his best not to show fear.
"Th... that's a nice gun, Cartman."
Cartman sighed.
"There you go, faking again."
"What?"
"You don't care about my gun, you're just pretending again."
Dammit, he caught on. Kyle tensed up slightly more as he thought he would be shot. Cartman turned around to confront Kyle.
"Just now, you were pretending to be so stoked with my gun just so you wouldn't admit you were selfish. That's the thing about you, Kahl. You'll do anything to avoid accountability as long as there's a worse guy in the room. No matter what fucked up shit you do, people will just shrug and go 'oh well at least he's not cartman' or 'oh no it's okay cartman deserved it because he's cartman' and magically the fucked up shit you did isn't fucked up to do anymore."
Cartman's rant was clearly getting heated as his voice was raising in volume and his eye contact was everywhere.
"And don't try to say that it's okay because I do crazy shit because I learned that wasn't the case. Remember Cartmanland? When you threw a total fit and renounced your Jew God because I got a theme park? Does it really hurt you that much that I was happy?!"
"Cartman, I had a hemorrhoid."
"Fucking good for you! Good for you to overreact and give up on life because something bad happened to you. Good for you to give up on life because I was happy. Good for you that you only regained your health and your faith when I hit rock fucking bottom!"
Cartman was now screaming at his face with tears in his eyes.
"Because, apparently your stupid Jew life will only be happy and healthy if I'm fucking miserable for the rest of my life!"
The fat boy noticed how he was now panting and shaking. Kyle, on the other hand, was no longer tense, but filled with a sudden feeling of regret and sorrow. The jew shouldn't listen to the same kid who threw a giant hate party when he moved away...
And yet all he could feel was guilt.
As Kyle stared at him, Cartman wiped his eyes and kept his bitter tone.
"Y'know, I always rip on you for being a jew, a ginger and all that stuff. I know that. But I would've forgiven that a long time ago! I would've tried to forget about it. But that's not the worst thing about you."
The speech stopped being heated and became more clear, but still with genuine hate. It was almost as if he was making a valid point.
"The worst thing about you is your holier-than-thou mindset you always have. You look at all these people around you and think 'oh my god what a bunch of backward hicks, good thing I'm the only normal one in this town' when really, you're no different from Stan, you're no different from Kinny, and you're no different from me."
Cartman spoke that last part gravely while pointing at him. He paused before continuing.
"And if your entire life purpose is to pretend to be this great savior and take advantage of all of your peers, your life has the worth the size of a fucking ant."
Cartman went silent, then sat on his bed. Kyle just sat in silence, processing what had been told to him. His body was trembling as he tried to breathe. His slight laid on the gun on the surface.
"So... what are ya gonna do, Kahl?"
...
On the TV screen, the results of the mariokart grand prix were displayed. On the board, a koopa troopa (Stan's character) was in 6th place while Princess Daisy (Kenny's character) was in first. Stan sighed and put down his controller.
"Kenny, how the hell do you keep winning?"
"Hell, I dunno."
The two just sat there for a moment. Stan then gets up.
"I'm gonna go see what the other guys are up to in Cartman's room."
"Aight, I'll come with."
The two kids made their way to the bedroom. Stan opened the door, not expecting much, to see quite the shocking surprise.
Kyle was kneeling on the floor, hyperventilating, with a gun to his head. He was choked up with sobs as he slowly and repeatedly pulled the trigger, anticipating for a bullet to come out. Cartman was standing up and pretending to panic in a comedic and sarcastic way.
"Oh my God, Stan! Kahl thinks he's Kinny and is trying to kill himself!"
Out of fight or flight reflex, Stan screamed and dove into Kyle. Kyle did pull the trigger one last time, but thanks to Stan, the bullet didn't hit him. It hit Kenny.
Well, it hit Kenny's shoulder, so the parka wearing kid ran off to bandage himself.
Stan was slightly freaked out after he stopped Kyle from killing himself. He was holding him close in with an arm as the ginger boy started crying. Kyle kept pulling the trigger of the empty firearm, almost as if it were muscle memory, until Stan took it away from him gently.
Stan tried to soothe him physically by rubbing his back when Cartman butted in with his two sense.
"Wow, looks like jew boy turned insane, am I right, hippie?"
Stan just slowly turned his head to face the fat kid in an angry and mortified way.
"You drove him insane. He was the moral one in our group and you drove him insane. What the hell are we supposed to do now?!"
"Pfft, he's just being dramatic!"
Stan went back to comforting his disturbed friend, even looking concerned for him.
"Dude, dude, why did you do that?"
Kyle looked up with tears in his eyes and a weakened voice.
"I'm afraid, Stan... I've been afraid for the longest time..."
"Buddy, buddy, look at me, it's okay. Why didn't you tell anybody?"
"B...because, I didn't want anyone to think I was a massive pussy."
Stan honestly would've smiled at that normally, but there's a time and a place and this was neither. He just stood up and held Kyle close.
"How about you sleep over at my place tonight? Would that make you feel better?"
Kyle weakly nodded, his head still near his chest. Stan smiled and walked with him. Unfortunately, Cartman was following.
"Oh wow, a sleepover at Stan's! That sounds like a fun activity for ALL of us to enjoy!"
"Cartman-"
"Oooh, I have lots of ideas too! We can play games, watch horror movies,"
"Cartman-"
"We can stay up late and tell each other horror stories! I always have the best horror stories so-"
"You're not coming with us, Cartman."
Suddenly it was silent as the boys were now in the living room. Cartman was caught off guard.
"Stan, what do you mean by that? I'm you guys' friend, asshole!"
"That's the thing, I... I think me and Kyle should take a... break from being your friend."
Cartman gasped as he was very offended and now pissed.
"What?! You're breaking up with me as a friend?! What the fuck, why?!"
"Dude, it's not a permanent thing, I just think some space would be good for us."
"No you don't! I'm the funny one! Why would you want space from me-"
"Because you almost drove my best friend to suicide, asshole!"
"Oh he's faaaakin'!"
Stan was now pissed, though not as pissed as Cartman was. Stan continued.
"I can't be your friend right now if I can't even trust you around Kyle."
Said Kyle was being very quiet in this argument and was just weakly holding onto Stan as the latter turned to face the door.
"This sleepover is just for the two of us. I just want him okay. I understand you two have some dumb rivalry and all but I wouldn't live with myself if I let you kill him. You wouldn't want that either, because without him, your life means nothing."
That's what all Stan had said as he walked Kyle over to his place. Cartman turned red.
"OH YEAH?!"
Cartman ran outside to yell at the two.
"W-WELL I HOPE... I HOPE YOUR HOUSE BURNS DOWN AND- AND YOU TWO ARE IN IT, AND... AND YOURE HOLDNG HANDS, AND KISSING, CAUSE YOURE GAY!"
God that insult sucked. Even for him.
Cartman trudged back in his house and onto his couch, now tired. He turned over to Kenny, who now had his right shoulder and arm covered in gauze. Cartman just sighed and stared at the ceiling.
"I hate you Kinny."