The Project

Chapter 1

"Do we seriously have a new project in business? That fucking blows," I groaned. Wendy nodded in agreement as she stole one of the fries from my plate. I didn't mind though, the school lunch was shitty. "I absolutely hate that class."

"I know. It sounded like it was gonna be an easy 'A'. I thought it was gonna be easy. But, nope, teacher's gotta assign stupid ass projects," Bebe said with a sigh. "Even worse, it's assigned partners, not choice. I got Butters."

"Oh, that's not too bad. Butters is a sweetheart," I said. I took a bite out of the pizza that was previously on my plate. It was nasty but I'd prefer it to starving.

"Not when you have to work with him on a project. Especially a business project," she said with a frown. "Don't get me wrong, he really is a sweetheart. But he doesn't like doing the work and gets distracted really easily. We're gonna end up getting an 'F'."

"Well, I'd be fine with having him as my partner," I said.

"You wouldn't be saying that if you saw him in class. I'm surprised he hasn't been kicked from the class yet."

"Hey, Y/N, maybe we'll be partners?" Wendy said, tapping me on my arm with a smile. I smiled back and shrugged.

"Maybe. But it's unlikely with Mr. Yarden," I said. She sighed and nodded. "He doesn't even let us sit together most of the time."

"Yeah, you're right. We can only hope, I guess," she said with a shrug. I nodded. We all groaned when the bell rang.

"Good luck in math," Wendy and I said to Bebe.

"Good luck in business," Bebe said.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Now, I'm going to assign you your partners."

I glanced over at Wendy, who was sitting at the desk beside me. We'd probably only been allowed to sit next to each other since we were going to have to move to work on the project anyway.

Unsurprisingly, Wendy was already looking back at me with her fingers crossed and a small smile. I returned the smile and crossed my fingers, holding my hand up for her to see.

Wendy and I had been best friends for years, even before Bebe and Wendy met. We were partners on projects whenever we could be. Bebe didn't really like being in classes with both me and Wendy because of that. When it was our whole friend group though, the three of us plus Ender, she didn't seem too upset because we would all hope for group projects. All of us would be disappointed when it was assigned groups or partners because we could never get lucky enough to all be together.

"Your partner isn't gonna be anyone you're super chatty with during class, so you can all stop looking at your 'best friends'," the teacher said. My jaw dropped as I turned back to him. You would expect him to want to put us with people that he knows we'll work well with.

Wendy got put with Stan, so she got pretty lucky. They weren't dating anymore but they were still pretty good friends. I was really just hoping I didn't get put with Cartman.

"And Y/N will be partners with Kenny."

I inwardly groaned. Kenny was better than Cartman but he was also the most perverted boy anyone in this school knew. I was probably going to be left to do all the work while he sat there being a flirty prick.

"Good luck," Wendy whispered to me as we picked our stuff up to sit with our partners. I walked over to the desk next to Kenny's and sat down.

"Okay, we need to design a business that the two of us would be able to work for if it were real," I said, trying to just get right into the project. I didn't want to deal with his flirting already. I could probably deal with it some other time but not right now. "So, what are some of your talents? Other than being a flirty pervert."

He rolled his eyes at my words, which kind of seemed out of character for him, and said something that I couldn't hear through the hood of his obnoxiously orange parka. I raised an eyebrow at him, hoping that he would repeat himself, but he stayed quiet.

How did this boy get girls when he was hardly understandable and couldn't read social cues? It didn't make sense.

"I couldn't hear you. Could you uncover your mouth? Or speak up?" I suggested, giving him a thin smile. I knew that I was being rude and I didn't really want to be, but I'd been having a bunch of minor inconveniences all day and I was just getting annoyed at life. I wasn't trying to take it out on him but that was what was happening. I just wanted to go home.

Kenny sighed and unzipped his parka a bit, only enough to uncover his mouth though.

"I don't have any talents," he said. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

"Everyone has some talents. Even if they think they don't, they do," I said.

"Well, I really don't. Like you said, all I am is a flirty pervert," he said with a shrug. I sighed and slightly rolled my eyes.

"I didn't say that that's all you are, McCormick. There's gotta be more to you than that," I said, glancing at the clock. We only had a few minutes of class time left and we hadn't even gotten any ideas for a basic outline of what our business was going to be.

"Can I have your number?" He asked, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. I raised an eyebrow, my brain completely failing me until he explained. "We can facetime and start working since we didn't do much yet."

"Oh. Right. Sorry, McCormick, my brain isn't really working the best right now," I said, giving him a small half-smile. I felt a bit bad for assuming the worst.

I wrote my number down and gave him back the paper and pen.

~~~~~~~~~~

"God, finally," I said with a sigh. I had already called him a few times before, at the agreed time, and he didn't pick up. "Alright, so, we need to at least get a subject for our business."

He mumbled something but, once again, his hood was up so I couldn't understand him.

"Uh...what?" I raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed. He unzipped his parka a little before repeating what he had said.

"What do you want the business to be about?" He asked.

"Well, it needs to be something we can both do because we need to have a presentation thing for class so, like I asked during class, what are some of your talents?" I asked. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I don't know. Video games?"

"We could probably make a business based on video games, but I don't play many. Plus it'd be kinda hard to make a game or...something," I said with a sigh. "Wait! Do you still play the drums? We could make some business off of music. I can sing and play guitar."

"How do we make a business based on music?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

It took a bit to figure out how to make a business based on music but, eventually, we figured it out.

"Alright so-" I was cut off by screaming in the background.

"You fucking whore!"

"Shut the fuck up! You fucking douchebag!"

I furrowed my eyebrows in concern but Kenny didn't seem fazed.

"What...is everything okay, McCormick?" I asked with a small, concerned frown. He glanced away for a few seconds before answering with an awkward smile. He seemed embarrassed for the first time since I'd known of him. He was probably just hoping that I would ignore it.

"Yeah. Everything's fine. Don't worry about it," he said in a bit of a mumbled voice. He shifted, seeming uncomfortable, as the fighting in the background continued. He looked away for a few seconds and held a finger up to someone as if signaling for them to wait a second. He turned back to me as he started talking. "Can we continue this tomorrow during class? I gotta go."

"Of course. See ya," I said, giving him a small, sympathetic smile.

He gave a quick wave before quickly hanging up. I leaned back against the headboard of my bed with a sigh. I barely knew Kenny and my thoughts on him weren't that great because of what I'd heard, but I hoped that his parents fighting like that wasn't a normal occurrence.

Unfortunately, judging by his reaction to it, it probably was.