Fruit Juice - South Park

5: Watermelons

Upon entering the house, Cartman let out a small cackle in midst of fiddling with several lightswitches and nobs in the corridor, successfully activating the central fan and turning on an overhead light. Not that the extra artificial lighting was needed; the northern side of the house showcased floor to ceiling windows illuminating every inch of the residence in a warm glow. "I'm so sorry Kyle, how about I give you the keys and you go reverse it in yourself? Oh wait, you can't!" Cartman spat, dripping in sarcasm.

By this point, Kyle and Kenny had already moved onto their second trip of bags, while Stan ventured further down the entrance corridor to take a better look at the house's interior. "It's kinda stupid to have those big windows on the side of the house that's facing trees and shit, and not like, the literal ocean." He commented, now standing firm in the central space. The exterior offered a pretty good idea of the interiors size; the open plan layout meant the kitchen and living room were essentially one space, with an island counter, dining room table, and a few couches surrounding a much smaller coffee table in front a decently sized television all being spread from the west to east side. With everything viewable from everywhere, Stan additionally took note of the lack of privacy offered by the residence; no substantial places to be alone or out of sight.

"So yous lot will get up me for doing fuck all but Stan's free to ponder aimlessly around the place?" Snapped Cartman, drawing Stan's attention back to the situation at hand.

"How about we take the crap that needs to go from here upstairs?" Stan suggested, not awaiting for an answer with two bags already in hand as he tracked up the stairwell. Cartman only grumbled, taking the hint and following suit. "Er, this one? I think the other door leads to a bathroom," He asked rhetorically, balancing one bag on his bent upper thigh to free up a hand to open the doorknob. When Cartman joined the room seconds later, he didn't need to await an audible que to see the newly presented clear problem.

Dropping the luggage at the foot of the bed, Stan spun to face the boy he knew was behind him. "There's no way you didn't know about this." Asserted Stan.

"Dude, you think I fucking planned this? Why would I get an airbnb for four people with only one bed! It's not even that big!" Eric refuted.

Lingering footsteps from their rear announced the presence of the two other boys as they also made their way into the room, excess luggage in tow. "What the fuck?" Was all Kyle could question.

Arms going slack, Kenny loosened his grip on the suitcases in his grasp, "Heh, I bet this was probably meant to be some couple's villa." He joked, aimed at Cartman.

"There's always the couch." Kyle sighed, dreading having to undo all his effort and take his bags retroactively back downstairs again.

"I didn't bother to bring sleeping bags or crap, we're at the legit beach, I thought we wouldn't need anything like that." Stan additionally complained.

In the nick of time, Kenny had fortunately interrupted whatever vile string of words was about to fly out of Cartman's lips, "Well, what if..." He trailed off, stepping up towards the bed, "we could like, take the mattress off the bed, throw it down stairs, move that little table in the living room off to the side somewhere, plop the mattress there instead with all the couches..." Kenny's hands were making matching gestures to his suggestion, "... and once we cover everything in our blankets and pillows or whatever, it'll just be like, sleep wherever the hell you want?"

"Keeny, that sounds gay as hell." Cartman immediately shot back.

"You have a better idea?" Came Kenny's subsequent dig back.

"No no you guys, you have this all wrong," Stan interrupted, a certain tonal exaggerated carrying through the reverberation of his words. "Obviously, as the person who so graciously invited us here, Cartman should be the one who gets to stay all alone in this room, completely separated from the rest of us plebeians who'll unfortunately have to share the living room couches, leaving him excluded entirely."

As planned, this evoked the exact reaction Stan had hoped to get out of Cartman. "You dickheads, you can't isolate me from your little gay group!" He exclaimed, "Fine, we'll do Kenny's even gayer plan." Resigning, Eric trudged his was to the opposing side of the bed. "Kyle, you grab all the crap we just wasted time hauling up here, Stan and Keeny, let's get thing down there."

Whatever Kyle mumbled under his breath could only assume have been utterly profanity-littered. "Move that table while you're down there." Kenny added, before joining Stan in gripping the underside of the mattress and lifting it clean off the queen sized bed.

Enacting Kenny's suggestion, the move to bring the mattress downstairs was an awkward one; initially picked up horizontally, a cumbersome struggle emerged with the three boys consulting the best way to get to through the doorway, opting to get it through with sheer force alone. At the top of the stairwell, an effort was made to pretend they had any better ideas than the instinctive one that occurred as a light bulb moment, albeit an incredibly stupid one. From the living room, Kyle could only watch on in absolute horror as dozens and dozens of ponds of springs and cushioning came flying down the stairwell at a realistically clumsy and minute pace. As if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, the three trailing boys resumed their respective grasps on the mattress, and approached Kyle's current location, where he himself had shifted the coffee table out of the way, and made slight adjustments to the couch positionings to allow the final flop of the mattress centre stage in the living room.

"Fuck, Kyle, could you turn the air-conditioning on? I can't believe the first thing we had to do was goddamn physical labour." Stan heaved, hunched over to catch his breath.

"I didn't even see an air-con in the bedroom, so maybe this arrangement will work out better any... anyway... uh..." Kyle had trailed off, his line of sight flicking sporadically around the house's interior for any appearance the much-desired cooling device. "No fucking way," he blurted, frozen still.

Kenny, on the other hand, opened the closest window, and slid aside the sliding glass doors to let the outside breeze in, a very much warm breeze, but at the very least it was something to offer movement in an otherwise still and sweaty house.

Stan had finally gotten to his metal waterbottle, but only responded with a soured scrunched up expression when the liquid met his lips. "Dude, pass that here when you're done." Kyle requested, but Stan quickly shook his head.

"Er, no... it's warm, yeah. I'll get something fresh from the tap." Twisting the lid back on, and returning it to his bag with a toss, Stan made haste to the kitchen that was thankfully stocked with glass and silverware, where the few glasses he had chosen at random were filled up with tapwater and placed on the island counter for free taking.

By now it was past two-pm, yet they could barely be considered settled in. "I'm fucking starving you guys, we gotta find the nearest place serving food around here before this turns into some hannibal lector shit real quick." Stated Cartman slightly too casually given his ending implication.

"You're the one who refused to stop for breakfast this morning," reminded Kyle with a groan, much to the snickering surprise of Stan.

Cartman only rolled his eyes. "If ya gonna make a fatass joke, save it, you're all welcome seeing I'm the only one who knows how to prioritise around here!" He retorted, arms crossed firmly infront of his chest.

"I'm with Cartman though," Kenny pipped up, knocking back his glass of water. "There's gotta be a buffet or something around here; then we won't even have to bother leaving again later tonight to track down dinner."

"Track down," Cartman mockingly repeated, "You sound like a fucking forager or something." He snickered, weight shifted against the refrigerator offering support behind him.

"You're the one who brought us to fucking Louisana of all places!" Kyle interjected with thrown up hands.

Stan slipped out from his prior place in the kitchen, and made the first move back towards the entrance. "Food now. Fighting later. You got it?" He uttered, gesturing firmly to the door.

"Shotgun!" Kenny sang, making a beeline outside as a silent wave of agreement washed over the group.