Antipodean Love

Chapter 1: The Raven-Haired Rebel

Craig sighed to himself as he walked down the slightly cracked sidewalk to the bus stop, the frigid mountain air biting at his exposed skin. Thankfully, his winter hat and coat—both blue, of course—covered him and helped him stay warm. Warmer than he would have been, anyway. He kept his hands in the pockets of his coat as he walked, a lock of dark hair hanging out of his hat. Craig didn’t seem to give a shit. Craig didn’t give much of a shit about anything, really.

He continued to travel on his way, kicking mounds of snow and watching the white powder scatter and shimmer in the dim but still noticeable sunlight, and thinking to himself, “Why do we all still take the bus anyway? Most of us are 18 now. We can drive like normal people.” He then realized that using normality to talk about South Park was stupid; almost nothing in the town was normal. Atypicality was typical.

The raven-haired boy sighed again. “Maybe taking Philosophy and English is making me into a nerd,” he thought.

He finally managed to reach the bus stop, waving for a second at the four boys already there. Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny. Of course they were there before him, he thought; they were always there before him. Stan and Kyle gave friendly waves in return, and Craig noticed they were standing a bit closer to each other than they were to the others. He wished those two would just get it over with and fuck already. Cartman scoffed at him and looked away. Craig hated him. Almost everyone either hated or tolerated Cartman, but he did come up with some fun ideas every now and then. Kenny, meanwhile, responded to the wave with an unintelligible “Mmph mm!”, his voice muffled by his hoodie as always. Craig took his place beside the group, tapping his foot a little in boredom.

“Hey, Craig!”

A high-pitched, slightly scratchy voice came from down the street to the left. Craig looked toward the source, and a smile immediately lit up his stoic face. There he was: Tweek Tweak, waving to Craig and walking towards him. Craig’s boyfriend, and one of the few things he did give a shit about. It would be safe to say he gave multiple shits about Tweek. The pale teen’s messy golden hair stood up on end, and the white snow covering it once again glittered in the sun. Craig loved Tweek’s hair. In fact, he often called Tweek the “golden child" when he thought of him due to the beautiful color of his hair.

Craig snapped himself out of his reverie as Tweek approached him, holding a small thermos. It was doubtless filled with coffee, but Tweek wasn’t as much of a coffee lover as he used to be. A few years ago, and a few years into their relationship, Craig, with the help of the New Kid (they hadn’t come up with a better name for him yet) and some other kids, had convinced Tweek’s parents to slowly reduce the amount of “secret ingredient” in their coffee, weaning Tweek and the town off of it. Now he wasn’t nearly as anxious or paranoid as he was, though he did still twitch and yelp often, and got nervous easily. That didn’t really matter to Craig, though—if anything, he thought it was cute.

Tweek held out the thermos out to Craig as he approached, and Craig gratefully took it and sipped from it before handing it back to the golden child. Craig really liked calling Tweek that. However, he soon noticed something amiss.

“Babe, your shirt’s not buttoned right.”

Craig’s nasal voice managed to sound rather playful and teasing, despite how monotone it usually was. Tweek looked down a small bit, and his face seemed to flush slightly (though that could just be the cold).

“S-sorry, Craig...it’s still hard for me.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m happy to fix it.”

Craig leaned down to reach the shorter kid and undid the offending buttons, redoing them properly. He returned to his normal position.

“Thanks, honey.”

After thanking him, Tweek gave Craig a brief hug before letting go and standing next to him.

“Gaaaay!” Cartman yelled irritatingly at the couple.

Craig, naturally, glared at the morbidly obese kid and flipped him off. Kyle jumped in to defend them, stepping closer to Cartman and saying in his slightly high-pitched and sensitive voice, “Leave ‘em alone, fatass!”

Stan joined in with “Yeah, dude. They’ve been dating for years. Get used to it already.”

Kyle looked over his shoulder at Stan and nodded appreciatively. The sexual tension was obvious, at least to Craig.

Cartman looked away and muttered to himself something that sounded like, “Whatever, man. Just making a joke…”

The bus soon arrived, with a loud squeaking sound as it stopped. Craig got on, and Tweek brushed the snow out of his hair before following. The other four boys followed as well. Suddenly, Tweek let out a small yelp, louder than his usual ones, and Craig turned around to see what the issue was.

“H-hey! Someone pinched my butt…”

Craig glared at Kenny, who was standing directly behind Tweek. The hooded teen shrugged in response, starting to say something that couldn’t be heard.

“Take that stupid thing off,” Craig groaned. Kenny removed his hood, revealing his bright yellow hair, and shrugged again as he continued by saying, “Hey, man, be willin’ to share. Sharing is caring, right? And you weally cawe about me, wight?”

“Fuck off, McCormick,” Craig responded in irritation.

Kenny nonchalantly replied in his confident and sultry voice, with a hint of a Southern accent, “Whatever. I got my eyes on a different blond-haired cutie.”

He wiggled his eyebrows playfully at Butters, who was sitting nearby and singing to himself. The latter smiled politely, not seeming to know what Kenny was saying.

Craig groaned and sat down. Tweek happily sat next to him. He didn’t seem too affected by what had just happened —though he looked at Craig with some admiration. The bus began to move forward with a few slightly worrying engine noises, and Craig leaned back, preparing for another school day.