"Kenny, truth or dare?" seven-year-old Kyle asked, giving his friend a taunting, "pick dare, you scaredy-cat" look. Everyone else's eyes turned towards the parka-wearing boy.

"Dmph," he said confidently. Wendy and Bebe, the only two girls playing, exchanged perplexed looks at what they considered to be incomprehensible, but the others, his friends Kyle, Cartman, and Stan, understood.

"Okay," Kyle acknowledged, tapping his fingers on his chin tentatively, looking around the circle. The others stared back, looking like their parents while waiting for the results of the election. "I dare you…to hug Wendy for thirty seconds!" Kenny shook his head vigorously.

"Okay, then you're out, loser!" declared the unsurprisingly harsh Cartman. "Stan, truth or dare?"

Kenny McCormick faintly smiled at the memory that just popped into his head. The recollection was somewhat unexpected, seeing as it was a small and unimportant event in his life that occurred seven years ago. Then again, anything could happen at two in the morning. Or three. He'd lost track.

"Kenny?"

Kenny looked up to see the screen of a cell phone shining in his face. He squinted his eyes against the small light until it was moved away.

"Sorry," said the figure tucking the device in a jacket pocket. "Just wanted to make sure it was you." Kenny realized it was Wendy, with a very worried look fixed in her eyes.

"Wendy? What the hell are you doing?" the blond boy demanded, eyeing her circumspectly as she seated herself next to him on the bench.

"A more intriguing question: what are you doing with your hood down?" she said, and Kenny took that as an attempt to lighten the mood. Still, he couldn't muster a pity smile.

"Seriously."

"I was…taking a walk."

The little pause in the middle of Wendy's sentence was enough to make Kenny raise his eyebrow. He decided to change the subject. "Well, I'm out here because I couldn't stand my parents fighting." Immediately, he thought, Fuck. What the hell was that for, you dumbass? Please don't make pity eyes, please don't- son of a bitch. Wendy eyebrows furrowed; the concern that was in her eyes jumbled with sympathy. Kenny had to remind himself that her heart was in the right place instead of telling her to fuck off.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Wendy said, her hand twitching as if she wanted to reach out and squeeze Kenny's hand. For a minute, they sat there, observing what the streetlights would let them, Wendy wondering what to say to get him to open up, Kenny just sitting there, the corners of his mouth starting to twitch downwards.

Finally, Wendy blurted out, "When are you going home?"

"When are you?" the boy replied bitterly, drumming his fingers on his knee. When only silence ensued, he added reluctantly, "I'm not." Wendy's reaction, a slight widening of the eyes and the small gaping, nearly received a smirk and a snort in return. If it was Kyle or Stan sitting there, they'd punch him in the shoulder and wish him good luck. How extremely fortunate to have run away on the same morning of Wendy's oddly-timed stroll.

"Well, neither am I," the black-haired girl announced with such confidence it made the blond's skin crawl. Kenny looked up and heaved a deep sigh. The moon and its faint, yet sufficient enough glow seemed to be mocking him, and how Wendy couldn't converse with it, no matter how loud she yelled.

"That's such a dumbass decision for someone so smart," remarked Kenny, shifting so he was facing Wendy. "Go home. I wanna be alone."

"Nobody wants to be alone," she argued, shaking her head.

"There's a first time for everything, then." The orange-wearing fourteen-year-old slipped back into his original position, thrumming his fingers on the bench, so that it was louder and much more irritating than his knee, where the sound was muffled by fabric. It only seemed to irk Kenny, however, and he stopped.

"It's cold here. You can sleep over if you want," suggested Wendy, glancing at her companion with a seemingly saintly expression.

Kenny tried to hide the fact that he was taken aback. She seemed to spill out the offer naturally, as if it was totally normal to offer her house to someone who didn't even consider her a friend.

"No," he refused, thanking the lord he didn't stutter. He then noticed she was about to ignite a conflict, so he racked his brain quickly for a reason. "Stan would be mad, wouldn't he?" Kenny imagined himself patting himself on his back when the usually talkative girl's mouth clamped shut. He didn't actually give a shit about Stan and Wendy's relationship, but Wendy sure did. "Go home," he said flatly. But he felt his confidence melt away when his two-worded ultimatum fell on deaf ears. He thought he won that round, but Wendy's ass was still connected to the bench.

"This reminds me of a story I read in the Bible once," Wendy started, looking peculiarly at Kenny. "Moses was told by God to get the Hebrews- who were slaves- out of Egypt. So he went to the pharaoh of Egypt, and tried to convince him to let the Hebrews go, but foreseeably he refused. So then-"

"Moses did all that shit to the Egyptians, happy ending for the Hebrews," interjected Kenny, rolling his eyes. "Just give me your blessing and go."

"Let me finish!" snapped Wendy, clenching her fists, probably to prevent them from reaching out and socking her makeshift catechism class pupil. "That situation is similar to this one."

"You're not saving anyone."

"You only say that because you won't let me."

"Maybe so."

"Come home with me, Kenny."

The replies were launched back and forth like cannons. "No. I'm not a stray cat you can scoop up in those scrawny arms of yours. You're not taking me anywhere, you're not nurturing me, and you're most definitely not naming me Fluffy."

Wendy, at this point, was patently exasperated. For a moment, however, a brief glimpse of joy flashed on her face, genuinely puzzling (and possibly stirring up fear in) Kenny. She extracted her cell phone from her pocket. "You know, I'm going to call Stan. He'll give me permission."

The blond boy's lips pursed. So his excuse earlier came back to bite him in the ass. "Wait- no!" he exclaimed, reaching out and grabbing Wendy's wrist, preventing her from dialing in the few remaining digits of her boyfriend's number. "I'll sleep over. Just for tonight." He wouldn't be able to stand the look on Stan's face when he finds out about the situation. What are the odds of him running away on the same day of an apparent saunter? No, in the eyes of others (most especially Stan's), it'd be seen as a tryst.

"Great! It's twenty minutes till four and I'm sleepy," responded Wendy, putting away her phone, standing up, and adjusting her yellow pants. Kenny followed suit. She was grinning. He would've liked to think she was grinning at him in an odd giddy sympathy, but the words "sinister triumph" never left his mind.

Kenny pulled his hood back up and tightened the strings. He stuffed his gloved hands into the pockets of his parka and didn't speak while they walked several blocks to Wendy's house. The conversation between them echoed in his head. "I was...taking a walk." "When are you going home?" "Come home with me, Kenny." "He'll give me permission." "Great! It's twenty minutes till four and I'm sleepy."

Wait. Twenty minutes till four? Kenny thought. Stan wouldn't have answered his phone at this time because he'd be fucking asleep, Jesus Chr- Kenny McCormick, you goddamn dumbass. He clenched his hands into fists against the interior of his jacket pocket as he made a mental note to pound his head against a wall.