Chapter Text
There was a new boy at Lukas Bondevik’s school.
He gained popularity quite quickly for a new kid, because of his bubbly personality and good looks. His eyes were as blue as the sky on a clear summer day, and he had a habit of wearing a daisy everyday in his gravity-defying golden hair.
His name was Matthias Kohler, and somehow Lukas didn’t know that yet.
Lukas was more concerned with the flowers on his wrist– like all people, tattoos of flowers wound sweetly around his arm. Pyramidal Saxifrage bloomed along one stem, and a chain of daisies on the other. The first, like all people, represented him. The other, his soulmate.
It had been but a week since Matthias had arrived, only his second day at school since moving. When Lukas entered his first class of the day (science, taught by Mr. Wang) he found his usually-empty table half-occupied with the new boy sitting in the seat next to his. He beamed at Lukas, shining like the sun, and Lukas made a quick stop at Mr. Wang’s dest to ask about the new student.
“Ah yes,” the teacher informed him. “That’s Matthias Kohler. He was added to the class just a few days ago. This is the first day he’s been able to attend.”
“Why there,” Lukas hissed. “Why does he have to sit next to me?”
“Yours was the only empty seat,” Mr. Wang said, clicking open his pen and pulling to him a paper from a stack of tests to grade. “Think of it this way, Lukas. Now there’s no need for you to work alone.”
“But I like working alone,” Lukas muttered bitterly. “And he looks like an idiot.” But he went to his seat anyway.
The Norwegian dropped his bag on the ground next to his seat as the warning bell rang, scooting as far away as he could from the other boy and pointedly ignoring his cheerful attempts to greet him. Matthias dismissed these attempts after a minute or two of being ignored, and Lukas pretended not to notice Mr. Wang’s eyes burning into him as he took out his notebook and began to write notes.
The second bell rang, and the classroom (now filled with people) quieted as Mr. Wang called over the chatter to get their attention. Matthias stood up when the teacher called on him to introduce himself.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully, and Lukas resisted the urge to cover his ears to block out his loud voice. “I’m Matthias Kohler, and I’m sure a lot of you know me by now; lots of familiar faces, I see in here.” Lukas pulled his highlighter out of his pencilcase and used it to mark a line of his notes. Matthias sat down again next to him, taking out a sheet of paper to write his own.
When the others began packing up to go to their next classes, Lukas found himself called up to Mr. Wang’s desk. The teacher had a disappointed look on his face, and he sighed when his student asked why he’s been summoned.
“How many friends do you have, Lukas?” Mr. Wang asked. The teen shrugged, not willing to tell. “Matthias is just trying to be nice to you; and this is how you thank him? By ignoring him?”
Lukas shrugged again. “It’s annoying.”
“Is he annoying, or are you annoyed because no one ever talks to you more than they need to?”
“Annoying.”
Mr. Wang sighed again. “Lukas, you can’t keep doing this. One day you’re going to find yourself struggling with no safety net to fall back on because you pushed everyone away. You need people just as much as any of us; Just look at your flowers.”
The first bell rang, and Mr. Wang grabbed Lukas’ hand as he turned and tried to leave.
“Just try to get along with Matthias,” he pleaded. “I have a feeling it’ll be good for you.”
Lukas didn’t reply, already dashing off to his next class and trying to shut out his teacher’s words. His next class passed smoothly (that was Lukas for you– ever-brilliant at English class), but lunch…
Lunch.
It was concerningly rare that Lukas ate three meals a day. In fact, he only even ate two meals a day a few times per week. Usually at lunch he would curl up in one of the study nooks and work on homework. Today, though, it seemed luck was against him. Matthias showed up halfway through the lunch hour and sat next to him, ignoring Lukas’ huff of annoyance as he began to ramble about his math class. Eventually he must have noticed Lukas wasn’t eating, because he nudged the boy’s shoulder and offered him half of his sandwich.
“No thank you,” Lukas denied. “I’ve already eaten.”
He missed the suspicion on Matthias’ face as the golden-haired boy took a bite out of the sandwich. “Suit yourself.”
When the bell rang, Lukas bolted up and hurried to the changeroom, putting his gym strip on hurriedly before walking into the gym and pushing himself up to sit on top of the closed folding bleachers. There he waited for his gym teacher, nails digging into his palms as none other than Matthias Kohler entered the gym. The daisy, for once, was out of his hair (probably left in the changeroom with the rest of his clothes), and he beamed and ran over to Lukas when he saw him.
“What are you doing here?” Lukas snapped.
“ Waiting for gym to start,” Matthias replied, leaning against the folding bleachers. “What else? Hey, do you know what we’re doing in class today?”
Lukas didn’t bother with replying, instead focusing on Mr. Beilschmidt as he walked in and began to set up the volleyball nets. His long blonde hair was tied into a high ponytail, dangling down his back with a single slim braid tied into it. He clapped his hands to get his class’ attention. “Everyone get into partners, practice your bumps and sets!”
Matthias tapped Lukas’ shoulder shyly as he hopped down from the bleachers. “Hey, uh, can we be partners? Everyone else seems to already have one.”
Lukas would admit that having the wall as a partner was a pain (and he’d ignore Matthias' words and how they implied that he wouldn’t be with him if there was literally anyone else). He would forever swear that that was the only reason he accepted the offer.
It soon became apparent that Matthias was insanely good at volleyball. The armbands covering his flowers must have provided some padding and made his hard hits hurt less (though not by much– they couldn’t have been thicker than the sleeves of Lukas’ hoodie), and it was quite obvious thatLukas was the worse of the two. What was he supposed to do, though– ignore his instincts to get hit in the face by a flying ball? Those instincts were there for a reason!
(He would never admit that it reminded him of flying fists, or the dim memory of crying in his crib as his father and mother fought. He wouldn’t.)
When Mr. Beilschmidt told them to line up to pick teams, no one seemed surprised that Matthias would be so enthusiastic about being team captain, or that Lukas’ entire team groaned when they were told that he would be playing with them. They put Lukas on to serve first, then– he may not have been any good at hitting the ball, but he had a pretty decent serve.
“Service!” and the game was on. As expected, Lukas flinched away from every ball that came his way. Matthias was an absolute star when it came to volleyball, and so it was no surprise when his team won against Lukas’ the first game with a score of 25-2.
Lukas pretended not to mind the way his team blamed him for the staggering loss. It was probably the truth anyway. He sat out for the rest of the class (his team won once or twice without him), gritting his teeth and trying not to cry as Mr. Beilschmidt released them to get changed.
No one noticed. Of course they didn’t.
Lukas’ last class of the day was art, which he… wasn’t the biggest fan of. Once (a long time ago, centuries back when he still attended elementary school) he was the best artist in his class. High school made him realize the reality of his work, though– that it was nothing compared to the beautiful landscapes and perfect portraits his classmates could make. It was just more of a reminder that he wasn't perfect anymore (he was a failurefailurefailure)
He sat heavily down in his usual seat, dropping his head down onto his binder as chatter filled the room, people wondering what the new project Mr. Vargas would assign them was.
Someone sat next to him. Lukas looked up to meet the person’s eyes. “Oh, no, not you.”
Matthias smiled. “Sorry, sorry, you just seemed lonely. And there’s an empty seat right here so I thought, ‘why not?’”
The second bell rang and Lukas’ eyes snapped to the board. It wasn’t like he was planning on doing the assigned project anyway; or if he did it would barely get a passing grade. It wasn’t like he even wanted to be in art this year anyway, and he planned to make it well-known. Matthias twirled his daisy between his fingers, then slipped it back into his hair.
Mr. Vargas was a cheerful man, and most of the students in his art classes loved him. He had a grandfatherly air around him– he was sweet and supportive to every student. The valerian flowers and pink carnations winding around his wrists were always visible; no one knew if it was because he always had his sleeves rolled up to paint or for some other reason. The Italian stood from his desk (where a desk easel was set up; he must have been painting again).
“Alright class,” he said cheerfully. “Before I introduce our new assignment, I just want to introduce our newest student, Matthias Kohler! Matthias, will you stand…?”
Lukas ignored Matthias’ speech about how excited he was to be there for the second time that day, instead fiddling with the hem of his sleeve and glaring into the chalkboard. Mr. Vargas smiled at Matthias after he finished his speech, then turned to the board and wrote something out.
“Your next project will be a painting, and a… partner project of sorts. You’re going to be painting the person next to you with their soulmate flower. You can choose how you include the flowers, but make sure they’re in there somewhere! One partner, come up and get your artist’s panels, today you’ll be sketching…”
Lukas tuned his voice out, only coming back to himself when Matthias placed a panel in front of him. “Hm?”
“For your painting,” Matthias explained, though he didn’t need to, as he took a pencil and began to draw.Lukas guessed the circles and lines were eventually going to become him. He pushed his panel out of his way and grabbed some science homework to do. Matthias made a little confused sound, and Lukas’ eyes shot up to meet Matthias’.
“You’re not going to draw?” Matthias asked. Lukas scoffed.
“No,” he retorted, almost feeling bad when he saw the kicked-puppy look on Matthias’ face. “I’m not good at art, not good at this; you don’t want to see a painting of yourself if it’s by my hand.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Matthias said sweetly, taking the panel and placing it over Lukas’ homework. “Come on, I want to see it!”
“No,” Lukas insisted. “I told you, I’m not good at art.”
“Then why’re you in the class?”
“I didn’t want to be.”
Matthias shrugged and continued his sketch. Lukas wrote his name and the name of his subject on the back of his panel (first and last; everyone seemed to like when he put in that kind of effort) and pushed it away, The other blonde seemed to remember that he had to put their names on his work, then, and he stole a look at the back of Lukas’ panel for his name. “Lukas… Lukas Bondevik, huh? Nice name.”
Lukas didn’t reply, turning away pointedly and writing down answers to his science homework. Chemistry. How did you balance a chemical equation again?
The class time passed in a flash like that, and at the end of class Matthias stacked his artist’s panel overtop of Lukas’ and carried it to the storage rack. Before he went, Lukas saw a glimpse of a beautiful drawing; short, sweeping hair with a stubborn curl in the back framing a slim face, space for flowers left all around the body.
It was him.
Even the new kid was a better artist than him.
Lukas watched Matthias until the final bell of the day rang, preparing to leave only when its sound burst through the halls. Through the chatter of students in the hallway Mr. Vargas called Lukas up to his desk, a concerned look on his warm-featured face.
“Lukas Bondevik,” he began slowly, then paused as if he were unsure of how to continue. “You’re failing my class.”
“Sounds about right,” Lukas mumbled. Mr. Vargas looked up at him worriedly.
“It doesn’t, though. You’re a wonderful artist, Lukas. You passed my class last year with flying colours. Literally.” He handed Lukas a paper. On it were all Lukas’ graded assignments. Zeroes sat in the score of all of them in purple (because black and blue and red were too basic for art class, Mr. Vargas had said); 0/25. 0/10. 0/14. 0/6. “What happened, Lukas?”
Lukas shrugged. It probably wouldn’t look good to say he was bad at art to Romulus Vargas, the king of compliments himself. “Dunno.”
“Lukas, aye…” he rubbed at his temples. “You need to bring this grade up, Lukas. I’ll… I’ll tell you what. Get a good grade on this new project and I’ll give them all a passing grade; just please show me that you’re trying.”
The teenager nodded emotionlessly and left without another word. (Failure.) He felt as if he couldn’t speak. (You’re a failure.)
He ignored Matthias sitting outside the door, and continued to do so as he began to follow him. “Mr. Vargas said you were a good artist.”
“Eavesdropper,” Lukas shot back. “He was lying. Mr. Vargas compliments everyone.”
Matthias fell into step next to Lukas, searching his brain for an excuse to change the subject. His eyes fell upon a patch of flowers outside the school as they left the building, and he asked his question. “Have you met your soulmate yet?”
“No.” And he so desperately wished to meet them, the person who wound a wreath of daisies down his arm, the one who would love him unconditionally despite his glaring flaws. “And I hope I never do.”
Matthias looked hurt. “What? But why?”
“What’s the point?” Lukas snapped. “It’s not like happily-ever-afters exist in real life.”
(Bur he wished they did, every bone and muscle in his body longed to be held and comforted, shielded from the world that hurt him so much–)
Lukas turned sharply down his street, frowning when Matthias followed him. He refused to speak for the remainder of their walk, despite Matthias’ eager rambling and questions, and nearly slammed the door behind him when he reached his house.
That idiot lived next door to him.
Dinner, as always, was a tense affair. Neither of their parents, ever-working, were ever home to eat dinner with their sons; Emil would sometimes eat alone, even, while Lukas studied and neglected himself in his room. Other times, Lukas would stew in jealousy of Emil’s freedom. This day, they ate in silence. Lukas’ eyes were trained on the flowers wrapped around Emil’s wrist, secretly wishing to know his soulmate like his brother did (Leon Wang, Emil had told him, the one who represented those beautiful Hong Kong Orchids). Never would he admit aloud that he wanted to meet the person who the daisies represented.
“Did something happen at school today?” Emil asked suddenly. Lukas shook his head.
“Just some annoying new kid,” he said. “Apparently he’s our new neighbour.”
At that moment, someone knocked on the door. Emil and Lukas glanced at each other, then Lukas stood to answer the door. His brother followed shyly behind him, taking a seat on the stairs as Lukas opened the door.
The knocker was a healthy-looking woman about Lukas’ height, dressed in a cheerful yellow dress and holding a cherry pie. Behind her stood none other than Matthias Kohler, smiling brightly as he realized who was at the door.
“Ah, hello!” The woman chirped, and it was obvious which parent Matthias had inherited his cheeriness from. “I’m Mathilde Kohler, Matthias’ mother. You must be… what did you say his name was, dear? Ah, yes, Lukas Bondevik!” The pie was pressed into his hands, and Lukas pressed his lips together in a strained smile. “I must say, you’re just as handsome as my son said you were.”
Lukas sputtered, blushing bright red as Matthias screeched. “Mom!”
Mrs. Kohler smirked. Lukas hurriedly thanked her for the pie and shut the door on her, sinking to the ground in front of the door. (Ah, no, did you offend her?)
Emil watched through the wavy doorside window as Matthias and his mother left and went back to their house, noting with interest the daisy in Matthias’ hair and the pyramidal saxifrage peeking out of his armbands.