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"You totally cheated, that's how."
"Yeah right. I'm just smarter than you, that's all." Matt put his hands behind his head, looking smugly satisfied with himself. Juan rolled his eyes.
"You cheated, there's no way you could get a better grade than me, you didn't even study for it." Juan felt more annoyed than perhaps he should have been, but it bothered him. Not that there was much about Matt that didn't bother him somehow, but still. Juan had worked at the material, he'd spent time studying, he had actually briefly worried about his performance of all things, and Matt seemingly breezed through without any effort, with that fraction of a percent on him that meant he won. It was just so undeserved, that Matt's supposed lack of effort could result in that one percent that Matt had been waving in his face all day.
God, he hated it when Matt won, especially in circumstances that seemed so spectacularly unfair. Juan was better at him at this, that was a fact. That one percent shouldn't have been there; Matt should have failed and been humiliated, not mocking him about his grade the entire day. He'd gone so far as to nearly tackle Juan the next time they had a class together, waving the paper with gleeful abandon.
"Highest in the class, she said." Matt laughed and avoided Juan's clumsy, halfhearted swipes. The teacher was watching after all. "Where does that leave you?"
He just...it was just not how it should have worked out. Matt was not smarter than him, Matt did not know the material better, Matt did not deserve the grade he got, and- and-
God, it bothered him.
"I'm just naturally talented," Matt said in that annoyingly light, carefree way of his, and Juan wondered if he could punch him now without causing a full-out fight.
"You're naturally annoying," Juan grumbled, and Matt kept smirking. Arrogant jerk. Juan didn't know why he put up with this, or with him. If the satisfaction of beating Matt at something wasn't so addictive, there's no way he would have been "friends" with him for this long. He thought about severing ties with Matt so many times that he'd lost count, and he'd thought about it a lot more in recent memory. So much of who Matt chose to be grated on him and his tolerance for it, for him, was wearing thin and it showed. At times he wondered at how they hadn't killed each other yet, given how vicious some of their arguments would be.
Yet still, somehow, they gravitated to the other. Sought the other out to compare, to compete. Followed the other, consciously or not, to see what they were doing and do it better.
That was why he was still here, and he still put up with it. His parents said he'd grow out of it eventually.
"Hey look, a possum."
"What?"
"Look." Matt pointed across the road. Juan turned to look and sure enough, a possum was sniffing around the side of the road. "Ha, weird. I didn't know they were so ugly."
Juan grimaced. "Yeah, seriously. Look at its eyes."
Creepy looking thing. Juan nearly tripped over his bike when Matt refused to continue walking.
"Hey, watch it-"
Matt didn't say anything, and Juan followed his gaze to see him still staring at the possum.
"What are you doing? It's just a possum, man. Come on."
Matt glanced down the road, just briefly, before returning to stare at the animal. It continued to sniff the road, apparently unconcerned with the two humans watching it. Juan shot Matt an odd look, then he heard the sound of a car engine rapidly approaching.
He turned to look, more out of habit than anything else, and then realized the car was rapidly speeding towards the still oblivious possum.
"Hey! Hey! Get out of the road!" Juan shouted, waving his arms while Matt stood silently beside him. "You dumb possum, move! Move!"
The possum turned, saw the car approaching, and fell motionless on its side.
"No! No, get up! Get out of the way!" Juan heard a touch of hysteria making its way into his voice, and he heard Matt snicker at him. Juan shot him a disbelieving, angry look before turning back to the road. He waved furiously but both driver and possum seemed oblivious to his efforts. "Move! Move!"
He let his bike fall to one side, took a step onto the road, but it was too late. The car collided with the creature, went over it with a loud and hideous cracking, squish kind of sound, and continued on its way.
The possum made a strange, squealing, screaming sound too late, abruptly cut off. The last dying wail in those few fragments of seconds before its life was snuffed out completely. Juan covered his mouth and turned away. "Agh, gross-"
He'd never actually seen an animal get hit before, and it was more upsetting than he ever thought it could be. The sound it made...ugh. It took him a few moments to make sure he wasn't going to get sick, then he turned and noticed that Matt wasn't beside him anymore.
Juan picked up his bike and looked back to the road, even though he didn't want to, and saw Matt standing on the other side of it, staring at the dead animal's body. His face was strangely expressionless, devoid of any kind of...emotional reaction.
Juan stared at Matt, and Matt stared at the possum. Still nothing crossed his face, no sorrow, no pity, no empathy, just...nothing. As if he was staring at a toy, at a rock, at anything other than a creature that had just died only moments ago. It was still bleeding and oozing foul-smelling liquids onto the hot asphalt, for Christ's sake, and yet Matt stared, blankly.
Juan didn't want to admit it, but somewhere inside, he felt distinctly creeped out. The road, the animal, the teenager standing against the smoggy sky, and just how dead the entire scene felt. He couldn't look away from Matt's face, from that neutral expression as if he was waiting for it to change, to become human again. No one should be that...empty when they see something die.
Juan spoke, his words shaky and cracking. "Matt, what are you doing?"
Matt refused to tear his eyes away from the dead creature. Juan didn't want to come any closer to the decidedly unsettling tableau, so there was a strange, awkward stalemate. After standing almost completely still for what felt like forever, Matt slowly tilted his head to one side, like a curious dog. Staring at the possum with what now seemed like a kind of incomprehension, a strange fascination with something previously unknown.
"Matt!" Juan shouted, finding himself shaking despite the heat. "Matt, come on! We have to go! Your mom is going to kill us if we aren't home in like, five minutes!"
Matt didn't respond, kept staring with that rapt fascination and refused to move, even when another car sped by, this one carefully giving the dead possum a wide berth. Another minute passed, and Matt took a few careful, slow steps towards the animal. Juan found his heartbeat rising, an instinctual physical reaction to something, although he didn't know what, and he couldn't look away. Matt came close until he stood over the dead possum, staring at it with that mixture of detached curiousity and mild confusion, and then he nudged it with a foot.
"Matt!" Juan's voice cracked sharply, and it came out louder than he intended. Finally this was enough to apparently break Matt out of his trance, and he looked up at Juan with a blank stare. "Leave it alone! We've got to go!"
Matt looked down again for a few seconds, then walked back to Juan's side of the road as if nothing had happened. He looked strangely thoughtful, and still too unemotional for what was going on. Even for someone like Matt, that wasn't right somehow.
"What were you doing?" Juan forced a touch of bravado to his voice. "Kicking a dead possum? That's messed up, even for you."
Matt didn't seem to react to him at first, then said quietly, thoughtfully, "All it takes is a few seconds."
"What?"
"Just a few seconds, and you're gone." Matt snapped his fingers. Then he smiled, and it was hollow and strangely terrifying. "Just like that. It's all so fragile."
"What are you talking about?" Juan spat and looked at something else. "You're-"
"Just a few seconds and you're nothing but meat." Still smiling, and Juan slowed down so Matt could walk ahead of him, wanting distance between them more than he'd ever wanted it before. "Isn't that weird? One minute you're there, the next you're gone."
"Matt, come on." Juan looked at his watch several times before he actually read what time it was. "It's a dead possum, get over it. That was messed up, but whatever, okay?"
Matt didn't say anything, and Juan watched him from behind. Matt swept his hair out of his face, that at least was something Juan was familiar with and almost comforted by, then he abruptly turned to face Juan with a broad smile and strangely empty eyes.
"And anyone can do it, too. Kill something, I mean. We all have that power."
Juan stared at him and he had the distinct impression that he was seeing something that he shouldn't be able to see, some part of Matt that shouldn't exist or that he shouldn't know about, and he didn't know what to say. He just stared at Matt, obviously disconcerted, and eventually Matt turned back to the road with an inappropriately light laugh.
"Funny what makes you think about stuff like that."
Juan stared, still unable to find a suitable response, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to Matt's house.
He'd never forget that day, and when he realized what it meant for him, for their rivalry, it would be too late.