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Kim Taerae has known Seok Matthew for exactly the entire of his high school years. He knows this guy because Matthew told him, on their first meeting after a week of orientation, that they were officially soulmates and no take-backs, while shoving a convenience store triangle kimbap into Taerae's mouth that he had nearly choked.
He keep the memory stored in some locked drawer of his chest, right next to the way Matthew laughs with his whole body, and the way he hums random songs when he's concentrating on a math problem, and the way he always saves the last bite of whatever he's eating and offers it to Taerae like it's the most natural thing in the world. It is becoming natural eventually.
They're in their third year of high school now. Third year and second semester, the air already thick with the particular brand of panic that comes from being six months away from the college entrance exam and future decision. Everyone is fraying at the edges, snapping at each other, crying in bathroom stalls, or falling asleep on their desks. The teachers have been running the classes like it's a military, it's all just about practice tests and more practice tests.
And in the middle of all this, there is Taerae's best friend. The bright, loud, and impossible Seok Matthew, who shows up to morning self-study with his uniform shirt untucked, who somehow always has snacks in his bag even though they're technically not allowed to eat in the classroom, who looks at the practice test scores that make Taerae want to throw himself out a window and says, "Wow, you really tanked that one," with such genuine delight.
"Can you play somewhere else? Don't ruin my focus," Taerae tells him, for the fourth time. They're in the back row, supposedly reviewing English vocabulary, but Matthew has spent the last twenty minutes building a fortress out of eraser shavings on the edge of his desk.
"You're just jealous of my architectural vision," Matthew says, not looking up.
"I'm jealous of absolutely nothing about you."
"Boo! Kim Taerae is a liar." Matthew adds another shaving to his tower. It wobbles, then stabilizes. He beams at it like a proud parent. "You're jealous of my creativity. My free spirit. My ability to not care about my English skills," he says, hand pointing at the small Kor-Eng dictionary opened in front of Taerae.
"Yeah, good for you Canadian boy," Taerae says. "But not me, because I care about getting into a decent university and not ending up working at a convenience store for the rest of my life."
"Hey, don't look down on other people's jobs! Working at a convenience store would be nice too," Matthew says.
"Alright, maybe you want to have that.”
"Like I said, it would be nice. If I really worked at a convenience store I would put up a banner with your pic and the caption says, ‘If you're Kim Taerae and looked like this, you are banned from this store!’ ha, it would be so funny," Matthew says, finally looking at him with that annoying smile that made Taerae want to slap it with his dictionary.
But still, Taerae feels his ears burn. He hates that his ears burn just because of that. He hates that Matthew has this effect on him, that one look can unravel something in his chest that he spends hours every night carefully stitching back together. He hates that he's been in love with his best friend for almost three years, and that he still can't say it out loud, not even to himself without feeling like the ground is opening up beneath his feet.
"Remind me to kill you later after school," Taerae says, turning back to his vocabulary list.
"You can't do that though, you love me," Matthew singsongs. Taerae hisses and kicks Matthew's shin under the desk.
"Ow! Violence! Someone help me, Taerae is assaulting me!"
No one bats an eye to it. Everyone has long since given up on controlling Matthew and Taerae. They're a force of nature, a localized disaster, two boys who create their own weather system everywhere they go. And they have learned to ignore those two for most days.
The thing about being best friends with Seok Matthew is that it requires a very specific kind of stamina. It's not just the bickering, though there's plenty of that. It's the way Matthew exists in the world by being loud, unfiltered, and taking up space like it's his birthright. And the way Taerae has learned to exist beside him being too sharp and reactive, always pushing back, and always meeting Matthew's chaos with his own particular brand of stubborn resistance.
They bicker over everything, of course they did. They bicker over who gets the last piece of tteokbokki at the snack cart, whether it's faster to take the main road or cut through the alley behind the academy building, the correct way to fold a note to pass in class, and the pronunciation of English words which Matthew undoubtedly being perfect about it because he was born and raised in Canada before going back to Korea and starts high school.
"You're such a try-hard," Matthew says, watching Taerae write something long on his notes.
"Shut up, disaster," Taerae replies, flicking a pen cap at Matthew's head.
"Disaster is just another word for interesting."
"It's another word for failure, Matthew."
Matthew stole Taerae’s other pen and pockets it, because of course he does. Taerae's things have a way of migrating into Matthew's possession, his pens and his erasers and once, his student ID card, which Matthew carried around for three days before admitting he had it.
"I'm not going to fail," Matthew says. "Well, if I did fail, then you're going to."
"Don't drag me down with you."
Matthew grins, wide and unbothered. "It's your fault for always being here with me," he says, leaning close enough that Taerae can smell the strawberry milk on his breath.
Of course it is, Taerae thinks, but doesn't say. I'm staying here with you because I don't know anywhere else to go. Even though you drive me insane. Even when I want to shake you until your teeth rattle. Even when I look at you and it feels like my heart is trying to escape through my ribs.
"Someone has to make sure you don't die," he says instead.
"See? You care."
"I care about not having to explain to your mother why her son starved to death because he spent all his allowance on Pokémon cards."
"It was an investment!"
"Useless one, of course."
"Say that to your mini cars collection!"
“Do not speak ill of my cars."
"Bleh bleh bleh."
Taerae puts his head in his hands and groans, long and theatrical, and Matthew laughs, and something in Taerae's chest tightens and loosens all at once. This is the rhythm of them, the push and pull, the love disguised as annoyance and the annoyance disguised as love. He's been living in it so long he doesn't know how to exist outside of it. Well, he doesn't know if he wants to.
The first time someone calls them twins, they're in their second semester of the first year, and it's a new transfer student. That boy looks at them sitting together at lunch and says, "Are you guys brothers?"
Taerae's chopsticks freeze halfway to his mouth. Matthew, mid-bite of his kimbap, goes very still.
"We're not brothers," Taerae says, his voice flat.
"Oh, really? But you looked like twins, you know?" He asks, completely oblivious, sliding into the seat across from them. "And you have the same energy. Like, you fight like siblings."
"We're not twins and not related at all," Matthew says.
"Oh." The boy blinks. "Sorry. I just thought—"
"You thought wrong, we're just friends," Taerae says, sharper than he means to be.
The words taste like ash on his mouth. Taerae says them anyway, has been saying them for years, will probably keep saying them until the day he dies, because the alternative is too terrifying to consider. Because if he admits out loud that he's in love with Seok Matthew, that he's been in love with him through every stolen thing and every shared umbrella and every late-night text, then everything changes. And Taerae doesn't know how to be someone who changes things. He only knows how to desperately hold on tight to what he already has.
After the boy leaves, embarrassed and confused, Matthew is quiet for a long moment. Then he says, "Do we really seem like twins?"
"Ew, no," Taerae says immediately. "You're way more annoying than any sibling would be."
Matthew laughs, but it sounds forced. "Yeah. You're right. That would be gross."
"Right," Taerae agrees, even though his chest aches with it, how desperately he wishes they were something other than what everyone thinks they are.
They finish lunch in silence, and Taerae pretends not to notice that Matthew doesn't steal any of his food, which is somehow worse than if he had.
The dating other people thing happens the summer on second year. His name is Park Hanbin, and he's from the class next door, and he asks Taerae to the school festival with the kind of straightforward confidence that makes it impossible to say no. Taerae says yes because he's nice and not Matthew, and because some small, desperate part of him thinks that maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can redirect his heart toward someone who doesn't make him feel like he's constantly falling off a cliff.
Unfortunately, they last exactly three weeks.
Three weeks of holding hands that feels like holding a stranger's grocery list, of conversations that run out of steam because Taerae keeps looking over his shoulder for a specific idiot with an annoying grin and a loud laugh. Three weeks of a goodnight text that is perfectly pleasant and leaves him feeling absolutely nothing except a vague sense of wrongness, like wearing shoes on the wrong feet.
"I don't think we matched. You're in love with someone else," Hanbin says when he breaks it off. They're sitting on the swings near the school’s field, the chains creaking in the humid evening air. "It's okay. I hope you figure it out."
Taerae wants to deny it. He wants to laugh and say don't be ridiculous and prove him wrong with sheer force of will. But at that exact moment, his phone buzzes with a text from Matthew and his heart does that complicated, painful thing it always does, and he knows. He knows with the same certainty he knows his own name, his own face in the mirror, the exact cadence of Matthew's laugh when he finds something genuinely funny.
"Yeah, me too," he says quietly.
He walks home alone that day, taking the long way past the convenience store where he and Matthew always stop for ice cream, and he doesn't cry, because his name is Kim "doesn't cry over a break up" Taerae, but his chest feels like a fist has closed around it and won't let go.
The big fight that changed everything when it comes, is stupid. They're always stupid, but this one starts with a hoodie. It was a gift from his cousin and Taerae was looking for it that morning, because he wanted to wear it to school but he couldn't find it. And his mother didn't help with giving the vague information of, “yesterday Matthew borrowed it, didn't he?”
Taerae was confused and tired and somehow possessed with something that boiled his rage. Because what is it supposed to mean when he didn't even tell Matthew he got a gift but Matthew took it anyway?
"You took my hoodie," Taerae says. It's after school, they're at their usual spot by the back gate, and Matthew is spinning the pen between his fingers like a baton. Taerae was holding back the whole day because he didn't want to explode on his friend.
"Aren't we usually taking each other's clothes?" Matthew doesn't stop spinning.
"It's not the regular hoodie. It's the new one, my cousin gifted it to me."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know which one was new or not, and I forgot to tell you I borrowed one." Matthew looks at Taerae, and something in his expression is off after hearing Taerae's tone.
"You don't forget things, Matthew. You pretend to forget so you can keep them."
The words come out sharper than Taerae intends, loaded with something that has nothing to do with hoodie and everything to do with the way Matthew keeps taking pieces of him. All his things, his time, his attention, his heart, and never seems to realize what it costs. The way he wears Taerae's patience down to a nub and then smiles like he hasn't done anything wrong. The way he makes Taerae feel like the most important person in the world and also completely invisible, all at the same time.
Matthew's hand stills and the pen stops spinning. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you take everything," Taerae says, and his voice is rising, cracking, and breaking open in ways he can't control. "My clothes, my snacks, my time, my—" He stops and swallows, feels the words hovering at the edge of his tongue, dangerous and sharp. "You just take and take and you never give anything back. You never think about how I feel. You just exist, and I'm supposed to be okay with it. I'm supposed to just stand here and let you—"
"Let me what?" Matthew's voice has gone quiet, dangerous. "Let me be your friend? Is that what I'm doing wrong? Being your friend is wrong, Kim Taerae?"
"You're not my friend," Taerae spits, and the lie tastes like blood.
"Fine," Matthew says. His eyes are bright and Taerae realizes with a lurch that he might actually be close to tears.
Matthew turns and walks away, his shoulders stiff, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and Taerae watches him go with his chest a hollowed-out cavity where his heart used to be.
Three days of silence after that argument. Three days of empty seats at lunch. Three days of unanswered texts, of walking home alone through streets that suddenly seem too wide and too quiet, of sitting in the back row with an empty desk beside him and feeling like he's been cut in half. Three days of replaying the fight in his head, the things he said, the things he didn't say, the look on Matthew's face right before he walked away.
Taerae doesn't sleep, he couldn't sleep well. He lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling and tries to convince himself that this is better, that losing Matthew as a friend is worth not having to carry around the crushing weight of wanting something he can never have. But he fails over and over, until he's exhausted with failing, until he's so tired of his own cowardice that he wants to crawl out of his skin.
On the fourth day, Zhang Hao finds him in the music room during lunch, sitting on the piano bench alone. One of Taerae's good friends, who's sharing the same interest in music and also kind of self-claimed as Taerae and Matthew’s pairing president.
"You look terrible, dear," Hao says, sliding onto the space next to him.
"Thanks."
"No, I'm genuinely concerned. What's going on with you and Matthew?"
Taerae's fingers are going still on the keys. "Nothing."
"Everyone's asking if you guys broke up."
"We're not dating."
"That's not what it looks like." Hao's voice is gentle, but there's something knowing in his eyes. "I've known you both for almost three years. I've watched you steal each other's food, finish each other's sentences, wear each other's cardigans or jackets like you're trying to merge into one person. And I've watched you both look at each other like the other one hung the moon. So either you're dating, or you're both the most stupid people on the planet."
Taerae stares at the piano keys. They're yellowing slightly, worn smooth by decades of student fingers.
"I can't," he says finally, with a heavy sigh followed. "If I tell him, and he doesn't—you know, Hao. I never thought of us as some cute friendship story, but it's all that we had. So, if I ruin this, I ruin everything and I can't lose him for such things. I'd rather have him as my best friend than not have him at all."
“But look at where you are now, not talking and just keep avoiding each other. Isn't that close to not having him at all?”
“I said something terrible and I don't know how to face him. Yet.”
Hao is quiet for a long moment. Then he sighs. "You know what I think? I think you're both idiots. But I think you're the kind of idiots who are going to figure it out eventually." He stands, patting Taerae's shoulder. "Just don't wait too long, okay? Some things have an expiration date."
He leaves and Taerae sits there alone again, the weight of the words settling like sediment in water, and he decides to play the same note over and over until the bell rings.
Turns out the one who confronted first was Matthew. It's six days after the argument and Matthew corners him after school.
Taerae has been trying to slip out very late, ducking through the alley behind the academy building, but Matthew must have been waiting there too. He steps out from the turn over when Taerae was walking cautiously, startling the boy, and Taerae's heart does a complicated somersault in his chest.
"Can we talk?" Matthew asks. His hands are twisted together in front of him, and his uniform shirt is actually tucked in, which is somehow more alarming than if he'd shown up in pajamas.
"I have to get home," Taerae says, not meeting his eyes.
"Just five minutes." Matthew says, barely a whisper. "Please, Taerae."
Something in his voice breaks Taerae's resolve. He nods and leaning against the wall. Then Matthew steps closer, close enough that Taerae can smell his usual shampoo and see the faint shadows under his eyes that match Taerae's own.
"I don't know what I did," Matthew started. "But I'm sorry for whatever it was. I'm sorry for taking your things and teasing you and making you mad all the time. I just don't know how to be your friend without doing those things. It's the only way I know how to be close to you. And if you don't want that anymore, if you want me to stop, I will. But please don't just... disappear or silence me. Please don't leave me alone."
Taerae feels like he's drowning. He felt the world tilting, and Matthew's face suddenly became too close and too far away all at once. He can see the fear in Matthew's eyes that feels unfamiliar for Seok Matthew, who is never afraid of anything and laughs at danger and smiles at storms.
"Why do you care so much?" Taerae asks. His voice sounds like it's coming from very far away.
Matthew looks down at his hands, then back up to meet Taerae's eyes, and something in his expression shifts with some last defense falling away.
"Because you're the only person who makes me feel like I'm real," he answered. "Like I can be annoying and stupid and too much, and you'll still be there and be my best friend and still look at me like I matter. And I know I push you too far sometimes, and I know I make you mad, but every time you get mad, you don't leave. You just fight back and defeat me with the same annoying energy and that's how I know you care. That's how I know I'm not just... nothing to you." He stops, his cheeks flushed.
Taerae stares at him, his mind a static scream of white noise, and his heart hammering so loud he's sure the entire school can hear it. He's scared Matthew can hear it.
"What are you trying to say?" he asked again carefully.
Matthew looked away first, trying to think carefully about what he's about to say, and one long exhaled breath escaped his mouth and he's back to looking at Taerae.
"I'm… trying to say that, I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since forever. And I know you don't feel the same way, and I know I've been annoying about it, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't just be your friend without wanting more, Taerae. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for being too demanding, I'll just go if you—"
"Wait." Taerae's voice cracks, sharp and sudden, and Matthew freezes. Taerae pushes off the wall, his hands shaking while catching Matthew's wrist. The years of locked-down feeling finally breaking the dam.
"You don't get to say that and then walk away. You don't get to tell me you're in love with me and then apologize for it, like it's something you did wrong, like it's—" He exhaled sharply, the other hand running through his hair. "God, Matthew, do you have any idea what it's been like being your friend? Being the person you steal things from and fall asleep on and smile at like I hung the moon and—" He stops, chest heaving, and Matthew is staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.
"I've been in love with you since the first year," Taerae continues, the words tumbling out, everything he's kept buried finally clawing its way into the light. "Probably since you gave me half your kimbap and told me we were soulmates. Since you fell asleep on my shoulder on the bus and drooled on my uniform. Since every stupid, annoying, perfect thing you do that makes me want to scream and also never let you go. And I hated it. I hated you for making me feel like this, for making me want something I was too scared to ask for, and I hated myself for being too cowardly to just admit it!"
He breaks off, breathing hard, he feels like he wants to cry but he holds back because Matthew is still staring at him. It's embarrassing to let Matthew see him crumble down, he looked away to anything that's not Matthew's eyes.
"Taerae-ya," Matthew whispers.
"Don't say my name like that. I can't do this if you're going to—"
"No, Taerae. Look at me," Matthew says again, and then he's stepping forward, close enough that Taerae can feel the warmth radiating off him. And his hand comes up to cup Taerae's cheek with a gentleness that makes Taerae's breath hitch. They manage another eye contact that makes Taerae immediately feel weak on his knees.
"You're an idiot," Taerae chokes out.
"Yeah, I know," Matthew agrees, smiling, his own eyes suspiciously bright.
"You're the most annoying person I've ever met."
"Exactly."
"I want to kick you in the face every time."
"Please. I'd thank you for that actually.”
Taerae punched Matthew's shoulder weakly at those words. They're smiling shyly to each other now.
Then Matthew leans in, and Taerae meets him halfway, and their lips collide with the same clumsy, desperate force that has always defined them. Matthew's arms wrap around his waist, pulling him in until there's no space left between them, until they're breathing each other's air, until the world narrows to the taste and the softness of each other's lips and the impossible, perfect reality that this is happening, that Matthew is kissing him, that they're both breathless and feeling relieved.
When they finally pull apart, Matthew's eyes are shining with hope. With the beginning of something Taerae has been too afraid to name.
"So, you love me?" Matthew whispers.
"No, idiot. I hate you, you're an absolute menace. You annoying, button-pushing disaster. I hate you so much I can't think straight and I wanted to strangle you half the time just so you'd stop making my heart hurt." Taerae says, his voice rough.
Matthew chuckled into it. "That's really romantic, actually."
"It's not romantic, it's torture! You've been torturing me for years."
"And you love me anyway."
Taerae sighs, leaning his forehead against Matthew's shoulder. "That's the problem," he says quietly.
They stand there in the empty alley, and Taerae feels like he can finally exhale. The weight he's been carrying lifts and dissolves. Leaves him light enough to float to the cloud nine.
“Anyways, should we retake the kiss? I feel like you didn't really put your heart into it and I can give you a perfect lesson—”
Matthew didn't finish his sentences the second he felt the strong bite on his shoulder when Taerae bit it, he screamed loud enough that someone might come and check up what's going on here. Taerae straightens up and glaring at him fiercely.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Matthew protested, caressing his bitten shoulder.
“That's what you got for taking advantage of the moment!”
“I wasn't taking advantage! It's a normal thing to do as boyfriends.”
"Don't get used to it,” Taerae says, walking away first and trying so hard not to smile but it's hard and hurting his cheeks. Matthew followed shortly, and he let Matthew fall beside him and catch his hand.
They walk home together with hands intertwined and shoulders bumping with every step. The autumn air is sharp with the smell of dead leaves, and everything feels different now. Like the world has shifted a few degrees to the left and revealed something new.
Taerae feels his ears burn and he glances to see Matthew's ears are burning too. They're matching in ways that have nothing to do with haircuts or clothes or the stupid labels people stick on them. Being friends with Matthew turns out to be the greatest thing he ever experienced in his life, especially the part where he knew they loved each other from the beginning.