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Matt was the token dirtbag of the orphanage. With hair he dyed every other season, he smoked despite being only thirteen, played on his Gameboy all day, never spoke to anyone besides a select few, never put care into his appearance, and listened to rock music. In the simplest of terms, he wasn't exactly the ideal guy, nor was the type whose sleaziness you could romanticize. Nah, he was... well, he was something alright.
Linda was the orphanage sweetheart. With long, silky blonde hair and the prettiest green eyes, she resembled an angel. She was kind-hearted and soft-spoken, always there for everyone and always checking up on the younger orphans. She listened to Britney Spears and old jazz and she always wore denim skirts and her hair, in pigtails. She was, without a shadow of a doubt, the perfect girl. In other words, she was the type of first girlfriend that would make any future girlfriend feel instantly insecure.
According to any typical Disney Channel movie, Matt and Linda were absolutely perfect for one another. That's just how things work! In every romance, the school delinquent gets with the school doll, everybody knows that trope. 'Opposites attract' and all that stuff.
Unfortunately for every Disney Channel executive alive, reality had never cared much for clichés.
The library at Wammy's was unusually warm that summer afternoon. It was late July, though, so it made sense... Of course, Matt was still allowed to complain about the heat. However, the harsh weather wasn't the only thing he was complaining about, oh no! He was most notably complaining about how Roger had declared it an independent study period, meaning most of the children in their age group were scattered around the room. Naturally, everyone was only pretending to study while secretly chatting in between bookshelves.
Matt sat slouched in his chair with one earbud in, his Game Boy resting beside an open mathematics textbook that had not been touched in at least twenty minutes (that's him being generous). As expected, Linda (who had a very obvious crush on the clueless Matt) approached with two books hugged to her chest.
"Mind if I sit here?"
Matt glanced up and smiled. He'd always found the girl to be sweet and delightful. Sure, they had practically nothing in common, but she was kind. Kindness matters a lot, no?
"Sure."
Linda revised history aloud under her breath as Matt doodled skulls in the margins of his notebook. Every now and then, she would ask him a question, and he would answer lightheartedly.
Objectively speaking, they seemed to get along well. Very well, actually! If someone only watched them from across the room, they'd probably think they'd make a lovely couple. Sure, not a couple that would last more than two weeks, but one nonetheless!
However, that obviously came crashing down once the library door creaked open, and Mello walked in. Without even looking around, he made a beeline toward Matt's table as though guided by instinct. He dropped three books onto the wood with a thud.
"You left all your Japanese and French textbooks in our room."
Matt looked up and smiled. "Well, I've chosen to prioritize happiness. I don't need to do much to get good, so why tire myself out?"
"That isn't happiness you're prioritizing, it's laziness."
"Tomato, tomahto."
Mello rolled his eyes before sitting beside him rather than across from him, unlike Linda who was now observing the exchange quietly from across the two. She noticed how neither boy had greeted the other, seemingly picking up where they'd left off before the study period. Like two halves of the same coin.
"You've done question seven wrong," Mello pointed out after glancing at his friend's notebook.
"'I haven't even done that question yet, slow your roll!"
"Exactly, get to it!"
"I don't even have my-" He was about to say he didn't have his Animal Farm when the blond pulled it out from his bag, sliding it to him, "- aw, you knew I'd forget that too!"
Mello smiled. "Yeah, I had a feeling. I ended up finding it under a pile of clothes on your side of the closet. I cleaned it, by the way, it looked like a wreck."
Matt beamed and quickly hugged his best friend, though the gesture was extremely awkward due to how they were seated next to each other.
"Thanks, Mells!"
"No problem. Now focus!"
Linda smiled despite herself. She had never understood how they could argue so constantly without ever sounding angry, then confess to having done favours for one another. It was awfully affectionate.
Another half-hour drifted by, and the room gradually grew warmer. With all the wood in the library, the temperature was boiling! By consequence, Mello tugged absentmindedly at the collar of his oversized burgundy hoodie.
"... Fuck, it's getting hot."
"So? You chose to wear a hoodie, your fault, man," Matt drawled, not lifting his eyes from his notes for once.
"I'm taking this off."
Matt finally looked over, grinning. "Roger said distractions aren't allowed during study period, Mells."
Mello blinked, confused (what the fuck was Matt talking about?). "... What?"
"If you take your hoodie off, I'm gonna lose focus!"
The blond stared about three seconds before understanding the perverted joke. He punched his mate in the shoulder playfully as he laughed, "Oh, shut up, I’ve got a tank top underneath!"
"You walked into that one!" the redhead laughed.
"I hate you."
"Nah, you don't."
Mello stood up slowly to pull the hoodie over his head, trying to make his movements seem languid (kinda like in those bad action movies when the female spy tries to seduce the enemy agents). However, unfortunately for him, he'd forgotten he'd tied his hair into a small ponytail. Halfway through, the hoodie snagged.
"... Oh, for-"
One sleeve twisted, and his ponytail caught. The hood got stuck over his forehead. For an utterly humiliating amount of time, Mello wrestled silently with his own clothing as Matt was already wheezing and Linda pressed a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing (she needed to hold it in; she wasn't close enough to either boy to really laugh along with them).
Eventually, Mello emerged victorious from the fight, hair now sticking out in several directions. He looked down at the crumpled hoodie in his hands.
"... Well." He sighed dramatically as he sat back down. "That was totally unsexy."
Matt burst into even louder laughter (which Linda never thought was possible, considering how typically quiet the gamer was). "You looked like you were being eaten alive, dude!"
"I practically was," he chuckled.
"You lost a wrestling match against cotton."
"Well, it cheated."
"Uh-huh, for sure."
Soon both boys were laughing hard enough that Roger glanced over from the librarian's desk with mild suspicion. The old man was going deaf, so his hearing was very poor, but with how noisy the two guys were, even he could hear them (faintly). Matt leaned against Mello's shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to stop his childish giggling, but Mello nudged him away.
"Compose yourself, Matt!"
"I can't!"
"Yeah, clearly!"
Matt smiled and reached over, fixing one loose strand of blond hair that still stuck awkwardly upward from Mello's ponytail. "There."
"Thanks, Matty."
"No worries."
Linda tried to contain her nervousness. Had she been in Mello's shoes (which she was begging the Universe to put her in), she would've been flushed crimson-red. She wasn't able to grasp at how naturally such gentle, platonic-but-maybe-more-than-platonic gestures could occur between the pair. Neither of them seemed aware they'd done anything unusual, leading the poor girl to be even more perplexed.
Her smile became smaller with understanding. She had liked Matt for months, but Mello had been in the boy's life for nearly five years now.
Matt was funny and charming in ways most people overlooked. He was kinder than he admitted, gentle with younger children, and the type to quietly leave half his dessert for somebody else if they looked hungry. Plus, the cherry on the cake was that he dressed like a total douchebag while not being one. For thirteen year-old Linda, anything that opposed her clean style was awfully attractive, and Matt was no exception to that. As a matter-of-fact, she had imagined, once or twice, what dating someone like him might be like.
However, sitting across from him and his best friend... she understood.
Linda couldn't compete with Mello. Sure, perhaps the two weren't romantically involved, but no matter how many people Matt were to date in his lifetime, nobody would be able to replace the spot Mello occupies in the redhead's heart.
Television had taught her that opposites were meant to be together. Heck, even science taught her that, when it came to electromagnetism! Nevertheless, it seemed like the rule of a positive-and-a-negative didn't exist in the world of love. When it came to attraction between two individuals, there were no rules, she found. After all, Mello and Matt weren't too different from one another.
Mello was the orphanage brute. He was intense and never liked the company of others besides his roommate, Matt. The blond appeared to be in a constant state of excitement mixed with nervousness, perpetually on-edge and with dilated pupils that made his otherwise-blue eyes look a piercing black most of the time. Mello was ambitious and hated losing, being second in the ranks, competing excessively with the top student Near. Regardless, the boy had some charisma, being confident in his speech and easy to strike up a conversation with. Additionally, he'd been the one to introduce Matt to punk rock, especially the Sex Pistols.
Clearly, there had never really been a competition between Linda and Mello. The latter would always win first place when it came to Matt.
Matt became different around Mello, acting more confident in himself, able to tease and make terrible jokes. And the way that Mello instinctively corrected Matt's homework before Matt even asked was only more proof of their bond formed through years of friendship, proximity, memories, and common interests.
Once the study period was over, Linda watched them disappear through the library doors, rambling on and on about the summer, Sid Vicious, a broken CD player, and the upcoming assessment test. She remained seated for another moment.
Perhaps it wasn't about finding someone who completed what you lacked. Perhaps it was about finding about someone who matched every aspect of you, simply in a different font. Perhaps similarities did attract. Maybe that was why the story everyone expected, of the dirtbag and the sweetheart, never took place inside that House. Matt had already found the person who felt most like home.