N/A: Woh. Me? A chaptered story? Yes, I think I will try.
This chapter is like a prolog, the rest won't look like this. Also and this is a bit sad but I have no idea when I can update. I will try and I would be so happy if you want to read more but I have much homework and am rather stressed. Sorry. Thank you for reading this (: Sorry about any mistakes, my native language isn't English and I hurried through this one so please correct me if something sounds awkward.
Piece of Reality
People love and then they die — MattMello
1 Before
—|—
Life was a fragile thing really. It seemed good, it seemed like it lasted forever but soon the reality stroke back and turned the bowl upside down and the truth poured down and washed your brain to zero. Life didn't last forever, no, it could be gone tomorrow. It painted your soul thinking that way, it really did, until danger flashed you around every corner and nerves were on the edge. Sometimes you just had to relax and think; what the hell, life comes and goes but I can still play with it, just a little bit longer. Truth to be told you couldn't, not if you wanted to get somewhere, not if you wanted to be fully content with your results. But that changed from person to person and in that aspect Mello and Matt were complete opposites.
Mello always wanted to get somewhere even though he didn't understand where 'somewhere' was. If he stopped the demons hunted him down and clawed through his skin until it bled and he couldn't see forward. Standing still meant that you waited for better times instead of chasing it and he would always be the chaser, the one of the front line that battled through armies and used impulsive tactic to break through the wall and gain access to life's bigger meanings. He rather cut than being cut, he rather killed than died.
He cared but not enough. He cared but mainly about himself. He cared but stopped caring because caring in this world of filthy murders and people with God-complex sent you to the underworld where you saw black and swam through blood.
Matt was the other side of the coin.
Loyal, almost to the extreme level and waited instead of acted. He sunk into the sofa while his fantasy remained with his video games, in the world of a straightforward plot and death that didn't mean anything, standing still while the world drown in despair and only cared about the damn price on cigarettes and new video games. He was never the chaser but he wasn't in the back line either, no, he simply didn't care about the misfortunes with the excuse that what the hell could he do? Somehow it was true but still: the waiting game killed Mello, it really killed Mello. That wasn't their only difference and how the hell they came to blend so well together and create art was something he failed to grasp and in all honesty that was for the best. Matt was a mystery and with that the tension started burning.
Matt was the oil and Mello the fire and together they created catastrophe. And neither of them cared.
—|—
The first time he met Matt he wasn't too fond of the kid.
Matt sat in the sofa with pads in a facet of green—but it could have been yellow too—with a cigarette swinging in the left corner of his thinned lips and hands on the controller, fingers slamming buttons in a speed that would make a writer envious. The smoke from the cigarette danced up to the ceiling like thin fingers and the pillar of ash would soon escape the tip and hurry to the pads. He covered his bloodstained eyes with a pair of goggles that made him look more ridiculous than cool and his fringe fell in front of his eyes as he moved his body in timing to the game. Mello closed the door behind him and tilted to the wall, watching boringly as he cracked a bar of chocolate between his teeth.
It didn't take long though before Matt paused the game and threw a glance at Mello's direction, eyes carefully narrowed as he moved a finger to the cigarette to remove it from his dry lips as he started to speak. "Do you want something?"
Mello only moved his shoulder and toyed with his golden hair. "No."
Matt put out the cigarette and pulled out one more from the packet of cigarettes. "That doesn't make any sense," he mumbled and lighted the cigarette like he was on the mood of killing himself with smoke today.
"Smoking yourself to death doesn't either," Mello said with a small grin.
"Who are you, my mother?" Matt asked and sunk deeper into the sofa, eyes under the red fringe. "Go away."
One thing Mello didn't appreciate was then others told him what to do and this Matt was no exception. You didn't need to be a genius to comprehend that Mello had a specific role in this building and he had grown so fond of the title that he couldn't take when strangers tried to take it away from him. He walked closer to the sofa and swept down next to Matt, tried to drill inside Matt's skin and watching his true intentions but it was like looking through a glass of water, it contained nothing. "Don't fuck with me," he hissed and snapped the cigarette from Matt's grasp and swung it in front of his eyes.
"I don't want to fuck with you, you're ugly," Matt said smugly and tried to snatch back his cancer-stick. "Give me that! It's not yours."
"I don't want you dead."
"You don't even know me and I don't want to let you either. Give it back, bastard."
"No," Mello said and extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray.
"I hate you."
"You can't hate people you don't know," Mello said and rested his left arm on the backrest while continuing to drain out Matt's inner thoughts. It didn't work.
"You don't bother people you don't know," Matt smashed back and returned to the television. This kid was fairly accurate when it came to snooty replies and Mello couldn't help but to find that amusing even though Matt in general solely pissed him off with that laid-back attitude that he couldn't stand. Still, Matt awakened feelings he didn't think he had left before he started walking around inside Wammy's high, thick walls, a feeling that wasn't hatred. Mello was born to hate and it was the hate—black and strong and alluring—that made him walk forward. He hated snooty people, he hated being the second one, he hated Near, he hated everything despite chocolate. It was easy to hate and hard to love. It was easy to interrupt and hard to listen. It was easy to walk away and hard to remain. But he couldn't walk away from Matt. Not yet.
"Hell, why spilling time on this crap? What game is it?"
Matt's eyes become round like gemstones and his jaws seemed to detach and he looked like a nesting-box. "Crap? How dare you call this crap? This is Final Fantasy and it's fucking nostalgia you know! Man, I get an orgasm every time I—"
"Shut up," Mello interrupted, glaring bored at the screen where a blonde dude with a massive sword ran around in a city.
"Your videogame knowledge is lacking," Matt pointed out, almost sounding understanding. "That man is Cloud Strife. You will be sent to jail if you don't know him."
"I don't care," Mello scowled, biting off another bar of the chocolate. "I don't fucking want to talk about your videogames."
"Well, go ahead. Ask me something else."
When he said it like that, straight to the point with eyes locked with his, Mello couldn't answer. He barely remembered why he was here in the first place and he felt ridiculous. And no one made Mello feel ridiculous without commitment. It was law.
"Nothing. I should go."
Matt lifted one of his eyebrows. "You don't make much sense now."
"Do you know who I am?"
"Not really. I never talked to you before."
Matt was surprisingly ignorant, not even bothering learned the names of his classmates and more importantly his name. Mello was rather egocentric, there was no way around it and that was why he couldn't stand the fact being the second. He wasn't a loner like Near—hell, he was nothing like Near—but he wasn't the gentlest human around. Not that it mattered. But this was different, Matt didn't follow him like a dog in a leash, he challenged him. Interesting.
"You're Matt right?" Mello asked, pulling the string further instead of cutting it.
Matt nodded and fumbled after the packet of cigarettes. Mello didn't stop him. "Yeah. I'm Matt. And I lied before, I know who you are but it's funny to make you dumbstruck. You're Mello."
Mello couldn't help but to smile, a smile so small no one could see it but it was still there. "Yeah."
Matt had authority and it made him interesting, so interesting he wanted to put Matt in a bottle and study him with the magnifying-glass. Mello rose up from the sofa, throwing a sideway glance at Matt before he walked to the door, leaving the conversation where it was.
You're Matt. I'm Mello. We both start with the letter M. The return in enviable.
Mello wasn't too fond of the kid but he couldn't deny that he was damn interesting.
—|—
Pushing death only made it come back. Sorry, but you couldn't escape, you could only toy with the possibilities which neither led to a solution. Mello couldn't stop it, Matt couldn't stop it, damn, even Near couldn't stop it. Stop death. No one could.
Death scared Mello. It didn't scare Matt. It also was one of their differences. Mello had a weakness where Matt had not and the weakness cut holes through him and made him bleed out the agony. Waiting. Dreading. Knowing. It made it impossible to relax, to see things as they were, to use his time to treat Matt like Matt deserved. But Matt couldn't help him. Matt couldn't stop it.
He only made Mello burn faster.
—|—
to be continued
