THE ONTOLOGY OF US

"I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we met"
~The night we met by Lord Huron

Sebastian never liked Kayden.
Kayden never liked Sebastian.

At least, that was the easiest way to explain whatever thing that had been going on between them since years.

They had spent even more years turning everything into a competition. Grades, arguments , friends. Who could get under the other's skin first. Who could walk away without looking back.

It was easier to hate him than to admit that Sebastian knew the exact sound of Kayden's laugh, the way he went quiet when something was wrong, and every little habit he pretended nobody noticed.

Somewhere between the insults and the arguments, the late nights and accidental touches, the things left unsaid and the things neither of them were brave enough to ask, their rivalry started becoming something neither of them had a name for.

But there are things about the past that neither of them remembers the same way.

There are memories Kayden refuses to talk about.

There are pieces of Sebastian that he keeps buried beneath every cruel word and every carefully constructed wall.

And there is a reason they seem to understand each other in ways they were never supposed to.

Some people are not meant to be loved easily.

Some stories begin long before you even remember them beginning.

And maybe, sometimes, the person you spend your whole life trying to defeat is the same person you were always trying to find.