Our hearts are made of scars, deep enough to be carved for eternity yet no wound severe enough to break it apart into sorry pieces—not yet.

It had been years since the first time I laid my eyes on you, a gawky teenager on a stage not grand enough to contain your dazzling light. I, myself, was only another boy who had yet to grow into my looks. It was the first time we crossed paths, two boys meeting as strangers in a foreign land. Perhaps destiny played a trick on us, for our paths never stopped intersecting after that. You were always shy and awkward and I could be pretty quiet when I wanted to, but somehow when our eyes met, the competitive streak in us kept arising—and thus we started dueling in a match neither of us could ever win. It started small, like teasing remarks thrown carelessly—how I loved seeing your face turning pink at my advances, and how you smirked at my dumbfounded expression. One day though, we met coincidentally at an ice cream parlour, holding each of our own childhood girlfriends in our respective hands—our expressions turned dark as we were thrown back into reality—making the first scratch, causing the first pain in our young—and scar free—hearts.

You and I keep adding to the collection, injuring each other for the sake of a sick little game that we have been playing for far too long.

I never knew why I wanted to start this game and you never knew why you were too willing to oblige. We started playing without either of us knowing and we were in too deep before neither of us realized. If only people knew how far we had taken this game behind the scene, they would condemn us for sure. But we laughed at the possibility—after all we were just two boys giving some fan service, who would suspect that there would be something more inside to dig in deeper? Maybe we were just too naïve—the stares that stayed for just a little bit too long, the lingering touches here and there, the hugs I gave you when we thought the camera wasn’t on us—the signs that we figured would go by unnoticed. What if they knew that the stares turned deeper, the touches grew more passionate and the fact that our bodies attached even closer in tight embrace when not a single soul was watching us? We started to become paranoid, hiding in the isolation of our own nest, insecurity ruling our sanity, afraid of our own dirty little secrets. And so we added a new rule in our little game, without any words neither said nor written to describe the boundaries, a protective measure to keep us safe from ourselves. That was when you started pushing me away and I started dating countless, meaningless, girls—when our relationship started to go ‘awkward’—although if we were ever forced to tell the truth, ‘awkward’ would never be the correct word to describe our impressions when your lips were attached to mine.

We have withstood every injury and its resulting pain for so long that we have come to enjoy it—although strangely, we have never become numb to the pain, for it never fails to hurt the both of us.

It hurt every time you pushed me away, yet again, as if I was some kind of lowly being that didn’t deserve to stand next to you. It ached because you let the others touch you so easily, yet I could only do so behind the shadows. But it never stopped me from trying to push your buttons, for it had become my new obsession altogether—the uncomfortable look in your eyes along with the unpleasant twinge in my heart had fueled me, as the superficial nature of our relationship becoming more well-known among the public. People could call us whatever they wanted to—‘pushing and pulling’ or ‘oil and water’ perhaps even ‘Tom and Jerry’—we didn’t care as long they couldn’t see what was hidden behind our interactions, late at night with all the lights turned off, and we had tried to wrap it so neatly so it could kept being unseen. It was painful to keep hiding, but we had been doing it for so long that the pain that greeted us had slowly become an old friend who regularly visited our hearts—although perhaps just a bit too often for our taste—lingering for a while before adding yet another new scar. We ended up playing harder and faster than before as if in trance, feeling high as if we were using morphine to ease pain instead of adding to the sickness—only to carve hearts with even more scratches and gashes and cuts. Perhaps, pain had turned into the source of our motivation instead—delusionary trying to win against each other, when in actuality neither of us had ever triumphed—only getting more abused.

But we relish the pain, because it reminds us that we are humans, and that humans need each other to survive.

I could see the agony in your eyes when the rumor about my relationship status surfaced yet again, but you never dared to ask for the truth because it was never your place. Neither was it mine to complain when you started dating as well—kissing nameless girls in places where I could clearly see—my possessiveness generated the arrogant explanation that you were probably stimulated by your unsatisfied grudges towards me. It was never in your nature to publicly display such an act, but it seemed that the gratified glint in your eyes when you looked at my grim expression negated any distressing embarrassment you might have felt. The desperation we felt from seeing each other with somebody else made us yearn more for each other instead—all the uncertainty and jealousy only strengthened our desire to have each other. We craved to be together even more—just like how you longed for me on cold nights, I needed you on the rest of the nights. We thrived in the torture, for it made us feel alive. Every new injury we added into our collection of scars and every time our touches soothed the unhealed scars—they reminded us that we wanted, needed, each other.  That you were so enamored with me as I was with you, that we were in this together and that our lives revolved on this game. Perhaps we were just too afraid that our lives would stop if this pain ever stopped.

And after so many years, let’s admit it—the pain has turned into an addiction.

Don’t you love to hurt me just as much as I love doing it to you? Every single time you kissed a girl in front of my eyes, I left with another in my arms as retaliation. The scene had been rewound for so many times it felt like a continuously repeating déjà vu: one of our members nudged me as soon as I walked into the club, pointing at your direction with his chin. And there you were in all your glory, sitting in the dimmest corner of the bustling place, a girl with long black hair lounging on your lap. You were kissing her, eyes closed and limbs entangled. Unknowingly, without any warning, you tore a new gash on my heart and it kept throbbing annoyingly as I glared at you. Like a sixth sense, you instantly felt my attention on you, for you opened your eyes to look straight into mine. You smirked at me and your lips when you stopped the lip lock to t