Childhood best friend OC who became popular x nerd male reader idea in which both of them end up stuck in the Backrooms because why not
You and Matt used to be joined at the hip when you were growing up. Ever since you moved to this small town with your mom when you were six and he said "hi" to you on the first day of kindergarten, you've been an item. Everyone knew that if one of you was around, the other one was close.
At least it used to be like that.
Middle school was a peculiar experience—puberty, social hierarchies, and whatnot. You didn't really care about all that, even if your hobbies and the things you liked labeled you as a "nerd." You thought it was absolutely ridiculous—if "nerd" is the best insult you can think of, that's just pitiful—but Matt, on the other hand, started to pull away from you.
It wasn't something that happened overnight, more like a continuous, slow effort to keep you on the sidelines. So slow that you barely noticed at first. I mean, it's middle school; everyone makes new friends, there's nothing to worry about, right? You didn't have time to think about all that, not when you were in the middle of your own chaotic pre-teenager revelations—like the stupid, embarrassing crush you seemed to have towards your dumb best friend, which made you avoid him in public, too.
By the time you started high school, no one at school had any idea that you two were friends. He was on the baseball team, always surrounded by his loud, obnoxious little group and their disgusting jokes. You enjoyed your time alone, made your own friends, and kept enjoying the same interests that made Matt step aside.
Funny enough, your friendship was still alive and strong.
It was a weird feeling to have to sneak to his house when it was already dark outside, always using the back door like some nasty secret, someone with no right to enter through the front like a normal guest—like you used to do before Matt decided people knowing you two were friends was embarrassing. The little secretive show was over once you were inside; you would greet his dad, grab something from the fridge, and go straight to his room where he usually had a movie or a video game ready to play.
It went on for almost four years, until that specific night of your senior year. You chose a movie, he brought some snacks, and then his dad told him he got a call from work and needed to head out for the night. Matt's eyes glowed with that playfulness you knew so well, and as soon as Matt’s dad was out the door, Matt sprinted to the kitchen. He came back with a cheap whiskey bottle, already half-finished, that he managed to sneak inside the house.
You don't remember very well what happened after—who leaned in first, who pushed against the other's lips, who let the kiss linger for as long as it did—but when you woke up the next morning, Matt was already gone.
That's when the real avoidance started.
If he barely acknowledged you in public before, now he pretended you didn't exist, shoulders tense and eyes nailed to anything but you. Every time you invited him to your house or asked to go to his, he would make some excuse, and every time you texted him, he would read the message but never respond.
Soon after, as if some cruel joke of the life that seemed to hate you, you ended up in this place. You went to the mall planning to watch the new release of your favorite franchise and took a wrong turn. Suddenly, everything was halls and halls of infinite length and a dissertation that bordered on creepy.
You don't know how long you wandered around—hours, days, maybe weeks. The place kept changing, opening new doors to different scenarios. Every one looked more and more familiar, adjusting to your memories and adapting to you.
He practically knocked you over, panicked and overwhelmed and somehow happy, saying that he's been looking for you for months, that your mom is worried sick, that he was sorry. You even cried a little—not because you were scared before, of course not.
So you start looking for the exit with him, grateful for the company, euphoric because you don't feel like you'll go crazy anymore, after so long with nothing but your own thoughts to distract you—and who better for the job than your crush?
It felt like things between you two were finally going back to normal, or at least as normal as they can be in a luminal space filled with entities. He had also stopped treating you as a freak—yes, because of the lack of people, but a win is a win.
You were happy. Somehow. Maybe you had already lost it. But he didn't look that miserable either.
At least not now, sitting beside you in a classroom with an eerie similarity to your kindergarten class, illegible books spread over the floor and desks of different sizes organized in some sort of specific chaos. The colors on the wall are so bright and artificial that they make your eyes hurt. Both your backs rest against the wall after you stop for a small break, the silence in the room somehow comfortable. You suppress the need to rest your head on his shoulder.
"That night," he starts, out of nowhere. "I'm sorry."
"I don't know. Everything, I guess. Ignoring you."
The silence stretches. Seconds that feel like hours, since you don't know how to answer. And then, really tiny: "Why did you do that?"
"I thought you were going to reject me after I kissed you."
You turn your head so fast your neck hurts.
Matt also looks at you, somehow shy, and you feel the butterflies in your stomach flap their wings so hard you might as well throw up. You don't move when his hand raises to your neck, thumb tracing patterns on your jaw, nor when his eyes drop to your lips and stay there. You let him lean closer and closer, until his breath crashes against your mouth and you can hear his heart pounding in his chest.
The memories of that night come crashing down.
The way you kissed him first.
The shock makes you push him away. You lose your balance and land on your elbows. The way he looked at you, surprised and confused and hurt, almost made you apologize.
"That's not what happened."
But your memories don't match how they're supposed to.
Matt's face twists into something morbid, eyes losing all light and mouth stretching unnaturally. The air around him changes—how he moves, how he breathes, how he fits in the room, everything shifts. The room stretches, the walls grow pale, the air gets colder.
And that's the moment everything fits.
"You're not Matt, are you?"
