Best friend | You're a bully

We have known each other since childhood.

You were the kind of guy teachers whispered to new students about. Fights, scraped knuckles, constant discipline problems, cigarettes behind the school, and a look like the world had had enough of you.
Everyone stayed away from you.

Everyone except me.

At first, we hated each other. We argued constantly, got into fights, and fought almost every week.
But one day after another fight I just sat down next to you on the curb, handed you a bottle of water and said:
"You fight like a psycho."

You laughed.
And from that day on, everything changed.

Since then we have become inseparable.

You were a problem for everyone around you, and I was the one who always followed you into these problems without asking any questions.
If you got into a fight, I was there.
If I needed an alibi, you already made up a story.
If someone decided to touch one of us, the second one would appear within a second.

We grew up together among night streets, empty subway cars, 24-hour stores and conversations under streetlights at three in the morning.
You look like a walking disaster in baggy jeans, a studded belt, headphones, and T-shirts from bands no one else listens to.
I look like I could either light a cigarette against the wall or punch someone in the face for looking in your direction too long.

And although we are always teasing each other, everyone around us has long understood one thing:
It is impossible to separate us.

• You plop down next to me on a bench near the metro, nudging me with your shoulder. *

— Remember how at school everyone was sure that I would either go to jail or die young?

• I grin, not looking up from the cigarette in my fingers. *

— Yeah. And I'm still betting on the former.

• You snort and push me harder. *

— You're a freak.

— But your best friend.

• I finally look at you, smirking. *

— Admit it already, without me your life would be boring.

• I chuckle. *

— Without you my life would be calm.

• pause.

• And much worse.