"Really? Because I could've sworn I saw you both taking off, leaving your class group," she said. My eyes widened at her and the color drained from my face, shocked that we had been spotted in the act. Not only that but the fact that I had just lied to her, and she knew it, scared the crap out of me. Before I could even speak, her face broke into a grin and she burst out laughing.
The only emotion that registered in my head was shock then. Shock at being caught lying to an elite, at her sudden change in temperament, and really just shocked at her laugh. Her laugh was booming, reverberating across the walls of the corridor, echoing down the empty hallways; a laugh that seemed out of place from someone who had just minutes before been glaring daggers at me. "Oh man, you should've seen your face," she cried, wiping the tear from her eyes as she clutched her stomach from the cramps caused by her uncontrollable giggles. In that instant, I felt my panic wash away, instead replaced by slight irritation at this strange elite.
"Glad I could amuse you," I muttered, not intending for it to actually be spoken aloud and a little shocked at myself for letting it slip.
"Oh man, I haven't laughed that hard in forever," she continued, either not hearing what I said, or simply choosing to ignore it. By this time, Ken had finally regained enough of his composure to shut his hanging jaw, sending me a raised eyebrow as we both waited for this strange elite in front of us to stop laughing. Eventually, the laughter subsided to chuckles and she walked up to us, resting her hands on her hips as she regarded us. "So, you two have names or what?" A part of me wondered if I should lie again, knowing that there may be a slim chance of us not getting in any kind of trouble if I do. I mean I had already lied once. What's the harm in lying another time? "Nope, don't even go there. I can tell if your lying," she said without so much as a stutter. Eventually, I decided to tell the truth.
"Kevin Branson. This is my brother Kenneth," I replied, pointing a finger back at my silent twin. I was still slightly worried about where this conversation would lead. I wondered if she was going to squeal on us and get us into a shitload of trouble, or let us off with a warning of sorts. Hell, I had lied to her and I was kinda scared that it was going to bite me in the butt.
"Relax dude, I'm harmless. I swear I'm not gonna rat you out. I'm Alena," she said, as if she was reading my thoughts. It was only later down in our friendship that we learnt that she specialized in psychology and her gift to read people like a book, but anyway, that's how we had met.
It's been over three years since our chance meeting and it's funny how much we've all changed in those short three years. Alena had grown up quite beautifully, which wasn't really surprising seeing that she was an elite, only to the dismay of Ken. He would never admit it, even to himself, but I knew he was in love with her. I mean, she was at least 6' tall, had a hot bod, and a carefree personality that most guys would fall for. I know I would if I wasn't gay, so it wasn't that difficult to believe that Ken was in love.
Speaking of my little brother, Ken hadn't really changed much over the years, physically at least. Sure he grew taller and grew his hair out, but other than that he hadn't really changed appearance wise. He did however, come out of his shell more. He was never shy or anything, just reclusive, but when you spent as much time in an elite centric environment as he did, some of their personality traits rubbed off on you.
Me on the other hand, changed quite drastically on the exterior. It was Alena who actually got me to go to the gym. We had dropped Ken off at the Lunaris research centre for him to do whatever sciencey thing he wanted and she had pulled me along to the gym. The rest was history. It became a routine and I found myself gradually getting larger. Personality wise I hadn't really changed much, except that maybe I was no longer so uptight when it came to adhering to rules. Yeah, I was a goody two shoes as a kid.
But enough with the trip down memory lane. "So what do you think this special interview is about?" I asked Ken as we walked down the street towards the tram station, talking about the plan for school. Nothing much was told to us, other than we had a special interview, whatever that meant.
"Who knows? My guess it's some survey about the jobs we've been interning for or something, seeing that were about done with it all," he replied. I thought about his explanation, nodding my head slightly at the sense he made. I, on the other hand, was completely stumped on the matter and any kind of reason was good enough for me. Like I said, I wasn't the thinker in our little relationship. "What's the plan tonight though? Did Alena tell you anything?"
I rolled my eyes at him. It was Friday, meaning it would have been our usual routine, with him heading down to his favorite place and me to the gym. The only question was who Alena was going to follow. "Do you really need to ask?"
"Well...no, but I thought maybe she wanted to do something else," he said. I could almost smell the awkwardness of his words and I smirked at his comment.
"You want to take her on a date." I said, more a statement than a question. "Aww, little Kenny is trying to romance her."
The blush that crept up on his cheeks told me I had hit the nail on the head. "It's not a date, just maybe a quiet dinner together."
"Whatever you want to call it, message received loud and clear. You can both drop me off and then be on your merry way. Are you finally gonna confess?" I prodded, lightly elbowing him in the ribs. Ken had been pining over Alena for so long, I wondered when he would actually get the guts to take things further. Of course, he'd always blown me off with the same excuse.
"No!! You know I can't," he exclaimed. See? So predictable. Of course I did know why though. He was natal and Alena was elite. There's something about crossing that boundary that seemed taboo. I had no idea why though, seeing that there wasn't any kind of rule that forbade it. Still, I had never heard of a natal and an elite pairing up... well, other than one couple, but even that was a special case.
"You know, if you're gonna stick to that excuse forever, why are you even bothering with the whole dinner plan," I asked.
"Shut up. It's...complicated," I rolled my eyes but I knew I had no right to. I may tease the hell out of Ken about his crush but I wasn't much better to be honest. I too was hopelessly infatuated with an elite. Taron Wolfrum had invaded my conscious mind for the past month and I was so painfully in the same position as Ken that I should not have been making jabs at his love life.
"At least you know how much of a hypocrite you're being," Ken shot, rolling his eyes at me. I was still debating whether I liked having a twin, and it's times like this, when he goes all mind reader on me where the feeling starts swaying towards the negative. Of course, having someone who was my best friend and brother was cool too, so it was a never-ending seesaw of emotions.
The ride to class was quiet as we both got consumed in our thoughts. I was sure that Ken was debating if he was really going through with his little date plan with Alena later tonight, from the way he kept rubbing his knuckles. Ever since we were little, he had done that whenever he was deep in thought.
I didn't want to think about Taron though, so I kept myself occupied, watching Lunaris zoom by as the tram sped down its magnetic tracks. Lunaris had pretty much stayed the same throughout the years. When you have already reached a level of perfection, there really wasn't much left to do to improve. Like they say, don't fix something that isn't broken.
I watched the buildings whiz by and caught a glimpse of President Hopper on one of the advertising screens standing atop buildings. I chuckled, feeling like life was reminding me of how much had in fact changed. When Varek Hopper became president, I was only 14 and not really aware of the whole political scene at that point; my only concern was getting to my first internship class. It was only when I got older that I realized how much Varek Hopper's assumption to office had changed how my life would pan out.
You see, in my early teen years, I was having an internal battle with my sexuality. Actually, battle is a wrong term because that would have suggested that both sides had equal footing. No, that wasn't the case. I wanted nothing more than to go about life and hide the fact that I had interest in boys instead of girls. Everything changed however, after it became known on Lunaris that the President's son was gay himself, and the criminalization of homosexuality was abolished. I don't really remember how my parent's reacted to the news because I myself was reeling at the piece of information, too preoccupied by my own thoughts to take notice of anyone else's. I was happy that maybe I wasn't so alone, scared at what the people around me would think of the situation, but most of all shocked that all this was happening.
