a boy, his cello and his internal monologues.

Chapter 1: Red Dahlia

His hands are always warm as he holds onto me. It feels colder without him.
I know this is all a dream, I wish it wasn't, I wish he was here with me.
I sound lovestruck.
Maybe I am.
Who knows? I don't. How would you know if even I don't.
Do you know? Or do you just pretend you know?
It's odd.
Does he know who I am?
Does he remember my name?

"My name.. My name is..."

His alarm blares on the nightstand beside him, waking him up from a dream he has long forgotten already. The sudden burst of consciousness leaves him shaking and uncomfortable in his sleeping position. He covers his ears with his pillow and rolls onto his side to avoid the screaming of the alarm clock he and his brothers have had in their shared room for the past 10 years.

He doesn't feel like turning it off, perhaps he should, but he doesn't need to, not today. It's a Tuesday, which means one half of his older twin brothers, Lumie, is off campus and at home again.

A soft groan and a thump signal that his human chauffeur has woken up and is most likely fully physically prepared to slam the alarm clock off, yank him up by his arms and clobber the younger boy onto his back before bringing him to the kitchen.

He hears a smack, oddly gentler than the usual slam or violent unplugging of the alarm clock that usually results in him having to manually reset the time, and then he feels arms under his own, longer, but less thin and barren, tug him upwards and push him up to rest himself on the older boy's back. He hears Lumie struggle with the door for a solid 5 seconds before finally getting it open and he feels Lumie shuffle him further up his back and start walking.

The goal is always the kitchen, but usually Lumie gets tired and gives up, throwing him on the couch before getting up and making breakfast for himself and leaving the younger to fend for himself, but today is different. Lumie somehow manages to get all the way to the kitchen without, 1. nearly dropping him and 2. sweating so hard through his shirt that the other can feel it, and even after all that, he feels himself being propped up on a chair and poked in the head several times to wake him up.

The only reasons why Lumie could've gone out of his way to bring him into the kitchen today were that he felt bad or that dad was home and passed out on the couch. He feels like it's the latter, but he can't tell because his eyes aren't open, and he doesn't feel like opening them for another hour.

"Oi. Rustr, get up. I know you're awake already."

Ah, that's Lumie's voice. And that's his name. Rustica Yashnikoff. Well, that's his birth name. His friends have somehow nicknamed him "Glueboy". He's guessing it was because of the time that Mario said that he wanted to give the whole friend group nicknames after school supplies at the beginning of the year, and Rustica guesses that only his name stuck.

Slowly phasing back into the situation actually happening, he can smell toast. It's not burnt, yet. He rubs at his eyes and stretches upwards, back arching almost cat-like. Both of his shoulders pop, and he feels himself wince. Not in pain, he's used to it at this point, but just because of how sudden and loud they sound.

He blinks his eyes awake, and he's greeted with Lumie eating a piece of toast and looking at him over the island. His hair, reminiscent of their fathers, lays messy and tangled on his shoulders. It's odd, how he's ginger and Rustica is not. Maybe he's thinking too much into this because Lumie taps his nails on the island and pushes a plate over towards him before walking away and grabbing the thing Rustica hates wearing most.

He eats fairly slow to avoid having to put so much Velcro, plastic and metal onto his body, but he knows that eventually, at some point in the next 10-15 minutes, he'll have to put it on anyways. Lumie grabs the outfit he set last night from their room with the full body cast (as he calls it) which consists of a leg brace and a two part hip brace that he always needs extra assistance with because it's far too difficult to do on his own.

Rustica sighs and Lumie chuckles as he watches him sullenly limp over to the bathroom to get changed. Rustica hates getting the braces on. It feels like it's extremely visible and it makes him self-conscious, but he's fully aware that nobody cares at the same time.

He hates the way the braces fit. He supposes it's because of the way he views his own body, but it's clunky and it stresses him out just looking at it. He dresses in baggy clothes as to hide the plastic squeaking against his hips and knees, but sometimes it doesn't work and he gets weird glances from other people in the hallways. It bothers him, he supposes.

Lumie pats his back, signalling that the last piece of the brace is secured against his thigh, and he feels a lurch in his stomach as soon as he moves. He hates the plastic, but he has to feel okay at school. It doesn't hurt as much with the brace.

He's dressed, and Lumie is on his third piece of toast. Lumie glances at the fridge, silently asking if he packed a lunch, and Rustica shakes his head. He gets Lunch at the grocery store near the school most of the time. It consists nearly only of Doritos and the .75 cent lollipops he enjoys so much. Maybe it fills him up. Maybe it doesn't.

He stumbles out to the area by the front door, Lumie needed to start his car, so he leaves the house approximately 2 minutes earlier than Rustica does. He struggles with the laces on his shoes for a minute, but gets curious and slides back towards the living room again. Earlier he didn't get slammed on the couch, so he guessed that his dad was home, and he was correct. Sleeping in business casual, his eyes have heavy bags under them and Rustica feels as if he shouldn't say bye, he doesn't want to wake him up.

Perhaps that's for the better.

The car ride to school is always pleasant. Lumie makes conversation with nobody but himself and he makes sure to let Rustica know if he's going to be there in the afternoon. Rustica hopes he is most of the time, but today he's not. He warns that he'll be out at practice again, which means Rustica is left with his drained bus card and his inability to walk properly.

Rustica gets out of the car, and Lumie waves goodbye quickly before proceeding to maneuver out of the parking lot as to not get hit, he appears to successfully get out of the parking lot, which Rustica supposes is better than getting hit and dying.

He shuffles through the mass of sweaty, overbearing teenagers (who, most of which, are football players that haven't won a single game this season, but are still consistently fawned over by girls.) to reach his group of six other friends. He likes his friends, most of the time. It's usually because they're not mean to him, or judgy, unless they're judging their own insecurities.

He feels at home at times, and at others, not so much, but usually, his friends help.

He appreciates them a lot. He hopes that nothing comes between them.