The Ayanokouji Twins

Chapter 2 (1/2) : The Twins, Investigating and Socializing

Part 1 - | Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, Investigating |

I wake up, look to my right and see Kiyone. She's also looking at me, and something tells me we woke up at the same time.

That's not unusual: we tend to have a very similar, if not the exact same, circadian rhythm. However, from the sliver of light leaking through the window, my own internal clock, my current level of lucidity and my sister's complicated expression, I can tell. It's happened again.

"It's 5:30."

The White Room's curriculum was a balancing act between the outrageously demanding "learning" periods and the necessary "recuperation" periods, and each successive generation leaned more to the former than the latter. The 4th generation leaned far, far into the "learning" portion: days straight of the most demanding regime ever introduced to the White Room, all with the absolute minimum downtime.

This affected our sleep schedule as well, and one of the first priorities was to reduce performance loss from lack of sleep. We were trained to fall asleep quicker, trained to react immediately upon waking up, exposed to high-intensity training suddenly and without notice at ungodly hours...

However, the White Room's daytime operations began, without exception, at 5:30 AM on the dot. That was the one constant in our deliberately random schedule.

To this day, we find ourselves waking up at this time. Sometimes before, when something alerts us, but never after.

Whether we fall asleep at 9, 10, 11, 12, or past midnight, no matter how tired or rested we are, beyond 5:30 we are always wide awake. Our body knows exactly when, and the fact we must wake up at that time has thoroughly been ingrained in us. During the early stages of our training, we even believed all of humanity simply woke at this time. We thought this was just the way the world worked, how humanity lived.

When we came to the Mansion, it took us nearly a year to wake up past 5:30, with our record being 5:41.02. Our efforts in the Mansion wore down our many White Room habits, and after a while our sleeping condition started seeing regular variance between 5:30 to 5:40.

We expected it wouldn't be as easy once we came to ANHS: no matter how safe the place is, it's still a new environment. No matter how much people tell us it's safe, our instincts, so used to constant tension and danger, rear its head strongly in reaction to any change to our environment, especially so to something drastic like this.

We held vain hopes that our efforts in the Mansion would've somehow completely killed this condition of ours, but of course 14 years don't disappear so easily.

We are awake, we are wary and we are constantly expecting danger, as if we are in the White Room. That's what this time means to us.

"We still have plenty of time." I communicate to Kiyone. She nods in understanding.

We have three years to wear down this condition and many others. We are determined, if nothing else, and will not get discouraged nor rush blindly. We have time, and eventually we will have our whole lives.

"Let's go for a run." I feel her reply to me. I nod, and we change into our gym clothes.

We feel the chilly morning air embrace us upon opening the door and take a moment to admire the new environment, making use of our current hyper-awareness. The sun, leaking light just above the female dorms; the park's flowers, slightly drooped but glistening with raindrops; the slight, tiniest chirping of birds, and the presence of one just down the hallway, eating off a leftover bag of chips.