The Twins At Paldea Univeristy (Pokemon Scarlet and Violet)

Violence

Math class was the usual boring whatever. Juliana wasn't really paying attention anymore, especially after that bollocks pokeball question. She doesn't care if it's a trick question, it was... lame. Yeah. that. Lame.

The girl sat at the back of the class right beside Penny, who she'd become more and more acquainted with as time went on. She was a quiet girl, lonely and timorous, one who'd assigned herself to a life where the world would ask itself if she was ever there to begin with. Her isolation and introversion contrasted well with Juliana's extroversion. Like two wheels on the same axle making sure the car doesn't spin into a disaster.

Soon enough, Ms Tyme dismissed them. Penny was sure to have her books already packed and immediately bolt out of the room, but Juliana stops her dead in her tracks. "Penny! What's the rush? Let's have lunch together! My treat!" says Juliana with her trademark smile. Her smile which, like a siren's song, was known to captivate all who were within the range of its spell, and lulled them to do whatever the enchantress wished.

And so, Penny was with Juliana at the Go-For-Broke grill. The poor red-and-blue haired girl's throat was already sore from all the (pretty few) talking, and her social battery completely drained. She was about as out-of-place as a beartic at Asado desert. Still, at least it was with Florian's sister. No better option to be out in the public than with the sister of one of her few friends.

"So... Penny, I've seen you and my brother walking around Mesagoza from time to time, what's that about?"

Penny looks out the window, wandering about what to say. "Florian is nice to me. He doesn't really... expect anything from me. He's there, and when I don't want him to, he isn't. He's... I don't know. Different. In all ways right and wrong." the nerdy girl pushes her glasses up and takes another drink of her water to cool her throat, "I don't know what to make of him."

"Well, that's good. Florian used to be such a menace," says Juliana as she takes a bite out of her paella. "As his older sister, I'm concerned for him a lot of the time. Especially now since this is the longest we've been apart."

"Menace?"

"Hmm? Yeah. Florian was a wild child when we were young. Getting into fights and whatnot. Short fuse, real bad." Juliana takes another bite out of her meal, "we honestly didn't know what was wrong with him."

"Was he... b-being bullied?"

"Him? No. Last time a kid tried that, Florian knocked him in the head with a sock full of nickels."

Penny could somewhat relate. A morbid feeling from a not-so-distant past. Retaliation. Cathartic, but self-destructive. A sickening feeling constricted her stomach for a moment.

"He is... weird. In a good way." says Penny, "is he? If I may ask, is he...."

"He's not on the spectrum, he's just weird," Juliana answered before taking one last bite, she wiped her mouth with a napkin, "violent too, back then. We didn't know what to make of him. Neither Ma nor Pa ever hit us, or each other for that matter. Pa even had him checked out for mental stuff. Nothing. Not intermittent explosive disorder, not antisocial personality disorder, neither sociopathy nor psychopathy. Names of other disorders a kid that age shouldn't know about. Nothing. He was just... really violence-prone. Short fuse, bad temper."

A look of pity paints Penny's face, "it sounds lonely."

"It could have been, but Ma and Pa loved him, us, too much to give up," says Juliana, 'he straightened out, in the end. Especially after-"

Now it was Juliana's turn to stop. A pregnant pause before sighing, "you have nothing to fear, Penny. Florian is a good kid. He's not going to give you a black eye for hiding his notebooks, or choke you with plastic wrap if you put cookies in his bed."

Penny gasps

"Hehe, yeah, I was a little troublemaker too," Juliana scratches the back of her head. "You should've seen what he did when I planted his face into his birthday cake."

"I don't feel like I want to"

"You'll never have to," Juliana gives her a smile, "Florian likes you, I have a feeling you two will do just fine."

"That's not-'' Penny shakes her head. She wasn't worried about herself, she was worried about them. "I'm glad to know that."

It seemed Florian had his own things to deal with as well, just what exactly did she rope herself into?