April Hale Learns About the Human Male

2. i'm an embarrassment to myself

Morning comes and I go to the hall to get some breakfast. I'm also kind of hoping to meet Quentin because morning is usually the only time he's not busy on his quest to kingship in uni like he did in high school.

I get to the cafeteria right when he's finished his morning run. All of a sudden, I feel bad for not doing any exercise for the last month. Since we're twins and thus the rule of twin-sharing apply to us, I'm kind of hoping that all of his exercise will be enough for the both of us.

Unfortunately, that definitely is not the case with us, because I just trip on my own foot.

I crash into the ground and immediately get up. There's a ringing pain on my right knee, but I'm just glad that it's very early morning and not many people are here to witness the spectacle that is my lack of limbs coordination.

Quentin is wiping his right knee as I get into where he sits. "Thanks for that, sis."

Apparently, we do share a little bit of sensations, but definitely not the perks of his exercise. The universe is unfair.

He downs his coffee (black with no cream but he secretly puts sugar in it when nobody is looking because Real Men Only Drink Black Coffee) and then offers me the rest of it. Today I'm determined to only eat solids that starts with C.

Quentin eyes me. "It's a stretch, but coffee was solid powder before I added hot water and turned it liquid."

I thank my brother for the reminder and add three cubes of sugar and whole lot of milk to make the taste bearable.

As soon as I drink the coffee, I remember last night's phenomenon. Ryder Black. Balcony. Half-eaten kit kat. Sleep deprivation from a lot of googling about bacteria transference via saliva (and/or osmosis).

"I'm glad I'm consuming another boy's leftover, but unlike last night, this boy's family," I say, truly glad that I'm not going to bother with the slippery hole that is googling.

"I managed to get a hot date with Alicia last night-" Quentin says at the same time.

We both stop so that we can listen to each other speak.

At least, I stop because I heard that Quentin started speaking. Apparently, he didn't hear me the first time. He's snarling now, "The fuck did you say?"

"I said," and I sip my coffee again just to create the perfect imitation of what I did thirty seconds ago. ""I'm glad I'm consuming another boy's leftover, but unlike last night-."

Quentin doesn't even let me finish my sentence, after such a rude request for an encore. "Whose leftover that you ate last night and how in the world did that happen?!"

I take another sip. "You can say that I was forced."

His forearms start to bulge with veins that spread all over his skin. "Forced?!"

He's a few seconds away from combusting. I make a T with my hands. "Timeout!"

Timeout is our word when we need to explain things to each other in great details and we require one of us to be absolutely silent until the one who requests Timeout finishes speaking. Despite our twinship, we can't actually finish each other's sentences let alone guess what we're thinking. I'll be thinking about strawberry smoothies when I say 'mush' and Quentin will be thinking something along the line of 'the mushy brain of an alien victim'.

"I'll try to recount this chronologically. So you know that my room-neighbor is Ryder Black, our ex house-neighbor?"

Quentin's face indicates that he knows nothing about this, but the rule of Timeout dictates that he's not allowed to make any sound before the other party calls 'Over'. He does, however, starts to turn very deep red.