KINGSMAN

VIII

THE SUDDEN BUT EXPECTED BLEATING FROM HER ALARM WAS NOT WHAT WOKE HER.

It was April, tapping her pen on the underside of her shoe as she flipped through one of her books. Sylvi had attempted to ignore the sound for about three hours and failed. Reluctant, she turned away from the wall to face her friend. When April did not look at her, she cleared her throat and tried again. The harsh rasp scraped along her throat. Sylvi never awoke sounding nice. She sounded like the dead. Or perhaps, a very exasperated chain-smoker, as April had once described.

April jumped at the sound and twisted in her chair to stare at Sylvi. The pen-tapping did not stop. "Oh. You're awake." She smiled. The oil lamps were off and the shutters were closed but light still managed to peek through and illuminate the rose in her cheeks. "Good morning."

Sylvi attempted clearing her throat again before she spoke. "Good morning," she rasped.

April handed her a bottle of water and continued flipping through her book. Sylvi took the water, muttering a quick "thank you" before downing it all and dragging herself from her bed. Her clothes hung ironed in her closet. April was already fully dressed. Sylvi knew from three years of living with her that April was a light sleeper, which was to say that she did not sleep at all. Everything on her side of the room lay untouched and perfect down to the smallest wrinkle in her bedspread. Due to hours of quiet tidying in the middle of the night when she had nothing else to do.

"It's not insomnia," she had laughed once while they sat on the lawn and shared breakfast bars. "I just have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep."

Sylvi had narrowed her eyes at her. "That's what... Y'know what? Nevermind. Hand me the blueberry one, you can have all the red." April had happily obliged.

Sylvi changed from her worn sweatpants and tank top to the dress pants, collared shirt, and embroidered sweater that encompassed Edgewood's uniform. On the breast the emblem had been carefully sewn into the fabric along with the motto in tiny, golden-threaded Latin: Nos educo. Nos creare. Nobis sunt kingpins.

She often wondered, more imagined if she was being honest, what it was like to be a Kingpin. Vital. Important. Necessary. But now... she may have the opportunity to be a Kingsman.

Sylvi snuck a glance at April as she slipped on her loafers. Her legs were crossed, the laces on her shoes tied into perfect bows that she must've spent an hour alone fussing over in the early hours of the morning. Her white socks were rolled up to her knees. Their outfits were identical except that Sylvi wore slip-ons because she couldn't stand the feeling of sock against her leg and that April wore the skirt while she opted out. 

April dramatically shut her book and splayed out on her chair, limp. "I don't want to go to school!" she groaned and tucked herself like something curling back into a shell. "I don't want to go to Math! They'll bore me to death, Sylvia, you must help me."

Sylvi brushed a hand over the curl of braid that crowned her head, already coming undone. She could never braid as tightly as her mother did. They also came loose too early. "Sorry, I can't. I have classes too."

April groaned again, longer and louder than before. "But in Math they make us do things. Science is boring but at least I understand. Science has room for creativity and innovation, for experimentation. Math teachers just yell at me to stop doodling on my paper and they are not doodles! Mr. Monteiro, they are methods to exude the scramble happening in my brain so I can focus on statistics. But no, they never understand that I am trying to concentrate and that yelling at me to stop does nothing but-"

Sylvi let April go on and naturally filtered the parts that were genuine dissatisfaction and resentment from that was mostly just her whining about her teachers.