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Chapter 01: The Beginning
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“White, where did Tod go?”
The question asked by my charismatic friend Da made me instinctively raise my head to look in his direction. Da is one of my close friends, perhaps more like a brother. Tod, who he’s asking about, is my other close friend. The three of frequent the architecture faculty at the same University. Our university is considered by many to be one of the best private schools in the region. The reason behind our tight friendship is simple: we are always late to class, and that alone made it hard for other people to put up with us anyway.
As a response to Da’s comment I grumbled angrily, “Damn it! I’d like to know where the hell he is too! He didn’t answer any of my calls yesterday!”
I made a dozen calls to Tod yesterday because I have something on my mind that I’d like to talk to him about. Being my close friend, he would have a duty to hear me out…
but where the hell is he?!
By now I should tell you that my name is White. I am the shortest of the three of us at 1.75m. I’m a regular average looking student. I wouldn’t say I’m as charismatic as Da but I’m not too boring either. Just average. I have an older twin brother named Black. He was born three minutes before me. Our parents divorced 15 years ago when we were five and we’ve been raised separately ever since.
I went to live with our father and Black went to live with our mother.
With this arrangement I feel that Black got handled a bad hand of cards. As our father is financially stable, I received a good education from a young age and was always offered the best he could afford. However, for Black, our mother refused any form of help since the divorce and struggled to raise him on her own. There was only so much she could provide for him and so Black is currently at one of the worst subsidized public universities. As a consequence of this lack of education, and love, all he knows how to do is fight.
Fight when he’s frustrated and fight when he doesn't like the person who’s in his way. A week ago, Black was beaten up to the point of needing to be hospitalized. He refused to tell me how he ended up in that state and, only after a lot of effort on my part, did I find out that it was the work of one of his closest friends. After finding this I decided to investigate on my own, as he adamantly refused to even mention anything about it. However, to proceed with my plan, I need to talk with my dear friend, Tod, who disappeared. Where the hell could he be?!
Da blurted out, "Hmm, could he be at some bar drinking, since he's not taking my calls too?"
"Does he even have any friends who take him to drink besides us?!" I retorted.
I'm anxious to talk to him about this topic since today is my last day of school for the second semester and since Black is at a different university and his schedule is different from mine, I managed to find out that their second semester is just now starting which gives me the perfect window to go there and take Black's place for investigation purposes.
But before going, I want to tell Tod and Da that I won't be attending summer classes at our university as I have to be impersonating Black.
"You're right, Hahaha," Da laughed. Before Da could continue his retort, Tod appeared in front of us.
"Ha, see, our dear friend is finally here when we're talking about him..." My first instinct was to continue to lash out at him but stopped abruptly after looking at his face.
"Hey, what happened to you?" Was what I said instead. The state of his face really scared me as it couldn't have been the result of anything other than a fierce beating. Despite my question, I wasn’t sure I was ready to know the exact details of the beating.
"Damn! This hurts so much!" Tod exclaimed before sitting down next to me and continuing with the explanation
"Well… I had a little accident…"
Da, being unsympathetic, asked, "Oh, so which tree or pole did you hit?"
Tod could only muster a soft, forced laugh, as his face was still hurting.
"Stop being nosy, Da"
"I'm sad you don’t know that busybody is my specialty after all the years we've been together, aww" Da replied sarcastically.
"Idiot! Can you look at my mouth and have an ounce of sympathy?" Tod seemed to be enduring the pain on his mouth as he continued to verbally fight with Da. All I could do was laugh at his pain.
"Does it hurt that much?" I asked.
"Needless to say." Tod replied before continuing. "Let's talk about you instead. Why did you call me so many times yesterday? I was busy getting beaten up."
This is my chance to talk about Black. However, Tod doesn't seem to be focusing on what I'm saying.
"Bastard, are you listening to what I'm saying!?"
"Yes, yes. Of course I am. Please continue." Unconvinced I continued, "I won't be attending summer classes this year because of what happened to Black. I need to get to the bottom of the problem.” I finished explaining, “What about you guys? Are you going to attend summer classes?"
"I haven't decided yet" Tod replied
"Da?"
"Well, the decision is in your hands, Tod." Da contraposed. But instead of answering Da’s question Tod grumbled as he rubbed his cheek.
"Aren't you interested in what happened to me?" Clearly still not over our lack of interest in the state of his face. As he carried on with the explanation I wasn't paying much attention but I gathered that it was something about how he lost a large sum of money due to football betting and his sister offered him a loan on the condition that he would follow her boyfriend, whom she suspects of cheating… I was too busy thinking about Black's problem.
While Tod and Da continued talking about how Tod's injuries came about, I took out my phone to look at photos of my brother's close circle of friends.
One of the guys in the pictures is Sean. The expressions he has in his photos are all the same - stoic and unreadable. He seems to be inseparable from my brother though, as he’s in every photo. Although I don't get to spend much time with my brother, and he never said anything about his friends during the times we were together. Sean’s relationship with my brother seems to be the best. Looking at the photos… his appearance… there's only one word for it - perfection.
Another guy who’s frequently present on my brother’s photos is Gram. Gram seems to like to make weird expressions with his eyebrows and to smile a lot. He seems like an easy-going kind of guy that a lot of girls would fall in love with. However, I'm pretty sure he's not what he seems in the photos since he's close to Black.
I have to take a deep breath as I look at the last frequent appearance in my brother’s photos, Yok. Even though he's my brother's drinking buddy, they don't seem like very good friends. Yok's appearance is fierce, with eyes that close in a thin line when smiling. He has a slim physique but I'm thinking he might be an impulsive guy who acts without much thought.
I get so frustrated looking at them and wondering who could have been responsible for what happened to my brother that I’m unconsciously pulling my hair in frustration. This catches Tod’s and Da’s attention who were busy talking. Trying to get me back to paying attention to them Da asks, "White, what do you think Tod should do?" Shit, I was so focused on Black's friends I wasn't even listening to Tod.
"Hmm, just getting on with whatever he's doing I guess" I blurted out without even knowing what it was about.
They seemed to buy it though and I breathed a sigh of relief when they returned to whatever they were talking about.
Either way, I need to stop thinking so much and just get on with my plan to pass myself as Black to find out what happened.
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