identity: renjun, jeno & jaemin [on hold]

thirty one; peas in a pod

  Nari taps Jaemin's swollen, red cheek with a cooling pack as they gather around the living room.

  "Sorry," Jeno curtly says and tights his hug around Jia who sits cross-legged in between his legs on the floor, pulling her close until she leans on his chest.
"I didn't know."

  "Of course, you didn't," Renjun passive aggressively says as he mindlessly shifts through the shows and films on Netflix.

  Jaemin smiles and waves his hand at Jeno as a gesture telling him that he doesn't mind. "It's fine. We meant to tell you earlier that we're siblings but we just couldn't find the right timing.
"If we told you from the beginning then, things would've been too hard to explain. If we explained later on then you guys might've gotten upset on why we didn't tell sooner. But I guess the main reason is that, if we did tell earlier then, all of this would've been much harder to achieve."

This.

A vaguely mentioned subject with barely any description of what 'this' is. But they know. They all know exactly what- their relationship. Their dark, twisted romance.

"Renjun knew earlier. How?" Jeno bluntly asks.

"He found out himself. Approached me one day and asked what my relationship with Jia is (check chapter 22). Since we didn't put any restraints on each other regarding the truth, I thought I might've just told him," Jaemin answers.
"Sure, I told him we weren't close- because it was true. We didn't meet up much, not until now."

All except the two siblings process the new information. Even, Renjun who's known this way before.

Now that they think about it, who else could've helped them financially from the outside? Renjun and Jeno were as good as abandoned pups in the box when they were dropped into that asylum.

No one was there to help- but then when Jaemin came into the story, suddenly they had a father figure, a personal doctor assigned to them who took care of them until they were old enough to leave the institute and live inside the cabin.

The cabin that was so generously gifted to them by the doctor. He isn't that high ranking of a worker to be able to afford private property.

  "So all this time, we were sponsored by... you?" Jeno asks with sparkling eyes, touched and amazed by the unexpected, pleasant surprise as he looks down at the girl in his arms.

  She looks at Jaemin. "You could say that. But Jaemin played a big part. If he didn't ask me to, I wouldn't have so I'm glad he did."

  "I like them. They're my friends," little Jaemin told Jia during one of her very few visits to the institute.

She looked at him, her round, doe eyes expressing her indifference and nonchalance- gentle and sweet yet, hollow- a doll's eyes.

"What do they give you? What's the benefit?" She asked her brother. Both born on the same day, at the same time, yet so different from one another.

Jaemin swung his dangling legs and gripped the freezing sides of the hospital's metal chair he sat on.
"They make me feel wanted... and safe."

Emotional benefits. Usually, she would not have bat an eye for it- emotional benefits were futile in her beliefs.

But...

She scrutinized the mien of her older, fraternal twin and a faint tug was felt on her heartstrings at the hope sparkling in his eyes.

  Maybe, she could learn to embrace them.

  "Okay."

  The memory seems to play simultaneously in the twins' minds from the ghost of a smile lingering on their faces.

  And though, she says nothing, Jaemin seems to understand the whisper in her heart from way her gaze fixes endearingly on Jeno.

  I learned.