The apple fell far from the tree, then it rolled back

Chapter 6 Part 2

At the gate, the two twins were greeted by Deltori, a familiar face in an unfamiliar environment. She'd been told the two would be attending the school soon, so she had wanted to greet them herself, and lead them to their first class. The school was still a bit too small for proper, full multiple classes. The so-called classes were currently divided into age groups of youngest, middle, and oldest instead. PJ went on to go with the oldest, and they got to their classroom.

Their teacher was Deltori for the first class, and since everyone was fairly new, she decided to make them do what was called an Icebreaker ("My new worst enemy", Nightmare claimed).

They did this by playing a game in which they each had to tell everyone 3 sentences about themselves, one of which had to be a lie.

Dream's personal favorite was the clearly armless child's lie being that they had arms. Nightmare had found it amusing when a human child dramatically revealed that their parents being monsters was true (everyone had guessed it right).

Dream had chosen to lie about being good at rock climbing, and Nightmare

lied about Dream being his twin.

"What? He's my brother twin, look!"

Dream held up his and Night's backpacks defiantly. A few children laughed at something Dream didn't know. Dream's black moon themed one, and Nightmare's yellow star themed one. They were a clear reference to the other brother, that's why they traded them. To the twins, this was matching. But to everyone else, they just looked like opposites. A few more snickers were heard, and Nightmare grumbled.

After the ice breaker, the day continued. They didn't have lessons yet, which Nightmare seemed disappointed by. Deltori mentioned that the teachers had to see how much they knew before they'll know what to teach. She said their group had the most differences, since the youngest were 6 and the oldest 10.

A lot of the day was spent talking and getting asked questions.

Even once they were outside after eating their lunch, Dream had no problems being social. In fact, currently he was further off, talking to some kids and playing with toys out of a box. Nightmare was content watching, looking over everyone, even as Dream gestured to join. When Nightmare shook his head, Dream looked away.

To his shock, when he looked back, his brother was backed against the wall. He looked so small. An only slightly taller child sporting brown hair and a red jacket loomed over him. Dream didn't remember seeing them in class, so they must be in the others.

Dream moved closer quietly to investigate, and what he saw confused and frightened him. His eye sockets widened, and he stopped in his tracks, standing as still as a stone.

His soul pounded when he saw his brother backing towards a wall, looking scared. Standing over him was an androgynous human child Dream hadn't met before. They were wearing a red jacket and had brown hair, but that's all they could see. They looked really angry, with their fists clenched like they wanted to fight. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but whatever it was, it wasn't nice.

Dream didn't like how that looked, so he took a step closer. Nightmare's mouth opened and words he couldn't hear came out. The kid's face got even angrier, their rosy cheeks turning red. Then, they lifted their fist, and Nightmare flinched like they might hit him. They didn't, but that's when Dream couldn't stay quiet anymore.

"Hey!" Dream shouted, running over and standing between them.

"What's your problem? Leave him alone!"

The kid whipped their head around, and suddenly they were smiling, but it wasn't a nice smile. It gave Dream a bad feeling. "You don't have to defend him," they said, sounding calm but weird. "You're just pretending, right? You're stuck with him."