The Invisible Boys

Chapter 2

Jean

I adjusted my blue and black tie with my left hand, the other reaching for my hair to muss it a little. These damn private school uniforms. I shouldn't have been complaining though, not when I was all but guaranteed a spot at the prestigious King's University. The aroma of blueberry pancakes wafted into my room and assaulted my nostrils. A pang of hunger erupted in my stomach. Licking my thin lips, I made for the stairs and raced into the kitchen – almost smashing into my sister who was slaving over the stove in my haste.
"Hey!" She cried angrily and her lips made a puckering noise as she sucked the sugar off her thumb.
"Watcha making, kiddo?" I draped my arm over her shoulder and she immediately shrugged it off, her brow still furrowed into an antagonized 'V' shape.
"Stop calling me that, Jean. You're ten minutes older than me at most." She wriggled the pan in her hand, her wrist flicking up to toss the pancake into the air. I was rather impressed when it landed neatly in the pan. "And, it's a blueberry pancake. Pretend you don't know." My twin crouched slightly to open one of our kitchen's sliding cupboards. She produced a china plate before shutting the cupboard with her foot. "Notice how I said 'pancake'" she smiled and turned to grab the butter from the fridge – A risky move seeing as she had left me unattended and drooling over her pancake. "Pancake as in singular. Meaning there is only one. Meaning I'm going to eat it and you're not having any."
Of course.
I huffed and gave her a pouty scowl, to which she politely responded with the extension of her middle finger. Nice, sisterly love right there everyone.

I sighed and turned my attention to the kettle to make my morning coffee. After I was finished stirring the milky brown liquid, fascinated by the small vortex that formed from my quick blending, I took my usual seat across the table from my sister. She was looking at me suspiciously so I waggled my eyebrows at her.
"Are you not having breakfast?" she asked and cocked her head inquisitively. I shook my head. If I couldn't have blueberry pancakes than I didn't want anything.
"Honestly, the smell of your food has really put me off." I sighed dramatically "you really are a terrible cook."
She scoffed at that, plump lips parting to reveal perfectly formed teeth.

Just as I was finishing my coffee, the noise of the kitchen door slamming shut alerted me to my mother's arrival.
"Good morning, mom." I smiled widely. She responded by placing a soft kiss to my cheek before continuing to the kettle to make her own cup of coffee. Call me a momma's boy, I don't care. My mom is awesome.
My twin sister coughed and stood up from her seat, stretching her arms to the air and yawning as if she had only just awoken. My mother tucked her greying hair behind her ears and gripped a coffee mug tightly with her little hands. She waved at us from the window when we passed on the way to the bus stop and my twin beamed back at her while I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck. Winter was approaching and I could definitely feel it in the air. We chatted idly as we waited for our private school bus to trundle up the hill and offer refuge from the miserable cold. My sister was the first to step into the bus's cosy interior, flashing the bus driver her pass along with a shit-eating grin. We took our usual seats, one in front of the other to save a spot for our friends. Letting my eyelids flutter shut, I leaned against the steamy window.

I found myself drifting in and out of sleep, for each time I dragged my sleepy gaze to the window, we seemed to have teleported a good way closer to the school.
"Hey, sleepyhead!" I was awoken with a noogie, ruffling my already-messy hair. Connie laughed; amused by my perplexed expression. I growled in displeasure (after gathering my bearings) and smoothed down my hair where he had mussed it. He began excitedly telling me about the date he had with Sasha last weekend. Yeah, Like I cared. I definitely was not one for romance. The last time I had dated, it ended with a broken saucepan and a hole in the wall. No, I don't care to elaborate. I didn't exactly have girls throwing themselves at me left, right and centre anyway. There had been a couple of chicks to ask me out over the past year or so, but after my rejection of them I think the others were deterred or something. I'm sure they still fawned over me at sleepovers though. I mean, come on. I'm pretty hot.

We arrived at Trost Private relatively early, and kids filed out of the bus while they jabbered noisily. I heard Christa give an adorable giggle when my sister made some dumb joke about my coffee obsession. Rude. I rolled my eyes at the display Reiner and Bert were making outside the school gates. They had better hurry up or one of the school's, slightly more homophobic, members of staff would come and give them an afterschool. I doubt that would have bothered them though, their makeout sesh would probably have just continued there. It might sound like I hated them or something, but I've actually always thought Reiner and Bert are pretty cool. Bert's always been pretty nice to me, and Reiner is a total badass.

I weaved through the corridors until I found my homeroom and plonked into my seat. At least it was a little quieter in there. I watched as Ymir and Christa talked/flirted with one another, causing Christa to blush on multiple occasions, and gritted my teeth. Nothing pissed me off quite like skinny love. I dared to look back at my sister and was not at all surprised by what I saw. Like always, there were about five doting boys surrounding her and grinning like fools whenever she thought to grace them with a smile. What idiots. The bell rang and she slipped off the edge of her desk and into her chair.
My sister was something of a highschool princess, though she may have been too sweet and modest to admit it. People of every gender and social status kissed her ass as if it could grant them immortality. But her real friends have been there all along – way back before puberty hit her like a fucking aeroplane and she was still a gawky preteen with a mouth full of metal and a too-wide smile. I plucked a straggling thread from the emblem on my blazer. It depicted two swords crossing over a shield – lord knows why. Our depressive prefect Levi was the last to shuffle into the classroom and I briefly wondered if he looked that begrudging while sucking the face off our Head Girl, Petra, in the supply closet. Ha.
Our poor tutor had to deal with the usual shit that occurred during registration:
'Miss Kirchstein, that desk is not your notebook!'
'Nor is it a footrest Mr Springer.'
'Jean, what is there outside that is so interesting that you can't pay attention to me!'
(I was also guilty of giving our tutor grief once in a while.)
'SASHA WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU EATING!'
At lunch, I sat with my sister and our friends. Ymir freaked the hell out when I offered a Christa my apple because I wasn't really feeling it and she didn't seem to have much to eat that day. She needn't have worried though, because Sasha swooped in and ate that apple faster than I could say: 'God, I was just trying to be nice!'

The week was very much of the same, too. But Saturday? It didn't go so smoothly. My sister told me at around 7pm that she was going out to pick up some textbooks from the library, and at the time I didn't think much of it. I told her to text me when she safely arrived though. I'm still angry at myself for not being more careful that day – I knew for well that she would be taking the shortcut through the alleys. I should have been with her.

It was approaching 8pm and my sister had not yet texted me to let me know she was safe and sound at the library. I pulled my iPhone from my back pocket and tapped out a message to her:

To: The Twinster
Hey, u there yet?

5 Minutes passed. No reply.

To: The Twinster
Sis??

Still, nothing.

To: The Twinster
omw

Pulling on an oversized parka, I yanked open the front door and charged into the frozen night. The sudden drop in temperature caused me to shiver. At first, I walked at a normal pace, but with each passing minute that my phone didn't buzz against my ass, I grew more and more concerned for the safety of my sister. Soon, I was running. My lungs, screaming for air, seemed as if they might burst inside my ribcage and I wasn't sure if it was from the tuning or the worrying over my twin.

I skidded to a halt at the beginning of the alley, my throat dry and my knuckles white. I don't think anything could have prepared me for the image that was burned into my retinas that day. Pressed against the wall, screaming and kicking, was my sister. On the floor was a crumpled heap of what appeared to be a human form. Two men were repeatedly hammering into the body with their feet, and with each kick, it's spluttering got quieter and the wheezing breaths became weaker. I blinked, shell-shocked by the absolute horror unfolding before me. But it took just a second for my senses to adjust, and then I was screaming my sister's name and charging with my fist pulled back, ready to swing.
"SOPHIA!"