Gemini

The Twins

As much as I would love to skip ahead to Saturday's lunch with P'Arthit, realistically it's only Tuesday now and I'm still stuck pretending to be my brother again this afternoon. 

First though, I have my classes to attend in the Economics faculty building and I meet up with several of my classmates, including my newest friends Mat and Jade, as we settle into our seats. The three of us met the first day of classes and have been inseparable ever since.

To be more accurate, the two of them refused to leave me alone until I agreed actually. 

Seeing as how I'm anti-social and don't easily make friends, it only makes sense that those two would be the one to initiate our friendship. Besides, I've never had to worry about it before since I always had Sing by my side until we went into different faculties. So when the oddball Mat and tomboy Jade started to tag along with me to our classes and lunch, it was inevitable that I went along with it till eventually, I found that I enjoyed their company.

"Psst, Kong?" Mat whispers, trying to get my attention without the professor noticing.

"What?"

"Hey, where were you yesterday? You missed freshman activities."

"Sorry, I had something to take care of. In fact, I really could use your help. Can you cover for me until the end of the week with the hazers please?" I plead with my friend.

He eyes me suspiciously, "Why? What are you up to?"

"Just need to help my brother out for a bit."

"Sure man, I got your back." Mat gives me a thumbs up and I can see Jade nodding her agreement over his shoulder.

I feel bad about not being entirely truthful with my friends but Sing and I haven't exactly advertised that we are twins - for good reason - and I wasn't about to spill the beans now. 

We kept silent because too much attention gets drawn to us and then comparisons are eventually made, ones hurtful to both of us. Suddenly one of us has to be smarter, friendlier, better behaved and so on. Jokes about whose the good twin versus the bad twin usually start up next and it becomes very annoying, very quickly.

I wish to say that this was my overactive imagination at work but this was our entire life in high school. Em was literally the only one that never did that to us and always treated us the same. It's why he's the only friend Sing and I have that we still talk to from those days. The rest were just acquaintances that liked to say they were friends with the "hot twins", a hashtag that popped up with our pictures on the school's Facebook page our freshman year and we could never shake it.

The entire school put us into these boxes of what they thought we were and we could never escape, no matter how hard we tried.

Singto was considered the "bad" one. 

He's the one that got into trouble, the one that flirted with all the girls and didn't listen to the teachers. It didn't even matter if any of these facts were true, and often wasn't, but it became fact once the rumors started. The first time he got into "trouble", it was because he stood up to a male teacher that was harassing a female student. He was nearly suspended because the girl didn't want to speak up until she was pressured by her parents. 

How fucked up was that? 

Doing what was right labeled him a troublemaker. It didn't even matter that he was cleared, the rumor mill had already made up its mind on him by then.

Meanwhile, I was the "good" twin in everyone's eyes. 

I was the quiet one, the studious one, and the polite one that never talked back. I had the misfortune to be absent that day so, just by happy accident, the teachers automatically considered me the better behaved twin. It didn't even matter that I stood up for my brother once I returned, it was brushed aside as brotherly concern. It got to the point that if I did well on a test, it was because I studied but if Sing got a good grade, students whispered that he cheated.