Unsui had the most peculiar dream that night, one he would completely forget about as soon as the morning sunbeams hit his face. He sat up in his bed, slowly, wondering why he felt a little sticky in his underpants.

+

When he came down for breakfast, his mother looked up from her cup of tea. "'Morning, honey," she smiled.

Unsui took his place across from her at the little table. "Good morning," he nodded, reaching for his own mug.

"Did you wake your brother up?"

"He wasn't in his room." Unsui shrugged so his mother understood it to mean that nothing was serious. She tended to fret in excess. "He probably slept over at a friend's."

"Aw, he made some friends at long last?"

"... So to speak."

Over his mug of tea, Unsui reflected that college girls probably slept in large beds with nice satiny sheets. He knew how Agon hated futons.

+

After his day at school, Unsui came home to the sound of heated argument in his father's study. Agon loomed over their old man at his desk, his sunglasses shoved up to show wide livid eyes. "If you don't get me my own place I'd smash everything in this goddamn room!"

"Agon!" Unsui cried, too appalled to move from the doorway at all.

"Just go do your homework, little shit!"

"You --"

The wood connected with Unsui's nose when Agon slammed the door on him. His mother had an ice pack ready for him, though -- and another one, just in case, for his father.

+

Unsui couldn't think of anyone else he knew who had his own apartment at 15, but this wasn't a fact unusual to him. Agon had always been ahead of them in most everything.

At their mother's insistence, one morning before school Unsui dropped off some fresh blankets and packed eel for his brother. He found Agon slumbering like a lumpy rug, his face sunk into his pillow and his dreadlocks tossed all over the sheets. An empty bottle of liquor seemed stuck between his toes. The closer Unsui padded towards the bed, the further he scrunched up his nose.

Hung over or not, it was less likely Agon would come to school that day, anyway. Then Unsui would just have to speak to the teachers again. They must be sick of his excuses by now.

Just as Unsui had slipped out to leave, Agon's phone began ringing. This roused Agon, apparently, for Unsui then heard him arguing profanely with the caller. Unsui, however, was more inclined to proceed down the hallway than press his ear to the door.

+

That night, Unsui dreamed about a girl with pale skin and yellow hair. He was on top of her, in an extreme act of intimacy. Most of it felt real -- the shivering throat under his tongue, the soft heat in his hands -- until he woke up and every last image started slipping out of focus, out of coherent memory.

Frowning, he rubbed his fist down and up along the discomfort in his underpants. If these were the kinds of dreams one had when one rarely thought about sex, then, heck. He had to be doomed.

+

Agon had just stepped out between two buildings when Unsui ran into him.

"Hey there, little shit!"

"Did you skip school again? What are you --" Unsui thought he heard a pained groan from the alleyway, from where Agon just came.

"Buy me dinner, will ya? I'm starving."

Agon hustled themselves down the sidewalk before Unsui could turn and see anything.

+

"Is your brother keeping out of trouble?"

Unsui sank into the couch to start pulling his socks off. "I guess so," he answered his mother. "... In a way."

"Thanks for looking out for him, honey."

She reached over from behind the kitchen counter to squeeze his hand, but Unsui wouldn't give her something that had just touched his bare feet. "I'm the good twin, remember?" he said, with a little bit of a half-smile.

+

That morning he awoke, long after another of those dreams was over, Unsui still jerked in his bed, shoving his groin into the snarl of sheets. It had since been a string of fervid nights and it was always the same pale skin, the same yellow hair.

But he'd been mistaken about one thing. If he'd ever noticed the lack of a full chest in contrast with the prominence of something phallic -- well. He'd been making love to a boy all along.

This was going to drive him insane.

Madly enough, he felt dizzy for most of the day.

+

It probably didn't do any good to drop off the schoolwork that Agon missed each week, but Unsui ran the errand in any case.

The moment Agon came to the door Unsui knew he had somebody over.

"Who's in there?" he asked.

"Some fancy chick," Agon sniffed, thumbing the sheets of paper Unsui had for him.

Between Agon's shoulder and the edge of the door frame, Unsui could see an attractive brunette flopped down on the floor of the apartment, her legs stretched out like baseball bats before the TV.

For some absurd reason, he had expected to find a boy with pale skin and yellow hair.

"Whaaat." Smirking, Agon looked over his shoulder and then back at Unsui. "You wanna fuck her? Hell. Be my guest!"

Some days Unsui wished he'd been traded away as a baby.

+

Unsui rocked his hips relentlessly, shoving it forward and hard, thrusting his cock into his hand physically and into that tight blond boy in his dream. For a lucid moment, he was afraid that he was going to wake his parents with all the obscene noises he was making, but he was in the middle of dreaming and he couldn't wake himself up to stop everything.

When it ended, he was gritting his teeth and knocking his head against the headboard. It took him longer than necessary to climb out of bed, thinking about yellow hair through his fingers and the spread of long pale legs before him, around him. He had never been so hard.

'Who is he? Why him?' Unsui frowned. He never could seem to make out the face, too.

+

Club ended early that afternoon, and after his task of collecting litter all over the football field Unsui decided to stop at a ramen bar on his way home.

The hefty boy who sat to his right ordered a new bowl every few minutes. The cook could hardly keep up with him. Curious, Unsui turned slightly to note just how incredible this eating machine was. He couldn't think of any other middle schooler who could probably consume the whole house.

"Yessum?"

Quickly Unsui turned back to his ramen. "Nothing," he mumbled to the boy.

"What's your school?"

"... Kami."

"Mine's Maou. And next year I'm going to Shinryuuji. Me and Hiruma-kun and Musashi-kun. Funnuraba! I can't wait!"

As the Maou boy went back to polishing off his noodles, Unsui took the first polite chance to slip off his bar stool.

+

He spoke a word. At some point, as he drove himself into that pale, lean body curved and writhing in lust under him, Unsui heard himself say something.

"Trash."

But something seemed wrong, and it wasn't until after he woke up that it occurred to him. That wasn't his voice that he'd heard. It was Agon's.

+

"I saw your brother on my way to shopping."

"Ah?" Unsui took a seat by the kitchen counter for a drink of water. "Where?"

"On the street. He was walking into an alley. I don't think he saw me."

"You should've hollered," Unsui said, between large gulps.

"Yes. Anyway, I got distracted. He had this odd-looking boy with him. Blond, light skin. Tight cute butt."

Until that moment, Unsui had never had to horrify himself spraying water all over his mother.

+

It took Unsui multiple tries to get hold of Agon. "I've been trying to reach you for hours! Don't you know how rude it is to ignore calls?!"

"Stop shrieking at me, you little shit. Whaddya want?"

"I have to know something."

"What. If this is about that chick you wanta fuck --"

"You're a cretin."

"Whaaat?!"

"Just answer me, all right." Unsui shook his head at what he was about to ask his brother. "Are you sleeping with that guy you were with today? The blond?"

Agon hanging up said a lot more than the yes Unsui had dreaded.

+

Unable to shut out persistent thoughts, Unsui was having trouble going to sleep. Reluctantly, he turned to his father for insight.

"It sounds weird, Dad, but some of the things Agon does -- I kind of experience them. In real time, uh. I think."

His father turned the volume down on the TV. "What do you mean, son?" he said.

"For example. He's there, I'm here, but I can see who he's with and I can feel what they're doing. How do you explain that?"

"Well...you don't. It's just one of those quirks with twins, I suppose. You can't begin to explain it."

This appeased Unsui in no way, but he loosened up enough to sit through the ten o'clock news with his father. He was yawning when he made for the bed.

That night, while the blond boy twisted and moaned in his dream once again, Unsui came to a determination: Agon must really hate this guy. In a manner of speaking.

+

The first time he met Hiruma in the flesh, Unsui had to contain himself from bursting into apology. He felt like he'd known Hiruma more intimately than he had a right to -- and even taken pleasure in the process. It didn't seem proper.

Just as Unsui thought about excusing himself, Hiruma took out a little black notebook and flicked through its pages. "Kongou Unsui," he said, grinning like some devil, "I fucking know something about you." And then he cackled.

Unsui felt himself go very cold.

...

'What the heck has my stupid twin got himself into?!'

END