#eliteclassheiress

He couldn’t sleep. His mind kept racing and every sound in the entire mansion seemed magnified, as if every scraping branch and screaming wind was right outside his room. Ren was already asleep in their bed, so instead of waking her he took one of the extra blankets, wrapped it around himself like a cape, and crept down the darkened hallways to the library. Reading a book usually helped him relax, although in this case it might not have been the best idea. It was a dark and stormy night, just like in all the scary stories he’d read this month. It was October and Halloween was coming up, so he had started reading every horror story he could stand from Shelley, to Gaiman, to Lovecraft--despite being only ten. He and his sister had always been fast readers and had great vocabularies, but never before had he read something that chilled him to the bone the way some of these stories did.

Now whenever he looked up from his book horrendous monsters and ghosts seemed to lurk in every shadow, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it no matter how hard he tried. He was trying to ignore it and even switched his book for The Secret Garden, the most peaceful thing he could find, when he heard footsteps crossing his room and the giggle of a small child. When he snapped his head up to look around, no one was there. He and Ren were the youngest children of the Togami family--there was no one younger than them in the house. So how could he be hearing a child’s laughter? 

He awoke to a pounding in his head and a bright white light prying its way past his eyelids far before he became aware that the cold metal beneath him was definitely not his usually plush and luxurious bed. The smell of bleach and formaldehyde drilled into his sinuses and exacerbated the headache already growing there, but it also set his clouded mind whirling as the sharp smells cut through the fog. The place smelled of chemicals and disinfectant, as if he had fallen asleep in one of his high school chemistry labs instead of his own bed the night before. Had he? He couldn’t remember going to bed at all the day before, only going to work with his twin, a series of boring meetings and then--the sharp smell became sharp pain again and his memory refused to go further. He tried to peel his eyelids slowly open, but even the slightest sliver of an opening let the light stab into his retinas like a weapon. 

Finally, despite the protest of his aching skull, he opened them in one swift movement and fought the urge to flinch as his eyes adjusted to the light. He really was in a lab--or some kind of a medical center, if the metal around him and the commercial light above him was any indication. His body felt heavy and stiff, and only the fingers of his left hand would move at all. Groaning, he tilted his head to the side to get a better look around him, and found himself nearly nose to nose with his sister. He hadn’t sensed her there before, and his eyebrows knit together. Why couldn’t he feel her next to him? In fact, all he felt from his right side was a dull prickling and heat.

“Byakuren?” he called softly, his voice cracking with dryness and disuse as if he hadn’t had anything to drink in weeks, “Ren, wake up. Something strange is going on.”

He tried to sit up and only made it about two inches up on his left side before a weight on his right caught him dead in his tracks. Annoyance seared through him as he looked over--was this some kind of prank to leave the twins alone in a lab to wake up tangled together and confused? He moved his good arm over to shake her, but found no gap between their two bodies, not even a seam where they were pressed against each other. There were not two bodies...there was only one. Hs eyes flicked downwards and a cold weight sunk from his mouth to the bottom of his stomach as if he had just swallowed ice. There was only one body, one shared between them.

❛ A-ano... T-the estimated wait time for walk-ins is two hours, thirty minutes... ❜

It’s a busy day here at the ********** medical center. Busier than the usual morning bustle: car accidents, home injuries, freak accidents... Perhaps there’s something in the weather...? Ah, but that’s just a saying... Just a saying, just a..~ ( That’s enough. )

One of the newer walk-ins has a demeanor that immediately draws Tsumiki Mikan’s attention. That cold, sophisticated stare stirs an unexplainable attraction ( though ... it’s not really without explanation... if she thinks hard enough... she’s sure— ) that forces the nurse towards her. —This person is... definitely “important.”

Sayaka had spent all afternoon in the practice rooms, and her voice was beginning to ache from singing her vocal exercises again and again. As she grew bored, she had even added a dance routine of her own creation to each one, trying to keep her body and brain moving with the music. When her phone timer finally went off to signal three hours of practice she carefully shut it off and tucked it back into her purse. It was the first time in a while she had been able to make it for three hours, and she was glad to see that her stamina was back up even though she hadn’t been on stage in a few months. After a quick look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any of her things, she hurried out into the hall and down the row of practice rooms, each one giving off its own faint snippets of sound. She heard her senpai, Ibuki, screaming something about baby daddies in room 7, a pianist in 5, a flautist in 3, and in 1...a violin? The song was beautiful, and without thinking she slowed her feet to listen longer. A wave of calm came over her and she couldn’t tell if it was completely her own, or if she were picking up the emotions of the player inside. Even more curious now, she stepped closer to the window just as the music stopped and a pair of cold blue eyes flickered up from the sheet music to meet her own. Oops.

The darkness of the humid night seemed to press in around them tightly, making him feel at once suffocated and exposed in the empty street with only the streetlamps to light their way. The school was closed for the night, and considering that the twins had come back far later than they had planned after being delayed in a Swiss airport for nearly 6 hours due to a sudden blizzard, he probably should have expected to be locked out. The owner of the airport had been accommodating at least, and brought them gourmet food to their private jet as well as anything else they needed, and they were able to stay safe and warm until the storm passed and the jet could move on safely.

Ludenberg and Togami. The teacher said their names together as if they didn’t know what that implied -- and perhaps they truly didn’t, but this was one of the most dangerous combinations they could choose for a class project. Celestia and Byakuren were both extremely stubborn and self-centered, so any project in which the two of them had to work together was likely not to work.

Luckily, it wasn’t a very hard project. They had to interview each other for English class and write down the answers in said language. Such a simple task could always become a competition for the two of them, however, whether it was about who knew more English or who had the wittiest answers.

Looking around, it was easy to see that the teacher chose the groups opposing to their bonds -- they didn’t want two people that knew each other well to do this together, or else it would be too easy.

Togami grinned as he set his large bag of gear down on the springy, chopped rubber floor of the tennis court. The net had been removed as per their request, leaving them a wide open space that was perfect for what he had in mind. The grin didn’t falter as he quickly unzipped the bag, tossing her a fencing mask before donning his own and lifting out their nearly identical rapiers. The sun was shining brightly, but the temperature had finally begun to drop down to a more reasonable temperature and a stiff breeze made it the perfect time to spend a while outdoors. Of course the twins weren’t exactly outdoorsmen--they would never spend great amounts of time hiking or playing sports in the mud, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy the sun along with everyone else. That wasn’t what had him smiling, however, or at least not on its own. What had really made him feel so cheerful was having his twin sister along with him on their little outing, so that the two of them could spend their much needed break having fun together.

Togami couldn’t stop the sly smile that crept onto his lips as he buttoned up his vest and pressed his mask into place. When this all began, he had spent most of the time feeling uncomfortable, as if he had stepped out of his own skin and into someone else’s. Now, however, after a few trips out in his new persona, he felt just as comfortable in his disguise as he would in his traditional three piece suit. There had been some trial and error, of course, cloth masks were quickly replaced with sturdier leather that held prescription lenses lenses in place over the twins’ bright blue eyes. The two had even invested in high quality wigs to hide their distinctive hair--every detail was carefully managed. It had happened so quickly he almost didn’t realize it, but they had become very good at what they did. With the smirk still lingering, he turned to his twin as she tucked the last but of hair under the wig that completed her transformation into Phantom Thief Arsene.