holla for a slightly longer, slightly worse chapter. will elaborate latersss.

“…So you’re, like, the evil twin or something?”

                L’s smirk dropped from his face, and he blinked a bit to get exactly what Sungyeol was saying. “…What?”

                “You know. There’s the good guy. And then there’s the evil twin that tries to kill the good guy. So you’re the evil twin, right?”

                And the fact that Sungyeol was completely serious made L rethink any concrete thoughts he had about the guy.

                “First of all, I haven’t really tried to kill my brother yet,” L started, “and second of all…are those even real?”

                “Of course they’re real!” Sungyeol screeched in disbelief. “I mean – have you seen yourself – it’s like – Myungsoo’s all smiley and cute and adorable and you’re all – dark – and black…and I don’t even know anymore!”

                “Did you just call my brother smiley and cute and adorable, what?”

                Sungyeol felt a blush coming over his neck but he shook it away before it could go any further. “No, I’m just calling you dark!”

                “And how does that make me the evil twin then?”

                “Because, the evil twin always wears black –“

                “What if Myungsoo’s secretly the evil one? He’s only wearing the school uniform, you don’t know how he dresses in real life.”

                “Well you should be wearing the school uniform but you’re still choosing to wear black. That kinda says something.”

                L paused before  squinting his eyes and nodding. “Yeah. That kinda makes sense.”

                “And besides, you just said your name was El. What kind of name is that? Like, is it some Mexican ripoff or something, like El Salvador? And you have to admit it, all evil twins have weird twisty made up names –“

                “It’s my real name,” L interrupted with his eyebrows raised. “L. It’s one letter. Just the letter L. It’s on my birth certificate, if you don’t believe me.”

                “…Why on earth would you ever name a kid L?” Sungyeol asked, shaking his head.

                “It’s a very long, sad story,” L replied with a mock pouting face. “You’d probably cry if you heard it.”              

                “Well excuse you, but I would never cry during your sob stories. They’re probably stupid anyways.”

                “My sob stories are wonderful and tear-jerking for your information.”

                “I wonder why, seeing as you’re a jerk and everything.”

                “…What, that doesn’t even connect!”

                “Yes it does, tear-jerking and jerk and – ugh, should’ve thought you were too stupid to catch on. Why am I even talking to you.”

                “Yeah, why are you.”

                “Because – because you’re sitting in my seat!” Sungyeol finally got it, snapping his fingers. “I sit there, you know.”

                “Well go sit somewhere else,” L said, sticking out his tongue.

                “Oh my God…did you just…stick your tongue out at me?”

                “What if I did?”

                “You are seriously so immature, my God.”

                “Myungsoo’s even more immature than I am.”

                “How – okay wait, why did you even bring up Myungsoo?”

                L’s facial features faltered for a second until he said, “Well. Out of habit? My mom always calls me immature. And Myungsoo’s immature too, but she never yells at him!”

                “I wonder why, seeing as you look like the spawn of Satan.”

                “Well – Myungsoo’s – he’s like the spawn of the PowerPuff Girls!”        

                “You are so immature.”

                “Your face is immature.”

                Just as Sungyeol was about to respond with something clever that he had yet to think of, the bell rang, indicating that it was time for break.

                In a split second, their entire homeroom was fighting to  get outside and in a flash, nobody was left (including Sunggyu) but L and Sungyeol.

                “Well,” Sungyeol started, “I’m out –“

                “SUNGYEOL!”

                He looked up to find Myungsoo in the doorway, clutching tightly to the wall and he jumped up and down. The boy’s eyes looked around the room until he caught sight of his brother, and the forlorn look on his face was replaced with a bright smile.

                “L!” Myungsoo called out, running over and forgetting Sungyeol almost completely. “L, I’ve been looking for you everywhere ohmygod. Why aren’t you in my homeroom? It’s so scary by myself, and everybody kept on looking at me and asking me questions and I just sat there trying not to cry and oh my God I missed you so much!!”

                L couldn’t help but smile, standing up to open his arms and accustom his brother into them. “It’s okay, Myung, I’m sorry my scary face isn’t there to protect you from people.”

                The sobbing noise stopped for a second and Myungsoo looked up from his twin brother’s chest. “Did you just call my face scary?”

                “What? No, I called my face scary –“

                “We have the same face.”

                L kept on a stoic look with only a simple smile while Myungsoo cracked up, giggling everywhere for a minute after.

                “Hey,” Sungyeol said softly as a greeting, patting the lower part of Myungsoo’s back.

                The boy stood up, grinning at Sungyeol. “Hey! I actually meant to come here and talk to you to see if you could help me find my brother, but I guess I already found him!”

                “Mhm…did you like your homeroom?”

                Myungsoo loosely stuck out his tongue, shaking his head. “Not at all. The teacher was so mean, and the kids there just kept trying to talk to me and half of them were really scary.”

                “It’s okay,” Sungyeol half-smiled, starting to get the notion of Myungsoo’s character – he kept to himself a lot, but he was still polite, kind, and really respectful. “You wanna go outside? I can show you around the school, and we can talk some more.”

                “Oh, sure,” Myungsoo nodded excitedly. He then looked at his brother, and nodded towards the door. “You coming?”

                “Nah,” L shook his head, sitting back down. “I’ll stay inside.”

                Sungyeol was just about to insist that he didn’t, but Myungsoo grabbed the his arm and nodded hurriedly.

                “Okay then! See you later, alright?” Myungsoo cheerfully waved, running out the door with Sungyeol still attached to him.

“L likes being alone.”

                “What?” Sungyeol looked up, oblivious to what Myungsoo had just told him. They ended up not really looking around the school, but going outside and sitting on the grass field.

                “I see you still looking at the classrooms,” Myungsoo smiled, shifting his weight to sit in Sungyeol’s eyesight. “L’s fine. I worry sometimes too, but it’s the truth…he likes being alone.”

                “Alone?”
                “He’s an independent person. He doesn’t really like people bothering him or disturbing him in general. Most of the time he gets along with others well, but he prefers being alone more than having people around him.”

                Sungyeol was about to question exactly why that made Myungsoo look so sad, but that was when he realized – ‘he prefers being alone more than having people around him’ – Myungsoo probably included.

                “And it’s not my type of not-wanting-people-around because they just really scare me. Honestly, don’t laugh! You see, L laughs all the time when I say that too, but it’s the truth! People are the scariest form of anything, why shouldn’t we be afraid of them?”

                That didn’t stop Sungyeol from laughing any more, but it did make Myungsoo keep pouting.

                “Geez, you see why I never try with people?” Myungsoo whined, looking away. “Stop judging me.”

                “I’m not, I swear,” Sungyeol said between rasped breaths, bringing himself closer to pat the other on the knee. “It’s just…I’m a person. L’s a person. You don’t seem to get scared of us. And I doubt you’re scared of your parents.”

                “I was scared of you,” Myungsoo shrugged, “this morning. Remember? You were pretty scary. But then you became all nice. So it was okay.”

                Sungyeol couldn’t help but smile at that, reaching over to give Myungsoo’s cheek a good pat too. “Aw, thank you. That made me feel much better about myself.”

                “I’ve only known you for like ten minutes!” Myungsoo said, shoving Sungyeol’s hand away bashfully. “Stop touching me so intimately.”

                “I’m touching your cheek.”

                “My cheeks are very important to me,” Myungsoo sulked, bringing his hands up to squish them together.  

                “You should get something tattooed on them,” Sungyeol randomly said.

                “What?”

                “Nothing. That was stupid.” Sungyeol laughed once more, bringing himself to sit closer to Myungsoo. “So…L tells me that that’s his real name. Is it true?”

                “He actually told you that?” Myungsoo said, tilting his head as he brought his hands away from his cheeks. “He usually just tells people that it’s only a nickname…”

                “…Is it not?”

                “No, it’s his real name,” Myungsoo answered, nodding. “It might seem a bit odd, but it really is his real name.”

                “…How? Or more of…why?”

                “He didn’t tell you?”

                “He said it was a sad story.”

                “…It kind of is,” Myungsoo nodded, agreeing with his brother. “I mean, conventionally, it kind of is, but like…it’s not sad. It’s more disappointing.”

                “Disappointing how?”

                “Do you really wanna know?”

                Sungyeol fidgeted in his spot, hands grazing the grass below him. “Is it that bad?”

                “It’s not, I guess. It’s just…” Myungsoo shook his head, bringing his legs in to sit in a criss-cross position. “The thing is, I’m older than L.”

                That got Sungyeol to look up, staring at Myungsoo directly in the eye. “You’re the older twin?”

                “I guess?” Myungsoo nervously laughed, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I mean, it does seem kind of strange, right? But I am. I was born about ten minutes before him because they didn’t know he was supposed to be born.”

                “…What?”

                “My mom didn’t know she was going to have twins. She just thought there was gonna be me. And then after she went through the horrors of giving birth to me, bam – out comes another human being, also waiting to be pushed out.

                “She said she was really tired after giving birth to me, and then they decided to ask her what to name the babies. I don’t think she had enough strength to say L’s entire name…so she just said ‘L’.”

                “Ah…”

                “I just think L hates it because it’s a reminder that he wasn’t really…how do I say this? It’s not that he wasn’t wanted, but a really interesting surprise. Like, my parents only bought one set of things, they didn’t know they had to buy two. You know what I mean?”

                “Yeah, I think so,” Sungyeol softly replied, although he didn’t really. “That must be really hard for him, then. At home.”

                “…No, not really,” Myungsoo said after a minute of thinking. “Does it come off that way? Because honestly, my parents do love him a lot more than they love me.”

                That caught Sungyeol’s attention because it was never anything he’d expected to come out of the boy’s mouth. “What? No, why would you even think that –“

                “No, I swear, my parents love me. I know that. It’s just...” Myungsoo sighed, looking at the ground before continuing again. “I think they feel like they’ve neglected his birth so much that they have to make it up to him for the rest of his life. And I’m just…there.”

                There was a slight uncomfortable silence before the boy cleared his throat, trying to talk again. “I probably sound like a real brat right now. Complaining and everything. Sorry I’m making you listen –“

                “No, it’s fine,” Sungyeol insisted. “Really. I’m listening to what you’re saying, it’s just taking a minute to digest.”

                “…It’s just that I never really had anybody to talk to,” Myungsoo continued. “My parents would never hear me out, L would just tell me that I’m delusional, and well…me and L always shared the same group of friends. And you know how it is, everybody likes the cool one better than the little, awkward one. So they always sided with him more…whenever I tried telling them anything, they’d just somehow persuade me to think that it was because L had a really influencing aura and everybody just somehow came to agree with him more than me. Including my parents.”

                “That’s not true –“

                “But it is,” Myungsoo interrupted, and Sungyeol couldn’t help but feel a weird churning in his stomach at his sad smile. “I mean, I’m probably being slightly delusional, yeah, but…it’s true. And I don’t blame you if you think L’s cooler than me, I swear he is, it’s just that it’s nice to have somebody at least kind of unbiased to talk to.”

                No, it wasn’t that Sungyeol thought L was cooler than Myungsoo – it was just that the two boys were different. They couldn’t really be compared because they just weren’t alike, unless you were counting appearances.

                “But you know,” Myungsoo breathed in, “it’s not like I can blame anybody, even if that’s probably what I’ve been doing for the past ten minutes. If I were my parents, I would’ve totally forgotten me by now and went to him. It’s easier. He’s less confusing.”

                “You’re…not confusing…”

                “I am, trust me, I know.” Myungsoo laughed a bit to himself, then looked at his watch to see what time it was. “Just…don’t tell L any of this, alright? I hate making him more burdened than he already is. And honestly, you should get to know my brother. I think you guys kinda hit it off, seeing the two of you in the classroom this morning before I totally jumped in. He needs somebody to talk to that isn’t me. He’s really a great person and more fun to hang out with, at least more than me.”

                And as Sungyeol looked up at Myungsoo’s face, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t L he should be worried about more.

The rest of the school day was pretty much uneventful; L and Myungsoo were in none of Sungyeol’s other classes and everything flowed as it usually would on a regular day as if the twins hadn’t come.

                Myungsoo went along being his own self, trying to avoid as many people as possible because he really was afraid that they’d judge him on instinct, no matter what they were saying. Be it question, compliment, or even an insult, he tried his best to just steer clear of everybody and, in return, they realized that he wasn’t too much of a meet-new-people-yay! person.

                L, on the other hand, kept his own character steady. He didn’t care who bothered him – after all, they wouldn’t have any kind of effect on his future, would they? No. He always had a reply to anything anybody said to him, let it be a grunt or a nod or even a sigh. They were satisfied with it, yet they also got the feeling that he wasn’t much of a people person either. Sure, he was fine with them, but he probably wasn’t thinking of befriending any of them personally.

The next time that Sungyeol saw Myungsoo was after school, when the new boy was sitting in front of a parking lot on a lone bench.

                “Hey.”

                Myungsoo looked up, surprised a bit, but he still scoot over to sit at the edge of the bench even though there was a sufficient space already for Sungyeol to sit.

                “A-ah…hi. You scared me there for a second.”

                “Sorry,” Sungyeol laughed, sitting down and putting his bag next to him. “So…what’re you doing?”

                “I’m waiting for my mom to pick me up,” Myungsoo shrugged, nodding towards the parking lot.

                “How about L?”

                “Oh…he’s walking home,” Myungsoo answered, scratching the back of his neck. “He said he wanted to check out the places and streets, you know.”

                “And you’re not?”

                “I’m not really too keen into bumping into people,” the boy admitted, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

                “Should’ve guessed. You’re mom’s not coming anytime soon?”

                “Ahh…she said she was going to pick me and L up at 4, but I guess since L’s not coming, she’s picking me up a little later.” Myungsoo bit the corner of his lip, sitting up straighter. “It’s alright though! You?”

                “I’m walking home,” Sungyeol replied, looking over at the street he’d have to go on later. “I should probably start now…see you tomorrow?”

                “Yeah sure,” Myungsoo nodded, shielding his eyes from the sun as his new friend stood up. “Bye!”

                Sungyeol waved, walking backwards as he waved goodbye to the boy sitting on the bench by himself.

                Once he reached the outside of the school, he turned right and started on his way home – but not until a certain person stopped beside him.

                “You go this way too?”

                “You wouldn’t have to if you didn’t leave your brother by himself at school,” Sungyeol answered casually, not even bothering to look at his speaker as he kept walking straight.

                “He’s fine on his own,” L chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he kept walking. “Unless someone stops to ask him a question. Then he’s screwed.”

                “Say, is he really afraid of people?”

                L shrugged, sniffing a bit and flipping his hair before answering the question. “We grew up in a pretty screwed up neighborhood, you know. Myung was just a really quiet kid and he didn’t get out a lot. I did, so I guess I kinda got used to the entire scenery of scary people…the usual, you know. He didn’t. So I guess he just flipped out the first time he saw a shooting outside our house.”

                “O-oh…” Sungyeol couldn’t stop his own voice from cracking, no matter how nonchalant L sounded. If it were him instead of Myungsoo that ever even witnessed something like that, he would’ve been traumatized into a mental hospital.

                “I’m just joking,” L laughed, elbowing the back of Sungyeol’s left shoulder with his right arm. “About the shooting thing at least. Hell, I haven’t even seen a person get shot. It’s just the little itty bitty things, ya know. The fist fights, the robberies.”

                “That’s better,” Sungyeol muttered, fastening his walking pace – though it didn’t really work since L caught up anyways. “Should’ve known you would be immature to joke about something like that. It’s not even funny, you know.”

                “You’re adorable when you’re mad,” L blurted out, not noticing it as he kept laughing.

                “Excuse you, but I’m adorable all the time!” Sungyeol snapped, turning to face L as a heated feeling crept up the back of his neck.

                He paused for a second, rethinking that. “No. That didn’t really come out as planned.”    

                “Doesn’t matter,” L chuckled, raising up his shoulders a bit as he motioned for them to keep walking. “You really are adorable all the time, honest.”

Myungsoo was up on his side of the room when L had come home, crouched up against the wall on his bed with a textbook and some papers in his lap.

                “You’re finally back!” Myungsoo jumped a bit, dropping everything on his bed as he hopped off. “C’mon, Umma said she’d make us some cookies when you came home!”

                L lazily dropped his bag at the doorway, his lips before nodding. Myungsoo grinned back at him, about to walk out the room until his little brother caught onto his arm.

                “Huh?” Myungsoo stopped suddenly, churning back to look at his twin’s face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

                “I’m fine,” L answered, clearing his throat. “Just…Sungyeol…”

                “Sungyeol?” Myungsoo furrowed his eyebrows, stepping all the way back for L to drop his arm. “What about Sungyeol? Did something happen to him?”

                “Nothing,” the younger shook his head, looking down the ground with a little embarrassment. “It’s just…”

                “…It’s just?”

                “I think I might like him,” L finally admitted, looking up at his older brother in the eye. “Okay?”

                “Okay?” Myungsoo snorted with a little too much exaggeration. He forced himself to stand still without a surprised thought, as if it was usual for L to like people on instinct (it was). “With me? Why would you need to ask me that?”

                “Because – nothing. Never mind. I just wanted to tell you that.”

                “Uh…alright?” Myungsoo gave his brother a weird look before starting on his way outside, the happy smile on his face completely faded and replaced with a confused frown.

                When L could hear that his brother was nearly at the top of the stairs, he cleared his throat once again and turned around. Myungsoo followed suit and looked up, giving L an expectant look.

                “Just…do me a favor…and maybe steer clear from him?” L tried asking. “I mean, it’s only been a day and I’m not sure how I feel completely yet and I don’t know how you feel either so…”

                Myungsoo felt his left cheek twitch a bit, but he nodded with his lips pursed him in a quite obviously unsure smile. “I hear you.”

                “Thanks, Myung.”

                Nodding once again with that same look on his face, Myungsoo shrugged towards the stairs. “…Cookies?”

                “I think I’ll pass – no. I mean. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

okay so what i was trying to aim for was that myungsoo's scared of people and L just likes being independent. does that make sense? LIKEEE have you ever freaked out while ordering food 'cause you had to talk to a waiter or anything like that? or you just don't want to go to a store and buy stuff because you have to go through a cashier? yep. that's him.

L's more like, he's fine. he's chill with people but he prefers loning (no that's not a word ok) around in the corner by himself (like the most of us, i'm presuming) because making friends is a bother and having people around just creates more drama. 

did any of that go through your brain? yes? no? probably not orz, i'm sorry :c

BUT I SHALL ASK THIS OF YOU GUISE ONE MORE TIME

myungyeol or lyeol? 

tbh myungyeol's more sweet to write and lyeol's more fun to write but you guise have your pick now that you've spent a full school day with the both of them

(no lolololololol)

and for that one very special person: myungjong or ljong? c; have your pick, i'm trying to figure it out rn! <3

[[c:13]]