FALLING HARD: THE BAD BOY AND ME

THE EVIL IS UNLEASHED

CULTURE

"Culture."

I heard my mother's voice. She was calling me for the tenth time. I knew I was late and I was also making her late for work.

'Yes mother.' I replied again, for the tenth time.

"Honey, we are late. Come down. Will you?" My mother was always calm and composed. She was late. But still she wasn't scolding me. That was the best part of her. She could hardly get angry at me.

'Yes, mother. I am coming.'

I locked my room, my eyes navigating the entire space for the last time. I remembered placing my math copy inside my school bag. It is more like a habit to me that I arrange all my necessities beforehand. I did that yesterday as well. But where did my copy go? It can't be that the copy had its own leg and it left the room on its own. Losing my copy would mean that I was bound to get punished in class. History was going to be created at St. Andrews for the first time, concerning me. I have always been a responsible and good student at school. It was the first time that I was leaving for school without my homework copy.

'What took you so long, Honey? Are you alright?' My mother asked me as soon as I reached the hall.

"I was searching for my copy mother. It seems I misplaced it." I said, wiping my sweaty palms. I was talking to her but inside I was calculating the cons of my irresponsibility.

'Is it important? Why didn't you ask one of the maids to search instead?' She enquired.

'It's okay, mother. It is not that necessary.' I smiled through my pain.

"Ah! Children these days!" She breathed out loud. "Get in the car then. We are already late." Telling that she got to the driver's seat.

......

'Get inside, sister.' My brother, Darren, opened the door for me.

"Are we equal now!" I asked him, amused. He was different from the day before and he was acting all sweet and cheesy. It was definitely not my brother.

'Why did he open the door for me when we were not on good terms? Well, I considered that a sort of fight.'

Maybe he was having a mood swing of some sort. He had turned moody these days. Maybe it was the fault of growing up. I shrugged my shoulders, brushing off the awkwardly gentlemanly behavior of my brother.

"Weirdo!" I whispered while entering the vehicle. He just passed me a flying kiss instead.

....

"What the hell?"

*****

We joined St. Andrews since class eleven. Our former school was just a mile away from our current school. Since Sunshine High School had only classes up to ten, we were admitted to St. Andrews after our board examination.

Talking about our childhood, my brother and I stayed together like all other twins. Our parents took a lot of photographs of us wearing matching outfits. My father says that mother made sure that we had matching outfits whenever we went on vacation. The best photograph that the two of us have is the one from Bali. We were toddlers wearing baby pink swimsuits. I looked like a malnourished puppy, whereas my brother, with his long hair reaching his shoulders, looked like a beautiful girl wearing nothing but pink shorts. I still carry a copy of that photograph on my pendant. Grandmother especially customised that pendant for me on my 16th birthday. It is studded in diamonds and opens with a gentle push. I had a hard time with the designer with my silly request of having that photograph installed on the pendant. And he did a great job adhering to my request.

I opened the pendant once again just to peep inside. I was welcomed by my brother's smiling photograph on one side, and that of my own on the other. Young Darren used to be the best brother that I could ever have. Not that he changed into somebody dangerous, it was the tit-bits of such a kind that sometimes made us stand on two opposite banks of the river of our thoughts.

"These two are inseparable. Yet one is night and the other daylight." My grandmother always made fun of his skin tone that was totally in contrast to mine. Smiling at the sweet memories, I hid the pendant inside my school uniform.

We basically grew up together. We went to school holding hands when we were young toddlers. We played and danced together and my grandmother was right when she said that we were inseparable. He was and he is always there for me, like my parents. He is my big brother after all. Isn't it his duty to love and protect me? However, he annoys me a lot. And loving, caring, protecting and annoying, are a combo pack that equates to my brother.

They say twins have their own language to communicate. We don't have any of our own, but we can say that we know each other better than anyone else. And for that reason, I knew that he was acting weird recently. Maybe puberty was hitting him. And that he was stressed. Or maybe it was a thing about adjusting to the new environment at school. I tried to reason with myself.

But still he was wrong to say that he wasn't my brother. The entire world knows that we are siblings. How on earth could he deny that?

"I shall talk to him about that later." I made a mental note to myself.

------

"Mother! I am a grown man now! You don't have to kiss me goodbye." Brother said, wiping his cheeks and letting mother know that he doesn't like to be kissed like a baby boy now.

'Okay. Mr. Fezong, mommy wants you to behave like a good grown up then. Can you behave like one?' She asked him. "Mother, will you stop embarrassing me like that?" He questioned her instead. His eyes were everywhere, but not on his mother. He was really growing up. Fast.

I kissed her goodbye and received a long warm hug. I was not embarrassed about my mother's love. I was happy that I was blessed with such a loving mother.

'Tell your brother to not be a naughty boy at school. And have a good day baby.'

"Have a nice day, mother." We replied in union.

....

'What are you doing, brother?' I clutched my hair with both of my hands. It was just a while ago that mother had asked him to behave and there he was pulling my hair and acting naughty. He took away my rubber band and my nicely plaited hair was dancing in the air like wild creepers hanging from a big banyan tree.

"I told you. I am not your brother anymore." He smirked cunningly. And he threw my rubber band inside the green colored dustbin nearby. There was that annoying Darren again.

....

'Brother, how will I tie my hair now? You shouldn't have......done that.' My voice cracked, realising that there was no way I could retrieve the thing that he had thrown away.

"Culture! My dear, aren't you a brilliant student in our class?" The bad boy smirk was plastered on his face while he was approaching me with each passing second. Students were everywhere. And I could feel people's gaze at us. Hot and piercing.

" Come on, Cult! Are you afraid already?" "You are afraid of your brother, Cult?"

'What happened, brother? What are you saying?' I got confused at what he was trying to do.

"Me? Oh!..." He paused, taking all his time to speak. "I just want to know whether you truly are my sister or not. And if you will you do as I say!" He spat his answer just like that.

"Oh! come on! Brother. Everyone knows what I am to you. What is left there to prove?" I was trying to make a bun of my raven-colored hair. Annoyed. Frustrated.

'I know that sissy!' He got closer to me and whispered in my ear, 'But still I want to know whether you are a good girl? You have less than 5 minutes to reach the assembly ground. I will accept my defeat and stop annoying you if you show up neat and tidy at the morning prayer. If not, then you will be my slave for a week." Hands in his pocket, eyes fixated on mine, a certain rage boiling on his dark brown eyes....he could captivate any beauty in town.

'Is that what you want? Do you really want to pick a fight right now?' I asked him too. I could not come up with anything else than to ask him that. It came as a surprise to me. He was picking me as his new slave.

"Oh! So that was what he was thinking all through. For heaven's sake, I was his younger sister! Why would he want to enslave me?" My mind seemed to have caught a train of its own thoughts until he brought me back to reality with a snap of his fingers.

"Why? Are you afraid? My little sister!" He started provoking me. And like I said, he knew me. He knew exactly how to make me work in the way he wanted me to. He challenged me, and thus, he pulled the weakest string of my competitive self.

'Never. I will prove that I don't fear anything.' I said, breathing out heavily and thinking that he must have been possessed by a ghost all of a sudden. He is not my Darren anymore. No. My brother was never like that. Something evil and insidious was building inside of him. I could see that and all I needed to do was to stay strong and beat his evil.

"Deal?" He forwarded his hand and we shook our hands in approval. The warning bell chimed just on time, reminding me of the task that I had to fulfil.

"Hurry up, sister. You have 2 minutes left." He said, looking at his wrist watch. The next thing I saw was that he started striding towards the assembly ground with his long legs.

....

I combed my hair with my fingers and took out a handkerchief to tie it to a ponytail. Following him towards the assembly ground meant that he would win the game. So I started running past him.

I reached the spot on time. Even though it looked odd. Black hair tied up in a white handkerchief, yet, it was far better than looking like a bird's nest. And it was such a relief to realise that I had completed my task on time.

...

'Why are you seated beside me? This is not your seat, Brother!' I looked at him furiously. Before our short break, I was seated next to my friend, Rain. But I did not plan to see my brother sitting next to me after that.

"Didn't you say I am your brother? If I am, then why are you crying for your friend, Rain? Remember friends come after family. And we are family, Culture!'

'I know we are family. I know you are my twin. But why don't you focus on your job? Don't be annoying. You are not like this, brother.' I said after thinking everything through.

'Oh! Do I look annoying to you?' You, kind of, solved my problem, sister dearest. He smiled widely. His eyes twinkled ravishingly, sending chills down my spine. His wicked smile was enough for me to question his activities. He didn't look like the protector my father assured him to be.

'Brother, don't try to act cool. I am annoyed already. Now please leave me alone and go back to your seat. I want to concentrate.' I said, trying to push his hand away from my desk.

'Stop doing that, Culture. Or else you will regret it.' He warned me, in the rudest tone, once again.

"Stop doing that brother, I am telling you. I will complain to our mother about your misbehaviour," I said, because he was crossing his limit. He was showing me a different Darren that I never knew. He was pretending to be somebody else within my brother's body.

'In your dreams, Culture!' He spat back. And my eyes followed everywhere else apart from his. Everyone was looking at us and they were astonished by the sudden character change of the otherwise overprotective brother that I had.

'If you believe that I will be good to you after you complain to my mother, then you are wrong.' He said, tightening his hold of my hand.

"You are my slave, remember?" His eyes had disdain for me. I could not understand just what had happened to my brother overnight.

"Slave?" "Did he just tell me that I was his...what?" I couldn't understand what was going on.

...

I paused, rewinding our earlier deal. But as far as I knew, I had fulfilled my task within the stipulated time. Wasn't he cheating?

'I made it on time, brother.' I tried reasoning.

'Obviously. And that enraged me.' He said. ' All you had to do was lose and make me happy. But you chose to win, Cult, and now you are my slave for not an entire week but for a month.'

"Huh? I have been your slave for a month?" I asked in disbelief. "Are you mad?"

'Ah! Am I not cool? I am the master and I set the rules.' He smirked, again.

I pinched myself thinking that it was just a dream. But no, everything was happening, live. Was I really going to be my brother's slave for a month? The little hairs on the sides of my cheeks stood up because of the fright that surged deep within me. It was not an easy task to be picked up as a slave to the monster of St. Andrews. And this was going to be the lengthiest slavery contract in the history of slavery that Darren had fixated for me.

What had I done to him? I thought and thought for the rest of the day but to no avail.

*****

He had brought a file with a contract prepared.

"Was he trying to play contract-contract with me? But why would he choose his own sibling? How can he do this to me?" I felt myself trembling in fright of the unknown that was hastily making its way towards me. It was known in the entire town that the slavery contract was his way to deal with the bullies. I was no bully or anything near to that. I was a good and studious girl. Just where did I go wrong? What did I do to enrage a lion? Why wouldn't he tell me about my mistake?

Once my brother found his target, he never backed away until he tamed them, and he was set to tame his twin this time, but for reasons unknown. I knew it was my ultimatum. I could not escape from his slavery, at least not until a month.

"Culture, you are finished!" That was the last thing I heard the voice in my mind shout. And that was how evil was unleashed.