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Alois marched across campus, on a mission. He needed to find someone before his next class, which, judging by the lack of red house fourth years milling about, should be starting soon. Ah, oh well, it’s not like he’s a stranger to ‘Y’s.’ He’s sure his mom was sick and tired of getting letters about his behavior, but he can’t bring himself to care.
He paused, glancing right, then left down the hallway.
He should be around here, somewhere….
“It wasn’t that hard,” a familiar voice said.
Got him!
He resumed his march towards the boy walking side by side with a boy wearing glasses. Before his target, one of the Phantomhive siblings, can object, Alois had grabbed onto his arm and started pulling him away.
“Hey! Stop!”
The other boy, to his credit, started to lift one of his books in preparation of hitting Alois. Fortunately for both of them, Phantomhive stepped in.
“Don’t, McMillan! You don’t want ‘Y’s,’ now do you?”
McMillan sighed, clutching his books to his chest. “Do you want me to get a teacher?”
Alois rolled his eyes and began dragging Phantomhive away.
Over his shoulder, Phantomhive called out, “no! Go ahead to class without me! I’ll be right there!”
He doesn’t stay long enough to see if McMillan actually listened. Not that he particularly cared, but it would be nice if their conversation wasn’t cut short.
Alois stopped in a lounge area, lightly pulling Phantomhive into the seat next to him. For a second, they did nothing but stare at each other.
“What do you want?” Phantomhive asked, rubbing the wrist Alois dragged him by.
He felt a little bad for doing that, though it was necessary to get him here. If he was anything like his brother, then a simple, “can we talk?” Wouldn’t suffice. If anything, it might make it impossible to have this conversation.
“You’re in the blue house, right?”
Phantomhive looked down at his uniform. Adorned around his neck and tucked under his jacket was a blue tie. He then looked up at Alois, then down at his tie again. Staring at Alois, he finally answered, “no.”
“That was a rhetorical question,” Alois sneered. He forced himself to calm down, taking a deep breath in and out to sooth his frayed nerves. “ Anyways , I needed to ask a favor of you.”
“A favor? Why not ask the other people in your house? Say, isn’t my brother in your house?”
“Yes, but he can’t fulfill my request.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both,” Alois answered.
Phantomhive considered this. “Yeah, that sounds like my brother. What’s your request?”
He let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, and I need you to look out for someone in your house.”
“Who?”
“My brother, Luka. He’s a first year, and I’m worried about him.”
Phantomhive smiled fondly, giggling at seemingly nothing. “I will. My brother was the same way when I started here.”
“Your brother is an arse,” Alois said, shifting his seating position for the tenth time since sitting down. “Worse than, actually.”
Phantomhive’s smile dropped. “Careful now, Macken ,” he warned. “That’s still my brother.”
Alois held his hands up, hoping to placate the other boy. “Sorry, sorry. My smart mouth tends to get me into trouble.”
“It’s fine.” Though the tension doesn’t leave his shoulders. “It’s just that my brother and I are very close.” He glanced to the side, looking at something far beyond the school grounds. Sometimes, when he recalled his childhood before his mother took him and Luka in, Alois had that same exact look in his eyes.
That faraway look that denoted something awful and nasty. Something most people would cringe at, either out of empathy or disgust.
Alois knew how to leave well enough alone, at least in one sense he did.
Instead, he said, “you and your brother look an awful lot alike.” Luka and him couldn’t look more different if they tried. Not that that mattered, but it was always interesting seeing the inverse.
“Well, I would hope so,” Phantomhive answered, a small, mischievous smile on his face. “After all, we are twins.”
Alois does a double take. Twins? But the other Phantomhive - Ciel, he thinks his given name is - is in the year below him, and the boy across from him is two years below Alois.
“Then, why are-”
“Why are we in two separate years?”
Alois nodded.
“After….after our parents- um…after everything that occurred, my brother and I went to live with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. My brother bounced back pretty fast, but I- I wasn’t myself for a long time. In all honesty, I’m still not myself, and I don’t think I ever will be-”
He took Phantomhive’s hand in his own, reminded once again of his painful past of being beaten and chased and taunted by adults more than three or four times his age.
“One day,” he started, a little shocked Phantomhive hadn’t taken his hand back yet. “One day, you’ll wake up and feel like yourself.” It wasn’t a guarantee, but sometimes Alois liked being an optimist. It sure beat being a pessimist.
“My name is Finnian,” Phantomhive said, apparently moved by Alois’ words. “My brother calls me Finny, though.”
“Finnian,” Alois said, testing the name out. He didn’t comment on the fact that that name wasn’t fit for a noble. He didn’t care. He rather liked the way the name felt on his tongue. “I like it. My name’s Alois, but my brother calls me Alois.”
Finnian smiled, holding back laughter. “Well, nice to meet you Alois.”
The two boys sat there, enjoying the peace and quiet of an empty lounge room. It was rare to have anything to yourself here, especially privacy. Even the risk of “Y’s” didn’t make the boys rush for their next class.
“I hate to ask again,” Alois said, “but why are you and your brother not in the same year?”
Finnian pursed his lips, thinking something over. “Many reasons. One, like I said, I wasn’t myself. I was anxious and clingy and in no condition to be away from home. Two, there wasn’t a spot available, so we had to wait for the next year to get in. And three, my aunt said I couldn’t go until I went three full months without having an asthmatic fit. I had one a week or so before classes started, so she made me stay home.”
“Ah,” Alois said, nodding along. “Must have been hard being away from your brother.”
“More than hard, but it is what it is. He came home during the holidays, so it wasn’t too bad. Was it hard being away from your brother?”
“More than hard,” he parroted back. “My brother was all I had for the longest time. I was worried sick my entire first year, but when I came home for holiday, Luka seemed just fine. He missed me and wouldn’t let go, but he was fine.”
“What’s he like? Your brother, I mean.”
“Kind,” Alois answered immediately. “And sweet. He’s funny too, and the cutest little thing- why are you smiling like that?”
Finnian shrugged. “You sound just like my brother, though in my case it’s a little weird, seeing as though we’re ten minutes apart. He takes his role as my “big” brother very seriously.”
“As he should. Being a big brother is a huge responsibility. Ten minutes or three years, it doesn’t matter.”
“I suppose so.”
People have started flooding the halls, Alois could hear their grating voices as they walked to their next class.
“We should get to our next classes, but it was nice talking to you. Ah…before I forget, what does Luka look like?”
“Reddish brown hair, big brown eyes, and has a similar accent to mine.”
“Got it! I’ll do my best to look out for him!” Finnian turned on his heels, books held to his chest. “See you around, Alois!”
“See you, Finny!”
Finnian playfully glared at him over his shoulder.
Alois found himself smiling down at his lap, happy to have made at least one friend in this wretched place.