A young boy walked out of the classroom with his head bowed.
He wore a plain yellow shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. He had a blue cap on to cover his unruly hair. His hands held tightly on the straps of his black backpack.
As he headed for the exit, he felt constant paper balls being pelted at his back. The boy didn’t show any reactions towards it and merely pulled down the front of his cap, shielding his face.
He knew it didn’t have any use but it had been worth a try.
He could hear snickers as something sticky hit the back of his neck. On reflex, he reached for it. It turned out to be a piece of chewed candy.
He shook his hand to get rid of it.
This earned him more laughs.
“Hey! You bastards!” A loud voice rose above the noise, “What do you think you’re doing?!”
Jae Parker turned around to look at the chaos that had unfolded.
His brother, Logan, ran towards another boy that held a bag of candy. He tackled him to the floor and ripped the bag of the boy’s hands. Logan’s red hoodie lifted up from his back, exposing the top of his denim shorts.
The few girls around them screamed and ran away.
“You think it’s funny to bully my brother, huh?!” He yelled as he hit the boy’s face, “You want to be my test subject, huh?! You can just volunteer, you know. I accept all challengers but I have watched wrestling a lot so you are outmatched!”
Before the fight could be reported, Jae ran to their side and tried to pull Logan off the boy.
“Logan, enough!” He tried to reason with him.
“No!” Logan snarled, “It’s not enough. It would never be enough until they left you alone. Who’s next?!”
“There won’t be a next one, Mr. Parker” A teacher said, lifting Logan off the boy and onto his feet.
“But that doesn’t do any justice, Ms. Smith!” Logan wailed and struggled to free himself. He stretched a hand towards the boy who was picked up by another teacher.
Ms. Smith sighed, blowing on her red fringe. A fight between students wasn’t unusual—except when it involved Logan Parker. The sheer amount of the trouble he got into was abnormal. It threatened his candidacy for an academic reward.
“Logan, violence is never the answer” she scolded him, who finally stopped moving away from her once the boy was out of sight.
Logan merely grunted incoherent sounds.
As Ms. Smith started to take him to the main office, Jae held her other arm. He had lost his cap, revealing the state of his blonde hair. It was cut in a jagged manner, uneven and layered irregularly.
“Oh, my, Jae” Ms. Smith gasped, combing her fingers on his hair, “What happened?”
“He lost at Uno” Logan answered.
She turned her head towards him sharply, “Uno?”
“We had a bet that the winner would cut the other person’s hair.”
“Logan!”
“What? I won fair and square!” He defended, “But that doesn’t mean other kids can bully him! Only I can do that! And only through a game of Uno!”
“Please don’t punish him, Ms. Smith” Jae pleaded, “Logan only did it to defend me. If you plan to punish him, you must punish me too. I caused the fight.”
“What?!” Logan hissed, “If there is anyone who needs to be punished is those good-for-nothing boys who think they can get away with anything!”
“Enough!” Ms. Smith shouted. She made the boys stand side by side and kneeled to meet their eye level. She placed a hand on each of their shoulders, rubbing her thumb at the side of their necks.
“I won’t punish you this time, boys” she spoke softly, “But if I see you both in another fight, I will have to call your parents directly. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am” Jae nodded. Logan, on the other hand, had an unhappy expression on his face, his frown deeper on one corner of his mouth than the other.
“Logan?” She spoke sternly, raising an eyebrow at him.
He blew a raspberry and sighed dramatically, “Fiiinne. You won’t catch me in another fight again.”
“Good” Ms. Smith gave them a hug then pushed them lightly towards the exit, “You can go now. I’m sure your family is eager to see you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Smith!” They told her in chorus then, they ran towards the exit.
Logan came out of the building first.
“Ha! I won again!” He fist pumped the air, “The city is once again safe from crime. Evil has been defeated. Would evil come back? Probably. Would Super Logan be there to save the day? You betcha!”
“Evil, huh?” A voice called out from his right. The owner, in his late 30s, had blonde hair and ocean blue eyes with a bit of stubble on his chin. He had been leaning against a black car when his son showed up.
Logan whirled his head towards him, his eyes wide with surprise, “Da-da-dad!”
“Well, that’s one way to greet your father.”
“Hey, dad” Jae spoke up from behind Logan. He had gone back to get his cap. He fixed it on his head as he joined them.
“What took you so long?” Mr. Parker asked them, his arms crossed. He looked at both of them pointedly.
“Uh, you see. Dad. Um.” Logan muttered, scratching the back of his head.
“Ms. Smith congratulated Logan for placing first in the ice breaker quiz they had this morning” Jae replied smoothly for him. His brother gazed at him with triumphant lights.
The news took Steve Parker aback. He found the answer skeptical but between the two boys, he’d believe Jae’s words over Logan’s.
“Huh” he breathed out, “Good job then. Now, come on. Let’s go. Your mother is waiting.”
He held out the door to the backseat open.
“Yay!” Logan ran around the car to get on the other side while Jae took their father’s offer and thanked him.
Steve Parker drove out of campus and made a right turn, the opposite direction of their house. Logan bounced on his seat, very eager to see their mother. Jae simply stared out the window and watched the now familiar road.
It took about 15 minutes before the car reached the parking lot of a big white building. Before Mr. Parker could even finish parking the car, Logan already ran towards the automated doors.
“Logan!” He yelled but his kid already entered the building.
“I’ll look after him” Jae assured his father and also ran towards the entrance.
Steve Parker could only shake his head at their behavior.
Logan had taken the elevator by himself. He already had the route memorized from the first time they visited this place.
When he reached the door, he made sure not to slam against it this time and knocked three times.
“Come in,” a melodic voice responded.
Logan turned the handle and the door revealed a woman with long bronze hair and emerald eyes. She sat on a white bed and wore a blue hospital gown. Her lips curled into a stunning smile at the sight of her son.
“Mom!” Logan cheered, running towards her and hopping onto the bed. He hugged her waist and nestled his head next to her ribs.
“Hello, Logan” She chuckled. She lifted her hand connected to an IV and caressed his arm around her. Her other hand went to his hair, ruffling it softly.
“I missed you,” he mumbled, “When will you come home?”
Olive Parker smiled kindly at him, squeezing his cheeks, “Why? Have you been misbehaving again?”
“No, I’ve been a good boy” he spoke despite the sting on his cheek, “Let me go!”
“Oh?” She teased, “You are the one clinging onto me. That means I have permission to do this.”
“Nooooo…!” He whined. Mrs. Parker could only laugh.
“Did you accidentally tell her about the fight you got into?” A newcomer interrupted.
“No!” Logan protested.
Jae covered his mouth, saying, “Oops.”
“You got into a fight?” Their mother asked.
“I told you I have been a good boy!”
“Then, why were you in a fight?” This time she squeezed both of his cheeks.
Logan struggled to move his lips, “Because the other kids had been bullying Jae! I only did what I had to do!”
Their mother looked at him skeptically, “Which was?”
“Practice wrestling?” He replied meekly and cheekily. This only made Olive Parker squeeze more.
Logan tried to pull his face off her hands and turned towards Jae, “Brother! Help me!”
Jae could only smile apologetically at him, placing his bag down on the small sofa in the room. Logan squinted at him and said, “Traitor.”
“Promise me, you won’t get into fights anymore” Their mother scolded him, “If you break this promise, ghosts will haunt you every night when you sleep.”
“Okay, okay, I promise!” Logan desperalty agreed. The pain in his cheeks became too much for him.
Their mother smiled and kissed him all over his now red face, stifling a laugh.
“No fair!” He wailed, “You can’t just punish me at one second then be all kissy kissy the next!”
“So you want me to keep punishing you?”
“No!”
Jae climbed over the other side of the bed and held out a four-leaf clover, “Mom, this is for you. For good luck so you can come home soon.”
Olive Parker took it from his hands, kissing his cheek, “Thank you, Jae. You’re so sweet.”
“Sissy.”
“Logan!”
“What?” He blinked up at her innocently.
“Someday, you’ll need to learn some of these tricks unless you want to be single forever.”
“Girls aren’t any fun anyways” He scoffed, “All they liked to do is play with their Barbies and braid each other’s hair. They don’t wanna play because—” Logan raised his hands to make air quotes, “It’ll get their dresses ‘dirty’.”
“Skye is nice though” Jae added in.
“Skye is Skye. She is not a girl” Logan pointed out.
“I’m pretty sure she’s a girl, Logan” Olive Parker protested, looking at her son with slight disbelief as if telling him, ‘what kind of logic is that?’
“Yeah, but she’s not a girl girl.”
She could only shake her head at him. When she lifted her arm to scratch her ear, she unintentionally hit Jae’s cap, exposing once again the twins’ secret.
“What the—” she gasped, pulling his head closer to inspect his hair further, “Who did this to you?′
“Logan.”
“Logan!”
“Why you all keep speaking my name?” He frowned, “That is not nice. Mom, it was a bet. I won fair and square!”
“What bet?” Their father asked, walking into the room. He spotted Jae’s new hairstyle right away and connected the dots.
“That’s it. No Xbox for a week” He reprimanded them.
“But dad—”
“No buts, Logan. That is final!”
The strict tone in Steve Parker’s voice caused a silence to surround the room. Jae sat silently, unaffected by the punishment. He preferred to read comics anyway. In front of him, Logan sat near to tears at his 3rd punishment of the day.
In spite of that, an angelic laugh cut through the tense situation.
Olive Parker reached out to grab her husband’s arm and pulled him closer to her. She kissed his lips, “Seems like you have your hands full, dear.”
Steve Parker sighed, his rigid muscles melting at her touch, “I have no idea what magic you use to keep them well-behaved. Can you share it?”
She grinned and took Logan’s cheeks.
“Nooooo…!”
“Like this!” She teased, cackling at her son’s adorable face.
Her husband also smiled mischievously and sat on the other side of the bed, snatching Jae’s cheeks.
“Heeyyyy, oowwww…!” His mini look-alike moaned, “Dad, nooo…!”
“What really happened at school today, huh?”
“We were good boys!” Jae answered him.
“Sure, you were” their mother replied sarcastically, “Then who got in a fight then?”
“Someone else. We were good boys!” Logan backed up his brother’s words, “You can even ask Ms. Smith!”
“Really?” She smirked, “That’s not what I heard.”
Jae whimpered and tried to push off his father’s wrists from his face.
“Stop, stop, stop! Okay, okay, okay, you win!”
“Say you’ll never get in a fight again!”
“You’ll never get in a fight again!”
“Logan!” His mother squeezed tighter.
“Okay, okay, okay, sheesh. So uptight. I will never get in a fight again!”
“Say you’ll never cut your brother’s hair again too” his father continued.
“I will never cut my brother’s hair again!”
Steve and Olive Parker gave each other a look. Then, they tackled their sons together, rattling the bed. They all lied down on the bed. The parents on either side with the twins in between them.
Their cheeks have turned very red that Olive had to laugh at the comical sight.
“I love you all so much,” she whispered and gave each of her boys a kiss on the forehead, “Promise me you’ll never fight with each other, okay? I can forgive you for fighting other kids or other businessmen but I won’t forgive you if you fight with family. Are we clear?”
“Yes, mom” the two little boys nodded.
She looked at her husband pointedly.
Steve rolled his eyes, “Yes, dear.”
“Good” she beamed at them then, said, “Because if you do, you’ll face worse punishment.”
“What’s worse than having your face stretched to oblivion?” Logan asked.
“I’m glad you asked.”
“Huh—”
Logan couldn’t finish what he was about to say as his mother attacked him with tickles. Then, she attacked both Steve and Jae. She laughed at their demise, feeling smug for being immune to tickling.
All the boys wailed for her to stop but that only encouraged her more.
