#5 - The Mystery of Genetics

Two boys sat atop the low wall that circled the perimeter of their school's property. Adan had a notebook open in front of him, trying to get in some last minute studying, while Crys furtively smoked a cigarette and watched his classmates arrive at school. Busses, cars, and bicycles were all used to get the students there in a timely fashion, though some unfortunate students were forced to walk.

Crys nudged his friend as a large silver SUV, practically the size of a small spaceship, pulled up to the sidewalk. Adan looked up just in time to see two girls exit from the backseat. The first was dressed in a skin-tight, low-cut purple shirt and black leather pants, and her stick-straight hair severely framed the fierce expression on her face. The second was taller and wore a long, pale blue dress that cascaded down to her ankles and her hair was curled in soft, flowing waves. Both girls had pale skin and fluorescent green tresses, but that was where the similarities ended.

"I can't believe they're sisters," Adan remarked, shaking his head.

"I know, and they're both named 'Kara'," Crys answered. "That shit's kinda weird."

"Weird or not, she's still hot!"

"Which one?"

Adan paused to consider the question carefully. "Both of them, I guess."

Crys watched as the sisters walked past them and entered the building. "I've always had a thing for tall girls," he sighed.

"Those leather pants are pretty damn sexy..." Adan trailed off. Once the girls disappeared from their blatant ogling, he turned to face his sandy-haired friend. "We should ask them out," he suggested.

Crys raised an eyebrow and flicked his cigarette. "Together? That's a little - "

"No, not together," Adan cut him off. "I just meant I'll do it if you do it."

Crys snorted. "Man, you really need to grow a pair." He finished the last of his cigarette and put it out on the bricks beside him. "But yeah, I'm not doing anything this weekend, why not?"

"Alright!" The previously excited Adan suddenly looked nervous. "What if they say no?"

"How could they?" Crys laughed confidently. "There's no reason not to go out with us."

"Right." Adan hopped down off the wall. "I should see Kara before lunch, I'll try to talk to her then."

"And I'll see the other Kara in our math class."

"So we have a plan. Let's go!" The two friends fist-bumped each other before reporting to their respective homerooms.

As expected, Adan caught up with Kara by her locker before heading into the cafeteria. "Hey, Kara," he greeted her, trying to be suave as he leaned against the wall next to her.

Her dark eyes looked him over. "Adan," she tersely acknowledged.

Adan tried to maintain the same level of confidence that came so easily to his friend. "I, uh, was wondering if you had any plans for this weekend."

She slammed her locker shut and stared at him. Adan tried not to squirm beneath her unrelenting gaze as he remembered that after last week's battle between Lune and Nial, he'd heard that Kara had deemed Lune "too weak to fight" and was gearing up to take his place as someone to be feared. Though the rumors he'd heard said that so far she'd only terrorized some of the freshmen, Adan gulped as he wondered if this had been a good idea.

"What did you have in mind?" she finally answered.

Adan relaxed, but only slightly. "Well, there's this new movie out, and - "

She snorted, interrupting him, and folded her arms across her chest. "Movies are boring," she scoffed.

"We could do something else..."

Kara continued to eye him suspiciously until a tiny smirk appeared upon her lips. "Tell you what – I'll pick you up on Saturday night and I'll find something for us to do."

Adan wasn't sure whether to be excited or scared. He opted to display the former. "Sounds good to me!"

He thought he detected a slight eye roll, but she still managed a small smile. "See you then!"

On the opposite end of the building, Crys slipped into a seat next to Kara before their math class started. "Hey there," he greeted her with a devilishly handsome smile.

"Hello, Crys. How are you?"

"Better since I got here." He cautiously slid his chair a little closer to hers. "Anything exciting going on this weekend?"

"No, I don't think so."

"How about I take you out to dinner Saturday night?"

A flush of color appeared on the pretty girl's cheeks. "That sounds very nice," she said softly.

"Great! I'll pick you up at 6:00!"

"Okay." She smiled shyly at him.

"How did it go?" Adan asked his friend at the end of the day.

"Good, we're all set for Saturday."

"Me too!"

"I'm taking Kara to that new pizza place down the road, what are you doing?"

Adan paused. "I don't know," he admitted.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I suggested a movie, she shot me down. But she said she'd plan something for us that night."

Crys considered this. "I guess that's sort of cool. Have fun with that."

Saturday rolled around and Adan woke up some time in the early afternoon, giving him just enough time to prepare for his date. When he stumbled into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he was not pleased with what he saw. To his dismay, a large, bright red pimple had appeared overnight right in the middle of his forehead.

Adan leaned closer to the mirror and poked at it, cursing under his breath. Annoyed, he flung the door open and hollered for his sister. "Gwyn!"

In a few moments, his twin appeared in the doorway, unhappy to be disturbed from whatever it was she had been doing. "What do you want?" she snapped.

He turned to face her and pointed to the unsightly blemish. "What do I do about this?"

Gwyn looked at his forehead and burst out laughing. "Wow, that's a big one!" she managed to get out between giggles.

"It's not funny!" Adan was not amused. "Come on, help me out!"

"Why should I help you?"

"Because I'm your brother and it's the right thing to do?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "I can pop it for you, if you'd like," she said with an evil grin.

"No! I don't want it to scar! You must have something to cover it up with."

"What, like a band-aid? That'll look real good."

"No...you know what I mean..."

Gwyn started laughing again. "Are you really asking to borrow my makeup?"

"If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you."

She continued to chuckle. "Shower first, then I guess I'll help you out."

Almost an hour later, Adan trudged into his sister's bedroom. "Sit," she instructed him, pointing to her desk chair.

Adan plopped down and sighed as Gwyn started digging around in a bag. "I meant what I said about killing you. Don't you dare breathe a word of this to anyone."

"Don't worry, it's definitely amusing enough even when I'm the only one who knows." She brushed his blond hair away from his forehead and poured some flesh-colored liquid onto a white sponge. Dabbing gently, she applied a layer over the cursed pimple. "Stop moving your face," she snapped as he wrinkled his nose at the thought of what was going on. Satisfied that she had covered it up as best she could, she brushed some loose powder over it with a large brush, finishing up her work. "Whatever you do, don't touch it."

He nodded. "Thanks, Gwyn," he said sincerely.

"Yeah, well I figured you'd need all the help you can get for your date tonight."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"No problem. Are you sure you don't want some blush or eyeliner while I have my makeup bag out?"

"Shut up." Running away from her pink compact, he quickly exited the room.

Kara arrived right on schedule, driving her mother's car. Adan gave her a quick hug before getting into the passenger seat and buckling his seatbelt. Never had he been so glad for a car's safety features, as Kara seemed to think that the signs beside the road proclaiming the speed limit were merely offering suggestions. As the car raced down the street and skidded around the curves, he clutched the door and braced his feet on the floor as he was bounced around violently.

Adan was still shaking by the time he got to school on Monday morning. Immediately upon seeing him, Crys was concerned. "What's wrong with you?" he asked.

"Oh man. Never get into a car that Kara is driving. I thought I was going to die."

Crys laughed. "It couldn't have been that bad."

"You have no idea. I'm just glad we didn't get a chance to see if the airbags worked."

"Other than your wild ride, how was the rest of your night?"

Adan shook his head. "First, she took me paintballing."

"That's cool."

"Those things fucking hurt! I think she was enjoying shooting at me."

"It couldn't have been that bad."

Adan rolled up his sleeves and showed his friend his bruise-covered arms. "Do I need to remove the rest of my clothing to prove my point?"

"Please don't."

"Once she was done kicking my ass, she took me to some party in this weird guy's basement. We could barely get down there, the place was packed with people."

"What were they doing?"

"I think they were supposed to be dancing, I'm not quite sure. To me, it just looked and felt like the mass of people was jumping up and down and occasionally elbowing others in the face. The music was really loud and it sort of smelled bad in there."

Adan's narrative was interrupted by two green-haired girls rushing towards them. His Kara grabbed his head and gave him a rough kiss on the cheek, while the other Kara just smiled and blushed. Both of them waved before continuing on their way.

"I don't know if I can handle going out with her again," Adan whispered, his eyes wide. "She's kind of crazy."

Crys shrugged his shoulders. "It does sound sort of exciting. At least you actually did something on your date."

"What, things didn't go well with Kara?"

"Eh. We went out to dinner and talked and stuff, but..."

"What is it?"

Crys scratched his head. "I don't know, she's just...too nice."

"And that's a problem?"

"She's really sweet and polite and she actually knew which fork to use first at the restaurant. She even offered to help me with my math homework the next time I don't understand it, as long as it's not the same day she's volunteering to read stories to the kids at the elementary school. Compared to her, I just felt like the world's biggest asshole."

"Well..."

"Yeah, I know, it's not entirely inaccurate," Crys joked before a frown appeared on his face. "I don't know if it'll work out between us."

"Why not? She sounds a hell of a lot saner than her sister."

"Probably. To be honest, though, I kind of felt a little bored when I was out with her."

Adan sighed. "Where did we go wrong?"

"Beats me."

"We probably would have been better off switching places on Saturday night." Adan hadn't been serious, but his words lingered in the air. He slowly turned to Crys and raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question.

"No way. It'll never work," Crys said.

"Why not? They seem like reasonable girls. We'll just explain to them that we think that each of us is better suited for the one we didn't go out with this weekend."

"And you think they'll understand?"

"They must have seen that we weren't having a good time with them. We'd be doing all of us a favor."

"Hmm." Crys stroked his chin in thought. "It's worth a shot."

"Ask Kara to meet you here after school. We'll make our case together."

"Okay."

Adan considered their plan and what, precisely, he was going to say for the rest of the school day. When the final bell rang, he found Kara by her locker and invited her outside with him. As they approached the gates to the school, he saw that her sister was already waiting there with Crys.

"What's going on?" the taller Kara asked.

"We need to talk to both of you," Adan started. "Crys and I were discussing what happened the other night. While we both had a really good time," he lied, "we think we might have made a mistake."

"A mistake?" the other Kara repeated, glaring at the two of them.

"Not really a mistake, but..." Crys nervously ran his hands through his wavy hair and tried to think of the right words. "We just think that we'd all be happier if we, you know...switched."

"Oh really?" his former date asked in a sharp tone that he had never expected from her.

"Look, you're both great girls," Adan jumped in, hoping to smooth things over. He turned to the dark-eyed Kara, who was still shooting daggers at both of them. "I had a nice time the other night, but I don't think I'd be able to keep up with you. Crys, on the other hand, thought that your ideas for our date sounded like fun."

Crys addressed her sister. "And I liked talking to you, but I don't think you want to be with someone like me. Adan's a really nice guy, though."

Having finished presenting their arguments, the two friends looked at the girls expectantly. "So what do you think?" Adan asked.

The sisters looked at each other and seemed to have a brief, wordless conversation. After slightly nodding their heads, they turned to the boys and, in eerily identical motions, slapped them in the face. Without speaking another word, they stormed off, leaving the stunned Adan and Crys behind.

"Well, that didn't go as planned," Crys said.

"No, not at all." Adan rubbed his stinging cheek. "Crys?"

"Yeah?"

"We're idiots. You know that, right?"

"Yes. Yes, we are."