During baths, the two siblings were separated in two different rooms which was expected for privacy purposes between the two due to public opinions or maybe it was something else. Still, they had no say in what happened, and if they had to be honest, having a nice bathtub to themselves was the best. It was insanely relaxing. Even more so that the current bath they were taking was one of the best baths they've ever taken.
The bath was nice. The water was smooth and warm, the tub was big and clean, the soaps smelled nice, and the wash rags were soft on the skin. It was refreshing, nice, and the quality of everything was better. It seemed like their quality of life had been getting better ever since the met the director. If put in a neighborhood situation, the director was like the gentrification that happened in a neighborhood that raised the quality of life for the people around in and around it. Of course, dismiss all of the negative attributes of gentrification, that was their life right now. Their lives were in the midst of being gentrified. Not like they hated it, but it was a good analogy.
Bathing was like a good time to think with a clear mind. Steam the came off from a bath always had a sort of mind clearing effect. Maybe because it was floating all around, bring ease to the mind, but it was calming. Though, the heat of the bath counteracted that at some point. Either way, it was safe to say the the first five to ten minutes in a bath were the times were bot of their heads were clear to think and forget whatever they wanted to. Though, today, they were to stunned by what happened before to think. They just let their mind be cleared while their bodies were being cleaned. In truth, the big brother had almost fell asleep in the bath.
When getting out of the bath, the cold air hit painfully, causing shivers, but the white towel they wrapped around themselves warmed then up soon after. They both dried themselves up and looked to the wood woven basket were their clothes would usually be. Like always, in separate rooms, they were expecting to see a freshly washed pair of their usual white clothes, but for some odd reason, the clothes that they'd opened from the present box was in the basket instead. It was really weird, because they didn't hear anyone walk into the dressing room. Though, there was a smoked glass wall between the tub and the room which made it hard to see through to the other side, but they didn't notice anyone walking into the room to put the clothes there. It was unusual, but those were the clothes they were supposed to wear. Plus, those clothes, technically, belonged to them, so they found nothing wrong with wearing the new outfit.
The older brother had finished his bath as he didn't want to fall asleep in the bath and over heat, so he got out of the bath earlier then he usually did. He got dressed earlier and returned to the room earlier. By the time he'd gotten dressed, his little sister was still in the bath in another room because of how much she enjoyed laying in warm bath water with bubbles. And when, he got to the room, he saw the phones on the bed. It was impossible to tell the two phones apart because of the identical cases, and he and his sister had never talked about how to tell the two apart. So, he just picked up one of the phones and the screen lit up as soon as he turned the screen to face him.
It was then that he understood how they were supposed to tell the phones apart. When the screen turned on, the older brother found his new name to the the lock screen.
Inizio. The word on the screen. His name that was of Italian origin with the meaning of beginning. It was his new name. It was something he was going to cherished for the rest of his life. It's become the most important part of his life after all. Although, he wondered if the meaning of the name mattered. Well, he could guess that he did. The letter after 100 was 'A' which was usually used when someone or something was first. Like how the alphabet starts with 'A,' he was the first lab created human in the world. Yes, he was the beginning of that. He was the beginning of the serious advances in human technology. He was the start. He guessed that's what his name was chosen for.
Then, there was his little sister's new name that held the place of the other phone's lock screen. The name Srusti. A name that could be taken from the Indian god of creation or have the meaning of knowledge and insight. It was an accurate name to give her, but peculiar at the same time.
Srusti was a knowledgeable strategist who had enough luck to make anything go her way. So, that was true, but from when she was born, she hadn't created a single thing. Actually she just laid around, and too lazy to even put the work into tests. The name did seem to fit her though. She was good at strategic situations. Without even thinking, she could come up with a full proof plan. She was a genius.
Thinking about, their names matched. Like their appearance, clothes, shoes, phone case, their names matched. Everything about them matched with each other.
The beginning of something always started with creation. The beginning never happened without creation, yet creation happened continuously. One was dependent on the other while the other wasn't. Who knows, maybe it reflected the relationship between the two of them, but that didn't matter to him. Inizio didn't care much about the actual meaning as to why those names were there's. It just mattered that it was. That those names now belonged to them. That they had names. That was the only thing that really mattered. And of course, he couldn't forget the most important thing. His sister and her small, sweet smile. Her little and faint emotions. She mattered most to him.
Inizio smiled thinking about all of those little things.
Then, he heard the room door opening. Like he was, Srusti was also wearing her new clothes, and Inizio was in shocked. His sister was so cute.
The way her long hair fell past her shoulders. The contrast between the black and her milky pale skin that had a small shimmer after the bath. Her silver eyelashes that still had a bit of water on the end that softly reflected the light, and her cheeks that were flushed because she'd just gotten out of the bath. She was really cute! But, Inizio found a problem with her outfit. His little sister's shoulders were showing! Srusti was only a 8 year old child! She wasn't old enough to be wearing thing like this!
What if someone saw how cute she was and dragged her off? What if one of the people kidnapped her? What if she ended up getting locked in a room and having multiple weird tests done on her? What if a pervert approached her? Inizio couldn't allow that. He was going to protect his sister at all cost. Whether it was a normal person, a predator, a murderer, a leader of a country, a king, someone with a net worth of 1.5 million, Inizio wasn't going to let a single person touch his sister. He swore to the world...No, to himself, that not a single person was going to get closer to his little sister!
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"Um, brother, you look nice," Srusti said, pulling her brother out of his crazy thoughts.
"I do?" he asked because he'd never gotten a good look at himself. There were no mirrors to look at, so he wouldn't even be able to. He wouldn't even be able to tell if he had pimples, freckles, or beauty marks. It was all on his sister to tell him that. But, she wasn't into talking about things like that, so he didn't know what he looked like. Still, his little sister was saying that he looked nice so of course he looked nice.
His neck short, straight hair with long bangs that were pushed aside to allow his black eyes to show. His plain black shit that his pale shin also contrasted, and the baggy, white cargo pants add a nice touch. It gave him the cute over sized style which suited him given his current age of 10 years old. He was as good looking as his sister. He was just as cute as her. Multiple people would make the assumption that he was a girl and kidnap him. Or people with those weird fetishes would kidnap him and force him into a suspicious business. Either way, both brother and sister were cute enough to be kidnapped if they walked through a bad neighborhood or caught the eye of a bad person.
Srusti nodded her head, "Yeah, you looked cute."
"...thank you..."
Inizio wanted to hear that he was cool, not cute. He wanted to be cool! But, it was a compliment from his sister, so he was happy to hear it nonetheless.
"You look cute as always," Inizio said.
"Thank you," she responded, secretly happy because of the compliment given to her. Though, it wasn't that much as a secret as Inizio saw a little tension released from her body. This little change made Inizio want to hug his sister, but he didn't, scared that he might want to mess up her clothes.
After that little interaction, the two held their new phones in their hands and fiddled around with all of the apps and functions. Well, that's what Srusti was doing. Inizio was taking this moment to take pictures of his sister in her cute little outfit and figuring out which one would work for her contact picture. He tried multiple different filters that came with the picture taking process, but he didn't know which one to use. She looked cute in every single filter. It was hard to pick just one. The warm tones add color to her skin and the area around it, the old camera like filter was just as nice. Though, if he had to admit. After going through all of the filters multiple times with the multiple pictures, he had to admit that Srusti without a filter was the best. Srusti in her natural form couldn't be beaten by anything.
Inizio was so happy that he could capture all of the moments he had with his sister in both his memory and a cloud storage. The pictures were always clearer then his memory, all it to pull out even more happy memories he had with her. He couldn't wait to look back at all of the pictures he was going to take. Well, if he was allowed to live long enough to look back at them. But, he didn't want to think about that now. He wanted to live in the moment. To live every moment as well as he could. To make sure that he was going to go out with no regrets. That was something he decided to live towards as, even with a normal human, people never know when they're going to die. Sure, for some odd reason he was able to remember everything from his past 99 lives in a secluded white room, but it wasn't always going to be like that. He wasn't always going to be able to take his memories and jump into a different body. In truth, all of that was just an unexpected event. Inizio knew that a time was going to come when he actually died. When there wasn't going to be a life to jump into, so like others, he didn't know how long he was going to live and decided that living in the moment was the best thing he could do.
Srusti, going through her phone, was more interested in the virtual world then she was her brother taking photos of her. She found that the phone only had the apps that were provided by the maker. For example, the calling app, message app, photo gallery, camera, calculator, and really any other app a phone provider would automatically install on a phone. So, the app part wasn't entertaining to her. She was more interested in the web browser.
She wanted to look up everything. She wanted to see so many pictures, watch so many videos, read webnovels. She wanted to immerse herself in the information of the virtual world. Then, she wanted to take off of the knowledge and apply to the real word whenever she went outside again. She couldn't wait. Or at least, she didn't want to. If she was able to leave the room, Srusti would in a heartbeat. Then, she would go out and buy something to bring back her brother if he wasn't able to go because she wanted to share every nice thing with him. She didn't want to have the good things all to herself. She wanted to share every piece of it with him. The sights, items, every new and exciting thing she got to experience or have, Srusti wanted her brother to have it as well. If she would be the only one to go outside, she would go then come back to her brother and share with him everything she got and the stories of the outside. She would want him to have the same excitement and awe she had in the moment of experiencing those things even if it wasn't the real thing but just stories of it. Everything that was hers was also his.
After a long while of messing with their phones for an hour, the two had to admit that phones weren't as entertaining as they thought they would be. The phone was said to hold any and all information as well as multiple ways of entertainment which was true. Inizio and Srusti went through it themselves. But, the words, the pictures, everything. It couldn't compete with the real life experience. It couldn't fill the void of not being able to see the brightness of the sun, the glimmer of the stars, and the shinning of the moon through their own eyes. It couldn't duplicate face to face interaction. It didn't have the same ever changing entertainment--the facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, actions--as having a conversation did. It didn't give off the same realness the two longed for. They found phones to be a good time waster, yes. However, they had to admit that while doing those time wasting things, boredom still filled their mind. Looking at a phone for so long was like staring at a white wall for them. They'd rather play a game with each other then look at that eye damaging screen for hours on end.
"So, what now?" Inizio asked, after seeing his sister put her phone down. Now that they were bored with their phones, there was nothing for them to do besides the usual playing games, sleeping, and talking. Like always, there wasn't much to talk about that the two of them didn't know about already. They'd played card games, chess, and checkers so many times. And, they weren't really tired. At least, not enough to need a nap. So, there wasn't really anything they wanted to do.
That seemed to be the case after going outside. Nothing that used to keep them entertained really did anything. The games, the round about conversations. There wasn't a single thing that they could do in the room that they took an interest in. After going outside, that was the only place they wanted to be. That was the only thing they want to do. That little taste of the outside showed them color, the sky, the moon, the buildings, the people. It showed them the place they yearned to be. The place they wanted to explore and experience and be apart of. It showed them a world past their white walls and liquid IVs. It showed them life. So now, they wanted nothing more but to experience that world together.
They wanted to walk those cracking concrete sidewalks. They wanted to see the colorful flowers. They wanted to feel the heat of them sun. They wanted to have everything in a normal life like everyone else did. They wanted a life like they were born out of a woman's womb and not a test tube. There was nothing else that could satisfy them anymore. The loneliness and the yearning for that life had just become so great in their hearts that they couldn't ignore it with the repetition of the same game as they used to. After that little taste, they wanted more. More then they could imagine. More then they could ever have. More then they could ever ask for. It was greed for the unreachable, and it hurt more then one would imagine it to.