*click*
*creak open*
"We're home..."
Rirota and Riro (plus Ren) returned back home late in the dusk. Ren took several mental notes of his own while watching how the two seemingly understand each other on a spiritual instincts. He wondered what will Lauren cook at home after he took inspection of what the gradient-coloured haired twins had bought. It did exhausted him to keep his gap up after entering their house.
But, Ren can't let any of them see him sneaking into their house, and he also needed to continue coming over to their place to eavesdrop on their plans. He believed that they are indeed, an aware twin just like him and Lauren.
He watched the female Rirota leisurely grabbed the groceries from his hands and left for the kitchen area of the house. Ren took another look into the layout of the house as he nodded internally.
[Four chairs for the dining table. Looks like they either rented this place for quite some time ago in their previous lives or... purchased the land.], he took more notes of the design choice of the place as he strolled invisibly upstairs, following behind Rirota as he watched him cautiously.
[He's holding onto her bag, looks like he's going to head into her bedroom?], he moved slowly to face the walls blocking the room interior in front of him. Ren decided it was best to not enter the bedroom himself as to avoid exposing himself for a fraction of a second to rip a decent gap to pass through closed doors.
He ripped a tiny scrap of a paper in front of him with great caution and quietly, creating a small 'rounded' shape of a peeping hole to peep inside the room.
He found and noticed an outline of the single beds tightly sorted together to form one big double bed. Looks like they too, have the same waking situation...
Ren almost snorted audibly from remembering how Rirota usually slept shirtless when they stayed at an inn, [Thank god I didn't have a habit to do that... is that was the case for him...], he shook his head as he sealed the peeping hole.
He blushed from imagining the female Rirota's body figure, naked.
[... Let's not think about that.]
"Haa..."
Ren froze in place but kept his composure as he eavesdrop on Rirota. He then hear a clicking sound and several rustling sounds following right after. He could clearly guess what Rirota was doing.
He was searching for his change of clothes from his closet. Ren's hearing is concerning stronger than usual when he's in pressuring situation. He could hear Rirota sniffing up something as he wondered in his mind about Rirota's doing.
[Smelling his current clothes or... the hanged ones?]
He inadvertently closed his ears by cupping his ears with his hands. He began hearing Rirota stripping himself off his clothes as soon as he heard a zipping sounds loosening a pants.
However, he could still hear Rirota's words clearly from his cupped ears.
"Haa... I should buy a separate basket..."
[Basket? A laundry kind?], Ren was on the point again after pondering for a quick second. A separate laundry basket to help differentiate between his clothing and her clothing.
[Oh damn, he must've stumbled upon a woman's special clothes. Panties, I assume... since his female counterpart is... pretty much flat.], he concluded his thoughts as he focused on his stamina to ensure his gaps won't expose him at all cost.
Rirota poked his head out of his bedroom and stared down at Ren. He wasn't looking at him specifically, he was looking at the stairs behind him. This sudden act from him however, left a different impact on Ren as he sweated nervously as he kept his eyes still.
Rirota did this odd staring contest until he grabbed onto the handle of the bathroom door. Ren almost let out a sigh of relief but he was stunned by Rirota's muscular body that was beautifully hidden under his school uniform the entire time.
He thought to himself if Lauren was here with his Paper Gaps, [Holy shit, if she were to witness his body... she would fall for him.]
He too, had his own assessment of his half-twin brother's body, [Damn! He's built!], he watched Rirota opened the door only to be startled by a voice behind him... no, literally where he was standing on!
"Hm?"
Rirota jolted as he heard her voice. His female self noticed him about to enter the bathroom to clean up as she scratched the back of her earlobe, "A-Ah, I didn't see anything... hm?"
Ren frowned as he gulped down his saliva. He immediately hid his entire body within the gap, leaving only a pinky finger size hole to breathe. Inside the gap dimension, there was no oxygen to breathe in unless a waypoint was connected from two sides. He had connected his exit point at the entrance of his house and the other point? That small finger sized gap in his right pupil.
He watched her approaching Rirota and suddenly forced himself to reveal his abs that he tried covering by facing his body away from her point of view.
[What the.]
A gasp narrowly escaped Rirota's lips as he shouted at her, "Gah! What the fuck are you??"
He gripped tightly onto his towel from loosening down from his waist while keeping his glare at his female counterpart.
Ren was speechless when he watched how she ran her fingers all over his fine muscles and causing Rirota to feel ticklish from her fingers, "That tickles, stop it!"
The girl released her grip off him as she made a satisfying nod in her face. Ren noticed of Rirota glaring down at his own wrist, there was a handprint mark clearly visible from such a tight grip of the girl version of his. It feels as if she was choking his wrist to death. He thought with a nod.
Rirota sighed heavily as he shuts the bathroom door behind him, yelling from the other side, "Why are you girls always like this?"
She chuckled inwardly, not feeling bad one bit. Ren wondered what made her act as such since he was too... not a girl. She patted the door as she yelled back at him, "That was for patting me, okay?!"
Rirota sighed heavily from behind the door, Ren could hear him grumbling as he slid open another door inside of the bathroom. He then watched the female him walked back downstairs wearing a delighted expression.
[Fuck?]
Ren... finally finished his sentence inside of his mind. He was bewildered with how strange Rirota's female self just acted, [I'm... confused.]
You can say that again.
[Do siblings act like this?]
You didn't say it again. Damn it...
Meanwhile!
...
"...I can cook alright.", she spat out a sigh of relief as she sat down on her chair that she brought from the dining table as the step was a little shorter and it didn't feel good for her own comfort to keep balancing on her toes whenever she needed to grab a jar of salt from the top cabinet.
She then faced down on the meal she made...
A fried rice omelette... only the omelette part is scrambled into smaller pieces after she failed to flip the egg for the first time.
"Egg is egg.", she smiled as she stretched her arms by interlocking her hands together while shoving her arms down under the table. She felt pop sounds coming from her shoulders and arms.
Her eyes widened, "I hope that didn't break anything..."
...
Ren waited in the dining area after following the gradient-colour haired girl behind when she was carrying two plates of boiled chicken breasts soup. He gulped down a huge amount of saliva, causing her to react by looking at the window outside.
Ren froze despite her attention was toward the window. He was reminded of his own sounds still being able to be heard by anyone even when his sounds came out from a pupil's size hole.
Luck, is a part of Ren by this point. He was saved by the footsteps climbing down from the hallway as Riro turned her attention away from the windows only to shiver from noticing Rirota walking in with two layers of shirts on.
Ren closed the hole temporarily to laugh to his heart's content after noticing Rirota's odd choice of clothing. He was basically wearing winter ugly sweater under his summer black singlet in the middle of Spring!
Ren recovered quickly as he poked open a gap hole on the floor to kept on listening in on them. As expected, he heard a loud boastful laughter coming from the girl as Rirota kept quiet and sat down on a chair opposite of her. Based on how good his hearing is to perceive the information of a chair moving further from him and a thud sound of another chair close to him followed behind a softer thud as if to rebalance themselves on a seat.
He guessed that the female him was laughing too hard that she was practically edging the seat, almost toppling over to her back or sides.
"Ahem."
"Don't be that upset, I'll let you cup mine if you want."
Rirota (and Ren after another quick intermission of closing the gap) coughed heavily and terribly at her sudden remark. Ren felt like he was listening to a female pervert version of Rirota flirting with him as he reopened his gap to continue eavesdropping.
"Haa... I've been thinking."
[HUH?]
Ren was beyond shocked as his eyes went white to compensate for his shocked expression. However, he yet again, recuperate from his shocked state when he heard questions from Rirota... toward her.
"You have a Roukan in your world? Roukan Mizuzaki?"
[Oh, impressive! I do know Roukan Mizuzaki... he was the Trinity Device inventor and we bought the one of the first developed version of the device together. Only three was released as a test version and... guess what?
Roukan took one for himself, Rirota got one for free from his friend, although he sent him money for the development process. And I... bought it just because it was interesting.]
[Does he too, have the same situation as us? I don't recall anything special about him other than his smarts for inventive innovation. Looks like she doesn't recognise him, only a familiar name to his.]
"I remember a Roun Mizuzaki... Wait, something feels odd... Roun looks after her sister... Kaedan-san was the older brother of Reina..."
Ren nodded internally as he quietly listened in to their discussion.
"Don't you think that... anyone with the same name in our previous worlds could very well be a duplicate in this merged world?
There are more of us, I'm sure but these two names are what I remember from the top of my head.", said Rirota.
"Naito Mizuzaki and Kaeden Kirigaya." - Riro.
"Naito Mizuzaki and Kaeden Kirigaya." - Rirota.
Ren nodded, he already knew why the female Rirota mentioned two names that belonged to friends of hers in the past. He smirked as he figured out the deal with Naito Mizuzaki and Kaeden Kirigaya being in this world thanks to his interaction with his classmate at school.
[Only child, so... they have no idea on what's going on regardless of what's happening around them. They will continue being a fodder background being just like the rest of different named twins.]
Ren grinned as he was able to think things through on his own, [Thanks Rirota of the past. I guessed your smartness may have rubbed of me. Same named twins are the aware ones. Lauren's real name is Ren, after all... so... Rirota here too is named Rirota.], he thought about Riro's real name as he tried to think of any other names that can be unisex for both genders.
[...Nah... I can't think about it without her right now, this requires aware twins like us all to try to figure out who's aware and who's not.], his ears then perked up as he remembered that he was supposed to continue listening in on them.
"How the fuck did I sneak into the bedroom? You didn't lock it?"
[... What's this about now?]