[attr="class","freiwanttop"]IN THE HOLLOWS OF MY EYELIDS

[attr="class","freiwantimg"]

[attr="class","freiwantinfo"]

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER FACTION team rocket

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER RANK grunt

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]FACE CLAIM baji keisuke from tokyo revengers

[attr="class","freiwanttop"]AND DOWN THROUGH MY RIBS

[attr="class","freiwantbot"]

[break]

---

[break][break]
Onyx and Jett. Jett and Onyx. together so much the name becomes singular: Jettinonyx. Onyxsinjett. Fraternal twins a hair's breadth away from identical; but in personality, you couldn’t be more different. Jett is kind. Jett is smart. Jett tries and succeeds. You work your ass off to get what you have and still, consistently, fall short. Your sister writes your essays. Your sister takes your quizzes. Your sister passes your driving test, posing as you.
[break][break]
She’s happy to do it. She wants to see you thrive. She doesn’t want you to stress.
[break][break]
Battling, though. Battling, you’re good at; whereas Jett can’t stand the violence. Doesn’t tolerate the blood. You’re rough-and-ready, bloody-knuckles, broken noses; Jett is a strategic plan, eight-hours of sleep and a well-balanced breakfast. You’re sixteen energy drinks and cocaine in your late teens; Jett’s a green smoothie and hot yoga classes.
[break][break]
You have a sponsorship and a loose group of friends that mainly like you because you’re sarcastic and funny. There’s this one kid that tries to cling on every now and again and Jett accepts him with open arms; you’re kind of there, too, and for all his faults, he listens when you talk about the Gym Challenge because, let’s be honest, that’s the only thing you have. It’s the only thing you have, besides your sister, and you’re damn well proud of it.
[break][break]
Then, the unspeakable.
[break][break]
When she goes down, she goes down hard. It’s days from health to sickness, from life to death. It’s a genetic abnormality, the doctors say; a spiral of DNA that causes a byproduct of cellular respiration to build up in her blood, her body, and ultimately shut it down. It comes in two forms: the hereditary form, which you best hope and pray you don’t have, and the ‘wild type’ allele, which happens for no explainable reason.
[break][break]
Before you can plan Jett’s funeral, you have to get tested-- you, your parents, their parents. It comes back negative.
[break][break]
Jett died for no reason. Jett died on a biological whim. A fluke of nature.
[break][break]
So you double down in what you know, grief and sarcasm and anger and fighting. And then there’s that kid, Andres. He’s there, too. He’s suddenly doing what you’re doing and you hate that but whatever, as long as you’re better at it, it’s fine. It’s a non-event. It’s fine.
[break][break]
Until it isn’t.
[break][break]
You lose. He wins. He tries to apologize to you-- this rat, this stupid, skinny bastard who came into your life and stole the only thing you had remaining, this fucking upstart gatekeeping piece of trash.
[break][break]
So you take out your anger on his head and the locker and somehow have to go about your life.
[break][break]
He tries to speak to you the next time you meet which is a laugh. You punch him again and leave him in the dirt. It’s what he deserves.
[break][break]
But he’s not the only one. You grow distant from everyone. You drop out of school-- you’re shit at it so why bother? You’re shit at everything.
[break][break]
You’re shit.
[break][break]
Leave home. Parents liked your sister better, anyhow. Wander, aimless. End up in Kanto. Fall in with Rocket. Find, once again, that brutality is the only thing you ever had a talent for. Excel. Succeed. Acquire a body count. Stop fucking caring. You haven’t cared about anything since Jett died.
[break][break]
Get noticed. Redeploy-- the Hoenn region, where things are getting heated. That’s okay. You like the heat. The thrill of death is the only thing that makes you feel alive, after all.