Chapter Text
The first time Ryo spotted his doppelgänger, he was almost certain that he was hallucinating from heat stroke. He and his dad had been walking around for hours in the scorching sun, taking in the sights, when suddenly, something improbably white flitted past in Ryo's peripheral vision. When Ryo turned to look, his breath hitched. There, on the other side of the busy road, stood a figure with bright white hair and even brighter white skin that seemed to glow compared to its surroundings. It looked somehow otherworldly, detached from the rest of the crowd. Almost like a... ghost. Ryo licked his lips subconciously. Was he really witnessing an actual apparition? Or was the sun affecting him much more than he had thought?
Just then, the figure turned its head toward Ryo, who would have gasped if he had not been so utterly breathtaken. He stared at the figure, and then quickly averted his eyes, desperately looking for something reflective along the street. What he found was a window, and a quick glance was all he needed for confirmation. He whipped his head around again, searching for the figure, but it was gone. Disappointed, Ryo turned back to his reflection in the window. The face of that figure and Ryo's face were identical. Even from that far away, Ryo could tell instantly. That was his face. He felt a tingle down his spine as a thought struck him. What if that was... a doppelgänger?
The second time was when his dad sent him grocery shopping. On his own, even though he hardly knew any Arabic and had no idea if people even spoke English in this town, and after the sun had set. He had somehow managed to get through the ordeal of pointing and waving his hands and explaining mundane objects in broken English, and afterwards just slammed a seemingly fair amount of money onto the counter and left, blushing furiously. You would think that thanks to his dad’s obsession with Egyptian artefacts, Ryo would actually know at least some Arabic, but no such luck. He could only read hieroglyphs, which was hardly any help in a perfectly normal grocery store.
It was during that walk back from the store that he saw the doppelgänger again. He first caught a glimpse of it where it stood in the mouth of an alleyway, glowing faintly as it seemed to follow Ryo with its eyes. Ryo slowed his pace and swallowed, his throat dry with excitement. He hadn’t really dared to actually believe it before, but right there and then, looking at the luminescent quality to the pale figure in the darkness, there was not a doubt in his mind that the thing he was seeing was an actual apparition. An honest to god, real-life ghost. A spirit from the realm beyond. A visitor from beyond the grave. Ryo hadn’t even noticed that he had stopped walking and was staring openly at the doppelgänger, utterly transfixed. Then, the doppelgänger turned abruptly and disappeared into the shadows of the alley.
Ryo felt like his soul had transcended the boundaries of human capacities and had left his body to backflip into oblivion, and then suddenly came crashing back down to make him aware that he had apparently dropped his shopping bags onto the ground and was now standing in the exact spot the doppelgänger had previously occupied. He peered curiously into the darkness. If this were a book, this would be where my grand adventure begins, he mused as he considered his options. Going ghost hunting at night in a town where half the streetlights didn’t even work and where he had limited local knowledge and resources had never sounded this tempting before. On the other hand… he was really looking forward to tasting that bizarre ice cream flavour he’d bought. He turned to sigh wistfully at the shopping bags, before looking back into the alley. From this close, it actually looked kind of unsanitary. And there was definitely no ice cream in there. He hopped from one foot to the other, largely decided but still unhappy with the outcome. With an enormous feat of self-control, he turned his back to the dark alley, picked up his bags and ran back to the apartment before he could change his mind.
During the days that followed, each one with no sighting of the doppelgänger, Ryo found himself regretting his decision more and more. What if he had followed the apparition into the alley? What would he have found? What would he have experienced? He kicked at a pebble and swung the shopping bag a little extra, so lost in thought that he never saw the pale figure watching him from behind a corner.
“Ooooh, is that him!?”
The figure startled at the shout and frowned grumpily at the boy who was suddenly hanging off his neck. “Malik, what part of ‘be quiet’ don’t you understand?”
Malik just laughed, taking care not to drop the lollipop hanging precariously from his mouth. “Chill out, it’s not like he’ll hear us in the middle of the TOWN MARKET!” He almost roared the last words, which were immediately drowned out by the cacophony of hundreds of people buying and selling stuff all over the street, and shouting while they did it.
A mess of differently coloured spikes only barely passing for a hairdo suddenly dove out of the throng of people, and Atem grinned up at them. “You were right, Rami, he looks just like you!”
“Told you so”, Rami replied and craned his neck to try and spot his body double in the thick crowd, but quickly gave up.
“Dude, this is so weird”. Malik’s lollipop clicked against his teeth as he spoke. “You sure you don’t have any siblings you don’t know about?” He gave a sudden gasp and hugged Rami’s neck even tighter while excitedly jumping up and down. “Oh my gods, what if you have like, a secret twin?!” His tone became somber as he dramatically leaned back with a hand to his forehead. “Alas, such was the sad tale of the two brothers; separated at birth, destined to know naught of the other’s existence”.
Rami snorted out a laugh while Atem shook his head. “No way! They can’t be related, the other one was waaay too cute!” He laughed and ducked away from the hand that came sweeping down to bring even more chaos unto the impossible situation on his head. He squeaked as Rami rerouted his hands to catch him in a merciless headlock and then proceeded to muss up his hair with his other hand.
Malik clung onto Rami again, for once deciding not to use their superior height to force Atem into giggling submission. “But seriously, you gotta talk to him! This is like, the coolest thing that’s happened in this town since forever! Who knows, maybe you’ll become friends!”
Rami looked about to protest when Atem spoke up, still enveloped in the headlock. “He’s new here, maybe he doesn’t have any friends yet”.
They all contemplated this in silence for a while.
“... Maybe we should all try to talk to him?” Malik suggested. “Being the new kid can’t be much fun”.
“Yeah, and his eyeliner was like, so symmetrical?” Atem added, sounding flabbergasted. “I wanna know how he does it!”
They all gave thoughtful nods at this vital piece of information. Symmetrical eyeliner was a sign of as close to a distinguished individual that could be found around their own age, and was not a skill that ought to be overlooked. They shared a grin and took off at a run down an alleyway, determined to corner their soon-to-be friend sooner rather than later.