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It was a sunny day in the city, a day perfect to go out, to have a picnic on the fresh grass of a park, under the warm spring sun.
Of course, for Michael, it didn’t change much of anything, as he was more used to staying up at night by now, and rarely went out during those beautiful days. For what would he go out, after all? It wasn’t like he had anything to do out there, or any friends to go see.
“Michael? Are you up yet?” A familiar voice came through his door.
“I’m up, I’m up. What’s up OB?” Michael replied as he went to open the door of his bedroom to see his brother.
As a matter-of-fact, he’d been staying with his family again for a few days, having decided that he wanted to be around his family for a little bit.
“You received a letter.” The older brother said as he handed him a letter.
“A letter? Who the hell would be writing to me?” He wondered as he took the letter from his brother and turned it around to see who it was from. “Hm?”
“What’s wrong?” OB asked, noticing that Michael was making a strange face.
“Nothing… I just haven’t seen that name in ages…” He mentioned quietly as he opened the letter to read what was inside.
Michael took a moment to read the letter.
“So? What’s it saying?” OB pressed for answers.
“It’s an invitation letter…” Michael sighed.
“Invitation to what?” OB asked for more information.
“Nothing important…” He replied, ready to trash the letter.
“Hey, Big Bro? Did you get an invitation too?” Khloe suddenly appeared behind OB, startling both of them.
“... Yeah…” He replied.
’Of course she would get one too…’ He thought to himself.
“What invitation? Will any of you explain what is going on to me?” OB demanded, frustrated.
“Oh? Michael didn’t tell you? Some old friends from our high school are throwing a reunion party.” Khole explained with her usual smile.
“No. A reunion party? It’s rare anyone does that nowadays.” The older brother mused.
“Yeah! It’s so cool that our friends are doing one!” Khole said with obvious excitement. “It’s going to be so much fun, right, Michael?”
“I’m sure you’ll have fun…” Michael said quietly.
“Sounds to me like someone isn’t going.” OB raised an eyebrow at him and crossed his arms.
“But you can’t not go! There’ll be all our old friends!” Khole said, sounding disappointed.
“I don’t want to go… I prefer staying home…” Michael mumbled.
“You should go. It’s a one time opportunity. And besides, what else are you gonna do? stay home and lock yourself in your room?” OB scolded slightly.
“Yeah! And besides, it’ll be a good occasion to meet up with our old friends!” Khole tried to talk him into it.
“I don’t want to… They’ll probably question my eyes…” He mumbles.
“You can say that it’s contact lenses. A new style or something.” OB offered. “It’s not an excuse not to go.”
“Come on, Big Bro! Please! It’ll be fun! I’ll be with you too. I’ll help you figure something out about your eyes.” Khole pleaded to her brother.
“I-” Michael wasn’t sure what to say.
“Khole is right. You won’t be alone with them. Come on. It’ll do you good to go out partying for once.” The older brother tried to convince him as well.
“Urg. Fine. I’ll go with you.” He finally relented, although reluctantly.
“Yaaaaay!” Khole jumped in victory. “You’ll see, it’ll be fun!”
“Good.” OB nodded in approval.
’You didn’t really give me a choice… I don’t see how it can end well…’ Michael thought as he looked at the letter again, not really looking forward to the event of the evening that he would be forced to be at.
Later that day, Michael found himself walking to a bar, near his old high school, with his sister.
He was still looking closed off, reluctant to go, but Khole kept trying to hype him up, to reassure him everything would be fine, and that he’d have fun if he just gave it a try. Still it had no effect on him.
As much as he used to be a big deal in his school back in the days, as he was a popular kid, even more with the girls, it was a part of his childhood that he would have preferred to forget about entirely.
Still, he tried to reassure himself. Maybe Khole was right, maybe everything would be fine, maybe he could even have some fun. Who could know?
It didn’t take long for the twins to arrive at the bar, where the party had already started, although not everyone was already here.
Michael could feel himself tensing up as they went in, soon greeted by a bunch of old classmates, before a group of their old friends called them over, which made him feel all the more tense, his chest feeling tight all of a sudden.
“Michael! Khole! Hey! How have you been?” They greeted them eagerly.
Khole didn’t need any prompting before she got into a conversation with them.
They easily exchanged how they’d been doing, starting to swap up stories of how they’d started dating this or that person, and how they had managed to find their best job for some, some other talking about how difficult life had been, how their relationships had always ended in heartbreaks and how finding a job was hard to do and they were reduced to being a clerc in a supermarket.
Michael, in the meantime, stayed quiet, only replying to the original question they were asked with a dismissive “i’ve been doing okay.” before letting them all slip up into their own little talk of their lives.
Each minute that passed was another crush for Michael’s chest, the tension worsening as he started to anticipate how he could possibly talk about his life to them, what lie could he come up with to not get them to ask about it? Could he try to find a way to excuse himself and go home? No, Khole would probably scold him and plead for him to stay a little longer, and now that he was there, he couldn’t exactly leave just like that, could he?
“What about you Michael?” Someone asked. “What have you been up to? Hm? And why are you wearing white contact lenses?”
Suddenly, the dreaded questions arrived. He hadn’t even realized it until now, but he could feel how his heart was beating painfully fast and out of beat. He could feel himself sweating despite the cold shiver that ran through his spine. He could feel how his legs weakened rapidly.
“Michael?” Another one tried to get his attention.
“What’s wrong with him?” Someone asked another one.
“Is all that for attention?” The other question more quietly.
“You look quite pale, Michael. Are you feeling alright?” His old friend asked with concern.
“Michael? Are you alright?” Khole asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder to get his attention.
He hadn’t noticed it but he had started to struggle to breathe.
When he felt his sister’s warm hand on his already burning body, he barely glanced at her before he felt himself falling, distant cries making their way to his ears as everything faded to black.
When Michael came back to himself, it was slow, and painful. He slowly became aware of the air being blown in his mouth and nose to help him breathe, and the way he could feel the IV in his arm, something he always hated.
He could now hear the monitor on which was displayed his heartbeat and his temperature. The beeping sound, a little too loud for his weak head.
Still, it wasn’t loud enough for him not to hear the muffled and whispered voices of his siblings talking to someone else.
When he opened his eyes, he noticed that they weren’t alone. His most close friends from back in the days of high school were there too, listening to the siblings as they explained how Michael had a heart condition and that it must have been triggered by the stress, causing his heart attack.
It seemed that, as soon as Michael had passed out, Khole had checked his pulse and noticed his heart attack, immediately calling for an ambulance, as she knew what to do in those situations.
He didn’t really have time to process much of it, however, as, as he woke up more, his heart spiked on the monitor, letting everyone know he was awake.
“Michael!” Khole quickly walked up to him, followed by their brothers and their old friends.
“How are you feeling big bro?” Keith asked as he came to hold his hand, worry plastered on his face, and on their siblings’ ones. “Are you feeling better?”
Michael, still having the breathing mask on his face, only replied with a thumbs up with his free hand before petting his brother’s hair to comfort him.
“Next time you feel one coming you HAVE to tell someone.” The older brother scolded, although it lacked any real coldness, sounding more worried than he tried to transmit.
Michael looked away a little guiltily at that, knowing he should’ve warned Khole about it, but also knowing that he didn’t notice until it was too late this time, as he’d zoned out for a long time.
“Don’t be so hard on him OB, he just woke up.” Khole, as per usual in those situations, scolded her older brother for scolding Michael.
Michael, in the meantime, took an awkward glance at his old friends. They looked worried still and a little awkward with the siblings.
He took this opportunity to take off, slowly, his breathing mask, testing his breath for a second before he opened his mouth to speak to them.
“Sorry for the worry. And for ruining the party…” He mumbled, still a little struggling with his breath, but managing to talk fine despite it.
“Michael, put that back on. It’s on for a reason.” Raphael scolded again.
“OB is right, Michael.” Khole worried.
“Beep.” Keith agreed.
“It’s alright… We didn’t know about your heart condition…” They replied.
“He developed it after high school, you couldn't have known.” OB said as he forced Michael to put the mask back on, making this one groan a little.
“Yeah… It only appeared a few years after high school.” Khole agreed. “it was very sudden…”
“It was, indeed, but now Michael usually knows how to not trigger his weak heart.” Raphael took over. “It’s nothing he can’t deal with usually. Just, sometimes, it gets worse when he’s under too much stress, or when he agitates himself too much.”
“Well, I'm sorry if we stressed him out too much with our questions.” One of them replied apologically.
“Yeah, we didn’t want to stress you out like that, it’s just been so long that we had questions. We shouldn’t have overwhelmed you with them.” Another one replied.
“It’s alright, I’m sure Michael doesn’t blame you for it.” Raphael replied, looking at his brother for confirmation, getting a thumbs up from him. “See? It was no one’s fault.”
“You couldn’t have known, and it’d been so long, of course you’d want to ask questions.” Khole added.
“Still, I think it was rude to ask about his eyes.” One of the friends replied.
“Speaking about that… Shouldn’t they have taken his contact lenses out when he got here? Isn’t it bad for him to sleep with them?” Another questioned.
The question, of course, made Michael swallow hard, his monitor showing a spike again in his heartbeat, and making the siblings look at each other nervously.
Thankfully, Raphael took over for them all.
“It’s not contact lenses.” He said, making Michael’s heartbeat spike some more, but he continued. “When they first discovered his heart problems, the doctors wanted to try a new treatment for it, as it was quite bad at the time and needed more heavy treatment.” He continued, the siblings looking at him, trying to hide their confusion.
Of course, they all knew that, at first, that Michael had had to have more heavy treatment, since he wasn’t used to his heart being so weak, and so he wasn’t used to how much he could do with his body before his heart reacted to it. But, still, they weren’t sure what he was trying to get at. And, what was that about a new treatment? He didn’t have any new treatment.
“They tried an experimental treatment on him for a while, but he reacted poorly, and somehow he lost color in his eyes. The doctors can’t even explain how it happened, but they quickly stopped the treatment and gave him a more suitable one. Still, since then, his eyes are like that.” Raphael explained with confidence and sighing. “It’s not really the best part of his life, and he doesn’t like being asked about his eyes.”
“Oh. I see.” One of them said after a while.
“Well, I’m sorry we asked.” Another said.
“We didn’t mean to stress you out like that. We just thought it was contact lenses and that you were just liking having different eye colors.” The other said.
“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known.” Khole replied, trying to act as if it wasn’t all a lie. “The subject is just a touchy one, but you couldn’t have known about it.”
“Well. We’ll get going now. I have a wife and kids to go back to.” One of them mentioned.
“Oh, yeah, it’s quite late now. I have no one but I still have a shift in the morning. I should get going too.” Another replied as well.
“And I have an interview tomorrow, i should go home and sleep and then rehearse for it.” The last one replied.
“Still, I hope we can still catch up another time.” They mentioned.
“Thank you for coming to check up on him. It was nice of you.” Khole replied. “I’m sure we can all catch up again later, when Michael feels better, and when we’re not so busy.” She said, “I have your numbers, I'll keep in touch and tell you when we can see each others again.”
“Sounds good to me.” They replied, all nodding along, before they made their way out, saying their goodbyes and get well soon wishes and leaving the siblings alone.
After they were gone, there was a moment of silence, everyone looking at the door the friends had just exited out of.
Then, they all relaxed and sighed in relief.
“I’m so glad you found an excuse for his eye color.” Khole sighed to OB.
“Well, I just went with it and said whatever came first.” Raphael sighed and went to sit on the sofa of the room. “Still, if I’d known you were that stressed out about it, I wouldn’t have pushed you to go, Michael.” He expressed as he crossed his arms.
“I didn’t know you were so stressed about it either. I wouldn’t have insisted if I’d known.” Khole looked at her big brother apologetically.
Michael, as he couldn’t really respond without being scolded again, just looked away guiltily.
The truth was that he’d mostly accepted because his sister was excited about it, and, although he’d also been curious how they’d all been doing all these years, he didn’t feel ready for that encounter yet.
“Well, now it’s done.” Raphael sighed again. “Now, we just have to wait until you get better enough to go home.”
“We’ll stay by your side until you feel better.” Khole reassured with a gentle smile.
“Beep!” Agreed Keith, who was still holding his hand in his.
Michael looked at all of them for a moment, before sighing and nodding, giving them a small smile through the breathing mask.
All that was left was for his stress to go back down, allowing his heart to get better again, and to be able to breathe on his own.
Of course, it didn’t need that long, the next day, Michael was out of the hospital and back home with his siblings, although they all made sure he didn’t overexert himself and didn’t do anything that could stress him out again.
A few weeks later, Khole rearranged a meeting with their trio of friends, so that Michael and her could talk to them a little more. This time, without the stress of his eye color being cited, and with a limited number of people around, Michael found himself enjoying his time, and opening up a little more about himself, although still lying about how he lived his life, as he couldn’t really tell them how he gained his life.