Silver medals were better than no medals at all. Kai read his email time and time again, confirmed it with the company, and he was now waiting at his computer to get a message from a vocalist named Len.
While Kai didn't win the grand prize to win a trip to see the band front row and have dinner with them with so many other prizes, a chance to have a talk with Len sounded exciting. He had so many questions for the lead singer, including how a young man at the age of only 16 could get so popular! Kai had his theories, but while he was intelligent to think of several reasons, he wasn't curious enough to dig into tabloids to see what the 'dirt' on Len was. He didn't need to get into those weird articles though, he could just straight out ask Len!
Kai received a notification on Twitter, a new message. With a deep breath, he opened the notification and saw the message was from Len's account with a simple word.
"Hi."
"Are you really Len?" Kai asked through the text. While Twitter stated the message was from Len's account, that didn't mean anything. He immediately suspected Len hired someone to talk from his account and Kai was just talking to some strange person, though he wished he was able to confirm that it was Len somehow. What was he supposed to do? If he asked Len to say something that only Len would know, how would Kai even know it? It wasn't as if he knew the singer that well. He wasn't his brother or anything!
"Yeah. You want to see a picture or something?" Len's account replied, and not a moment later, the account sent Kai a picture. The picture was of Len, a young 16 year old with short blonde hair and a thin body sticking his tongue out in the picture and one hand held up with two fingers. "Or would you like another custom picture?"
That was all the proof Kai needed. He could ask for another picture, heck maybe he could try to sell it online, but he wasn't sure about the monetary value of such pictures. "No, I'm good." He replied. He wished he could think of other things to say to Len. Len was such a popular singer with millions of followers, and Kai was... Kai. The two of them lived two entirely different lives.
Then, Len asked Kai a question. "So, you have me for the next few hours. What do you want to talk about?"
'What DO I want to talk about?' Kai thought to himself as he looked at that question while thinking about his own. He stared at the question, and after a few moments, he noticed Len typing again.
"Can't think of anything, can you? Maybe it would be better if I asked the questions?" Len added.
Kai's mind was already filled with fog, but as Len asked him that question, the mist completely enveloped his head. He couldn't ask Len anything, purely because he wasn't able to think of even the simplest question. "Yeah, sure. If I can think of anything to ask you, I'll bring it up." He tried to sound confident in his response, but it was hard to express emotion through text alone.
"Sounds good. I'm looking at your profile now, but I don't see your age on it. How old are you?"
'I'm guessing he'd want to know for his demographic.' Kai already knew Len was a very young 16 years of age, yet his talent seemed limitless. Kai posted a few things on Twitter, but he didn't like to post much about his personal life, including his age. "I'm 23."
After a moment, Len's account responded. "Lol, 23? That sounds old! Are you sure you're 23? You type like you're much younger."
'How do you type younger? I don't use emojis or that 'lol' thing.' Kai wasn't that old! With Len's comment, Kai swore he could feel gray on his head. "What do you mean? How young do you think I am?" He tried to sound as mature as possible, but again it was hard to put such things into simple text. He wished he could meet Len face to face, then he could speak down to him with that question with a tone and an expression that would scold him! 'Wait...why don't I use emojis?' He clicked a smiley icon below the chat to reveal countless small pictures that might describe one's emotion. He decided on a picture of a red face with furrowed eyes and a scowl aimed directly at whoever was looking at it. Confident he picked the right picture, he sent the message.
"If I had to guess I'd say, 21 or younger." Len replied after a short delay. "Your cute angry face says it all."
'That is a really weird age to pick.' Kai thought. What was the difference between how a 21 year old would type and a 23 year old? Two years shouldn't make that much of a difference in personality to type extremely differently. Twenty years maybe, but definitely not two. The 'or younger' didn't quite justify saying he was only a few years younger anyways. Maybe Len just didn't know how to talk to adults! Kai was old enough to be considered an adult! After all he was...
How old was he, again?
Kai quickly checked his Twitter profile and saw his age and birthdate, August 28th, 2001? No, that would make him... well, that would actually make him 21 years old at this date, but he swore he was born before that. Then again, he remembered the days when he was a kid how he talked about how he was born before 2000 because 'all of the cool kids were born before 2000' from what he heard older kids talking about one day. 'Maybe I am 21. I guess it's normal for a person to forget their age once they have so many birthdays.' He thought, and then let out a soft sigh. He was going to respond to Len, but he noticed Len was typing another message.
"I can understand people lying about their age online. You know, safety and all. I bet you learned that from mom, right? Where is she now?"
'What kind of question is THAT? Mom's at work right now!' Kai immediately thought, but then paused at his own mental answer. He knew mom worked a lot, but why did it matter where she was? He was old enough to no longer be living at home! Len just sounded so... Kai wished he could describe it. Maybe Len was just being an immature brat, he knew Len could behave like that behind the scenes from what few clips he saw.
"I thought I should be asking you the questions." He replied. After all, this was an interview for Kai to ask Len questions. Sure, he couldn't quite think of a lot of questions to ask Len, but Len was getting awfully personal about Kai's life. Before he knew it, Len would be asking his mother's maiden name, credit card number, and address!
"Then go ahead, ask me a question." Len was quick to reply to Kai's comment.
Part of Kai wanted to close this window and end this conversation. That's all he had to do was end the interview, just hit that little X button in the corner and then he could go about his life as a normal 21 year old. Although, he could ask Len why he was being so rude about his age and asking him questions about his mother. Len's behavior brought up one question that Kai had to ask. "How did you get so famous?" Maybe Len got rude after he became famous, Kai didn't know.
"You never read any of my books or listened to my bios that explained it?" Len asked. "It's all there. TLDR. Heck, you were there for a lot of it! You're a big fan after all."
Kai was about to argue that he wasn't that large of a fan, but he paused. He didn't like to talk about how much he liked Len's singing as it felt weird to discuss the career of a 16 year old. He was what he liked to call a closet fanboy. Something about that very idea felt bizarre, but he wasn't able to think of himself as anything else. Still, even if he were a fan, he didn't know everything there was to know about Len. He was more curious about it now more than a few minutes ago though.
"Think about it. Remember the choir group I started out in? You were there."
Kai read Len's statement again and again. Len's choir group? Of course, one had to start singing somewhere in order to get famous. Whether it was a choir group or a talent show, or maybe a combination of both. One had to dedicate a lot of time to singing and adjusting their voice as needed to get that oh-so-right pitch and tone. Singing was much harder than it looked and while everyone could sing, it took time and talent to sing well. Len had a natural gift, a way to hit all of those right notes, every key right on time. He was the one that did the solo during the Christmas pageant, and Kai was right there watching him!
'How do I know that?' He immediately thought as he recalled seeing Len before his career took off. He was about to type and ask Len for himself, but such a question would be bizarre.
"I mean, it's been years. I'm not going to remember that very well." Kai replied, unsure of what else to say to Len.
"You took pictures, didn't you? Check your photo album, you must have them!"
Kai took pictures? He didn't remember taking pictures, but then again the choir was ages ago and he barely knew what he ate last week. He opened up his documents and flipped through his photos and, sure enough, he found a picture that was, albeit low quality, no doubt himself taking a picture of a choir group with a much younger Len in front. The choir all wore the same white tops with blue bottoms. "Huh, I guess I do have those photos." He said aloud, but then he remembered he had to reply to Len. "Yeah, I still have some."
"Even from the very beginning of the choir group, before I became famous, before people knew me. You were there. :) " Len added with a smiley emote at the end.
Kai glanced at that emote and immediately suspected Len knew how to use emojis as well as a friend of his, that is only using them in ways that would creep him out. He flipped through the photos and saw one of every choir event that Len was in high school, even some from middle school! How did Kai have all of these photos! He closed the album and swore he saw more pictures than he had moments ago. How could he have gone to so many choir groups. He thought back and remembered the holiday pageants with Len. 'But, how do I even know this. I'm not... I mean, am I in the same country as him?' He didn't recall what country Len was born and raised in. He knew Len was born somewhere else and migrated to another country, but neither country he was born or raised in was the same as Kai's, right? Len played technically foreign music, and it was very good foreign music, but still not from where he lived. So many things weren't making sense. "Okay, I guess. I don't get how I got those pictures."
"How come? You should know since you're the one that took all those pictures! You live in the same country as I do!"
Kai blinked confusedly at that statement. It was as if Len knew Kai questioned where he lived. Where did Kai live? He never really liked to speak about his country to others, let alone talk about it himself. 'I guess... I do live in the same country? Or I did?' Still, Len migrated at some point. Did he change countries as well? Maybe he followed Len, or it was just coincidental that the two wound up in the same part of the world repeatedly. "Sorry, I'm just perplexed." He replied honestly. How long were they supposed to keep talking even? He had never checked on that, nor did he even remember it in the email.
Len replied with a text that sounded incredibly confident for his age. "Everyone gets confused in their lives. I guess you're younger than I thought though if you're really THAT confused. You must be 18 years old if I had to guess? You're old enough that you don't have to lie about your age on those age verification pages, but even if you weren't, you could always be dishonest anyways."
Kai recalled one time he had to lie about his age in order to access a website, not that it was one of those NSFW websites, but it just required a person either be over a certain age or get their parent's written permission, but that was ages ago. As he thought about that website, he couldn't help but think something was off about it, but something was off about several things. He moved his mouse over to the X icon in the window, ready to close the interview, but was it really the interview that was confusing him, or was he just unsure about himself? He swore he knew more about his life than anyone else, but then Len just started... questioning things. Was he really 18? He had to check, just to be sure. He double clicked on his profile and saw that his age did indeed say he was 18 years old. "Okay, but the internet can lie." He said aloud. Len said it themselves, it was easy to not tell the truth online. "BRB." He typed to Len, and then he pulled himself out of his chair. He had to see for himself. He had to check his ID and birth certificate. Those two things couldn't lie to him!
Kai walked to the bathroom with his hands clenched into fists and a look of determination on his face. He opened up his bedroom door and went straight to his bathroom directly across the hallway, not bothering to look around the rest of his house. Why pay attention to detail? It was his house, and he knew it like the back of his hand! He closed the bathroom door, looked at the back of his hand, as if to prove a point, and raised a brow. "Hey, that's new."
Kai immediately noticed one thing once he was in the bathroom. His height looked the same, but a person typically stopped growing after their teenage years anyways. His weight was down though, and he figured that out by checking the scale. Normally, a decrease in one's weight would be a good thing, but this was by more than 20 pounds, and that was extremely abnormal as Kai knew he weighed himself every morning and that he weighed much, much more. He mentally cursed himself for not grabbing one of the more advanced scales that kept track of weight and opted instead for a basic one that just told his weight here and now.
Kai then examined his face carefully. Just like he wished he had gotten the advanced scale, he also wished he had taken a picture of his face every day to have something to look at. He definitely felt much younger than before. His face was clean shaven and his hair was short. 'I... how did I look before?' It was a struggle to remember what was different, or was there really anything different? He felt more youthful, and he looked it, but was that really because of getting younger? What difference did... How many years was he before? Every time he looked at himself, he had another question regarding his body. He dared not look over the rest of his body as he wasn't sure what really changed. His clothes felt larger, but only a size larger, which often wouldn't make a substantial difference. He was pretty sure he wore the same shirt and that hadn't changed. Had anything altered at all. He grabbed his head, struggling to remember what was so... different.
'Was... was my hair always like a mixture between brown and blonde?'
Kai scratched his head in confusion. The more he looked at himself and his young body, the more right it felt. What did he once look like, if he looked like anything else at all? He had a clean shaven face, dirty blonde hair, and a body that, while not muscular, was far from fat. "I guess... this is right?" He told himself. With nothing to compare it to in his mind, he briefly wondered about pictures, but he never was one to take photos of himself, just his surroundings.
Kai walked back into his room and sat down on his computer. He saw Len's online notification stating he was still on, though nothing else had been said. The moment he sat down though, he noticed Len was typing again.
"Welcome back."
'I... huh?' Kai replied with a very quick response. "How did you know I was back? I didn't do or say anything!"
"Lucky guess. So, are you going to ask questions, or should I keep asking them?"
Kai's mind raced with questions to ask Len, not about Len, but about himself. Nothing seemed to make sense with what Len was telling him. How much of it was true, and how much of it was false a minute ago but was true now. He raised his fingers and hovered them above the keyboard, but he was unsure how to ask him the questions in his mind.
"Come on, an energetic person such as yourself must have something to say. Like, getting you to stop talking sometimes is difficult! How is it so easy now?"
Kai scrolled up and noticed a lot more messages to Len than he recalled. Was he that energetic? There was no way he had that much energy! How dare Len tell him such lies! "What am I supposed to say? I'm just really confused. I don't understand all these things you're telling me, like how do you know so much about me when I don't know that much about you? Why are you telling me my age and I swear I'm older than what you say I am!" If Len wanted him to be energetic, he'd get energetic, and Kai would make sure he regretted that.
Len simply gave a smile emote before he spoke again. "You're beginning to remind me of my sister. Are you familiar with the works of Rin?"
Kai was about to answer no, but the picture of Rin popped into his head the moment Len asked him that question. Rin was the younger sister of Len, and a vocaloid, a singer of sorts just like Len. Of course Kai knew who Rin was! The two of them had strong resemblances. Len and Rin were both extremely popular, though Len had a slight edge in fans and age. He wanted to type a short reply, but his energy made him want to say more than a simple one word answer. "Yeah I know about her and how she sings. She's a really good singer who has all kinds of followers on her Twitter page." Did he follow Rin? He'd have to look at that after entering this message.
"The two of you work together now and then and produce some amazing stuff."
"Yeah she's a pretty good singer. I bet you want to know all about her life as much as you do mine, don't you? Or maybe you don't need to know that much about Rin." Len replied with a smiley emote, followed by a link to a Twitter page that said Rin on it, complete with the picture of the young 16 year old female with bright blonde hair and blue eyes, smiling at the camera with her arms raised back behind her head.
'Do I really want to know? Man, I really don't need to know everything about her life, I can check her life on Twitter!' Kai clicked on the Twitter page for Rin, but as he clicked it, it brought him to his profile where he had... 100 followers? He was sure he didn't have that many people following his activities. 'Strange. Okay... maybe it was just a glitch.' Kai tried again to check on Rin's page, but it refreshed his own page where he now had 120 followers. "What's going on?" Rin had a page, didn't she? He tried typing in her name and saw Rin appear with her blonde hair, but when he clicked that page, it just brought him to his own Twitter profile!
Kai was able to click on Len's page, as well as the page of his various friends, but every time he clicked on Rin's page, it just brought him to his own. "Glitch it is." He told himself before realizing he hadn't replied to Len. "Is something wrong with her Twitter page because I wanted to know if I really did need to know a lot about her and it just keeps bringing it to my page which is super weird. Like, I'm not Rin."
Len gave a response, though a bizarre one. "Of course you aren't, but have you ever heard of roleplaying? What if you roleplayed being her?"
Kai heard of roleplay. He had sometimes acted out a character now and then, but to act out a real person like Rin was a little too strange for his tastes. 'Yeah, like I have her personality and her Twitter page and everything.' Kai scrolled down the Twitter page that was both his and Rins and noticed that he had his own Twitter posts, but a few other ones he didn't recognize. "What is this?" He saw what appeared to be a picture of a concert, but a virtual one with Rin in front and a virtual background in the back with many likes and comments. Did Rin do a virtual performance for everyone on Twitter? Or maybe she did it on another website.
Kai asked Len a question, one to his strange request. "You want me to roleplay being your sister?" He swapped between talking with Len and viewing his bizarre mixed Twitter page.
"I'm not saying you have to, but it would be amusing if you did. You're energetic just like her, you go to a lot of choir groups just like her, and you're 18 years old based on your Twitter profile. You're only two years older than she is! I bet you're witty and cheerful too."
'Witty and cheerful given my situation?' Kai mentally scoffed, but he had a huge smile on his face. Of course witty was a compliment, but he'd hardly describe himself as cheerful. As he looked through the Twitter profile of himself though he noticed he was smiling an awful lot more in those pictures than normal, and his hair looked to be a dirty blonde? Was he always a dirty blonde? He swore he started blonde but then his hair turned brown at some point. He scratched his head with confusion and tried to pull a strand of hair down in front of him to look at it, unable to get it down quite enough to get it in his view. 'Something just feels really off, like there's no way I'm that much like Rin.' He figured instead of looking up on Twitter for Rin that he'd just search online for her. He immediately typed in Rin's first and last name without double checking and saw her wiki page, but he got another message before he clicked on it. This message wasn't from Len, but someone else.
"Hey Kai! Are you chatting with Len yet?"
Kai raised a brow and checked who the message was from only to notice it was Lisa! Kai and Lisa were good friends, having connected since... well, Kai wished he could remember. Lisa said something about crazy horses and Japanese stuff but Kai just brushed it off. "Yeah." He replied to Lisa. "I'm just talking with him now and he's talking about some really strange stuff about how much I actually know him. It's pretty weird. I didn't even think I lived within the same country as he did but I guess I do." One thing an energetic personality did was often cause a lot more talking than he normally should have.
"Yeah I was going to ask you about your homework but then when I went to check your school profile page it didn't show up. You're still on Twitter but your page looks super weird and you have a LOT of followers. Over 200?" Lisa asked.
Len spoke up a minute after Lisa did. "So, what do you want to talk about next? Do you want to talk about the choir group? We were talking about how close you were, but did you know how you were in it?"
Kai was getting confused between the two messages. He decided to reply to Lisa first. "Maybe the school profile page went down. It's not like you can send me a message there anyways." He didn't know how to respond to the Twitter page. He swore it was just his page that got messed up, but the fact that he couldn't see Rin's page was disturbing. He tried to open Twitter on his phone, only to find that going to Rin's page went to his, and that his profile picture seemed to look different with every refresh, as if he was getting younger every time he inspected the profile. 'Guh. I'm not THAT young. I'm like... 18.' He thought to himself, unable to think that an older age was appropriate. How could it have been?
Then, he replied to Len. "I don't remember being in a choir group for very long." He recalled being in choir, but it was more because the high school told him he had to be either in music class or choir, and since he had no musical talent, he went with singing, not that he remembered being very good at that either.
"Yeah but you look different! I'm also looking at some classroom photos and you're not in any of them. Something's wrong Kai. Did you deal with another horse because I swear you're transforming again. I want to know everything you're doing right now and what you did ten minutes ago."
Kai read Lisa's response. It was hard to tell if she was being serious, but Kai recalled Lisa to always be the serious type. "I didn't deal with any magical horse." Kai scoffed. Dealings with a magical horse. Who would even do that? It might make a good fantasy story, but he would never support their works or join their discord. "I'm just talking with Len, nothing more." He didn't remember why he was talking with Len. Didn't he win a contest of some sort? He checked his emails just to confirm but he saw no such email stating he won anything. 'Huh. Maybe I'm just... casually speaking with him? How am I doing that though? Len's got like a million followers and I have... 500?' Maybe Lisa was right, something smelled fishy.
"I thought you entered a contest to go to a live concert to be with Len?" Lisa pondered.
"Hey I see you online! Are you talking to one of your fans? :)" Len asked immediately after Lisa spoke her question.
Keeping up with two people was difficult for Kai. He swapped from one person and then the other. He didn't enter a contest to speak with Len! There was no email. He scrolled up to see the entire conversation that he and Len had and noticed Kai was talking a lot about various subjects, switching between one thing and another, something he had a tendency to do, but nothing about a contest.
"Why would I enter a concert to see him? I'm his friend on Twitter. I don't have to win some contest to talk to him!" Kai replied with confidence, but only after he hit send, he wondered how he was as close to Len as he said he was.
Kai then replied to Len. "I'm talking with another friend. She says I entered a contest to talk with you but that doesn't sound right at all." Kai knew Len long enough that he didn't need to enter some stupid contest to talk to him! '...how do I know him again? Ah well, like that matters.'
"That does sound weird. Heck, we were in choir together. You were so energetic, always talking so much about your life and living with mom and dad and what you wanted to do with life. You really liked singing but everyone said you should try to go for a real job lol." Len replied.
Kai read Len's response once, and then he read it again. He remembered the choir group, he remembered watching the choir, but in the choir with Len? Kai decided to check the pictures of the choir group again. He clicked on his photos and found the choir group folder. A quick double click and examining the first photo it was of him and Len. The two weren't pictured side by side, but in an arrangement of people. Moreover, Kai's hair was entirely blonde, even older in life. He brushed his fingers over his head and was able to get a look at one of his locks, noticing that it was very much blonde, as blonde as when he was young. 'W-what...?'
"I know you'll find it hard to believe Kai, but stop talking to Len. I know something's going on with you and him. Your Twitter feed just changed and includes a bunch of stuff of you singing! You're a horrible singer Kai! Remember one time you sang on the bus and that kid broke a window pretending it was your terrible singing?" Lisa texted. "Think Kai!"
'Why would I sing on the bus in the first place if I weren't a singer at all?' Kai pondered .Moreover, why was singing even brought up? He checked his Twitter feed and noticed in addition with his usual posts about the shenanigans he would do, there were also photos of him singing as a virtual character online, but no actual videos. The photos of him singing got a lot more likes and comments compared to his normal comments, and he had more than 1000 followers. Something was definitely up, but he didn't know what.
"Len, I'm talking with a friend. She says I'm not a singer and I'm horrible at it."
"You're not horrible! Why, you're the second best singer in the choir group! That person is just a hater. You should block them from telling you stuff like that."
Kai read Len's message, and then went back to Lisa to see her typing again, undoubtedly a very long message. He swore he was friends with Lisa, why would she tell him stuff like that? Was it to try to make him a better singer? "I just don't remember ever being in the choir with you." He replied to Len. He knew about the choir, he knew about being in one for a brief period, but being in the same one with the mega star that was Len? No way!
"You still have your yearbook, don't you? You were in the choir so you'll be in that picture not far from me! Go look at last year's!"
Kai had his yearbook somewhere. He wasn't exactly obsessed with reading his school books, granted. He pulled himself out of his chair and glanced through his bookshelf. He saw the thin blue and gold spine of his yearbook and tugged it out. 'There's no way I'm in school with him, right? Or was I? I'm 18 and he's 16. That's a 2 year gap. How could we be in the same choir class?' Nothing Len was saying added up. He had to check for himself, and this yearbook was the answer.
Kai pulled out his yearbook and glanced through it, but before he managed to get to his page, he got another text from Lin.
"Just remember how old you actually are before you do! They sort the yearbook photos by age!"
'Yeah, I'm 18, just as I thought.' Kai rolled his eyes. He'd respond to Lisa in a moment, after he figured out this perplexing puzzle. He decided to flip to the group part of the book before checking his individual one and, sure enough, there he was in the choir group with Len. "Huh..." Why couldn't he ever remember being with Len? Was it so long ago? But this choir was from last year!
Kai then decided to check farther back in the yearbook. He'd worry about his blonde hair and frail looking hands later. He flipped through the pages and went to the pages of the older kids to try to find himself, yet he wasn't on a single page. 'This is so bizarre. Remember how old I actually am? I swore I was 18... maybe I'm 17 going on 18? Yeah, this book is a bit older after all, that would make sense if I'm in the previous year.' Forget the messages from Len or... who was that girl? Ah, what did it matter?
Kai went back another year and looked for himself. He knew what he looked like! He had blonde hair and... what were the color of his eyes? Ah, minor details. He skimmed through another year and found not a single picture of himself. 'Okay, this is bizarre.' Kai knew he could try the previous year, but if he did then that would be the same year that Len was in. Kai wasn't as old as Len, was he?
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
Kai didn't have much time to read through that year of the yearbook as he noticed several other notifications from people he didn't know. He clicked on settings on his profile and changed it so that he could only accept messages from friends, not even thinking about how Len wasn't on his friend list moments ago. He briefly noticed his followers count well into the thousands, but that didn't matter to him. He was too focused on finding himself in the yearbook. He briefly saw a few messages from Lisa and Len, but he ignored them until he resolved this mystery.
As he flipped through yet another year in the book, he realized just how young everyone in this book looked. He glanced down briefly at his hairless arm, and then back at the photos. Something was off, but something had always felt off ever since he started chatting with Len. Maybe Lisa had a good point about something strange happening, or maybe Lisa was just jealous. He had plenty of fans that were jealous of him! He flipped one more page in the book and he saw himself. He saw the blonde hair and... were those blue eyes? He placed his finger on his photo and moved it down gently. His short blonde hair, his blue eyes, his clean face and his... was that the top of a schoolgirl uniform? The picture only showed his shoulders and head, but the uniform definitely cropped lower than a male's outfit. Heck, Len was right next to her, no him!
"Okay, so I'm in the yearbook, but they put me in the wrong year and in the wrong outfit." Kai responded to Len, ignoring the other comments Len had said in the meantime. "It doesn't make sense. Why would they put me in a girl's outfit that day?" His energetic energy had gone down, though he blamed that on his confusion over trying to figure out just what was going on.
It took a moment for Len to reply, as if he were trying to think of the right words to say. "What do you mean about that day? You always wore girlish clothing. The only difference about that day was that it was picture day."
Kai wasn't sure why he'd wear girlish clothing, but as Len spoke about it, surely it must be true. He then heard another notification from Lisa, and then another. He checked her messages and she was stating something about how Kai had to remember who he was? That sounded ridiculous! He didn't even bother reading the entire message Lisa sent him before he returned back to Len. "I guess, but I don't remember being the same age as you." He checked the yearbook again and again to see his picture, and then the picture on his Twitter page. No doubt, his images matched.
"You're witty and energetic, but that doesn't make you intelligent. :)" Len replied with an emote.
Kai swore he heard Len laughing on the other end of the screen, as if he picked up his voice perfectly. How dare Len! How could Kai be witty but not intelligent? "What are you talking about? I know my own age! I'm..." Kai began typing his response, but paused. What WAS his age? He scrolled up to see the earlier conversation, though it wasn't the same conversation he remembered. Len talked about how Kai was 16 years old? No way! Kai had to be older than that! Sure he lived with his parents, but age didn't matter when it came to that. He checked his identification and it did indeed confirm he was 16 just like the Twitter profile page that he refreshed so constantly and saw that he had more followers than before each time. 'Wasn't I checking Rin's profile anyways? What's up with that?' He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "I know my age, we mentioned it earlier. I just don't get what's going on because things feel so weird today! I don't feel like myself and you're not helping, you're teasing me like you're some kind of big brother!" Where did that comparison come from? Ah well, like it mattered.
"You just didn't get enough sleep after the last concert is all. I know how you can be and I told you that was going to happen if you stayed up all night! Go get some sleep and you'll feel better. We can practice after a few hours." Len replied.
Now Len was talking nonsense. Concert? Practice? What was there to practice? Kai scratched his head and stared at the response. He kept getting pings from Lisa including private messages, but boy that fan was getting annoying! He opened up Lisa's profile and promptly removed her from his friend list so she wouldn't be able to contact him. He then closed the chat, deleted her messages, and went back to Len. "I don't know what you're talking about. We did a concert? I don't remember doing a concert, and while I don't remember a lot of things, I would have remembered singing!"
It took a moment before Len replied, but when he did, his response was but a simple link, an html. Kai clicked the link and it brought him to a video of Len singing side by side with a strange woman... It took Kai a moment to realize the woman looked an awful lot like him! He heard the high voice, the language, the way she moved, the female's hands, and he looked down at his own hands. There was no mistaking it, Kai was with Len, but he wasn't a good singer like that! He could only respond with but a single word. "What?" He didn't get it. He was Kai, wasn't he?
"What what? That's you and me on stage together. You really don't remember? Man Rin, you really have to stop doing that roleplaying as that weird cat guy. It's starting to get into your head."
'Rin?' Kai asked with confusion. Who was Rin? He was Kai! "Yeah, right. Roleplaying as a cat guy? I know who I am. Come on Len, stop messing around with my head! Stop teasing me!" God, he hated how Len liked to taunt and torment him. Then again, brothers were always like that. Len was older than he was, so it was so natural for him to be taunted. He didn't think about how strange that thought was for a moment.
"Yeah, you know who you are and you keep thinking like that Kai person. Come on Rin, snap out of it. You're so tired you think you're that weird guy. Go get some rest already. Don't make me come over there! I know where you live! We live in the same house!"
Kai had to take a moment to look around his room. Everything looked identical. The posters of himself and Len, countless music albums lined up on the wall with a television to the side, complete with a game console and a large variety of games to play. He read the name Rin again and then thought about his name as Kai. He was Kai, wasn't he? He clicked on his Twitter profile and noticed it read as Rin, any attempt to find any Twitter named 'Kai' proved fruitless. "What?" He spoke with a much higher pitch and tone voice than he remembered, but that was the least of his worries. His brows furrowed to the Len on screen. "I don't care! You're teasing me and you're making fun of me and you're confusing me!" He took a deep breath, as if ready to call his mom, but paused. Was this really right? He was Kai wasn't he? He tried to remember who Kai was, and then himself.
"Oh look, I didn't mean to get you upset. Let's start with your name. What is your name, Rin?"
Kai rubbed his temples. He looked at the name Len gave him, and then closed his eyes. Rin, Rin... His Twitter profile said he was Rin, his ID said he was Rin, and when he looked at the yearbook, even that said he was Rin. Rin, the vocalist with short blonde hair and blue eyes, yeah he was Rin. That Lisa character was probably upset that he quit roleplaying as Kyle earlier, or whatever the name of that cat was. "Rin." Rin replied. "My name is Rin, you know that Len!"
"Okay, and what's your gender? I know you like to roleplay as other genders, so... what's yours? What is Rin's gender?"
Rin felt as if she were a toddler being asked several questions by her mother. Of course she was female! Wait... was she? She checked all of her profiles again. It began to make sense why Rin wore feminine clothing, because Rin was female. She was at the age where she hadn't really developed curves yet, well that's what she told herself anyways. She wasn't going to be super thorough in checking her gender, she just knew what it was. "Female, duh. I'm female. Kia or Kyle or Kish whatever is male. There's no harm in pretending to be another gender online." Heck, it was easier to hide her identity by pretending to be another gender.
"That's good. Now, you were getting a message from... who was it? Lisa? What do you think of her?" Len asked.
Kai, no, Rin, never recalled ever telling Len that it was Lisa that was contacting her. She would have thought something was off if there weren't nearly countless things that were bizarre already. No, the name ran through her head but she drew a blank. Lisa was the name of the person sending her tons of messages, but they weren't worth looking at. "Some fan, I think." She said, though she wasn't sure. Her mind ran a mile a minute, but to no definitive answer as to who this Lisa person was. "Sounds like a nerd if you ask me."
"And what about me? What do you think of me? :)" Len asked with a smiley emote.
Rin had to pause to think about that. What did she think of Len? Len was annoying, a bratty older... relative? Cousin? No, he was closer than that. She looked up at the two of them singing side by side and slightly blushed at the sight of herself. What was the two's relationship? They were close, not intimate, that was disgusting! They were something else though. "Give me a hint, I don't know." She replied, although she sounded as if she were teasing. Part of her knew the answer deep down, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to say it, as if something was blocking her from telling the truth.
"Don't think too hard about it. Lisa was a close friend, who do you think took all those pictures at choir practice? So you're not related to her, she's a fan, a fan out of the thousands of fans we both have. We sing either alone or together, we live in the same house, you just don't talk to me much because our house is pretty big from the amount of money we make! Think. If you're a singer like me, if we live together, if we're both 16, what does that make us?"
"A young married couple?" Rin replied with a scoff and a roll of her eyes. The two of them were related. She checked Len's profile and noticed the two of them had the same last name, and although Len had a much greater number of followers, Rin had a sizable amount herself. The two of them sang wonderfully alone, but they were unstoppable together. If only the two of them could stop teasing one another. "Maybe I'd stop roleplaying as K... whatever his name if you were around to help me out more often!" Her mind was so foggy with memories between her and what the former male was. She almost wanted to see herself in the mirror to confirm she really was herself with her blonde hair and blue eyes. She was shorter than Len was, which made Len seem to be the bigger one. Technically he was older than she was, but... how much was it by? Rin couldn't recall.
"What can I say, we both have busy schedules. Speaking of which, you still didn't get any sleep! You need to go do that now before tonight! Your head will be cleared once you do that. So get some sleep now! Stop working and focus on relaxing for a bit, you work too hard Rin. Your older brother commands you to sleep!"
Rin let out a sigh. Maybe Len was right. "Fine." She texted back. Whenever she texted back a short response with her energy, it was rarely a good sign. She closed down her computer and went into the bathroom one more time to see herself in the mirror. As she opened the door to her bedroom, she glanced to the right and noticed the other closed door where Len was. The two of them really did live in the same house.
Rin walked into the bathroom and saw her look, the same hair that she always knew, her blue eyes, her body that looked a bit thin without curves, but who needed them! She had a great singing voice, and damn she was proud of it! With a smile on her face, she confirmed she was really Rin and not that... male person, and walked out. She went back to her room and then glanced at her bed. Maybe sleep really would be a good idea. A quick nap, and she'd wake up a new person. At least, that's what her mother told her. With a light smile on her face she crawled into bed and closed her eyes. Hah, thinking she was someone else, that would have made for one crazy story. She'd pay someone to write a story like that though. Heck if they had a patreon, she'd join it, and their discord too.
