JAY JAY POV
I couldn't handle the stress of searching for it while wearing a fancy dress, so I quickly changed into my oversized PJs and bolted downstairs. I found Jare in the living room, looking far too relaxed for someone whose sister was in an emotional crisis.
"Jare, Jare!" I hissed, lunging toward him.
He didn't even look up from his phone. "What did you lose this time, Jay-Jay?"
I grabbed his arm and pulled him down, making him shirk a bit so I could whisper directly into his ear. "Do you have my Snorlax?" I demanded, my voice trembling with a mix of desperation and fury.
Jare pulled back, a slow, insufferable smirk spreading across his face. "I don't know... do I?"
My vision went red. This was my childhood comfort at stake. I gripped his collar, my knuckles turning white. "Tell me where it is before I actually kill you," I threatened, my voice low and dangerous. "I am not spending my first night in this house without that plushie, Jare. I mean it."
"Whoa, chill!" Jare laughed, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Fine, it's in my room. Go get it."
I let out a breath of pure relief. Thank god. Jare was acting like a jerk, but at least Keifer didn't have my childhood dignity in his clutches yet.
"What is that the twins are whispering about?" Tita Serina's voice rang out, warm and curious.
"TITA!" I squealed, immediately abandoning my interrogation of Jare to run and give her a tight hug. I genuinely missed her she was like the calm in the middle of this storm
"I missed you too, Jay-Jay," Tita said, laughing as she hugged me back.
As I pulled away, I finally noticed Keifer sitting on the sofa across from us. He wasn't relaxed. In fact, he was currently drilling a hole through Jare's head with a look of pure, unadulterated venom.
What the hell? Don't tell me he was actually jealous of my own brother. Idiot. He probably was jealous.
Then, Keifer's eyes shifted toward me. It was like watching a weather pattern change in seconds: he went from I'm going to kill someone (Jare) to I'm going to marry someone (me). The intensity was enough to make my stomach flip.
"What are you two whispering about?" Keifer asked, his voice low and possessive.
"Nothing, just Jay's—" Jare started, a mischievous glint in his eye.
"85421!" I barked at Jare.
That's our Twin Language—numbers. In London, we used it whenever we needed to talk right in front of our parents or teachers. 85421 translates to: Don't tell them or else I will kill you.
Tita and Keifer both blinked, looking at us like we had finally lost our minds.
"7902," Jare replied nonchalantly, leaning back with a shrug.
Translation: Why can't I?
"63!" I hissed back. (Because I said so!)
"Is this... a math problem?" Tita asked, looking completely bewildered by our sudden outburst of digits.
"Nothing, Tita!" I said quickly, giving her my most convincing "I'm a perfectly normal teenager" smile.
I could see Tita and Keifer exchange a look of pure confusion. To them, we probably sounded like broken calculators, but to Jare and me, the conversation was loud and clear. Keifer's eyes narrowed, his gaze darting between us as if he were trying to solve a puzzle he didn't have the pieces for. He hated not being in control, especially when it came to anything I was doing.
I didn't give him a chance to interrogate us further. I grabbed Jare by the arm and started dragging him toward the stairs. "Come on, Kuya! We have things to... organize!"
Jare stumbled after me, laughing under his breath. We practically ran up the grand staircase and bolted into his room, shutting the door behind us.
"Where is he?" I demanded, scanning the room. "Where's Snorlax?"
Jare rolled his eyes and walked over to his half-unpacked suitcase. He reached deep into the side pocket and pulled out the flattened, fuzzy blue plushie. "Here. Give the poor guy some air, Jay. You shoved him in there so tight he's lost half his stuffing."
I snatched the Snorlax out of his hands and hugged it to my chest, feeling the familiar soft fabric. "He's fine! He's a survivor!"
"JAY-JAY!" Jare suddenly bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The yell was so loud and desperate that the door practically flew off its hinges a second later. Keifer came sprinting into the room like he'd been shot out of a cannon, his face pale and his eyes wild with panic.
"What happened?! Are you okay?!" Keifer demanded, lunging toward me and grabbing my shoulders to check for injuries. He was scanning me head-to-toe as if he expected to find a crime scene.
Jare, completely ignoring Keifer's heroic entrance, shoved him off me and leaned in, looking me dead in the eye with a look of pure, unadulterated betrayal.
"Did you... by any chance... eat my chocolate?" Jare asked, his voice trembling with candy-related grief.
I froze, clutching my Snorlax tighter to my chest. A slow, incredibly awkward smile spread across my face. "You're the best?" I tried, my voice going up an octave. I knew exactly which chocolate he was talking about—it was that expensive Swiss bar I'd spotted earlier. I was hungry, and it was calling my name.
"JAY-JAY!" Jare yelled again, his soul clearly crushed into tiny pieces.
"Sorry! It's just one chocolate, and besides, you and I are equal now!" I shot back, finding my fire again. "You ate my macarons the other day! The ones from that fancy bakery I love!"
"Jay, those were the special milk chocolates I've been waiting to try!" Jare argued, throwing his hands up in frustration.
"And those were the special salted caramel macarons I wanted to try!" I countered, stepping up to him.
The two of us stood there, chest-to-chest, bickering over snacks like we were back in our nursery in London. I'd completely forgotten that the most dangerous guy in Section E was standing three feet away, watching us as if we were some kind of bizarre National Geographic documentary.
Keifer let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders finally dropping from their defensive, fight-ready stance. He looked between me and Jare, his expression shifting from 'rescue mode' to 'I am currently living with toddlers.'
But before he could even think about intervening, the situation escalated. Fast.
Jare reached behind him, grabbed a heavy feathered pillow, and thwack—he smacked me right in the shoulder.
My mouth dropped open. The Snorlax fell to the bed. I slowly turned my gaze back to my twin, my eyes narrowing into slits. "No, you did not," I whispered.
I didn't wait for an apology. I lunged for the other pillow on his bed and swung it with all the strength of a frustrated Londoner. I hit him so hard a stray feather actually flew out.
"You devil!" Jare yelled, ducking and grabbing a decorative cushion to use as a shield.
"You big monster!" I countered, hitting him again. "That chocolate was worth it!"
"It was imported, Jay! Imported!"
We were circling the bed now, breathing hard, pillows raised like medieval broadswords. Keifer was standing by the door, watching us with a look of pure disbelief. He probably expected a high-stakes family drama, not a nursery-school brawl.
"Hey, hey! Enough! Cut it out!" Keifer commanded, stepping forward and reaching out to grab my arm to stop the carnage.
"SHUT UP!" Jare and I both screamed at the exact same time, our twin-telepathy syncing up perfectly to shut down the intruder.
We didn't even look at him. We just went right back to hitting each other.
"Jay, you're dead!" Jare lunged over the mattress.
"In your dreams, Kuya!" I shrieked, landing a perfect blow to his chest that sent him tumbling backward onto the pile of laundry he hadn't put away yet.
Keifer just stood there, his hands Frozen in mid-air. He looked like he didn't know whether to be annoyed or impressed. Usually, people tremble when he raises his voice, but the Mariano twins? We were too busy debating the ethics of stolen Swiss chocolate to care about the "Boss" of Section E.
The pillows were flying, feathers were drifting through the air, and my dignity as a "sophisticated Londoner" was officially dead and buried. Jare gave me a sharp, mocking tap to my shoulder that was basically an invitation for war.
"YOU IDIOT!" I yelled, my voice ringing through the second-floor hallway.
Jare didn't wait around for the retaliation. He spun on his heel and bolted, his laughter echoing against the marble floors. I was right on his heels, clutching a stray decorative cushion like a weapon of mass destruction.
"I'm sorry, naive girl! Didn't know you were so naive!" Jare shouted over his shoulder as he practically leaped down the grand staircase, narrowly missing a very expensive-looking vase.
"Asshole!" I screamed, finally catching up to him at the bottom of the stairs and whacking him square in the back with the cushion. BAM.
"Hey, what happened?" Tita Serina asked, coming out of the dining room with a look of pure alarm.
Keifer, who had followed us down the stairs looking like he was witnessing a psychiatric breakdown, just leaned against the banister and sighed. "Food fight, Mom," he explained, waving a hand at our ridiculous display. "Apparently, chocolate is a declaration of war in London."
"No, it's not! This is a very important fight!" Jare and I shot back at the exact same time, our heads snapping toward Keifer with synchronized annoyance.
Keifer blinked, taken aback by the double-barrel Mariano glare. "I don't see why you two are snapping at me for," he muttered, his usual 'boss' persona failing him against the power of twin-telepathy.
Jare used the distraction to land another hit on my arm.
"You monkey!" I shrieked, swinging the cushion back with a vengeance.
"Donkey!" Jare shot back, ducking behind a sofa and using Tita's throw pillows as ammunition.
JAY JAY POV
"Children! Please!" Tita laughed, her voice trailing after us as we chased each other through the glass doors. "Keifer, do something before they break the chandeliers!"
But there was no stopping us. We burst out into the pool area, the humid night air hitting my face as we sprinted across the slick tiles.
"I'm sorry, but at least I don't sleep with a Snorlax!" Jare yelled over his shoulder, knowing exactly where to twist the knife.
Behind us, I heard a sharp, choked-off laugh from Keifer. My face went nuclear. I could practically feel his smug gaze burning into my back at the revelation of my sleeping habits.
"At least I don't have a teddy bear named Mr. Snuggles!" I shrieked back, pivoting around the lounge chairs.
Jare skidded to a halt near the edge of the deep end, his eyes wide with mock offense. "Don't bring Mr. Snuggles into this, Jay! He's a war hero!"
"Oh, I will!" I yelled, closing the distance between us. "Mr. Snuggles is a coward and everyone knows it!"
I could hear Tita and Keifer's laughter from the patio. Tita sounded delighted by the drama, while Keifer's laugh was that low, vibrating sound that usually made my stomach flip—except right now, I was too busy planning Jare's demise.
I reached the edge and scooped up a massive handful of pool water, throwing it straight into Jare's face.
"YOU BRAT!" Jare yelled, wiping his eyes and lunging for me.
I dodged his grasp, a wicked smile spreading across my face. I saw my opening. I planted my feet and gave him a two-handed shove right in the center of his chest, intended to send him flying. "Victory for the Snorlax!"
But Jare is a Mariano, and he doesn't go down alone.
As his heels left the tile, his hand shot out like a bolt of lightning, latching onto my wrist with an iron grip.
"AHHHH!" I yelped, my eyes widening in pure horror as gravity took over.
SPLASH!
The world turned into a cold, blue blur as we both hit the water simultaneously. I resurfaced a second later, gasping for air and pushing my soaking wet hair out of my face. Jare popped up right next to me, spitting out water and laughing like a maniac.
I wiped my eyes and looked toward the edge of the pool. Tita was clutching her stomach from laughing so hard, but Keifer...
Keifer was standing right at the edge, looking down at me in my soaking wet PJs. The amusement in his eyes had shifted into something else—that dark, intense look he gets when he's looking at something he wants to keep.
"Nice dive, Jay-Jay," he murmured, his voice cutting through the sound of the splashing water. "But I think you just gave me another ten reasons to keep you in this house forever."
I resurfaced, spitting out a mouthful of chlorinated water and squinting through my soaking wet lashes. Jare was right next to me, shaking his head like a dog and laughing his head off.
"You idiot! Why did you take me with you?!" I shrieked, swinging a watery fist and hitting him in the shoulder.
"You pushed me first! What did you expect, a thank-you note?" Jare shot back, splashing me right in the face to get even.
"I expected you to go down with dignity!" I sputtered, wiping my eyes.
We were in the middle of a full-blown water war, completely forgetting that we weren't in our backyard in London anymore. The grand pool area of the mansion was now our battlefield.
Suddenly, Keifer's voice cut through the splashing like a cold blade.
"Enough."
I stopped mid-splash and looked up. Keifer was standing right at the edge of the pool, his shadow stretching over the water. He didn't look amused anymore. He was looking down at me—soaking wet, hair plastered to my face, my PJs clinging to my skin—with an expression that made the water around me feel ten degrees hotter.
"Jay-Jay," he said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, gravelly register that always made my heart skip a beat. "Pay up. You used way too many profanities during that little tantrum."
My heart did an undignified thump against my ribs. I looked at Jare, who had suddenly gone very quiet, and then back at Keifer. He was counting. I could see it in the way his jaw was set.
"I—I was under duress!" I argued, my voice shaking slightly. "It doesn't count if I'm being drowned by my own twin!"
"It counts," Keifer murmured, crouching down at the very edge of the tile so he was eye-level with me. He reached out, his fingers grazing the wet hair at my temple. "Asshole. Idiot. Monkey. Big monster. I think we're looking at a very long night of debt collection, Jay-Jay."
Tita Serina was still laughing in the background, probably thinking Keifer was just being his usual bossy self, but I knew better. I saw the way his eyes tracked the movement of my mouth.
"Jare, help me," I whispered, looking toward my brother.
Jare, the traitor, just started paddling toward the steps on the far side of the pool. "Sorry, Jay. I've got my own problems. I need to go find Mr. Snuggles and apologize for your slander. You're on your own with the President."
"Jare! Don't you dare leave me here!" I yelled, but he was already climbing out, leaving a trail of water behind him.
I turned back to Keifer, who was still watching me with that predatory intensity. He held out a hand, his fingers beckoning.
"Out of the pool, Jay-Jay," he commanded softly. "Before I decide to come in there and collect the first installment right now."
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