Chapter Text
Ciel, when things didn’t go according to plan, was always at a loss. Unlike his twin, he was no stranger to pitying glances or pushes in the back wherever he went. Having passed the school years of his youth, which he proudly carried under the protection of his brother, Ciel now faced a hundred roads to student life.
And, certainly, his plans didn’t include his parents' plans. With her unilateral decision, his mother stunned him with great joy at the family table during breakfast, not at all considering it necessary to introduce him carefully:
“Ciel, your father and I decided that you two should go to different universities.”
Not only Ciel himself didn’t like the news, Gabriel was also seriously indignant:
“Do you even imagine what could happen to him? Dad, this is absurd! Twins shouldn’t be separated!”
Only Gabriel always had the courage to go against their parents and challenge their word, protecting the younger one. Ciel looked at their calm parents with only one question:
“Why?”
“For your own good, dear,” Rachel smiled. “You see, when we sent both of you to the same school, we didn’t think at all that… In general, you need to learn to live without your brother.”
The dialogue didn’t go further, but Gabriel seemed to lose his temper:
“Mum, what nonsense is this? Why separate us? This is ridiculous. He can’t cope without me, let me at least spend the first year with him. I’m not at all ready to part with him,” Ciel watched as excitement splashed in his brother’s eyes, and then a worried look fell on him. “Tell them, Ciel!”
The air thickened in his throat, forcing him to swallow an ephemeral lump. Suddenly, Ciel, who found himself in the center of attention, was confused. Gabriel looked at him pleadingly:
“Do you really want to leave me alone?”
At seventeen, Ciel understood that it was high time to learn to be like his brother: to stand firmly on his feet, talk to people without difficulty, and be able to stand up for himself in any situation. However, now he probably looks much more pitiful than yesterday in front of the mirror.
It shouldn’t be that difficult, right?
He smiles at his reflection, trying to radiate at least a drop of the confidence that comes from his father and brother, and holds out his hand:
“Hello, I’m Ciel Phantomhive, nice to…” but he doesn’t finish the sentence.
A sigh of regret follows, and the boy leans against the sink. His head hangs down involuntarily. Hopeless. Hopeless attempts, hopeless aspirations, hopeless dreams. He is hopeless. He will never become half as charming and confident as they are.
His voice is unsteady and squeaky, he doesn’t know how to control it at all. His appearance is no different from Gabriel’s, except for the patch on his right eye, but he understands that he looks pretty and ugly at the same time. Just a girl. A poorly built girl. His brother always holds himself straight and excellently, as if his appearance is completely different from Ciel’s, manly and proud. And Ciel’s shoulders are drawn in and his arms are in constant motion. Two polarities of one body. It’s a pity Ciel got the role of the hopeless one.
“You see, Mom, he can’t live without me!”
The parents remained adamant. Ciel was left with only the choice of university, and he was unlucky with that. His desire to get a law degree and become a detective was immediately suppressed and they almost applied themselves to the business department of some low-ranking university with the corresponding passing score. They cited two arguments in favor of this decision: there would be simpler guys there and it would be easier to find a common language with them, and a low entrance score would definitely guarantee admission. So that he wouldn’t fail the exams. They paid no attention to the remark that he and Gabriel had equally well managed to graduate from school a year earlier.
That is why on an October morning, having successfully passed the exams, Gabriel and Ciel slammed the door of their parents' house behind them and got into the car of a taciturn but reliable personal driver. He was supposed to take them to universities. Only Gabriel — to Cambridge, and Ciel… God knows, he didn’t remember the name anyway. "
“I’ll miss you, little brother,” Gabriel ruffled his hair, giving the driver an unreadable look through the rearview mirror. He obediently stared at the road. “It’s a shame they separated us. If someone offend you, just tell me, I’ll deal with everyone.”
Ciel didn’t look up. A nasty feeling of insignificance gnawed at him inside. What the hell was he doing in that godforsaken university among a bunch of marginals when he could easily have entered the same Cambridge? To socialize, of course. Parents know better. The main thing is that the older one gets a good job, and somehow gets along with the younger one.
“Why did you go into medicine?” Ciel changed the subject. “What about business?”
“It didn’t really matter to me,” Gabriel shrugged. “What difference does it make how I earn money? Besides, when we were kids, when you promised to become a detective, I promised to become a pathologist and work with you,” his brother smiled and hugged Ciel tighter.
He looked away to the window. No matter how many sweet words flowed from Gabriel’s mouth, reality was changeable: now they were scattered across different educational institutions. And now no one would protect Ciel, no one would stand up for him, and no one would help him. He was alone. And he had to somehow come to terms with this realization.
“You know,” Gabriel suddenly sighed sadly, “I’m worried. I mean, you see, you’ll have a new social circle, new friends, and maybe even a girlfriend, and what will I be left with? After all, I have no one except you.”
“What are you talking about?” Ciel frowned in confusion. “You have a lot of friends, Elizabeth, parents, so many admirers.”
“Have you ever thought that I don’t need anyone except you? Do you think I need all these “friends”?” his brother giggled inappropriately. " Just promise me that I will remain the closest person to you forever, no matter what?”
Gabriel raised his hand with an extended pinky, offering to seal the oath, like in childhood. And Ciel has no choice but to grab his pinky with his own.
“I promise.”
***
The twin always joked that Ciel was just a magnet for trouble. And, unfortunately, he was right. Time after time, the young man had the opportunity to be convinced of this, as a result of which, during one of the school breaks, wiping away tears in a sickeningly white toilet, he was forced to put a cross on himself as an incorrigible loser, with problems following on his heels. Or maybe he himself was one big problem.
However, few people manage to make not just troubles, but also enemies on the very first day, without making any effort. Just by crashing into the wrong person. Or a group of people. So Ciel, under the gaze of some heavyset guy two heads taller than him, was thinking why he had the misfortune to stumble here.
“Again, weaklings,” the big guy rolled his eyes, and the company behind him grinned. “I’m kind today, you can just beg for forgiveness.”
And by the time his lips stretched into a disgusting grin, they were already ringed by people. A crowd hungry for a spectacle. And when something doesn’t go according to plan, Ciel doesn’t just get lost: he freezes. In a circle of people, in a humiliating situation and with no way out. A great debut: to embarrass himself in public.
“Hey? How long should I wait?” the guy clicked his eyes several times with a nasty laugh. “Dude?”
“Maybe he can’t see in this eye either,” someone giggled.
“Get away from him,” a loud cry suddenly rang out from the crowd. The big guy turned his gaze to the source. “Seriously, Frank, how much more?”
A girl with bright hair and thick lenses approached them, discontentedly clicking the heels of her high boots.
“Honestly, a little more and I’ll personally tell the headmaster of the university about all your deeds,” the girl folded her arms across her chest.
“I’m horrified,” Frank rolled his eyes and stepped back. “Take your weakling, I really don’t need him. He’s frozen like a statue.”
Together with the company, the guy began to move away somewhere further down the corridor. So, he got away with it, if you can call it that.
“Hey,” the savior approached Phantomhive, “are you okay? Don’t pay attention to this idiot.”
Ciel pursed his lips. Girl. Great, now he has a girl protecting him! Wonderful! Pathetic nothing.
Not finding the strength to thank him and feeling a rising wave of self-hatred, Ciel rushed from his place. Simply wonderful! Getting punched in the face by that idiot would be less humiliating than being protected by a girl! Worthless, useless, helpless… Gabriel was right. He won’t survive.
Slamming the door to the toilet he somehow found, Ciel blindly flies to the sink. How could he have embarrassed himself so much on the first day?! He’s pathetic. Bloody trash. It’s just ridiculous.
He turns on the faucet to the coldest water and the strongest flow and nervously splashes water into his palms, and then into his face, trying to calm down. Maybe they’ll forget about this? After all, who cares about some weakling with no name? He splashes water into his face again. And closes the faucet, leaning against the sink. Well, nothing else could be expected from an incorrigible loser. He won’t cope. And Gabriel won’t help him in this case.
When his breathing returned to normal and the feeling of self-hatred stopped seething in his blood, leaving only echoes bubbling in his chest, Ciel began to look around. And he noticed a guy in the corner to his right, sitting indifferently on the windowsill. Oh, amazing. He disgraced himself not only in front of the entire crowd, but also in front of a single person.
Whatever it was, the guy didn’t pay any attention to him. He was barely visible in the dim space of the not-so-luxurious toilet, only the smoldering cigarette in his hands was clearly burning. Great, and the toilets were smoky.
Thanks, Mum, socialization in the best conditions!
“Hey?” Ciel began timidly.
He wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted from this guy, but not talking to the person who had witnessed your hysteria was wrong. At least, that’s what his father said. Witnesses can’t be left alive.
When the boy reacted and turned away from the frosted window, Ciel’s little courage evaporated completely. Well, at least this one looked like someone you could have a conversation with. But Ciel didn’t think he could talk to him himself. And what was even more unlikely: would this boy want to talk to someone like him? Such people, it seems, consider contact with mere mortals as an insult. And with someone like Ciel, in principle, few will talk.
The guy on the window nods questioningly. His gaze seems to finish him off. To feel such superiority over oneself and to be crushed by one look… Oh, how familiar these feelings are to Ciel. But the stranger in front of him was completely different from his family. Although he was vaguely similar to his father.
There is no answer from the embarrassed Ciel, and the guy turns away. How predictable. Looking at such wretchedness must be unimaginably disgusting.
But the guy doesn’t cause uncontrollable fear. There is a lion’s share of contempt in his gaze, but he looks at everyone like that — for some reason Ciel is sure.
He has learned to read people quite well. While his brother came into direct contact and communicated with people, Ciel preferred to watch and study from the sidelines. He was always observing. Memorizing, analyzing, and accumulating knowledge, which, however, he rarely had the chance to use. He hardly communicated with anyone in order to realize the potential of the information he had. Oh, how much he could have gotten…
The guy in front of him was, one way or another, difficult to read. But on an intuitive level, Ciel understood that he didn’t emanate a clear threat or danger. Maybe he should get closer? Read him better, collect information and finally start using it? Or just make the first acquaintance? How is this even done?
Gabriel always managed to win people over with a few words and get along with them, no matter what the circumstances were and no matter how closed the person was. Perhaps, first of all, he needed to show that he could be trusted?
“Can I… sit down here?” Ciel muttered embarrassedly, approaching the windowsill. There was just enough space left for…
“No,” the interlocutor said, turning around and giving him the most disdainful look.
Ciel was ready to sink into the ground now. How did Gabriel manage to do this?
“I see, sorry,” Ciel muttered crumpledly and returned to the sink.
People are very difficult. Endlessly difficult. A boundless nightmare, how can you enjoy communicating with them?
Or maybe he set the bar too high right away? The guy in front of him looked like an ancient Greek deity, at the very least, and was clearly not suitable for a first attempt at communication. The bird was definitely out of his league. And Ciel decided to set it so high right off the bat… Idiot.
“Listen,” he finally backed down, “I just want to ask… don’t tell anyone about what you saw, okay?”
Asking for something like that was also humiliating. Ciel decided to break all records.
The guy put out his cigarette on the burnt window frame, threw the butt into the other corner and jumped off the windowsill. Shaking off his long black coat, the stranger grabbed a bag of the same color over his shoulder and headed for the exit.
When he passed by Ciel, the latter noticed that he barely reached his shoulders. And sighed heavily. And what should he tell his brother? “I embarrassed myself in front of the whole crowd, and then I threw a tantrum in front of some intractable and obviously popular asshole, with whom I couldn’t come to an agreement later”? Wonderful!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the guy said as he left the room.
Ciel blinked few times, and then sighed. Okay. In front of some intractable and obviously popular guy. At least here… he got away with it.