Jovan’s Contemplation

Just a few more minutes

The sun was rising, the whole house was busy getting ready, and Jovan wakes up to Albert telling him to get ready for school.

“5 more minutes, Bert.”

Jovan ends up going down his bunk bed to get his phone and gets back up to wait for his brother. He texts some of his friends and gets startled when a sudden wet towel hits him. Albert laughs and the two get ready for school, grabbing their backpacks, showering and putting on their uniform. The 2 go to the dinner table and eat some leftover pizza, then walk over to the car. Jovan teases Evan in the car and plays some games with the others, not realising he was almost at school.

Straight A’s

He and Albert ran to their classes so they wouldn’t be late, having 2 minutes to spare when they got to class. Jovan sits at his usual seat, waiting for his teacher to go in. It was English class, Jovan’s least favourite lesson even though he excelled in it. But before the teacher comes in, he sees his brother at the door, yelling at him to give him his Science workbook. Turns out they had switched the books at home. Jovan gets back to his seat and takes out a book to read. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” a book he found in the library when he was snooping around. He read a few pages before his teacher comes in, telling everyone to take out their notebooks.

English class ended like a breeze to Jovan, next class being his favourite, Chemistry. There was a practicum and he was the first to complete the task on his own with barely any mistakes. But he was still quite confused on his results, asking his professor to recheck his notes and observations, which took up his lunch time. He ate his sandwich in his class instead after getting back to class, still wearing his lab coat and continued his last pages from Dorian Gray, just a few minutes before his last session rolled around, which was Geography. He got his notes ready and turned his page to the last notes he wrote down from last week. It was a pop quiz and unsurprisingly, he got every answer correct.

“How did you get everything right? I studied so much last night and still got many of them wrong.” His seat mate asked, holding his paper with a 74% score on it.

“The quiz was way too easy. We discussed this all last week that even an elementary school kid would pass.” Jovan’s ego in Geography was quite high, laughing smugly as he placed his paper into his Geography folder, filled with 98%-100%’s on every sheet.

Brothers always

“I can’t today, Jov. Student council duties again, they informed me last minute and I didn’t have the chance to tell you.” Albert said, not realising that Jovan was disappointed with his sudden plan change.

“This is the 2nd time you passed on basketball just for student council. I’m just gonna go to the field alone.” Jovan stormed off, leaving Albert confused on why he was upset.

Jovan was disappointed with Albert ditching him, and instead went to the minimart across school to buy some sprite before going to the basketball field.

Albert quickly left as soon as the meeting was adjourned, running to the basketball field and seeing Jovan dribbling a ball, a messed up tie on his neck and a sprite bottle in his hand. Jovan ignored Albert when he saw him approaching him.

Jovan went to his backpack and picked it up, leaving the ball alone and not giving a single glance to Albert. He passed Albert, not a single word or look given.

“I’m sorry.” Albert said loudly.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been so busy with everything that I keep on ditching you. I’ve just been too busy with 9th grade and all, top it off with student council duties. I’m not doing this to run away from you. You’re my twin and I don’t want to lose you or lose the time I can spend with you.”

Jovan looked back at Albert, immediately hugging him tightly.

“I just miss spending time with you, bro.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you whenever I can, okay? I’m just trying to succeed so that I can take care of you. You are my older brother after all.”

“By 2 minutes, it doesn’t count.”

Jovan and Albert went to Jason’s car and pulled out their change of clothes for badminton practice, grabbing the rackets from their car trunk and saying goodbye to the others with Evan before entering the sports center.

…

Missing you

Jovan was the first to shower before Albert, so he had a few minutes to continue his book in bed. He isn’t usually a book nerd, in fact he never really enjoyed reading in his free time, but there was just something fascinating about Oscar Wilde’s writing.

Everyone was then called to dinner where they talked about their day, even though the discussion got heated for a bit. Everyone was full afterwards, and went to their own rooms to study or play games. Albert was occupying the desk so Jovan just took his laptop to the top bunk, playing Nomifactory with his headphones on. He turned on his usual playlist and continued his progress, not realising how much time had passed. He got ready for bed as soon as he saw it was almost nine. He put away his laptop, washed his face, brushed his teeth and said “Goodnight, love you guys” in the family group chat. Albert was still studying but got ready for bed when Jason told him to clean up and sleep.

The boys were both in bed, but only one had already fallen asleep. Jovan can’t help but think about Tim since what had happened in dinner earlier. He also couldn’t stop thinking about Albert’s apology. He never realised how much he missed spending time with his family until they got busy. Jovan loves his family more than anything, and never realised how much he misses his older brother who worked so often they rarely met, or how much he misses playing after school with Albert before he had joined the student council.

He lets out a deep sigh.

“Goodnight world, please go easy on me.”