It had been two years since the two brothers parents died.
Alfred was a junior in High school, while his brother was just starting college. On the sandy coast of California, the two lived alone in their parents old home.
They had a hard enough time in middle and high school, Matthew had to get a steady job being the oldest and all. Alfred did do a few handy jobs here and there to help out, but it always felt like they were struggling.
Alfred had seemed to struggle the most though. Everyone made fun of him. They made fun of him for being broke, they made fun of him for having no parents. The most heart breaking of all, was that he was made fun of for being gay.
The blonde boy didn't have any friends left after people choose popularity over Alfred's friendship.
He often got beaten up and called names that seemed to crawl under his skin.
Alfred told the councillor about it, but his advice was to just ignore it or 'pretend to be straight!'
Yeah right, totally cured.
In the cool month of January, Alfred had his signature skinny jeans on, white button up shirt, and black converse. The little part of his hair was sticking up in the sandy blonde mess, waving in the wind, that never seemed to lay down, which his mother and father had tried a million times to lay it down.
Though no matter what, he couldn't fix it.
His blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the sun and match the sky. If you didn't know any better, you would think the sky had given a piece of it to place in his orbs.
It was exactly 3:17, he had just left school with a hurry.
His speed picked up, his breath was hitched.
Why was he running so fast?
"Get back here you faggot!"
A boy yelled from far behind.
Why were 3 boys chasing him?
"Fuck!"
Alfred yelled as he almost tripped up.
They chased him all the way through town, it was now 3:46
It took a while, but Alfred lost them. He still didn't stop running though.
As the blonde passed a corner, he ran into a guy, knocking the both of them over.
Alfred wheezed to catch his breath and laid there for a moment trying to regroup himself.
The man he ran into was a short, blonde guy. The man had huge eyebrows, I mean, they didn't even look real. His eyes were as green an bright emerald that had just been polished, though his green shirt did help with that.
"Oh fucking hell. What's wrong with you?!"
The mans voice seemed to have some sort of soothing accent to it
Alfred finally found his words after the man had stood up, hovering over him with his arms crossed.
"I... I um-"
"Where did that little shit go?!"
Someone shouted out, Alfred could tell it was one of the three boys.
He quickly jumped to his feet and started to run again, fad chance on that, the man with the big brows grabbed him by his shoulders and spun him around
"Where the hell are you going?!"
"I gotta go before they find me!-"
"Who?!-"
The boys came out from around the corner and smirked to themselves, walking slowly towards Alfred.
Alfred out of instinct, hid behind the other blonde.
"Ha, we knew you couldn't keep running forever."
The man with the eyebrows seemed extremely ticked off, as if he knew these boys.
"Hey Kirkland, why don't you just... you know, step away? We have business with the gay shit here."
He mused
Now the eyebrowed man they called Kirkland, looked really really pissed.
"Why don't you little shits, just fuck off huh? What did he do to you punks?"
"That's none of your business-"
"Well he has business with me right now, he can speak to you later. So fuck off before I call all of your parents."
"What ever."
With that, the boys finally left, but glancing back to Alfred with a smirk.
Alfred sighed in relief and wiped the salty sweat from his forehead.
"Thanks man, you really saved my ass-"
Kirkland interrupted him
"Let's go inside, and you're going to tell me what that was all about. It's the least you can do after knocking me over? Besides, I just made a new pot of tea."
Alfred agreed without a hesitance, the boys could be waiting for him in an ally or anything. Right now he seemed to be protected.
The two sat in the old antique shop, the aroma around it was a little creepy, but calming in a sense.
Alfred had told him the whole story, all the way up until the boys started talking about how they were going to kick his ass after lunch.
It turned out that the mans name was Arthur Kirkland. He had moved here about 3 years ago from the lower part of England. His father had died a year ago, leaving him with the shop. He was the same age as Matthew, he even said they use to be friends.
The two talked and talked for hours, he enjoyed the brits company. Alfred told him that Matthew wouldn't be home till 1Am so he had plenty of time to talk anyways. He didn't judge him for who he was, he was rather an accepting man.
Though every time he went to make more tea, he felt an odd feeling in his stomach. He glanced around but couldn't see anything that caught his eye.
It was now almost 12 pm, this time when he left, a large sheet over a mirror seemed to draw Alfred to it.
He hesitantly walked over to it, feeling the chills down his spine.
Pulling the white, dull sheet from the mirror, the dust flied everywhere causing the teen to go into a fit of coughs.
The mirror was wooden, beautiful swirly carvings were on the sides that caught his eye.
He let out a chuckle seeing himself in the mirror. For that much dust to come off the sheet, the mirror didn't have a speck of dust on it.
The teen did all sorts of cool poses in it, though his reflection looked a little slow with his own movements.
When he stopped and tilted his head, the mirror seemed to go a little blurry. He squinted his eyes and stepped a little closer, now feeling more cold than ever. It was like he was in some sort of trance.
Every nerve in his body told him to step away, but his legs kept moving forward.
His hand started to touch the mirror, he could have swore his reflection was smirking at him. His fingers touched the glass, seemingly going through it for a moment-
Well that is until the Brit came in and gasped, pulling Alfred away, breaking him from the trance, causing his reflection to frown.
"Alfred, get away from that!"
Arthur shouted at him frantically
"That mirror is evil!"
He threw the sheet over it again, causing Alfred to shake his head back into reality
"What do you mean it's evil?"
The Brit sighed and rubbed his temples
"Look, come back after school tomorrow and I'll try my best to explain huh?"
With that, they agreed and said their goodbyes.
Alfred left and walked home, thinking of the mirror all the way there.
A/N
I'm not sure if this is a good book or not but I tried? I might write more I don't know lmao