His face is a guide map for how his brother would've aged; his brother's portrait of Dorian Gray. It's his curse in life to live with a dead man's face.
His mother's gaze feels longing and lingers and he never knows if she's looking at him or a dead man. His very existence is a cruel reminder of what's been lost.
Their hair and eye colours didn't match, yet sometimes even he recognises Alexy in his own reflection. He walks past mirrors or glass shopfronts and there's that momentary lapse in memory where he gets to forget that Alexy is gone, to think that he really could be here.
But it's never Alexy.
Sometimes he thinks it should have been him to die, not his brother. It seems like everyone would be happier if that was the case. People he doesn't know look at him from across the street wide-eyed, only for their face to fall when they realise he's not Alexy, back from the dead. They know logically it couldn't be him, but grief and longing let you hope for that split second only to dash your dreams as quickly as they arose.
That was his brother alright, a total social butterfly with friends and connections everywhere. More people miss Alexy in his short life than could ever miss him, no matter how many years he's got left.
He's at the end of his rope and it's swiftly fraying. Everyone's so caught up in their own mourning, nobody seems to notice how hard it is for him to see his brother every time he looks in the mirror. Nobody seems to care that he's lost, not knowing how to function as only one half of a whole.
He's at his parents' for dinner when he catches his mother staring at him while he eats. He knows what that means, but he calls attention to it anyway.
"What?"
"Sorry," she says averting her eyes now that she's been caught, "It's just you look so much like him."
"Well, we're twins," he replies and then quickly returns to his dinner so he has an excuse not to talk.
He doesn't stay for dessert.
Tormented, the minute he returns home he sets about differentiating himself. He can't go on like this, he can't live like this anymore, haunted by the legacy of a dead man. They are twins but what is he? What is he right now except a replica of his brother? He
He hurries to the mirror with the electric razor in his hand. Frantic and grimacing, his eyes meet his reflection but finds it doesn't follow his movements. He turns off the razor, quietening the hum just in time to hear his reflection speak.
"Hello, Brother."
