Loneliness/Justice: An Aspects Prequel Read online

  The only thing that stopped her was the certainty that she would just screw it up. Not to mention, he probably didn’t like her like that. People thought she was attractive, sure, but they also thought she was crazy. No one wanted a crazy girlfriend, even she knew that much.

  Still, she could pretend in the moment, though it ended sooner than she would like. After just a few songs, she felt dizzy and faint and in desperate need of fresh air.

  She latched onto the first excuse, though it stopped being an excuse as soon as it occurred to her. “Hey, where did Zhang Wei go? He just disappeared when we arrived...”

  Wang Wei shifted awkwardly. “I’m not sure. He probably just found some other friends to hang out with.”

  Lex frowned. Zhang Wei never wandered off with other friends. In fact, it often seemed as if their other friends were more friends with Wang Wei and accepted that they came as a package deal. Zhang Wei’s temper could be as bad as hers when he saw injustice.

  Wang Wei definitely seemed to be treating the subject of his brother strangely, only adding more evidence to Lex’s theory that they were fighting.

  She wasn’t sure what she could do, aside from getting them to talk to each other.

  “We should go and find him,” Lex said.

  Wang Wei frowned but followed her as she headed off the dance floor.

  She found Zhang Wei quickly enough, standing in the corridor outside the assembly hall.

  Lex gave a sigh of relief as they approached, getting further from the noise and lights.

  “Hey, you disappeared,” Lex said as they approached.

  Zhang Wei frowned at them, before giving his brother a significant look.

  Lex looked between them, wondering what was being silently communicated.

  It quickly became clear that they weren’t going to verbalise anything, however, so she turned back to Zhang Wei.

  “We missed you.”

  Zhang Wei seemed to almost flinch at that. “It’s fine, Lex. I’m just tired. You two should go back inside. Have another dance.”

  Lex frowned. “No, if you’re tired, we should stay out here with you until you feel better. Or we can just call it a night and go home.”

  “No!” Zhang Wei said quickly. “I mean... You shouldn’t go home. You should stay. We’ll stay. It’ll be fun.”

  Lex smiled at that, though it faded as Wang Wei spun on his heel and stormed out of the door.

  Lex stared after him, wondering what had prompted that reaction.

  Zhang Wei sighed next to her, shaking his head. “Okay, well that was a little dramatic...”

  “Was it something I said?” Lex asked, though she already knew the answer. It was always something she said...

  Zhang Wei shook his head again. “No, it’s not... Well, it is. But you don’t have to... It’s okay, Lex. Your friendship is important to him, even if you don’t return his feelings. He’ll get over it.”

  Lex just stared at him. “What are you talking about? What feelings?”

  Zhang Wei raised an eyebrow. “The feelings Wang Wei clearly has for you?”

  She blinked.

  “He likes you.”

  She blinked again.

  “Which was why he asked you to the dance. You know, as his date. And then you started going on about the three of us going together, so I agreed to come along, but I wanted to give you two some space.”

  “You... That’s why you were avoiding us? I thought... I thought you two might have had a falling out. I just didn’t want you to feel left out...”

  Zhang Wei smiled, shaking his head. “You’re too nice sometimes, you know that?”

  “Literally no one has ever said that about me, ever.”

  He just continued to smile.

  “So... Wang Wei really... He really has feelings for me?”

  Zhang Wei nodded. “He really does.”

  “Then why did he storm off?”

  “Because, from his perspective, you’ve been avoiding spending time alone with him all night. You know, as if you don’t return his feelings.”

  “But I... I do. And I would have told him that if he had just asked me! Why does everyone have to make this so confusing?”

  Zhang Wei sighed. “Because he was afraid of hearing you reject him outright. I think this seemed easier to him.”

  “It’s not easier for me.”

  “Then go and tell him off for trying it.”

  Lex nodded before heading outside.

  She found Wang Wei quickly enough, leaning back against the outer wall of the school and looking up at the cloudy night sky.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you liked me!” she demanded as she approached.

  He jumped, clearly startled by her appearance. “I... Um... Well...”

  “Zhang Wei said this was supposed to be a date.”

  He looked away. “It was, I guess,” he confessed, his words nothing more than a low mutter. “I’m sorry, I see now that you didn’t want it to be.”

  She glared at him. “How can you possibly know that when you never asked me?”

  He looked up, blinking at her.

  “Instead of just asking me, you played this stupid game where you expected me to psychically know your feelings and then play along in the correct way. It’s so infuriating! Wang Wei, I expect other people to do that, but not you. You’re supposed to get it. You’re supposed to get me...”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, folding her arms. “I would have said yes,” she told him. “If you had asked, I would have said yes. But now, after this... I don’t want to have a boyfriend if this is what it will turn our relationship into. It’s too exhausting. I need you to keep being upfront with me, not playing these games.”

  “I promise, I won’t,” he told her quickly. “I’ll be completely up front with you about everything from now on. I promise.”

  “I... Well, if you promise, then I suppose, if you wanted to start dating... I would like that.”

  He grinned. “Can I kiss you?”

  She nodded and he closed the gap between them.

  Chapter Three

  “Gods, it’s so hot!” Zhang Wei complained for about the thousandth time, striding around the living room of his house without his shirt on.

  Lex smirked from where she sat on the sofa, curled up to her boyfriend. “It’s those jeans,” she told him. “You should wear skirts, like me.”

  Zhang Wei rolled his eyes. “Too girly.”

  “Too girly? What is this, the 2000’s? Clothes aren’t gendered, dude.”

  He rolled his eyes again. “Whatever,” he muttered before nodding to his brother. “How are you not dying?”

  Wang Wei shrugged. He was wearing jeans, just like Zhang Wei, though he hadn’t taken off his shirt, which was made of quite thick fabric. “I don’t like wandering around with my shirt off.”

  Lex smiled at him. “Then maybe you should get in on this skirt action as well.”

  She felt Wang Wei tense up beneath her, looking away. “I, um... I probably couldn’t pull it off.”

  She suppressed a frown, wondering what was bothering him about it so much.

  If he wasn’t talking about it already, she took that as a sign that he didn’t want to talk about it at all, so she instead leaned forward to kiss him gently on the cheek before saying, “Well, I think you would look cute.”

  Zhang Wei stalked over to the terminal on the wall, and Lex rolled her eyes at him again. “You only checked two minutes ago. There’s not going to be another message.”

  “You don’t know that,” he bit back, though he walked away, clearly disappointed.

  “Told you.”

  “It’s easy for you two,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You perfect students already have your acceptance letters. The rest of us have to wait.”

  “You got more than the minimum grades,” Lex assured him. “You’ll be fine.”

  Zhang Wei sighed, folding his arms. “Maybe. I just... I don’t know.
It’s like what we choose to study at uni dictates our entire lives and I just... I’m just not ready to make those decisions yet. I want the future to be an adventure, you know?”

  Lex pulled a face. “No, I don’t.”

  “Right, because you two have your perfect plan on your perfect timeline. You’re going to go to uni, get married, have your first kid a year after you graduate... You know how weird that is, right? To have your whole future planned out in front of you...”

  Lex shrugged sheepishly. She did know how weird it was, but Wang Wei had been just as enthusiastic as she was. “It makes me feel better to know where I’m going.”

  Zhang Wei’s expression softened at that. “Well, I suppose I can’t fault you there.”

  Wang Wei responded by pulling Lex closer. “As long as we have each other, it’s going to be amazing,” he told her.

  Lex smiled as she snuggled into him, despite the heat. “Yeah, it is.”

  Chapter Four

  Lex couldn’t help but grin on the last day of high school.

  Finally, she would be free of that hell hole.

  She had tried to convince her mother to just let her stay home, since the last day was just about saying goodbye to friends and her only two friends were going to university with her, but her mother had insisted.

  “You’ll look back on days like today as some of the best in your life,” her mother had told her.

  Lex had bit back a snide retort about suppressing 99% of her memories associated with school and only ever revisiting them with a therapist. After so many years, her parents weren’t going to understand.

  Her excitement at this being her final day faded, however, as she entered her form room only to see that the twins weren’t there.

  She had been running late, and they never did.

  She pulled her tablet from her bag as she sat down, sending Wang Wei a quick message to ask where they were.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur of other people saying their goodbyes as she sat in the corner of the room, waiting for the reply that never came.

  She supposed that they must have been ill, to miss the last day of school, though they had seemed fine the day before, and they both seemed to have more robust immune systems than she did, so she couldn’t help but wonder how they had gotten ill when she felt fine.

  After school, Lex decided to make her way over to their house to see if they were okay.

  When she got there, she could see that some of the windows were open, so it was clear that people were home, only no one answered when she knocked on the door.

  She returned to her tablet and messaged Wang Wei again, telling him that she was outside and wanted to see him.

  Still, there was no reply.

  After several more attempts at knocking, she was about to give up, but the door finally opened.

  “Can you not just leave us in peace?!” Wang Wei and Zhang Wei’s father demanded as he opened the door, only to halt as he recognised Lex.

  She shifted sheepishly, wondering what she should do. Should she just leave or try to explain herself? She didn’t want to go without an answer...

  “Wang Wei and Zhang Wei never came to school,” she found herself telling him. “Why?”

  He looked away, and Lex realised that his wife was standing behind him, her eyes red and puffy.

  “I’m sorry,” their father said. “We would have contacted you eventually, we just... It’s been a rough couple of days.”

  “What happened?” Lex asked him, confused.

  “A woman arrived last night, from the Aspects Program.”

  Lex’s blood chilled as she realised where the conversation was headed.

  If their father noticed, he didn’t say anything. Instead, continuing on. “Wang Wei and Zhang Wei were chosen as the new Aspects of Justice and Vengeance.”

  Lex just stood there, her brain frozen as she felt her whole future disappear in front of her.

  Aspects didn’t have family or friends. And even if they did, Justice and Vengeance belonged at Tower Five, halfway around the world.

  Lex would never see them again...

  Chapter Five

  University was a disappointment for Lex.

  She had assumed that it would finally challenge her, but she was just as bored as she had ever been. Not to mention, her mother’s reassurances that the people would be better turned out to be false as well. They were the same people, just in a different place.

  Lex found herself staring at the ceiling of her crappy new room, willing herself to fall asleep.

  She didn’t.

  She never did.

  Eventually, she got to her feet.

  “If I’m going to stare at the ceiling, I’m not doing it sober,” she muttered to herself as she pulled on a hoodie.

  Unfortunately, she had already drunk everything in the flat. She had tried to be thrifty, buying spirits to water down, but she had just ended up drinking it stronger and getting through it more quickly.

  I don’t have a problem, she told herself as she realised that she was walking to the shop to get booze in the middle of the night with the intention of drinking it alone. It’s medicinal. To help me sleep. Also, I’m a student. Who cares how much I drink?

  It didn’t take her long to get to the local shop and pick up some vodka.

  She sighed as she pressed her fingerprints against the self-service machine to prove that she was old enough to buy the drink, her eyes wandering as she did so.

  She paused, however, as she noticed a magazine on the rack next to her. The man on the front wore a mask to cover his face - as all Aspects did - but she would recognise those abs anywhere, even without the cover declaring that it had an article about the new Aspects of Justice and Vengeance.

  Zhang Wei...

  She briefly wondered why Wang Wei wasn’t also on the cover, but then, she supposed that he had never liked having his picture taken.

  She shook her head as she realised that she had just been staring at the magazine for several moments.

  Lex found her hand reaching for it, even though she knew that she was just torturing herself, and scanning it before paying and leaving the shop.

  She pulled open the magazine and flipped straight to the interview with Justice and Vengeance. She usually ignored that kind of tat about the Aspects - it was never anything of substance, just fluff to keep the masses happy with the fact that the only thing standing between them and the creatures beyond the city walls were masked superheroes with minimal oversight - but now she found herself scanning the words desperately for some kind of answer.

  “Today, we sat down with the new Aspect of Vengeance, and his twin sister, the Aspect of Justice.”

  Lex blinked at the words, wondering if she had read them wrong in her exhaustion.

  “Sister?” she muttered before continuing to read.

  The article continued referring to Justice as she and her, and after a while, Lex found the question that she had been dreading.

  “Was leaving your old life behind difficult for you?”

  She had always doubted the truth to the answers given to this question. They were all so fluffy and vague. Stuff about being excited about their new life and proud that they got to defend the cities from the creatures.

  Still, she forced herself to read Justice’s response.

  “I’m happy that this new life gave me a fresh start. It made transitioning easier than it would have been otherwise.”

  Lex found her hand dropping to her side, along with the magazine.

  “She’s happy,” Lex muttered to herself as she found herself back at halls.

  She trekked up to her room before opening her bottle of vodka and swigging straight from the bottle.

  “She’s happy,” she repeated again, as if it would allow her to comprehend the words.

  Lex had just kind of assumed that this would suck for Wa- She supposed she should just call her Justice now. If it had turned out she was a girl, she had probably dropped her
old name. Of course, all Aspects did, but calling her by her Aspect name seemed... wrong.

  Lex groaned as she sat back down on her bed.

  If Justice was happy, then she was happy for her, she decided as she kept drinking. Better than both of them being miserable. Not if they didn’t have to be.

  Though Lex couldn’t help but wonder... did that mean that Justice hadn’t been happy when they had been together?

  Lex cringed at the thought. Could she have done anything to help, she wondered. Was part of Justice’s new happiness leaving her behind?

  Hell, had she ever even told her that she liked girls as well?

  “Better that she’s gone and happy,” Lex muttered before taking another swig. “If she couldn’t have been happy with me, then I’m glad she’s gone...”

  Lex cursed the tears that stung her eyes.

  She should just be glad that Justice was happy. She shouldn’t make it about herself.

  And yet, as she curled up on her bed and drifted off, the last thought of her conscious mind was that she might have been poisoning the only good thing in her life without even realising it...

  Chapter Six

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Lex just stared at the clock, waiting for the allotted half an hour to pass.

  The university-appointed therapist carried on regardless.

  “You barely scraped a pass on your last assignment.”

  “I still passed,” Lex muttered, still glaring at the clock.

  “You arrived at this university with glowing qualifications. You could have been here two years ago if you had really wanted to. Perhaps earlier. And yet, now that you’re here, you’re wasting your talent.”

  “I’m not the one wasting my talent,” Lex said with a roll of her eyes. “This university is. I’m bored, Doc, and I’m too smart to deal with being bored.” She gave the therapist a condescending smile. “Now that the mystery is solved, can I leave?”

  The therapist didn’t look amused. “This is your future, Lex. How you do here will dictate the course your life will take. You worked hard to get here, are you truly willing to throw that all away now?”