Kissing
“Momma,” Bill asked from his place on the couch, his voice nasally. Just two days before his seventh birthday, he was home sick with a combination of a summer cold and stomach bug.
When Tom came down from their room that morning, he’d told Simone of the news, trying to fake sick himself. She saw straight through her eldest’s attempt at staying home and got him ready for school anyway, sending him off with Jorg as he left for work. Bill, already unhappy due to his sickness, threw a hissy-fit to beat the band once he’d realized that his beloved Tomi had gone off without him.
Since then, he’d been napping on and off with a rather miserable disposition, hardly speaking to Simone out of defiance for sending away his brother. Needless to say, the sound of her son’s voice was a bit unexpected.
“Yeah, babe?” Simone responded, her focus turning from her daytime soap opera to the blonde boy curled up beside her.
“Why do people kiss each other?” Bill asked, his eyes glued to the make-out scene playing on the television.
“…Well…” Simone was caught off-guard by her son’s question. She knew she’d have to discuss things like this with him eventually, but she wasn’t expecting his curiosity to pique at the age of seven. “When people love each other, like…me and daddy…they show it to each other by kissing…Or…or hugging, or holding hands, or even just saying ‘I love you’.”
“Hm…” Bill hummed, his young mind taking in the information and working it around. Nodding against his mother’s leg, he smiled and responded once more, “Okay.”
Not five minutes later, light snores alerted Simone to the fact that her son had drifted back into his slumber.
***
“Bye, Andreas!” The twins said in unison, waving as their friend got into his mother’s car and drove away. They had just sent off their last guest from their birthday party and were quite ready to get to playing with their new toys. The boys were ushered upstairs by their mother as she began to clean up from having twelve hyper six year-olds in her living room.
Once in their room, Bill and Tom began tearing through the packaging on their toys and racing around the room with them. After an hour of racing matchbox cars on their new track, Bill turned to his brother with a grin plastered onto his tiny face.
“Hey, do you wanna do our presents now?”
“Um…yeah,” Tom said, blushing slightly as he got up from his place on the floor and moved over to his side of the room. He came back a moment later with a small, poorly wrapped box in hand. “Here. Happy Birthday, Billa.”
Bill smiled at his older brother and carefully unwrapped the box. Beneath the crinkled paper and tape was a sparkly blue VHS box. He opened that box and saw that a tape was inside, the label written in his mother’s hand. “What is it?”
“It’s a whole tape of Nena things. I asked mom to stay up and record them for you. She helped, but it was my idea, so…” Tom explained, sitting down beside his twin once again. Bill squealed and tackled his brother in a hug.
“YAY!!! Tomi that’s so cool! Thanks!”
“…Welcome. I’m glad you like it.”
“Now I feel stupid about what I got you…” Bill said with a sigh as he pulled himself and Tom back up into sitting positions. He reached behind him and picked up a small green bag, handing it to his twin. Tom opened the bag quickly to find a baseball cap with a “B” in fancy script on it. “See? It’s stupid, right?”
“No! This is from America! It’s so not stupid!” Tom exclaimed, hugging his brother much the way he’d been hugged moments before. Once he sat back up, he put the cap on his head and smiled at Bill as it fell down over his eyes. “It’s kinda big, but it’s way cool! I’ll wear it every day. Even in school!”
“Tomi…” Bill said, giggling as he watched his brother struggle with balancing the large hat on his small head. He decided that maybe it was time to give the other half of his present. “That’s not all I got you.”
“Really? What else - “ Tom was about to ask, but his lips suddenly became occupied with his brothers. Bill was kissing him and it was making him feel weird. His face was flushed and his stomach was doing flip-flops. By the time Bill pulled away, he didn’t think he could breathe. “What…why did you do that?”
“Because I love you,” Bill said plainly, his face red as well. Tom continued to stare at him strangely, so he thought it best if he explained himself better. “W-well, I asked momma why people kiss and she said that people who love each other show it by kissing and I definitely love you, so I thought that it would be okay if I kissed you, but I guess not…”
“...No. It’s okay. It’s very okay,” Tom said, sliding closer to his twin and touching his hand. He smiled and kissed Bill lightly. “You saw it on those stupid TV shows mom watches, huh?”
Bill blushed, nodding as he stared at his knees in an attempt to avoid his brother’s gaze. It was making him sweat for some reason. Tom smirked and touched his twin’s chin, turning his head to look at him. “They do it different, though, right? They lick each other’s mouths…right?”
Bill nodded again, his stomach feeling strangely warm and filled with butterflies as his face continued to redden. Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed Tom after all.
“That’s weird, huh?” Tom said, letting go of Bill’s chin. He realized he was freaking out his baby brother, so he decided to leave his ideas alone for the moment.
“Y-yeah…It is.”
“I’m kinda tired…I think I’m gonna go to bed…” Tom said, stretching and standing up. Bill followed suit and they both changed into their pajama’s quickly. Bill hopped into bed first, shutting off his lamp as he lay down. Tom put their clothes into the hamper and went to his bed. Instead of getting in, however, he simply shut off the lamp and shuffled over to Bill’s bed.
“…Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Sure,” Bill said with a smile, sliding over to make room for his twin. Tom slid into the small bed and cuddled up to his twin. Just before Bill turned over to get comfortable, Tom caught his lips in another kiss, blushing afterwards.
“Goodnight, Billa.”
“…Goodnight, Tomi.”
The next morning Tom woke up with a bad case of the snuffles and a stomach ache that wouldn’t quit and it was Bill who was sent off to school alone.