McCalither Short

Caius and Kirby always thought it was weird, those little coincidences where the same thing just happened to occur at the same time. For instance, if something startled both of them and they both happened to drop what they were holding. Or they happened to say the same thing at the same time. They often said that that came from growing up together, having a similar sense of humour. A friend of theirs did that with her mother a lot, after all. Went to make the same joke at the same time. Sometimes, saying the same thing at the same time was annoying. Like some stupid perpetual cliche, like they were following some stereotype forced on them, or like their brother was copying them. And there was something that happened sometimes, when they would happen to speak in unison, even if it was just one word. 'Would you like a drink?'
'Yes.'
And if they both answered the same thing at the same time, eyes would light up, because there's some kind of novelty to twins doing the same thing at the same time. Even with fraternal twins, people get excited by something as silly as that.

Caius didn't remember many of the specifics from each encounter with someone who was genuinely curious about his status as a twin. He wasn't sure if Kirby remembered any of them clearer than any others either, it wasn't something they spoke of often, besides the occasional mockery of a particularly stupid line of questioning shortly after the idiot had left them be. He did remember one of those particularly stupid people had been a woman who approached the two during their summer holidays, when they were about eleven or twelve, to ask them for directions. She wasn't especially old, and might have been a teenager herself, but he wasn't sure. Kirby had tried to help her out while Caius stood by, using the fact that they themselves weren't familiar with the place as an excuse, and once they'd done their part as good citizens, the lady turned to them with a smile.

"So if you're not from around here, where are you from?"
"England." Kirby replied vaguely.
"Well, yes, but where?"
"We can't tell you." Caius answered.
"Why not?"
"You're a stranger."
"And much older than us." Kirby added. "Stranger danger. All the kids at schools are told this when they're little."
"Because anyone could swoop down and abduct a naive six-year-old." Caius agreed with a nod.
The woman stared at them blankly, like she was shocked by their outburst.
"How...how old are you two?"
"Eleven." They both said at the same time, before giving each other a 'did you seriously say that at the same time as me?' type of look.
"And you're on holiday together?"
"Yeah." They said it together again, but Caius asked it, like 'why wouldn't we be?' while Kirby just sounded sick of this line of questioning.
"You must be really good friends then."
This lady is creepy, Caius thought as they both replied "We're brothers."
"You're the same age."
Kirby rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's called twins." He told her. "Two kids born at the same time. It's not unheard of."
"You can't be twins, you don't look anything alike."
Kirby was probably the kind to just call her an idiot and walk away, or loud and slow, just tell her they were fraternal twins, but Caius was the kind to smile sweetly and launch into a full explanation about genetics, zygotes, and the differences between identical and fraternal twins. Which was exactly what he did. He even went to the effort of explaining that blond hair ran in their family on both parents' sides, while Caius himself must have gotten his dark brown hair from their brunette mother, and thus segued into the topic of how genetics could skip generations and how people could carry recessive genes but not actively show them. The woman tried to interrupt him several times, possibly to state she understood or she didn't care or to make some excuse to leave them be, but Caius kept talking and talking until he was sure he had covered anything, and then cheerfully ended his spiel with 'any questions?'.
"I guess you're the smart one." The lady stated.
Caius blinked, then looked at his brother. "She just called you stupid." He told him.
"At least, compared to you I am." Kirby pretended to agree. "Like I could ever learn that piece of biology that I always thought was taught to every eleven-year-old going to any normal school. It's far too advanced for me. Not like this is what we were being tested on right before the school break or anything."
"Maybe she's just jealous because she isn't very smart herself." Caius started walking off at that, as the woman behind him started complaining that that was a very rude thing to say and that she hadn't once said Kirby was stupid. Kirby showed the woman his middle finger before following.
"Do you think mum will buy us ice cream if we ask real nice?" He asked his brother as he caught up to him, the woman already forgotten.
"We can tell her we were accosted by some creep in the street when she sent us off to explore on our own, and that we all need ice cream to get over the shock."
"I don't think she'll fall for that one."
"But Juliet will, and if all three of us are asking for ice cream and Julie thinks we're upset and scared she'll be more likely to cave and Julie will be nice to us. Win-win."
"Using a small child's emotions to your advantage. Devious. I like it."
"I'm secretly an evil genius. Watch me take over the world. With ice cream."
Kirby nodded. "I mean, if there was an election, and one of the candidates was promising to take over the world with ice cream, I'd vote for them."
"Exactly. It's the perfect crime."
"I won't bail you out when your life of crime gets you into trouble."
"Well, that's just like you."
Kirby shrugged. "I'm tough, and I'm not getting dragged down with you."
Caius pouted for a moment. "Meanie." And with that, they made their way back to their mother.