[BRENT]

"Ow! Will you please try to be more careful when you place that on my face, Neil?" I complain as my brother places an ice pack on the bruised part of my face. I can't help wincing in pain because of that. I really can't believe it. To think it was a girl who gave this bruise to me!

I wasn't sure if my luck was running out or just because... Argh! Never mind! Maybe the luck wasn't on my side this day.

What I said to Margaret was the truth, that she was the first girl who did that to me. More often than not, the girls would just slap me, especially when I got tired and just decide out of the blue that I would end my relationship to them. But no girls had ever punched me hard like what Margaret did.

It looked like that girl was used to doing things like punching a guy. Trust me, her strength was unbelievable. And until now, the pain on the part of my face that she punched still hurt. This was seriously insane!

There were times before that I would go home with bruises on my face because I would usually end up in a brawl outside the campus. It was for that reason that some people would think of me as a delinquent. But I wasn't really considered a delinquent or even a gangster. My parents would disinherit me if I really end up like that. Even so, I would only end up in a fight when the situation called it.

But it only happened when some of the gangsters from outside the campus would wait for me to come out and corner me. Those goons, as I'd like to call them most of the time, appeared to be some people whom my ex-girlfriends had asked. They said it was a way for them to get even on me for breaking and playing with those girls' hearts whose relationship with me would usually end up for only a few weeks. Most of the time, they won't even last for a whole month.

Well, I couldn't help it if girls would flock to me like that. After all, I was born a charmer. They said I inherited one of the major traits of the Cervantes family (my mom's side of the family). Or at least, that was what my mother would say. Maybe that was why she won't question the things happening which would usually involved the attention I'd get from many girls. Perhaps she accepted the fact that she couldn't do anything about her eldest son's charms.

Technically, I was the eldest of the three siblings despite the fact that I had a fraternal twin brother. I was older than Neilson by five minutes.

My mother Rio Villaruz belonged to the Cervantes clan--one of the few prominent clans in the town of San Rafael--and one of the amazing surgeons I had ever met. I wasn't biased about that fact. Besides, I've already seen proofs of that for so many times since I was a child. In fact, my youngest brother Peter wanted to become a doctor like my mother.

As for my father Hector Villaruz, he became a private investigator after quitting the military service. He was one of the people who would help my maternal uncles (my mother's older brothers) in managing the Twin Rose Agency, the security agency owned by the Cervantes and the dela Vega--another of San Rafael's prominent clans. It wasn't just the Cervantes clan that was famous in San Rafael. In fact, the dela Vegas and the Cervanteses were long friends. If I wasn't mistaken, the friendship of the two clans had already been established for centuries. Neilson was actually planning to follow my father's footsteps into becoming a private investigator.

So it was a mystery to me as to why he was taking up Architecture. As for me, I decided to take up a Civil Engineering course. I really wanted to become an engineer, just like my mother's sister Engr. Loreen Mercado.

Oh, well. I still had a few more years for me to achieve that, though.

Neilson was just laughing as he continued to place the ice pack on my bruised face. That laugh was what stopped my flow of thoughts.

"I just can't believe that there's still a girl out there who has the guts to do that to you. What kind of toxic air affected your mind for you to decide to actually kiss Margaret after punching you like that?"

I couldn't say a thing as a response to that question.

Honestly, I also had no idea. I just scoffed and decided not to give an answer. I couldn't think of the exact reason why I did that to Margaret. All I knew, I was smitten at the sight of her eyes, as if I was enchanted upon seeing them. Or maybe my darn ego should be the one to blame because she actually punched me and punched me hard.

Ah, whatever! I couldn't seriously think of the real reason for now.

The only thing I was sure of, I ended up actually liking the fact that I kissed that girl. But I didn't expect that kissing Margaret like that would make me feel a different kind of sensation. A sensation that was completely new to me.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't expect another punch from Margaret on the other side of my face after kissing her. It was the first time I've met a girl who could do that to me. Most of the time, the girls who'd see me would squeal, laugh flirtingly, smile coyly, and perhaps began to think of things that I shouldn't mention. If I winked at them, some would actually faint.

I wasn't intending to boast--though I guessed being boastful was already a part of me--but it was the truth. There, at least I admitted that I could be a cocky person--in some aspects. That was how strong the effect of my charms to them.

But Margaret was different. She was feisty and probably the only person who wasn't affected by my charms and appeal. From the way she would look at me, it was as if she could really kill me with her bare hands and sole strength--and perhaps she would even do that brutally--because of my boldness to actually kiss her like that. But I couldn't even do anything to stop myself. Before I knew it, it was too late for me to realize what I had done to her.

As they would say, there was always an exception to the rule.

And now, I could see that Margaret was that exception and even the deviation that would surely change the course of my life after that particular encounter.

Neilson was still helping me subside the pain coming from my bruises when I saw a teenage boy approached us who bore a huge resemblance to me and my twin brother. That was my younger brother Peter who was younger than me and Neilson by three years.

"Woah, you ended up in a brawl again, Big Bro?" Peter asked as if it wasn't new for him to inquire such an issue while he was placing his bag on the sofa and finally sat there.

"It wasn't like that, Peter. For the first time, there was a girl who actually treated our notorious heartbreaker of a brother's face as a punching bag," Neilson answered who didn't even try to stop laughing that only annoyed me.

Does he really have to boast that seriously irritating incident to Peter?

Honestly speaking, I would definitely end up punching my twin brother for annoying me this much. I was the one who ended up with these bruises, and yet Neilson made me a laughing stock. I won't wonder if Neilson was starting to become crazy.

Peter gaped at me wide-eyed for some seconds before facing Neilson. "Are you serious, Neil? Now that's new." And Peter laughed hard soon after.

"It's totally new, and it's completely irritating!" I blurted out of frustration and took the ice pack from Neilson's hand. I gently placed it on the bruised part of my face. I grimaced when I felt that stinging sensation when I placed that ice pack on my face.

That was when I noticed my mom arriving and she smiled as soon as she saw the three of us in the living room. But her smile immediately faded and she frowned when her sight landed on me, specifically on my face. Now I was sure she already saw the bruises there. My mom sighed and approached the three of us. She sat beside me and took the ice pack that I was holding. She checked on my face first and heaved another sigh.

"What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time, young man?" Our mother Rio asked me while she was placing the ice pack onto the bruised part of my face.

"It's nothing, Mom. This will disappear, eventually," I just replied. I didn't want to confess to my mother that a beautiful but an Amazon girl gave these bruises to me. For sure, she won't even believe that a girl would actually do that to me.

But it seemed that she wasn't convinced with my answer so she turned her attention to Neilson and Peter. My pesky brothers were just grinning.

"So you're just going to smile there and not answer my question?" my mother coaxed while facing my two brothers.

That was when Neilson burst into a fit of laughter which made my mother confuse. Her confusion was obvious based on the frown on her forehead. Peter was trying not to make a sound as he laughed. I just rubbed my right temple because of that.

I guessed I was right on one thing. I did have two crazy brothers.

"Would you believe that a girl actually did that to him?" Neilson was still laughing when he asked that. I glared at my twin brother as a sign for him to stop but it didn't work.

My mother looked at me, her face was etched with obvious surprise. "For the first time, there was a girl who made my charming son's face a punching bag?"

"Mom, seriously!" I interjected. You got to be kidding me. She even had the guts to tease me like that.

She just smiled and continued placing the ice pack on my face. "What exactly happened for her to burst like that and decide to give you this kind of bruise, huh?"

I stiffened. I wasn't sure how would I explain the events to her. "That's because..."

"It happened like this, Mom," Neilson entered the conversation. Seriously, he just decided to butt in there.

Even though I wanted to stop my twin brother from narrating the events, I was somewhat confused as to why I didn't even do anything to let that happen.

Maybe I was just tired because a lot had happened that day. So here I was, letting Neilson do all the explaining of the events since he saw what really happened. Though I wasn't really sure if I would laugh or get annoyed with the way Neilson was narrating it. It was in full detail, complete with action and sound effects.

And now, my mother couldn't stop herself from laughing after that. Even Peter was laughing hard that irritated me. Sometimes, my family could be this weird and annoying.

"I was the abused one here, and yet you're laughing about that," I said sulkily.

My mother just took a deep breath, as if trying to pacify herself from laughing anymore than she did a while back. Then she patted my head. Great, now I was being treated as a kid. "At least now, I know the full story."

"But Big Bro, I can't believe that your patience can decrease that fast when a girl did that to your face. You really love your face that much?" And Peter laughed once again.

In the end, I pouted.