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Do You Hate Me?
Do you hate me?
Shizumasa had always asked that, after he'd done something to Takanari.
Like leaving him to fall off the cliff into the water, into the role of kagemusha – shadow to his own brother.
Like look at him with that detached expression in his eyes, like Takanari was nothing to him. No-one. Someone who didn't exist.
Like calling him 'Nii-san' – brother, when they both knew that he wasn't, not anymore. A shadow is only an extension of a person, and you can't call yourself 'brother'.
Like taking away the person he loved more than anyone except – no, he wouldn't say it; it wasn't true; it couldn't be; he had every reason not to; every reason. But one reason always trumped them all.
Like kidnapping him. Like imprisoning him. Like standing there in the doorway of the cell and glancing at his bloodied wrists strangled by rope, with nothing but casual curiosity in his voice as he asked, "Did you try to run away again?". A rhetorical question, if you ask Takanari. But then, no-one does, do they?
Takanari listens without really listening when Shizumasa informs him of the upcoming engagement with Haine, and the fact that he will never be let near her again. He listens without really listening because he is waiting. Waiting for what he knows will come next. Waiting so he can say it, say it, say it, until everything isn't shaded by red anymore. Isn't outlined in blue.
Do you hate me, Takanari?
"I hate you!" I hate you so much.
And he has Shizumasa pinned against the wall, looking at him, and he can see the slight fear, anger, hurt, anticipation in the eyes an exact mirror to his own.
"If you hate me that much, then……"
He never does get to hear the end of that sentence.
Because halfway through, Shizumasa collapses.
And after that, everything falls apart.
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Do you hate me?
Shizumasa hasn't asked him that in years. Not since that time.
Do you hate me?
They're alone together in the greenhouse. Haine's moving in only tomorrow. So they're alone, together, for now.
It's strange, thinks Takanari, leaning against the wall, his forehead pressing on the glass. It's strange, strange that we should choose to spend this night without Haine, together. After all….
"This mansion is big enough that I could be at one end and you at the other."
Shizumasa's voice drifts over from the gigantic bed surrounded by greenery, completing Takanari's thoughts aloud.
Takanari thinks that he hasn't done that – complete his thoughts, that is – not in a long time. Not since then.
Shizumasa keeps on talking, and Takanari notices each inflection of his voice, the smooth graceful way he forms each word and releases it. He notices that he hasn't listened closely enough to notice this. Not in a long time. Not since then.
"Just so you know, " Shizumasa is saying, " I'm not really going to try and take Haine away. So, you don't have to worry."
Takanari nods. He doesn't snap, tell Shizumasa that he's lying, ask him what other reason he would have to want to stay with them.
For some reason, he thinks that he can trust him, now. He wants to trust him.
He wants to trust his own brother enough to let him back in, to let him know everything of who Takanari is. And he wants it vice-versa. He wants to examine closely, to relive everything he must've missed, they must both have missed, during the years they melded together. It's strange isn't it, that when someone and someone else become one, they are farther apart than before, when there were two people? It's strange isn't it, how you never really know the people you….
He moves away from the wall, walks over to the bed, watches his little brother stare up at the ceiling, his hands clasped together over his chest. Like he's trying to hold back, hold something back.
They fall silent for a moment, and then Shizumasa says, even though he hasn't done anything yet, "Do you hate me?"
Takanari believes that if questions ever had logical answers, the logical answer to this one would have to be…."Yes."
Shizumasa doesn't say anything; he just nods and Takanari observes his hands unclasp, just a little.
Takanari eases onto the bed beside him; sits cross-legged and wonders how people forgive people who betray them. But then, he thinks, you need two people in a betrayal; the one who was betrayed will always betray the one who betrayed, in the end.
You need two people who hurt, to hurt one, and both, in the end.
You need two people to love each other before they can turn that love into hate.
And, he thinks, reaching out with one hand to unclasp Shizumasa's, and using the other to pull his baby brother into his arms, burying his face in his twin's ice-coloured hair; he thinks, that it is not so hard to realize that, that hate was always love, in the end.
It is not so hard to realize that logic doesn't exist, that how you feel means everything, in the end.
It is not so hard to whisper so only your twin- the extension of yourself who fits into every part of you that is empty, yet is his own person- , so only he can hear, "I love you."
________________________________________________________________________
Do you hate me?
Yes. Because hate is always love, in the end.