A/N: Osomatsu-san © Akatsuka Fujio and I do not gain any profit from writing this fanfiction. The lines recited by Karamatsu here are from Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Shinjuuten no Amijima and Sonezaki Shinjuu. I'm sorry but I've always wanted to write something using his lines and so here it is. ;v; By the way, English is not my first language so if you find any error I would happily (also appreciatively) revise it. ;v;
Blue
2.
The sky was so bright and blue that it hurt his eyes.
Ichimatsu stood at the brink of the world, wind gusting from all sides and sun on the exposed parts of his skin. His body felt like a leaf traveling on a breeze, light and friable, waiting to hit the ground of reality. His bare feet were cold, his limbs were numb, and hadn't his hand been intertwined with his brother's, he swore he would've had fallen in the first blink of eyes. Though physically he was all set, he still felt like there was a tempest going on inside his chest. It was a peculiar and uncanny feeling, for he couldn't shake it off or chase it away.
In the spaces between his fingers, were Karamatsu's. Shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm. In silence Ichimatsu had grasped his brother's clammy hand and held it between them. He could understand if the older felt fear, doubt, and let alone regret—because anyone would regret it if they were to end a life which future still seemed so mirthful and fulfilling. And to tell the truth, Ichimatsu also had never meant him to be. He never asked Karamatsu to suffer with him, he never asked him to care, he never asked him to love. Half of him wanted Karamatsu to live on, to go on with his rising career in the theater. Yet Ichimatsu had never claimed that he was an altruist, and the rest of him was too much of an egoist to get away stealthy one night and disappear alone. He was selfish, so very selfish, and it was his ego that let Karamatsu followed him, it was his ego that allowed him to think that if suicide people were to be ignited in hell, then let them be burned together.
For the minutes he had forgotten to count, they only stood at the building roof on their two feet, staring blankly into the infinity of horizon. It occurred to him why he had chosen this moment to die; why must it be midday, near the height of summer, at the time when it's the brightest and the clearest? Could it be that he liked the irony, could it be that he wanted to show a tinge of humor in his somber personality? (But Ichimatsu did, sure he did, feel that the cheerful season and the lightsome people as an incomprehensible mockery to his dying self.) He had thought of nighttime, but maybe jumping off the twentieth floor when the world was dark and only the moon as spectator was too depressing, even for him. And night is the time for cats to roam so if could, Ichimatsu just didn't want his friends to find him lying on the ground, with head shattered and body smashed, painting the cold asphalt with his own blood. But did it still matter? He might as well just chose it randomly—because what's there left to dwell for someone who would soon die?
(Or perhaps, Ichimatsu did choose with a reason. He chose to die under the day sky because its blue reminded him of Karamatsu, because he wanted to think about him as he dove to eternity, because the last thing he wanted to fill the remnants of his consciousness with was that shitty image of Shittymatsu.)
His reveries scattered when his hand was squeezed. Ichimatsu turned his head and found his older brother was staring at him. But no matter how long he waited for Karamatsu to speak, his lips only parted a bit, as if he wanted to flow out all of his feelings yet every word failed to form. In the end Ichimatsu was the one who voiced, "You don't need to do this."
"But I want to."
Ichimatsu didn't reply. He knew, what Karamatsu meant wasn't that he wanted to die with him; he wanted to be together. Because that's what he had been doing for the past years, and everything went relatively well until the younger heard the doctor's damn diagnosis. But even so, Karamatsu was still there for him, always present and never letting him feel alone. Sometimes he thought this was certainly unfair the older, because even though he had always been a very kind—painfully kind—guy, he got stuck to a trash like Ichimatsu. For a few times since they climbed up to the roof as well, he thought of pushing Karamatsu far from the edge and jumped all by himself, but Karamatsu might take it as a rejection and Ichimatsu didn't want him feeling that way. Besides, someone as dramatic as Karamatsu would just probably jumped after him so the effort would be meaningless.
"But really," Ichimatsu spoke lowly, trying to emphasize, "I could actually die alone; you don't have to come with me." He loosened up their hands a little, "it's not too late for you to turn back. Return to be an actor, find a Karamatsu Girl—whatever, live a normal life."
"But my Ichimatsu," Karamatsu said, using the English word and Ichimatsu wasn't sure whether the sudden creep on his skin was from the wind or just because of his brother's diction, "you know well that I can't live without you." His tightening grip stressed his words. "In the world in which you are not present, how could I be happy? Of what good is this beauty if not for his beloved? That's why 'I am confident in our love that I have no fears even about death'."
"You're so romantic it hurts." Ichimatsu put on a pained expression, but a tiny smile formed on his lips.
1.
Blue was beautiful, blue was the color he associated with Karamatsu, blue was the color outside the window when he averted his eyes from the doctor's. Blue was painful.
Ichimatsu could have never been more wrong when he thought everything would go well. Peacefully and happily (or so he had wished), they finally lived together, just the two of them, in the cheapest downtown, one-room apartment they could find. He got himself a full-time job in a pet shop; the pay wasn't that impressive but quite sufficient. Karamatsu at first worked as a part-time staff in a local theater, but one day he was asked to fill a small role and everybody liked him. Surprisingly, his acting was great that he kept getting bigger roles—maybe the time he spent in the school drama club wasn't a waste after all—to the point he became a regular for Chikamatsu Monzaemon's plays. Switching between using random English words to inappropriately reciting lines of old Japanese dramas, Ichimatsu had a hard time deciding which of Karamatsu's antics that put him into more misery.
But that's enough for him, Ichimatsu was never too picky or highfalutin in his ideals of happiness. What's important was that both of them could eat, his cats could too, and there's a roof above their head. As modestly as possible a lifestyle could be was enough for him (though Karamatsu obviously would prefer something more flashy, but even so it's fine by him). But let him repeat once more; he must had been so wrong when he thought they could stay that way forever (just as wrong as when he thought he and all five of his brothers could live at their parents' house eternally), so very wrong because on a one bright day, the doctor who examined his head told them that he only had four months left.
Though one thing that he did know for sure that if he would die, Ichimatsu wouldn't want it to happen in bed, while pathetically watching the peeled ceiling of a plain, moldy room. He wanted to die under the sky, because it's blue—Karamatsu's color—and it's beautiful, so painfully beautiful.
3.
The sky was bright and blue and his head started to feel dizzy from being too long under the sun.
Ichimatsu took a glance of everything below him, he saw people like dots and ant-sized cars passing by without knowing what kind of moribund guy watching them all from above. He saw how the world was so big and always too busy to care even if they were dead—at most, people would just probably curse them for creating a traffic jam because the remains of their body would have to be scraped off the asphalt. But even after all the commotion, it would end, wouldn't it? Others would just continue living their dull lives as if nothing had ever happened, waking up day by day without being haunted, without knowing of when death will come. That's how big the world was for them, and how insignificant they were to the world.
"You sure, about wanting to die here?" He asked. "If you're afraid…."
"It's alright," Karamatsu replied, "because 'no matter how far we walk, there'll never be a spot marked 'for suicides'. Let us kill ourselves here'." His expression made Ichimatsu realized that the older was actually reciting another line from a play he's lately been so obsessed with, and if Karamatsu were to say another part of the dialogue Ichimatsu was sure that he would die out of pain instead.
"Stop that, seriously, just stop." The younger shifted and put his left hand on the back of his brother's neck, pulling him closer until the tips of their nose practically touching, staring into the eyes which shape were exactly the same as his. "Last chance, Shittymatsu, you can still turn back. Go. Now."
"No." Karamatsu said, just as firm. "I'm not changing my mind. 'Neither kind advice nor reason can gain the ear of one possessed by the god of deat—'"
Ichimatsu cut the words with his lips. Another line, he swore, another line of those tragic plays got recited he would beat the shit out of him. Karamatsu should've just stopped, stopped repeating his dialogues and stopped making him fall in love all over again. Why must Shittymatsu be so kind? Why must he be too much of a good-natured guy then wasted himself for someone like Ichimatsu? Why did he let himself be taken advantage of? Why did he even let himself fell, both metaphorically and soon literally, for his good-for-nothing brother? He let his tongue loose and Karamatsu promptly parted his lips. Desperately Ichimatsu tugged his brother's waist, savoring every last drop of taste, wishing he could just go beyond and vanish, without ever needing to return. His head hurt from what he now recognized as another relapse and the face of the doctor flashed behind his closed eyes, but his chest ached way more. "I'm sorry," he whispered, almost inaudible between the kisses and breaths, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Hugging each other tight, burying faces in the other's shoulder, Karamatsu gave him a peck on the side of his neck and whispered back, "It's not your fault, Ichimatsu."
Of course it's his fucking fault, Ichimatsu cursed himself. The younger felt something akin to a knot formed in his throat and sting in his eyes, but he couldn't cry, not like this, and not ever going to. He didn't express it very often, but if Ichimatsu were asked to list three things he really loved and cared about, they would be his parents and other brothers, cats, and lastly but certainly the most, this freaking painful Karamatsu. Give him additional four months, four years, forty years, even, and he bet he still wouldn't be able to express how much Karamatsu meant to him.
Did he regret? Did he feel guilty? Ichimatsu wasn't sure how big of a conscience he had in himself, and he didn't want to even try thinking about it.
They pulled apart, hands in each other's grip once more, facing the clouds on the furthest skyline once again.
"Brother?"
"Hmm?"
"Do we count?"
"You mean like one-two-three then jump?"
Karamatsu ran a hand through his hair before answering, "Nah, when I think about it again, we don't need to," he turned his head and gave Ichimatsu a warm, hearty smile, "since I'm always ready for you anyway, Ichimatsu," and the younger felt his stomach had jumped off the building without him.
Present him extra four centuries—no, actually, even if Ichimatsu were given four next lives, he still wouldn't be able to explain the feeling he had. He could never repay Karamatsu, or maybe even loving him the way he loved Ichimatsu. No, no way, not a chance. Karamatsu would always be someone he couldn't reach or walk side by side with, Ichimatsu was fully aware that he could only demeaned his brother, like the way he did now; pulling him down, pulling him closer to hell.
Regarding what they were about to do, each might have different thoughts and Ichimatsu realized it. For Karamatsu whose head has been imprinted with the principle to live by prettiness, he probably even found the elegance in killing himself. With days spent by consuming all those plays and cheesy TV dramas, he might as well see the aesthetics of a double suicide. Whereas Ichimatsu, he was actually feeling like an idiot the whole time. He didn't really want to jump, but he definitely didn't want to let the monster in his brain take away his life either. He was kind of angry without knowing whom to, and he couldn't blame anybody so he blamed himself. Ichimatsu didn't believe in getting miraculously cured from a terminal ill, so he felt that the last resort was to commit suicide, for he'd able to deny the force that would take his life and decide his own fate. Somewhat like a kid going on a rebel, but not that he thought any of them had grown up to a proper adult anyway.
Unlike the lovers in the dramas Karamatsu starred in, Ichimatsu couldn't see the beauty, he couldn't see the point. He was neither a romantic nor a sentimentalist, and it's exasperated him how their actions were so unreasonable and stupid yet they're still doing it. Maybe this was what sane people think when they're going to commit a double suicide—not a single hint of happiness, not the slightest belief that they'd be happy in the afterlife. (Or maybe he wasn't sane along; sane people didn't give up lives.)
Taking one last deep breath—catching a faint fragrance of Karamatsu's cologne, the scent of sun on concrete block beneath their feet, the remaining smell of detergent in their hoodies—Ichimatsu recalled their home and their brothers for one last time, then he uttered, "Let's go."
"What a nice sky to die under," Karamatsu smiled, closing his eyes.
When Ichimatsu did too, the sky was no longer blue.