She should have known better.
It's 3:41 am and she's laying there with hot tears scalding her cheeks and god fucking damn it, she should have known better.
Gou wipes her cheeks and tries to think of a simpler time (when she was okay, when they were okay). For a fraction of a second she tries to imagine a world where her father isn't dead and her mother is happy and Rin is home. And for a brief fleeting moment - not even enough time to blink - she almost feels happy.
Almost.
The ephemeral sensation akin to joy dissipates as quickly as it appears and the cruel, harsh reality come crashing down on her, the debris suffocating her. Her broken leftover bits - the little obliterated shards of who she used to be - are all she has left and she's using them to repair all the damage (the carnage her brother left, the ruins he left that shattered them all)
Rin isn't her brother. Not the one who smiled and teased and played with her. Not the one she grew up with. He is a stranger. The boy she knew died in him ages ago when he left - she's quite sure a part of her died along with him.
He looks the same and it's heart wrenching, really. His hair is longer, probably as soft as she remembers it to be. He used to be a skinny boy, but the years he spent apart from home made him shoot up like a rocket and shed his baby fat; he is lean and his physique is almost intimidating. But he is beautiful, everything Gou imagined he would look like after all those years.
The only thing that stops her from seeing her beloved brother in him, the only thing that isn't 'Rin' about him are his eyes - they're the same deep rich maroon irises she's always stared into, but they're not. They have this gleam in them, one that has a shiver skirting down her spine and causes a tremor that shakes her to her very core because that's not Rin. His eyes are hard and cold and she can almost feel the blizzard he carries within him when he glances over her with his harsh icy glare. They are the telltale sign that the person she knew no longer existed. His eyes are those of a complete and absolute stranger and it makes her want to cry.
She remembers the times when Rin used to call. A good forty-five minutes of his voice brimming with joy and awe as he rambled and gushed about the foreign land; the people, the food, the sights to see- anything and everything. Gou was content with just that (she didn't mind not explaining her day, really) because even if he was so far away, he seemed so happy.
It ended shortly after a few weeks of his stay. His voice began changing - it adapted a more dull tone. He was no longer as excited or eager to speak as he used to be. And the calls grew shorter , not as frequent, and he had less and less to say until there were no calls anymore. Text messages took their place and while it didn't make her feel nearly as close to him as she used to be, it was still something (and something is always better than nothing).
Soon enough, his replies grew shorter as well. Gradually, they became single sentences, and then one word answers and eventually there were no replies at all (he's busy - he's busy and she is so, so alone).
His lack of response - lack of acknowledging her - never deterred her. She called him at least thrice a week and messaged him almost everyday. The calls would go to voicemail and the messages remained unanswered (it's fine because he's working hard - he must've forgotten).
When he returned, a large part of her hoped that everything would go back to being normal; the time difference would be gone, and he'd be in a country where he understood the language better - the culture better. That he'd be home.
But when Rin arrived, he went straight from the airport to Samezuka Academy and didn't take one glance back. Didn't drop by, didn't call. Not as so much as a text message. Nothing.
She didn't utter a word of complaint. No phone call to demand him to visit, no messages, no confrontation, not even a sigh of resignation. Because Rin was finally back (and god knows she won't let a stinging sensation in her heart drive him away).
Given the amount of times they crossed paths, encountering each other on pure coincidence, Gou would like to believe that a thought of her would come to his mind now and again, even if just for a brief moment. Or at least that he remembered her - for the most minuet nanosecond - when he skims through his phone and sees her missed calls and text messages, despite leaving them unreturned and unread. That when his schoolmates talked about missing their families, for a fleeting moment, he would too.
Gou doesn't ask for hours of his time. Doesn't ask for daily conversations or frequent meetings. Doesn't for much of his attention. But all she wants, and she hopes he will give her, is a single second of his time. A single second to just remember he has someone. A home. A family. That he won't be lost - won't be alone - as long as they're there.
There were times, very few but equally as precious, that he would come home; only ever limited to birthdays, Mother's Day and their father's death anniversary. Every visit grew shorter than the last, but he always came.
And Gou knows he always will. So that is why on her seventeenth birthday, she is bubbling with glee because not only is today her birthday, but today she will see Rin.
Her smile never leaves, not after her mother kisses her cheek and wishes her warmly, not after coming back from her lunch with Chigusa, not after the swim club and Ama-Sensei have a small surprise for her with her favourite cake and wonderful presents alike. But, when she reaches home close to seven thirty and it's only her mother waiting in the lounge and she still hasn't gotten a text from her brother saying he was on his way, only then does her smile begin to falter.
"I'm sure he's going to come sweetheart", he mother cooes reassuringly, preparing their dinner, "don't worry". Gou bites her lower lip and opts to remain silent, managing to shoot out a quick message to her brother.
The message is seen and left unanswered and despite eating the most delicious dinner her mother has clearly outdone herself making, Gou can't help but feel like she's swallowing sand.
The time to cut her cake comes too soon and the chair beside her is still empty. When she blows out the candles, all she wishes is that everything could go back to way it was before it all went wrong.
She is whisked off to bed with a small kiss on her forehead and a promise of a family outing that she knows won't happen to make up for today. Her laugh is a little too hollow and her smile doesn't quite reach her glassy eyes when she says she doesn't mind and understands.
After giving Rin a call that went straight to voicemail, Gou decides to kill time on her phone. Anxiety stirs in her tummy, urging her to keep glancing between her messages and the clock.
It's midnight when Gou actually feels her heart plummet into the fermenting acrid pit in her stomach.
Rin still hasn't called.
She waits for a few more hours, flipping through a magazine, reading a new article about research concerning a popular training program - regardless of the fact her eyes are burning, willing her to give in to the allure of blissful sleep. She does anything and everything to keep herself occupied while she waits because perhaps he'll wish her late (it's never happened before, right? something must have happened) and it's then in that moment, as she stares at the ticking second hand of the analogue clock on her phone screen - hawk eyes laced with desperation - that the harrowing realisation that her very existence means nothing to him crashes down on her like an avalanche.
And then Gou cries. She cries like the ground has been stolen from beneath her, like the air has been knocked out of her lungs and she can't breathe. She cries like she's mourning over a lost loved one (and in a way, she really is).
The day is over and her birthday has ended and all the gifts and smiles and presents mean nothing to her because the person she loves the most - her own flesh and blood- her brother hasn't contacted her. She knows he's changed and has complicated problems and his own life, but at the very least she expects some recognition that they're siblings - that she actually means something to him.
Her eyes are red and they burn so badly. She's cried so much that they're no tears left, and the only things escaping her are wheezing sobs and whimpers that wrack her petite frame. Her face feels yucky and her long tresses keep getting stuck to her cheeks, no matter how much she swats them away. And she's just so tired. Just so exhausted. She's tired of feeling like an inconvenience, like a pest. Like her presence in his life is just as insignificant and unneeded as a weed in a field of roses.
She doesn't know why she hopes and she doesn't know why she lets herself fall apart every time she's disappointed (and she is so, so often). She should hate him. She should. Loathe him, despise him, fucking curse him to be damned for all she cared. And that is her very problem- she still cared and probably always will (and dear lord, what a fool she is for doing so).
It would be so much easier to say that she's an only child. So much easier to smile and pretend that her family isn't messed up and dysfunctional - that she's a normal high school girl who doesn't cry almost every night over the boy she lost - the brother she lost - and the shell of a man who resides in the body of someone she loved so dearly.
It would be so much easier if she didn't love Rin Matsuoka (but she does - she does so so much and it's killing her)
It's 3:41 am and she can cry and hope and dream all she wants (and that's all she has), but nothing will ever be the same again. Her father is dead and her mother is depressed and Rin -
Rin doesn't care.
And Gou should have known better.