Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Beware of vaguely-but-not-really incesty undertones. And no, I never thought I'd be writing that sentence either…
~Brothers and Sisters
She had a brother, once.
Have, Mizuki reminds herself. I have a brother. He's just…different now.
Yes, different. That's all. Her eyes drift to the chair by the window, and the quiet-eyed figure sitting in it. He stares out at the silent street, the dim lamps the only things keeping back total darkness. Slim, moon-pale fingers mindlessly stroke the sleek fur of a black cat; Naamu, enjoying the attention, closes his eyes and purrs.
Azusa never liked cats. The thought enters her mind unbidden, and Mizuki shakes it away forcefully. It's a minor detail. A detail doesn't have to throw everything off; she simply has to open her mind and look at the bigger picture.
The baku in the chair is her brother. Period. He may go by Hiruko now, but that's fine. Hiruko, Azusa—what does it matter? He's the same person when it comes down to it. He is her family, her only family, and she loves him fiercely.
Misses him fiercely, sometimes. When she lets the first syllable of his old name slip and he looks at her with almost (almost) flawlessly hidden hurt. When he stares at her like he doesn't understand her at all. When he feels so unfamiliar and distant she wants to cry or shake him, she's not sure which.
When he smiles at her, a rare smile that holds so much more warmth than "Azusa's" ever did, and her face floods with heat and her heart thuds painfully—but not because she wants his approval. Not because her big brother is proud of her.
In moments like those, she forgets. She starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she is wrong. Her brother is long gone and before her stands another beautiful broken boy, one who would do anything for her, one that she—
But no. She always stops herself there and feels disgusted. Of course Azusa is still here with her. And she loves him like a little sister should, nothing more.
Mizuki has a brother. He may go by Hiruko now, but that's fine. After all, what difference does it make?
.
He had a sister, once.
No, Hiruko tells himself wearily. No. I have a sister. She's just…
Just what? What lies can he tell himself this time?
Mizuki is nothing like Sachi. Where his elder sister was all sharp angles and exasperated humor, smacks to the head and toothy grins, the girl he lives with now is all softness and sweet smiles, ladylike mannerisms and gentle touches. Or so he imagines. She never touches him. And he understands why.
She sees him as a replacement for Azusa, and he has no right to resent her for it because he is no better. He inherited many of Azusa's memories and lingering emotions when the baku's existence was passed on, just as Azusa gleaned much from the original baku. As a result Hiruko couldn't help but feel some big-brotherly instincts towards his new landlady, and that was the end of it. At first.
Somewhere along the line the memories, the lifetimes began to get confusing. It was as if a bottle containing Azusa and one containing Chitose had been dropped and their contents irrevocably mixed together. He would come downstairs in the evening and see Sachi. A blink later Mizuki was standing there, as she had been all along. He would recall certain things and not remember if it was his sister or his predecessors' involved.
The whole thing was maddening. His sister was dead. Period. But he still saw her every day.
Ultimately it became so much easier to just consider Mizuki a reincarnation of Sachi, ridiculous as that was. Easier to imagine the naïve, beautiful girl with the bow in her hair as his treasured sister. Sometimes Hiruko even forgets that Mizuki is not his birth sibling.
Except…except for those rare moments when she calls him by another name and he winces because he is not Azusa, no matter how much she wishes it, no matter how determined she is to use him. And then he feels guilty, of course, because he is using her as well. Then every once in a while she will do something that makes him laugh, quietly, and when she sees she blushes prettily. And he thinks that maybe if he still had a heart it would start beating then.
And he forgets. And he wonders—if he told her the truth, that Azusa is gone to a place she will never reach, would she—
But no. He never lets the notion go any further than that. The whole thing is driving him insane with the wrongness of it: she is his sister, she is Azusa's sister, and she loves them both as one.
And he loves her too, he knows this now, even if he gets confused and can't remember just who she is sometimes.
What difference does it make, in the end? Either way, he'll never have her.
Because they are brother and sister, in one form or another, and neither will ever fully see it any other way.
~Owari