My brother had a dream. He wanted to be kind of the world. It sounds bad, but it was just a childish fantasy for him. It probably started when I beat him at chess, when he was nine and I was six, and it was the first time I had ever seen him so flustered. He stood up and yelled at me, and then my mother came in from the kitchen shouting You stop that Paul.
Of course, we forgave each other by bedtime, but he had changed. A goal had formed in his mind, to become a master chess player and rule over the rooks and bishops and pawns for all eternity.
At fifteen, he found than dream slipping away. When he got his exam results back, our father, a pompous pig with three P. to his name, grabbed him by the ear and yelled at him for an hour. In turn, he yelled at me after that for no apparent reason.
He apologized five minutes later, and I forgave him. Truth be told, my brother wasn't the nicest guy around, but he was all I knew. I couldn't find myself living without him, and he felt the same way. When he turned eighteen and flunked, his parents wanted to cart him off to some reject university in Tokyo, but he refused. He wanted to stay with me, wanted to see my face every time he returned from home.
That, of course, was before he became a Contractor.
Our parents were out when both the Gates appeared, and they never came back. Then the news reports came. I was terrified, but even more so by my brother. He had suddenly turned withdrawn and distant, holed up in his room and staring at the wall. Multiple times I tried to talk to him, but he just stared at the bleak wall in front of him, his mouth never moving, his eyes never blinking. Everyday I cooked cup noodles and badly fried eggs, and he ate them without any pleasure, just staring.
I was close to tears at the end of the second day. I had never seen my brother like this, silent and neutral, never lifting a finger to control his situation. I convinced myself that he was just shell shocked. It about It was only until the third day in which he spoke.
'It's all so clear,' he murmured.
Then...he put his hand over his face and... laughed. He didn't even acknowledge my presence.
The next day, he was gone. He had disappeared, slipped out while I had slept. I ran out of the house screaming his name, but he had gone. The next few days were terrible. I was alone.
Then I turned eighteen, in which he should have turned twenty one, and by then I was in Tokyo. Contractors were booming then, being picked off the street left and right like dolls, sent to work. I went straight to one of the biggest employers, the Syndicate, and I managed to get in within a few months.
The Heaven's Gate War was in full swing, and people were dying left and right, but I didn't care. I only had one dream to accomplish, one single thread to hang on to while the others crumbled below me.
I wanted my brother.