Osomatsu had no idea on how it started, maybe he didn't notice other signs as he was twelve the first time he started counting the bruises and their crazy and –sometimes- supernatural adventures begun when they all started to walk – all at once, as good copy-of-each-one sextuplets they were, but he had the image clear on his mid when the first bruise appeared.
It was the day when the five of them beat the guys who threw a baseball bat to the eye of their sweet and crazy Jyushimatsu and then laughed at him, who now has a lazy eye thanks to them. The next day Jyushimatsu's left eye was swollen and terrible looking, and Osomatsus's right was in the same situation. Strange, his mom and the others thought, but possible as he was the one who fought with all of them. Maybe he won a surprise sucker punch and he didn't even notice.
And Osomatsu said that maybe they were right, when he knew they were not.
He had been noticing small freshly bleeding cuts and and violet bruises on his arms and legs he never had until morning arrived, but this one was a little too much. So he started waiting for more accidents.
Jyushimatsu got better, and life was normal again.
And with that the rowdy boys started to get common bruises. And so Osomatsu got them too, he saw with the excuse of bandaging – something he got really good with the years of bruises and problems they had.
Always mirroring the others, like opposite hands.
...
Sometimes at night he thought hard until morning came, and he got no sleep.
Sometimes he cried a bit too.
What if the copy was him?
But that was not like him, he thought one night. He was the big brother of all of them, maybe it was his punishment for being a little shit. Or maybe it was because their brothers were his life.
He tried to believe in the first answer. It was the easiest and most reasonable one.
...
He was lazy and very slow, but not stupid. It took him years to notice the changes on them, and the rules bound to him.
Choromatsu started to burn every easily flammable thing dear to him. Ichimatsu changed to feline alike each and then, but it seemed he couldn't still control his shapeshifting abilities at first. Jyushimatsu just became a more surrealistic version of himself everyday. He suspected most of them had to do with a curse or just mishandled powers of all the shit they had encountered before, like the watermelon aliens or the death merchants.
In his case…
1. They felt as if they were his.
2. It was always self wounds or damage made by others, who were not another Matsuno sextuplet.
3. Depending on the damage amount, they could disappear in between three (little bruises) or six (big damage, even cracked bones) days.
4. They always appeared next morning the other brother received the damage.
He had many ways to prove it, like the burn mark on his leg when Chroromatsu left a burning paper on his lap, the many bandages he had to use whenever Jyushimatsu went to practice…
And the thin, thin cuts on his left wrist and forearms he later, later than he actually wished he knew, noticed that was Ichimatsu's doing.
He laughed at most of his bruises, he was a man and he could deal with them even if they weren't really his. But he was also the one who bandaged Ichimatsu once or twice night before the act itself.
"H-how did you notice this…?" Ichimatsu had said, surprised the first night he just went there and opened the bathroom door, medical kit on his hand and no words said.
"Nii-san know his brothers best, don't you think?" A silly wink marked his face at the bulb's light, but Ichimatsu could see a light of his own in his eyes. He believed him.
"Aren't you going to ask?" His bandages were a bit tight, but it was perfect for him.
"Will it answer anything, that?"
"…" His little brother looked to the side, didn't wanted to see his big bro's eyes anymore.
Some minutes passed and the deed was finished. Osomatsu patted his head and ruffles his greasy hair. Ichimatsu felt like he was a kid again, it was not that bad.
"If you want to hurt yourself again you call me and I'll beat the shit out of you, ok?" he grinned, and Ichimatsu returned the grin at him. He didn't judge him, nor he had the right to.
He guessed fighting could get the stuff on him out for a good while.
"If you can, sure" He shrugged, and both went to their futon again.
Next day Osomatsu grabbed some of his mom's money, and after a good scolding from both his parents he bought cheap coloured hoodies for each one of them. Ichimatsu bought a second one, purple like him, just in case.
They were warm.
...
Osomatsu has worn red ever since.
...
The years passed and Osomatsu noticed one little thing, constant from now that all of his brothers stopped being copies of each other, when it was convenient for them of course.
His brothers were his life, but that's not what they thought of him.
He needed no hints of it, it was obvious as Choromatsu's dislike of working, or the brotherly and bitter love from Ichimatsu to Karamatsu.
But the day when Choromatsu was gone for working somewhere else was the peak of all, and the next days and months were just a blur. He didn't forget about the punch he threw to Totty, nor the words Karamatsu said to him that horrible night. But he didn't feel them anymore. They felt just… gray, there were no other words to explain it.
"Let him go, we are not yours!"
Hah.
He knew that.
Its just that…
...
For much that he didn't want them, he needed his brothers near him.
...
And for a while, he received no bruises, no strange pains on his body.
He had no way to know if his brothers were with him anymore.
Were they days? Months alone? Who knew anymore.
He didn't want to feel like that, he didn't want to receive his parents sad looks. But they had left him, left his sad group of freaks he tried to make happy and mad all his life.
He had to try something.
Maybe if he re-did his old wounds, he would feel alive again. Maybe he wouldn't feel like a ball of gray again.
So he started with his right eye.
...
"Was it work related, Jyushimatsu-chan?" "No no! Arigato gozaimazu!"
...
Day after day, he revived his old wounds. He had a working mind for all kinds of stupid and forgettable shit, but he couldn't forget something he had as a secret for so long.
Like the wounds Karamatsu got on his face and chest he didn't know how, but that he came home late to smoke some cigars - Osomatsu borrowed some of his and smoked some hours of the night together.
...
"Were you fighting again you fucking idiot!?" "No Chibita, I swear I wasn't-"
...
Like when his face was a mirror of when Todomatsu striked his face so much in the pavement in that fateful Starbucks Day, and ended with cuts that only concealer could hide.
...
"Dayooon? Your face worries me Dayooooon!" "Oh- same. I can't go out like this…"
...
And in those days, he tried to feel like he was actually getting better. He tried it, even if his face didn't show any of it. He felt like a black cloud invaded what should've been his brothers space.
"… This is just great, now who's a mess?"
Matsuyo was very strong, he had to when raising a bunch of naughty children who ended up growing into big and lazy children even at their twenties. But she was very intelligent too, and she knew she was not the one who could help her eldest son, who was becoming—no, was an empty shell of himself. She had long night talks with Matsuzo, the father, even when she was not on the best of words with him, still rancorous after all their fights. But he always listened to her, and her decision was to bring his children home so they could talk with their dear Osomatsu once more.
So he could maybe live again.
And she called Todomatsu and Choromatsu, the only ones who had mobile phones, told them her problems, and they promised to call again, this time all together.
...
Todomatsu called Choromatsu at night, still rancorous after his eldest brother, but still very afraid.
"I have to get out of this place Choromatsu! I believe its haunted… its that or Dayoon doing me things at night"
"… Things? That sound a bit—" He lowered his voice, his tenants were strict with him, especially about noises at night.
"I don't even wanna listen what you have to say about it. All mornings I'm waking up with cuts or really nasty bruises somewhere on my body!" he sounded terribly scared, shaking even, over the phone, but Choromatsu listening to those words felt a bit panicked too.
"Bruises? I have been getting those too! I have to admit it- I am very clumsy, but I'm sure I haven't got hit on all those places—"
"What!? You too, nii-san!?" he shrieked.
"Todomatsu you are scaring me now, y-you sound like you know about this little shits distressing me, it just can't be that you actually got them too!"
"Let's compare them so we can confirm it!"
Both of them thought they were stalking each other, but most of the places they got the wounds were the same, excepting some they didn't got when the other did.
Still, it was too much for being just a coincidence. Both felt more panicked after that fact, Todomatsu didn't bothering in hiding his terror.
They decided to be up all night trying to find each of their respecting twins.
And when next day came…
"Todomatsu that red line in your neck looks like it hurts Dayoon…"
"What…?"
There was no time to lose anymore.
...
"Boys, my boys… Osomatsu just *SOB*…!" CLICK
...
RIIIIIING…
…
…
… RIIIIIING…
The room was white. He believed.
He had no furniture but he didn't need it, he felt like he was floating inside of himself. A damned telephone- he suspected, because he couldn't see one with all those lights on and off – ringed somewhere on that place.
And he didn't move, he didn't want to.
He sleeped…
But there was no sleep for his kind, or what he tried to be at least.
…
A door opened somewhere, and a black figure entered. Black with white lining, impossible to see gender or whatever, floated next to him.
Being nearer, he saw who he was.
" Don't you wanna see what's next, Osomatsu"
No, I don't wanna see.
"What a child you are. But that doesn't surprise me"
…
"You paid a big price for being such a lazy child, I suppose I'm also at fault, so here I am with a gift for you this time"
So the other thing was not a gift too?
"The other ability was always yours. You were the one who felt this connection with your brothers that strongly. It was not mine."
…
"Take this"
RIIIIIING
It was an eighties phone. How nostalgic.
RIIIIIING
"Take it"
I don't wanna, I don't want to see what's next… I don't…
"Such a child. But you know you are not like that, Osomatsu. At the end, you got to be there so you get the shit beaten out of you"
…
…
Okay.
I'll do.
"We will see each other again. Say hello to all please"
I'm sure they miss you too.
…
…
…
Hello?
...
He woke up with the warmth of ten equal hands. Five equal bodies worth of warmth, on what he supposed it was his hospital bed.
There would be time to talk later, he guessed. He needed this…