Yosuga wasn't his sister.
The thought hit him the moment he woke up, panting, reaching out with his hands—a dream. It had been a dream. He had seen her body rising up out of her bed, her arms and legs dangling, her fingertips just barely brushing the sheets, her neck arching back, and he had reached out for her, knowing that she was about to—
He woke with his arm outstretched, gasping, and he sprung up in bed, his hands searching for a light until he elbowed the wall and turned on the overhead light.
"Mh? Toto? Are you all right?"
Toto was still panting, scanning the room, searching frantically for some sign of an intruder. The clock on the wall declared the time to be a little after five in the morning. The sound of her voice made his head turn, his hands still grasping, and he saw Yosuga beside him.
"Bad dream," Toto said, his breathing shallow and rapid. "Bad dream. I'm fine. Just needed light."
He sat upright in bed for several minutes, letting Yosuga gently touch his arm and rub his shoulder. It wasn't very long before he was able to lay back down again and flick off the light once more, curling with his legs against his chest, his knees and forehead against Yosuga's back.
He fell asleep again.
000
He studied her closer once the day came.
Yosuga did not particularly look like his sister. There were some superficial differences, certainly. She was quiet, like Toto remembered his sister being. And she had an upturned nose. And sometimes she laughed at the same things that would have made Toto's biological sister laugh.
The longer he tried to think of similarities, the more uncomfortable he became, until he was squirming in his seat and feeling something like fingers crawl up his ribs.
He a thought hit him, violently, as he realized he couldn't quite hold his sister's face in his mind anymore—what if having Yosuga as a sister erased what little memory he had of her—
"Oh," he said to himself. Yosuga looked up at him, her mouth frowning and her eyebrows furrowing. He waved her off, "Just realized something."
Yosgua wasn't his sister.
000
The shopping district was always busy, since there was no curfew. As long as he walked down the streets in plain view, people avoided his gaze and moved out of his path, but there was no mass exodus from the market, and that was perfectly all right with him. He kept his face stony and footsteps even.
Yosuga didn't go shopping. He wasn't really sure if anyone else in G-ward knew she existed, but said nothing about it. He passed Crow's favorite ramen place, then the grocer's, and finally entered the bookshop not three fronts down. There were no assistants or employees in the bookshop, only CP machines and a digital catalogue of every book in stock.
Toto picked out a thin blank notebook and three new murder mysteries.
The novels he put on Yosuga's bedside bookshelf for them to share. The notebook he kept for himself, he kept it… not a secret.
He did not keep it a secret, and he did not mention it, and Yosuga did not ask. She must have noticed, he couldn't imagine she didn't at least notice he had a notebook now, not with how he had practically moved into the room, the room she rarely left.
The notebook he carried around with him, staring down at it in the dead of night, trying to think of some way to write her name, or sketch out her face, record his memories of her—his sister. His first sister.
The notebook remained blank. He ripped it apart with his teeth before the end of the month.
000
Yosuga hugged him one day. He had been sitting on the bed, minding his own business, and staring at the wall, hating it, when her weight settled behind him and her arms slid around his shoulders.
A few wordless moments passed. Toto leaned back against her, closed his eyes, and said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" She kept her arms wrapped around him and didn't offer any explanation of what prompted the gesture in the first place.
"Nothing," Toto said. He rested his forehead in the crook of her neck and took a deep breath. She kept holding him.
Sorry I'm having trouble separating you from her.
"Hey, Yosuga. Tell me about where you grew up again?"
"Did Yosuga say things about where she grew up before?" Yosuga said, cocking her head. He felt the movement more than anything. Her hands rubbed circles into his back.
"Nah. Maybe a little. I probably wasn't paying attention." He kept his eyes closed and listened to her voice. It was deeper than the one in his head. Yosuga had a deep voice when she was relaxed.
"Mh. Tell Yosuga what you were sorry about and she will tell you about her childhood again," Yosuga said.
Toto snorted. "I guess I could."
But that was not the sort of thing you said to someone you cared about.
Toto said, instead, "But maybe I'm more interested in Kazuya Takino right now. Read to me?"
His eyes stayed closed. He grinned. Yosuga huffed and (Toto imagined) rolled her eyes before releasing him just enough to lean over to the bookshelf and pluck the novel off the shelf.
"You're going to have to change position so I can see the pages," she said.
"I'm not the one who put myself in this position," he said.
"You chose to stay there," said Yosuga. Toto laughed and clapped his hands once before obligingly moving out of her grip and setting his head on her lap. No one person could hold him if he didn't want to be held.
He opened his eyes and blinked up at her.
Sorry I keep doing this.
"So?" he said.
Yosuga cleared her throat and shifted a bit before settling back against the bed's headboard and starting to read in her deep, sweet voice.
Yosuga was not his sister. She could never be her. Toto would never again have someone who had known him every fucking moment of his life, but—
But if Yosuga stopped being a replacement, then she could be a friend. If Yosuga wasn't someone dead born again, she could be someone new and interesting. If Yosuga wasn't a replacement, then-
Yosuga wasn't his sister. Not the first sister he'd had. But there were many ways of getting a family. There were many ways to have a little brother.
000
A/N:
One symptom which often accompanies loss is 'searching.'
They're dead and you know they're dead, but for a split second, you will see them in a crowd, in a person's coat, in their demeanor. Sometimes you will try to replace them with another person you know, projecting the affection onto the other person (possibly without their awareness) because they remind you of the dead. This is normal and natural, and a way of dealing with sudden loss. However, it is important to not let projections take over reality. Eventually, the need for a replacement should wane, either being replaced with genuine affection for the other person in their own right, or dropping off into apathy as you both move on with your lives. A worst case scenario would involve you becoming bitter that the other person does not live up to your projections, or the other person feeling used due to being a replacement.
I think that for Toto and Yosuga to have gotten close, eventually he must have realized what he was doing. Actively working against the replacement instinct and trying to forge a genuine bond can be a way to forge a powerful genuine relationship.
Quick upload while I have internet.
Part of the "Asexual Relationfics" series on AO3