ESP Kitty's Return
So, this is my second Osomatsu-san fic. I wrote this cuz ESP kitty kinda gets forgotten about and replaced by other cats after his episode…
(TRIGGER WARNINGS: SELF HARM and HINTED SUICIDAL THOUGHTS)
XXX
Ichimatsu sat in the closet, blood starting to pool up from the cuts going across his wrists Before any of the blood could drip onto the floor, he held an old rag to the wounds. After waiting a few minutes for the bleeding to stop, he removed the rag and messily wrapped them in gauze, not bothering to disinfect them. Then, in the darkness of the closet, Ichimatsu silently cried until he heard his brothers noisily enter the room.
"OY! Ichimatsu!" yelled Osomatsu.
Quickly, Ichimatsu composed himself, drying off his tears and hoping that his brothers would be too stupid to notice the red around his eyes.
"Ichimatsu!" Osomatsu repeated. "Wasn't he here earlier? He didn't leave, did he?"
"No, he should be here, unless he jumped out of the window or something," Choromatsu replied.
"Well, where is he?" Osomatsu asked.
"Maybe he climbed onto the roof to play with the cats!" Jyushimatsu suggested.
"It's raining, though," Todomatsu retorted.
"Come on out, My Brother," Karamatsu called out.
At that point, Ichimatsu had had enough. His self-loathing had been replaced by his typical seething, murderous rage. So, he violently threw the closet door open, a threat ready in his mind. However, the threat never made it past his lips. Ichimatsu stood in shock as he realized that Osomatsu was holding his old friend, the ESP Kitty. He felt somewhat happy to see his friend, but also scared of the cat's abilities, although he wouldn't admit to either. Ichimatsu was about to speak, but Todomatsu suddenly screamed.
"Ichimatsu-niisan was in the closet! He was totally in the closet!" he yelled.
"Heeeeeeeeeeeeh. Better watch out, Karamatsu," Osomatsu joked.
As his brothers laughed at the immature innuendo, Ichimatsu's rage quickly returned.
"WHAT THE HELLL IS WRONG WITH YOU IDIOTS?! I'LL KILL YOU!" he bellowed.
"You're all annoying. I'll kill you," said the cat.
"No way! Ichimatsu really meant he would kill us!" Osomatsu laughed.
After another minute of laughing at their brother's expense, they finally settled down a bit.
"Alright, that's enough for now, I guess," Osomatsu sighed. "Anyway, we found your cat."
"…Hi…," Ichimatsu said to the cat.
The creature jumped out of Osomatsu's arms and landed on Ichimatsu's shoulder.
"So, what were you doing in the closet anyway?" Choromatsu asked.
"None of your business!" Ichimatsu yelled.
"I can't tell you what I was doing because I'm scared," ESP Kitty spoke.
"Sh!" Ichimatsu admonished.
The cat looked to Ichimatsu sadly before it shut its mouth.
"Ichimatsu-niisan's scared?" Jyushimatsu questioned. "Why?"
"Yeah, you're normally the one scaring others," Osomatsu added.
"I'm not scared!" Ichimatsu screamed at his siblings harshly and glanced at the cat so it would get the picture and not say anything.
"But the cat just said you were scared," Todomatsu retorted. "And saying what people really think is kind of his thing."
"Shut up!" growled Ichimatsu before he stormed out of the room, taking the cat with him, despite the bad weather.
His brothers stared at each other in silence for a second before Choromatsu started talking again.
"What was that about?" he asked, knowing that no one had the answer. "I mean, he was acting pretty normal, but ESP Kitty made it clear he was lying."
Karamatsu stepped over to the closet and looked inside. Slowly, he reached in and took out a particular piece of fabric forgotten in Ichimatsu's rage. He turned back to his brothers and showed them what he had found.
"Blood?" Osomatsu questioned.
"Did Ichimatsu-niisan get hurt?" Jyushimatsu asked.
"Maybe he got in a fight or something and was scared we'd make fun of him for losing," said Choromatsu.
"But he didn't really look like he got beaten up," Osomatsu told him.
"Maybe it's just paint and Ichimatsu-niisan's secretly an artist?" Jyushimatsu suggested.
"No, it's definitely blood," said Karamatsu, who was looking intently at the cloth, hoping that doing so would reveal the answer. "And his injuries could be hidden under his sweatshirt. He just might not be injured on his face."
"Still, that's a lot of blood," Choromatsu continued. "Did someone cut him with a knife?"
The brothers continued discussing theories about what happened to Ichimatsu, but none of their ideas sounded right. Todomatsu, however, silently thought as his brothers did so.
"You know, Ichimatsu-niisan's eyes were red. I'm pretty sure he was crying," Todomatsu told them finally.
"Really?" Osomatsu said.
"Ichimatsu was crying?" Choromatsu gasped.
"Well, he does get emotional whenever that cat is around," Osomatsu said.
"He was crying before he knew we found the cat," Todomatsu corrected.
"Why was Ichimatsu-niisan crying?" Jyushimatsu asked.
After that, they all realized that, whatever the reason, something was wrong with their sibling. But since they had no clue where he went, they had to wait until he returned.
However, when he still hadn't returned by midnight, they decided to look for him… Well, they were about to, at least, when Ichimatsu threw the front door open just as they were about to pull it open.
"Ichimatsu!" Choromatsu exclaimed.
"We were about to go looking for you," Osomatsu told him.
"Where did you go, anyway?" Todomatsu questioned.
However, Ichimatsu stayed completely silent, gave them his usual evil glare, and walked past his brothers to enter their bedroom. They followed right behind him and saw him sitting in the corner, staring off into space as he absentmindedly petted the sleeping cat in his lap. The other five brothers all glanced at each other before quietly closing their bedroom door.
"Hey, Ichimatsu. I think we need to talk to you," Osomatsu said cautiously, trying to start the conversation, but simultaneously trying to avoid his brother's wrath.
"Piss off," Ichimatsu growled.
"Ichimatsu," Osomatsu said firmly in an attempt to get him to at least listen. "For once, we're actually trying to be serious."
"We're worried about you, My Brother," Karamatsu added.
"Shut up, Kusomatsu," Ichimatsu spat.
"Ichimatsu-niisan! Enough already!" yelled Todomatsu. "I know you were crying, and we found this bloody rag in the closet, so just tell us what's going on!"
Ichimatsu's eyes widened visibly when he saw the cloth, soaked in his blood, in the hands of his youngest brother. However, he quickly turned in the hope that his brothers wouldn't notice.
"Ichimatsu-niisan, we don't want you to cry!" Jyushimatsu said childishly, although his seemingly eternal grin had turned into a frown for the first time since he and his girlfriend broke up.
"We know that something's wrong, so we're not dropping it until you tell us about it," Choromatsu warned.
"Nothing's wrong, so you guys are just going to end up wasting your night," Ichimatsu replied venomously.
"We're not that stupid, Ichimatsu-niisan!" Todomatsu argued. "Anyone looking at you right now or when you were crying earlier would know that something's going on!"
"Shut up," Ichimatsu hissed. "You guys are just blowing things out of proportion."
At this, Todomatsu seemed to grow even more frustrated than he had been.
"We're blowing things out of proportion?! You were crying in a closet, where we found a blood-covered rag, and we're blowing things out of proportion?!" Todomatsu screamed as he held up the cloth again. "Then, whose blood is on this then, Ichimatsu-niisan?! Whose?!"
"It's none of your business!" Ichimatsu yelled back.
"We're you brothers! So, whether you like it or not, it is our business if we know something's wrong!" Todomatsu corrected.
Everyone expected that Ichimatsu would keep yelling as he had been doing and as he normally did. However, none of them expected Ichimatsu to bury his face between his arms and the cat and start sobbing. ESP Kitty opened his eyes as he heard it and softly poked Ichimatsu with his paw, clearly distressed by the man's sadness. This only made Ichimatsu cry harder.
"Ichimatsu?" Osomatsu questioned carefully. "What's wrong?"
"SHUT UP! WHY CAN'T YOU ALL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!" Ichimatsu sobbed loudly.
"There's no way we're going to leave you alone like this, Ichimatsu-niisan," Todomatsu told him, now speaking softer than he had been.
The other five brothers then continued to try to get Ichimatsu to tell them about what was going on, or at least to calm down a little, but to no avail. Twenty minutes later, his sobbing had only grown louder. Then, the door opened up behind them and their mother walked in, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"What's going on?" she asked her sons with a worried look on her face.
Her gaze then went immediately to her fourth son sobbing in the corner. Quietly, she went over to him and knelt down. Before Ichimatsu even noticed his mother's presence, her arms we around him and she was whispering gently to him. After a few minutes of this, Ichimatsu stopped crying and ended up falling asleep. Their mother carefully lowered him to the floor and turned to her other children.
"Why was Ichimatsu crying?" she asked.
"He wouldn't tell us," Choromatsu answered.
The woman sighed.
"Alright. You should all get to bed. We're not going to be able to talk to him until tomorrow," said their mother.
With that, she left her sons to go to bed. Once they had unrolled the futon, they considered picking up Ichimatsu and sliding him under the covers, but they decided against it because they didn't want to risk him waking up and sobbing again. So, they let their brother sleep in the corner of the room with ESP Kitty rolled up at his side.
The next morning, all the brothers woke up before Ichimatsu. By the time he was awake, their parents had joined the brothers in the room, all of them watching the fourth son and waiting to talk to him. Once he had opened his eyes, Ichimatsu was completely taken aback by the stares of so many people at the same time. He opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by his mother.
"Ichimatsu. I know you don't want to tell us, but you have to. When something's wrong, it's our job to help you," she said sternly, but with worry. "No matter how you look at it, you were sobbing last night, and your brothers already told me about the bloody cloth, so please just tell us what's wrong."
Ichimatsu stared at his mother for a second before averting his eyes. He knew that he couldn't start yelling at his mother, so he quickly made up a lie so that he wouldn't have to tell them the real reason he was crying.
"Yesterday… One of my cat friends got hit by a car, and I used an old rag to carry his body to a place to bury him…," Ichimatsu lied quietly.
When ESP Kitty started to open its mouth, Ichimatsu quickly glanced at it, and it shut its mouth without correcting his lie. Their mother sighed as she stood up and approached her son. Just like last night, she wrapped her arms around him.
"Okay… If anything like that happens again, remember that we're your family, Ichimatsu. You don't have to mourn your friend all alone. Alright?" said their mother softly.
Silently, Ichimatsu nodded, although he knew he would never go to anyone when he was sad. Soon after, their parents left the brothers alone. The men spent a few hours lounging about the room as they often did, but Ichimatsu eventually got up and left the house with the cat. Almost immediately, the remaining five brothers stopped whatever they had been doing.
"Hey, guys…," said Osomatsu. "You know that Ichimatsu was lying earlier, right?"
The others nodded.
"He stopped ESP Kitty from telling us something, and he gave in too easily compared to yesterday," Todomatsu told them.
"So? Are we gonna follow him?" Osomatsu asked.
They nodded again.
And with that, the brothers quietly snuck out of the house and followed Ichimatsu from a far enough distance where he wouldn't easily notice them. Eventually, Ichimatsu entered the park and sat down on a swing with ESP Kitty on his lap. They crept behind some playground equipment to continue their spying. They were hoping that Ichimatsu might at least start talking to the cat, but he merely continued to sit there silently, petting the cat he held. That was, however, until Ichimatsu spoke a single sentence.
"Hey, do you think I should actually do it today?" he asked the cat.
The cat raised its head and clearly shook its head negatively. Accepting the answer, Ichimatsu sighed before he stood up. He started to head back in the direction of their home, so the other five brothers continued to stand behind the equipment to have a little meeting again.
"So, something's definitely up," Choromatsu spoke. "And whatever it is, it's probably pretty bad."
"What was Ichimatsu-niisan going to do?" Jyushimatsu questioned, although he knew none of his brothers had the answer.
"Who knows? The cat clearly didn't want him to though… So what would Ichimatsu want to do that the cat wouldn't want him to?" Todomatsu asked.
"We just seem to be finding more questions than answers," Choromatsu said.
"Well, normally, Ichimatsu only gets upset when it involves cats, but considering the other stuff… His story just doesn't seem to make sense," Osomatsu stated. "And he didn't even leave the house yesterday, or Choromatsu would have seen him when he went out the door. There wasn't even a time when he could have seen a cat friend die, unless it was before any of us woke up, and he didn't wake up until after Jyushimatsu."
"Maybe the next time he falls asleep, we should talk to ESP Kitty? I mean, it looks pretty worried too, and it's been trying to tell us whatever Ichimatsu is really thinking," Todomatsu suggested.
"Nice plan, My Brother," Karamatsu agreed quickly.
Although it pained them to agree when Karamatsu approved in such a painful way, the others nodded. So, with a plan set in place, the five men returned home to wait for the fourth oldest to take a nap. When they entered their bedroom, they found Ichimatsu reading a magazine as ESP Kitty looked at it from his shoulder.
In the end, Ichimatsu fell asleep half an hour later with ESP Kitty curled up next to him. So, Choromatsu quietly crept over to his sleeping brother and poked the cat until it peeled its eyes open. Choromatsu put a finger to his lips and gestured for the cat to walk over to the table in the center of the room. ESP Kitty stood up and went over.
"We need to talk to you," Osomatsu whispered to the cat.
The cat stared back, waiting for the brothers to continue.
"You know what's wrong with Ichimatsu-niisan, right?" Todomatsu asked.
ESP Kitty hesitated a second before nodding and trotting back to the sleeping man in the corner of the room. Then, it gently placed a paw on the sleeve of Ichimatsu's hoodie and stared back at the brothers. Being the oldest, Osomatsu got up first and was followed by the others. He cautiously took the end of his younger brother's sleeve and pulled it up. He froze in horror once he saw what was beneath the purple fabric of the hoodie. Most of Ichimatsu's arm was covered in a white bandage, but Osomatsu could see red and pink lines on the parts that weren't covered. Osomatsu knew what the lines were immediately.
"Oh my God!" Osomatsu exclaimed loudly.
This, of course, woke up Ichimatsu. His eyes shot open and widened in terror once he saw that his brothers had discovered his secret. He quickly ripped his arm out of his brother's grip and scrambled to a sitting position. The brothers stared at each other silently, the atmosphere growing heavier as the pause grew longer. Finally, Osomatsu spoke.
"Ichimatsu-," Osomatsu started.
"Don't," Ichimatsu growled sharply.
"Ichimatsu! We have to talk about this, even more than before!" Osomatsu argued.
"No!" Ichimatsu shot back. "Fuck you!"
"You're cutting yourself, Ichimatsu! That's a huge thing, and we need to discuss it!" Osomatsu continued.
"It's none of your business!" Ichimatsu shouted.
"Yes it is!" yelled Osomatsu. "How many times do we have to tell you this?! You're our brother, and we're not going to just let you keep suffering!"
"Shut up! I don't want your fucking pity!" Ichimatsu spat.
"It's not pity! We do actually care about you, whether you get that or not!" Osomatsu screamed.
Ichimatsu gripped his head with his hands and let a harsh, unintelligible shout of frustration.
"Leave me alone!" he yelled after.
"No!" Osomatsu yelled back.
"ENOUGH!" Karamatsu loudly interrupted. "Ichimatsu, for God's sake, people don't cut themselves because they're perfectly fine! And Osomatsu's right; we do want to help you! Stop this! You need help, whether you want it or not!"
After Karamatsu finished, the entire room went silent again. Karamatsu moved forward and wrapped his arms around his younger brother.
"Tell us what's wrong, Ichimatsu, please," Karamatsu then said, his voice quivering as if he was about to cry.
Ichimatsu tried to struggle out of Karamatsu's grip, but he ended up failing to do so.
"Ichimatsu," Osomatsu cut back in. "You're definitely not happy, and you can't really hide it anymore. So why can't you just accept our help?"
"I don't need your help," Ichimatsu growled.
Despite his harsh reply, however, Karamatsu felt wetness seeping into his shirt.
"Yes, you do," Karamatsu told him gently.
At this, Ichimatsu couldn't hold back his sobs any longer, so he let them free. The rest of his brothers joined in the hug in an attempt to comfort him, even though they knew it wouldn't be enough. And even though they knew that just a hug wouldn't be enough to help their brother, they knew that, from now on, they would do whatever they could to make sure it was enough. They weren't going to let Ichimatsu surrender to himself.
XXX
I'm pretty sure this is the longest one-shot I've ever posted…
On my other Osomatsu-san fic, people said that they wanted to see the brothers comfort Ichimatsu, and I think this fic has a bit more of that.
I was thinking about making it a bit longer, but I think it's best to end it here so it doesn't end up being too repetitive.
Anyway, thanks for reading!