Despite how crowded the train platform was as waves of people flooded out the doors, Jyushimatsu found them immediately. Five men identical to him, all wearing differently colored sweatshirts with the same tree emblem, greeted him at once, waving one arm each above their heads and speaking in unison.
"Welcome home, Jyushimatsu!" The only one who didn't quite match was Todomatsu, who added a "niisan" to the end of his greeting.
"Brothers!" Jyushimatsu cried as he ran to them, oblivious to the people he crashed into along the way with both his body and the bulky duffel bag he held on his shoulder. He leaped at them with his arms outstretched, aiming for no one in particular with his enthusiastic hug; the voice he heard saying "Whoa! Hey! Good to see you, too!" alerted him to the fact that he dove at Osomatsu. Three other brothers swarmed around him, all of them asking different questions at once, too drowned out by the station crowd and each other for Jyushimatsu to understand them properly.
Wait, three?
"Stop! Too loud!" Jyushimatsu stood up straight with a laugh. He took a look around the station until, through the drab grays and blacks of the business suits around him, he spotted a patch of purple heading for a nearby bench. "Ichimatsu-niisan! Ichimatsu-niisan!" His sleeved hand waved above his head with an intensity that should have hurt. "I'm back from Homura's, Ichimatsu-niisan!"
Ichimatsu slowly turned his head and locked eyes with Jyushimatu. "Yeah. Hey." He then turned away and sat on the bench to stare out at the empty train tracks.
"Huh? Ichimatsu-niisan?"
"We missed ya, Jyushimatsu!" Osomatsu pulled Jyushimatsu into a headlock. "What were you thinking? Abandoning us for a week to go spend time with a girl? No fair!" Jyushimatsu laughed and squirmed as Osomatsu ruffled his hair.
"You could have at least brought one back!" Todomatsu said. "Does she have any sisters?"
"I'm only okay with that plan if she has enough sisters for all of us!" Osomatsu said.
"Hm!" Karamatsu whipped off his sunglasses, and his brothers froze in horror, aware of what sort of speeches often followed that sound. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Our little Jyushimatsu moving up in the world! Going out beyond our ward, spending his time with a beautiful young woman, his Jyushimatsu Girl! Yes, perhaps it is he who shall first graduate from the hell caste we find ourselves in!"
Todomatsu shuddered at that suggestion.
"So, what was it like out there with your little country flower?" Karamatsu continued on. "You must provide us with the details! Allow us to study your ways and join you in your climb in status!"
"Please stop posing and shouting, Karamatsu-niisan, people are staring at us," Todomatsu said. Indeed, people stopped to point and whisper at Karamatsu, including two small children who were abruptly ushered off by their mother.
"Maybe we should ask him on the way home?" Choromatsu suggested. "It's really crowded and loud here, and I think we're in the way."
"Very well!" Karamatsu hadn't cooled down his dramatics in the slightest. "Come! On the way home, Jyushimatsu, you must give us every little detail of what it's like to spend the weekend with one of the female species!" As if they were one living mass, the five gathered sextuplets all made their way to the platform's exit, four of them back to asking more questions than Jyushimatsu could focus on.
The fact that all the questions came simultaneously wasn't the main reason he struggled to focus on them.. "Ichimatsu-niisan?" he called while turning back to look.
Ichimatsu still sat on the bench, but he turned his attention to Jyushimatsu again.
"We're leaving. Aren't you coming?"
"Ah." With his hands buried in his sweatshirt's pockets, he slowly rose to his feet, and with just as little care for haste, made his way toward the others. The other four went ahead, at this point distracted by talking to each other about their own theories about Jyushimatsu's trip, while Jyushimatsu stayed behind.
"What are you waiting for?" Ichimatsu asked.
Jyushimatsu flinched; his voice held more venom than he usually showed his younger brother. "I'm waiting for you, niisan!"
"Go on ahead. I'll catch up."
"But-"
"Go on ahead." Ichimatsu stopped walking, ignoring the fact that he may have blocked people by stopping so suddenly, and stared Jyushimatsu down. "Stop waiting around for me."
"Oh... okay, then. See you at home?"
"Tch."
"...okay." Jyushimatsu turned toward the exit, and after looking back one more time to see if Ichimatsu really wasn't going to follow, he ran to catch up with his other brothers.
"...and she lives really far from any bathhouses, so she has a bath in her house, so if it's really cold out you don't need to worry about going outside just to take a bath! And there's lots of fields to run around in, and they're her fields, so other people can't say we're too loud or in the way or need to grow up if we play in them! And she plants lots of flowers in them! They're so pretty, just like her! And she has a really big dog! I want a really big dog!" Jyushimatsu rambled on about his trip as he walked home with his brothers, barely pausing to breathe.
"Where would we keep a dog?" Choromatsu asked. "Our house is tiny, and we don't have a yard..."
"Who needs a dog when we have you, Jyushimatsu?" Osomatsu asked. The whole group, Jyushimatsu included, laughed at that statement.
"True! True!" Jyushimatsu cried. "I can run around and play fetch and lick people I like, just like a dog!" He leaned into Osomatsu to make his point, but Osomatsu pushed him away, still laughing.
"Ew! Gross!"
"Yeah! Like a dog!" Jyushimatsu agreed.
"But there's one important question you're not answering, you know," Osomatsu draped an arm around Jyushimatsu's shoulders and leaned in with a smirk. "While out there, did you... heh, you know... hit any home runs with her?"
"Yeah! Plenty of home runs! That was lots of fun!" Jyushimatsu said with a vigorous nod.
"Ehhhh?!" came the shocked response from his brothers.
"But I guess it wasn't fair, because she's never played baseball before! And maybe it's not really a home run when we're not really playing baseball! You can't play real baseball with only two people! But she threw the ball and I hit it! It went really far, and I didn't have to worry about smashing windows because she doesn't have neighbors! She always laughed when I hit it far! Said it was amazing how strong I am!"
His brothers visibly relaxed upon realizing how literally he took the question.
"That's nice, but not what I meant," Osomatsu said. "I mean... you spent a week in a girl's house, so... did you two...?"
"Oh! No! Nonononono!" Jyushimatsu's eyes went catlike as he rapidly shook his head, Osomatsu's meaning finally caught. "No! No home runs! I slept in the guest room!"
"Come on, that's lame!" Osomatsu said. "You stay in a girl's house for a week and don't even sleep in her room?! Then why'd you go out there?!"
"Maybe he likes her as a person, not just some sexual fantasy," Choromatsu said. "Not everyone's as desperate as you."
"That's big talk from someone who spends all day jacking off to idol photos." Todomatsu raised a hand to hide his laughter at his own statement.
Choromatsu sputtered. "That's- that's different-"
"Oh really, niisan? How?"
"I mean, it would be different if that was something I actually did-"
While the others argued, Jyushimatsu looked behind himself while still walking ahead. Ichimatsu followed behind, matching their pace but making no effort to catch up, his attention turned firmly toward the sidewalk.
"Is Ichimatsu-niisan okay?" Jyushimatsu asked over his brothers' arguing. Everyone went quiet at his question.
Choromatsu was the first to break the awkward silence. "He's been like that ever since you left..."
"Are you surprised? He's Ichimatsu-niisan," Todomatsu said. "He's always miserable."
"It's true, he hasn't been his brightest recently, even by his own standards," Karamatsu said. "I offered him my assistance, but he declined."
"He didn't just decline, he nearly strangled you to death," Choromatsu said.
"...yes. Yes, he did."
"He's sulked even more than usual all week, but I just thought it was because you weren't around to make him go outside," Osomatsu said. "I figured he'd perk up when you got back home... I have no idea what's going on. Eventually you just stop asking him, you know? It's not like he ever answers us anyway."
"Hm... you guys walk ahead." The others took Jyushimatsu's advice, and he ran backward until he was by Ichimatsu's side. "You okay, niisan?"
No response. Ichimatsu did nothing to acknowledge that he now had company, not even look up.
"I was telling our brothers about my trip to see Homura."
It was faint, but Jyushimatsu could swear he heard Ichimatsu growl at that statement.
"Why don't you join us? Don't you want to hear about her?"
"No. No, I don't."
"Why not?" Jyushimatsu tilted his head in honest confusion. "I missed you. I wanna tell you about all the fun I had!"
"I don't wanna hear it." Ichimatsu still refused to look up.
"But why-"
"I don't. Want. To hear it. Jyushimatsu."
Jyushimatsu recoiled from his brother's harsh tone, but still tried to shake it off. "Okay... but... Osomatsu-niisan said you've been alone since I left. That's not good! I'll walk so you're not alone anymore. You don't have to say anything."
And so he didn't for the rest of the trip home.
"He mentioned that she has a bath in her house! Do you think he tried anything with that?"
"Peeping on girls makes you trash, Osomatsu-niisan, no way around it!"
"Peeping?! No, I mean, he could have asked to share! If he asked and she said yes, then what's the problem, right? He had to have done something, no one stays with his girlfriend for a week and then doesn't try anything, that's a waste of time..."
Jyushimatsu overheard his brothers' conversation about him as they entered the house and settled in at the living room table, but didn't pay them much attention. Instead, he watched as Ichimatsu immediately made a beeline for the stairs and headed out of sight.
"Jyushimatsu! Settle this between me and Choromatsu, would you?" Osomatsu asked. "It's okay for a guy to ask to take a bath with his girlfriend, right? That's normal, not trashy?"
Jyushimatsu offered no input in his brothers' debate. Instead, after kicking off his shoes and dropping his bag by the door, he ran up the steps in pursuit of his older brother.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Choromatsu asked. "What if he pisses him off more?"
"Maybe he should at least try... if anyone can figure out what's going on with him, it's Jyushimatsu-niisan..."
That was the last Jyushimatsu heard from them before moving out of earshot. "Ichimatsu-niisan? Where'd you go?" Ichimatsu didn't respond, but after Jyushimatsu noticed that their bedroom door and window were wide open, his location became obvious. He scrambled out the window and onto the roof, and just as he expected, Ichimatsu sat and hugged his knees, staring up at the clear sky as a light breeze ruffled his hair. A small brown cat nudged his legs, but Ichimatsu paid it no attention. The silence continued as Jyushimatsu took a seat beside him.
"What's wrong, Ichimatsu-niisan?" Jyushimatsu asked.
Silence. The cat at Ichimatsu's legs settled on his feet and fell asleep, but he didn't even make a move to pet it.
"Did you lose one of the cats? We can help you hold a funeral, if that would make you feel better..."
Silence.
Jyushimatsu thought a bit more, and his blood suddenly chilled as a dark possibility entered his mind. "Was... was it ESP Kitty? Did something happen to ESP Kitty? I'm so sorry... I know he was your favorite-"
"ESP Kitty is fine. The cats are fine." Ichimatsu resumed staring upward; Jyushimatsu wasn't sure if he was actually looking at anything, or if that just happened to be the way his head tilted.
"Then what's wrong?" he asked.
"Why did you come back?" Ichimatsu asked.
"Huh? I- I live here. In Akatsuka Ward. In this house. With my brothers. Always have. Of course I came back!" His normal laughter after his statements was skipped this time around. "Was I... not supposed to?"
"You went to see your girlfriend. A girl who can't get enough of you," Ichimatsu said. "You were independent from us for a week, and you had a great time with someone who I'm sure didn't want you to go. So why did you come back?"
"...didn't you miss me, niisan?" Jyushi asked. The only response he got was Ichimatsu hugging his knees tighter, so he tried again. "Didn't you-"
"Why did you come back?" he repeated.
"Because I missed my brothers. I'll miss Homura, but if I stayed there I'd miss you guys." Jyushimatsu stared down at his feet as he shuffled them. "I'd miss all of you... I'd miss you, niisan."
"Shut up." He spoke with no malice, only his monotone; that may have been the only thing stopping Ichimatsu's statement from cutting into Jyushimatsu's heart.
"Why? I missed you!"
"You're just pitying me, right? Trying to make me feel better. Stop it." The ghost of unwanted emotion began creeping out with Ichimatsu's words. "I hate pity, you know that..."
"It's not pity! I really missed you!" Jyushimatsu insisted. "So... so when you won't talk to me... I'm home now, you're right here, but I still miss you!" Despite the sting in his eyes, he laughed. "That's weird, isn't it? That makes no sense!"
"Am I holding you back?" Ichimatsu asked. "If it wasn't for me, if it wasn't for us, would you still be out there with Homura?"
"No! No! You're not holding me back! I like being here! Promise! Honest!"
"So you wouldn't have stayed with Homura if you didn't have us to worry about?"
"Well... well..." Jyushimatsu fidgeted, his hands picking at the bits of fuzz inside his sleeves. "I'd wanna stay, but... I couldn't do that! I'd be making her parents take care of me! That's not nice! I'm not their son!"
"But Homura's lived on her own before, right? She could do it again, and she could take you with her." Ichimatsu's expression remained worryingly blank, his voice swallowing down pieces of emotion just as quickly as they emerged.
"No she couldn't, because I wanna stay with you guys!"
"If you didn't have to stay with us is my point." Ichimatsu gritted his teeth and gripped the legs of his pants in his clenched fists.
"But I do! I want to! So why pretend I don't? I do, so I do!" Even as he tried his best to maintain his smile, Jyushimatsu's mouth still quivered, his forehead still creased. He hoped with everything he had that Ichimatsu didn't notice the slip in the facade; if Jyushimatsu can't keep smiling, what chance do the rest of them have?
"Hmph..." Ichimatsu continued looking up at the sky, his face blank as ever. "When we were kids... what did you think your life would be like around now?"
"Eh? Subject change!"
"What did you think?"
Even if he didn't understand the point... Ichimatsu was talking to him about something that wasn't scary now, so maybe he could make things better... "I thought I'd be a superstar batter! I'd travel all around the world and play baseball in all sorts of places!" He sprung to his feet and swung his arms as if he held a bat, his face twisted in concentration before giving way to his smile. "Boom! Pow! Out of the park! Cheering! Wahoo! It'd be lots and lots of fun! Maybe I'd even date cheerleaders! It hasn't happened yet, but it's okay! It'll happen someday! I just gotta practice! Give it all my muscle and hustle! And Homura can be my cheerleader! It'd be great! She'd be so cute!"
"So, you didn't imagine growing up to still live with our parents and to have to hang around to take care of your older brother. This isn't what you wanted at all."
"Ah... it's not what I expected..." Jyushimatsu admitted as he sat back down. "But it's okay! I like being with you guys! And you take care of me, too! We have lots of fun, don't we?"
Ichimatsu only grumbled.
"Are you... are you angry that I came back, niisan?"
Ichimatsu took a deep sigh before answering. "...yes."
"H... huh...?" Jyushimatsu's forehead creased even further, and by now his smile ached in its attempt to keep up its lie. "You're... angry at me...?"
"No. Not you."
That relieved Jyushimatsu's anxiety, but only by transforming it into confusion. "Then what...?"
"Jyushimatsu-"
"Did Karamatsu-niisan do something that made you angry?"
"I don't-"
"I know he was really painful at the train station, but I didn't ask him to-"
"Jyushimatsu, please-"
"Was it Osomatsu-niisan asking me silly questions? That's okay, it didn't bother me, I thought was funn-"
"I'm angry at myself, Jyushimatsu!" Ichimatsu roared, cutting off Jyushimatsu's rapid-fire suggestions and plunging him into an uncomfortable silence. The cat at his feet jolted awake from the sudden noise and took off, leaping down from the roof with no hesitation. While Jyushimatsu tried to decide what in the world to say to that, Ichimatsu's eyes widened slightly. His expression remained soft for a moment, then twisted right back into rage. With a frustrated growl, he buried his face in his knees and gripped his legs hard enough that he might have caused bruises even through his clothing.
"Niisan?"
"Go away," was Ichimatsu's muffled reply.
Far from heeding his older brother's words, Jyushimatsu slid forward and over until he sat facing him. Some time passed in still silence, with nothing but the wind and distant bird calls to assure Jyushimatsu that the world outside the pair continued to exist. Ichimatsu eventually lifted his head slightly, just enough to gaze at Jyushimatsu with blank, lidded eyes.
"What."
"I'm not leaving. Not until you talk to me."
Ichimatsu scoffed. "Gonna be up here for a long time, then."
"Why are you angry at you?" Jyushimatsu smiled as if he was merely asking Ichimatsu how he felt about a particularly good plate of oden. "That's kinda silly, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Being stupid's what I'm good at."
"Come on, niisan..."
"Does it even matter?" Ichimatsu turned his face downward again. "Of course it doesn't matter..."
Jyushimatsu rested a sleeved hand on Ichimatsu's shoulder, which drew him to look back up. "It matters to me. I don't like when you're not happy."
"That's your problem, you know," Ichimatsu said. "You're so worried about other people. Don't you ever take care of yourself?"
"What if worrying about you and our brothers and Homura and everyone is how I take care of myself?"
Ichimatsu didn't have an answer for that, though he did flinch when Homura's name came up.
"How do I make you happy that I came back?"
"I can't..."
"Can't what?"
"I can't, I can't, I can't..." He kept repeating himself as he tried curling up smaller than ever.
"Aw, I don't understand what you're saying... I wish ESP Kitty was still an ESP Kitty, he could help..."
Jyushimatsu just barely heard a voice coming from Ichimatsu's self-made cocoon. "It hurts... watching you hurts."
"...hurts?"
"You don't wanna hear about this. Go back inside before I say something I shouldn't."
"I do wanna hear, niisan! I wanna hear what's hurting you and make it go away!"
"I didn't tell you back then, I knew I shouldn't..." Ichimatsu didn't look up, forcing Jyushimatsu to strain to hear him. "But when you met her... it pissed me off."
"Huh...?" He knew he should keep quiet as Ichimatsu explained himself, but couldn't hold himself back from a confused noise. But come to think of it... the memory of his leg painfully bending back as their play wrestling went too far struck in Jyushimatsu's mind. But wasn't that an accident...?
...but he didn't stop when he tried to let him know...
"Even before I knew about her. You... changed. You weren't spending as much time with me... and you got... calmer. I noticed, and it pissed me off. Were you growing away from me?" He looked up again and met Jyushimatsu's eyes. This time, Jyushimatsu noticed the moisture forming in the corners of Ichimatsu's eyes, though without any puffiness or redness to indicate they'd come very strongly. Still, even without those, this was still a strong display of emotion for Ichimatsu... "I couldn't handle it. The idea of losing you... even if you were still there, you weren't you... and then..." Ichimatsu's voice cracked, and his eyes shut, squeezing out more tears. "Then we found those pictures... I couldn't believe what I was seeing. You had a... you, with a... a girlfriend? I had to follow you with everyone else. I had to know it was a misunderstanding."
"It was. She wasn't my girlfriend yet."
"It was close enough. You were going on dates. It seemed unreal..." Ichimatsu fell silent, but before Jyushimatsu could ask him to continue, he spoke up again. "...go back inside. I wanna talk, but you shouldn't hear."
"I'm not moving." Jyushimatsu squeezed Ichimatsu's shoulder to further make his point. "Especially not if you wanna talk."
"I'll just tell a cat. It's fine, they're good listeners."
"But they don't know what you're saying."
"Exactly. That's what makes them good listeners."
"Talk to me." Jyushimatsu grabbed Ichimatsu's other shoulder with his other hand. "Come on, talk to me."
"You're gonna hate me so much for this."
"You're my brother! I'll never hate you!"
"Yeah. We'll see. Jyushimatsu... I should have been happy for you. Both of you looked so happy... but that just pissed me off because... because I was jealous! I am jealous!" Ichimatsu jerked back so Jyushimatsu wasn't touching him anymore. "There. I said it. I'm a shitty, selfish big brother, because you're happy, and all I can think about is how jealous it makes me! I was jealous then, and I'm jealous now, okay? Now you know." Miraculously, he didn't go back to his limb cocoon, but he still turned his head in a futile attempt to hide the fact that the tears were coming more freely.
"But you seemed happy to help me when I said I was gonna ask her out..."
"Yeah. I can learn to suck it up for a few hours. I realized that was important. And... I still wanted you to be happy, don't get me wrong." He turned his body away, now successfully hiding his face, but the cracks in his voice thwarted his attempts to hide his current state. "Watching her turn you down was way more painful than the jealousy could ever be. I couldn't even be grateful about it. Guess even I'm not that shitty. But still... you had something I wanted. Maybe not Homura, specifically, but... a girl. Someone who liked you. Who wanted to be with you. Maybe even loved you. You had what I've always wanted, you were going on dates and being... being loved..."
"People love you, niisan." Jyushimatsu tried to give Ichimatsu a comforting touch, but Ichimatsu smacked his hand away the instant his sleeve touched his back.
"Not the way she loves you. And that wasn't the only thing that bothered me... not only was I jealous of you... I was jealous of her, too. I might have even hated her. Because... she took something I thought I'd always have. She took you."
"She didn't take me! I'm still here! I came back!"
"And that's what's pissing me off!" Ichimatsu snapped. "You could be happy out there, but you're not, because I need you to stay here with me! How is that fair?! How am I fair?!" He curled forward, his entire body trembling. "I'm ruining your life because I can't get mine together! I'm an awful brother, and that's why I'm angry at myself!" By now, Ichimatsu's sobs had become uncomfortably open.
"Wow... you really are silly."
Ichimatsu stiffened, then slowly turned to face Jyushimatsu, his back still hunched. "See? You agree with me. I am a rotten brother. I told you that you would..." He jerked, then buried his face in his hands as he resumed sobbing. "No... no matter what I do, you're gonna leave me, so why... should I bother caring... I should just get over this... it's so stupid... that I can't..." he choked out, his voice distorted by his sobs.
Jyushimatsu slid forward and wrapped his arms around Ichimatsu's torso, pulling him into a tight hug. "You're silly for thinking I don't wanna be here with you."
"What did I tell you about pitying me? Don't act like you'd rather be here than with Homura." Even as he said that, Ichimatsu slightly relaxed in Jyushimatsu's hold; not enough to stop crying, but at least he wasn't as tense anymore.
"Don't act like I'd rather be with Homura than here," Jyushimatsu countered. "What if I wanna be in both places? But I can't, so I have to leave there... but then I'll go back there, but then I'll come back here! It's fine!"
"There's no way you like being around me as much as you like being with her."
"Sure there is!"
"She's your girlfriend!"
"And you're my brother!" Jyushimatsu insisted. "Why can't I want to be around my girlfriend and my brother? I like both of you!"
"No, you love her. They're different."
"Then I love you, too!" Jyushimatsu said with confidence, Ichimatsu's insistence not convincing him.
Ichimatsu shook his head. "How do you not get this? She's your girlfriend, and I'm your brother. Even if you say you love both of us, it's different."
"Yeah, it's different..." Jyushimatsu agreed with that much. "But what makes a girlfriend better than a brother?"
Ichimatsu scoffed. "Several reasons."
"Ha... okay, yeah, there's some stuff..." Jyushimatsu admitted, his face heating up. "But I love her for other reasons, too, just like I love you for reasons. You're both fun to be around, you're both nice to me, you both like when I make you laugh! I love when both of you laugh! I love when both of you are happy!" So..." Jyushimatsu hugged Ichimatsu tighter. "So how can I make you happy? I got to see Homura happy a lot, but it made me miss seeing you happy! So tell me!"
Ichimatsu offered no response.
"Niisan?" Jyushimatsu said. "C'mon, tell me!" He shook his older brother to further make his point. "Tell me!"
"Jyushimatsu..." Ichimatsu finally said, his voice strained.
"Yeah, niisan?"
"...I can't breathe."
"Ah!" Jyushimatsu released his hold. "Sorry, sorry! That won't make you happy to see me, will it?"
Ichimatsu responded with a few wheezes, then turned around to face Jyushimatsu again. His face had turned sunburn red from his crying, and tears soaked his cheeks, but at least new ones had stopped flowing. "...you're serious. You like being around me enough to be okay with leaving Homura."
"Sure!" Jyushimatsu responded with a nod so energetic that it looked painful.
"Hm..." Ichimatsu wiped his face dry as best as he could with his sleeve, then returned to hugging his knees, but at least he wasn't hiding his face this time. A stranger wouldn't have picked up on the subtleties, but Jyushimatsu knew him well enough to recognize his current expression as more melancholy than the indifference he radiated when he first came out here.
"I wanna talk about something other than whether I like you or Homura more," Jyushimatsu said as he took his place by Ichimatsu's side. "That's bumming me out,"
"Fine," Ichimatu said. "What do you want to talk about, then?"
"Hm..." Jyushimatsu looked up in thought. "How about... ah! You asked earlier what I thought it'd be like when I grew up! So I'll ask you! What did you think you'd be?"
Ichimatsu didn't miss a beat. "Dead."
Jyushimatsu yelped, frozen in shock. "Don't make scary jokes like that!"
"What makes you think I'm joking?"
"Ah..." Jyushimatsu looked down at his feet. "You did scare us a lot in high school..."
"Sorry." Ichimatsu said flatly.
"Don't say sorry. We weren't mad. Just scared." Jyushimatsu said. "Remember when we were kids? We played together a lot. You always wanted to be with us."
"The teachers hated you guys, especially when I'd hang out with you," Ichimatsu said, but even with that, a small smile crossed his face at the memory. "Said you were a bad influence. On my own I was the good kid, the quiet kid, the kid who did what he had to..."
"Then we showed up and asked you to do fun stuff, and you'd do it!" Jyushimatsu said with a laugh.
"You guys got me into so much shit back then."
"But you had fun, right?"
It took Ichimatsu a moment, but he nodded, his smile widening. "Yeah. I did. I liked being the good kid... the teachers always said I could actually be something if I really pushed. I liked believing that. But I also had fun putting dead lizards in the lunches of teachers I didn't like, so..."
"I remember that! The lizard was Osomatsu's idea, and I'm the one who found one!" Jyushimatsu said. "It was squished, and Totty looked like he was gonna puke when I picked it up! Then I gave it to you, and you put it in his rice when he wasn't looking! He screamed so loud!"
"And then he caught me before I could leave the staff room and I got in huge trouble. You guys really were a bad influence on me." Ichimatsu laughed. It was his usual, quiet laugh, nothing boisterous, but still a massive turnaround that lifted Jyushimatsu's spirits.
"He shouldn't have made fun of you in front of the whole class for getting a question wrong. He deserved it." Jyushimatsu gave a decisive nod, closing the subject on whether or not the lizard prank was justified.
"Yeah, you're right."
"We had lots of fun doing stuff like that in middle school," Jyushimatsu said, taking a few more moments to bask in the nostalgia. "But then in high school, you got weird. You didn't wanna hang out much or talk much anymore."
"Well, neither did you guys, right?" Ichimatsu said. "You started meeting other friends and hanging out with them. You didn't need me around anymore."
"We still wanted to sometimes," Jyushimatsu said. "Especially since we all made friends... and you didn't. Not one."
"Sure I did. I had the cats," Ichimatsu said.
"That's not the same. If there wasn't anyone in school you wanted to talk to, you could have talked to us, but you didn't do that, either..."
"What was I just telling you?" Ichimatsu said. "I don't want to hold you guys back. Don't want to now, and sure as hell didn't want to back then. You had the sports kids, Shittymatsu had the drama kids, Choromatsu-niisan had the otaku kids... Osomatsu-niisan was off with some other guys, flirting with girls and getting smacked at lot, but at least he was having fun... and who knows where the hell Todomatsu went off to when we weren't in class. You were all busy. I couldn't make friends, but that was my problem, not yours. You shouldn't have worried about it."
"We did, though. Even though you said you were okay... we weren't sure. But you wouldn't talk to us..."
"My problem. Stop trying to make me your problem. It makes you act weird."
"Weird?" Jyushimatsu said.
"Not happy. You're supposed to be the happy one. So don't worry about me."
"You say it like not worrying is easy..." Jyushimatsu said. "But you did so much scary stuff back then... you started a lot of fights..."
"There's only so much a guy can take of being called a serial killer," Ichimatsu said. "Everyone was gonna think I was a violent asshole no matter what I did, so defending myself made the most sense."
"You defended me, too. You told me not to worry about you, but you worried a lot about me," Jyushimatsu said.
"I had to worry about you. No one else was gonna. Not even you. Damn it, Jyushimatsu, how many times did people have to take advantage of you before you figured out they weren't your friends? They took your money, they took what little time you had to spend with me..." Ichimatsu's face twisted into a frightening scowl, and Jyushimatsu had to take a moment to remind himself it wasn't aimed at him. Still, even knowing that, that expression terrified him.
"I just wanted to be nice! Other people needed my help, so..."
"The same people who talked behind your back and made jokes about how you should be locked up somewhere because you're clearly insane. You may not have heard it, but I sure as hell did. Two-faced bastards..."
"Some people did say that to my face..." Jyushimatsu quickly rubbed his arm across his face. "Ah. Itchy nose," he said, lowering his sleeve and hoping Ichimatsu didn't notice it was now wet.
"But you worried about them anyway. Like I said, that's your problem. You worry about other people too much."
"I had to... especially with you, I had to..." Jyushimatsu shifted uncomfortably. "Hey... do you remember when I gave you that wristband in high school?"
"Huh?" Ichimatsu asked, turning and giving Jyushimatsu a quizzical look. "Well... yeah, now that you mention it. Why?"
"Dunno. Just remembered it," Jyushimatsu said. "I remember you wore it on your left wrist all the time. Even to the bathhouse. It got all dirty, and other kids called it gross. But you wouldn't take it off..." He took a deep breath. "I'm just remembering stuff. Just thinking and remembering stuff."
"It made me feel lucky, I guess," Ichimatsu said with a shrug. "And besides, it was a present from my brother. Taking it off would have been rude, right?"
"Did you ever wonder why I gave it to you?"
"Was there a reason at all? It wasn't our birthday or Christmas or anything. You didn't even speak when you gave it to me. Just dropped it in my lap, walked off, and never talked about it again. I never got why."
A vague humming noise was all Jyushimatsu had to offer on the subject.
"Why did you give me that thing?" Ichimatsu asked.
"I... wanted you to feel lucky?" Jyushimatsu said, not entirely convincingly.
"That doesn't make sense," Ichimatsu said, but shrugged it off. "Then again, you don't make sense."
"Why did you think I gave it to you?" Jyushimatsu asked. "Did you ever guess?"
"I have no idea." Even as he said this, Ichimatsu's fingers unconsciously wrapped around his left wrist.
"I gave one to Homura, too," Jyushimatsu said. "When we first started seeing each other."
"Really?" As Ichimatsu said that, he noticed where his right hand rested and withdrew it as if he'd been burned. "Wristbands are such a weird gift. Why would you give one to a girl you like?"
"Same reason. Wanted her to feel lucky. She was having a hard time, so... she needed luck. So that's why."
Ichimatsu's eyes widened as the gears in his head turned. "You told me how hard a time she was having... you know, how you guys met..."
Jyushimatsu nodded in acknowledgment.
"...you knew what I was doing..." Ichimatsu mumbled.
Jyushimatsu had a feeling he wasn't supposed to hear that, so he kept his mouth shut rather than confirm.
"If she needed luck... I guess I needed luck back then, too, so... thank you."
"Do you still have that wristband?" Jyushimatsu asked.
"Yeah, it's around somewhere. It's falling apart, but I still have it. Haven't... needed as much luck recently, but I'll keep it. Just in case."
"That's good."
Ichimatsu turned his eyes back to the sky. "It's that late already...?" The sky was still the bright blue hue of midday, but a full moon peered down at the pair through the cloudless sky.
"Yeah, we've been up here a while," Jyushimatsu said. "Still bright, though. It's weird seeing the moon this early, isn't it?"
Ichimatsu nodded. "Guess it gets impatient sometimes... I like it, though. Means it'll be night soon."
"You should see night time out at Homura's," Jyushimatsu said. "There's no light around, so you can see everything! I didn't know the sky had so many stars! Homura likes stars... we spent a lot of time laying in the grass, looking at the stars and the moon..." Jyushimatsu sighed wistfully. "It's funny... I was so far from you guys... but when I looked at the moon, I realized that if you guys looked at the moon, it'd be the same moon. No matter how far away. It's really neat."
"I've thought that before," Ichimatsu said, his voice oddly low.
"I have, too," Jyushimatsu admitted. "...was it back when we were... away...?"
"...yeah."
"I really missed you guys back then. Even more than last week. Because I thought I'd never come back."
"Me too."
"Where did you go?" Jyushimatsu asked. "I didn't even know if you left or not. Did you find a cool job? Working with cats, maybe? Where did you stay?"
Ichimatsu grumbled, and his fingers dug into his legs again. "I don't wanna talk about that. Like you said, I do scary things sometimes... you don't wanna hear more scary stuff. I freak you out enough."
"Huh... okay," Jyushimatsu said. "Secret. Okay."
"You know what we should talk about instead?" Ichimatsu asked. "Homura."
"Huh?" Jyushimatsu asked. "I thought you didn't want to?"
"She's sticking around, right? So I better get used to her," Ichimatsu said with a chuckle. "She makes you happy. I can get over some stupid bitterness for that. So come on, tell me about her!"
"Um... oh, there's a lot!" Jyushimatsu said, smiling wider than he had since coming up to the roof. "I told the others some of it on the way back! Did you hear us?"
"I was trying to tune it out," Ichimatsu admitted, "but I heard some things. Were you serious, what you told Osomatsu-niisan? You really didn't sleep with her? Didn't even sleep in her bed?"
"Didn't," Jyushimatsu confirmed. "Didn't even go in her room to not sleep."
"Weird she'd say no when she's so into you... girls don't make any sense to me."
"I didn't ask her," Jyushimatsu said. "Didn't wanna."
"Huh?" Ichimatsu said, staring at Jyushimatsu in confusion. "Why not? Of course she'd say yes! You could have graduated from virgin before any of us, easy!"
"I didn't because... secret," Jyushimatsu said. "It's so secret that even I'm not supposed to know why I didn't."
"I swear, you don't make any sense," Ichimatsu said. "I should be used to that... did you at least kiss her?"
Jyushimatsu blushed, and he averted Ichimatsu's gaze. "Yeah... yeah, I kissed her... I kissed her a whole lot."
Ichimatsu's face turned an equal shade of crimson, as if he was a preteen girl talking about this subject matter instead of a grown man. "Is kissing... fun?"
"...yeah," Jyushimatsu said, his usual enthusiasm dulled despite the smile taking up half his face. "She's really soft... and she gives nice hugs when she kisses me... and my heart beats really fast, even faster than after I play baseball for a long time... and..." He covered his increasingly heating face with his sleeves. "She makes this really cute noise when we kiss for a long time... sometimes I kissed her because I really wanted to hear it again..."
Ichimatsu made an awed noise as he turned back to the sky. "Wow... kissing sounds great. Too bad I'll never know what it's like."
"What makes you think you won't?" Jyushimatsu asked. "I bet you'll find someone really fun to kiss someday!"
Ichimatsu snorted. "Yeah, right. I saw how you make Homura laugh. That's why she loves you, right? I could never make someone laugh like that."
"Well, yeah, Homura likes guys like me," Jyushimatsu said, "but you shouldn't look for the kind of girl who likes me! You need the kind of girl who likes Ichimatsu!"
"Someone with no standards?"
"Niisan..." Jyushimatsu said in a whining tone, lightly shaking him by the shoulder. "You'll find someone! Someone who... who really loves animals, and loves cuddling like a cat does, and likes watching really scary stuff with you and doesn't think you're creepy and gross for it, and thinks you're funny when you're sarcastic, and wants you think she's funny when she's sarcastic, and knows when it's time to be quiet and not talk, and doesn't mind making you happy when you're sad because she knows what being sad is like... yeah, that sounds right! That sounds like an Ichimatsu Girl!"
Ichimatsu shuddered. "Ugh, don't call her that. If she actually exists, then whoever she is, she deserves better than one of Shittymatsu's stupid nicknames."
"But that sounds like someone you'd like, right? Because I bet someone like that would really like you!"
"...yeah," Ichimatsu said with a small smile. "Yeah... someone like that sounds good."
The sun had set considerably by now, darkening the sky and making the moon much more vivid. The pair turned their eyes to the moon and sat in silence, nothing more needing to be said at the moment.
"Hey, Jyushimatsu!" Osomatsu's voice broke through the silence, and both brothers on the roof looked down to see him hanging out their bedroom window.
"Hi, Osomatsu-niisan!" Jyushimatsu greeted with his usual waved sleeve.
"Mom says it's time for dinner! She wants to hear all about the future mother of her grandchildren!"
"Okay! Tell her I'll be right out!"
Osomatsu disappeared into the house, and Jyushimatsu grabbed Ichimatsu's hand and pulled him with him as he stood.
"Grandchildren, huh?" Ichimatsu said. "Hope Mom never wants those from me. One of me's enough."
"Aw, you could be a dad if you wanted," Jyushimatsu said. "If Homura and I do have kids, you'll be their uncle! You'll be a great uncle!"
"Uncle sounds fine. I can hand them back when they start screaming."
Jyushimatsu laughed at that comment as they prepared to hop down off the roof.
"Hey... if a sextuplet has kids, do you think the kids would be sextuplets, too?"
Jyushimatsu's eyes went catlike. "Wow, you think so?" He sat on the edge of the roof with his legs dangling off the side and covered his mouth with his sleeve, humming in thought. "Hm... well, if we have sextuplets, then I can raise them into a baseball team!"
"Even with you and Homura, that's only eight people," Ichimatsu pointed out.
"That's why we have Uncle Ichimatsu! That's nine!" Jyushimatsu said. "Oh man, I can't wait until we have sextuplets!"
"Just hope they're not as horrible as we were when we were kids," Ichimatsu said. "There's no way Homura deserves that."
"We'll be fine! Totally fine!" Jyushimatsu insisted. "Now come on! There's still so much about Homura I have to tell you guys..."
Ichimatsu finally looked eager rather than apprehensive about such a statement.