Hooray for more angst!
The beach is a very special place for him. It reminds Jyushimatsu of her smile and her voice. He still goes there every week at the same time, and maybe a tiny part of him hopes to see Homura there once more. A dark speck against the slate-gray sky, rain and wind fiercely coming down around her.
He clearly remembers a distant awareness that those cliffs are not a save place to stand around on, but no concrete knowledge of what that means. Or maybe he had, but just wouldn't admit it.
Now he goes there and stares at the crashing waves, his feet sinking slightly into the sand. Homaru is gone. Jyushimatsu hasn't seen her in forever now, sometimes he wonders if he ever will again.
Writing letters is fun, but the inky words are scant consolation for having her here.
No, Homura is gone. And he wonders if the same thing will happen to Osomatsu soon.
He starts noticing it slowly, little things that hardly caught his attention before. They seem important know, because they were important to her.
He's not always so good at noticing stuff, but he knows Homura was sad. She was so very, very heartbreakingly sad. And maybe Jyushimatsu doesn't really understand how sad she was, maybe he never will.
Her sadness was one that lingered, that didn't go away even when she laughed. Something he could see in her eyes and feel in her touch, even as she told him she loved him.
As she told him she was happy, fingers trembling against his skin.
And now it's Osomatsu who says it, a stray comment somewhere between the rice and soy sauce. "Of course I'm happy."
His chopsticks bump against the side of the bowl. The sound, soft and delicate, gets lost between the voices of his brothers around the table.
Jyushimatsu looks at his oldest brother, and he sees her. He sees the same sadness that he saw in Homura. It scares him a little bit.
The next time he writes a letter to her, he mentions it. Jyushimatsu writes about baseball and the weather and the sea, and then he writes just a few lines about how sad he thinks his brother is.
How it reminds him of her sadness, the one that didn't go away despite his jokes. He writes that he wants to know how to help Osomatsu-nii-san.
It takes a few days for him to get a reply, and in the meantime he starts noticing more.
Homura didn't really like showing her arms to anyone. Osomatsu always wears long sleeved shirts or hoodies. He doesn't come with them to the bathhouse as often anymore, but Karamatsu jokes their eldest is just becoming even more of a slob.
Homura had a certain way of looking at things, as if they were a little bit special. Jyushimatsu looks at things the same way. But for him, it are baseball fields and tasty food and his brothers. For Homura, it were the cliffs and the train tracks at the station.
The same cliffs they met at. The same station she used to leave town.
Osomatsu sometimes looks at things in a similar way, Jyushimatsu notices, now that he is paying attention. At knifes or really tall buildings.
The look can't be described as anything else besides longing, and that scares him even more.
Homura says that sometimes people are just sad. Sometimes the world isn't such a fun place to be in.
She told this to him before and he didn't understand back then, just like he doesn't think he understands now. Jyushimatsu thinks the world is a great place to be, with lots of things to see and do.
But he also thinks Homura doesn't see the same world he does. Osomatsu may not see the same world either, and that's an alarming thought.
Homura writes him he can try to cheer Osomatsu up, that it's a nice thing that he wants to help, but that it isn't that simple either. She writes she is sorry, and that makes him a bit sad to read.
But he puts the letter in his little box, next to all the other ones, anyway. He writes back that he will do his 'bestest' to make Osomatsu-nii-san happy again, even if he has no clue how.
Jyushimatsu rakes his brain in the following days, trying to think of all the things Osomatsu likes. It's not nearly as easy as he thought it would be.
Osomatsu-nii-san enjoys going to the arcade or the casino, but Jyushimatsu spent his entire allowance already. Osomatsu enjoys reading manga, but that's a thing you do by yourself, not something he can help with.
Osomatsu enjoys locking himself in the bathroom and staying there for hours, only letting Karamatsu in. Or going on long walks he sometimes doesn't return from.
Jyushimatsu wouldn't know how to help with either of those.
So instead, he sits next to Osomatsu at the table and leans into him, grabs his hand where nobody else can see, and squeezes gently. Osomatsu pats him and smiles.
Jyushimatsu isn't sure if this counts as 'cheering someone up' but it has to count for something.
A few months pass like that, with Jyushimatsu trying to do little things that will make Osomatsu smile, but always seeing the sadness return.
He's not stupid. He knows what Homura was going to do, just before they met. He wonders if his brother has thought about that too.
When another letter arrives, it's a lot longer than the previous ones. Homura writes that she has been concerned for him.
Jyushimatsu has no idea why she would worry, when it is Osomatsu feeling sad, not him. Then she writes about the things she had been doing now.
She writes about medicine and doctors. She writes that it's very hard but that she feels a little less sad lately. She writes that thinking about him helps a lot.
He smiles, it's a very nice thing of Homura to write.
Then, at the very end, she mentions how maybe, some people need a little bit of help to be happy. It's not their fault, they just need a hand.
Maybe... Osomatsu needs a hand too?
It lingers in his mind for a few days after that, unsure where to even start. He thinks about bringing it up to some of the others, maybe Karamatsu-nii-san? He is very close to Osomatsu after all. Or maybe Choromatsu, since he's so smart?
But in the end, there's really only one person he can ask, isn't there?
"Osomatsu-nii-san?" And he tries desperately to sound surer now, serious. What he says often makes people laugh, and that makes him happy. But not right now. "Do you need help being happy?"
Osomatsu stares at him, a little pale and a little frightful. His lip trembles but he lays one hand against Jyushimatsu's cheek.
"I'm already very happy, Jyushi." He says, voice barely a whisper.
Just like the first time, it's exactly like her. Jyushimatsu can practically smell the salty air, the spray of water against his face.
But he lays his head against his brother's shoulder instead, and doesn't say anything.
He couldn't help Homura. And he can't help Osomatsu either.
As always, thank you for reading. Just one chapter left now...
