His parents were talking to the police officers, Choromatsu was asked to wait outside the office. He was counting in his head repeatedly, tapping his finger absently. One, two, three, four, over and over, while his mind was somewhere else.
His immediate older brother...though he never really treated him as such, had he? Not that the older ever really complained. Too timid. He didn't like confrontation, and he always just wanted his brothers to be happy. He put everyone else above himself, to the point that Choromatsu wasn't even sure Karamatsu remembered to put himself on that list.
Which was a very bad thing because...well, as horrible as it sounded, if he didn't take care of himself, who would? He lived with five selfish parasites, each one focused on themself first, even Choromatsu himself, as much as he hated to admit it. All five of them were terrible people. Of course, Karamatsu was shitty too, but usually only when in the hivemind.
He tried to think back, when was the last time he and Karamatsu had spent time together, just the two of them? It was...right! That Nyaa-chan concert! Karamatsu had waited in line with him, let him go on and on about the idol, and even though he didn't know the songs he seemed to have fun! Huh...That day was all about Choromatsu, wasn't it. He made Karamatsu stand in line for that long to attend a concert he didn't actually care about, just to make Choromatsu happy…
Oh... Ah fuck. He totally forgot, he sent Karamatsu home as soon as he saw his friends there. He could try to lie to himself and say it was because he didn't want to make Karamatsu sit through the concert since he wasn't interested in it but in reality, he just didn't want his brother there. The only reason he'd even invited him was because he was the least bad choice of the brothers and he didn't want to go alone. Ah hell. He was a really shitty brother, huh?
And now, his brother was missing. Ran away from home. Who knew where he was, what he was doing, when he'd be back. But he could guess the reason he left. Five reasons, actually. How long had Karamatsu been feeling like this. Actually, how was he feeling? Choromatsu couldn't be sure. Disappointed? Angry? Sad? Certainly not good, that's for sure. Why did the guy always act like everything was fine? Why was he such a good actor?
Acting. That's when the changes became more apparent. The divide between them all grew, when the people closest to them (Totoko, Chibita, and such) could start to tell them apart by looking at them. But their personalities, that was a huge change. Of course it started small, one brother perhaps being able to run faster than another, or for a longer amount of time; one showing more of an understanding for a certain subject for others; joining different clubs or however they spent their time after school; etc.
For example, Jyushimatsu was scheduled for three physical education classes interspersed throughout the day in order to regulate his energy levels. They tried putting him on medication for his ADHD, but the effects of that wore off after about three hours, due to his inhuman metabolism. Well, to be completely honest, some days people doubted he was human, and those days became more frequent as time went on.
If you wanted to find Ichimatsu, the best place to find him was behind the school, in nearby alleyways, anywhere cats liked to congregate. After being diagnosed with depression, he had been put on a couple dozen different medications so far, and none had any actually positive effect whatsoever, until he got to Marplan, which helped his symptoms, but the side effects were still apparent. Some of his visible differences were messy hair and narrowed eyes, since he was always so damn exhausted. Aside from that, he seemed to give off a rather dark aura, and preferred not to talk to anyone.
Todomatsu had somehow learned how to curve his mouth into an adorable kitty-like smile, and it was truly endearing...to anyone who didn't know him. Once he realized that in order to be on top in the world, you had to look out for number one, he abandoned his brothers without a second thought, and the manipulative monster somehow convinced the entire student body that he was sweet and adorable and innocent, and a lot of people wanted to be friends with him. He studied his classmates as if it was the most important class he had, making sure to remember everything they told him to make it seem as if he cared. Meanwhile he payed absolutely no heed to his brothers.
Choromatsu himself had gotten it into his head that if he wanted to be set for life with a life partner of whatever gender (he didn't know what his favourite food was, fuck if he knew who he was gonna marry), a great paying and satisfying job, and everything he could ever hope for, all he needed to do was get good grades in high school. Because knowing that Belarus has a GPD of 47.43 billion , and that the capitals of the Baltic States are Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia), and Vilnius (Lithuania), will get you soooooooo fucking far ahead in life when all you can really see yourself doing is scanning documents into the system for other people to figure out. So if anyone saw one of the six wearing fake-ass "prescription" glasses and reading "textbooks", it would be Choromatsu.
Osomatsu was the one who made sure that every single day, to every single class, he was exactly 59 seconds late to class, so that the teachers couldn't actually discipline him, but they would be so fucking annoyed. He would also constantly get into fights, but the way it happened was unconventional. If you tried to randomly fight him, he or Karamatsu would knock you out in seconds, breaking traditional fighting rules. You would have to actually set up a time and place for the fight if you wanted it to be even remotely fair. That in itself deterred many people from trying to fight any of them. Oh, and may the good Lord help you if you accidentally or on purpose caused injury to any of the younger four (save for Jyushimatsu because he could shatter your spine on accident), you'd have the two eldest out for your blood. Anyone could tell who the two eldest were. The only way to differentiate those two at first, was that if you fought Osomatsu, you'd get your ass kicked. If you fought Karamatsu, he wouldn't fight back.
Karamatsu didn't come into his own until the rest had. He joined the drama club and holy fuck did that change him. He wouldn't shut the fuck up, he didn't make sense, he got good grades but in writing classes the teachers wouldn't even read his assignment because he would always write upwards of 20 pages, even if they were assigned half a page! He was the number one student in their English class, and no matter how hard Choromatsu tried, he couldn't surpass him. He had heard him practicing his English in private, and he could pronounce it fucking perfectly. He made it sound like he'd been speaking it his whole life! Around other people, he kept his accent, but Choromatsu knew the truth of it.
Things got infinitely worse when the drama club picked him to write the script to the play they made up. They picked him on Friday. He stayed awake the entire weekend next to a dictionary, thesaurus, and the previous scripts to Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, and All's Well That Ends Well by his side for reference. ALL WEEKEND he worked on it. He would've forgotten to eat if Choromatsu hadn't reminded him, same goes for going to the bathroom. He had the entire hour and a half play written, including blocking and set suggestions, costume recommendations, and optional lines that the actors could choose from, by the end of the week.
He was basically obsessed. He started constantly practicing the moment the theatre club chose him for the lead, it was as if he couldn't differentiate between himself and his character. Suddenly, asking him a yes or no question would result in a two minute monologue. If the other stayed that long. So it became tradition to ignore him.
His thoughts were interrupted by Matsuyo and Matsuzou leaving the office, faces scrunched, ignoring the apologies offered to them. Choromatsu knew they didn't have good news, and followed them back to the car. As they got buckled in, Matsuyo scowled, and spat out as gently as possible, "They refuse to look into it. Because it hasn't been more than 48 hours. They don't care. They even said since he's of legal age, he can't be considered a runaway, so even if they find him they can't do much."
Choromatsu's head swam. What if the last time he saw his brother was the last time he saw his brother? The last thing they all had done was ignore him completely and entirely. God, they were shitty. What could they do? They couldn't exactly comb the whole damn country for him! So… So they would just have to wait. Hope. Beg whatever higher power to bring him back home so they could work things ou…. No. No, that's not what would happen.
What would happen is, Karamatsu would come home. The rest would start bitching him out, probably not stopping until he'd sob out an apology, then go back to normal. Ignoring him. Choromatsu didn't want that. He wanted Karamatsu to feel safe and happy with them. But how can you get five shitlings to do a full 180 and start treating the sixth as a real person deserving of love and respect, rather than a maid or a doormat? He didn't even know where to begin.
So, he stopped thinking about it. That part could wait. The police refused to help find his big brother, so they'd have to focus on finding him themselves.