Starting university again in a few days. Honestly? I don't really feel that up to it, what with me being tired all the time, but hey, it's time for school again. This chapter was a strange one for me to write, considering that this is usually a more happy story than it's sister story, A Home At the End of Japan. Either way, I've gotten back to it. Michigan is too cold.

Quote of the day:

"Give him back! He's my brother! Take my leg, take my arm, take my heart - anything, you can have it! Just give him back! He's my little brother, he's all I have left!"
— Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist

Neither of them were drunk, content with beer in their hands while they looked up at the foggy sky, their words coming to them more slowly than they normally did, but even so, neither of them were drunk. Takeru swirled his beer, unsure of what to think as he walked by the side of his brother Yamato, but he didn't say a word, instead deciding to simply enjoy the chilly night of the city he loved so much. Yamato was just as quiet as he usually was, just as quiet as Takeru knew he could expect of his older brother, but there was something about walking through an Odaiba illuminated only by city lights, the silence between the two of them broken only by the sound of the breeze, that made the boy appreciative of the way that his brother always carried himself, if only for just a moment.

There was always a sort of melancholy that hung about Yamato, a sort of shadow that lingered and made his brother's smiles a combination of both happiness and sorrow. It was the way that Takeru had always seen his brother, and as they walked together through one of the empty back streets of the city, Odaiba's cold night frosting their cheeks as they drank Susumu's beer that they had stolen from the Yagami's fridge, the younger boy realized that Yamato's shadow was not only one of gloom and dreary, but that it was one of honesty as well. He peered over at his brother out of the corner of his eye, Takeru still unsure why Yamato had asked for this stroll into the city, but he kept his questions to himself, taking a long drink of his guardian's beer. Yamato was honest in a way that other people weren't, and although his brother's sadness had always confused Takeru when they had been growing up, Yamato's shadow trailed after the both of them wherever it was that they went; like the Red Light that shined on forever and ever in the place that they were born, or like the golden linings in the clouds.

Where Yamato had never hidden his sadness or the hardships he had faced in his young existence, Takeru knew that the same could not be said about the other people in his life. Jun he had known for as long as he remembered, ever since the moment that Yamato had come home one day from school, complaining about a girl he met that hadn't left him alone, before letting him go off at the end of the day, with a kick to the groin as a parting gift. She for the most part seemed to be happy-go-lucky, especially to those who didn't really know her, who didn't know about her dead son or her long lost first and only love, but Takeru wasn't one of those people, the Motomiyas, like the Yagamis, being practically their family after all these years. The young woman would smile and laugh a lot, always having a story to tell or a song to sing, but there were times where Takeru wasn't sure what to think of it all, her life being harder than most.

It was a quiet wondering that he had as he walked, and an even quieter contemplation, but after a moment, and another slow but deep drink of his beer, Takeru thought that perhaps the same thing could even be said of Taichi as well. Taichi was a happy sort of person, one who rode on a cloud far closer to the sun than Yamato, but at the same time Taichi was the kind of person who even Takeru could see sometimes had trouble being honest with himself about just who exactly that he was. There was a struggle in that young man who Takeru had always seen as a second older brother, there was a war being fought behind his smiles and usually brightly shining eyes, and it was a war that Takeru hoped that Taichi would one day be able to win.

Takeru didn't stop walking until he noticed that his older brother had, and he frowned as he stopped, the many silent wanderings he undertook with Yamato never being something that was so easily halted. "Is something wrong?" the younger teenager asked, looking around as he did so, finding that the two of them were alone on that back street, save for the fog and whatever it was that had made Takeru's brother take pause.

There was a shine in Yamato's eyes as he spoke, and it wouldn't be until years later that Takeru would finally realize that that shine had been the beginning of a tear. "This is where Hiroaki died."

The silence between them returned, as did the breeze that was so light that it almost wasn't even there, and even though words weren't exchanged in the following moment, Takeru and Yamato both sat down on the same curb that their father had died on all those years ago. Hiroaki had been murdered long ago, but there were times where Takeru woke up in the middle of the night believing that his father was still alive, and that his mother had never abandoned him. He felt tears coming to his eyes, for the man that he loved despite everything, and for the man that he knew his brother hated, yet still had affection for all the same.

He stared down at the bottle in his hand, before looking over at his brother, the little boy in Takeru dreaming and hoping that somewhere, in a land far far away, that perhaps their father could still see them. "For dad?"

There was a hesitance in Yamato's face as the older teenager stared back at his little brother, but it only lasted for a second, Yamato maybe feeling that he could forget the pain he still carried in his heart, if only for just a moment. "For dad."

And so two brothers poured out some of their beer for the shadow that was their father, Hiroaki's ghost haunting them still.

Next chapter will deal with Hikari and Taichi. Stick around!