AN: I am here to publish one half of this chapter. The other half involves some pretty explicit sexual stuff that I don't feel comfortable posting here! You can find the other half if you want on my Ao3. My username and story name are both the same there as they are here! Thanks.
030: a hands-on lesson.
Late October; 13 years.
Good brother. Bad brother.
Two parts of the same whole.
For years and years, Suzume has been able to quantify her brother this way: the long stretches of good always punctuated by the bad, the awful, the mean. Gifts, and cruel laughter.
Kisses and bruises.
She's learned to read most of his moods over the years. Sometimes, when she squints, there's something almost like consistency there, elusive though it may be in his ultimately chaotic nature. Even if she doesn't understand why he is the way he is, why he does certain things that don't make any sense to her, there's comfort in recognizing the pattern of his emotions.
It's a lot like how she imagines being a sailor at sea must have been hundreds of years ago. There is no knowing the reason behind the rise and fall of his waves – only that they do. They rise, and they fall. No understanding of why something as faraway as the moon might affect the ebb and flow of his tides – only that it seems to. Still, she can read them all the same. She can recognize his fair winds from the angle of his smile. She can place the treachery of his riptide currents by the slightest narrowing of his eyes.
Like the ocean though, her brother is vast, and deep. He is full of dark things, all of them mysterious, most of them untouched.
Like the ocean, her brother is beautiful.
Like the ocean, her brother is dangerous.
And like one of those long lost sailors of old, Suzume thinks she may have just lulled herself into a false sense of security. How easy would it be to set out on a journey across the ocean all those many hundreds of years ago after dozens and dozens of successful voyages? How easy to let the wind into your sails and take to those long-familiar waves, confident that you knew them, that you could read them? Drawn in by familiar complacency, by the siren song of repetition, of history, of a long and many-yeared intimacy –
Hadn't those old sailors known the ocean better than themselves?
(And didn't they sometimes die, anyway?)
Good brother. Bad brother.
It's the same, still, as it always has been – but it's different, too. There's less distinction than there used to be, she thinks. Less clarity between good and bad. She stares out at the waves and tries to make sense of her course, tries to put a name to the way he's been behaving lately, or even in a single, snapshot moment –
But the horizon line bleeds ocean and sky together, fuzzy, indistinct. Good and bad. The waves that carry her forward also threaten to pull her under, to dash her to pieces, one and the same. Good, and bad. Which is even which anymore? The weather has started to change on the hour much more frequently, and Suzume isn't really sure how she's supposed to react anymore.
"I need to take a shower," her brother says, and the ocean goes very suddenly death-mask calm.
They're together on the couch, still. The strawberries he'd made for her only minutes before are still in the refrigerator, cooling. She looks at him feeling lost. Moments ago, he'd been waves cresting the bow, spilling over and across the deck, a storm, a typhoon, his aquamarine eyes blazing, his breath as quick and erratic as a hurricane's squall. She'd felt real panic building up inside of her then, a gut-punch kind of terror that he was about to capsize her and drag her under and into all that bleak, churning murk she knows is always waiting just beneath his surface –
But now he is still. Now he is windless. Now, there are no waves, and his eyes are distant, and his mouth is a thin, tense line, another faraway horizon she wonders if anyone could ever reach –
Let alone her.
A windless sea is almost as terrible as a stormy one, isn't it? Suzume feels her heart quicken in her chest, aching. Is it her fault? Has she done something wrong?
She'd touched his face before. She touches it again, a little less fretfully this time. When he jerks away from her fingers as if struck, there's no stopping the salt-burn prickle in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. She's always apologizing to him. For what? What has she done? This time, last time, any time, all the time? She just wants to get it right. Wants to be right for him.
"Fuck, Suzu. Just – " He cuts himself off, grimacing at the expression on her face. "Just gimme a bit, okay?"
And then he's up, off and away, and she watches him retreat, stalking off down the hall towards the bathroom.
Always the bathroom.
Her stomach hurts. It's been hurting, and for days now, and she curls in on herself under a blanket she pulls up and over her head, making herself as small on the couch as she feels. Her brother had said what she was feeling, the blood, the pain, all of it – that it was normal. Said it meant she could have a baby now. There'd been something strange and wrong about the way he'd said that, though. A new kind of current, she thinks, anxiously. A riptide powerful enough to claim and ruin a ship grown much too comfortable with his waters.
She feels so stupid.
Good brother. Bad brother. Which is even which anymore? Is there a difference? Had there ever actually been one in the first place?
The room smells of hot, melted chocolate, rich and warm, even from beneath the weight of the blanket. Overtaken by what feels like a sudden exhaustion a long time coming – one up until now kept at bay only by anxiety and pain – Suzume closes her eyes.
She thinks she drifts in and out of sleep. There's the sound of water from down the hall, behind the closed bathroom door. Water in the pipes, creaking and groaning in its steady, tell-tale rush. Then: nothing. And then slowly, so slowly, it begins to feel like she's floating, cradled in a pocket of gently rocking darkness – and then more of that, too. Softness at her back, and all around her. Hands on her face, and in her hair, on her shoulders, at her hips. A hot mouth at her forehead, first only the brush of lips, again, again. And then lingering.
Familiar.
And finally, blessed nothingness.
It's the sort of dreamless sleep that can be felt anyway, somehow. Long stretches of seemingly endless time drawn on and on in an empty but strangely comforting vacancy of consciousness. It's like she's aware she's sleeping, but she's unburdened by any of sleep's usual troubles. There are no nightmares. No hopeful dreams grown sick and bloated, poisoned by unfulfilled longing, rotted out by doubt.
She's too tired for any of that.
And when finally the dark edges of that void-like nothing-sleep start to give way to lighter and lighter shades of grey, Suzume opens heavy, sleep-drunk eyes, groggy with confusion. She isn't where she remembers being before. She is in her bedroom and not the living room, and there is sun everywhere, bright in every corner.
The light spills into the room, through and around her translucent rose-colored curtains. The effect is a blinding kaleidoscope of reds and pinks and yellows and golds, a memory of springtime cheeriness despite the late season. It's pretty, but too much. Suzume throws an arm over her eyes and winces.
"Hey," comes a voice she knows very well.
Her brother's voice.
There's no time for her to respond before she feels something at her mouth. It's a confusing combination of textures: soft and wet and cool and malleable all at once. Her lips seem to sink into it. And then, in stark contrast to the rest of it – there's something hard. Something cold.
She recoils.
"Ah-ah, Suzu. Open up."
He says it gently, but there's no mistaking it for the command it is, the command it always is. He's always so demanding, she thinks. And she's just so tired, still. Disoriented. Without moving her arm from her eyes, she does as her brother tells her, no questions asked, and that mass of convoluted textures slides past her parted lips and into her mouth, beyond her teeth, over her tongue.
And she tastes –
Light, airy sweetness.
Whipped cream.
She tries to say what, but there's already too much in her mouth to properly talk.
"C'mon, Suzu. Don't talk with your mouth full," her brother admonishes. The amusement in his voice is obvious to her even in her groggy state. "Chew or choke, pretty girl, it's up to you."
Oh, she thinks, dimly. He isn't stopping. The whipped cream and whatever else comes with it is filling her mouth quickly. Again, she listens, closing her teeth down and around whatever he's put in her mouth, her lips around the ends of his fingers.
Suddenly there's more than just airy sweetness. There's that cold from before, and then some slight resistance, and then even more. Bitterness, but only briefly. Then more sweetness again, and a pleasant, tart sting along her tongue. He doesn't bother to pull his hand away. His hot fingers rest against her lips while she chews through the bite with slow determination.
It's what she needs to do. It's what he wants her to do.
Moving her arm from her eyes, she squints blearily into the red-pink haze of the room. Colors of a perpetual spring on demand, she thinks while she chews and chews. Even out of season. Even in October. Pinks and reds and –
A strawberry, she realizes, after a few lagging seconds. A strawberry wrapped in dark chocolate and smothered in cream.
Her eyes find her brother sitting beside her on the bed. There's a bowl in his lap, she sees that now, and a slight grin on his face, only the hint of teeth behind his slightly parted mismatched lips. The winter-bright gleam of his eyes is so vivid in the warm light. They hold her own, intense as ever.
"So it help with the bitterness at all?"
Suzume swallows, finding it goes down easy. "Yeah," she admits. Only then does he pull his fingers away – but not before tweaking her lower lip sharply between them. It stings, but she doesn't really mind. If anything she misses his touch now that it's gone. "It's still there – the bitterness is, but... it's not as gross as it would be. Like it usually is." She moves her tongue behind the inside of her teeth, poking experimentally at the insides of her cheeks, more than a little surprised. "Not really gross at all, actually."
Nothing much physically changes about her brother's expression. Nothing that she can really pick apart by specific detail, anyway. But the usual mischievous flavor of his smile seems to sweeten somehow. It's hard to tell if she's imagining it, but she's almost certain he looks a little pleased.
He cards a hand through his unruly, black hair for all the good it does. Suzume likes the way it looks, the way it falls into his eyes again. "Guts still rioting against you?"
The question wakes her up a little, enough to remember to take stock of her own body. Looking up into his face, at the casual chaos of his hair, at those too-bright eyes, it has her guts feeling a little differently than they have been:
Hotter. Tight, somehow, and pulling tighter.
Good, too, she thinks, but in a way that feels weird – feels almost wrong.
"Ummm… not like it was." Sinking her hands into the blanket, she works the cool fabric between her fingers. It's a tiny comfort. "Just… I don't know, it feels kinda uncomfortable. Not a lot, but… maybe sorta weird? That's all."
"Huh." There's a flicker of brief disappointment that creases his brows and sours some of that fractionary sweetness before he puts all of it away with a shrug. "Guess you don't need any more magic strawberries."
"Oooooh – magic strawberries!" Immediately delighted, she repeats the name with an irrepressible smile. It's not like her brother to give in to silly, whimsical things like this. "When you say it like that, it's like the sort of thing you'd find in a video game – like, it'd be a healing item, and the flavor text would say something like: 'A homemade remedy for cramps. Lovingly crafted by an occasionally nice older brother.'"
"Crafted? God, you're such a nerd, Suzu. Those games rot your brain out." The way he scoffs is obviously for show. He's back to looking more than a little pleased with himself, this time she's sure of it. He's nearly preening. "I guess I might – might – have been going for that vibe, but go figure you'd find some way to cringe it up."
She blinks up at him, half to try to clear her head of any lingering sleep, and half to match his barbless taunt with an exaggerated pout. It's exactly the kind of expression she's long since learned he likes, and as likely to disarm him as it is to encourage him. For better or worse, the outcome has always been a roll of the dice.
Not that most things with her brother aren't. Existing with him is a gamble, and as they say: the house always wins.
But she has to try, doesn't she? "Better than being a big, mean butthead like you."
"Yeah, well, you know me: guilty as charged." It works. It's obvious he likes it. He fixes her with another subdued smile, this one with a hint of teeth, and his eyes glitter with heightened interest. It's just too early to determine the outcome. "Not like I really care. S'too bad for you though, huh? You're the one stuck with your big, mean butthead of a brother for the rest of your life. What a fucking curse."
Suzume's faux-pout crumbles away, giving way to a genuine frown. Reaching out with one tentative hand, her fingers brush against the bare, ruined skin of his wrist. "Don't say that," she says softly, in wounded admonishment. "Please don't say that. Not like that. I don't – I don't feel that way."
And she doesn't. No matter how difficult or loaded or awful he can be, Suzume cannot imagine him as a curse. More than that, she cannot imagine herself without him –
Not without considerable panic, anyway.
But while she doesn't say that, evidently what she does say is enough; it earns her an actual smile, strangely boyish and nearly as bright as all the sunshine in the room. Bright as his eyes. Everything about him is always so bright in that strange, contrarian way of his. Always so sharp. Like a knife in a drawer, polished to perfection, and every bit as lethal. His teeth especially. They gleam as much as his staples do, but for once with only a minimal hint of threat.
It's such a stark contrast from last night. Last night he'd been unnameable, terrifying, all those mysterious and haphazard things that hold him together seeming to break down and fall apart at once.
But today?
Today it seems like he's in an exceptionally good mood. Today, he's put himself back together, fully in control of himself.
"Aww, c'mon. You're such a baby about everything. You don't gotta get so serious about it." He's almost cooing, equal parts mocking and cloyingly affectionate. Leaning forward, he cups her cheek, his thumb finding the corner of her mouth, and when he speaks again, he's much quieter than before. "Not that I mind. It's real cute."
His palm against her skin is hot. Her face is, too. Huffing against his hand in faux-annoyance, Suzume fights the urge to pull away and cover her face with her own hands, but any attempt to make herself hold his gaze is a tragically lost cause. Casting her attention away from him under the guise of rolling her eyes, she frowns petulantly at the wall. "I'm not a baby."
"Mmm, nope." She hears him make a familiar noise, that playful but still disagreeable tsk, tsk, tsk with his tongue and his teeth. "Totally a baby. I mean – look at you. Can't even eat strawberries right, can you? Your face is a total mess. Got so much cream and chocolate all over your mouth it's like you're tryna be a strawberry shortcake."
The heat in her cheeks flares hotter. That isn't her fault. "I was half asleep – more than half asleep! You're the one who just started shoving things in my mouth the second I woke up, and – and there's not even chocolate in strawberry shortcake – "
But her brother doesn't give her the opportunity to finish her rebuttal. She watches him set the bowl on the side table, and then suddenly –
Suddenly he's close, so very close. His face fills up the entirety of her peripheral vision. It's the same for her actual field of vision when she turns to look at him, startled. He's grinning again, nearly silent laughter moving through his shoulders, his breath moving hot over her face. The intensity of his eyes fixes her in place just as much as his hand does when he takes hold of her chin. Suzume goes very still as he finishes closing the space between them.
"Yeah, y'know, I think you're right. Strawberry shortcake doesn't really suit you for shit; you're too much of a little pygmy to be a full cake. Cupcake works loads better." He squishes her cheeks with a low chuckle. "So let's see how your icing tastes, cupcake."
Very abruptly, his tongue is a hot, wet squirm at the corner of her mouth where his thumb had been moments before. His lips follow suit after a long couple of seconds, sucking the skin of her cheek between them in some imitation of a sharp, nipping kiss before they slide down over the edge of her lower lip. Then it's more of his tongue again. It moves this time, tracing a leisurely and meandering path of slick heat across the length of her barely-parted lips.
Suzume doesn't dare to move. Not to blink. Not even to breathe. What if it's like the night before, she thinks, mind reeling with a numbing concoction of dread and… and what?
Heat.
But he's so much more deliberate now. Calmer, this time, careful and methodical about the way he holds her still and tastes her skin. Those piercing eyes of his are searing twin pins of constant heat, sharp and gleaming as he stares down at her, lancing through her as easily as if she were made of gauze. They are an almost physical force, fastening her to the bed like a butterfly on display. They leave her feeling paralyzed, cut open, peeled back –
Exposed.
The sensation is incendiary. She's hot in so many more places than just her face now, the air scalding but stagnant in her lungs, an explosive, almost liquid heat a roiling churn in her belly. She wants to breathe, but finds she can't – finds that even the action of displacing all that hot breath inside of her is too much, far too much to attempt.
He's done this before. Done something like this last night. She should be used to it, shouldn't she? And it's even slower now, and should be easier to take now. It's just more of the same, always the same, always him teasing her, and still –
And still –
His lips linger at the opposite corner of her mouth in another wet-mouthed mockery of a kiss, another prickling tickle of teeth, his tongue lapping at chocolate, at cream, at the mess he put there.
Suzume wants to pull away. She feels so shy, suddenly, always overwhelmed by him, almost disgusted, and too ashamed of –
Of what?
She isn't sure.
(No, no – she is. She knows.)
Oh, more than anything, she's ashamed of how much she wants to open her mouth and press forward, begging her brother for the real kisses he always seems to be hinting at, but won't ever give her –
Even if she's terrified that doing so will demolish whatever precarious self-restraint keeps him from really coming apart at the seams.
But that's where the shame comes in, doesn't it? Even knowing so, she wants it. She's terrified of it, but she wants it.
Doesn't she?
"Oh, Suzu," he says, so softly. Almost-maybe tender somehow, even in the weight of its gleefully conceited condemnation. "You like it."
Suzume resists the desire to squeeze her eyes shut. The tip of his nose tickles a little as he nuzzles it against her own, his eyes centimeters from hers, half-lidded and unabashed in spite of how hers ache with the effort of keeping them open.
When she speaks, she sounds small, strangled. "I – I don't – "
It's an active lie, and a bad one. She knows it.
Her brother does, too. "Oh, no." Contrary to how he usually is, he says it so gently, but still with that note of damning certainty that makes it even more difficult to breathe, to find her voice. That relaxed, unshakeable confidence of his always undoes her as much as it unnerves her. "No. You do. You say it's too much, but you want it."
God, she hates that. Hates his easy self-assurance. Hates that he knows.
Hates that she does like it, somehow.
But as suddenly as he'd started this – whatever this is – he ends it. Pulling his head back from her own, her brother sweeps his tongue across his smirking lips and gives a lazy shake of his head. "Normally I'd be all about teaching you why you shouldn't be lying to your big brother, but today's your lucky day, Suzu. Gonna take a raincheck on that for later 'cause we got more important shit to do."
"We… we do?" She asks, bewildered and full of a strange sort of regret.
"Well. Two things." With that same suddenness he's up and off of her, and his hands caught round her wrists take her with him as he stands up from the bed. The abrupt change in orientation and the loss of his heat is dizzying, but the arm he sweeps around her shoulders anchors her back to earth.
Sort of, anyway. It also makes her dizzy, just in another way. Her brother, she thinks, blinking dazedly around the room. Master of the irreconcilable.
"Hey, now," she hears him say, close to her ear. "Steady there, cupcake."
It's funny, she thinks, that he should make that demand, like it isn't his fault the room is spinning. The memory of his hot tongue moving along her lips, his mouth at the corner of her own, they're physical sensations she swears she can still feel even minutes later. They linger as clearly as the aftertaste of chocolate and cream does on her tongue.
Both a bitter sort of sweetness.
She shivers beneath his arm. Beside her, in the corner of her vision, she swears she can see him grin.
Trying not to think too much about that, Suzume follows him mutely out into the living room. Sleep clings to her, and nerves too, and she finds herself fretfully smoothing her hands down the length of the long, white shirt she wears –
One of his, she realizes.
That's normal. Usual. Unless he's filthy the night before – coming home covered in dirt and grime and ash and stains she thinks look like they might be dried blood, the sort of stains she never, ever asks about – she always wears the shirt he'd worn that day to bed.
But even though it's clean, it isn't right this time.
"Nii-chan." She'd been wearing – what, the day before? A sweater, a skirt. Leggings. The bra he'd told her was pointless when he'd found it in the wash a few weeks prior. ("The hell's this for? Like you have any tits to speak of," he'd laughed, letting the small, shameful bit of floral fabric dangle from his pointer finger. His grin had been wide and particularly infuriating, stretched mean across his insufferable face. It was the sort of grin that always had her unraveling. The kind that looked good in a way that was wholly unfair.)
Suzume swallows, trying to find her place in her own thoughts again, trying to forget the similarly wide scope of his smile now, to ignore the strange, anticipatory glint to his eyes. "I wasn't wearing this when I fell asleep last night."
"Yeah, you weren't. Congratulations on your functional memory. Real good to hear you didn't bleed it out. God knows you don't have shit to spare." Abandoning her in the living room, her brother trots into the tiny kitchen to retrieve two plates covered in aluminum foil, both of which he brings out balanced on his palms like a waiter.
Despite her hesitation, she takes the one he offers her and watches him take his own to the couch. His obvious disinterest in the conversation is his way of ending it. Suzume pushes, anyway. "But I don't remember – " No, she thinks. Better not to be indecisive. "I didn't change my clothes."
"Wow, Suzu. Two for two. Blowing it outta the water today, huh?" The sound of crinkling foil fills the small living room as he balls it up tight in his hand, the silver shine of it between his fingers catching in the morning light.
Another dead end. It's like throwing herself against a brick wall and expecting something to give. Unmoving, still holding her plate and feeling thoroughly stupid, Suzume squares her shoulders. Maybe being direct will be better. "You changed my clothes."
She isn't sure what she expects. For him to deny it? To act… what? Ashamed at being caught? Flustered?
(Excited?)
Does she expect that he'd feel at all like how she feels – undone by even the idea of it, nevermind the actual act?
That he'd actually address it with the weight she wishes he would, the weight it deserves, whether as an overstepped boundary, or as something she'd be willing to forgive if only it meant something more, something real –
(That maybe he'd done it because he's actually interested in her body and what it looks like underneath her clothes – )
But the look he fixes her with is pointed and thoroughly unimpressed. "Well no shit," he drawls. His gaze leaves her face, sweeping her up and down in a show of underwhelmed disinterest before meeting her eyes again. "Was either gonna be me or you, and since you were going a bit hard with the whole Sleeping Beauty routine, I figured I'd do it for you. Like I'd let anyone else touch you." There's the hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth again. It's small, a little flash of nastiness. "You're welcome, by the way. For my shirt, and for the food."
Dead end number three. And of course it means nothing to him, she thinks, throat aching as she grips the shirt she's wearing by its ratty hem – his shirt – with both hands. Maybe if she were older, or prettier – if she were better in some small or great way – he'd think twice about changing her clothes for her…
Or, at the very least, he'd get hot in the face talking about it like she does now.
But like always, he seems so unfazed. And why wouldn't he be? She's just a dumb little kid to him still. Always the little sister he'll relentlessly tease, but never take seriously. Sometimes it feels like all his weird overtures and intensity are just to mock her and the feelings she has for him.
In lieu of stumbling after that distressing insecurity, Suzume stares vacantly at the plate of food he has balanced in his lap. There are steaming scrambled eggs layered with melted cheese, thick sausage links browned to perfection. At the middle of it all sits a neat and tidy pile of fat pancakes absolutely sopping with butter.
A Western style breakfast.
With his kitchen talents seeming to begin and end with his admittedly impressive knifework, her brother has never been much of a cook. Not that Suzume thinks he'd be bad if he actually tried; he's always been exceptionally good at anything he puts his mind to. It's more that she thinks he just doesn't care. The only meals he tends to make are ones when she's feeling sick, or sad, or listless, simple things like egg on rice, doctored instant ramen, or the occasional rice porridge. Otherwise, cooking is Suzume's job, and one she takes very seriously. She's always loved cooking, and cooking for her brother, especially.
(And as much as he tries to play it off, she knows he likes it when she cooks for him, too.)
But unlike other instances where he steps into her hobbies to prove he can be better than her with minimal effort, this feast isn't meant to undermine her. Suzume recognizes an act of goodwill when she sees it. He's been trying his best to make sure she's stayed fed the last few days.
This morning appears to be no exception.
"Umm, well. Thank you." Even if she doesn't want to be, she is thankful – for the breakfast, at least, if not the clothes. "Did – did you make this?" She raises her own plate to her face and gives an experimental sniff at the edge of the foil. The rich scent of bacon hits her like a heady perfume, and her mouth instantly begins to water.
She's so hungry, she realizes. So hungry it feels like her stomach is balling up into a fist inside of her, collapsing in on its own emptiness. The past few days she's barely had an appetite at all, subsisting entirely off miso soup and choked-down partial servings of her brother's rice porridge – and all that only because he's been basically force feeding her.
(Now it feels as if she could eat back all those days' worth of food in one gluttonous go.)
"Nah. Ordered out, got it delivered. Just plated it up 'cause eating out of those plastic boxes is total ass. Figured you needed something real to fill you up. Something greasy. You've had jackshit to eat all week, and I get it, you've felt like trash. Boo hoo, poor Suzu. But now you're feeling better, so it's time to stop starving yourself." Her brother is pouring an indiscriminate amount of syrup over both his sausage and pancakes, fully emptying out a styrofoam cup he seems to have procured from somewhere – probably from behind the impressive pillar of pancakes. Casting a glance at her from over his shoulder, he gives a jerk of his head to beckon her over. "Fuck, quit hovering and sit down. You look like you're wilting over there."
She doesn't need to be told twice. Taking a seat on the floor beside his feet with her back to the bottom of the couch, she unwraps her own plate of food on the squat coffee table before them. There's a smattering of utensils across it that her brother must have left out earlier: a pair of chopsticks, but also a knife and a fork, ostensibly for the pancakes. It had to have been a preemptive decision from when she'd still been asleep – a particularly thoughtful one she knows she shouldn't be surprised by.
She is, anyway. Especially considering that, months ago, her brother had teased her over her insistence at eating cake with a fork.
"Chopsticks work just fine, dummy," he'd said, and Suzume had watched on in restrained dismay as he'd mangled the pretty layers of a cake she'd spent over an hour decorating, hacking his way through them with the blunt sticks. Since realizing how much it had annoyed her, he'd made a point to eat as many impractical foods with chopsticks as he could, and because he was her brother, he hadn't stopped there. Those following weeks had been full of him ribbing her about having to clean more dishes, about all the water she was wasting. "All that work to be so prim and proper in the privacy of your own damn home," he'd said, "and for what? Who's even watching?"
It's funny that he'd said that, she thinks, staring down at the fork and knife. That he'd phrase it like that. All of that work – only for him to do the same thing. All of that teasing just for him to go out of his way to bring her a fork and a knife, anyway.
He's always been prone to small but potent expressions of affection. These little attentive gestures betray the depth of his sentiment in spite of all his nastier, crueler edges. He'll wave her off, call her dramatic, tell her she's being extra, and all of that only to turn around some time later and indulge her in whatever whim he'd jeered over before.
So while she'd usually use a pair of chopsticks for them, Suzume chooses the fork to try the eggs first.
At first bite, she's convinced she could have done better. By the second bite, it doesn't remotely matter. What matters is how good they taste now, so cheesy, and salty, and fluffy – and still so hot. Each mouthful is the sweetest gift. They melt on her tongue, and they warm her from the inside, and it takes an act of willpower to actually chew them rather than simply inhale them.
"I didn't hear a knock for the delivery," she says idly, between bites of glorious egg.
"No big surprise there." Her brother's knee nudges her chin. From behind her, she can hear the clacking sound of his chopsticks clattering against his plate as he cleaves them through his pancakes like the animal she'd accused him of being months ago. Privately, she elects to withhold her previous judgment if only for the day. "You slept like a dead thing, like always. Straight-up comatose."
She's always been a heavy sleeper. Her brother makes fun of her for it all the time. But that heavy? Heavy enough to sleep through a delivery –
Heavy enough to sleep through her brother changing her clothes?
A bit of movement out from the corner of her eyes derails her from that particular train of thought. Thoroughly distracted, she stops chewing to stare out the windowed door that leads onto the balcony.
"Are those the sheets?" Suzume swallows her half-chewed food and squints. It sure looks like the sheets. Pinned to the line strung across the balcony, they ripple in the breeze, the red splash of strawberries surfacing like clouds of blood in the milk-white waves.
And hung up beside them is something small, and fat, and decidedly fluffy. "And… and my marshmallow plush?"
"Damn, Suzu. You gonna go out in the next storm and ask me if it's raining too? Trust your eyes, cupcake. Have some faith in yourself." She hears her brother take a noisy slurp from a mostly empty cup, the straw making an uncomfortable scraping sound at the bottom of the glass.
"Why are they out there?"
"Since you seem to be struggling with context clues even more than usual, I'll give you a hint: it involves the washing machine." The infinite patience in his voice is, every bit of it, a mockery. "Need another? Had to use some detergent."
Turning her head to frown at him over her shoulder, she meets her brother's cool, unwavering gaze.
"No, I mean – I always take care of the sheets, and they weren't even due for washing until Monday. Why'd you end up washing them?" Suspicion creeps into her tone, and Suzume slits her eyes at him. "You never do stuff like that unless I ask you to – and only if I ask a lot. Like a lot a lot. And you usually make me act all dumb and pathetic about it before you get around to it."
Using his chopsticks to fill his mouth with another bite of pancakes, his own eyes narrow. He doesn't look suspicious, though. He looks amused. "What," he asks through a mouthful of food, "can't a guy do something nice for his cute little sister outta the goodness of his heart?"
"Do you even have any goodness in your heart?"
"Fair," he snorts, rolling his head to one shoulder to crack his neck as he stares her down. "You got me. Can't argue with that. They're out there 'cause I made a mess of 'em while you were sleeping last night. Put 'em in the wash before bed and hung 'em up this morning. Used a spare set for the bed." Another snort, this one halfway to a chuckle. "You're welcome for that, too."
Suzume gives him a disbelieving shake of her head. "I'm supposed to be thankful that you cleaned up a mess you made? That's what you're supposed to do. That's just what normal, regular people do all the time."
"Hey, hey, c'mon, gimme some credit. I coulda let you sleep in it, yeah? Would've totally been on brand for me." Her brother's narrow-eyed staredown cracks under another lazy, toothy grin, and he nudges at her shoulder with his knee. "But I didn't. I tried out being 'a normal, regular person.' And you know I'd only ever do that shit for you. I'm always out here tryna be a regular fucking saint when it comes to looking after my favorite baby sister."
"You're so full of it." She punctuates another headshake with a roll of her eyes, a crinkling of her nose. "How'd you end up making a mess of the bed at like, what – midnight, anyway? And how'd my plushie get hit in the crossfire? She wasn't even on the bed. You don't let me keep plushies on the bed."
His grin widens. Something about it makes her distinctly uncomfortable. "Dedication, and the sheer fucking will to follow through," he says, and does not remotely elaborate.
The combination of weird non-answer with that particularly disconcerting flavor of smile is more than enough to set off warning bells in her mind. Even if she could conceivably needle an answer out of him – assuming, of course, that he didn't immediately turn it around on her entirely and needle her instead – she suspects it won't be an answer she likes.
No. Some mysteries, especially where her brother is concerned, are better left unsolved.
Lapsing into silence, Suzume turns her attention back to her food. It's easier to think about that, to mull over something normal and comfortingly ordinary like the texture of the pancakes or how salty her bacon tastes. The quiet is relaxing, and eating is especially so. Soon she finds herself leaning against her brother's leg as she chews, her cheek propped up on his knee as she works through a particularly gratuitous bite.
"It good?" Her brother's hand appears in her periphery, setting down his empty plate and chopsticks next to hers on the table.
It is. It feels good to eat food, to eat real, hearty food, and to feel full without also feeling like she's going to vomit. The food is a lot heavier than what she's used to, but it's like he said: it feels like it's exactly what she needs. "Yeah." Swallowing another bite, she licks the taste from her lips. The flavor of chocolate and cream is gone now, and so, too, is the feeling of his mouth at the corner of her own. She thinks she regrets that, but only a little. It's not enough to spoil the meal. "Thanks, Nii-chan."
She feels his hand settle over the top of her head, his fingers stroking through her hair. The sensation of his nails working slow and deliberate against her scalp feels so good it has that heat from earlier blooming fire-hot again in her belly, every unfurled petal just as slow and deliberate as his fingers.
Absently, she rubs her cheek against his knee and sets her fork back on the table, closing her eyes. That heat, it feels like it's filling her up even more than the food, like she's saturated with it, gooey and warm in her veins, in her belly, filling her up too much –
But just right, somehow.
Her brother chuckles, and the sound of it is like kerosene-turned-fertilizer poured over that field of fire flowers fast taking root inside of her. With his thumb behind one ear and his middle behind her other, he works steadily at those sweet spots behind them both, humming his approval. "You do it better."
All the heat that keeps flowering inside creeps between her vertebrae and makes it feel like her spine is melting. She shudders, slipping one arm around his leg, her fingers tracing the staples along the top of his foot. Her tongue shares the struggle; it feels heavy and hot in her mouth, too thick to form proper words.
Not that she has much coherent to say. "Do – do what better?"
"Cook it better. Make it better," he says, his fingers moving back and forth, back and forth, in that agonizingly perfect rhythm. "The eggs. The pancakes." A long pause. "Everything."
He's so often unfair, she thinks. Impossible. Awful. And then, sometimes, he's like this, and she just can't help herself. Her love of him grows up within her, fire-ivy and fire-weed, and all of it flowering, the tangled mess of it weaving about her ribs, pushing holes in and out of her lungs until it feels like she can't breathe. Every day there's more of it, more and more of it. Every morning, she wakes up choking on it, her love of him crawling its way up her throat from where it all grows, unchecked, in the hole he's carved in her heart.
"I love you," she mumbles into his knee, and it's nothing like the pleading, terrified I-love-you from the night before. It bubbles out of her, another flower blooming hot in her mouth to join the dozens inside of her already, the dozens both threatening to tear every sinew and seam apart even as they wend and wind around her bones and hold everything together.
His fingers are moving again, trailing a wandering path along the back of her neck as she lets her head fall forward, giving up ground for him to take as he wants. "Yeah?" He asks. "Do you?"
"Uh-huh."
He doesn't say it back. It isn't that he never does, because he does, and even more than she'd expect him to – more than most boys would, she knows that for certain. And she's lucky, she thinks, in that regard.
("It's just that boys are more of the show, don't tell type," her mother had told her once when she'd complained that Katsuki hadn't returned her confession of favorite-friend back when they'd actually kind-of-sort-of gotten along. "And anyway, people can lie, even if they do say it. You should always look at what they do and less at what they say to be sure.")
So when she feels her brother shift beside her, feels him lean over and wrap an arm around her shoulders and say, "Mm, Suzu. My good, sweet girl," while pressing a kiss to the side of her head, Suzume remembers what her mother said and decides not to judge him for his lack of verbalized I-love-yous, either. She can hear it in the cadence in his voice, in the way he says good, the word gravelly and fond. She can feel it in the way he nuzzles his nose in her hair, taking a breath deep enough she can hear it.
"Now c'mere. This good puppy at my feet thing you got going on is real cute," her brother tells her, "but you should come up here with me. I got something to show you."
Despite that lingering exhaustion and how comfortable it is clinging to his leg, so full of food and that buzzy, hot adoration, Suzume doesn't hesitate to oblige him. Leaving the rest of her uneaten breakfast on the table, she climbs up on the couch and collapses against him. The white shirt he wears is a twin of her own. Worn down to that pleasant softness of clothes washed well beyond their intended lifespan, it feels comforting against her hand when she moves her palm over his chest, across the firm but pliant muscles of his stomach. They tense beneath her touch, going rigid, a suddenly hard expanse of rising hills and sloping valleys that she finds herself mapping out with her fingers beneath the thin, fraying fabric. She's too momentarily fascinated to be ashamed of her own boldness. Their bodies couldn't be more different from each other.
It makes her brother rumble with quiet laughter. She can feel it as much as she hears it, those muscles going hard, now soft, hard, now soft with the rise and fall of each laugh.
Her brother definitely isn't the hungry boy she'd met in the park all those years ago. He isn't even a boy at all – not anymore. Centimeter by centimeter, brick by brick, she has built him up with healthy meals of vegetables, grains, fruits, as much lovingly prepared chicken or pork or beef as he wants, and all to make up for the fish he's now privileged enough to refuse. It's made him tall. Taller than before, and broad of shoulder, bigger than he was in every way she can imagine. It's made him lean too, but not in that too-thin and gangly way he was before. He's no longer the gaunt-faced specter she'd sit with on the slide, watching him lick salt from his fingers like a starved animal as they ate convenience store confections that, she's long since come to realize, he could probably never really afford.
There's a man there now, in that boy's place, with a man's body, a man's corded arms underneath all his fire-ruined and metal-knit flesh. The veins and tendons and bones stand out in sharp relief along the backs of his hands, craggy and deep, made mountainous. His jaw is sharp. His cheekbones are sharp. His grin, his eyes, and his wits, too:
All of him is so very sharp.
Maybe, she thinks, if she didn't know him, didn't really, really know him the way she does, the patchwork wrongness of his staple-stitched skin would frighten her. If not that, then maybe it would be the cunning light that flickers beneath the false indifference of his heavy-lidded eyes. Maybe it would be his languid, insolent smile. Maybe danger would override interest then, like she knows it's meant to. Maybe she would be more fearful than she is captivated, ruled instead by terrified instinct and not the one that has her chasing after him needily, desperately, as if she herself were the one starving, now.
It isn't that he doesn't frighten her. He does. It's just that she likes him too much – loves everything about him too much – to ever really listen to that anxious animal voice inside her head. It whispers to her out from a thousand, thousand years of human evolution, all of it finely honed to let her know, with a cold, sick feeling in her gut, when things are not good.
But for all that cold he fills her with, he also makes her just as hot –
So hot that it becomes very easy to ignore the chill.
So, she thinks, a little helplessly, wondering if this is what it's like to be drunk: what else is there to do but go into the flame?
"Is this more stuff we have to do?" she asks as his arm comes down and around her, and her heart flutters like a nervous, eager bird behind her ribs when he pulls her closer.
"Bingo." His hand dips into his pocket and returns with his phone. It's older than the one Hawks got her by a considerable margin, its screen cracked in a way Suzume has always thought feels fitting, like it matches him. It lights up under the press of his fingers, and after a few moments spent fiddling with it, her brother passes it off to her. The phone, made hot by the brevity of his touch, is still warm when it settles into her much smaller hands. She's made warm in much the same way when he plants a long, second kiss at the crown of her head.
"Got a video for you to watch," he says into her hair.
It's paused at the beginning, the big play button an open invitation in the middle of the screen. Her eyes drift to the corner, her whole body stiffening as she reads the title and is unwittingly dragged back down into an uncomfortable reality she'd almost forgotten about. "Oh my god – is this a video about – about periods?"
"Damn, Suzu. Really on a roll. Reading and everything."
Ignoring his obvious amusement, her fingers flirt with the power button of his phone as she debates turning it off. She had wanted to know. She even wants to. She does. But maybe not now. Last night had been weird, and she's afraid it has the potential to become weird again. Her brother is mercurial; chaotic. There is no telling where his moods will take him, but she knows him well enough to guess. "But you already told me what it was last night, and – "
"Not about to argue with you that your baby making factory being open for business is absolutely the most important takeaway from this whole mess – "
Reality, she thinks, face twisting. Here she is, back in reality, and it's just as weird and revolting as expected. " – ugh! Gross – why do you have to say it like that – "
" – but unfortunately for the both of us, there's a whole lot of boring but important biological shit you probably need to know."
Scooting herself out from under his arm and down the couch a bit, Suzume stares back at him, taking stock of his smirk and the smug arch of his brows set high on his face. She levels him with a hot-cheeked glower, mouth twisting in revulsion. "Is the video gonna talk about – about…" She drops her voice to a scandalized whisper. "About baby factories?"
Erupting into a burst of laughter, the ruined, stapled flesh around his vibrant eyes creases with wry amusement. "God, Suzu – sometimes you're just so cute I can't fucking stand it." When he lifts his hand to touch her cheek, she's flinching even before he pinches. That makes him laugh, too. "Nah, nah, nothing like that," he continues, ignoring the way her mouth puckers as if on something sour. "I went and found you a dumb baby video made special for dumb babies. Can't offend your delicate sensibilities. Figured if I went the baby factory route you'd be too flustered to absorb shit, and as much fun as that sounds, we're here to fill that pretty little head of yours with some learning. God knows it needs to be filled with something." Rapping his knuckles against her forehead, he laughs again when she puffs her cheeks out in indignation. "See? Shit's hollow. Straight empty. My poor, dumb baby sister. What a modern day tragedy."
"You're the dumb one," she grumbles, mouth still twisted, lemon-sour. "Dumb, and gross, and mean – "
Now he lets his fingers graze her fresh-pinched and throbbing cheek, softly following the curve of it down to her chin which he tilts up to make her look at him. The grip he has on it holds firm when she tries to twist away in a huff. "Aww. I hit a nerve, huh? Poor baby. But there's no point in getting so worked up about it. You're dumb, but you're cute too. And you're lucky you're so cute, y'know?" She hears his tongue click behind his sharp, leering teeth. "Girls as cute as you can get away with being dumb and pathetic." Now his thumb ghosts her grimacing mouth. "And really, just between you and me, it makes you even more cute."
Suzume's heart hammers in her chest, a steady, frantic rapping like someone desperate to be let out. The feeling of it pours through her whole body. She's angry, she tells herself. That's why. That's all.
"See – bleh – gross! That's what I mean! That's gross – and – and it's – it's sexist!" And it is. At least, Suzume thinks it is. It feels like it should be. It feels like she should be mad about it. And she is, that's why her pulse is racing, why her stomach has gone all hot and sour.
It is.
Kind of.
But also – ugh. It's not fair, she thinks, hating herself, really hating herself. Hating herself because she likes it, too. Why does she like it when he says it, even though it's gross, even when it's demeaning? Why does it make her face hot, hotter than before, get her pulse thrumming, racing, add another handful of fast-flowering seeds to that slick, hot garden always flourishing inside of her?
And somehow, even worse than that awful, shameful realization is her suspicion that he I she likes it.
He would. He has to. He knows everything. The way his grin grows wider and more cocky by the second all but guarantees it.
"And anyways, I'm not dumb – and my head isn't hollow," she declares stubbornly, rolling her eyes and wishing her scalding cheeks weren't so obviously betraying her. "It's currently full of thoughts about how you're one-hundred-percent the worst person alive. Like if you were to Google that right now – who the worst person alive is – your face'd be right there, like it'd be the first hit and everything."
"Mmm. Oh, Suzu. Poor Suzu." The honeyed tone his voice takes is decidedly maudlin. And it's infuriating! The worst! That low way he talks, it makes her stomach feel like it's being tied up in burning, hot knots, each traitor centimeter of it set ablaze in his gasoline fingers. "Considering how hard it is for shit to take root up there, I'm flattered that the one thing you have managed to fill your brain with is me."
He's so unfair. Maybe she is dumb. He's always been so much better at this than her.
"God, you're so full of yourself!"
Clicking his tongue against his teeth again, he shakes his head in a mockery of sympathy. "Whoops. Sounds like you're full of me, too."
Oh, but she's finally awake now. With an exasperated hiss, she tries to jump up from the couch –
But by the way his hand hooks her shoulder and how quickly he has her immediately pinned under him, she suspects he'd anticipated this. Doesn't he always? Even if he hadn't, the disparity in their strength and size gives him the obvious advantage. Another injustice.
Trying to buck him off her does nothing. She can't get any leverage, not with the way he has her thighs caged between both of his knees and the weight of his body keeping her prone. The press of his chest against her back nearly buries her face in the couch, half-forcing the air out of her. Crying out in frustration, she doesn't bother to fight him when he tugs his phone free from her loosening grip.
"Why are you always like this!" It's an exclamation, not a real question. She's even more frustrated when the crooked throw pillow digging into her cheek smothers most of her impotent annoyance. "Always throwing your weight around like a total skeezy loser! I'm never gonna feed you again!"
"Oh, you're so right, Suzu," he says, agreeably. "It's absolutely your fault." Suzume can hear the smile in his voice, the almost-laughter held back behind his white-teeth leer as his lips brush her ear. He so rarely takes any of her very justifiable grievances seriously. As he always tells her, it's his right as her big brother to ignore them. Why would this time be an exception? "Real adult of you to take responsibility like that. I wouldn't be near as strong if you didn't keep me nice and fed like the good girl you are. You've totally done this to yourself. And you're gonna keep doing it, aren't you? Gonna keep making me the best things, the tastiest things. Gonna keep making me big and strong and scary so I can do this shit to you all day, every day."
Suzume is filled with the insane urge to bite the couch. She doesn't, but it's very hard not to. "I hate you!"
"Awww," her brother coos. "No you don't. You love me. You love me so much, huh? You just hate that I'm right."
The arm he has around her shoulders shifts up, his forearm settling under her chin. Her head is lifted with it until she's looking up at the armrest of the couch. That's where her brother sets his phone, propped width-wise against a cushion only a handful of centimeters from her face. And there it is: the same video from moments ago waiting for someone to press play.
It can't be her. Considering the way her brother is laying on top of her, she can't even move her arms. They're pinned beneath her, helpless and utterly ineffectual.
(Not that she would if she could.)
Planting a kiss behind her ear, her brother props his chin up on her shoulder. She can feel the heat of his cheek against her own even if they aren't quite touching. "You ready to learn?"
Suzume wriggles beneath him. One of her arms is going numb. "No," she grumbles. "Dunno why you ask. You're gonna do it anyway."
"Maybe you aren't as dumb as I thought, cupcake," her brother says.
And then he presses play.
The video is… not at all what she expects. What had she been expecting? Something nasty, knowing her brother. That he'd been lying about it not involving baby factories. But like her sheets left to dry outside, the content seems surprisingly scrubbed clean of anything even remotely offensive. Little anthropomorphized body parts play the part of the hosts, sashaying around and prattling on in sweet, sing-song voices. Their soft, round lines and softer pastel colors remind her of childrens' drawings, of the chubby marshmallow plush her brother has put out with the sheets. Pinned up by one yarn arm, the toy sways precariously in the October breeze, barely holding on.
Feeling a little hysterical herself, Suzume can relate.
"Hi! Hello! I'm your uterus, Miss Uterus!" Chirps an inexplicably doe-eyed organ. Her shape vaguely reminds Suzume of an alien bull's head, her strangely shaped horns wide and flaring. She – because the creature is obviously girl-coded considering her voice and bubble-gum pink design – sidles onto the screen, batting those absurdly huge eyes and smiling wide. Suzume thinks she's meant to seem affable – and to a point, she is.
She is also deeply uncanny. "I provide a nice, cozy home for babies to grow!" Miss Uterus continues, speaking entirely in exclamations. "And the inside of that home is lined with a sort of wallpaper I make for each potential little bundle of joy! Each special baby egg gets its own very special pattern!"
Waggling back and forth in what Suzume guesses is meant to be an imitation of a head shake – because she is, after all, without a head to shake – Miss Uterus' peppy expression crumbles into a subdued, sulky frown. It's equally as uncanny as her smile. "But most of the time baby eggs don't have any reason to stay! So they pass through, and I have to renovate, make the space new and fresh! I want each potential baby to feel welcomed into their own unique and special space!"
Beside the cartoon uterus, one of those eponymous baby eggs appears. Wearing a crown of blue and yellow flowers and a bib patterned with similarly colored tiny ice cream cones, it – or she, or he? – peers up at a diagram of a room furnished with what looks to be a bunch of gunpla action figures and flashy superhero posters. Even before it kicks its little foot into a sudden burst of dirt that wasn't there moments before, its disappointment is immediately apparent.
"You wouldn't want to live in a room decorated with someone else's interests in mind, would you?" Miss Uterus' wobbly dance persists through the question and into the silence that follows, her round, limpid eyes peering out at the audience as if waiting for an answer. After a sufficiently awkward pause, she gives a sort of half bow, sing-shouts, "Of course not!" and gives an emphatic wave of her wiggly stick figure arms.
And then, as if this is a point Miss Uterus needs to sell, the bizarre little creature launches into what Suzume guesses is a very euphemism-heavy explanation about how this room-decor change happening inside of her body – and the body of 'every ready good girl!' – is a beautiful and wonderful thing.
Frowning at the screen, Suzume finds herself wondering if anything is beautiful or wonderful enough to be worth the copious blood loss –
(Nevermind the cramps that make it difficult to do anything but mope around on the couch for days at a time.)
"Remodeling isn't always a painless process!" Miss Uterus insists, bobbing up and down with an excitement Suzume finds beyond exhausting. "A lot of blood, sweat, and tears goes into it – and even some upset tummies – but the outcome is always worth it!"
"New room decor my ass. What a total load of shit."
Suzume almost startles at the sound of her brother's scoffing judgment. Despite his weight bearing down on her, she's become so rankled by the video that she'd entirely forgotten he was even here.
The reminder makes her whole body stiff with shame. The video and its content, it's something she knows she'd feel mortified to watch even alone. Learning about these secret red-dark tides moving through her changing body like rip currents is strange and humiliating enough in the privacy of her own limited understanding. To have to learn about all of this with her brother present feels –
Well, almost like a violation.
And why does he even need to watch it? It's clear he's well informed on the subject – well-enough informed, anyway, to have obvious doubts about the legitimacy of the claims their absurd host is making.
Of course it's always possible his little aside is a trap. Half of everything her brother does or says is a trap, meant to lure her in and get her to ask after what he means only for him to find some way to turn it against her. Will he make fun of her for being too dumb to catch something important? Will he tell her she's a baby? Lecture her about being naive, or gullible, or whatever other thing he can latch onto and laugh at her about?
The other half is hardly any better. Even if he is actually complaining about some real and legitimate thing, there's no doubt in her mind that her brother wants her to beg for clarification. It's always like this. Always with this dumb game he likes to get going between them, with him leaving out tempting crumbs to pique her interest, hoping to coax her into asking him about it. He can so rarely can just tell her anything. It always has to be some ridiculous ordeal.
It reminds Suzume of the prickly little burrs that get caught in her clothes in the spring. Stinging or scratchy or most often both, they're always so annoying that she can't focus on anything else. She has to stop everything immediately to find them, to fish them out of her socks, pluck them from her tights, comb them from the waves of her long hair. Like his little traps, they demand immediate relief – and no matter how careful she is, her fingers never, ever make it out unscathed.
It's the same with her brother. It's like he sneaks in when she least expects it and leaves his own little burrs everywhere for her to stumble into. They're so much worse than the ones that get stuck in her clothes; his get under her skin, pushed down deep into the recesses of her mind. They sting and they hurt and they get stuck to the heels of all of the things she tries to think about instead until all she can actually think about is how itchy she feels on the inside –
How her brother is the only one who can scratch that itch.
And like it is when picking burrs out of socks, there's no escaping him unscathed, either.
Feeling irritable and more than a little vindictive, she decides to say nothing. To do nothing. So what if it's never worked in the past? Maybe this time will be different. Pointedly ignoring him, she keeps her eyes fixed on the screen, watching Miss Uterus drone on and on in her starstruck voice. Suzume thinks it might maybe be a nice voice to listen to if she were talking about something less dire –
Or at least anything else besides these previously clandestine mysteries Suzume desperately wishes she didn't have any reason to know.
Her brother – always so patient despite claiming to be otherwise – says nothing either. Not that he does nothing, because he does. He does something; a lot of somethings, actually. He's clingy, and affectionate, oh-so touchy like he always is, like he especially is in moments like these. She can feel his nose nuzzling at the tender skin just behind her ear, the ghost-whisper of his infernally hot mouth against the back of her neck –
Thinks, maybe, that she can feel the upward curve of his lips in a grin she's glad she can't see.
(She's certain it would be some nauseating flavor of smug if she could.)
This is part of the game, too. He's distracting himself with his favorite pastime – flustering her – and making it easier to sit with that uncomfortable silence until she inevitably succumbs to her own stupid curiosity. But this time Suzume is convinced she can actually overcome this weird older brother-little sister tug of war. Even if she can't actually win, she should conceivably be able to deny him any satisfaction by doing nothing herself. And sure, it's something she's never actually managed to do –
But for once, she has her own distraction.
(It's just unfortunate the distraction is somehow more unnerving than the silence.)
Still, it works for a time. She is distracted. The video introduces a third and fourth character to the erstwhile Miss Uterus and her sad egg companion – a pair of sisters, both of them impossibly named Miss Ovary despite their differing shades of pink – and Suzume tries to fill her head with facts about egg production and monthly cycles and all the dreadful answers to those equally dreadful questions that have been plaguing her thoughts since the night before.
How long will it last? "The entire menstrual cycle lasts about twenty eight days on average," Miss Uterus pronounces with her customary enthusiasm, and Suzume feels her anxiety spike until Miss Ovary – the one lighter in color – clarifies that the part that involves blood and pain, "Tends to last only three to five days on average!" Not that the cheerful Miss Ovary uses words like blood or pain, because of course she doesn't. Evidently living in a kinder world, Miss Ovary opts instead for much more neutral terms and phrases, calling it menstrual fluid and referencing occasional but usually mild difficulties.
How much will she bleed? Will she be okay? "Of course you'll be fine! More than fine!" Chorus the three organs together, all of them smiling, all their smiles wide. The egg does a little jig beside the three of them, twirling around in its little ice cream bib. "Flow varies between person to person, and also where a girl is in her cycle – but never fear! A wide array of products are available to deal with light flows, and medium flows, and – " Here, Miss Ovary and her twin sister both politely cover their gaping cartoon mouths in unison, speaking from behind their little hands, " – even heavy flows!"
Why?
Well, for babies, of course!
And it works, and it works, and it works – and then, suddenly, it isn't working anymore. For all that Suzume tries her best to ignore the curiosity that prickles at her like a burr her brother has buried deep in her brain, it isn't long before those ever-perky voices begin to blend together, becoming a rush of shallowly pleasant but wholly indecipherable chirrups –
Because Suzume finds she cannot focus at all on the video any longer.
"What did you even mean?" The question is a borderline accusation, prickly with bitterness she doesn't bother to hide. Her mood is made even worse by the fact that she's more upset with herself for giving in than she is with him for saying anything in the first place – and she wants to be upset with him. She just can't ever seem to manage anything, not even something as small and easy as this. No wonder he's always making fun of her. "I thought you said this was gonna teach me stuff, but now you're acting like it's – like it's wrong, somehow?"
Her brother hums against the nape of her neck as if contemplating his reply. It's totally an act; Suzume knows exactly what he's doing. Besides successfully trying to tickle her, he's keen to make her wait even longer when she's clearly dying for an answer.
Both are obvious attempts meant to punish her for ignoring him. Unlike her own vain attempts to do the same to him, they land exactly as expected:
Suzume feels punished.
"Mmm. I skipped around and watched maybe a couple minutes worth all together," he says eventually, thoughtful in a way where it's totally obvious how fake he's being. He doesn't need to think if he'd planned this out in advance. There's no doubt he has. "Not like I put it under some extensive review."
"Oh, come on." She hates how whiny her voice sounds. Hates how much she knows he loves it. "You're drawing this out on purpose. Can you maybe not be a total butt for once in your life and just – just answer like a normal person?"
There's teeth at her ear lobe, just a hint of them. It's a tiny victory that she manages not to shiver. "Aww. You're right," he allows, this time with a touch of similarly fake generosity. "I shouldn't be picking at you. Shit's been real rough for you lately, huh? And that's what I meant: it's been shit. You've been put through the fucking ringer. And they're sitting here talking about wallpaper changes like it's something glamorous. You been feeling and acting like you're terminal for the last, what? Two, three days? And we get Little Miss Baby Propaganda's spouting her garbage about rearranging your guts monthly to make room for the repeated arrival of – what did the weird twins call it?" His introspective air evaporates, taking on a sickly, saccharine cast. "'The miraculous potential of beautiful new life?'"
Until this moment, Suzume has suspected her discomfort regarding the video has only been a projection of her own unhappiness with herself and her body's sudden changes. But now she finds herself struck by the idea that this video might have other and potentially nefarious intentions besides just education. "Baby... propaganda?"
"Sure. Propaganda. And I mean, are you surprised? The talking heads on TV are always yapping about declining birth rates on the news. They gotta fix it somehow. So one day some genius government health guy comes up with this solution and decides to tell a bunch of empty-headed girls during one of the worst times of their lives, 'Hey, don't worry about how much all this blood and shit sucks – just think about how beautiful and wonderful it is that your body's ready to pump out some kids. That's what matters. Think about that, all right? Think about being beautiful and wonderful. Maybe get on actually doing that when you get a chance. Put those beautiful, wonderful wombs to use.'" She can hear the smile in his voice now when he talks. Hear, somehow, the way it pulls and stretches at the corners of his mouth, at the staples fixed to the edges there.
It sounds decidedly slimy. "Not that I can say I blame him," he says, his mouth brushing against the shell of her ear. "'Cause really, who out there's better to shoulder the responsibility of the future of Japan than my cute little sister and her teeny, tiny shoulders? Who better to fulfill that noble duty now that it's your womb that's ready to be pumped full of 'beautiful, new life?'"
That's it, Suzume thinks, her sour expression mirroring the twisting, sick-gut feeling that blooms putrid in her stomach. That's it, it, it. Tricks and traps from him today, all the way down – and her being dumb enough to fall for all of it. "You have to make everything so disgusting, don't you?" Trapped forever in their bizarre dance behind the cage of his cracked-glass screen, the bubble-shaped lady-organs continue on with their hopeful lecture using excitable gestures Suzume isn't remotely paying attention to anymore. She hates them. She can't hate her brother, so she hates them instead.
Hates her own awful, traitorous body, too.
But even if she can't hate him, she can still be mad at him. Disgusted with him. "You're so – ugh, you're so dumb, and weird, and – and gross. You got me earlier pretending to be nice only to do this – to say this dumb and nasty stuff! I'm never gonna trust anything you do or say ever again, never ever."
Her brother's laughter is low and rumbling. With him on top of her, it vibrates through her almost as if it were her own. "Hey, c'mon Suzu, I meant it earlier. You know I like looking after you. That I like taking care of you." He presses a long kiss to the back of her neck and her body has the audacity to betray her again when she can't hold back the way it makes her shiver. He laughs again, pleased with himself. "See? There's my girl. You know I wasn't trying to fuck with you then. I ain't even being gross now. It's just objectively the truth. I know it. The video knows it. Hell, even your body knows it. They wanna paint it up cute and sweet so it's easier to swallow – sneak you a bit of sugar to help get that thick, awful truth down past your little swallowing muscles, yeah? So they say shit like, oh, it's just your body making up a nice pretty room for a nice pretty baby. And it sounds real homey, the way they say it. Real wholesome, real proper propaganda-like. But the reality is that it sucks. It hurts. It's fucking miserable. And you wanna know what I think your body's actually doing when you're rolling around on the couch feeling like you're gonna puke?"
Suzume glowers at the screen, at the twin sister ovaries holding hands. Currently preoccupied with singing a jaunty little song, they seem as if they've never known a day of struggle in their entire, blissful life.
By contrast, Suzume really does feel like she might throw up.
She does not want to know what her brother thinks.
(She wants to know so much.)
"No," she lies. No, I don't. Not even a little bit."
"Hey, hey, now. Lying to your big brother ain't cute, pretty girl. You know you do. You know you're just dying for my pearls of wisdom." Suzume hates how much each word sounds syrupy in his mouth, sticky with an unmistakably vain confidence. It's like he said: he knows he's right. Even Suzume knows he's right. He's right about everything – about her wanting to know what he means. Probably about whatever he's going to say, too.
She just refuses to acknowledge it out loud.
"Nuh-uh."
"Yeah-huh. You're chomping at the bit for it, ain't you? Acting all stoic, playing like you're not, all while you're freaking out inside 'cause you wanna know, you wanna know so bad. But don't you worry your stubborn little head, Suzu. You're cute enough to get away with lying, and I won't make you beg this time. I'll give you this one for free even if you don't wanna ask me nice and pretty – y'know, 'cause I like you so much. 'Cause you've been really going through it. So listen up: your body's not really wigging out 'cause it's 'redecorating.' None of that bull about changing the wallpaper is remotely true. The video's just doing what propaganda does best. It's a coat of shiny gold paint smeared over a steaming pile of shit. They gotta put everything in a positive light, be all polite society with it, 'cause again, whoops: declining birth rates. But that ain't it. Nah, that ain't it at all."
The arm he has wrapped around her shoulders shifts a bit to the side, giving him the leverage to wrap his fingers around her jaw, to shake her head from side to side. There's a sneer lacing his voice when he speaks again, and it dips lower, more intense as it slithers out of him. "The reality is that your baby-hungry little body's just punishing you for having the nerve to not get knocked up. It wants a baby, wants one real bad, and it's gonna keep hurting you until it gets what it wants. That's why you hurt. That's why your insides feel like they're trying to claw their way out of your outsides. Your body's just real fucking mad at you."
Suzume knows he must feel how hot her cheeks have gotten – how hot her entire body has gotten. The video isn't something she'd wanted to watch, and this conversation isn't something she wants to be having, and everything about everything feels wrong, wrong, wrong. The pancakes, the eggs, the butter, all of her earlier good feelings have gone rancid inside of her. She swallows back the thickness of bile rising up the back of her throat. It really is a wonder that she doesn't vomit.
"That's not – that can't be true," she manages to say, choking on the words.
And it can't be, can it? That's not possibly true. Can't possibly be fair if it is. And it's not. It's not fair. Not true. There's no way it is. He can be right about so many things –
But he can't be right about this.
"Yeah? You sure? So you're telling me you been feeling so sick, so tired, so totally washed out, that you gotta bleed your guts out for a whole fucking week and your hormones are out here making you feel weepy and sad and extra pathetic, and all for... what? All of that for no reason? You really think all that shit can be anything other than your body trying to strong arm you – month after month after month after month – into making use of that sparkly-new fertile womb of yours?"
There has to be an argument against this, Suzume thinks wildly. There has to be. Maybe if she could find some books. Maybe if she could ask Hawks. Maybe, maybe –
But even as she tries her best to reason a way around this insane argument her brother is making, she can't. And if it were as untrue as she feels it should be, wouldn't the whole process be easy? Wouldn't it feel beautiful? Wouldn't it not hurt at the very least? Not look like a horror movie when she pulls down her underwear to use the bathroom?
The body-part creatures on his phone have all joined together for what she thinks might be an encore of the previous song. Words on the screen light up as they're sung like some outrageous mockery of karaoke, something about the beauty and responsibility of being a newly grown woman. Suzume, feeling well and truly done, mashes the power button on her brother's phone and shoves it off the couch where it thumps loudly against the rug.
"Awww. No more propaganda?" Her brother's breath moves in her hair. His laughter does, too. "But they were just about to get to the good part and teach you how you could go about fixing this monthly shitshow."
"I don't – I don't care. I don't wanna know. The video's dumb – it feels like it was made for – made for third graders. I can just Google it. Look it up online somewhere. I don't need to know anything else."
"To be fair, you were meant to learn this garbage in the fourth grade." He squeezes her jaw, her cheeks, making her lips pucker. "Poor Suzu. Late for everything."
Her mind reels, reaching for any kind of excuse to end this situation. She wants to go take a shower. She wants to scrub herself clean. She wants to sit in the hot bath water alone and cry. "Just 'cause I was supposed to learn it then doesn't mean I should have to watch a video meant for kids that age, and – and it's boring, and I don't like it, and anyway – "
"Ohhhh, it's too boring for you, huh?" The sudden surge of leering excitement surfacing in his voice has Suzume's stomach tangling into a knot of pure nerves. It grows and swells with every further word, his own conversational rip tide. It's something to get caught in, and pulled under by, something that will hold her there in the dark and drown her. It can only mean one thing: she's inadvertently stumbled into another one of his traps, only this one is much, much worse than anything before. "Y'know, I was worried about this. Everything I went looking for was all this little kid kinda trash, and I thought – naw, my little sister, she's real high brow now. She's gonna think this sucks. And you're always going on about how big and adult you've gotten, right? Still, I figured, hey. I'd try. Go with something easy. Try with the dumb baby song and dance show to start, nothing too adult, nothing too intense. But I shoulda gone with my gut. You'd want something a little more interesting. Want something a little more... compelling. Practical. Something you can really get dirty with."
"Wait, actually, I don't – "
"Nah, Suzu. You gotta know. Gotta learn. It's real important to know how your body works. And you gotta be interested to care, for the knowledge to stick, for it to really – ahhh, let's say take. So how's about I make it interesting and give you a little hands-on demonstration?"
Her stomach jumps like it would if she were to see a dead animal on the side of the road, all splayed out tire-crushed limbs, its insides a firework spatter of red viscera across the pavement –
Like it might if she were to one day look up and see a car veering off the road, and her just standing there, held fast by sudden terror in its quickly approaching headlights.
"I don't think... don't think I need that." She tries to sound firm, but her voice wobbles like a top in her throat, threatening at any moment to give out, to stop spinning. Even if she can't see him, she imagines his eyes as those headlights, and her suspended in them –
And there is ice-blooded fear in her veins. She can't move. She can barely talk. "Actually, I'm… I'm fine with the video. Can we finish the video? Please?"
But of course it's already too late. This has to be the outcome he'd wanted since the beginning. Another long, elaborately set trap.
"No, no, Suzu. You're totally right." The hand he has around her chin slides down with agonizing slowness, his fingers curving lightly around her throat as he shifts his weight above her. As he lifts himself up, the warmth of his chest against her back leaves her abruptly. "That shit was real boring. This is a way better idea. Glad we're on the same page."
AN: So yea, as mentioned, the rest of this chapter gets kind of explicit. Not full on penetrative sex, but, y'know, again, it's still semi-explicit enough anyway that I don't feel comfortable enough to post here. There's some interesting bits of character development but it's not worth risking stuff for!
I'll probably do that from here on out; any time a chapter gets intense like this, I'll hack out the end bits and if you want the details, you can go find it on Ao3!
Thanks for the like 3 people reading over here!