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There are many addresses. First, Ritsu’s name in the upper left-hand corner with Shigeo’s name in the center above a foreign prefecture. He’s gotten letters back too, his name there in Shigeo’s neat handwriting. Ritsu has always been careful with mail, as if a postcard or letter might be his last chance to be heard.
Lost mail, after all, is as common as lost mornings after shutting the curtains in a half-sleep.
Ritsu wrote more letters than he ever got during Shigeo’s first year in university. He’d like to think it’s because the post office betrayed him and didn’t deliver all his brother’s letters revealing deep, dark secrets in between postcards relaying how clouds looked different in the mountains.
To keep his mind occupied, Ritsu started to spend his mornings running. Not out of pleasure, but just to beat the mailman. Their house was first on the route, and it was always better coming back to a letter from Shigeo than even a locker full of chocolate on Valentine’s Day he never cared about.
Ritsu has always enjoyed anticipation.
*
We kissed good morning.
Ritsu writes it in his diary like a story. Like he’s someone else in the we and Shigeo is uninvolved.
He leaves the words there on the page.
It was just after New Year’s, time for Shigeo to go back to school and Ritsu preparing for the college entrance exam.
They’d sat in the living room and talked all night, making up for any missed letters.
Ritsu was punch-drunk by seven in the morning, the light filtering into the living room and hitting his brother’s dark hair. And there was Shigeo, staring at him.
“I mean,” he’d said slowly, “I miss you is what I mean.”
“That’s it.” Shigeo had nodded contentedly before grabbing Ritsu’s hands. Then he’d pulled him close, pressed their lips together. He’d felt hungry, desperate, dream-like.
Sunlight at seven before pulling the curtains closed.
“You always know, Ritsu.” Shigeo pulled back, smiling a little—a rare occurrence that always made Ritsu’s breath catch.
“Know what?” His voice had been dry, trying to remember how to breathe, talk, have a pulse.
“How I feel, so I don’t have to explain.” But when Shigeo leaned forward to kiss him again, Ritsu shied back.
This was wrong; he’d confused his brother. He’d waited until too early in the morning between ghosts slumbering and people waking up to lean forward and confess his own secrets.
“I think it’s almost seven!” he blurted out, eyes wide, reaching out to clasp Shigeo’s hands. “I like to run. It’s part of my routine to keep up my physical fitness.”
Shigeo had nodded solemnly, immediately straightening and swinging his legs over the edge of the couch where they’d been sitting all night, curled together before Ritsu had done the unthinkable.
Punch-drunk impulsivity of morning.
“Can I run with you?” Shigeo had smiled. “I miss it.”
“Of course, nii-san.”
They ran; they had breakfast; they spent the day watching TV and playing video games.
We kissed goodbye. Ritsu writes in his journal.
It’s his journal, so he decides the what and “we” of things.
*
When Shigeo left for college, their mother instructed him to sort through his clothes and find anything that didn’t fit anymore. It was to be donated, and anything left could be neatly folded in his room along with his futon, waiting for his return during visits.
Their mother was always sentimental.
Ritsu had sat on the edge of the futon and lamented memories as Shigeo pulled out each garment—his gakuran, the jeans with the hole in the knee when they raced each other home one day and he’d fallen, a tattered white t-shirt—a life’s worth of teenage memories.
But that white t-shirt with the holes seemed more important as Shigeo pulled it out, sniffing it curiously, frowning curiously.
“I’ll take it,” Ritsu immediately volunteered. “It probably fits me, because you’re so broad now, and I’m still skinny.” He’d smiled a little, holding out his hand; Shigeo had handed the tattered t-shirt over with an uncertain look.
“It’s damaged, though.”
It’s the shirt from That Day.
“I need workout shirts.” Ritsu smiled, shrugging. “It’s soft, and better than throwing it out, right?”
He slept in it every night. It emanated his brother’s psychic energy even after years—the shirt he’d been wearing after he’d given Koyama an unforgettable reckoning—reclaimed for reasons Ritsu would rather not know, since they’d returned to the Kageyama home with Shigeo wearing Hanazawa’s unsightly blue checkered shirt.
Sometimes, he’d roll onto his back in the early mornings—warring with himself about how a third year honors student should get up and do something productive like run or review homework—but instead, he’d telekinetically close the curtains and press his face into the tattered white t-shirt.
*
There’s a letter addressed to Kageyama Ritsu that he sees at seven-thirty a.m. after his run along the river.
It’s Shigeo’s handwriting and Ritsu opens the envelope. He stares at what’s inside blankly, reads the typed text several times over, checking times and geography.
Then he finds a place to sit, head in his hand with sweat pooling on the back of his neck even as the minutes pass toward the time when he has to get ready for school.
It’s a two way ticket to Shigeo’s university, redeemable two-way exactly between Ritsu’s gap before college. But there’s no other explanation.
He’s thankful, suddenly, for so many kilometres between them; for the mountain ranges he’d despised that separated him and Shigeo, beautiful as they were on the train ride.
Lost in thought, Ritsu gets a text message halfway through the school day. When he sees Shigeo’s name on his phone, he puts on a very serious expression and asks forgiveness as he steps out of student council meeting.
From Nii-san: Sorry Ritsu! I sent you mail and just realized the letter I thought I sent is in my desk drawer. :( I’m still not good at remembering things. I hope you weren’t confused.
Ritsu can feel his face heat, a combination of relief and terror washing through him.
To Nii-san: Do you still want me to visit?
Might as well get to the point. The only thing that makes Ritsu happy these days is re-reading his journal entries from a few months prior, running in the morning, and getting letters from his brother.
There’s a long enough pause that he actually ends up tucking his phone into his back pocket and heading off to his next class, desperately waiting for a notification that Shigeo has answered his question.
It’s not until he’s walking home alone that he receives it.
From Nii-san: If you have time we can see each other. The ticket was supposed to be a surprise!
Ritsu exhales long and hard, tucks his phone away, and stops where he is on his walk home.
We.
*
The mountains from the train window are beautiful, distant, near-imaginary as the sun sets.
Ritsu is half-asleep as he keeps one hand on his phone and the other on his homework on the fold-out table. Not that it matters.
Tomorrow is the general college entrance exam, and he won’t be there. He’s going to visit his brother.
“Young man,” says an attendant as she passes checking tickets, “are you all right? Do you have a ticket?”
Ritsu straightens immediately, opening his eyes and clenching his hand around his phone and book. He’s wearing Shigeo’s tattered shirt and probably looks suspicious.
“I’m going to visit my brother in college,” he blurts out. “I apologize for my appearance. I’m in university and have forgotten how to appear in proper society.” He shrugs a little and laughs awkwardly; but the attendant laughs too. She cocks her head to the side, still smiling, meeting his eyes and no longer looking at his shirt.
“Well, ticket, please?”
He presents his brother’s ticket and carefully tucks it into the pocket of his jacket that he’s draped over the back of his seat.
The sky above the mountains is darkening, and Ritsu thinks about the morning.
*
“Ritsu,” Shigeo stirs in the futon, warm and naked as he grabs Ritsu’s hand tightly.
“Hm?” Ritsu murmurs, barely awake.
The morning light is shining horribly, the typical time Ritsu gets up to go running. But then the curtains shut soundly, a telepathic shirr of sound.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too, nii-san,” Ritsu whispers, rubbing his bare foot against the back of Shigeo’s shin.
There isn’t anymore talking, no more running, no more clothes—just Ritsu’s coat discarded carelessly on the floor with a pilfered t-shirt.
He opens one eye and from his vantage point, sees the roundtrip train ticket has slipped under the washing machine in Shigeo’s tiny apartment.
“I don’t have anything to do today,” Shigeo sighs, a sound that goes straight through Ritsu like an electric shock, “but I understand if you need to go back.”
Today is the entrance exam.
“No, nii-san,” Ritsu murmurs, burying his face against Shigeo’s dark hair. “I’m tired of letters. I’ll stay as long as you want.”
And although he knows Shigeo will find out that he missed the exam, and although their parents will be furious, and although every single thing in the world will come crashing down on them, Ritsu doesn’t care.
Instead, he measures hours with his heartbeats against Shigeo’s spine and forgets what light looks like outside the drawn curtains.