Chapter Text
"Everything is going to be alright."
That's the first thing he says and it makes his heart ache and tears fill his eyes. Ran will always be there for him, and while that's a childish thought, he needs to make it come true. Therefore, he takes his hand and, despite feeling cold, smiles. Rindou always smiles in the face of the storm.
The truth is that they've always been together.
Since the day Ran held him for the first time in his arms and swore that that little face looked just like his; since he was happy about each and every one of his achievements. And, above all, since the day the eldest woke him up in the middle of the night and told him to run away. Ran was always aware that the screaming and hitting were not normal.
There wasn't a single night that he didn't have nightmares, not a single moment that he looked in the mirror and didn't see the features of his own family imprinted on it. He let the house go up in flames when they left, and that was his first kill.
Rindou had been more innocent.
No, if Ran had to write the book of his life, he wouldn't say that his little brother was innocent, rather he had done it that way.
All the times he urged him to hide in the back of the closet or under the bed, covering his ears so he wouldn't have to hear the beatings, the breaking glass. All the times Ran preferred to take the snap of the belt on his own back so he wouldn't have to suffer.
That's why, that night so many years ago, he told him the whole truth. Because he knew that he had created a child too vulnerable to the world and that, as much as he would've liked to have kept him that way, he would only make him manipulable.
He let Rindou learn, let him assimilate, let him grow.
“Now it's us against the world, do you understand, Rin?”
They were just brats when they ran away.
The Haitani brothers never needed anyone else. They managed to survive, first on the street, in a dilapidated building; then in a cheap motel where customers moaned about the rain. It was only a matter of time before Ran got a job, illegal of course. Child labor was prohibited, but working in a women's bar gave him enough money to keep them both going; counting the tasks that a certain street gang entrusted to him from time to time.
At thirteen, he fractured the skull of a guy who tried to take Rindou from his side, causing his death.
It was fast. He had left him alone where they lived—a pitiful ten-square-meter room rented with black money—to go to work the night shift. However, as if he was connected to his little brother, he had a bad feeling. The bristling hair on his body and the bad omen sent him back to the tattered building in the Tokyo hotspot where they were staying and he ended up smashing a brick into the head of a son of a bitch who came in to rob them and was trying to take Rindou as his own trophy.
They ended up in a youth center. Rindou talked too much, he made up too many things even though he told him not to.
They were united for a lifetime, managed to rejoin school and finished high school thanks to the center's schooling programs. He hated his stay here, but it had been so much better than sleeping rough. In part, he was grateful that he had given his little brother a good future, and he worked hard over the next few years to follow through on that dream.
Because Ran's dream had always been for Rindou to be happy, and the cause of his smile was him each and every time.
"Look Ran! I got a seven in history!” The illusion in his eyes when he got a good grade, his cheerful voice, his glasses breaking by his usual clumsiness. Rindou was so precious to him. “But, I promise you that next time I'll try harder and I'll surely be able to reach an eight”
He didn't do high school. He got a full-time job as a waiter in a restaurant and scraped together as much money as he could so he could send him to college, ignoring his complaints.
Ran lived by and for his brother, besides the fact that he was aware that only one could have studies. Still, the money didn't seem like enough, and he had considered taking out a loan before he started his freshman year. Rindou started taking out the neighbors' dogs and taking care of other people's babies on the sly and they had an argument over it. That night they had slept with their backs to each other in the tiny place where they lived, because they saved everything they could earn.
It was too cruel that two children had to learn so quickly to pay bills, to file income taxes, to buy what they needed. Not being able to afford an academy for Rindou, due to his lack of ability with some subjects; him unable to afford to buy clothes several times a year. Shoes were expensive and so were winter coats. To work and earn their bread with sweat, to survive.
But, if Ran had the chance to go back in time and relive his life, he wouldn't change a thing.
Being on his deathbed, he knows that Rindou is the only thing he has ever had. He doesn't need anything else to be happy, he won't be able to love someone as much as he loves him.
"I love you," he says, holding his hand. “I haven't told you for a long time because I know you'll get angry and tell me that you're not a child and that you don't need that kind of affection. But I love you”
Once he was handsome and he had a twinkle in his eye. The disease has taken everything, he has turned his skin pale, black circles under his eyes that look like bruises have appeared. Two fine tubes go into his nostrils.
The disease is also taking his money, if he had known that dying like this was so expensive, he would have put up with everything until the end. He has lost so much weight that his ribs show if he touches his hospital gown.
His nose begins to bleed and the taste of iron seeps between his parched lips. He blinks a few times, but he doesn't feel a thing. End-of-life palliative care takes the pain out of him, but he feels more distraught than ever.
He hears the sound of his own heart beating and tries to reach up to wipe the tears from his brother's face, or to pick up one of those blond strands and tuck it behind his ear, but he doesn't. He has the strength for it.
"No…" Rindou hurries to grab a tissue and wipe his nose, pressing down a bit. The bleeding stops suddenly, it's like it's exploding inside too. “Don't say that, please”
"Live a happy life, okay?" Ran smiles. Even with the bad weather on his face, he is like his brother and smiles. “Take care of yourself, fall in love with someone who doesn't cut your wings and eat well…”
Rindou hits the mattress of the stretcher, sitting next to him. He is crying and denies to himself and to the world.
All the nights his older brother pretended to be fine, until he forced him to go to the doctor for tests. It had been too late, the cancer was advanced, and the chemotherapy hadn't even stopped it. He made giant strides for three months, completely consuming him to that state. He can see red dot marks and bruises on his arms from something as simple as bumping into something when he goes to the bathroom.
He always knew it was them against the world, but not like that. He doesn't want to see him die, not when he's the only thing he's ever had.
"Shut up," he begs desperately. He doesn't want to keep listening to him talk.
"And go to Hokkaidō for us, the flowers…" Ran breaks completely, his voice shakes and he tightens his brother's grip with what little strength he has left. “I'm sure everything is colored…”
They had been teenagers when they planned this trip, after seeing photographs of the island in a tourist guide that they flipped through purely by chance.
The fields full of cherry trees, the esplanades full of flowers of all colors. They bought the tourist guide by collecting the yen they had brought with them and took it home while admiring the landscapes. They promised each other to visit the island and take lots of pictures when they had a better phone, and to go skiing in the winter when they had enough money to live a decent life. At that time, when they were eighteen and twenty, they had agreed that it would be the following year when they could finally fulfill it.
Rindou leans over to his brother and helps him raise his hands so he can brush his tears away.
He notices how he slides his thumbs down his rosy cheeks and touches the rims of his glasses. He lets him take them off and kiss his eyelids like when he had nightmares and asked him to put them out of his head.
"Ran, stop," he says, catching one of his limp hands and holding it to keep it from falling gracefully between the sheets. “I'll order some dinner and then we'll play chess.” He swallows hard. “And tomorrow we will see each other again, as always”
It's the heart of him. If he dies, he won't have anything to live for, so Ran has to do it. Waking up the next day and continuing to try treatments, volunteering for some that are still experimental. He misses seeing him with his braids, misses being able to comb his hair and seeing how he complains that it gets tangled up at night. He wears a ridiculous bluish wool hat that he has made himself. He has no eyebrows, no eyelashes. His cheeks are sunken.
He looks like a shell of what he once was.
He hopes that everything will return to normal, or that it will be nothing more than a bitter dream from which he will be able to wake up. He's sure to be there, across the room, snuggled into his futon with his hair in knots and a calm expression.
"I love you," the eldest repeats, because he doesn't know if he's been good enough to him, or if he's been strong enough. “You are the only thing that…”
“Ran”
“... the only thing I have…”
He hasn't seen his brother cry in years. Ran is one of those people who hides in the bathroom to cover up his sobs. He witnesses him gasp, trying to breathe through the snot from his stuffy nose. His face falls and he looks at him, holding his hand tight.
"Come on, you're going to be fine tomorrow," he insists, giving him a little shake. He's unable to fake a smile, not anymore. “I'll bring you your favorite book and we'll read it together, like when you taught me”
He refuses to say goodbye, is it childish to delude himself that this is not the end?
Rindou doesn't know a life without his brother and he can't imagine it, he doesn't want to know anything about hospitals or treatments. All he wants is to go home with him, cook dinner and tell each other a story before going to bed.
Then he realizes that it's true. Is the end. And, when it arrives, he doesn't have a word.
“Ran?”
Ran has just gone quiet, still. He keeps holding his hand, but his wrist feels strange, he loses his strength little by little. The faint sparkle in his lavender eyes fades faster than he can tell. The machine that indicates his heartbeat starts beeping.
It sounds and sounds. And it doesn't stop.
"... Ran?" His vision blurs with tears, his scratchy throat burns. He squeezes his hand without response.
He hyperventilates. He collapses as if he's been punched in the stomach and shrinks down onto the older man's lap. He screams, choking back tears, expecting him to touch his head and stroke his hair at any moment. But, it doesn't happen. No one touches his hair, no one speaks a word of comfort to him. Ran Haitani is dead and his hand loses heat in his.
Rindou will never be the same.