Work Text:
Ritsu doesn’t know why, but his brother is restless at night. When the house is quiet, Ritsu blinks awake and finds it difficult to fall asleep immediately. He’s left with a small pocket of time in which he is neither awake nor asleep but waiting to be in either state. He whiles away the time chasing shadows on the ceiling. He attaches meanings to them and uses then to organise his thoughts.
One night, he notices a particular shadow shift across the ceiling. It isn’t that of a tree blowing in the wind, or that of a car driving past. Instead he hears footsteps down the hall where his brother’s room is. Curious, he slips out of his futon and goes to investigate.
Someone is prowling the halls, drifting like a ghost and Ritsu is so frightened he cannot speak. The ghost walks towards him and the moonlight catches its visage. His brother’s straight bangs framing his eyes which are illuminated a milk white. It’s so unlike other times when Shigeo can do strange things like bend spoons and make dogs float because he still looks like his big brother. Now he looks so alien, so other, so like that time with the bullies when his hair stood on end and his eyes turned white just like this-
Ritsu wets himself.
He’s only six.
He bursts into tears, jolting Shigeo awake and into a panic. Soon both their parents are roused by two messy, wet children crying in the hallway. Both are too inconsolable to explain and their parents too sleepy to push the matter. They change Ritsu’s clothes, feed Mob some milk and send them both back to bed with a hug and a pat on the head.
Everyone forgets about this embarrassing incident, except Ritsu.
Weeks later, he hears his brother wandering the halls. He watches him for a while but his brother doesn’t do anything except walk up and down and go into and out of his room like a confused ghost. He doesn’t remember doing it in the morning and Ritsu decides not to mention it.
Ritsu learns that this condition is known as sleepwalking but he doesn’t know why Shigeo does it. It only happens once or twice a week and Shigeo doesn’t usually go very far. But one day, Ritsu hears the usual footsteps and then the front door open. He’s terrified for his brother so he decides to follow him.
It’s dark outside despite the golden pools of light spilling from the streetlamps lining the road. The moon is in hiding, the sky a pitch black, and Ritsu wishes he’d brought a torchlight with him. But it’s too late now, so he trails after his brother, all the way to the park near their house.
The park is like a whole other planet. The ground is a sandy terrain with its undulating dunes; the playground equipment are an eruption of foreign structures. Through it all, his brother stays asleep, his breathing is even and his eyes wide and white. At one point, Ritsu tugs on his brother’s sleeve, “Onii-chan, can we go home please? I’m scared.”
But his brother remains fast asleep.
Ritsu can feel tears welling up in his eyes. He’s lost out here with his brother, both of them at the mercy of beasts and demons in the dark. He feels a cold hand touch his and he jumps, only to find that it’s his brother.
“Don’t worry, Ritsu,” his brother says. “I’m here.”
“Nii-” Ritsu starts to smile, relief coursing through him, but Shigeo isn’t talking to him. He’s still asleep. Despair threatens to burst the floodgates, but...his brother is smiling gently and so calmly that Ritsu forgets to cry. His brother is smiling right at him as if he can see him.
His brother hasn’t held his hand in a while. Not because he doesn’t want to but because Ritsu has been straying away. He wanted to be grown up and stop being his brother’s shadow, show his brother he can make it on his own. But now he realises he’s missed his brother dearly, and he’s been selfish for keeping his brother’s night wanders to himself as his own personal secret, while ignoring him during the day. But here Shigeo was trying to comfort him even in his dreams.
He rubs his eyes surreptitiously although there’s no one around to see as Shigeo leads him through the park to the small patch of grass. He lies down and stares up. Ritsu lies down beside him and doesn’t dare let go of his hand. “Look, Ritsu,” he says, pointing straight up. “Aren’t they pretty?”
Ritsu has to check that his brother is indeed still asleep because a multitude of stars are scattered across the dark night like glimmering orbs.
Lying under this canopy of stars, he’s never felt closer to his brother. Although the night is chilly and they’re only in their pajamas, Ritsu feels safe and warm.
They’re found by the newspaper delivery man at dawn, curled up fast asleep. Their parents get locks for both of their doors although Shigeo’s the only one who sleepwalks. Ritsu doesn’t say anything, content to have had that moment of clarity between him and his brother.
He thinks he shouldn’t be afraid to hold his brother’s hand again.