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He was rocking back and forth on his heels, bottom lip held between his top in giddy excitement. You raised an eyebrow at you brother, stopping mid type. He was staring at you, you could tell even though his messy honey coloured fringe was draped over his eyes. You could just feel those two coloured orbs watching your every move, as they did with everyone, darting back and forth, not missing a thing. You tapped out a quick message to Karkat, telling him you’d be right back.
“Tuna?” You questioned, shutting the lid of your laptop. “What’s up?” Mituna just giggled manically, bringing a fist up to his mouth to stifle his chuckles. You let out a small laugh yourself. “Not gonna tell me?” He shook his head. Your smile widened. “Are you going to show me?” He shrugged.
Usually you would give an exasperated sigh at this sort of behaviour, telling them to piss off if they didn’t want you for anything. Usually, but not with Mituna. Never with Mituna. Things like that would make him upset, and he’d be in a funk for days. On the few occasions that you’ve snapped at him, he’s even refused to eat, so you try your best to keep your temper around your older brother as much as possible.
You didn’t understand why he acted like this when you were younger – you guessed he was just a spoiled brat. It was only when you were seven and your dad sat you down and explained it you that you finally understood Mituna’s unusual behaviour.
Mituna didn’t think like you, your dad had told you. He has no barrier between right and wrong, and can sometimes say insensitive things or act out, sometimes to the point of causing physical harm. Things got muddled in his mind; he couldn’t always form coherent sentences, and didn’t always understand the actions he performed. He just did things, not knowing what the consequences may be. He didn’t like new people, and he didn’t like eye contact. He was always flitting his gaze around, never meeting anyone’s eyes, and on the occasions he would stare at you, it would be a different feature of your face. He was loud around the people he trusted, and silent around those who he had only just met. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t go within 3 feet of you and would either get panicked or upset, which was why only three of your twelve friends were ever allowed round your house.
But frankly, you agreed with your brother on almost all his judgements about people – it was like he had a sixth sense about a person’s personality and trustworthiness. He was smart too – able to decode anything within a matter of minutes and figuring out the controls to games without reading the instructions in mere seconds. He was different, but he was brilliant, and anyone who said anything else would get your fist in their jaw.
“We match.” Mituna suddenly burst out, giggling more and smiling widely, jolting you out of your thoughts. You cock your head to the side and furrow your eyebrows at the older boy, watching him rock back and forth and hop about in front of you.
“How so, Tuna?” You ask and he sticks his tongue out at you, the light catching on the small golden bee in the middle of the organ. You squint and lift your two toned glasses off your face to get a better look. A grin cracks your lips and you poke your own tongue out, showing him your own tongue piercing – not a small little bumble bee like his, but merely a discreet golden ball. You wriggle your tongue around, smiling wide. “You’re right, Mituna. We match. That looks rad bro.”
He chirps happily at both your compliment and your use of the word rad, a word which you’ve discovered one of the girls that comes to help him with his schoolwork says quite a lot. He then bounds over to you to show you his piercing in more detail. You chuckle and gently push him away, softly telling him that he’s invading personal space again. He apologises and you ruffle his hair, grin turning into a smirk.
“Dad’s gonna kill you, you know.” You tell him. He grins wide.
“Dad can fuck off.” You shake your head at him and open your laptop again, going back to messaging Karkat and instantly telling him about Mituna’s new accessory. Karkat says the same about your dad as you did, and you tell him Mituna doesn’t care. ‘Mituna doesn’t EVER care’ is Karkat’s reply, and you agree. Mituna doesn’t ever care about anything, but you do. And if your dad doesn’t kill Mituna, he’s going to kill you for sure.
You spend the rest of the night chatting to your friends and playing shitty computer games, half watching Mituna run around in Animal Crossing on the T.V. His character constantly has bed head, and his shirt is striped yellow and black. The shovel is his favourite thing to use, as he goes around digging useless holes and leaving them there, hardly ever bother to fill them in. It’s entertaining, in a way, especially when he accidentally get’s himself trapped somewhere and has to spend at least ten minutes covering the holes back over.
His ears twitch when the front door slams shut, and he perks up, dropping the Wii remote to the floor and scrambling to his feet, his earlier excitement at the new addition to his body returning. You curse and begin to gather your wires and equipment, edging closer and closer to the door, juggling your stash as you attempt your getaway.
From the hallway you can hear Mituna’s giggles and your dad’s voice. He’s doing the same thing he was doing with you earlier, meaning you have about another minute to get upstairs before all is revealed. Your footsteps are soft as you creep down the hallway and up the stairs, dodging around your father as he holds Mituna’s chin in his hands, eyebrows furrowed as he stares at the other boys tongue. Shit, shit, shit.
Luckily he hasn’t noticed you. You’re nearly at the top of the stairs, once you’re up, you can run to your room and lock the door. You can do this.
“Sollux!”
Ah crap, Tuna.
You feel your dads eyes boring into you, and you gulp, not daring to look around as you squeeze your eyes shut.
“Sollux, show dad how we match!”
Mituna shut up.
You know he’s not going to though. Slowly, you turn around, a nervous smile twitching your lips. Your dad is scowling at you, foot tapping on the floor and arms crossed over his chest. Mituna is bouncing happily behind him, blissfully unaware of the rage seeping off from your father.
You envy him, you really do.
“Sollux, explain.”
You gulp and then chuckle nervously, a lopsided grin on your lips.
“We match?” You try.
Your dad growls.
Oh boy.