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You were upset.
You had been feeling this way ever since last night, and you really shouldn't, because there was absolutely no reason for you to feel like this. But you were. There was a heavy feeling in your gut, one that people only get when they were damaged emotionally. The world was filled with colors of grey, instead of the vibrant rainbow it normally was through your eyes.
It had been twelve hours, and you still hurt.
You had gone to bed the night before, the feeling still fresh in your mind, and you probably shouldn't have done that. You should have found something to cheer you up before going to bed, but you thought maybe if you slept on those feelings, they'd go away. Sleeping on them had only caused them to stew and become worse. You hated this.
You were sitting in front of your laptop on the floor, browsing through the latest videos of cute cats doing cute things, when you felt a hand on your shoulder. You hardly turned your head to see who it was, because you knew who it was before they had even made their presence known. They smelled like cheap cologne and desperation.
“Karamatsu.” you said, lowering your eyes back down to the screen. He made a noise, and then slowly sat down on the floor next to you, keeping his hand on your shoulder.
“How'd you know it was me?” he asked, a smug grin on his face. “Was it my radiating presence?”
“I could smell you.” you responded, and he seemed to jerk slightly like he had been shocked. You could smell him? Were you an animal?
“I smell pretty good, right?” he asked, looking for some kind of validation.
“You don't smell bad.”
“Good, I took a bath the night before. HEH.” Karamatsu huffed, bringing his fingers to his forehead and flicked a bit of his bangs up. You couldn't believe this was distracting you from that feeling of sadness-- oh wait you remembered it again.
All you could offer him was a smile. It was forced and awkward, you weren't even looking at him. It hurt to look at him. Karamatsu caught that look on your face, and instantly worry was written all over him. Something had upset you, and for some reason, he thought he had caused that, right now.
“Are you okay? Did I do something?” he asked, concern in his normally deeper voice. Now it sounded . . . normal. You shook your head in response, and closed your eyes tightly as you tried not to think on it. For some reason, him being beside you only made those dark thoughts get heavier. You couldn't tell him the reason you were upset.
“I'm fine. I didn't sleep very well.” you answered him, scrolling down the page to find another video. His eyes followed, from the screen of the laptop, to your face. He could see the tears in your eyes, the way your lip quivered as you were trying so hard not to cry. You felt awful, and he could tell like it was some kind of intuition, some kind of sixth sense. He was always like this, wouldn't leave you alone for a second when he knew you were upset.
Karamatsu scooted closer to you, and an arm wrapped around your shoulders and pulled you roughly against him. You squeaked in protest, but made no real attempts at pulling away from him. Despite smelling like he had rolled around in a puddle of aftershave, you enjoyed the feeling of being held, but it still hurt.
“I don't believe you for a second.” he murmured, and leaned closer to your head. You could feel his grip on your shoulder tighten as if he was making sure you understood. He needed to not do that. He needed to not be so close. You couldn't handle this right now.
“I find your lack of faith in me disturbing.” you replied, though the volume of your voice fluctuated when you tried to not show you were back to the verge of tears.
Karamatsu finally pulled away, but not far enough to be completely away from you. Instead he placed both hands on your shoulders and turned you to face him, forced you to look at him. Your eyes widened as you stared at his face, took in every detail. He had the same face as his brothers, but there were differences even though they were identical sextuplets. For one, Karamatsu's face always looked so intense, his eyebrows were thicker and only added to that look. It was smoldering, painful. It felt like it was going to burn right through you. But then there were times like this, when that intense expression softened, when concern took over. Sometimes you hated how much he captured your attention.
He didn't even have to say anything, he was about to, but tears started to build up in your eyes before he could even make a sound. Stop looking at me like that, you wanted to say. It hurt. He hurt. He didn't stop staring at you with that look of concern, instead he reached with one hand to hold your chin between his fingers, lifting your head so he could look at you better.
This was killing you.
“Whoever has done you wrong, please tell me.” he spoke softly. “You're sad. Your heart has been damaged, and I want to bring it back to the beautiful shine it had before.”
YOU WERE GOING TO DIE! He was so painful with his flowery words and gentle touches that you felt like you were going to die of embarrassment. It was so bad that those tears started to roll over your cheeks and sent off the wrong message. Karamatsu's eyes widened at the sight, and he grabbed hold of you, pulling your body up against his chest in a hug. He was warm, warmer than the feeling that had been left behind in you the night before.
You were hesitant to at first, but eventually your arms lifted and you clutched to the man like you were drowning and he was the only one to save you. Your lips trembled, and before you knew it, you were crying into his shoulder. Your fingers dug into the soft fabric of that sweater, pulling on it as you sobbed, and Karamatsu only held you tighter against him, letting you cry. You didn't even mind the overwhelming scent of his cologne. It was actually starting to smell good now, making all of your earlier complaints null and void.
You ended up crying for a good 15 minutes before you were reduced to small sniffles and hiccups, and Karamatsu's hand just soothingly ran up and down your back as you were coming down. You rubbed your cheek against his shoulder, red and hot from the blood pumping into them. He was really soft, really warm. You didn't want to let go. But he ended up pushing your back so he could look at your face, and his hand reached to let his thumb wipe away stray tears from the corners of your eyes.
“What has gotten you so upset, my dear?” he asked softly, the look in his eyes was nothing but concern, love, adoration. Stop it. You couldn't tell him, because he would laugh. It made yourself laugh so it would certainly make him laugh. You shook your head, and he ended up drawing his face closer to yours, foreheads pressed together. It made your eyes widen in shock as your stared into his.
“I want to fix this, please tell me.” he murmured, his lips were drawing closer to yours.
“Oi, Karamatsu, do you want to go play pach--”
Both you and Karamatsu had frozen in place at the sound of Osomatsu's voice, and both of your turned your heads like rickety dolls to look at him, faces red with embarrassment. Osomatsu just stared, before a wide grin spread over his cheeks.
“I see I'm interrupting something, never mind.” he began, but paused a second when he noticed the tear stains on your cheeks. “Hey, what happened?”
No god dammit, you didn't need this! YOU REALLY DIDN'T NEED THIS!
“Fate has dealt a cruel hand, a heart has been damaged--” Karamatsu began, but Osomatsu just walked into the room and sat down behind you, arms reaching out and roughly grabbing you from behind so he could pull you into his arms with a bright smile and his eyes closed.
“Do I need to beat someone up?” he asked, a chuckle in his voice. “Would that make you feel better?”
You wheezed, eyes glancing back to Osomatsu as his chin rested on your shoulder and he looked at you with eyebrows raised. Karamatsu's own brows were knitted together slightly as he stared at his brother manhandling you, and he ended up scooting closer, reaching for your hand and trying to tug you back towards him.
“Osomatsu, now isn't the time.” said Karamatsu. “Can't you see how upset they are?”
Osomatsu tightened his arms around your waist when Karamatsu attempted to take you from him.
“Osomatsu!” his younger brother shouted at him again.
Before you knew it, the two of them were glaring at each other, and you were sandwiched between them. Your cheek was pressed into Karamatsu's chest as he pushed against you, and Osomatsu's chest was pressed against your back, he was holding you so tightly that you almost couldn't breathe. The both of them gave heated looks at each other, and you glanced up to watch the two of them as sparks flickered between their eyes. You wanted to say something, but you were already short of breath.
“What's the matter, Karamatsu? Afraid your big brother is going to steal them away from you?” Osomatsu said with a sly grin.
“You can't steal them away from me because they don't belong to me.” Karamatsu countered. “They're not an object. I am just trying to find out why they are upset!”
“Guiff--” you tried to speak, only to be muffled by Karamatsu's chest pressing into you again as he got into Osomatsu's face.
“Of course I know they're not an object!” Osomatsu snapped back. “We're pretty garbage but I'm not that bad!”
“Nnh!”
“Then stop treating them like some kind of play thing!”
“You stop treating them like they're some kind of forbidden fruit!”
What in the hell was going on?! Your hands pressed at Karamatsu's chest, and you managed to look up to see their faces inches from each other. A sudden flood of memories were coming back, like a wound that had been reopened and the blood was flowing fresh and new.
“Don't fight.” you squeaked out, it was barely audible between the brothers growling at each other.
“Back off, Osomatsu!” snapped Karamatsu.
“You back off!” Osomatsu returned.
“Stop it!” you tried one more time.
“Osomatsu!”
“Karamatsu!”
“STOP FIGHTING, YOU LOVE EACH OTHER!!”
You finally found a voice, maybe not the right choice of words but it certainly got them to stop. The both of them pulled away to look down at you, who was now crying with all new emotions. They wouldn't stop, all the memories were flooding back to you and it hurt. You couldn't handle this.
“OSOMATSU WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DIE IF YOU HAD JUST LEFT WITH HIM!!” You were wailing out now, and the boys were staring at you with looks of confusion. What in the hell were you talking about?
“You didn't have to kill him!! YOU GUYS COULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY!!” You looked back and forth between them, your hands grabbed at the front of both their shirts and you struggled to hold on like letting go would cause these bizarre thoughts to become reality.
“W-What are you talking about?” said Osomatsu, staring down at you as you began breathing heavily. You hadn't realized it, you were a whirlwind of emotions. You were blabbering and crying and just sounding like a child throwing a tantrum. But when you did realize what you had done, what you had just said to them, a new emotion was flooding into you. Embarrassment. Your entire face was as red as a tomato, steam felt like it could come out of your ears at any second. You ended up shoving both of them away from you, and ran out of the room as fast as your legs could carry you. You might have tripped a few times, but you at least put a bit of distance between you and the brothers.
Karamatsu just looked after you, mouth slightly agape in shock, and Osomatsu had an identical expression. The second oldest then turned his attention to your laptop that you had left behind, and it suddenly clicked. This hadn't been the first time this had happened, he should have realized this.
“. . . They were reading weird fan fiction about us again, weren't they?” he said, looking over to Osomatsu. The eldest let his eyes slide towards the laptop as well, and then reached his hand out to shut the lid with a soft click.
“Do you still want to go play pachinko?” said Osomatsu, rubbing his finger under his nose as he grinned and started coming to a stand. “If you pay, it'll make up for killing me.~"