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Mao leaves school barely five minutes after he’d told Ritsu to go home ahead of him, and although he can’t be arriving at the Sakuma house too much later than Ritsu, he’s in a hurry and climbs the impossible stairs up to Ritsu’s third floor room two at a time. He’s embarrassingly out of breath when he reaches Ritsu’s door, so he doesn’t open it so much as he collapses into it and the door swings open under his weight, tipping him forward into the room.
Ritsu looks up from where he’s flopped on his bed, and his face lights up immediately. “Maa-kun, I thought you’d take longer.”
Mao staggers forward and catches himself against the foot of Ritsu’s bed, clutching at the silly ornate metal bars as he breathes in. “Makoto-- Didn’t take as long as I thought.” He reaches over his shoulder and slides his backpack off, letting it hit the floor with a soft whump. “Got the USB stick in there.”
“Oh!” Ritsu hops off the bed, suddenly energized, and unzips Mao’s backpack. Mao drags himself onto Ritsu’s bed as Ritsu paws through Mao’s schoolwork and student council folders, and eventually pulls out the USB stick from Makoto.
“People who understand technology are amazing,” he remarks, bringing the USB close to his face to examine it.
“Yeah...” Mao sits up reluctantly on the bed. “Get your computer, let’s watch!”
Ritsu digs under the bed for his laptop and then climbs onto the bed to sit beside Mao, who immediately takes the laptop from him and boots it up. Ritsu leans his head on Mao’s shoulder and hums absently as Mao inserts the USB drive and clicks through the files.
“He really fit all twelve VHS tapes onto this tiny stick?” Ritsu says.
“Stop acting like you’re a hundred and seventeen,” Mao tells him, opening the first video.
It’s a clip of Ritsu, about seven years old and wearing a smart little suit with his hair combed back. He’s sitting at a piano, and as the camera adjusts and zooms in, he gives the camera a very disgruntled look.
Mao bursts out laughing. “You haven’t changed at all!”
“Shut up,” Ritsu says, shoving him. He leans closer to the screen. “This must be one of my recitals.”
In the video, young Ritsu finally sets his hands on the keys and begins to play a complicated piece Mao doesn’t recognize. It has Ritsu’s hands spanning the length of the keys, high and low notes cascading together as Ritsu’s nimble fingers move so fast the video can barely catch them.
“I don’t remember what piece this is,” Ritsu sighs, “but I remember I practiced for months for this stupid recital.” His mouth curls. “It was the first recital I was good enough to be in anija’s level for, and he got a ton more praise and applause than I did. That’s probably the rest of the video, so we should skip it.”
Mao doesn’t question it. When Ritsu’s piece ends, he reaches for the touchpad and skips to the next video.
With a jolt, he recognizes it: Ritsu’s on the screen again, but Mao remembers filming this. Ritsu’s parents had bought a new video camera to film their children’s progress learning instruments, but Ritsu had stolen it and he and Mao had filmed themselves doing all kinds of silly things - improvised radio shows for invisible audiences, dramatic fantasy plots like something out of the kids’ anime Mao loved at that age, anything they could come up with. Ritsu had surrendered the camera for recitals and the occasional home concert, so they’d been allowed to use what ended up being most of the tapes Ritsu’s parents bought for their own activities.
Eventually they had gotten busy with school, and all the ideas they had for things to film never made it off their infinite to-do list. And then last week Rei had found the box of VHS tapes buried deep in a closet on the top floor no one went to now that their parents no longer lived there, and Mao had given the tapes to Makoto, whose grasp on technology outclassed Mao’s and the Sakumas’ by a considerable amount.
Onscreen, Ritsu’s standing in front of one of the big bay windows downstairs, the heavy curtains draped across his shoulders. He gestures commandingly at the camera. “Maa-kun, start recording!” His voice is pitched higher, but it still has the same sleepy drawl he’s retained through the present.
“Oh my god,” Mao breathes.
“Got it, got it,” young Mao says from behind the camera, his voice higher pitched like Ritsu’s. “We can just cut this beginning part out, right?” The image of Ritsu wrapped in curtains dips and blurs as young Mao sets the camera down on something and then steps out in front of it to join Ritsu at the window. He’s wearing normal clothes, with the addition of a top hat on his head that’s too big for him and slides down over his forehead as he stands beside Ritsu.
“Welcome to our magic show!” Ritsu says to the camera, adjusting the curtains on his shoulders as one begins to droop. “Today we’ve prepared a special trick! With the help of my assistant, Maa-kun, I’m going to draw a rabbit out of a hat!”
“I can’t believe you couldn’t think of cool assistant name for me,” Mao says.
“This is so embarrassing,” Ritsu grumbles. “I hope anija never sees this. He’d show Hibiki and I’d never live it down.”
They both watch young Ritsu describe the trick he’s going to do, as the curtains try to fall off his shoulders the more he moves around. Eventually, he takes Mao’s hat and shows the camera that it’s empty, and then both he and Mao do a very dramatic pause holding the hat up.
“Maa-kun, you have to stop the recording,” Ritsu says.
“We should’ve waited until your brother got home to do it instead,” Mao grumbles, going back behind the camera.
The video stutters and then resumes with more or less the same image, except one of the curtains has abandoned Ritsu entirely. Mao darts back in front of the camera to stand next to Ritsu, and Ritsu reaches into the hat and pulls out a small stuffed rabbit, which he presents triumphantly for the camera’s view.
“Taa-daa!” he exclaims.
Sitting on the bed, Ritsu reaches over Mao and slams the “Next” button.
The next few videos proceed in largely the same fashion. Ritsu and Mao relive another installment of their childhood magic show for a few minutes until Ritsu skips that video too, and then their childhood radio show (“This episode is about spiders! Maa-kun, do you like spiders?”), and then there’s a video of Ritsu cooking something horrible looking and Mao refusing to eat it (“Even back then, my instincts were good, huh?”).
“I really hope Yuu-kun didn’t look through these when he was converting them,” Ritsu says, squinting at the next video, another piano recital.
“I told him not to look too closely,” Mao assures him. “But you know, I think it would be nice for him to be a little less scared of you, so maybe it’s okay for him to see your cute childhood self?”
“No,” Ritsu says firmly. “He’s not allowed to see little Maa-kun either, he’s mine.”
“Uh-huh,” Mao says, feigning indifference even as Ritsu’s words warm him up inside. He nestles closer to Ritsu on the bed, and Ritsu snorts and reaches up to kiss Mao’s cheek.
The piano recital video ends, and the next clip starts with just a shot of one of the parlors downstairs, dust-free and with a pile of brightly wrapped presents lying on the floor. After a moment, Ritsu wanders into view, dressed in pressed shorts and a bow tie and looking very smug about something.
“Nii-chan,” he says, and the real Ritsu groans and reaches for the skip button.
“Aw, come on,” Mao says, taking Ritsu’s hand to stop him.
“I don’t want to see him,” Ritsu growls, but he lets Mao hold his hand captive.
Onscreen, a young Rei joins Ritsu next to the pile of gifts. He looks just as Mao remembers - a precocious kid, smart and talented at anything he tried, with eyes that seemed to see right through you. His hair is short in the video, cut in a curly bob, and he sits down next to Ritsu on the floor and puts his arms around him.
“It’s Ritsu’s birthday!” he says.
As if on some horrible cue, footsteps echo outside Ritsu’s door, and before either Ritsu or Mao can move, the door creaks open and Rei’s head appears. “Is that my own voice I hear?”
“No,” Ritsu says loudly.
“Ritsu has presents from all the family,” continues little Rei onscreen, perfectly oblivious to the present.
Rei’s expression lights up with interest, and he takes a step into Ritsu’s room. “What are you two watching?”
Ritsu knocks Mao’s hand away and slams the lid of his laptop down, even as Mao winces. “I told you you’re not allowed in my room, anija. Go be annoying somewhere else, okay?”
Somehow Rei doesn’t even look fazed. “Was that a home video? Isara-kun, did you manage to play those old tapes on a modern computer? So sm—“
Ritsu begins to haul himself off the bed, his expression murderous. Rei takes a quick step back.
“Okay, okay.” He turns to leave, tearing his gaze from the computer. “Nice to see you, Isara-kun.”
He’s gone before Mao can reply. Ritsu reaches over Mao and opens the laptop again, and closes the video player.
“I told you I didn’t want to see him,” he says, as Mao gives him a look. “You don’t have to get it, Maa-kun. If you really wanna see him, take the USB home and watch them yourself.”
Mao takes a breath, and slips his arm around Ritsu. “Okay. Seeing him isn’t that important to me. Sorry, Ritchan.”
“It’s okay,” Ritsu mumbles. He rests his head against Mao’s, deflating. “Anyway, these videos suck. Maa-kun’s cute, but it just makes me sad.”
It’s not something Mao understands. But he understands enough. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s do something else, okay?”
For a moment he thinks Ritsu won’t agree - his brows knit together, like he’s considering something. But then he nods. “Yeah. As long as it’s not homework.”
It’s not until later that Mao finds out what Ritsu was thinking. They spend an hour cuddling and talking about nothing, and then another hour with Mao trying to get Ritsu to do homework together, and then the sun is going down outside and Mao bribes Ritsu into doing homework with kisses, which quickly goes downhill and homework is forgotten for a while. And then they’re back to cuddling, and then Mao starts reading Ritsu’s textbook aloud to him, which Ritsu tolerates for long enough to finish most of his assignment.
“Maa-kun,” Ritsu says, as Mao is finally gathering his things to head home. Mao’s expecting him to beg Mao to stay the night, so he sets his papers down, turning to face Ritsu.
“You can give anija the USB stick,” Ritsu says, staring irritably at the wall behind Mao, and Mao’s glad he put his papers down, or he’d have dropped them in surprise.
“You-- You really want me to do that?”
“He’s the one who found them,” Ritsu points out. “And...” He hesitates, picking at a string on his duvet. “Maybe if he watches them, he’ll remember. You know.”
Mao regards him for a moment. This isn’t what he expected, but maybe he should have looked deeper than Ritsu’s hostility. At any rate, even if it’s not great communication, he can’t think of anything wrong with this, and maybe he can talk to Rei about things, too.
“Okay,” he tells Ritsu, who relaxes a little. “I’ll go up and give it to him on my way out.”
So after another several minutes of goodbyes and goodbye kisses, Mao climbs the stairs to Rei’s room, the USB stick clutched in one hand. The door is shut, so he knocks, and a minute later, the door cracks open, and Rei pokes his head out.
“Isara-kun?”
“Sakuma-senpai,” Mao nods. “Ritsu told me to give this to you.”
He holds out the USB stick and watches Rei’s eyes light up, and then narrow, his expression closing off.
“What is it?”
“It’s the home videos you found,” Mao says.
Rei’s brow stays furrowed, but he steps back. “Could you show me how to open it?”
Mao steps past him into the room. He’s only been into Rei’s room a few times, and although he grew up with Rei, it always surprises him how normal his bedroom is, in contrast to Rei’s public persona. He’s got a big four-poster bed, a desk, a dresser. No bats or cobwebs, just heavy drapes over the windows to block out sun. Rei picks up the laptop on his desk and offers it to Mao, who opens it to find it basically how he expected - a default desktop background, an enlarged font, music and lyrics files scattered across the home screen. Mao inserts the USB into its port and opens up the first file, the piano recital.
“Ah, you don’t need to watch them again with me,” Rei says, but Mao sits down on the bed and pats the spot beside himself, angling the laptop so Rei will only be able to see if he sits down too.
“All right,” Rei sighs, taking the seat. He peers at the screen, squinting. Mao remembers Hasumi saying Rei complained about needing glasses. “Oh, this is...”
It’s the video of Ritsu at the piano recital. Rei leans closer to the screen, his shoulder nearly touching Mao’s. “I...remember this. Our first recital together...”
He doesn’t speak again, but his eyes stay glued to the screen, watching Ritsu play. Mao’s already seen the video, but even so, he can’t help but watch Rei instead, the image of Ritsu reflected in his red eyes. When Ritsu finishes his piece, Rei lifts his hands and gives him a tiny round of applause.
“Oh, it’ll be my piece next, yes? We don’t need to watch that,” Rei says, reaching for the skip button. “I had so much to learn in those days, I have no desire to relive it.”
Mao wonders if he’ll ever get to see the second half of that video. He lets Rei skip to the next video, the one with the magic show, and Rei looks delighted as soon as he recognizes it.
“I remember this! Your little show... Ritsu always begged me to help with the editing, you know. As if I knew any more than he did.”
He pays rapt attention to the rest of the video, not even laughing at how embarrassing young Mao and Ritsu are. Mao suddenly wishes Ritsu was here to see this - or even that he could take a photo of this quiet, proud Rei, so Ritsu would believe he existed.
As the video ends, Rei reaches for the pause button, turning to scan Mao’s face as he presses it. “Thank you for showing me, Isara-kun. It’s late, though, so I wouldn’t want to keep you longer.”
“Do you want to hang onto them?” Mao asks, although he’s already decided it should be so. He stands, hefting his bag more securely onto his shoulders.
Rei looks up at him, his expression that guarded, hesitant one from when he’d opened the door. “Would that be all right?”
“You’re the one who found them,” Mao says, echoing Ritsu. Should he say something else? “Besides, um... It’s probably a good thing, for you to remember what things used to be like...or something?”
For a moment he thinks Rei will protest, or (maybe even worse) say something personal, and Mao suddenly thinks - if Rei’s going to say something like that, it ought to be to Ritsu - but then Rei just nods, leaving Mao in defensive mode for nothing.
He deflates, handing Rei back his computer. Rei sets it on the bed and follows Mao to the door.
“Thank you,” Rei tells him, one hand on the doorknob. “I’ll return the USB to you soon.”
“You can just give it to Ritsu,” Mao says.
“Okay,” Rei agrees. Mao wonders if Rei actually will give the USB to Ritsu, or if it’ll show up mysteriously inside his backpack or however else Sakuma Rei returns items.
“See you ‘round, Sakuma-senpai.”
“Sure,” Rei says, then, with some of his usual awful personality, “Give Hasumi-kun my regards, will you?”
“Uh-huh,” Mao says, though he won’t. Rei grins at him, and closes the door.