Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Ichiro thinks back to his childhood, he remembers the sound of rain pattering against his slant window. The window that lead onto the roof. Kaa-chan had always forbidden him to climb up to the roof and maybe that was the reason why it had always been so tempting.

He remembers how his soaked clothes stuck to his body, how the wind suddenly felt icy to the touch every time it brushed his skin.

But the most he remembers the warmth, Shiro's warmth next to him, so very close. How they sat on the roof and waited. What for - he had forgotten. Maybe for the rain to stop. Or for their very own shower to pass.

 

then.

Ichiro had always received much love. He was raised in a sheltered family; even when Jiro and Saburo were born he didn't get less attention. His father had constantly looked after him and his mother had always smiled at him.

It changed when his mother became ill.

 

now.

“Do you cry sometimes?“ Shiro asks with this certain intonation. He stretches his neck to get a better view of Ichiro. His eyes are so big. „Because of Kaa-chan, I mean. Do you cry?“

Ichiro nods.

„I don't.“ Again this intonation that is just intended for Ichiro. This is his intonation; Shiro only sounds like that when they are alone. There is no sadness in it, but something more profound. But Ichiro is reluctant to understand.

“Would be better if you did,“ he answers after a while. Being the oldest brother included a role he could never live up to, especially after Kaa-chan's death. But nobody asks if you are prepared to hold a family together. You just have to if the time has come.

Shiro only makes an understanding sound. Ichiro knows that it doesn't mean anything.

They hadn't been on the roof for a long time. But it also hasn't rained for quite a while.

 

then.

Ichiro can't tell exactly when Tou-san had begun to prefer work to his family, but he assumes it started when Kaa-chan got sick. Even though every fiber in his body struggles to believe it. He just remembers this certain evening when he had sat down together with Tou-san. Men talk, he had called it. He had asked Ichiro to work after school to help paying Kaa-chan's operation. When Kaa-chan passed away several years later, Ichiro continued to work, because taking care of his family felt like the most logical thing to do.

 

now.

“Do you sometimes imagine how it would be if Kaa-chan were still alive?” Shiro asks now. He has buried his face in Ichiro's pajama jacket, the pretty one with a colored check that he likes to wear so much. Ichiro barely understands his words.

Shiro often comes at night, asking question after question about things that should not concern a thirteen-year-old yet. Ichiro does his best to answer him. But some things can't be answered.

„I'd cry if I did that.“

“Crybaby.”

He pulls Shiro deeper into his arms, hugging him firmly. Then he imagines how it would be with Kaa-chan still alive, thinks of her smile, her soft voice, her lovely words. He thinks of her warm eyes and cries.

“Ichi-nii,” Shiro's voice reaches him. “You need to stop crying because of her.”

Ichiro only nods, swallowing a sob.

 

then.

Ichiro had been five years old when Shiro and Goro had been born, too young to understand it was different from Jiro's and Saburo's birth.

 

now.

Shiro is always so warm. Every night in which he doesn't slip into bed with him, Ichiro is so cold he can't sleep properly. So cold he gets up to put on thick socks and to drink hot tea. He knows it can't be so bad, that it is not just because of Shiro, but he likes to imagine that he needs his little brother to be able to sleep. This thought almost filled him with the same warmth as Shiro being next to him.

 

then.

When Goro got his first black eye, Ichiro didn't know what to do. Goro and Shiro had just been eight years old when it started. As the oldest brother he had a too distinct instinct to protect, especially his youngest siblings. He ran into his room in sheer desperation and locked himself in. He couldn't face Goro for the next week.

Shortly after that he found Shiro on the roof for the first time, in the pouring rain.

 

now.

“All better?” Shiro asks, stroking his arm. That their roles are reversed - that the little brother comforts the bigger one - doesn't bother Ichiro anymore. He already lost faith in his abilities as a big brother the night Shiro told him the truth about Goro's black eye.

 

then.

Ichiro got his first girlfriend two days after he discovered the scratch on Shiro's shoulder. He was glad about the distraction, about this simple reason for not having to be at home. Somewhere in his mind he admitted his cowardice, but the disappointment about himself couldn't touch the constant urge to run away. He could deal with himself better than with the sight of his little brothers, hurt, helpless, their eyes so empty.

Back then Ichiro hoped that it would just stop. Whether it did, he didn't know, because it was him who simply stopped to see the bruises.

 

now.

“When did you start to believe me?” Shiro asks into the comfortable silence. Ichiro swallows and swallows but the sudden lump in his throat doesn't want to vanish.

“Shiro,” he mutters, but the words get stuck in his throat.

“When?” Shiro asks again, louder this time.

Ichiro remains silent and hopes it isn't too late.

“You know,” Shiro begins, his voice quieter again, and once more there is this certain intonation. “You did nothing wrong.”

Now the lump is gone and makes room for a bitter laughter that Ichiro didn't intend to let out.

“With nothing you mean everything, don't you?”

Shiro doesn't answer, and each passing second feels like an eternity. Ichiro hears the ticking of his clock, but the rhythm of its hands doesn't match his own. Then Shiro huddles up against him and everything else takes a back seat, because everything that isn't Shiro suddenly seems so unimportant.

“You are here now. That's the only thing that counts,” Shiro answers and this time Ichiro manages to choke on his laughter. Shiro's lie is as ridiculous as everything Ichiro tried to deceive himself with.

 

then.

“What are you doing here?” Kaa-chan snarled at him. Ichiro got back home earlier because he had a fight with his girlfriend because she asked for more than he could ever give her, and who did he actually try to convince? Himself more than anybody else, apparently.

Therefore Ichiro just shrugged and closed the door behind himself quietly. Simply out of habit because Shiro and Goro should sleep at this hour. He didn't get why his mother was so noisy, way too many pieces where missing in this picture. But Ichiro was too far away with his thoughts to even start with the jigsaw.

“Go to your room,” she ordered when he didn't answer. Ichiro still thought of his girlfriend and her sad eyes, when he did as he was told and disappeared to his room without talking back. Later, he didn't want anything more than to turn back this moment, to question her strange behavior, because maybe then he would have found out earlier what happened in the Maiga family behind his back.

 

now.

Shiro's hand is in his hair, his small fingers running gently over his head. Ichiro closes his eyes, enjoys, tries to enjoy. He isn't worthy of Shiro's caresses, but that doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter what has been, what he could have done better and what went wrong. Here and now, only this moment counts. The rest is long lost anyway.

“Tou-san wants to sell the house,” Shiro mumbles after a while. “Maybe I should stop going to school and work, too. Maybe then we could—”

But Ichiro interrupts him, he has to. “Don't.”

It is enough that one of the Maiga-brothers had spoiled his prospects for the future. Ichiro wouldn't allow his family to be heading for the abyss even more. He is too scared of what would happen when they wouldn't come to a stand before the cliff early enough.

And yet they got down there already.

 

then.

“Ichi-nii?”

Shiro was sitting on the roof once more, of course, since it was raining again. His fingers shivered from the cold, but Ichiro knew he wouldn't get him back into the warm house now. Whenever Shiro sat here, he had a reason to. And he wouldn't come down until he had figured it out. In moments like these, Ichiro wished once more for the ability to see into his little brother's head. It would have possibly spared them a lot.

“Do you have problems in school?” Ichiro asked the only thing that came to his mind. Shiro just made a face.

“Is it a classmate?” Ichiro looked at the thin red line that ran over the back of Shiro's hand. It disappeared under Shiro's long sleeves and Ichiro didn't want to know how far it still went on.

“Mh,” Shiro shrugged and Ichiro sat down next to him. He looked down into their garden, saw how the raindrops made puddles on their terrace's flagging. In the past both Shiro and Goro used to love jumping into them. Now Ichiro doesn't even know when he has seen Shiro in the garden the last time.

“Do you sometimes wish to simply vanish into thin air?” Shiro pulled his legs to his body and put his chin onto his knees. Ichiro watched the puddle growing.

Maybe he didn't want to know what was going on in Shiro's head after all. He was scared of what he would find there.

“Up here we are air, aren't we?” he answered

From the corner of his eyes he could see Shiro smiling briefly.

 

now.

The seconds still drag on. It's like this night would continue forever, but Ichiro welcomes every eternity as long as Shiro is with him.

“I don't want to leave.”

Ichiro doesn't get what is keeping Shiro in this house. Everything here is full of bad memories, every room just begs to be forgotten.

“You are here,” Shiro answers to something Ichiro didn't ask. “I'm afraid that you won't be there anymore if we leave.”

The hand in Ichiro's hair stops and Ichiro automatically looks into Shiro's face, concerned. It is so close, just a hint away from his own. Shiro's breath brushes his cheek and lulls him in, this regularity of gentle breaths. His arms close around Shiro's back and then there is no distance between them anymore. Ichiro's cheek presses against Shiro's, so close, so close. Ichiro shuts his eyes and soaks up everything that makes this moment so beautiful. Shiro's closeness, his warmth, the soft skin on his cheek.

“I will never leave you.”

And it is the first promise he knows he will never break.

 

then.

The night Kaa-chan got into hospital Shiro didn't slip into Ichiro's bed. It was one of these nights when Ichiro felt cold, when he needed something neither heating nor a blanket could give him.

Tou-san was frantic. Ichiro had never experienced such a behavior before. But there hadn't been any night like this before, either.

“Ichiro! Get down here, now!” his father yelled through the house and Ichiro immediately sat bold upright in his bed. He usually had a deep sleep, but usually his father didn't shout in the dead of night. He got down the stairs with weak knees, fighting the urge to run upstairs again, to lock himself in his room and ignore everything around him like he had done for the last few years.

“Ichiro,” Tou-san called again and Ichiro pushed every bad thought aside.

“Tou-san, what—,” he began, but then he saw his mother, lying on the floor, eyes closed shut. A wound on her temple was bleeding, thickly and slowly. Ichiro couldn't avert his gaze. Nausea overwhelmed him.

“She fell. I already called an ambulance,” Tou-san told him. Somehow, he sounded unnaturally calm.

Just then he saw Shiro sitting on the armchair. His face pale, eyes glazed and wide open.

“Shiro?” Ichiro immediately took a step towards his brother, but his father thwarted him.

“You have to look after your siblings. I don't know when we will get back.”

It was just now that he heard the ambulance, and the noisy sound of the siren made him realize how serious this whole situation was.

“Ichi-nii,” Shiro whispered when the door closed shut behind the paramedics. Shiro didn't add anything, but for Ichiro it was enough to put his arms around him. Shiro winced, just shortly, but clearly enough for Ichiro to notice.

“What happened?” he asked hoarsely. He was glad that he was still able to speak, that his voice hadn't left with the ambulance, together with his mother.

Shiro shrugged in Ichiro's tight embrace.

“Did she really fall?” Ichiro asked then and immediately hated himself for this question. He hadn't cared for his family for the past years. Why should he start today?

Shiro remained silent. It answered more than words ever could.

Ichiro loosened his embrace, tried to look at Shiro's face, but Shiro nimbly avoided him.

“You should get back to bed,” he mumbled then, taking Shiro's hand and leading him upstairs. Shiro didn't resist, even when he took him along into his own room. But this time Shiro was not warm. He was cold and he shivered. Tonight, it was Ichiro's task to offer warmth and help Shiro to fall asleep.

 

Ichiro liked to tell himself that his mother simply got sick. That it had been one of those illnesses that came suddenly, maybe written in the genes. He repeated this to himself so often that by now it became easy for him to believe it.

That it all started that night, that everything that followed was a consequence of her concussion, sounded way too far-fetched. Way too absurd. His mother got sick like many people got sick overnight. Period.

 

His father had told him to take care of all of his siblings, but Ichiro only had eyes for Shiro. His body felt so fragile in his arms, so small, even though Shiro was already twelve. But maybe this night had turned him into a little child again, needy and left alone.

Ichiro had only noticed Goro's absence the next morning when he had seen his empty bed.

Jiro helped him look for Goro, while Saburo looked after Shiro. They searched the whole day, the following and even the day after. All of them skipped school, but who wouldn't understand that, what with their mother being hospitalized?

On the third day they found Goro outside, sitting in the coppice, crouching and with a growling stomach. His eyes were bloodshot, his arms covered with bruises. Jiro was very careful when he turned to him, but startled him regardless. Only Shiro was able to convince him to stand up.

“Come home,” Shiro said “we are already waiting for you.”

Goro gulped and trembled, but he didn't cry. He probably had no more tears left.

 

Tou-san said Kaa-chan wouldn't come back home for now. Maybe she would never do. Ichiro felt his tears overrunning, but Tou-san snubbed him to pull himself together. He was now supposed to be the man in their house after all.

After that Ichiro only cried even more.

 

It was a night with loud thunder that made him flinch every few minutes, but without a drop of rain. It was good that it wasn't raining, because it would have been too dangerous outside.

In nights like these, Shiro came to him with wet, red eyes from too many lonely shed tears, and Ichiro only pressed the small, trembling body against his own and waited until Shiro was able to talk. He waited the whole night, fell asleep again and again, only to be woken up by Shiro's sobs. It was a never ending cycle of doze and tears which turned this night into one of the longest in Ichiro's life.

“Kaa-chan doesn't love me,” Shiro breathed at dawn. Ichiro really wished to shrug it off as a dream, as one of these terrible nightmares that pursue you the whole day but eventually fade away and turn into what they really were: Imagination, thoughts. By no means reality.

But unfortunately Ichiro knew he wasn't sleeping. He was wide awake and heard every single word Shiro was saying.

“She never wanted me. Or Goro. She did not want us.”

“Shiro,” Ichiro started.

“It's true. She said it herself.”

Ichiro wished for all nightmares of this world because he could deal with every single one of them better than with this. He closed his eyes and waited to wake up while Shiro was slowly getting out of the bed.

Ichiro's eyes were still closed when Shiro snuck out of the room. At the door he turned to him one last time, with red eyes and trembling voice.

“It's okay if you don't believe me.”

This was what Ichiro did. He didn't believe Shiro, he didn't believe this nightmare. It would only turn it into reality.

 

The following night Shiro already came back again. It had been a long day and the stench of the hospital still stuck everywhere on Ichiro’s body, even though he had taken a long, hot shower. Shiro crawled into his bed, under his blanket and hugged him, long and completely quiet. Ichiro thought of the last night, thought of Shiro’s words and then of the day he spent with his mother, with this unbelievably caring and kind human who loved him so much.

“Can I tell you about my nightmare?” Shiro interrupted him.

“Mh-hm,” Ichiro answered, already knowing where this would lead to. Shiro left the decision to him whether he wanted to believe him or not. He turned around in his arms and pressed his back against Ichiro’s chest. He couldn’t face him.

“I dreamed Kaa-chan hit me. She was angry. I don’t know why. It was like this every time, she was always so angry, with me and—with Goro. I didn’t understand it for a very long time,” Shiro told him soundlessly. Ichiro didn’t know how he managed to sound quiet like that, considering what he was telling him.

“Sometimes Tou-san was there, sometimes he wasn’t. But he never did anything.”

Shiro sighed, long and loud, but sounded so indifferent at the same time.

“I dream of it so often,” Shiro added, but his voice got lost somewhere at the end.

“How long,” Ichiro began and didn’t even wonder about his bitter tone, “how long have you already been dreaming about that?”

Shiro didn’t answer. He turned back to him and Ichiro held his breath as he looked into his eyes. It was dark in his room, but not dark enough to hide the shadows in there.

“How long, Shiro?” Ichiro asked again, his gaze fixed directly on Shiro’s clouded eyes.

But no answer came, Shiro only stretched forward and Ichiro forgot all of his questions when his brother kissed him.

This kiss was wrong, it was forbidden, it was as filthy as Ichiro felt, but it just joined all the other mistakes of his family. It didn’t stand out among them anymore.

“Ichi-nii,“ Shiro whispered against his lips. “Do you love me?”

Ichiro heard every unspoken word that followed. He saw them all in Shiro’s eyes.

Please, at least you.

“I do,” he answered, just that, and it heavily dawned upon him that it was easier to love Shiro than to believe him.

 

“I had a nightmare again,” Shiro said the following night. “Can I tell you about it?”

Ichiro opened his arms and nodded. He caught himself at the thought that maybe along with Shiro’s nightmare another kiss would come. Or two, or three. He would listen to Shiro all night long if this would be his reward.

“She beat Goro’s eye black. Because he spilled his juice. She just did—simply—she—“ All the strength Shiro had proved yesterday had completely vanished tonight. Shiro sounded as if the ground beneath him just dissolved into thin air, as if he would fall and fall without the strength to call for help, to spread his arms. And Ichiro fell together with him.

 

During the following two weeks there was no night Shiro didn't come to him, talking about nightmares that weren't nightmares. And during no night they didn't kiss.

At some point Shiro had stopped calling them nightmares and Ichiro had pretended not to notice.

“Kaa-chan said it was our fault. She didn't want us. She didn't want more children. You would have been enough, she said. Saburo and Jiro were already difficult but for us she simply had no more love left,” Shiro aspirated between kisses. He detached himself from Ichiro over and over again to keep on talking, ignoring whether Ichiro wanted to hear it or not. But Shiro's kisses made it bearable.

“The way she said it made it sound logical somehow. It was probably really our fault.”

Ichiro wanted to say something; he knew he had to say something because Shiro was too young for such hard truths. Regardless of this being true or not he should not believe in such a thing. Not yet. Shiro still had his whole life ahead of him, so many highs and lows were waiting for him. And wasn't it his task as an older brother to protect him from these lows as long as possible?

No, it sunk into him bitterly, it was Kaa-chan's task. It was the task of the mother to give love where it was needed the most.

“I am right, aren't I?” Shiro interpreted his silence. Ichiro pressed his forehead against Shiro's for a very long moment.

“I am so sorry. That I have stolen Kaa-chan's love from you,” Ichiro whispered. For the rest of that night Shiro remained silent.

 

With every further day that Kaa-chan was hospitalized Goro became more quiet. When he reached the point of saying nothing at all anymore Ichiro knew he had to step in. So one evening he took him aside, along with Shiro.

But they didn't talk. The only thing happening was that Shiro embraced Goro the whole time.

It is already too late, Ichiro thought. Like everything else.

This family already hit rock bottom, in a big, dark hole with steep walls and no possibility to escape the chasm in any way.

“The walls aren't that high, though,” he heard Shiro say, and he realized that he had thought out loud, “we're just too weak to climb them up.”

Ichiro did not know what it was – whether it was due to Shiro's words or due to his way too mature mindset, but it was this moment when he started to finally believe his little brother. Wholeheartedly.

Shiro took his hand and Ichiro wondered if he had thought out loud again. Or if Shiro could simply read his face by now. Years later when they sat together on the roof again and listened to the rain, felt it on their skin, Ichiro realized that Shiro had understood him less than he had assumed. That what had propelled Shiro all those years had been solely the hope he had put into his big brother. The thought that Ichiro would eventually believe him.

 

now.

Now he does, now he believes everything, no matter how horrible Shiro's story is.

“Have you noticed that Goro has a girlfriend now?” Shiro smiles at him, sliding a little more towards him.

Ichiro chuckles surprised. “I had no idea.”

“He says it's nothing serious, but I think he is deeply in love,” Shiro continues and Ichiro hears his joy in every single word. It's a wonderful sound.

“Great,” is everything he says. But actually there is much more inside of him, actually he wants to express all of his relief. But Ichiro doesn't want to tear open old scars.

So he just tells himself, saying it loud and clear in his head.

Goro learns how to love and to trust again. Goro decides to make this step at last. Goro is leaving Kaa-chan behind him. Oh please, help him to get over her.

“He will make it.” Shiro shines brightly. He shines and Ichiro's heart is making a big jump forward.

Like us, he says, but just in his head again. Like us, Shiro.

He wants to believe it. He wants to believe that there is still a future for this sentenced to death family.

“Like us,” he feels Shiro whispering against his lips. „Like us.“