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”Mina-tan…!”
Makoto’s final cry rang through the foyer of Iwatodai Dorm loudly enough to pierce the deafening comfort of Minato’s headphones, the affectionate honorific giving him immediate pause. One hand in his pocket with the other reaching out to steady himself with the stairwell’s banister, both sets of fingers stiffened and grew taut as he twisted his neck over his shoulder to stare down at his sister. Mina-tan — spoken with such affection and earnesty as if they hadn’t spent a decade estranged from one another. Makoto spoke as if she were the “younger” one and not himself. Judging from his immediate impression of her in the days following their reunion, he then assumed that it wouldn’t be an inaccurate presumption: she acted with precisely the amount of extroverted cheer asshe ever had. Almost as if she’d been locked in time to the days before they were orphaned, innocent childhood suspended in perpetuum.
Perhaps the answer lied in the nature of their upbringings: Makoto had been adopted early on and raised in a loving environment by a loving family, her tears whisked away by doting hands. She learned to cope with her pain and move on, to find light in the most utter of darkness and ignore all sorrow with the brightest of smiles. The Yuki family had welcomed Makoto with open arms as their child, and soon enough they were her parents — not her new parents, not her replacement parents, but her parents. A mother and a father just like any child; any child except for Minato. Witnessing his parents’ death and the traumatic events that transpired immediately following the car crash had left the boy distant, introverted and gloomy, hardly ideal adoption material. And so while Makoto had led a life of prosperity, Minato had been left to rot as he was passed from orphanage to orphanage until his transfer finally returned him to his hometown of Port Island in solitude.
Jealous? Angry? Bitter? Perhaps some combination of the three, but emotions were sealed and locked away as soon as they mounted. A habit, a defense mechanism, a crutch. He manifest his feelings only in a balled fist and as tight a grip as skinny fingers could muster on the handrail, facial expression blank and vacant — all so horribly unlike Makoto, who wore her frustration on her sleeve. Furrowed brow and deep frown with reddened, buff cheeks, arms akimbo with hands on her hips and legs spread wide. “How long are you gonna keep trying to just ignore me!?” she spat out, her arms suddenly jutting out from her torso errantly. “I’ve been here almost a week and you still haven’t so much said as two words to me! What’s the big idea, huh?” In spite of her outward frustration Makoto’s words were delivered with a distinct poutiness, the anger on her face soon melting into childlike sadness as she went on.
No matter how much Makoto begged, pleaded, no matter how much she shouted at him... Minato offered her little more than the same hollow gaze he would project towards any other individual, sister or otherwise. The longer he perpetuated his glare the more he grew uncomfortable, the more cognizant he grew of how much he hated to look at her. She had their mother’s eyes, both of them did — wide, oversized and taking up the most emphasis out of their facial features. Just like hers were even to her final moments as Minato watched her burn to death. Makoto’s were vibrant, expressive and full of life. Minato’s never carried anything more than utter vacancy, blank and far removed from all that he observed. Now, however, the distance his gaze carried was gone: for once Minato did not look through another, as he stared directly at Makoto with a steeled focus. That was the most regard he would spare her, as he remained silent as if waiting on her to carry the conversation or to simply leave.
Yet she didn’t — unlike her departure a decade in the past, Makoto stubbornly refused to budge from her insistence on reaching out to Minato. She crept forward and placed a hand around his bony wrist, greedily pulling back in an attempt to remove him from the stairs and bring him down to her. “Come on, don’t just walk aw—“
He jerked his hand backwards and took a step up the stairs, cradling the offended limb against his torso as the other’s fingers wrapped around the end of his forearm. “Personal space,” he firmly hissed out, finally turning on the step to face her. From his positioning on the stairs he towered above her, staring down at her as if he were an emperor and Makoto a mere peasant. Her expression grew miserable, shoulders drooped and posture lurched forward. “I’m your sister and you won’t even let me touch you? You won’t even talk to me?” The tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes but she blinked thrice and dammed them back; Makoto had cried all the tears she had left after the car crash and swore that she’d never cry again. “Didn’t you miss me? Don’t you want to catch up on all we’ve been through since we last saw each other…?” I have so little to tell you about, the boy thought. Finally Makoto’s frustrations mounted in tight-wound fists, which swung down until the balls of her palms smacked against skirted legs.
“Do you even care that I’m here!? Would you care if I just up and disappeared again!?”
”I don’t mind either way.”
His reply was instantaneous, without hesitation or emotion in a stark contrast to Makoto’s impassioned cries. In spite of the cold tone of his voice, the words burned her alive from the inside out. She didn’t understand. “Y-you don’t…” All of the years that she had spent thinking of Minato and fretting over what had become of him, wrought with episodes of intense guilt as the look her twin brother wore on his face as she left the orphanage for the last time. She wanted to see him again, she wanted to make sure that he was okay, she wanted to take him into her new family and show him the joy of life, she…
“I—I missed you,” Makoto blurted out as hot tears stained her cheeks. It took several seconds for her to force it out, only for it to come out clumsy, blunt and without warning.
Her brother’s eyes widened and the intensity in his gaze multiplied, hairs raising on the back of his neck and a pit forming in his stomach. She had missed him, she hadn’t forgotten. Even though they had been apart for so long, it seemed that the bond between siblings had never been broken. He wouldn’t admit it, but Minato missed Makoto right back: perhaps that was the root of his idle malice. What hurt worse, the knowledge that Makoto had something he couldn’t have or the deep desire to share that happy family life with her? Minato missed his parents, he missed his childhood friends, he missed the joyous innocence of youth where he had a place he belonged and a place where he was safe, protected from the woes of the world. When he lost all of it in a single fell swoop he shut himself off to avoid that pain again, only to have it reinforced when the tie between himself and Makoto was severed. Perhaps above all he missed his sister, her departure the push that sent him careening into the abyss. There was no insight or growth to be found in a car crash, only pain, isolation and loss.
But Makoto came back. For the first time in his life Minato felt the chance to reclaim what he had lost.
“I—… you… missed me?” Quiet, matter-of-fact, as if he’d misheard her and simply needed verification.
Makoto nodded wildly, the auburn bundle of ponytailed locks atop her head bobbing in unison. “O-of course I did, you big dummy…!” That frustrated pout on her face again, fists now spread out at her sides insistently. “I—it’s not like everything bad got suddenly fixed because I got adopted! I still had to deal with our parents getting killed, and on top of all of that I didn’t even have my brother with me to help or at least to be somebody who knew what I was going through!” She wiped away her own tears with her knuckles and sniffed, confrontational expression growing solemn once more. “I—...I thought about you all the time, I was so worried. I felt so bad for leaving you behind, and I asked my dad all the time to see if we could go and adopt you too, but he wouldn’t do it, a-and I kept thinking about you alone in that orphanage and it made me so guilty... I’m sorry I left you, I just didn’t know… that’s why I wanted to make things better whenever I got transferred last month, but it just made me mad whenever you didn’t even talk to me.”
I don’t talk to anyone, Minato quietly thought. It was a lie; he engaged regularly enough with his dormmates in SEES and those who found themselves drawn to him for one reason or another. He had even half-heartedly begun to humor the idea of calling them his friends, but the sentiment fell short before it reached his weak-beating heart. The distinction lied in the fact that Minato felt no compulsion to reach out, forcing himself into content with speaking only when needed and having no reason not to comply. There wasn’t a soul that Minato would seek out of his own accord, nor anybody whom he trusted enough to ensure that trust in without the promise that the value they found in him was purely out of what he could provide. A good wingman, a dedicated member of the Student Council, an unusually skilled student of kendo, a shoulder to lean on and a sounding board who would never speak, only listen. None of them found any value in Minato, a person, and he silently supposed that with his unwillingness to open up none of them had much of a reason to see a thing in him.
But then, there was Makoto — she loved him even when he wasn’t willing to let himself love her back, an unconditional affection unfettered by ten years’ separation. She saw nothing in him other than who he was, wanting nothing more than a brother who would let her into his life.
He didn’t know how to process it.
The compulsion was alien, but he was helpless to resist it. Down one step at a time until he stood level with his sister and brought her arms around her, awkwardly embracing his long-lost sibling. His hold was imperfect and unpracticed, accentuated by his bony limbs and the cold temperature of his body — all reinforced by his aversion to being touched — yet sincere through it all. Minato let his head tilt down over Makoto’s shoulder so that cerulean tresses mixed in with crimson, mumbling out an apology. “I… apologize. To tell you the truth, I missed you too — I was jealous, both of you and of your parents for being able to have you in their life. I’ve felt… alone for as long as I can remember, but it’s possible I’ve been mistaken.”
He was never alone. Makoto was always with him, just as he was always with her. It was all either of them had ever wanted: the comfort of a sibling.
While she hesitated before accepting, Makoto eventually choked up her tears and threw her arms around Minato’s waist, hugging his lithe body so tightly that it forced all the wind from his lungs. He made a noise of discomforted protest, but Makoto cared not: “You better have missed me, you jerk...! Don’t… don’t leave me behind like that again.”
Her arms pulled up until they curled around his shoulders, resting her chin just beside his neck. “You’re not the only one who feels alone sometimes, you know…?”