Work Text:
The one who hurt my brother…
It was me.
Ever since the night that Yayoi had confronted her brother, only to tell him that he was weird—that he was unnatural, Yayoi had felt nothing but remorse and frustration for letting her ignorance drive a wedge between the two of them. As soon as the words had tumbled out of her mouth, she could see her brother dejectedly prepare himself to lick his wounds in private. The younger teen was quick to put up walls that would take Yayoi months to tear down.
She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but like Ritsuka, she was clumsy with her words and was prone to being too blunt. She lacked tact and unlike Ritsuka, who was too soft and kind, Yayoi was prone to being insolent whenever she didn’t understand something.
Ritsuka liking a boy… It was way to hard to grasp at first, and her inability to comprehend the looks she saw Ritsuka give that Satou kid, had caused her to regret her actions. She should have dug deeper and tried to understand her brother instead of cornering her brother into a conversation he wasn’t prepared for.
Satou made her brother smile and had kept him from turning into an apathetic teenager. Ritsuka seemed more alive with him, and if she had tried to understand that aspect of their relationship over them having a romantic relationship, then maybe she wouldn’t have put her foot in her mouth.
There had been no reason for her to have let her emotions get the better of her, but the need to understand Ritsuka had trumped everything else.
It didn’t matter if her words had hurt, because Yayoi didn’t think about how Ritsuka would perceive her words. She had only thought of herself and after speaking to Haruki, she was quick to realize the stance that she had taken with Ritsuka was the wrong one to take.
She didn’t need to understand why Ritsuka had fallen for a man instead of a woman. She just needed to realize that Satou was making her little brother happy. Too bad she didn’t register that fact until after she had broken her brother’s heart.
Sure, she eventually apologized, but the damage had been done.
Her relationship with Ritsuka would be slow to repair itself, and she would have to work at gaining her brother’s trust back. When weeks went by, Yayoi doing everything she could to make Ritsuka comfortable enough to confide in her about Satou; she could see Ritsuka realize that he could open up to her again. She may not understand the mechanics of their relationship, even though she had taken to reading a couple of articles on the internet; she now understood the importance of her being able to be supportive.
It was evident that Ritsuka didn’t have many people on his side outside of the band, and seeing Haruki and Akihiko dealing with their own shit, there wasn’t anyone for Ritsuka to truly confide in. There wasn’t anyone that could be a soundboard for his thoughts and feelings, and Ritsuka needed someone that would be on his side.
Yayoi wanted to be that person; she wanted to be someone that Ritsuka could rely on again.
Satou was special.
Ritsuka loved the other boy.
That knowledge should have been more than enough for her to be okay with their relationship, and she was. However, that didn’t stop her from realizing the love that Ritsuka had given to Satou came with a separate set of issues that would cause her to worry.
This love gave Satou quite a bit of power over Ritsuka, and her brother’s boyfriend had no clue about the power he held. If he had noticed, then she found Satou to be more than a little cruel. Her brother was starting to question himself, and that insecurity was taking a terrible toll. Ritsuka was hurting himself to feel as if he was someone that mattered—that he was someone significant to Satou.
Yet, her brother was burying himself in music and trying to become someone that he was not.
Satou hadn’t been the one to ask her brother to play his ex’s song, but her brother’s boyfriend was still the reason why her brother was torturing himself.
Her idiot brother, too kind for his own good, couldn’t give Mafuyu’s friends a strong enough no, and ever since her brother had asked her for advice, she couldn’t help but be frustrated and worried for him. Before the song, she had felt as if Ritsuka was dealing with something terrible, but after the late nights of Ritsuka holing himself up in his room to play that song over and over again, it seemed as if Ritsuka was spiraling…
Ritsuka wasn’t all right, and Yayoi was just as clueless as she had been months ago.
This time, though, she would be there for Ritsuka and be the confidant that he needed. Except, Ritsuka didn’t want to talk to her about his insecurities. Instead, Ritsuka had kept those thoughts to himself and let them fester… She wondered if Ritsuka even understood his feelings of inadequacy or if he was too wrapped up in everything else to give a damn about himself and his self-worth.
So, hearing Ritsuka play with Satou’s friends, Yayoi could only watch in trepidation as Ritsuka started to lose himself to the music. Her eyes were threatening to tear up as the trio continued the set into the song that had left her brother floundering. Her brother wondering if he had a prominent enough place in his boyfriend’s life.
It was saddening to see her brother throw his confidence away for a song, and Yayoi wondered if Satou could understand how much Ritsuka cared for him. Wondering if she could catch her brother’s boyfriend in the crowd, Yayoi found her eyes scanning the people around her, only for her to see Satou—no Mafuyu by himself. Staring at the other boy, Mafuyu’s eyes wide with understanding, Yayoi had finally gotten her wish.
Instead of being happy about it, Yayoi couldn’t help but look at the other in concern. Never mind, realize why her brother cared so much for the other boy. Because as much as Ritsuka had been hurting, Mafuyu hadn’t done what he had done to be cruel. He had been too wrapped up in his pain and grief to realize that he could still hurt another person.
Seeing the other wipe at his eyes and look to the ceiling, almost as if he had seen something that wasn’t there, Yayoi wondered if this was the moment where everything would change.
Where Ritsuka would be given the chance that he deserved.
As the song slowly came to a close, the blond singer finishing out the final verse, Yayoi turned her attention back to her brother.
The teen looked absolutely spent and Yayoi couldn’t help but hope that this would be the only time that she’d see Ritsuka play like this.
The other two teens in the group may have entrusted Ritsuka to complete this song, to complete their trio for this concert, but Ritsuka sounded his best when he was playing his music.
When he was playing Given’s music.
Leaning back into her boyfriend’s chest, Yayoi needing Koji’s warmth and kindness; she found herself sighing in relief when her boyfriend wrapped his arms around her. The other pulling her close as he started to soothe the cacophony that was still nestled deep within her chest; Yayoi just hoped that her brother would come home with a mended heart.
If Mafuyu and Ritsuka didn’t talk after the scene that she had just witnessed…
Then she would lock the two of them in a room together and keep them there until they were blue in the face. Not from suffocation, but from the two finally unloading everything that they had kept from each other. Because if not, then maybe they were better off being single until the two of them could give each other the care and tenderness that they both more than earned.