Chapter Text
By the single light on his desk Ritsu studied the student council’s newest weekly agenda. He debated blowing it off for the day, to take the opportunity and practice using his psychic abilities, hone them just in case. Ever since the whole ordeal with the 7th Division and the guilt over his involvement, he’d been working to make himself stronger so his brother wouldn’t have to stress himself protecting him again. It was slow-going between council duties, homework, and trying to find subtle ways of apologizing to Shige, but he was getting there.
Not today, though. He had enough on his plate, and it wasn’t even that late, but he’d been nursing a headache all afternoon. It was made worse by the sharp knock on his door.
“Ritsu, it’s time for dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll be down in a minute.”
The door creaked as mom went to close it, but paused. Ritsu bit back a frustrated sigh and pasted on a little smile when he turned in his chair. “What is it, mom?”
“Nothing, just… you haven’t seen Shigeo today, have you?”
He had, in passing at school. But aside from moments of eye contact in the halls, they rarely interacted outside the house. But, if he had to guess…
“I’m sure he’s at work. Reigen’s probably keeping him late, again.”
Because the guy didn't seem to understand his brother had a life outside of being his psychic errand boy.
She hummed, mulling it over, but Ritsu didn’t miss the tightness behind the sound. The smile slipped from his face as he took in her concern. Really took it in. Her mouth was pinched into a thin line, the wrinkles around her eyes more prominent with the expression, and he finally looked at the clock at the far side of the room.
Ten past five.
Later than Reigen normally kept his brother.
Shige was always home before dinner. Sometimes only a few seconds before mom called for them, but there nonetheless. The pounding behind his eyes sharpened into something to match the knot of anxiety suddenly taking root in his guts.
“I’ll go check and see if he’s at the office. Maybe he just forgot the time.”
“Yeah,” she said absently, with a far-off look in her eye. “You do that. Call me as soon as you get there.”
“Sure thing.”
Ritsu pulled his coat closed, just to have something to grip. It wasn’t too cold out just yet, the autumn chill only just beginning to settle, but he was shivering as if it was zero degrees. The lights at the Spirits and Such building were off, and when he stepped inside to try the door, it was locked. Another moment of straining with his powers and the deadbolt slid out and the door creaked open. It was dark inside, too, the heater off and leaving a dusty cold in the air.
Nothing was strange about the office, nothing out of place or left in a hurry, but something about the silence left a disconcerted feeling rolling down his temple. As much as he disliked Reigen and his flamboyant, loud nature, it felt so wrong to be in that building without him flailing about and rambling. The headache worsened until he saw spots and Ritsu groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes.
Where were Shige and Reigen?
Ritsu picked up the receiver on Reigen’s crappy little desk and dialed the number on one of the business cards next to it. It was the first time he’d called the man, and normally he would’ve prayed for voicemail, but in that moment Ritsu wanted nothing more than to hear the nasally over-the-top greeting.
“You’ve reached Reigen Arataka--”
“Reigen, thank god. Where are you--”
“-- Greatest Psychic of the 21st Century! If this is a spirit-related issue, please leave a message with your name, number, and a brief rundown of your problem and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you, and have a great day!”
The beep for voicemail sounded and Ritsu slammed the phone down, only to pick it back up and call again. Again, Reigen didn’t answer. Not the third, fourth, or fifth time either.
Reigen wasn’t answering his phone during business hours and Shige wasn’t home. Something was wrong.
Call mom. Call dad. Call the police.
It was the only logical choice.
The din within their house made his entire face pulse in time with his heart, the pain at the base of his neck radiating everywhere. Ritsu knew it was anxiety feeding the ache by that point, but that didn’t help anything. Especially when the police officers were still questioning his parents about Reigen.
“He's not at his home. Do you know where he might have gone?”
“What? No, I’m sorry, I-I have no idea.”
“Why are you asking?”
Ritsu nodded at his father’s question. He wasn’t sure why the police were asking so many questions about Reigen when it was obvious that he was missing right along with Shige. As much as he despised the man for taking advantage of his brother, he knew he wouldn’t do anything bad to him either. Reigen was… weirdly protective of Shige. Alarmingly so, sometimes.
“Well, in kidnapping cases, it’s usually someone the child already knows. Your son described Shigeo as being close to Reigen. So we would need to make sure he isn’t holding him in--”
“Reigen didn’t kidnap Shige!” Ritsu was surprised by the volume of his voice. He ignored mom when she told him to be respectful and blinked against the fuzziness in his vision.
“He would never do that. He’s his boss, not some creeper. He… He would never do something like that.”
“He's right.” At least dad was on his side. He had a pensive curve to his eyebrows. “Reigen is an upstanding young man, and Shigeo trusts him. I do too, for that matter. I don't think he's the kind of person capable of this.”
Ritsu held his tongue, not about to spill now Reigen wasn't as upstanding as his parents thought - it would've been counterintuitive at the moment.
But of course that was brushed off.
“I understand this is difficult to accept, but nine out of ten times, it is the person you least expect,” the lady officer was saying, reaching for his shoulder. Ritsu flinched back with a glare.
They didn’t understand. Not the police, not his parents… where was Dimple? He would’ve known what to do and say to get people to listen. Ritsu had tried explaining to them how Shige always went to work with Reigen after school - if he wasn’t with the Body Improvement Club - and that he’d gone there that day. He’d told them Reigen was annoying but harmless, because he didn’t have powers while his brother did - Reigen couldn’t have forced Shige to go anywhere he didn’t want to. So whatever had happened was likely related to a job. But instead of following that lead, they stayed and asked more questions about Reigen, about what kind of person he was and what they knew about his personal life. Meanwhile, other officers were raiding the office for any clues. Too bad they were clues related to where Reigen could’ve absconded with his brother instead of something useful, like where to get information on their last job.
Ritsu knew it was important to trust adults, that they had more life experience or whatever, but when those adults weren’t fucking listening to him, life experience didn’t mean shit.
Didn’t they see that Shige was in trouble? He was so powerful and nothing short of something impossibly dangerous would’ve kept him from coming home. At the very least he would’ve called to let them know he was going to be late.
Why was nobody listening?
“Ritsu? Ritsu, sweetheart, come here.”
Mom’s arms around his shoulders barely registered past the anger coursing through his shaking fists. He didn’t hug her back. She wasn’t listening either, and every minute they spent wasting on the “Reigen kidnapped Shigeo” angle was another minute they risked losing the trail.
“I’m going to bed.” He pulled away from her embrace despite the whimper it dragged out. He felt bad, but not enough to stay in that room any longer.
He sniffled and ran upstairs.
The backpack on his bed was dumped out in seconds and Ritsu shoved a flashlight from his desk, repacked some energy bars and his water bottle, a pair of gloves, and his Xacto knife. Then on second thought, he tucked that into his waistband.
The window wasn’t difficult to jimmy open and after a long moment of psyching himself up, he leapt out, catching himself with his powers before hitting the ground. He stumbled, scraping his hands on the dirt before he could face-plant. The lights of the cop car illuminated the side of the house and he darted off in the opposite direction.
If they weren’t going to be smart and listen to his advice, he would just have to find his brother on his own.
The search at Reigen’s office was called off an hour after he arrived. Ritsu waited for the last car to pull away from the curb before sneaking inside.
He had never seen the aftermath of a sweep, had assumed they were clean, analytical and organized, so the papers and folders thrown haphazardly across the desk were as much an unexpected sight as the torn apart sofa. It looked like a small esper fit had wreaked havoc there, so unlike the pristine space he’d visited hours prior.
Ritsu scoffed at the disrespect shown and used his powers to right the couch cushions while he picked up some discarded papers to stack into neat piles on the desk.
He had no idea where to start in his search, but he knew there had to be something around related to whatever case they’d gone on. Something to give him a clue. His eyes went to the computer and he tried logging in a couple times, but none of the passwords he tried ( Mob, ImtheBest!, Imafraud, 123456! ) worked and he quickly realized it was a dead end. In fact, standing there in the dim lighting, Ritsu wondered what he’d been hoping to find that the police wouldn’t have already.
He supposed it hadn’t been what he wanted to find, and rather what he was hoping not to.
Ever since the 7th Division, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that Claw wasn’t done with them. Of all the people he could imagine posing a threat to his brother, it was those guys. But unlike Shige, he had no way of knowing how to pick up auras, present or lingering, so what he was supposed to look for, he wasn’t sure. That didn’t stop him from checking out the kitchen, the bathroom and the massage room for some kind of message only an esper could detect - something, anything, that would tell him if the Claw guys had come for his brother.
There was nothing.
Ritsu was getting tired of that word far faster than was helpful.
He collapsed onto the couch and dropped his head between his knees as the headache became an audible ring so bad it made his teeth hurt.
What if he couldn’t find any clues? What if the cops couldn’t either. What if the worst thing had happened and Shige had been kidnapped alongside Reigen and they were being hurt? Would the Claw guys come back for further revenge against the rest of their family? And more importantly, what would they do to his brother?
The thought of anyone being strong enough to overpower Shige had him gripping the sides of his head. Tugging fistfuls of hair did little to ease the tension there as his anxieties and building frustration boiled to the surface in the form of rapid breaths.
Where are you, brother?
A whimper pushed his lips apart. Ritsu curled tighter into himself. The ringing in his ears was a church bell, tolling in time with his silent sobs, so loud and unrelenting he could hear nothing.
“Young man, how did you get in here?”
Ritsu gasped, jerking up and scrambling to his feet. The Xacto knife trembled in his fingers while he wiped his eyes with his free arm to see who the intruder was.
The familiar face held in a tight frown made him swallow hard and mutter an apology. There was no use trying to run from the officer. He dropped the knife and shuffled forward until her hand fell on his shoulder. He didn’t have the energy to shrug it off and instead followed her out to the car, ignoring the light scolding mixed with platitudes of understanding. She said she knew he was trying to help, that he was worried about his big brother, but she didn’t know shit. She didn’t know about the terrorist organization of crazy espers who might have taken Shige. He doubted she would listen to him if he told her - just like everyone else, she’d write it off as a flight of fancy from a thirteen year-old. So instead he apologized again and buckled his seatbelt, staring out the window and wondering what he was supposed to do now.
The normal pride he felt about his perfect attendance record died right beside his ability to hold back his scowls toward his peers that school day.
Word traveled fast and Ritsu was no longer a member of the student council, but the poor kid who’s brother had been kidnapped by some crazy dude - nobody knew who Reigen was, it was only speculation. Either way, people were avoiding him with awkward looks or they suddenly had the audacity to approach him and ask how he was holding up. He managed half the day with that until some chick with a camera, the one who was always following Shige around, asked how he was doing.
“What kind of fucking question is that?”
“What?”
“I said: What kind. Of fucking . Question. Is. That.”
People in the halls parted around them like schools of fish, openly gaping at the rage twisting his face as he clenched his fists at his sides. He wanted to explode, to scream and cry and tell everyone they had no right to look at him or talk to him when they hadn’t even given a shit about Shige. Half of them didn’t even know his name, yet they thought it was suddenly okay to bring him up. Fake assholes, every one of them.
He wondered if that ball of acid was what Shige felt every time he bottled his emotions. If it was, Ritsu could understand why some days he just couldn’t contain it anymore.
Him going missing was not the way Ritsu wanted to begin understanding his brother.
The chick said something, but the attention was suddenly too much, and he didn’t offer a verbal response before growling and shoving his way past everyone.
The walk home passed in a blur and it wasn’t until he walked through the front door that he allowed himself to breathe. It came out heavy and loud. Loud enough it brought mom out from the kitchen.
“Ritsu, what are you doing home?”
“I’m not going to school until Shige’s back.”
He couldn’t tell her why. It should’ve been obvious but with their parents, sometimes he couldn’t tell what they did and didn’t understand.
“You really shouldn’t skip school.”
“Are you serious right now?!” Ritsu slammed the door shut with enough force it shuddered against its hinges. Mom flinched, her hand tightening around her mug.
“How could you possibly think school is important right now?! Shigeo is missing , mom! And you’re standing around in your pajamas telling me I should go to school?! How am I supposed to focus on anything except the fact that nobody is doing anything to find him? You’re all just sitting on your asses and hoping he’ll magically turn up!”
“Ritsu Kageyama, that’s enough.”
He hadn’t noticed dad coming down the hall. He didn’t use the tone ever and Ritsu swallowed his tongue along with the vitriol coating it. Only then did he notice the tears dripping from the corner of mom’s eyes before she covered her face and turned into dad’s chest when he wrapped an arm around her.
“You do not get to disrespect your mother, I don’t care how worried you are. We all are. But beyond cooperating with the police, there’s nothing any of us can do. Taking it out on your family isn’t going to help anything, and it isn’t fair on anyone.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He felt like shit for making his parents feel like shit.
He stumbled upstairs, neither adult trying to stop him. It wasn’t until he was curled beneath his covers, face pressed against his pillow, that he allowed the tears to flow.
It had been almost twenty-four hours since he’d last seen his brother. He’d watched enough true crime things to know if a kid wasn’t found within forty-eight, the chances of finding them at all were slim.
Why did Reigen have to call him in yesterday? Why couldn’t he have just handled the business on his own and left Shige out of it. Even if it wasn’t the man’s fault, Ritsu decided it was. And he wasn’t going to forgive him for everything his family was being put through.
The headache greeted him as soon as consciousness found its way into his brain. It was Friday, not even 9AM, but he was already an hour late for school. His parents had kept him home the whole week, their fear that something bad would happen to him if he was out of sight permeated every corner of the house. Ritsu hadn’t been able to sum up the energy to care either way. He didn’t even have the energy to lift his head from the pillow and debated dragging his blankets over his face to block out the sunlight filtering through the curtains.
Every day went the same as the next. The police searched, found nothing, and let them know before turning in for the day. After the third day Ritsu knew their efforts had waned - nobody expected to find a living teen after that point. None of them cared to listen when he told them Shige wasn’t dead.
But Ritsu didn’t burrow back into bed, because with the pain in his temples came some knowledge that today was different. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to throw the covers off and rush downstairs, not until the first knock came on the front door. It was followed by several more, rapid and demanding.
Ritsu called for his parents before throwing the door open to find the wide eyed officer Hideko and her partner.
Mom and dad ran out of the kitchen just in time to hear the woman say those words they’d been waiting for days to fill the space:
“We found them.”
Nobody said anything when they piled into the car. Hideko turned on the siren and sped out into the country, past the small neighborhoods until they were reaching a ritzy area that Ritsu had never been.
He paid little attention to any of that because his headache had morphed into something else, a jittering in his limbs as he clenched and loosened his fingers against his sweatpants. The knowledge that he would normally be mortified having left the house in such a disheveled state flitted past and was lost to the static bubble around him.
They’d found Shige and Reigen. They’d found them.
It only struck him when they pulled up to some giant gate and the numerous ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars, that Hideko had never mentioned what state they’d found them in. Did she even know, or had she just been told to bring them as fast as possible?
Anxiety coiled around his throat and Ritsu was out of the car before it had pulled to a complete stop, the cry of alarm and “come back, Ritsu!” from his parents became just another string of static.
Because now he saw the destruction. The building, once some big mansion from the looks of it, was crumpled in on itself like a bomb had gone off. He understood the reason for all the EMTs when he saw how many people (bodies?) were being carried into the waiting ambulances. It was a scene straight out of one of those disaster movies Dimple was always harassing him to watch.
Dimple.
Ritsu found his glow but barely registered it past the kick in his chest that was the sight of his brother.
Shige was knelt in the rubble, tears flowing down a face pulled into a snarl with hair whipping around violently. But it was his eyes, bright red and full of terror, that scared Ritsu. But not as much as the blood everywhere did. Not as much as the man crumpled over his lap.
Ritsu gasped, hand going over his mouth.
Shige’s hands were clamped around Reigen’s neck, and as he approached he could see they were stained a fresh, shiny crimson. That blood was seeping through his fingers. Ritsu swore he saw a giant blooming spot of that same dark coloring staining Reigen’s suit, the chest of which was barely moving, but then the rest of the situation quickly came into sharp focus when he realized what Shige was staring at.
The paramedics were rushing around, looking panicked and confused as they reached for Reigen and were halted by a shimmering cyan and pink bubble that only he could see.
Why was Shige holding his barrier up against them?
Ritsu’s chest seized when he realized there was a distinct possibility that all of this was his brother’s fault. Had Reigen pushed him too hard on a job and this was the result?
The flood of anger was a relief. It cut through every swirling thought and Ritsu latched onto it. If Reigen had been hurt by stressing Shige out, it served him right, but he wasn’t about to let the man die and leave his big brother with that guilt. Ritsu shoved past the adults, threw up his own barrier when a few of them tried to grab him, pulling him back with warnings and questions about what he was doing. He didn’t stop until he could slam a fist into his brother’s barrier.
“Shige! Brother, you need to calm down! These guys need to get Reigen to the hospital.”
“R-Ritsu?”
He blinked, the tears falling faster now. Ritsu swallowed a lump, now not the time to get emotional about seeing him, and nodded.
“Yeah, brother, it’s me.”
The barrier fizzled out in an instant and the paramedics descended, finally pushing Ritsu out of the way. In a rush, he watched as Reigen was hauled onto a stretcher, hands all over him, pressing just about everywhere because he was in way worse shape than Ritsu realized. That was all secondary to the arms wrapping around his waist, staining his sleep shirt with blood. Shige collapsed against him and Ritsu let him. He heard mom and dad approaching in a rush, sobs on their voices as they prised Shige from his side to grab and hold.
It didn’t last. The whole moment went for maybe a minute before the medics were back, taking Shige from their arms. Dad followed them into the ambulance, told them he would let them know which hospital they ended up at. Mom nodded, a fist pressed to her lips.
Ritsu wanted to join Shige in the vehicle, but it was already pulling out onto the street.
One week.
The same length of time Shige had been missing, and how long he’d been back home. Ritsu never imagined the time would drag even longer and stressful than those horrible days of not knowing.
Maybe it was because he still didn’t know. Not really.
They finally let him go from the hospital. The hospital had been little more than a blur, stretching far too long with nothing happening outside of half-baked attempts at conversation. Conversation which fizzled within seconds when Shige got that far away look in his eyes, the one with pinprick anxiety that flooded Ritsu with instinctual fear. Then he would get up without a word and wander into Reigen’s room.
Ritsu couldn’t decide how to feel about Reigen. It was hard to hate the man when he’d almost died and was holed up in the emergency ward with bandages covering nearly every inch of visible skin. Difficult to muster any sort of acid in his tone on the few occasions he spoke to him when Reigen could barely go a few sentences before he was coughing and wincing and apologizing for being in pain. But he wanted to. He wanted to sum up the courage to scream at him, to demand an explanation for what happened. Ritsu had been listening in when Reigen spoke to the police, gave his account of going to the Asagiri mansion for a job and having the building collapse on them out of nowhere. The stupid dips and lifts in his voice clear evidence of lies, which the cops were too ignorant to realize.
But Ritsu knew. And he had the distinct feeling everything was Reigen’s fault.
He wanted to ask Shige about it, but their parents were always around, or hospital staff, or Shige’s own emotional wall. The last thing Ritsu wanted to do was upset his brother, so he shoved those desires away and focused on being with him while he recovered.
Another week after being home from the hospital, Ritsu expected Shige to return to normal. After all, Reigen was alive and on the mend, so there was nothing for him to worry about anymore. Ritsu had been meaning to make an effort after the 7th Division to provide a sturdier shoulder for his brother to lean on, but when Shige continued avoiding conversation, he realized he’d done a shit job. It was selfish to let that hurt, so Ritsu ignored it, told himself Shige was just anxious to get back to his old life without the helicopter presence of his family reminding him of their own trauma. When Ritsu considered that long enough, he wondered if his brother felt guilty.
It was just like Shige to put the feelings of others before his own, to concern himself with it to the point of harming his own sanity. It only made Ritsu worry about him more.
And then the nightmares started.
At first they were loud enough to shake the walls, made his window shudder and form a hairline crack in the leftmost bottom corner. Mom and dad had rushed to their doors, worried it was an earthquake, but then Shige had woken with a start and it all stopped. Nobody mentioned it, letting the incident become another thing in the house they acknowledged but pretended was fine.
Their parents had no idea how to talk to Shige. Ritsu was beginning to worry he didn’t either.
The mini-quakes eventually stopped, but the nightmares didn’t. They quieted, found new ways to escape the confines of his brother’s unconsciousness. The most recent one left Ritsu gasping awake, clutching his chest as an overwhelming terror hollowed out his bones to make room for the flood of sourceless grief.
“Shige…”
He struggled to get out of bed past the tremors that didn’t belong to him and crept across the hall. Shige’s door was partially ajar (he didn’t like it being closed anymore) and Ritsu nudged it open with a foot.
Shige was a huddled ball of blankets atop his futon, not a single inch of his body or hair visible. Ritsu heard the sobs, though, muffled as they were to not alert anyone. It made his heart ache as his mind strained to understand what it was Shige refused to talk about - what he left himself to suffer silently with.
His brother wasn’t the kind of person to blow problems out of proportion. He was strong in that way, much stronger than Ritsu. And Ritsu wasn’t an idiot, he knew something had to connect with the missing week and Shige’s new suffering. But he was just dumb enough to miss it.
Ritsu went to touch the shroud but pulled back. He never saw his brother cry as much as he had in the last two weeks, but he still wasn’t sure how to conduct himself. Did Shige want him to see those moments? Did he need company, or was being alone better for him? Ritsu couldn’t imagine he wanted to sit in quiet misery, but he also noticed how he stiffened up or recoiled from touch.
He settled beside the mound of blankets, leaning just a little against them and the solid mass beneath.
“Shige, are you okay?”
Another muffled squeak escaped before a long thick sniffle. Then the blankets were falling around Shige’s shoulders and Ritsu could see the puffiness of his eyes even in the darkness. His chest panged.
“Ritsu? Did I wake you again? I’m sorry…”
Ritsu was shaking his head before his brother even finished. It may have been true that Shige dragged him out of a pretty pleasant sleep, but he wasn’t about to let him know that - he didn’t want to add to his guilt.
“No, I was awake already. Had to pee.”
Lying felt wrong, a coagulating weight like disgust, but if it meant sparing his brother any more pain, Ritsu would bear it.
“I’m sorry,” Shige whispered again.
“It’s fine, brother. Really. I promise.”
Ritsu had no idea why those words made Shige flinch, but he caught the minute jerk of his chin.
It was a helpless feeling welling up in Ritsu’s throat. He felt useless in the face of Shige’s distress, which he was already working to wall off again. Ritsu realized that with a start when he saw that vulnerable look in his brother’s eyes cut out to leave a dull stare, and he couldn’t lose that yet, not when Shige was talking to him, so Ritsu pounced on the only question he’d been wanting to ask since that first day in the hospital.
“What did Reigen do?”
“What?”
Just like he knew something bad had happened in that house, Ritsu knew Reigen had done something wrong. Something to draw out that other side of Shige. He shivered at the memory of those piercing red irises glaring at him and unconsciously touched the little scar hidden beneath his bangs. Shige feared that side of himself almost as much as Ritsu, there was no way he would’ve allowed it out without something seriously bad triggering it. And Ritsu trusted Reigen about as far as he could throw him (without psychic powers), so he was the number one suspect. The only one that made sense, really.
“Well, I mean, he obviously did something to upset you in that house. What was it?”
“He didn’t do anything, Ritsu.” Shige sounded tired, like they’d had the conversation before, but Ritsu knew for a fact they hadn’t.
“Are you sure? Because he took you on a job and then we found you holding his unconscious body.”
Ritsu wondered if he shouldn’t have said that, accidentally brought up the reminder that the last time something like that happened, he’d been the one bleeding in his brother's lap. To soften that blow, Ritsu put a hand over where Shige clutched his comforter. His fingers were cold, holding the slightest tremble beneath the skin and it made Ritsu want to draw closer.
“You can tell me, brother. I’ll help you.”
“He didn’t do anything , Ritsu.”
“Are you su--”
“Why are you trying so hard to think Master Reigen did something bad?! What did he ever do to you?”
Ritsu flinched back from the sudden burst of anger. He ordered himself steady when he saw the eyes leveled at him were still dark brown, and Shige’s hair was still laying normally. He wasn’t in danger. Yet he felt like he was walking a tightrope, one wrong word away from losing his footing.
However, he was forced to admit one thing: “He never did anything to me.”
Reigen hadn’t, not really. Not on purpose anyway, not in any way anybody could possibly understand. After all, he couldn’t start sounding like a jealous child and admit to his brother that Reigen had taken Shige away from him, and had become the person his brother talked to and depended on. His very existence in Shige’s life canceled out Ritsu’s. And he lied to Shige in order to take up that space.
But he couldn’t say that. He wouldn’t make his problems Shige’s, too.
“But he hurt you. I can tell.”
“No you can’t, because he didn’t.”
“Well if he didn’t, who did? A spirit?”
Ritsu had a hard time conceptualizing that, considering how powerful Shige was. However, he felt like he hit his target when his brother pulled away from him like he’d been struck. Ritsu felt his eyes widen and he leaned in. Shige shifted away.
“Shige, what-”
“Go back to bed, Ritsu. It’s fine.”
“No, wait, don’t shut me out, Shige. I’m sorr-”
“Just go. It’s fine, I’m fine.”
Ritsu wanted to argue with him, to yell about how he needed to stop protecting him from the truth. Whatever it was, whatever Shige wasn’t telling him, he could handle it. He was thirteen, he wasn’t a child.
But that wouldn’t be fair, so he got up and left.
Ritsu hadn’t slept well the remainder of that night, kept awake by his regret and replaying the conversation with his brother over and over until he’d exhausted all possible ways he could’ve kept it going. He hadn’t found a single solution and ended up falling into a fitful doze.
When he made his way downstairs, the sound of plates and cups being set on the table let him know it was time for breakfast. At 9AM, it was a late start to the weekend. Their parents were talking, too, some idle chit chat about their plans for the day - dad had work and mom was thinking of going to the store to pick up ingredients so dinner could be something other than stir fry.
Ritsu debated interrupting, but decided against it when he caught Shige’s eye. He expected him to glare or otherwise indicate he was still upset with him, but there was nothing like that, just a small smile that barely nudged his cheek. Ritsu felt himself return the gesture but it felt just as empty.
He settled in his place beside his brother at the table, filling his glass with milk from the carton between their plates. Shige’s glass was two-thirds full and hadn’t been touched, which was so unlike him that Ritsu just stared at the liquid in silence until dad’s hand patted the top of his head in greeting.
“Morning, kiddo. You sleep well?”
Ritsu’s eyes darted to Shige’s and they shared a moment of discomfort before he turned his attention back to dad and nodded. “Yep.”
“Good, good.” He went back to where mom was at the stove, picking their conversation back up.
Ritsu wondered if they even understood what had happened to Shige. If they noticed something was wrong, they gave no indication. He supposed they were just glad he was back and safe. Ritsu wished he could share in that blind joy.
They remained quiet when their parents joined them at the table, kept their eyes trained on their plates as they were served.
And then Shige asked if he could see Reigen. The way he said the man’s name felt pointed, purposeful and Ritsu shrank in his seat. Shame wasn’t a feeling he allowed to bleed through often, but it did just then.
It was quickly replaced with a yelp when dad’s hand clapped down on Shige’s arm and the barrier thrown up by his brother knocked Ritsu off his chair. Mom jumped out of her seat with a scold on her lips that was swallowed up by the ringing in Ritsu’s ears. The force he was hit with the flash of color left his head spinning, and for a flash he wasn’t in the kitchen. He was on the sidewalk and warmth was leaking down his face. He shook himself out of that memory. When he got his feet beneath him, everything was quiet again, dad’s hand on mom’s hand quieting any sort of tirade she’d been about to go on. Their eyes were glued to Shige, who Ritsu saw had wide, frantic eyes. His breaths were coming out shallow, too, like he was suddenly afraid.
“Brother.”
Shige’s head twisted around and in that same instance, Shige gasped and dropped his barrier. Apologies spilled from his mouth, soft and scared and shaking, like he was expecting punishment. Ritsu glanced at their parents to see them wearing expressions varying from confused to concerned.
“W-well,” mom said after another tense moment, “just don’t do it again.”
“Sorry.” Shige’s hands were twisting about in his lap. Ritsu wanted to still them, but didn’t dare touch him.
“C-can I still see Master?”
Ritsu doubted they would deny him the request after that display, and sure enough, dad said yes. He didn’t try touching Shige again, though.
“I’ll take you when we’re done eating, yeah?”
“‘Kay.”
Ritsu’s hunger abandoned him and he just watched his brother scoop up his omelet. He took two bites before dropping the spoon against the plate with a loud clatter. It made everyone jump but Ritsu was more concerned with the way Shige clamped a hand over his mouth, like he was trying not to puke.
“I think I’m full.”
He wished there was something he could do to make it better. Wished there was something he could say. But he’d said enough last night and didn’t want to risk making things worse. When dad asked if he wanted to tag along to the hospital, he made some excuse about catching up on homework so he didn’t have to act as a burden on his brother any further.