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The latest post on Mankai Company’s Insteblam story is of Misumi holding a cat with a triangular shaped patch over its eye up to the camera. It looks like he’s laughing, smiling so hard all of his teeth show.
The expression is unfamiliar to Madoka. As he squints at the image with his thumb pressed down on it so it doesn’t disappear, he wonders how many times his brother has laughed like that since joining the theatre.
“Hey.” Madoka jumps, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Masumi seems not to notice, slumping down next to him.
“Hey. Um, are you okay?”
“Just tired. Had no time to get coffee this morning because I couldn’t get Sakyo to stop lecturing me at the door. He keeps pestering me about this high-interest savings account my bank offers like I care. And then class ended up a waste of time anyway.”
Madoka nods, poking at his leftovers. “Was it worth it at all? The account?”
“Higher interest is higher interest, I guess. He hasn’t left me alone since he found out I keep all of my money in a savings account that gives me 1.3%.”
Madoka admittedly isn’t too sure about the state of his own savings accounts either. “Me too, I think.”
“What do you spend your money on anyway? You’re getting paid now, right?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t even know what to do with it. One day he was mostly relying on his parents for support and the next God-za’s admin team was emailing him to ask for his sort code. “I save most of it.”
Masumi snorts. “The old man would love you. I probably would have spent it if I were you.”
“What would you use it for, then? If you were me.”
As he thinks, Masumi digs through his bag for his own lunch. “An apartment.”
“Really?” Madoka says. “Why, do you think I should move out?”
Masumi shrugs. “I would, if I were you. Wouldn’t be able to stand living with either of my parents now, even if that was an option. And I’d probably be able to stand living with your parents even less.”
“I haven’t thought about it before.”
The idea is a little daunting. Apart from a few meals Madoka completely looks after himself, but he’s still never been away from home for long before. He can’t imagine being completely alone in his own apartment. Even though he spends most of his time in his room, his parents are still close by.
“Maybe you’d like having your own space.”
“Maybe.” Madoka doesn’t completely hate the idea. After all, Misumi is more than okay after having left. Maybe he’ll look up some apartments online later, just out of curiosity. “So what bank is it you’re with, anyway?”
Madoka’s tie is too tight, but he doesn’t touch it.
Father had painstakingly explained exactly how he was expected to behave earlier that morning, going as far as to outline what to say when spoken to, and where to sit (Madoka would be on the end, then Misumi, and Mother and Father). Even without his Father’s clear nervous disposition, Madoka understood that this was not the time to be selfish.
Grandpa is dead.
Grandpa is dead, and Madoka is old enough to understand what that means, but not how it makes him feel. It doesn’t seem to be making him feel anything, in fact.
He doesn’t understand the words being said by the priest either and the smell of incense is strange. Eventually, the coffin becomes difficult to look at.
Madoka stares down at the floor instead. Or at least, until a hand brushes against the back of his own.
He glances at his brother as imperceptibly as he can. It’s strange to see Misumi dressed so formally. Uncomfortable. Even his school uniform never stays neat for long, no matter how much Father straightens his collar or Mother scrubs at stains on his blazer. Yet his suit has remained perfect. He doesn’t look at Madoka at all, staring forward blankly, maybe too aware that Mother would notice, but reaches for his hand again.
Madoka can’t help himself from jolting when Misumi squeezes his hand, but he doesn’t let go.
“Shift mentioned that you were looking at moving out of your parents’ place.” Haruto says idly during a break from practice.
Madoka looks up from the script he was scribbling notes onto. “Yeah. Well, I’ve started thinking about it. Not seriously. I haven’t even mentioned it to Father yet.”
“I just wanted you to know I’ll give you a hand with apartment viewings if you need it. Or any of the other stuff. It can be pretty complicated when you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
Madoka almost can’t believe it. He’d been planning to ask for advice eventually, since Haruto is the only person he really knows he can ask, but he had expected to do almost everything by himself.
“If it’s not too much of an inconvenience…”
“It’s not. There might be open apartments on my block you could take a look at. I’ve never had any complaints about my place and it’s walking distance from here.”
“I’m not sure about my budget yet.”
Haruto takes a swig from his water bottle. “Well, I don’t know how they’re paying you, but even on ensemble pay I could afford it just fine. My first apartment wasn’t that bad either, if you think one room would suit you better.”
“Right. I’ll think about it, then. Thanks a lot.”
The house has always been quiet, but now it’s almost silent. Madoka lies awake at night listening to wind whistling against the walls, rattling the frame of his window. The floorboards creak with a type of grief Madoka can’t put a name to.
His parents are good at talking around things, pretending that there’s nothing to even avoid. He pretends with them, carefully ignoring thoughts of the family they once were.
He tries very hard not to remember Misumi, or think about how even Father doesn’t seem to know where he is. Misumi could easily be dead. But he easily could not be. Madoka’s own variation on Schrödinger’s Cat. He tells himself that as long as the box stays closed, there’s no use in worrying about it.
It still lies in the back of his mind, though, like a fault in an electrical circuit. It buzzes and fills his brain with static. If he could just fix it, maybe everything would connect again.
But Madoka can’t fix it. Not yet. If he did, it would kill him.
Misumi is dangerous. Misumi has always been dangerous, for as long as Madoka can remember, even though it’s the last thing he’d ever mean to be.
It doesn’t really matter whether Madoka likes or dislikes the way things are, so he chooses to like it. He’s smart enough to understand that he does have control over his situation. His control lies in whether or not he accepts this, and he does.
It doesn’t matter if a claustrophobic box is all Father is willing to afford Madoka. He can fit.
(Maybe Misumi isn’t Schrödinger’s cat. Maybe he’s the one outside, waiting.)
Madoka barely says a word, trying to absorb as much information from the conversation between Haruto and his landlord as possible. Maybe he should have brought a notebook with him. He’d like to type some of it out on his phone, but if he did that it would look like he wasn’t paying attention and he doesn’t want to come across as rude…
Anyway, the apartment is on the third floor of a block a street away from Haruto’s. Madoka had opted for one room in the end. There’s something cozy about it; it’s only somewhat bigger than his bedroom back home, but that comes with a lack of emptiness.
The landlord seems nice enough too. They don’t talk for long, and within twenty minutes Madoka and Haruto are back outside the block.
“Look, God Troupe,” Haruto points down the road, “is about a fifteen minute walk that way. Got it?”
“Right.”
“And if you take a few side streets from there, you’ll eventually end up at Mankai Company’s dorms. Still within walking distance. Got that too?” He’s looking at Madoka markedly.
A strange feeling rushes into his chest. “Yes. Okay.”
“So what do you think? Can you see that as your home?”
“Yeah.” He swallows. “I like it.”
Madoka doesn’t really believe that there’s any significance to a grave, but he visits it anyway.
Grandpa isn’t there. He knows that.
Nobody knows that Madoka is even here; he’s only told Father that he would be busy today (and he had probably assumed it was work related, which was why he hadn’t asked any questions). He’d had to search online to find out how to find the cemetery himself, eventually finding a train and a bus to take. Something had felt surprisingly good about riding the train alone.
When he arrives at the cemetery, it’s completely empty despite the large number of the plots and how relatively recent they are.
He’s finally reached an age where he can do things like this, completely on his own, half-kneeling in front of his grandfather’s grave and not worried about finding his clothes dirtied afterwards.
He should have thought about flowers. Itching to do something to show some semblance of respect, he reaches for the metal flower pot embedded into the grave. He remembers filling it in the past, and after searching briefly, finds the tap tucked discreetly away in a corner.
Water flows from the tap at a steady but weak trickle. He fills the pot once, twists it closed, and then takes his time to pour the water into the small grate beneath. Once he’s done, he fills it a second time.
Grandpa might have appreciated this, he thinks, even though it means nothing. He might have understood.
He’s sure he never heard him discuss it, but Madoka imagines his grandfather was the “bury me in a cardboard box” type. Of course, that wasn’t what he got. Can anyone blame Father for that, though?
Madoka had been too young to understand the relationship between his father and grandfather. Over the past few years, he’s come to the conclusion that it was far less straightforward than he had believed as a child, but his memories are so fuzzy and few that he can’t analyse them further.
He wonders how Grandpa reacted, when his son was slated as a failure of a successor. He wonders if Father had begun to resent him, as he had almost everyone else. He wonders if he regretted it.
The cemetery is an inconvenient distance for the Ikarugas to travel, and they’re the only ones that ever visit. Madoka wonders if he chose it out of overcompensation or avoidance. Perhaps both.
He exhales deeply as he replaces the pot and takes a step back to read the headstone.
2011. It was a really long time ago.
He closes his eyes and tries to remember something - anything - that might comfort him. There’s only an aching gap. Moments that could have been and almost were. He’d never spent enough time with Grandpa, too young to understand how limited it would be, and he’d always seemed too busy to distract for long.
It’s quiet. Madoka’s hands are freezing from the cold water, and he tries to wipe them off on his shirt.
He could say something aloud now, but it wouldn’t matter. He’d only be pretending Grandpa could hear him.
All at once, the futile grief of it hits Madoka: this is all that there is. This is all that there will ever be for the rest of his life. He will never get to spend more time with Grandpa. He will never read his scripts, he will never give him any advice. He will never congratulate him on renting his first apartment. There will never be the conversation that he hopes to have about Father or Misumi.
Madoka can stand here for as long as he likes.
But there isn’t anything he can do but stand here.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers to the empty air anyway, before he can even think about it.
He’s sorry that he doesn’t visit, even if it means nothing. And he’s sorry that he grew apart from Misumi. That he let his father take his scripts for his own. He’s sorry that he never made his Grandpa proud, and still wouldn’t now, when it’s too late.
Father hadn’t said anything at first, appearing only mildly surprised, like he’d expected it.
“I suppose it’s about time you left too.”
Madoka couldn’t decide whether he had intended it simply as an unaffected statement to feign disinterest (which was silly, Madoka knew Father did care), or an accusation.
The “too” had burned him. Madoka has a job. He has an apartment to go to. If either of those things were to be disrupted, he knows who he could ask for help. Nothing about this is similar to when Misumi left. Nor is Madoka abandoning his father.
He knows that this is going to change. Not soon, but something has finally been set in motion for it to. He doesn’t promise that he’ll visit, although he knows that he will. He wonders if he’ll visit just as often in a few years’ time.
Father had asked if he’d needed help with the deposit. Madoka said no, even though it was taking a good chunk of the money he’d saved from birthdays and holidays over the years.
He’d said he would miss him, and after a few moments Father admitted the same. But Madoka knows Father needs the space just as much as he does. Perhaps more.
Secretly he hopes that when he stands at his own father’s grave, in what will hopefully be a long time, there will be more to mourn than to regret.
Madoka really should have written a letter. That would have been nice. That way, he could have been certain that he could say everything he wanted to say. And he wouldn’t have even needed to come and post it through the door himself!
Instead, he hovers awkwardly on the porch of Mankai Company’s dorm, trying to muster up the courage to ring the doorbell.
“Madoka!” The one to answer the door is Izumi, looking as though she’s just come from practice. “Misumi’s helping out in the kitchen. Why don’t you come in and take a seat?”
He nods, unable to draw on the right words - he needs to be polite but not too polite because Izumi is always fairly casual and he doesn’t want her to feel uncomfortable or lead her to believe that she’s made him uncomfortable - but Izumi is closing the door behind him and calling Misumi’s name before he can attempt to speak.
It takes Misumi about a minute to appear, immediately offering Madoka a triangular ball of rice with no context. “Here.” Madoka takes it with both hands, frowning. Misumi seems genuinely happy to see him, smiling, although not quite as hard as the last time Madoka saw him on Insteblam. “Try it.”
Madoka doesn’t think he’s had onigiri since he was a child, although he used to love it. He takes a bite carefully, afraid of spilling rice on the carpet, although it seems well packed-together. “It’s good.” He says, cringing at the strain in his own voice.
“Good.”
They stand in silence as he tries to finish it as quickly as he can. Misumi rocks back and forth on his heels.
“Right. Well, um, I had something important I wanted to tell you.” He hates how his voice sounds when he talks to Misumi, always robotic and uneven.
Misumi nods.
“I’m moving into my own apartment soon.” The words fall from his tongue in a rush, stumbling over one another, and Madoka is afraid he spoke too quickly for Misumi to even understand him.
“Wow! Wait, but, where? Are you leaving Veludo?”
“No! I’ll actually be moving to a block by Haruto-san’s. It’s practical because it’s close to our theatre.”
“Oh. Oh! That’s great!”
“I’ll be close to Mankai Company too, of course.” He says carefully.
“I’m really glad. You can stay for dinner, if you want.” He adds hesitantly.
“I can’t stay that long, I need to get back home to Father.” Madoka falters. He’s tired of seeing Misumi disappointed. “But, um, I’d love to come back. When I’ve moved in…”
Misumi immediately brightens, nodding emphatically. “Whenever you want.”
He will. He desperately believes that he will once he finally gets the chance to without worrying what his parents would have to say about it.
Before he can allow himself to think about it for any longer, Madoka steps forward and wraps his arms around Misumi’s middle. For a moment, he feels Misumi stiffen.
“Madoka…” Misumi pulls him much tighter. “I’m really happy for you.”
And Madoka suddenly misses his big brother more than anything, even when he’s holding him. He screws his eyes shut tight and he wishes with everything that he has that things will start to change.