Work Text:
Once, when Kusuke was small, and Kusuo was even smaller, they were at the wedding of one of their dad’s colleagues.
Kusuo was apathetic about attending the whole thing, being unsociable as usual. He was only there for the cake.
Kusuke, taking the chance to show his brother up in this at least, was playing the part of the perfectly polite and clever child. A little too old at eight to use his cuteness factor alone, he’d used big words and literary references far above his level and had all the adults fawning over him in no time.
Until it was time to have cake. Kusuo’s turn for his slice and his eyes were shining with excitement, but another kid was running carelessly, shoving in line and slamming right into Kusuo, sending faceplanting into cake and crashing down the little foldable outside table, collapsing it.
When he looked up, his face was covered in white frosting and shiny with tears.
And they’d laughed. All of them. All the kids in line and even the adults.
Kusuke decided then and there that humanity was worthless. How can someone stand there and laugh while his precious Kusuo, his rival, his joy, the thing that gives his life meaning, is crying on the floor? The one edge he has over Kusuo, his charisma, the one thing he’s better at than Kusuo, charm, and it’s useless.
Kusuo sat up a little, wiped his face on his sleeve, which left it covered in even more frosting. Kusuo was fully sobbing now, hiccupping heaves using his entire chest. Those pests only roared with more laughter.
They stopped laughing when Kusuke grabbed the kid who’d shoved him and slammed his head against the ground. Pummeled him until his face was a mess that matched Kusuo’s, only with blood instead of frosting.
The tears were the same, though.
Everyone looked on in shocked horror as he stood up from where he’d been using his legs to cage the kid to the floor. It was like time had stopped.
He walked the few steps over to Kusuo, icy and calm back to normal.
He’d stopped sobbing. Still sniffling a little, though.
"Are you okay?” He asked, sweet as sugar, ignoring the bawling kid behind him.
Kusuo nodded.
I could have done that myself.
“You probably would have ended up killing him.” Kusuo says aloud, not caring that Kusuo hadn’t given a verbal response. Not caring that they wouldn’t even know he and Kusuo were having a conversation. Not caring what all those barbarians thought of him and Kusuo, the only two people in the world that matter at all.
Kusuo sniffled a little more and got quiet. Kusuke took some of the fancy napkins, the ones engraved with the inconsequential bride and groom’s names on them, and wiped Kusuo’s face carefully. Cleaned off the frosting, the snot, the tears until was all clean.
“Better?”
The kid behind him had gone silent. Good.
My face, yes. The rest of me, not so much.
Kusuke wrapped his arm around Kusuo’s shoulders and gave him a little squeeze.
“We’ll clean you up all the way once we get home.”
Thank you. Kusuo “said” and he sounded genuine. He was thanking him for more than the cleaning, Kusuke is sure.
“It’s no trouble, little brother.” Kusuke had said, and he meant it from the bottom of his heart. “No trouble at all.”