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"What are you doing?"
He doesn't say it urgently, like he's trying to stop her. Ena stood on the edge of the roof atop their apartment building. By her feet, there were one or two, or maybe one hundred burnt out cigarettes that covered the ledge in ash. Ena's hair blew in the wind and her breath stunk of smoke. She looked back at her little brother.
"Why are you up here?" She asked him instead of answering.
He didn't break eye contact. He stared and stared at her before picking up one of the only unlit cigarettes by Ena's feet and lighting it with the lighter he pulled out of his pocket. He then joined her, and stood on the ledge.
"Go away, Akito."
"You're going to jump, aren't you?"
She turned to look him in the eyes. Her heart burned a strange heat when she saw how lifeless and dead they were. Akito's bright green eyes were now icy and stared forward, looking at the city below.
She swallowed.
He took a final, long puff of the cigarette, and then threw it off the edge. He grabbed her hand in his.
Ena looked down. Her eyes watered. His hands are so big now. Her little brother, he's so grown. She grips it so, so hard, hard enough to break the bones in his hand, he didn't say anything.
"If you're going to do it, then I'm doing it with you."
Tears began to stream down her face, she felt her heart drop. Where did she go wrong? Akito, his face was so fucking numb it scared her.
"No. Akito, no. Go back downstairs. Now— get off of the fucking ledge right now. Leave." He still wouldn't look at her. Why won't he fucking look at her?
"The stars are so beautiful tonight." God.
"Akito. Please, go to bed now, Aki—"
He turned to look at her once again. His eyes were wet. He leaned forward and gave her a kiss on her left cheek, like they were young again. He kissed her forehead, then her other cheek, then her hand and Ena was sobbing.
"Maybe you're right, Ena. If you aren't ready, then we shouldn't do it here." He stepped off the ledge and held her steady as she stepped off as well. She felt her legs shake. Ena couldn't see, the tears were blurring her vision so much. It was so, so frustrating because she wanted to see his face. They both collapsed to the ground. Akito was as silent as a human could be and Ena was not.
"Why? W-why Akito? Why you too? What about Kohane-san, huh?! A-And Touya-kun! Your friends, the people that matter, how could you do this to them. You stupid— selfish idiot! Please, it's not your time. Please." Ena knew how hypocritical she was being, but she didn't care. She weakly beat her fist into his thin body. God, why is he so thin?
"Ena."
"Akito, I love you so much, I'm so sorry for being such a fuck up, but please— go."
"Ena."
"Jesus— what?!"
"I think I just killed dad." He said. Ena could feel the blood drain out of her face and her hands. The wind howled by their ears.
"W—What?" She lifted her face out of his chest.
"I— I thought— uhm. He broke," He stuttered.
"Akito, what are you talking about?"
"I slashed his neck.”
“This isn't funny.”
Akito continued on like he hadn't heard her, “He was screaming about something on the TV and banged the wall out of frustration— or something, I don’t know. He— he broke the frame that holds the award you won for your charcoal portrait. It felt like, suddenly I had blinked and he was dead in my hands and my body was covered in his blood."
"Are— you serious? You— you really, oh my god." She put her hands on his face and stroked his hair. "My— oh god. You— my little brother. Jesus.”
Akito drew his eyebrows together and began to cry. "You-... you're not— mad? At me?"
"I,” Ena hesitated, her voice getting caught in her throat. “I don't know what to think, Aki. You know I hate that man. God, I hate him so much."
"I know."
"You really...? Over my award?" She couldn't bring herself to say it.
"I didn't even know I was doing it until it was done, I swear. I didn't mean to— please believe me, I didn't mean to..." His face was red, redder than she had ever seen it, and covered in snot and tears.
They sat in silence. Their heartbeats louder than the wind.
"Hey, let's go take a bath." She shuddered out a breath, and shakily rose to her feet, holding her hand out to her little brother. Akito took her hand and walked side by side with her down the stairs to their apartment. They said nothing, and Ena knew what she was about to find in her living room.
Once they reached the mat in front of their apartment, Ena took Akito's head and brought it to her chest, shielding his eyes. She then opened the door, and the smell of blood overcame every sense in her body. Then she saw him, the man she called Father, sitting in a pool of his own blood, and a broken frame on the floor. She looked away, squeezing Akito closer to her body when she felt him tremble, and guided him and herself to the bathroom they shared. Ena released Akito's eyes. They were still shut so tight under her hands, it looked like it hurt.
Still in silence, because what was there to say, other than everything, she sat Akito on the toilet and petted his hair. The orange was starting to fade, just a little bit, but the bleached streaks still stood strong. Ena faced away from the boy, and moved to the tub, turning the knob to be warm, but not too hot. She glanced at Akito, his eyes were now open, but they were just as dead as the last time she looked into them, and staring at the ground.
Ena took off her shirt, her skirt, and unbraided her hair. She was left in her undershirt and underwear, and
then she turned to Akito, who had also undressed himself, still wearing his boxers. She could count his ribs and see his hip bones jutting out of his boxers.
The tub had filled and Akito stepped into it first, Ena following shortly after. They both sat down at opposite sides of the tub, their legs meeting in the middle and framing each other. Now that Akito wasn't clothed, Ena could see the blood etched on his skin from their father. She could also see cuts littering his arms and a couple on his thighs. They seemed pretty damn deep and she wanted to pull all of her hair out because how could she not have known that her baby brother was suffering so much?
"Can you— hold me— for a little bit?" Akito muttered, and Ena moved over to the side he was on so fast that she sloshed a good amount of water out of the tub and onto the floor tiles. She fit snugly between his legs and wrapped one arm around his waist and the other held his head.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. What are we going to do now?" He asked her in the smallest, most afraid voice ever to come out of him. Ena's heart burned again. The truth was, she didn't know. She didn't know what to do about her father, she didn't know how to save her brother, she didn't know what to do.
Then an idea struck her. Maybe, just maybe, they could run away and hide, just for a bit.
"Hey, it's okay. How about, in a little bit, we call a police officer to come to our house. We can tell them that he did it to himself, that we were on the roof the who-o-ole time, that we had no idea what happened. And then after that, we can ask them to send us to a place for... you know... 'sick' people. They probably won't question it, given the circumstances." She told him. There was a drop of water stuck in Akito's eyelashes, and Ena felt herself smile at it.
"Sick people?" He blinked, and the droplet fell from his eyelash.
"Mentally sick people. We can go to the mental institution, have a little relaxing vacation there, yeah? It'll be good for us, I think. We can talk to people whenever we want about our thoughts, we can walk away from this accident, and then once we are free, we can move in with Ken-san and An-chan until I can get a job, okay? Buy us a nice house, maybe? It'll be okay, Akito." She stroked his hair and shut her eyes, suddenly feeling very sleepy, wanting this whole situation to be over with.
"Okay. Yeah, we should do that..." Akito answered, and then yawned. Ena was so overwhelmed with love for him. She could do this, she would save her little brother from this mess, no matter what.
They sat in the tub until the water had long gone cold. Ena shampooed both her and Akito's hair and they giggled like they were children again. The water was stained a reddish-pink from the blood Akito scrubbed off his body, but they ignored it. Once they were completely cleaned, they stood up and dried themselves off with towels that had designs from a children's TV show on them that the two siblings had completely outgrown.
"I'm going to get dressed, you should too. Then I'm going to make a call, and we'll be on our way to our vacation, okay?"
Akito's calm expression dropped and shifted into something that could only be described as nervous.
"Don't worry, your sisters' got some good acting skills, The police will believe everything I say. I'll keep you safe."
The expression on his face didn't change, but he nodded and started to go to his room. Ena let out a sigh when she heard him shut the door behind him.
The phone call was hard, and remembering her address was even harder, but she did it. Her head pounded from forcing tears out of her eyes to make the call sound more believable, and then she hated herself even more than she already did because she had to act like she was sad her father was dead.
Ena threw her phone somewhere onto her floor and immediately went to Akito's room, where Akito had passed out on his bed. Ena smiled and crawled next to him under the covers. She held him while running fingers through his damp hair, until a woman in a police uniform came into their house and escorted them to the ambulance outside.
Akito's hand was in hers the whole ride to the hospital, where they would have to spend a day at, answering questions about their father, before they could go to the mental institution.
Akito laid his head on his sister's shoulder and whispered "I love you," to her every forty seconds. And every single time, she would reply with "I love you more."