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That day, Atsumu nearly died. On a warm summer day, one of those days when a gentle breeze tangles in your hair and tall grass tickles your knees.
Eleven-year-old Osamu runs home, trips, falls, scrapes his knee until it bleeds, but feels no pain. He rarely loses his composure, a trait he has developed since childhood, but now his eyes are filled with tears of fear, and his hands are shaking. He runs into the house, looking for adults, desperately calling for help.
"Grandma! Grandpa!"
It seemed as if everyone had died. They had simply vanished in an instant. Even the dog had run off somewhere. As far as was possible in his condition, Osamu guessed that they had probably gone to the evening market to buy groceries.
"Grandma!" The boy runs into all the rooms, stumbles again, falling on his already broken knee, still not feeling pain.
"Grandma! Grandpa!" The call for help is accompanied by a cough. His voice is broken from screaming and tears.
"Tsumu... Tsumu is dying..."
Osamu is ready to burst into ugly, loud, not-at-all-like-a-boy-ish tears. He often lectured his brother about how men do not cry, but at that moment he was overwhelmed. He closed his eyes and saw the pale, almost lifeless face of Atsumu, his wet hair with seaweed tangled in it. He hears his own screams, remembers his palms giving Atsumu a heart massage, and Tsumu's pale lips, to which he pressed his own, trying to breathe life into his brother and begging him not to die.
"Pull yerself together, Samu," Osamu slaps his cheeks and gets up from the floor.
With confident steps, he directs his feet towards the exit of the house, realizing that there is no point in waiting for help. He will have to cope on his own.
"Told ya that this was a stupid idea," Thoughts flash through his mind as he runs back. "You're an idiot, Atsumu, if ya don't die today, I will kill ya myself."
He is afraid to approach the scene of the incident. It is dark now, he has to walk by touch. The sound of water indicates that he is close, and with each step his heart beats faster and faster in his chest. He is here. Osamu falls to his knees next to his brother's body. Wet clothes stick to his skin suffocating him, restricting his movements. But are they really the clothes that make him feel like that? No, most likely, he is simply overcome by panic.
Osamu rests his head on his brother's chest, praying to every god he knows to hear the precious beat of his twin's heart. But all he hears is white noise. Emptiness. Osamu feels like he's suffocating. He feels a burning sensation in his chest that makes him grab his shirt and squeeze it, sobbing loudly. Is he dying? Is his heart about to stop? Is he going to drop dead right here, next to his brother, in their beloved village, where they loved to come every summer? Osamu is ready to give in.
"Get up," Osamu mutters softly, shaking his brother by the shoulder. "Get up, Idiotsumu. Grandma promised to bake us some buns with sweet beans. I know ya won't open yer eyes for me, but will ya at least do it for Grandma's buns?"
No answer. Osamu gives his brother a heart massage again, rhythmically, like they taught him in school. Out of fear and nerves, he's afraid to press too hard and hurt his ribs. No effect. He leans down to Atsumu's face, lips to lips, breathes air directly into his mouth, only to pull away slightly and see that his brother is still motionless. Still holding his mouth close to Atsumu's, Osamu closes his eyes and buries his nose in his brother's chin.
It can't be that idiot Atsumu died. People like him don't die. They live to spite others, to do dirty tricks and irritate them. All the fights with his brother flash through his head, all the bruises and bumps, all the curses thrown at each other, despite which they both knew that if one of them needed to give their life for the other, they would do it without any second thought.
"Idiot, why it's ya and not me?.." Osamu whispers, burning his twin's chin with hot tears.
He curls up next to his brother, hugging himself with his arms, and realizes that he feels nothing. His feelings suddenly became dull, as if his heart had been torn out of his chest, so that he had nothing to feel with. He remembered how, as children, their mother had told them that twins had a special connection - and if one was feeling bad, the other would feel it. Osamu had even forgotten that he had stopped believing in this myth several years ago, and now he thought that since he felt nothing at all, it meant that Atsumu's heart had finally stopped.
How would he look his grandparents in the eye? What would he tell his mother when he got home? How would he live on, knowing that his brother had died so stupidly, drowned in the river, and he had not managed to save him? How would he look at himself in the mirror and see Atsumu there, remaining a reminder of his dead brother to himself for the rest of his life?
All these thoughts flashed through his head as he lay quietly on the wet grass, powerlessly clutching it in his palm.
He felt a slight convulsive movement next to him, but he did not pay attention to it, too absorbed in his thoughts. When the movement became even stronger, he slowly raised his head. Atsumu was just as pale, motionless, but his eyes-
Osamu's breath caught in his throat.
Atsumu's eyes were open, and a second later his body made a dull sound as he spat out muddy water from his lungs. Atsumu was lying on his side, his weak fingers gripping the ground with the grass flattened by his own weight, his mouth gasping heavily and noisily, as if he had forgotten how to breathe during his unconscious sleep.
And he was not the only one who had forgotten how to breathe. Osamu's eyes were wide open, his arms frozen in a bent position, as if he was going to reach out to his brother.
Tsumu was still coughing harshly, freeing his lungs of water. The coughing did not stop, and large tears glistened on his eyelashes. Atsumu did not know what it felt like to have one's throat cut open, but he could swear that he felt the same way now. The violent coughing made him feel nauseous. Atsumu was able to come to his senses only after he had vomited, and then for the first time he noticed his brother sitting next to him, paralyzed with shock.
"I'm cold,” Atsumu said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and clutching his chest. Everything inside him was burning, as if his lungs were filled with gasoline instead of water, and someone had decided to set it on fire. His chest was heaving, and his hair was wet and full of seaweed. He was cold and scared, shivering and shaking, and it was at that moment that something inside Osamu began to hurt, a sure sign that his feelings had returned to him. His heart was clenched somewhere in his throat again, and it seemed that just a little more, one more sound, and it would jump out of his mouth. His chest felt tight, from fear, from excessive happiness, from relief, from the desire to grab his brother by the collar and beat him so hard that he would forget what an idiot he was.
Instead, Osamu just threw himself at his twin, burying his nose in his shoulder, clutching at his wet, dirty T-shirt, stained with dirt and grass, his tears mixing with the river water that soaked the fabric. The dam of his emotions broke, and he began to sob hoarsely, silently. He held his brother in his own arms tightly, warming him with his own warmth.
"Who asked ya to?!"
Osamu suddenly pulled away and grabbed his brother by the shirt, shaking him, screaming right in his face.
"We were told to walk near the house! Why did ya go into the river, knowing that ya can't swim?! Idiot Atsumu! You're an idiot! You're a pig!"
"I'm...I'm sorry," Atsumu whispered in a voice that was hoarse from coughing, and looked at him in fear: he had never seen his brother worry about him like that before, and it was both very, very touching and very, very scary, "I won't do it again. I promise, Samu, just forgive me..."
Silence hung in the air; Atsumu looked at his brother, his eyes showing surprise at how angry he was with him and how loudly he swore; Osamu felt a lump in his throat, silently shaking his brother by the shirt, as if trying to bring him to his senses and shake all his stupidity out of him.
Having come to their senses in total silence, they headed home. They decided that they would not tell their parents anything - they were used to being independent, to solving their own problems. Atsumu would sit in the corner all evening, consumed by a sense of guilt towards his brother for his thoughtless act; and then Osamu's appetite would return, and he would eat grandma's buns with beans, lying with Atsumu under the stars and not saying a word to him.
Atsumu would glance at his brother, his gaze would be full of silent gratitude.
"Samu."
"What?"
"Yer eyes were all red when I woke up. Were ya crying?"
Osamu would look away and bite into the bun, chewing it thoroughly.
"Yes, I was upset that ya were alive, Idiotsumu," He would say.
Samu would notice how the corners of his brother's mouth would creep up, and he himself would smile quietly.
It seems that the tender feelings buried deep in their souls will never be voiced. But they will always be hidden in mutual reproaches, in caustic remarks, in hands grabbing the jacket and trying to bring the idiot brother to his senses, and in bruises covered with bandages.