Work Text:
Two shrill cries pierce the heavens on a lonely autumn night. Spindly blooms of red spreading over the land as they wail against the injustice of their birth. As if they knew the poison that runs within their own veins. Twin boys of midnight black hair and obsidian eyes are born to a family of gamblers and swindlers. A sign of good luck and fortune. But alas they are poor and must send one away or kill it while it has no name.
"Do not kill the infant," says a shaman. "This is an auspicious sign. Keep the child," they are told, "and use it to absorb all the family's bad fortunes. Yes, this is auspicious indeed."
They present their firstborn to the gods. Wrap him in fine cloths and precious stones stolen from those unfortunate enough to cross their path. Then they hide him away to be raised in a large room with no windows. A mere box with no doors. Only a cage of wood where the boy is separated from his caretakers. And so, the unlucky boy becomes the bearer of his family's sins. And good fortune indeed comes from his suffering.
His family begins to live in excess. Their gambling in pursuit of money brings vast amounts of wealth, they swindle and fool many without consequence. His mother drapes herself in fine silks, his father spends his excess to raise a glass towards his spoils.
Inside his box; without sun or moonlight, his jet black hair turns pure white and his eyes become that of lilac. He does not see the turning of days and months and years. But he feels himself turning with the time.
They call him Ichiro. First born.
His brother, the second born twin, knows of him. His parents would tell him the good deed his older twin has done for them though he's never met him. Their servants bring trays of food to his hiding place. They speak of the boy’s graciousness as they teach him how to speak. When will he meet him? This big brother of his. The family's protector, they say. The neighbours would ask where the first born was, and they would answer ‘their first son was born blue’. Blue. The firstborn is dead, they say. But he can’t be, he hasn’t met him yet.
At the age of seven, he finally finds him. The same face that looks at him from the mirror, wide eyed and pressed against the far wall with only the wooden lattices separating one twin from the other. Flickering light from his stolen lamp illuminating shadows in the windowless room. The light catches on stray white hairs, cropped too close to his scalp. They are the same, he thinks, the same eyes, the same nose, the same lips open in shock and fright. And yet, still different.
"What's your name?" The dark haired boy asks through the bars. The white haired boy only looks at him in fear and curiosity, never having seen a child before. The second born laughs. "Don't you have a name?"
His companion shakes his head.
"Can you talk?"
The white haired boy nods slowly.
"So talk."
" Do I have a name?"
He shrugs. "Do you want one?"
"Yes please."
"Then," he hesitates, "I'll call you Shiro."
"Shiro."
"It means white. Like your hair."
"My hair?" His near mirror reflection brings a hand to the back of his head.
"Don't you know what you look like? I have a mirror. I can show you next time."
Shiro nods, unsure. But if it pleases the other boy - if it means he will return.
"Do you have a name?"
The black haired boy nods enthusiastically. "My name is Gen-" he hesitates. This is his brother. He wants this to be special. "My name is Kuro. It means black.”
His big brother smiles, his laughter melodious as the wind chime that drives away bad spirits from his room. “Like your hair.”
And time passes like this. Almost every day he sneaks away to see him. A mirror in hand, intent to give themselves proof they were brothers. Twins with the same sweet smile and same sparkling eyes and the same cackling laughter. Proof of their existence.
“Hey, Shiro,” he says on the day they turn eight years old. “Come closer, I wanna give you a hug." He's never seen his brother quiet so quickly. Eyes down cast like shame had any right to show itself in their little haven. "Don’t you want one? I thought-" he rambles nervously, “I thought since today was special-”
“Nobody touches me here. You'll inherit my bad luck.”
Kuro rolls his eyes, how silly . He ignores his brother's warnings and reaches through the bars to touch the white hairs on his head.
"Kuro! Don't be stupid!" Shiro shoots up, pressing himself further against the wall. Heart beating too fast. This is dangerous , he thinks.
The younger twin struggles for a moment, frustrated grunts leaving his childish lips. “At least give me your hand. C’mon.”
Shiro tuts at him, both brothers arguing the detriments and benefits of a handshake. Too caught up in their petty fighting, they don’t hear the creak of a door opening, a heavy footstep entering their room.
"Genjiro!"
"Father." Shiro reacts first, bowing low while Kuro remains frozen, caught in the act.
"Don't touch him. You'll get his bad luck." The man sighs, then addresses his son behind the bars with a fatherly smile. "First born, I see you've met your precocious brother. I’ll come and see you tomorrow in the morning as always."
"Yes father."
Does he forget? His first born does not know the meaning of morning.
Genjiro is kept under watch as demanded by his mother. It’s far too dangerous to let them see each other, she says. And so the dark haired boy is kept away. Begging. Begging every day to let him go to his twin. When he finally sees him again, they are ten. The cage is the same except for one thing. Another wall of wooden bars is placed closer into Shiro’s living space. Separated from his guests by two sets of prison bars. Keeping him from reaching out to touch anyone.
"Genjiro. That's your real name, isn't it?” The dark haired boy looks down. "I don't have one. Do I?"
"They call you Ichiro. It's a real name. But I don't know if it's your real name.”
Shiro merely smiles.
"Mother and father tell me I'm doing well. They said I protect the family. I like protecting the family."
Genjiro thinks of the sun outside; its light, its warmth. The flowers in bloom changing every season, their colours so wonderful. The sound of birdsong. The wind rusting the leaves. The red hues of Autumn that surely witnessed their birth.
What is there to protect him from?
“Why won’t they let you out?”
“So that misfortune stays with me here.”
"Did I protect you well enough, Kuro?"
By the time they were fifteen, Genjiro’s daily visits dwindled down to thrice a week as his education permitted. Then once every two weeks as his interests changed; perhaps seeing his brother every day no longer held the novelty it once did. Then, whenever he remembered to. There is someone , he says when Shiro musters up the nerve to ask. His brother cackles high and strong at his flustered red face.
“Good for you little brother,” he teases as he wipes a stray tear.
Visit me often, little brother. He wants to say. Instead Shiro smiles, and his little brother feels the love and reassurance come in waves. “I’ll see you again?”
He receives the same beloved toothy grin, pinched eyes under unruly black hair. “You will.”
His brother is pale in the lamp light; always had been. Though he lived his whole life in the dark, his lilac eyes still shine as if his childlike wonder had never been lost. Pure. Innocent. Like his name. Unlike Genjiro who lived in the sunlight and saw all his family’s sins committed in broad daylight. Innocence gone, guilt piled on with the dark under his eyes. Tainted. Dark. Like his name.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
Shiro merely sighs. “I’m fine . You’d been waiting to travel to the capital for so long, I didn’t want you to stay just for me.”
Sickness of the blood, they say with which there is no cure. So his daily visits return, nevermind angering his teachers - and it’s almost the same as it used to be. They talk about nothing and everything. Genjiro introduces him to new ideas just as he used to.
"You have to try this."
"Have you never heard of that?"
"What about this?"
Just as it used to be, but they are sixteen now and hot blooded and Shiro teases Genjiro for falling in love with someone new every week.
"I'm not in love !"
"So you haven't written poetry yet?"
"Shut up," he grumbles, red faced and steaming.
But his brother laughs in that melodious way he had when they'd first met. With that gentle smile that scrunches his eyes closed. Genjiro can't help but return his smile. Reassured that at least for now his brother is happy. His brother, layered under blankets, complaining every other day of the cold. Shivering in the summer heat.
Until he finds him huddled beneath the pile of quilts; shivering as if it were cold. Slowly, Genjiro watches as the shaking stops, his breathing turning deeper. Losing the battle little by little, too weak to even shiver from the cold. But through the trembling of his weakened arms, Shiro gets up. Upper body hovering over his useless legs. He reaches out an arm past the lattices of his cage. Tries to crawl to him; the wooden barriers, a reminder that this is as far as either of them are allowed to reach. But Genjiro reaches back through the bars, barely close enough to let their fingers touch. Tomorrow, they turn seventeen.
"In my next life, I want to be your big brother again. I want to be stronger to keep the bad karma from you, to suffer our family’s sins like a big brother should."
"Aniki-" Genjiro struggles through the bars, pushing and pushing until he feels the wood bruising his shoulder. “You lived this life for nothing. Why didn’t you fight it!” He wails. “Why didn’t you fight them!”
Why didn’t I try? Why didn’t I try?
"Why, Kuro? I was happy,” he rasps, heartbreaking smile on his face and tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, “just being able to protect you. That's why I was born first. That's why I was born at all." Shiro smiles, his face full of joy, the tears crawling down his cheeks. Not seeing how every word twists a knife in Genjiro’s heart. “I lived my life for my family. Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
At least - God, at least let me touch his finger. Let me share the punishment.
Shiro’s fingers stretch out as he chuckles weakly at Genjro’s attempts to reach him.
"You look stupid."
"Shut up. Don't laugh," he grumbles, voice choked and wet. "You piss me off sometimes, you know that?"
Shiro laughs anyway, and stretches as far as his deteriorating body could go.
"Hey,” he calls out weakly, lilac eyes gentle through the gaps in the bars. “Did I protect you well enough, Kuro?"
It unlocks the burning in his eyes. Flimsy reassurances and lies feel paper-thin in his soul. It hurts. The wood bruising and pushing against his shoulder. Fingers digging into the mat, straw and dirt cutting under his fingernails. His blood, smearing from under his nails, makes it harder to grasp the floor. All of it. All of it hurts. "Just hold on - I’m almost-”
Arms outstretched, straining all the way to the pulse of his fingertips. Shiro's own reaching hand falters. Falls limp and hangs on the lattices, shaking from the battle lost
"It's ok Kuro. You're here. It's ok."
No. No no no no no. It’s not!
"It's ok."
It’ll never be ok again.
They find him screaming outside his brother's prison trying to get in. Bloodied hands scratching at the locks, at the cage. The first born slumped over his pile of quilts, arm outstretched. A gentle smile on his face. When they dump him outside, Genjiro finally sees how pale his brother is. White hair and pale lilac eyes that have never seen the sun. Porcelain skin, thin enough to see the veins running through his body. His pale white hair is marked with pink, like the paintings he's seen in the capital. Painted like peaches in the daylight. His brother's hair had been coloured by the fruits of immortality. His eyes, the storm clouds of heaven.
Immortality. If only.
"What a shame," he hears them say. "It's taken all the bad karma as it can handle. Still, seventeen years of good luck is not bad. Not bad at all."
They give him a beautiful procession. Lavish and excessive. Shiro would have hated it. He looks beautiful, white hair amidst the red lilies as they pour oil on the pyre. His parents weep openly, wailing in grief as if they ever loved him. Tch. They only weep for the loss of their lucky charm.
Only Genjiro feels the true pain of loss- no, not Genjiro. Not anymore.
"My name is Kuro." He says resolutely, placing his palm against the cold hardness of his brother's nameless gravestone. "You were wrong, Shiro. No one is born to suffer."
He watches the flowers he’d planted around his brother’s grave. Autumn turning into winter. Watches as the red petals of the corpse flower wither and fall, preparing for the cold, preparing its departing farewell. Its bright blooms, unable to hold on for dear life before the leaves finally emerge. Never once able to greet each other though they exist as one flower. One entity. They were born as one, but only when the last of the spider lilies’ blooms fell was he finally close enough to touch his brother’s hand. And still too late. His hands had been soft, unmarred by hard labour, and colder than the winter Kuro turned seventeen alone.
His family who lived in excess could not remove themselves from their life of luxury. Gambling and spending and losing and losing and losing. Until they fall to poverty, just like they always should have. Did they forget how their luck has run out? He finds himself grasping at knives and weapons and blunt instruments, shaking from his core. Wishing to give them the death they deserve. But he doesn't. Because his brother doesn't deserve to suffer from his bad decisions. He prays fervently - if he could live honestly; if he could live his life well with goodness and good intentions - then perhaps he would not be a burden to his brother in his rebirth.
But his prayers do not reach heaven. For hundreds of years pass and still his brother is born with peaches for hair in every lifetime.