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“I’m going out now, Osomatsu nii-san! Take care of yourself, and for the love of God, please try not to destroy the whole house while I’m out!”
You watch your little brother as he hastily slips his shoes on and gets his stuff together at the front door. Despite his little condescending quip, he looks just as joyful and excited as if he’d won the lottery. He stands there, preening and fussing over himself, wearing his best suit and carrying an extremely expensive-looking box of chocolates. Once he’s finished getting himself oriented, he turns back to you with a smile and a wave.
“I’ll probably be back in a few hours. Bye, Nii-san!”
You nod and give him a half-hearted wave back.
“Yeah… see ya.”
He’s practically beaming as he rushes out the door and carelessly slams it behind him. Once silence overtakes the house again, you slump against the wall and let out a huge, heavy sigh.
You hate doing this every time.
You know exactly how this little night of his is going to turn out. It’s gonna be just like every other one he’s gone on. Maybe there’ll be some small variations here and there, but the outcome is always the same.
Just how many blind dates is Choromatsu going to go through before he gets it through his head that this is not how to find love with someone?
When will he get it through his thick, stupid virgin skull that the one who loves him is already standing right in front of his face, and has been literally all his life?
…
About five hours later, you hear him slide the front door open. As you walk over to greet him, you can already see that it turned out just as you’d expected. He smiles at you when he sees you, but his tired, hunched posture and his sluggish movements tell you all you need to know. That fat red slap-mark on his face is a pretty good indicator, too. For formality’s sake, though, you go ahead and ask him anyway.
“So, how did it go?”
He sighs lightly, hugging the crumpled chocolate box to his chest and looking off into the corner.
“We just… didn’t really go well with each other, I guess. Too many things different between us that clash in... unpleasant ways, you know?”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
You instantly feel guilty for being sarcastic to him after he got dumped, again, so you take his hand and lead him into the kitchen.
“Come on, let’s get some ice for your face.”
Silently, you walk to the freezer with him and take out an ice pack, handing it over to him and watching him wince as he presses it up to his ugly red welt. Even now, you can see that he’s still trying his hardest to smile. He’s still trying so hard to believe that this is good for him, that this will help him find someone who will love him unconditionally… and between that and the injury, you’re not sure what pisses you off more.
“It’s okay, Nii-san… don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright. I just have to try again with someone else, you know…?”
Never mind, it’s that. That’s what makes your gut flare up with anger and gives you the urge to tell him off right then and there.
But you don’t. You’re too much of a coward to do that. Instead, you pat him on the back and give him a lopsided smile.
“Yeah… just try and look out for yourself, okay?”
He just smiles and nods like the liar that he is.
……
Not even a week later, he’s at it again. And then again the week after that. And the week after that. And so on, and so forth. It may be a different day, and it may be a different girl, or even a guy here and there, but the outcome is always the same.
He gets a bit better at it as time goes on. He gets to the point where he’s not let down quite as harshly as before. The times where he’s flat-out left standing at his arranged meeting place grow fewer and farther between. Sometimes, if he’s really lucky, he even manages to bring someone back home with him for an hour or so.
One look at any of them and you can tell the relationship is doomed from the start.
The first one’s a kinda creepy, closed-off chick who just stares at everything vacantly and pretty much makes Choromatsu do all the talking for her. You give her two weeks at most. She disappears in a week and a half.
The next one is a loud, airheaded ganguro valley girl who takes selfies every five minutes, takes up all the space immediately around her and seems to literally never stop talking, leaving Choromatsu to sit hunched up next to her and meekly nod at everything she says. She’s gone by the end of that week.
Then there’s a stuffy, strict-looking office lady who has stupid, meticulous rules about everything, constantly snapping at Choromatsu and at you for the most trivial, asinine things. She scoffs loudly when he starts talking about a new Nyaa-chan album he’s getting, and you can practically hear him deflate like a punctured inner tube as he sits back and trails off into silence. You give her three days. She’s gone in two.
As the weeks go by and he keeps throwing himself into relationship after failed relationship, you can see just how much it’s wearing him down. Every time you look into his eyes, you see how listless and vaguely fearful they’ve become, how they rarely shine anymore even when he’s pretending to be happy. You see it in the way he seems to huddle even further into himself than he did before, as if to take up as little space as possible. You hear it in the way he starts apologizing for increasingly stupid and inane things. I’m sorry for eating so loud. I’m sorry for taking a bath without telling anyone. I’m sorry for watching this DVD that is mine on the family TV that I have just as much right to use as anyone else in this house.
It pisses you off. You want so badly to tell him to stop.
You want to tell him to stop changing.
You love him just as he is. You love everything about him, even the things that piss you off a lot of the time. So to see him trying so hard to change who he is, what makes him Choromatsu, to try and please all these strangers who don’t even matter… it makes your blood boil. You hate it.
And what frustrates you more than anything is that you’re too cowardly to tell him so. These feelings of yours aren’t normal… You know that, and he’ll know that too if you say anything. And you also know that the chances of him feeling the same way are slim to none.
You want to make his life better. You want to give him the love that none of these people will, the love that he deserves so much more than they’ve made him think he does. But you know that telling him will only make things harder on him than they already are… it’ll only add more stress and self-doubt to his life that he doesn’t need.
So you don’t tell him. All you can do is stay there by his side, and help him pick himself back up every time he gets knocked down.
You stay with him every time he gets giddy and excited about someone new he’s met on that stupid dating website he uses. You help him pick out suits and buy chocolates and try out a bunch of smelly cologne that probably costs him his entire allowance. You see him off at the front door as he leaves with his heart full of hope, and you’re right there every time he comes back alone, another piece of him gone, another crack in his heart, and more often than not, an excessive amount of alcohol in his system. You hold him as he cries into your shoulder and asks you over and over what he did that made everything go wrong, or if there might be something wrong with him.
You want to make him stop. You want more than anything to quit this stupid hiding game and give him the love that he wants so badly from them. You want to take his tear-stained face in your hands, to kiss those tears away and tell him that he’s beautiful, that he’s a joy to be around, that anyone who can’t see that has no idea what they’re missing and all that good, sappy shit.
You want to tell him that you will give him all the love he deserves, and more. You’ll be more than happy to give him all the love he could ever want.
But you don’t, because you’re still a coward. You just stand there with your mouth firmly shut and let him talk.
… At least you can still give him love in small, subtle ways. You can listen to him when he starts fanboying over his idols and new anime posters and such. You can watch his anime and play his video games with him, and most of the time actually enjoy them more than you thought you would. You can make him a surprise snack now and then, “just ‘cause I felt like it”.
You can do these tiny things to make his day just a little bit brighter, and make him smile after life keeps kicking him into the mud. And maybe, just maybe, you can learn to content yourself with just that.
Every so often, though, as you hold him after another failed date, you try to ever-so-subtly tell him what you think of everything he’s been doing to himself.
“Y’know… have you ever thought that maybe you should quit this whole online dating thing?”
He never answers you. And you never have the courage to say anything more than that.
……
… Then one day, miraculously, he finds a girl who really seems to click with him. For once he comes home happy, and hopeful, and going on and on about how she’s so great and funny and nice and oh my god Nii-san you just have to meet her!
And when you do meet her, you see that he was right. She’s a genuinely nice girl, not too loud but not totally closed off, letting Choromatsu actually get a word in but having plenty to contribute to the conversation herself. She even likes a lot of the same weird idol and otaku crap that he does, and it’s almost too much for you to listen to both of them nerding out about it all at once.
You honestly don’t have an estimate for how long this one will last. Everyone else is convinced that they’re a perfect match, and even you’re starting to believe that your little bro may have finally found exactly what he’s been looking for.
You’re a little relieved… but at the same time, there’s a deep, black, festering pit forming in your stomach.
You’re happy for him, of course… all you really wanted was to see him happy, right? Now he has someone who will treat him properly and make him feel like he matters, and that’s all you asked for, right…?
No. You know very well what this feeling is. It’s a horrible, selfish feeling, but every time you see them happy together, it consumes you and makes you feel physically sick.
You want to support your little brother. You want him to be happy, and now he is. He has someone who truly loves him and appreciates him as he is, rather than trying to change him into the person they want him to be.
… But as the days and weeks go by and they only seem to grow closer and happier with each other, you reach the point where you find yourself actively wishing for something to go horribly wrong. You want them to fail. You want your brother to be miserable and heartbroken again.
You want him to be heartbroken so you can swoop in and make everything better.
You're a horrible person. Of all the assholes in this world who don’t deserve him, you deserve him the least.
So you stay quiet, as always, and support him with all you've got. That's all you can really do, isn't it? It's the only thing you can do to help him achieve the perfect happiness you want him to have, that he's worked so hard to earn. And you can learn to accept that... You'll just have to learn to accept that his happiness will never be with you.
That's why you're not sure how to feel when it all falls apart again.
He leaves one night to pick her up and bring her home with him... and an hour later, he comes back alone. You greet him at the door as always, and it only takes one look at him for you to understand exactly what happened. The mood from before, from the countless nights you spent consoling him time and time again, hangs heavy in the air.
You open your mouth to welcome him home, but he pushes past you before you can even get the first word out. As you watch him walk into the kitchen, you can hear him fumbling around in the fridge. You stand in the doorway and watch him pull out five cans of beer, cracking one open and taking a long, heavy swig from it, and you know that this night is not going to be pleasant for either of you.
You follow him as he gathers the cans in his arms and moves over to the couch, where he plops himself down and drops them carelessly beside him. Right now, you're very thankful that everyone else made plans to be out of the house so they could leave him alone with his girlfriend.
You watch him, totally silent, as he sits there and stares off at nothing, taking long drinks from his beer every now and then. He's gone through two of them and is starting on his third before you can finally bring yourself to say something.
"I told you, bro... it's not good to put that much faith in people you don't know." He doesn't answer. He doesn't even turn his head. He just lifts his can and takes a small sip. You wait a bit before trying to speak again.
"I know it hurts, but if you keep going at it like this, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment-"
He slams his still-mostly-full can on the table, spilling beer all over it, and whips his head up to look at you with an angry glare.
"I get it, okay!? I fucking get it!!"
The loudness and intensity of his response make you flinch, and anything else you were going to say promptly dies in your throat. He, on the other hand, appears far from done.
"I was stupid to think it'd ever work! I know that! I was a fucking idiot to think I'd find anyone who can stand to be around me for more than ten seconds!"
He takes a long, angry swig, nearly choking on it, before going on. You already want to stop him, but you don't. You know it's better for him to get this out.
"Well, I'm doing exactly what you said I should! I'm quitting! I'm never going back to that fucking site ever again! I'm never dating anyone ever again! I'm done! I'm fucking done!!"
He drains the rest of his can and tosses it on the ground, throwing himself back on the couch and going silent again, covering his face with his hand. At that point, you can't just stand there anymore. You walk over to the couch and sit yourself down next to him, staring at him as you try to think of something, anything, to say. But nothing comes, so instead, you cautiously scoot closer to him and lay your hand on his shoulder.
Not even three seconds after you touch him, he throws himself against you and wraps his arms around you tightly. You can feel him shaking like a leaf, you can hear his wet sniffles and tiny, hitching breaths that tell you he's doing everything he can to hold his sadness in.
"...Why am I never good enough, Nii-san...? Why can't I ever make it work...?"
His sniffles turn into quivering sobs that grow louder and less coherent as he keeps talking.
"What do I have to do...? I don't understand... what do I have to do to make someone love me...?"
He buries his face into your shoulder, in the same spot he’s buried it every time before, grips your shirt hard, and finally lets himself completely lose it.
“Why won’t anybody love me, Nii-san!?”
You listen to him as he wails without restraint, in a way you haven’t heard him cry since he was eight years old. It’s loud, it’s ugly, it’s painful, and it almost makes you want to start crying right along with him. Now, more than any other time in your life, you want to grab his face, kiss him with everything you’ve got, and tell him that you love him, that he’s your entire world, and that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that he never cries like this again.
But you don’t, because you’re a fucking coward.
Instead, you sit there and comfort him in tiny ways, just as always. You rub his back, you stroke his hair, you shush him gently. And through it all, you don’t utter a single word.
You have no right to say anything... because you wished for this to happen.
Gradually, his sobs begin to quiet down into soft, shuddering hiccups, and finally into slow, even breaths. Once you’ve checked and confirmed that he’s completely passed out, you scoop him up and move off of the couch, intending to lay him back down in a position more suitable for sleeping.
But you stop as you look down at his sleeping face, still red and damp with tears. You see his mouth hanging open just slightly, and you realize you have a chance in front of you that you will probably never have again.
Even if he never knows it, you can still show him just how much you love him.
Carefully, while still trying to keep a steady hold on him, you lean your head down and kiss him. You gently pry his lips open with your tongue and run it along the surface of his own. You find at that moment that you’re too scared to go any further... but you’re fine with that. You’re so happy to have gotten to do just this.
Suddenly, you feel him start to stir, and you quickly pull away, fervently praying to yourself that he’s not going to wake up and piece together what you’ve just done to him.
And he doesn’t... He only shifts a bit and starts mumbling something incoherently in his sleep. You start to catch something distinct, though, and you lean in again to hear him better.
“...... rei... ka...”
... Oh.
Reika. His old girlfriend.
Not you.
All at once, your stomach drops and you feel dizzy, because you finally understand. Any small fragment of hope you might have been holding onto has now been well and truly smashed.
He doesn’t love you. And no matter how many shitty dates and breakups he goes through, he is never going to love you.
... You lay him down on the couch, grab a blanket from the corner of the room, and tuck him in. And the whole time you do it, you’re choking back your own quiet laughter. Or is it crying? You’re not sure anymore.
After you’ve finished, you allow yourself to watch over him for a while. When you decide you’ve had long enough, you give him a quick kiss on the cheek, leave him to sleep, and head downstairs to grab a beer or five for yourself.
He’s not the unlovable one. It’s you.
It’s always been you.