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Osomatsu had been watching TV when Choromatsu, reading next to him, suddenly looks up and asks, “Has anyone seen Karamatsu lately?”
Osomatsu doesn’t bother to answer; he certainly hasn’t, and if any of their other brothers has, they’d speak up.
To his (not much) surprise, no one does, despite all of them being in the room (except Karamatsu, of course).
He looks away from the TV to see Choromatsu’s brows furrowing concernedly as he looks over at their younger brothers. Todomatsu glances up from his cellphone when he feels their gazes on him, shrugging in reply, while Ichimatsu is completely ignoring them all as he plays with ESPER Nyanko.
“I saw him!” Jyushimatsu answers brightly from where he’d been rolling around on the floor. Choromatsu visibly relaxes and asks, “Really? When did you see him?”
Jyushimatsu stops rolling halfway across the room and holds up four fingers.
“Four minutes ago?” Choromatsu guesses, surprised.
“No!” Jyushimatsu answers.
“Four hours?” Osomatsu guesses next.
Jyushimatsu shakes his head. “No!” he shouts brightly.
Choromatsu stands, frowning again as he looks down at the second youngest Matsuno. “Four days ago?” he says desperately.
“NO!” Jyushimatsu shouts, sitting up.
“Then when did you last see him?!” Osomatsu asks, annoyed now that there’s a question with no answer staring him in the face.
“Four months ago!” Jyushimatsu says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and then he falls back onto the floor and resumes rolling.
“FOUR WHAT?!”
“How did none of you notice that Karamatsu’s been gone for four months?” Osomatsu demands as he rummages through said brother’s drawers, searching for any clue that he might’ve left behind as to his whereabouts.
“I always just assumed he was with one of you guys,” Todomatsu answers defensively, typing at breakneck speed so he can ask his followers if any of them has seen a lamer, creepier version of him around. “How did you not notice, Osomatsu-niisan?” he shoots back venomously.
Osomatsu snorts in answer. “It’s not like Karamatsu hangs out with me often,” he says pointedly. “Isn’t he usually with you, Jyushimatsu?” he asks, glancing over at where the yellow-clad Matsuno is hanging from the window to make sure the missing Matsuno really isn’t on the roof after all.
“Karamatsu-niisan stopped playing baseball with me because Ichimatsu-niisan kept throwing the bats at him,” Jyushimatsu answers cheerfully.
They all look over at Ichimatsu, standing in a corner of the room watching them. “He told me he’d spend more time with Choromatsu,” he says flatly.
All eyes shift to the third-eldest Matsuno, who raises his hands in front of him defensively, saying, “The crowds at Nyaa-chan’s concerts were too much for him, so he stopped coming with me after the second time!”
Osomatsu gives them a disappointed grunt as he turns back to Karamatsu’s drawer. “You guys are so full of shit,” he says.
Choromatsu bristles at his words. “Like you’re one to talk! At least I noticed he was gone!”
Todomatsu snickers behind his phone. “Yeah, after four months,” he says.
Choromatsu shoots him a glare, shutting up the youngest instantly. “He probably hasn’t even been gone that long,” he says rationally, though there’s doubt in his voice. “We just haven’t noticed when exactly was the last time we saw him.”
Ichimatsu nods his head in agreement. “Kusomatsu’s probably been home and went out to pick up girls again,” he says logically.
Osomatsu grunts in response. His brothers are right; they’re probably just blowing this out of proportion, just like they always do. But now that Choromatsu has brought their missing brother up, there’s a nagging feeling of unease in the back of his throat. He truly hasn’t seen Karamatsu in a long time, too long, and despite their excuses, there’s no way that that’s possible.
Even if they haven’t been spending time with Karamatsu lately, they should’ve at least seen him when they went to bed. But Osomatsu’s just realized the emptiness of their futon now, the gaping hole left behind by the absence of his painful younger brother.
It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now that he thinks about it, he hasn’t seen Karamatsu at all for the past four months. The last time he’s seen him is at Chibita’s oden stand, drinking with them and having a great time as usual. That had been, as Jyushimatsu had estimated, about four months ago.
Osomatsu can’t shake off the feeling that something seriously isn’t right.
“Maybe if we stay up all night, we can catch him sneaking home?” Choromatsu suddenly suggests.
Osomatsu pauses, turning with a doubtful look on his face. “Why would he have to sneak home?”
“It could all be just an attention-grabbing tactic?” Choromatsu says, although he doesn’t sound convinced of his own words. “Maybe he’s watching us right now, all smug that we’re worrying about him?”
“Who says I’m worried?” Ichimatsu immediately says, and Choromatsu sighs.
“Okay, the rest of us are worrying about him,” he corrects.
Osomatsu looks at him dubiously but sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “It’s not like I can find anything in his junk, all I found are more shades and some stones from the park,” he complains, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Choromatsu laughs, more than glad to play along. Todomatsu just rolls his eyes at his older brothers and says, “Well, none of my followers have seen him, either, so maybe he’s been hiding out downstairs with mom? He’ll come back up when it’s time to sleep.”
Everyone (except for Ichimatsu and Jyushimatsu) verbally agree to stay up all night, each of them with the same thoughts on their minds; You’d better have a good reason for not hanging out with your brothers any more, Karamatsu! You’re not being the first Matsuno to get a life!
The first sleepless night followed many, many more, until a week passed since their discovery and they could no longer deny that Karamatsu was well and truly missing.
They didn’t know what to do, so they approached their mother about it.
After raging at them (Osomatsu, for losing a younger brother, and the others, for treating their elder brother poorly and probably causing him to run away), Matsuyo and Matsuzo travelled down to the police station and filed an official missing persons’ report for Karamatsu. The brothers were confined to the house until further notice.
Stuck in their room, they had nothing to do but wallow in their worries and guilt. They wondered if Karamatsu had truly run away like their mother had suggested, or if something terrible had happened to him. They didn’t know which was worse.
Weeks passed, with the police showing no signs of getting any closer to finding their brother, and the sextuplets decided to take matters into their own hands. They came up with a schedule, times when and which of them would go out to search for their brother.
Since Karamatsu’s disappearance, their parents had become weary of letting them out of the house. It was ridiculous, considering they were twenty-something adults, but their mother was truly heartbroken over ‘losing’ Karamatsu, and their father (no matter how much he complained about his children’s uselessness) was faring no better.
And so they had to take turns going out in search of their brother, not wanting to cause their parents further worry. They would always go in pairs, and since there were only five of them left, one had to go twice more than the rest.
To everyone’s surprise, Ichimatsu had volunteered freely to be the one. He hadn’t given a reason for it, merely staring at them wordlessly with his flat, emotionless eyes when they’d asked, and they’d wisely left it at that. Whatever his reasons, they were glad that Ichimatsu truly cared enough to want Karamatsu found, despite how much he seemed to hate their painful brother.
Days of searching evolved into weeks, and weeks eventually to months. They’d searched every nook and cranny of their town, and they were no closer to finding their brother than when they’d first started. They were beginning to lose hope of ever finding Karamatsu.
Osomatsu took it the hardest, blaming himself for not being a more responsible older brother. He often searched for Karamatsu alone, despite his brothers’ protests, and more than during the scheduled times, and when he wasn’t searching, he was drinking his anger away at Chibita’s oden stand.
Choromatsu felt bad for him, but he could understand what he was going through. After all, being the smartest and most reliable brother, he definitely should’ve been more aware of Karamatsu’s presence (or lack thereof) in the house. Osomatsu hadn’t noticed because these were the kinds of things Choromatsu would notice. Osomatsu depended on him to do this, and he’d failed him, he’d failed his brothers and his parents.
Meanwhile, Ichimatsu kept remembering every single insult he’d ever thrown at Karamatsu, every threat he’d ever made against him. He kept hearing his own harsh, ‘Just die already!’ playing over and over in his mind and he couldn’t sleep from the sound of his own voice tormenting him. He was just trash, and he’d made his own brother disappear because of how much a terrible person he was and he wished he’d been the one to disappear instead.
The only ones who were relatively calm about their situation were Jyushimatsu and Todomatsu. No one knew what was going on in Jyushimatsu’s mind, but Todomatsu was in some kind of denial.
To be honest, he couldn’t really feel like his brother was truly gone, and it both bothered yet comforted him. He knew he should be just as worried as the others, but he also couldn’t help but feel like Karamatsu was just playing a prank on them. Any time now, he would jump out of their mother’s shopping basket and say that it had all been just a joke to see how much they’d miss him. It didn’t matter that the joke was tasteless and cruel, but it was the only thing that made sense because Karamatsu couldn’t possibly be gone. He’d never just disappear without at least saying goodbye to his favourite youngest brother.
Throughout it all, they kept searching, and hoping, but again and again, they found nothing.
The Matsuno brothers were slowly falling apart at the seams, as it were.