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Nayuki’s been coming home late. That fact bothered Raito.
He wasn’t blind to the irony of that, of course. He shouldn’t really be one to talk—his own track record for coming back long after dark was just as bad—but somehow, when it was about his brother, it made him uneasy. Nayuki always had the same excuses lined up, you see. Extra studying. Student council duties. Staying behind to help a teacher, or something related to investing... Maybe sometimes even a rare hangout with friends.
But Raito wasn’t stupid. He could tell when he was lying, from the furrow in Nayuki’s brow to the way he wouldn’t look at him in the eyes, not unless they were arguing. Better than anyone, Raito knew the truth Nayuki was working so desperately to conceal: he knew that his little brother was tired.
Tired of him. Tired of having to cover up for his miserable older brother every time Raito came home bloodied and bruised from some EDG3-related friction. Tired of tending to wounds that Raito actively sought out. Tired of screaming into a void, angrily and mournfully and endlessly, and never being heard. Tired of being taken for granted, just like that.
(It was to be expected, really.)
Now, Nayuki has started building a life entirely outside of this suffocating home of Raito’s own making. A flawless, untouchable life. When he isn’t playing the perfect role of a model student, Raito could bet that his brother was quietly analyzing stocks, investing sums of money they’d gotten from selling mahorova into companies—doing literally anything to keep his eyes fixed on a future that didn’t include Raito’s shadow in them. Raito knew it. He’s avoiding him. He’s going to leave Raito behind in the dark.
“…Nayuki will move on without me.”
Raito now sat on the edge of their bathtub, the harsh fluorescent light buzzing overhead, staring down at the glowing screen of his phone. His own eyes and gaze seemed completely and utterly empty.
A notification had popped up on his social media feed. It was a tagged photo. He tapped it, and there was Nayuki.
His brother was sitting at a brightly lit diner table, surrounded by a group of classmates Raito didn’t know. Nayuki was laughing—a genuine, unforced smile that Raito hadn’t seen in years. The very sight of it offered a fleeting, sick, unwelcome comfort to Raito even as it tore him completely apart.
(“Glad I got to have dinner with you, guys! Be safe on your way home!”)
That was the caption. So that’s why he arrived home late this time. He went somewhere with his friends. That’s good. That’s really good, but…
Nayuki…never looked that happy around him. When was the last time he smiled like that around him? It’s been so long, Raito had already forgotten.
“To start with… I was the one who took away your smile…right?”
Here, in this photo, Nayuki looked…so normal. Like a regular teenager, refreshingly untethered from the rotting would-be corpse of Raito’s future death, blending seamlessly into a world where people don’t receive death prophecies about how they’re meant to die young. Nayuki…looked like belonged in such a picture-perfect world.
(Raito already knew that. And yet…)
A strange, conflicting wave of emotion washed over him. A part of him felt a pang of relief, because he really was glad. He was genuinely happy to see his brother living out a seemingly normal life, proving that at least one of them would surely make out of this wreckage intact. But right behind that relief came the traitorous poison of his envy.
He envied it. Oh, how he envied it. He envied the easy laughter, the effortless normalcy, the ability to breathe without feeling a crushing weight on his chest that other people so easily got to have. He envied how Nayuki could get to have that, and not him, while still knowing full well that Nayuki deserved such a good life.
(But could anyone blame Raito?)
Nayuki was the only one.
The only other human in the entire world who knew about Raito’s ticking clock. The only one who knew the truth about his lifespan, about the prophecy, and exactly why Raito gave up on a future. Nayuki knew the terrifying, devastating, ugly truth of why Raito became the mess that he was now. And Nayuki stuck by his side in spite of it. Even if whatever brotherly love he’d had for Raito had since mingled with hatred. Nayuki would always be with him—that’s what Raito thought.
“But even after I die… Nayuki will be able to live on eventually, won’t he?”
The vast, suffocating despair of being the only one with no future made Raito’s chest ache with a hollow sound, and subconsciously, he began to imagine it again—a world without him in it, a world where Nayuki has moved past his death and continued living. It’s the future that Raito had always wanted for his brother. But it was also the future that made him so irreversibly lonely…
“I need a… I need a distraction…”
Raito had stopped doing the more pronounced suicide attempts—the ones that used to bring Nayuki running with a shattered expression and a frantic dialing for the ambulance—and he’d promised himself he’s done with that. But, right now…
The silence in the house was too loud tonight. And he’s no longer at the age wherein he could just run and seek comfort from his parents… He shouldn’t burden them with this…
Quietly, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and reached for the small cutter he’s been keeping hidden inside his pocket. He didn’t lock the door; whether he did that to test something, or because he didn’t care anymore, he didn’t know. He felt like he didn’t have to know.
“This won’t hurt me, anyway.”
He pressed the edge against his left wrist.
The blade glided easier than he expected.
(A clean, shallow sting.)
He wasn’t trying to end things tonight—not like he could, even if he wanted to—so it was just one superficial line, a small bead of crimson slowly swelling against his pale skin. It was supposed to be just enough to break the suffocating numbness and let him breathe. But it wasn’t enough. So, he added another. Then another. Then another…
He watched the thin red lines gradually blossom across his flesh, grounding him in the pain. As he did so, a thought crossed his mind—wondering if he could etch Nayuki’s name into his skin just for the hell of it—but he ultimately decided against it. Let it bleed, he thought instead, a mantra of quiet surrender echoing in his head. I just need let it bleed out a little bit… And then…
.
.
.
.
.
.
All of a sudden, the bathroom door violently collided with the wall as it opened. Raito looked up, and Nayuki now stood in the doorway, his school bag slipping from his shoulder to hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The perfect facade Nayuki wore in that social media photo shattered in a fraction of a second. The moment his eyes drop to the metal and the thin red line on Raito’s skin, the blood drained entirely from Nayuki's face.
“You—!”
Before Raito could even blink, Nayuki had already thrown himself down onto the tiles, right in front of him. The carefully composed younger brother he’d always presented himself to be soon disappeared, replaced by a frantic, trembling boy who gripped Raito’s wrist so tightly it almost bruised. Raito realized at that moment that, yeah, cutting his wrist was something new, wasn’t it? That’s why he was so worried.
“You piece of shit… You said you’d stop!” Nayuki’s voice cracked, completely stripped of its usual calm precision. He was scrambling now, his hands shaking violently as he blindly reached for the cabinet under the sink, knocking over bottles of antiseptic as he fumbled for gauze. “You already risk yourself by associating with those lowlives… and yet you’re trying to kill yourself so blatantly again…!”
At some point, he’d begun to cry, a quiet, desperate and heartwrenching sobbing breaking through his chest as he tried to press a towel against the minor cuts, his blind panic making him completely overlook how shallow they actually were. But even so, it made Raito happy. It made him feel like his loneliness from earlier wasn’t even there.
(See? He just needed to let it bleed a bit.)
Just a bit, and Nayuki came back to him. It was that easy.
“Ah…How many times did you cut yourself… Why do you always…”
“…Nayuki,” Raito interrupted softly. His voice was eerily calm, almost gentle, as it cut through Nayuki’s frantic spiels. With his free hand, Raito reached out and placed it gently on top of Nayuki’s head, giving him a slow, grounding headpat, his fingers weaving slightly through his brother's messy hair to soothe him. Just like what he always used to do. “I’m sorry… Calm down, okay? You’re going to wake up Mom and Dad. You don’t want them to find out, do you?”
Nayuki froze under the familiar, comforting weight of that hand, utterly paralyzed by the cruelty of his words. Helplessly, he could only look up, his tear-filled eyes wide with horror as he stared into Raito’s smiling face, as if silently demanding to know how on earth his brother had become so inhumane.
It was a painful look. It hurt Raito to see Nayuki regard him like he was some broken thing.
“……It’s like I don’t even know you anymore…”
He knew. He knew, with a certainty that killed him inside entirely, that he had to push Nayuki away. He had to make himself so intolerable, or distance himself so completely, or find someone else to burden, all so that his horridness could never reach him again. He had to spare his brother from the agonizing countdown of his short life, of his road to self-destruction—even if it meant being utterly, completely alone in the dark when his time finally ran out. Nayuki needed to move on without him. Raito had to let him move on without him.
“I hate you…… I hate you so much…”
But for now... Raito was still too weak, too terrified of the vast emptiness lying ahead.
His hand slid slowly down from the crown of Nayuki's head, his fingers trembling as he instead rested his palm gently against his brother’s wet, tear-stained cheek. His chest ached as he let out a shaky, uneven breath. He leaned down slightly, whispering another soft, broken apology into the dark—selfishly holding onto his brother’s love for just one more night, even as the sheer guilt of it broke his heart into pieces.
“I know, Nayuki… Forgive me.”