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When we were little and I was so, so sick, Tsukasa was still pretty wild, but it was hyperactive 3 year old little boy wild. I’m pretty certain that Tsukasa would’ve been one of those little kids who needed to wear a leash disguised as a backpack in public back then. Heck, I might’ve been too, if I’d been well enough to take more than five steps before I couldn’t breathe and my entire world started going sparkly and then splotchy black and I had to be carried or put in a stroller like a baby…
Maybe I’d have been bad, too, if I’d just had the chance. Or maybe Tsukasa just doubled his bad to make up for his pathetic twin not having the energy to be bad at all.
After Tsukasa wished me better… It was so weird! But in a good way! I woke up and… I was fine. Better than fine! I could eat whatever I wanted without being too tired to chew it. I was able to run and play with Tsukasa like I’d always wanted to do! My parents had my doctor come to the house and he was stunned. So stunned that they took me into the city to the hospital and did a lot of tests and… I was just a normal, healthy kid. Just liked Tsukasa!
I got to play with Tsukasa and enjoy everything being so good, but it was only for a couple of weeks. He was really hyper and so proud that he saved me. But, he was starting to get a little upset, because he said the god was getting grouchy because I was being rude and that I needed to go show it how healthy I was and to say thank you, but…
So… I was kinda a scaredy cat when I was a kid. Tsuskasa said it was so cool and lived in a pit under there and he gave it stuff to eat. When I asked what stuff, he said animals worked best. I said that was really gross and not very nice to the animals. Tsukasa just shrugged. Then he asked me if I wanted to see something really neat. I did.
Our neighbor’s cat had had kittens. The mama cat and her 3 little kittens were under the side of their house. They were really cute and fluffy and I really wanted to ask Papa and Okaasan if we could have one as a pet. They didn’t seem to like Tsukasa very much. They kept hissing and the mama cat growled and clawed at him. I thought that was weird, but Tsukasa didn’t care. He thought it was funny.
…Then he said that the mama cat was probably just mad because she started off with 8 babies. I asked what happened to the others and he just smiled and shrugged and said we should play tag. He tagged me on the head and run off. I put the kitten I was holding back with the others and chased him.
Then it was our birthday…
And then Tsukasa disappeared.
He was gone for what seemed like forever. I cried a lot because I knew it was my fault. He made the wish that fixed me… And in fairy tales, wishes always had a price… Everybody knew that. I tried to go to it to wish him back, but… I was scared that it wouldn’t work because Tsukasa said the thing was mad at me and that maybe it would just eat me instead. So I asked Okaasan if she would come with me, but when I explained what had happened and what I needed to do, she looked so scared. Grown-ups shouldn’t look scared like that. Then… She wouldn’t let me out of her sight, like ever.
But then even without me making a wish… He came back. I was so so so happy! He was happy too! He wouldn’t explain where he was all that time, though. Not even to me ever, which was just weird. He looked exactly the same. He was happy and hyper and kinda wild. Just like always! But… Something was different. The biggest thing I noticed was that he was a different kind of bad now. Sometimes he was pretty normal, but then sometimes… It was like he was super bad on purpose.
I saw Papa and Okaasan watching him, looking confused (and then sometimes looking scared) a lot when they didn’t think I knew. They started talking in their room a lot. It started out that they would do mad whispers, but after a while… There was just a lot of yelling. Sometimes they would throw things at each other and yell really mean things.
It made me scared when they did that and I would start crying, but Tsukasa thought it was funny. When they got really loud, he’d grab my hand and pull me outside and we’d explore and play games…
I knew my parents weren’t happy and that something was really wrong, but… I was so very happy to have my twin home! Even if he was… Different than before. Now, I realize that it was almost like he wasn’t even a person anymore. He was just something like the boogie man wearing a human costume and pretending.
I found out fast that I was scared of Tsukasa now. And Tsukasa reminded me really often that I should be scared of him with the weird stuff he would do.
It started off with him doing really mean or painful things just to see what would happen. Sometimes to himself, but usually to me. Like cutting my skin with Okaasan’s sewing scissors to see what my blood looked like. And smelled like. And tasted like.
Like wondering what stuffing dirt into a really big cut that wouldn’t quit bleeding would do. (The hospital. That’s what packing a big cut with dirt and mud would do. Tsukasa damn near lost his foot from an infection when we were almost 5. And the police sent people to our house to make sure our parents were taking care of us. They had a really loud fight after that… And then our papa left.)
Tsukasa was always a bitey kid. From the time we were itty bitty, he was always wanting to chew and suck on pretty much everything. His fingers, toes, toys, whatever. Lots of little kids do that, so it was ok. Okaasan said when we were babies he would suck my thumb instead of his. She thought it was cute. I remember seeing a picture of him doing it in an album. But we weren’t babies now. And when he came back, he seemed to want me in his mouth more than anything.
He wanted to play kittens or puppies a lot. He said that it was just a pretend game, but we had to do it right and that kittens and puppies licked each other. So, we played. Then he said that kittens and puppies licked to clean themselves… Like a bath. I didn’t think that sounded… It wasn’t something we should be doing and I told him that. He told me I was being stupid and we just needed to try it. So… I said ok. I didn’t like that very much, but he reminded me that I owed him. So… I kept playing.
He really liked tasting different things that weren’t meant to be tasted. He really liked the taste of blood and tears, so anytime he did something that hurt me, he would want to lick my blood or tears. He didn’t bother pretending to be a kitten anymore.
And… When he came back, he told me that he had so many other ideas for new games that he couldn’t wait to play with me. A lot of them were really weird and I wouldn’t do them. So, he would just play by himself and make me watch.
Hereally liked putting stuff inside of himself and making these gross moaning noises. His mouth… His butt… Even his pee hole. He insisted that it felt so good and that I should try it. It looked gross and a lot of the time, when he’d pull whatever it was out, it would be covered in blood. Sometimes he’d take whatever he just took out and put it in his mouth to suck on it.
He would laugh like crazy when he did things like that and I thought it was so gross that I would throw up.
…He liked the taste of that too.
God, I hated going to sleep. I never knew what he would try to shove in me or what he’d be slobbering on or worse biting. I swear his teeth have always been pointy, but when he came back, he liked to draw blood. Alot.
But… He was still my little brother. His wish saved my life. We still had the same face and the same eyes. And I owed him. He reminded me of that when I would say I was gonna tell Okaasan on him.
So, I tried to just… let him do whatever.
Eventually… I got used to a lotta stuff that I’m pretty sure no one should ever have to get used to.
But it was the only way to deal with how he was after he came back.