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penrose-quinn · 1 year

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Green Light | Part Eleven

"You look like you're about to drown," you reasoned as if the closeness needed one, straddling your legs on his lap.

Shinichiro hooked a hand behind your knee, uncertain if he's cradling you to him or if you're lifting him up because he felt as if he's already flung himself from the bridge, six feet deep into rushing water, and you're diving down the river to go after him but somehow, nothing was agonizing when your hand brushed the hairs on his arm, then the vein stretched out like a branch on the bone of his wrist.

He mulled over how you could think that you'd only ever destroyed what you touched. His little finger nudged your knuckle a bit and you curled on him like you're making a promise to be careful with his heart.

pairing: shinichiro sano/gn!reader

content tags: they/them pronounces for reader, but ‘their’ is only used once. childhood friends. angst and hurt/comfort. slice of life ft. gangs. idiots to lovers. old friends trying to reconnect but are being dumbasses about it. they don't deserve the friends to lovers tag because they're stupid and pining. the second part of my sad attempt at writing shinichiro’s backstory but he isn’t a [redacted] here. dysfunctional relationship (for shinichiro and izana). underage smoking and mentions of gang violence. non-explicit sexual content at the end (no gendered terms). tokrev manga spoilers.

a/n: this backstory wouldn’t make a lot of sense if you hadn’t read the first part :’) he isn’t a [redacted] here lol, but i’m still tackling on whatever went on between shinichiro and izana (and everyone else). i won’t accept that he missed out on his adult years in this timeline and simply had to suffer on the other. i’m putting the best of what i could make up and write in this version of his backstory so i very much appreciate every like/reblog/comment this receives!

m.list ❁ read on ao3 ❁ part 12

There was a time you asked him what he wanted to do someday when he was at the peak of attaining everything.

You were still at the edge of eighteen. Still entangled in each other from the riverbank.

Shinichiro felt a nudge from your socked foot against his leg. Your boot was safeguarded close to his armpit for keeping it away from you. His hair was even mussed-up for it, but he couldn’t recall what the both of you were fighting about earlier ago.

You claimed that you were serious and he shrugged because he had the Black Dragons.

“You’re still planning to be in the gang after high school?”

During that time, it didn’t occur to him that you wouldn’t. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Be real. You can’t keep punching guys and meddling in their unresolved issues forever! It’s unsustainable. You’re more than that, Shin.”

You shook your head in disapproval like Takeomi though he would’ve probably enthused him to keep ruling over Tokyo, be the King.

Takeomi basked in their era like a man who found immortality and you just denounced him for letting the shameless power-trip rot his brain. Shinichiro chuckled, even though you accused him of it too. Called them losers.

You told him you wanted to go to college.

Everyone’s expected to, was what he wanted to say because that’s the least thing any good, grateful child should do for all their parents’ hard-earned labor. He hadn’t visited their grave in awhile. Mused over what flowers to bring them while you meandered on how you’re going to get a job, save up a lot of money to have a place of your own: high-rise studio, spacious room, and a balcony with a nice view of the city.

Shinichiro didn’t appear like he was listening though his lips fondly tilted up throughout because the sun rose with your voice and he never doubted you.

“You will,” he said finally. He knew because you could see the future.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you without me.”

You sounded a little vulnerable. Shinichiro attempted to reach for your wrist but his fingers fiddled around the cold button of your cuff sleeve instead. He didn't want to think about what you actually meant, digressing with a remark that you looked good in the gang uniform, and you just rummaged for his pack and lighter in his pocket with a scoff.

He's lying down on the ground, one leg bent to the other and arms behind his head in the lackadaisical manner where he’s looking forward to a weekend of nothing because he hadn’t really crossed that point where he could have a life untethered to where he was now.

The both of you were still covered in wet grass stains till daybreak, and the world moved on.

How could age stack up like bills, pilling high until it left one bankrupt?

Shinichiro used to count how many stitches he had in a bad scar from a fight. Now, he counted his gains and losses over the years. Learned to budget the good left for himself. The best he could do was work. He had to make this work.

S•S MOTORS used to be a small, forgotten building wedged in the bustling landscape of Shibuya.

There’s the skeleton of an exposed ceiling, water stains on the walls, and a smashed window at the backroom. Shinichiro constantly mulled over if this was worth the loans while toiling himself over wet plaster on cracks. He’s starting from scraps again, though he figured he could be the architect of his future from here and he had a vision unveil itself in the ruins of a building, of the aspirations of a new generation.

Kanda went to see him yesterday. He was with the current president of the Black Dragons.

I want to bring back that place where everyone can belong, Shinichiro-san.

A family, a place to belong; Shinichiro reminisced how much he dreamed to build a home.

Company was divided into strays, regulars, and new customers.

Shinichiro still thought of you, walking in here one of these days.

It felt odd when everyone began to come to terms with your absence – his friends didn't have much to say about you anymore but they hoped you're faring well – and then, perhaps without being deliberate, passed his sentiments over to Seishu to the point the boy had probably ceased to guess what kind of presence you would be in his motor shop.

Seishu stayed in longer than he should, this hovel of scattered hopes and broken machine parts though he liked to watch him work in earnest, digging a hand wrist-deep into an engine as if he could find a damaged, beating heart inside.

He never spoke of that aloud, most of the time he didn’t speak at all, though he never had to tell him what happened to his face or how he's used to people seeing the burn scar before him. Shinichiro just saw a lost boy with raw, torn knuckles.

His thoughts went to Izana, and then back to Seishu, if he had somewhere to return.

He’d wander back in here the next morning.

Seishu opened up that he had a childhood friend who was smarter than him.

It’s a brief, trusting exchange, though what seemed like one of passing felt more momentous than what it was.

Shinichiro grinned, claiming that it's nice they had something in common. Seishu tilted his head at that before perusing the dead husk of a Suzuki Intruder, eyes frosted over in latent thought. He didn't question him about it like how he would on calmer days, sharing about scuffles and stories rekindled over a freely offered soft drink to soothe the bruises.

There's an irony to Wakasa punctuating on how he shouldn't be feeding the kid with too much sugar. Benkei stepped in the room with him, brandishing a paper bag of meat buns. No one hesitated to bring back the old man misunderstanding to get a rise out of the big guy. Crates shifted together, grating against floorboards, unserious threats, more jeering.

Shinichiro sighed expectantly on how his startup business was diving down into a rowdy one.

There were little, amused blips in Seishu's unaffected expression every time.

Shinichiro asked Seishu if he liked motorcycles.

He shrugged, handing him a torque wrench from the set laid beside him. He’s already familiar of the tools and quick on the uptake with a reserved attentiveness that should’ve been pored more on his studies, though he’s at that rebellious age where he felt like he should be elsewhere than losing himself in the monotony of real life.

Shinichiro understood, remembering a time when his youth had been overbearing, not taken seriously, and full of pent-up, adolescent anger.

Seishu didn’t believe he held that kind of rage, and Shinichiro smiled because you’d probably say otherwise.

Even so, he’d tell him that it’s liberating being true to himself in the same breath he kept bringing up that school was a bit better than his motor shop because he didn’t want the kid to screw himself over a lifetime of stinking in gasoline and grueling manual labor in the future. There’s a lot of options for him, just give it a shot.

Shinichiro had gotten better at enthusing that without being intrusive about it. Or at least that’s his assumption when Ken seemed more motivated attending his classes after having a similar conversation some time ago. He wondered if Seishu might get along with him more than Manjiro. His brother was rather selective on his clique of friends and Haruchiyo devoted being by his side till now.

In the end, Seishu chose the path of a delinquent in the Black Dragons.

Perhaps, that’s better than being alone on the beat-up couch in his shop.

Shinichiro wanted to be one with static, to be pointless for a moment, even when no one’s going to come looking for him at 3 a.m.

All the lights were down, spilling in the syncopations of the city and the tired wheeze of his heater, though he turned it off a minute ago because he’s saving up for this month's electric bill. His bones creaked from his neck, oily with sweat and Tiger Balm, but somehow, it felt like his spine splintered in half. He’s already fatigued from figuring his shit out and he’s not even in his forties yet.

Was it weird he couldn’t imagine what you’d look like at twenty? He’d been losing inspiration lately. He didn’t want to dump it on you, though sometimes, he hated thinking of you like that to the point he wished he choked on his beer and let it all fizzle away.

Manjiro called him out for moping. Shinichiro threw back that he’s a brat. His brother recognized your tone in him and the question withered inside his mouth. Benkei and Wakasa only shared a pensive glance after he recounted it at the bar. He's out of the loop between them and they didn't make him feel better for it unlike Takeomi, who slurred out that he wouldn't be so miserable if he just got over you, tactlessly well-intentioned and unafraid of speaking out his mind in all the ways asshole friends did to show they cared.

Benkei excused it as one of his drunken tirades again because they were aware how Takeomi had been spiraling from his life, and although Benkei was looking out for them, the reassurance was painfully needless. Shinichiro could see it in Wakasa's quiet, apologetic gaze.

They formed a gang. Had skipped school to smoke his first joint in the garage, swore that they had each other’s back since the hot blaze of their teenage years. So Shinichiro pondered how long Wakasa had eyes like that, or perhaps he just hadn't noticed them in awhile because he hadn't hung out with everyone as much when time became scarce and life kept getting in the way.

Then his hand clenched into a fist as he reached for his phone. The shape wasn't right and there's a coldness to the cell on his palm. Right, he lost his old one weeks ago. What's your number again? Didn't you change your email a year after you moved?

Regret twinged in his chest when Shinichiro couldn't greet you on your birthday today, reminiscing on waking to your message last August when you asked him what it felt like to finally be an adult, tagged after a found your soulmate yet?

He’s still sad and single. Instead of a retort, you responded back that it's okay when the both of you could just be sad and single together.

It sucked that he couldn't ask how you were though buried at the farthest place of his mind, he wondered if you'd even reply.

Shinichiro wanted to tell you that he fell in love again though the one who already got sick of his heartbreak was Izana.

He wasn’t sure how to confide about their sister having a crush with that attitude. He figured that out when she began to reinvent herself in small, subtle ways: a new hairstyle, a song she never liked or listened to before. There were the long, fawning looks, but they lingered more in the after-school daydreams, tucked like a lock of hair behind the ear for her earring to twinkle and catch someone’s eye.

Nothing’s working to her favor yet. He could tell from the way her fingers played with her hair a lot more nowadays because she'd rather braid her feelings than confess, whoever it was.

A symptom of unrequited love, or at least that’s what he assumed it was for needing to fill the hunger with the shy hope of tying wishes on a bamboo branch on Tanabata. Manjiro would rather drag Ken to the food booths than dress in a summer yukata with her and Shinichiro had to rummage his in the old closet.

It’s patterned with waves but his mother had described how the seigaiha looked more like dragon scales against a sea of stormy, black cotton. It’s the same one with two holes at the bottom hem; the one that riveted a woman with two moles under her lip, meeting in line of a takoyaki stall. Because Manjiro wanted a bit of everything, Shinichiro ordered the one with assorted flavors and she had hers with mozzarella. A greasy smear of it on the corner of her mouth made her smile more charming, remarking how endearing it was that he’d accompany his sister in a yukata.

Shinichiro offered to buy her a candied strawberry for making his brother pull a face once she drizzled a packet of hot sauce all over her food, though really, he’s stalling for time so he could talk to her some more.

Hoshiko took a sweet bite of his sincerity and told him that she’s got all night. They would surprise themselves for having a mutual friend from Gareji Yago. She loved his sense of humor. He blurted out that her laugh sounded like magic, which had his siblings stupidly reenacting the exchange over the dining table for a month.

They swapped numbers anyway. It’s almost like a call for destiny until it wasn’t.

Shinichiro supposed the retrospection might be worth passing along in his letters.

It'd been the only consistent thing between him and Izana when he wasn't allowed to visit and his sentence was further extended for misconduct. He had to ask Benkei the other day what his experience in juvie had been like, and with a dark somberness in his gaze, he never forgot how no one really came out of there being the same person.

Shinichiro would let Izana be who he wanted to be, but he was still his little brother.

There’s nothing in the world that could change that.

Shinichiro was eleven when his father asked him if he’d like to have another sibling.

It was one of those countless nights his father missed out on dinner, though Shinichiro would pull out his food from the fridge and reheat it for him in the microwave. Leftovers always made his mother sad.

He didn't quite comprehend the implication of his father's words yet, and one day he’d grow to harbor the sorrow, unwantedness, and pained resentment he never had in him, bursting from his fists like all boys did. Conflict had never been forgiving to his mother, but she would end up loving Emma and his father, regardless.

Shinichiro would ask a similar question to Manjiro years later, and a vestige of their mother lifted up his lips, sticky with the red bean paste of his taiyaki. His heart found ease from the sweet acceptance of his smile.

“Yeah, I'll definitely love him.”

Once Izana was out of juvie, they rode to a harbor in Shinisogocho.

He liked the sea best; a kingdom of star-studded waves, city lights. The vastness enthralled him, a kind of true calling to potential.

Shinichiro believed Izana was capable of many things so he filled the boy with dreams that couldn’t be bound in the legacy of a house. Manjiro had birthright, but Izana would always have freedom.

Either way, his siblings were meant to flourish. They’re his pride. That’s all Shinichiro could ever ask for.

There’s so much salt in the air that he lit a cigarette, blowing smoke like the distant beacon of a lighthouse – a warning.

No one ever told him that nicotine shouldn’t be something he was supposed to crave – he didn’t mean to poison you the way he did – though he would to his brother back then and it spared him a few more years until he could flicker one by himself on the same harbor, the same shade of night. Someday, the Black Dragon embroidered on his back.

Manjiro graduated from elementary around the time Izana was released though he remained disinclined to ask anything about Manjiro succeeding him in the gang.

In the silence between them, Shinichiro mentioned their sister instead. “Emma’s doing well. She got into fortune telling pretty recently, can you believe that? I still don’t get what’s all the fuss about horoscopes.” Shinichiro chuckled but it wasn’t shared. His brother almost looked dazed, out of touch. Out of reach.

“Her cooking is way better than mine. Maybe, you should try it sometime . . .”

The murmur of waves, ashes dropping. Izana languished on a long drag of his cigarette.

“Come have dinner with us,” Shinichiro tried.

His plea was lost to Izana, a shiny bottle adrift in the ocean, as he let another second pass and told him no.

By the time midsummer ended, Izana had turned fourteen; jarringly, grown into his limbs, about his shoulder blade’s height now, grown impatient when he made the major life decision to run away from the orphanage, screw the system.

All the risk-taking only brought tremendous frustration on Shinichiro because Izana didn’t even consult him about it. Contended with him on his questionable choices. That he’s secure with his underground connections, that he already managed to get himself a contract to an apartment somewhere within the realm of Black Dragons territory, not too far from the motor shop so he could visit him. Why can’t you just see that I’m taking responsibility for myself when you won’t—

Shinichiro wasn’t sure what kind of face he was making that broke off the conversation there. The silence stagnated further, and Izana must’ve been more shattered over their argument than he was. It left them irreparable for a night.

The first to make amends was Shinichiro, laying down his pride to atone, truly atone, and perhaps, the act was disarming to Izana.

Shinichiro had never seen him so distressed, and Izana believed him when his big brother said that he’s just worried for him, addressing that he’s right because he should’ve done something sooner.

Yet they didn’t live under one roof.

The implicitness of their bond had become complicated with the self-awareness. They still drank their weight on soda while rock songs hovered over them for the nostalgia trip, the ballad of their routine in the late, sun-glazed afternoon. They even liked their curry the same way. Medium spicy, the kind of heat Manjiro wouldn't appreciate in his mouth. There’s an eyeroll to every joke that didn’t land, the sneaking upturn of lips, the silver lining.

Some of his customers greeted Izana when he entered the shop. They didn’t refer to him when they spoke to Shinichiro about his brother. Izana stopped styling his hair up like Shinichiro one day, and everyone would look out for the autumn moon swaying beneath his ears, the sharp, wicked wit.

Shinichiro would gladly tune-up his motorcycle for free, asking him how’s he been doing lately. Izana wouldn’t bring up school or Emma, though he would about the gang and his ambitions for it. Shinichiro nodded to his every word, as if they’re talking about music or their latest excursion. He reminisced of their stroll at Tsukuda Bridge months ago, the river underneath evening-black and murky like the waves in Manila Bay.

There’s always an urge to drown somewhere in those depths, secrets and more secrets.

For the longest time, Shinichiro lacked the awareness that people puzzled over him until you'd say so someday, and in his reflections, being seen by you felt as if he'd been transparent enough.

Though perhaps, it hadn't always been like that because in needing to be closer, Izana fiercely searched for something in Shinichiro, imploring in the way he only knew how, and then return every other day, looking harsher than last time, hurting more than last time. He blamed himself for it too – everything’s wrong ‘cause of me – and Shinichiro wished he didn’t punish himself for existing, gently dressing the wounds with words and antiseptic.

“You’re my little brother. Nothing about you is wrong to me.”

Izana came to him with the storm on his back.

Shinichiro had never been scared of lightning but he was from the truth in Izana's eyes. He knew the question before it could be asked and he didn't deny it.

Retribution had never felt so fast and unrepentant by his fist. It's all what he's taught him and more, self-defense.

On the ground, his head throbbed and Shinichiro still had a full set of teeth, a rasp to remind him that blood-related or not, nothing will change between us, all right? Izana held back on his punch and Shinichiro wasn't pretending to be tough by staying still for another.

He's just resigned in all the ways guilt could cripple a man, seeing his little brother bleed for the wrong, wretched reasons. It's not your fault, he wanted to say, but to reach out meant ruining him and he couldn't bring him the happiness that could take him away from that hell.

There's a despondence on the bite of Izana’s voice, a wavering, anguished sound.

"I never want to see you again."

Shinichiro thought he saw you.

“What happened to you?”

“. . . I had a fight with my little brother.”

Sympathy made Akemi’s gaze softer when she brought him at her place to tend to his wounds at a tragic time.

Shinichiro wondered if sisters were just always like that. They would glare at you like you were a nuisance but would help you clean up after your mess anyway.

Emma never outgrew it. She did a lot of the housework nowadays and she knew exactly where to find the medical box, hauling it out from the bathroom cupboard under the sink with a sigh. She’s careful with the antiseptic because she knew how it stung and she didn’t understand why boys were the way they were, railing on how useless her brothers were. Can’t even cook their eggs how they want it made, or something like that.

Then he mulled over your sister, the way she swabbed the graze on his chin, and from this proximity, he traced out the part of her hair, her cheekbones, and then so clearly this time, her eyes in both shape and sentiment, how she looked more like you.

Sometimes, it’s staggering how he didn't know Akemi as much as he knew you.

He grew up trying to impress her by balancing himself atop the jungle gym, admiring her as an adult when she was hardly one herself who was just learning how to apply makeup to conceal the deeper insecurities at fifteen, to become more feminine to appeal to guys who weren’t worth all the emotional damage. She still wore mascara, the drugstore kind that clumped around her eyelashes, but he realized the mature lines under them suited her more.

His shoulders ached in understanding, about what it felt like to be heaped with all this responsibility you never asked for.

Perhaps, there’s a special kinship they could seek out in each other but he felt really stupid for seeing her now.

“I was so busy with everything else that I can’t help but feel like I neglected their feelings, what’s really hurting inside . . .”

Akemi serenely watched her daughter from the window. Keiko was in her yellow raincoat and sneakers, splashing on puddles from her dash to the maid café with a friend, and Akemi reminisced of you and her, muddy with youth and growing pains. Yours was so quiet and violent that it almost scared her. Shinichiro remembered that part too, raw like the scabs on your knuckles; remembered the threats and slurs they called her just to get a rise out of you; remembered most of them where from rival gangs that went against Seisaku.

You told him that all you ever saw was red and he didn't stop you for lashing out to her defense. He even fought alongside you.

Though having witnessed that side of you, Akemi recounted that she wound up yelling that you were acting like your brother. Her regret settled deep in her womb and you felt a little farther from her ever since. It wasn't like the both of you never reconciled and you would even claim now that she was just a teenager at the time.

“Siblings fight for a lot of reasons,” she said, but she also hurt you. Sometimes, she feared she might not have the opportunity to know you anymore because of it. Her eyes wandered wistfully to the window again. “I miss the both of them . . .”

Then she sighed, looking back at him. “I hope it gets better with your little brother.”

Shinichiro didn’t know what to say but it throbbed where it should, burning on his throat with remorse. I hurt him.

Akemi poured his cup again as if to fill in the silence with consolation and a meek hope that it’s never too late to reach out.

"You're not a bad person, Shinichiro-kun."

He drank his tea, tasting of tears.

"I'm a terrible big brother."

Shinichiro said it a second time to himself.

The world was cleansed by the rain, but his memories never absolved him.

He went home late that time, and they would ask him why he's bleeding. He would tell them he's fine and it would be like that for days. Something always festered in his silence.

The moment Izana stopped coming back to the motor shop so did Seishu.

Perhaps, this was what it’s like to mourn for the living.

Learning to cope with the hollowness in him that haunted the spaces of his room, filled with their shadows that had grown farther in the Black Dragons. Most would say the gang changed for the worse, gradually being embroiled in all criminal dealings, drugs and blood money. An elderly storekeeper was stabbed from the gang's aggressions. He died before he could reach the hospital and it was all over the headlines that morning.

It's enough to provoke Benkei to demand a reason for letting it happen, and while Wakasa had stood between them, he matched his partner more in his solemn, self-contained fury. There's a glimpse of the legendary gang leaders that divided Kanto in half in the confrontation. When it came to legacy, their outrage was justified for sacrificing it all for him. Takeomi watched them until he felt the need to intervene because Shinichiro wasn't as upset as he should.

This wasn't their generation anymore, and the successors after the eighth weren't any better when they carried the inherent spirit of vindictiveness.

One of Manjiro's friends would be a victim to this, and his little brother would ask him one day to put an end to it with Toman, dressed in black and gold as to honor what Shinichiro and his friends had striven to become a long time ago.

Black Dragons had always been meant to be led by his brothers.

Shinichiro contemplated if Izana could make a home from the ashes of another and Manjiro was there to pick at its bones. He just wished he could do more for Seishu, attempting to save a semblance of it in the scarcity. He understood what all of this meant to him and why he couldn't seem to visit when he was in a coma for two weeks. The motor shop was closed far longer and he was concerned if there's a place out there for him.

The last time Shinichiro had heard of him was when he was still struggling in physical therapy. Seishu was recently released from juvie by then, following a different tyrant in the Black Dragons. He wasn't alone in the gang, and Shinichiro supposed with his old friend beside him, they could figure something out of the madness. Perhaps, there was hope if they remained together.

In the midst of things, Shinichiro couldn't really do much, fearing to cause more damage than what's done and living through the rest of it than just staying dead.

“Do Mikey and Emma know?” you asked, hauling him back to you.

“After the accident in the shop, I told them everything. Figured I should, knowing it could be my last . . . Emma first, then Manjiro.”

Because it'd taken him surgery and a span of years to tell her the truth about Izana.

“It's unfair.” Emma shed a tear that day, crumpling in distress that made him want to scoop her up like she’s four, cooing softly, no, there are no monsters under your bed and your mother didn’t hate you.

He was petrified as she still sat there, hands clutching the skirt of her school uniform like how Izana would onto impossibly good, hopeful things.

"But you're my big brother too," she said before wiping her face and walking out of the room.

Shinichiro would still apologize to her, even though Emma never really stopped visiting him in the hospital with either Manjiro or Grandpa around.

The only time she did by herself was when they had an actual conversation without Manjiro's presence quelling her into a sense of peace and with a hum, recounted that she didn't know how to react when he reached her a bowl of red rice for breakfast weeks ago.

She panicked and got her first period on the day prior so she mistook it as a disgusting joke. Manjiro didn't even snicker. Shinichiro had little understanding on the tradition, expecting she'd be more knowledgeable about it than him, as he regretfully explained this to her. He forgot himself again with the shadow of a slight stubble, lending him a sad, sleazy look. He looked older too, and Emma chuckled softly at the memory. Old enough to be her father . . .

Because apparently parents cooked red rice for their daughters once they hit puberty, attempted to know what napkin to buy for them even if it's the wrong brand, console them from breakouts when they started flaring up like a disease.

It's the sort of stuff Emma had heard from the girls in class complain about because they didn't realize what they had, what she coveted for herself. No one was ever prepared when she came into their lives. She had two mothers but the both of them couldn't stay like her father, whoever he was.

Shinichiro and Emma ended up sniffling their emotions after that.

“Do you want to see Izana?” Shinichiro asked, but he knew.

Emma carried a certain poignance in her gaze. Abandonment could only mature her in such way.

She couldn’t look at him for the answer. Her lip wobbled. “Does he still want to see me?”

"Did you reach out to him?"

"I want to," Shinichiro said it as if it’d been unheard for a long time, and all he could do was stare passively at tall, decades-old towers within Marunouchi, the road ahead of him, and nothing. "But I’m not sure what’ll happen if I see him again. The last time was . . ."

He hesitated. Opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling exposed all over even when something locked tight in his throat.

The words wouldn’t come out like they should. He hadn’t spoken about this to anyone for two years, but the rift was almost nonexistent. Regret lingered like it’s just yesterday. He worked his jaw some more, and the ache pulsed where Izana hit him.

Shinichiro often dwelt of a different time when things didn't have to be so broken and he would make the right choices. His siblings never had to be separated and they could just be kids lounging around to watch show reruns on the TV than do homework, sharing a childhood of being ordered around and overfed with greasy kushiage by their grandfather. Maybe, they would measure the other's height against the doorframe with a Pilot marker. Shinichiro would have to scold them for vandalizing though he fondly wouldn't remove their scribbled names over the years until they could work with him in the shop or move out to come into their own. It couldn't be perfect because he couldn’t live up to what a parent could offer but he hoped it'd be enough for him provide them a home where they could laugh and love over the table, throw stupid tantrums, weep loud, grow and make mistakes.

But never like the ones he had committed.

"Izana wasn't a mistake." Shinichiro knew this in his heart. "Everything I did was . . . right?"

He waited for you to challenge him. Tell him where he's wrong and amend. There wasn't a time you hadn't because you loved him enough to tell him about himself so he called out your name and you inhaled, slow and pensive, as your hand reached up to fold a strand of hair behind your ear, the other still entwined with his.

“I feel bad for Izana. He doesn't deserve that,” you told him as your thumb traced his open, trembling palm. His ring on you was warm from your skin. “I feel bad for you too. For agonizing about this for so long.”

The inflections of your voice were pained and conflicted, admitting that to him. “Look, I don’t think I could speak for him. I don’t know him, not like you do. But what you did, keeping something important like that, wouldn’t it have hurt less if you just told him earlier?”

“I figured there was probably a right time to tell him, but then things got out of hand so suddenly,” and he hated it so much; how it brought back the memory of his mother on her deathbed, not knowing when things would get better, not knowing where to place all his despair and indignation to the world but in himself. “He’d been through so much, and I didn’t know what to do . . .”

“I wouldn’t know either.” You gave his hand a firm squeeze. “I know you’re just trying to help, Shin. You care about him. I used to proofread your letters, remember? You wrote to him like you grew up with him. I always thought it was sweet, the way you asked about his day and went on about yours, how you welcomed him in it. Emma would know.”

Shinichiro rubbed his eye. He already sounded congested when he spoke up, feeling even more pathetic.

“I kept her from him too.”

“Why did you?”

“It'd hurt her, if she knew her brothers wouldn’t get along.” Emma was too young to undergo through a lot with the changes and losses in her life. “If they fought . . .”

A pause, then a sigh rolled off your lips. “Wouldn’t have made a difference if she couldn’t see him anymore.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I feel like I should. I'm just," he trailed off, head hanging low because his frustration was spilling from his eyes and—

You gently pulled his chin to you. “You don’t have to, not with me,” you reminded him, catching tears before they fell with the pad of your thumb, "all right?"

Shinichiro nodded. There were wet blotches on your cuff sleeve for brushing it under his nose because none of you brought a handkerchief so you figured this would do. A bit of him stained you and you didn't mind.

You told him to breathe, and he realized what he'd been holding inside for awhile before letting it out.

"I . . . I didn't have the best relationship with my big brother either. Held a grudge for so long that I thought I'd die hating him, but it doesn't matter now. Being upset of your ghosts," you drifted for a moment with a murky emotion he couldn't name.

A bus stopped by; the passengers stepping out in worn, clear umbrellas. You couldn't see them, blinking vacantly, as you went on.

"You’re not a terrible big brother. You got to know Izana. You were with him before he even became a delinquent. You never owed him anything. You weren't even blood-related. It would've been better if you didn't lie, but you loved him anyway . . .”

Then you glanced back at him. There’s something poignant about your eyes.

“That was never a lie, wasn’t it?"

“No,” was his answer. But . . .

“Your big brother,” Shinichiro started, “did he ever come back for you?”

“He can’t,” you sighed, falling back on his shoulder. “He died a year ago.”

Somehow, the two of you were in your house.

You told him it wasn't much of a home without your sister or her family.

Shinichiro contemplated how you would’ve lurked deeper into the emptiness for days had he not asked you to stay at his place.

Sleeves rolled up to your forearms, you ran him a hot bath. He threw back that you should go in first. You insisted that he should after hearing him sneeze awhile ago, despite his efforts to muffle it down his elbow.

The both of you remained stubborn and indecisive about it until you proposed that you join him in the tub instead.

Shinichiro had seen you nude before – perhaps not quite enough the first time – and it wasn't like the thought of your bare skin never crossed his mind. It's just that you're always covered-up, swaddled in layers that it's perplexing to him what it's like to look at you naked.

He remembered how you would cage yourself around your arms because you felt too sensitive out in the open. You didn’t like it when your nipples got hard, when the old scars jagged along your body as mementos of survival and belligerent adolescence. He still chanced on stealing a glance at your tattoo; dark and intricate, coiled around your leg like a tether. It's the part of you that remained unchanged.

He hoped for it. The desire was selfish and ruthless and all-consuming that it could be its own dragon.

You weren't one for bold statements though he couldn't help but contemplate how you carried it with you under your suit after all these years. Contemplated how the needle must've hurt, the social repercussions even more so, stung with blood and loyalty, though you were intrepid through and through.

Warmth bloomed in his chest. It wasn't the sweltering heat from the bathwater, but the realization rippling out of him the moment you dipped into the tub, both of your bare legs rubbing underneath, squeezed into a different brand of intimacy: curated perfectly for couples, couples who were at that awkward, fragile verge of discovering each other without breaking apart from their gazes.

"Can you come closer?" he asked. "You look faraway from the other side of the tub."

Then you came to him like a wave. Everything about you washed over him, sudden and all at once.

"You look like you're about to drown," you reasoned as if the closeness needed one, straddling your legs on his lap.

Shinichiro hooked a hand at the back of your knee, uncertain if he's cradling you to him or if you're lifting him up because he felt as if he's already flung himself from the bridge, six feet deep into rushing water, and you're diving down the river to go after him but somehow, nothing was agonizing when your hand brushed the hairs on his arm, then the vein stretched out like a branch on the bone of his wrist.

You glanced at him under your dewy eyelashes, and when he asked if you hated him, you shook your head and leaned forward to embrace, your hair clinging like arteries on his damp chest, as you let him perch on your shoulder, his lips memorizing a freckle.

Shinichiro thought of the tattoo again, wondering if this was what it's like getting himself etched into your skin.

“How could you ask that, Shin?” you whispered back.

“I guess I’m just afraid.”

Despite his insistence to stay, you asked him to just wait for you in your bedroom, assuring him that it wouldn’t take long for you to collect his clothes from the dryer. He didn't turn on the lights and wearily dove into your covers, wet skin soaking through sheets, though he figured he smelled like you anyway as if that's enough to compensate for sprawling himself out naked and defenseless.

You found him like this later, clothes dumped on the dresser, towel discarded, as you climbed on top of him with the kind of languid grace that bordered to a sweet slowburn but he could tell that it's taking so much from you to not fuck him right there.

His hand was on your cheek, outstretched like he's still reaching for the moon, but it's just you and you're too considerate of him, placing a kiss on his palm. You didn't quite realize how much he felt like a beggar in that moment.

“I'll help you, if you let me.”

What he wanted to say was maybe, you should help yourself, then he'd laugh a little when the aggravation would chip away at you and he'd have to kiss it all better, or worse, didn’t matter which. He nodded. He needed you as your bodies met dripping, somewhere in the rain again, and your hair was akin to something like one and all the tangle of wild, disheveled emotions that hid the both of you from the world.

"Your big sister wouldn't like you smoking in your room."

"You think I care about what she thinks with what I do in my room?"

"Yeah. A lot." Shinichiro peered at you from your pillow.

"That didn't stop us, though," you said after igniting your cigarette with his lighter.

His eyes watched the tendril of smoke lick up your jaw and the curve of your ear, studded with piercings. You forgot to remove them from the bath so he did it for you when he swept back your hair and you craned your head to him, sheets rustling below your bare waists in the shadow of early twilight.

He left the studs atop the dresser, losing relevance to him once he heard his name and you eclipsed everything, coaxing him to lie down on his back with a hand on his chest. Then a gentle stroke from his brow, a gentler coo, "are you feeling better?"

Shinichiro closed his eyes and let himself drift from the pads of your fingers. The answer wasn't easy to read. He wanted you to ponder over him in circles. He's a lot needier when you granted him a reason to, but yes, he was feeling a bit better. Perhaps, you made him feel more that he'd draw your lips to him and suck the smoke inside your lungs to taint himself with the taste of your melancholia. Nicotine spared none of you from it.

"She's right, you know. Maybe you should stop smoking," he sighed out, a thread of smoke between breaths, his and yours.

"Stop talking about her," and the truth was he'd rather not talk about her at all, slipping his tongue in your mouth for a deeper conversation, one without words or pretense. Or the comfortable lies he’d tell himself to sleep and burn off with a cigarette in the morning.

The smolder of you turned him into a more honest man, even though his affections for you hadn't been a secret.

"I'll only stop when you do," you whispered.

Like that, you ended a conversation in the way you ended a fight.

You rendered him at a loss for words though he wasn't seeking to win and from a languorous stretch of movement, he reached you the ashtray himself. Then he smiled and remembered how it's so garish with the banana patterns on the dish that it stuck out in your room but you didn't mind purchasing it from the 100 Yen shop the other day, even though you didn't like to smoke here alone.

Something in the ashes would glow when extinguished; both of your fingers touching before you stole the ash tray from him and placed it somewhere on the floor, your outstretched arm shivering out goosebumps from the draft.

There's a small trickle from the windowsill puddling on the floor but you'd rather leave it like that than shut off everything again.

It's so quiet it hurts, so you had opened the window like a wound and the world wept.

A childhood framed in a window. The sole one you’d been gazing on for years, confessing that you didn’t really miss this room after you moved in and he wanted to ask you about it but faltered once your eyes fluttered shut, enjoying each other's presence in the cadence of the rain, awake.

It wasn’t a drowsy spell for you like how it was to him. Shinichiro had learned to adapt to the odd, irregular hours you slept, not quite meeting the other in time, even as it stood still the moment you overlapped him, a wave of warm, urging motion, and he was swimming in lazy endorphins as you spread out the comforter over the both of you, feet covered.

You didn't quite feel like a dream, achingly real and open like a door to this domicile that had been the size of your bodies.

Maybe you wouldn't believe him if he promised you that things would stay like this for the rest of your lives.

But he told you anyway, "I love you."

Exposition Corner:

[1] Tanabata: a Japanese festival celebrated in the summertime as to commemorate the story of the two star-crossed lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi, who are only allowed to meet each other once a year as long as the skies are clear. A popular custom in Tanabata is writing wishes in a piece of colored paper (tanzaku) and hanging them on a bamboo branch.

[2] Segaiha: a wave pattern of layered concentric circles creating arches, symbolic of waves or water representing surges of good luck. It can also signify power and resilience.

[3] Gareji Yago: this was actually the motor shop were Shinichiro worked at in the original timeline, and what I’m assuming before he got his shop (if Mikey’s accident didn’t happen). In here, I’m using this as the shop that’s owned by Yoneda, his boss/mentor I’ve referenced in the Bright Light series.

[4] “[…] if Izana could make a home from the ashes of another and Manjiro was there to pick at its bones”: a reference to Kotsuage, a Japanese funeral ritual wherein family members gather around and pick up the bones of a deceased loved one together using special long chopsticks after the body is cremated.

[5] “Because apparently parents cooked red rice for their daughters once they hit puberty […]”: to clarify, O-Sekihan, or red-colored rice cooked with Azuki beans, is usually prepared and eaten during auspicious occasions like New Year’s day or Coming-of-Age day. Regarding cooking red rice when a girl has her first period, it’s to celebrate puberty and there are some regions in Japan that still do it but serving sekihan isn’t as common for that as it is in festive celebrations.

In the context of the scene, please don’t think the red color of the rice is meant to represent period lol. It’s Emma misunderstanding it as a stupid joke and Shinichiro not being very good at explaining himself and being a bit misinformed (but he did what he did with well-meaning intentions!).

[6] I love you: So Shinichiro actually said the unspeakable aishiteru [ 愛してる ], not to confuse it with daisuki [ 大好き ] which is more commonly used in confessing one's love (romantically) in Japanese. For my Non-Japanese speakers, this is just my tl;dr of these references [1] and [2] so I’ll try my best summarizing them!

Aishiteru does mean “I love you” but literally, it translates to “[I] am loving [you]”.

“Loving” is written in the present continuous て-form as to emphasize the ongoing (ever-lasting) state of the feelings. It’s an expression to convey a serious and profound love that is only used in long-term relationships with a spouse and in rare, emotional occasions such as getting married or when someone is on their deathbed. It’s also hardly spoken to each other.

For cultural context, the Japanese are more reserved with their feelings. There are also many ways to express love but most of them are nonverbal. Conveying it isn’t usually spoken but rather acted on. The gist of it being the love for one another is mutually understood through actions and attentiveness without explicitly stating it.

Now with that said, I’ll leave how Shinichiro throwing the hard L-bomb at MC to everyone’s interpretation. (I’d actually love to read all of your thoughts on it if you’d like to share them with me! <3).

a/n: god, I really hope the way I write shinichiro's decisions and emotional trauma makes sense. no, nothing is resolved here. shin and izana (as well as inui) are still in non-speaking terms :’((((

part ten ❁ m.list ❁ part twelve

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penrose-quinn · 2 years

Text

Green Light | Part Ten

“You’re not bad,” Izana told him, a mutter at first as if the sentiment was so delicate and important, but he didn’t bury it in his chest anymore that it gleamed in his gaze, looking up to him.

“You’re my big brother. Of course, you’re not bad.”

Shinichiro should’ve corrected him. He’s only half his age. He didn’t know what he was doing, though he’d learn that most adults didn’t either and he just didn’t want to screw up so much for his words to no longer matter.

pairing: shinichiro sano/gn!reader

content tags: childhood friends. angst and hurt/comfort. slice of life ft. gangs. idiots to lovers. old friends trying to reconnect but are being dumbasses about it. they don't deserve the friends to lovers tag because they're stupid and pining. my sad attempt at writing shinichiro’s backstory. implied infidelity. implied death of a relative. underage smoking and other reckless shit kids shouldn’t do. tokrev manga spoilers.

a/n: happy belated birthday, shin! just gonna remind everyone that we start with his backstory at 17 years old and onwards to the present. this chapter and the next one are special to me, poured all my heart and soul and tears into every word just for this guy, so i very much appreciate every like/reblog/comment this receives!

m.list ❁ read on ao3

Shinichiro trudged back home late with a tired grimace.

On another day, he'd think he's lucky because his grandfather – who had zero tolerance over a sink stacked high with grimy dishes – was asleep, though he's still a bit injured after a recent fight. Don't I get a break from this?

Manjiro and Emma were watching cartoons in the living room after hauling out a bunch of VHS tapes stored in the TV cabinet. Their third watch was a Ghibli film and it'd probably be their last when it's late in the night.

Raising his voice a bit, he asked one of them to come over and clear out the crockery from the dish rack. This, however, set off an argument between them that his request went ignored and he had to remind them about it again when he finally padded in the room with a sigh.

Emma piped up that she already did the first batch of dishes this morning while complaining about how Manjiro neglected his chores today, which had him cross his arms adamantly, excusing himself that he'd been occupied with karate training.

He was caught in the lie when she ratted on him that he actually snuck out to meet-up with Keisuke and Haruchiyo. He didn’t speak up to defend himself this time, acting all huffy and disgruntled, cheeks puffed up from the accusation.

Then Shinichiro cleared his throat, voice pitched low and stern. "Well, Manjiro . . ."

"Whatever. I'm not watching with you anymore."

"Fine," shot back Emma, pressing play on the remote.

Before Shinichiro could mediate between them, Manjiro slid off the couch and made a beeline to the kitchen sink. True to his word, he went to bed sooner.

After washing the dishes and wiping the counter spotless, Shinichiro joined Emma a little later on. He already knew how it ended before the credits rolled.

A part of him was bothered after belatedly realizing that the movie was too mature for her, even though he’d been close to her age when he first watched it himself; curious, confused, and a bit horrified but morose to all of these hideous concepts about war and loss, death and desolate youth, the poverty of children.

Siblings striving, he thought. From the brutality of a world no different from what he had seen and would rather keep her safe from.

His little sister was brave, though.

Shinichiro often wondered whoever taught her to be, sitting through the film as if she understood what had happened in it anyway. He likened the quiet between them to something almost forlorn before moving on from the sentiment and stating that it was a really sad story.

Emma blinked at him, slow and drowsy, misty-eyed. He didn't ask her if she cried.

Ever since one of the kids from the dojo called her a crybaby, she'd clench herself and refuse to acknowledge her tears. She felt more inclined to do this after Manjiro scared off the boy. This didn’t register to his brother yet, even when his honest intentions were to protect her. Shinichiro didn't want anyone to hurt. He didn’t want her to cry, but he told her that it's okay to let it out. We need to cry, sometimes.

Still, he had to be delicate with her. His mother always reminded him to be more sensitive to girls. He didn't tease her, though he did confess that he bawled from a scene – see, it's the one where all the fireflies died and she had to bury them – and when Emma asked why, he said he forgot the reason, just that he could still recall his emotions so vividly.

Grave of the Fireflies wasn’t even one of his favorites and a lot of it didn't make much sense to him at the time, but he sobbed so much that day, grieving before he could understand what would be lost to him.

Emma listened, but she didn't comment after that. Then her nose wrinkled at the damp spot on his shirt; his sloppiness. He lazily waved it off. Eyes poring over his arm, she asked him if she could doodle on his plasters and he would’ve said yes though she let out a yawn, making him recall that it's time he got her ready for bed.

Teeth brushed and frocked into her cotton pajamas, she was tucked in her covers. Before Shinichiro closed the door of her room, he overheard her murmur longingly for her big brother that he knew was neither addressed to Manjiro nor him.

When Emma hadn't eased up to him yet, she told him that she already had Izana and that he'd never replace him.

When Shinichiro asked her why he wasn’t with her, he didn’t expect that his words would unintentionally hurt her feelings, and you shook your head in disapproval when he recounted the tale after he begged you to talk to her instead. C’mon. Just help me out, please?

You did, and you still would when you explained to him how adoptions worked, all that complicated, jargony stuff.

Then you asked him what was all of this for. The better question was for who.

On his next visit, Izana got himself a nice guitar. Someone lent it to him, but he didn't elaborate more about that or the scratch on its side when he began playing him a verse of Sweet Child O' Mine. He sulked a bit, deeming his attempt amateur, though Shinichiro assured him that he recognized the song – from heart, he’d even proclaim with a pat to his chest, and Izana always knew but he’d still roll his eyes – and he improved by a mile, knowing he'd been self-taught from his letters.

Shinichiro could barely even pull off the basic chords, believing the F chord actually stood for Fucking Hard in English. Izana agreed but he told him that he should just practice and quit messing up the tuners.

Shinichiro hadn’t mastered playing the guitar months later. Even so, Izana would approach him, asking if he could teach him how to ride a motorcycle. He’d rather teach him how to talk to girls, though he still guided him through the clutch, the throttle and brake, the steering for a bike to roll smoothly, but he wouldn’t actually let him drive until Izana would rush ahead and do it by himself at thirteen.

Shinichiro was there in all of Manjiro and Emma’s milestones. He wanted to be there for Izana’s too.

Ueno Park almost felt bare on July.

Perhaps, there was melancholy in prolonged misplacement.

That there weren’t any cherry blossoms abloom in the park and his mother wouldn't be celebrating Hanami next spring.

His immersion of the surroundings seemed to change after a long stroll to Hanazono Inari Shrine, bedecked with torii gates that couldn't grant wishes, carmine stippled with green shadows overhead. The heat swayed with the trees that it could make a bug curl under a rock and nestle itself there with dreams of the coming season. There’s a zoo nearby, though Izana would rather glance at the fishes from the pond. A smile bent his lips when the fat, red-bellied carps swam under his feet once he fed them morsels of his taiyaki. One of them jokingly brought up cannibalism or if carp liked sweets as much as people do.

His mother would probably say something as absurd, like that time she claimed she was his best friend on this same bridge, a sprig of transient flowers clutched between her fingers. Manjiro was two, but he wouldn’t have memories of her outside the hospital as much as he did. Shinichiro wasn’t sure what kind of child he would be without his mother always holding his hand, though he still threw a fit that what she insisted was downright embarrassing.

Shinichiro reflected over her words, if she had only told him that so he wouldn’t feel as lonesome as she did.

It made him wonder if it was inherited. If Izana had it too, averting his eyes after lingering for too long at the crowd from the distance, couples with strollers and children with parents.

Parks were spaces meant for big, normal families. The shape of which had been hollowed out of them, and through each other’s pensive gaps, Shinichiro just knew he had to take him anywhere but here.

They spent most of the time around the city, going to a corner store where he bought himself a pack of smokes without being asked for an ID; to Okubo-Dori and had Korean corn dogs slathered with too much mustard and sugar; to JB’s Music Store, owned by an Aussie who wore John Lennon tea shades everyday. You tipped him about it because this was the place where you usually purchased CD albums at a cheaper price, though this wasn’t where he got Izana’s Walkman. It’s secondhand, but one could never go wrong finding the best kind in Akihabara.

The both of them gawked at 70s band posters and memorabilia, listening to some random, garbling song by Led Zeppelin, then T. Rex, The Doors, Kiss, Queen. Izana had quick hands when he stuffed a cassette tape inside his hoodie, though the owner had sharper eyes beneath those pitch-black shades and chased them out of the store, making them scram three blocks ahead like their lives depended on it.

Shinichiro would’ve paid the man if he wasn’t low on cash today. He still reprimanded Izana for stealing, panting shallow breaths that gradually heaved out a wild laugh, because the cassette tape was worth the trouble when he eyed the track listings, a collection of the all-time greatest rock hits.

You’re insane. Don’t ever lose it, Shinichiro told him, tousling his hair. Izana didn’t have much back at the orphanage anyway, and there’s really something alive in his eyes that warmed his chest.

They wandered around graffiti walls and railroad ways, neon-signed establishments, scraps of Tokyoite urbanity that smoldered at dusk. There’s the arcade near the pachinko parlor, and there’s the oceanside park at the edge of the city, where the sand stretched for miles that their footprints had been lost to the sea, to the smoke and asphalt on the highway towards the horizon.

There’s a lot of places his brother still hadn’t known yet and some could span far and wide as long as the road could take them together.

Izana didn't like to talk about his mother so he pondered over the father that he never had the chance to know. Or perhaps, was fortunate enough to have never known more about because that meant his father could be anyone; someone who could've been the pillar of his life; someone who he would be proud of being called as his father's son.

"You and Emma have the same father," recalled Izana. "What's he like?"

"He worked hard. When he was around, we watched TV sometimes. Hm, he’d get me out of trouble when Grandpa's about to give me an earful. Always had an excuse," Shinichiro let out a clipped chuckle, then stopped, blank and bleak, when he recounted that his father didn’t discipline him as much as Takeomi’s did and maybe that’s the case because he’s almost never home.

He wondered if fathers were lost creatures. Or if his had only gone astray.

Shinichiro grinned roguishly. “Look at how I turned out to be.”

He hoped to cradle them forever, reminded of the same, fulgent feeling from years ago when Manjiro had first babbled his name and the world around him changed ever since, brighter.

There was a time Izana made a strange promise that he'd break the leg of the guy who got him hospitalized someday, which ought to be raising his concern with how little it sounded like a joke. Shinichiro wrote to him that he reminded him of Manjiro for that and what he drew out of it was a stranger reply. He’s serious apparently, though no word on the comparison.

Even if Shinichiro recounted about Emma getting along with Manjiro in his letters, Izana would dismiss him in favor of his sister. Oftentimes, he wouldn’t acknowledge them together at all.

He penned back that he should stop getting into brawls so much, recollecting how he had to rewrap the bandage on his ankle in his last visit. It’s one thing to fight in self-defense, and another to rampantly commit violence.

His lenience would then provide him that he was only defending a friend. The name kept eluding him.

He searched for one, but his eyes found conviction in a sentence instead.

I just want to be more like you.

Shinichiro almost read that in Manjiro’s voice, but he knew better than to mention it.

At sixteen, Shinichiro thought his biggest hurdle was approaching his grandfather into adopting Izana in the same vein he attempted talking the caretaker to just let him adopt him because they were related anyway—so what if he was still in high school? A delinquent? He led the Black Dragons a year younger and raised his siblings when he’s barely even a teenager.

You’d refute him that he’d only stop being a child at eighteen and would legally be an adult by twenty. Besides, his grandfather was at a certain age wherein he shouldn’t be taking care of another kid anymore. Then you would nag him about the process, the long duration, the qualifications of a guardian. The statistics were slim. There’s a reason why adoptions were so rare and difficult.

At seventeen, he had to accept that the truth was harder to swallow.

Did you ever look back and think why his mother didn’t abandon him with his little sister in your house?

Shinichiro stopped wondering how he could keep a terrible secret for over a year when he'd already been good at keeping them far longer, just so his mother's smile would endure. Izana deserved a kinder life.

They could’ve been listening to records in the vinyl shop downtown or marveling at fiery zelkovas on the route to Omotesando.

But they’re out here lounging around a deserted basketball court, chain-wire fence on their backs, squatted under the late-autumn sun.

"All this legal stuff is stupid. I wish you never had to wait." Shinichiro sighed. "I wish I could bring you home."

Izana was so quiet. His breaths were even, muffled in the wool of his scarf, though he couldn’t seem to scream out his disappointment; he stared. The distance was indistinct, almost leaving no trail but the despair in his eyes. Shinichiro couldn’t help but feel as if he let go of his hand in a crowd, making him crumple down to his knees.

"You,” murmured Izana. Then he glanced back at him, searching. Shinichiro had seen something like this before, so long ago. “You'll come back for me anyway, right?"

"Always," Shinichiro promised, ruffling his hair to shake him off it, as if to gently remind him he’s still here. "But you won't feel too lonely at the orphanage, will you?"

His shoulders trembled; his arms taut around his knees for something else to cling on because Izana looked like he’d been through it a hundred times, and Shinichiro reached, anchored him by the arm, though he couldn’t offer any more consolation than this.

"Kakucho will," Izana realized wistfully, "if I just leave . . ."

"You won't leave him then." Shinichiro smiled, but the corners of his mouth ached. "'Cause you're a good friend."

His eyebrows pinched. "Kakucho's my servant."

Ah. His brother had to work on that.

"Okay. He's your friend," Shinichiro told him this as if he hadn't heard him, provoking a peeved reaction. He just reached forward and pulled at his cheeks to tug up his frown. "Jeez, who calls his friend a servant? You're so weird."

"You're so annoying, Shin," Izana countered defensively, twisting his face away from his hands. "You're the worst!"

Even after the both of them ended up jostling each other in a stutter of soft, exasperated laughter, Shinichiro knew that he really was.

Shinichiro was doing homework.

The book you chose was one of the older copies in your small collection. He's not good at deciphering stuff like this, finding himself not reading the prose but the history: indentions, lignin on paper edges, cracks on the spine like faults or broken lightning.

In Akutagawa's Life of a Stupid Man, you went on about how Death and Illness had two entries each that shared the same title. Perhaps, the meaning should be telling to both the author and the reader, though he couldn't help but be more invested on the singularity of his third entry, The House, highlighted with a faded, broad stroke of neon green as if to scream the passage in an adolescent voice:

He often wondered, in that suburban second story, if people who loved each had to cause each other pain.

Shinichiro ended up copying and paraphrasing your essay when you lent it to him with a shrug.

Sometimes, he pondered if you were the one that highlighted that sentence when the book, like the rest, had belonged to your big brother once.

The truth was he didn't know what to feel about his father.

Shinichiro wondered how could someone hurt another when they weren’t there anymore, and in some despondent way, he understood you a little better.

His father left him a house. His grandfather was too old and his brother was too young. He forgot that he was a child on the day he began to carry the roof of the household on his shoulders, make a pillar out of the boy, tall as ten years and growing.

His mother wept for him that time, spilling soup on the edge of her hospice bed, and he picked up the lacquer bowl as if to salvage something in the remains. There’s a dent on the lip of the bowl that he wouldn’t acknowledge, forcing a smile for the cracks not to show. He told her he’d be strong for all of them. Her tears still kept falling.

You called him unbreakable once. He often wondered if it was true.

The train was slow and swift at the same time when you're standing in the middle, hands clutching on the grab handle above you as if in white-knuckled prayer, but your face was passive, not peaceful. You were gazing at the window behind him and Shinichiro saw the setting sun reflect back in your eyes.

The stop to Meidaimae, then passengers flowing in and out once the doors opened; one of them was the old lady who sat next to him, wading through the crowd with a trolley bag full of canned goods. He still had the Pancan she meant to give to you on his hand.

"Can you sit with me?" Shinichiro asked.

It's just that you looked more content where you were, but it's like staring at a painting for too long and after you acquiesced, he's painfully aware of the distance between both of your shoulders lately, if the gap between them could measure to a fracture.

He defied the sentiment, deciding to rest his head on your shoulder, even though he wasn't tired. He was still heavy, so heavy these days, but he knew you – you were strong, safe in every single way no one understood you for.

You didn't groan out that he should get off you as he clasped to your warmth, hanging himself to the neckline of your sweater in a mutter, "what do you think about Izana?"

You shifted a bit. "I don't know. Fond of you, I guess."

There's a part of him that wanted to convince you that he's a good kid, a terribly lonely kid, but he needed to know your opinion of him first before imparting everything else.

"Is he really your little brother?"

"He is," it's not a lie.

"Then he is," you repeated. "He doesn't act like one, though."

"What do you mean?"

"He acts more like he's your only brother."

"He just hasn't met Manjiro yet." Shinichiro paused. Suddenly, everything mattered and the confidence of his previous statement wavered from a low, sullen, "do you think they'll get along?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

Because he tried.

Stop talking about Manjiro.

When he couldn’t provide a clear answer, you did it for him, even though he’d probably dislike what it was.

“They’ll fight,” you sounded more somber and profound than you should. “Siblings always fight.”

Shinichiro remembered how you shed blood and tears in Chiba; the open wounds of your eyes, a wound for years.

“But you’ll know how to stop them. That’s actually one of your least annoying traits.”

“Then what’s my most annoying trait?”

“When you’re like this.”

A sigh rolled off your lips, and he held a breath as if to snatch the air between them.

"I can't help you when you're like this, Shin," you reminded him, exasperated and resigned and tender, but even when your sentences weren't knife-edged, he felt like he'd bleed from the truth regardless. "You can't just keep hiding things to yourself, you know that?"

"I know," Shinichiro murmured pensively. But you wouldn’t understand . . .

Maybe, he shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t keep. Maybe, he should’ve let Izana and Emma meet earlier, but would it have made a difference if it wound up towards the same conclusion? Would he hate Manjiro? Would they hate each other?

They’ll fight. The words held a tremor of dread and frustration because the truth would be something Izana would hate most of all.

But Izana held so much hope on his throat, and what big brother was he to let it become his noose.

You wouldn’t understand.

The next two stops should be closer to your place and he counted the seconds like how he counted the passing months on a calendar and the snow-capped roofs of houses slanting under the evening sun. February was ending soon.

"Can you walk me home too?"

You did with a sigh, not even protesting when Shinichiro persuaded you to stay there for awhile, and he's almost tempted to ask if you'd do anything for him. The words didn't quite spell out as he silently hoped when the both of you ended up bumming on a cigarette in the garden, coalesced over a waft of fragrant incense his grandfather lit from the house. He mentioned to you that Manjiro didn’t know how to properly pray to the butsudan and you shrugged because you never had a reason to pray either, offering smoke to no one but him.

He could've been more honest that night, though he didn't want to tell you that he's afraid he didn't know how long he could still have you like this.

A year after you left for Nagoya, Shinichiro told Takeomi about Izana.

You’re just trying to protect them, was his only reassurance.

Shinichiro wished he could do better at it. Months from now, it wouldn’t be enough.

It's like you have a little sister, Shinichiro announced on the day he first held a baby in his arms; a privilege, perhaps, that he should've reserved for Manjiro but he didn't know he'd have a little brother yet, and you furrowed your brows, denying his statement. No, Keiko's my niece.

You would repeat it whenever you were tasked to watch over her from the crib because your sister was grinding away in her second part-time job during the weekends.

Shinichiro hung around with you till his curfew. In fact, he had so much free time that he could play hide-and-seek at home by himself and still get bored for years while responsibility was thrust upon you earlier for him to misinterpret your petulant unwillingness for disaffection.

You scowled over changing diapers and looked like you're about to collapse into tears the moment you heard a piercing, infantile cry, though you would always know when Keiko was hungry. Permit her to grip your glasses like a toy when she's saddled on the hook of your arm, a hand rubbing her back. You're the same with your nephew too, a little boy named Yoichi, sucking his thumb when he followed you around everywhere.

Whenever Shinichiro saw this different side of you something inside him unfurled, about what it's like to hum some soft, lilting lullaby to put one to sleep or to grasp a toddler's hand, crossing the pedestrian lane.

What's it like to hear a baby burp out a laugh? You told him it was the weirdest sound Keiko ever made, revealing a warm liveliness to you behind the humor and a pang of jealousy in his grin.

Then Takeomi had Haruchiyo, and the feeling carved through him.

Shinichiro didn't have anything like that. He didn't think he would want something so much until his mother rested a hand over her womb and then he called you over the phone, so overjoyed that he yelled at the top of his lungs that he's going to be a—

“Can I see you?”

“I can't exactly come back to Tokyo.”

“No, I'll come over to you.”

“Right now? Really?”

“Yeah . . .”

“All right. Hey, Shin,” a soft, concerned pause. “Did something happen—” Are you okay?

Shinichiro pretended to not hear you, pressing end call after lingering for a second.

Taking the bullet train to Nagoya hadn't really been the most impulsive thing Shinichiro had ever committed, and despite it being the most expensive ride he’d ever spent, he still got cold feet from meeting you.

A part of him was hollow, an ache between the space in his bones. It’s like he’s missing a rib, curved along your smile from the window of the café, a sigh ghosting through the glass as if to make the sentiment apparent in the longing. How it wasn’t the same without each other’s presence anymore.

You didn't appear like you changed all that much yet. He no longer wondered if he did.

Shinichiro asked for directions, burned the soles of his shoes across the city to find you, and once he did, he lost the half of him that you might’ve loved. Where did all of his courage go? Why did it feel selfish to barge back into your life and believe everything would be as it was?

He pulled out his phone and sent you a message that something urgent came up. I’m sorry.

In a way it kind of was.

Fearing the thought that it’s there in Nagoya; your resolve of wanting to search for yourself in a world without him.

Shinichiro dismissed it entirely as he bolted into a sprint, running through where he went wrong when Izana was thrown in juvie, and Manjiro scarred Haruchiyo, and he didn't really know where he hurtled himself into when the descent felt more real and harrowing than anything, spewing his guts out on the pavement from some alleyway.

It was Takeomi who found him and brought him home that night, half pitying and half responsible for him.

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” he told him this as if he’s been living in it, and Shinichiro wanted to ask if he’s okay.

But Takeomi would probably brush it off, something about having to prove he’s tougher than this, and he shouldered the weight of him, even if he did look brittle himself. He’s unshaven too. The both of them used to joke about stuff like that, growing beards and pubic hair.

“Something like that,” offered Shinichiro, thinking maybe they could meet somewhere in the anguish. “Hey, I really missed you.”

There’s a stiffness to his shoulders. Sometimes, affection to Takeomi was a scar, callousing a little more over time, and he didn’t say the words but it’s still there, on the firm grip of his hand. The silence between them was scuffed with footfalls, like coming out of a war again. He never had to do it with blood or bravado, though he only had to be the boy he remembered from a lifetime ago.

“Please don't let Manjiro and Emma see me like this.”

Shinichiro figured he'd understand, ignoring the kaleidoscope of wicked, blinding lights from Kabukicho, the scent of tobacco and another woman's perfume on his best friend’s clothes like his father's . . .

If someone were to ask him about his father, Shinichiro would always tell you that he couldn’t recall much of his face. There were photo albums and picture frames on the walls, but somehow, all he saw was a stranger. Then he’d glance on the mirror and trace out the lie.

All the unlikely bright spots of his memory resurfacing, like the fresh smarting of a bruise.

How his father compensated by giving him that Nintendo console he'd been begging his parents to buy for him on his eighth birthday; how he smoked more than his grandfather, but unlike him, he's mindful enough to tamp his cigarette under the heel of his shoe when Shinichiro was around him; how he loved him very much, perhaps in all the poignant ways absent fathers could for their children that he had to wonder for the longest time why his father couldn't return all of this love to his mother.

Shinichiro had contemplated about it for a decade and locked it so close to his chest that it had long since lost a voice from every secret he had kept for him.

He just didn't want anyone to hurt – never again.

Shinichiro wasn’t alone in his room.

Manjiro had been playing his Gameboy.

Shinichiro was a little disoriented, a little ready to reproach him to not play games all day, though once he stirred from the bed, he woke feverish with a cooling pad plastered on his forehead. Swaddled in his comforter, his body ached and shuddered; throat parched.

Manjiro was attentive beside him, putting down the Gameboy and reaching him a sweaty glass of water. The condensation trickled along the line of his wrist, but it's nice and cold on the pads of his fingers, tilting up the glass to his mouth. His mind was still muddled.

“Grandpa called Yoneda-jiji that you were sick today.” Then Manjiro pointed at the plastic container from his nightstand; warm clumps of onigiri inside. “Emma made you those. Sorry, I ate one,” he added, flicking the grain of rice on his t-shirt.

The hem tag at the back of his collar poked out. It’s thoughtlessly childish, endearing really, and Shinichiro was about to mention it until Manjiro spoke for Emma’s behalf. “She wanted to stay behind too, but I told her that she should go to school.”

Then Shinichiro craned his head at him. Cleared his throat again. “Why aren’t you in school?”

There’s resolution in his dark eyes.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

“I’m fine. Don’t skip school, dummy,” dismissed Shinichiro, but he didn’t mean to sound mildly annoyed about it. He wasn't exactly the model of good health, but his body had endured the worst so he searched for all the cuts and scabs that weren’t there because he never had a fever since he was about his brother’s age and he'd rather be annoyed than admit how much he felt like a burden.

Manjiro was unyielding in his concern. “Promise me you’ll get better first,” he demanded with a clench to his fist, like he’s looking for a fight. “Then I’ll go back tomorrow.”

Shinichiro just tucked the hem tag back inside his t-shirt and gave him a pat on the head, his hair soft and unkempt under his hand, seeking comfort. Gentleness wasn't new to Manjiro, but it's a language he struggled at conveying so he dropped his gaze, uncertain and a bit lost.

There's a heaviness to his eyes that made him slouch on the bed and the both of them were reminiscing of a simpler, more vulnerable time.

"You never get sick," Manjiro told him with an edge to his voice that's close to trembling. "You just never do, Shinichiro."

Shinichiro sighed under his breath. “I’ll be okay, all right? I’ll be better.”

His throat ached. He sounded so much like their mother.

Shinichiro didn't quite realize how his reticence could hurt his brother when the both of them knew that there's something profoundly wrong.

They really were related. They're Sanos. Awful with words, awful with feelings; a shared helplessness.

Manjiro feared the weakness of it more than Shinichiro had withstood for all his life, but he didn't mind. He could learn from his big brother's failures, know when to not step on the cracks from his path, rise up again if he did so that the fall wouldn't wound him as much.

Manjiro could even kill a person right now and Shinichiro would still do anything for him. He'd do the same for Izana.

Terrible and twisted, his brothers, but Shinichiro loved them anyway. Emma and Grandpa did too.

They're all what's left.

They're a family.

Later in the afternoon, Shinichiro would be faced with dishes on the sink with a stab of betrayal, and be bombarded with errands from his job tomorrow, and be attending Manjiro and Emma's PTA meetings right after work. He still had to make amends with Nitta-san for Manjiro's aggression towards her son. There's so much laundry to do . . .

But then he’d also recall how Emma beamed when he complimented her that her onigiri was perfect after laboring on it for hours just to get the shape and taste right; her fingers slightly burned from a clumsy attempt at molding hot rice. Manjiro was the one who suggested grilled salmon flakes as a filling because he knew it’s his favorite and dashed towards the grocery store to buy the ingredients himself.

His grandfather was always the stoic one. He'd scold him a lot, but they never argued and no one had the real temper to combust. Nothing was deeper; every response was delayed and every conversation was either terse, ruminating ones or complete silence like in Mokuso. Even in the kitchen table where they sat together for years, he brought the austerity of the dojo with him.

Shinichiro wouldn’t inherit the family dojo. He had no interest in pursuing martial arts. Had other plans.

His grandfather asked if he was doing well anyway, and Shinichiro was close to saying that he's sorry for being a disappointment but he bit it off at the last second before telling him that he was good.

That's good. He nodded and nothing much else.

Perhaps, Shinichiro could never get more from this, but it's all right. They would drink tea in silence and fall back to the same, mundane talks in circles until he turned twenty, not feeling older than he should, because he was still his grandfather and he was still his grandson. It was good.

Exposition corner:

[1] “his father's son”: a reference to the names of Shinichiro and his father, Makoto, from the Sano Family Tree; Makoto [真] and Shinichiro [真一郎], [真] being the kanji for ‘truth’ or ‘sincerity’ and [一郎] for ‘first son.’ Another reading of [真一郎] could be Makoto’s First Son. Full credits to Yoko for this one! If you see this, you my friend are amazing for picking this up!

[2] Hanami: The Japanese traditional custom of viewing cherry blossoms when they are in full bloom, usually accompanied with family and/or friends. On the topic of Hanami, Ueno Park is popularly known as one of the best cherry blossom viewing spots in Tokyo.

[3] "[...] torii gates that couldn't grant wishes”: Shinichiro was referencing the Fushimi Inari Shrine from Kyoto, in which the Senbon Torii there are believed to grant wishes.

[4] “[…] he’d only stop being a child at eighteen and would legally be an adult by twenty”: According to the Child Welfare Law, a person under 18 is considered a child while under the Civil Law Act, the age of adulthood is 20 in Japan. In context of the story, Izana could leave the orphanage when he’s 18. If Shinichiro wanted to adopt Izana, he would have to be 20 because he wouldn’t be considered an adult if he’s still 18-19. Sadly, even if he was already an adult, adoption in Japan is a whole can of worms. It is rare and difficult. It’s known that orphans are likely to grow and move out from their orphanages than to be adopted.

[5] Life of a Stupid Man: It’s an autobiographical short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. It’s his last written work before he committed suicide right after.

[6] House: In Japanese, [家] translates to ‘house’, but it could also mean family, household, and family’s lineage. Hell, Family [家族] is one part a character for the term. I don’t want to bore anyone with the subtle distinctions between [いえ] and [うち], but my main point is ‘house’ carries the same weight as ‘family’ to Shinichiro specifically. If I were writing this in Japanese, this would’ve made more sense, but I’m just playing with my words in English (^_^)

[7] Butsudan: It is a shrine commonly found in temples and homes in Japanese Buddhist cultures. Its primary use is for paying respects to the Buddha, as well as to family members who have died.

[8] Mokuso: It is a type of martial arts meditation practiced in Japanese martial arts like Karate and Kendo.

a massive shoutout to ObsidianMoonstones's Tone of Things to Come and As long as I’m dreaming, I’m alive – they told me the dead don’t dream. his characterization of izana is the best i've ever come across in any site. heck, how he writes izana is my main source of inspiration! i highly recommend everyone to check out his works!!

a/n: next chapter is the second part of his backstory so we're still going to suffer a bit. sorry, if it feels a bit incomplete for now, but i swear if i didn't cut this in half, all of you wouldn't get the chance to breathe because I'm pretty sure yall know what's coming next :')

part nine ❁ m.list ❁ part eleven

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