Fanfiction: English as a Second Language
Title: English as a Second Language
Characters: Fye, Kurogane
Rating: PG-13: Language in this chapter
Summary: He was already tackling his ex-wife, custody over their two small children and his new life alone, he was expecting a mysterious foreign lodger to be a hassle… quite the opposite… A single chance encounter brought them together for the better.
Disclaimer: I am in fact secretly Clamp ... no really...
a/n: When I came up with the idea for this I’m not sure if I’d even heard of Horitsuba. Basically I ended up fashioning my own brother character on what fitted most with the story and contrasted best with Fye so he’s not in any way, shape or form like the brother character in Horitsuba - in fact it’s the wrong way round! Take it as a matter of creative liberty if it feels a little funny to compare the two sets of twins! ^^;
***
Fye’s brother was the kind of person to make everyone around him worried without being aware of the fact himself, the type to be so naturally inquisitive and spontaneous he always evoked a raised eyebrow or an anxious stare. He was the louder brother, the more sociable of the two, laid-back, chilled, care-free… He paid a lot of attention to Fye’s problems and ignored his own personal demons completely. In a sense that made him a haphazard personality but then it also made him very easy to get along with for some. He lived for the present and for the present only. He disregarded work in favour of play and he had seemingly no understanding of the word ‘consequence’. Fye’s brother was likeable but he was also a loose cannon.
He woke up every few nights with a dry throat and a headache. He breakfasted on coffee and cigarettes. He dragged himself through the dull ventures of his studies driven entirely by caffeine, nicotine and the occasional sandwich and the rest of his time he spent working in a local café and reading English literature as a hobby. He typically went to bars and clubs at night, partaking from a certain scene before managing it back to his flat and starting the cycle all over again the next morning.
In contrast, Fye tended to stay at home in the evenings, mostly stuck to the screen, the type to know more people online than in his daily life. He was quiet and relatively shy when it came to talking to new people, as if his connection with his own twin pushed him further and further from a boundary line.
They had always been too easy to compare and judge, identical in all physical ways and yet inverses to the core. Ever since their childhood their differences had been inspected, withdrawn, examined and marked from their young and impressionable frames.
In the beginning their relationship was simple, as plain and naïve as their childish innocence, their perception of the world pure and unadulterated. If they differed in any way then their youth allowed them to see past it, both playmates and best friends, brothers so close their bond remained unbroken for years. They were orphaned together, they were adopted together and they moved home together. Side by side, they faced the new playground and stuck fast to each other, something nothing could break through, not other boys or girls, not different sports or games, nothing. But even then Fye was the more hesitant twin, the one who tended to shy away from antics and frivolities. He didn’t speak often to the other children and he always made sure that he was right behind his brother, either being led or being guided. In that way, Fye’s brother grew up firmly in the role of a ring leader, with certainty embedded in his nerves and cheer is his veins. Things only changed when Fye picked up the chickenpox while his brother remained miraculously free of the disease for another two years. He continued to go to school and, in the absence of his twin brother, began to play with the other children. By the time Fye had returned to school, his brother had fallen in with a new group of friends, the world seeming to suddenly shift as he blinked. In a week a crack had formed, a flaw had developed and Fye found himself sitting alone with a packet of sweets and a games console at the side of the playground while his brother was playing or talking to a larger group of children Fye was too quiet to involve himself with.
It seemed then that as they grew older, the further this rift widened, the more it began to crack and dig into Fye, painfully reminding him that his twin was a separate identity, that he was alone. They both grew and they both matured, they both developed in different ways to become individuals and form two identities, completely separate and detached. One became silent while the other spread his voice further and further. One surrounded himself with close friends while the other launched himself from one clique to another. One gave small smiles and the other loud and ringing laughter. That was how Fye was taught to lie - facing his brother, pulling his widest smile and declaring he was happy. He was pleased with everything, his life, his brother, his choices… His brother seemed content enough with this, passing his own grin, light and carefree before heading into town with his friends.
It was all a lie. And as Fye’s brother seemed to sparkle, Fye seemed to dull and as he became more introverted it was almost as if his brother became more extroverted by the same degree. It was that very fact that dug Fye further and further into his own shell, retreating from company, sick of being compared, of being marked against this beacon of popularity, radiating within his own social circle.
Fye’s brother was happier than Fye because he surrounded himself with people and began cutting himself from his own worries. Fye’s brother never regretted his own actions and lived for fun rather than toil. Fye’s brother was the type to only revise for a test at 11 o’clock the night before, to drink certain nights after school and return home tipsy, expecting his brother to cover for him. He jumped between girlfriends and boyfriends so often there was barely any point in keeping up, Fye never wanted to see their faces anyways. It always made him feel ill thinking of how his brother saw them, how they saw his brother…
His brother was the type to face the world erratically, someone who never saw any problems in the world or what he did, the kind of brother to accidentally steal Fye’s first boyfriend, aged sixteen. And by the way he’d apologised, by the way he’d repeated that he was sorry to Fye, something painful lodging in his throat and his tone, Fye accepted that he hadn’t known who it was. It didn’t make it hurt any less though. Fye hadn’t even kissed him yet, what might have been his very first. Seeing it happen like that, watching his identical, sociable self kissing his first step in the right direction, it were as if something broke inside him. He was useless, he was certain of it. He was awkward, he was a geek who couldn’t enjoy life in the same way as his brother. He’d thought himself lucky to even find another boy who liked him and it felt like everything had been ripped from his fingers by something he could never be, something he was always sized up to, feeling he could never make the same mark. His brother was pretty and charming… his brother was so stupid.
His brother had started drinking at fifteen, had started smoking at seventeen and had lost his virginity somewhere in between. If you asked to whom, he’d laugh first. Meanwhile Fye stayed at home, worrying, thinking about where his brother was and what he might be doing. He was absolutely terrified, scared sick that one night he might never come back, that he’d try drugs, that he’d become an addict, that he’d catch some disease off someone or that one day his body would give way and crumble from the abuse to his system. And perhaps at sixteen this anxiety was at its mildest level, more bitter and reproachful than anything else, but things began to accentuate and worsen as they both grew even older, the anxiety took over his whole system at times when his brother was away. Yet when he came home, when he stumbled across Fye reading in his bedroom, all of a sudden Fye was the one with the problem. And, as it turned out, Fye wasn’t the one worrying about his twin, it was the other way round.
He would be told, his brother would pine to him constantly with such a caring and fraught tone, that he needed to get more, that he needed people in his life rather than books and computers. His brother was worried that he had problems forming ties with others, that when he left home he would shut himself away and become completely solitary and sorrowful. It’d develop into an argument if either of them were in a bad mood. One had too much of a life and the other had too little and yet neither seemed to see straight, both wanted to just continue as they were, pushing further and further apart until something gave way.
And eventually something did.
Fye left home to study Chemistry in Hamburg while his brother travelled further afield to study English in Berlin.
Separated from his brother for the first time, Fye felt both a sadness and a relief, feeling blatantly lonely but at the same time taking in a breath of fresh air, standing as an individual on his own two feet. For a period of time, he was happy and contented. He could study to his heart’s desire, he could go out and find like-minded people, geeks and fellow internet fanatics merely a stone’s throw away. He was his own person, finally growing confident with himself. But no matter how individual he felt in his new city, he was always reunited with his brother at weekends, during the holidays and over the occasional phone call.
At surface level nothing at all was wrong with his brother’s life. Things couldn’t be better. He was happy, he had new friends, he enjoyed his course but there was something that got to Fye. Perhaps it was the way he smiled, a full-blown grin, or the way he laughed like he was caving in on himself. He showed such glee in every movement that he made that it seemed tainted somehow and unreal, and the more time Fye spent talking with his brother he realised that nothing had changed at all but his levels of self-control had eroded faster than usual away from home in a city filled with nightlife. He worked hard but mostly to afford his own lifestyle. His student payments weren’t due just yet. He was freer than before, looser and hence more available for anything. And it was clear that every one of Fye’s teenaged fears were playing out one by one.
He stayed at his brother’s flat in Berlin one weekend and immediately regretted accepting the offer, watching every inkling in his mind seep into physical reality. It had still surprised him how much his brother managed to put back before he started to get properly drunk, barely able to understand it himself. It wasn’t that he never went out drinking, but that was with friends, that was a small affair with talk and rounds. It was a strange feeling now to be out with his brother and his friends, watching them tackle alcohol like a bull. By the end of the night he was completely fed up of it, mature but thrown completely out of his comfort zone, tired of being treated as younger now, unsure as to which acted most like their own age.
Walking back… his brother could only just walk in a straight line, could barely place one foot in front of the other without stumbling. He laughed so stupidly it made Fye want to scream at him, he slurred so much it nearly made Fye screech at him that he was smarter than this, that he was only degrading himself. Not that it would make a difference. He bit his lip, he sealed it away along with every other gut-wrenching moment that night, swirling about Fye’s stomach sickeningly, digging into him. But still somehow through everything, with each intoxicated mental leap and slur, his brother still felt he was the superior one, informing him in a lapsing and confident statement that he needed to loosen up a little, he needed to enjoy himself more.
Fye snapped. “Why do you think I can’t enjoy myself?!” he suddenly yelled, feeling the words finally burst from his throat. “Just because I don’t act like you?! I’m glad…”
His brother blinked confusedly, scrunched up his brows, the words barely entering through his alcohol soaked system. “So I’m wrong?” he asked, a low and blunt remark.
“No, just most people have a sense of moderation,” Fye spat, stomping away as quickly as he could with his throat catching.
And yet he could still hear his brother’s voice crashing intrusively against his ears - “Loosen up, for fuck’s sake!” He could hear his footsteps hitting the pavement unsteadily, teetering into a limping run, swearing loudly as he stumbled and hit against a parked car. “Get a life, Yuui, please! God’s sake!” he heard his brother screech in return.
He stopped and spun around, night air clenching his skin, making the tears in his eyes feel more noticeable as he watched his brother make his way over, lips pursed, fists clenched and with dangerous determination in his eyes.
“Nobody seems to accept that I’m not like you! Why can’t you just admit that I’m different and I’m happy?!” Fye practically sobbed, staring at him, emitting it in a lashing screech, years of discomfort emerging in an uncontrolled and trembling shout.
“You’re not!” his brother responded, slurred speech digging dregs of emotion from his chest as he slowly crept up to Fye, close enough to be reminded how much he loved his brother, how much he’d drunk that night and how much he’d drunk that year. His brother clenched a hand about his arm, something sentimental dripping through. “I brought you here… because I want you to be happy.”
Fye could feel that hand lying coldly against his skin, a painful and sickening reminder, an embodiment of everything he’d tried to clear from his mind, to rip away and scatter. Something that was expected of him, something that made him sick, something he could never be clutching against his skin, making him feel ill, a wash of fear, a slick sense of guilt and panic coming over him as he ripped his brother’s hand off his arm and threw his arm away, lashing it away from his body as fiercely as it allowed him to, whipping about, his feet carrying him quickly and heavily down the pavement with his teeth clenched and his breath shaking.
He first heard the rubber screech but the two facts had barely met in his mind, the thought never formed… He heard the metallic crunch and something ice cold dropped within the pit of his stomach. He turned around, he saw the blood… and he’d never felt the desire to detach himself from his skin so strongly, to suddenly cease for one blissful second as the moment he watched the blood curl about his brother’s head on the street. Others screamed but his own breath merely seemed to echo in his head, ragged and frightened…
***
“When I left, he was in a coma,” Fye admitted in a soft whisper, his eyelids wavering over sodden eyes and his voice lying sorrowfully, with a gentle ache, against his lips. “We went to the hospital… and I just looked at him. I hated myself for hurting him. But then I started to wonder when the police arrived… I had done it… I had probably killed my own brother… but was I at fault?” he mumbled in a voice beginning to tremble once more, starting to shiver in guilt, difficultly edging from his throat. He clenched his fists and opened them again with a juddering breath. “I loved my brother but I hated him too. So if I killed him was it an accident or not?” He started to sob, tears leaked from eyes scrunched tight shut, locked up tightly, trying and failing to prevent these tears from leaking though, from piercing his explanation and ripping the sorry state apart. “I thought about it and I didn’t know what I felt. I was sad… of course I was sad, I was devastated… but there was one tiny part of me that was happy… I hated myself for it.” His shoulders tightened up, his posture pinched in self-loathing, lips trembling a fraction with discomfort. “I came to Japan because I murdered someone who I loved and I was glad.”
Kurogane watched him wash away as he finished, watched him take a deep breath, shutting his eyes and leaning back to sink away as everything detached from his chest, thinking back to his brother in his hospital bed, swarmed by plastic tubes like snakes writhing down his utterly still arms and throat, that painful silence in the air that seemed to mark his guilt all the more and everyone’s refusal to face facts. How much blood he’d lost; the results of the scans. It was all so sterile. He felt judgement being passed as he simply sat gazing towards his ghostly brother, his happiness exhumed and all life heartlessly removed. It felt so criminal.
Their hands were still curled together, more for reassurance than anything else, for a sign that Kurogane was still there, preparing to hold Fye together as his world began to drift away from his fingers once more, although the action felt strange to Kurogane, their fingers touching lightly, their skin held closely together. He frowned; he ignored and dampened the feeling as Fye washed all his tears from his eyes, wringing his own body out until it was bone dry.
Slowly and carefully their hands unlatched, Kurogane casually pulled his hand away, feeling a useless and distracting link, pinning him awkwardly within himself as Fye racked out every hidden emotion in one painful retching blow, his breath juddering sorely and desperately, his body tensed and sickened. Every piece of fear and anger seemed to rip itself from his frame, unstitching from his body and slipping painfully into the night air, leaving the youth before him pitifully empty.
Finally, he took a deep breath, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers shivering and clutching at his knees. He spilled a laboured and victorious breath, passing from his slim lips with relief, his eyes still shut. His mouth rose to a smile, his eyes slowly drifted open and skimmed over to Kurogane, shining dimly in the light, gleaming sorrowfully, a sharp and brief twitch of his lips. Now Kurogane could see who Fye was, could understand what he had done… And it were as if Fye had opened himself violently and suddenly, expecting Kurogane to take a step back, to be disgusted by the sight…
“I don’t think you hate your brother,” Kurogane told him, folding his arms sternly. “I think that you hate what he does.”
Fye blinked, wide and shocked, silent and absorbed. Kurogane continued, a blunt and wise tone in his voice. “Stop making yourself believe that you tried to kill him. You didn’t think about what you were doing… You were angry with him and it was unfortunate but it wasn’t murder…You can’t let your guilt control you because it’s pathetic.”
“So you’re saying that I’m innocent?” Fye asked hesitantly, frightfully.
“I’m saying that you’re stupid,” Kurogane said with a smirk, placing a heavier and older hand on the blonde’s head, his fingers sifting through his hair. It was a motion Fye was too old for, the moment held awkwardly and bluntly within the frozen and fraught air in the room but the space and tension between them was so raw in the first place, every word stung within the wound. “You wouldn’t kill him. You’re just trying to think that you did to justify an accident.”
There was a pause, something cold and silent trembling in the night. And then it seemed to click. Weakly Fye began to smile, only a glimmer at the edges lips to begin with but it soon widened into a broad smile, steeped in gratitude. “You know me too well, Kuro-sama,” he almost laughed, joyfully and thankfully in a hesitant little sputter as he turned his eyes slowly away from him, grinning besides himself. He reached out, clutching the hand seeping into his hair, clasping it thankfully, a tiny squeeze in gratitude as the edges of his lips rose, as his smile glowed and widened in hope and understanding.
Kurogane took in a breath, holding the moment close. Then he turned away, giving out his own blunt and lop-sided smile - Fye would be alright in the end; things would come to right themselves inside his blonde and scattered brain eventually.
He stood up, leaving the room, feeling awkwardly how saturated the air had been with tension and fraught emotion within Fye’s bedroom, feeling the colder air in the kitchen, lonely and still, grasp at him and tighten his guts. He brought back the phone to Fye. He sat back down on the bed and placed it in his hands, wrapping his own about Fye’s soft and slender fingers for a brief moment as he momentarily clasped Fye’s hand. He told him with his voice sinking down low, strangely sympathising, “Call any number for as long as you need.”
“Okay,” Fye whispered and then sighed, happy and relieved.
It only started to dig into Kurogane’s skin once he’d closed the door, once he’d stepped away from Fye. He would probably be leaving soon.
And although he accepted the fact, it frightened him how much it pained him.
***
The rings seemed to echo on forever, each bleeping pathetically and alone through infinity, finally trickling into his right ear for him alone to hear, hoping to reach out and clasp him, a soul so frightfully distant from home. The fear trickled on to his tongue. And it grasped his heart completely in a steely grip, just as cold, as the phone at the other end picked up. It seized him, he held his breath and tensed his body…
He heard her voice on the other end of the line, his adoptive mother…
The moment grasped him, seeming to collide with his chest and form a thick wad in his mouth as he listened to her voice, so warm and familiar, so frightening and distant. With his eyes wide open he listened to her for a second before he formed the decision, before he pursed his lips and readied his words in his mind. His voice shook for a tiny moment as he forced the German from his throat - “Hi… It’s Yuui…”
He grinned as he listened to her burst into tears, felt thankful tears trickle from his own eyes as he heard the commotion behind her, signs of home. “I’m sorry!” the words burst forcefully from him without a single thought, ringing with emotion and wonder, with each smile and happy tear. “I’m so sorry!”
“How are you?!” she blurted. “Where are you?!”
“I’m in Tokyo,” he admitted, feeling foreign in this country for the first time in such a long while. “And I’m safe. I’m fine… don’t worry…” He grinned in disbelief.
“Tokyo,” she repeated in a trembling breath as though somehow astounded and afraid. “They said but I... it was so far away and you had no money with you. And it seemed impossible but we...we just ...” She seemed to cut off about then, dissolving into her own sobs and wrenching Fye’s conscience from his chest, terrifying him, all the time his thumb hovering so chillingly close to the ‘end call’ button. He sat stroking it without a single word he could say, half a smile on his face, a twist in his stomach and tears dripping silently from his eyes until the phone was snatched from his parent’s hands, whirring through the air and a desperate voice cried, “Yuui, is it you?”
Another tear slipped from his eye, running down to meet grinning lips. “You’re alive…” he whispered preciously.
“Yeah, I’m alive. Breathing. What about you? Are you alright?” the panicked voice blurted out over the line.
There was an anxious pause, a miniscule break, Fye’s trembling, guilty breaths over the line as a wound seemed to rip in his chest and he brushed his tongue anxiously against the very edges of his lips, tasting salty traces of tears dripping into the corner.
There sat a long and painful silence…... and his brother sighed anxiously, “Please talk… You know, I began to wake up a day after you’d left. Some happy news to wake up to, huh? That my brother had vanished… We thought you’d killed yourself or something… but we didn’t know for sure… and now you’re back.” There were tears over the line, rare and harsh. “I felt so guilty… we were so scared… please say something…”
“I’m sorry,” was all that would escape Fye’s mouth in a feeble, mindless whisper.
“Shut up about that!” Fye’s brother snapped. “It’s fine, it’s completely fine. I don’t give a shit about what happened, I just want to hear about you. I love you… you’re my brother… and I don’t even want to think about what I’d have done if you’d died…”
“Same,” Fye whispered into the receiver, lips slowly shifting into a fragile smile.
His brother’s voice saddened dulled and softened as though it had suddenly become more weaker, sounding thinner and so much more alone and scared than Fye thought he’d ever sounded. “So you’re alright...? You didn’t nearly die or starve or... something,” he muttered, spluttering off in a tearful choke.
“No... I’m alright,” Fye responded like a ghost, resting a hand on his thigh while the room seemed to dissolve in a wash of tears, smiling like he hadn’t done in so, so long...
“That’s really good ...You’re coming home, right?” his brother tentatively asked.
And for a second Fye’s eyes widened and his grip tightened about the telephone with his heart pattering loudly in his chest in protest, a thick stab of fear clenching it, yet the words fell so easily and thoughtlessly off his tongue.“Yes... I’m coming home,” he said, a triumphant tone trembling in a single breath.
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***
a/n: I’m alive!!! And unable to be as lazy as I usually am D: I was really meaning for the last author’s note to be a joke so I’m sorry it actually turned out that way! Actually speaking of university and fanfiction, this chapter was a little odd for me. I probably wrote it after leaving secondary school and rereading it for mistakes and altering all sorts of bits and pieces was pretty uncomfortable, mostly because I’ve managed to turn into the way I’ve described Fye here far too much for comfort x.x (and not just the Chemistry student bit but on that note: yay for Chemistry students!) I hope this chapter made up for the wait! Of all chapters this one was the one I was being most careful and anxious with so I’d like to thank shhdonttell123 for being really nice, reading it over for me and making suggestions when I really needed them :) She’s also in the middle of drawing pictures based on this fic so I’ll put up links when I figure out where to put them! Thanks a lot for being patient! Hope the plot twist wasn’t too weird and that you’re looking forward to reading the next chapter :D
Characters: Fye, Kurogane
Rating: PG-13: Language in this chapter
Summary: He was already tackling his ex-wife, custody over their two small children and his new life alone, he was expecting a mysterious foreign lodger to be a hassle… quite the opposite… A single chance encounter brought them together for the better.
Disclaimer: I am in fact secretly Clamp ... no really...
a/n: When I came up with the idea for this I’m not sure if I’d even heard of Horitsuba. Basically I ended up fashioning my own brother character on what fitted most with the story and contrasted best with Fye so he’s not in any way, shape or form like the brother character in Horitsuba - in fact it’s the wrong way round! Take it as a matter of creative liberty if it feels a little funny to compare the two sets of twins! ^^;
***
Fye’s brother was the kind of person to make everyone around him worried without being aware of the fact himself, the type to be so naturally inquisitive and spontaneous he always evoked a raised eyebrow or an anxious stare. He was the louder brother, the more sociable of the two, laid-back, chilled, care-free… He paid a lot of attention to Fye’s problems and ignored his own personal demons completely. In a sense that made him a haphazard personality but then it also made him very easy to get along with for some. He lived for the present and for the present only. He disregarded work in favour of play and he had seemingly no understanding of the word ‘consequence’. Fye’s brother was likeable but he was also a loose cannon.
He woke up every few nights with a dry throat and a headache. He breakfasted on coffee and cigarettes. He dragged himself through the dull ventures of his studies driven entirely by caffeine, nicotine and the occasional sandwich and the rest of his time he spent working in a local café and reading English literature as a hobby. He typically went to bars and clubs at night, partaking from a certain scene before managing it back to his flat and starting the cycle all over again the next morning.
In contrast, Fye tended to stay at home in the evenings, mostly stuck to the screen, the type to know more people online than in his daily life. He was quiet and relatively shy when it came to talking to new people, as if his connection with his own twin pushed him further and further from a boundary line.
They had always been too easy to compare and judge, identical in all physical ways and yet inverses to the core. Ever since their childhood their differences had been inspected, withdrawn, examined and marked from their young and impressionable frames.
In the beginning their relationship was simple, as plain and naïve as their childish innocence, their perception of the world pure and unadulterated. If they differed in any way then their youth allowed them to see past it, both playmates and best friends, brothers so close their bond remained unbroken for years. They were orphaned together, they were adopted together and they moved home together. Side by side, they faced the new playground and stuck fast to each other, something nothing could break through, not other boys or girls, not different sports or games, nothing. But even then Fye was the more hesitant twin, the one who tended to shy away from antics and frivolities. He didn’t speak often to the other children and he always made sure that he was right behind his brother, either being led or being guided. In that way, Fye’s brother grew up firmly in the role of a ring leader, with certainty embedded in his nerves and cheer is his veins. Things only changed when Fye picked up the chickenpox while his brother remained miraculously free of the disease for another two years. He continued to go to school and, in the absence of his twin brother, began to play with the other children. By the time Fye had returned to school, his brother had fallen in with a new group of friends, the world seeming to suddenly shift as he blinked. In a week a crack had formed, a flaw had developed and Fye found himself sitting alone with a packet of sweets and a games console at the side of the playground while his brother was playing or talking to a larger group of children Fye was too quiet to involve himself with.
It seemed then that as they grew older, the further this rift widened, the more it began to crack and dig into Fye, painfully reminding him that his twin was a separate identity, that he was alone. They both grew and they both matured, they both developed in different ways to become individuals and form two identities, completely separate and detached. One became silent while the other spread his voice further and further. One surrounded himself with close friends while the other launched himself from one clique to another. One gave small smiles and the other loud and ringing laughter. That was how Fye was taught to lie - facing his brother, pulling his widest smile and declaring he was happy. He was pleased with everything, his life, his brother, his choices… His brother seemed content enough with this, passing his own grin, light and carefree before heading into town with his friends.
It was all a lie. And as Fye’s brother seemed to sparkle, Fye seemed to dull and as he became more introverted it was almost as if his brother became more extroverted by the same degree. It was that very fact that dug Fye further and further into his own shell, retreating from company, sick of being compared, of being marked against this beacon of popularity, radiating within his own social circle.
Fye’s brother was happier than Fye because he surrounded himself with people and began cutting himself from his own worries. Fye’s brother never regretted his own actions and lived for fun rather than toil. Fye’s brother was the type to only revise for a test at 11 o’clock the night before, to drink certain nights after school and return home tipsy, expecting his brother to cover for him. He jumped between girlfriends and boyfriends so often there was barely any point in keeping up, Fye never wanted to see their faces anyways. It always made him feel ill thinking of how his brother saw them, how they saw his brother…
His brother was the type to face the world erratically, someone who never saw any problems in the world or what he did, the kind of brother to accidentally steal Fye’s first boyfriend, aged sixteen. And by the way he’d apologised, by the way he’d repeated that he was sorry to Fye, something painful lodging in his throat and his tone, Fye accepted that he hadn’t known who it was. It didn’t make it hurt any less though. Fye hadn’t even kissed him yet, what might have been his very first. Seeing it happen like that, watching his identical, sociable self kissing his first step in the right direction, it were as if something broke inside him. He was useless, he was certain of it. He was awkward, he was a geek who couldn’t enjoy life in the same way as his brother. He’d thought himself lucky to even find another boy who liked him and it felt like everything had been ripped from his fingers by something he could never be, something he was always sized up to, feeling he could never make the same mark. His brother was pretty and charming… his brother was so stupid.
His brother had started drinking at fifteen, had started smoking at seventeen and had lost his virginity somewhere in between. If you asked to whom, he’d laugh first. Meanwhile Fye stayed at home, worrying, thinking about where his brother was and what he might be doing. He was absolutely terrified, scared sick that one night he might never come back, that he’d try drugs, that he’d become an addict, that he’d catch some disease off someone or that one day his body would give way and crumble from the abuse to his system. And perhaps at sixteen this anxiety was at its mildest level, more bitter and reproachful than anything else, but things began to accentuate and worsen as they both grew even older, the anxiety took over his whole system at times when his brother was away. Yet when he came home, when he stumbled across Fye reading in his bedroom, all of a sudden Fye was the one with the problem. And, as it turned out, Fye wasn’t the one worrying about his twin, it was the other way round.
He would be told, his brother would pine to him constantly with such a caring and fraught tone, that he needed to get more, that he needed people in his life rather than books and computers. His brother was worried that he had problems forming ties with others, that when he left home he would shut himself away and become completely solitary and sorrowful. It’d develop into an argument if either of them were in a bad mood. One had too much of a life and the other had too little and yet neither seemed to see straight, both wanted to just continue as they were, pushing further and further apart until something gave way.
And eventually something did.
Fye left home to study Chemistry in Hamburg while his brother travelled further afield to study English in Berlin.
Separated from his brother for the first time, Fye felt both a sadness and a relief, feeling blatantly lonely but at the same time taking in a breath of fresh air, standing as an individual on his own two feet. For a period of time, he was happy and contented. He could study to his heart’s desire, he could go out and find like-minded people, geeks and fellow internet fanatics merely a stone’s throw away. He was his own person, finally growing confident with himself. But no matter how individual he felt in his new city, he was always reunited with his brother at weekends, during the holidays and over the occasional phone call.
At surface level nothing at all was wrong with his brother’s life. Things couldn’t be better. He was happy, he had new friends, he enjoyed his course but there was something that got to Fye. Perhaps it was the way he smiled, a full-blown grin, or the way he laughed like he was caving in on himself. He showed such glee in every movement that he made that it seemed tainted somehow and unreal, and the more time Fye spent talking with his brother he realised that nothing had changed at all but his levels of self-control had eroded faster than usual away from home in a city filled with nightlife. He worked hard but mostly to afford his own lifestyle. His student payments weren’t due just yet. He was freer than before, looser and hence more available for anything. And it was clear that every one of Fye’s teenaged fears were playing out one by one.
He stayed at his brother’s flat in Berlin one weekend and immediately regretted accepting the offer, watching every inkling in his mind seep into physical reality. It had still surprised him how much his brother managed to put back before he started to get properly drunk, barely able to understand it himself. It wasn’t that he never went out drinking, but that was with friends, that was a small affair with talk and rounds. It was a strange feeling now to be out with his brother and his friends, watching them tackle alcohol like a bull. By the end of the night he was completely fed up of it, mature but thrown completely out of his comfort zone, tired of being treated as younger now, unsure as to which acted most like their own age.
Walking back… his brother could only just walk in a straight line, could barely place one foot in front of the other without stumbling. He laughed so stupidly it made Fye want to scream at him, he slurred so much it nearly made Fye screech at him that he was smarter than this, that he was only degrading himself. Not that it would make a difference. He bit his lip, he sealed it away along with every other gut-wrenching moment that night, swirling about Fye’s stomach sickeningly, digging into him. But still somehow through everything, with each intoxicated mental leap and slur, his brother still felt he was the superior one, informing him in a lapsing and confident statement that he needed to loosen up a little, he needed to enjoy himself more.
Fye snapped. “Why do you think I can’t enjoy myself?!” he suddenly yelled, feeling the words finally burst from his throat. “Just because I don’t act like you?! I’m glad…”
His brother blinked confusedly, scrunched up his brows, the words barely entering through his alcohol soaked system. “So I’m wrong?” he asked, a low and blunt remark.
“No, just most people have a sense of moderation,” Fye spat, stomping away as quickly as he could with his throat catching.
And yet he could still hear his brother’s voice crashing intrusively against his ears - “Loosen up, for fuck’s sake!” He could hear his footsteps hitting the pavement unsteadily, teetering into a limping run, swearing loudly as he stumbled and hit against a parked car. “Get a life, Yuui, please! God’s sake!” he heard his brother screech in return.
He stopped and spun around, night air clenching his skin, making the tears in his eyes feel more noticeable as he watched his brother make his way over, lips pursed, fists clenched and with dangerous determination in his eyes.
“Nobody seems to accept that I’m not like you! Why can’t you just admit that I’m different and I’m happy?!” Fye practically sobbed, staring at him, emitting it in a lashing screech, years of discomfort emerging in an uncontrolled and trembling shout.
“You’re not!” his brother responded, slurred speech digging dregs of emotion from his chest as he slowly crept up to Fye, close enough to be reminded how much he loved his brother, how much he’d drunk that night and how much he’d drunk that year. His brother clenched a hand about his arm, something sentimental dripping through. “I brought you here… because I want you to be happy.”
Fye could feel that hand lying coldly against his skin, a painful and sickening reminder, an embodiment of everything he’d tried to clear from his mind, to rip away and scatter. Something that was expected of him, something that made him sick, something he could never be clutching against his skin, making him feel ill, a wash of fear, a slick sense of guilt and panic coming over him as he ripped his brother’s hand off his arm and threw his arm away, lashing it away from his body as fiercely as it allowed him to, whipping about, his feet carrying him quickly and heavily down the pavement with his teeth clenched and his breath shaking.
He first heard the rubber screech but the two facts had barely met in his mind, the thought never formed… He heard the metallic crunch and something ice cold dropped within the pit of his stomach. He turned around, he saw the blood… and he’d never felt the desire to detach himself from his skin so strongly, to suddenly cease for one blissful second as the moment he watched the blood curl about his brother’s head on the street. Others screamed but his own breath merely seemed to echo in his head, ragged and frightened…
***
“When I left, he was in a coma,” Fye admitted in a soft whisper, his eyelids wavering over sodden eyes and his voice lying sorrowfully, with a gentle ache, against his lips. “We went to the hospital… and I just looked at him. I hated myself for hurting him. But then I started to wonder when the police arrived… I had done it… I had probably killed my own brother… but was I at fault?” he mumbled in a voice beginning to tremble once more, starting to shiver in guilt, difficultly edging from his throat. He clenched his fists and opened them again with a juddering breath. “I loved my brother but I hated him too. So if I killed him was it an accident or not?” He started to sob, tears leaked from eyes scrunched tight shut, locked up tightly, trying and failing to prevent these tears from leaking though, from piercing his explanation and ripping the sorry state apart. “I thought about it and I didn’t know what I felt. I was sad… of course I was sad, I was devastated… but there was one tiny part of me that was happy… I hated myself for it.” His shoulders tightened up, his posture pinched in self-loathing, lips trembling a fraction with discomfort. “I came to Japan because I murdered someone who I loved and I was glad.”
Kurogane watched him wash away as he finished, watched him take a deep breath, shutting his eyes and leaning back to sink away as everything detached from his chest, thinking back to his brother in his hospital bed, swarmed by plastic tubes like snakes writhing down his utterly still arms and throat, that painful silence in the air that seemed to mark his guilt all the more and everyone’s refusal to face facts. How much blood he’d lost; the results of the scans. It was all so sterile. He felt judgement being passed as he simply sat gazing towards his ghostly brother, his happiness exhumed and all life heartlessly removed. It felt so criminal.
Their hands were still curled together, more for reassurance than anything else, for a sign that Kurogane was still there, preparing to hold Fye together as his world began to drift away from his fingers once more, although the action felt strange to Kurogane, their fingers touching lightly, their skin held closely together. He frowned; he ignored and dampened the feeling as Fye washed all his tears from his eyes, wringing his own body out until it was bone dry.
Slowly and carefully their hands unlatched, Kurogane casually pulled his hand away, feeling a useless and distracting link, pinning him awkwardly within himself as Fye racked out every hidden emotion in one painful retching blow, his breath juddering sorely and desperately, his body tensed and sickened. Every piece of fear and anger seemed to rip itself from his frame, unstitching from his body and slipping painfully into the night air, leaving the youth before him pitifully empty.
Finally, he took a deep breath, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers shivering and clutching at his knees. He spilled a laboured and victorious breath, passing from his slim lips with relief, his eyes still shut. His mouth rose to a smile, his eyes slowly drifted open and skimmed over to Kurogane, shining dimly in the light, gleaming sorrowfully, a sharp and brief twitch of his lips. Now Kurogane could see who Fye was, could understand what he had done… And it were as if Fye had opened himself violently and suddenly, expecting Kurogane to take a step back, to be disgusted by the sight…
“I don’t think you hate your brother,” Kurogane told him, folding his arms sternly. “I think that you hate what he does.”
Fye blinked, wide and shocked, silent and absorbed. Kurogane continued, a blunt and wise tone in his voice. “Stop making yourself believe that you tried to kill him. You didn’t think about what you were doing… You were angry with him and it was unfortunate but it wasn’t murder…You can’t let your guilt control you because it’s pathetic.”
“So you’re saying that I’m innocent?” Fye asked hesitantly, frightfully.
“I’m saying that you’re stupid,” Kurogane said with a smirk, placing a heavier and older hand on the blonde’s head, his fingers sifting through his hair. It was a motion Fye was too old for, the moment held awkwardly and bluntly within the frozen and fraught air in the room but the space and tension between them was so raw in the first place, every word stung within the wound. “You wouldn’t kill him. You’re just trying to think that you did to justify an accident.”
There was a pause, something cold and silent trembling in the night. And then it seemed to click. Weakly Fye began to smile, only a glimmer at the edges lips to begin with but it soon widened into a broad smile, steeped in gratitude. “You know me too well, Kuro-sama,” he almost laughed, joyfully and thankfully in a hesitant little sputter as he turned his eyes slowly away from him, grinning besides himself. He reached out, clutching the hand seeping into his hair, clasping it thankfully, a tiny squeeze in gratitude as the edges of his lips rose, as his smile glowed and widened in hope and understanding.
Kurogane took in a breath, holding the moment close. Then he turned away, giving out his own blunt and lop-sided smile - Fye would be alright in the end; things would come to right themselves inside his blonde and scattered brain eventually.
He stood up, leaving the room, feeling awkwardly how saturated the air had been with tension and fraught emotion within Fye’s bedroom, feeling the colder air in the kitchen, lonely and still, grasp at him and tighten his guts. He brought back the phone to Fye. He sat back down on the bed and placed it in his hands, wrapping his own about Fye’s soft and slender fingers for a brief moment as he momentarily clasped Fye’s hand. He told him with his voice sinking down low, strangely sympathising, “Call any number for as long as you need.”
“Okay,” Fye whispered and then sighed, happy and relieved.
It only started to dig into Kurogane’s skin once he’d closed the door, once he’d stepped away from Fye. He would probably be leaving soon.
And although he accepted the fact, it frightened him how much it pained him.
***
The rings seemed to echo on forever, each bleeping pathetically and alone through infinity, finally trickling into his right ear for him alone to hear, hoping to reach out and clasp him, a soul so frightfully distant from home. The fear trickled on to his tongue. And it grasped his heart completely in a steely grip, just as cold, as the phone at the other end picked up. It seized him, he held his breath and tensed his body…
He heard her voice on the other end of the line, his adoptive mother…
The moment grasped him, seeming to collide with his chest and form a thick wad in his mouth as he listened to her voice, so warm and familiar, so frightening and distant. With his eyes wide open he listened to her for a second before he formed the decision, before he pursed his lips and readied his words in his mind. His voice shook for a tiny moment as he forced the German from his throat - “Hi… It’s Yuui…”
He grinned as he listened to her burst into tears, felt thankful tears trickle from his own eyes as he heard the commotion behind her, signs of home. “I’m sorry!” the words burst forcefully from him without a single thought, ringing with emotion and wonder, with each smile and happy tear. “I’m so sorry!”
“How are you?!” she blurted. “Where are you?!”
“I’m in Tokyo,” he admitted, feeling foreign in this country for the first time in such a long while. “And I’m safe. I’m fine… don’t worry…” He grinned in disbelief.
“Tokyo,” she repeated in a trembling breath as though somehow astounded and afraid. “They said but I... it was so far away and you had no money with you. And it seemed impossible but we...we just ...” She seemed to cut off about then, dissolving into her own sobs and wrenching Fye’s conscience from his chest, terrifying him, all the time his thumb hovering so chillingly close to the ‘end call’ button. He sat stroking it without a single word he could say, half a smile on his face, a twist in his stomach and tears dripping silently from his eyes until the phone was snatched from his parent’s hands, whirring through the air and a desperate voice cried, “Yuui, is it you?”
Another tear slipped from his eye, running down to meet grinning lips. “You’re alive…” he whispered preciously.
“Yeah, I’m alive. Breathing. What about you? Are you alright?” the panicked voice blurted out over the line.
There was an anxious pause, a miniscule break, Fye’s trembling, guilty breaths over the line as a wound seemed to rip in his chest and he brushed his tongue anxiously against the very edges of his lips, tasting salty traces of tears dripping into the corner.
There sat a long and painful silence…... and his brother sighed anxiously, “Please talk… You know, I began to wake up a day after you’d left. Some happy news to wake up to, huh? That my brother had vanished… We thought you’d killed yourself or something… but we didn’t know for sure… and now you’re back.” There were tears over the line, rare and harsh. “I felt so guilty… we were so scared… please say something…”
“I’m sorry,” was all that would escape Fye’s mouth in a feeble, mindless whisper.
“Shut up about that!” Fye’s brother snapped. “It’s fine, it’s completely fine. I don’t give a shit about what happened, I just want to hear about you. I love you… you’re my brother… and I don’t even want to think about what I’d have done if you’d died…”
“Same,” Fye whispered into the receiver, lips slowly shifting into a fragile smile.
His brother’s voice saddened dulled and softened as though it had suddenly become more weaker, sounding thinner and so much more alone and scared than Fye thought he’d ever sounded. “So you’re alright...? You didn’t nearly die or starve or... something,” he muttered, spluttering off in a tearful choke.
“No... I’m alright,” Fye responded like a ghost, resting a hand on his thigh while the room seemed to dissolve in a wash of tears, smiling like he hadn’t done in so, so long...
“That’s really good ...You’re coming home, right?” his brother tentatively asked.
And for a second Fye’s eyes widened and his grip tightened about the telephone with his heart pattering loudly in his chest in protest, a thick stab of fear clenching it, yet the words fell so easily and thoughtlessly off his tongue.“Yes... I’m coming home,” he said, a triumphant tone trembling in a single breath.
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***
a/n: I’m alive!!! And unable to be as lazy as I usually am D: I was really meaning for the last author’s note to be a joke so I’m sorry it actually turned out that way! Actually speaking of university and fanfiction, this chapter was a little odd for me. I probably wrote it after leaving secondary school and rereading it for mistakes and altering all sorts of bits and pieces was pretty uncomfortable, mostly because I’ve managed to turn into the way I’ve described Fye here far too much for comfort x.x (and not just the Chemistry student bit but on that note: yay for Chemistry students!) I hope this chapter made up for the wait! Of all chapters this one was the one I was being most careful and anxious with so I’d like to thank shhdonttell123 for being really nice, reading it over for me and making suggestions when I really needed them :) She’s also in the middle of drawing pictures based on this fic so I’ll put up links when I figure out where to put them! Thanks a lot for being patient! Hope the plot twist wasn’t too weird and that you’re looking forward to reading the next chapter :D