Archive of Our Own

Rindou doesn’t remember much of his initial kidnapping. He remembers barely anything, actually, other than the feel of cruel hands, and nasty words, and the way that his head had been bashed against the ground in such a painful way, and then it had happened again—again, and again, and again until his vision was spotty and his arms were numb.

He’d been blacked out for the most part after that, coming to only to feel more agony, more pain, more aches that left him wanting to sob. He’d tried to kick out, tried to reach for somebody, tried to call for his brother, as if that would do anything at all.

He’d tried to fight back against those assaulting him, those dragging him somewhere far, far away. He'd tried to be as strong as other people often deemed him to be, but it had all been in vain.

It hadn’t been long until he was succumbing to the dark again; unable to grip his fingers around the taunting embrace of lucidity.

And now, when he comes to once more, it’s to a fate that’s entirely inescapable.

The muzzle of a gun is pressed into Rindou’s temple. It’s steady. The figure holding it is sure of themself, almost impossibly so, and Rindou, deep down, already knows that his fate has been sealed.

“You don’t need to do this,” he tries anyway, even though he’s almost certain that it’s a futile attempt at delaying the inevitable. “You don’t have to—”

“I do, though, that’s the thing.” The person that’s been talking to him this whole time, the boss, most probably, the leader of whatever group has dedicated their time to taking him out this time, replies. He crouches down in front of Rindou, tilts his head to regard him calculatingly.

He’s pretty ugly, Rindou absentmindedly thinks, as they stare at one another. Ragged face, nasty scars, mean, mean eyes. He’s not exactly easy to stomach, and this notion is only amplified by the nausea that was already clawing its way up the back of Rindou’s sore throat.

Then again, Rindou can’t imagine that he’s that easy to stomach right now, either. His lips are bruised and bitten, nose crooked and bleeding sluggishly down to his chin. His eyes are likely swollen and black at the edges, and his hair is matted from grease, blood, spit, too, maybe.

He thinks he can remember people spitting at him—on him, even, like he’s some sort of cheap whore that doesn’t deserve anything better.

Is there a sign stuck to his back indicating that anyone can do whatever they like to him, perhaps? If there is, Rindou thinks that he’d like it to be removed now.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Scar-face heaves a sigh. He rests his hands on his knees, and they look pretty ugly, too. Thin and old. “You don’t get any of it.”

Rindou bites back a sigh of his own. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“You’ve taken a lot of shit from me, Haitani. A lot of stuff I can’t get back.”

I don’t even know who you are, Rindou almost wants to say, but he can’t imagine that’ll get him anywhere. “Have I?”

A half-scoff, half-laugh. Rindou thinks that it sounds bitter. Unimpressed. “You know that you have.”

Truthfully, Scar-face is probably right. Rindou’s taken a lot of things from a lot of different people. He’s made a whole lot of bad decisions in his life, too, especially when he was younger. God, he helped his big brother kill somebody at just twelve, and maybe it was just how gang life was back then, maybe it was sort of expected of them, but it was still murder.

He was still a murderer before he was a teenager.

Rindou doesn’t kid himself and pretend like he’s gained brilliant morals as he’s grown up, but he likes to think that he’s at least a little better now. Maybe he’s more manipulative, more silver-tongued and sly, doing all that he can to make sure his and Ran’s chain of clubs thrive within the industry, but he’s not as violent, perhaps—not as cruel.

He’s changed, for better or for worse, and he can admit to his faults.

“I’m sorry,” he settles on, curling broken fingers against bloody palms. His hands have been immobilised behind his back. They hurt less and less with each second that passes by, and Rindou isn’t sure that’s a good thing.

The laugh from scar-face is a full-blown laugh this time around. It’s unpleasant, and loud, and grates against Rindou’s sensitive ears.

“No,” he denies, “no, you’re not.”

Before Rindou can even think of a response, a loud shot is going off, and he only knows it isn’t from the gun pressed to his temple due to the fact that he’s at least still conscious and not, well, dead. There’s a seering pain in his stomach, though, a burning, aching one that spreads, and spreads, and then spreads some more.

It’s overtaking him, destroying him, and there’s nothing that he can do to stop it.

“Oh god,” he heaves, his body trying to curl itself inwards in a defensive posture even though that only makes everything hurt even more. Rindou feels hazy and ill, his vision blurring, head spinning wildly. He’s trying to clutch onto a single coherent thought, but the blistering agony makes it so difficult to do so.

He’s never been shot before. He’s been shot at, sure, definitely, he’s suffered from a graze against his shoulder, the sharp whizz beside his ear, suffered from a racing heart and breathless laughs about ’shit, that was close’, but nothing like this—nothing ever like this.

It hurts so bad that it’s hard to comprehend.

“You bastard,” Rindou gasps. He’s seeing stars in the worst of ways. “You fucking—”

“Your aniki shot my little brother like this, once upon a time,” Scar-face says casually. He presses the muzzle of his gun into Rindou’s leaking wound, digs in hard until Rindou is actively squirming. “I never got the chance to ask him if it hurt.” He lifts the gun upward suddenly, using it to tilt Rindou’s chin so that they’re looking at one another again. Rindou’s eyes are barely working behind the repulsive blur. “Does it?”

Rindou spits. It’s red-tinged, and messy, and doesn’t really get that far at all. He’s in so much pain that he doesn’t register the referral to Ran. “What the hell do you think?” He snarls, and there’s already a wash of red coating his teeth.

“I think you’re not answering me in the way that I want,” Scar-face replies. “Would you like another bullet, is that it?”

Just like before, Rindou doesn’t even get the chance to tell him to go fuck himself. Another shot goes off, this time into his thigh. Rindou outright sobs. The pain is unbearable. It’s agonising. He’s hurting so much that he can barely breathe, let alone pull together a rational thought about somehow getting out of this whole thing.

He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, what to feel other than blinding, bleeding agony. Rindou wheezes—gasps, and then wheezes, and then gasps again, though weaker this time. His head tips quickly forward after a beat, and his body slumps pathetically.

Rindou’s only given a second or two of blacked-out reprieve, though, before the gang leader slaps him across the face, bringing him back into a hazy, unkind existence.

Rindou feels everything and nothing all at once. His skin feels as if it’s on fire but he’s also so achingly cold. He’s hot and cold, hot, and then cold again, and his mind is spinning in stomach-churning circles. Scar-face kicks at his wounded leg, and Rindou doubles forward again as he throws up all over his own lap.

It hurts, he thinks a little pathetically, it hurts so bad, it hurts, it really hurts.

Vomit trickles down his chin, along the side of his mouth, over his bloody shirt. It’s an almost-familiar scenario, but there are no gentle fingers holding a tissue against his skin and wiping the spill away this time around. There’s no soothing voice gleefully reminding him that it’s his own fault for day drinking. There’s no Ran.

Scar-face taps his gun against Rindou’s arm. “Does it hurt, Haitani?” He questions. “Does it?”

Rindou has no other choice but to push out a feeble, quivering, “yes.”

He hates that he’s acting so weak. He hates that he is, so blatantly, weak. He hates that there are tears in his eyes; that there’s vomit smeared across his front; that there are tendrils of blood slipping from his lips. Rindou hates it all, and then hates it some more, but the pain is all-consuming and there’s nothing he can do to hold himself together anymore.

He can’t bring himself to sit up straight. He can’t bring himself to act brave.

Not like this.

“Your brother killed without remorse, you know that?”

Ran? Rindou thinks blearily. He’s losing blood at an impossibly fast pace, and each breath brings forth another wave of pain. He doesn’t have it in him to focus properly, but he’s trying, and clearly this—whoever this fucker is has something against Ran, too, if the sheer amount of venom in his tone is anything to go off of.

“He killed my little brother without ever batting an eye,” he supplies, and Rindou thinks that it makes sense, “and I was so angry,” Scar face laughs. “I was so angry, and maybe I still am, a little, but now I just—” he hums, “—I just want revenge. You understand that, don’t you?”

Does he? “I—”

“It’s okay for me to want revenge, really,” Scar-face barrels on. “I thought about just killing that bastard straight up; putting a bullet between his eyes to be done with it, but—but that wouldn’t satisfy me,” he nudges the muzzle into Rindou’s tear-streaked cheek. “And then I thought about you.” He smiles. It’s unnerving. “An eye for an eye, right, Rinrin?”

Rindou immediately feels sick again. He feels sick. He feels nauseous. He feels like he’s going to be sick, and then he is. He vomits all over himself again, chest heaving, sweat building at his hairline, his shoulders shaking as he wheezes and gasps.

Oh, god, he wants his brother. He wants Ran. He wants Ran so badly that Rindou is sobbing.

“There, there,” Scar-face coos. He reaches forward with his hand this time, cupping at Rindou’s other cheek. He smooths a thumb over the flushed skin, rough calluses grating against Rindou’s face. “Don’t cry, Rin, it’s okay. You’re okay, shh.”

He’s assuring Rindou that it’s fine, that he’s okay, that everything’s okay, and it’s so alike and unlike Ran at the same exact time that Rindou feels as if his world is falling apart. A part of him - the small, childish, desperate part - wants to lean into it—wants to accept it for everything that it appears as, but the older, harder part of him knows better.

“Fuck you,” Rindou spits.

Scar-face laughs—he laughs at him, loud, and boisterous, and pleased, like he’s the cat that got the cream. “Language like that isn’t going to get you anywhere,” he tuts, pulling back and away, “except for an early grave, perhaps, but I suppose you were already headed there, weren’t you, Haitani?”

Rindou hates him. He hates him so much that his anger is making him light-headed. Or is that from the blood loss? He isn’t sure.

He just knows that he’s angry—furious even, about all of this. Angry over the fact that he allowed himself to be caught off-guard; angry over the fact that he’s stuck in this shitty position; angry over everything and nothing all at once.

“I’ll say ‘hi’ to your brother for you; let him know how much you cried alone.”

Scar-face straightens up and takes a step backwards. He moves with conviction, like he’s already decided, and—and maybe he has. No, Rindou knows that he has. He’s decided that it’s Rindou’s turn to die, and he’s sure of it.

Rindou’s world is coming to its end—his existence is about to come to a screeching stop, and this—this can’t be it, he thinks a little desperately, a little woefully. Panic is filling him, suddenly, reaching into every pore and digging down. This can’t possibly be it for him. He can’t go like this.

It’s not fair.

“Wait!” He gasps, just as Scar-face lifts his hand to gesture towards whoever it is still hovering beside Rindou. Likely the person with the gun from before. “Wait, please,” he says, trying to push himself forward even if it hurts. “Please—”

He’s grasping at straws - spurred on by a distress that’s all-consuming. Later, he will wonder where he ever got the nerve.

“I think we’re done with you now,” Scar-face dismisses. “You can—”

“Wouldn’t you have wanted to say goodbye?” Rindou rushes out in one last ditch attempt to get him to stop. He’s well aware of the fact that he’s playing with fire. If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t do anything, he knows that these are some pretty shoddy last words, too, but—but what choice does Rindou have?

All his cards have been dealt. He has no other options left.

He’s all out of luck.

By some miracle, Scar-face actually stops. He regards Rindou with an impossibly flat, impossibly unreadable look, and Rindou really can’t tell if it means continue or you’ve just said the wrong thing, so he carries on anyway, desperate and pitifully hopeful for the former.

“Your little brother died without ever getting to—to speak to you,” Rindou whispers, “but wouldn’t you have liked to say goodbye to him? Wouldn’t you have wanted that opportunity?” He presses. If nothing else, he wants to at least hear Ran’s voice. Just that. “Please, let me speak to Ran. Let me talk to him. Just—just ten minutes. Just ten minutes to say goodbye.”

He shifts, grunting when the pain from his wounds flares up even further. He isn’t quite sure how he hasn’t succumbed to the agony yet. “It’ll hurt him too, this way, knowing that—knowing that I’m hurt, that I’m going to,” a shuddery breath, “to die and there’s nothing that he can do about it.”

Rindou’s words are broken up by weak gasps, and he knows that what he says is horribly true, but he’s too selfish to properly care. Ran will hurt. He will hurt so much that Rindou is already worried for his surprisingly fragile heart. He will be furious, and confused, and devastated, and it will be awful for at least some time, but Rindou can’t die alone.

Not like this.

Scar-face goes quiet for another moment.

He stares at Rindou, gaze hardening into something impossibly cold. He looks pissed, to say the least, furious even. He’s so fucking angry, and Rindou is the only thing in front of him that he can direct his anger to right now.

“You—” he laughs a bit, pulling himself out of his own silence, but it’s devoid of any humour this time around. “Your brother killed mine, shot him in cold blood, murdered him, and you have the gall to beg me to speak to him? Do you have no tact? No guilt over what you and your brother have taken from me?”

Rindou doesn’t even know what to say other than a pathetic, “please.” (He has the uncomfortable feeling that another half-hearted ‘sorry’ will be pushing it.)

Scar-face turns away. He’s shaking a little, and his free hand curls into a fist at his side like he really, really wants to punch Rindou’s face in, but is somehow holding himself back. He heaves a sigh, and then another, and something that Rindou said must have done something, because he finally comes out with, “fine.”

He throws a hard look over his shoulder. His eyes are vaguely unseeing, though, like he’s not - for just a moment - actually recognising Rindou. Maybe in his eyes, Rindou is younger, softer, brighter, even, and whispering aniki in the most adoring of tones as he peers excitedly up at Scar-face.

“Five minutes,” he decides, “and then you’re going to die.”

The sheer amount of relief that fills Rindou is nearly enough to knock him unconscious. He’s so happy that he could cry—or at least, cry more than he already is doing. Grateful tears, though, not pained ones.

There’s shuffling behind him, quiet and meaningful, and then there’s the familiar sound of a knife being unsheathed. For a brief second, it almost feels like a sudden betrayal, an oncoming stab in the back, and then—

Rindou slumps as the restraints to his hands are finally cut loose, and bites so hard at his tongue that it bleeds as he’s forcefully knocked to the concrete floor. The bullet wounds are burning; radiating a blistering heat that makes Rindou’s entire body tingle. He’s in so much agony that it’s downright nauseating, and he’d throw up again if he had it in him.

(Thank god that he doesn’t.)

A little blood spills over his lips as he openly coughs, though. His mouth tastes metallic, and his vision is swimming, but he swallows down any complaints or moans of pain. He doesn’t want to draw any more unnecessary attention to himself right now, lest Scar-face change his mind, and just tries to focus on what’s being discussed above him to the best of his ability.

He hears ‘too weak to move’, ‘leave the phone’ and something to do with ‘finishing him off’ which doesn’t bother him as much as it once might’ve.

Rindou gets the unfortunate feeling that they’re well aware that he’s not going to survive this ordeal, no matter if he gets sudden medical attention, or—or, hell, if he calls for the police to come and get him. They know that he has no fucking clue where he’s been taken, nor is he in the right shape - or state of mind - to fight anyone, or even to hold on.

Rindou’s going to die.

He knows it, and they know it, and if he doesn’t do so within the next five minutes as he talks to Ran, somebody’s going to come back into the room and put a bullet into his skull anyway. Maybe a couple, if they’re feeling overzealous.

Truthfully, at least in this very moment, Rindou feels almost indifferent to it all, apathetic, even. It's not because he’s unafraid of death, or uncaring, not at all, he’s just—perhaps he’s accepting of it. In all honesty, he’s more-so just grateful that he’s been granted this liberty at all, and doesn’t waste any time as the door to the room slams shut.

It takes a mountain of effort to get his shaky fingers over to the unlocked phone that they’d dropped beside him. Rindou aches, god does he hurt, but he knows that it’ll all be worth it the minute he’s typed out his older brother’s phone number.

All of the pain, the agony, the nausea that rages and the gentle lull of sleep that’s trying to draw him disastrously near. All of it will, at least momentarily, disappear the minute that he hears Ran’s voice.

And it does.

“Hello?”

Rindou heaves a breath. Relief fills him head to toe as Ran’s voice comes crackling through. It feels like reaching the end of a rainbow; feels like finding salvation itself; feels like pulling the cup of life close and being able to take a sip.

It feels like coming home.

“Aniki,” he whispers, gently at first, and then his tone rises as he repeats, “aniki,” and then he’s laughing - full-blown, full-body laughs that leave his mouth filling with blood and his chest burning. He thinks he might be losing it just a little, but maybe that’s not the worst thing.

“Rindou?” Ran’s rising confusion is practically palpable - it’s pungent and thick within the stuffy air - but Rindou can’t stop giggling. “Rindou? Is that you? What’s going on?”

He’s concerned, confused, unsure of what’s happening, and Rindou wants his care, he wants his worry, and then he doesn’t. Just like that.

“Nothing,” Rindou quickly tries to defuse. He doesn’t want Ran catching on, really. Not at all, actually, but at the very least not right away. “Nothing’s going on,” he assures, toning himself down considerably—swallowing down pleased giggles that would probably make him sound insane. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Ran’s suspicion audibly begins to dissipate as his tone eases into something calmer. It’s not the first time that Rindou’s started a phone call in a strange manner. “Oh?”

“Uh-huh.” Rindou blinks and he sees stars. “I promise.”

“Well,” Ran tuts a little, takes a second before responding. “I can talk for a little bit,” he concedes, “but not for too long. I told you I’m finalising the wedding preparations with Takashi today, remember?” He pauses. “Or are you too drunk to recall that?”

Rindou’s nose wrinkles. He curls his broken fingers into his palms again; a strangely comforting self-embrace. “I’m not drunk.” (It’d be nice if he was.)

“You sure sound it.”

“I’m not,” Rindou stresses, and then sighs. His mouth tastes of metal. “I can’t talk for long either anyway,” he informs his brother, and it’s only a little morbid, “so. Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Ran mimics. Rindou knows that he's just mocking him, but it makes him want to smile. The familiarity lightens the weight on his chest.

“What’re you doing then?” Rindou prompts after a beat.

“Finalising the wedding preparations,” Ran reiterates. His words are dripping with barely-concealed mirth. “I just told you that, Rinrin, are you sure you aren’t drunk?”

“I’m not! I just—what are you doing specifically. Tell me. I’m bored.”

‘I’m bored’, he says, and it’s almost laughable.

Ran huffs. “You’re acting somewhat odd,” he accuses lightly, “odder than usual at least, but fine. Right now I’m confirming the seating arrangements for the dinner. Takashi wants his friends seated next to us, he’s adamant about it, even, but I’m not sure I can deal with Hanagaki’s sobbing for the entire thing.”

Rindou snorts amusedly despite himself - despite the fact that it hurts so much. Hanagaki is a crybaby. There’s no denying it. “You think he’ll be crying all night?”

“I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t. He cried over just getting an invitation,” Ran bemoans, “just thinking about him makes me want to tear out my own hair. I’ll probably be bald by the afterparty.”

“That would be a sight,” Rindou giggles. There’s blood leaking over his lips that he doesn’t have the energy to wipe away. “You know, a lot of—of, uhm, brides have drastic hair changes halfway through as—as, like, a surprise. That could be you.”

Ran’s laugh is light and warm, filling Rindou with a familiar tingle. He wishes he could lean into it. “I’m a man marrying a man, Rindou. Not a bride.”

“Semantics. You have long hair. You’re going to be wearing white. It’s practically the same.”

Rindou tries to speak without letting any emotion seep into his voice, as hard as it is.

It’s a terrible, disgusting, awful thought knowing that he’s not actually going to be there to see Ran in his white suit, holding a beautiful bouquet, and getting married to the absolute love of his life. It’s horrible. It’s excruciating, and torturous, and mean.

It pains Rindou right down to his core.

He’s going to miss out on so much. He’s going to miss the tears in Ran’s eyes as he says his vows; miss the tremble to his hands as he and Mitsuya exchange rings; miss all of his joy, and his happiness, and his pouring gratefulness for making it so far in life after such rocky beginnings.

Rindou’s been a part of all of this wedding planning almost as much as the actual grooms themselves, yet he’s not going to be able to see a single bit of it actually finalised, and that knowledge makes him want to, almost childishly, scream.

He wants to tear at his hair, dig his nails into his flesh and tug until he’s laid open and bare - bleeding out for all those to see. He wants to scream himself hoarse, cry out every single last tear that he has. Rindou wants to sob, and weep, and ask God why he’s forsaken him in such a drastic way.

He wants to ask where he went wrong, what he could have done to change this fate, how he could have possibly been better.

Rindou just wants to know why.

But he tries not to let it show.

“Is it?” Ran considers, before sighing into the receiver. “Maybe,” he answers for himself, and then, “maybe I should just embrace the idea of being bald. Or maybe I should just uninvite Hanagaki. Between him and Ryuguji staring holes into my head, I’m not quite sure I’m even going to make it out of this wedding alive.”

Rindou’s laugh is only a little choked. “He still doesn’t approve of you?”

“He thinks I’m ‘tainting’ Takashi, can you believe it? If anything, Takashi’s the one who’s tainted me. I used to be fierce, feared, even, and now I’m—”

“—domestic?”

“Something like that,” Ran snorts.

“He’s never been particularly fond of you anyway.”

“He hasn’t, and I’m not sure why.”

Rindou would roll his eyes if he could. Instead, he settles for an incredibly deadpan, “aniki.”

Ran’s smirking. Rindou, even through his drowsy haze, can just tell. “I’m a picture of innocence, Rindou.”

“Oh, of course. I’m sure Ryuguji’s dislike for you has nothing to do with the fact that you beat Mitsuya over the head with a brick a few years back.”

“It was over a decade ago.”

“Semantics,” Rindou dismisses again, not able to say much more for a few seconds as a throbbing ache suddenly works its way through his veins, coming on quickly and confidently, as if it knows just where to hit.

Rindou takes a breath. It hurts.

Everything hurts, actually, but it also feels nice to talk to his brother like this, even if it is a bit counterfeit.

Rindou does feel an inch guilty for not immediately coming out with the truth. The weight of his remorse has made a sizable dent within his chest, leaving him hollow, and aching, and perhaps a little lost.

But even so, he’s well aware that Ran would only panic, and stress, and panic some more - and will, actually, when Rindou gets the courage to speak the truth. Realistically, though, there’s nothing that he can do at all anyway. Rindou’s a lost cause. There’s nothing left for him after this. Not a single thing, and he—Rindou, he—he just can’t deal with all of that distress taking up the entirety of the last five minutes of his life.

Not all of it.

Sue him, he’s being selfish again and he knows it.

“Takashi’s moved on from it,” Ran replies, shrugging it off. “He wouldn’t be marrying me if he hadn’t.”

“Maybe,” Rindou hums upon finding his voice again. It’s a little tighter than before. “Or maybe this was just his grand plan, and now,” a shuddery breath, “and now he’s actually planning on braining you at the altar.”

Mitsuya wouldn’t, but the idea is nearly funny. Some sort of long winded retribution.

Ran gasps. “That is so unbelievably morbid, Rindou, why would you even say something like that?”

Rindou snorts. There’s no real heat behind Ran’s words, and they both know it. “Fine, maybe he’s not going to do it maliciously. Maybe he’s going to—to do it as a sweet callback to your beginnings.”

“It’s starting to sound like you actually want him to.”

“Well..”

Ran scoffs lightly. “You better not have anything to do with bludgeoning written down in your speech. I will kill you, Haitani Rindou, and I mean it. I don’t care how many people are watching, I will get to you and—”

Another jolt of pain works its way through Rindou’s mind, though this time it’s not from any of his wounds.

Rindou’s best-man speech is only somewhat done.

It lays on his desk at his apartment in Roppongi, abandoned three-quarters of the way through a sentence, and still just, well, waiting for him. He knows that he’s cutting it close—or was cutting it close, at least, but with a brother like Ran it’s hard to even attempt to summarise him into a relatively short speech.

There are so many different parts of him that Rindou had wanted to shed light on, is the thing. He knows well enough that there are still a few, at least of Mitsuya’s friends, who don’t particularly like Ran (despite Mitsuya’s best efforts to emphasise his change in character) and Rindou had been desperate to take a forceful hit at their distaste.

Ran’s his big brother, after all. His world. His sun and his stars, his glinting moon. His aniki. His nii-chan. He’s been the rock that Rindou’s - quite willingly - revolved around for his entire life now, and Rindou had wanted to get this point across to all those forced to listen.

He’d wanted to talk about Ran’s ability to sleep twelve hours straight even on his best days; talk about the way he’d enforced a bedtime onto Rindou even as an adult because he hated late nights; talk about his absurd hair routine, and his nearsightedness that he refuses to get checked, and all of the things that make Ran human, instead of the cruel abnormality he’s often viewed as.

He’d wanted to laugh over Ran’s inability to choose a favourite colour. He’d wanted to bring up stories about Ran’s first stages of really, truly falling in love with Mitsuya - where he’d been all bashful, and blushing, and so unlike one of the ‘feared’ Haitani brothers. He’d wanted to be honest, and open, and raw.

Rindou had wanted to stand tall and proud in front of a room full of people and make them love his brother just as much as he did.

And now he can’t.

He can’t, and he’s never going to get the chance to, and he’s never going to be allowed to, and there are silent tears rolling down his cheeks, cutting lines through the blood already there and seeping into his torn collar.

He sniffs, tries to swallow down anything even remotely loud, and then attempts to properly focus back in on what his brother is still talking about lest he get any more emotional over missed opportunities.

Rindou can hear some sort of rustling down the line. He absentmindedly wonders what Ran’s doing right this second - where he might’ve gone to escape the ordeal of wedding preparations while talking to Rindou, or if he’s even left at all.

He focuses back in on the conversation to hear, “I’m sure it'll be fine, though, really, and I’m sure I will be too.”

Rindou knows that he will be eventually, he has to be, there’s no room for him to be anything but that. (He’s not allowed to be anything but.) He hums anyway, questioning, “oh yeah?”

“Yeah. If you start saying any dumb crap I’ll just have Kakucho throw himself at you.”

The suddenness of that comment, as if Ran had somehow known Rindou hadn’t really been paying attention, startles a laugh out of him. He lays there in a dark room, covered in his own blood, sweat, and bile, trembling like a fawn, and adamantly wishing he was anywhere but, and yet Ran still manages to make him laugh.

Rindou’s eyes crinkle at the corners. A pleasant warmth battles against the excruciating pain running through his body. “Hey!”

“Kidding, of course,” Ran waves it away. “I’m just joking.”

“Are you, though?”

“Am I?”

Rindou snorts, and Ran’s laugh is gentle and smooth. “Seriously, though,” Ran carries on after a moment. His voice takes on a grateful sort of tone - comfortable and endeared. “With you by my side, Rin, I could probably take on the world.”

With you by my side, Rin, I could probably take on the world.

With you by my side, Rin.

With you by my side.

Oh.

Rindou falls eerily silent.

His happiness evaporates, disappears, trickles away from him bit by bit, and he—he tries to hold onto it, he desperately reaches out for it, needing it, craving it, begging for it to come back, but it doesn’t stay. He hadn’t been expecting Ran to say something like that, after all. It was—surprisingly sincere, and, at the same exact time, absolutely devastating.

Rindou takes a breath. And then another.

He feels sort of—empty, almost, for a moment or so, like his brain hasn’t properly caught up with what’s going on, like he isn’t properly capable of registering it, and then—

—and then there’s a pit in his stomach, a deep, cavernous one, and one that wasn’t solely created by the close force of a bullet or the wedge of guilt. He tries to swallow, but finds himself unable to adequately do so, and mutes himself just before he coughs instead - the sound of it wet and aching. Red splatters all over the phone screen. Trickles down his chin.

Rindou’s fingers tremble. His whole body is trembling, even - tremoring, shaking.

For a few seconds, he has absolutely no idea what to say.

He has no idea how he’s supposed to even attempt to respond.

He and Ran have always been close. That’s an indisputable fact. They’ve been closer than close; attached at the hip, two peas in a pod, whatever stereotypical term you want to use to describe them. Wherever Ran is, Rindou is close behind, and wherever Rindou is, Ran is right beside him - protection for Rindou, and a threat against anyone else.

They’ve never really been apart. Even in the detention centre, separated into opposing blocks and purposefully kept apart, they’d still found a multitude of ways to meet up with one another. Ran had made sure of it; determined to provide as much safety as he could to Rindou, and Rindou had happily basked in the security of his brother’s embrace.

They’re the Haitani brothers. Always the two of them.

It’s never been singular, not ever, and Ran—Ran talks like he never thinks it's going to be. He’s emphasised this, actually, has smoothed his fingers through Rindou’s hair, and pressed careful touches along his cheeks, and reminded him that even though he’s moving out, and getting married, and creating another sort of family somewhere else, Rindou is still his world, and he forever will be.

Ran talks like he expects Rindou to be at his side for the rest of time—for the rest of their lives, and Rindou had, once upon a time, agreed completely and wholly with that. He’d wanted to.

But now—but now.

“You didn’t forget about your duties as best man, did you?” Ran asks after a few more seconds have passed on by, speaking up amidst Rindou’s unnatural silence. He’s joking, making light of the sudden awkwardness, but Rindou’s in-tune with his brother enough to detect the underlying anxiety that’s beginning to build.

Ran’s been desperate for everything about this wedding to go perfect. He’s been adamant about it, so hopeful for some part of his life to go the exact way he wants it to, and yet here Rindou is, his own brother, his own flesh and blood, about to ruin it all.

It’s almost poetic.

(In the most haunting of ways.)

“No,” Rindou whispers after unmuting himself. He feels so ill. God, he’d always known that they’d be each other’s best man if it ever got to that point, but the reality had been—dazzling. Incredible. Rindou had been so honoured to be asked. He’d been so excited, so ready for it, so desperate to do well, and now, and.. “No, I didn’t forget.”

“Good,” Ran huffs a laugh. “I’d hate to have to find another one so close to the wedding just because you forgot. Although,” he adds, “talking about that, where are you, if you’re not drunk in a bar somewhere? I went to your apartment earlier on to talk to you and you weren’t there.”

Rindou’s woozy. His head is spinning again. He hadn’t realised dying would feel so raw, but maybe he should have expected that, and maybe he’s not as indifferent about it as he had been earlier. “Wasn’t I?”

“Unless you were trying to play hide and seek with me, Rin, no.”

“I just..”

Ran allows him another moment to explain himself; he’s gracious like that. When Rindou doesn’t, though, lost within clouds of pain and leaning into the hands of sleep themself, he speaks up. “You’re not allowed to get cold feet about this, you know? I’m the one getting married. You should be helping me run away through the pouring rain, not the other way around.”

Rindou’s laugh is considerably strangled. He draws his legs up against himself, even if the action sends sparks of agony across his entire being. He’s curled like a child, and snivelling like one, too. All of his suppressed emotions are catching up with him - clawing at his skin, digging into his bones. He’s guilty, and he’s angry, and he’s so, so upset. “No, no, it’s not—it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” Ran asks. “You can talk to me,” he adds gently, and he’s so unbelievably patient. He’s so patient, and Rindou loves him, and he’s so sorry that he’s doing this to him.

If he could, he’d take it all back.

Rindou knows that he’d been desperate to talk to his older brother—knows that he’d been so selfish when he’d begged to be able to just say goodbye. Rindou knows that he’s the one who’s brought this onto both himself and Ran in the first place, has forced them into this position, but—but if he could go back in time and stop it, he would.

He’d take that bullet right into his skull and accept the fate of dying quietly and alone. Maybe that would be the better fate for all of them. At least then, Ran would have only heard about Rindou’s death from somebody else, and not like—this.

It’s just too much. It’s what he wanted before, but it’s too much now.

Rindou’s just so sorry.

Rindou’s eyes well with a fresh wave of tears. “Nii-chan.”

Ran is cautious, confused. “Yes?”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to your wedding.”

Rindou speaks and it’s the steadiest sentence he’s said all day. He says it, and he means it, and his chest is hurting so badly that he’s going to vomit. He almost does, and then he doesn’t, and then he’s crying. He’s sobbing, and he’s wheezing, and he wants his brother.

He wants his brother so badly that it’s painful, and the knowledge that he’s never going to have Ran again, never going to be beside him again, never going to hold his hand, or lean against his side, or be near him, leaves Rindou almost breathless. It sits heavy on his torso - wraps its cold hands around his throat and squeezes.

He wants what he can’t have, and Rindou is crying.

“Rindou,” Ran rushes out. He sounds panicked now, panicked, and concerned, and unsure of the multitude of things that he’s hearing. “Rindou. Talk to me. Talk to me. What do you mean by that? Is it—if you’re having second thoughts about being my best man, if you’ve been, god forbid, detained, or you’re hurt, or—or something else has happened, I can help you. I will do anything to help you. You know that. So talk to me.”

“Aniki—”

“I don’t understand, but I want to understand. I want to help you, Rindou, and I will do everything in my power to—”

“Aniki,” Rindou sobs, distraught and unable to contain himself any longer. The phone slips away from his grip, falling against hard concrete, but it doesn’t matter all that much. Rindou’s curled so close to the phone that he can still hear his brother anyway.

His vision is splotchy at best - blurry enough now that he simply closes his eyes in some sort of defeat. He’s in so much pain, so much agony, and it’s all hitting him again now that he’s dropped the facade of being fine. “Aniki, it’s not that, it’s not—”

“Then what is it?”

Rindou wants to go home. He just wants to go home now. Is that so much to ask?

“I got shot.”

The truth tastes bitter on Rindou’s tongue - bitter, and uncomfortable, and wrong - but how long is he supposed to chase after a lie? How long is he supposed to pretend that he can breathe, and he can think, and that his body isn’t screaming with an agony that only seems to build and build as precious second after precious second ticks by?

For how long does Rindou have to continue being something that he’s not?

Ran’s end goes completely quiet. Eerily so.

For a beat, Rindou doesn’t even hear a breath, and then suddenly; “Rindou, just breathe. Do you hear me? Just breathe, and don’t you dare stop.”

Ran believes him. Of course, he does. Rindou wouldn’t joke about this, not something so serious and so terrible, and Ran knows that, and he isn’t going to waste a single second on deliberating. “I’ll ping your location. I will come to you, and I will call for aid, and I will get to you, so you keep on—”

Ran’s unease, and his concern, and his thick twist of anxiety makes Rindou’s head hurt. He sucks in a wet breath.

“It’s too late.” Rindou knows this. Has known this. Putting it into words is hard, though; makes it more real, makes it hit harder than it had been. “It’s too late for that. There’s not enough—enough time.”

“Do not say that,” Ran spits, and he sounds so—so furious. “You are not giving up on me, Haitani Rindou. You are not giving up on yourself.”

Rindou’s gasps break out into thick hiccups. He’s trying to shake his head, but it hurts, and he knows that Ran can’t see it anyway. “They’re going to come back and—”

“Who? Tell me. Tell me.”

“Aniki you don’t get it.”

“Then help me get it!” Ran shouts, and then he quietens immediately, and his voice softens. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—you have to help me here, Rindou. I can’t help you if you don’t help me. God, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could have—I could have done something instead of—”

’All this time,’ Rindou can imagine Ran is thinking. All of this time spent talking, and laughing, and pretending, and the whole time Rindou has been dying.

It’s Rindou’s fault. It’s all Rindou’s fault for every bit of this, and Rindou hopes to god that Ran never tries to blame himself.

Rindou sniffles. He edges even closer to the phone, stopping only when moving becomes too painful. “It doesn’t matter, aniki,” he laments, “you can’t get here quick enough, and I can’t get out, and there’s nothing that anyone can do, and I—I mean it,” he whispers, voice cracking miserably at the end. “I’m serious. I just. I’m just so sorry.”

Ran’s heart is breaking. Rindou can hear it in his words. “Rindou,” he whispers. “Rindou. God, please, you can’t just—do you understand what you’re doing to me? What you’re asking of me?”

“Ran—”

“You’re asking me to just abandon you, and you’re apologising!”

“Because I’m ruining everything!” Rindou hisses; absolutely devastated. (In the end, all he is is a sad, little boy begging for his brother to forgive him.) “You’re not gonna have a best man. You—you’re going to be sad, and I’m not going to be there, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to—to hear your voice. That’s all I—” Rindou sucks in a breath. It’s weak, barely there, “—wanted.”

I just wanted to talk to you. To hear your voice. To listen to you talk, and ramble, and get to indulge in the warm feeling that you always bring forth. It’s selfish, and it’s cruel, but it’s all that I wanted, and I’m sorry that I only thought about myself.

I’m sorry that, throughout all of these years, it’s like I’ve only ever thought about myself.

“Oh—oh god. Oh, Rindou, you..”

Rindou cracks an eye open to see the world spinning. He closes it again, feeling weak and unable. “I wish you were here,” he admits quietly, the admission candid and tender as it dribbles from his wet lips.

“I wish I was there too, Rin,” Ran whispers, and he’s choked up enough for Rindou to recognise that he’s crying.

“Sorry,” Rindou whispers again - guilt a heavy sting behind his eyes. “Didn’t mean to—to make you cry.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t apologise to me.”

“Ran—”

Ran inhales sharply. “You said you were shot?”

“Twice.”

“Where?”

“Aniki..”

“Tell me.”

Rindou sniffs. He feels like a stupid child. He sort of wishes that he was still just a stupid child, clinging to Ran’s hand and watching in awe as his big brother beat up random gang members. Young, and a little dumb, but safe. “My thigh, and my—my stomach.”

“God, Rindou,” Ran whispers. “You must be in so much pain,” he says, and Ran’s voice is thick with a devastated sort of emotion.

“I am. I am, I wish—I wish you were here,” he repeats, choked, and upset, and wanting his big brother so badly that he feels ill. “I miss you. I miss you so much, Ran. I wish you were stroking my hair, and telling me it's okay, and, and—”

“Rindou.”

“I’m so tired.”

Ran sucks in a breath. It’s shaky, trembling, almost, and so unlike anything Rindou has ever heard from his older brother. It sort of puts into perspective just how screwed up everything is, and it sort of hurts.

“Please don’t close your eyes.”

Rindou’s laugh is weak; barely audible. He’s choking on blood and his heartbeat is slowing. “S’ too late for that.” He doesn’t think he could open them back up even if he tried.

Ran’s quiet for just a beat, and then, “please let me come and get you, let me try.”

Rindou imagines Ran hovering wherever he’s been finishing up his wedding plans. Keys in hand, cheeks wet, teetering on the edge of going against his little brother’s wishes and simultaneously not wanting to cause any more unnecessary pain. Just the idea makes Rindou want to smile a little.

“They’re going to come back and kill me anyway,” Rindou openly admits, seeing no point in trying to hide at least this part for any longer. Ran isn’t going to get to him in time even if he tried. Nobody is going to get to him in time. This is it for him, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise but it almost does. “They gave me five minutes.”

“Who? Please just—at least tell me that, Rindou, at least..”

’At least give me something,’ Ran is asking, because he’s not giving up, he’s not abandoning Rindou, he’s just accepting his little brother’s request for what it is. But even so, he needs something. He needs anything so that he doesn’t lose it.

“I don’t know,” Rindou whispers, conceding. He lets his body slump further against the floor, no longer able to hold himself tense anymore. “He had—scars. Nasty facial scars, and he was tall. I don’t—I don’t even recognise him. I don’t know, I just—I don’t know, aniki, I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I’m so sorry.”

“I told you not to apologise, Rin, please don’t apologise,” Ran chastises him gently, and then sighs shakily himself. “Just—it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s fine. We’re going to get through this—you’re going to get through this.”

Rindou’s bloody lips curl at the corners. It’s strange hearing Ran lie like this. “No, I’m not.”

“Rindou.”

“Tell me you love me,” Rindou requests quietly instead of attempting some sort of back-and-forth.

His heart is cracking into two, and then into three, and then four. It’s fracturing, and shattering, and he has no energy left in him to try and rectify it, so he needs—something. He needs his big brother, and his reassurance, and the gentle wash of his love over Rindou’s blood-splattered skin.

Maybe if Rindou was still seventeen and unsure of his proper place in the world, this vulnerability would not come as naturally to him. Maybe he would be seventeen, and stubborn, and dying from two gunshot wounds, and he would still not cry in front of his brother.

Maybe Rindou would be ashamed—hurt, even, by the typically placating, calm tone that Ran always seemed to hold onto. Maybe he’d still be afraid of potentially hearing Ran’s indifference, and wonder, even despite their tattoos, and their matching hairstyles, and the title that they share, if his brother even loves him at all?

Maybe, if Rindou was still a child, he would’ve died alone, and estranged, and sad.

Maybe he would have never called for his brother at all.

But Rindou has grown. He’s matured. He’s looked into his brother’s eyes and seen nothing but an intoxicating sort of love, and he’s accepted it.

Rindou has grown up and learnt vulnerability, kindness, sensitivity, and how necessary it is to be weak.

Rindou has grown up and learnt to love, and has, in turn, learnt just how to see his brother’s love, too.

“I love you. You hear me, Rindou?” Ran starts, tender and honest. “I love you. I love you more than anyone in the world and then some. I’ve loved you since the moment I first set eyes on you, and my love for you has only grown as you have, and it’s never once stopped.”

He takes a breath. “I remember—I remember the first time you skinned your knee trying to ride a bike; the first time you managed to beat somebody up on your own; the first time that you got chocolates off of a girl in your class and you—” Ran laughs a little, choked up and sad-sounding.

“—you looked at me and you said, all deadpan, ‘aniki, I really didn’t want to accept these and give her any ideas, but I know that they’re your favourite so I did,’ and you demanded that I be grateful, and I was. I was, and in all of these moments, all of these firsts that I’ve been allowed to witness, I’ve looked at you and I’ve just wondered how could I possibly ever love my little brother any more?”

“But I do, Rindou. Each time you do something new, you tell me a story, or you make a joke—each time that you come to me and bury your face in my shoulder and just—exist for a moment, my love for you grows.”

“And I love you now. More than anything. I love you so much that it hurts. You’re my entire world, Rindou, and I can’t lose you. You can’t leave me.”

Ran’s openly crying, openly sobbing, even, and Rindou thinks—he thinks that he’s going to be okay.

Ran is going to be fine. He’s going to get past this. He’ll come storming in, maybe minutes, hours, days after Rindou’s taken his final breath and he’s heard it - when Rindou can no longer tell him to stay away. He’ll cradle Rindou’s body close to his own, stroke at his blood-streaked hair, pepper kisses over his ashen face. He’ll cry, and he’ll weep, and he’ll be angry.

Ran’s going to be so fucking furious that Rindou almost feels sorry for Scar-face guy. Ran will kill him, most certainly. He’ll put a bullet between his eyes, maybe a couple hundred just to be sure. He’ll find him, hurt him, torture him, kill him. He’ll do everything in his power to make him feel the same hurt that both Rindou and Ran have felt.

But after that, when his grief has subsided, and his thirst for vengeance has dissipated, and Takashi is gently washing the blood off of his hands, Rindou is sure that he’ll be fine.

As long as he never learns about Scar-face’s motives for this - for coming after Rindou in particular - and kills first, thinks about questions later, then all will be well. Ran will get past it—past Rindou. He’ll move on, live his life, get married to somebody that Rindou knows he’ll come to love even more than himself.

Ran will be happy, and that’s all that Rindou can possibly hope for.

His big brother deserves the world. Rindou is just sorry that he can no longer be the one to give it to him.

The door creaks open. Rindou isn’t sure it’s even been five minutes.

He manages a pathetic, little, i love you too, and then nothing.