Chapter Text
Ring
Ring
Ring
Ri-
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this the Matsuno residence?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know a Karamatsu Matsuno?”
“Yes, I am his younger brother Ichimatsu. What did he do this time?”
“Your brother is in the hospital.”
“Again? What happened this time?”
“I’m sorry, that is not something we can disclose over the phone. If you or a family member could come in as soon as possible we will be able to explain.”
Ichimatsu looked around, glaring at the empty room.
“I guess I will come.”
“Thank you. We will see you soon.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
Ichimatsu sighed as he hung up the phone, angry at Karamatsu.
‘What the hell? Why do I have to go? God, Karamatsu is so irritating.’
Ichimatsu put on his mask and shoes before walking out of the door to go to the hospital.
Φ Φ Φ Φ
When he arrived, he looked around nervously. Not liking the atmosphere of hospitals, Ichimatsu cursed Karamatsu while entering the building where his brother was.
“Hello sir, can I help you?”
A young woman was sitting behind the desk that Ichimatsu approached, smiling with a slight empathetic twist.
“Uh, yeah. I’m looking for Karamatsu Matsuno.”
The smile dropped for a moment before it went back up looking more pained than it should.
“Ah, I see. Please follow me.”
The woman got up from behind her desk and motioned to Ichimatsu, the pair of them making their way down one of the halls of the hospital.
When they finally stopped, the room had its door shut however voices could still be heard.
Knock
Knock
…
“Come in.”
“Hello Karamatsu, it’s me, Anami. Your brother Ichimatsu is here.”
“O-oh. Okay. Come on in I guess.”
Ichimatsu walked in and cringed with what he saw.
Karamatsu was covered in bandages making their way up his legs, arms, torso, and neck. His face wasn’t much better and his hair looked like shit.
None of that was what made him cringe.
He was wearing his sunglasses.
Ichimatsu walked over to a chair and sat, looking at the doctor that had been conversing with Karamatsu.
“So what couldn’t you tell me over the phone? He’s been worse than this, you know.”
Karamatsu flinched at that a little, then let out a little laugh.
“Ah, Dr. Kobayashi, do you think that I could get some alone time with my brother?”
The doctor looked long at Karamatsu.
“Are you sure?”
Karamatsu nodded his head in her direction, jumping a little when the doctor placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Call me if you need me. I will come as soon as I can, if not immediately then I will have someone come in my place until I am available.
Karamatsu nodded again as the doctor backed up.
“I’m leaving now Karamatsu, you will be alone with your brother in the room.”
“Alright. Thank you.”
With that the doctor left, a heavy silence covering the room.
“Oi, Shittymatsu, what the hell is going on?”
Karamatsu jumped at Ichimatsu’s words, turning his head just a little too far to focus on Ichimatsu.
“Come on. I still have to feed the cats.”
“Oh, yes. I am sorry for delaying you. Well, you see brother, heh, I uh…”
Karamatsu stopped talking then, looking at his lap while shaking slightly.
“I uh, uh, well, I got in a fight with a group of men. They were terrorizing a small cat in an alley and I couldn’t let them get away with that! Well, they turned to me when I called out to them and the cat ran away. They blamed me for this and said that now I would just have to be their play toy.
“Of course I tried to run away, but alas, they caught me too quickly. They then proceeded to cause all of this,” Karamatsu gestured to his body, “before doing the grand finale.”
Karamatsu smiled sadly then slowly took off his glasses, earning a sharp intake of breath from his younger brother.
The area around his eyes was covered in red patches and swollen, a harsh red streak across a normally pale face. When he opened his eyes, Ichimatsu couldn’t hold in a gasp: they were milky white with brown along the edges.
“They threw acid in my face. They…they blinded me.”
Φ Φ Φ Φ
“I-Ichimatsu? Are you ok? What’s happening?”
Karamatsu’s worried voice rang throughout the small room, his head whipping in all directions.
“Ichimatsu, please answer me! Where are you?”
Karamatsu’s nurse came running in, having heard Karamatsu in distress and knowing he needed help.
“Karamatsu, it is your nurse Anami. I am at your right side. Please calm down and tell me what is happening.”
“I-I told Ichimatsu that I was blind, then I heard some crashes and now I don’t know where he is! I’m so scared, what happened? Is he okay?"
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Calm down. I am looking around the room. I see a chair that has been toppled over, so I presume your brother jumped out of it quickly and let it fall. I didn’t see him run out of your room, so that leads me to presume that he went into your bathroom. I am now leaving your side to open the bathroom door to check on your brother.”
When the door was opened, not only could they both hear, but could smell the vomit that came up from Ichimatsu.
“Mr. Matsuno, are you alright? Do you need anything?”
“…just leave me alone.”
“Alright. Are you alright, Karamatsu?”
“Yes. Thank you Anami.”
“Of course. I am going to be leaving now. Call me if you need me.”
With that Karamatsu heard the door close.
He took a deep breath.
“I-Ichimatsu, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” came a weak reply.
“Are…are you okay?”
A pause.
“Yeah.”
“Can…can you come over here?”
“One sec.”
Karamatsu then heard a toilet flush and a sink begin to run. When the sink was turned off, he heard light footsteps, then a door being shut. He started to tense a little, looking around.
“I didn’t leave. I just shut the bathroom door.”
Karamatsu nodded in return, gazing a little too far left from where Ichimatsu was and fiddling with the blanket that he pulled over himself.
“I’m here.”
“Ah. Would you, would you sit next to me? Please?”
Ichimatsu started a little, looking surprised. He nodded before realizing that Karamatsu couldn’t see that and instead voiced an affirmation. He sat next to him then, noticing the way that Karamatsu tensed a little then relaxed, and how his head twisted so that it was looking almost directly at Ichimatsu.
“Do you mind if I do something?”
“No…” Ichimatsu hesitantly replied, not sure what Karamatsu would do. He saw his brother’s hands begin to move, closer and closer to his face. Eventually, they ended up touching it.
Ichimatsu assumed this was a mistake and was about to tell Karamatsu when he suddenly felt his hands begin to move around.
They began at his cheeks, moving out to his ears before moving back in. They then traveled up, crossing his hairline and forehead. They moved to his closed eyes, faintly tracing them before moving to his nose. They felt his chin next, then his jawline. Finally were his lips, which were traced and felt quickly before his hand moved down.
Ichimatsu noticed that Karamatsu’s hands were looking for something, to which they found when Ichimatsu reached a hand over to help.
Karamatsu grabbed his hand quickly and began tracing it, feeling his palm and his fingers and the back of his hand, all done slowly and for much longer than his face.
When Karamatsu was finally done, he removed his hands from Ichimatsu’s and put them in his lap. Ichimatsu changed his gaze from his hand to Karamatsu’s face, and jumped a little with what he saw.
Karamatsu's eyes were directed at the place where Ichimatsu’s hand was, and had small tears falling from them.
“Kuso…Karamatsu n-n-nii-san?”
Karamatsu’s head whipped up at that, looking absolutely shocked.
“Y-yes?” Karamatsu was extremely nervous at this, having not been called his name by Ichimatsu for months now, and not being called nii-san for years.
“Are…are you okay?”
Silence.
Suddenly the tears started to flow more and Karamatsu’s face warped into a pained expression.
Ichimatsu leaned in and grabbed Karamatsu, pulling him in for a hug. He pressed their cheeks together and started petting his hair, doing his best to comfort his older brother.
At first Karamatsu was stiff, but then he leaned into it completely, sobbing and shaking and saying things that Ichimatsu couldn’t understand. So he just held him. He held him and pet him and made sure that Karamatsu couldn’t feel the tears that were coming from his own eyes.
Φ Φ Φ Φ
Karamatsu had fallen asleep soon after he calmed down from crying, curled up the most he could in Ichimatsu’s lap. Ichimatsu simply continued to pet his hair, thinking about all that happened.
A few minutes later Ichimatsu felt something vibrate and pulled out the cheap flip phone his parents bought all of them to be able to keep in contact. When he looked at the screen, he saw two missed calls from Choromatsu
and five texts, four from Choromatsu and one from Todomatsu. When the screen lit up with the third brother’s face, Ichimatsu picked up quickly.
“Thank goodness! I thought you would never pick up! Where are you, it’s like 10:00! Also, have you seen Karamatsu? He hasn’t been home for like three days and he won’t pick up his phone.”
“Umm…well…I’m at the hospital right now. Don’t you dare start speaking. Anyway, I got a call earlier telling me Karamatsu was in here and they wanted me to go.”
“Oh, is that all? Do you know when he will be released? Also, why are you still there? You don’t normally stay for anything for Karamatsu unless…”
The silence that followed was filled with tension and fear.
“I…I can’t do this over the phone. Just come down here, okay? Bye.”
“Wait, Ichimatsu! What is-”
Ichimatsu hung up at that, looking down at Karamatsu to make sure he was still asleep. He continued stroking his hair, having paused with the phone call.
A few minutes later the nurse showed up again, smiling at Ichimatsu and went over to make sure everything was alright with Karamatsu.
After finishing the tests, she walked over to Ichimatsu and started to speak quietly.
“I’m really happy you’re here Mr. Matsuno. Karamatsu has barely slept this entire time and when he has, he always seemed pained. This is the most relaxed I’ve seen him yet. Thank you for coming.”
Ichimatsu nodded, not knowing how to reply to that. The nurse smiled once more then left, leaving Ichimatsu in peace.
Φ Φ Φ Φ
Ichimatsu had lightly dozed off when the door to the hospital room slammed open.
Karamatsu bolted up, accidently hitting his and Ichimatsu’s foreheads together causing them both to groan. Karamatsu also noticed that he had his sunglasses on again, which confused him until he heard Ichimatsu speak up.
“Ah, Osomatsu, Choromatsu, Jyushimatsu, Todomatsu. You’re all here.”
Karamatsu was surprised, then worried, then extremely thankful that his sunglasses were back on.
“Of course we’re here! I finally got ahold of you and you freaked me out! What were you expecting me to do?’
That was Choromatsu. Karamatsu kept his head down, focusing more on who was speaking than on where he should be looking.
“So why are we here? Karamatsu nii-san doesn’t look that bad compared to past injuries.”
Todomatsu. Of course they would question coming, Karamatsu knew that he didn’t look too bad. Except for his eyes.
“What the hell Karamatsu? You’re wearing those sunglasses, even in here? Painful!”
Karamatsu tensed from Osomatsu’s words, until he felt a hand sneak into his.
“Hey hey hey! Why is Ichimatsu nii-san sitting next to Karamatsu nii-san? Isn’t that weird?”
Everyone agreed with Jyushimatsu’s statement, while Karamatsu simply felt Ichimatsu squeeze his hand.
“W-well you s-s-see brothers, I-”
“Ugh, you’re so painful Karamatsu. Just get to the point.”
Karamatsu jumped slightly at that, his free hand starting to fiddle with the blanket.
Ichimatsu could feel Karamatsu start shaking and held his hand tighter.
“Stop it.”
Everyone except for Karamatsu stared at Ichimatsu.
Ichimatsu was moving his gaze to all of him, making sure they all saw his red eyes that still had tears in them and his pained expression.
“Ichimatsu. What’s going on?”
Ichimatsu turned his head to look at Osomatsu, his gaze burning through the oldest brother’s eyes. He then moved to look at Karamatsu and his gaze gentled.
“Is it alright if I tell them?”
Karamatsu nodded his head, seeming slightly relieved.
Ichimatsu looked back up at his brothers, then to Karamatsu again. He began to speak while he pulled Karamatsu’s glasses off, earning gasps all around.
“Karamatsu got acid thrown in his eyes, and now he’s blind.”