| an_apple | 2007-12-09 18:23 |
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mood: cold music: Aragaki Yui - Heavenly Days Title: At the rainbow’s end Author: [info]ikujinashi & [info]tsukimiso Genre: Drama Rating: R Disclaimer: At profile Main characters: Picture Warnings: Brotherly love. Summary: Ryo is as happy as he thinks he can be. He has everything aguy could want: friends, a cute girlfriend, a hot mother, a rich fatherand a sibling he doesn’t have to care about because nobody else does.Hiroki lacks confidence, doesn’t know how to do anything right, andhasn’t looked anyone in the eye for almost a decade - but he won’t holda grudge against anyone. No matter what happens, he appreciates hisparents, and loves the brother who denies his existence. Japanese in this chapter: Onii-sama - Formal way of addressing one’solder brother, Niichan - More casual way of addressing one’s olderbrother, Kyoudai - Siblings. (Read more about Japanese honorifics here.) Note: We’ve decided that the themesong for this bit is Heavenly Days by Aragaki Yui. You can download it here and see the lyrics and translation (by me) here.  At the rainbow’s end Chapter 29 part 1 The night seemed to come far too quickly. In fact, Ryo didn’tremember it ever getting dark this fast before - was today the shortestday of the year or something? But no, now that he thought about it, theshortest day was supposed to be in December… The 21st or something. Andit wasn’t even the end of August yet. For all Ryo cared, though, itcould be the middle of April or any other month. After having sat on the couch in the living room for a ridiculousamount of time doing nothing but talk to himself about how everythingsucked, Ryo had dragged himself up to go and make a sandwich; notbecause he wanted one or even because he was hungry, just to givehimself something to do. It seemed really weird to just do somethingnormal like this, just like he always had before - in his mind he knewthat everything was most definitely not normal, but it was hard to feelit. The place still had the same feeling about it as before after all,the only thing different was that earlier he’d left all the doors open… Giving up on his sandwich halfway through and not bothering to putanything away or even put the lid back on the peanut butter he’d beenabout to use, Ryo turned and wandered out into the hall, looking aroundas though he’d never seen the place before. He must have stood therelooking for a good five minutes trying to tell himself that in alllikelihood Hiroki would never be here again - that he’d never see himagain… But it seemed impossible. Like standing outside at night andtrying to tell yourself that the sky will be bright pink foreverbeginning with the next morning. Hiroki’s being around had always beenan unchangeable, uncontested fact and thus Ryo’s mind didn’t see whythat should change either now or ever. Walking upstairs for no reason other than that was where his feet tookhim, the now-youngest member of the Nishikido household (which he kepttrying to tell himself) found himself standing outside of the smallestbedroom before he knew what he was doing. Stepping inside felt likewalking into another world. On an intellectual level he knew that thiswas the exact room in which he and his brother had done and said sovery much - but the larger part of him refuted the fact. Refused tobelieve it. This room was so empty, how could it be the same place? Howcould it be Hiroki’s room when none of his things were here anymore? Though he’d just meant to sit down for a minute, to think about thisand try to convince himself of the truth again, Ryo found himselflaying on his back on Hiroki’s bed and just staring at the ceiling.Without realising it he found himself laying to the left - the sidehe’d always had for no real reason when the two of them had slept inhere together. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine the younger one’spresence, tried to pretend that he was laying there next to him likealways… It was probably easier than it should’ve been, so easy in factthat when Ryo opened his eyes and found the cold real world staring himin the face it was… In a word, disappointing. He couldn’t stay in here, he realised. It was too weird, it wasn’t aplace he knew and thus he didn’t feel comfortable at all. Standing up,he ruffled his hair where laying on it had flattened it (not because hewanted to look nice, simply out of habit) and headed for his ownbedroom. The bed in here wasn’t as comfortable, but it was much easier to be atease in a place that was just the same as it had been before. Blinkingwith wide, surprisingly fatigued eyes into the darkness outside of theuncovered window, Ryo closed the curtains and went to lay down. Maybeif he slept some, if he gave his mind a rest then it would be easier tothink in the morning. Right now the inside of his head sounded likelittle more than the white noise that a TV gives out if you switch itto a station that doesn’t exist… But as he went to lay his head on the pillow, he noticed something outof the corner of his eye and quickly sat up again to find out what itwas. He wasn’t sure why he cared to be honest, any other day and hewould have just forgotten about it and gone to sleep - but when hereached under the pillow and pulled out what looked like a notebook hewas pretty sure he’d made the right decision. Without opening it fornow, he turned it over in his hands for a name or any other identifyingfeature - there weren’t any. All it was was a small spiral-boundnotebook with a beige cover; like you might buy at any amount of shopsfor some tiny price. It certainly didn’t look valuable, anyway. Ryo almost felt bad about opening it when he did, but the first pagewas blank. Flipping through the pages, he’d gone past six blank onesand was about to give up when the seventh page yielded a result. A fullpage of writing in handwriting he recognised as belonging to Hiroki.Was it… could it be a diary of some sort? The book was quickly snapped shut and put down, this time on top of thepillow. Ryo swallowed hard - he couldn’t seriously read that, could he?Surely it was against some kind of rules, an invasion of privacy orsomething? … But if Hiroki didn’t want him to read it when why was ithere..? Would Fumina really have gone as far as to do something likethat? … No. No, she wouldn’t. As much as Ryo knew that his mother couldbe cruel sometimes, he knew that doing something like this was belowher. So… Hiroki had put it there himself? Before leaving? It seemed theonly possible explanation, it hadn’t been there before after all… Putting his doubts to one side, Ryo picked up the book again andflipped straight to the seventh page, reaching out with his other handto put the bedside lamp on. Will you ever get tired of those parties you go to? I’m not saying I want your attention all the time - even though itwould be really great, I won’t ask that of you. I just want to bespecial to you. I know that I am though, you’ve told me so. You’ve mademe feel special in so many ways, in ways I didn’t know existed. BeforeI opened up to you, before I talked to you, I didn’t think I’d ever getthis happy. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel like those people Isee in school. Like the happy couple I see in one of the parks I passwhen I go home. They look really happy and they hold on to theirboyfriend in a special way. It shows in the way they smile, thatthey’re happy. The blue sky and the shining sun makes them lookbeautiful. A person in love looks really beautiful. I think I readsomewhere that a girl becomes even prettier when she’s in love. I thinkthat’s true, but I wonder if it’s the same for guys? It should be. I feel prettier when I’m with you. When you’re around, I smile moreoften and I feel a lot prettier. Normally I wouldn’t think of myself inways like that, but for some reason you make me consider how I look. Iwant you to like my looks, to like what you see. Even though peopleusually say that it’s the personality that counts, I can’t help butfeel a little bit silly about if my hair is messed up when you knock onmy door. I feel as if I have to fix it immediately because I don’t wantto look stupid. Your opinon matters a lot. It’s always mattered a lotto me, even if you’ve just given me a disapproving look or somethingthe like, it matters a lot to me. When you complimented me on thepiano, I got so happy… I don’t know how to describe it with words. Youmade me really, really happy just by saying that I’m good. After all,it means that you think positively of something I’ve done. I’m doing.It means a lot to me. When you kissed me, I was shocked. I still don’t know why you didit, but to be honest it doesn’t matter much anymore. No one’s everkissed me before, no one’s ever even said that they want to - that theywould like to be close to me like that. No one’s barely spoken a singleword to me out of their own free will and, then suddenly you were bothtalking to me, laughing with me and then eventually you pressed yourlips against mine. I’m sorry if I acted really weird. It’s not that Idisliked it or was disgusted - I know a lot of people would be. Butthat someone like you would suddenly kiss someone like me withoutreason, it shocked me. And if I’m going to be completely honest withyou, I’m not sure I quite understand yet. I still don’t understand whyyou like me so much. I saw a music video on TV just now and it made me think. It made mewant my life to be like that. It had a lot of people having a greattime on the beach and just laughing, enjoying their time together. Thenas it came closer to the end a girl and a guy were sitting by a campfire and holding hands and just did nothing but holding each other’shands and looking at the starlit sky. The song was really pretty andencouraging and seeing the video it made me smile. It made me think ofthat I would like to do something like that too. Imagine if I’d befriends with your friends too? Or if we would have some friends, somepeople that are friends to both of us, imagine if we would go to thesea some summer and have a really good time and then at the night wecould sit like that too. I know that won’t happen though. Your friendsare so different from me and there aren’t any people who would want tobe my friends like that anyway. And I think people in general doesn’taccept that brothers are as close as we are. But it’s a nice thing toimagine though, to daydream about if nothing else. Besides, you’re not the kind of guy to actually just do that, areyou? You go to parties a lot - parties that involves alcohol andcigarettes and maybe even some of your friends do drugs. That’s notlike me at all, I wouldn’t dare to do something like that beingunderage. So you would probably find it boring. I don’t want you to bebored, that might make you want to be less with me. I know it might besilly to think so, but I really want you to enjoy your time as much aspossible when we’re together. Like when we wrote that song together.You said you couldn’t do it and even though you really, really didn’twant to continue, it felt as if you enjoyed it at least a little. Andthe result - as far as we got - was really good! I think so anyway. Ihope that we can finish it someday and that we can play it together. Ithink you will be able to come up with good lyrics to it, maybe I canhelp. Maybe if we play it somewhere, someone important will hear it andwould like it. Though I would never dare to stand on a stage oranything… but it would be really amazing if we would be able to writemusic, wouldn’t it? “Nishikido Kyoudai”, it sounds cool doesn’t it?Maybe “Ryouki”, to make it easier! That’s dreaming a bit too muchthough, I know but I have a lot of free time on my hands, I have tomake something so I think a lot! You know what? Recently we started talking about psychology inschool. I don’t talk much in school, but I listen if there’s somethinginteresting and psychology kind of is. The teacher was talking aboutpsychological illnesses and it made me realise that some things that hesaid really fitted in on me. Does that make me ill? Maybe that’s whymom and dad don’t like me as much? Teacher also said that if a personacts in a special way as a grown up, it might be because of their timegrowing up - that their childhood was difficult. That made me think ofmy childhood and thinking of it from another point of view, I realisedthat it was kind of bad, wasn’t it? You know, right? Because you werethere, you’re just two years older than me, but you remember right? A girl in my class asked if it isn’t natural of that person, the grownup, to hate their parents for how they treated him or her when he was akid, but the teacher said that it’s nothing that can be definite, butthat it wouldn’t be surprising. I don’t hate mom or dad, should I? Doyou think I should? I know mom is really disappointed with me, that Idon’t live up to her expectations and I know that dad doesn’t like torecognize me as his son. But I can’t hate them. After all, I’m prooffor that they loved each other once, right? I know that they don’tanymore, but at least they did once. Both you and I are proof of that,aren’t we? I think I’m getting better at talking! I really think I am! Somewords aren’t as difficult to say anymore and I even managed to say“uncomfortable” a few days ago! It wasn’t when you was around, I don’twant to do that when you’re around because it’s embarrassing. But Ipracticed some on my own and I succeeded! It was a bit difficult but Imanaged to say it! It made me really happy. Maybe I’m really gettingbetter at talking? Maybe if it continues like this I’ll be able to talklike you sometime soon? I hope I will. Onii-sama always sounds soconfident when he’s talking. I want to sound like that too someday.I’ve actually thought of asking you this for some time now but I neverdare to. I won’t even give you this, because that will be really,really embarrassing! But I like writing as if I write letters, it’seasier that way. Back to what I want to ask you though! I reallyrespect you, onii-sama, I really,really do. I admire you because youmanage to be so popular, you manage to keep up with so much and stillget all the love that you get from dad. I can only imagine it’s noteasy to have him expect things of you all the time. And I know that yousay you don’t get much of it, of what he does, but I’m sure that oncehe hires you, he’ll teach you and you’ll get it really fast! Becauseyou’re really smart, you just don’t like studying. I don’t likestudying either. What I meant to ask you though, what I will ask yousometime is if I can call you “Ryo”. I really want to! But to me itsounds as if I don’t respect you enough, and I don’t want you to thinkthat I don’t. Because I do! I really, really do respect you a lot! AndI really don’t mind saying “onii-sama”, but I want to say “Ryo”. I haveno idea of how I will ask you though, so I won’t. Not until I’vefigured out a way! For what felt like a long time Ryo just sat and looked at the pages- read through the ‘entry’ (though it didn’t look much like a diarywhat with having no dates or anything) over and over. It was liketalking to Hiroki through the paper, listening to the thoughts he’d hadway back when… Back when Ryo had still been ‘onii-sama’. It feltstrange to read that word now, it had been so long since he’d heard it.It hardly registered in his mind as him anymore, like this ‘onii-sama’was the person he’d been before and ‘niichan’ was the person he wasnow. He knew he’d changed. If he hadn’t, then none of this would havehappened at all. “Say, Hiroki… Think you could do me a favour?” “W-wh-what?” “My name. I’ve never heard you say it.” Before he knew it, a smile appeared on his face. Hiroki was so muchmore fluent in writing, it was almost as though it wasn’t him at all.But Ryo knew that this was what Hiroki would be like if things had beennormal - talking like this, rambling at times like everybody else did.He’d never heard his brother ramble. In fact he’d always thought ofhimself as lucky when he’d managed to get more than a few words out ofthe younger one. Of course he understood why… But wasn’t that so cruel?Of nature or whoever’s fault it ultimately was, to take that away fromHiroki, who’d never done anything to deserve such treatment? As he read over the part mentioning it again, Ryo thought back to thefirst time they’d kissed. How it had been a random decision on his partbecause… he couldn’t even remember why. Realising that he had norecollection of what had taken him to kiss Hiroki the very first time,despite remembering that he (they) had been drunk at the time,frightened him. He was already losing things! What happened when hestarted losing more? What if one day he couldn’t remember what Hiroki’svoice sounded like? What if one day he forgot about him completely?! Thinking of something, Ryo pulled his cellphone from his pocket andquickly got into the password-protected folder storing the pictureshe’d managed to take of Hiroki in the short time they’d had. Thereweren’t many. Ryo’s personal favourite was one that his brother hadnever actually found out about, a picture of the younger one sleepingthat he’d found on his phone one day and decided he must have taken itwhile half-asleep - it made sense. Swallowing hard, Ryo smiled slightly, convinced that his memories ofwhat was important were all still fresh. He remembered the first kissitself after all, how much he’d liked it despite himself, and thestrange barrage of thoughts he’d had to sort out afterwards to decidewhether or not it was anything worth persuing. After all he’d alwayshad so much to lose… But Hiroki had been so inhumanly understandingthat he never even brought up the fact that they never did anythingtogether, or how Ryo didn’t tell anyone about them. Hiroki understoodthe need for secrecy. In fact, looking back, Hiroki had beenunderstanding about most things. Putting his phone down, Ryo looked back at the book where it lay openat the same page he’d left it at, suddenly understanding that itsappearance under his pillow had been entirely intentional. And whilethat was so, he had reading to do. ——— Click here to see the diary entry from this chapter in picture form: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3. Chapter 29 part 2: Niichan is beautiful. – Chapter 29 part 2 will be up on the 14th Written by aisoshoko Sawajiri Erika China: http://sawajiri-erika.cn/2007/12/at-the-rainbows-end-chapter-29-part-1.html |
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