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1.
"Shh. Shh, it's okay."
The baby's wailing continued. Her face—so beloved and so, so small—contorted in discomfort, and despite her brother's best efforts her cries only continued to rise in pitch.
Carefully, Kaito rocked her against his chest, his eyes pinching at the corners. "Shh. Shh. Stop crying, Miku. Come on, please—stop crying, for me? Please?" A frantic note crept into his voice.
Nothing was working, and he threw his head back in despair. By this point he almost wanted to cry, too. What a picture that would make, he thought wryly—two siblings, one still a baby and the other half-grown, both of them in tears. As if sensing his distress, Miku only cried harder, writhing against his hold and kicking her little feet against the skin of his upper arm.
Kaito winced. "Ow—hey! Don't do that, I'll drop you!" he admonished, more harshly than he intended. For a moment, his baby sister stilled, her eyes wide as they met his gaze and her lower lip wobbling uncontrollably.
And then she burst into tears once more—harder this time.
"Oh, Miku, oh—I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." His voice was strained, and as if in apology, he drew her closer against his chest. Her little fingers curled around his big thumb. The great fat droplets of her tears rolled off her cheek and soaked into the worn fabric of his shirt, and though they were warm, they cooled rapidly in the dry air. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He kept repeating the words, as if they would somehow absolve him of blame—as if, by some miracle, one of them would eventually reach her where the others had not. "I shouldn't have raised my voice. I'm sorry."
She didn't stop, and now close to tears himself, Kaito drew back. He studied his sister's face—it was red and blotchy stained with salt residue, and she cried and howled so desperately he couldn't help but find it painful to watch. Two days ago, he had no sister to speak of—no one to hold, no one to soothe as she cried—and now—now she was here—warm, solid, real.
"Oh, help me," he swore under his breath. "I don't know what to do. Forgive me."
What a miserable older brother he made, he thought, his eyes downcast. He was useless. She was crying, flailing, and clearly in distress, and he was helpless to stop any of it. His breath trembled in his chest.
But even if he could do no else, he would love her.
Gently, and ever-so-slowly to avoid jostling his sister, he leaned down, nosing the short, wispy strands of her hair aside and pressing his lips right in the center of her little forehead with the infinite tenderness of an older brother still unused to her presence and who, equally, was a stranger to her. Her skin was so smooth—unblemished.
She didn't stop crying, of course—nor did Kaito expect her to. But the motion settled something deep inside of him, and he managed a smile, even if it was tinged gray with sadness at its edges. "Miku, I don't quite know how to stop your tears," he said to her, "but I'll watch over you anyway until you fall asleep." He swallowed. "If nothing else, Miku, I am right here."
Her tears continued. She didn't respond to his words, but against his chest, her clumsy fingers crawled upwards to brush against the side of his hand, and as his face softened and his pinkie curled in to wrap around hers he felt it almost like a promise.
2.
"Will it really be all right?"
"Yes. It will."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Miku paused, her large, inquisitive eyes gazing back at him. Then she looked down. "Okay," she said, quietly.
They made for a truly wretched sight. Two siblings, spread out over the doorstep, the younger sister sitting on the ground, her fraying and dirt-stained pant leg rolled up above her knee, the older brother crouched in front of her and clutching onto a long-expired first-aid kit with still-clumsy fingers.
Kaito smiled, fumbling to tear open a band-aid as, in front of him, Miku watched on in steady silence. "Hey, when I cleaned your cut," he said, suddenly, "well, you were real brave, just now." His face softened in sympathy. "It stung, didn't it?"
She hummed wordlessly in affirmation. Right now, her eyes said more than she ever could.
Thoughtfully, he positioned the band-aid right over where she had hurt her knee, and with all the gentleness a teenage boy still too small for his growing body was capable of he smoothed down either end until it lay there flat and unwrinkled. She suppressed a wince as he ran his hand over the adhesive surface, but he had watched over her for so long now that he noticed instantly. She knew this, too. Her smile turned apologetic as his face tightened.
"You didn't cry, earlier." It wasn't a question.
"No," she agreed.
A soft intake of breath. Then, "I'm very proud of you." And he leaned down to kiss her, first on the forehead and then right on the knobby ridge of her knee, as if to will her pain away.
3.
The worst day dawned with thick clouds and gray skies. They ate for breakfast the last of the oatmeal that remained in the fridge, and Kaito had to help her into her stiff black dress because she quite couldn't reach behind her to do up the buttons in the back.
But what made it the worst day wasn't the dreary weather or their tasteless breakfast or her too-tight clothes that itched in the neck. It wasn't the silent car ride or the rain that began to fall and form trails down the window on the way there.
It was the way Miku cried, silently, with her face buried in the sleeve of her dress to hide her sobs. The fabric that soaked up her tears like the earth did rain was so dark that it made the water stains imperceptible. Kaito shuffled just a little closer, the heat from his body flickering at her even from through his pant leg, and when she glanced up and he saw her face he moved as if unable to stop himself to fall to his knees and pull her into a hug, and he brushed away her hair and kissed her and his touch burned like fire and it ached like the press of hot metal against her skin and it was so so warm that she could not bear it and he promised to watch over her, always, and she promised him through her sobs that someday, when she grew up, she would watch after him, too.
It was the worst day.
4.
The first time Miku saw her brother kiss someone else was nearly a year later.
Meiko was visiting that day. Miku liked Meiko, with her kind smile and warm eyes and steady hands. She looked at Miku, actually looked at her, like she saw a person and not just a bothersome extra in her brother's life. Over the past year, she had been visiting more and more often. When Meiko visited, her brother smiled more. Miku liked it when her brother smiled, and so she liked it when Meiko visited.
But today was different. Today, when she emerged from her room and paused in the mouth of the hallway, Kaito was there, leaning against the door frame, one hand braced against his middle, the other holding open the screen door as Meiko stepped outside. As she did so, she turned and craned her neck to kiss him on the mouth—Miku could see her eyes fluttering shut from the gap between her brother's jaw and shoulder—.and with a pleased hum Kaito reciprocated on instinct, like this was normal for them—like it hadn't just upended Miku's entire world—like he didn't have to spare it even a moment's thought because to them, it was as natural and unquestionable as breathing.
And then the door shut, and Meiko left.
For a few moments Kaito watched her go, his shoulders settling from around his ears, before turning around and making his way back through the entryway. He had a distracted look on his face, but he came to a stop once he saw Miku hovering in the hallway.
"Miku?" he said, blinking to clear his vision. "Were you here this whole time?"
"I, um—" Panicked, she shook her head. "No. I was just...getting something. Getting some water." Her mind fought to keep up with her words, but she shot him her most winning smile.
"Oh." Minutely, he relaxed. He must have thought she hadn't noticed a thing. "Well, all right, then. I just washed your cup earlier, actually. I can bring it down for you if you'd like?"
She nodded, her thoughts still a jumbled mess scattered somewhere a thousand miles away, and as he spun around to do as he had promised, she had the sudden, strangest vision—of Kaito following Meiko outside, the form of his retreating back vanishing in the open mouth of the doorway, of him pressing a kiss into her hair the way he used to with Miku as the door swung shut behind him. And with a start, Miku realized her older brother was in love.
"Hey, Kaito?" she blurted out.
Kaito froze. He glanced over his shoulder. "What is it?"
Miku searched his face. Did he seem happy? Upset? She couldn't tell. She wasn't used to this new part of him. She didn't know this side of him, and it bothered her like an unscratchable itch. Several feet away, Kaito continued to watch her, his eyes soft and blameless.
A lump formed in her throat. By her sides, her hands balled into fists. Heat surged in her cheeks.
She didn't want to see him leave.
"Would you—" she averted her eyes—"would you kiss me, please?"
He hesitated, and surely now he must have known she had seen, but he didn't protest, and instead he simply leaned down, as he had done hundreds of times before, and kissed her swiftly on the forehead. Then he straightened, and when he pulled away she could see there was something unfamiliar and altogether unreadable in his eyes. She wasn't sure if she liked it.
5.
The sun had long since set by the time Kaito came home.
Instantly, Miku shot to her feet. Her brother hovered motionlessly in the doorway, his bag sliding from his shoulder and the topmost buttons of his collar undone, blinking dazedly into the warm, familiar glow of home.
"Kaito! Where have—" Her gaze crossed his, and immediately recognizing something in his face, she fell silent, her words catching in her throat.
Almost mechanically, he turned to face her, and he forced a smile that was so hollow it hurt to look at. Her expression crumpled into one of sympathy. Abandoning her previous line of questioning, she tossed the cushion in her arms carelessly against the couch and approached him, slowly like he was a cornered animal, injured and skittish, one that could turn tail and flee without any warning. But he didn't move.
Finally, she came to a stop.
"Hey," she said, "it's okay. It's just me."
His face twisted and his mouth opened, as if to deny her, as if to push her away, and then as quickly as it came on the moment passed. He sagged, like someone had cut the strings that had until now been animating him and, in their absence, he had nothing left to give.
"Hold me," he whispered. "Please, just—hold me?"
Without a shred of hesitation, she extended her arms and folded him in against her. He had always been so much bigger than her—especially when she had been only a little girl and he was nearly grown, but even now, it remained true—and yet in the moment he felt almost small, terrifyingly breakable. It took a few seconds for him to respond, but when he did, he moved with such strength and desperation that it scared her.
"Kaito—" she tried, but fiercely he shook his head, silencing her protests.
He nuzzled his nose into her hair, parting the slender, delicate strands around her face, bending at the neck to kiss her almost reverently atop the perfect crown of her head, like he had long been searching for something and, in her, he had found it. She continued to hold him through it all. Behind Kaito the door was still wide open, his long shadow spilling out onto the street below, and from it the shapeless tendrils of night encroached stubbornly and tugged at their feet, held back only by the infinite fragility of their shared warmth.
+1.
Her graduation regalia, Miku thought, was terribly uncomfortable.
Her too-large cap slid down her forehead whenever she nodded, and her tassel swung about and into her face whenever she spun around too quickly. The dark fabric of the gown was baked hot by the sunlight, and she frowned to herself as she adjusted the wide sleeves over her forearms. Who had designed such an awkward-looking thing?
"Miku!" called a distant voice, drawing her from her thoughts.
Eyes wide, she looked up, and her expression melted. Everyone was there—her friends, her family—Rin and Len had sat through the entire ceremony for her, and Luka had come back just to see her walk the stage—but in the moment, her vision zeroed in on her brother, who stood at the front with eyes shining with pride and joy and a thousand other things that went unspoken between them.
When he saw her, his entire face lit up, and as if drawn in by a magnetic pull, she broke into a run, heedless of her sleeves billowing out behind her, heedless of wobbliness of her heels, tearing off her hat and tucking it beneath the crook of her arm so that it wouldn't fly off her head.
When she reached him, he crouched down and hooked his hands beneath her arms and lifted her up into the air and spun her around, so high and so quickly that it made her dizzy. Hysterically, she only cheered for him to go faster. Her cap was knocked to the ground in the commotion, and with an indulgent smile Meiko reached over to retrieve it.
Giggling, Miku took it from her, resting one arm over her brother's shoulders and, on a whim, raising the other to shove the cap atop Kaito's head. Comically, it made the short strands of his hair stand on end. He laughed, ecstatic, the sound coming bright and full from his chest, and when he shook his head out, the cap slid dangerously backwards but did not fall.
The cap held his hair away from his face, exposing the skin between his eyebrows, and on impulse she gave in to the sudden urge to swoop down and press a firm kiss against his forehead. At that, his laughter died down, and she heard from him a sharp intake of breath as he recognized the all at once intimate and familiar gesture.
He was gazing up at her with such raw wonder in his eyes. Somehow she found the strength to return his gaze, for once able to look down back at him, seeing what he must have seen nearly every day now for the past eighteen years. When she looked down, she saw him. She saw her brother—precious, irreplaceable, beloved.
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, and she buried her face into the top of his head, this time finally knocking her cap from him.
"You did it," he said, voice breathless with emotion. "You made it, Miku."
"Thanks to you," she said through her tears. "Thanks to you."