Work Text:
Ena was zoned out further than usual. She knew that she had started drawing at around midnight, artist’s block starting to drive her insane. A soft lo-fi playlist trickled from her speakers, well-used since she’d moved out of her parents’ house. Everything had been so much louder and so much quieter since then.
She was only partially aware of the shapes forming on the paper, bypassing her brain as if the pencil was in control. What was she thinking about, she wondered. Maybe she was trying to blur her desk into something more familiar. Maybe she was reminding herself that she didn’t have to breathe so quietly.
The phone ringing startled her so badly she dropped her pencil. Her eyes hurt when she blinked – when was the last time she had blinked? – and a good few seconds lapsed before she remembered that she was supposed to pick up the phone. An unknown number lit up on the screen, but she answered it by habit anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hey. Can you come pick me up?” came Akito’s voice. Ena was not switched on enough to process that. Was she supposed to get him from somewhere? He used to ask her this all the time when she first got her car, needing lifts home from far-out venues and gigs he never remembered to plan a route back from. But he hadn’t done that since she moved out, much less over a phone call, much less from an unknown number, and much less at-
Ena checked her desk clock.
“Akito, it’s three in the morning.”
“I know. Sorry. Are you busy?” he asked. Sorry? Akito was a good kid, but that was not a familiar word from him. At least not to Ena.
“No. Where are you?” she asked, not yet committing to moving from her chair. Just because she was not busy did not mean that she was free.
“Uh. Police station.” Ena took a second on that one, too.
“Police- what? What happened?” she asked, getting up to grab her keys.
“I got into a fight,” was all he said. No anger, no defence. Just quiet. Ena sighed.
“At your big age, Akito, really,” she said, her tone far to alike to her mother. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think,” he said, achingly.
“Did you win?” Ena asked, slipping on her shoes and out into the warm night.
“Yeah, I think,” brighter this time. Ena smiled.
“Does mom know?”
“No. I couldn’t remember her number,” he said, knowing exactly how much of a confession that was. He didn’t know his mother’s phone number, but he had Ena’s memorised. “Sorry, only allowed two minutes,” he rushed. Ena could hear men talking in the background as she ducked into her car.
“Okay. I’ll be there soon. Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned.
“I’ll try,” Akito said, and the line cut off. Ena hummed as she put the directions for the station on her phone. As her hands rested on the wheel, she noticed for the first time that they were covered in graphite. And she had taken her makeup off hours ago. Only a minor annoyance, but more surprising than anything. The last time she had gone outside bare faced… when was it? At least this wasn’t exactly the social event of the year.
Pulling up outside the police station at three in the morning was not where Ena expected to be, ever. Akito was almost out of college, and getting into fights wasn’t his style. Well, it absolutely was his style, but he didn’t usually do it. He had inherited their father’s anger, too.
She walked in, the lights white and sharp, but she leaned on the reception desk like she wasn’t nervous.
“I’m here to pick up Shinonome Akito,” she said to the officer at the desk. Night shift at the police station did not look like the most fun in the world from the way he stared at her. He jotted down some details on a form, and pushed it in front of her.
“Fill this in,” he said, gruff, and walked off. Ena grabbed a pen from his side of the desk, wiping her hands on her skirt so she wouldn’t smudge the paper with pencil. Name, relation, signature. Ena glanced at Akito’s charge. Assault and battery. Despite herself, she smiled.
She stopped smiling when Akito walked around the corner, flanked by the officer. A bandage on his forehead, red welts on his face and hands. His jacket was torn, and Akito liked that jacket. Ena had stolen it from him more than once. He stopped at a window to collect his things, while the officer glanced at Ena’s form.
“ID,” he said, and Ena was grateful that it lived in her phone case. He glanced even more briefly at it, and let Akito through the barrier. Akito nodded his thanks, and followed Ena outside.
The silence was not unfamiliar between them, but Ena had always found it difficult to determine exactly how comfortable it was. At least it was mutual. She got in the driver’s seat, and Akito shut the passenger seat door. And brought his knees up to his chest, and put his head down. Ena looked at him for as long as she needed to, and no longer. She turned the ignition.
“Wanna go get burgers?” she asked, making sure her focus was very clearly on reversing out of the parking lot, and not on figuring out if Akito was crying. He took a sharp breath.
“Sorta spent most of my money on bail,” he said, strained. Ena scoffed.
“Obviously, I will buy you a burger. Or something else, if you want,” she said. Dangerously close to being nice to him, but she hoped there was enough condescension in her voice to offset it. What kind of an idiot thinks their sister would make them pay for middle-of-the-night post-jail food?
“Can I get a milkshake?” Akito asked.
“Yes, but no sprinkles.”
“Damn.”
“Hey, I’m not made of money. Pay for your own sprinkles.” Ena glanced over at him. “How’s your head?”
“Fine,” he answered. Usually, Ena would have just left it.
“I just picked you up from jail, and I haven’t even yelled at you for putting your shoes on the seat. More than one word, please,” she said, stern. Their communication was not elaborate, or detailed, or honest most of the time, and Ena was well aware that she was half of it. But this was not a brief encounter in the kitchen before Akito went to school and Ena went to bed. Ena’s car, Ena’s rules. Akito sighed, heavy.
“It’s fine. I just hit it on the pavement,” he said. Getting there.
“Mhm. From what height?”
“However tall I am,” Akito answered, sheepish.
“Did you get that from the fight, or did you just fall over?” she asked, and got a smile from him.
“I was tripped. Not my fault, definitely.”
“I’m assuming you didn’t start this fight?” Ena said. She was actually working with the assumption that Akito landed the first hit, but it would not have been out of the blue. Akito was a passionate person, but he was not a maniac.
“They kept picking on me for some fucking reason. Just assholes trying to ruin someone’s night and it happened to be mine,” he muttered.
“At an event?”
“Club. After an event. I should call An, actually,” he said, but twisted his phone in his hands without turning it on. Ena pulled into the parking lot of the late-night diner.
“Let’s eat first.”
The place was, unsurprisingly, deserted. They sat down, and Akito sank into the booth, a new kind of exhausted. His bruises didn’t look as bad in the softer fluorescence, but he would be lucky if he got only one black eye out of it. Ena had already fretted about his injuries once, and she was not planning on doing it again.
She left him to fester and walked to the counter to place their order. She paused at the end.
“Actually, could I get those milkshakes with sprinkles?”
When the food came out, Akito said nothing, but his eyes shone like they used to when he was little. Big and bright and usually accompanied by some kind of loud noise. A shout, or slamming cutlery down on the table of his highchair. The noise did not come, but Ena smiled to herself anyway.
They ate quietly. Ena looked up at Akito eating and noticed that occasionally, he would wince as he took a bite.
“If you’re too punched-in-the-jaw to eat your burger, I’m finishing it,” she said. Akito glared at her and chewed faster. “What do you think the other guy’s up to?”
“Two of them,” Akito mumbled, mouth full. “And I doubt they got very far.” Two of them. That explained some of it. Akito never cared about a fair fight.
“Good work,” Ena said, sipping her milkshake. Akito hummed, and did the same.
After their food was finished, they both stared out the window. Ena could see his reflection in the glass against the dark night, his torn jacket. If there was anywhere else he would rather be, he would be there. Presumably, he couldn’t think of one. However much it made Ena’s chest tighten, the thought was comforting.
“I need to drive home before I get too tired, come on,” she said, stacking their plates together. Akito nodded and stood up. He was slow to move, slow to follow Ena to the door. She unlocked the car, and leaned against the door. “Can I be bothered to drive to mom and dad’s?” she mused aloud. A question to herself that only Akito could answer. He was quiet for a long moment, bruised fingers on the car roof.
“It is a bit out of the way, isn’t it?” he said. Ena swung into the car.
“Okay. Come stay at mine, I’ll find some sheets for the couch. And text Shiraishi, she’s probably stressed to hell and back,” she said, waiting for Akito to put her seatbelt on.
“I’ll text her,” he said. “And mom, I guess,” he added.
“Are you gonna tell her what happened?” she asked, and in her periphery watched Akito poke at his bandage in his phone camera as she pulled out onto the road.
“I’ll make something up,” he settled.
“I won’t mention jail,” Ena said, and Akito was quiet. Ena was not expecting a thank you. She had no idea what she would say if she got one. The words did not belong in the air between them.
They stopped at a junction, and Ena looked over by instinct. The screen of his phone and the traffic lights cast his hair in an odd way. Ena could not place what was wrong until she caught a glimpse of herself in the wing mirror. No makeup, just driving her brother home at four in the morning. Not a performance, not a stage show. Just four in the morning. Because Akito had asked, and Ena had answered.