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Saki missed her brother. It was an odd thing to admit given that they lived in the same house and she'd seen him every day for a while now, but they hadn't spoken in days, not because Saki didn't want to but because Tsukasa was doing his method acting thing. It was stupid, really; she'd seen the show and had some idea as to why he'd asked her (and their parents) to do such a thing, but it was still so, so stupid. She came home every day and saw him sitting on the couch or packing his bag to go to the theatre, and she wanted to go up to him and tell him about what Shiho did when they saw a rabbit on their way to practice, how Honami had brought these really yummy snacks to practice and she had a couple left over and would he like one, and how Ichika had done this cool guitar solo. She also wanted to listen to him explain how practice or school had went because they didn't have as much time to talk as they used to and she wished the world would just stop for a while sometimes so they could hang out like they used to when they were kids and she was healthy enough to be at home, watch an old movie and stay up too late and tell stories and the like.
But she was trying to help with the stupid method acting thing. So she just looked at him, bit down on her tongue until it bled, sometimes, resisted the urge to even go up to him and hug him because she knew something was wrong, Tsukasa wouldn't just ask everyone to stop speaking to him just because, and he certainly wouldn't come up with that kind of idea on his own. He was so proud (or at least he seemed to be) that he was her big brother. Someone had probably suggested it to him, and why he'd agreed, Saki honestly didn't know. Maybe it was just experience speaking, but she'd never tell anyone she loved never to speak to her for any period of time because it hurt too much.
At least today was the last day of the performance, she thought as she dressed for school. Ichika's family was apparently going tonight, so Ichika had asked if she wanted to go because there was a chance they could get a fourth ticket, but Saki had said no. She'd seen it before, and it might hurt too much anyway.
Saki did her hair and tried not to think about it too much. But she hadn't even hugged Tsukasa in five days and that- that was too long to go without a hug from him while they still lived in the same house. (She didn't even live with Honami and she got hugs on a more regular basis from her than that.) He was graduating this year too and maybe it was selfish but Saki didn't want to spend the rest of his last year at school not speaking to him because he'd probably leave to become a star or something once he'd done so.
She grabbed her bag off the floor and headed downstairs for breakfast. Tsukasa was there, sitting at the table, muttering something to himself; he was speaking so quietly Saki couldn't make out the words even when she sat across from him at the table. She got herself a bowl of cereal (her parents hadn't been a fan of the sugar content at first, but it didn't interfere with her medications so they'd reluctantly agreed to let her have it as a treat) and made sure she took the two pills she needed to take with her glass of orange juice before she ate anything.
Had Tsukasa eaten? She hoped so, but she couldn't ask.
Saki wanted her brother back. She wanted to ask him what was wrong and who had suggested this to him (Shiho knew people) and did he want to have a sleepover like they had when they were little because that had always seemed to help.
Instead, she set her free hand on top of one of his. I'm not saying anything.
Tsukasa's facial expression changed ever so slightly. Saki couldn't tell if it was good or bad, but at least he wasn't outright ignoring the gesture. She kept her hand there until Tsukasa got up, presumably to leave for school. Or practice. No one really knew what he was doing, seeing as he didn't speak to them anymore.
The loss of contact made her want to cry even more.
She just had to get through her day at school, she told herself, and then, since the play would be over tonight, she'd have her brother back tomorrow. Just in time for the weekend, funnily enough, but he had to help with a bunch of takedown stuff then and he'd probably only be back for dinner at the earliest. Saki took a deep breath, poured the milk in the bowl down the sink (it tasted wrong to her somehow after it had gained the flavour of the cereal) and headed off to school. Less than twenty-four hours from now, she could get her brother back.
It seemed like an eternity when she'd already been waiting so long.
School went normally, though Saki felt she was smiling a little faker than usual; someone from the third year gave her an odd look but she was too busy chatting with Emu to notice who it was and by the time she realized someone was staring at her, she'd already moved away and all Saki saw was a purple ponytail in her field of view before the other girl disappeared down some side corridor and Emu showed her a picture of her dressing room (decorated with a lot of colourful trinkets). At least Emu seemed to have bounced back from whatever had made her so sad last week; Saki had been worried about her but she seemed to be fine now and Saki wasn't going to push the question too far. All Emu had told her was that it had had something to do with her siblings and method acting and someone named Sakaki-san having really bad ideas. Saki assumed that meant Tsukasa was getting the same treatment, but why he hadn't stopped- maybe he was just trying to push himself too far again.
Not that that was good, but it was an explanation. At least Shiho didn't try to cut practice short because Saki was distracted, though they did promise to buy her bubble tea afterwards as a motivator. When she got home the house was quiet, almost too quiet. But Ichika, Honami, and Shiho all had somewhere to be tonight so she couldn't call any of them and ask for an 'emergency sleepover' or anything of the sort. Saki flopped onto the couch and looked up, craned her neck and watched the ceiling fan spin around and around.
She wanted someone to fill the void of silence in the house, and she ought to be able to spend time with Tsukasa for a couple hours before his call time, but she couldn't. He came home from school and Saki had to pretend he didn't exist as he went up to his room and packed his bag for the show. She closed her eyes and tried to rest, hoping that would make it better, hoping sleep would cure all the sorrow in her heart, and she did end up getting a fifteen minute nap in.
She woke up with Tsukasa's blanket around her and a bag of snacks on the coffee table. Her nap had done nothing for her emotional state, but she felt a little better physically. She wasn't hungry, though, and dinner was soon, so she just took the snacks up to her room, stashed them in her closet 'for emergencies', and waited until her parents called her down to eat. Tsukasa normally bought himself something on his way to the theatre, so it was just the three of them. It felt wrong, sitting around the table with only her parents to hear what she'd done that day, unable to enjoy anything on her plate because there were too many things on her mind.
Saki told them she was okay, just that she hadn't slept well (convenient excuse, she told herself) and that they didn't need to worry, please don't worry I'm not sick I just don't like what's been happening lately. She said she wasn't hungry for dessert and her mother gave her a look that said she knew it wasn't true but she let it go.
In her room, she could cry over it all without anyone listening in, without anyone giving her sad looks that wouldn't fix the problem. Saki was used to dealing with her emotions on her own, she'd be able to push them away or at least ignore them for a little this time too. And then life would go back to normal when the show ended and Tsukasa wasn't putting himself through what must have felt like hell for him if it felt this awful for Saki.
Right? Everything would be fine. It had to be, they had to be fine, they'd been through enough already, they-
Someone was at the door. Saki brushed the tears away from her eyes and hoped they didn't return, then slowly wandered out onto the staircase's landing. Tsukasa was setting down his bags in the entryway and he looked upset. Really upset. Mom and Dad had gone to bed early because they both had weirdly early start times for work tomorrow. On the weekend, too! Weekends were for relaxing, not work! (Except practice, but practice was fun. Most of the time.)
One step at a time, she made her way down the stairs. Quiet as a mouse. Tsukasa looked up and smiled when he saw her. But it seemed so fake. Like he was just trying to comfort her because he knew what he'd put the family through and he didn't know how to make up for it just yet. He set his bag down on the couch. Saki had made it to the bottom of the stairs now.
"The show's over. Can I talk to you now, onii-chan?" It sounded a lot meaner than she'd intended it to. Tsukasa flinched at the tone. Saki wanted to apologize, but... she was mad.
He bit his lip. "Yeah." He sounded- well, it wasn't like he sounded like a completely different person but he sounded so broken. "You can."
Saki took a couple tentative steps in his direction. "Hug?" She held out her arms, maybe a little more awkwardly than normal but it was also, like, 11:20 at night.
Tsukasa nodded. He bridged the rest of the gap between them, wrapped her in his arms, and then immediately started to cry. Saki had known something was wrong, she just hadn't known how bad, but Tsukasa tried not to cry like this around anyone. Maybe she needed to see if Shiho knew anyone who knew someone who'd be willing to harm the Sakaki guy first thing tomorrow. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."
Saki didn't know how long they stood there like that, with Tsukasa crying and her trying to console him but not knowing what had happened so resorting to things like it's okay, I forgive you, you don't have to be sorry about it, even though he did kind of have to be sorry about it unless it was the Sakaki guy who had made him try the bad kind of method acting in which case Saki would forgive Tsukasa immediately. She had a suspicion that was the case.
"Can-" Tsukasa took a very shaky breath- "can I sleep in your room tonight?"
Usually Saki was the one who asked that, and even then it was rare. Right after she'd gotten out of the hospital and Shiho and Honami had pushed her away, those times when she had creative disagreements with someone – those were the sorts of things that would make her not want to sleep alone. Tsukasa had asked maybe twice in the past few years and one of those times had been when he'd found a centipede in the bathroom and Saki had had to take it outside because their parents were out on a date. Of course she wasn't going to say no, but it was kind of worrying. "Yeah."
"Thank you," he whispered. "I'll- go get my pyjamas."
They walked upstairs together. Tsukasa went off to his room, Saki to hers (she did need to change her shirt now, but it wasn't a concern) and then they brushed their teeth together like they used to do when they were kids, nudging each other for space around the sink and trying to insist the other floss first so they could claim there 'hadn't been time' because 'bedtime was a strict time and I didn't get the chance to floss because I wasn't the one with the box!', and as always they both ended up flossing anyway. There was no time pressure.
And, much like they had when they were kids and they did sleepovers like this, Tsukasa brought over his pillow, they moved the decorative pillows off to one side of the bed, and they each closed one side of the curtains. Saki switched on the night-light and everything was ready. (Shiho had gently teased her about needing it to sleep, but Tsukasa wouldn't.)
She missed that a bit, she decided as Tsukasa pulled the blanket over them. Missed asking to sleep over just because she wanted to and Mom said it was okay even though it was a school night and they always talked a lot when they had sleepovers. She didn't miss all the hospital visits but she did miss playing board games on the weekends and looking through all the closets in the house to find the sleeping bags that Dad had hidden so they could be warm when they lay awake at night looking at the stars on Saki's balcony. Tsukasa being involved whenever she had friends over to the point of being one of the group was lost to time as well and Saki wished it wasn't but that was life, wasn't it? A hundred thousand changes no one wanted all at once, lying to their faces and saying that it was good, that they needed to move on, and Saki knew not to trust the change now but she'd listened to it as a child, believed that everything was going to be okay if she let herself be pulled back and forth by the tides and that was wrong.
Tsukasa pulled her close. They used to cuddle all the time when they were little, on the couch after a long day, fast asleep and their parents couldn't separate them so they'd wake up in one of their rooms in the morning and know why. Now they only did it when they had sleepovers.
Saki missed that too.
She wanted to cry. But she was tired, and Tsukasa was already asleep. She wouldn't be able to help him, she wouldn't be able to help herself much so she tried to rest, too.
It... it had been such a long day.
They didn't really talk about it the next morning. At least not for a couple hours; Saki had to be up early to take one of her medications and Tsukasa just... sat with her on the balcony as she counted down the minutes until she could eat breakfast (if she ate too early the medication might not work and that could leave her lightheaded all day which sucked). Neither of them said too much. Tsukasa was probably still dealing with everything that had happened, and no matter how used she was to it, Saki still hated waking up this early. Their legs dangled off the edge like they used to when they were kids, though it was getting less comfortable to sit on the metal beams for so long. Saki rested her head on Tsukasa's shoulder and felt his arm wrap around her.
She thought she heard another apology fall off his lips, but it was so quiet she didn't know if he'd said anything at all. The sun climbed ever higher in the sky until seven-thirty came and Saki could eat breakfast, at which point neither of them watched it, instead going inside.
Dad had made pancakes and had put them in the oven to keep them warm; Tsukasa pulled the pan out and they split the rest. Their parents had already left; they were used to it though so they just ate in a more peaceful silence than usual, caused not by bad ideas but by good food. (Seriously, why were Dad's pancakes so good?)
After they'd put their dishes in the dishwasher and washed the pan, the day was free. Apparently Tsukasa had been banned from helping with the cleanup from the play because he needed to recover.
They were sitting on the couch, relatively comfortable, not speaking too much because they were both on their phones (Saki had to coordinate her practice schedule, after all) for about half an hour. And then Tsukasa cleared his throat.
"I'm... not sure I want to do that again." He glanced out at the window.
Saki just raised an eyebrow.
"The- the method acting that Sakaki-san was teaching me." Tsukasa fiddled with the end of his sleeve, which was uncharacteristic of him. "I- can't- I'm mad. At myself, for thinking those things."
"What things?"
Tsukasa gave her a deeply concerning look then. "I don't- I can't tell you. It wasn't great."
Saki tackled him in a hug. "I'm never letting you do that again. If you tell me not to talk to you for a week, I'm going to talk to you more than I normally would."
"Isn't that a little... I'd do the same for you though." Tsukasa returned the hug. "It's... don't worry too much."
Saki frowned. "You're my big brother. I'm legally obligated to worry about you."
"Who says..."
"Says me."
"Okay."
"And- we... Mom and Dad and me, we want to help you when you're hurt." She didn't know if Tsukasa was crying now; if he was, she was sorry but it needed to be said. "I missed you. So much. I'd never forget about you like in that play."
He sniffled. "Promise?"
... yeah, something was definitely going on. "Promise."
By the time they needed to make dinner, Tsukasa seemed weirdly back to normal. He was smiling, though something felt a bit wrong. Almost as if his smile was forced.
They could cook together without saying anything, but they normally didn't because they wanted to speak, wanted to joke and laugh and have fun together. Now it just felt weird for the only words between them to be please pass the onion. Tsukasa was not a quiet person, and Saki had sort of inherited that from him, but she didn't mind it. In fact, it was so weird to not hear him talking a lot that she wondered if something had happened to her hearing a few times because Tsukasa didn't do this sort of thing. He didn't go quiet. He didn't force himself to smile like that.
What the hell had happened? (Was that a strong enough word? Did Saki need to take up swearing?)
She didn't ask. Tsukasa probably wasn't ready to talk about it, and... did he want her to get involved with his issues? She wanted to, she hated seeing him like this, but Tsukasa would just tell her he was fine. He was her big brother. He was the strong one, the one who always made her smile when he was in the hospital and he couldn't be the reason why she was sad.
Saki didn't want to watch Tsukasa drift away from her. She didn't want to see him suffer in silence like this, watch him struggle to tell her that something was wrong. She wanted to return all that kindness he'd given her but he seemed so unwilling to receive it and she didn't know what to do about that.
Before they sat down to eat, she gave him another hug. Maybe, just maybe, that would at least help him realize he wasn't alone. Saki would truly never, ever forget about Tsukasa. No matter what.