A way away

6. Father, what did I do?

Tobirama had been absolutely certain that the face he remembered form when he first got here was a woman.

One can only imagine his shock when he found the owner of that face and it turned out to be a man.

Tobirama had never considered men before. It wasn't allowed in his country, and he had considered himself to be lucky to be free of the internal turmoil it would cause if you deviated from what the regime allowed.

So when he had found out the owner of the face was a man, he had been scared at first. But then, his gentle presence by his side at the lighthouse went from causing him anxiety, to calming his soul. Even the ocean seemed less daunting with the black-haired man by his side.

He looked forwards to their meetings all day, in quiet. The rest of his days looked like they had always done since he came here. He woke up, went for a run, went to work where he met his patients, went home to cook and eat dinner while searching online for any traces of his brother. He allowed himself only one hour of search each day and set a timer, or he could easily dwell on the Internet until well past midnight. 

But every evening, he would go to the lighthouse at exactly the right time, and the black-haired man would arrive. The man was always dressed in the same grey hoodie and black jeans, which made Tobirama feel less pressured to wear anything but his cardigans and black trousers. He found he wondered what the man's name was, how it would feel like to pull his fingers through his hair, to kiss his lips...

And he found he felt content in his life for the first time since the war in his home country began, so many years ago. 

He would blame himself for it. For allowing himself to relax, for allowing himself to enjoy himself when he didn't know where his brother was, for allowing himself for wanting to kiss a man. He whole-heartedly believed it happened to punish him.

He saw it by complete accident. He usually spent very little of his one hour looking up things about the war in general; it took time from searching for his brother, and it also intoxicated his mind. So he spent only five minutes or so each evening to keep himself updated to a reasonable amount.

Which was when he saw the YouTube clip.

It was from the streets of the capital. It was in the capital Tobirama had been separated from his brother after a bombing, but whereas Tobirama had managed to flee the country, first in a ferry, then later in that little boat in the raging ocean, Hashirama seemed to still be in the capital.

And he was in the forefront of that video, being dragged over the streets by two military men. His face was bloody. He was forced down on his knees, and the military men started beating him.

Tobirama hadn't noticed that he had stood up, grabbing his desk so hard his knuckles whitened. He was hot and cold at the same time, shivering and sweating simultaneously.

"No..." he murmured.

Then, another military man came towards the camera and put a hand over the lens, jerking it down to the ground...

It broke, and the video ended.

"No!!" Tobirama screamed.

He checked the date. This film was from riots that occurred only yesterday. He was alive! Hashirama was alive! Or at least, he had been... Now, when Tobirama thought about his brother's bloody face, he believed, deep down, that he wasn't alive anymore. Couldn't be.

He sat down on the floor, grabbed fistfuls of his hair.

In his country, it was common practice to turn to God, no matter if you believed in one or not. So that was what Tobirama did now.

Father, what did I do? he prayed in his mind. What did I do wrong to deserve such misery? What did I do to have my entire family taken away from me? Have I not worked hard to heal people? Have I not suffered enough?

But deep down, he knew. He knew that it was because of karma, which he believed in fiercely, even if he didn't believe in a God. He knew it was because he had been selfish to save himself...

And that he had fallen for a man, that he had believed was a woman.

So he stopped going to the lighthouse in the evenings in the hopes that karma would be kinder to him and bring his brother to him.