More Than It Hurts You {Iromatsu}

Untitled Part 2

I don't get why we watch these shows.

It was yet another shitty romcom about "starcrossed" soulmates overcoming some exaggerated adversity. Please. As if something trivial thing like owning opposing companies would actually get in their way. Then again, I didn't know much about stuff like that. I wasn't a CEO like Jyushimatsu. He seemed pretty invested in the movie, so maybe it was closer to reality than I thought.

Whatever. Still dumb.

Karamatsu came in the room, and I felt my eyes being drawn to him, as always, but I forced them to stay on the TV screen. Keeping my eyes away from him didn't keep my attention away from him. Especially when he sat down and accidentally bumped a bruise. One I gave him yesterday.

He'd passed me in the hall too close, so close I could smell him. I'd shoved him into the wall and bruised his wrist. He tried to act like it didn't hurt, but I knew it did.

Good God, do I know.

The dull throb echoed in my own wrist, but as always I gave no hint that I felt it. Made that mistake in elementary school. The day I found out...

I'd gone to the school nurse to tell her my knee hurt, but wasn't bleeding, even though it'd felt like it should've been. My teacher almost hadn't let me go, saying someone was already with the nurse and I'd be fine, but I'd insisted it hurt too bad.

I remember the nurse got this horrified look on her face, said 'it's not here, is it?', and pointed to my left knee. The look had made me panic, so I'd lied and said it was my right.

She'd looked so relieved at that, I knew lying was the right answer.

"Oh, good. That's likely your soulmate that got hurt. Maybe it's her recess time, too. She- oh! Or he, I suppose, probably just fell down while playing. I'm sure they're fine, though. Your brother here probably gave his own soulmate quite a scare! He fell down and scraped up his left knee pretty bad."

I'd gotten a bad feeling then. "C-can I go see him?"

"Are you worried for him? Well, alright, but you'll have to hurry back to recess soon!" She'd let me into the infirmary, where there on the bed, getting patched up by the nurse's assistant, was my older brother Karamatsu.

The bandage was being placed exactly where I could still feel the pain. As a quick experiment, I'd given my left arm a hard pinch. To my horror, he glanced at his left arm and rubbed it exactly where I'd pinched it.

I'd then simply run back to recess.

That's when things started changing.

At first, I'd just wanted to check. Maybe the knee thing had been a coincidence. So I'd do little things. Flick him as hard as I could when he was annoying or being a pest. Not so hard it'd hurt my fingers, though; he might've felt that. Every time I did it, I'd feel it, phantoms of the pain he'd feel from it. Sometimes I'd push him, or trip him while walking, each time hoping, maybe this time I won't feel it.

Then I got angry. Why? Why did this have to happen to me? No one ever gets together with someone who isn't their soulmate, and everyone does eventually end up with their soulmate. It is inevitable. But as far as I'd ever heard, NO ONE had ever been soulmates with a direct relative. That would be disgusting! I would never get to be normal. All because of him.

I'd proven to myself enough times that there wasn't a shadow of a doubt, Karamatsu was my soulmate. So I had nothing to prove anymore. But I kept flicking, less gently, pushing harder, pairing violence with insults.

He'd probably wondered when it started, why it started. Yet he never asked, never fought back, never even tried to stop me.

The others didn't really notice, but seeing me do those things so often, they'd started doing it too. If he'd say something stupid, ask a dumb question, or become annoying, the nearest brother would flick him. Flicks became swats, swats became slaps, slaps became punches.

'Shh' became 'stop talking' became 'shut up' became any scathing insult that came to mind.

It took less and less to set us off, in early years it would take full sentences to earn a flick. By graduation, he could earn a black eye for laughing wrong.

I'd noticed these escalations; of course I did, I'd instigated them. I'm not sure if anyone else had noticed, but I'm sure Karamatsu, despite being hopelessly stupid, had to have.

By now, I wasn't even angry anymore. I accepted it. I was honestly fine with him being my soulmate. I even accepted that I was in love with him. But after how I'd treated him for so long?

I was shit. I was abusive. It became instinctive to hurt him. Sometimes I didn't even notice I'd done it until I felt it. He deserved so much better. He was amazing. He was kind and gentle, patient and understanding, he was perfect. If he ever found out about us, he'd be so let down. Being stuck with me? No one would want that. But I know he would never let it show. He would smile and love me, despite being so thoroughly disappointed.

At this point, I'd hurt him because I could feel it. I wouldn't pull punches. I would probably self-harm if that wouldn't leave the possibility of him finding out. But since I couldn't, I'd hurt myself by hurting him.

The movie ended. The couple had combined companies or something and gotten married, blah blah blah.

Jyushimatsu loved it, while Karamatsu wasn't paying attention. Neither was I, of course. Too busy thinking back.

"Nii-san, what did you think? Wasn't it a great movie?"

I wanted to force a smile and tell him it was. I wanted to pull myself up from this pit of self-hatred I'd jumped into by thinking again. But right now, watching Karamatsu carefully applying concealer to the bruise beginning to yellow on his left cheek, I couldn't.

I ruffled Jyushimatsu's hair, and stood up. I walked by Karamatsu on my way to the door. I paused. He noticed, and set down his mirror and makeup, the work nearly done, and turned to face me.

"Do you need something, brother?"

I bent down and picked through his makeup bag, taking out a makeup remover wipe. I used gentle touches, removing his carefully and expertly applied concealer.

He looked almost pleasantly confused, probably because I hadn't been gentle with him in years. He remained silent, allowing me to do as I pleased.

Once the makeup was off, we locked eyes. He tilted his head as if to reiterate his question, still smiling softly, trusting. My stomach churned, my heart raced, my mind and soul screamed at me not to go through with my planned course of action.

"Symmetrical aesthetic."

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, that small smile never leaving his lips.

Before he could react further, I raised my left fist and delivered a punch to his right cheek. It was a bit weaker than my right hand, but I needed the proper angle.

He yelped at the impact and I nearly winced, both at the sound and at the pain I only felt a fraction of. I stood up without a word and left, Jyushimatsu's only reaction being a muttered, "Hm."