Illusive Tears

•Chapter 6: Undiscovered Letters•

"Ichimatsu!" A voice called out.The fourth brother didn't bother to respond. "Ichimatsu!" Rolling his eyes, and not wanting the person to continue calling out his name, he finally responded, but now the other person didn't respond. As a replacement, he heard footsteps gradually get louder.

His mother popped out from the opened part of the living room door. "Sorry to bother, but could you please..." his mother seemed to have suddenly lost her train of thought. "Never mind. There's probably too much dust. We don't want you to make your sickness more severe." She shook her head and tried to go away, but Ichimatsu stood back up and started following. "No it's fine, what did you need?"

Faintly smiling at her son, she shot back the question. "Could you help clean up? There's dust in some places, maybe you can sweep and dust? I can clean the windows and the rest." Signing, Ichimatsu nodded. "Sure..." Their mother looked around the living room. "Where are the others?" She said, noticing four missing clones of Ichimatsu.

"Eh... I dunno, probably gambling or something. They actually left a few hours ago, so they might be coming back anytime soon." "And Choromatsu went with them?" His mother expected that if Ichimatsu got to stay home from such immature acts, the 'responsible brother' would at least not join in as well. "Maybe supervision, I dunno..." Ichimatsu mumbled. "Ah, possibly." The mother smiled, "Well, I'll go get started." And with that she expected the son to clean up as well.

Without picking up his feet, he walked over to a closet where the broom and dustpan was. Examining the living room, he thought about where he should start sweeping. His bedroom was kind of big, so it might be good to start there. So with the dustpan and broom, he walked up the stairs.

Leisurely walking into the room, he noticed the futon he and his brothers slept in still on the floor. Due to him being lazy at the moment, he just ignored it. But, he still felt lazy and wanted to procrastinate. Ichimatsu only accepted since he knew his parents didn't like how he and his brothers were NEETs and such. Might as well do housework for their parents to make them at least a bit content with their choice of being dependent on their elderly parents.

He scanned the room, and to his surprise, there wasn't any major mess. So he could just walk around the room a bit. He stared at the window for a while, examining the minuscule black and white dots leisurely roaming the streets. It all seems too peaceful. It's so unusual. Where's all the drama that usually happens every week, if not, every day? "Are you almost done?" He heard his mother call out, interrupting and shoving his thoughts to the side.

Awkwardly trying to grab the broom that he left beside the door again from across the room, he responded with a quick "Y-Yeah! Just checking the closet for anything!" Matsuyo (the mother), smiled contently as she continued working diligently downstairs living room.

Ichimatsu opened the closet, it was dark and only had very few clothes for each brother, possibly only three outfits for each. Hopefully, soon it would be at least two more to gave more variety. As he tried to open the door all the way, he stuck the broom all the way in. The bottom of the broom noisily made contact with everything near it. People don't clean closets though, do they? He paused, questioning his own actions. Shrugging it off, he lazily steeped the bottom of the small closet.

The more the broom moved, the more he could hear paper crinkle. Why was there paper in the closet? Crouching down, he decided to investigate. Trying to get the sheet of paper unwrinkled, he stared at what was drawn on it. Perhaps a secret message from his siblings? That's what he believed, until he read the words, "Ichi JyuJyushi!", on the paper.

Widening his eyes, he wondered who was 'JyuJyushi'. It seemed like his own handwriting as well. But he couldn't have written this himself, could it? There was no date written on the paper, but it seemed ancient, shocking it wasn't anything such as a fossil yet. The more he stared at it, he realized it actually spelled, 'Ichi + Jyushi". The name only rung a bell, but not too hard. Cautiously placing his left hand, and dragging it around the floor, he tried to find more papers circulating information about 'Jyushi'.

He could hear something open, but he ignored it. It was probably his mother, dumping dust outside or something. A little spring cleaning, in winter... Ichimatsu tried to stay focused. He found another sheet, the title on the top left corner saying "Best Brother!". And the first paragraph started with, "Dear Jyushimatsu, reality can't stop us from being together." Reality. Isn't he real? Did reality stop them from being together? He continued reading.

"I don't care what my brothers will say. I want to stay with you! The other brothers are all big meanies! They only leave me behind from all the fun! Everything always revowes around the eldest too. I know this is the reality, it isn't the same as the hevenly imagenary world! I write this letter, hopping you will read it once you come to reality.
Waiting to be accepted, Matsuno Ichimatsu"

Ichimatsu cringed at all of the bad grammar and spelling. Revowes? Seriously? He didn't even know how to spell revolves! His parents must've lied when they say he passed elementary school. Shaking his head, he began stacking all the papers about Jyushimatsu on the side. There was another letter pulled out. A drawing for Christmas, a drawing of all the brothers together plus Jyushimatsu.

"Hah, What's all this?" Ichimatsu jumped in shock at the interjection. "Ichimatsu~ I didn't know you were such a child!" Turning around, he could see the eldest brother right in front of Ichimatsu, rubbing his index finger under his nose chuckling. He looked at the other picture the fourth brother held in his grasp and pulled one of the many letters from the pile. And began to read it out loud, laughing at the end of every sentence he read.