We're painted red to fit right in

[karappo]

[For the last six months, the Matsuno household has been abnormally quiet.

There's no running up and down the stairs. No boistrous chatter over breakfast. No brawls breaking out in the bedroom at night. No games of Mahjong on a cold night and then yet more fights breaking out over that.

There is silence.

Only three people have been living in that house, and it's quieter than it's ever been. The only brother- the eldest- remaining rarely left it anymore. He rarely left the bedroom upstairs, to be precise. Sometimes he'd venture up onto the roof, but even that got too hard to swallow with all the constant reminders of how they'd all left him.

One by one, they all left. Not a single one of them had come back since, not even to check up on one another.

It had taken about this long for Osomatsu to finally stop caring. After all, it seemed like he cared a lot more than anyone else did. It was the only reason he was still even here, sleeping in an empty futon and eating his meals around an empty table. Eventually he did this less and less and left the futon only long enough to relieve himself. Back to bed, back to sleep, back to unconsciousness where he didn't have to think unless he started dreaming. He didn't talk to his parents much, but when he did he still had a knack for making things seem okay when they really weren't. It's the only reason he was able to scoot by barely living until his body just couldn't take it anymore.

Karamatsu had been sleeping in after having yet another failed interview when he was awoken to Chibita shaking him roughly and trying to give him the phone. "It's for you, idjit," Karamatsu barely made out as he fumbled the phone a few times before blearily getting it to his ear. Within a minute of receiving the phone and hanging it up, Karamatsu had thrown his clothes on and bolted out the door without telling Chibita what was going on. He hadn't even gotten any of his things, he just.

Went.

Osomatsu wasn't doing well. It was like, ever since his brothers left, he just...hadn't gotten better. Matsuyo didn't even know what to do to help her oldest son anymore, but she had known that his brothers would want to be there with him if he was this bad off. Karamatsu, for his part, couldn't believe it. Osomatsu, of all of them? Surely not...

And yet, it was unfortunately true. Karamatsu had actually been the first Matsuyo got hold of since he was living close by with Chibita. It had given Karamatsu a chance to see Osomatsu alone, which he was grateful for. The Osomatsu he'd come home to wasn't the Osomatsu he'd left, wasn't even the Osomatsu he'd dragged out of the room that night before Choromatsu left. He was buried under months of depression and what was left was battered and nearly completely withered away. That alone was enough to completely shatter Karamatsu's heart, but what he really couldn't take was seeing his younger siblings filter home one by one.

Jyushimatsu. Todomatsu. Choromatsu.

Two days passed and only five sons were home. Osomatsu was getting worse. He'd stopped eating entirely and would barely tolerate water. Not only that, but the fourth of their number- Ichimatsu- was nowhere to be found. He couldn't be contacted. No job, no number, no home. It was like he'd vanished off the face of the earth. Before Matsuyo could completely expire from the stress, though, Karamatsu offered himself up to go find him. He'd take Todomatsu's phone with him so he could keep in touch, just in case. The others should stay behind with Osomatsu.

That had been three hours ago, and now Karamatsu found himself in a largely unfamiliar ward of Tokyo. After a light-speed search of their hometown, he'd begun asking around. Have you seen someone who looks like me?

No. Sorry. Nobody like that.

Where was he?

Karamatsu couldn't stop looking, he had to be somewhere here. He didn't care if he got looks for shouting in the streets, because he knew his voice among all of theirs was the most recognizable should Ichimatsu happen to hear it.

He had to be here.]

Comments

[ichimyatsu]

[There wasn't time for him to not, really. His heart is hammering in his throat and it makes the swallow he affords for Karamatsu's question difficult and audible, but he nods his head shakily, disentangling their fingers to take a few independent steps forward.]

[It was now or never. It had been too long since he'd seen any of them, and he was an absolute ghost of who he'd been when he left, but he couldn't keep running away. Not when they were teetering on the edge of becoming five.]

[karappo]

[When they finally make it to the room proper, everyone inside goes immediately quiet when Karamatsu and Ichimatsu appear. The whole family is there: Choromatsu, Jyushimatsu, Todomatsu, and their parents. There are signs that others have been by too, like Totoko and Chibita, but otherwise it's just the family. And at the very center lays Osomatsu in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines and oxygen with what feels like a thousand wires and tubes.

He looks ghostly. His skin has a strange pallor to it, clear signs of having not eaten for so long. Most of him is covered in a sheet, and he seems to be asleep. Asleep or a coma, though, Karamatsu honestly couldn't tell unless he was told.]

[ichimyatsu]

[His vision swims and he almost staggers from the weight of the room's atmosphere as they walk in, but he manages to subtly grab hold of the door jam as he stands there. Six pairs of eyes bore into him, and another bubble of anxious nerves lodges itself behind his heart as he watches tears collect in his mother's eyes. He knows he looks awful, and he knows it hurts because he probably looks almost as bad as Osomatsu--]

[He turns his head so sharply to look at their eldest brother he nearly loses his balance, and his vision swims in a dangerous attempt to make him black out when he settles on him. His skin easily loses three shades to its already lacking tone, and it's Choromatsu that walks up behind him and ducks under one of his arms to support him, wordlessly guiding him to a chair. He can't find the words to thank him, and instead just stares wide-eyed at all of them, not realizing he was gasping instead of breathing properly.]

[karappo]

[The whole room stirs at Ichimatsu's reaction, then...except Karamatsu, strangely. Because he, too, is fixated on Osomatsu's state. He'd looked over to make sure that Ichimatsu had gotten seated, but otherwise he can't really look away from the eldest.

Something about seeing him wasting away in bed like that makes it all the more real.

He can't stay that way for long, though, because he sees Matsuyo moving over to Ichimatsu's side while his father is coming over to his, immediately taking him over to where he'd been standing so they can talk. What's actually said between them is unclear, but all the while Karamatsu occasionally looks at his brothers...but over at Ichimatsu more often than the rest.]

[ichimyatsu]

[Matsuyo takes his hands and squeezes them, talks softly to him through tears, and repeatedly stops him from apologizing before he even starts. Jyushimatsu, even markedly less energetic due to the situation, is quick to pull both Matsuyo and Ichimatsu into his arms, and eventually tugs a reluctant Choromatsu into the embrace, and Ichimatsu isn't even aware he's crying until Matsuyo has broken up the group hug and has her arms just around him, hands in his hair and shushing.]

[He folds himself up in the chair he's set in, allowing her gentle comfort and trying desperately not to fall apart in her arms. He doesn't deserve the attention he's getting, not when Osomatsu is dying a few feet away. He's pretty sure he says something like that, and Matsuyo boffs him lightly on the head and recoils. An exchange between she and Choromatsu results in the third son leaving the room for drinks for them all, and Matsuyo drags a chair up alongside Ichimatsu's to sit with him, calling Karamatsu and Matsuzou over shortly after.]

[karappo]

[It was...hard. Karamatsu kept expecting Osomatsu to jump out of that bed at any moment, cackle and jeer at them all for believing he'd really be dying this time. Don't they remember what happened when they were kids?

But he doesn't. He hasn't stirred since Karamatsu and Ichimatsu arrived. The only sign that he is still with them is the slow, methodic beeping of the heart monitor he's currently hooked up to. Otherwise, he's just...there.

Just there.

Karamatsu slowly comes over along with Matsuzou, looking on at Ichimatsu forlornly. He didn't think Ichimatsu would be able to keep himself together for long, but he's thankful that Matsuyo's comforting manages to calm him down. Karamatsu, for his part, feels like a dead man walking. Even after eating and getting something to drink, it just didn't really help.]

[ichimyatsu]

[He finds it odd even himself that as soon as Karamatsu is within reach he's extending his hands to seek the older's, threading bony fingers through the second-born's and tugging him to stand in front of him and his mother. Jyushimatsu oozes is way into Ichimatsu's lap and his other hand becomes occupied with his arm around the neatly-folded fifth son as he settles perched half on the arm of his chair and half on Ichimatsu's thigh.]

Sit down, Karamatsu,

[His voice is small, quieter than normal and still raspy from crying, but he tugs gently on his brother's hand.]

[karappo]

[Odd, maybe, but Karamatsu is in no state of mind to question it. Ichimatsu grabbing onto his hand snaps him out of whatever reverie that talking to their father had put him in, and it only takes the agreement of Matsuyo to coax him into one of the available chairs while Choromatsu returns with the drinks.

Now that the whole family is present and accounted for, the atmosphere is simultaneously less and more tense than it was. They all know what's going on, nobody here is oblivious to that fact. But it's also better being together for it than it was being apart. Karamatsu just wishes they were all together under lighter circumstances.

Karamatsu, after having upheld the position of eldest for what feels like ever since he returned home, is feeling the weight of all of that crashing down on him now as he watches his younger brothers shoot nervous glances his way when they aren't looking to Osomatsu.

Maybe that's why he's not saying anything.]

[ichimyatsu]

[They're all mostly still, exchanging quiet words here and there and nursing warm drinks. Ichimatsu's hands shake around the can regardless, leading Jyushimatsu to curl inward toward him as though acting as a blanket, assuming his immediate older brother was cold. Ichimatsu allows it for a while before gently coaxing the fifth off his lap and standing on shaking legs, looking from Osomatsu to his mother and back a few times, silently asking permission to approach him.]

[When it's granted, he settles into a chair set beside Osomatsu's bed and curls himself up in it, leaning forward and draping himself alongside his brother's upper arm. He doesn't say anything, just sits there, watching him for a while. It's barely ten minutes of near-silence outside of soft conversation between the family and the steady beeping of Osomatsu's heart monitor before he's dozed off, one hand on Osomatsu's shoulder.]

[It's less than an hour from then that he wakes up in a start, a dry rattle to his breath turning into a cough that Karamatsu would recognize but was enough to force him backward in the chair to cough into his elbow.]

[karappo]

[Karamatsu might have slept, if his nerves allowed it. But right now he was impossibly wired, and people kept talking to him, so that kept him from even wanting to try to doze off. He was glad Ichimatsu was getting some rest at least, even if it's not for very long at all.

Hearing Ichimatsu suddenly wake up and start coughing has Karamatsu rising up out of his chair before he quite realizes what he's doing, earning a soft noise from Choromatsu as he quietly- but quickly- steps over to the side of Ichimatsu's chair.]

Ichimatsu? Are you alright?

[ichimyatsu]

[He keeps coughing into his elbow for nearly another minute, his face going red with exertion and shortly before he stops the sound gets alarmingly damp, and he stays curled into his elbow shaking once he's done, leaning forward into the edge of Osomatsu's bed. He knows full well he's just scared them all, and he knows full well there's probably also blood splattered into the crook of the elbow of his sweater, so he doesn't really want to move. He closes his eyes, and doesn't respond right away. His voice is quiet and thin when he does.]

I'll be fine.