Brother Of Mine (Chapter 15)
++Jun++
I remember a time when I was younger, about nineteen then - almost ten years ago. I had a big fight with Kazu and Ryo. I remember that I had promised them a big cake for our mother’s birthday, that this year we would celebrate it together with the family. Instead I received an offer for my first photoshoot on that very same day.
I had chosen to work and told my brothers that we could celebrate mother’s birthday one day late.
Kazu had naturally blown up at me, scowling and accusing me of not caring anymore about our parents. Ryo had gone sombre and retreated to his room, not wanting to talk to me. I remember going to that photoshoot excited because it was a step closer to my dream but also crestfallen both because I too had wanted to celebrate our mother’s birthday and not being able to keep my promise to my brothers was a great blow.
However I knew that mother would have forgiven me. Working hard for me to fulfil my dreams, for me to ensure I can continue to take care of my brothers was the most important thing for me. The fight itself is not the point of me remembering this incident.
It was what had happened after which still moves me whenever I think about it.
I was packing up after work when Kazu and Ryo showed up at my mentor’s studio with a cake and rallied the entire staff into a birthday celebration for our mother. They had been saving money in order to be able to buy themselves something nice for Christmas but decided to use the money to buy the cake, drinks and snacks for the party. So we had celebrated with the entire studio and I had never felt prouder of my brothers.
I don’t know the reason this memory came to me today but there was one thought which stayed with me from the memory was that feeling of how proud I was of my brothers. Having told them about my cancer, I feel as though I had reached a certain crossroad in life and the path I choose would provide no turning back for me.
There was no denying the fact that I would now need to let go of them and trust that they can steer their own way on life’s stormy seas.
That was the though I had with me when I turned to look at the door and see youngest brother walking into my ward.
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“You brought my camera,” Jun smiled as Ryo walked into the ward room and deposited his big brother’s beloved camera bag onto his brother’s lap.
“You went to the studio?”
“Yeah.”
“You told Eita and the rest?” he paused, looking at the camera bag then at his brother, “ - about my condition?”
Ryo nodded.
“I see,” Jun sighed, taking out his camera from the bag now fiddling with the lens and paying way to much attention to it.
Ryo sat down on the bed next to his brother, resting a hand on Jun’s shoulder before pulling something else out of his bag. A portfolio which he placed on his brother’s lap.
“When we told Eita about it, he put together this portfolio for you. They were all from a collection of pictures you haven’t developed before. He said that he had seen the theme for the exhibition that you were working on, and he thought that these would help.”
Jun set aside the camera and opened the folder that his brother had placed on his lap. The first picture was one of him and his staff at the studio, all of them laughing brightly together. The picture had been taken a couple of weeks before he found out about his illness. Jun sighed, running a hand down the page. He had believed in so many things then.
As he turned the pages, Jun found himself smiling. Eita had done well with his choice of pictures. They were mostly pictures that Jun had taken of himself, his family and his friend on a whim. Some were pictures he had taken on studio while his staff members were putting together the set for a photo shoot.
“You know aniki,” Ryo commented. “I always feel as though you see people differently. As though the world I see with my eyes, and the world that develops in your pictures are two separate realities.”
Jun grinned, patting his brother on his back, “But you’re different too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll get mad if I tell you.”
“I probably would, but now you’ve mentioned it you might as well tell me.”
Jun looked sheepishly at his younger brother before admitting, “I snuck a peek at your notebook before.”
Ryo blinked at his brother, “You’ve been… reading my writing?”
“Hait.”
Jun studied his younger brother’s face worriedly, knowing how private his writing was to him but Ryo only laughed slightly, shaking his head, “You know, you could have just asked if you wanted to know.”
“Well, you’ve always been so secretive about that notebook of yours.”
Ryo nodded at his elder brother’s comment but spoke up, “I’ve realized quite a few things lately and more than that, I been wanting to see if my writing could possibly be more than just scribbling in my notepad. I want to make something of myself as well. Just like you and Kazu-nii.”
Jun reached out to his brother hugging him briefly, “I believe that you’ll do well. You just need to put your mind to it.”
As though making his mind up about something, Jun picked up his camera again, fiddling with the self timer before he set the camera on the food table across from them.
“Picture,” he grinned, hooking an arm around his brother’s neck to pull him into the view frame. Both brothers grinned brightly and flashed peace signs.
Click.
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“You’re home early,” Meisa spoke up, smiling at her husband as he walked in through their apartment door, “Okaeri.”
“Tadaima.”
Kazu paused at the doorstep, setting his briefcase down as he looked at his wife behind the kitchen counter. Meisa was still in her work clothes but she had on a polka dot apron and her hair was tied back in a messy bun as she bustled about. It’s been a couple of days since she moved back in, but it was so natural to see her there.
“Tadaima,” he repeated, making his wife look up at him.
“You said that already Kazu.”
“I know. I just wanted to say it again. Tadaima.”
She smiled this time, setting down the spatula she had been holding, “Okaeri.”
“Tadaima,” he repeated as he walked into the apartment towards his wife.
“Okaeri.”
They were standing toe to toe in the kitchen, resting their foreheads together.
“I made bento for you to take to the hospital. I made some for Jun-nii as well.”
“Em,” Kazu nodded, leaning in to kiss his wife. He had forgotten how good it was to come home to someone. How good it was for someone you love to be there even just to say something as simple as ‘okaeri’.
“By the way,” Meisa spoke up as they broke apart from the kiss, “I’ve put together the pictures you asked for.”
“Right. Thank you so much for that.”
“Now let’s have dinner,” she smiled, kissing him lightly on the nose, “Before the food gets cold.”
The dinner was amazing and Kazu couldn’t keep count at how many intervals he chose to tell her. As they ate Kazu found himself remembering a similar scene before. She had made some pretty amazing food that night too and he had ended up staying in the office without telling her. She had waited, waited until he came home at 3 a.m. without complain.
In fact she had heated up the food for him when he came home. When she asked him if the food was good he had snapped at her instead. Having been disserting law documents all night had made him cranky and it only seemed irritating to have to entertain her.
He refuses to be so blind anymore.
“Here,” Meisa told him later, handing him the bento she had packed, “I made sure it’s all salt free and oil free. Tell Jun-nii hello for me.”
“Hait.”
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++Kazu++
Okay, I’ll admit it, I sneaked out one of the cherry tomatoes Meisa put in the bento for aniki and ate it on the way to the hospital.
I looked through the album that Meisa had put together. It was not very big, had I hadn’t been a fan of taking pictures of myself after all. There were some really nice ones that we have back when we were dating in university and that of our graduation and of course our wedding. The wedding pictures were pictures that Jun-nii had taken so they were especially nice obviously.
Going through the album I found myself smiling, taken back down memory lanes at the pictures in the album. I can understand why Jun-nii loves photography so much. When we were younger, our parents were not that big on taking pictures. There were pictures of all of us as a family of course but there were not many and those precious few that we have Jun-nii had them lovingly preserved, blown up and framed in the house.
As we grew up, Jun-nii made a lot of effort to preserve our memories together in that manner and thanks to him, we have plenty of beautiful pictures to commemorate all the events in our life. As I had been one of those non picture takers as well and as I looked through the album I remember the one that Eita had put together. There was an amazing amount in aniki’s hard drive and all of them were neatly organized into files with their dates and event titles.
I remember the entrance form that Eita had shown us, at aniki’s exhibition title; ‘Small Miracles’ and the only thing I could think of right now, was how much I would really love god to give us one big ass miracle and not take my aniki from me.
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The wrecking cough that went through his body was like having a rake wrench itself through his entire being. The chemo had been particularly rough today and even with his younger brother sitting beside him patting his back as he threw up Jun could barely find any strength inside him to get back to his ward room from the chemo clinic.
“Here,” Kazu said, taking the bed pan Jun had been throwing up into from his elder brother and handing his brother a towel.
Jun took the towel gratefully but as he wiped the sweat from his head a handful of hair fell away. He looked at the clump of hair wide eyed, as did Kazu who was just coming back to the bed with a glass of water.
“Ah…” was all Kazu could say as Jun smiled wanly at him.
“It’s to be expected after all,” Jun said. He looked at Kazu, “I suppose it wouldn’t be too much to ask you to shave my head for me would it?”
“I…” Kazu paused before nodding, “Sure. And after that you can do mine as well.”
“But…”
“Don’t argue,” Kazu responded, “There has been nothing that I can do for you, and you will not deny me this small act of solidarity.”
His elder brother smiled at him, sighing as he nodded.
As Kazu took the razor that his elder brother handed him, he fingered the end of the blade almost regretfully. He had never known a razor blade to be so heavy before. As he watched the hair fall from his brother’s head under his hands, Kazu felt his heart tightened wishing he could even discern what was going through his aniki’s mind.
“Ryo told me something interesting today,” Jun spoke up suddenly, stopping Kazu’s hand mid shave.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Jun grinned, “He said he’s participating in a poetry recital that his former university is holding.”
“Ryo is?” Kazu asked in surprise.
“He said that he wanted to conquer his fears.”
“Yes, but a stage recital? It’s like trying to learn to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool.”
Jun laughed, nodding in agreement, “Yes and well, sometimes there are people who learn to swim that way aren’t there?”
“I suppose,” Ryo replied, both the brothers laughing.
“Ryo’s changed a lot recently,” Jun commented.
“I think he’s doing it to impress you,” Kazu responded.
“You sure he’s not doing it to impress Erika?”
“That too I suppose but that woman is so in love with him it wouldn’t have mattered what he does.”
Jun chuckled in agreement, “I suppose so. It’s so cute to see the two of them together - they practically have stars in their eyes. They remind me a lot of you and Meisa when you just started going out.”
“Oh come on, Meisa and I were never that icky with one another.”
“That’s what YOU think,” Jun chuckled, “Now are you done so I can skewball your head?”
“Done,” Kazu told him handing him the razor.
A moment later both the brothers studied their reflections in the mirror in the ward bathroom and laughed with one another as they rubbed the other’s clean shaven head.
“I must say, we look rather good,” Jun commented, posing next to his younger brother, “The skin head look suits us.”
“I’m not sure Meisa’s gonna be happy about this though,” Kazu replied, biting the tip of his tongue in a teasing look at his own reflection.
“I’m more worried about what your colleagues at your fancy law firm are going to say about it.”
“I’ll just tell them I decided to become a Hare Krishna follower.”
Both the brothers laughed again, an odd type of laughter mixed with almost hiccupping sobs as they clung to one another at the bittersweet reality which is their lives. Finally Jun wiped the tears from his face and grins at Kazu.
“This calls for a celebratory photograph.”
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Playing the guitar was something that Ryo had picked up in college and like his poetry he had never really been comfortable with showing it in public. So apart from his little solo concert in his bedroom, he had never played for anyone else - until now that is.
Erika was the first one to hear him play, just as she had been the first one to hear his poetry. Yamapi had been the second, and Ryo found that sharing his poetry and his music was not so frightening after all. The problem though was that both his best friends (slash girlfriend in Erika’s case) were people he was comfortable with.
Would he be able to share his music and poetry with strangers?
That was a question he wasn’t so sure about and it was to answer that question that he had chosen to enter the recital.
He was practising in his room when his hand phone beeped and Ryo picked the device up, flipping it open before bursting out laughing at the picture his brother Kazu had sent him. Both Kazu and Jun had their tongues stuck out and their ears pulled out in the picture and their heads had been shaven clean.
Ryo fell over backwards on his bed as he clutched his stomach laughing. Both his elder brothers looked like monkey. Oh god forgive him for thinking that but they seriously looked like monkeys. When he finally managed to stop laughing, he got off his bed and crossed his room to grab the razor in the bathroom.
He knocked on Yamapi’s door and held the razor up as his best friend opened his bedroom door.
“Shave my head.”
“Huh? What? WHY??” Yamapi asked him in surprise and Ryo responded by showing the picture his brother had sent him.
Pi grinned when he saw the picture.
“You guys are crazy.”
“Yeah, we know that,” Ryo replied as he pulled out a dining chair and sat on it for Pi to get to work.
“Erika’s going to kill me for doing this,” Pi commented as the first lock of Ryo’s black hair fell to the floor, “She’s always commenting about how cute your haircut makes you look.”
“It’ll grow back,” Ryo half whispered, “The hair will come back… but some things never will… like memories.”
Yamapi placed a hand on Ryo’s shoulder for a second, feeling his friend’s pain, before going back to shaving Ryo’s head. Ryo smiled almost sadly to himself - that’s right… some things will never come back to you so you grasp them in your hands as tightly as you can while you still can.
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“You could have at least given me a heads up about it,” Meisa complained to her brother in law as she cleared away their plates. She had dropped by the hospital after class that day and had brought a beanie hat she had bought from a shop in front of her university along with her.
“I bought a matching one for Ryo and Kazu-kun too,” she had told him.
“But don’t you think Kazu looks good that way?” Jun grinned at Meisa who grinned back.
“He could probably use the look to scare off the opposing legal rep,” Meisa laughed, “but I agree; all three of you can pull off the bald head look surprisingly well.”
“Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the album you put together for me…” Jun spoke up, “It was really helpful.”
“Have you begun the floor planning for your exhibition aniki?” Meisa asked.
Jun shook his head, reaching for a portfolio that was sitting on his bedside table and flipping it open, “No not yet. I’m still having trouble choosing the pictures I want to display. We’re given three gallery spaces of approximately twelve to twenty feet… so as soon as I can figure out the direction I want to take the exhibit and the floor flow, I’ll start designing the floor plan…”
“You know aniki… I’d be happy to help you with the floor design…”
“Ah...” Jun smiled, “You’re doing your masters in structural design now aren’t you? Quite a leap from International Studies and Literature.”
“Yeah…” Meisa replied, smiling warily, “It’s a problem of mine isn’t it?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean I have no focus on what I really want to do in life. I did arts in high school, then international studies and literature during my undergraduate and I went to several jobs before moving to my teaching job in Bunka - now I’m dabbling in structural design…”
She paused, shaking her head at her own words, “I think that was something I have always admired Kazu for. He’s always been so focus and so clear about what he wanted, and he’s always been able to throw a hundred percent into what he wanted to do.”
“I see.
“And I think that where my failing is,” Meisa admitted, “One of the reasons Kazu and I were fighting so much last year. It wasn’t so much that he was focusing everything on work and not spending time with me, it was also the fact that I was jealous because he knew where his life was going and I didn’t know my own direction.”
She sighed, “Kazu has been doing so much to fix our marriage lately and I am not owning up to my own failings.”
“So?” Jun asked her, “It’s not too late to meet him halfway now isn’t it?”
She turned, looking at her brother in law, and they both smiled at each other. Meisa crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to him as he patted her on the shoulder.
“You’re family Meisa. And I have always loved you as my sister. I’m glad that you and Kazu found each other and I know that you and Kazu will work hard to preserve your family. The future is still a long road ahead. When ever you’re feeling lost with one another you can always turn and meet the other half way.”
Meisa smiled, nodding, “Aniki… you’re the best you know that?”
“Of course I do,” he joked, “Now why don’t you tell me your ideas about a floor design for my exhibition space?”
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“It makes you look like a rebel,” Erika commented, rubbing the flat of her palm on Ryo’s shaved head.
He grinned, pulling her onto his lap and kissing his girlfriend softly on the forehead, “There’s a poem that I wrote quite a while back,” he told her, “It’s not really new but I’ve been fine tuning it. Would you like to listen to it?”
“Of course,” she responded.
He pressed another kiss to her cheek before patting the seat next to him, indicating for her to sit there which she did.
He pulled his guitar to him, adjusting the strings before strumming a few verses.
[*] “Right now, the proof that you're one to two steps ahead of me,
Helps by breaking the growing silence.
You pretend to be amused listening to someone else's story,
But I want to continue seeing your smile so I swallow my words.
Am I naïve for wanting more than I have now?
Are you going to suggest that I should be giving instead of receiving?
You can warn me that there is no such thing as forever,
But I want to shine with you,
Even if it's just for a moment.
I'll show you that I can protect every element that colors you.
I'll be by your side no matter what.
I will take away every little thing that saddens you,
So let this love last a little longer… this love… this love.
I built up my courage and said the words I could hold in no longer.
What was supposed to have been "I love you…"
Subconsciously, the command from my brain was altered into my very own code.
One day, will I be able to tell you my feelings with confidence?
Will I be able to stay as someone you are proud to call your own.
WIth you beside me,
I feel like anything is possible.
I'll send you my love… my love.
I'll show you that I can protect every element that colors you.
I'll be by your side no matter what.
I will take away every little thing that saddens you.
So my unconditional love… my love… my love.”
The lingering notes of the guitar seemed to hang in the air for a moment longer before dissipating around them and Ryo sat the guitar aside, looking expectantly at his girlfriend.
She smiled, leaning forward to kiss him softly.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’m thinking of going with this one as one of the two pieces I’m doing at the recital.”
“And the other one?”
“I’m still writing it.”
His phone rang then and Ryo reached for it, answering the call.
“Ryo-kun…” a woman’s voice on the other side made him sit up straighter.
“Haruka-nee…”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, meeting Erika’s curious eyes, “How are you?”
“As well as I can be I suppose,” she chuckled then paused before continuing, “Ryo-kun, I’ve decided to go see Jun…”
Ryo was silent, listening to her speak, “I know I can’t change anything now; but you and Kazu were right - I owe him an explanation.”
She took a deep breath, “But I’m worried… worried about what I should say… what I should expect…”
“Haruka-nee…” Ryo spoke up softly, “You of all people should know what Jun-nii is like. He would never hold your decisions against you and if there is anything I know it’s that Jun-nii would never wish for anything but your happiness.”
She didn’t reply to his comment straight away and Ryo could hear the soft stifling of tears from the other side. Sometimes reconciling with the past and the decisions you made are not easy. The best you can hope for is that you have the courage to overcome the fear of looking at your mistakes and admitting them.
Ryo knew that well.
“Thank you Ryo-kun,” she said finally.
“You’re welcome,” he told her, “And Haruka-nee; for all it’s worth, Kazu and I wish you happiness as well.”
As he hung up the phone, Erika wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to cry the tears that came for unbidden for his brother. His life was only beginning - Jun’s was slipping like sands through his fingers.
He, more than anyone, deserve happiness for the man he had been, for the role he had played to the family.
Ryo wondered if he could not understand why life could be so cruel and so beautiful at the same time.
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[*] The lyric’s to Ryo’s solo “Code”
Translation credit *http://debbie-chan.livejournal.com/77544.html
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