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“Keith?”
Keith jumped nearly two feet in the air and scrambled to his feet. He was so lost in the journal he didn’t even hear Shiro come in.
“Hey…” Shiro frowned. He reached out and Keith instinctively flinched. He regretted it the second his body moved, seeing the way his brother’s face crumbled. “Keith…”
Keith just stared. Reading Shiro’s journal entries from years ago — when their mother left and their father drowned in guilt and grief — was like seeing Shiro in a whole new light. He’d never seen his brother be that sad, that vulnerable. He never thought about what it was like from his perspective. Shiro was always his protector, the one who guided him and wasn’t afraid of anything. But after reading the journal…
“You okay, kiddo?” Shiro’s eyes flickered to the small book held tightly in Keith’s fist, and a shadow fell over his face. His throat bobbed a few times as he tried to swallow. “O-Oh…”
“I’m sorry,” Keith blurted. “I didn’t — I was just — I was looking for — I didn’t know — I-I swear I —”
“I know.” Shiro stepped into the room slowly, but his face was still hard and unmoving. “I-I know, Keith, you don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It felt like he did something wrong, but he didn’t say anything. For a few seconds, he and Shiro just stared at each other, venturing into this new, unfamiliar, terrifying territory. The atmosphere stayed tense for too long before Shiro cleared his throat.
“Can I, ah, see it?”
Wordlessly, Keith just handed the journal to his brother, palms clammy and shaky. Shiro didn’t say anything else, only took it with a shaky hand. Keith felt like he just violated Shiro’s privacy, his trust. He knew how angry Shiro must’ve felt, but he had never seen his brother like this before, and he was too curious to not ask.
“How long did you…” He waved his hand vaguely at the journal.
Shiro looked like he didn’t want to respond, but he cleared his throat again. “Um…a-a while. Well, I haven’t in a while…I think maybe the last one was um…probably the night Dad…died.”
Keith had never seen Shiro look so uncomfortable.
“How far up did you…read?” Shiro kept clearing his throat.
“Um…” Keith tried to concentrate on the last date he saw. “I think…your birthday. When you turned 16.”
Shiro’s face remained stony but he nodded slowly. Keith hesitated. All those entries revolved around him. It was like watching parts of his life he didn’t even remember from a bystander’s perspective, only the bystander was actually his big brother, the one person who loved him and cared for him and poured his heart out into letters no one else could see as a way of protecting him.
“I’m sorry, Shiro. I didn’t mean to.”
Shiro glanced up, then forced himself to smile, and Keith hated how pained it looked.
“You don’t have to apologize.” For the first time in a long time, Shiro’s voice was thick with tears. “I…had forgotten about this, to be honest, um…and I never said you couldn’t read it so…not your fault.”
He paused for a second before continuing.
“Finish, ah, finish cleaning your room, yeah? Adam wants it done before dinner.”
Keith swallowed hard. “O-Okay.”
Shiro’s mouth twitched in a smile, and for a second Keith thought they were going to hug. Thought Shiro would reach his arms out and pull him into a bone-crushing, tight hug, in the way only he can do. And they would stay like that for a while, and Shiro would pet his hair and press a kiss to his head, as a way of saying that it truly was okay.
But Shiro only turned around and left, the door clicking shut behind him, and Keith felt a lump come to his throat immediately. His heart plummeted all the way to his stomach and the pressure behind his eyes multiplied tenfold. Part of him wanted to chase after his brother and initiate the hug, but his feet might as well be glued to the floor. He had never seen Shiro so sad, so uncomfortable, so damn vulnerable. Shiro wasn’t supposed to look like that. Shiro was supposed to be a protector, the one who always knew what to say and do.
Keith felt like the biggest jerk in the world for putting that much pressure on someone who was thrown into a situation he could do nothing about.
______
“Keith?”
Keith jumped again, dropping the clothes he had been folding. “Y-Yeah?”
“You ready for dinner?” Adam’s voice came from the other side of the door.
Dinner. Oh god. He’d have to sit across the table from Shiro and eat dinner and pretend that everything was alright when everything was not alright, not in any possible way. He wondered if Adam knew.
“Yeah.” Keith swallowed. There was no way around this. “One sec.”
However, when he finally convinced himself to get up and step out of the room, everything was too quiet. Usually, he could hear Shiro cleaning some dishes or setting the table while bantering with Adam. But today…everything was quiet.
“Adam?”
Adam looked up, and just from his expression, Keith knew he knew.
“Let’s sit down, okay?” Adam insisted with a strained voice. “I made chicken curry. That’s your favorite, right? Let’s just eat. Sit down, kiddo.”
But one look at that stupid table, seeing only two plates and two spoons set out, was the one thing that finally tipped him over the edge.
“Keith, Keith…”
Adam was there in an instant to pull Keith’s face to his shoulder, his shirt soaking up all of his tears. Keith leaned all his weight on him and sobbed. Shiro left. Keith had hurt his big brother so badly that he left. Left the apartment. Left Adam. Left him. Possibly for good. Possibly forever and it was his — Keith’s — fault. All his fault because he opened a damn journal.
“He’s not mad at you, Keith.” Adam spoke softly, right in his ear, like he could hear his thoughts.
“Y-Yes he i-i-i-is.” Keith gasped.
“No, he isn’t.”
“Th-Then whe-ere is he-e?” Keith pulled back, seeing Adam’s face through his blurry vision. “H-He left — didn’t h-he? He left ‘cause — of — m-me —”
“No. No he didn’t leave, Keith.” Adam cupped his face, hands warm and soft. “He didn’t leave you. He didn’t leave us. He just — He went for a walk, okay? That’s it —”
“N-N-No —”
“Yes. He just went for a walk to clear his head. He’s not mad and he didn’t leave.”
Keith just fervently shook his head. He couldn’t believe a word Adam was saying. Shiro was gone for good. He had to be. There wasn’t a single time he could remember them having dinner without his big brother. Even nights when Shiro had late night meetings, Adam would force Keith to eat earlier, but he always stayed up to wait for Shiro so the two of them could eat together. So if Adam was going to eat without him now…then Shiro truly was gone.
Adam sighed, like he could read his thoughts. “C’mere, Keith.”
Keith just let himself get dragged to the master bedroom, where Adam opened the closet and pointed at half of the clothes.
“You see all these? These are his clothes, right?”
Keith nodded numbly, traces of cold tears streaking down his face.
“If they’re all still here, then Takashi didn’t leave. Trust me, he’s not starting a whole new wardrobe now. And look…” Adam gestured at the nightstand. “Look, his water bottle is still here. His watch. His eye drops — c’mon, Keith, you know Takashi can’t live without his eye drops. If he didn’t take them, then he didn’t leave.”
“But….” Keith swallowed the lump in his throat, face still streaked with tears. “He’s mad at me.”
Adam’s face softened. “He’s not mad. He’s overwhelmed. We all get overwhelmed, and he’s just taking a walk to clear his head.”
“I made him do that.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That was his journal!” Just like that, the tears were back. “I shouldn’t have read it!”
“Keith, listen to me.” Adam cupped his face in both hands, his thumbs gently brushing across Keith’s tear-streaked face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And Takashi’s not mad, he just wants some time to think. When he gets back here, you guys can talk it out and you’ll find out that I’m right. Everything is going to work out.”
“Y-You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Adam said firmly. “‘Kashi loves you. Something like this won’t change anything. I promise, Keith. He is coming back. He loves you too much to leave.”
Keith let himself believe it, just a little.
“Okay?” Adam gently ran his fingers through the teenager’s hair and pressed an encouraging kiss to his temple. “Good. Now, let’s go finish our dinner, okay? It’s getting late, we need to eat.”
The thought still didn’t sit right with him, but all the fight had left his body.
“O-Okay.”
________
“H-hey.”
Adam’s lip curled as he glanced at the front door — at his stupid husband who was walking in at eleven at night with a guilty expression on his face.
Good. He should feel guilty.
“Hi.” Adam paused the TV.
Takashi just sighed. “I didn’t mean to leave for so long.”
“You left for six hours. Six. Hours.”
“I-I know. I’m — I’m sorry, Adam, I just —”
“Just nothing, Takashi.” Adam stood up with a scowl. “I get it, okay? It was uncomfortable, it put you in an awkward position, you weren’t prepared and you didn’t know how to handle it, but leaving? Even you're better than that.”
Takashi just stood there like a lost puppy, glancing between Adam and Keith’s closed bedroom door.
“He thought you left.” Adam spat, watching Takashi’s face turn pale. “For good. He lost it, thinking you left because of him and weren’t coming back.”
Adam paused, then bit out:
”Like your mom did.”
Tears instantly came to Takashi’s eyes. I — I was never going to leave for good —”
“You said two hours — dammit, Takashi, you didn’t even tell him. You told me that you’d be gone for two hours and then you left for the whole evening. What the hell was I supposed to tell him if you didn’t come back by tonight?”
“I was always going to come back.” Takashi insisted, voice strained.
“You know Keith.” Adam stepped forward, feeling his heart beat with anger. It wasn’t supposed to be directed at his husband, but anyone who made his kid cry was in the wrong. “And you know he doesn’t believe that.”
“I —”
“I know you were hurt and overwhelmed. But leaving as your solution? That was the dumbest possible thing you could have done and you know that. You’re better than this, Takashi. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Takashi practically wheezed.
“Good.” Adam sighed. “He said he was going to sleep but I doubt he actually is. So get your shit together and talk it out. And — and you better apologize to him for leaving, too.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Two hours later, Takashi still hadn’t come to bed, and Adam was about to lose it. What the hell could that idiot be doing? It did not take two hours to talk to Keith. Keith would never even talk to someone for two hours. Unless it was about space. Or Mothman.
Throwing off the covers, he stormed out of his room and right over to Keith’s, pushing the door open and ready to clonk their heads together if they couldn’t make up after two hours. But the second he stepped into the room, all his anger evaporated.
Takashi was still in his jacket and jeans, but he was holding onto Keith tightly, face buried in his hair and dried tears still marked on his face. Keith’s face was hidden in his brother’s chest, his arms curled around him like a baby koala in need of comfort. At once, Adam’s heart melted. He took a quick picture (or five, or twenty) and carefully repositioned the blankets so it covered both of them. Then, smiling, he kissed both their foreheads and shut the door quietly on his way out.