[The genuine bitterness in Tsukki's tone when he talks about scaring off Kenzo's bullies finally brings a smile back to Suga's face, small and weary but full of genuine warmth. It's another whole new feeling, having someone on side with him when it comes to protecting his little brother.]
No no, you - you did enough. I'm just so glad you were there. [Suga gives Kenzo another little squeeze, then shifts over a bit to turn and face him directly.] And you did the right thing, reaching out for help.
[He just feels so helpless. Now what do they do? This is the very fear he's carried with him all year when he thinks about them sending his brother off to high school, and having it happen a year early just feels like confirmation that the worst is yet to come.]
Nii-san... [Kenzo's tears have tried up, but his voice is still a bit unsteady.] Don't let this - I mean, I won't say that it's no big deal or anything, but - please don't think you need to drop everything and help me now, okay? You have enough big deals of your own. I will be okay.
[Incredible. His little brother and his boyfriend, both of whom are in the room with him, have now made the same plea with the same nervous urgency: don't sacrifice yourself over this, or anything. Please look out for yourself first. And Kenzo's talking about being locked in a closet by bullies with no idea when they'd let him escape.
Now it's Suga's turn to blink back tears as he throws both arms around Kenzo and pulls him close for a long hug.]
[It's maybe true. It's maybe not. It is something better, for the brothers. They'll work their way through together.
Tsukki slips out the door. Keeps moving until he hits the front porch.
He's not leaving.
Just needs to get this - feeling - under control. Before it buries him. He jams on his headphones, grabbing a random song from the 'Pissed Off' playlist. Watches the sky darkens, go purple. Bruised and miserable.]
[There's still a bit for Suga and Kenzo to talk out, but it's true that they've reached a decent place for the time being. Suga knows he has to do something - it's just a matter of figuring out a plan that won't make the bullying worse, stress him out enough to make Kenzo worry, or have some other negative outcome.
When Kenzo feels ready to put on his own headphones and disappear back into his composing, Suga checks his phone to see if Tsukki sent a text after he left. Nothing there... then is he still around the house? Suga checks that the bathroom door is open, then heads downstairs to check the kitchen, the living room - nothing.
It's hard to say which looks darker when he peeks his head outside, Tsukki's face or the evening sky. Cautiously, Suga stands beside him and tucks a hand into his, fingers threaded together. That's all - no gesture to remove the headphones, just quiet company.]
I was... terrible to him as a kid. Just a total nightmare.
[It's not clear at first if Suga's going to say any more, but eventually he does continue.]
None of us really understood him at first, and I didn't get why he couldn't just... calm down and cheer up. You know? It felt like everything had to be this big scene. So I would - I started pulling "pranks" on him to try and teach him to laugh off scary things, but...
[But as a young kid, it was also his way of acting out. Taking all that annoyance and aggression and turning it into something that was just a joke and was for his own good.]
After a really mean-spirited one, my mom took me aside and I thought she was going to scream at me, but she basically just said: "Kenzo's not like you, he can't be like you, and he's going to have a much harder time with life than you are because of it. You have two options: lift him up so that he can walk with you, or let him get ground into the dirt under your feet."
Honestly, I was his first bully. [Suga swallows around a lump in his throat.] I can't defend anything I did. All I can do now is try to make up for it whenever I can.
[Not just because he wants to "be a better person" in some nebulous sense - because he adores Kenzo. But that feels even more self-serving to add so he doesn't say it aloud.
Suga's startled when Tsukki brings up his older brother. Somehow he hasn't made the connection between Tsukki's mood and his own brother until now, even though he's aware to some degree that Kei and Akiteru have a rocky relationship. This is also the first time he's connected himself and Akiteru as older brothers and had cause to wonder how that might colour Tsukki's view of him...
It's a sobering thought.]
Yeah? [Nothing else, just an invitation to say more if Tsukki's so inclined.]
[When Suga said that Tsukishima always clearly telegraphs the important emotional moments, this is what he meant - it couldn't be more obvious that this is far more than a story told in kind, just because the topic of brothers came up or because Suga has him thinking about his older brother. This is a boulder Tsukki's been pushing uphill his entire life, only to see it go rolling back down again when he thought he was safe to take a second's breather.
Suga doesn't have to question how closely to observe Tsukki, how deeply to involve himself, how much might be too much. This moment gets all of him.
He takes a seat beside Tsukki but not too close, giving him the physical space he'll doubtlessly need to share something of such import. And at first he can't help but grin, because Tsukki's right about everything - Akiteru seems like a big, sweet Golden Labrador puppy of a guy, and that stands in complete contrast to his younger brother's chilly, reserved manner.
But.]
Having the best of intentions can make someone even more blind to the actual impact of what they're doing.
[It's a bit of a wild guess based on what Tsukki's said and the similarities in their situations, but also shockingly on the mark.]
[It's hard to fully forgive someone when you're still feeling the impact of what they did. Kenzo was so young when their relationship was at their worst, Suga assumes he's either forgotten or internalized the damage too thoroughly to realize where it came from - things could very easily have gone the opposite way, with Kenzo internalizing the connection between his older brother and terror instead.
Suga's so leery to offer insight or advice in this situation, simply because he knows he'll come at it from an older brother's lifelong perspective and that won't do Tsukki any good. So he just keeps gently prompting Tsukki instead, letting him decide where the conversation will go.]
[It never stopped hurting. No matter how much Tsukki tried to push it down. He's so tired of trying to be better, acting like none of it happened. So the story starts.]
My big brother was the coolest, and the smartest, and the best. Some kids called their little brothers names, told them to get lost. Not Akiteru. He brought me everywhere. He never, ever left me out.
[In the dark, it's not so hard to imagine it. The Kei who used to be. Bright-eyed and beaming, tagging along in Akiteru's footsteps.
A ghost.]
I started playing volleyball because he did. It could have been any sport. I didn't care.
[The idyllic beginning of this story, the complete about-face Tsukki must have made since, the black cloud that's been hanging over his head since they first locked eyes outside his house and has only intensified as the evening wears on - everything coalesces into a cold pit of dread in Suga's gut.
He nods and rests one of his hands on the step between them. Just in case it's needed. He's here to listen to the entire thing, if Tsukki's able to get it all out.]
[Tsukki doesn't take it, but doesn't move away, either. ]
Akiteru loved volleyball. Made Ace and Team Captain in Junior High. So when he chose Karasuno, no one was surprised. They'd just been to Nationals, and he wanted to play for the best. He told me about all the practices, the games, how he was a Starter already. All the strong teams he beat.
But he was too nervous for me to come watch.
I believed him.
[Even though Akiteru had never left him out before. God. It's so obvious now.]
[The words come out on a rush of breath before Suga can stop them, like they've been forced out by a punch to the solar plexus. Everyone faces some slippage between junior high and high school unless they're among the absolute elite, so Suga can't exactly guess the severity of Akiteru's drop, but he can easily imagine an idolized older brother riding the bench and feeling like he'll crush his baby brother's world if he admits to the demotion.
Yamaguchi and I snuck into his last game. He wasn't on the court.
He wasn't even in the pen.
He was up in the stands. With the rest of the kids who never played...
[Tsukki tries to explain the feeling. How sound and air and color left the world. Time stretched into years, long enough to memorize the horror on Akiteru's face. Everything breaking, broken, gone.
[That's the thing about lying - it really does cause the ground to give way under someone's feet, especially when the lie carries on for so long. The target of a lie can't be reassured by the liar ever again without a massive leap of faith. Everything else the target has trusted ends up coming under scrutiny.
And this was family. Family that Tsukki held above everyone else, and cherished for very genuine reasons. And he would've been so young at that point.
Suga can see both sides, but his empathy flows directly to the boy sitting beside him.]
God.
[Then it hits Suga that Tsukki kept playing, but with the enormous chasm between himself and the emotional experience of the game that they all witnessed at the beginning of the year, and he feels a familiar burning sting behind his eyelids.]
I didn't care about volleyball, I cared about my brother. And he lied to me. For three years.
For what, a club?
['It's just a club.'
'Whatever.'
'It's not a big deal.'
None of that was true, either. Tsukki presses under his glasses. Trying to convince the prickling to stop, the heaviness of the words to let go. There's been enough damn crying.]
[So many reasons leap to the tip of Suga's tongue: his pride needed him to maintain the image his little brother had of him. He didn't believe he mattered more than the image. His ego was already so wounded that he mistook the lie for self-preservation instinct. He didn't understand what he was doing until it was too late.
But Tsukki's not really asking, and his pain won't be lessened by understanding Akiteru's side right now.]
It was the wrong thing to do for any reason. Protecting his own feelings while overlooking yours was totally unfair to you.
Tsukki, you didn't just love him, you idolized him. People regularly ignore more for less. And you were a child! Kids don't think that deeply about anything!
[Suga's clutching his own knees white-knuckle tight to keep from reaching out before it's welcome. He's somehow triggered what might be a massive breakthrough and he's not blowing it now.]
You were done wrong. No matter how much your brother loves you and wants to take it back, he still did you wrong. You don't have to deny that to move past it, and you shouldn't.
[There's so much crammed into that single sentence. Years of rebuilding, with spikes and sarcasm and no big brothers to soften the defenses. Trying to keep the feelings chained down. Does it matter? He ended up here, a mess on Suga's front porch. Still in gym shorts.
Goosebumps prickle up and down Tsukki's shins, but the sensation feels far away.]
[When Tsukki slumps over like that, Suga can no longer restrain himself - he shifts closer and wraps a comforting arm around his boyfriend's shoulders.]
The answer to that sucks, but as far as I know it's the only way. You've been assigning blame, downplaying feelings, blocking off reactions, numbing the parts of yourself that want to recover - what you need to do now is confront it. No coping mechanisms or rationalizations. You need to feel everything that's been forced down for so long or it'll fester forever.
[There's got to be so much grief built up that Tsukishima's never expressed - for the brother he thought he had, for the person he could've been, for the relationship they could've carried on. That alone is enough to smother any opportunity for real growth and forward progress.]
It won't be easy, but after the - the metamorphosis I've watched you go through in just one year? I know you're capable of this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-17 10:03 pm (UTC)No no, you - you did enough. I'm just so glad you were there. [Suga gives Kenzo another little squeeze, then shifts over a bit to turn and face him directly.] And you did the right thing, reaching out for help.
[He just feels so helpless. Now what do they do? This is the very fear he's carried with him all year when he thinks about them sending his brother off to high school, and having it happen a year early just feels like confirmation that the worst is yet to come.]
Nii-san... [Kenzo's tears have tried up, but his voice is still a bit unsteady.] Don't let this - I mean, I won't say that it's no big deal or anything, but - please don't think you need to drop everything and help me now, okay? You have enough big deals of your own. I will be okay.
[Incredible. His little brother and his boyfriend, both of whom are in the room with him, have now made the same plea with the same nervous urgency: don't sacrifice yourself over this, or anything. Please look out for yourself first. And Kenzo's talking about being locked in a closet by bullies with no idea when they'd let him escape.
Now it's Suga's turn to blink back tears as he throws both arms around Kenzo and pulls him close for a long hug.]
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Date: 2024-07-17 11:51 pm (UTC)Tsukki slips out the door. Keeps moving until he hits the front porch.
He's not leaving.
Just needs to get this - feeling - under control. Before it buries him. He jams on his headphones, grabbing a random song from the 'Pissed Off' playlist. Watches the sky darkens, go purple. Bruised and miserable.]
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Date: 2024-07-17 11:59 pm (UTC)When Kenzo feels ready to put on his own headphones and disappear back into his composing, Suga checks his phone to see if Tsukki sent a text after he left. Nothing there... then is he still around the house? Suga checks that the bathroom door is open, then heads downstairs to check the kitchen, the living room - nothing.
It's hard to say which looks darker when he peeks his head outside, Tsukki's face or the evening sky. Cautiously, Suga stands beside him and tucks a hand into his, fingers threaded together. That's all - no gesture to remove the headphones, just quiet company.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 12:08 am (UTC)You're a good big brother.
You know that, right?
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Date: 2024-07-18 12:09 am (UTC)... can I admit something to you?
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Date: 2024-07-18 12:16 am (UTC)[Whatever it is, can't be as bad as the mess Tsukki's trying to dam up.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 12:25 am (UTC)[It's not clear at first if Suga's going to say any more, but eventually he does continue.]
None of us really understood him at first, and I didn't get why he couldn't just... calm down and cheer up. You know? It felt like everything had to be this big scene. So I would - I started pulling "pranks" on him to try and teach him to laugh off scary things, but...
[But as a young kid, it was also his way of acting out. Taking all that annoyance and aggression and turning it into something that was just a joke and was for his own good.]
After a really mean-spirited one, my mom took me aside and I thought she was going to scream at me, but she basically just said: "Kenzo's not like you, he can't be like you, and he's going to have a much harder time with life than you are because of it. You have two options: lift him up so that he can walk with you, or let him get ground into the dirt under your feet."
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Date: 2024-07-18 11:16 am (UTC)So. You were a little shit.
[There's a huff. The ghost of a chuckle, though the mood doesn't lift much.]
Welcome to the club.
My brother did that. Not the pranks, but trying to get me to be more cheerful. Telling me to get along with people.
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Date: 2024-07-18 01:41 pm (UTC)[Not just because he wants to "be a better person" in some nebulous sense - because he adores Kenzo. But that feels even more self-serving to add so he doesn't say it aloud.
Suga's startled when Tsukki brings up his older brother. Somehow he hasn't made the connection between Tsukki's mood and his own brother until now, even though he's aware to some degree that Kei and Akiteru have a rocky relationship. This is also the first time he's connected himself and Akiteru as older brothers and had cause to wonder how that might colour Tsukki's view of him...
It's a sobering thought.]
Yeah? [Nothing else, just an invitation to say more if Tsukki's so inclined.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 05:56 pm (UTC)[Brother Issues are on the table now. Like it or not. Pulling his hand back, Tsukki sinks onto the stairs. Arms folded across knees.
Then fills the quiet. Voice low.]
Anyway, he wasn't a bully. I was, maybe. Probably. Akiteru kept me from being worse.
Really, he's the nicest person. You saw him, he cries at everything. It's ridiculous. If we didn't look the same, you'd never believe we're related.
But...
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Date: 2024-07-18 06:30 pm (UTC)Suga doesn't have to question how closely to observe Tsukki, how deeply to involve himself, how much might be too much. This moment gets all of him.
He takes a seat beside Tsukki but not too close, giving him the physical space he'll doubtlessly need to share something of such import. And at first he can't help but grin, because Tsukki's right about everything - Akiteru seems like a big, sweet Golden Labrador puppy of a guy, and that stands in complete contrast to his younger brother's chilly, reserved manner.
But.]
Having the best of intentions can make someone even more blind to the actual impact of what they're doing.
[It's a bit of a wild guess based on what Tsukki's said and the similarities in their situations, but also shockingly on the mark.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 07:56 pm (UTC)Something like that.
He's... sorry. I know he is. He's said that so many times.
[Words give it weight again. Tugging at wounds long scabbed over. Tsukki's never shared any of this out loud, not even with Yamaguchi.
He was there, after all.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 08:06 pm (UTC)[It's hard to fully forgive someone when you're still feeling the impact of what they did. Kenzo was so young when their relationship was at their worst, Suga assumes he's either forgotten or internalized the damage too thoroughly to realize where it came from - things could very easily have gone the opposite way, with Kenzo internalizing the connection between his older brother and terror instead.
Suga's so leery to offer insight or advice in this situation, simply because he knows he'll come at it from an older brother's lifelong perspective and that won't do Tsukki any good. So he just keeps gently prompting Tsukki instead, letting him decide where the conversation will go.]
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Date: 2024-07-18 11:44 pm (UTC)[It never stopped hurting. No matter how much Tsukki tried to push it down. He's so tired of trying to be better, acting like none of it happened. So the story starts.]
My big brother was the coolest, and the smartest, and the best. Some kids called their little brothers names, told them to get lost. Not Akiteru. He brought me everywhere. He never, ever left me out.
[In the dark, it's not so hard to imagine it. The Kei who used to be. Bright-eyed and beaming, tagging along in Akiteru's footsteps.
A ghost.]
I started playing volleyball because he did. It could have been any sport. I didn't care.
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Date: 2024-07-18 11:50 pm (UTC)He nods and rests one of his hands on the step between them. Just in case it's needed. He's here to listen to the entire thing, if Tsukki's able to get it all out.]
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Date: 2024-07-19 12:05 am (UTC)Akiteru loved volleyball. Made Ace and Team Captain in Junior High. So when he chose Karasuno, no one was surprised. They'd just been to Nationals, and he wanted to play for the best. He told me about all the practices, the games, how he was a Starter already. All the strong teams he beat.
But he was too nervous for me to come watch.
I believed him.
[Even though Akiteru had never left him out before. God. It's so obvious now.]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 12:09 am (UTC)[The words come out on a rush of breath before Suga can stop them, like they've been forced out by a punch to the solar plexus. Everyone faces some slippage between junior high and high school unless they're among the absolute elite, so Suga can't exactly guess the severity of Akiteru's drop, but he can easily imagine an idolized older brother riding the bench and feeling like he'll crush his baby brother's world if he admits to the demotion.
But lying about it?]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 12:31 am (UTC)He wasn't even in the pen.
He was up in the stands. With the rest of the kids who never played...
[Tsukki tries to explain the feeling. How sound and air and color left the world. Time stretched into years, long enough to memorize the horror on Akiteru's face. Everything breaking, broken, gone.
He trails off.
No words are bad enough.]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 12:46 am (UTC)And this was family. Family that Tsukki held above everyone else, and cherished for very genuine reasons. And he would've been so young at that point.
Suga can see both sides, but his empathy flows directly to the boy sitting beside him.]
God.
[Then it hits Suga that Tsukki kept playing, but with the enormous chasm between himself and the emotional experience of the game that they all witnessed at the beginning of the year, and he feels a familiar burning sting behind his eyelids.]
I'm so, so sorry you had to go through that.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 11:56 am (UTC)I didn't care about volleyball, I cared about my brother. And he lied to me. For three years.
For what, a club?
['It's just a club.'
'Whatever.'
'It's not a big deal.'
None of that was true, either. Tsukki presses under his glasses. Trying to convince the prickling to stop, the heaviness of the words to let go. There's been enough damn crying.]
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Date: 2024-07-19 03:42 pm (UTC)But Tsukki's not really asking, and his pain won't be lessened by understanding Akiteru's side right now.]
It was the wrong thing to do for any reason. Protecting his own feelings while overlooking yours was totally unfair to you.
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Date: 2024-07-19 04:49 pm (UTC)[Until now, Tsukki's never thought of it like that.
It's so simple.
A pathetic sound bursts out of him. Mangled between a laugh and a hiss. ]
I've been so angry at myself. For - Like it was my fault, being too stupid to see...
But you're right.
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Date: 2024-07-19 04:54 pm (UTC)[Suga's clutching his own knees white-knuckle tight to keep from reaching out before it's welcome. He's somehow triggered what might be a massive breakthrough and he's not blowing it now.]
You were done wrong. No matter how much your brother loves you and wants to take it back, he still did you wrong. You don't have to deny that to move past it, and you shouldn't.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 07:05 pm (UTC)Then what do I do about it?
[There's so much crammed into that single sentence. Years of rebuilding, with spikes and sarcasm and no big brothers to soften the defenses. Trying to keep the feelings chained down. Does it matter? He ended up here, a mess on Suga's front porch. Still in gym shorts.
Goosebumps prickle up and down Tsukki's shins, but the sensation feels far away.]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 07:17 pm (UTC)The answer to that sucks, but as far as I know it's the only way. You've been assigning blame, downplaying feelings, blocking off reactions, numbing the parts of yourself that want to recover - what you need to do now is confront it. No coping mechanisms or rationalizations. You need to feel everything that's been forced down for so long or it'll fester forever.
[There's got to be so much grief built up that Tsukishima's never expressed - for the brother he thought he had, for the person he could've been, for the relationship they could've carried on. That alone is enough to smother any opportunity for real growth and forward progress.]
It won't be easy, but after the - the metamorphosis I've watched you go through in just one year? I know you're capable of this.
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