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Do you even need a reason to want to kill your brother?
Rin doesn’t have one. He has a bunch of reasons to hate his brother, to steer away from his sight, but not many to kill him. He needs a reason and so he goes looking for one.
It makes his job easier when Sae comes home a few weeks before his middle school graduation. The shadow takes physical form, from leaping in and out of Rin’s peripherals to commanding his entire visual field. He’s already outgrown his brother in height, and one of their aunts says he still has lots of space to grow into. Sae doesn’t really look like he cares anyway.
Rin misses when the idea of being taller than his big brother made him excited and not petty. He misses a lot of things.
…
Sae gifts him a goldfish.
He’s leaning against the doorframe of Rin’s room—which used to be his before he left, like pretty much everything else in Rin’s life—not even a whole step inside, and holding a plastic bag with a goldfish that looks half-dead.
“If you really take care of it maybe it will grow as big as a koi.”
Rin is reading Sae’s copy of Stephen King’s Cell. The cover is sticking out of the binder, with scribbles in Sae’s messy calligraphy at the footnotes, a mess of back and forths between English and Japanese. He stares at the plastic bag and the ugly fish with as much skepticism as he can. He wants to say it’s impossible for goldfish to grow as big as a koi fish but he knows that’d only make Sae look at him like he’s an idiot and he hates when he does that.
“I don’t want it.”
“Shame,” Sae sighs, dangling the plastic bag between his indicator and thumb. Rin wonders if fish can get dizzy. “Mom said I should give you a souvenir from Europe.”
“I saw you buying it at the pet shop yesterday,” he deadpans.
He was riding his bike from a friend's house when he saw Sae and his mom leave the pet shop. He sped past the two of them, ears buzzing.
“No fun,” Sae singsongs. Then he stops twirling the bag around and glances between the fish and Rin, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Well, he was going to die anyway. I have some random stuff in my suitcase. You can have whatever you want.”
"Aren't you keeping it?”
"Do you think I have time for goldfish, Rin?" Sae gives him a pointed look. “Don't look so distraught. You said you didn’t want it.”
“That’s—I didn’t know you were going to kill it, nii-chan.”
It’s mostly a slip-up. Rin hadn't called Sae nii-chan since he left for Europe. It’s still natural on his tongue like he never lost practice. Missing your brother you haven’t seen for months and the first thing he does is threaten to kill the goldfish that he just gifted you.
Sae shrugs. He dangles the fish again. It doesn’t even move this time. Maybe it died for real.
Rin blinks. Then sighs.
“You should’ve at least bought a cool tank for your shitty souvenir.”
He thinks Sae laughs but maybe it’s just his imagination.
…
The fish lives. Although it doesn’t grow to be as big as a koi. Deceit is enough for fratricide, Rin thinks, but not so much if the fish lives after all. He names it Ai, with the kanji for indigo, and buys fish food in the same pet shop Sae bought his goldfish soon-to-be koi.
…
His brother is gone in no time at all. With promises of being back in a few months. Something to do with documentation. He doesn’t need to come back, Rin wishes he wouldn’t come back, but he says he will and that’s that.
Their mom catches sight of the goldfish in the stupidly large tank Sae bought him. She squints at it, then snaps her fingers like a lightning cackle, “Ah, he bought it after all.”
Rin is reading manga this time. One Piece, volume 45. Bought with his own allowance. The sheen of newness and the smell of freshly printed pages make him sneeze.
“What?”
“Sae-chan spent a really long time trying to decide what kind of tank he should buy,” she laughs, running her thumb over the smooth glass. “I thought a small bowl would be enough but he said he didn’t want you blaming him if the fish died.”
“You have a cool big brother, Rin-chan,” she winks at him, tapping at a spot on the glass near where the fish is swimming, tranquil. She turns around to leave but stops to ask him over her shoulder if he still wants to cut his hair this weekend.
Rin glances at his bookshelf, filled with books he read and reread several times, and back to the manga between his hands. He never had any interest in One Piece before so he doesn't have much of an idea of what's going on. He’s only reading it because none of the kids in his class like horror movies, or zombie video games, and it sucks not being able to talk about the stuff he likes with his friends.
Sae used to watch movies until late at night. Rin used to look a lot like Sae when he was a kid too—his hair was well-trimmed and styled just like his brother’s.
“No,” he says, closing the manga. Maybe he’ll watch the anime first. “Maybe during summer.”
His mom hums, lingering like she wants to say something else but then thinks better of it and leaves without saying anything.
…
Summer is coming. Sae isn’t back. Rin doesn’t cut his hair.
…
When Sae left for Spain for the first time, Rin cried for two hours and came down with a fever the very next day. His dad, running his fingers through Rin’s hair, damp with sweat, said whatever he thought would keep Rin distracted. “You’re going to make your big brother worry like this, Rin.”
Fever-addled, all Rin could think was, good. Bring him back.
Later on, he found out Sae never caught wind of Rin’s fever, or frenzied pleas making it all pretty fruitless. Not that Rin believes Sae would’ve come back if he did. And perhaps that’s the reason he's been looking for.
He can write a creepy note about how Sae saw it coming, and how he provoked it. Through the fish, through the trophies he left behind, through coming first and leaving first and being first all of Rin’s life just to suddenly content himself with being second—what about Rin?
What about me? You left me behind to become number one, didn’t you? Now that everything changed doesn’t that mean you just left because you couldn’t stand me at all? And if this has nothing to do with me—isn’t that so much worse? Hey, nii-chan, what about me?
…
Summer is here.
Rin watches A Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time. He writes his review on the back of the cover of his math notebook, making sure the calligraphy is neat. The ending leaves an impression on him, making Rin slightly paranoid and nauseated for the rest of the week. There’s a red dot on the sleeve of his summer uniform white shirt. He thinks it might be blood, who knows, maybe he killed someone in his dreams.
He licks it and—no, just jam. Strawberry jam.
…
A week later when he gets home from school there’s a package waiting for him on his bed. Inside is every A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise subsequent movie on VHS. There’s also a note glued to the box with a crooked red bow.
Souvenir :)
…
Apparently, you do need a reason to want to kill your brother.
A sound reason. Something like he dunked my head underwater while our parents went on a two-day, one-night trip to Hokkaido or he chewed my dog, raw meat and everything.
Soccer is not enough. Deceit is not enough. Abandonment is not enough. Choosing everyone else, everything else, over your little brother is not enough. VHS tapes of your favorite movies in a language you don’t speak aren’t enough.
So Rin decides he’s not going to wait for a reason anymore, he’s just gotta stick through it. He trims his own hair just so it doesn’t stick to his nape in the heat, and he throws all of Sae’s trophies in a box, shoving it deep into the closet along with Sae’s old toys and clothes. He asks his mom to buy him a koi fish and is rejected but is glad he asked. He avoids looking too much in the mirror nowadays.
There’s something suicidal about the process. Rin is his parents first, his brother later, and himself last—but he does stick through it.
And when he asks the obachan for a popsicle and gets a win he shoves it in his pockets, promises to keep it, and then forget about it.
…
Bang! he will tell his brother the next time they see each other. Bang!