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“Aren’t you going to answer that?”
Leo looks up from his book. Mikey, tongue between his lips, is currently in the process of glueing rhinestones to a bunch of shuriken. The youngest brother does not look up from his work, but he raises a questioning eyeridge in Leo’s direction.
“Answer what?”
Mikey’s other eyeridge shoots up, and now he does look around. “Your phone. Dude, it just chimed for the third time in fifteen minutes. Usagi must be really bored.”
Then he shouldn’t have gone. Leo stifles the bitter voice in the back of his head and turns his attention back to his book. “I hadn’t noticed,” he lies.
“Well, I’m telling you now.” Mikey rummages through his art supply box and comes up with a salt shaker full of green glitter. Leo supresses the urge to ask. Some things are best left alone.
“I bet it’s just Donnie.” He has his finger on the line he was reading, but he can’t concentrate on the words. Thinking about it, he has no clue what happened on the last thirty or so pages.
“Uh-uh. It’s Usagi’s text alert noise. And you’re ignoring him.”
Leo doesn’t know how to answer that, so he remains silent and continues to stare at the pages with unseeing eyes. It’s true. He has been ignoring Usagi, leaving his partner’s entertainment to his brothers, to the point where he outright refused to accompany his family on their trip to April’s this evening by claiming he was busy. And after all, Mikey had stayed, too, because…
Well, because he felt the need to upgrade their weaponry, from the looks of it. Leo is overcome by a sneaking suspicion. Did Mikey excuse himself from the movie marathon before or after the oldest? He can’t remember now.
“I don’t know,” he quietly admits. Mikey hadn’t asked the question, but this is the answer nonetheless. Leo doesn’t know why he doesn’t answer Usagi’s texts. The samurai is still new to the 21st-century-technology that Don is trying to pressure him into using, but he did agree to have a cellphone. For emergencies, of course. But if this were an emergency, then he’d call, not text.
Of course, Leo can always claim that he was showering when asked later, or that he forgot his phone on the couch when he went to bed… but Mikey would know. Mikey does know the truth already, and Leo hasn’t even figured out where the lie has started.
He closes his book.
“It’s selfish.”
Mikey tucks the glitter away and concentrates on arranging the rhinestones again. “No, it’s silly. Just text him back already.” He looks up when the following pause rings through the air like a solid note of silence. Very slowly, he puts the glue bottle down. “You aren’t talking about the messages, are you.”
Leo doesn’t answer, but he finds that he can’t quite meet his brother’s eyes. Mikey nods to himself. “I didn’t think so,” he says. “All right. All right. You think you are being selfish. For, what, exactly? Just so that we are on the same page here.”
Being in a relationship. Neglecting you, neglecting my duties. Taking Sundays off and not taking you with me when I leave. Not watching over you anymore. Leo takes a deep breath, swallows, licks his lips. He can be coherent. He is the master of coherence. “For keeping him,” he says.
Mikey looks at him for a moment with an uncharacteristic seriousness. “Yes,” he says. “That is selfish.”
Leo nods to himself, worst fears confirmed, but Mikey isn’t done yet. “You are allowed a little selfishness, though,” he says quietly. “We have been selfish for the last eightteen years, I think we owe you some slack. Besides, dude, it’s not like anything has drastically changed around here.”
He raises his hand when Leo tries to interrupt him. “Hear me out,” he demands sharply. The eldest sits back in his chair, ashamed and red-faced. “We are a family, and we need to look out for one another. But families can grow, Leo. We adopted April, right? We even squeezed Casey in somehow, of all people we could have picked. Leatherhead literally lives down the hall from us. And now we have Usagi, too. That’s okay, you see? That happens. Sometimes change is a good thing.”
He smiles softly when he sees his older brother’s face. “Leo, being selfish and failing us is not the same thing.”
Leo can’t help it; everything in him rebels against this idea. “Raph fell down the fire escape last Tuesday,” he says, if only to say something. “That was failure on my part. And Don almost got himself asphyxiated when the old espresso machine shorted in his lab on Friday.”
Something like annoyance is creeping into Mikey’s expression now. “As far as I recall, the Foot severed the fire escape while Raph was on it,” he says. “And nobody asked Don to keep his doors closed and his aircon off while he worked with a blowtorch.” He leans back in his chair, his blue eyes sternly fixed on Leonardo’s face. “Besides, if I recall correctly, both of these times you were right there with us.”
Leo’s mouth thins into a stubborn line. “But I was distracted.”
“Remember what Sensei always says,” Mikey replies. He picks up the glue bottle again, absently spinning it between his fingers. “It’s arrogant to take responsibility for everything.” He sees Leo’s eyes widen and a familiar pout appears on his face. “What? I do listen sometimes, you know.”
“Yes,” Leo says softly and relaxes in his chair. “I know.” He sighs and rubs his hands down his face. When he speaks again, his words are muffled by his fingers. “I know I’m being silly here. But, ah…” He looks up at Mikey, maskless tonight and playing with glitter and much more mature than they all give him credit for, and decides to simply go for it and get it over with. “What do you think, though? When you see me with him, what do you think?”
Mikey grimaces. “You’re terrifying,” he says.
There must be something on Leo’s face - a flicker of panic, worry in his eyes - because he quickly sets the glue back down and leans forward across the table. “No! Not like that! I mean, yes, that too, obviously. I mean- remember when we recorded all of us fighting last year? And you were surprised because you couldn’t remember half the moves you did?”
Leo nods. That had been a weird little experiment. He’d always snorted at being called cat-like, until he watched himself scale a ten-foot-wall just to find a point from which to launch his shuriken.
Mikey tilts his head to the side, obviously remembering the same. “Well, when you’re fighting alongside him, it’s a bit… different,” he says. “It’s hard to explain. When it’s the four of us, we fight like, well, a team, because it’s what we have been trained to do for almost twenty years. It’s natural. We know where the others are, where we have to be. But... When Usagi is there, we still do it, only with him in it. That shouldn’t be possible. You make room for him, and he adjusts his position according to yours, and the rest of us, we just go with the flow, and it works. And your sword styles are so different that they combine somehow. I'm pretty sure that several Foot fainted on Tuesday just seeing you.” He cracks a smile at Leo’s incredulous expression. “I told you it’s difficult to explain,” he says. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant by terrifying.”
Leo’s eyeridges shoot up. “Well, then pray tell,” he says, wondering why talking to Mikey is so easy when not ten minutes ago, breathing alone seemed so hard.
There is a softness on his youngest brother’s face that Leo recognizes from recent sideways glances, smiles in the dark. It’s Mikey’s default Leo-and-Usagi expression lately. He calls them his “canon ship”, whatever that means. Leo never asked where the look comes from, but now he finds himself wondering.
“Seeing you together,” Mikey says. “Not fighting, or doing anything. Just… being together. That’s terrifying. Because every time he enters the room, your face lights up somehow. You’ve always tried so hard to be a good ninja that we all worried you might lose yourself in the shadows, but he pulls you out of them without any effort at all. You look so happy when he’s there, and all this time we didn’t even know that you were sad.”
There is a short pause.
“That is the sappiest thing that I have ever heard anyone say,” Leo says with plain disbelief. “And I used to watch Sensei’s soaps with him.”
Mikey laughs and throws a handful of rhimestones at him. “Shut up,” he says with a grin. “It’s true though. Also, lately, you hang out with us again. It’s nice.”
Leo shrugs and fishes the small, pink glass stones out from under his carapace. “Whatever you say. You are the expert in sappiness.” He laughs at the smug expression on Mikey’s face.
“Glad that’s settled,” the youngest says. “Now text him back, you stubborn moron.” He turns back to his work - Leo can’t see where the rainbow-colored feathers have come from, but here they are and he is 99% sure he doesn’t want to know - and carefully dribbles pinpricks of glue on the shuriken in front of him.
Shaking his head, Leo reaches for his shell cell and flips it open. There are indeed three new messages waiting for him. He pretends not to notice Mikey’s eyes on him when he opens them, but he can’t stop the tiny flip his stomach does when he sees the screen.
Kareshi (20:43)
We are about to begin with the movies. April celebrates this like a holy ceremony. It reminds me of a story I have been meaning to tell you. I love you.
Kareshi (20:49)
The story involves a demon priest. Also, some pretty inedible food. Speaking of which, Raphael claims these sweets are Japanese, but they must be too modern for me. Or maybe I am simply too old. You would like them. I love you.
Kareshi (20:50)
Why are your street names numbers again? I love you.
Kareshi (20:57)
This is a movie about dancing children. Why didn’t you warn me? Is this why you didn’t come? If so, prepare for my revenge! I will see you later. I love you.
Leonardo smiles at the lengthy messages. He automatically cradles the phone in both hands, shielding the screen. Mikey seems engrossed in his work once more, but Leo still fathoms he can see his youngest brother roll his eyes.
He very carefully types out his response before he tucks his phone into his belt and turns back to his book.
You (21:14)
It's not a bad film, really. Have fun. Can't wait to see you soon.
I love you, too.