Chapter Text
He keeps seeing the way the other boy's body fell, limp, to the floor. It doesn't matter how hard he shuts his eyes, how hard he tries to rationalise the situation, the thought keeps coming back. And he doesn't understand. This was normal. This is what he's been trained for all his life. There was no getting ready for it. It was the first time but he should be over it. Actually this shouldn't even be something to get over, this had been long in the making. Something expected.
He hears the loud shouts of the watchers from the waiting room but they sound odd, like he's underwater. This doesn't make sense either because he knows that he's not. He was in the ring just a bit earlier and there was no water anywhere near-
Maybe he's just choking on the blood. There was so much blood where he kept smashing the boy's face to the ground. A growing puddle. Maybe he drowned in it. He couldn't remember standing back up. Maybe the boy is having his revenge right now, making sure he pays for what he did to him.
Takeshi tries to take a deep breath but his attempt is cut off when he feels himself being roughly shoved up and moved around. He thinks he hears a voice speaking but it's familiar enough that Takeshi easily tunes it out without a thought.
The next time he manages to come back a bit into his body, it's to a distant humming against his ear and warmth all around him. There's something tightly gripping his hair and Takeshi tries to focus as much as he can at the moment on it and, slowly, it works. He becomes progressively aware of where he is, and with who.
The Room is the same as always, bare dirty walls that he'd sometime watch ants crawl out of, a beaten table in one corner, some kind of small dresser in the other where the few clothes that they own lay haphazardly, some books in english that they were given sometimes ago but that neither of them knew how to read, the messy bed with the dirty covers that they didn't get to change nearly enough.
His brother.
He was currently buried under his brother's arms, well settled on his laps as he recognized the familiar tune of the older boy's humming. He shifted to try and get closer to him, burying his face in the warmth of his neck.
Sometimes Takeshi felt like he wanted, needed, to be so close that he wished he could crawl into his chest. He imagined the way his chest would cave open and how he'd bury himself, completely surrounded by his brother brother brother brother
Always his brother.
He felt the vibration against his ear stop as the eldest became aware that he was awake. Or at least feeling a bit more human and alive than he did earlier.
“How do you feel?” He hears the unusually quiet and gentle voice of his brother.
Takeshi tries to talk but only ends up huffing in frustration when he realizes that his voice is once again gone, refusing to work properly.
He wishes he could throw his vocal cords out, the useless things always dropping him anyways. He wishes he could tear open his own chest and squeeze his hands in between his ribs till he got a good hold on the offending organs and reminded them that he was in control. He had to be.
He only manages to get out a small, rough groan in response but his brother seems to interpret enough of it as the hand that had stopped gripping his hair goes back to running in between the orange strands.
“You did good today, you know?” his brother says. At the unamused puff of air from his chest, the older boy starts again. “Really, you did everything that you had to, and you did it so well. I mean it.”
Takeshi shifts on his laps, looking up at him. While his voice doesn't currently work, he knows he doesn't need it for his brother to understand. He always does. Their eyes lock into each other and Takeshi knows what he can see in there. Knows how he can feel his hesitation, the fear, the anger and the frustration all fighting in his head, trying to see who can dominate.
The older boy lets out a sigh before breaking their eye contact and shoving back his little face against his shoulder. Takeshi tucks his head in his neck, feeling his brother's chin lay down gently on his tender scalp.
“I know what you feel Taki, I know. But you need to open your eyes. You can't let this break you everytime. You need to be strong little brother, because if you want to leave this ring alive, you gotta fight like you want to. This is how it works. The strongs stay alive, the weaks die. That boy was weak, that's why he couldn't protect his life. But you're not weak, you don't lose, I made sure of it. Weak people lose but you don't. You're hoping for them to show you mercy but they won't, that kid would have killed you too.” Takeshi groans again, feeling the indignation rise in his chest. His brother must feel it, he always does. “Stop that. I'm not your enemy, Take. I tell you what to do for a reason. Do you trust me or not?”
“Of course” he breathlessly whispered under his brother's chin. Anyone else wouldn't have heard it but flushed against one another like they were, the vibrations sufficed to help decipher his words.
“Then don't think. You don't need to think deeper about this. I don't need you to understand everything. I need you to obey. We're not getting out. The deeper you think about it, the more you allow yourself to be hurt. Pain is temporary, fear though, it is a choice. They want you weak but I won't let that happen. You're all I have, Takeshi, I love you. You’re all I have left, all I'll ever have now too. Don’t make me lose you too. Don't be stupid. It’s not cruelty. It’s survival. It's okay, this is all okay, this is what you got to be good at, Take. This is all you need to do. All that really matters.”
Takeshi hung onto the words as hard as he could. He held onto his brother feeling like if he didn't, the ground under him would collapse and he would disappear and he would be left on his own. As small as his body was, he was distantly aware that with how hard he was squeezing his brother, he'd probably have some considerable bruises come morning but the older boy didn't seem to mind.
Part of Takeshi wanted to scream back at him that he didn't care. That he wished the boy would have killed him instead. That he didn't know why they even bothered in the first place if this was gonna be all that they knew. But Takeshi didn't know how not to fight and he knew that the boy stood no chance the moment he saw his terrified and teary eyes as he stepped onto the ring. This was his first fight to death. It wouldn't be his last. They'd become more recurrent as he won. Higher stake fights bring in more. That part of Takeshi which got louder and louder everyday told him that it was a good thing, that it meant that he would be free soon.
The other part of Takeshi, though, relished in the praises. Grasped as tight as it could at the words his brother said.
He didn't know if he believed them.
Takeshi knew that he had to.
Takeshi didn't look into their eyes anymore. He won his next fight. And the next. And the next ones after that.
“This is for your own good, Takeshi.”
Takeshi braced for the wave of pain that would come to make sure that he stayed quiet. His eyes squeezed shut and he felt a whimper strangle his throat. He felt the rough floor against his knees before he even had time to realize the pain that suddenly came from his newly reset broken fingers.
“This is what happens when you are weak.” crack, a strangled noise, his brother roughly grabbed him to put him back in position on the chair he had slipped from. “Remember this. Hopefully it can keep you alive a bit more.”
Takeshi, not for the first time, wished that he wouldn't have to be anymore as he felt his other finger be positioned to be reset too and counted all the other left to do in his crushed hands.
“You're too slow, damn it! Do you want to actually try or do you enjoy wasting my time?!”
Takeshi raised himself back from where he had collapsed after missing, again, the same hit. His entire body hurt, there wasn't a place that felt okay and he couldn't single out a single worst space.
“‘Am trying!” He shouted back, his raspy squeaky high voice resonating against the walls of The Room.
“Try harder then! You think these fuckers out there are gonna wait for you to stand back up just because you look like a toddler? Na, they'll only see an easier victim. Take advantage of that!”
If Takeshi had been a bit older, a bit bolder, if he had lived before, he'd have answered that he didn't just look like a toddler. That he was basically one too.
He wasn't tough.
His brother stepped forward and gripped his head, hard.
“You know what they do to weak people here. What they do to the ones that lose? If you're lucky then Master will only beat your ass. If not, he won't have enough of your ass left in one piece to beat. Now get up!”
Takeshi shook the quickly growing need to cryscreamshoutrun and got ready again.
“You're shaking.” Takeshi's little voice broke the silence in The Room where they were pressed close together with their backs against the wall.
Since his brother had come back from today's session in the ring, he had known that something was wrong. Both of them often were quiet when initially coming back. Takeshi often saw the completely blank look in his brother's eyes, the way he would stay unresponsive for hours before slowly coming back from where he had been stuck. They didn't talk about it. Takeshi imagined that the same thing happened to him too considering how he did not often remember actually coming back into the room. He had half a mind to wonder what it meant. The other half told him that this was out of his paycheck, all that mattered was when he'd be called out too and when he'd come back.
His brother did not react to the sound of his voice but Takeshi knew that he had heard him from the way he had lightly flinched. His brother didn't flinch, not often. He was strong, stronger than Takeshi thought he could ever be himself. He couldn't tell if that flinch was from his talking or from him noticing the shaking though.
“Yuto?”
Again, no response.
Takeshi tried to shift to hold his brother's eyes but stopped himself when he heard the deep exhale from him. His hands were still shaking but the older boy broke the silence.
“You remind me of myself.” he said, quietly. Takeshi stayed quiet, knowing that the other boy was probably trying to think about how to explain what was bothering him. “I hate that. I don't want you to end up like me.”
“You made me strong, I'm alive because of you. You did everything that you should have done” A scoff.
“Yeah, and look at where it got us. I-” his voice broke and Takeshi watched as Yuto scratched his throat in discomfort. “You were just a kid when they took you.”
“So were you.”
“That's different.”
“How is it any different?”
The older boy sighted and there was something so exhausted in it that Takeshi almost felt bad for pushing. Almost. Instead though, he simply grabbed the two shaky hands and held them in his much smaller ones.
"Sometimes I wonder if I was meant to protect you or ruin you.”
As the hands continued to shake in his palms, he cursed whatever had happened in the ring today for daring to live past its moment. Takeshi felt like all short 7 years of his life had decided to crush his small body once and for all.