~*~

Months later, there came a night when I decided to drink around Aiji. I had grown comfortable with his presence, and for some reason, it seemed like the inevitable. He was over almost every other day, and I liked to enjoy the occasional round of drinking as much as any other Japanese man. Come to think of it, it was actually his idea to begin with. After a traditional meal that reminded me of something my mother would make, he kept filling my sake cup. Despite my protest, he insisted it was good for us to relieve tension through drink every now and then, and I could only smile and drink another round. I remember thinking that maybe Aiji wanted to have sex, and that’s why he was being so adamant about liquor consumption. We still had yet to get past the clothing barrier, but there were nights when I wondered what it would be like to try that sort of thing. Sometimes, when I masturbated, I’d start to think of him and curiosity was getting the better of me. Or I’d think about doing what I’d be expected to do to him on a woman to try and get comfortable with the idea. Liquor did make the notion of fooling around more easier on me, and if worse came to worse, I reasoned, I could always back out until I was ready.

We sat at the low, dark wooden table I’d placed on the only tatami part of my apartment. I figured something non-western deserved to be there, but I was too lazy to make the rest of my place match. Aiji sat next to me in a thin gray sweater and jeans. He’d dyed his hair to platinum blonde and had let it grow out in the back more so that it hung evenly around his head. I was used to seeing myself blonde, but it was strange seeing him that way. I didn’t dislike it, but I was starting to miss the more natural tones he used to dye it when we first met.

He’d caught me staring.

“You don’t like my hair, do you?” he asks with a laugh. It’s worth noting that he’d matched every drink I’d consumed.

“Eh?”

I try playing dumb but he raises an eyebrow at me knowingly.

“No, it’s not that,” I answer sheepishly. “It’s just, I dunno, blonde doesn’t suit your personality, I don’t think. But you still look good, I mean---”

He laughs again, resting his hand on my arm.

“It’s okay Kohta, I don’t think it does either to tell you the truth.”

I noticed his cup was empty and reached to fill it again.

“Why’d you go for blonde then? The costume designers ask you to?”

Upon my finishing the question he looks away, the smile fading from his face. He touches the now-filled cup like he’s going to drink from it, then takes his hand away. My brows furrow in anxiety over whether or not I unknowingly said something to upset him.

“Uh, so, how do you keep it so nice? I have all these split ends…”

His mouth opens a little then shuts like he wants to say something but thinks better of it.

“I use a conditioner one of our makeup artists recommended.”

The words sound forced, his voice tighter than it was a view minutes ago.

“Hey Aiji, I didn’t mean for it to sound like I didn’t like you blonde when I said the personality thing,” I begin, not knowing what went wrong, “You always look way better than the rest of us, and you know, guys with blonde hair are normally the trouble-making type, and you’re too smart for that, so I thought--”

“….Kirito asked me to do it,” he says softly.

“—that you would…uh….”

My voice trails to nothing. It was the first time I’d heard him mention my brother anywhere but practice.

“Oh.” I can’t think of what to say. “Well you look good, anyways.”

We sat there in that same uncomfortable silence that always pervaded my apartment when anything concerning Kirito came up. Sure, I didn’t want to hear about him, but I didn’t expect having to mention him would upset Aiji so much. After all, he still went home to him on a regular basis and I couldn’t see any proof that Kirito was hurting him because of our meetings.

“No I don’t,” he hisses in a bitter tone, and my eyes widen a bit in surprise. “I look horrible, but I have to look this way, because….because….”

Suddenly he puts his hand to his head like he has a migraine, obscuring my view of his face. When I hear the smothered sob though, I know he’s crying.

I’ve always hated having to describe a man crying. Aiji, even with his feminine airs, never wept like a woman. When he cried, it was a painful looking ordeal, like he was being struck with something and trying to ignore the pain rather than the stereotype of holding a tissue to his eyes. Later, I’d see the same expression when he was indeed being hit, so that’s the best way I can describe it. There were these wracking sobs that he desperately tried to control but couldn’t. Nothing delicate, not even beautiful. My brother always says the beauty in a man’s tears is in the exact moment he begins to cry, like when Aiji lied about the practice incident. I felt seeing his wet eyes only made me feel for him and want him more, even if that was a sick thing to feel. After that, a man crying became a sad thing to watch. They say if a man cries, there has to be good reason for it. When I thought about it, I’d only ever cried when terrible things had happened to me. It may seem like Aiji cries a lot in comparison to most men, and that would be the truth. But he had every right to be emotional. His life was a never-ending saga of terrible shit.

My heart ached to see him so upset, a knot forming in my gut every second I sat there helpless.

“Aiji,” I try and move close enough to hold him and end up bumping my legs against the table, “Aiji what’s going on?”

When I actually do manage to get my arms around him, he tries to distance himself from me with a push.

His breath comes in shudders. “No Kohta, I-I’m okay.”

“What is it? Is it my brother?”

At this point I felt so strongly about Aiji I was willing to contest with my brother over his welfare. The darker side of me almost wanted him to accuse Kirito of something to strengthen my abhorrence.

He says something incomprehensible, again worrying me even more.

“What?” I ask as gently as I can.

“…Kirito,” he whispers, one hand clenching onto my arm with a strength that caused pain. “Kirito’s sick.”

The words literally struck me. “What?! He’s sick?”

Aiji keeps shaking his head like I don’t understand what he’s saying.

“He needs help…” He lifts his gaze, looking into my eyes.

“Does he need to go to the hospital?” My worry was fast turning into dread and concern for my brother. He wasn’t the type to admit he needed to see a doctor. “Is it a virus or what?”

“No, not like that,” he’s too distressed to get the words out right, “it’s his….his mind…”

By now the guitarist was sobbing so hard he’d begun leaning into me, his face pressing against my shoulder.

“His mind?’ I repeat in incomprehension.

“….He’s insane.”

My grip on Aiji tightened. Even before he explained, I knew he was right. I knew there was something seriously wrong with my brother, but I never had the balls to mention my suspicion to anyone. The part that sent the chill down my spine and felt most foreboding, was that Aiji hadn’t simply said “he’s gone crazy”. He used the same term Kirito got censored for calling our fans, that so many Pierras loved to hear at concerts. In any other situation it would have wrung ironic; here, the word sounded so hollow and so far from a joke that I knew what my friend was telling me had to be the truth.

“Aiji….,” I let him go, dumbfounded. “Are you sure of what your saying, calling him that?”

He nods slowly, eyes closed as tears rolled down his cheeks. I watched him tug maliciously at the bracelet he was wearing.

“Why are you saying this? What is he doing to you?”

It wasn’t a light accusation, and even though I believed him, Kirito acted fine at practice. I expected him to confess that Kirito was torturing him or abusing him somehow. That, as much as I didn’t want to hear it, I could handle and imagine. But I didn’t know what “insane” constituted. In our culture, mental illness was still frowned upon and a taboo for the majority. I didn’t know any better either. If he wasn’t babbling incoherently and banging his head against walls, I didn’t think he could have mental problems. He was just different, that was all. Like all great musicians. He heard tunes that we couldn’t; saw images the rest of us couldn’t see. It had to be him going overboard with his bedroom behavior.

Aiji struggles to control his composure so he could speak better. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“It’s not what he’s doing to me…..It’s what he’s doing to himself.”

I sit next to him quietly, my hand on his thigh in a meager attempt to comfort him.

“Kohta, you have to swear to me you won’t discuss this with anyone.”

“Of course Aiji, I--”

“You have to mean it. He’ll kill me if he finds out I didn’t tell you what he wanted me to.”

His voice had dropped to a frightening low that didn’t resemble his usual voice at all. It sounded like such an overdramatic statement, but there was nothing flippant in his expression. I didn’t have time to ponder that he’d claimed my brother was capable of murder.

“I mean it.” It was all I could say.

“And you have to hear me out. I know you’re going to get upset.”

I nod, making a noise in my throat of affirmation. He rubs an eye with the palm of his hand roughly.

“The real reason I’ve been spending so much time with you is because…” He twists his bracelet sharply.

“Because Kirito told me to.”

My stomach turns.

“…..What?”

“Kirito asked,” he laughs in a depreciative manner, “he demanded I be with you. He threatened to throw me out if I didn’t.”

So many emotions assaulted me at once I couldn’t begin to react. I could feel one slowly clawing its way above the rest.

Humiliation.

“He always threatens something. Sometimes he says he’s going to slit my throat in my sleep,” he added in a softer voice, like he was talking to himself. “I thought he was exaggerating, but one time I woke up and he had a butcher knife under my chin. Remember that week I wore a turtleneck every day to practice despite the heat?”

I just kept staring at him.

“He ended up cutting such a large mark there was no way I could hide it with makeup. One time, I said something he didn’t like about you and he hit me so hard in the face blood splattered on the kitchen countertop. He lied and told you all I had the flu. When I said I sprained my wrist handling my guitar wrong during the tour, that was his handy work as well. Your brother has more strength in him than you could ever imagine. He said I wasn’t over here long enough the other night. I was hoping we wouldn’t have sex so you couldn’t see the bruises he gave me from punching my back.”

He laughs again, more tears raining down his face.

“I’m sure you think I deserve it after what I just said about being with you. He doesn’t know that I really do love you Kohta. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I had to. I had to, or else he was going to hurt me.”

I feel his hand wrap around my wrist.

“I love you Kohta, but he’ll beat me if he finds out about that as well. I know I’ve been lying to you, but if you care about me, you have to help me.”

He expected me to believe that he loved me after he admitted Kirito was making him come here?

I finally found my voice.

“Why did he tell you to be with me?” I want to be calm, yet my voice betrays my inner feelings. “Why the fuck would he tell his boyfriend to get me to fall for him, and why the fuck would you listen to him?”

An embittered smile creeps onto his lips.

“The same reason he does everything. The same reason he made me dye my hair blonde.”

I waited for it. There had to be something I’d been missing all these years. This was beyond abnormal. The whole situation itself was starting to look insane.

“Your brother is so caught up in his own world I’m not sure he knows the repercussions of what he’s doing anymore.”

He lets go of my wrist.

“Who normally has blonde hair in this band, Kohta? When I come home after being here all evening, who do I smell like?”

Anger seeps into his voice, and for someone who just said they loved me, there was a lot of vindication in his tone.

“Who means so much to him that he would go to all these twisted lengths just to get a certain reaction from?”

His gaze travels to the table, and to my surprise, he pauses to down his drink.

“It isn’t me Kohta, I can tell you that.”

The topic had changed again, and I wasn’t following. All of this apparently had to do with the same thing in Aiji’s mind, but I couldn’t put it all together.

“What are you trying to say?”

By now, his tears were drying.

“You know what? I’m not sure. I’m probably not making a lot of sense. Just, forget any of this ever happened. I’ll understand if you want me to leave.”

He tries to stand up, but I grab onto his arm and drag him back down before he can make it far. I couldn’t let him leave after what he claimed my brother was doing to him alone. I did care for him, and I did love him. More than that though, I wanted to understand what was going on in front of my face that I was too blind to see.

“No, you can’t leave. You’re right – I do care about you, and I can’t lie about it. Just…make it so I can understand Aiji. I had no idea he was doing those sort of things to you.”

I could hear his voice in my head.

‘..he hit me so hard in the face blood splattered on the kitchen countertop…’

I couldn’t even imagine it the scene was so harsh. Yes my brother had hit me, especially when I was younger, but that was beyond acceptable. Now that his words were actually sinking into my head I wanted to cringe at the mere thought of any of it. That, and it made me want to kill Kirito.

“Please, can you start from the beginning? Or some sort of beginning?”

Eventually I coax him to sit back down and he lights a cigarette to calm his nerves. Despite the late hour, it was a Friday so we didn’t have to be anywhere the next day. There was no way I was letting him go back to his apartment tonight, even if he changed his entire story. I should have noticed sooner that he’d been hiding something from me, except I wasn’t that perceptive. I can look back now and recall all the times he looked like he wanted to say something but kept his mouth shut, or the way he shied away from subjects I realize now reminded him of Kirito’s abuse somehow. My inability to read into human behavior would cause me problem after problem when it came to Aiji and my brother, and I never would have picked up on Kirito’s problems had Aiji not sat down to explain it all.

“I know I didn’t grow up with Kirito like you did, but we’ve been together for some time now, and I only have one explanation for his behavior. To be honest, I’ve spent all my free time for the past couple of years trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. I used to suggest that he see a doctor, and after his behavior get really erratic, I begged him to get help.”

Another sad smile.

“He always got angry at the mention of such things, and eventually I stopped asking altogether because his answers were increasingly violent. But I want you to know that I tried Kohta.”

I look into his eyes, still reddened by his previous crying. It was easy, even for me, to see that the man was tortured. That he’d been tortured. Yet again I found myself wondering how much of it was consensual. Again I longed to shield him from the world he was living in.

“I tried so hard to find him help, but no one would see him without his consent. I even decided to ask one of my shadier acquaintances to procure drugs to slip him, but I couldn’t figure out what pills would help him. And he’s not so far gone that I could ask a hospital to take him in. At least outwardly I have no solid proof for that sort of thing. Especially since he’s a celebrity. Maybe if he worked a normal job out of the public eye, and maybe if I was his wife they would have believed me….”

He sighs, and I fear he may start crying again. Instead he continues, his expression haggard and his posture weary. For him to have spoken so frankly about his abuse spoke volumes of how resigned he had to be to the whole ordeal.

“It started in the bedroom. I know you’ve felt my scars…,” I look at his leg to avoid his gaze, “…I can’t do much to hide them. I loved – I still love – him so much that I let him do anything he wanted to me. I thought it was erotic, being tied up. I liked being helpless in front of the man I loved. Then, as time went on, he got more demanding. We stopped having gentle, ‘normal’ sex. He was always the top type, but pretty soon I couldn’t expect him to do anything to pleasure me unless it involved inflicting pain.”

Peculiarly enough, he still felt the need to remember his manners.

“I’m sorry…I know you probably don’t want to hear about us having sex.”

I shake my head as a poor substitute for an answer. I kept thinking of what he’d said Kirito had done to him behind my back and I didn’t feel I had the right to protest anything. Like I was in some way responsible for my brother’s actions. I couldn’t begin to imagine what I could do to ever make up for the pain he’d inflicted on Aiji.

He starts pouring me another drink, and I try to ignore the tremor in his hand that makes him spill a bit of the liquor so as not to embarrass him further.

“But when it was only in the bedroom, I could handle it,” he continues, setting the ceramic carafe back down. “I figured the stress of the band was making him that way, and I told myself it was okay, and that I’d be a bad lover to stop him from enjoying me that way. Then one day, he hit me.”

My eyes close.

“I can’t even remember why, but he just lashed out and smacked me in the side of my face. I should have thought to leave him then, but with the band and how much he said he loved me -- because he always says he loves me -- I thought I’d just wait it out. It’s like something out of a domestic violence pamphlet, I know, but I really thought it was just a one time thing. It was like, 2 months before he hit me again. And then a month. And then a couple weeks. A couple days. By the time he was doing it regularly I had nowhere to turn.”

I wanted to tell him to stop, but I knew it had to be said. If he’d been quiet all this time, I had no right to silence him now.

“I didn’t want to ask you to see your brother in that light, and I knew Jun and Takeo wouldn’t want to get involved. My friends either don’t know I’m gay or the few gay ones I have would have blamed me for having strange sex to begin with. And my family won’t talk to me, so I felt like I was trapped.”

I felt even more guilty, hearing that. Aiji had never mentioned his family much; I’d never stopped to think that they could possibly be shunning him.

“I told myself I could put up with it though, for everyone else’s sake. For Kirito’s sake. Then, the Takeo thing started. It wasn’t enough that Kirito had complete control over me. He told me when to eat, what to play, and what to like. Now he wanted to tell me how to talk to people. He’d developed some weird complex with Takeo, which I, stupidly, didn’t anticipate.”

The same vindication crept into his voice, but this time it seemed aimed at himself more than anything.

“He would always bitch about Takeo confronting him about whatever when it came to the band. I knew he wouldn’t risk telling him what he really wanted to say because as leader it would make him look bad. So little by little, he got me to be an asshole for him. I don’t even know how it happened. I can’t remember if he convinced me Takeo was a jerk or what, but pretty soon I was being a catty bitch towards him, and Kirito loved every second of it. That’s when he started fooling around with me at practice. If Takeo and I would really get into it, it’s like he got a hard-on the same time. By that time, I couldn’t refuse him. Logic told me he wouldn’t, but my instinct told me he’d find some excuse to beat the shit out of me during practice.”

I knew it, my brain yelled, I knew it! I had been right to pin Kirito as the reason Aiji’s behavior had changed so drastically at practice, but how was I supposed to imagine that? That my brother was bullying his lover into lashing out for him? It was so ridiculous, so childish, that it didn’t even seem real. Was Kirito really that low? I started to think about what he had said about Takeo that night, calling him ugly, but Aiji’s voice brought my attention back to him.

“Then with the last album, he got even more obscene with what he wanted….When you two fought, he knew you wouldn’t talk to him, but he still had to know how you were doing, so he sent me here in his stead. I’m not sure if he wanted that kiss to happen, but I know he expected you to resent him and to feel sorry for me…”

…..What?

“He planned all of it, right down to your reaction…He probably took my situation into consideration as well…..In the beginning he hated the thought of me spending any time with you. I guess since he found me so attractive he was afraid you would too….But now he’s counting on it. He’s counting on you to love me and hate him, so that eventually….”

I suddenly realized how my brother had a talent for manipulating anything in his path. I took back the question of him being that low. I knew it for sure. He may not have been beating me, but he’d been shoving me around mentally long enough so that I too, did his bidding without question. I swear, I was so completely infuriated that my falling in love with a man had all been some wicked plot courtesy of my older brother that I didn’t hear what Aiji said next.

“…..eventually you’ll come to love him too.”

He almost mouths the words, his voice becomes so quiet. Meanwhile, I was debating confessing my love to Aiji in spite of what he was intimidated into doing, ask him to move in with me, and renounce my brother until he got help. I was sure something could be done to help him – it was the 20th century and there had to be some technology that could turn him back into his old self. Sure it may take some force on our part, but the two of us could help him, and I would help Aiji in the process. It obviously wasn’t healthy for them to be together, and even though I had no idea what repercussions living with a man would entail, I had to do something for Aiji. He probably felt obligated to be with my brother, but once I showed him that wasn’t the case, we could be happy together for some time at least.

I place my hand over his own, squeezing it lightly to signal my support.

“You should stay here tonight Aiji – you can’t go back to my brother. In the morning, I’ll go over to see him and talk to him, and I’m sure---”

“Kohta, did you hear me?” he interjects, his expression distraught. “It’s not just that he’s beating me or his paranoia for the world that’s made him sick. Your brother’s fallen in love with you.”

My lips were pursed, and I remember the blood draining from my head so fast I felt a wave of dizziness pass over me. My fingers began sinking into the thin skin of the back of Aiji’s hand. If I had acted irrational and hysterical about Kirito’s little S&M game I was dragged into, or if I ever felt horror at all the lies and my own inability to distance myself from Aiji, it paled in comparison to the intense numbness those words brought. Maybe I had run out of emotion by then. Anything exciting could cease to arouse a response if you did it long enough. I mean, what was this? My brother’s insane, he’s a habitual liar, he’s an abusive partner, and he loves me? I was barely able to accept one of those facts, let alone all of them. There was no way that could be. No possible way. If there was a god, things like that couldn’t happen. In this bizarre branch of reality, I could come to love a man because he needed me to love him. But there was no way my brother, the man who I’d idolized for years, who was always so perfect in front of me, could love me. Blood relatives simple didn’t fall in love with one another. That wasn’t reality. That wasn’t even fantasy. It just wasn’t.

All of my interactions with Kirito suddenly flashed through my mind. His touches. His hugs. His laugh. His words. Him sleeping beside me. Touching me. He was always touching me. Always holding me for longer than he needed to. Always complimenting me in inappropriate ways. Always slandering my girlfriends. My friends. Always attacking everyone around me. No one was good enough. No one was good enough.

But him.

I stand up, knocking the cups over and rattling dishes on the table.

“You’re lying,” I say without heat, not even looking at Aiji. I remember saying that and just staring at the wall.

I’m glad I didn’t, because the wounded echo to his voice was probably much worse on his face.

“You think I want to believe Kirito loves his own brother more than me? You think I fucking want to see him adore someone who doesn’t have to go to sleep each night bleeding from another wound?”

I rarely ever heard him swear. I look down and see his eyes are wet again, but I think, much like myself, he’s run out of emotions to display. It had only taken me months, but he’d had years to wear himself out. My eyes narrow and I keep standing, wanting to run and hit something, or be hit, or have anything jar me out of the place my mind had retreated.

“He’s obsessed with you Kohta….It took me a long time to figure it out, but when I look over all of his behavior I think I understand. It’s obvious your brother has an unhealthy obsession with control; far beyond anything I’ve ever seen or heard about. And it seems, as time goes on, to him he’s losing more and more control of his life due to fame. I can tell he’s paranoid. He picks up magazines we’re in, and instead of smiling, you’d think they were slandering his name or something. Nothing management ever does is right. Nothing the band ever does is right unless he wanted it to be that way. Takeo is an asshole because he doesn’t agree with him all the time. Even I, who lick his damn boots, can’t do anything right. But you, you’re another story. He never has anything bad to say about you. You never do anything wrong. He adores you.”

My eyes shut tight and my fingers curl into fists. I wanted to punch Aiji to make him stop, but I couldn’t move. If I reacted, it would all solidify into reality. If I didn’t, I could claim I dreamt it all.

“All I can figure is that you remind him of his youth, when things were different. Even then, I can’t call him Shinya anymore, and I notice you don’t either. You’re the only reminder he allows himself to have, and whatever love he has for you has manifested into something more perverse as he perceives the world to be turning against him….”

He was talking about it all like we were a science project, or the theory behind a failed lab experiment. Detached and unaffected. Of course, I was in shock, so I wasn’t considering what it was like to know day after day that your soul mate lusted after something you could never, ever be. I wonder now how much it hurt him to have to offer his body to me knowing it was helping my brother sink his claws into another man. Not even just a passing fancy, but his own goddamn brother. Or how he was able to endure even looking at me day after day when Kirito was kicking him while singing my praises.

“You have to help me Kohta. I never decided to stay with him for myself. I know he has problems, and I know he probably would kill me at this stage if he thought I was turning on him too. I stay because no one else will help him. If I’m not there, he’ll eat himself alive. And I love him too much to let himself do that….”

Somewhere amongst his pleading he has stood up beside me, his arms wrapped tightly around my thin body.

“Come stay with us. I know he thinks once you’ve fallen for me you’ll be more open to accept his feelings. I know it has to be the most disturbing thing in the world for you, but I’m begging you, come stay with us no matter how you love him. He needs you to be there or I’m afraid to think what he’ll do to me or himself. He wants to be able to see you happy Kohta, even if it’s his lover making you that way….That’s how gone he is. If we don’t help him, nobody will. Please, I know you care for him a lot. I know you look up to him. I know he’s taken care of you all these years….Please, if I have to bear this burden alone for any longer, I’ll die Kohta. Please, even if you don’t think he deserves it, please help me…..”

His voice becomes choked, and I feel his weight sagging against me. His words soon bled into unintelligible pleas as he began sliding to the floor, fingers clutching onto my arms. Finally I snapped out of nothingness and caught him before he fell, lowering myself carefully back down on the tatami. Again and again his fingers clawed at me, clutching at my shoulders as he began to sob against my chest. Our limbs entangled, I held him, murmuring that it would be okay, even though I couldn’t believe that myself. I’d been ready to tell him we could find my brother help, but I knew Aiji was right now. If anything could reach him it would be me, and that thought scared me shitless.

“I’ll come. I won’t let him hurt you anymore,” I whisper fiercely into his hair. “Whatever’s going on will stop. I’ll do whatever I have to. I swear to you.”

He buries his face in the crook of my neck and I instinctively stroke the back of his hair in attempts to comfort him. I forced myself to shove everything into the back of my mind except for Aiji’s welfare. If I had concentrated on anything else I, too, would have fallen apart.

“The sad thing is,” he murmurs, a few fingers reaching up to caress my cheek, “he used to be so much like you. He used to be so sweet, so caring…Now the only kind words I ever hear come from you. My own band can’t even look at me without disgust.”

His slim fingers curl into a ball.

“What has he done to me…oh god Kohta, please don’t leave me….”

I move his hair out of his face, tucking the wet strands behind his ears. I kiss his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks – anything I can find. Anything I can heal. I never felt moreguilty in my life than having to witness someone who trusted me crumble in my very arms.

“…..I need you so much….”

My mouth closed over his, almost eating his words. Bringing them inside of me and making them my own. Aiji had been crushed by my brother, yet he still managed to stand somehow. I’d never done anything, even though the weight was slowly pressing me into the ground, and was only going to get worse. Confronting him, I was sure, would help us both become respectable, whole people again. I would protect Aiji, because he needed me. He depended on me, just like my brother depended on me to save him from whatever madness he’d delved into.

I had been so concerned with playing the hero that I failed to take into account that I wouldn’t be able to protect myself.

~*~