anyway this morning I woke up thinking about the Puzzle Pieced AU
specifically, Osomatsu being sick for the first time after coming to live with Matsuyo and Matsuzo
and probably for the first time after reuniting with his brothers, they don’t all live with the Matsunos but most of them visit often
and having had Tougou for a dad all these years, Osomatsu literally has never been taken care of while sick a day in his life, he doesn’t know how to go about being sick ‘normally’
he’s used to having to steal cold medicine and not being able to rest and being told not to be gross, pushing through feeling like crap to pull off a robbery
or worst of all, being left in an alleyway for a couple of days if he’s slowing Tougou down, crouching near trash cans all by himself, with only a bottle of stolen medicine for nutrition, still smoking a few cigarettes a day in a vain effort to make himself feel better as he waits for his dad to come back
Tougou might have faked it enough while Osomatsu was a kid (though even then it was the bare minimum), but ever since he’s become an adult, he’s been expected to just deal with it and not let a little cold get in the way of ‘working’
so he’s totally shocked when he’s awoken after a nap on the couch, shaken awake by Matsuyo saying she made some tea and wants him to drink it because it’ll make him feel better, she strokes his hair while he drinks, cooing that she’ll take care of him
or when Choromatsu comes in and slips a thermometer between his lips, murmuring anxiously about how he hopes Osomatsu’s fever isn’t too high, when Osomatsu’s never really had his temperature taken before and he doesn’t really know what constitutes ‘too high’
or when Karamatsu comes in, measuring out a dose of cough syrup and helping Osomatsu swallow it, offering to get a glass of water to wash out the taste, when Osomatsu is used to drinking straight from the bottle and eyeballing how much seems like enough and dealing with the taste
or when Totty comes in to tuck a blanket around him, commenting in shock that he’s shaking like a leaf and even going so far as to cuddle up with him, when Osomatsu has always just had to huddle into his jacket in an alley, shivering alone as it gets later and darker and colder
or when Jyushimatsu comes in with a new box of tissues and nudges them at Osomatsu because he noticed the first box was empty, and these are the really soft kind, when Osomatsu is used to wiping his nose on his sleeve or blowing his nose with scratchy toilet paper in konbini bathrooms
or when Ichimatsu sits next to the couch with a bowl of water and a cloth, gently wiping Osomatsu’s face in an attempt to keep his fever down, mumbling that Osomatsu should really take better care of himself, when Osomatsu usually just drinks a beer to try and get a fever to go away
or when he’s slipped outside to have a cigarette, and Matsuzo joins him, laughing softly about how Osomatsu really shouldn’t be smoking while he’s sick, but he understands, so they finish their cigarettes together before Matsuzo helps him back into the house to rest
and he doesn’t even know what to make of all this, he's never really had anyone take care of him like they’re all doing, he tries so hard not to break down but the fever is making him emotional and this is all so new and even though it’s different it’s nice and he doesn’t even know how to feel about it except that he doesn’t want it to stop, and even not wanting it to stop is a weird feeling
he doesn’t know, is this how it’s supposed to be? is he supposed to slow down and let people take care of him instead of struggling to take care of himself? to be okay with feeling sick and weak instead of feeling like he’s dead weight and trying to push himself?
he’s not alone anymore... it might take him a while to get used to this stuff. but whenever one of his parents or his brothers are close, trying to take care of him in some way... he can’t help but cling to them a little.
he’s kind of afraid this whole thing might be a fever dream and he’ll wake up in some alleyway, feverish and congested and tired and all alone. for some reason, he really, really hates that idea.
Matsuno Matsuyo and Matsuno Matsuzo haven’t seen their sons in over twenty years.
Of course, anyone who doesn’t live in the small town of Akatsuka Ward in Japan doesn’t concern themselves with the crimes that happen there. Not unless those things spill over into their neck of the woods. Everyone’s lives are just too chaotic and busy to pay a whole lot of mind to anything that doesn’t happen in their neighborhood.
It’s especially true for things that have happened so long ago. Who’s still out there looking for six children who went missing more than two decades ago, other than their parents? Even then… so much time has passed, they’ve almost certainly lost hope. Despite going on with their lives, they’ve buried the pain and tried like hell to make peace with the fact that they’ll never see their sons again.
There’s no making peace with it, though. The Matsuno sextuplets had only just turned five when they were kidnapped from the house. It happened during the night; they vanished along with the housemate their parents had taken in, a seemingly friendly man named Tougou. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had occurred that night, but by the time Matsuyo and Matsuzo discovered the boys and their lodger gone in the morning, the trail was cold. Everyone in the town was asleep when he spirited them away; nobody saw him, or his car, or the sextuplets.
Each year that passed made the pain dig that much deeper. The boys’ birthday came and went. Matsuyo and Matsuzo haven’t touched their sons’ bedroom aside from making sure it stays clean, just barely, because neither of them can stand being in there for more than five minutes, looking at that futon where they all slept together.
Some of the hurt heals. It’s more like scar tissue than anything else, something that’s formed to protect the worst of the pain. It still hurts when it’s bumped or jostled, or when it rains, or when they think about it too hard. They have each other, and they try to care for one another. Even though it’s difficult, it’s painful, all they can do is move forward so they don’t drown.
They’ve survived, at least. They can’t say for certain the same about their sons.
This year, May 24th will pass just as it always does, another birthday where the two quietly share a drink as they reminisce on memories of the children they lost so long ago. The good parts, they talk about, and there were plenty of those despite the boys only being five when they were taken. It keeps them going.
The day will come and go just like every other year.
The next month, however, won’t be so predictable.
-
When Inoue Choromatsu wakes up on his birthday, it’s from another dream that felt too real.
He’s been having those a lot recently. Dreams where the clock has been turned back and he’s a child again, except he’s in the company of other children who look almost exactly like him. In those dreams, he knows those children are his best friends. Some of them call him nii-san. Some of them, he calls nii-san.
Goodness, he always thinks with a smile after one of those dreams, I couldn’t even imagine six of me. Isn’t one enough??
Sometimes he wakes up with tears on his cheeks, having been crying in his sleep, because he was crying in the dream. He hardly remembers those… just that he was crying in the dream because he was suddenly yanked away from those other same-faced little boys. There’s no detail other than anguish.
He thinks his parents are already at work, so he gets up to take care of himself as usual. Both his mother and father work at the local hospital, his mother a surgeon and his father a pathologist, so they’re almost always gone by the time he wakes up around 9 A.M. He shakes the sleep off, brushes his teeth, washes his face, gets dressed, and then heads downstairs to heat up breakfast.
It’s the same routine as always. After he eats, he’ll probably do some reading or go hang out with one of his friends. There’s not much else for him to do during the day, unfortunately.
(He wishes he had more than a 2-year degree in general studies from the local university. It was hard enough to get through that, and every job he’s applied for has basically told him that degree qualifies him for exactly nothing. He had one or two jobs here and there, but even on medication, his anxiety has ensured that anything customer-facing will drive him to madness. At least his parents understand and want him to put his mental health before a job.)
Today, as he plods into the kitchen, he’s greeted by a kiss on the cheek. “Good morning, honey! Happy birthday.”
“Ah…! O-oh… Mom? Dad?” Choromatsu looks between both his parents for a moment, though he can’t stop the smile that forms. It always brightens his day to see his parents when he doesn’t expect to. “Morning… and, um, thanks. What’s going on? Why aren’t you guys at work?”
His mother returns the smile. Inoue Satomi is a somewhat reserved woman, with exception only to her family. Choromatsu learned at a young age that she’s probably where he gets his shyness ― at least, in the sense that he mirrors how she acts, because he’s known since he was a teenager that he’s adopted. “We both took the day off this year. We really wanted to spend it with you.”
“Here’s your present,” his father adds, sliding a box across the table. In contrast to his wife, Inoue Hiroto is an outgoing guy who’s not timid about supporting his son. Choromatsu’s grateful that whenever he was anxious about doing something he wanted to do, his father was there to give him a push into it. “Your mom made breakfast dessert, but you don’t get any till you open that.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Satomi laughs, nudging her husband. “You can have your dessert before the present if you want, Choromatsu. It’s your birthday and you can do things however you like.”
He chuckles at the scene before taking a seat and reaching for the box. “Oh, i-it’s okay, Mom. I’d rather open it first.”
So he tears off the wrapping paper, carefully so he doesn’t accidentally ruin whatever’s underneath it. Which, coincidentally, happens to be… “Oh… it’s one of those DNA kit things. W-wow… um…” He can feel his face flush a little. Even though he’s happy with his family, he has been thinking a lot about what his biological parents might be like. He’s just a little embarrassed it was so obvious.
He remembers telling his parents about it the other day, just mentioning it in passing. One of his friends who sells concert merch made a comment a week or two ago, that he swears up and down he saw a guy who looks exactly like Choromatsu playing guitar at a coffee shop in one of the nearby cities.
“I mean, he had the same haircut as you, same eyes, same face shape, everything, dude! It was freaky. Got me thinkin’, too, you know? Have you ever thought about that? Like… what if you had siblings or something? Did they get adopted too? Or did your parents keep ‘em?”
Choromatsu scoffed and changed the subject quickly, telling his friend to shut up because he was being a prick. The way he worded it still hasn’t left Choromatsu’s mind, though. After all… what if? What if he did have siblings before he was adopted?
His parents told him he was five when he came to live with them. He wasn’t a baby or even a toddler. How does someone just give up a child they know? He’s sure it would be easier with a baby or a very young kid, but… a five-year-old… a five-year-old has been alive long enough to have a personality, to have a bond with their caregivers, to be in school.
And what if he had siblings? Were they younger or older? Did they get put up for adoption just like he did? Or… were they kept with their biological parents?
That part bothers him more than anything else. That’s what he needs an answer to, more than any of those other things. If he had brothers or sisters, and they stayed with his biological parents, well… why didn’t he? What did he do wrong that he got given up? And if he has siblings out there, whether they’re with his biological parents or not, doesn’t he have a right to meet them?
He admits that he did tell his parents some of those thoughts. He didn’t realize those things were nagging at him so badly that it was obvious. After all, it’s not as if he isn’t happy with his life and doesn’t love his parents. Things are great.
It’s just… how he is, he supposes. That he needs to know things.
Satomi squeezes his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Listen, honey, we know it’s been on your mind a lot lately. If it’ll make you feel better to have some answers, to know who your birth parents are, then we want you to try and find those answers. You deserve to know.”
“It might even be kind of interesting, you know, like solving a mystery,” Hiroto grins. “I mean, it’s not like we even know anything about them. We didn’t really get any information other than your birthday and your first name when we adopted you. Could be nice to know more.”
Choromatsu’s eyes draw back to the kit, and he frowns a little. That seems… odd. No information on him at all? No surname, no medical documents? He was five, not a newborn. He had to have some vaccination records or a birth certificate that would show his original surname and maybe his parents’ names. Adoption agencies don’t just hand people a kid without any paperwork and go, “Welp, good luck”, do they?
He turns the box over in his hands, glancing at the back of it. GENESIS: Put together the pieces of your story, it proclaims. After a moment he reaches up to rub at his eyes, and leans over to hug his mother. “Thank you guys… i-it’s… it’s not that I’m… trying to replace you or anything or that I think… you’re not enough. I just… I just need to know. It’s so weird that we don’t have any information… I just feel like I have to know why. Why I was given up and… where I’m from… you know… i-if my birth parents… ever thought about me. If there’s… anyone else out there who’s… thinking about me.”
Hiroto reaches over to put a hand over his son’s, offering an encouraging rub. “It’s okay, Choro. We understand. Hopefully, if you can find your birth parents, they’ll be able to answer all your questions. And, I mean… if you do end up wanting some kind of relationship with them… it wouldn’t upset us.”
“That’s right,” Satomi hums, kissing her son’s cheek. “No matter what happens, all we really want is for you to be happy and do what’s best for you.” She ruffles his hair and gives his shoulder another squeeze. “Now, we’ll get that test done later. For now, let’s make this a great birthday. I can’t believe my baby is 26 years old!”
Hiroto gives his wife a cheeky grin. “How old does that make us, sweetheart? Too old, right?”
“Maybe you are too old. But I’ve always heard that women age like wine.”
“Oh, yeah? And what do men age like? Milk?”
“Ahahah… you said it, I didn’t.” Satomi gives a teasing grin to Hiroto before turning back to Choromatsu. “I hope you’re hungry, because your father’s right; I did make dessert for breakfast. How does Mont Blanc sound?”
With that, the DNA kit is set to the side, and his eyes light up. His mother usually gets him a box of kuri manju as the sweet part of his birthday… Mont Blanc is a step further than that. “Really?!”
“Of course! I think it turned out okay… I’ve only made it a few times. But it looks pretty good, so I hope you like it!”
“A-ah, wow, I’m sure it’s great, Mom! Am… I allowed to have a double helping?”
“Since it’s your birthday, you can have however much you want! Ah, well… as long as it’s not so much you give yourself a stomachache.”
“Haha… I guess that’s fair…”
He digs into the first bite eagerly, and as he continues to indulge in one of his favorite sweets, his mind turns to the thought of his biological parents again, for just a second.
He can’t help but wonder ― every year when his birthday rolls around, do his birth parents celebrate it?
For some reason, he kind of likes the idea that maybe they do.
-
It takes a week for the results of Choromatsu’s DNA test to come back. He’s always been prone to anxiety, so the wait is worse than anything. The what ifs float around in his mind, buzzing like agitated bees.
What if they don’t find a match? Do I want to keep searching through other sites and stuff? … What if they do find a match? I want to talk to anyone who comes back as a match, don’t I? I’m so freaked out… they put me up for adoption for a reason. Why would they ever want to see me again?
What if they find a match for siblings…? I definitely wanna meet them, right? If I have any brothers or sisters… gosh, what are they like? Do they even know about me? If they know about me… do they ever think about me?
It’s endless. He tries not to lose sleep over it, but it’s hard when his mind won’t shut up with all these thoughts running through it. He’s so close to knowing something, it’s exciting and scary all at the same time. Even though he’s been considering what will happen with every possible result, he doesn’t know if he’s really prepared.
Is anyone ever really prepared for that kind of thing? To meet parents who gave you up or siblings you didn’t know you had?
Part of him thinks it would be easier if the site didn’t give him any matches. That would be it, a dead end, a closed chapter. He wouldn’t have to go through a maelstrom of emotion or uproot other people’s lives or anything.
The other part of him knows that if this search came up with nothing, he’d be disappointed and depressed for months. Even though he’d get on with his life, he’d still feel this strange empty spot in his chest where that knowledge belongs. He’d find a little serenity in knowing that he’d tried, but not much.
If the test comes back with any matches, talking to them is going to be emotional. Even though that’s true, he thinks it will be worth it. He might finally learn the truth about what happened in the first five years of his life and why it all changed.
When he opens the email with the link to his results on the Genesis site, he’s shocked by what’s waiting for him.
There are two people classified as ‘close family matches’: a woman named Matsuno Matsuyo who was identified as his biological mother, and a man named Matsuno Matsuzo who was identified as his biological father. There are links to their profiles, ways to contact them if he wants to, either through the site’s messenger or their listed phone numbers.
It’s overwhelming to see that he was actually able to be matched with not one, but two people. The world feels surreal as he processes that he has other family, that they were actually found. They’re both on this site too, which suggests that… they might have been looking for him.
He doesn’t know how to think about that. If they placed him up for adoption, why would they be looking for him? Were they looking for someone else, or did they take this test out of curiosity toward their genetic makeup and this was just an accident that he found them?
The next week is spent in a dizzying haze, talking to his parents and trying to figure out what to do. Even if he got a match, he didn’t actually expect to find both his biological parents. He didn’t think they would really be on a genealogy site where they might be found.
Satomi and Hiroto are both supportive, doing their best to help him unravel all these emotions. Satomi’s insightful contribution is that perhaps his birth parents regretted giving him up, that they have been looking for him because they want a relationship with him. Choromatsu’s desperate for answers about that, because why would they even put him up for adoption in the first place if they felt so badly about doing it?
And he doesn’t know at first if he should contact these people. They’re living their lives out there, and his finding them might disturb whatever peace they have. Thankfully, just like always, Hiroto is there to give him a gentle nudge over the cliff of anxiety, a lifeline tied to him while making sure he actually steps over the edge because he does want this.
The fact is that he does. It’s going to make him feel less restless, more confident and sure of himself, to get some answers, even if it’s terrifying to reach out.
All the same, even though he wants it, opening up a direct message to Matsuno Matsuyo feels like pulling the trigger in a game of Russian roulette.
He doesn’t know what’s going to come firing out.
He just prays to God it isn’t a bullet.
-
In Akatsuka Ward, May 24th comes and goes for the Matsunos as always.
Matsuyo and Matsuzo have a drink together. They hold hands as if trying to keep each other afloat, and they look at the photos they have of their children. They talk quietly about what their sons might be like now, as adults.
It’s hard to imagine when all the memories they have are of babies and toddlers and preschoolers. Time froze for the sextuplets as far as their parents are concerned; they never grew up from these pictures of little boys.
The day passes. If their children are alive at all, they would be twenty-six this year.
The birthday fades as always, the pain lingering as a dull ache pounding away in the background.
But then, on June 5th, Matsuyo gets an email from a DNA testing website she signed up for a while ago. There hasn’t been any news for her or Matsuzo from that site in years, so long that she has to go through the rigmarole of resetting her password, because she’s forgotten it.
She assumes it might be another lead that ends up going nowhere, or a distant cousin contacting her. As much as she’s glad she has other family, opening up a message only to discover that it’s nothing to do with finding her children gives her the same feeling she had when she looks at that empty futon in their bedroom.
The subject line of the message catches her attention, though. It makes her heart leap into her throat. She has to open it and see the full thing.
As soon as she’s finished reading it (and reread it, and reread it again, and again, and again), she’s dialing the phone with shaking fingers to call Matsuzo at his office.
FROM: Nyaafan24
SUBJECT: Close family match
Hello, Matsuno-san. I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Inoue Choromatsu. I recently took a DNA test and submitted my results to this website in hopes of connecting with my birth parents and/or any biological siblings I might have.
Almost a week ago, my results gave me two close family matches; one of them is you.
I… think I might be your son.
If you’re willing to speak, please message me back at your earliest convenience. If not, that’s okay too.
If I don’t hear back from you in a month or so, I’ll assume you aren’t interested. In that case, I wish you all the best, and thank you for bringing me into the world.
Sincerely,
Inoue Choromatsu
-
Somewhere in an alleyway in one of Akatsuka Ward’s surrounding cities, a lighter clicks its flame to life.
It’s an evening ritual for Nise Osomatsu. A cigarette and a bottle of cheap beer, two of the greatest worldly pleasures, burned up and drained down as he waits for his father Tougou to meet back up with him.
He pulls out the cash he managed to swipe from the latest unsuspecting passerby who was unlucky enough to cross paths with him. It’s counted leisurely as his cigarette turns to ash, and it’s not much, but it’s enough to buy a quick meal from one of the local konbinis. A couple sandwiches, maybe a cup of coffee or two.
The thought of food makes his stomach twist in starving nausea. It feels like tissue paper crinkling around his insides. Gulping down the last of his beer quells the sensation, though it rarely ever goes away completely.
Sometimes he wonders if it’s really anything to do with food. Even after he’s eaten, most of the time he feels as empty as ever. He tries not to think about it.
Just as he finishes his cigarette, puffing out one final cloud of smoke that still makes him cough a bit, the sound of a vehicle being thrown into park makes him perk up. It’s the same one he’s spent his whole life riding in, with his father at the wheel. Looking impatient as always, even with that car salesman smile of his.
“Hey, Pops.” Osomatsu gets to his feet, crushing the remnants of the cigarette under his boot heel. He sidles up to the passenger door and swings himself into the seat with practiced ease. “I got some cash for dinner. So, what’s up? We doing any shit tonight?”
Tougou scoffs, despite his smile staying in place. “Pace yourself, Osomatsu. I’ve got plenty planned for the rest of the evening. It’s going to be fun.”
Osomatsu tilts his head as he buckles in. “Fun, huh?”
“That’s right.” The car begins to move, just at the right rate of speed to avoid being noticed. Not very fast, not too slow. “How does pachinko sound?”
Pachinko?? “Aw, you’re kidding me!” A genuine grin spreads across Osomatsu’s face. He can’t remember the last time he got to play pachinko. “That sounds lit, Pops! Hey, I bet I can turn this ¥1000 into ¥100,000! I mean, I haven’t played in a while, but I think I’m still super lucky!”
Tougou chuckles, making a perfect turn down the road where the nearest parlor is.
“You’re onto something, champ. I have a feeling we’re going to hit it big tonight.”
From @whumpmatsus, the girl who has brought you many favorite painful hits such as fics like “guardian.”, “pangs.”, and “no matter what.”, comes something entirely new...
What is it?? An Osomatsu-san AU, full of only the most artfully crafted whump, angst, fluff, complicated family dynamics, and intrigue!
To dive into the details (and possibly cry a lot), read below the cut!
In the small town of Akatsuka Ward, there once lived six identical brothers... the Matsuno sextuplets, who had just turned five years old at the beginning of our story. Shortly after their birthday, their hardworking parents, Matsuyo and Matsuzo, took in a lodger by the name of Tougou. A career criminal who managed to hide his villainous ways, he was already on the run and looking for a new way to make some quick cash to stay one step ahead of the law.
He was only in the Matsuno household for a week before being found out by the oldest, Osomatsu, and a terrifying downhill slide began. In the middle of the night Tougou stole away into the dark with all six children in tow, forcing Osomatsu to convince his younger brothers to get into Tougou’s car.
They drove for hours, too far out of Akatsuka Ward to be found by the time Matusyo and Matsuzo woke to find their sons missing. Leaving so quietly at night assured that the law wouldn’t catch up, and Tougou’s plan came to fruition easily: all five younger brothers were sold into false adoptions, to families who couldn’t have children and would pay desperately for one to call their own. The only exception? Osomatsu, who stayed with Tougou to be raised in a life of crime.
With fake papers and everything ‘perfectly’ lined up, the sextuplets’ biological parents would hear nothing from them for over twenty years. And having been so young, the brothers’ memories were slowly etched over, shoved into dreams and vague feelings, and soon none of them had any recollection of a life other than being an only child.
The six of them grew up into NEETs all the same, despite happy childhoods with the families that raised them, with the exception of Osomatsu. Karamatsu grew up creative and kind in a family of accomplished musicians, an American couple who’d moved to Japan after already having lost a child. Choromatsu grew up smart and passionate with two MDs as parents, smothering their new child with love after an accident left them unable to get pregnant. Ichimatsu grew up sensitive and unique with a family who ran a pet shelter, surrounding him with the joy they’d already found with their cats after being unable to conceive for several years. Jyushimatsu grew up energetic and friendly with athletes for parents, living in the countryside with plenty of room now that they were finally ready for a family. Totty grew up outgoing and confident with two mothers, encouraging him in everything he wanted to do because he was their little miracle boy.
The odd one out was Osomatsu, who never felt love from his supposed father Tougou, and who was instead groomed into a thief who was never really happy with himself, always feeling something was missing... but not remembering or understanding enough to know what.
Over twenty years later, after a passing comment from one of his friends in the vein of, “You know, I saw someone who looked just like you performing at the coffee shop the other day!”, Choromatsu became curious about his biological parents. His adoptive parents decided to gift him with a DNA test from an ancestry website for his birthday, and after an anxious week of waiting, he found two close family matches: a mother, Matsuno Matsuyo, and a father, Matsuno Matsuzo.
Even more shocking was that when he reached out to them, they told him he had five identical brothers and that he and his brothers had been kidnapped twenty years ago.
So the search began, and in a few months, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. Choromatsu’s work with police and private investigators from the DNA website revealed one of his other brothers, a man named Osomatsu whose father had recently been arrested.
With nowhere else to turn in terms of family, Osomatsu begrudgingly met with Choromatsu. Before long, they were able to track down the remaining sextuplets.
Although it’s shaken up each and every one of their families, including Matsuyo and Matsuzo, and although they barely know each other... they’re brothers. They’re six of a kind, they never should have been separated, and they all feel drawn to each other.
It’s just... where are they supposed to go from here?
The train ride home is the hardest part of Choromatsu’s visit to the Matsunos’.
Not because he’s disappointed to be going home (he’s actually relieved to go lie down and decompress), but because on the way back, he has so much to think about. It’s difficult to make sense of everything he was told. He was hit with a lot of information all at once, heavy information.
Even though they were answers he wanted, none of them were anything he expected. The stuff Matsuyo and Matsuzo told him was all so far out of left field, none of it was anything he’d actually considered.
Seriously, how could he have anticipated any of that? A kidnapping, five brothers, people looking for him? It’s like something out of a weird slice-of-life anime or a crazy spin-off of said weird slice-of-life anime. Nobody who didn’t already know about this story would have predicted that was the tale behind his birth parents and his first family.
Half an hour on a train surrounded by strangers is plenty of time for his head to keep spinning.
How were they all in the dark about where he came from? Six abducted, identical children would have made national news, wouldn’t it? At the very least, local news. It would have been a big story in Akatsuka Ward; what about in Denkino District where Choromatsu and his parents live? Would it have made the news that far away?
… What if it did? Satomi and Hiroto may have missed that broadcast, or they might have seen it. What if they did see it? There might have been pictures, of child Choromatsu and those other little boys. Even if there weren’t… well, shit… if the story itself reached their city, and they saw it… they were aware.
He was five when he was kidnapped, and they would have known that the sextuplets from Akatsuka were five. The timing would have been suspicious. His parents are both intelligent people, so why would they have adopted him knowing how sketchy it all was?
Why would they have accepted adopting him without a birth certificate, without medical records and documentation? Did they do any paperwork? Did it even cross their minds how incredibly shady it was?
Did they know? Is that a possibility ― that his parents knew he’d been kidnapped, and adopted him knowing that all the proper procedures hadn’t been followed, knowing that he’d been taken from someone else?
He doesn’t even know what to think about that. It makes his blood run cold to consider that they knew what had happened and they didn’t care. That would have been just as bad as kidnapping him themselves.
… Did they know? he can’t stop himself from thinking, over and over. They’ve told me they were trying to adopt for a couple months before they got me. Shouldn’t they have understood how it works? They knew that they were supposed to get my records and birth certificate and everything else, right?
It’s so complicated, because with all the research he’s done into how adoption works here in Japan, things get more and more confusing. If his parents knew how it was supposed to be done, they would have expected some contact from Choromatsu’s biological family. That’s usually how it happens.
Shouldn’t they have been baffled and on alert when there wasn’t any? How did so many red flags just get ignored?
Maybe because he’s gotten along fine without any of the stuff his parents should have gotten when he was adopted? He was young enough that they didn’t have to register him as adopted, he’s always been Inoue Choromatsu, they could produce their own documentation and everything he needed after they adopted him.
It’s just out of consideration for him and his feelings that they even told him he was adopted. They could have foregone that, because legally, there’s no reason for anyone to know he’s not their biological child, even him.
Did they know? Maybe they didn’t… but… they should have. They’re both so smart. How could they have just missed all this?
His parents have always treated him so well. They love him and try to do what’s best for him and they take care of him even though he’s an adult now. If they knew they’d adopted someone who was taken from a loving family, the guilt probably would have eaten them alive, because they’re good people. If they knew, then how could they go about it all, doing things like spending the day in the park as a family or stroking his hair when he’s sick or telling him they love him?
They should have known… but… he doesn’t think they did.
That doesn’t make it easier to swallow. It does mean, though, that he’s having trouble being angry with them. If they didn’t know, if they were manipulated, then how is he supposed to be mad at them? All they’ve ever done is love him.
God, he’s starting to get a headache. Maybe he should stop at the konbini on the way home, get some painkillers and a drink.
Even though he can’t stop thinking, thinking, it’s all so much… he looks down at the photo in his hand. All the children in this picture look so happy, holding onto each other, smiling and laughing.
His fingers brush over the image of himself again, that little boy in the green shirt hugging around his older brother’s neck. Tucking himself in against Osomatsu, and being held tightly, being protected.
He showed up in my dreams. He always has, just like the others. All those dreams… are they really dreams? Or are they memories?
We were all best friends…
Shouldn’t it have stayed like that?
-
When Choromatsu gets home, he thinks it’s maybe a good thing that neither of his parents are here right now. They’re both at work, they won’t be home until later, so he has some time to himself.
The first thing he does is grab a glass of water and down some Calonal for his headache. With any luck, it’ll only take twenty minutes or so to kick in.
The second thing he does is open his laptop, log into Genesis, and put in a request to speak to one of the site’s investigators. He doesn’t expect them to message back within five minutes, saying that someone is available to speak to him, asking if he’d prefer to be contacted through the site messenger or through the phone number listed on his account.
As soon as he chooses his preference, the site messenger dings with a new notification.
FROM: Sakamoto_Kanna
SUBJECT: New investigation
Good afternoon, Inoue Choromatsu! My name is Sakamoto Kanna, and I’m one of the genetic investigators for Genesis. I’d love to see if I can help you.
Are you available to talk now?
-
Things don’t go very smoothly after Choromatsu’s parents get home, but honestly, they could have gone much worse.
Both Satomi and Hiroto are floored by everything. The fact that he was kidnapped, the fact that they basically adopted him illegally, the fact that he has five brothers… it’s all a shock to them. At the very least, Choromatsu feels a little more secure in that they almost certainly didn’t suspect anything that had happened. It’s hard to fake the kind of surprise he sees in their faces.
Neither of them even know what to say, and Choromatsu doesn’t fare much better. As soon as he feels his anxiety rising, up, up, up, bubbling over so his face is burning and he feels nauseous and he can’t stop shaking, he can’t keep himself from getting worked up. He starts to cry, and he knows he says things he doesn’t really mean to.
Although he’s not necessarily angry with his parents, he’s upset by the whole situation. Now that he has the truth, it’s not a pleasant one, and it’s not pleasant for different reasons than he anticipated. In many ways, knowing that Matsuyo and Matsuzo never wanted to give him up takes so much weight off his shoulders, weight that he’s been feeling for years.
In other ways, it hurts more, because despite loving his parents, he almost feels as if he’s selfish for still loving them. It wasn’t really their fault he was taken away, but he had another family, parents who were in pain for over twenty years because he and his brothers were taken from them.
He feels massively guilty for his frustrated comment of, “You shouldn’t even have me,” before running to his room to cry. They love him and he loves them and that came out wrong.
Though it might be factually accurate that, objectively, he shouldn’t have been kidnapped from his birth parents and given to another family, because tragedies like that shouldn’t happen, it’s not something he meant the way it sounded. Of course they deserve to have had a child in their lives, and he’s happy he is that child.
Everything is just so horribly, horribly turned upside-down right now. He doesn’t know what he thinks or feels.
Before he closes his bedroom door, he hears his mother say, in that mortified voice of hers that always tugs at his heart, “Oh, my God. Did… did we really steal someone’s baby?” That doesn’t make him feel any better.
He’s not sure how long he lies on his futon, his throat starting to hurt because he’s been crying so much. It’s not like anyone can blame him for being emotional, right? A lot of info got dropped on him like a brick wall, his thoughts and feelings are all jumbled up, and he just said some terrible things to his parents when none of this is their fault. They didn’t do anything wrong, all they’ve done is care for him, and he’s so out of order over this whole situation, he lashed out at them. He hasn’t done that kind of thing since he was a teenager; even then, it was rare.
Finally, though, he hears a knock on his door. “Hey, Choro.”
He unwinds his body a bit, spreading out on the futon. “Come in.”
“… Hey, hon.” Hiroto’s voice is soft as he steps into the room, and although Choromatsu isn’t focusing on anything in particular, he notices that his father sets his laptop down next to him on the futon. Then he sits down himself, reaching to run a hand through Choromatsu’s hair. “I’m… I’m really sorry about everything that happened out there. This is stressful, and we get it.”
Choromatsu sniffles and rubs at his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Dad… I-I didn’t… I didn’t mean it the way it came out. That was shitty of me to say.”
Hiroto shakes his head. “No, no, it wasn’t shitty. We understand. Nobody’s perfect, and people say things they don’t mean when they’re upset. Apology accepted, but don’t beat yourself up, okay?”
“I’m still sorry… I-I love you guys a lot. It’s just…” He sighs. “What the hell is going on? You and Mom are smart… how didn’t you realize…?”
Hiroto mirrors the sigh, brushing his hair back. “Yeah… I guess we didn’t act very smart back then, huh? And we just haven’t been thinking about it much after we got you settled. But, it’s like I said… people make mistakes when they’re stressed and upset. You remember your mom was in that accident, right?”
“Yeah… the car accident,” Choromatsu says. Although he doesn’t really know what happened, because he wasn’t around then and neither of his parents like to talk about it, he does remember they cited it as the reason they couldn’t have biological children. “She got hurt so bad she needed an emergency operation, and they ended up having to remove her uterus. I remember you told me about that when I was in, like, tenth grade… when I asked…”
“Why we couldn’t have children on our own. Yeah. Well, that happened like a year before we adopted you…” Hiroto shrugs. “All I can say is that both of us were still… grieving the fact that we couldn’t get pregnant, especially being so young. We were trying so hard for adoption, and… kept running into problems. When it finally happened, I guess we were so desperate… we just weren’t thinking about anything that didn’t seem quite right. And you’re not wrong; we should have noticed it. Like I said… nobody’s perfect. There’s no excuse for it, but… I can’t tell you why we made that particular mistake.”
Choromatsu takes a deep breath, and at last he pushes himself up so he can slump into his father’s arms for a hug. He’s grateful that, just like always, Hiroto is there, immediately giving him what he needs. “W-will you tell Mom I’m sorry? I… I heard her say…”
“Ah, yeah.” Hiroto rubs his son’s back briefly before pulling away. “We’re just a little shaken up by the truth, same as you are. As much as we wanted you, we never would have wanted to take you from a family that loved you. But don’t worry… we’re out there talking among ourselves, okay? I’ll let her know.”
He gestures toward Choromatsu’s laptop. “Dinner’s almost ready, so, if you wanna wash up and be down in a couple minutes. But I… get it if you wanna be alone for a little bit. If you’re not down before we’re done, we’ll put a plate away for you. In the meantime, though, we noticed you got a new message on the site.”
“Oh… oh, yeah…” He shifts his computer into his lap, and glances at the site messenger. He’s been talking off and on to Sakamoto-san for the last few hours, giving her information that she’ll need for the search. He hasn’t heard from her since a bit before his parents got home, an hour… maybe two?
Surely she can’t have found anything that quickly, on the same day that she began searching. Still, he should look at the message to see if she needs some information.
“I’ll be down in a little bit,” he mumbles, reaching for a tissue so he can dry his face off. “I-I guess I should try to eat. And I wanna apologize to Mom myself, too. I’m really sorry again, Dad, I just… I-I dunno.”
Hiroto hums as he gets up, giving a brief ruffle to Choromatsu’s hair. “You’re already forgiven, hon. Deep breaths, and focus on something else. Take as long as you need to come down, okay?”
“Okay… thanks… I-I love you guys.”
“Love you too, kiddo. See you soon.”
With that, Hiroto gives Choromatsu a kiss on the head, then quietly slips out of the room.
Rubbing at his eyes, Choromatsu manages to open up the new message. He feels so drained from everything, but he’s shocked into alertness when he reads what Sakamoto-san has sent him.
FROM: Sakamoto_Kanna
SUBJECT: Close family match
Hello again, Inoue-san! Apologies if this comes as a surprise to you, but I was able to find another close family match for you.
I do want to let you know that it’s not the norm to find a new match so quickly, but this is a unique case. As a Genesis investigator, I have access to more databases of DNA results than this site hosts, and I myself was a bit stunned to find something so fast.
As you probably know, Genesis’ database of DNA results is limited to only those who have submitted their DNA to our site. Anyone who hasn’t, for whatever reason, isn’t going to show up. However, one of my first searches was within the Denkino District prison system, because that’s one of the databases I have relatively unrestricted access to.
My search within that system identified a sibling match for you. The match is a man by the name of Nise Osomatsu, who was arrested a few weeks ago. Upon his arrest, fingerprints and DNA samples were taken and added to the police’s database, which is how I was able to find him.
His jail stay was extended from the initial ten days to another ten, and the officer I spoke to is convinced that there isn’t enough evidence to send him to trial. So Nise-san is almost certainly going to be released in three days’ time; more accurately, two and a half, given what time it is right now.
The officer I spoke to notified me that I can contact the jail again anytime, and that if you’d like to speak to Nise-san, we can set up a meeting tomorrow or the following day, depending on your schedule. For identification purposes, though, it will have to be in person rather than over the phone. Nise-san hasn’t been told about any of this, but he will be informed several hours beforehand if you want to set up a meeting.
I know this is all a lot to take in, so I don’t blame you if you need a while to process this. Just try to keep in mind, once Nise-san is released, it might be difficult to track him down again. My advice is that if you want to meet him and pursue a relationship, your best bet is to schedule a meeting tomorrow or the day after.
Let me know what you want to do as soon as you can, and I’ll do my best to set it up for you, okay?
If I don’t get another message from you tonight, have a good evening!
Choromatsu isn’t sure how many times he has to read the message, over and over, until it sinks in. Even when he processes it, it doesn’t fully sink in. He can’t really believe it.
She found one of his brothers already, and despite the fact that he didn’t submit his DNA to the Genesis site. It’s been maybe six hours since he first spoke to her; it seems insane that she has a match for him in six hours.
What is he supposed to think, too, that Osomatsu, the oldest of his brothers, is currently in jail?? Sakamoto-san said the officers think he’ll be released due to lack of evidence… does that mean maybe he’s innocent? Perhaps he was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He almost can’t believe that Osomatsu is the one who was found first. Matsuyo described him as Choromatsu’s ‘partner in crime’ when they were younger, and they look so close in all the photos she showed him. They were best friends, right?
That’s how it always felt in the dreams he’s had. Waking up with tears on his cheeks, feeling like some part of him is gone, like he’s just lost someone important to him. Like he’ll never be the same again.
The sensations from the dreams fade… until he has one again. Then they seem real all over, and so does the body-trembling anxiety of a vague thought that he shouldn’t be waking up alone.
His mind starts to race anew, too many thoughts to even really focus too hard on any one of them. After all, he’s just come back from the first meeting with his birth parents, found out he was adopted because he was kidnapped twenty-one years ago, found out that he has five identical brothers, started the search for them thinking he wouldn’t hear anything for weeks, and now he’s already found one of them… who happens to be in jail at the moment.
He thinks he can be forgiven for being emotional and overwhelmed. This is a lot that’s happened in only one day.
Well, he wants to meet Osomatsu, doesn’t he? This is his big brother. Even if he’s different than when they were kids, even if this is all going so fast… this is what he wanted. From the minute he discovered he had brothers and knew they were still lost too, that became his goal.
One down, four to go. He’s scared and anxious about everything, but he set out to reunite his birth family. Maybe it’s best that he has one piece in place so quickly. It means there’s hope for the rest of them.
Despite trying to calm down, his hands continue to shake as he messages Sakamoto-san back. The sooner she can get him a meeting with Osomatsu, the better. If he’s possibly going to be released from jail in three days, Choromatsu doesn’t have time to be wishy-washy about it.
As soon as Sakamoto-san has messaged him again, he’s on his phone, dialing the Matsunos’ number.
“Hello?”
“Matsuyo? I-it’s Choromatsu. I’m sorry to be calling right now… I know you’re, um, probably in the middle of dinner…”
“Oh… oh, it’s alright, dear. I know it hasn’t been very long already, but, I’m glad to hear from you again. Did you want to talk?”
“Yeah… well, I mean… I-I have some news. I contacted an investigator on the Genesis site to see if they could help me in searching for my brothers.”
“You did? My, that was fast. You said… there’s already news??”
“Yeah. The investigator just messaged me, and I…” He can feel tears in his eyes, and yet, he can’t stop himself from smiling.
“I think we found Osomatsu.”
-
Two and a half weeks.
Two and a half weeks Osomatsu hasn’t had a single fucking cigarette.
And now a bunch of shit is being dropped on him, and he can’t go smoke?
This is torture.
Along with all the other shit going on in his head, and the news the officer on his case gave him, it’s put him even more on edge than he would be at any normal point. In the last ten or so years, the longest he’s gone without smoking is maybe six hours. He’s used to having a cigarette when he’s stressed.
There’s honestly nothing more stressful than being told he’s got a brother he never knew about who’s coming to meet him for the first time tomorrow afternoon.
How the fuck can that even be possible? Tougou’s his father, he’s never had a mother, and he would have been told if he had any siblings out there. Hell, if he had any brothers or sisters, they’d probably be right here helping Tougou and Osomatsu carry out heists. It’d sure be easier with more than two people.
His head is full of all this bullshit, and without being able to smoke, it’s starting to take over. It must be true because the officer was talking about how they ran Osomatsu’s DNA and shit, and that stuff doesn’t lie. But he just can’t believe it.
If this guy really is his brother, how? His father would have known if he had another kid out there somewhere, especially if this guy has the same mother as Osomatsu. After all, the officer said brother, not half-brother, so they’ve gotta have both parents in common.
The other thing that’s bugging Osomatsu is that the officer said birth parents. As if Tougou isn’t his father by blood. That can’t be right, though. Tougou is the only parent Osomatsu has ever had.
Worst of all is that he can’t just chase all these dumbass questions away with a cigarette. Or even with sleep. He’s tired during the day, and then when he’s supposed to be sleeping, he’s wide awake, letting all these thoughts run wild.
He even tries to eat to fill the nicotine void, thinking it’ll serve the same purpose; besides, lately he’s been starving, even more than he usually is. A couple of the usual guards have taken pity on him and given him extras, and he’s eaten it all every time, so he’s pretty sure he’s a few kilos heavier than he was before.
And shit, the headaches. He remembers only having headaches near this level when he’s had sinus infections. It feels like his head is going to split apart, to the point where the Calonal he’s offered barely touches it.
As much as smoking made him cough anyway, he’s also noticed he’s been coughing more after not having any cigarettes. At first he thought he was coming down with something, although he doesn’t have a fever or a stuffy nose or anything else. Another point for how lack of smoking has fucked him up.
Nothing gives him any kind of relief. After the first few days he started getting this weird anxiety, enough to make his breathing funny and make his hands shake and make him nauseous. Combined with his increase in appetite, it hasn’t been a fun ride.
He hates that his mind won’t shut up, too. The guard he met on the first night here mentioned a few days ago that he was able to give Osomatsu some information, at last, on Tougou’s case. It wasn’t good, though. His father is going to trial, where he’ll probably be put away to anywhere from five to ten years.
That won’t happen for a couple months, while they gather evidence and submit paperwork and all that stupid crap. It means that when Osomatsu gets released in a couple days, Tougou is staying in here. He’ll have to be in jail until the trial, then he goes to actual prison if he gets convicted. Given that Osomatsu thinks there’s something like a 99% conviction rate here in Japan if someone goes to trial (Tougou drilled that into his head during his myriad of ‘don’t you dare ever get fucking caught’ lectures), there’s almost no hope.
When Osomatsu gets out of here, he’s going to be all alone.
All the cigarettes in the world couldn’t keep that from feeling like a lead weight on his chest.
He feels sick all the time, even though he’s not, and he’s not sure whether it’s from the withdrawal or from having no Goddamn clue what his future looks like when he gets out of here in less than three days.
“Hey, Osomatsu.” That same guard is here tonight, Ishida-san ― either a tryhard or a newbie wearing rose-colored glasses who thinks he’s bonded with Osomatsu or something. “Up again tonight, huh? Here, got some coffee for you.”
Osomatsu doesn’t respond, though the coffee is taken anyway. The caffeine isn’t anything close to a cigarette, but it’s probably the only thing keeping him from snapping.
Ishida-san shuffles a bit in front of Osomatsu’s cell. He doesn’t push on as usual, seeming to stare inside at Osomatsu. No comment about how shitty he looks right now, no offense at the lack of an answer. The fact that Osomatsu took the coffee and is drinking it might be enough for him. “… I’m glad you agreed to that meeting with your brother.”
Osomatsu huffs. “’S not like I coulda said no. Got no fuckin’ rights in here. What the hell is wrong with this country?”
“Shut up. You know you have rights.” Ishida-san pauses, then snorts as if he’s just heard an unbearably funny joke. “You had the right to remain silent, but I guess you don’t care so much about that one.”
“Che. You’re all assholes. Go back to fucking clown college.”
The guard shakes his head, then puts his hands in his pockets. “I hope you meeting with this guy means you’ve been thinking about your future. Hate to say it so plainly, but your pops isn’t getting out anytime soon. You, on the other hand, are getting out in less than three days. Any thoughts?”
“The fuck do you care?” Osomatsu takes a needlessly long sip of his coffee. He kind of only has himself to blame that his mouth ends up a little burned. “You won’t have to deal with me.”
Ishida-san nods, then gives a shrug. “Sure. There’ll be another troubled, manipulated twenty-something in your place, though. We’ve got no shortage of that. I just hope you don’t end up here again and screw up your life. Be a shame, you know?”
“I’m not some fucking sob story, you jackass,” Osomatsu hisses. He suspects the added bite in his tone is thanks to irritability from not having a cigarette lately… he still thinks he’d be pissed at the implications anyway. “Leave me alone.”
“Yeah, okay. Finish your coffee, try to get some sleep if you can.” He knocks against the bars gently, and although Osomatsu misses it, his encouraging smile looks genuine. “Big day tomorrow. Good luck.”
He heads down to check on the other people in their cells, and Osomatsu snaps his eyes shut as he continues to drink. That conversation did nothing for his nerves.
His thoughts are continuing to run wild, buzzing around in his head, despite the fact that it’s not showing on the outside. He wishes more than anything that he had some private place he could just break down and not have anyone see. Because this is all too much.
Things are unpredictable. And he’s used to that, in a way.
But this time, he’s not going to have his father around, and that’s unpredictable in a way he doesn’t know if he can deal with.
… Maybe if he’s lucky, he can bum a cigarette off this ‘brother’ of his and smoke it in secret. As of right now, he thinks that’s the only way he’s going to get through tomorrow.
(This chapter contains a section of lyrics; the song featured is “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God” by Halsey.
Also this chapter is HELLA long, grab some water and a snack before you settle in to read it!! <3)
-
It only takes a couple of weeks of talking with Matsuyo for Choromatsu to finalize details of meeting his birth parents.
The good thing, the best thing, is that they’ve been looking for him all this time. Over twenty years, he’s had other family who were out there wanting to find him, and that hits him in a way he doesn’t really know how to come to terms with. It’s a relief… knowing that whatever happened, it had nothing to do with them not wanting to be with him.
As it turns out, the other match that came up, Matsuno Matsuzo, is her husband, and she confirms he’s Choromatsu’s biological father. They’ve been married all this time, coming up on 28 years now. When he hears that, Choromatsu thinks in awe that their love must be so strong, because he’s heard in passing that parents who lose a child (which is sort of what adoption is) often split up.
They’re both excited to see him. He’s so nervous, because as he was talking to Matsuyo, she mentioned that she thought it would be better to answer all his questions in person, and that she had some questions of her own.
He’s left with a weird feeling that, from her messages, she didn’t know he was adopted until he told her, which doesn’t make any sense. Unless she thought he grew up in foster care and just aged out, and she’s pleasantly surprised that wasn’t the case. That doesn’t even seem to be the case, though. The way she talks makes him think she didn’t know he was alive. That she knew she’d lost a child, but she didn’t know how or why.
There are only a few possibilities he can think of which might explain that, and he doesn’t like any of the options he thinks of.
They exchange pictures, each of them eager to see what the other looks like. When he sends her a picture of himself, her response takes all of thirty seconds: Oh my God you’re such a handsome young man, you look just like your father when he was your age!
Seeing her picture makes this all so much realer. She looks like a sweet person, a slight woman in her early fifties, with light brown hair starting to grey pulled back into a neat bun. He sees that she wears big, round glasses, and he’s struck because they look almost like the glasses he wore in high school. He can see his own features reflected in hers. He sees where he gets his button nose and his crooked smile.
When he sees her picture, he thinks, This is the woman who gave birth to me, and he starts crying because he thought he would never even know what she looked like. All he really wants is to take her hands and look in her eyes and thank her for giving him life.
His parents have been largely trying to simply be supportive while not interfering, as best they can. Satomi says it’s not about them, it’s about him. It’s his journey. All the same, though, Choromatsu wants them to be on this journey with him. They’re the ones who raised him and they’ve always been his real parents.
Is it… possible he has another set of real parents? Matsuyo and Matsuzo seem like they love him just as much as Satomi and Hiroto do.
If they love him, then… what happened? Why was he given up for adoption? It’s not like he hates that he was adopted, he loves his parents and he’s had a great life.
He just can’t help himself from wondering why they didn’t keep him, if they loved him so much. If they weren’t able to take care of him, why wasn’t he adopted out as a baby instead of a five-year-old?
These are answers he needs. It’s closure that will allow him to feel… better. He might feel less like he’s always screwing things up, because sometimes he thinks that’s where some of his anxiety comes from. The fear of failing, of being unlovable and abandoned if he makes a mistake, so much that he often avoids doing things if he doesn’t think he’ll be able to meet some arbitrary standard.
He remembers hiding failed tests in high school, or whiting out the real grade to replace it with an A+. It only worked until his report card would come and his parents would see that he wasn’t getting straight A’s, he was getting B’s and C’s.
He remembers breaking down in tears when questioned about it, sobbing as he admitted he was afraid they would be mad at him for failing a test or not getting perfect grades. He was terrified that if they knew he was getting anything less than the highest marks, they would scold him and be angry and not love him anymore. It was like failing a test or a class meant he was failing as a person.
He remembers why, because as a teenager he didn’t fully understand that giving a child up for adoption didn’t mean it was something the child did wrong. He remembers being so angry and desperate, crying himself to sleep thinking about his birth parents and wondering why they didn’t love him. Thinking it must have been that he wasn’t worth anything, thinking that he had to be good at something or Satomi and Hiroto wouldn’t love him, either.
Eventually he grew up and started to learn the truth; that things aren’t always so black and white, that he doesn’t have to do anything to be worthy of love. He can recall the breakdown where he started to change his thinking, where his parents took him in their arms and told him they wouldn’t stop loving him because he wasn’t at the top of his class. They’d had no idea he was feeling that much pressure, because Choromatsu knows they never, ever did anything to make him think stuff like grades were so important that their love for him hinged on those things.
It’s just this feeling he’s always had. Even now that he’s stopped truly thinking he has no worth because he was given up, there’s this little part of him fueling the anxiety, saying, You’re not good enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough.
One of his biggest hopes in meeting Matsuyo and Matsuzo is that maybe, maybe, that will finally go away. Once he really knows the truth and knows for certain that his being placed for adoption had nothing to do with his worth.
He was a five-year-old kid, for God’s sakes. How could he have done anything that made them not love him? He couldn’t. He didn’t.
Hearing it from them is going to be so much different than trying to convince himself.
The night before, he can barely sleep.
When he does, he has one of those dreams again ― the ones where he’s with five other identical children, laughing and playing and just being little boys.
This time there’s something new. Amid the rest of the boys is a woman who looks like a younger Matsuyo, and she chases Choromatsu down, she picks him up and twirls him around and kisses his cheek. He thinks he hears her coo, “Choro-chan~” at him, just like Satomi did when he was younger.
And his small self giggles inside the dream, kissing her back with a happy exclamation, “Kaa-chan! Kaa-chan!”
It feels even realer when he wakes up.
It feels more like a distant memory than a made-up dream.
-
Choromatsu isn’t sure exactly why, but he hugs Matsuyo and Matsuzo when he meets them.
It might be just that he’s emotional, or he might already be starting to feel some affection for them both. They seem like kind people. Being in their arms feels… nice. It’s like a hug from Satomi and Hiroto, just the same.
Maybe a little more intense, because Matsuyo and Matsuzo are clearly happy to see him. It’s been over twenty years, and when they hug him, it’s… like they’ve been missing him terribly. Matsuyo cups his face in her hands as if she’s trying to find the differences between now and the last time she saw him. And Matsuzo holds him tightly, like Choromatsu is some precious thing that has just been returned to him.
Choromatsu’s cheeks burn and hands shake and stomach swirls with anxiety. He doesn’t think he’s ever had so much attention focused on him before, not quite like this. Not as if someone’s been searching for him almost all his life. Like they’ve been waiting for him.
Like… they thought they would never see him again.
He’s still anxious as he sits down at their kitchen table with them. What is he supposed to do or say, after all? He doesn’t know if he can say he loves them, because… right now, he doesn’t know them yet.
“It’s… it’s really nice to meet you both,” he settles on. It’s the truth, at least. Even though he hasn’t been searching for them for long, he’s thought about the possibility of this day a lot throughout his life. Being here living it is so strange. “I’m… I-I’m sorry, I’m… kind of an awkward person. I hate to, um, jump right into questions… but… I-I don’t really know what to say…”
The way Matsuyo settles her hand over top of his is reassuring. “That’s alright, dear. We’re just glad to have you back after all these years. If it would make you feel better to get right to the questions, we can do that. And… and I’m sorry myself, we’re just… so excited. The last time we saw you, you were barely five years old.”
He nods, fidgeting in his seat with his eyes pointed down. “… That’s actually one of my questions. I-I mean… I’m not trying to judge, but… but… I was five. I wasn’t a baby, y-you know? What happened? Why… why did you give me up for adoption? Did something change, or… or, I don’t know…?”
Matsuyo exchanges an almost confused look with her husband. “We didn’t give you up,” she says softly. “Choromatsu, we were a happy family. I… well, of course, we had the normal struggles of a young family, but they weren’t so bad that we felt like we couldn’t handle them. We never had any intention of putting any of you for adoption, and we never did.”
That. That doesn’t make sense. Not to Choromatsu, anyway.
If they never planned to give him up, if they’re saying they never did, then why did he end up adopted?
“W-well, that’s… uh, wait.” Okay, now the entire thing she said is being fully processed. It’s as if a light bulb has just dinged to life in his head. “… ‘Any of you’? I wasn’t your only child?”
Matsuzo shakes his head. “Of course not! We had six of you.”
Six… SIX?!
“You boys were sextuplets,” Matsuyo offers. “You’d all just had your fifth birthday when…”
That’s where she suddenly goes quiet, breaking off her own sentence, and a fist flies to her mouth. Her shoulders shake; there are tears peeking out from the bottom rims of her glasses.
Matsuzo reaches toward her, placing a careful hand on his wife’s shoulder. “We didn’t give any of you up for adoption, Choromatsu. You were all taken from us.”
This is a lot of information being thrown at him all at once. Even though he literally did ask for it, this is stuff he didn’t expect. A sibling or two wouldn’t have been a huge shock, but he’s got five identical brothers? Has… or had? What happened to the rest of them?
Are… they still alive? Are they okay? They must have been adopted too, right? Yet, when Matsuzo says ‘taken’… a cold dread in the pit of Choromatsu’s stomach suggests it wasn’t some kind of child protective situation or something like that.
Despite the fact that looks can be deceiving, he doesn’t get the sense that these two were bad parents before he was adopted. He doesn’t think it was as simple as the possibility that he was taken away because he wasn’t being cared for.
The fluttering of anxiety kicks back up in his stomach, and his face feels hot again. His chest tighten. “When… when you say ‘taken’… w-what does that mean? What… what happened??”
Matsuyo still looks distressed as she reaches for a tissue from the box on the table. As it is, Choromatsu can’t blame her. “O-oh, I feel like it’s all our fault…” She dabs at her eyes before sighing and looking back up at him. “We needed a little extra money, just for a few months or so… shortly after your birthday, we took in a lodger named Tougou. He offered to pay us in return for staying in the spare room upstairs… and he… he seemed like a decent sort… he didn’t plan to stay long. Just a couple of weeks, maybe a month. So we decided it would be a good arrangement.”
“Lousy piece of shit,” Matsuzo scoffs, and Choromatsu is startled by the venom in the man’s voice. “He lived here for all of maybe a week, then we woke up one morning… he was gone, and so were you boys. Left during the night so nobody caught sight of his car or where he was goin’.” Despite trying to hide it, it’s apparent that there are tears in his eyes too. “Last time we saw any of you was when we tucked you into bed and kissed you goodnight.”
The dread in Choromatsu’s stomach leaps into his throat, along with his heart. Although his mind had touched on that idea while he was talking to Matsuyo on the Genesis messenger, he didn’t dwell on it. The gaps in Matsuyo’s knowledge being due to him being abducted just seemed so… far-fetched. It’s the kind of thing that only happens in movies or maybe a rare case or two in crime documentaries.
Everything clicks into making a little more sense now. The lack of a birth certificate. The total absence of information, aside from his given name and birth date. No medical records. The surprise Matsuyo displayed when he told her he’d had a happy childhood and her confusion upon being told he was adopted.
“I… I was… w-we were…” He stammers for a minute, thinking they might confess they’re joking if he takes his time saying it. They don’t. “We… we were kidnapped. You… didn’t give me up. I wasn’t… you didn’t…”
He can feel tears threatening now that the implications of all this are making their way through his brain. “… You wanted me.”
Matsuyo’s hand squeezes his. “We’ve been trying to find you and your brothers ever since Tougou took you from us. We love you so much… the thought of letting go of any of you never crossed our minds.”
“I… I don’t… I don’t really know what to say.” He doesn’t really know what to think, either. All he can do is grab a tissue with his free hand, wiping his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at these two through a blur of tears.
He feels his hand tightening around Matsuyo’s as all this information keeps running through his mind. It’s a lot that’s hitting him at once. “Ever since my parents told me I was adopted,” he mumbles amid the tears, “I-I always wondered… why my birth parents gave me up. If they didn’t want me, if they kept me for five years and decided I was too hard to take care of, if… if they just stopped caring. But… but you didn’t… you didn’t just give me up.”
“We loved you so much. All of you boys.” Matsuzo’s hand joins the pile, a powerful fatherly presence over them both. “And we’ve loved you all these years. We still do, even though… you really don’t know us that well yet. And I… suppose we don’t know you as the person you are now, either.”
Choromatsu sniffles and tries to take a breath. It comes in and out shuddery, his thoughts being pulled in a million different directions. “B-but I… I think I want that! I… don’t want to say I don’t want to know you, anyway. My parents are great… but… more love and more good relationships… a-are never a bad thing, right? I… want to see where this goes.”
When he looks up again, Matsuyo is smiling. “If that’s what you want… we don’t want to push, but… we’re so happy to see you again. We’d love to spend more time with you.”
In this moment, he’s too overwhelmed to consider much else but the newfound potential he has. For another set of parents, for brothers he’s never known, for the peace he’s always wanted.
“I-I only live like half an hour away, with my parents,” he offers, with the first real smile he’s given since getting here. “And I… I don’t have a job right now. So… I can visit a lot. We can talk over the phone, too… a-and email, if you want.”
Another thing hits him, and then he’s clutching Matsuyo and Matsuzo’s hands with renewed fervor. “You… you guys… you haven’t been able to find any of my brothers yet, right? We’ll look together! I can, um, put in a request to talk to one of the investigators on the DNA site… and maybe talk to local police stations outside of Akatsuka.”
Matsuyo and Matsuzo look at each other again. Choromatsu thinks maybe he sees something like… rekindled hope. Although he doesn’t want to say they gave up looking for him and his brothers, it’s pretty clear they’ve tried to go on with their lives accepting they might not see their children again.
Getting their hopes up without results would be cruel. So he’ll just have to make sure he gets results.
Matsuzo’s voice is softer than it’s been for this entire conversation. “If you think you can do it… we’ll help however we can. We’d give anything to have you boys back in our lives.”
Choromatsu nods resolutely. “I-it… it might not be easy, but… I’m going to try my best.”
Matsuyo chuckles and reaches for something under her chair. “You were always one of our most strong-willed boys. Do you want to see a picture of your brothers? I’m not sure it would be of any use, and it probably won’t jog your memory… obviously, we only have pictures of you boys as kids. I just set a box of them down here earlier… just in case you… wanted to see.”
“Oh, my God… please!” He has a sneaking suspicion what they’re all going to look like. Regardless, he slides the photo closer as soon as she sets it down on the table.
As soon as he lays eyes on it, he recognizes these boys. He doesn’t know any of their names, of course, and he isn’t even actually sure which one is him.
But looking at it conjures memories of every strange dream he’s ever had of these same-faced children. These are the boys from his dreams, the ones who look exactly like him, the ones his dream-self knows as his best friends. The ones he cries for when his dream-self is torn away from them.
They’re dressed similarly in this picture ― the same shirts in different shades, most likely color-coded for the parents of six identical children to be able to tell them apart more easily. They’re all smiling, hugging each other, as if they were caught in a candid moment and not aware someone was taking a photo.
They all look like happy little boys, siblings who don’t know anything except how to love each other and maybe count to ten on their fingers.
He doesn’t really know them. Looking at this picture, though, he feels an unmistakable ache in his chest: he misses them.
“Which one am I?” he asks, glancing up at Matsuyo. “D… do you know?”
“Maybe I couldn’t tell you apart as babies,” she chuckles, “but once you all started to walk and talk, there was no mistaking any of you for each other.”
She points to the green-clad child in the photo. “This is you in the green shirt. You tried to be a troublemaker, you had such an attitude, but if you got in trouble, you’d go running to your big brothers to protect you from Mama’s punishment. It never worked, even when you switched clothes, but you still tried.”
He chuckles, his face coloring again. Although he remembers being a bit of a brat when he was a kid, he was certain he grew out of it fairly quickly. “A-ah, oh, wow… haha… s-so, wait… what order were we born in? I-I mean, I have older brothers, so… am I the youngest?”
Matsuyo shakes her head. “Oh, no, dear. You’re the third eldest.”
So… I’m a middle kid. I have big brothers… but I also have little brothers.
He thinks he likes that idea.
“Osomatsu is the oldest, your partner in crime, and after that is Karamatsu, our little attention seeker,” Matsuyo continues on, pointing out each of them in the photo. Osomatsu is the one in red with a big grin, and Karamatsu the one in blue clambering for a kiss from one of the others.
“Then you, and Ichimatsu, so shy and quiet…” The one in purple, kissing Karamatsu’s cheek while trying to hide the rest of his body. “After him is Jyushimatsu, with enough energy for all six of you…” The one in yellow whose bouncing comes through even in a still photo. “And the baby is Todomatsu, look at his chubby little cheeks.” He’s the one in pink, and her observation checks out, he looks so much younger than the rest.
Choromatsu can’t help but let out a little puff of laughter through his nose. “Ah, wow… these are my brothers.” It’s the same feeling he had when thinking about Matsuyo being his birth mother, after he saw the picture of her. There’s a weird nostalgia when he looks at this photo, seeing five other distinct people who look like him.
He’s snatching another tissue and wiping tears away before he knows it. He’s still smiling, though. “W-we look so close,” he sighs. He finally moves his hand away from Matsuyo and Matsuzo’s hands so he can pick up the photo. “We loved each other, huh…?”
“You kids were inseparable!” Matsuzo laughs. “You did everything together. I remember even if you all fought during the day, when it was time for bed, you’d curl up in your futon, cuddling with each other… all forgiven like nothing even happened.”
Choromatsu’s hand traces over his small self in the picture. Child Choromatsu has his arms around Osomatsu’s neck, his head pressed up under Osomatsu’s chin… and Osomatsu has his arms around Choromatsu’s waist, hugging him close as if to make him feel secure. The perfect example of a dutiful older brother, even though they were just kids.
Shouldn’t he remember these things? They were all five when they were kidnapped, and five is old enough to have a personality and form memories. To have likes and dislikes and favorite songs and daily routines.
The only time he’s ever been aware of these other boys is when they showed up in his dreams. Otherwise he’s never really had any memory of them, or of Matsuyo and Matsuzo.
“I… I can’t believe I don’t remember any of this. I don’t remember my brothers, o-or you two…” He frowns. “I’ve had dreams of them all my life, and last night I dreamed about you, but… I thought they were just dreams.”
“You were so young,” Matsuyo reassures, patting his hand once more. “Your mind probably blocked out those memories… so you didn’t feel the pain of missing them or us or the pain of being kidnapped.”
Maybe that’s true. It all hurts now, though. Despite growing up with a loving family and having a great life… he was also taken from a loving family and what could have been a great life.
He runs his hand over the photo again. “… I promise I’ll bring it back the next time I visit, but… can I… can I take this photo? I-I want to see if I can get it copied.”
Matsuyo and Matsuzo share another look, the same kind they’ve been, as if having a conversation without saying a word. Then Matsuzo nods. “Sure, that’s fine. Even if you don’t bring it back, you should have a picture of them.”
The smile is back in an instant, and he can’t stop himself from hugging the photo to his chest. “Did… did you say you had more pictures? C-can I see them?”
As Matsuyo excitedly bring out the box, full of photos of identical little boys, and starts showing them off, Choromatsu’s mind is still racing.
This is crazy… I have five twin brothers out there somewhere. At least… I… I hope they’re still out there.
I’ve gotta find them.
-
“Every morning, got a hollow where my heart goes
I never listen, but I see it with my eyes closed
I know you, I remember from the grass stain
maybe I could be a better human with a new name
oh, I just wanna feel something
tell me where to go
‘cause everybody knows something
I don’t wanna know
so I’ll stay right here
‘cause I’m better all alone
yeah, I’m better all alone
I am not a woman, I’m a god
I am not a martyr, I’m a problem
I am not a legend, I’m a fraud
so keep your heart, ‘cause I already got one
I am not a woman, I’m a god
I am not a martyr, I’m a problem
I am not a legend, I’m a fraud
keep your heart, ‘cause I already―
I’m ready to leave it
I’ll go when I feel it
got caught both hands on a smoking gun
I try, but I need it
it’s hard, but I feel it
and it really does hurt when you love someone…”
In the Denkino District Local Jail, Nise Osomatsu’s hands grip the bars of his cell, shaking them as much as he can. Maybe if he makes enough noise to drown out the radio playing over the PA system, someone will actually pay attention to him.
“Hey! HEY!! Are you assholes gonna let me outta here or what?! I gotta go see my pops!”
It’s not like it’s his fault he’s so restless right now. They can’t expect him to just be calm when the last thing he saw of his father was Tougou being shoved into the back of a police car as another officer was putting cuffs on Osomatsu. He’s pissed about the whole thing; neither of them have ever been caught before, they weren’t put in cells near each other, and the police took his new, almost-fucking-full pack of cigarettes.
He’s never been this anxious in his life. Not even before carrying out real robberies as opposed to just pickpocketing. His mind is going a mile a minute, his hands are trembling, he can’t relax.
Should he find a cup or something and be a caricature of a prisoner in the local lockup? What the hell is going to get anyone to address his concerns?
“I know you bastards can hear me!” he hisses. “You can’t just lock me up and forget about me!”
“Holy shit, kid, would you shut your fuckin’ mouth?!” comes a woman’s voice from the next cell over. “I can’t hear myself think!”
Thankfully, before Osomatsu can get into a fistfight with the wall that separates his cell from hers, one of the guards strolls over. “Hey, keep it down. You’re not the only person in here.”
He snarls and gives the bars one more rattle for good measure. “Yeah, no shit, jackass! You fuckers got my pops, too! Where is he?”
“― Nise Osomatsu, is that right?” The guard sighs thoughtfully before glancing over his shoulder. “So that means your pops is Nise Tougou, eh. Sorry, kid. I can’t really talk to you about him.”
“Are you kidding me?! He’s my father! What the hell is going on around here?!” Osomatsu smacks the bars this time, though all he succeeds in is making his hand throb. “Does that mean I can’t fucking see him, either?”
To his credit, the guard looks almost sympathetic. To Osomatsu, however, that doesn’t even matter. “Sorry, kid. Afraid not. We’re starting investigations into both your cases, and if you want my advice, you’re probably gonna get out before him, so start thinking about your future.”
A low growl leaves Osomatsu’s throat; as it stands, it seems there’s not a whole lot that can be done at the moment. He’s never been away from Tougou before unless he was sick and worthless, so he doesn’t even know what to do right now.
The idea that when he gets out of here, Tougou won’t be with him, that’s terrifying. What is he supposed to do if he’s on his own? Just keep pickpocketing? There’s no way he can knock a store over by himself. What about his father’s car? Where’s that? And what would he even do with it? He’s not a great driver.
He won’t make it without someone else’s help. He’s useless on his own.
He doesn’t want to believe it. He feels like two seconds away from having a Goddamn breakdown, but it’s not like he can just let it out. He’ll look like a baby.
So instead of doing literally anything else he wants to do, he just huffs and pushes off the bars. It’s the closest thing he can get to actually shoving this stupid guard back on his ass. “Can I at least get out of here for long enough to have a fucking smoke?”
“Nope, sorry again.” This time the guard doesn’t really even look sympathetic, he just looks like he’s pitying Osomatsu. As if he’s thinking about where Osomatsu’s future is going. “No tobacco products or alcohol for anyone in custody. If you want a cigarette, your best bet is to pray they don’t extend your investigation. If they don’t, you’ll be out in ten days. If they do, you’ll be looking at, like, twenty.”
He gives a pat to the bars, probably the kind of condescending bullshit he’d do if Osomatsu were outside the cell. “Just try to relax till we get some news about your case, okay? If you want, I can bring you a cup of coffee or some ice water.”
“Don’t do me any fucking favors,” Osomatsu scoffs. He stalks back over to the bench in his cell. At the very least, he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to share with anyone.
The guard shakes his head. “Damn, kid. I’ll bring it anyway.”
With that, he’s off down the hall, and Osomatsu is left alone with his thoughts.
Fuck, he wants a cigarette more than anything. … Except maybe to have Tougou in a cell nearby. If his father was here, maybe they could figure how to get out.
He turns to face the wall, both hands coming up to grasp his head. Shit, I can’t breathe. How did this happen? What the hell did we do wrong?
It feels like his heart’s going to come hammering out of his chest. He can’t stop shaking, he can feel himself sweating, and he just feels so heavy. It’s as if a blanket of dread has been dropped over him; he can’t get out from under it.
Something bad is going to happen. It feels like he’s going to die.
What else is he supposed to do without his father but die? What is he going to do if he really does get out after like a month, and Tougou gets a ten-year sentence or something?
There’s nobody else there for him. He has nobody. He can’t even count on himself despite being an adult.
Where is he going to go? He doesn’t have money or skills. He’s been surviving with his father all this time, stealing whatever they need and robbing people on the street and sleeping in Tougou’s car.
He can probably swipe some cheap food from a konbini or something, maybe sleep in a library bathroom for the first day or two… what about after that? He can’t very well pickpocket enough money for a motel, especially until Tougou gets released.
He curls up tighter, tugging his black hoodie up over his face so nobody notices his weird breathing or the tears that drip down his face.
I’m so fucked.
-
In a small apartment deep in the heart of Hassei-ki Township, a playful woman peeks over her son’s shoulder, wrapping him up in a hug as she does.
“Ahah, sweetheart!! Are you finally going to do that kit we got you?”
Ueda Totty startles slightly before melting into the contact, reaching to give the older of his mothers a kiss on the cheek. “Do you have to say it like that, Mama?” he giggles. “‘Finally’… I-I haven’t been ready to do it till now.”
“I know, I know… but it’s just, it’s been a whole month!” Ever the bubbly woman, Ueda Otoha nuzzles against the top of Totty’s head. “You were so excited to open it and it’s taken you this long to actually submit results!”
“I guess I was a little nervous,” he admits. After another moment of hugging, he gently pulls himself from the embrace and looks down at the box in his hands. It’s from a website called Genesis, as it states. The truth is that he’s wanted to do this for a while…
He was just afraid that the search would come up with nothing, or that any biological parents he found wouldn’t want to talk to him. If that’s the case, he’s perfectly content with both his moms.
He just… can’t help but be a little curious. Particularly considering the age at which his mothers adopted him, the why has been gnawing at him lately.
His fingers brush lightly over the box, which shows multicolored puzzle pieces neatly fitted into place. Sometimes that feels like what his past is, a puzzle that needs to be figured out.
“I think I’m ready now, though.” That polished smile of his is almost certainly a relief to Otoha. Although it’s not as if he’s been depressed recently, he’s sure both his mothers know it takes a lot of courage to go searching for people who gave you up for adoption. “Maybe we can wait till Mom gets home? That way you guys can both help me do it.”
Otoha claps her hands eagerly. “Oh, good idea! We can watch your favorite movie after, too. Make a little night of it.”
He snorts, but he’s still smiling. “Really? DNA-test-slumber-party??”
“Oh, don’t you ‘really’ me, little boy! It sounds like fun!”
“Ah, well… I guess it couldn’t be not fun.” He gives her another quick hug and kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mama. You guys are the best.”
She’s eager to return the gesture. “Of course, baby! We’re so excited for you to see where you come from. Now, until Mom gets home… do you wanna help me make dinner?”
He hums, poking his head into the kitchen. “… Is it something I can put avocado on?”
“Hahaha! Maybe if you’re really brave, mini-me!”
As he moves to wash his hands, Totty gives the DNA kit one last glance.
I’m Mama’s mini-me… but… I wonder… what about my birth parents?
Is there anyone out there who really looks like me…?
OKAY so since I’m close-ish to finishing the first part of Puzzle Pieced, and since there was such an overwhelmingly positive response to the idea, here’s a little preview~ I should be posting the full part 1 in a few hours or so if I can kick my butt into gear!
for context, this is right after the moment where Choro’s parents give him the DNA kit on his birthday! read on under the cut 💚
He remembers telling his parents about it the other day, just mentioning it in passing. One of his friends who sells concert merch made a comment a week or two ago, that he swears up and down he saw a guy who looks exactly like Choromatsu playing guitar at a coffee shop in one of the nearby cities.
“I mean, he had the same haircut as you, same eyes, same face shape, everything, dude! It was freaky. Got me thinkin’, too, you know? Have you ever thought about that? Like… what if you had siblings or something? Did they get adopted too? Or did your parents keep ‘em?”
Choromatsu scoffed and changed the subject quickly, telling his friend to shut up because he was being a prick. The way he worded it still hasn’t left Choromatsu’s mind, though. After all… what if? What if he did have siblings before he was adopted?
His parents told him he was five when he came to live with them. He wasn’t a baby or even a toddler. How does someone just give up a child they know? He’s sure it would be easier with a baby or a very young kid, but… a five-year-old… a five-year-old has been alive long enough to have a personality, to have a bond with their caregivers, to be in school.
And what if he had siblings? Were they younger or older? Did they get put up for adoption just like he did? Or… were they kept with their biological parents?
That part bothers him more than anything else. That’s what he needs an answer to, more than any of those other things. If he had brothers or sisters, and they stayed with his biological parents, well… why didn’t he? What did he do wrong that he got given up? And if he has siblings out there, whether they’re with his biological parents or not, doesn’t he have a right to meet them?
He admits that he did tell his parents some of those thoughts. He didn’t realize those things were nagging at him so badly that it was obvious. After all, it’s not as if he isn’t happy with his life and doesn’t love his parents. Things are great.
It’s just… how he is, he supposes. That he needs to know things.
Satomi squeezes his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Listen, honey, we know it’s been on your mind a lot lately. If it’ll make you feel better to have some answers, to know who your birth parents are, then we want you to try and find those answers. You deserve to know.”
“It might even be kind of interesting, you know, like solving a mystery,” Hiroto grins. “I mean, it’s not like we even know anything about them. We didn’t really get any information other than your birthday and your first name when we adopted you. Could be nice to know more.”
Choromatsu’s eyes draw back to the kit, and he frowns a little. That seems… odd. No information on him at all? No surname, no medical documents? He was five, not a newborn. He had to have some vaccination records or a birth certificate that would show his original surname and maybe his parents’ names. Adoption agencies don’t just hand people a kid without any paperwork and go, “Welp, good luck”, do they?
He turns the box over in his hands, glancing at the back of it. GENESIS: Put together the pieces of your story, it proclaims. After a moment he reaches up to rub at his eyes, and leans over to hug his mother. “Thank you guys… i-it’s… it’s not that I’m… trying to replace you or anything or that I think… you’re not enough. I just… I just need to know. It’s so weird that we don’t have any information… I just feel like I have to know why. Why I was given up and… where I’m from… you know… i-if my birth parents… ever thought about me. If there’s... anyone else out there who’s... thinking about me.”
❤️ our paper faces flood the streets
and if the heat comes close enough to burn
then we’ll play with fire ‘cause
you’ll never take us alive
we swore that death will do us part
they’ll call our crimes a work of art ❤️
POV you’re checking into a trashy hotel late at night, and there’s a tired-looking guy sitting in the lobby smoking a cigarette
he looks like he’s been here for a while and despite his scruffy appearance, he’s kind of cute, especially when he takes down his hood to relax
when he notices you looking at him, he gives you a cocky smirk over his cigarette and says, “take a picture, doll, it’ll last longer”
obviously I’m a woman and my hair is absolutely not in the right cut and I don’t look anything like Osomatsu, even Puzzle Pieced Osomatsu
and also that is a fake piercing and fake cigarette (real lighter tho, I have a collection)
but you know what? sometimes you gotta do a closet cosplay photoset for your dumb angsty AU or what is even the point of living
so enjoy me pretending to be Puzzle Pieced Osomatsu and trying to look like a smug ass 😘
**ok to like and comment but please don’t reblog!**
