A/N: Here is some older!kagebros I wrote for the birthday twins @zelldotcom and @jazzy0clock a long while ago!
AO3
“Is this really the right way, Nii-san?”
“Yes,” Shigeo huffs out for the upteenth time, “I know where I’m going. Just trust me.”
They’ve long since abandoned the forest trail, boots dredged in muddy dirt and leaves clinging to the hem of their trousers. Shigeo hikes his backpack higher up his shoulder, hesitating momentarily before directing them to a small clearing beyond the trees. Ritsu has caught one or two desire paths along the way, neither of which they’ve followed through, but Shigeo seems sure of where he’s going.
The late evening breeze rustles the leaves overhead. The moon is shy of hanging high in the sky, greeting the soon-emerging firmament of stars; Ritsu watches as the last dapples of daylight dance over the surface of a lone puddle through gaps in the canopy overhead, then lifts his head skyward and trusts Shigeo’s moving figure in his peripheral to drag them along. It feels like they’ve been walking for ages now.
“Are you sure—”
“Ritsu,” Shigeo interrupts him, not unkindly, and Ritsu clicks his jaw shut. “I said I know a place. I said you could trust me. I’ve been here several times now, to—wind down, mostly. I know where I’m going.” That explains the empty patches on the ground. The random craters. Signs of destruction. Like the wind somehow managed to knock down sections of the forest, sweeping trees off the ground and pulling them out from the roots in its sheer wrath. “And besides,” Shigeo shrugs, “If we get lost, I have you. You always figure out the way back home.”
And then Shigeo’s moving again, searching for something past the branches and leaves and trailing after it. Ritsu only gets a moment to be stunned—a warm curl of nostalgia in his chest—at the words before his feet pick up after him, catching up to his older brother.
His profile is cast in the pale light reflecting off of a nearby stream. Ritsu is struck, not for the first time, by the knowledge of how much his brother has grown. He stands a few feet taller than he used to, the soft curve of his jaw cut into a sharp edge. His features are sharper, too, the last clinging baby fat on his cheeks carved into something frighteningly mature.
“Remember when we were children,” Shigeo says conversationally, and that’s another new thing; Shigeo being conversational, “and we got lost in the forest that one time?”
Ritsu can recall the memory vividly. “Yeah.”
“And you got us back home.”
Ritsu hums. “I did.”
“You followed the moss, because—”
“They always grow on the north side, where the sun won’t hit them directly.”
Shigeo passes him a sidelong look, lips half-quirked up. Ritsu returns it with a small, crooked smile of his own. He stops to help heft Ritsu’s weight up a fallen tree trunk with a firm hand, joining him back down to the ground and steadying him. The Body Improvement Club has definitely done its job well.
“I’m not worried about getting lost, is what I’m saying,” Shigeo tells him.
“Well, we have our phones now,” Ritsu shrugs, “Doesn’t Reigen have a tracker on yours?”
Shigeo doesn’t say anything to that, but Ritsu thinks he isn’t imagining the amusement in his face. His growth shines in moments like this, subtle as they are.
I want to take my emotions more seriously, he remembers Shigeo confessing, and it hadn’t been a fruitless endeavour.
Before long, Shigeo stops in front of a structure—an abandoned greenhouse, Ritsu guesses, with wide clouded glass walls and questionable integrity.
“Is this the place?” Ritsu says, taking in his surroundings. Shigeo nods at him, and there’s a hint of delight in his eyes. Ritsu hasn’t seen that look in a while, rare as it is, but he hasn’t seen Shigeo in a while after he’s gone to college, anyway.
His older brother’s slowly growing into himself, showing more parts of him and his emotions than Ritsu ever thinks he has, and he wishes they aren’t so far apart these days so he can see how it all develops. He wishes the universe would stop putting this distance between them. Not when they’ve only just begun to rekindle. Not when they’ve only just let all that was repressed flood out and run their course, when they’ve only just gone through the rockiest parts of their diverging roads and wind back down into a singular path. Not when Ritsu has only just started picking up and putting together whatever they had left of what they were before.
It always feels like time is never on their side. It’s a fragile thing, this thing they have between them. Shigeo is and always has been his brother, and Ritsu knows that’s what ties them tightly together despite it all, but he also knows they—their shared camaraderie, their bond, the brotherly affection shared in the quiet moments, hesitant and delicate but genuine all the same—have changed, over time. Perhaps it’s selfish to think things could stay the same. Perhaps it’s selfish to wish growing up didn’t mean changing.
Shigeo tries the door, lop-sided on its hinges and scraping unpleasantly against the ground as he drags it open just enough for them to slip inside one after the other. The moon has risen this time around, and it brightens the clear sky and streams moonlight down through the aging glass, streaked with dust and debris and unkempt foliage.
He thinks, as Shigeo squints up at the low glass ceiling, that they can make this work. That things haven’t changed much, after all. That, even if they had, then perhaps that’s okay, too.
“Through there,” Shigeo suddenly points upwards, and Ritsu’s eyes follow the direction. There’s a skylight.
“Nii-san,” Ritsu frowns. “You want to get on top of this thing?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, Ritsu.”
“What if we—it might collapse, and—we might—”
“Do you trust me?”
Ritsu blinks at him.
“I don’t trust this whole place not to come down,” Ritsu says instead.
“It won’t,” Shigeo tells him, “You said you wanted to go stargazing. We’re going stargazing.”
“Up there?”
“Yes.”
“But the whole place might colla—”
“Ritsu,” Shigeo levels him a gaze. It isn’t serious, really, but there’s a weight to it that stops Ritsu in his tracks. “You trust me, right?”
Despite better judgement, Ritsu doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” With my life, he wants to say, knowing that hasn’t always been the case. Not with this much certainty, at least.
Shigeo nods resolutely. “Then we’re going up there.”
Shigeo looks around, spotting a small, plastic stepping stool. He drags it over and plants a foot on it, shaking unsteadily as he climbs his way up. Ritsu isn’t sure what to do at first, but jumps into action as the thing tips precariously to the side, Shigeo wobbling above, and lands on his knees just in time to hold it still.
“Jesus, Nii-san,” he mutters. His jeans are ruined. He’s going to have a hard time scrubbing away the dirt.
Shigeo ignores him, instead using the newly acquired height to give the skylight a good few shoves. The old coppery latch finally gives way and the skylight swings open with a pop, hinges squealing, thumping onto the other side and sending dust and leaves and bits of dry soil raining down.
Shigeo gets on his tip toes, reaching up with strong arms on either side of the roof—again, Body Improvement Club has definitely done its damn wonders—and lifting his weight up to climb up and out. Ritsu hears him huff out a breath or two before a hand stretches down in offering. When Ritsu doesn’t take it, Shigeo’s head pops into view with a questioning look.
“This is crazy, Nii-san,” Ritsu says. Shigeo just stares at him expectantly.
With a sigh, he eventually steps up the stepping stool, muttering prayers under his breath as he wobbles, and grabs at his brother’s hand who lifts him up with some struggle.
Once they settle down, and so has his anxiety, Ritsu has to admit—it’s a breathtaking sight. The sky is clear, the moon is bright, and they’re far out enough that the city’s light pollution doesn’t reach them to drown out the few specks of glittering stars. Ritsu admires the view with open awe.
“So,” Shigeo says after a moment of this, their elbows meeting in a light nudge, and Ritsu looks at him with a raised brow. “Worth it?”
Incredulous.
“You’re unbelievable, Nii-san,” Ritsu says, but he’s smiling, and so is Shigeo, and now they’re laughing and Ritsu thinks, yes, this is how things always are. This is how things always will be between them, despite it all.
For once, Ritsu thinks, as he watches a star shoot across the dark sky, their joined laughter leaving a stir of warmth in him, the odds are in their favour.
