#ALSO OBLIGATORY THIS IS WRITTEN FROM RITSU'S PERSPECTIVE NOTICE

[brown-little-robin]

so Ritsu is in student council, which runs the student clubs in Salt Township. Clubs are supposed to contribute to the community for at least an hour of their time every school day. Ritsu, as someone who was recently the sole caretaker of his sick brother, obviously feels VERY STRONGLY about responsibility. But his thoughts on community are a little complicated, given that he learned to distrust all communities and traveling parties and in-groups of all sorts during the horrible trek where practically everyone they met tried to kill Shige. Ritsu is working to protect and rebuild Salt Township and uphold its rules while simultaneously harboring a deep, cynical distrust for towns and their rules. It's. a good time.

He feels like an outsider even as an insider. He misses being part of his own two-person and then three-person in-group. He misses Shigeo so much he feels sick. His brother is gone with Reigen half the time. When Shigeo is home, it's like he's even further away. Ritsu can no longer just take his brother's hand or rest on his shoulder whenever he likes. He can't murmur encouragement to him as they walk forward. They're no longer walking forward. They have nowhere to go and no common goals. They're just existing in the same space. Dimple is dead and Ritsu is totally alone.

Student Council. Ritsu is in student council and he's in charge of making sure people take responsibility for protecting others. When Student Council President Kamuro suggests the Big Cleanup, Ritsu jumps at the chance to punish students who don't contribute to the whole. It's like yelling at Dimple again, familiar, the taste of power and protectiveness on his tongue like lemon, like bitter water.

Ritsu goes after Onigawara Tenga, a member of the unofficial Salt Protection Gang—not a club but a band of delinquents who patrol the city outskirts with knives and bats, who are always on the lookout for skirmishes with other, similar gangs from other areas. Onigawara has a club but prefers fighting bare-handed. And Ritsu hates Onigawara. He's exactly the kind of person who Ritsu had to avoid for months and months, the guy swaggering around looking for some innocent zombie to murder just to feel powerful for a minute.

Ritsu saw him talking to Shigeo once, apologizing to him for something with his words but not with his body language. Shigeo was pressed up against a wall, terrified, and Tenga was snarling at him, and Ritsu saw red. His hand flew to where his handgun used to be, and the only reason Onigawara left without a hole in him was that the gun was gone, traded away for shelter.

Ritsu's brain kicked in after the rush of panic at finding empty air in place of the gun. He slipped silently back up the stairs, grudge crystalizing.

And then Ritsu got the opportunity to act on that grudge, and sure, he agreed with the Student Council President that the Salt community needs to crack down on people who don't actually contribute to their fragile town. Sure, he wants his brother to live somewhere without thugs wandering around menacing people who haven't done anything wrong. Sure, he has ideals of a peaceful school environment, or whatever. But mostly, Ritsu is tired of pretending to believe in community. He wants to try being a hypocrite. He wants to be the one hurting people in the name of The Community for a change, instead of the one getting hurt by people who claim to be protecting their own.

Isn't humanity supposed to be the ultimate "our own"? Ritsu remembers his grandmother saying something like that once, he thinks. He thinks he remembers her saying that everyone is basically everyone else's brother and sister, way, way removed, and so he should be nice to everyone. Well, that all fell apart as soon as the apocalypse happened. Humans turned on humans as soon as there was an excuse to kill each other.

Clearly, brothers can hurt each other too, and Ritsu—

Ritsu sure isn't going to be fighting his real brother anytime soon.