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the-parentheticals · 1 year ago

Text

"it can't be helped," from the scum who can't be helped

Warnings: mugging, brief thoughts about s/a but none actually happens

Summary: Koemi doesn't want to see her brother again. She never has. She never will.

Note: For @badthingshappenbingo, Banished / Cringetober day 15, song lyrics. Yes, this is based on The Purge March.

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It's almost a blessing when Kiyoshi Nishimoto disappears the week before his eighteenth birthday.

She doesn't like him. She hasn't liked him in years. She hasn't liked anyone in this household for years, really, except for perhaps the goldfish.

Koemi's not an idiot. She knows what he was doing, despite their parents' best attempts to pretend otherwise. The jewelry that isn't their mother's, the late nights sneaking in, the discreet calls. Honestly, it's better that he left instead of disgracing their family that way when it inevitably came out.

"Good morning, everyone! It's the beginning of another wonderful day!"

Their parents had freaked out. Spewed the vulgarity that they had always warned her against. Her brother had it coming. She hoped he was dead.

"I know that this situation is a tragedy, but we have to stay strong for my dear brother's sake!"

Koemi doesn't quite believe in this one, but it's her duty to say the words anyway.

"We can't let our sadness control us! We have to move on and always remember him!"

As a terrible example, that is.

Her brother does not deserve her forgiveness. She knows what he was really like--not the hero he thought he was, not the good kid her parents thought he was. No, he was nothing less than scum.

---

Three years later, she's seventeen, and she's only further confirmed her belief that everyone else in this family was rotten.

It's not that Kiyoshi's disappearance had done her any favours when starting at high school. They mostly just thought she was weird. Or cursed.

That's the only reason she's walking home alone this late at night. The only one.

She doesn't even move when she feels the knife against her neck. She's grown up to be very pretty, if she says so herself, and she's not even surprised someone's taken an interest.

"You know the drill." The voice is deep and raspy, and she freezes for just a moment. It's a put-on. "Your wallet."

"Or what?"

The knife digs slightly deeper into her skin as answer. Not enough to draw blood, just to make a point.

"As if you could ever lay a finger on your little sister."

The knife pulls a bit, just long enough for a strand of blonde hair to be snipped off. It lies flat against her white sweater for just a moment, before he jerks his arm away and the strand falls to the ground.

She doesn't care for the face of the person in front of her very much, but she supposes she can't stare at her personal belongings forever.

"We're not siblings anymore."

"Of course we are. Unless you kill me now, I suppose, but like I said." She gives a self-assured smile. "You won't."

Kiyoshi looks at her with a characteristic coldness. He's a bit taller now, or maybe it's just his shoes. Not that it really makes a difference, with how short she always has been.

His clothes are surprisingly put-together for someone who's been living who-knows-where. He's still got his suit jacket, vest, and yellow shirt, dirty in a way that their parents would have hated but barely pings on her radar. His hair is messier and covers his right eye just enough that...oh.

"How is your eye?" Koemi smiles. If he won't talk, she'll just have to keep talking. "I suppose whoever caused it is dead now?"

"Why is that your first assumption?"

"I know you, that's why." She clasps her hands together and gives a little hum. He doesn't bother her anymore. Not the way anyone else would. "Pity they didn't take out both."

"My turn to ask the questions. How are our parents, then? Still holding you back?

"You don't know what they've done in three years. For all you know, they've become just like you, and my life's a living hell."

Kiyoshi raises an eyebrow in the way that suggests that he thinks his sister is an utter idiot but doesn't want to admit it just yet.

"They've been doing this for longer than we were alive. You were already in a living hell. But you can--"

"Pity they didn't take out your tongue too." Koemi's smile does not waver,

Kiyoshi ignores her. "You think your rules will keep you safe from the rest of this world. Our parents, double standards..."

"It's worked, hasn't it?"

"You're just as rotten as the rest of us."

"How?"

"You think I'm scum, don't you?"

Koemi nods.

"Then do something about it."

"I could never." Koemi wrenches her arm away. In another universe, it would actually hurt. "That's the difference between us, brother dear."

"I don't make pitiful excuses for doing what has to be done?"

"I don't make people obey my every whim and call it freedom."

"I don't make them do that. I save them from themselves, Ko. I get them away from all the pain in their lives that results from them holding back against those that really want to hurt them."

"You destroy them from the inside. You make them do all the worst excesses we have good reasons for not doing. You make people live according to your beliefs. You're the worst one here, and you don't even know it. You're doubtlessly, clearly, absolutely, unequivocally, beyond any doubt, categorically, emphatically--" Koemi has to stop, because her face is red, and Mother, Father, would never have believed her if she had said it that way. She breathes in. Breathes out. Next--

"I'm sorry for leaving you with them."

She blinks. It's not true. That's definitely not something Kiyoshi would ever have said. Her disbelief has to show on her face.

"I am. They shouldn't have been able to influence anyone like that, especially not you."

"You're sorry? I don't care!"

"I know."

"Remember my screams? My cries? My apologies?"

"I know."

"Don't come back to the house. You left me with them. This should be easy for you." She crosses her arms and leans against a lamp post. "And don't even try following me. I'll know."

"You won't. And I won't."

#badthingshappenbingo #cringetober #pari writes real fics #pari's ocs #my stuff

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