"Goddamnit Kara, how long are you gonna be in there for?"
Osomatsu followed up his complaint with a bunch of rapid bangs on the door, meaning that even if Karamatsu answered he probably wouldn't have heard. Pacing to and fro, he found he hardly cared.
Truth be told he was getting pretty annoyed.
As if it wasn't bad enough the six of them had one tiny bathroom to share between them, his shitty brother had been hogging it for the past twenty minutes. Nobody takes that long to take a shit. Osomatsu didn't even need to go himself, but it was just a matter of principle.
"Come on!" He kicked the door this time, but didn't accomplish anything except hurt his toes. With a deep sigh, he pressed his ear to the wood instead. There was no sound, not a single thing. If Osomatsu hadn't seen Karamatsu go in there himself, he might have thought there was nobody inside.
But the door was still locked and he had just left the others in the living room. It couldn't be anybody else.
"Kara? What are you even doing-" he tried the handle against better judgment, but obviously it wasn't going to budge. Slowly anxiety was starting to creep up Osomatsu's throat, drowning out the annoyance in waves.
Because while Osomatsu might be an idiot, he wasn't clueless. Osomatsu had locked himself in the bathroom plenty of times before. And he didn't like being in the opposite position, to be the one trying to get inside while you knew the person behind that door might be halfway into tearing himself apart.
Urgency slipped into his voice despite how much he didn't want it to. "Karamatsu if you don't answer me soon I will kick this damn door down." Two more seconds passed before he called it quits, and simply retrieved the lock pick from his pocket. He hadn't used it since middle school, but Osomatsu was certain it could still do the trick.
Getting the door unlocked was easy.
Then he opened it to the sight of Karamatsu prone on the ground, slumped against the glass shower front with his sleeves rolled up to above his elbows. He was pale – too pale – making every vein stand out horribly beneath his skin. Dull, unfocused eyes were staring into Osomatsu, through him.
He could feel nothing except the rapid beating of his heart.
"Fuck-" Pushing the door closed again with his foot, locking it to make sure nobody came in after them, Osomatsu kneeled next to his brother. Karamatsu's pupils were dilated but seemed to search for him regardless. Osomatsu put both hands on his cheeks, hoping it could help him focus. "Kara what the fuck did you do?!"
As if the sound of his voice was enough to bring some life back to him, Karamatsu blinked. He tried to gesture with his arm but winced in pain when he moved it.
That's when Osomatsu noticed the needle still stuck in it, buried beneath the skin around the crook of his elbow. The syringe had only been half-emptied, showing a remainder of whatever the fuck Karamatsu had been injecting himself with inside. Osomatsu pulled it out, not even bothering to second-guess if that was a bad idea. Karamatsu let out a little yelp at his less than gentle treatment, but that too went ignored.
"You told me you had it under control, you promised me-" Osomatsu had to cut himself off before he became completely erratic, his breathing slipping out of his control. He didn't have time to start hyperventilating if he wanted to help Karamatsu.
He pressed his fingers against his brother's clammy skin. The pulse running beneath was slow but steady, Osomatsu wasn't a medical professional but knew that was supposed to be a good sign.
"How much did you use?" he asked.
Karamatsu blinked again, then licked his lips as if it was hard for him to talk. Against all logic, he smiled - hollow and thin. "Not too much. It's fine."
Osomatsu could see a distorted image of himself, standing above the sink while water dripped down his arm, clear liquid turning into red as it carried away the blood oozing from his cuts. "It's fine," he had said in the memory. "I never do it too much." He remembered Karamatsu's cold glare at the back of his head, the way he cradled the bandage box while waiting for Osomatsu to finish up cleaning himself.
God, they were pathetic.
Karamatsu's eyes had slipped closed and Osomatsu panicked, grasped both his shoulders and shook him. "Hey, this is no time to sleep, you idiot!" His fingers were digging into Karamatsu's shoulders painfully. "You better fucking stay awake so I can kick your ass later."
Cracking one eye open, Karamatsu grinned that horribly plastered grin of his, oozing fakeness. "Of course, brother."
Osomatsu wanted so badly to smack him in the face too but that wouldn't help matters any.
"I'll kick your ass," he repeated. "And then we talk about boundaries, okay? We'll talk about it." He could feel the scars on his wrists, the vertical cut he had made just days ago when it had all become too much. The one Karamatsu had cried over, holding his arm, begged him not to anymore. "We'll talk about boundaries and we'll keep each other safe. We can keep each other safe, okay?"
Karamatsu nodded, slumped over so his head was resting on Osomatsu's shoulder. Osomatsu did something he might never do otherwise and lifted his arms up to hold him.
They could not stop this, but they could keep each other safe. The thought felt like ice sliding into Osomatsu's stomach, settling there in every crevice. It was a cold comfort. Sooner or later it would destroy them, but together they could at least postpone whatever that destruction would look like.
And for them, it would have to do.