[H] Brother’s Skirt - Chapter 3

It seems kids are made of water. While crossing the street, a child cried loudly, pointing at the balloon in my brother’s arms, wanting it. My brother turned to shield the balloon, but the child only cried harder, and his mother couldn’t stop him. Reluctantly, my brother handed over the carefully guarded balloon, then rolled his eyes when the child wasn’t looking, mouthing: “So noisy.”

Passing the city’s largest library, my brother stopped at the entrance for a while. Several of his crafted art pieces were on display there, depicting abstract figures in reading poses. Passersby could sit on them, creating a scene of mutual closeness with the crafts. After he was done looking, I slipped him a “balloon.”

He scanned around, saw no balloon sellers, and asked in surprise, “Where did this come from?”

Before I could answer, he noticed the “balloon” was slippery, its end covered with a band-aid. My brother, being a woodworker, often had cuts, and I always carried band-aids with me. He asked, “Is this balloon broken?”

I shook my head.

He muttered, “Why does it look so weird?”

When he peeled off the band-aid and saw the condom underneath, he finally realized what this elongated “balloon” was. My brother laughed so hard he couldn’t straighten up, then pulled me into the library, leaving just two minutes before closing time.

Just now in the restroom, my brother grabbed my hand and asked about the bruise on my arm. I told him it was from accidentally hitting something while installing an air conditioner at work. He didn’t believe it and inspected my hand for five minutes.

“We need to go to the emergency room.” The way he gripped hurt more than the bruise. His eyes reddened as he asked, “Did the workers bully you? Or the foreman? We need to get this examined.”

I insisted it was just a work injury, but he didn’t believe me and started dragging me toward the hospital, his grip leaving marks on my hand. He was in a state of panic and wouldn’t listen to reason, so I had to cover his mouth and nibble his earlobe, holding him until he was breathless and weak before I let go. The restroom stall was small, so I sat him on the toilet lid; he nearly cried, softly calling my childhood nickname.

I told him, “Who else could bully me besides you?”

On the way home, his eyes were still red. He had thrown away the “balloon” and was dragging me like a stubborn mule, declaring he’d lock me up at home.

He always had extreme suspicions and reactions to injuries on my body, but I can’t blame him.

Back in high school, I had long-term bruises on my body that I thought my brother wouldn’t notice since they were under my clothes. One time after gym class, he came to find me, boasting that the boys in his class all had abs, and asked if I did. I said no, but he didn’t believe me and suddenly lifted my school uniform, revealing a large bruise the size of an elbow on my belly. My brother was shocked; I lied that I had accidentally hit a desk. The bruise was indeed about the height of a desk. He believed me, but after that, I stopped letting him randomly touch my clothes.

Gradually, I wouldn’t let him touch my body at all. Every time he clung to me, he would touch those bruised spots, causing me intense pain, but he always noticed and tried to lift my clothes again. With so many lies, I couldn’t keep track of what injury was for what reason, so I just kept him at a distance. At first, he thought I was joking, and I just stepped back whenever he approached.

That day we got our exam papers back, and my brother did well and came to show me his results. He often visited my class, and almost everyone knew him, though few knew of our relationship. After being adopted, both our names had changed, and since we didn’t look alike, even the teachers didn’t associate us as brothers. While talking to me, my classmate heard us and casually gave my brother a pen—a common blue ink pen, not as nice or valuable as the fountain pen I had given him before. Just this friendly gesture from my classmate made me realize it had been a long time since I had given my brother a gift, simply because I couldn’t afford it.

I abruptly stood up and walked out of the classroom. My brother, puzzled for a second, followed me into the hallway. He grabbed me, and I turned back to see the pen in his hand, feeling miserable over such a trivial item. I shook off his hand and wandered around the school, up and down stairs and across the basketball court, with him following me everywhere, until he cornered me by a small grove next to the track. With nowhere to go, I turned around and saw his eyes red with holding back tears, probably drawing a lot of attention along the way. He moved to grab my wrist again, but I dodged.

“Don’t touch me.”

My brother, looking stunned, asked what was wrong. I couldn’t explain, just kept insisting he shouldn’t make any physical contact with me.

“What do you mean by ‘don’t touch you’? Can’t touch you now, or never again?”

My brother always looked pitiful when holding back tears as a child, but it was different now; his extreme misery seemed almost sinister. I was genuinely scared and ran away. I regretted letting my adoptive parents transfer me to my brother’s high school.

After that first cold treatment toward my brother, I intensified it, transferring the pain through my emotional distance. He would come looking for me, and I would either hide or stay silent. My classmate, caught in the middle, urged us to clear things up to avoid ruining our relationship. After a few days, my brother stopped coming to my class and instead started messaging me to meet by the back stairs. During every break and lunch, he persistently messaged, but I sat in the classroom, avoiding him for a couple of days.

Then, once while running an errand for a teacher, I passed by the back stairs and saw my brother sitting there idly with his phone, not even afraid of it being confiscated by teachers. I stood on the stone steps, and when he looked up and saw me, his eyes instantly reddened. I was in a hurry, so I just warned him about the phone being confiscated before leaving. That phone was the same one I bought him in elementary school, which he refused to replace, saving me the trouble of persuading him to get a new one when I ran out of money.

He continued to message me during breaks and lunch whenever he was free, and if I went to the back stairs, neither of us would speak; we just sat quietly for a while before heading back to our classes.

I guess he was affected; his grades dropped, and his name disappeared from the top ten in the monthly exams. I knew without him calling to tell me that his adoptive parents had scolded him severely.

I texted him to ignore the nonsense from his adoptive parents. It took a while for him to reply, saying, “Thinking of the Batman underpants you used to wear, trying not to cry.”

The next day at school, my brother didn’t seek me out all morning. I messaged him, arranging to meet at the back stairs.

That leads to the incident of me borrowing a classmate’s skirt to amuse my brother.

After that, I witnessed my brother getting an erection.

His gaze swept up from my ankles, very slowly and thoroughly, making the hairs on my skin stand up due to the cold and his unabashed, invasive stare. He made no attempt to cover his bulge, only looking away after he had his fill, then picked up my trousers from the ground for me to put on. What he did afterward, I don’t know; he left before I did.

As he walked away, he told me with his back turned, “There won’t be a next time.”

For a long while after, I developed a strange habit: I couldn’t stand seeing my brother do well, nor could I bear seeing him suffer.