[H] Brother’s Skirt - Chapter 5

The envelope was small, even smaller than the flyers on the counter of the massage clinic.

Though the clinic didn’t look very reputable, the practitioner didn’t cheat us. After examining my injuries, he simply applied some ointment and provided reasonably priced medicated patches before letting us go. My brother sat squatting at the clinic door, surrounded by torn candy wrappers. I picked them up and threw them into a nearby trash can.

“You won’t need to eat dinner tonight,” I said.

My brother stood up and weakly hugged me. Actually, he’s a bit taller and slightly more robust than I am, but you can only tell when we stand close together—it’s not very obvious.

“The patches the master gave me, I can’t apply them well myself. Can you help me?”

“He didn’t say you needed to go to the hospital for a check-up?”

I pushed my brother away, his eyes still red. “What do you actually want, for me to break an arm or to be okay?”

He hugged me again, persistently nuzzling. “Can you stop doing renovations, please? I make enough for both of us.”

I pinched the back of his neck to make him stand properly. “I’d just be idle at home.”

Seeing that my brother was about to pounce again, I pushed my palm against his chest and said through gritted teeth, “If you nuzzle me again, I’m going to explode! Can we just go home first?”

My brother took me down a less-traveled path, his wide sleeve covering the hand he held mine with. From a distance, we probably just looked unusually close. A few minutes into our walk, we unexpectedly ran into a co-worker from the renovation site. About ten meters away, I recognized him; he saw me too, but he turned around and walked away as soon as I was about to greet him.

“Isn’t he from your renovation crew?” my brother asked.

Even my brother recognized him—it was clear the guy was avoiding me, pretending not to know me.

My brother occasionally came to the renovation site to see me, sometimes bringing food or drink, other times just to chat, telling me the fan at home was broken or we were running out of rice. Though we weren’t overly affectionate, we didn’t exactly avoid each other either. After a few encounters, other workers asked if I lived with my brother. I admitted it, but I didn’t mention that I had a brother.

“Maybe he thinks I’m gay,” I said.

Although my brother was right beside me, I felt like the shadow of his past and the worker’s retreating figure overlapped.

Since I told my brother to stay away, he really hadn’t sought me out at school anymore, and we certainly didn’t meet after school. My classmate, convinced we had fought again, insisted on arranging a shopping trip for three to mend our relationship. He unilaterally decided the time and place, saying he’d wait forever if my brother and I didn’t show up.

On the day, he was late, and I arrived first.

While waiting at the bus stop, my brother approached from a distance. Just as he could see me clearly, he suddenly turned and entered a convenience store. I checked my watch; it was time. If it was really urgent, he could have greeted me first before going to the store.

What unsettled me was that I wasn’t sure he had seen me.

Before I could think further, I was already at the store entrance. Through the glass door, I could see my brother aimlessly wandering inside, clearly not intending to buy anything. My suspicion seemed confirmed. I pulled open the glass door and entered, facing him directly. My mouth was already open to speak, but he walked past me and out the door as if I were a stranger who had never appeared in his life.

I turned so sharply I twisted my ankle, but ignoring the pain, I hurried after his retreating figure. He moved fast, crossing the bus stop without noticing my classmate and sped up, crossing the street against the red light. The cars, careless, brushed past him.

“Bro!” I called out to him, and he definitely heard me.

He reached the other side of the street, and without me behind him, resumed walking at a normal pace, growing farther away.

I returned to the bus stop just as my classmate showed up, twenty minutes past the agreed time. He thought my brother wasn’t coming.

“Let’s wait a bit longer,” I said.

I wasn’t sure if my brother would come back.

My classmate called my brother, who said he was on his way. Then I saw my brother jogging from across the street to the bus stop, panting and apologizing for being late.

It’s hard to describe the feeling, like being kicked in front of a camera and forced to act in a play that you’re not allowed to fail. Even the director didn’t seem to understand the script.

The worst part was, my brother’s acting was better than mine, and he could spin a narrative like no other.

My classmate, not the brightest, didn’t pick up on any clues, and the outing was mundane—we just had coffee and browsed a clothing store.

This store wasn’t the same one my brother and I had fooled around in before; it was more upscale. My brother’s casual clothes were limited, and I hadn’t given him clothes before because anything new would be noticed by his adoptive parents when washed or worn. His adoptive parents were as strict as ever, especially since they knew we attended the same school, they kept a tighter leash on him. I didn’t know what lie he had spun to get permission to come out today.

My brother picked up a small accessory, examined it, and put it back. I checked the price tag; it wasn’t expensive, but I couldn’t afford it, just like the coffee we’d just had, which my classmate had paid for. Sometimes my brother would tell me if he needed or wanted something small, which I’d buy for him. He wasn’t greedy, always just things costing ten or twenty yuan. I think he must have realized my situation, so he stopped mentioning his needs to me.

My classmate had forgotten the purpose of our outing halfway through and vanished for a while, then suddenly appeared with two T-shirts of the same model but different colors, proposing that my brother and I try them on as “brother outfits.” He was the only one who knew my brother and I were related by blood.

“That’s weird, isn’t it?” my brother said.

“What’s so strange about it? There’s parent-child outfits, couple outfits, sister outfits, why not a brother outfit?”

Worried my classmate’s loud voice might cause a scene, I reluctantly dragged my brother into the fitting area and ordered my classmate to wait in the merchandise area.

While the attendant wasn’t looking, I led my brother into a fitting room. He didn’t plan to try on clothes, just leaned against the wall looking at the floor.

“Did you like that bracelet we saw earlier?” I asked quietly.

He just glanced up at me briefly, as if I were a stranger.

Unable to tolerate his attitude, I once again twisted his wrist behind his back, but this time he faced me, making it appear as if I were embracing him.

“Now that I’m broke, do I become invisible to you?”

My brother’s expression fell apart for a moment, “You know that’s not true.”

“I know,” I said. “If you like it, I’ll steal it for you.”

Talking about committing a crime, even jokingly, made me sweat.

My brother’s expression recovered as quickly as it had fallen. He looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m a freak, you’d better stay away from me.”

There was no struggle from my brother, making my restraint pointless. I tried to let go, and he stepped back to lean against the wall, not walking away like before. I lifted his shirt and pants to check from all angles, but he stopped me. His expression changed slightly.

“Did any cars touch you when you crossed the street?” I had been holding back this question until now.

He cleared his throat and said, “No.”

“Next time I chase you, you can’t run, hear me?”

My brother didn’t agree, and I didn’t force him this time. I stepped back and then turned around to take off my shirt and try on the T-shirt my classmate had pushed on us. Just as I pulled the shirt over my head, my brother touched a fresh wound on my back, large and painful to the touch. I did it on purpose, but my brother still said nothing.

Neither my brother nor I had the money, so naturally, we couldn’t buy the “brother outfits,” but my classmate, seeing my brother holding my wrist as we walked out of the fitting area, self-satisfactorily declared the day’s mission accomplished.

Leaving, I didn’t say where to go, just followed behind my brother, stepping on his shadow. He led me through sparsely populated areas, his thumb resting in my wrist, his other fingers loosely clasping my palm. We passed one bus stop after another where we could have taken a bus home.

“If we didn’t know each other at first and one day fell in love, would that still be considered incest?” my brother asked me.

I watched the sparrows hopping around on the road ahead and said, “Both parents are dead, and we can’t have kids together, so does it really matter if it’s incest?”

Just don’t talk to me about the problems of human reproduction, nobody knows whether humanity should continue or not.