[H] Brother’s Skirt - Chapter 6

Suddenly, my brother shook my arm. “Look at that building! Doesn’t it look like your house?”

The two rolls of toilet paper I was carrying wobbled with his motion. I looked up, finally realizing which “home” he was referring to.

The building my brother pointed out was dilapidated. Its outer walls were not only faded and peeling but also covered with dark green moss, some patches large, some creeping along the cracks. The balconies made of cement on the second and third floors were crumbling at the edges, almost exposing the rebar.

It did indeed look similar.

After pointing it out to me, my brother quickly pushed me to walk faster, as if trying to escape a man-eating monster.

Laughing, I said, “Don’t worry, that house is over a thousand kilometers away from here, it can’t fly over to us.”

My brother still kept his head down, urging me forward, unwilling to take another glance at the building. It seemed that the trauma the building caused him was greater than it did to me.

Back in high school, although my brother knew there had been changes in my foster family, he didn’t know the extent, and I never told him, seeing little point in doing so. I thought I could keep it from him until the college entrance exams, but he found out beforehand.

“Bro, let’s go to the same university.”

The back stairs where my brother had cleaned were clean enough to sit or lie on.

“Can your grades get you there?” he asked while memorizing vocabulary.

His question was too grounded in reality. Even though my grades were above average, they couldn’t catch up to his, not to mention the expectations his adoptive parents had for him. If they could, they would whip him into Harvard or Cambridge, as only then would they feel they could rewrite their destinies.

Seeing that I didn’t respond, he took my wrist and said, “It’s enough if we go to the same city, then we can still meet.”

It was impossible for him to lower his standards; my current grades were already the result of my full effort. Aiming for the same city was indeed the best option.

“Then choose a less demanding major,” I said.

My brother, busy with his vocabulary, ignored me. I pretended to be hot and lifted my shirt to wipe sweat. As soon as my brother saw the wound on my waist, he put down his vocabulary book, his eyes quickly reddening.

“What about the major, busy or not?”

He dared not touch me, his fingers curling into fists on his knees. I purposely rubbed against him and asked again, “Will you agree to it?”

He glared at me but remained silent. Seeing he was about to cry, I added, “Blow on it, and it won’t hurt anymore.”

He actually bent down to do it, but I quickly pushed him away. “No, it tickles. How about you agree to pick a less demanding major, and it will stop hurting right away?”

Unable to withstand my nagging, he reluctantly agreed. I wasn’t really serious about the request; even if he chose an extremely busy major later, I wouldn’t be angry—I’d just find time to visit him.

My classmate was pleased with the restoration of my and my brother’s interactions, even thinking that my waiting for my brother after school to go home together was an elevation of brotherly love. Perhaps fools really do have their own kind of fortune.

Our homes were in different directions, and unless we went straight to the bus station after school, we had about a kilometer we could walk together. It was getting dark, and my wrist sweated in my brother’s grip. When we parted, I wiped his sweaty palm on my school uniform. He grabbed my clothes and didn’t speak for a long time before finally letting go and walking away.

I thought every parting would follow this pattern—him going his way and me mine. I underestimated my brother’s acting skills.

My brother had never actively asked to visit my home; it had always been me who invited him, so he supposedly didn’t know I had moved from a detached villa to a tiny, twenty-something square meter, two-bedroom apartment—or so I thought. It wasn’t until he burst through the flimsy door of the small house that I realized I was the naive one.

“Fall from grace” is a phrase often heard but seldom experienced firsthand, reserved for those whose families once thrived. My foster parents owned a factory, but as the region developed and the labor market changed, they failed to adapt, leading to the business’s eventual closure. Initially, they were proactive, hoping for a comeback and worked long hours while I managed on my own. However, as their efforts remained fruitless and living conditions drastically changed, their moods fluctuated accordingly.

One day, they were arguing heatedly about rent. As I passed by to get water, my foster father’s gesticulating hand accidentally struck my face. He apologized for the mishap, and I didn’t take it to heart. Unfortunately, it seemed they had found a way to vent their frustrations, akin to discovering an easier side quest when the main game mission was too hard. They gradually indulged in this ‘side quest,’ transitioning from remorseful apologies to threatening me with no change in expression to keep silent.

Speaking up was futile; the police would either send me home or arrest my foster parents. Stuck at an awkward age, I didn’t want to return to the orphanage, nor did I have the capacity to live independently. So, I thought to endure until university, believing that things would improve once I started working.

At least I had my brother.

Just as I was consoling myself with this thought, I collided with the door. I had just reached home and was about to close the door when my body unexpectedly slammed it shut. Snapping back to reality, I felt a dull pain in my back, but at least I had avoided injuring my waist. I shifted slightly inside to prevent the door from banging. The smell of alcohol was strong; tonight might be tough, and I needed to hurry through it as I had to complete assignments and had just discussed university plans with my brother.

There’s talk that twins might have telepathy. Every time I was beaten before, I dared not think of my brother, fearing he might sense what was happening to me. This time, I let my guard down and briefly recalled how my brother looked when we separated at the crossroad. In less than a second, the back door was kicked open, and the rusty lock that came off the door panel flew towards me. Dizzy, I couldn’t turn to see who was at the door as something enveloped me tightly—probably my foster parents were also stunned by the noise, as the house suddenly fell silent.

I recognized my brother’s scent, a common soap smell.

Seizing the moment, my brother pulled me up and rushed me downstairs. I wanted to tell him that my foster parents wouldn’t chase us, but I lacked the strength to speak, and the grip he had on me was painfully tight. Eventually, I was dazed as he took me to his place.

His home hadn’t changed; it was still the modest but tidy house, which now seemed far better than the small apartment of my foster parents.

I was sweating coldly leaning against my brother, watching his foster parents hesitate to speak. There were no injuries on my face, perhaps only pale as if I had a severe cold. I pushed my brother, trying to leave, but he held me tightly.

“My brother is not feeling well; he’ll spend the night in my room.”

Without waiting for his foster parents to object, he helped me into his bedroom, laid me down on the bed, then locked the door. His foster parents kept asking from outside what had happened, why he was home so late, and whether he hadn’t learned his lesson from being grounded last time. They even talked about calling my foster parents to take me back.

My brother, who had been holding back tears the whole way, finally let them flow, sitting by the bed and covering my ears to block out the noise from outside. I pulled him down to lie on the bed, mimicking him, letting him hear only the rumbling sound formed by my palms covering his ears.

People stop when they get tired. My brother and I, exhausted from crying, fell asleep for a while.

When I woke up, it was past midnight, and I heard my brother’s stomach growling. I told him to eat something, but he said he couldn’t, then held me tighter.

“How did you think to follow me home today?” I asked my brother.

“I’ve been following you for several days now, just nothing happened until today,” he replied. “Are you going home tomorrow?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

It was clear his foster parents wouldn’t let me stay, and my brother knew it, so he started crying again. Not just because I had no life skills; he didn’t either, and enduring together until we could enter society seemed the only secure option.

Not wanting to let him continue crying, I sat up and asked, “Did you finish your homework?”

My brother choked up. I wiped away his tears and pulled him up. “I have a problem I can’t solve; can you teach me?”

That night, we didn’t solve the problem of human reproduction or the fractures in our familial relations, but we managed to momentarily patch the cracks in our bond, barricaded against the world outside his modest, unchanged home.