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He sat on the couch, one of Yukio’s spare glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, leaning over the coffee table. His movements were rigid, solely confined to his hand and the flick of his wrist as he sketched out the “family tree” as it were. Finishing up, he pushed the paper to center between them and sat back.
Yukio hunched over to examine the paper. As far as family trees went, it was considerably confined. There was one large box with Rin’s name at the top of the page. A row of four boxes split from it. The first box in that row, also containing Rin’s name, split into two more boxes, with an arrow and a little note pointing to the lines. The second box also split into two boxes before those two boxes reconnected into another box, with another set of arrows and neatly printed kanji explaining the split and subsequent reconnection. The third and fourth box of that first row remained as they were.
The back of Yukio’s neck prickled as he read the names and the notes.
“It’s pretty simple,” Toko said beside him. “Body born, heart severed, brain split, Rin and Ao, then Aiko, then me.” He pointed at the second box, reading “Ao” with a small “1” in the upper corner. “Years pass. Familial revelations, Shiro–” He faltered, then cleared his throat. “Sword unsheathed. It’s a lot so Ao becomes Ao two point oh and Hinote.” He glanced at Yukio over the frame of his glasses. “When Rin would get mean and feral, that was Hinote. If he was just mean, it was probably Ao.”
Made sense. While Rin’s behaviour pre-sword could have been considered feral in some respects, it was more childish or haphazardous than a true loss of conscious thought. He remained (somewhat) fully aware of himself and his actions. Post-sword, however, turned him into less than a wild animal. Wild animals fought to protect themselves, but this Rin, well, he was hellbent on destruction and little else. He’d unsheathe the sword and that would be it. A true demonic creature.
If Hinote had formed because of the sword, then the sword, naturally, would be the trigger to bring him out.
“I think Ao just needed time to accept what happened. He has a lot of emotions,” Toko said, voice soft. It was familiar in a faint way. How Yukio used to walk Rin through difficult words. Made sense given who Toko was meant to be. “Discovering we were a demon was really hard for all of us, but Ao was…” Toko’s eyes closed as he sighed. “Anger and breaking things and being mean. Very demonic traits. He didn’t like it.”
So he cut the demon out of himself. Understandable. Yukio would’ve done the same.
Toko moved down to the two lines connecting Ao two point oh and Hinote into Ao three point oh. His voice brightened. “Self-acceptance! This was a little bit after we went to Kyoto. Ao and Hinote become Ao again.” With his free hand, Toko gestured loosely into the air. “But now he’s not just Ao, he’s also the future demon king.”
He rolled his eyes at this. The edge of Yukio’s lips twitched.
Toko moved his finger over to the two lines below Rin’s box. Yukio looked away and cut in before Toko could explain.
“I hurt you,” he said, voice flat even to his own ears.
“Yeah,” Toko agreed. Silence hung heavy between them, heavy in Yukio’s lungs, like water weighing him down, filling him up, suffocating him. Then, quieter than he already was, Toko continued. “It was slow though. It started on the first day of the cram school.” Not surprising. “All these little cracks. And stuff kept happening so the cracks got bigger. And then…”
And then the sword broke.
And then the sword broke and Rin’s heart with it.
Yukio swallowed thickly. Still refusing to look back over to the paper, or to Toko, he asked, “How is he?”
“Yu is Yu,” Toko answered. “He doesn’t bother me.”
It wasn’t really the answer Yukio wanted to hear, but nothing he could do about that. Yu was still on the paper, in his own box, in his own existence, in Rin’s head, wearing Yukio’s skin and Yukio’s cruelty and Rin’s self-hatred. Unlike Hinote, he’d probably be there for a good while.
“Please don’t blame yourself,” Toko said, as he did the first time Yukio found out about Yu, as he did the second time Yu came up, when Yukio walked into the bathroom and found Rin’s blood on the white tile, the slashes across his skin already closed, but still far too bloody, and as he would continue to do for as long as Yu existed and likely past that. “Rin already didn’t like himself. It was probably going to happen anyway.”
Yukio just hummed a non-committal noise of understanding.
There was a slight fascination with Toko’s wording. Rin didn’t like himself. Rin. An image of the human brain slipped to the forefront of Yukio’s mind. It split into four segments. The first segment, the Rin segment, was the biggest. More control, more emotions, more presence.
Then a corner of it sliced off into its own new segment, balling up all Rin’s self-loathing, self-hatred. His innate desire to hurt himself.
On one hand, Yukio felt nothing but guilt and remorse knowing why Yu was there; why he, apparently, looked like Yukio; how, so very much, despite anything Toko might say, it was Yukio’s fault. On the other hand, he felt it was befitting. Of course, Rin’s self-loathing should look like Yukio. Who knew best about self-loathing than him?
What strange narcissism.
He closed his eyes and willed the thoughts away. They slowly disengaged from the front of his thoughts. Out of sight, but not quite out of mind. They’d never be.
Taking a deep breath, he sat back. “I suppose Rin and Ao split off shortly after Shiro sealed your heart away.”
Toko pushed Yukio’s glasses up the bridge of his nose, a mimicry of the way Yukio used to when he was little and his glasses were just a tad too big for his face. Same as his slightly too big shoes, Shiro and the other priests assured him he’d grow into them.
“I don’t know about the specific timing,” Toko said. “But it wasn’t right away. I think Rin and Ao became themselves that time you got pushed off the swings.”
Which time? Yukio thought wryly.
A silly question to ask. Even though Yukio had been bullied often on the playground, he could hazard a guess at the specific moment Toko was referencing. Personally, he couldn’t remember that far back, but Shiro and the others had laughed about it dozens of times. They were two. Yukio wanted to go on the swings. Rin wanted to eat sand. Once they noticed he’d wandered off, Izumi and Shiro chased him to the sandbox. Then chased him again back to the swings where Yukio had been pushed off the swings by some older kids.
Rin had set upon the older kids like a wild animal, biting and spitting and screaming. Izumi still had a faint scar on his upper arm from where Rin had ripped out a small chunk of skin, angry and furious that he was being pulled away from the fight.
This revelation held little yet so much surprise. All the research Yukio had been doing filtered through his head at once. Pieces of the puzzle that was Rin and this condition quickly aligning and snapping into place. Ao was likely meant for protection. Although, surely, more for Rin’s protection.
Then again where Yukio went, Rin followed. Where Rin went, Yukio followed. Even angered, troubled, pained by one another, they were ants in a line. One after the other. Always.
For all his life, Yukio so badly wanted to be his own person. To be free of the shadows of both his brother and his adoptive father. To be strong and capable. Independent.
For all his life, Rin so badly wanted them to be one person. To be a single entity with Yukio. The two of them forever intertwined. Of course, seeing Yukio pushed down and laughed at by kids bigger and older than either of them would be distressing. Yukio wasn’t just his brother. He was a part of him.
Hence, Toko.
“Aiko fully came into herself when we were around five or so,” Toko continued. He placed his hand on his chest. “The feelings the others have—they’re not my feelings, but I know them. I remember… wanting. I wanted a lot.” Still pressed to his chest, his fingers curled into his palm. His voice, however, didn’t waver. “I—we realized how much people didn’t like us. How far away everyone was even when we were in the same room. We were too different. Too mean, too loud, too much. Even you wanted space from us sometimes.”
Guilt shot through Yukio’s core like a bullet. Still, he reminded himself, trying to soothe away the stinging wound, Rin was a lot to handle, especially when they were younger and he was far less independent and far less willing to be so. He was often overstimulating to a painful degree. Yukio would hide from him or plead with one of the priests to keep Rin at bay so he could just have some time to read without Rin bothering him. Even if Yukio read aloud to him, his easily distracted (and evidently dissociated) nature led him to ask dozens of questions, make random noises, run around, and a bunch of other distracting actions.
When Yukio would hide, Rin would get angry. The evidence of his tantrum always laid clear and bare in the scratches on Shiro’s arm, the random items thrown about the room, and his still rage-burnt face. While he knew and understood well enough that hiding from Rin made Rin upset, Yukio had never really put two-and-two together before. Now the puzzle pieces finally clicked together. Sourness drew to the back of his throat.
Toko’s hand fell away to his lap. “We couldn’t stop being angry. We couldn’t stop being loud. We didn’t really know how. Shiro tried by teaching us how to cook but it was… redirection.” The word was said slow, deliberate, a focused look on his face. “So I was still loud and mean, and people still didn’t like me. But cats–” A smile peaked at the edges of his lips. “–they can be loud and mean, and people still like them. Nobody gets upset when a cat bites them.”
Hence, Aiko.
Yukio nodded. “Well, you can’t blame an animal for being an animal.”
Toko’s smile widened. It was so distinctly not Rin. Rin smiled wide and boisterously. Toko’s smile, even spread full across his lips, was small and quiet.
“Exactly,” he agreed. He gestured to himself. “I came to be the summer before our eighth birthday.”
The summer before their eighth birthday? That would’ve been: “A few months after I started cram school.”
“Yeah.” Toko fiddled with his fingers on his lap. “You were busy and you didn’t want to play as much. I missed you.” His gaze caught Yukio’s, a shyness to his eyes that Yukio had never really seen in Rin’s. He recognized it though. He’d seen it on himself enough. “I wanted to be you too. I always did. Or, at least, this part of me–” He gestured to himself once more. “–did. If I was you, I could go wherever you were. I could be with you all the time. I could be smart and clever and kind and better. Then maybe you’d want to play and be with me again.” He gave a weak shrug. “And so here I am.”
Yukio didn’t know what to say to any of that, except, “Here you are.” With a dozen different emotions swirling inside him, he reached over and squeezed Toko’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to play.”
Toko laughed. “I’m not as fussed about that. I am you, after all. At least, I’m meant to be. You weren’t fussed about playing games, so I’m not. You were all big and grown-up back then.”
Yukio snorted. “I was definitely a child.”
A child playing pretend.
Toko laughed again. “But you felt like you were!” His laugh gently faded away. He took a deep breath. “It’s really hard sometimes,” he admitted, cheeks pink with embarrassment. “You were the smartest person we’d ever known. Still are!” Warmth spread through Yukio’s cheeks to the tips of his ears. “Also you were so organized and so mature. You had the best memory in the world. You knew everything. So, I’m supposed to be really organized and really mature with the best memory in the world.” As he tapped his temple, they both laughed. “Unfortunately, my brain is this brain.” A wry look spread across his face. “And this brain can’t do any of that. Not without a lot of effort anyway.” He sighed, a long, drawn-out forlorn noise. “And the others are very lazy.”
Yukio couldn’t stop the breathy laugh that shook out of him. Toko smiled, bright, young.
“My condolences,” Yukio said. “Having Rin’s brain was always my worst nightmare.”
“Exactly! It’s like a sieve,” Toko groaned, but, after the lingering sound of his internal pain faded from the air, he shrugged. “I do my best with the resources I have.”
Yukio stifled another laugh. Toko never sounded so much like a child as he did just then, even with Rin’s adult voice, Rin’s adult body. The huffy breathiness of the words. The matter-of-fact way he said it, both petulant and resigned, like a child quoting something they’d heard before.
Was this how the priests at the monastery had felt when Yukio was young and pretending so hard he was bigger and older and stronger than he was? Quiet amusement, warm fondness? A gentle desire to pinch his cheeks?
Instead, he squeezed Toko’s shoulder once more. Firm but kind. Yukio’s glasses had slipped down the bridge of Toko’s nose again. Yukio pushed them back up for him. A faded memory, Shiro’s hand, large, almost the full size of Yukio’s face, pressing the bridge of his glasses with two fingers as they slid up and center on his nose.
As he pulled his hand back, Toko blinking at him, not in confusion or awe, just patience, Yukio said, “Thank you for the insights.”
Toko’s smile was soft. “You’re welcome. It was nice to share them.”
Turning away from Yukio, he pulled his legs up, pressed them to his chest, sock-worn toes curling over the edge of the couch cushion. He fiddled with the temples of his glasses. Then wrapped his arms around his legs.
Yukio’s heart weighed heavy with the motion.
It was strange to see himself this way. His childhood reflected at him in Rin’s body. Yet, at the same time, for all that Yukio looked back on his childhood and was quietly disgusted with what he was, Toko was a curious reckoning. He spoke with patient confidence, so sure of himself. He had a shyness that Yukio easily recalled, but he forged through it nonetheless.
I manage everything in here, he had said with a little tap to his temple the first time Yukio had met him. Because none of them are good at it.
He had also said that he didn’t come out often. Maybe a couple times before that moment. His talents were best kept internal, but he was clear-headed and eloquent in a way the others were not and Rin was having so much trouble trying to articulate his thoughts and his words, frustration and anger and despair getting the best of him over the information Yukio had presented to him.
But Toko was Yukio, circa age eight or so, and Yukio liked learning.
He’d been a little shy that first meeting. Who wouldn’t be when presented with themselves?
But Toko wasn’t really Yukio, was he? Rin, for all that he may have wanted to live inside Yukio’s skin at times, did not live in Yukio’s head. Consequently, Toko was simply a representation of Yukio, a beloved perception.
As Yukio used to, Toko still jumped at loud noises and flipped on the light switch before walking into a dark room. But he was also good-natured and warm. He spoke clearly and kindly. He had a lot of Yukio’s childhood mannerisms; fidgets he’d either aged out of or forced
himself to quit doing. He also had a gentleness to himself. Yukio had never seen himself as gentle. Clinical, maybe. A decent bedside manner. But, in Toko, there was such a genuine softness, Yukio struggled to comprehend how Toko was meant to be him in Rin’s mind. That this patient, kind kid was how Rin once saw him. Had immortalized him.
Yukio could never look back on his childhood without seeing a weak wimpy kid who was scared of everything and cried all the time.
Apparently, Rin could.
It’s weird, Toko had said at their third meeting. They need a grocery list and, despite being their only cook, apparently Rin wasn’t interested in putting it together. It was easier to be you when I had never really met you. But I’ve met you and now it’s weird.
So? Yukio had asked, neatly printing out the exact brand of coffee he wanted. Based on what I’ve read so far, I think you can only be someone else if you were to merge with someone else.
Toko considered that. I don’t want to be someone else. I like being you. But you’re you. He had paused for a few seconds to quickly write a few things beneath Yukio’s. His handwriting was far neater than Rin’s. Yukio hoped Toko could teach Rin how to spell. I think I should go by another name.
What name?
Another few seconds of consideration. Then he’d turned to Yukio with an excited expression. When we were born, she named Rin after Rinka. She named me—you after the Yukiotoko.
She named me after a snow monster? Yukio had thought in utter befuddlement.
I’ll go by Toko, Toko continued. It’s nice. Then shyly, his gaze ducked, Do you think so?
And Yukio had nodded, squeezed Toko’s shoulder and assured him that, while he questioned his mother’s naming choices, he did like the name Toko. Distinction and connection at the same time. Toko had smiled his quiet smile then returned to finishing off the list. When Yukio emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and newly dressed, Rin was back.
Rin didn’t like acknowledging it. He wanted to believe that he had tamed himself and everything was fine. He was whole in his head. He was himself always.
It was easy to pretend. Rin was usually there. Sometimes Yukio could tell when someone else was around, influencing his mood or his choices. But it was typically all Rin at the end of the day.
Toko rubbed his eyes. The frames bumped against his fists. Eyes squeezed shut, he rubbed at his temples. Then shook his head and pulled the glasses off his face, folding it neatly into itself before handing it to Yukio, who simply placed them on the coffee table in front of them. Toko wrapped his arms together and buried his face into his knees.
“Can you explain psychosomatic-ness to me again?” he asked, timid voice carefully releasing “psychosomatic” from his tongue. His shoulders drew up to ears. His voice drew even quieter. “I like listening to your voice.”
Yukio rubbed Toko’s upper back with one hand until the feel of Rin’s shirt against his palm became too much. Then slowly began to explain the science and research behind psychosomatic symptoms.
He was part of the way through explaining how psychosomatic symptoms related to Toko’s poor eyesight, despite Rin’s body having perfect vision, when a tired voice griped, “I don’t need your damn glasses, four-eyes.”
Despite himself, Yukio snorted and pinched Rin’s arm. He yelped and shot Yukio a dirty scowl. Yukio stuck his tongue out at him, then, with a tired smile, sat back against the cushions.
“You wouldn’t have to need my glasses if you didn’t run tail every time I wanted to discuss this with you,” he said. With a grimace, Rin hid his face in his knees again. “Making Toko take your place isn’t going to stop the fact that we need to discuss it.”
Rin’s whole body tried to curl even further into itself. He propped his chin up against the edge of his knees but refused to look at Yukio. “We don’t need to talk about it.”
“I disagree.”
“I don’t give a shit!” Rin snapped, eyes blazing with distress. “It’s fine! I’m gonna make them leave and it’s gonna be fine!” Yukio fixed him with a disappointed look. The fire in him died as he shrank away. “I don’t… I don’t want them. They don’t need to be here.”
“But they are.”
“Well, they shouldn’t be!” Exasperated desperation clung to his words, half-strangled as they tore from his throat. His fingers clawed into his legs. “I fought them! I tamed them! I won! So why are they still here?”
Yukio looked down at his hands, folded over his lap. “You fought one of them. And just because you won doesn’t mean they have to leave. It doesn’t work like that.”
With a snarl, Rin extracted himself from his ball of physical tension. “We were happy!” he huffed, angry but pleading despite himself. “Yeah, we were poor, but everyone took care of us and loved us and we were happy.” He gripped the front of shirt so tightly Yukio worried it might tear. “You said this—thing—” He spat the words with venom. “—was usually because of trauma and shit, right? I didn’t have any of that!”
Yukio considered him, angry and scared and desperate. He took a breath and sat up straight. “I’d be happy to discuss my—and your own—thoughts about this, Rin. But if you’re just going to run off on me again, then there’s really no point, is there?” Rin scowled at him. As he did, Yukio reached forward and slowly pulled his hand away from his shirt. He smoothed out the tightly clenched wrinkles. “Toko and I talked about it the last time he was here.”
Rin muttered Toko’s name under his breath with a fond kind of irritation.
Then, “What did he say?”
“Well,” Yukio began as he recalled the brief conversation he had with Toko weeks ago, “the point of this condition is that the mind doesn’t form a whole identity. Early strife keeps all the segments that are there separate. Shiro literally severed a kind of key part of you and hid it for over a decade. Without it, you were never able to come together as a single person.”
“But I got my heart back. So they can go away or merge with me or whatever, right? Why aren’t they doing that.”
Yukio grimaced. “The mind doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.”
Rin huffed. “I don’t even remember Shiro doing that! Or at least I didn’t until I saw it happen.” He aggressively rubbed at his forehead with his palm, his leg bouncing, foot tap-tapping against their rug. “It wasn’t—I didn’t feel like something was missing!”
“It’s not really about feeling like something is missing,” Yukio said. “One of the problems people with this face is that they don’t recognize that parts are missing. It’s like…” He grasped at straws for a comparison Rin might understand. “Imagine if Shiro had separated us.”
Rin’s head snapped up immediately, his eyes wide and wild as he stared at Yukio.
Yukio barreled on. “We were born and he decided to keep you and send me away to lower any suspicions about us. You wouldn’t know I existed so you wouldn’t know I was missing until someone told you. By blood we’d still be brothers, but the actual brother part of our identities would be missing.” He paused for a breath or two. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Rin said. His gaze hardened. “Don’t ever say anything like that again.”
Snorting, Yukio poked the side of Rin’s head, just above his ear. “Hello, Ao.”
Rin scowled and swatted at Yukio’s hand. “How—” He groaned, rubbing at his forehead again to no avail. He stopped with his palm pressed hard between his eyes. He peeked at Yukio with one eye. “How can you tell?”
“Your anger’s different.”
Rin muttered something nonsensical under his breath. He squirmed where he sat, inching closer and closer to Yukio until he collapsed into Yukio’s side. He dropped his hand and pressed his forehead into Yukio’s shoulder. “Make him go away.”
“Sorry.” Yukio adjusted Rin’s position, so he wasn’t bent so awkwardly as he stayed slumped into Yukio’s side. Limp and floppy, Rin moved with ease. Still, he never dislodged his head from Yukio’s shoulder. “Unfortunately, I can’t do that.”
Rin grumbled a series of nonsensical noises once more before giving up. Yukio patted his back.
After a few minutes of tepid silence, Rin asked, “I’m your favourite, right?”
Yukio rolled his eyes. “Is this something you’re arguing about?”
“No, shut up!” He poked Yukio’s stomach. Yukio smacked his hand. He bit Yukio’s bicep. Yukio grabbed the back of his neck until he stopped. He furiously rubbed the back of his neck and rocked his forehead side to side on Yukio’s shoulder. Then, once he went still, he muttered, “Just tell me. You like me better than them, right?”
“Yes, Rin,” Yukio said simply. “Of all the Rins in your head, I like you best.”
“Good,” Rin grumbled.