Archive of Our Own

Goka doesn't look forward to missions with the Cleaners. 

He doesn't like their endless noise, the laughs and jokes and ramblings; their strange way of thinking, brains wired around the junk tied to their soul, surprising and unpredictable. He doesn't find it funny when they mock and tease each other, doesn't ever wish the Hell's Guard was a bit more loose on its structure, so he could throw his arm over his friends' shoulderS and invite his teammates for some drinks every once in a while, like the Cleaners seemed to do—never mind that Goka has never drank before in his life.

He doesn't look forward to their cooperation missions; to watch their odd, strange powers in action; to seeing Semiu Grier again. 

More than anything, he doesn't look forward to meeting his little brother. At all. It’s not like he misses Zanka, like he's always welcome for an opportunity to see with his own eyes how he is, what has changed. The last time Goka saw him, he seemed to be growing out his hair, and he was smiling more at his teammates, his hands buried in the Spherite's head as he congratulated the albino child on a mission well done. And Goka had not been jealous, had not wanted to press his own palm against the top of Zanka's head, feel his fine, soft hair against his skin like when he was a kid, small, grubby hands pulling at Goka's clothes for attention, Up, up, up, Go! So his older brother lifted him up into his arms and carried him around for a while. 

Zanka had done well in the mission, too. 

And it was that blond layabout who congratulated him, instead of Goka. Which didn't matter, because Goka hadn't wanted to.

So no, Goka doesn't look forward to working with the Cleaners at all. He's here early today because he's responsible, because he's got more expectations placed on him than the rest of his Squad. And of course, Kyouka is here, too, because she's their Commander, and is held to an even higher standard. They slept soundly last night, didn't swap overly-sugared teas in the kitchen at the first beam of sunrise. Goka didn't find Kyouka holding Zanka's old favorite mug, a light blue thing painted with white clouds and stars, ceramic held tight between her fingers as she pressed her mouth to the center of it, then cradled it to her chest. Kyouka didn't catch Goka lingering outside of Zanka's room, hand on the handle of his door and shaking, wondering if there was something, anything in there that he could pick up and bring to Zanka, shove his way so they may have a longer conversation, one where Goka didn't put his foot in his mouth and treated him harshly before he could ask Zanka how he was, what he has been doing, if he ever thought of coming home, even if it was just to have a meal with them again.

Zanka used to cook, when he was younger. For them. He would prepare filling and nutritional food and set the table with their mother's favorite set of glasses and dishes, with the polished cutlery their father inherited from his father before him. He would make entrees and side dishes to snack on, and then come in with the main course, and then go back and bring dessert. He was eleven the first time he did it, the kitchen staff having long since informed Kyouka and Goka that their baby brother had started asking to be taught how to handle himself with a stove, and what his family's favorite foods were. 

He was fourteen the last time he did it, Goka thinks, after one too many dinners where nobody showed up, and didn't even thank him for the leftovers.

It hadn't been on purpose. Goka had been busy with training, and Kyouka had been busy with learning to lead her Squad. They didn't talk with each other a lot, not about personal stuff—so Goka had thought that his sister, better at managing her time and fastidious about her diet, was going. And Kyouka, knowing Goka was closer home and had fewer responsibilities, though he was going. And so she kept working after hours, and Goka kept training, and two months later, they arrived at home at the same time thinking they would be welcomed with a hot meal and their little brother's adoration, and found only confused, peeved servants and a closed door instead. 

The meals were the beginning of the end, Goka thinks. They had had to force Zanka to rely on them less when he was barely out of toddlerhood, and with both Kyouka and Goka being made of more cynical stuff, she had done it by using Zanka as target practice, while him by making Zanka into a mobile punching bag. And Zanka had learned to dodge and defend himself with no complaints, but neither of his older siblings had taken the time to linger in the afters. No good jobs or well done or here, have some water. They had not realized the consequences of this, either, up until Zanka started flinching away from them both, the reactions quickly covered up but undeniable. Until his eyes lost the trust in them, until he stopped going to Kyouka for questions, to Goka for advice. With the end of the meals, they spent even less time together, were less involved in each other's lives, and then—

Then Zanka turned fifteen, and Weapon Selection Day came around, and Zanka made his choice. Then he went missing, and no one thought of informing his estranged siblings about it, their parents dismissing and careless in regard to their youngest son, who they hadn't wanted in the first place. 

And then Zanka was back, and he was different, a bit off—spacey and drifty and slow. So Kyouka had made him put weights on as she clocked the gun, and Goka had held him down for longer, spent more energy to hit harder, and neither asked what had happened, never found out why he was so skinny so suddenly or why he kept the stick so close just to walk. They thought he was acting weak in a teenager angst-riddled call for attention, and the idea that it may be a call for help didn't even cross either of their minds.

And then. Then, Zanka had invited them for a meal. A dinner. He had taken time he didn't really have and liberties he shouldn't have thought he had to hunt them both down and ask them to be home for dinner that day, and though both Kyouka and Goka had chastised him for it, they had shown up. Their parents hadn't been invited, which should have clued them in that something was off. 

They had eaten in terse silence, Zanka's disrespectful behavior and his disregard for the chain of command not forgotten at all, but the memory of the missed meals and the knowledge that their brother was growing distant from them had stopped both their mouths from opening in reprimand. 

They had not known, then, that it had already been too late. 

Zanka had waited until they finished eating to tell them he was leaving. That he—a fifteen-year-old child with an unfinished education, little natural talent, and who had been born with a silver spoon down his throat—had decided the Hell's Guard wasn't the place for him to keep growing, and that he intended to try something different. That he meant to join the Cleaners, and become a Giver… with the stupid, unremarkable stick he had picked up less than a month before. 

Kyouka had listened to the whole spiel with a calm face, something Goka couldn't claim having had the self-control to do at the time. However, she did take her gun out and started firing at Zanka until she ran out of bullets, and when that happened, she started throwing the plates and cups at him. So, they were even. Somewhat.

Goka had watched in abject horror as it happened, guarding the entrance out of force of habit but wondering, breathless, if this was how their training sessions always were: Kyouka, best shot in the Hell's Guard, against their baby brother, with no protection or a weapon to deflect. Not that Goka gave him any protection either, when he went at him fists first, or with an unsheathed blade in hand. But still. Goka had been terrified, and he wasn't even the one being shot at.

Inevitably, Zanka had grabbed his stick and thrown himself out of a window, Kyouka losing steam as he faded in the distance. 

“He's talking nonsense,” Kyouka had heaved into the room, both hands on the table, shaking, and the gun discarded by her side. “He's—he's throwing a tantrum. He would never—”

Goka had stepped up to her, placed a hand on her shoulder in awkward comfort. Kyouka had shaken him off, stepping away. 

“It was nonsense,” she repeated, looking at him with wild eyes. “Right?” 

Goka had nodded, slowly. The truth was, he had only heard half of Zanka's speech, anger starting to blind his senses early. And he had been too busy processing the situation—plates shattered, mantle fallen on the floor, the dessert a pile of mush over one downturned chair—to watch Zanka, try to read his expression. 

“Absolute nonsense,” he had said anyway, because it was. Zanka was fifteen, still a schoolboy. He would not leave home on a flight of fancy. They had taught him enough about honor and duty for him to dare. 

“Yes,” Kyouka agreed. “Of course. Of course.” She had looked around then, to the devastation in the kitchen, the irreparable mess of the plates and cups, and the bent silverware. “Nonsense.”

But it was not nonsense, because the next day Zanka was gone. And the next week, he was still gone, and by the start of the second week, they were marching to the Cleaners HQ and demanding their brother back, and a blonde man had strutted out, talking them into letting Zanka stay for a while, tire himself out. He just has to get this out of his system, right? The man had said, all confidence and trustworthiness. And there had been something in the way he smiled, in the tilt of his voice, that would have certainly alerted Goka that he was lying through his teeth—if he hadn't been so desperate to believe it was true. Zanka would get this nonsense out of his system and come back home, and he would be punished, and then they would sit him down and explain that they were a family, and that that mattered as much as their duty to Kamuatari, so he couldn't just vanish in the night again, especially if he was just running to a bunch of potentially dangerous strangers. And maybe they would eat together, and share a short hug, and certainly everything would be okay again.

Except that Zanka hadn't tired himself out. He had done exactly as he had said, in fact. He became a Giver, with the stick he had had for three months maximum, and that horrible blonde man that had talked them down, that miserable charlatan that convinced them it would be fine, that Zanka would come home on his own eventually—that clown turned out to be the very man that lured Zanka away from home, his now Team Leader, who had mentored and encouraged him for months.

Time passed, and Zanka’s room got locked shut, his things—the few he had lying around—thrown out, his name made taboo. Kyouka told their parents they could still fix this, that Zanka would not be the first Hell's Guard with a Vital Instrument, that he had so much potential, that he was theirs no matter what. But their parents had never wanted a third child anyway; they barely ever looked Zanka's way. They did not care about his potential, his strength, his life; they did not care that Zanka was still young, too young, that he was clearly getting manipulated, that that blonde Cleaner with no background, no surname, no nothing was tearing their family apart by the seams. They forbade them from trying to reach out, took Zanka out of the family records, and told the world they had only ever had two children. Two children, and one mistake.

And like that, two years went by. Two years where Kyouka dug for information and Goka hunted down rumours, but neither of them knew anything, couldn't know anything. Two years where Zanka didn't contact them, didn't even try—and why would he? He had stopped coming to them for things ages ago. Goka couldn't remember the last time he sat with his baby brother and asked him how he was doing. Why would Zanka want to tell him now? 

It doesn't matter. Goka looks at himself in the mirror, grips the sink, stares into his own eyes—narrow, brown, alive—and tells himself it doesn't matter. None of it matters. Zanka made his choice, and it wasn't them; it wasn't their family. Goka doesn't have to feel sorry about him anymore, isn't that a relief? Their parents are right. They always are. They had two children, and a—

A—

(Big blue eyes looking up at him, wide smile on his face, grubby hands going up, up, up, a call for Go! And a giggle and then a warm little body against Goka's chest, two little arms around his shoulder, a laugh against his cheek.)

A mistake.

Goka turns away from the mirror, not because he cannot look at himself anymore. He's just—done. Done with it.

Kyouka visits the Cleaners HQ, once. To demand custody of the Spherite, of course. Zanka got injured in a mission and is bedbound, and they don't know what kind of poison is in his bloodstream, if it will have permanent effects, how much it really hurts, but she didn't go see him; she tells him. Red mug with half-white, half-black suns in her hand, tea cool from how much she stared at it, Kyouka tells him she was offered the opportunity and refused, that she left her regards for the lying blond bastard only. And Goka, green mug with black moons in his hands, empty because he never even filled it to begin with, tells her she did the right thing, that Zanka wasn't their problem anymore, that he doesn't deserve her time. 

But then it's the Doll Face Festival, and it was long ago, before Zanka left, before Kyouka cut her hair—hair holds memories, you know? Somebody told him once, and so he too went and shaved all of his own—but his sister once told him to protect Zanka, take care of him. And Goka is responsible, he's dutiful, he knows his place. He's nothing like Zanka, so he tolerates trailing his brother and watching him fight—so fast, now, so steady, even footed, jaw set and eyes burning and stance proud. So grown up, now—and watching him lose, a hole in the middle of his chest, and Goka has failed, again. His baby brother is going to die, and he failed, it's his fault, he didn't even look at him right, does he even remember what his voice sounded like, saying Goka's name, and he never got to apologize—

And then Zanka is at it again, he and his stick against God, landing a hit with his body half torn, calling the other Cleaners to action. He crumbles, later, but does it matter? Does it really? Goka tells him that yes, it does, it was a pitiful display, and it will be reported to his sister. Tries not to think if he could have ever done the same, if he would have even tried. Doesn't even look in the direction of the fight, of transformed Mymo, shameful relief spreading over his chest as he carries Zanka away, telling himself it's his duty and knowing the day before he told himself his duty was to the people, and not traitorous family members. Tells himself that that's what he's torn about, and not the ice-cold fear spreading in his chest like a cancer. 

He slips and denies he did it. He lays Zanka down gently on the medical tent, runs a hand through his hair—longer now than it used to be, but as soft and fine as he remembered it—categorizes the way his face has changed, baby fat gone and eyes still being his most prominent feature. Blue tassel earrings. Calloused hands. Goka pulls Zanka's Vital Instrument away from him and doesn't wonder what it means, that the stick only burns him slightly when he has seen people get torn in half for grabbing a Giver's special object, the thing rejecting them with viciousness. Doesn't allow his hand to linger, doesn't welcome the sting that marks him as not a stranger.

He doesn't. No. No, he just—leaves. He leaves and informs Kyouka of what has happened. And of course, Kyouka hears with a hard, disappointed look in her eyes. She doesn't look hopeful; she doesn't go to Zanka and tells him to come home. Doesn't tell him he doesn't fit with the Cleaners, never will, because it's not his place. She doesn't tell him they will wait, until after Eishia Stilza is done with him, and that if he comes, they will all go home and everything will go back to the way it used to be, she will deal with their parents, they can have dinner together again.

Kyouka and Goka don't wait until after dark, the last people lingering, don't watch the stars come out, the moon show up, the sun rise up. They don't do anything like that, why would they? It's not like—it’s not like they miss him. Zanka is a fool and a deserter and a Giver. He's nothing. A mistake. 

They don't wait, and it's fine, because Zanja doesn't come home.

And time passes.

The Hell's Guard and the Cleaners team up more and more as Watchman Series entries pop out, trash beasts get unmanageable, and missions become more complex. Kyouka doesn't volunteer the Red Horns to lead the Cleansers, and Goka doesn't tell his squad to shut up about it. They don't make sure Team Akuta is always scheduled with or adjacent to them; don't go for the reports written in looping, blue ink, signed ZN, first; don't linger in the aftermaths to make sure Zanka is there, stick in hand, in one piece.

Goka doesn't watch him bicker with Rudo Surebrec and wonders if that could have been them, if Goka had been less gloomy, if he had allowed his walls to come down at home. He knows that Kyouka doesn't watch Riyo Reaper tease and ribble Zanka and yearns to know enough about him to do the same, that she had treated him less harshly, enough so that he wouldn't flinch away from her hands as they poked his ribs. 

They don't do that. Of course not. Kyouka and Goka were to be respected, obeyed, and listened to. The thought of Zanka calling Goka names and grappling with him on the floor until they were both bruised and laughing was shameful. The idea of Zanka pulling at Kyouka's hair and threatening to spill her secrets to all and sundry was ghastly. 

So time passes, and Goka watches from far away as Zanka's hair grows past his shoulders, the same hairstyle but length left to run wild, and he doesn't wonder what memories he's trying to keep. He watches as, at some point, his blue tassel earrings get replaced by purple, crystal ones, and doesn't mourn the loss of the last matching material, chosen thing they all had—doesn’t wonder what it means for Zanka's attachment to the family he was born into. Goka watches as his brother gets taller and fills up more, as his Vital Instruments gains a new spike, right through the middle, and as the ropes on it snap one day, bright blue fire bursting from within.

He watches, heart on his throat, as Zanka's big, blue, dead eyes gain an incandescent, endless light. As he starts winning every fight. 

As he does exactly as he told them he would do, finally coming into himself.

Goka watches and doesn't wonder, as Zanka turns eighteen, then nineteen, then twenty and twenty-one, how he ever convinced himself that he would come back. That Goka didn't have to do anything, just wait a bit longer, ignore it a bit harder, and everything would right itself on its own.

It takes more talent than Goka thought he had, to lie to himself so thoroughly. For so long.

So now here they are, both him and Kyouka, lingering in her office where Arkha Corvus will come in at some point, Semiu Grier at his right and that charlatan—just that charlatan, still, no surname and no background and not nothing, because he has remained Zanka's Team Leader, despite Zanka being old enough to be able to lead his own, now; despite having been offered to do so, choosing instead to stay, with the charlatan—on his left, and behind them, the usual team they request. Front, with Amo Empool, odd and whimsical and vicious, twirling into the room, and Eager, with the child with two personalities and the one that can turn into an actual eighteen feet tall monster and the guy who waters people into submission, and—and Akuta. Team Akuta, with sharp eyed, scantily clad Riyo Reaper, who always looks at them like they are a threat, and impossibly strong, child of prophecy Rudo Surebrec, who was never calm unless he was alone with his team, always looking a second away from snapping. 

And Zanka.

They wait, neither acknowledging that that's what they are doing, Kyouka reading reports that Goka knows she has already read—looping words, blue ink; nothing personal in there, just a mission summary, but it was Kyouka who taught Zanka to write, once. It's her calligraphy that loops as well. It's everything about it that is personal, not the content, and Goka is going over the plans for today, trying to see where he can fit the time to do something right and telling himself it's just to improve business relationships.

It has nothing to do with how last time he saw Zanka, four months and twenty-three days ago, his arm around some Cleaner's shoulder—Tunito Follo, age twenty-five, Cleaner, Giver, hammer Vital Instrument, Zanka's ex-boyfriend—while he talked with some supporters, Zanka had noticed the attention and turned his head to look his way. They had held eye contact for a moment, Goka frozen, Zanka clearly confused. And then Zanka smiled awkwardly at him, lifted a hand to wave, stiffly—at Goka.

Goka had turned around, then walked away. 

What was he supposed to do, wave back? That was silly, childish. Smiles didn't come naturally to him either, not since—big blue eyes, up up up, Go!—a long time ago. Zanka should have known that. Would know that, if he hadn't ditched them for the Cleaners, grew apart and distant from them until they were almost strangers. 

Except they will never be strangers, Goka and Zanka and Kyouka. They are their parents' children, each other's siblings. They understood each other in a way no one else could. They were marked, changed, and different. Zanka could run all he wanted, but he was still a Nijiku. After all this time, he was still their brother. Always would be. 

(Mistake, a voice in his head calls. Failure. And Goka doesn't wave it away, because two things could be true at the same time).

(Several things can be true at the same time).

So this is just an exercise in restraint, really. Goka will be very polite with the Cleaners, will make sure they feel welcome, will gain Arkha Corvus approval and the Spherite's attention and maybe ask Riyo Reaper to spar, see how much her spine can hold up. He will do all just for the Hell's Guard. There is no other reason to do so. And if Zanka is around while that happens, while Goka extends an olive branch to his Boss, the Cleaners' representative, a Giver; and gets Rudo Surebrec comfortable enough to willingly share information about himself, Team Akuta's youngest member, Zanka's student; and maybe gets into the graces of Riyo Reaper, Zanka's self proclaimed best friend, the one that claims to know him better than anyone, the one that holds his secrets and who has shared all of her own with him—then that's just secondary. 

Kyouka traces a signature on the page before her, and Goka runs calculations in his mind, and the sun finally is high enough on the horizon that the meeting must be creeping close, and they still won't look at each other. Can't.

“We will get it right, this time,” Kyouka says suddenly, conviction running so deep Goka almost chokes on his own air. His sister frowns, then rights herself. “The mission. We will get this mission right. The one with trash beasts.”

“Yes.”

“We don't have another one anyway. That was silly of me to remark.”

“Of course, sister.”

Kyouka winces, and Goka bites his tongue. Not the first time they have had an exchange like this. Nonsense, Goka thinks. Nonsense that he would leave, nonsense that he wouldn't come back, nonsense that he would still refuse us, after all this time. 

It's nonsense that I care about it at all.

It's not like Goka yearned for the day he would figure out a way to approach Zanka safely, that Kyouka would find a way to get them all together again, and it would be fine. That they would make it fine. It's not like they had to; not like they were on the brink of watching their baby brother become someone entirely apart from themselves. That was some real nonsense.

They didn't need to fix this mess. They didn't want to, either. Didn't want to have it be over soon, today even, so that they could slowly re-learn the last piece of their matching set, get the clouds and stars of their empty skies back. It's not like Goka wanted the opportunity to be a brother to Zanka, after watching Zanka be one to Rudo Surebrec. It's not like Kyouka missed being a sister to him, especially when near Riyo Reaper, red-haired and sharp-eyed and both clearly disturbed and obviously loved. 

Nonsense. All nonsense. 

Today, the mission is easy; the Cleaners only here because of the trash beasts involved. It would be quick and uncomplicated—finished before lunch. So the Hell's Guard would play good host out of the goodness of their hearts and feed them, and Kyouka and Goka would go and sit there at the same table and not try to understand what kind of world Zanka was so set on making his own, because they didn't have to. Because it was something easy to do, if they wanted to do it. 

It's not like they had miscalculated this bet before—mission getting too complicated, a Cleaner getting too injured for them to stay, the dining hall being under renovations, their mother being home, Kyouka moving too fast when extending the invitation and Zanka stepping away on instinct, Goka calling him an immature, broken child in front of everyone for it—and so they spent weeks making sure no surprises would come to be, and that a medical team would be fully staffed and ready nearby; that the dining hall was in optimum condition, and their parents were both too busy faraway. No, it's not like that. Not like Kyouka trained herself out of sudden movements and Goka practiced greetings and questions alone in his bedroom until they sounded almost friendly. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense—

There is a knock on the door. 

“Commander?” Someone asks, and Kyouka has somehow already shoved the blue ink, looping words reports into a locked drawer by the time Goka realizes no one should be allowed to see his little notes on advantageous conversation starters and the moments when they may be said. He freezes. 

“Goka!” Kyouka whispers-screams, and when he looks up, she's pointing at another drawer in her desk. He hurries to shove everything on there, then tidy up the table. 

“Come in,” Kyouka replies calmly this time, as Goka comes to stand by her right side. 

The Red Horns enter first, standing in a semicircle around the room, poised and professional, all in shiny, pressed uniforms.

Then, the Cleaners. Their Boss and his knowing looks, their secretary and her enchanting, probing eyes, the cursed charlatan and his empty smiles. Dressed in mismatched, personalized uniforms, carrying their objects around with no shame whatsoever. Bent glasses and a patched-up umbrella and scuffled booths and a rickety doll and a too-little dragon costume and a hose connected to nothing. Raggedy gloves and a worn pair of scissors and—

A stick.

Goka tries, he really tries not to let his eye twitch at the sight. But goodness, why did it have to be a stick? If Zanka had to be a Giver, why couldn't he have picked up something dignified, like a sword or a ring or an ensign? Why did it have to be a plain, old stick? 

Well, it wasn't like it mattered. Zanka didn't have to be a Giver. He had chosen that path for himself. His choice of a Vital Instrument wouldn't have made it less shameful. It wouldn't have changed a thing. 

Corvus starts to speak, Kyouka's voice flat and all business as she explains the reports, the mission, and what the Cleaners were expected to do. Goka stands beside her, and—observes. Semiu Grier is not paying attention, reading a little book with a blank cover with only a slight burrow in her brow. The good-for-nothing jackass with the oversized, stained coat is reading over her shoulder, and clearly the text must be too complex for him, because he's blushing in embarrassment. As expected of a creature as cultured as Grier, and one as brainless as the blond little bitch.

Amo Empool is paying attention, tall and smiling next to Corvus and nodding at Kyouka, her strange eyes making the expression look somewhat disturbing. The rest of them are in a crowd near the door, Delmon Gates with his jaw clenched tight while the others discuss something. 

From the snippets that reach Goka, it's Zanka, Reaper, Surebrec and Guita Hebby Fantasia trying to encourage Fu Orostor to fight without “Hii” today, which Goka supposes is his Vital Instrument. A strange request to make, though if it's a new form of Cleaner training to have them not rely on their junk so much, he would have no other choice but to respect it. 

“B-but M-Master Hiii e-en-njoys-s i-it, and I d-don't!” Orostor argues, then shoves his doll on Zanka's face and asks it to verify his statement. The doll. He asks the doll. 

The doll is Master Hiii. 

No, Goka doesn't think he will respect anything about the Cleaners anytime soon.

Zanka sighs, taking the doll and telling it—he’s speaking to the thing, he's really doing it—that they can spar later if it lets Orostor handle this one on his own. Orostor hears this little speech while quite literally shaking in his shoes.

“Well?” Zanka asks Orostor.

“H-he a-a-gr-grees.”

“Good,” Zanka nods, giving the doll back. 

“You do realize this is further evidence that Hii has a crush on you, right, Zan-zan? He likes orders, but you request something all polite and he rolls over belly up.”

“T-that's n-not-t—!”

“That’s so romantic!”

“I ain't datin’ no fuckin’ doll,” Zanka barks at Reaper and Fantasia, and then, to Orostor: “Get yer head sorted out, then we will see ‘bout romantic, Cuckoo.”

Orostor doesn't reply. He's too busy heating up like an oven, apparently, because his face, ears, neck and hands are turning an honestly concerning shade of red, while his eyes quite literally haze over. 

“Damn Zanka. You killed him. Them? Uh…”

“Him. Hii would bite back.”

“What do you know about Hii biting? What the fuck!?”

Zanka rolls his eyes as Surebrec pushes him, adjusting his stance to berate the Spherite face-to-face, and Goka finally notices that he has grown his hair out. Past his shoulders and into the middle of his back, following the style he has always had. It's… strange. In the Hell's guard, only women wore their hair long, and even then, it wasn't that often. Coupled with the other style choices has taken up over the years—the skirt-like fabric on his uniform, the long dangly earrings, the blue, sparky eyeshadow on his face, the painted nails he seems to match with the rest of his team—he looks less and less like their mother every day, like them. The tassel earrings were the second last thing that seemed to mark him as a Nijiku, and Goka hasn't seen him wear them in a while. 

Goka feels cold, suddenly. He observes, and—isn’t something else off? He frowns, and slowly realizes Zanka's shoulders are more relaxed than normal, his face looser. There is a smile there, a show of amusement, curling his mouth a bit. That's… strange. Zanka was usually more guarded when they came to the Hell's Guard HQ, especially when he was inside the building. Belatedly, Goka remembers that Zanka hasn't looked his way once since he stepped into the room, eyes going over him and Kyouka no slower than they did over the rest of the Guards.

That was odd, wasn't it? Surely he hadn't, like, forgiven them in the span of a few months, right? Had the Cleansers acquired a psychologist or something? Was Zanka on something?

The stupid-looking, lanky piece of garbage in charge of his “tutelage” was a known smoker—had the absolute son of a bitch hooked Zanka on something? Goka would kill him, he would absolutely des—

Zanka pushes Surebrec away from him, and Surebrec, in retaliation, throws himself at Zanka. Zanka dodges, doing a full circle around the group to avoid him. 

And Goka sees it. His hair, pulled into a low tail and away from his sharp—scarred face. 

What? 

Goka stares at the new mark, starburst-shaped near his temple, both long and wide. How did he get that? When did he get that? The scar wasn't there four months ago. And a head injury like that was dangerous. It could have been fatal, how come no one informed them of it? 

His brother was hospitalized again and no one told them? No one. Not even their informants? How come there weren't any rumours, any intel, nothing? That was—!

Zanka notices him looking, obviously, because he suddenly catches Goka's eyes with his own. Direct eye contact from his baby brother is something Goka hasn't been subject to since Zanka was a little more than a toddler, big blue eyes—squinted. Looking not that big anymore as Zanka frowns at him. 

Goka freezes. 

There is a glare there, in Zanka's gaze. Something challenging on the set of this face, the tilt of his chin.

Unfamiliar. Bizarre. Zanka has never looked at him like that. Not ever.

Surebrec breaks the stare-off, giving Goka a side-eye and pulling at Zanka's sleeves like a toddler instead of the nineteen-year-old he is. Still, it gets Zanka to turn, and soon he's pushing Surebrec's face away with the palm of his hand and getting bitten in return.

“Fuck—yer rabid or what!?”

Goka is half following the conversation, still too caught up on the near-death—he had thought they were past that, when Zanka awakened his powers. Had seen that fire, as inexhaustible as the one of Zanka's heart, as great as the sun, burning bright and hot, and assumed it was the end of the big injuries, the last of the shame. Too distracted by the glare, so different from Zanka's childhood adoration, teenage apprehension and recently thawed, awkward, tentative friendliness. Hostility and Zanka were two terms that only made sense coming from Goka's side. That his brother had directed something like that at him was… impossible, he would like to say. But it had happened. It had happened just now.

What the hell? 

“Fuck you! And why is your hand so hardy, did they feed you actual iron while growing up, you fucking freak!?” 

“How da’ fuck would I know!?”

So caught up on it all he is, he misses that clue, the one that would have solved the very questions he was asking himself instantly.

Chairs scrape against the floor, and everyone’s attention turns to their leaders, Kyouka handing over the copies of the plan to Corvus and the Cleaner's Boss smiling politely at her for it. Soon, the Cleaners are leaving, Empool skipping to Surebrec and Orostor and grabbing one arm of each, Semiu Grier closing her book with a snap and putting it away in one smooth motion, giving them one last glance with her knowing, beautiful eyes. And they snag on Goka a little bit longer than the rest, then surely that's Goka's own delusion. 

Right? 

The witless blonde sucker shakes himself out of his stupor like a dog, which is fitting, hunched over himself and walking as if his feet fell asleep while standing. Gates frowns at him, seeming puzzled, as Fantasia engages Empool in a conversation and Reaper throws an arm over Zanka's shoulders. As Zanka is much taller than her, the position is very awkward—until Zanka sighs, put upon, and lifts her from the ground by her waist, held to her side, and starts walking. 

Reaper throws her head back and laughs, the sound clear as a bell and grating to Goka's ears, especially as he watches the way Kyouka’s face warps as she eyes the easy contact.

So Goka is a bit out of it when he steps forward and demands, very loudly:

“Zanka, wait!”

All the Cleaners still, and the Hell Guards stiffen. Besides him, Kyouka's eyes widen minutely, turning to look at him in alarm. 

Zanka turns back around, dropping Reaper and frowning. 

“Yea’? Zanka asks, lifting his chin at him, the polite disinterest in his tone tinged with something clearly annoyed. “Watcha’ need?”

Goka opens his mouth, then closes it again. He had expected Zanka to tell the other Cleaners to go ahead; to come forward and act more… interested. Or at least as friendly as he has been acting lately.

Now Zanka looks at him like Goka is wasting his time, eyebrows—still slit, after all these years, three scars parting them in four. The very last mark of their relation—raised in question, mouth pursed, and fingers tapping his stick. Impatient. Zanka is impatient to leave. 

Again. 

Goka should ask him for a moment of his time. Should dismiss his Guards and assure the Cleaners he would give Zanka back in twenty minutes. He should pull the chair before Kyouka's desk for him, offer him tea—tell him they have that mint and lemon mix he likes, that they have kept it stocked for him. He should sit with his brother and tell him that they would be inviting the Cleaners to lunch, after the mission was over, and inquire as if they could sit with him and his team. If Zanka would introduce them properly to his friends. Goka should tell him the eyeshadow suits him, and that his hair looks good. 

What comes out of his mouth instead is—

“Long hair is unbecoming.”

The words seem to echo in the room. Kyouka sighs soundlessly, disappointed, but most of the Guards nod and send disapproving looks Zanka's way, following their leader’s example. Zanka notices, obviously, because his hackles clearly rise, and Goka is already giving up on this entire attempt. 

On the edges of the Cleaner's group, Semiu Grier's eyes flash golden, then widen. Closer to Zanka, Fu Orostor calls bullshit, surprising his companions. 

Arkha Corvus tilts his head, his mouth shaping itself around a noiseless oh.

But Goka doesn't notice any of that, because he's too busy trying to process Zanka's answer to his comment.

“Well fuck ya very much, man,” Zanka barks, harsh and cutting. “What da’ hell is yer problem?”

“Oh shit,” someone says. Someone who sounds suspiciously like that blonde son of a bitch. 

“Excuse me?” Goka can't keep back the offense in his tone, bewildered that Zanka would ever talk to him like that.

“Yer ain't fucking excused, ya funny-lookin’ lil’ hat man,” What? What the fuck did he just call me? “Fuck ya care about ma looks? Worry ‘bout yer own damn self. With da’ way this shithole be lookin' and rumors ‘r spreadin’, I dun’ think ya have time to stick yer nose on my goddamn business.”

Goka's head is filled with white noise. 

“What?”

“Ya deaf too, ya unwelcome motherfuckin’ nosy-ass, bitch-lookin’ nobody?”

What? What? 

“Oh God.”

“I knew we were forgetting something, shit.”

“Hoooooooly shit.”

“Aw, we fucked up!”

“This is fine.”

“Amo doesn't think this is fine, Uncle Corvus. In fact, Amo thinks this a disaster.”

“Well Riyo thinks this is funny as hell. Zanka! You have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever and make fun of his eyebrows!”

“I DON'T THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA.”

“No, let him mock the b-bastard!”

“Zanka! His eyebrows, go!”

Up, up, up, Go! Goka thinks, and it snaps him out of his stupor. He steps forward, ignoring Kyouka’s placating hand and rounding the desk, coming to loom over Zanka. He has grown taller, his baby brother, but not so much that Goka can't look down at him and hiss, glaring:

“Repeat that to my face, you insolent child.”

Zanka's eyes widen minutely, and Goka knows what comes next: the step back, the lowering eyes, the grimace, the spit-out apology, the running away. The avoidance, next. Zanka never learns his lesson, he never—

He smiles at him, Zanka. All teeth as he lifts his chin higher, steps closer, looks right into his eyes as he announces, slowly and sharply: 

“Mind yer own damn business,” Zanka says, tilting his head, “you weird-ass lookin' nobody.”

Goka stares, frozen.

“Ya did hear dat’ one loud ‘n clear, right, fucker? Anythin’ else ya wanna complain about? I will shove yer damn whinin’ down yer throat along with yer teeth if ya feel like sharin’ with da damn class.”

He shoves him, then. Zanka. Zanka shoves him back, and Goka—reliable, strong, steady Goka, who was the best at hand-to-hand combat, who was the unmovable wall to Kyouka's unstoppable motion—is pushed back, catching himself on the desk as he loses his balance. He. He loses his balance. Because Zanka shoved him. 

Zanka is not—he can't, he's not capable of—

But then again, Zanka doesn't speak to him that way. Zanka would never do this, much less with an audience, not to Goka. 

This fucker is not, can't be Zanka.

“You—!” He jolts forward, grabbing his kanabo and rushing at whoever thought it would be funny to try—!

“Ah shit, they are going to kill each other!”

“T-that loud thug can try!”

“Sub Commander!”

“Goka Nijiku! Drop your weapon right now!”

But it's too late. Goka is not slow, and this fucker ain't either: Goka's weapon, sharpened just this morning and catching the light in the room in deadly flashes, makes clashing, hard impact against—

The stick.

The metal stick, because the imposter has just activated Zanka's Vital Instrument. Which is impossible, unless—

“What now, sucker? Cat got yer tongue?” Zanka taunts as the metal of their weapons hisses, his eyes alit a bright, icy blue. “I'm gonna get my piece too, just so ya know!’”

And then he's kicking Goka back, again, successfully, and swinging at him. The room is big enough to allow it without it hitting anyone, and the screams of the rest of the people in it fade to the background as time slows down, and Goka sees—he sees—

Zanka’s face, laser focused on him, smiling wide and wild as his staff descends on Goka, something vicious in there that Goka can't reconcile with his baby brother, something gleeful and pleased and cruel, as the spikes start to catch Goka in the face, jaw, neck, and he can't even move—Zanka is going to kill him and he can't—

Stop.

Goka blinks.

Zanka steps back in one fluent movement, unbothered, his Vital Instrument shrinking as he twirls it once, back to a simple wooden stick he finally taps it against the floor. He leans against it, all casual, as he observes Goka, and everyone around then quiets down.

“What?” Zanka asks the Cleansers, most of whom look pale and really unwell. “I wasn't really going ta hit him, yea’? Fucker looks important. But he was pissin’ me off.” Then, to Goka, who is still frozen in place, whathefuckwhstthefuclwhatthefuck echoing in his mind as he tries to catch up with whatever the fuck is going on: “Didya learn yer lesson, moron? Don't start shit ya can't finish, for fuck’s sake, I would have—"

“GOKA NIJIKU!” Kyouka interrupts, and Goka is being turned around by his shoulder in one violent, rapid shank. “You dismissed my direct commands twice, pulled your weapon out during an official meeting with an allied organization without my permission, and attacked your brother in a fit of—what!? Annoyment!? Are you a goddamn child!? You have behaved yourself most shamefully, and in no way fit for a Sub Commander of the Hell's Guard! Much less the Red Horns! What do you have to say for yourself!?”

“I—I’m sorry, sister.”

“Commander!”

“I'm sorry, Commander!”

“No, you aren't. But you will be. Now sit down until this is over, and if you disobey me a single more time, you will be handed over to the Cleaners to deal with, do you understand? We do not keep faulty units within the Hell's Guard.”

Trash. His sister had just called him trash in public. Great.

“And you!” Kyouka turns, impossibly more vicious as she rounds on Zanka, whose eyes widen almost comically. Let's see how that bravado holds up now, little brother. “What is wrong with you!? To pick up a fight in front of both of our organizations, and allow it to spiral into actual physicality! To say such abominable words to your own brother—!”

“Wait a minute—”

“You will not interrupt me while I'm talking, Zanka Nijiku, or the Gods so help me! What have the Cleansers been teaching you, that you would conduct yourself in such an unseemly, disrespectful, and cruel way! Is filial piety something you have completely abandoned in your quest to dedicate yourself to pest control!? I will not allow you to keep carrying our name if you are to behave like this ever again!”

Zanka stares at Kyouka for a long, silent moment, then his eyes slip to Goka, head tilting a bit as he studies him. Goka frowns, making Zanka's eyes focus even more on his face, then widening, then flying back to Kyouka's. And then his whole body shuts down, emotions locked away as his head turns the Cleaners' way.

“Enjin,” he calls, and the tone is so cool, so unfeeling, that for the first time, Goka doesn't feel bad about hearing it from Zanka's mouth.

“Y-yeah?” That blond coward answers, looking already defeated, and Goka knows. He knows something is wrong, for real now. Because he didn't even think this bastard was capable of feeling shame, and now the guy looks as if he were shitting bricks. 

“Explain what the fuck is goin’ on to me, right now.”

“Yeah, so,” the blonde man nods, slapping his hands together once. "Uhhhhhh, okay, shit, this is my fault. Sorry. Sorry, Zanka, hey, I fucked up, sorry, Oh my God, this is a nightmare, I'm so sorry, holy shit—”

“Enjin.”

“Yeah, okay, you are right. So! These are your siblings!”

Goka turns his head the fuckers way so sharply that half the bones in his neck pop. Kyouka stills, not even breathing, as her eyes turn on the charlatan like the executioner's blade. An expression that matches Zanka's perfectly, twin looks in different faces.

“Yeah, that's terrifying. Okay! So, this, uh, Commander of the Red Horns Squad, Kyouka Nijiku! Which you knew, because we told you, and, uh, I knew I was forgetting something, I—”

“Enjin!”

“Fuck, sorry, okay!? I'm nervous here! She's also like, your older sister. And that one—!” he points at Goka now, “—is your brother! Goka Nijiku. Sub Commander, as you just heard. Pretty elite family, uh? And—! And we—I, I forgot to tell you. And I'm sorry. Shit. This escalated so bad, I'm so sorry, I can't believe you called him a bitch to his face—”

“What,” Kyouka cuts in, her tone both flat and deadly, “is going on here?” 

Goka looks at Kyouka, and finds his absolute confusion not mirrored in her eyes. She's not even looking at him, in fact, her gaze is laser-focused on—

The starburst-shaped scar on Zanka's temple. The one that wasn't there last time they saw him, some four months ago.

No.

Zanka looks back at Kyouka, considering her.

“Pardon my attitude, Commander, but I think ya already know, dontcha’?” His brother says, running a hand through his hair and over the scar, exposing the raised, gnarly thing to them.

Goka can't think. 

“You have some kind of amnesia,” Kyouka nods. “You don't know who I am to you, or who Goka was, when you called him…”

“Weird-ass lookin’ bitch, yea’. He deserved it tho’.” 

Kyouka presses her lips together very hard.

“And you were just, not told you had any kind of family?”

“He was!”

“I was not speaking to you, you incompetent man-child! You took Zanka from us and didn't even bother to care for him! How could you allow this to happen!? How could you not tell us!?”

“I did tell him, I—!”

“Ya told me I had two siblings. A brother with an attitude problem and a crazy, redheaded sister.”

“Yeah, thank you for airing that out for everyone to hear, Z, I'm sure it makes me look very professional!” 

“Enjin.”

“Yeah, okay, not the time, but—”

“Enjin. I thought you meant Rudo and Riyo.” 

“Why would you—yeah, no, I see that. Fuck. Sorry, you are right.”

“Motherfu—okay. Okay. That explains why ya were so annoyin’ about me bein’ disowned. I was confused as hell when y'all kept comin’ at me like nothin’ was wrong. ‘Supposed it was some joke I forgot. Damn.” He frowns, palms rubbing against his eyes. “So y'all are my… blood siblings? And nobody told ya what happened? Is that why I'm just meeting ya now?”

He sends the Cleaners a cutting, accusatory look.

“Well, kid,” the tattooed tug starts, grimacing, “when I said you were disowned, I meant a they chased you out of your house with a gun when you were fifteen kinda deal. And cut communication entirely. And then came to get you with the idea of breaking your Vital Instrument as punishment for leaving and locking you up until you stopped, like, acting out.” He stares at Zanka. For a moment, as if cataloging his reactions, of which Zanka doesn't seem to have much at all. “So yeah, no, nobody told ‘em you were hazy and confused and vulnerable. We didn't know what they would do.”

Arkha Corvus steps out then, lowering his head. 

“Remember when you got poisoned after the Trash Beast Incident, Zanka? I offered your siblings to visit you and they declined. And when you got injured in the Doll Face Festival their comments weighed a lot on your mind, negatively so, remember? We didn't want to expose you to that kind of thing again, so we tried to just explain things to you and see if your memories would come back on their own. Of course, we then… forgot. For which I apologize most profoundly. Your recovery was so fast and your attitude changed so little, it slipped my mind. We should have prepared you better for this meeting.”

“Also you seemed happier without the memories and they have shown nothing but lack of care for you for the last six years so to be honest? I thought ya were better off not knowing,” Semiu Grier shrugs, and Goka feels his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. 

“Yeah you were smiling more and stopped calling yourself names,” Surebrec grouches, glaring at Goka.

“And more fun!” Fantasia adds, cheery. “Like, you started agreeing to do stuff like going out shopping and hanging out in nice places a while back, but now you stopped looking all guilty about it only after you lost your memories!”

Reaper doesn't say anything, just making her way to Zanka and slipping an arm around his waist, leaning on him. Kyouka glares at her with smoldering eyes, but it stops as soon as Zanka shifts and wraps her shoulders in a one-armed, tight hug. Reaper grins up at him, and then at Kyouka, though her eyes lose the warmth they slip into her. 

“Yeah,” the blond charlatan continues, looking only at Zanka, who stares back. “And it's not like you have any kind of relationship with them anymore, or like it affected yours with Lovely, or like your mental health was bad. You looked and seemed better, actually, so I… didn't want to touch it much. What were we supposed to do? Call them into the HQ and have them explain to you in very reasonable terms why it was important for your development to be shot at without any protection? Why you needed to be isolated and starved, and beaten up daily? No. No—much less in those first few weeks, you were…. No. Yeah, kid, honesty? I'm sorry I didn't think about this enough to make sure didn't met them.”

Goka feels like he's seventeen again, listening to his father mention for the first time, offhandedly, how Zanka had been missing for three days before he left for the Cleaners, and no one had gone searching for him. Haunting down the rumours that he had tried to kill himself, ending at the lip of a deep, narrow wheel, scratch marks fresh on the stone. Questioning the servants, because how could his teenage brother come back after three days of lying in the bottom of a wheel and no one noticed something was amiss—only to be told the polite version of we didn't think you would care, so we didn't bother you. 

The Cleaners didn't tell them Zanka lost his memories because they thought they would hurt Zanka. That they were bad for him. 

“That was not your decision to make,” Kyouka spits, hands clenched in two white-knuckled fists. “Zanka, we—”

“You know, that's not, like, the full explanation,” Zanka interrupts idly, shaking his head and looking back to Kyouka's pissed-off form. “It's not like I don't remember anything at all. It's just everything from before six years ago. Like, the first thing I remember is being in… a classroom, I think? And touching Lovely for the first time. It's just everything before her that's gone.”

Weapon Selection Day. That must be it.

“Your… Vital Instrument… recovered your memories?” Goka asks, dubious. Kyouka sends him a sniping glare for it, but Goka needs to know. To understand.

Zanja makes a so-so motion, careless.

“Current theory is that, because she's linked ta my soul and a kind of byproduct of ma life experience, she kinda kept all that made me me, but only from da’ moment we met. I dunno why exactly. So, like, thinkin’ ‘bout it, I, uh, do remember da’ Doll Face Festival? Ya looked a bit different, is all. Hat guy, Goka?” Hat guy. He's hat guy now. Goka feed Zanka his first sweet potatoes and taught him how to use chopsticks and was there the first time he walked, catching him in his arms when his legs failed him at the end, and now he was just—some guy. Weird-ass lookin' nobody. Hat guy. “Like, he carried me ta da’ medical bay, right? Told me I was pathetic and then carried me on his shoulder ta da’ medical bay. While I had a hole in ma chest, which, questionable methods there, buddy.”

Buddy. 

Zanka turns to Kyouka.

“And later ya came in after and said a bunch of things ‘bout me being a failure of a Cleaner or somethin’? Few more stuff over time, yeah. Uh, didn't he call me a broken toy or somethin’ a few months ago? Pretty sure you put a loaded gun to my head once too, for not following orders? When I was nineteen? That's all I got from you, over the last six years.”

“…” Kyouka presses her lips together, and Goka stares. All I got from you over the last six years. 

Zanka was not wrong, it's the thing. But—

But that was wrong, that couldn't—

“So I guess I we ain't very close, uh,” Zanka huffs, a vacant, impersonal smile in his face as he looks between them, then turns towards his Team Leader. “Sorry I yelled at ya, Enjin. I was confused. Which kinda makes yer point, uh?”

“No worries,” the guy waves away, looking tense. 

All the eyes in the room seem to turn towards Zanka, who doesn't back away from the attention. Instead, he rotates his shoulders a bit and then sighs, both his hands on his Vital Instrument. 

“Well, this is awkward. Uh, good to meet ya, I guess?” He finally tells Kyouka and Goka. “Not pleasant, of course, but some shit makes so much more sense now, so. No regrets.”

No regrets. His brother doesn't know who he is, because he only remembers the last six years, and Goka has barely talked to him in them. Because when he cradled him, he did it while Zanka was unconscious and when he observed him he did it from faraway, and when they interacted, he was curt and sharp and unpleasant. Because Goka swallowed back every nice thing he ever had to say, too embarrassed to even try. Because that's the extent of his efforts, in relation to the child he once promised he would guard with his life. A promise he made to Zanka, and to himself, because he loved him.

No regrets. Zanka has no regrets about talking to them this once, because some things make better sense now. 

Zanka is not staying for lunch, is not introducing him to his people, is not staying for tea. Zanka is leaving again, forever this time, and he has no regrets. 

Because the fucking stick didn't even like Goka, so of course it took him away.

“Weeeeeell, we still got a mission,” his brother—Does Zanka even count as his brother anymore? If he can't understand, if he has changed beyond recognition, if he no longer cares? Does he?—comments, turning towards the Cleaners. 

“Don't you want to, uh, sort this out?” Surebrec offers, sending Kyouka alarmed looks from the corner of his eye. 

Kyouka, who has gone very, very still. 

“What's there ta sort out? Da’ past is da’ past, yea’? This didn't matter yesterday or last week or last month. So everyone can just move on like it didn't happen. Because if it doesn't change shit, right? I'm as disowned assa’ I was six years ago, as much of a Giver as I will be six years from now. Clearly, whatever kinda relationship we had is long dead,” he shrugs. Shrugs. “So come on, let's get those trash beasts up and then go home.”

Home. 

Zanka is going home. 

Of course.

“Yeah, sure,” Reaper shrugs, after considering it for a moment. “Whatever you want, Z,” she winks, looking up at him. Zanka huffs at her, pulling her face away with a small smile of his own. 

You seemed happier without the memories. You were smiling more.

“Alright,” Surebrec nods, looking unsure.

“Okay, see you guys!” That's Fantasia, skipping forward to grab Zanka's hand and then pulling him behind her.

“I—I claim shotgun!” Orostor rushes to say, looking anxiously between his suddenly bustling coworkers.

“Who is driving? Driver picks shotgun, it's the rules!” Reaper claims, exalted.

“All of ya drive like shit, so literally whoever.”

“All of us, Mr. The Car Did a Backflip?’

“That was an accident!”

“We almost became an accident!”

“Zanka?”

Kyouka finally speaks, stilling everyone in the room and interrupting Reaper’s ribbling. 

Zanka stops, half hidden by Reaper, her arm still around his waist, and Orostor, clinging to his jacket on his other side.

“Yes, Commander?”

Commander.

Kyouka's empty eyes harden, anger breaking the surface of her ocean eyes like a storm.

“Never use the Nijiku name again,” she commands, final. “From this day on, you are no longer part of this family.”

Goka looks at his sister with a fist against his chest, holding back with everything he has from shaking her until she reconsiders, because no, no, no, they have to fix this! They have to fix it now, or never! 

“I, uh, haven't been using it,” Zanka winces. “Thought I didn't have, like Enjin. But yeah, sure, I don't think we were much of a family to begin with anyway.”

Goka is his sister's right-hand man, her unmovable wall, her heir. 

He wants to cry, though, here, right now. She can't do this, she can't be doing this, this is not—

Zanka turns away, and the Cleaners bleed out into the hall, the younger ones loud and noisy, the older ones tense and silent. 

“So, mission then eat? I want to stress eat so much! That was nerve-wracking!”

“Right!? I thought Zanka was going to kill him, and then that the Commander was going to kill them both!”

“I'm still stuck in bitch-looking nobody. How have you guys moved on from bitch looking nobody!? To his face!”

“Do you guys think Goka Nijiku is still getting punished, or was the public humiliation enough?”

“Can we go back to our dinner plans! I'm starving!”

“If ya have enough patience for it, I can whip something up.”

“Zanka is cooking!? Hell yeah!”

“Can we have that thing with the long ass name?”

“Okonomiyaki? Sure.”

“Fuck yes! Hey, did y'all hear that? Zanka is in charge of family dinner toni—!”

The door doesn't close behind them, so Goka steps forwards and does it himself, cutting off the noise from the outside.

Kyouka doesn't thank him.

Kyouka doesn't say anything at all, in fact.

They go home that night in silence, both to Zanka's room, no exchange of words needed to guide their steps. For the first time in years, the door is opened, and they march inside together, taking in the dusty, abandoned sight.

There is nothing to see. 

The bed is made, sheets folded mechanically, pillow placed methodically. No extra cushions or blankets or comforters in there. The nightstand is empty but for a black night lamp and the same, simple incense burner all the common rooms have. The desk has the books any and all Academy trainees should have, no notes sticking out, all the pages crisp and unmarked. Three black pens lay on the pencil holder, along with a capped ink blush. Zanka's notebooks had been in his backpack, and that whole thing had been thrown out, as it had been left in their living room. His closet is full—but full of academy uniforms, training gear and a few barely used traditional kimonos. Nothing that spoke of Zanka's personal taste. The room is here, untouched, full of stuff—but empty. 

Because when Zanka was with them he had no trinkets, no accessories, no favorite books, no nothing. He was utilitarian and desensitized and—miserable. 

Kyouka takes a seat on the bed, the mattress not giving even half an inch under her. 

“He's gone,” his sister says, her words coming out as a single breath of air.

“...yes,” Goka agrees, slowly. 

“He's really gone now. I cut him loose myself.”

“Yes, sister.”

“And he was… happier.”

“...yes.”

Kyouka nods, looking down at her hands. Calloused from the gun. There is a story there. There is a story everywhere. 

But this story is finished 

“Makes sense,” Kyouka says. “That it would end this way. Everything, all of it—gone. A waste. What an a-absolute—” her breath hitches, and she presses a hand over her mouth, over her face. Goka doesn't try to put his hand over her shoulder, this time. He can't even look. He doesn't dare to. 

Mistake, Goka thinks. Failure. Waste. 

Many things can be true at the same time. 

This one was false, though: Goka cared. He had cared the whole time. He had been afraid and sad and desperate and hopeful—he had missed his baby brother. He had wanted him back.

And none of it mattered anymore because it was too late. Zanka didn't know them anymore, and it had been so long since they knew him. 

That's—

That's so—

“I hate having missions with the Cleaners,” Goka says, and does nothing as Kyouka starts crying, folded over herself. 

There is nothing else to do anymore.