Family

Chapter fourteen: Caring

Lui stormed into the house like a whirlwind, kicking off his boots and throwing his hoodie into the closet. He opened the fridge, only to find it empty, with nothing but a single tomato.

He cursed, then stopped for a second, shrugged, took the tomato out, and bit into it like an apple.

Shu would've yelled at him to stop eating tomatoes and go buy groceries.

Lui almost smiled at the thought of his little brother, then stopped himself.

You hate him, remember? He's the reason you went through all that therapy.

But you scarred his eye.

Shut up. It was an accident and you know it.

But still, it's basically all your fault. If you hadn't scarred his eye, you wouldn't have almost died.

I SAID SHUT UP!

Lui stopped his internal battle with himself and took a moment to look around the empty house. The two Nintendo controllers still lay on the floor from when they had their late-night Mario Kart battle. The kitchen was sparkling clean, with no dishes in the sink. Thanks to Shu, of course. He was a neat freak, while Lui was an absolute pig when it came to any kind of cleanliness.

It'd been fun having a brother.

While it lasted.

Because Shu clearly hated him more now.

And Lui didn't know whether he hated Shu or not. 

He wanted to. He wanted to blame everything, blame his entire crappy life on his brother...

But deep down, he knew that it was his fault that he was this way. 

He stared at the scars on his wrists. Scars that proved Lui Shirosagi wasn't the cold, heartless monster he was thought to be.

Scars that no one had seen except him.

Why hadn't they noticed? Lui didn't wear gloves while battling. 

He knew the answer to that:

People didn't care. They all saw Shu's scar because that's what he was famous for. Nobody- not the fangirls, not the fanboys, not the wbba officials- nobody genuinely cared about Shu's wellbeing. They just saw his scar as a mark of his popularity. 

It was the same with Lui. He had never made his scars popular. He hadn't flashed them at Shu every time they walked past each other. Because even if Lui Shirosagi was known for having scars all over his wrists, people wouldn't care.

Fangirls and fanboys would say it was "hot."

Anyone else would simply brush it away, not caring at all. 

And as Lui thought about all this, he realized that was why he had cherished his time with Shu so much.

Because in that short period of time that Shu and Lui were brothers that got along, that loved each other, both boys knew that they had someone who cared. 

Lui cared about Shu's scar.

Shu cared about Lui's past.

And that was what mattered. 

So, Lui thought to himself, I'm going to get that back.