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“Are you happy with him?” I ask after a while.

Rei looks up from where we’re walking beside each other, our hands still linked. “With who?”

“Dimitri.”

“Yeah.” He smiles softly. “I am.”

If Dimitri makes him smile like that, he gets to live another day. When I first saw them together, I seriously debated killing him. I could have done it easily, too. He was pulling Rei into the exact world I’d spent years trying to keep him away from. But then I saw how happy my brother was around him. And the truth is, Rei is safer with Dimitri than he ever was with our mother.

Speaking of our mother, she’s been calling me nonstop lately. I haven’t answered a single call, and I don’t intend to. After what her decisions cost Rei, I have no interest in seeing her ever again. As far as I’m concerned, she is dead. Rei feels the same. The moment he ended up in that hospital because of the consequences of her actions, she lost both of us.

I lead him a little farther down the street until we stop at a small Japanese breakfast place tucked between a florist and a bookstore.

I guide Rei inside and choose a booth where he can sit without people brushing too close to him.

He orders a bowl of rice and a small serving of natto when the waitress comes, and I smile.

“You still order the same things you did when you were small.”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

I remember everything about him.

It didn’t matter how long I stayed away. I still remembered the stupid little things.

“I…” He hesitates. “I have to ask you something.”

I furrow my brows. “Ask.”

“Do you feel pity?”

“Pity?”

He nods, but his eyes drop to the table again. “It’s just…” He lets out a small breath. “You were gone from my life for so long, Kento. And now suddenly you want to take me out, talk to me, spend time with me, and I don’t understand it. Is it because I got hurt? Or because you think it was your fault?”

My throat tightens as he continues. “Will you go back to seeing me once a year when I fully recover?” His voice thins around the sentence. “I just need you to tell me so I can prepare myself. I’m a little scared.”

His voice cracks on the last word, and when he finally looks up, his eyes are shining.

Fuck.

I reach across the table and take his hand. “Rei.”

“I know,” he says too quickly, tears gathering now despite how hard he’s trying to keep them back. “I know you don’t owe me anything. I know you have your own life, and I know I shouldn’t—”

“Stop.”

He does, and I tighten my hold on his hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

The words feel inadequate the second they leave me. Too small. Too late.

And Rei interrupts me with the question I knew would come eventually. “Why? Why weren’t you there if you’re sorry?”

I bite the inside of my lip, because that’s the truth I can’t give him. The shape of my absence laid out cleanly in front of me, demanding language I still can’t hand over without tearing apart too many things at once. If he ever learns the truth, it’ll destroy him. He already despises our mother, and for good reason. But he loves our father, even if he is dead, Rei has a perfect picture of him, and if that illusion shatters too, I honestly don’t know what will be left of him.

“I can’t tell you that yet,” I say finally.

His face falls just slightly, and I immediately add, “I don’t want to invent a lie for you.”