“ It’s only three!” He grumbled after glancing briefly at his wristwatch. With a loud sigh he bends over his books again in resignation.
The door opens abruptly and the chime rang happily. “ Welcome!” He shouts mechanically before raising his head. “ Ah!”
To his surprise, he sees his four brothers standing before him grinning. “ What are you guys doing here?” He asks curiously.
Nakai peers playfully at the books lying open on the counter top. “ He’s still at page 12!” He remarks cheekily to the rest.
“ Shingo!” Takuya growled.
“ This is third time revision!” Shingo protests. Suddenly his brothers start laughing. He frowns lightly as he tries to figure out the joke. “ What is so funny?”
“ Shingo is still afraid of Takuya!” Tsuyoshi giggles.
Goro steps forward and smiles at Shingo. “ While I was unconscious, Shingo grew into an adult.” He praises and to everyone’s amusement, Shingo blushed. To cover his embarrassment, he blew his top rather unconvincingly.
“ What are all of you doing here teasing me for! It’s three in the morning! Go back to sleep!”
“ Nope, he is not exactly grown up yet!” Nakai remarks happily, much to Shingo’s further embarrassment.
“ Goro came back to us one year ago today,” Takuya explains happily. “ So we thought we’ll have a small celebration tonight, here, now!”
Shingo’s face light up at the mention of a celebration. That means there will be food! He won’t mind the chance to replenish his stomach. “ That’s great! How are we going to do that?”
“ Tsuyoshi is giving us a treat today!” Nakai announces loudly while Takuya and Goro clap merrily.
“ Help yourself to anything you want here.” Tsuyoshi invites with a strange smile, almost blissful. Shingo’s eyes bulged out in surprise while the rest went off to look for something to eat.
“ You can’t be serious?” He asks Tsuyoshi who is leaning against the counter, his eyes half closed and the corners of his mouth tugged lightly upwards.
“ Why not?” Tsuyoshi asks. “ I received my salary today! I can afford it.”
“ But we promised to save up for Goro and Mi chan’s wedding!” Shingo reminds in a harsh whisper. “ That’s why I still insists on holding this job till now!”
“ I didn’t forget! Don’t worry, I can still afford this little treat.”
“ Really?” Shingo asks in disbelief.
“ Yes!” Tsuyoshi insists impatiently.
Shingo’s face brightens and he grins widely. “ Then I won’t stand on ceremony!” He cheers and heads for the freezer section.
Takuya pulls apart the door of the large fridge and took a can of ice coffee from the rack. He passes it to Goro who is standing behind him waiting, and grabbed a can for himself too. Easily they pull open the tab and started drinking their drinks on the spot.
“ How are you coping with work?” Takuya asks casually while playing with the can in his hands.
“ I am still trying to cope.” Goro admits. “ But it is not as hard as I thought it would be.”
“ Your boss was kind enough to let you go back to work after such a long period of absence.” Takuya remarks.
“ Yes. It would have been hard for me to get a new job.” Goro agrees. “ Since I went back to work two weeks ago, he had been looking out for me.”
Takuya turns to face his brother squarely. “ We didn’t think that your post recovery therapy would take nearly a year. It must have been hard on you.”
Goro smiles ruefully. “Learning how to walk again was hard. Then there were times when my brain totally blanked out. I was frightened. I was afraid I will forget everyone and everything dear to me.”
“Is that why you started writing down all our names over and over again?” Takuya asks with a pang of heartache. If he had been a softer man, he would have pulled his brother into his arms and attempt to comfort him.
“ I had to do something before I lost all my precious memories.” Goro replies as he nodded lightly to himself.
Nakai shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He is standing at the shelf directly behind them so he heard the conversation clearly. His eyes felt moist but he refuses to cry. He tells himself that someone up there is kind enough to return his brother to him so he has no cause to cry at all.
Goro’s words touched him immensely. He did not realize that his family had come so close to losing each other. As he continues to stand there alone, memories of the past two years came back to him rapidly. “Nakai? What are you doing?” Takuya’s voice interrupts him.
“ Huh?” Nakai reacts immediately. He blinks and everything around him warps back to the present. He looks at the neatly arranged products before him with a frown before he turns. Takuya and Goro are peering curiously at him from behind the shelf. “ What?”
“ What are you doing here standing all alone looking lost?” Goro rephrases the question.
“ Nothing. I was studying the things on the rack..” Nakai replies hurriedly.
“ Ignore the weird fella. Let’s get some chips.” Takuya suggests and both he and Goro walked off leaving Nakai behind to sort his thoughts further.
XXX
“ Ah! It had been a long time since we tasted Goro’s cooking!” Shingo exclaims with a delightful sigh as he survey all the dishes on the table. When he tried to pick at a pickle, Takuya’s hand shot out and gave his a resounding slap. “ Yikes!” He utters, retracting his hand quickly. Takuya stares at him sternly to prevent any more mischief.
“ Yes,” Tsuyoshi added happily as he came out of the kitchen balancing 4 bowls of rice on his hands. “ Can you imagine the horror of eating Nakai’s cooking every 3 weeks instead of 4?”
“ Hear! Hear!” Shingo joins in merrily.
“ Hey! What is that suppose to mean?” Nakai protests angrily as he approached the table with a plate of vegetables. Goro brought up the rear with a tray holding 5 bowls of soup.
“ Exactly that!” Takuya teased.
“ Humpf! Ungrateful creatures! Don’t know why you guys deserve me.” Nakai mutters haughtily while his brothers guffawed.
Goro smiled silently while his brothers piled praises on him as they ate. He knows his cooking skills had slackened but they are just too happy to notice. After dinner, everyone went about his own chores like before. Goro slides the iron carefully across the surface of the clothing. Even after so much therapy, he is still unable to control his hands sometimes and risks getting his wrists burnt by the searing iron. Of course he is taking a longer time to accomplish his chores but none of his brothers are going to offer their help simply because Nakai had brought them up to be responsible for their each individual selves, even if it is a household chore.
Goro is glad that his brothers aren’t clambering all over to offer their help because that will only make him feel even more useless.
“ You can’t be serious!” Shingo’s loud wail broke his train of thoughts and he looked up momentarily.
“ Your shortcut way will not work! That’s why you can’t derive the answer!” Tsuyoshi insists gently.
“ But my shortcut make sense!” Shingo argues with a pout. Goro smiles to himself; Shingo hasn’t change a bit when it comes to doing his math homework. Boy, is he glad to pass the task over to Tsuyoshi now.
“ It doesn’t make sense!” Tsuyoshi persists a bit more firmly.
“ Shingo!” Takuya’s voice bellowed from the kitchen corner. The color rushed off Shingo’s face immediately as he grabbed his pen and pretend to be bend over hard at work with his homework. Goro chuckled lightly to himself and he is sure Tsuyoshi is also trying hard to conceal his amusement.
“ Here, let me help you.” Nakai’s voice startled him from the back. Then before he can react, Nakai had snatched the heavy instrument from his hand and starts ironing with fervor.
“ Nakai~” Goro starts to protest feebly but that did not slow him down a bit.
“ Go and get some rest. After I am done, we’ll go out for a walk like the old times.” Nakai said and grinned.
Goro smiles as he nodded at his understanding brother. Without another word, he went to join his younger siblings at the table gratefully because he is in reality feeling pretty exhausted from the earlier exercise.
“ Ne~ Goro, my way is better?” Shingo hisses in a risky whisper. Goro smiles without answering as Takuya crept up behind Shingo. Sensing a looming sense of danger, Shingo sticks out his tongue guiltily and returns to his books immediately.
