Urifutatsu"Good morning, Brother, how do you do It's quite nice today, shall I open the curtains"

With the heart monitor's beep of approval, Gentaro walks over to the window and allows the light in. The sunbeams wash over him in waves of nostalgia, its warmth incomparable to the hand that he clings onto in his memories. From the courtyard, the laughter of another patient and their loved ones rings out. Gentaro's fists curl around the curtains, the fabric threatening to tear in his grasp, but he manages to fix the mask that's been bequeathed to him before taking his rightful place at his brother's side.

"Forgive me. It's been a while since my last visit, hasn't it" he says, wearisome as an author's busy schedule would be. "Between work and practice, I've hardly even time for myself."

A storyteller Gentaro is, so a story he tells to ears that can no longer hear. He shares snippets of writing he's scribbled, pieces of a world that he's yet to piece together; and he recalls how he smooth talked his way out of a scolding from his editor, his deadline just a few days away with no manuscript in sight; and he recounts Fling Posse's latest outing, sparing no details of neither Ramuda's vibrancy nor Dice's vitality nor their joviality. To each tale, his brother's heart peaks and dips, but the beeps can never replace the voice that once continued his scenarios where he left off.

Gentaro squeezes his brother's hand as if it will wake him up — as if he can trade his life for his. Within these sickeningly white walls, he is not Yumeno Gentaro, but rather the phantom of a man lost to a deep slumber.

The hospital bed reflects his visage like a distorted mirror, a harrowing depiction of what went awry. /He/ was not supposed to wear this identity, this carefully crafted composition of dreams, for /he/ has always been the shadow — the other, the extra, the second string. He observed where his brother acted, he guarded where his brother dived in, he barely existed where his brother barely lived. If anyone belongs in this casket of tubes and needles, it's him.

An author, however, should know well that narratives often take their own course. In a twist of fate, his dear brother had been stolen from him and he was forced to carry on his role. How cruel reality is, this cruelty the very one that his brother dared to challenge. If only he could ravage that sham of a regime with his bare hands, avenge the wrongs that had been wrought upon them, but the being named Yumeno Gentaro works as clandestine as the subtle sway of words. For now, he has to fulfill his brother's will. For now, he lives for them both.

His phone vibrates. The screen shows a text message from Fling Posse's group chat.

"I should be going now," Gentaro says, the sorrow that slips through true. Pretending that he is whole instead of half of a pair is perhaps the most painful part of this dream he's inherited. "I'll see you soon, Brother."

In reply, the heart monitor bids him goodbye. Its steady pulse is his own as much as it is his brother's.