The Day I Lied to My Younger Brother That He Had Failed

My younger brother had passed.

I opened the white envelope from the art university out of the prefecture before my brother did.

On the front, it was written in red letters, "Private."

It was something I shouldn't have opened.

But I inserted my index finger into the edge of the envelope and tore it open.

Inside were the acceptance letter and information on enrollment procedures.

My brother's name.

Accepted.

Enrollment fee, 280,000 yen.

First-semester tuition, 420,000 yen.

The deadline for the procedures was March 18th.

Nine days left.

I sat on a kitchen chair and counted the digits of the enrollment fee over and over.

Even though it wouldn't decrease.

The scholarship money would only be deposited after enrollment.

Our savings were gone due to my mother's hospitalization.

There wasn't a single person I could borrow the enrollment fee from.

On the refrigerator, an electricity bill reminder was held up by a magnet.

On the sink, there was a bag of medicine my mother had left over from the morning.

My mother collapsed the previous autumn.

She was able to be discharged, but her right hand remained paralyzed.

She needed someone's help to change clothes and to bathe.

My father was no longer there.

He hadn't passed away.

He had left home to live with another woman.

I graduated from high school and got a job at a local food factory.

My brother kept drawing.

He drew in the margins of his textbooks and on the back of newspaper inserts.

In a drawing of the sofa where my mother slept, only the motionless right hand sticking out from the blanket was hit by light from the window.

In the summer of his third year of high school, my brother said,

"I want to study design at university."

I didn't oppose it.

I couldn't oppose it.

Because when I gave up on going to college, no one opposed me.

It's just that no one supported me either.

That was all.

My brother looked into scholarships.

He also looked for newspaper delivery jobs.

He chose a university in a regional city with slightly cheaper rent, not Tokyo.

"If I can just manage the enrollment fee, I'll handle the rest myself."

That's what he said.

That enrollment fee was the only thing I couldn't manage.

From the next room, my mother called me.

"Come here for a second."

From upstairs, I heard the sound of my brother sharpening a pencil.

Holding the envelope, I couldn't move.

If my brother left the prefecture, I would be the only one left to take care of my mother.

I was twenty-four at the time.

I was already tired of the daily routine of going back and forth between the factory and home.

I thought I would break if my brother left too.

Because we were family, I wanted him to stay.

I wanted him to help me support our mother.

I wanted him to carry a little bit of my life, too.

I called that feeling "protecting the family."

I put the envelope into the locked drawer of the desk in my room.

That evening, my brother came down from upstairs.

He asked without even putting on his shoes.

"Did it come?"

I was washing my mother's teacup at the sink.

I turned on the faucet.

I hoped that the sound of the water would drown out my own voice.

"It came."

My brother went silent.

I kept washing the teacup.

There was no dirt left on it anymore.

"How was it?"

I turned off the faucet.

Without looking at his face, I answered.

"You failed."

Behind me, I heard the sound of a small sigh.

"I see."

That was all.

My brother went back upstairs.

The sound of his door closing was quieter than I had expected.

That night, I went to the bottom of the stairs many times.

If I did it now, there would still be time.

I could just tell him everything—about the money, about our mother.

He could decide for himself whether to go or stay.

That's what I thought.

But I couldn't bring myself to step onto the first stair.

The next morning, my brother woke up as usual.

He prepared my mother's medicine and warmed up the miso soup.

We didn't talk about the university.

From spring, my brother started working at a local printing company.

A few years later, my brother got married.

He printed the wedding reception seating chart himself.

After his daughter was born, he included a drawing of the three of them in his annual New Year's cards.

Every time a card arrived, I looked at the three of them drawn there.

My brother became happy.

So, the choice I made that day wasn't wrong.

If he had gone to university, he wouldn't have met his current wife.

His daughter wouldn't have been born either.

For twenty-three years, I used those words to help me sleep.

After our mother passed away, my brother and I cleaned out our childhood home together.

Our mother's clothes.

Old medical examination cards.

Dishes that were no longer used.

My brother pointed to the desk that had remained in my room.

"We're throwing this out too."

If I said "Yeah," it would disappear along with the envelope.

In my pocket, the corner of the key dug into my finger.

"Wait."

The key was still on the same ring as the house key.

For the first time in twenty-three years, I opened the desk drawer.

Only the yellowed white envelope remained.

I had hidden it.

But I had never forgotten it, not even once.

My brother picked up the envelope.

The red "Private" letters.

The torn edge.

His own name.

He took the acceptance letter out and stared at it for a long time.

His fingers holding the paper were trembling.

"I had passed."

"I'm sorry."

"Since when did you know?"

"Since the day it arrived."

My brother placed the acceptance letter on the desk.

"Why?"

I spoke the reasons I had been lining up for twenty-three years.

About our mother.

About the money.

About how I couldn't support it all on my own.

My brother listened in silence.

"You should have told me that."

"Even if I had, I don't think you could have gone."

My brother tried to fold the paper.

But it was slightly off from the old crease.

He didn't try to fix it.

"...I probably wouldn't have gone."

My brother said this while looking at the misfolded acceptance letter.

"But I wanted to be the one to decide."

My brother took the acceptance letter and left the house.

Since then, we have barely spoken.

He came to our mother's first anniversary memorial.

He said "Long time no see" to me as well.

But we were never left alone together.

After my brother left, I washed the teacup.

The dirt came off immediately.

Even so, I couldn't turn off the faucet.

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There is a second story to this tale, written from my brother's perspective.

"After the 'I See'"

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*This work is a work of fiction.

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