Tan Jun × Tan Jinyun
elder brother × younger brother
Brother, older brother, first person, abusive text
——
The day he left, the monitor was straightened and I counted the bulges of the infusion needle holes on his wrist, like I was counting the words that I had not spoken over the years.
On a snowy night when I was fifteen years old, he carried me to seek medical treatment, and stuffed hot steamed buns into my mouth when my ribs were broken. After being hit by a car and breaking his leg, he lay on the hospital bed, his eyes empty enough to hold all my absurdities. When he was coughing up blood in the late stage of lung cancer, he still clutched the crumpled bankbook I gave him and said, "Keep it for tuition."
I'm always forcing him, forcing him to admit his evasive eyes, forcing him to accept his hard-earned money, forcing him to look back at me on rainy nights. It wasn't until his body temperature cooled down that I realized that the silver ring under his pillow, like the medical certificate hidden under the bed board, had already worn the word "love" into a bloody scab.
Purpose: redemption