#anyway obviously the follow up is a mess bc karamatsu wants to know the truth and Chibita is trying to damage control

[yaminerua]

i keep on thinking of chibita starting to write love letters to karamatsu - partly because he finds writing his feelings out anonymously helps him channel all that emotional energy that’s started to build up because having nowhere to vent it is beginning to drive him nuts.

So he writes his feelings out, in a way that’s honest but vague enough for Karamatsu not to be able to figure out it’s from him if he were to find it. And he doesn’t intend initially for him to read it at all at first. But then he thinks it would potentially give Karamatsu an edge over his brothers. Some kind of victory. An encouragement of sorts. And then before he can think too deeply on all the ways this could go horribly wrong, he sends it in the mail, not daring to run the risk of being caught sending it personally.

And on the morning that it arrives, Jyushimatsu picks it up, along with the rest of the mail. He shuffles through it all as he heads back through the house, seeing that it’s mostly just the usual stuff.. a random magazine, more of Choromatsu’s idol fan-club stuff, boring-looking letters for the parents...and... hmm?? A letter? For Karamatsu? That’s new.

And like... remember how in the episode with Hatabou’s birthday Jyushi could tell the invitation was from Hatabou because it smelled like Hatabou? I figure Jyushi at this point would already know it’s from Chibita because it smells like him.

He joins the others and loudly declares that there’s a letter for Karamatsu. This, of course, catches everyone’s attention. Somebody remarks “Yeah right, who would bother writing to Shittymatsu?”

Karamatsu, who was sort of sitting staring dramatically out the window as if that makes him look deep and thoughtful and mysterious, is now staring in disbelief at Jyushimatsu. He takes the letter from him and can feel everyone watching him out of the corner of their eyes as he curiously opens the envelope and takes out the little folded letter.

There’s silence as he reads through what’s written on it but the look on his face is rapidly evolving. He looks like he’s going to cry from joy and when he’s finally done he presses the letter to his chest and starts rambling about how some shy and surely beautiful angel has finally chosen to convey her feelings to him. His Karamatsu Girl has arrived at last.

And everyone’s like what the shit!? Osomatsu snatches the letter out of Kara’s hands and scans his gaze across what’s written there, his face contorting as he finds that it is indeed a love letter to karamatsu.

There follows a short period of the letter passing from brother to brother before it finally ends up in Jyushimatsu’s hands again. He’s got a peculiar look on his face as he sniffs the paper just to be sure he hadn’t got it wrong earlier. But no, it still smells like Chibita to him.

Karamatsu’s exasperated at this point. He would like the letter from his secret admirer safely back in his own hands now and stares beseechingly at Jyushi to hand it back to him. And Jyushi pauses, looks like he’s going to say something but then seems to change his mind and simply hands the letter back over with an innocent “Congratulations Karamatsu-niisan!”

Nothing more is said on the matter. The brothers go back to ignoring Karamatsu as best they can because his immense joy over this letter is already starting to get to them. But Ichi is more concerned with Jyushi’s peculiar behaviour. “You know who it’s from don’t you?” he asks him privately at one point.

And Jyushi thinks of telling him. But instead he just says he thought he did at first but was wrong. He doesn’t want to spoil Karamatsu’s joy. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t actually from Chibita after all..

Some time later though.. they’re all dining out at Chibita’s cart and oh boy Karamatsu is talking a lot tonight isn’t he? Waxing poetic about how sincere his anonymous angel’s confessions of love were and how he awaits the day they can meet face to face. And how he greatly wishes the sender had left him a means of contacting them.

Jyushi’s gaze is fixed on Chibita the entire time, who seems just a little bit awkward tonight. He’s definitely trying to change the subject and it’s just making Jyushimatsu more suspicious about whether his previous assumptions had been correct after all... and when they’re making to leave he hangs back a little, giving Chibita that owl-like stare of his for a few moments before Choromatsu calls for him to hurry up.

It unnerves him, but not any more than Jyushimatsu usually would.

So Chibita keeps writing the letters even after that first one, but after a while he starts to think it was a bad idea. Whenever Karamatsu comes by the cart all he seems to talk about is the latest letter, and how he wishes his shy admirer would allow him to speak with them. And it’s kind of heartbreaking. Because Chibita’s the one writing those letters and Karamatsu has no idea. But he’s certain things would not go well if he discovered the truth. Especially after the look Karamatsu gave him when he interrupted one of his rambles with a noticeably irritable ‘How do you even know it’s a Karamatsu Girl anyway?’ He’d gone so quiet after that which only served to suggest to him that the prospect of such a thing was preposterous.

So he resigns himself to it and just has to sit and endure this and try to decide whether or not he should stop writing them... This can’t go on forever after all.. It’s not even fair on Karamatsu... getting his hopes up only to never actually go beyond that.. To tease him with the promise of a love that he’ll never be allowed to meet with...

And idk I want Jyushi to have some sort of part in getting the confusions and gaps in the communication closed up.

Karamatsu is understandably miserable once the letters do stop. Chibita’s feeling no better... but it was for the best. And eventually, after seeing both sides wilting as this goes on and on, Jyushimatsu finally decides to tell Karamatsu about what he’s known for months now. Because anything is better than letting this atmosphere fester any longer. But Karamatsu doesn’t believe him, because why would Chibita do something like that? And Jyushimatsu doesn’t have an answer to that, he’ll just have to ask Chibita.

When he says this to Chibita himself tho, it causes Chibita to drop a plate in shock and just freeze up. And Karamatsu misreads the reaction like, ‘yeah, unbelievable right?”

And Chibita laughs awkwardly as he gathers up the broken pieces of the plate he dropped but it’s a laugh completely devoid of amusement...

There’s an anxious pulse that’s entered his system now and it just keeps going round and round until finally, he can stand it no longer. If Karamatsu’s going to keep talking about this it’s just going to drive him nuts. If he has to keep this a secret any longer he’s going to explode.... Karamatsu deserves to know the truth.. no matter what response the truth provokes...

So as Kara makes to leave to allow Chibita to close up for the night, Chibita halts him, shouting out so suddenly into the night air that it makes Kara jump.

And he comes clean with it. He confesses to the fact that he indeed was the one writing all those letters. That he thought it was a good idea and would maybe be good for Karamatsu and that he didn’t mean for it to wind up like this. It comes out all at once in a long emotional and frustrated ramble and through all of it Chibita cannot look Karamatsu in the eye, instead choosing to busy himself with hurriedly packing things away and keeping his gaze averted and at the end when he finally runs out of breath he stands there with his head bowed and bitter tears gathering at the corners of his eyes because dammit this is such a mess....

And Karamatsu is very quiet as he processes everything he’s just heard and when Chibita finally risks a glance at him his expression is completely unreadable.

He doesn’t wait to find out what his response is. In truth he feels ready to just throw himself down onto his futon at home and scream into his pillow for the rest of the night. Gaze turned to the ground he offers an awkward apology and pulls his cart off in the direction of home leaving Karamatsu still standing shell-shocked and staring after him... his mind still in the process of computing all this new information and what it means...

When he gets home he reads through all the letters again, refreshing his memory of everything that was written there and allowing those words to blend in with the knowledge that the hand that wrote them belonged to Chibita... and to figure out how he feels about that.

Did Chibita mean what he wrote in these? Were those words genuine? Or was it just like he’d said, just doing this to make Karamatsu feel better and give him an edge over his brothers?? That’s an important distinction... He finds he really wants to - needs to - know which is true. Did Chibita really feel those things? Or was he just writing things he thought Karamatsu would like to hear from someone else? Does Chibita... maybe… love him???

The mere thought quickens his heartbeat... it brings a strange fluttery feeling to his gut and a dryness to his mouth and causes a whole flood of other feelings to fill him up all at once - some of them oddly familiar... and he could almost kick himself for being so blind and never noticing them within himself before whenever he and Chibita had been in each other’s company. He was fond of him before, yes. But the more he thinks about this situation now, the more he realises that perhaps ‘fond’ is too weak a word to use...

And with that realisation, he also knows what he wants the outcome of this to be.. And it all depends on Chibita.