hey brother, there’s an endless r

                heybrother, there’s an endless road to rediscover…

what are you meant to do upon finding out, after years of being an only child, that you aren’t in fact, an only child at all? there’s happiness, of course, from years of yearning for siblings, yet it’s marred by the guilt of feeling as though a perfect family has been tarnished by his very existence. before eric came into the picture, jeno’s family was perfect.a mother, father, and two children - a son and a daughter. yet now, with eric stumbling into the picture, knocking through the glass protecting their picture-perfect lives, everything’s stained. eric’s shone an uncomfortably bright light on the cracks shooting through their family, and he can’t help but think that had he never met jeno, their family could have stayed blissfully unaware of his existence. 

but the cat’s already out of the bag as soon as eric asks why jeno’s got a picture with his father in it, in fact, multiple pictures with his father in. it’s stupid - he should have realised before he opened his mouth what it meant. but he hadn’t thought for a second that jeno’s family could have any skeletons in their closets. he shouldn’t have been so naive. but he was, and he’d opened his mouth and ruined everything for jeno and his family. 

if eric didn’t exist at all they’d be so much better off. 

he blames himself, even if it’s his dad’s fault for cheating on his wife. somehow, if eric had done something differently, he could’ve prevented jeno, someone he’s grown to care so deeply about, from being upset, disappointed, or pained at this situation. he thinks about jeno’s poor sister, too, who he barely knows. she must really hate him, coming into their lives and wreaking havoc by his mere presence in the world. 

he expects jeno to be mad at him, after they figure out what the pictures all around jeno’s house, that show someone so familiar to eric, mean. expects him to tell him to get out and never come back. he expects jeno to keep quiet about it for his mother and sisters sake. but he doesn’t. he’s not angry at eric, or dismissive, or cruel, as eric fears he may be. he knows jeno well enough to know he’s not the type to be cruel, but this isn’t a scenario that you can predict what someone will do in. 

but jeno accepts eric as his brother. much to eric’s surprise. in jeno’s eyes it isn’t eric’s fault, it’s their dad’s. so, eric accepts jeno as his brother, as he aches to do - he adores jeno, and has from the moment he met him, so finding out he doesn’t just feel like a brother to eric, he is his brother, is surreal. he’s got so much to learn about having a brother, and being a brother, but eric trusts that jeno will help him through it, even if things are a little strange at first. it’s not everyday you find out twenty years into your life that you’ve got a brother you never knew about. 

even if they’ve got a lifetime of catching up to do, years of learning about each other in ways brothers should know about each other, eric simply can’t wait to confidently call jeno his brother.