((Chapter 2! Please read and review~ Thank you!))
Hours later, the family at last sat down to their Christmas Eve dinner. Yuki was careful to sit down in between Shigure and Hatsuharu, though he could see the look of disappointment light up on Ayame's face as he did so. With a small sigh, the snake sat across from him, next to Ritsu, who was suddenly blushing with nervousness and delight.
"Who would like to say grace?" Akito asked after portions of turkey, cranberries, and mashed potatoes had been dished out to each family member. Predictably enough, Ayame volunteered, springing up from his seat and clasping his hands together in prayer.
"Dear God, thank you for this bounty of food and the nourishment it will soon provide our needy bodies. And even more importantly, thank you for this opportunity for our family to gather and enjoy the company we share, for bonds to be strengthened between us, for rifts to be mended, for differences to be set aside during this fleeting but meaningful time together. Amen."
"Amen," the family echoed as Ayame sat down and looked across the table at Yuki, smiling in hopes that his words resonated with the rat. Yuki understood good and well that the entire speech had been about him, but that didn't mean he was moved by it in the slightest. Instead, as soon as the silver-haired man caught his eye, he turned toward Shigure and asked him how his latest novel was coming along, desperate for any topic of conversation that would get the dog talking for a considerable amount of time.
Ayame's face fell once again. He looked down to his plate of food and began toying with the mashed potatoes, feeling his appetite having almost vanished completely when Yuki ignored him so obviously and so coldly. Aya had been so hopeful about this occasion. He truly thought that some progress could be made during this stay at the Main House, especially since it was Christmas and he hypothesized that Yuki's heart may have thawed a bit because of it.
Clearly, he had been wrong. Yuki seemed more distant than ever today. He hadn't spoken a single word to him since he first let him inside, since the kiss. 'The kiss! That must be it!' Ayame suddenly realized. Yuki was upset about the kiss!
This filled Ayame with a sense of relief. He now surmised that if he simply sat Yuki down and apologized for the kiss, perhaps the entire weekend didn't have to be ruined by it.
It could even provide the two a lovely chance to have a heart-to-heart, could prove that Ayame had become more sensitive to Yuki's feelings, and could show that Ayame had been capable of realizing he made a mistake and apologizing for it in a much more timely fashion than he used to. In fact, it couldn't have worked out any better!
Though the reality was that Ayame was not sorry for the kiss. He was sorry that it obviously made Yuki uncomfortable, but he wasn't sorry for the action itself. It had been made in good fun and was actually rather enjoyable. Yuki's lips were so full and supple.
After dinner, Akito announced who would be staying in what rooms. Yuki prayed silently that he would be sharing a room with anyone but Ayame. At the same time, Ayame prayed silently that he would be sharing a room with Yuki.
"Shigure and Hatori, upstairs, furthest room to the right. Ritsu and Hiro, upstairs, next to Shigure and Hatori's room," Akito began. Immediately everyone could hear Hiro groan with despair. "Kagura, Kisa, and Rin, downstairs, next to the staircase. Ayame and Yuki, third floor, furthest room to the left..."
After that, Yuki couldn't hear anything else Akito said, nor did he care to. So the god had decided to play a cruel joke on him after all. A new form of torture.
On the contrary, Ayame could barely contain his excitement. An enormous smile flashed across his face and twinkled in his eyes. "Did you hear that, Yuki? You and I are going to be able to spend the entire night together!" he said, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder from behind.
The rat shivered and backed away from his touch. "Of course I heard. Do you think I'm deaf? You don't have to be so excited about it. All we're going to do is lie down and go to sleep."
"Oh, heavens no! It's only 9:00," Ayame said, linking his arm through Yuki's and bounding up the stairwell to the third floor. "We will stay up for hours, talking and sharing our feelings and playing 'Truth or Dare'! I have long dreamed of this. A slumber party with my little brother. There is a certain type of bondage that can only come from such a thing as a slumber party, I've found."
"A certain type of bondage?"
"Bonding. A certain type of bonding," the snake corrected with a smirk.
A heavy sigh escaped Yuki's lips as he was dragged along, both unwillingly and yet subserviently, to the room where the two would spend their night together. He immediately crafted a simple plan to save his sanity: no matter how much Ayame demanded they stay up, he would stand his ground and tell his brother that he was already tired and was going to bed. He would then lie down and pretend to be asleep for however long it took for the snake to fall asleep himself.
It would take willpower to resist Ayame's insistence, but he was certain he could summon it. As soon as they entered the room, Yuki relinquished his arm from Ayame's grasp and made himself comfortable in the bed closest to the door; he had to be ready to flee at any given moment.
"So! What shall we do first? I could sneak downstairs and grab us some sweets from the pantry if you're still hungry," Ayame offered. "And before you say you're not hungry, understand this: sweets are a fundamental necessity at slumber parties."
A small lightbulb flickered over Yuki's head. "Hm, all right. I'm fairly full, but I could go for a cookie or two."
"I'll bring an entire box!" Ayame raised his fist in the air determinedly before prancing out of the room like an idiot. Yuki watched for a moment before he let his head fall back against the pillow. This was perfect.
By the time Ayame got back, though it was only a few minutes later, Yuki's eyes were shut tight, his covers snug around his lithe frame, his hand curled around the edge of his pillow.
Ayame, at first smiling excitedly as he reentered the room with the coveted box of chocolate chip cookies in hand, now blinked in surprise at the sight of his slumbering brother. He stood in the doorway, watching Yuki sleep for a few moments, studying every contour of his flawless face, the face that looked extraordinarily similar to his own when he was sixteen.
For years, Ayame had claimed that he was in love with his own reflection. He had passed it off as one of his many narcissistic recurring jokes, but now he had to wonder. Was it natural that he found his brother so heartbreakingly beautiful?
Shaking these thoughts out of his mind, with a defeated sigh, Ayame set the box of cookies down on the dresser-drawer next to his designated bed and slid into said bed reluctantly. He turned out the light and lay there, staring up at the ceiling that was almost as pale as his hair. It was much too early for him to be able to fall asleep, and he had half a mind to sneak into Shigure and Hatori's room for some entertainment, but he also didn't want to leave his brother's side, just in case the other deigned to wake up.
Because he had to apologize for the kiss. He knew this. He wanted to do so. He hadn't meant any harm by it, but Yuki had taken offense, and now the gap between them had grown larger and deeper. If he didn't rectify it soon, the widening could be irreversible, or at least an additional challenge to the attainment of Yuki's love, and Ayame didn't need an additional challenge.
With this thought in mind, Ayame slinked out of the bed as quickly as he had entered it and moved to lie next to Yuki. Yuki, who had been secretly awake the entire time, instinctively reacted with a jolt. "What do you think you're doing?" he immediately asked, scooting away as far as he could from his brother's body, which wasn't very far because the bed was very tiny.
"Ah, Yuki! You're awake!"
"You woke me, is more like it," Yuki quickly covered. "Now answer me: what are you doing in my bed? Does yours have bugs in it or are you just trying to bug me again?"
"Ahahaha, very clever. You get your turn of phrase from me, you know," Aya boasted, moving in closer to Yuki again.
"I don't get anything from you except annoyed."
"Yuki, please, don't be so harsh on my delicate ears. The only reason I came over to your bed is to apologize to you."
At this, Yuki's eyes grew bigger and his expression softer. "Apologize?"
"For the little incident regarding the mistletoe," Ayame began as he brushed a wispy strand of hair from his face. "I can tell that you were bothered by it, and so I wanted to apologize right away and not let this fester between us unnecessarily."
Well, at least he could tell that it bothered Yuki; that was a first. Ayame was usually so completely oblivious that even something as obvious as this would have gone right over his head. After a few moments of silence, Yuki cast his amethyst eyes down, not particularly wanting to meet Ayame's striking gaze as he decided to ask his next question: "Ayame, what was your first kiss like?"
"My first kiss?" Ayame blinked. "Well...it was when I was eight-years-old. I was playing in my treehouse one dazzling summer afternoon and this little girl, her name was Atsuki Yomiko, well, she asked me if she could come up and play with me for a while. I told her that no girls were allowed, and she began trying to make a deal with me. 'I'll give you my brand new Barbie if you let me inside,' she said. 'I'll let you copy my homework for history if you let me inside,' she said. I did not particularly want her Barbie or to copy her homework, but there was something I wanted from her, so I said it plainly: 'I'll let you come up if you promise to give me a kiss when you do.' I remember her throwing the word 'cooties' around, but eventually she gave in, climbed the ladder to my chambers, and she kissed me."
Yuki smiled slightly, though sadly, at the story. "Was she pretty?"
"Oh, yes. She was very pretty, with long brown hair and eyes like the ocean."
"And you liked her, right? I mean, you had some kind of crush on her?"
Ayame nodded and adjusted his head more comfortably on the pillow below it. "I had been crushing on her since the first grade!"
A nod from the rat. And then silence. Ayame watched his expression change, and he wondered what all this meant. It almost felt like a bonding experience. Yuki asking him about a story from his childhood, even asking follow-up questions. Certainly that was classic slumber party activity, wasn't it? "And what about you, Yuki? What was your first kiss like?" Ayame asked, hoping to keep the momentum going.
Yuki's eyes flashed back at Ayame like bolts of lightning. His face suddenly felt too hot for its own good. "Well, actually, it was on Christmas Eve."
"That's ironic, considering that today-"
"It was on Christmas Eve and happened under the mistletoe," Yuki continued, interrupting his brother and staring straight into his eyes to communicate the message, his gaze even piercing through the darkness that enveloped them.
Ayame, at long last, understood.
((To be continued!))