Chapter 4: Special Needs
AN: Just a short, extra, 'slice-of-life' chapter.
"I think that guy likes you," Tomoko said to Kotomi, who again dismissed the greetings of one boy with auburn hair and a nice smile who kept on borrowing and returning books, asking Kotomi what's new, what to borrow, what would she recommend for him to read? Kotomi kept on showing her irritation, never smiling back. She only answered him with terse commands that he himself look at the new arrivals shelf or the library catalog on the computer.
"Well, I don't like him. I find him annoying. What do you know about liking people anyway," she said, trying to avoid talking to Tomoko before this but she had no choice but answer.
"You're even lucky to have the attention. You know you've no chance with my foolish little brother."
Kotomi grit her teeth. One time she almost choked this girl when she made fun of her crush on Tomoki. A girl she wouldn't even talk to or even look at when she wasn't Yuu's friend, or Tomoki's sister. Not to mention all the embarrassing things about Kotomi she's said when Tomoki was around. Kotomi is still bitter over that. But then she tolerates her around, if not for her she wouldn't know a thing about Tomoki, who was still a mystery to her. She believed she loved him, it was the kind of unrequited crush a girl might feel at least once in her life, and the distance and impossibility of one's object of affection only makes the infatuated hopeful. It seemed that the more painful or unattainable the love, the more it seemed to arouse the hopelessness of hopeless romantics. Well, no one ever got what they want. It was the same story all over again: Boy likes girl, but girl likes another guy who doesn't love her back.
"Goodbye and thanks, Komiyama-san!" said the guy again who was now about to leave the library. To Tomoko, he was kind of cute.
"Hn," said Kotomi, and a young woman walked in the door. She was carrying a large, packaged box and placed it on Kotomi's table.
"New books we bought," she said with a smile. "Thank you, Kotomi-chan! It's the end of your duty for now. And next time, be more kind to library users, okay? Or they won't be encouraged to come back here."
"Fine, ma'am. It's just that, that guy always wants more attention that I can't help other students," Kotomi said, and got her own bag to leave the library. "Goodbye, I'm still going to watch the football team practice."
"Bye!"
Tomoko followed her out. "Who's that?" she asked.
"She's the part-time librarian, who's also the literature teacher. I'm just a student assistant."
"Where you heading? To watch my brother again?"
Kotomi didn't answer, she only continued walking and ignored Tomoko in the hopes that she'd leave. Once outside, they sat on the bleachers near the field, together with other students watching. Kotomi chose a corner in the front seats, most were crowded on the upper benches for a better view of the practice game. Tomoko sat beside her without a word. The after-school sunlight from the setting sun was making everything look saturated, sepia-golden, yellow-orange.
There he was, who Kotomi was looking for, Tomoki. He kicked the ball and ran like hell, while the defensive team tried to block him. She always liked to look at how he ran and the expressions on his face. Right now he's got that smirk that says, even if how all of you try, none of you can outrun me. It never fails to make her heart skip a beat, and maybe that's why all the girls are watching just to watch him smile since he never does outside the game.
She never really paid attention to the game, her eyes were focused on him. She never saw anyone else or cared about the cheering students, they turned to a blur and their sounds were muted, she saw only him.
Soon, the game was over, the boys carrying Tomoki up in the air, and him laughing and what a sound that was, he looked like first prize, the champion.
Somewhere there, their pretty boy Team Captain with a tooth-paste commercial grin, spiked black hair, and tanned skin draped an arm around Tomoki's shoulders and said, "I'm lucky to have such a cute boyfriend." Out of nowhere, he kissed Tomoki in front of everyone, and the boys howled, cheered, laughed in hysterics. Girls squealed.
Kotomi can almost hear her heart shatter. They were kissing like they lived for it, and of all things... the love of her life was kissing back.
"So he isn't a siscon after all. He just likes guys," Tomoko said like it was a fact. Kotomi left her without saying goodbye.
#
After everyone has left, Tomoko still sat and watched the empty field. She didn't understand the language of football, didn't take time to learn the game's vocabulary of offensive, defensive, goal keepers, defenders, fielders, strikers. All she knows is the ball must hit the target. She didn't understand it.
She had been so nervous about watching before, scared of others, but now it was curiosity that made her watch. This was the first time she watched her brother play, and the cheers didn't bother her now. Tomoki's team won, and all the boys flocked around Tomoki like they were a pack, a tribe. Tomoki smiled, looking like he was feeling great and having the time of his life, surrounded by his team. It was a feeling foreign to Tomoko, and she can't help but feel envy.
When she saw her brother kiss another boy, she only felt mild curiosity. (To think, until now the only person she ever kissed was Tomoki. Now there he was, handing out kisses to others for free).
It was almost evening, the sky already blue. She was looking at her own shoes, and saw the long shadow of another person touch her feet. She looked up and saw her brother.
"Let's go home," Tomoki said, and she nodded. They walked, him in front of her, and there is always a distance between them. They reached the street outside school when Tomoki turned around and waved, in a gesture for her to go away.
"Hey, take a few more steps back so people won't know we're siblings," Tomoki said, and before she could answer him, Tomoki's friends flocked near him. So that's why he wanted me to go away.
"Tomoki! We're going to eat dinner somewhere. Wanna go with us?" asked one cheerful-looking guy she always sees with Tomoki in his class.
"Sorry guys, but I'm going home. I need to catch up with sleep."
"Man, whatr'e you up to? You're not going with us as much now. You have a girl to spend time with instead of us?"
"What girl? I gave Tomoki his first kiss," pretty boy Team Captain said, holding Tomoki by the shoulders in an attempt to kiss him again, but Tomoki shoved his face away.
"That wasn't my first kiss."
"Oh, there's something you haven't talked to us about! Then with who?"
"With my sister, fucker! Stop it! Don't you have a girlfriend?" Tomoki said, shoving the boy's face away from him, who was insistent about kissing him again.
"And I felt like you liked it earlier just after the game, right?" The boy winked at him.
"It was only because we won," Tomoki answered.
"Is that her?"
"Who?"
"Your sister? It's obvious, you kinda look alike. Why didn't you tell us you had a younger sister? Hello, Tomoki's little sister!"
"She's my older sister. Older than me by a year," Tomoki said without looking at his sister. Tomoko managed to smile at them (a smile that she hopes doesn't look creepy).
"Older sister? Bye then, nee-chan!" They all waved goodbye at her. Tomoki sneered, Tomoko waved back at them.
They kept quiet the rest of the way, to the train ride home, then the short walk in their village home.
"Hey Tomoki, about last night..." she said to him, as he opened the gate with his key.
"Forget it," he said without looking at her. Tomoko could hear something harsh in his dismissal, then he glanced at her with hate. His expression showed what those two words meant, Stop hoping it'll happen again or lead to something more.
Tomoko felt like she was slapped in the face.
#
After that, she wonders how she might make what she wants to happen occur again. How would she approach him? Saying "Hey, let's make out" would sound weird. What happened then was probably only caused by their exhaustion, both of them hating that event and wished they went home instead. Was he doing it because he felt he owed her a favor? Did he feel the same as her then?
Her brother's last comment, telling her to forget it all hurt her like salt rubbed on a bleeding wound. How could he? Saying forget it when she can't? How can she forget something like that? It isn't like memory is a piece of paper she can throw out her mind like trash, or a thought she can discard from her brain any time she wants.
Forget it. Two words that was so simple yet so difficult to do. Her mind was naturally obsessive and over thinking. Maybe this was only another incident when she mistook someone's feelings for her.
Like that time she thought guys wanted her when they only actually wanted to tell her that ants were crawling all over her. Wasn't at that time she also thought that Tomoki got the hots for her when she wasn't hot at all but only dirty and greasy? To think that she even thought that, Even my younger brother can't resist me! But then, it turned out that...
She's the one who had the hots for him.
No. Just no.
What had happened didn't last for more than a few minutes, but nothing had replayed in her head more. Her skin shivers at the thought of them sharing a bed, at the memory of Tomoki holding her. Her mind kept on thinking of possibilities, and kept hoping on the unlikeliest one of them all:
Did Tomoki... want her and was only denying his own feelings?
No. Yes. Maybe. No, of course not. Then why would he do that if not? But why is he acting so cold again today? Dismissing her just like that? But he went to her that afternoon after the game, they went home together, and she was unintentionally introduced to his friends.
He's said something sounding affectionate towards her – about her being his first kiss. And that triggers another run of memories of all the time they ever kissed, of every time he's said he loved her and wanted to be with her forever. She wished the barrage of thoughts would stop, but her questions lead to more questions and anxiety. In the end, anger, that he might be playing with her mind, getting his ego flattered out of her following him. Maybe he was trying on an experiment, of how far he can make her gullible.
She only followed his every word. Just tell me what you want and I will do them. I won't make a sound, I just want to feel those things again. Now, where did those thoughts come from? All this because of. Two. Damn. Words.
Forget it.
She was trying to make herself stop obsessing, stop thinking about it, but of course the results of that attempt is: she can think of nothing but it. How can something preoccupy a mind just so?
Why did he do that? Does he like her? Did he feel the same as her? Did he want her?
She tried to calm her doubts and questions, to stop her brain from obsessing. And went to a place she always goes to when her mind was full of questions no one could answer. The internet, of course. She typed 'incest' on Gaagle, and as she expected, there were all sites on manga scans, all hentai stories and doujinshi that featured wish-fulfillment fantasies of brothers and sisters screwing each other, all unrealistic situations that lead to sex and even more fantastical body proportions that real women don't have. Older brothers and younger sisters. Older sisters and younger brothers. Parents and their children. Sometimes both, sometimes all.
While she's reading and criticizing the stories in her mind, she didn't realize time passing, that in one sitting she's read through ten titles in a couple of hours. Time check: 9 PM. Usually, she'll catch herself at past 12.
It's always a weird time displacement, the internet. Browse, fall into the rabbit hole and you'll never realize you've already gone too far and you've wasted hours. The stories didn't make her feel anything, only disgust at herself. Now, imagining doing all those kinds of things with her brother was enough to make her puke.
Now, she felt like a desperate loser. Most likely, that's what he's thinking about her too. She felt like slime, like a dead slug stepped over and left to dry in the sun. She was the desperate one clamoring for touch and attention, and she feels so dirty, she felt like someone so perverted and unattractive that she's asking, begging for her brother to merely touch her.
If he wants her to forget it, then why'd he do it? Maybe to plant false hopes in her heart. Last night was the first time she felt safe, loved, in his arms. Yet by today he's back to being full of himself again.
She can show him that she doesn't care.
But still. She mustered her courage, and decided to go to his room again. She figured that the only thing that can help her get rid of the thoughts is the very person who started them.
#
Thinking about last night only made him cringe. That he felt those things and acted on them. That they've slept in the same bed, him holding her. To think, he was lying on the same pillow as where his sister laid down the other night. But thoughts have a way of rising out of nowhere with no control and he had no choice in what to think. It's not like he can make a deliberate choice to stop thinking about it then it will be gone just like that.
To think that he's touched her, and that he wanted it. He felt dirty and disgusted at himself, but even throughout classes and practice games these are the things that flash through his mind: his sister's willingness, her vulnerability.
He was trying to make himself stop obsessing, stop thinking about it, but of course the results of that attempt is: he can think of nothing but it. How can something preoccupy a mind just so?
Staring at his ceiling again, he remembered that the only time he got decent sleep in years was when he slept, in his bed, together with his sister. It has been long since that happened, long before, when they were children and there was nothing wrong with bathing together. When puberty came, what was once normal for children and siblings are already awkward and in a sense, forbidden. He thought of those restrictions. When you are a child all your concerns are playing and fairy tales. Growing up is scary, and being childish is looked down upon. He recalled all the silly moments when they still shared the same room, innocent kisses and shows of affection, until he decided he was ashamed, and stopped all that, and began sleeping in his own room.
It's not like its gonna happen again anyway. His sister was his sister and nothing more.
In his lack of sleep, he already can picture Mister Insomnia in the dark corner of his room. He was standing there, like a fact of life, and he imagined that he looked just like the blank, faceless white visage of Slenderman. Shadows of tendrils seemed to coil around his frame. Tomoki blinked, and in his sleepless state it seemed that he could really see it.
He's creeped out at himself for doing those things. He cringed at the thought that he had felt want, that he had touched her. Now, the ever-present problem was that she might ask him to do it with her again. What would he answer?
Then, as if on cue, the door opened. He forgot to lock it again.
#
Though nervous, she opened the door to his room with every intention of annoying him. She could act like how she always does before. She went in and sat on the floor as usual. Tomoki pretended she wasn't there. So, it looked like he intended ignoring her existence tonight.
"So, blindfolds? What's next? Handcuffs? Spankings? Tying people up? I didn't know you had it in you, to be into all kinds of kinky shit," she said.
"If you say it like that, it won't happen again. So shut up about it. Get out. I don't want to look at you, and I can't sleep, you're making it worse."
"I won't," Tomoko said. He had said, if you say it like that, it won't happen again. So he... was also thinking of a next time all along. She still had a chance, it could happen again. His threat silenced her. She wanted it more than anything, of course, and for once she didn't argue. She felt it again, the slow excitement. Would they continue on from what they stopped from last night?
They had gone through this a thousand times. Tomoki scolds her to go away, she stays put. Now, she didn't know what to do or say, she thought it'd be easy, but its like she was faced with an impenetrable wall. Her tongue caught in her mouth, wanting to say something but she couldn't. After another long silence, Tomoki was the first to speak.
"You wanted something, right? If you want to sleep here, then get on the bed."
How could he read her mind like that?
As soon as she stepped nearer, he pulled her arms to him, to his bed.
"I'm only doing this because I slept better last night with you around."
He cradled her head in one arm, and Tomoko lay down on her side, head on his chest. Suddenly, all her thoughts tumbling about her mind disappeared. This was all it took to calm her. She smiled.
To Tomoki, all those things he thought before this made no sense anymore.
"We won't make out?," she asked. She closed her eyes, pursed her lips and leaned to him as if she was going to kiss him. Her lips met Tomoki's clenched fist, who then pushed it towards her face in a soft parody of a punch in the face. Then his fist was replaced by his lips, he still kissed her on the cheek and said, "Goodnight, nee-chan."
Tomoko blinked open at Tomoki's kissing her. But then, the damn guy was already snoring. Now what was she, a sleep aid? He slept at the expense of her sleep, because sleeping beside him the other night only made her giddy and unable to sleep at at all. But then, soon she was asleep too.
Tonight, there were no dreams. Both of them had never slept so peacefully.
to be continued