Part Three: Their Secret

Chapter Eleven: A new machine – Part 1

All good things must come to an end. And this was never more true than when Mr and Mrs Kamiya returned home late on Wednesday evening. Having spent four blissful days with only her brother and herself at home, it had been agonising to watch her parents enter the apartment and resume the status quo. At bedtime, she'd gone into Tai's room and locked the door just so she could share one last kiss with him. Even though it broke their own rules, it transpired that he had been about to do the same thing. Deciding to make an exception this once, they shared a single passionate kiss.

When her alarm clock sounded next morning, Kari climbed out of bed and like she was on autopilot, made her way straight to the bathroom. When she had eventually washed and dressed in her green sailor-suit school uniform, she'd headed into the main living area of the apartment. Arriving to see her mother in the kitchen making breakfast, while her father sat reading the newspaper with his usual morning coffee felt like an icy bucket of reality had just been thrown at her. The time in which she and Tai could openly express their love for each other had come to an excruciating end.

"Morning, Kari," her father said as he lowered his paper to smile at her.

"Morning, Dad," she dutifully replied, managing to keep the resentment she felt out of her tone.

"Kari, can you go and wake your brother," her mom then called out from behind the kitchen counter, "he's slept in again."

She froze at being issued the instruction and her cheeks uncontrollably blushed. However, was spared the embarrassment of anyone noticing in the most unexpected way.

"No need, Mom, I'm awake," the still half-asleep voice of Tai called out from down the hall. This was quickly followed by the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing.

Kari breathed a sigh of relief and felt the heat from her scarlet cheeks start to dissipate. She would need to be more on guard from now on, she realised. Without saying anything else, she sat down at the table. It was a depressing thought. She had only recently been able to leave her bedroom without her walls in place and now it seemed she might have to return to that state of isolation, at least temporarily. Letting out a sigh, she called to mind the opening of Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pts1-5. This was going to be difficult.

Between the notes of the initial keyboard and guitar solos, she answered the catch-up questions about how school had been this week, if she had enjoyed herself when out with her friends on Friday and, of apparent greatest importance, had she gotten a tattoo or body piercing while they had been away. She'd rolled her eyes at that last one and asked her mom if she wanted to check every inch of her skin. And quickly regretted doing so when the woman stood and considered it while roving her eyes over every part of her that she could see. Thankfully, she had declined.

Kari gulped and hoped it had not been noticeable when her brother gingerly sat down opposite her. A stolen glance at his eyes told her that he too was having difficulty adjusting himself back to the norm. From that point on, each and every word and action had to be screened for anything that could be construed by her parents as inappropriate; it was exhausting. When her mother sat a bowl of cereal topped with fresh fruits and a glass of orange juice down in front of her, Kari felt grateful for the distraction. Something that would take her mind away from how cute her brother looked when he let out a yawn, or how sweet his lips had tasted during their last kiss, or how much she yearned to give him a kiss goodbye like she had done on each of the three previous mornings. It wasn't fair!

Across the table, Tai it seemed had turned to his cell phone for solace. After a few moments, in which they all ate in what felt like an awkward silence, she heard her own phone vibrate from beside her. Setting down her spoon, she flipped it open and glanced at the text message.

"I don't know about you, but I'm finding this really difficult."

She raised her eyes to glance at her brother, who had gone back to eating his breakfast, before sending back, "Me too. It feels like things have gone back to the way they were four weeks ago, only times 10."

Kari ate another few mouthfuls of cereal while she waited for his reply. "I didn't think it would be this bad. Are you going to be ok? P.S. put your phone on silent so mom doesn't get suspicious."

She took his advice before she next replied, "I'll manage. I'm more worried about you. You're not feeling the need to cut your wrist, are you?"

"I certainly feel like I did last week. Only I want you more."

A slight bubble of fear started to form when Kari read his words. The worst-case scenario, bar their parents finding out what they had been doing, would be for her brother to resort to cutting himself. "We need some time alone to talk," she sent back quickly.

"Agreed. Leave with me in ten minutes and I'll walk part of the way to school with you."

"Ok," she replied, picking up her glass and draining the last of its contents.

Rising from her chair she turned to look at her mother. "Thank you for breakfast, Mom," she said as her brain worked quickly to come up with an excuse for why she would be leaving early. "I need to go get my things together and leave so I can meet Yolei before classes start. We want to go over last night's math homework together as we both found it pretty difficult."

Her mother nodded approvingly before turning to her brother, "you had best make tracks yourself, Tai, or you'll be late."

She heard her brother feign a sigh when he replied, "I'm going, I'm going."

Leaving her family at the table, Kari headed into her bedroom and started putting her books into her school bag. They were joined by her headphones and music player; Wish You Were Here having already been chosen as the soundtrack for lunch. Satisfied that she had remembered everything, she left her room, said goodbye to her mother (her father had already left for work) and waited at the front door for her brother. Hoping that something so innocuous would not arouse suspicion. God, she was starting to become paranoid and their parents had been home less than twenty-four hours.

Fortunately, Tai did not leave her hanging long. When the apartment door closed behind them, they both breathed a heavy sigh of relief. That had been torture. Walking towards the stairs, Kari felt her brother place a hand around her shoulder and pull her into a half hug. Just feeling the warmth of his embrace was enough to soothe her but forced her to whisper, "Tai, what if somebody sees us?"

"Then they'll see a brother giving his sister a small reassuring hug," he replied softly and smiled at her. "People tend not to see a flock of sheep and immediately start looking for wolves."

She put her arms around his waist and gave him a light squeeze before they reached the top of the stairs and disengaged from each other. However, they said nothing more as they made their way down to the undercroft and unlocked their bikes. It was only once they were safely away from the apartment building that she broached the issue. "So what do we do?"

Unfortunately, her brother did not immediately have an answer, "I don't know. Like I said earlier, I never imagined it being so difficult to transition back to normal."

"That's because it isn't normal, at least not for us, not anymore," Kari replied, an edge of frustration creeping into her tone.

"It was only five days," Tai began, before pausing mid-sentence, "but I think you might be right. Going back to keeping our feelings inside feels wrong somehow."

"It is wrong. But we don't have a choice, at least not when mom and dad are at home."

"This is all happening so fast…" her brother trailed off and she could tell that, despite what he might want her to think, the whole situation was still proving difficult for him to fully comprehend. At least she had the security of knowing exactly what she wanted; having had two years to figure it out.

Kari took a hand off of her handlebars and rested it atop his own. "I know we never intended for it to work out like this, in fact, we even made a decision to take things slowly, but with the freedom we had over the last five days, I think it felt like we were in a relationship without that ever being the intention."

Tai turned to look at her, his chocolate brown eyes showing uncharacteristic uncertainty and fear. "Do you understand why I thought this might be a bad idea now?"

Kari stopped her bike abruptly and took her hand back. "Don't treat me like a child, Tai," she said with a slight flash of anger. "I understand better than you how hard any sort of relationship between us will be. However, that's something I'm more than willing to accept.

"Kari, I didn't mean it like that…"

She cut him off, "no, that's exactly how you meant it. Like I'm still your baby sister that needs to be protected from everyone and everything in the world." If at the first sign of difficulty, he thought he could just revert to overprotective big brother mode and retain the right to make the decisions by himself, then he had another thing coming. "Well, news flash, Tai, I'm not."

The look on her face, combined with the harsh manner in which she spoke, must have taken him aback slightly as he shied away from her slightly. And when the blazing gaze from her reddish-brown eyes refused to waver, he turned to look at the ground. "I'm sorry, Kari," he said sombrely. "This is all happening so fast that I still have these fearful moments where I worry about what might happen to you if we do this."

Her anger ebbed slightly as she listened to him. Like it or not, Tai was simply being reactionary, much in the same way her own thoughts had been in the wake of admitting the truth to herself. Only he had the extra pressure of knowing how she felt and the reality of them acting on their feelings to contend with. "Yes, you should be. This is the second time you've done it and if you do it again you're going to regret it."

"I'm really sorry, Kari," he said again, still looking down at the sidewalk.

She reached out a hand and tilted his chin up and around until their eyes met. The sincerity she could see in those beautiful chocolate browns told her far more than his words ever could. She allowed her gaze to soften when she said, "I understand that this is really difficult for you and I think after the last five days, this morning has just been too much for you to process too soon. Unfortunately, we're out of time or we'll both be late."

"Surely this takes precedence over school," Tai replied, making no move to head off.

"It does," Kari admitted, "but it's going to take far longer to discuss than we can spend right now and if we both play hooky, mom will find out and that'll mean too much unwanted attention."

He scratched his chin, "I see your point."

"Let's go to school for now and I'll come and meet you when you finish. Then we can go somewhere a little more private and talk some more." She ran her palm down his cheek before adding, "and, Tai, try and have a think about what it is you want. Not what you think is best for me, what you want."

"I will," he promised and gave her a faint smile. "I suppose we'd better go our separate ways."

Kari returned his smile with one of her own and nodded. "I'll see you outside your school when it finishes."

Resisting the urge to give him a goodbye Kiss, she watched him turn his bike around and head off in the opposite direction. Climbing onto her own, Kari embarked on the last leg of her trip to school alone. It had been a far more difficult morning so far than she had anticipated. And she could only hope it was not an omen of things to come.