Thanks again to everyone who reviewed last chapter and my beta, IcarusIscariot. All of your support keeps this story up and running!
Once, when Ema was young, Rintarou Hinata's flights were cancelled three times in a row due to an oncoming hurricane. He was ready to return back from a two-week-long trip when Little Ema saw the weather forecast for the region he was staying in, and the young girl burst into tears at the thought of her father getting caught in the horrendous storm.
"It was terrifying, Ema," he had said once he returned, hoisting her onto his lap and smiling his gentle smile. "I was at the airport for the longest time. It was completely crowded. I'm lucky I managed to get my hands on a phone to call you with, otherwise I never would have fallen asleep."
"I was so scared for you before that, though," Little Ema had whimpered. He had laughed.
"I was scared, too. You know, there was a time throughout it all when I thought they were lying about the hurricane. You know what that's called, right?"
"What what's called?"
"The calm before the storm. The moment where everything's so still that you don't think disaster will be coming at all."
"The calm before the storm, like when the teacher gets all quiet before she makes everybody take a time out?"
"Yes, exactly like that. It's dangerous, because you think it's safe when it's not. And then the storm starts right up just when you think it's not coming. It's very disheartening." And with that, Rintarou promptly extracted a few satellite photos of a hurricane and pointed out the hurricane to Little Ema. "Sweetheart, sometimes you'll get caught in the calm before the storm and be caught off guard when the hurricane comes after all. But don't let it get you down, okay? Just remember that you can have that calm again, and use that knowledge to get you through until the storm passes. And it will always pass."
Little Ema, doubtful at the idea that she would ever find herself in a situation like that, leaned away from her father and regarded him with well-hidden dubiousness. "Well... okay, I suppose, Papa. But I don't really know how many times I'll be in a hurricane."
Rintarou, warmed by his daughter's innocence, laughed merrily. "No, no, I suppose not. You're right. But promise me one thing, sweetheart? Just... remember what I told you."
"Ano... I can do that, Papa. I promise."
"Yusuke-kun!"
Ema caught the front door as Yusuke slammed it closed, flinging it open and chasing after the boy as he sprinted down the steps. "Yusuke-kun, wait!" She chased after him, panic written across her face, and nearly bowled over one of the estate gardeners in her haste. "How do you expect to get home?"
"I'll just walk," he bit, voice gravelly and dry.
"You can't walk, that's ridiculous. Home is half an hour away, driving—"
"Don't worry about me."
"Oh..." she moaned desperately. "Please, please wait." At last, she caught up to him and grasped his wrist, feeling him tense beneath her fingers and whirl around to face her. She registered a few of the maids at the front door, calling to her, but ignoring them, she decided she had to think fast. If Yusuke told her brothers before she could talk to them herself... she really didn't want to think about that disaster. "Don't walk. I can— I don't know— maybe Tamotsu will drive us home."
"Us?" Yusuke asked incredulously. "You're actually going to go home?"
Ema hesitated before nodding. "There's nothing else to do. You're going to tell everyone else, right?"
Yusuke cast his eyes downward and jerked his chin at her in affirmation. How could he not tell? He couldn't force them to do something about Hashira Kaito, but he could let them know just to be fair. He didn't know what to feel. Hurt, that he caught the love of his life in the arms of another? Anger, that she could go so long without telling them? Frustration, that he should have seen it coming but didn't do so in time? No, this situation needed closure, he decided, whether that was breaking up the couple or wishing them well. He couldn't do that himself.
The girl, defeated, slowly released her hold on his wrist and bit her lip, her eyes pooling with tears. She blinked them away and hugged herself with one arm, looking at the trees, the pavement, the fountain. Anywhere but Yusuke. "Right. I get it. It's okay; I deserve it." She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than Yusuke, but the boy sighed sadly anyway and turned to face her fully.
"You know I have to." He was shaking, the full force of what he had witnessed beginning to hit him, and he quickly wiped away his own tears on his sleeve. He had to get away before he broke down, he knew it, and if that meant accepting her offer, he would do it. "Actually, I think I should get Tamatsuki to drive me home. You should stay. Maybe you can sneak in later tonight and not have to face all of us till you feel like it."
Ema winced at the swift assassination of her character. Sneak in? She wanted to pretend that was an unfair assessment, but in her heart she knew Yusuke had every right to think that of her and more. She shuddered at the idea that her brothers would soon enough be thinking the same thing. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and nodded slowly. "I'll just... go get Tamotsu right now, I guess. Wait by his car."
And not for the first time in her life, Ema turned around and ran.
If there was anything good about what Yusuke saw, it was that Tamatsuki Tamotsu no longer regarded him with aggression. Rather Yusuke situated himself in the furthest seat away from the boy, and Tamatsuki eyed him with pity through the rear view mirror. Ema had chosen to stay behind and get their things packed up, then hitch a ride with Mitsuo whenever he left early for basketball practice.
Which meant they'd be riding separate cars. Which meant Yusuke would have to face his brothers alone.
Tamatsuki was silent through the drive, and Yusuke could feel his concern two seats away. Still they ignored each other, Yusuke's arms folded as he tried to keep his tears at bay, but the older boy heard every sniffle, every rustle of fabric as Yusuke wiped his face with his sleeve.
At last, Tamatsuki rounded into the Sunrise Residence driveway and shifted the car into park. "We're here. Grab your stuff."
"Ah. I didn't bring it. My sist— Hinata— will get it back."
Tamatsuki shrugged, and with a thick sigh, unlocked the car doors. "Whatever works."
Yusuke grunted hoarsely and jumped down onto the pavement. "Thanks. For getting me home, I mean."
Tamatsuki shrugged again, and Yusuke watched as he peeled out of the driveway. And defeated at last, he sat heavily onto the porch steps, put his head in his hands, and let the tears flow freely.
"You're leaving already?"
After Ema had abandoned him on the balcony to chase after her brother, Kaito quickly made his way back down to the study where two fresh plates of food waited for them. He finished his and waited with the rest of his friends while Ema dealt with Yusuke. He watched Kiyomi as she gazed out the window and into the driveway, biting her thumbnail nervously. He watched Ryota drum his fingers against Ema's textbook, eyes half-lidded and brows knit tightly. He watched Katsu scratch his pencil along the page diligently, lips pressed into a grim line. Watching him sitting there, all calm, all patient... far less questioning than anybody else in that room...
Kaito felt a flurry of rage at his upperclassman. He had no proof, but he was suddenly sure that Katsu knew this would happen; all of it. From Kaito wanting to talk, to Ema making her decision, to Yusuke walking in on them. He wouldn't be surprised if the bespectacled senior told Yusuke to go out to that balcony when he did. As if sensing Kaito's eyes on him, Katsu looked up and met his gaze coolly, eyes heavy with... no, it wasn't regret... more like sorrow... like he had done something that needed to be done.
It was then that Ema had returned, beckoning for Tamotsu.
"Yusuke wants to go home," she grit out, not meeting anyone's inquiring stares. "Can you take him?"
"What about you?" Tamotsu asked.
Ema shook her head. "I'll just ride home with Mitsuo. I don't think Yusuke wants to be in the same car as me right now."
Tamotsu's eyes had softened visibly as he nodded at her, putting together the pieces for a vague image of the situation. "Yeah, yeah I can do that."
He had picked up his keys then and swung them around on his forefinger before strolling outside. Ema had taken back her place at the table forlornly and began devouring her meal before packing up her bags and Yusuke's. "Mitsuo," she whispered, clearly trying to hide her inner turmoil, "What time do you leave?"
"Er..." The boy had regarded her with a concerned glance. "Well, uh, right now, if you want to."
Ema had nodded and swallowed thickly. With a forced smile, she addressed everyone in the room, still not meeting their gazes. "I need to go home, okay? There's a family emergency."
Without another word, she hastened to Mitsuo's car.
"Wow," Kiyomi whispered. "I hope she's okay."
"I wonder what happened," Rei responded in a hushed voice, biting her lip. "Kaito, what the hell did you do?"
"It's not what I did," he responded, a hopeful kind of heartache flaring within him. "It's what she did."
Ukyo had been assessing the giant tuna which would soon be his family's dinner when Yusuke had wandered into the kitchen, alone and dazed. The boy had hovered awkwardly against the wall, waiting for his older brother to acknowledge his presence, before clearing his throat.
"Kyo-nii."
"What is it, Yusuke?" Ukyo extracted a long, thin knife from a drawer and, with the finesse of a shark, began scaling the fish.
"Who's home right now?"
"Masaomi-niisan is off today. Hikaru and Natsume are here to visit, and Kaname, Tsubaki, Azusa, Louis, and Wataru are all home as well. Why do you ask?" Examining another graceful, curved knife, Ukyo began filleting the fish and dumping the pieces into batter.
"There's something really important I need to talk about," Yusuke ground out, crossing his arms self-consciously. It was then that his older brother realized just how hoarse Yusuke's voice seemed to be, how much more choked it was than usual. "It's about our sister."
Ukyo's knife halted mid-slice as he took a deep breath and laid it carefully on the chopping board. Running his hands under the tap, he adjusted his glasses and dried his hands on his apron before steeling himself and turning to Yusuke. "Well, what happened?"
Yusuke shook his head, clearly troubled. "I don't... I don't know how many times I can say it. Can't you just call a family meeting? It's important."
"More important than dinner...?" Ukyo inquired, raising a brow incredulously.
"Yes. I think so. It deals with the entire family. I don't know. Just the sooner the better."
Alarmed, Ukyo stood at attention. Something about Ema, something that concerned the entire family... It didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce what Yusuke wanted to talk about, but specifically, he didn't know. This entire fiasco seemed to be spiraling more and more out of control by the day as the brothers fell deeper and deeper for her. Any new piece of information had to be dealt with swiftly and efficiently, no matter how small. The second son quickly put together a group text for the brothers who were home, telling them to get down to the living room, and began preparing tea after motioning for Yusuke to sit.
Slowly the brothers started trickling into the living room. Yusuke had pulled up a dining chair and positioned it in front of the television, wringing his hands nervously as his brothers made themselves comfortable on the couch.
"I swear," Tsubaki yawned. "My manager is running me into the ground. Can't I get a little bit of sleep without some family meeting?"
"It must be important," Azusa reasoned. "It's Yusuke, after all."
When Yusuke responded with neither indignation nor annoyance, the triplet's curiosity instantly piqued.
"Yu-kun," Wataru prompted as he jumped onto the couch and swung his legs. "How come we're all here, huh? Is it something super important?"
Yusuke cleared his throat and braced his hands on his knees, sitting up as straight as he could with as much dignity as he could muster. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Ukyo wheeling in the tea, Masaomi leaning behind Wataru on the back cushion of the couch, Natsume and Hikaru patiently awaiting their brother's announcement.
"I... I, uh... I..." Had the room always been this hot? Yusuke hooked his finger around the collar of his school uniform and loosened it as he made emitted a strange, guttural noise. "I... I have... something... it's so warm in here..."
The brothers regarded him with concern. Yusuke stopped talking, and everything in the room was silent save for Hikaru pouring himself a cup of tea and Yusuke's strangled coughs. At last, Hikaru spoke. "You're gay, aren't you?"
"What?!" Yusuke barked out, shooting to his feet. "No! I'm not! That's not funny! This is actually... well... it's serious, so if I could have everybody's attention!"
"You've had it... Yusuke-kun..." Louis stated, pouring himself a drink as well. On his shoulder, Juli perched curiously.
"I wonder what that wolf brother has to say that's so important," Juli wondered, and Louis hummed in response. The squirrel continued, "Although it would have been better if Hikaru's prediction was right. Because then I'd have less of these dominant males to deal with!"
At last, Yusuke steeled himself. "Earlier today I was at Oshiro Katsu's house. We were studying, and he invited me over to dinner."
A dinner which you deprived us all of, a few of the brothers in the room thought bitterly.
"I was going to stay, but then I saw something." Yusuke's lip trembled weakly and his brows furrowed as he looked at the ground, unable to meet his brothers' stares once they knew what he was about to tell them. "I, um, I went out onto one of the balconies for fresh air. And Hinata was there. And she... she k-kissed Hashira Kaito."
Hikaru choked on his tea. Louis raised an eyebrow, Wataru wailed in distress. Ukyo froze in the middle of pouring a drink for Natsume, and Masaomi cautiously gauged the reactions of his siblings. The rest of the brothers remained stone-faced. At last, Kaname laughed humorlessly.
"That's not funny at all, Yu-chan. Don't you think you shouldn't be spreading strange rumors like that?"
Yusuke took a shaky breath. "It's not a rumor. She kissed him. Or kissed him back, at least. I don't know; I don't know what else there is to say besides any of that." Wearily, he slumped back into his chair, waiting for the chaos to ensue.
It never did.
"You're lying," Tsubaki said softly, and Yusuke snapped his gaze to his older brother. "You're lying!"
He leapt out of his chair and fled the room. "Tsubaki!" Azusa called to him and chased after his triplet, but neither of them made it past the base of the stairs. And the brothers stopped dead in their tracks. And the rest of the family sat up straighter.
And Ema, head hung in shame, descended the last step of the staircase.
The only sister took the chair Yusuke had placed before the brothers. Hotter than the sun, their stares beat down on her as she tugged her sleeves over her hands.
At last, Masaomi, who had been wringing his hands in front of him, looked up from his gnashing fists and stood up straight. Ema winced at the small action. His voice, gentle but raw, seemed to echo through the living room.
No, not the living room. The court. Her brothers were the judges, the audiences, the councils. Yusuke was the witness. And Ema was the defendant. Her trial had begun, and anything she could say would be scrutinized and evaluated. And each pair of eyes in that room glinted sharp and bright like knives, ready to cut the truth out of her once and for all.
"Yusuke has... said something about you and Hashira Kaito," Masaomi began, selecting his words carefully. "Do you know what I might be talking about?"
"...Yes," Ema responded timidly, hunching lower in her seat.
A stir throughout the court, and the defendant hid her eyes behind her hair.
"Did this really happen?" Masaomi pressed on.
"...Yes. I did it." Ema said softly.
An uproar shook the tribunal, and Masaomi took a deep breath, concealing his hurt, and leaned back, turning the floor to his co-counsel.
"Everybody, quiet!" Ukyo decreed, demanding order in his court, and the council's stare upon the defendant seemed to grow acidic. "Is this true?"
"Yes."
"You kissed Hashira Kaito."
"Yes."
The defendant hunched even lower in her seat, folding her sleeve-stifled hands tightly atop her lap. The witness gazed upon her sadly, wondering if he ever should have testified what he had seen to the rest of the jury at all. Closure could never be worth this; could never be worth seeing her so lost, so helpless.
"Why would you do it?" Natsume sat pristinely in the center of the arc formed by his triplets, the three as vigilant and unmoving as the Fates. Yet each of them scowled tightly, sour looks upon their faces. Tsubaki looked as if he was going to be sick, and Azusa didn't look much better. Neither had said a word since Ema had arrived, their devastation hardly contained in their silence.
Ema hesitated; she could hardly tell them why. What could she possibly say to defend herself? That she was going to go through a change catalyzed by them? That she was going to be loud and clear in her actions from now on? No, they deserved the truth. They deserved to know—
"He's mine. I'm his."
Blunt, but sharp. Quick, but cutting. It's more merciful to cause a moment of blinding pain. She shook with fear at the way eyes flickered around the room, at the way lips trembled and shoulders sagged. But hope swelled within her; this was going far better than she expected. She had prepared herself for a slaughter, but maybe, just maybe, they were ready to move on, ready to give up on from her, ready to give her her happiness—
"No."
Startled, Ema snapped her eyes to the head of white hair and violet eyes. The young man's lip curled disdainfully. "You can't be," he snarled.
"What?" Her ears heard, but her mind refused to believe. He couldn't have just said that to her. She looked around the room for support, meeting their gazes individually, but they wouldn't make eye contact with her, looking down instead as if refusing to step in. As if Tsubaki was right.
"You're not his— you've always been ours! We said we wouldn't give up on you, we said we would fight, and this Hashira has nothing to do with you!"
"He's right, Ema," Natsume interrupted, voice gravely serious, before Ema could get a word in. "None of us have ever talked about it before; it's been taboo to talk about it with anyone but you."
Then another brother was speaking, but Ema was too far gone, staring unseeingly, unblinkingly at the coffee table. Her lips pursed into a tight line, eyes wide with disbelief as though trying to process everything that her brothers were saying to her.
"But you need to know that we care about you. As men. Not brothers. It may not apply to everyone in this room. It may apply to anyone outside this room. But it's time for you to make your choice. And it's not Hashira Kaito." The voice of whichever brother who spoke meshed into Ema's thoughts; it sounded like any of them, any of them pushing her and pulling her right, left, center—!
Oxygen rushed to her ears and she vaguely registered Louis's concerned lullaby and Juli's enraged shrieking. Red tinted the corner of her vision. Blood boiled beneath her knuckles. Her lungs filled and drained, her teeth grit tightly, her nails cut through palm, voices rose and bickering escalated, and she was done, so done—
She was angry. God, she had never been this angry in her life.
Distantly, her head rung with the voice of her father. The story of the hurricane, she remembered. The calm before the storm. It's easy to think it's safe, but it's not. But it could be a solace. Once upon a time, she could have compared the hurricane to Kaito and her brothers. Kaito, her sanctuary from the pounding hail and screaming wind that was her brothers' love. But now, she knew:
She was the hurricane. And the calm was finally over for the Asahina boys.
"Stop it!" She stood with such force that the wooden chair scratched the pristine flooring and toppled backwards with a screech. And her momentum brought her forward to brace her hands roughly on the coffee table, hair casting a deep, dark shade over her eyes. Arguments across the room silenced, her outburst the gun that shot those fights dead.
Fine porcelain clinked together on the coffee table as she trembled and shook and quaked with emotion, catching her breath and loosing it measuredly. Her heart beat erratically and she could feel her brothers, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, staring at her in shock. To their horror, and hers, tears began trailing down her face.
"Stop it," she ground out, voice as thick as her earlier command, no matter how much more silent. "This can't be happening."
She released a shaky sob, wiping her tears away roughly. "You don't understand! You keep doing this, but I can't keep up with you—! All this fighting, all these conflicts, how do you think it feels knowing that it's all my fault? I wanted brothers, not... not this!" Her panic crescendoed like the swell of a wave crashing against rocky shores, her heart whirring like frantic helicopter blades. She gathered her thoughts, no one daring to interrupt her as she paced the room, seething. Her ponytail flicked back and forth like a pendulum each time she turned her head.
"It's exhausting. I'm so tired. I finally find what I want and you say that I can't have it? I can't be this, I can't be that, all because you're just... being like this! I never asked for any of it, and I never wanted any of it, not from the beginning and especially not now. And no matter how many times I tell all of you to stop, that I want to be family, you can't seem to get it through your heads— I don't understand! How is it possible to take 'I want to be family' and turn it into 'Keep making advances at me?' You're all so possessive; not protective, because who reads their sister's texts without even telling her, and then answers back without asking her? I have boundaries, and I have limits, and that just crossed the line for me; I kept it in all this time but now it needs to be talked about, because you say you care about how I feel— how can that possibly be true? Nobody hears, and nobody listens, but after all this time, I've finally decided that I'm going to do something about it."
"I-imouto-chan," Kaname stuttered, and Ema's cries still rung in the ears of each of them. She was a sobbing mess, hair disheveled and face sheened with sweat and tears and lip curled in disgust. Each of them reached out to her. She never reached back.
It's a strange thing, she realized, how many types of love there are. She knew that most of them in the room stared at her, their eyes filled with the wrong type. It was too heavy, too hard to breathe with this sickly sweet kind of affection diving down her throat. So she shook her head as if to clear it and waved her hand as if to swat them away.
"No. I can't do this. I can't be here."
She was already making her way up the stairs before they realized what was happening.
And she was already out the door before they moved an inch.
Yikes. This might be the longest chapter yet. You've all been waiting a while, and with an upcoming road trip I may find myself internet-less, so I decided to get this up.
Thanks so much for all your reviews on the last chapter! I'm glad everyone enjoyed reading the cliffhanger as much as I enjoyed writing it. But anyways, here it is. The big "oh crap." I hope I managed to capture all the emotions and reactions of everyone correctly! Most of Ema's development up till now has been leading up to this chapter, to be honest. You'll see her thoughts and emotions during that big ending more in-depth in the next one.
And big announcement, I have another story in the works: Livewyre! As an AU, its plot is going to be somewhat different from what I usually write, with chapters that should be considerably longer. The beta outline for it is about four or five chapters in, and the first chapter should be published as a preview somewhere between this chapter and the next, or perhaps a little later. No worries, Green-Eyed will remain my main focus till it's finished. But as thanks for your continued support till now, here's a special sneak-peek of the Livewyre summary:
The Asahinas thought they had their hands full with their mother remarrying Rintarou Hinata, author of Livewyre: Japan's hottest graphic novel series. But they never expected Ema, Livewyre's heroine, to appear living and breathing before their eyes. With the world of Livewyre slowly coming to life, how can the brothers handle falling for a girl who's desperate to get back home?
As usual, please review; I'd really love to know what you guys think, both of this story and the upcoming one!