I listened, to the pause, and then the sound of his bare feet fading. Pressing the side of my face deeper into the darkness of the pillow, I closed my eyes, trying to shield my ears and eyes of the echo, and of the nothingness that lay beyond the bed. I touched the white sheets. The fabric hadn't retained any of his warmth. With every step he took, the sheets cooled until it was as if he had never been here.
He had realized what a mistake this had been, just as I had.
I saw his face. Again and again within my mind. Burning, scarring his expression into the depths of my memory as he left the room. I brought a hand to the side of my face. The heat from his hand had faded long ago, to be left with the coldness of what I had done.
When I had kissed him, pulled him down to the ground, the wooden floor pressing against my knees, I saw the blonde-haired boy beneath my closed eyelids. Seeing Ryoki, embracing someone else, kissing her as he had me, had been my undoing. The rawness of the pain, combined with the relief and security I felt when I saw Onii-chan led to this. This awkwardness, this silence. This pain. His pain.
I couldn't stay here. This was his room, his memories, his life within these walls. Even within the darkness. Pulling back the sheets, my feet connected with the oak floor silently. Small bumps raised on my arm, as the curtain fluttered off the open window.
Pressing the fabric of the shirt and pants against my chest, I turned the doorknob. I winced as the light seeped in. Hearing the shower starting, I knew the meaning behind the action. He wanted for my touch, the impure reasons for something that was supposed to be pure, gone. As the water cleansed him, he could forget this day. And he could forget me.
I left the apartment. To clear my thoughts, to think of an explanation. To think of a way to make things right between us again. I heard Akane's voice from behind me but I avoided her questions, afraid she would figure out what had happened and be disgusted at what I had done to him.
My feet moved on its own. They were heading towards the stairs. His stairs. I couldn't. I tried to turn back, get away from the place, but they headed further in, until finally, they came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. His presence was there, strong, undeniable, and my eyes were drawn to him.
"What are you doing here?"
His voice, cold, and distant asked what I wanted to ask myself. He had in his right hand, a half-burnt cigarette, the smell of the smoke wafting, closing the distance between us. His hair seemed disheveled, and his face, tired. He was wearing different clothes than a few hours earlier, different than the clothes he had been wearing when I saw him with her. I silently wondered if it was a subtle message of what had occurred in the hour I hadn't seen him.
"I…."
I love this person. Even after knowing he slept with someone else, the feelings were still there. I had broken up with him, left distance, tried to erase these feelings, for my family, for the life I had known before I'd met him. But I couldn't go back to those days. There was only now, and only his reflection in my eyes.
Onii-chan—I'm sorry.
He dropped the remnants of the cigarette onto the ground, grinding it underneath his sole.
"If you have nothing to say, leave."
Onii-chan—
"Fine, I'll leave."
I grabbed his arm, as he tried to walk past. He tried to shrug off my grip but I held on.
Onii-chan—I'm sorry.