Life settles into patterns.
In the middle of an emotional uproar, it doesn't seem as if anything will ever be the same again, and maybe it won't. but the human condition is so adaptable that...patterns emerge even out of chaos.
Creatures of habit. It didn't take them long to find an apartment, to find jobs to pay for that apartment as soon as their money ran out. They lived weeks like they were refugees, never settling in, looking over their shoulders, jumping at every noise. But slowly those patterns began to re-emerge.
As time passed and no one came for them, found them-When no one pointed them out instantly on the street when they dared to lift their faces to the sun. Caution still tied their hands, but those binds were flexible now, they didn't bleed every time they tried to move.
Patterns gave a measure of familiarity, of safety.
Because a wise person knows that it's always the small things that add to the quality of life.
Even if you lived on stolen time.
( ) *
In the mornings, Aki always awoke first. Sometimes the first thing he saw was Aya, and sometimes it was the ceiling with its patterns of Braille and glow in the dark galaxies. Depending on the day.
There was a single bed and a futon they had bought second-hand. The futon was old and worn, and little better than a blanket on the floor, but in many ways he preferred it to the bed.
In the futon he could keep his eyes trained on those man-made stars, if not his mind. In the bed he always ended up on the edge, curled on his side and watching miserably as Aya slept on obliviously.
He heard her wherever he was, though. Soft sighs and little murmurs, sheets shifting as her arms slid up to embrace her pillow. Sometimes those sounds made it into his dreams, and he would drag the pillow over his head, wanting nothing more than to be ignorant again. To not understand the reason his eyes followed her. The reason his every sense trained on her when she was in the same room.
And there were nights when he was weak. Where his eyelashes drifted lazily down, and he let his mind walk the paths it wanted, where his hands followed it down those paths, and he bit his lip, wanting nothingmore than to soothe that sting with kisses.
He knew it was dangerous to draw those lines in the air, to trace them with his fingers, and see them behind his eyes. Because the morning always came, and in the morning, he was her brother. He pulled that costume back on and he pretended he was innocent. That he wasn't sick and twisted.
He teased her and helped her, did everything that a 'brother' was supposed to do. It wasn't hard. Hard was seeing that line, and making sure he never crossed too far over it. Hard was catching himself when he started to fall.
It didn't help when she did things like this.
Aki stared with wide eyes as Aya dug intently through the top drawer of their dresser, wiggling her hips slightly in impatience. The curve of her shoulder was flushed pink, her hair dark and heavy with water. She was grumbling to herself as she shoved several scraps of cloth out of her way, something about work, but he couldn't piece the words together. On their own his eyes slowly slid down, catching on the bare hollow of her knees, that always seemed especially interesting to him.
This was the worst and best part about their small, one room apartment. This was the worst and best part about having her complete trust.
"Ah-ha," she said triumphantly, jerking a small scrap of pink cotton from the recesses of the over-stuffed drawer.
His head turned with an audible snap as he forced his eyes elsewhere, straining them near to the point of pain just to focus on something that wasn't her.
Out of sight, out of mind, right? He wished.
But then, he didn't. He was so in love, and sometimes he couldn't...force himself to hate it. Sometimes it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
And those were the times that worried him, because through those rose-coloured glasses, the unattainable seemed...so close. Like he could reach out and actually touch that which he desired, like he could take it into his hands, his arms, and make it his. If only he would just reach.
Sometimes plans spun in his mind. Scenarios. The effort it took to ignore those...possibilities...well, it was getting harder to find it every day.
"Aki," she said as if just then realizing he was there. She didn't even check the knot of her towel, didn't cross her arms over her chest to make sure it stayed in place. She turned to him and smiled, completely comfortable in his presence.
Aya wasn't particularly self-conscious. Sometimes he really wished she was a little more modest.
"I will probably be getting off late again tonight, so you really don't have to wait up for me."
He looked at her because he had to, because that's what you did when someone was speaking to you. He wanted to tell her to go get dressed, and then they could talk about whatever she wished, but he didn't. He couldn't allow himself to draw attention to the fact that even noticed such a thing.
"We've discussed this, Aya." Short and prompt. Just go back in the bathroom and get dressed already.
She rolled her eyes, putting the back of one wrist on her hip and curving her fingers loosely. He didn't understand it at all, but his desire always wanted to read something into the open curve of her fingers. It was a habit he was beginning to notice.
"Aki, it's been at least a month, I don't think I need a chaperone anymore, okay?"
No. Not okay. "What if they find us? What if they grab you on the street? No," he shook his head, actually forgetting all about her state of undress with the horror of that thought. "We can't take that chance, Aya. Don't you see?"
She looked touched for a second, then that characteristic stubbornness returned. She couldn't ever just listen to him, now could she?
"Well, what about you," she waved. "What do you really think you can do to stop them? Get captured, too?"
He shrugged, a careless gesture for a serious question. "Run or return, I'm going to go where you are, so yes. If they take you, then they will have to take me, too."
Now those fingers were closed, a mottled fist on her hip.
"Besides," he continued before her emotions could simmer into words. "There are other things to be thinking about. You're a young woman who is particularly pretty...there are lots of dangerous people out there who would love to take advantage of that."
"You..." then a curious, non-combative look. "You think I'm pretty?"
There was a flutter of something telling him this was treading far too close to that line, but he ignored it. It wasn't wrong for him to compliment his sister. Or use her vanity to distract her from forcing an argument. Especially when he was not going to compromise on this.
"Of course, baka. We are identical twins after all." And still, despite everything, he was her brother.
A huff, and then a tongue stuck out in his direction. "I'm prettier than you," she declared, then flounced right back into the bathroom to finish her dressing, forgetting to argue her point with him further.
On its own, his head turned slowly, his eyes flicking to the drawer that she had left open, overflowing with cloth and soft colours.
He slowly reached out, resting a hand on the cheap wood-grain edge. With a neutral face he slowly pushed the drawer in.
Out of sight, out of mind.
He had no idea who had come up with that stupid saying.
TBC...