Aki wants me.
She stared at the graceful fall of his hair as he bowed over the classifieds. Looking for a better job. Always looking for some way to make their life easier.
Their life.
Something about that sounded so inevitable.
Aki wants me.
It kept coming back to that. Why couldn't she force it out of her mind?
Maybe because there was an inherent question to that statement, and she still refused to acknowledge it.
How long has he felt this way?
How long has he been...
How long has he been seducing me in his dreams, is what her mind whispered. But she couldn't concretely put that thought into words. Anytime she came close, she flashed on the sight of...She heard his voice saying her name with need and pain, and pleasure. She recalled how she lay in bed not long after, and...
His eyes suddenly flicked up from the paper, catching her so soundly in her staring that she actually started.
"What," he asked.
What was a safe answer?
"What 'what'?" she returned on auto-pilot, reaching once more for her juice, and trying to keep her hand from shaking.
Up went the eyebrow. He had such expressive eyes-how had he kept this from her for so long?
No. Nononono. She wasn't supposed to go there. Not now. Not while he was looking at her.
Not ever. Really.
But it was too late, she was already through that door. Now she had to try to figure out how to navigate this strange, new world.
This world that wasn't supposed to exist. But did.
He wasn't supposed to feel like that about her...
But no matter how much she spun it in her mind, she couldn't make the events line up differently, or lead to a different conclusion.
Aki wants me.
She could feel herself flushing, but couldn't stop it. She had to say something, something before that window of what was within her character closed. He wouldn't understand this shift in her. Not yet. He wouldn't understand that she was a new person now.
She was still trying to get to know this new person living in her old skin.
(Skin that has been branded by him...)
She didn't want to say it, she didn't want to put this new knowledge into words. But every time she opened her mouth it was there on the tip of her tongue. A bitter-sweet taste that settled in her stomach like burning honey.
She stumbled out the first thing that came to mind. "Sleep well?"
And when she said 'mind', she meant it quite literally. There was a flinch around her eyes, one that she refused to allow him to see. But she had never been that good at acting, so she looked away instead. Got up and feigned washing out her juice glass, as if it was some all-important task, and she wasn't in the habit of leaving it in the sink for him to do later.
He watched her curiously, she could feel his eyes visually stalking her as she moved about the small kitchenette. How long had he been doing that? How long had his eyes followed her, tracing the outline of her body until he could see it all clearly in his subconscious?
Her nails scraped loudly against glass as her fingers reflexively clenched.
Why did she ask these questions, knowing that any answer would be destructive?
And not allowed.
"Great," he said slowly, in answer to her earlier question. But it was clear that he was just saying it because an answer was expected. He was too distracted with watching her curiously now. And she was distracted with his 'watching'.
She felt so self-conscious. It was a new sensation she wasn't sure she liked.
Why do you want me?
Again, her mind clarified that question, showing her images of what exactly he wanted. Or an approximation, as she wasn't sure she really knew.
She saw his hips push up, again and again, as he cried out for her, as he moved inside a dream of her.
She wanted to believe it was a dream, too...But she had smelled of him. When she woke up this morning, her skin had been tight with dried fluid in several places, and the faint scent of sex still clung to her lips.
In the bathroom, she had stared at herself with too wide eyes, seeing the still damp bathtub behind her, and imaging him soaking in it the night before. Rinsing the sticky sweat from his thighs, sliding his fingers thoughtfully slow over his flesh as he remembered his dream.
And then she was mentally back beside his futon in the dark, hearing him breathe her name as his essence splattered across her skin.
It still burned.
"Aya..."
Her eyes widened, her shoulder twitching as she awakened to the truth of where she was. Standing in their small-space that wished it was a kitchen, and staring sightlessly at her brother's crotch, while she remembered how it had looked bare, framed by his own fingers.
Aya! Stop thinking about it. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
Why couldn't she seem to catch her breath?
He came around the small table now, an open, concerned look on his face, and she couldn't seem to move. She felt trapped, but safe. She never feared Aki, it just wasn't possible, but something grabbed her limbs, and kept her squeezed in place.
Hands, on her shoulders. How come she had never noticed how he touched her before? Or that he was always touching her? His hands were gentle, but steady, warm against her skin. His thumbs caressed almost imperceptibly across the pulse in her throat.
Even now, you want me. Don't you, Aki?
He dipped down, just that inch to bring them eye-level. "Are you okay?"
She wasn't okay. She still felt as if she was moving through honey. As she was still misplaced from her body. Or maybe this whole unfamiliar world.
I'm not fine. I don't know how to deal with your feelings.
"I'm fine."
I'm scared.
He frowned, his fingers tightening slightly on her skin as some thought flitted across his eyes. "You don't look fine." He shook his head. "I'm worried, Aya. You look sick."
"I'm fine," she reiterated weakly. What else could she say?
"You're flushed," he countered.
"You're irritating me," she returned, a touch of her usual tone coming without warning back into her voice. What did that mean?
He smiled slightly, not just with his mouth, but with his eyes. And that thumb moved again, drawing a slow, broken circle around her beating heart.
"That's more like you," he answered sweetly, then he suddenly leaned forward and pressed his lips against her forehead.
She froze, her eyes widening again where he couldn't see. Almost on their own, her hands lifted, fingers curling loosely in the cloth of his shirt. They neither pushed nor pulled, but rested there, seemingly waiting for direction.
A warm, moist breath across her scalp, almost a sigh, and then he drew back, tilting his head again as if to consider her. "You're a little hot, but I don't think you have a fever. Come, sit down," he ushered her firmly to the small table, to his vacated chair, and pushed her into it. Then he was back at the fridge, shifting through their sparse rations determinedly, until he emerged with the few eggs they had left, and a small container of fruit salad she had planned on having for lunch on her break. He set the fruit salad before her and grabbed a clean fork.
"Aki," she complained, forgetting momentarily her unease. "I'm saving that for work."
"You're not going today," he said, firmly. Digging through their few second-hand pans, and clanking them together just loud enough to discourage any protest.
Never one to be dissuaded, "Aki! I have to go! I'm still on probation!" She was on her feet again, fists clenched at her sides.
"Aya..." He put down the saucepan and turned back to her with her name on his lips. It echoed through her head again, suddenly severing her vocal cords, and pulling the plug to drain away every last thought in her mind.
She blinked at him, not understanding the tangled swirl of emotions in her gut. Or why it was always the sound of his voice that swirled them around into a sudden monsoon.
She didn't even have to think 'He wants me' this time...She felt it.
"Sit down."
"Don't order me around," she snapped back reflexively.
Frowning at her, he placed the pan on the unlit burner, and took two sharp steps forward.
She backed up a quick, unconscious step, and fell right back into the chair.
Scowling when the lift of his eyebrow mocked her. The fact that she kept seamlessly shifting back into habitual behaviour gave her hope.
She wanted to move past this, she just wasn't sure how.
He placed his hand on the table and stood before her, his other hand coming to rest on his hip. She stared at his hand on the table and tried to ignore the fact that he had moved to physically trap her again. Not so obviously. But he had firmly placed himself in her path.
"You are staying home today. You clearly don't feel well."
She opened her mouth to protest again, but he shifted. Just his hip, just a touch, but the nonverbal signal was clear. He was not going to back down.
Her eyes flicked, against her will, to his covered groin. Just as quickly she looked away, her gaze flitting nervously around the room.
How come she couldn't ignore that part of him anymore?
It was like it hadn't come into existence until last night. Like he had just been Aki. And now he was a boy. He was Aki and he was a boy, and she didn't know how to reconcile those two parts of him.
A touch on her hair, gentle and fleeting. She jerked her head back around, staring up at him with her breath lodged somewhere in the back of her throat.
"Aya, they will understand. I'll talk to them. You'll see." That hand that rested on her hair, dropped down to his side, the fingers curved and open. It was the same hand that he had...
She swallowed hard, her mouth inexplicably dry. She wished she hadn't poured her juice out. Almost as if he had heard her thoughts, he retrieved her glass and filled it the brim with orange juice.
"Here, drink some more juice. It will help you feel better."
How much had he done in her bitter-sweet ignorance? How much had he gotten away with because she simply could not have seen from this angle before? How many touches, kisses, caresses-all under the guise of innocence? Her fingers touched his when she took the glass, she couldn't avoid it. But she didn't miss how his moved quickly to prolong the contact, how his index finger lifted slightly so that just the edge of it slid sensually between her own fingers.
She shuddered, she couldn't seem to stop it. She stared down into the murky depths of her juice and wondered how many times he had played this game with her.
Curious, this new glass she was seeing the world through. How do you deal with this? How?
Better yet, why? Why does he want me?
She wasn't particularly self-conscious, but what could have happened to make him see her this way?
Has he always...
"Fascinating," he commented dryly, startling her once again. She looked up at him with those same wide eyes that she had been showing all morning, not understanding why she couldn't seem to keep her mind together.
"Aya," he sighed with slight exasperation, "You're supposed to drink the juice."
"Quit hovering over me," she shot back in return, her shoulders tense in his shadow. I can't think when you do that...
"Well sorry," he exclaimed, taking a full, exaggerated step back away from her. Then he gave her that look again. That look full of concern and warmth, that said: I know something's off.
She wanted to laugh, and cry.
We can't talk about this, Aki...We can't find a way. Not through this. You want me. You...love me?
I'm so lost, she thought.
I'm so lost.
TBC...