The same voice that had plagued her all day yesterday was only too happy to point out what she wanted to avoid, and contradict all her thoughts.
He's being a lot calmer about this then I expected.
He's probably thinking the same about you.
That last sentence is strange. Is he saying...he wasn't aware of his own feelings before?
Idiot. You're purposefully misinterpreting him. What did I say last night about 'sabotage'? He's talking about your feelings.
She shook her head slightly at that, just a short turn once, either way. I don't understand.
A sigh. You do. He's saying that the biggest thing that has changed about this situation is that he now knows you have feelings for him.
It's a rather clever statement, actually. Challenge, and warning, all at the same time.
She persisted in clinging to her ignorance. I don't understand.
Challenge. He's inviting you to disagree with him out-right, which will in turn open a more direct path for a deeper argument about this.
Warning. He's telling you that he's not going to ignore what has happened. He's saying he's not going to back down. But he's saying it so gently. How clever, to say so little, but mean so much.
What was this strange new feeling...it almost felt like admiration, amusement, and dread-all rolled into one...
A deeper argument, what does that mean?
Tell him your feelings aren't like his. Tell him he is your brother, and that is the only way you will ever see him. Tell him, and you will see.
She truly hesitated at that, scenting danger in that soft insinuation, even though it was only instructing her to do what she had planned to do all along.
Had her inner-voice not worded it like that...would she have even noticed the danger in such statements?
Warning...she echoed, saying nothing. The word had an uncomfortably dark feel to it; she didn't like it connected to Aki at all. It didn't seem to fit.
Fit or not, it's true.
But what does it mean, she stressed, knowing that statement was far more dangerous than the previous one. It spoke of action and confrontation, and she wasn't sure how to deal with either right now.
Tell him your reasoning, that voice prompted again. And all will be made clear to you.
Throwing the word 'sabotage' around, she could definitely recognize it when she 'heard' it.
But these were words she had to say, if they were really going to discuss this. So she kept her food in her hand, took a deep, fortifying breath, and tried to appear natural.
"Aki, you are my brother." No room to argue there. "That is never going to change." Still no room to argue, and he didn't even try. You couldn't argue with the truth, after all. "And..."
So hard. So, so hard to speak. She forced the words out anyway, mentally bracing herself for an attack. "And...that is all you can ever be." The words were quiet, but not gentle. Such words were never gentle in these types of emotional situations.
She took a quicker breath than what was natural, fought down the urge to close her eyes and draw her shoulders in. Sometimes words could fall like blows.
But he remained unmoved. He took a sip of his tea, the small cup scraping against the saucer seemed especially loud in the ensuing silence. She listened to that silence and grew steadily more nervous.
His fingers traced a slow, quiet circle around the rim of his cup, then paused. He lifted his eyes to hers. "Do you know what you taste like, Aya?"
She blinked, her head twitching slightly to the left, but her eyes not being able to pull away. "What," she said. Not a question, not a whisper...something even softer than that.
"You taste," he pronounced slowly and clearly, "like something unique, I'm not sure how to describe it." And here he gave her a look that was almost through his lashes, almost coy. "Not really sweet, or bitter, or salty, but...fragrant. like nothing I've ever tasted before...but so, so compelling. Like," and he closed his eyes, tilting his head back with a soft breath. "something intoxicating. Addictive." He slitted open his eyes, his head tilted back still, to stare at her. "I crave you."
"Aki," she whispered, uncertain and lost, and so, so trying not to understand any of the words he was saying. Her body ran alternately hot, while her blood ran suddenly cold. There was an instinctive understanding deep within her, even as she consciously turned her head away from such an understanding.
With the soft breath of his name, she was saying 'What am I suppose to do with that?'
He, of course, answered her unspoken question, not bothering to try looking less affected. "Do you think that this is something someone who is 'just your brother' would say?"
She blinked slowly, not knowing how to react. She hadn't really had concrete expectations for this conversation, but she had ideas.
Nothing was happening as expected. Or close.
A breath through her lips, a slow intake, and she found it so difficult suddenly to sit still. But she put steel in her spine and refused to squirm under his less than 'familial' attention.
My, her inner-voice reflected, sounding mildly impressed, that's not an avenue of attack that I had anticipated. He is rather clever, isn't he?
And confident...
Don't, she thought weakly. Pleaded even. Don't think about him like that...
With admiration and amusement...and faint dread.
Because her 'inner-voice' was her, no matter how she tried to forget that fact.
"I don't...I don't...Aki..." There was a question to that, but she was too far out of her comfort zone to hear it herself. She had never seen Aki like this. Had never suspected he could be like this.
Now he leaned slowly forward, lowering his head until his bangs fell half-across dark eyes. "You don't what, Aya? You don't understand? You don't feel the same way that I do?"
She just blinked at him, still trying to process his voice, and the odd sensation of cool fingers dragging down her spine.
She, herself, wasn't certain how that stuttered sentence was meant to end.
His voice was filled with a slow aggression, and made her feel inexplicably shaky. The world wasn't quite solid around her.
He was painfully sharp in his lines. Startlingly bright in his colours. But there was a hazy, softness to his voice that was far more arresting than all of that.
And now his hands were resting palm-down on the table, and that expanse of cheap wood suddenly seemed too small to her. She slowly sat back in her chair without noticing. His hands slid across the table with that same deliberate slowness, and her lips parted, though no breath escaped her. She just couldn't comprehend what was happening here. There were words in his actions, but she couldn't hear them over the sudden loud thumping of her own heart.
Danger. Danger. Danger-is what her heart was beating out. But it didn't hold the echo of fear.
He wasn't acting like 'Aki'.
He isn't acting like your brother, her inner-voice corrected. Quit forcing yourself to see him through that filter.
No, she countered quickly, I have to see him like that!
Then you are never going to be able to anticipate his behaviour, because what all this means? He's not going to act within that narrow framework anymore.
"Let's get something straight," he said, in that same soft voice. "I am in love with you. It's not a mistake, or a delusion. It's very, very real. I can't tell you when it began, because I honestly don't know. Except that if feels like I've felt this way forever..."
She was panting slightly now, her hands clutching at the edge of the table. She didn't remember reacting. She had the strange sensation of feeling the deep, hard pace of her breath as if it was a sound in her ear. Like muted noise under water.
And yet, his voice remained sharp and clear.
"So I'm your brother, and I'm not suppose to feel this way. That doesn't change the fact that I do.
"And what's more, it doesn't change the fact that you do."
She opened her mouth, moved to say something without being fully conscious of what.
"Go ahead," he spoke before she could, "Say that it does. Say...say that you don't feel the same way."
She just stared at him, whatever words she was about to say being frozen en route. They felt like they were lodged in her throat, thick and spiky and shredding her vocal cords to ribbons.
"Because," he now pronounced slowly, directly. "I won't believe you."
But I don't, Aki...
Why wasn't she saying that out-loud?
I don't feel the same way...
Why was there an open-end to that sentence? Why couldn't she make her voice firm in her own head?
He lifted his left hand, and her eyes followed just as they were meant to. He pressed that hand lightly, at an angle, over his own mouth, then slowly dragged his palm across until only his fingertips remained pressed gently against his lips. She watched his lips part on a soft breath, watched them feather over his own skin.
It was almost a kiss.
Her own fingers clenched against the table, and her body suddenly ran hot with the unexpected memory of his mouth on her, of his tongue licking across her fingers and the deep darkness of his eyes as he watched her watch him.
She couldn't help it, she couldn't help it as heat pooled, thick and slow like honey in her lower stomach. She couldn't help the way her spine stiffened and she shifted in her chair.
It was just a physical reaction. Just physical. It didn't mean anything.
"Aya..." so sweet and quiet. A call that, even in her persevering innocence, she could still hear. A breath pitched specifically for temptation.
He's not playing by the rules, she sputtered nervously in her mind.
There are rules? Her inner-voice countered, radiating a sense of dark amusement at her that had her suddenly feeling young and small. And infinitely foolish.
There weren't rules, of course there wasn't. but she felt like there should be.
However, this situation was so far past the norm that there couldn't possibly be a point of reference. Uncertain terrain. A lawless territory. She didn't know what words to say, how to act. Especially when he countered all her arguments with such acts of deliberate sensuality.
You couldn't argue with someone who refused to argue. You couldn't argue with someone who clearly knew how to keep the upper-hand.
Aki is serious. And he's determined. I've never seen him ruthless before.
Haven't you?
Not like this, she denied.
Maybe the setting is different, but the character trait is still the same. You've only called it different names before. Different contexts, things take on a different name.
There was some insinuation in that. Something about the grey space that resided on the edge of everyone's vision. If she tried hard enough, she knew she'd be able to see it. But only if she tried.
'Trying' meant confronting ideas she wasn't ready to think through to their conclusions yet, so she steadfastly pushed it all right out of her mind.
That defense will only work for so long. Especially when he is being so precise and focused in his attacks.
Precise. Focused. Attacks...she echoed those unfamiliar words weakly. She wanted to contradict such a statement in connection to her brother, but she felt like she was under attack. Only...only the threat wasn't of any sort of pain.
How could she contradict something she agreed with?
He wasn't saying anymore. But he didn't need to say anymore. His purpose was blatant in the way he slid his fingers over his chin, slowly drew them down his throat. They lingered on the hollow between his collarbones, and she could almost feel cooler fingertips brushing against silken hot flesh. Almost feel the pump and pulse of life beneath.
She was on her feet in the next second, and she didn't recall how she had gotten there, only that there was a muted clatter as her chopsticks struck the table, and her chair tipped slightly. She was breathing hard, and there were fists curled at her sides...and nails imbedded in flesh.
She showed her teeth, and she didn't quite understand why. Only that she felt a surge of something aggressive within her. Aggressive, with its roots in fear.
He didn't freeze, he calmly tilted his head back and left his hand splayed gently over his chest. She didn't quite understand how, but she recognized an 'invitation' when she saw one...
He wasn't acting like 'Aki', right?
This wasn't him, right?
This aggressive, blatantly sensual person, with his forceful personality and a clear lack of conscience...
He felt this way, but he didn't want to...right?
tbc...