"Where does that leave us?" Holding the question back for so long seemed to have weakened it. It didn't sound quite sincere anymore, and she didn't understand why.
He seemed surprised at that question, that she would even ask it. He blinked at her, and as always it was that look of surprise that seemed to hold her transfixed. His surprise always seemed tinted with vulnerability, 'vulnerability' looked incredibly sweet on him. It somehow softened the usually sharp force of his personality.
But Aki was never surprised for long. "Where do you want it to leave us," he countered. "Aya, this is only as much of an issue as we want it to be."
"You keep saying that," she stressed in frustration, and he kept saying 'we', she wasn't so blind as to not notice that. And she wasn't so slow to not see the subtle manipulation in it.
He blinked again at that. "I suppose I do," he conceded. "But you keep asking me the same question." Then he continued quickly as soon as she opened her mouth. "You do. You keep using different words, but it's the same question again and again. I already told you that I love you, and I'm not going to ignore that anymore. It's your decision, now. you have to decide how much you want this to mess with you. How much you want to hold on to, and how much you can let go..."
She scoffed, though it didn't quite sound like a scoff. There wasn't enough bitterness, and more than enough frustrated confusion. "You make it sound so easy. How do I do all that?"
He smiled weakly, "That's the dilemma, right? Doing is so much harder than saying." He spoke with the voice of experience, they were roughly the same age, though in her mind he always seemed so much older than her. It was like he gained a year for every minute he was in this world longer than her.
Whatever the reason, she sometimes felt like such a child next to him. "But...before you can even try to do...you've got to say what you want to do. Aya. I've been completely honest with you. I've clearly stated my intentions. Now it's your turn. Tell me what you want. Tell me how you want to play this out. Just...tell me some truth. Please? It doesn't even have to be all of it..."
Her eyes slowly widened as she stared down at him, wishing she had stayed in bed, and recognizing the precarious balance she now had on this situation. How she was swaying from side to side. 'Aki! You can't do that!' she wanted to say. You can't be so ruthless when I just want to hide! But it felt strange telling him that he couldn't ask for the truth from her.
The truth...what is it?
Her hands slowly clenched on her thighs, she wanted to, but couldn't turn her head away. He had effectively caught her in place, and looking away would not change that.
He waited patiently, not repeating such a reasonable demand that he had cleverly dressed up as a plea. He spoke 'please' and with such entreaty, but beneath that was a deep, hard sense of command.
He would sit there, holding her trapped with his presence, until she gave him the inch he was demanding.
I don't know, she thought miserably. I don't know what the truth is.
Tell him that.
"I don't know," she whispered.
"Come on, Aya," he sighed, "Tell me something, anything..."
She just shook her head mutely, biting her lip.
His shoulders slumped, but then she observed them slowly start to straighten. He lowered his chin, and looked up at her through his bangs. "Fine, then I will lead. I will ask the questions, and we will gain some truth that way."
What did he mean? She was afraid, her body already seemed to know.
"Friday night," he prefaced, paused and waited instinctively, as if he knew she would flinch. If the flinch hurt him, he didn't show it. His face remained passive and cool, neither offering nor taking anything away. "You went out with Rei. That was because of me?"
She didn't want to do this. Especially since she knew the definite answer to that one, and the implications behind it that she knew she wouldn't be able to explain. Not in words, not in any way that would make real sense.
"Yes." And now she waited for the next question of natural order. Why?
But he didn't continue with demands of explanation. His lips curved in a slight enigmatic smile , and she realized suddenly that he wasn't going to chase that answer, because he already had it.
This was far more dangerous than her trying to stumble through a suggestive answer. He knew her far too well for them to play this game.
"Rei asked if we were together. What did you say?"
She wetted her lips slowly. "Nothing, I...I never answered him."
Now he asked the horrible question. "Why?"
She stared down at him. "Because...I don't like Rei. I didn't want him to think I was available..."
"So you were just trying to use me as a shield?"
Why was there a lilt to that question mark? There was a trap here, she could sense it. But what other answer could she give? "Yes..."
There was a question on the end of that answer, too. Even though she absolutely forbade it from her voice. She was afraid he could still hear it though, in how well he knew her.
"Really," he said.
"Really," she echoed.
"That's all? Just a shield?"
She didn't answer because she knew it wasn't a real question. It was an invitation for her to sabotage herself further. Now he would spring the trap. She hated word games. Unfortunately, Aki was very, very good at them.
"How curious," he then commented offhandedly, "Because the Aya I know isn't afraid to tell people what she really thinks. And she definitely isn't afraid to say 'no'."
She just continued to stare down at him, not speaking a word in denial or defense. He spoke the truth. He smiled small again, and didn't push it further. It was curious, how he kept pushing at a point, then pulling back before he fully arrived at it. She wasn't...ignorant. in a vague sense she knew he was herding her somewhere.
"What were you thinking the other morning? When I came out of the shower?"
Her eyes had already widened in horror before she could stop them, before she could decide to play it ignorant, and ask him what he meant. He was too smart not to recognize the look, to not catch it, and understand it fully.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The truth was...the truth was...
"You were thinking about me," he prompted, phrased as a question, but it was definitely not a question.
She didn't say anything, she couldn't speak.
"What were you thinking?"
Damp, smooth skin. Strong shoulders, graceful neck.
The curve of his back, something that so completely distracted her, and she for one unreal moment had wanted nothing more than to follow that line with her hands, to wrap her arms around his chest, splaying her fingers on warm, hard flesh, and see if they could actually fit in this new way. If she could press her cheek to his back, and drift on the heat, feel, and scent of him.
And somewhere, on the tip of her tongue, was the taste of water and clean skin. Not a fantasy nor a memory, but a desire she ignored the existence of, pretending she hadn't thought it in that moment, hadn't wondered, hadn't...wanted.
"I...I wasn't thinking anything," and now she did look away. She couldn't look at him, not while she lied. But she couldn't tell the truth either. She hadn't even realized there was a truth here, and she definitely hadn't dealt with it properly either.
It was like the taste of him from that first night (first, like she couldn't even think of what was before) she consciously hadn't been able to think of it, but she had kept tasting him on her lips, feeling the liquid heat of him, aware on some level, but still pushing it all away. How much did she really know, but told herself that she didn't?
"Aya...?"
She steadfastly kept her head turned away, that quiet, yet firm word said everything. 'You're lying.' She remained silent. She could never sit well in silence, but her alternative was impossible. Anything she said here would either be a lie, or condemning.
She didn't want to lie, she hated lying to him. but the truth could only be worse. Besides, it wasn't as if she were truly trying to pull the wool over his eyes. They both knew she was lying. Did that make it better? Or worse?
Minutes passed, and he reenforced the silence, and waited.
He was going to break her with this. She had never been able to bear silence. Not for any length of time anyway. He knew this.
He knew her.
She shifted one way in the chair, and then the other, then froze in place when she realized that her knees were brushing against his chest, and he was leaning further into the move in pointed awareness of the action. Stop prevaricating, is what his body was saying. Her fingers once again clenched in the thin cloth over her thighs.
She parted her lips, and the soft smack of dry flesh pulling apart seemed especially loud. Again, like last night, the deeper the silence, the harder she found it to breathe.
A minor shock jolted through her when she heard his voice fill the air between them. Soft and low, but it still broke the silence with a sharp blow.
"Just say 'yes', Aya," he instructed gently, and she felt pure confusion, realizing for once that she had out-waited. "Just tell the truth, and we will go from there."
And the next moment she realized it wasn't any sort of true victory. He had handed her this small battle, because he was after a prize much larger.
Even then it was no 'victory', it wasn't as if he had 'retreated'. He had only pulled back to come at her more forcefully. 'Just say yes', he said. Three letters, one syllable. So simple. She could push the word out, it would even be true.
But this 'go from there'...that was where the true danger lay.
"I...I was thinking about you. But-not like that!" she hurried out that last half, thinking maybe she could find a space between the truth and the lie, and make it okay somehow.
She really should have known better.
"Like how?" he returned calmly, neither triumph in her admission, nor frustration with her quickly added denial. But there was something, another trap sprung by words. She wanted it to stop already! But, at the same time, she couldn't seem to make herself get up. Couldn't make herself push past him and close off this dangerous line of questioning. She sat there and felt as if she might be squirming in her own skin.
"Like...like..." she felt her face heat up, it was practically glowing with embarrassment. Don't make me say it, Aki! You know what I mean! If he even heard her silent plea, she doubted he would answer it. He had been keeping her off-balance all morning. Saying and doing things that she would never have expected. Yesterday.
But, yet again, he seemed to sense her expectations, then completely bypassed them. He didn't elaborate, only gave her a small, amused smile and a strangely coy look through his lashes. She hadn't known that boys could do 'coy', and definitely not so well...
"That's not what I meant, Aya," his voice grew steadily more quiet, more breathy as he spoke, until her name came out no more than a soft whisper. Fingertips feathered slowly up her pant-legs, not really touching her, but moving the cloth. Still, she couldn't guard herself quick enough, couldn't stop the shudder that shot up her spine, and the goosebumps that broke out on her arms.
And of course, sitting as close as he was, observing her so singularly, he didn't miss the reaction. She froze in place, quickly shoving steel into her spine, but not quickly enough. His hands settled gently on the outside of her knees, and they reactively squeezed together.
She felt her breasts tightening and her eyes widened, she quickly brought her arms up to wrap them protectively around her chest. Hating herself for reacting when she knew she couldn't. hoping that he hadn't noticed, but fearing that he had. Under the disguise of her crossed arms, she dug her nails viciously into the sides of her breasts, stinging the soft skin with warning and desperation. How could she even react like this? It wasn't allowed!
"I mean," and his thumbs smoothed over the rough cloth over her kneecaps, fingers slowly sliding back and curving to rub in circles in the soft hollow behind. "How were you thinking about me?"
Her nails dug in harder without her conscious direction, she had never realized how sensitive her knees were, especially the back. The touch was through cloth, and barely there at all, but...it moved her. Just her hips, just a little. But it was enough. Too much. Her temperature spiked, and she suddenly jerked her hands free, slamming them down on his with force.
"Stop it," she demanded breathlessly, curving her fingers around his, and pulling them away from her knees.
But, instead of pulling back at her force, he only caught her left hand once more, holding her wrist firmly, but gently, and pulling it forward. He rested their hands on her knee, and slowly uncurled her fingers. The nails had dug pink crescent moons into her palm. She didn't remember doing that...
Breathless, faltering, not quite focused though she stared at their hands. "You...you are trying to distract me..." Why?
At the corner of her eye she saw his mouth curve faintly. He ran his fingers lightly over her palm, tracing her abraded flesh with gentle care. "Am I?" he whispered.
She started to answer, then realized he was speaking just like before, leaving his words to hover on the line of ambiguity. If she said 'yes', as she had been about to, he could interpret her answer as confirmation that she was being distracted by him. if she said 'no', he could take it as her saying he was trying to do no such thing.
...
If she answered 'yes' or 'no' at all-well, that was confirmation of her distraction all on its own.
"Aki! You're not being fair!"
He was frustrating before, but this...
His hands tightened on hers when she raised her voice, it seemed an instinctive reaction. "And you...You're not being honest," he countered with that same calmness that belied reaction, or any sort of guilt.
She fairly shook with the frustration. "Do you ever think you might be seeing only what you want to?"
He frowned at that, making it clear that this was an argument he had already had with himself. More than once. And it calmed her, to see him hesitate, to see just a flash of uncertainty.
"Of course," he said, "But I'm also seeing what's there." And he emphasized by pulling her hand closer. "Like the way your breath is so deep and quick." His fingers slid up, over her wrist. They rested innocently on the big vein there, caressed lovingly over it. "The way your pulse keeps jumping when I touch you." He leaned slowly forward, his voice lowering to an intimate whisper, "The way your body tightens and trembles for me..."
She jerked back, tried to pull her hand free, but he held on, his fingers now curving firmly around her wrist. And like an animal in a trap, she struggled harder. And just like a well-crafted trap, he was unmoved, sitting back on his heels and keeping them connected at that one point. Intimacy wiped clean from his face to make way for that forceful confidence he had been showing all morning. It was, at the same time, completely new, and so very familiar.
"These are not reactions I am imagining, or facts that you can just pretend away. They are real, even if you tell yourself you don't want them to be...Just," now a deep breath, as his grip on her loosened, but did not let go. "Just admit that, and we will go from there. We will make sense of this together, Aya. But we can't move forward if you won't take that step with me..."
Her hand went limp in his, hanging bonelessly from the circle of his fingers. She stared sightlessly off to the side as her hair fell in slight disarray over her face. Something about his words, his voice, had caught her more effectively than his hands. Liquid and heat filled her stomach, as her heart beat thick and hard, and strangely slow, rather than speeding up.
"Take that step with me," he whispered, pleaded. She slowly turned her head, slowly lifted her eyes to his. She parted her lips, and a soft tremble shook them, so...so compelling. Should she be so tempted...just by words and voice? So much so that for moments at a time she kept forgetting why this couldn't happen.
She tried to speak, but nothing came out. She cleared her throat and stared down into his eyes. She felt her eyes sting, but the tears remained only pinpricks of moisture. They didn't blur or fall, she wasn't sure if they were real at all.
"Why...why can't you understand?" a helpless whisper. "I can't take that step, Aki...I just can't. I can't go where it will lead us..."
tbc..