81. Persuasion
"Why can't we try," he asked instead, rather than trying to reason any point out with her. He pushed his bowl aside as if some barrier, folded his hands together on the table and gave her a direct look. "Why can't we...just try, Aya? Won't that answer all of your questions?"
She stared, clearly not prepared for such a question. She sat back in her chair. "What if I'm not in love with you," she countered with a question of her own, though hers was weaker by far in firmness.
He didn't believe that. She was in love with him. "What about it? We love each other, whether we're a couple or not. That won't change if we choose not to say together in such a way-"
"That!" she gasped, suddenly pointing her finger at him and leaning forward. "That is what I've been trying to say!"
He looked at her, puzzled. What? What had he said?
"Don't you see? That is what I've been talking about all along. If we get together, I have to be certain that this is it. Absolutely certain. If it doesn't work, then...what next? I can't imagine being where you are not...I just can't imagine life without you..."
Whoa, where -the hell- had that come from? He pushed back slightly from the table, a pale way to express his suddenly very physical need to push away from those words.
No. It was all his mind could seem to say. Not going to happen. She was in love with him, she would be with him. And once she was, he would not let her go.
She was in love with him. Once she came to realize that fact, she wouldn't even want for him to let go.
His hands were shaking at such a possibility. And he felt a certain strange desperation churning in his gut. He wanted to say something, he needed to say something, but he was struggling so hard not to open his mouth. All the words that kept flashing to the front of his brain were 'no', and 'mine', and things he knew he could not say now.
At least...not in so few words.
"Aya..."
She looked up at him warily, and he knew she expected some promise of fidelity, but speaking such words would be redundant. She already had that from him, long before this situation had revealed its true colors to them both.
"You are worrying about something that is never going to happen. Didn't I tell you that I am never going to leave you? That hasn't changed. That is never going to change. It will never be my will that ever takes me away from you."
There, he had said it. Said what his instincts were pushing at him to speak out-loud. You love me. I am never going to let you go. In different words, in too many words, but the essence of his words was still the same. It would appeal to her love and desire for him, it would comfort her fear, and it would reinforce what he had already tried to make clear to her on several occasions.
She loved him. He was going to have her.
Rather her conscious mind would acknowledge such a message was another matter all-together. He knew her subconscious would. And her subconscious was clearly on his side.
She was silent for several heartbeats, he could tell because he counted them. The space between the silence and her voice seemed particularly important to him, though he couldn't say why.
"You can't know that," she finally said quietly, and then she decided to be done with acting like she was still eating, and pushed her own bowl away. "Aki, you say that. You may even believe it, but how can you really know what will happen?"
Like an echo of before, she asked her questions, then continued before he could try to answer. Or argue, in this case. "If we're together, then I decide that this isn't really what I want-\-If I can't be with you in the way that you want me to..." She didn't continue, she didn't need to. Just looked at him with soft pain on her face.
He wanted to tell her that that would never happen, and it would even be true. On his part.
"Whatever we decide to be, Aya, I am not going to leave." Another truth.
"What if I leave?" A whisper, like it even hurt her throat just to say it. It hurt him to hear it. But he held stubbornly to his calm and did not demand that she take such words back. It was a valid question, too bad she kept refusing to see the answer.
"Why would you leave?" he asked instead, and was proud that his voice sounded normal. For the most part.
If you leave, I will follow.
She blinked at him in slight puzzlement, obviously not having thought 'whys', just 'what ifs'. "Because...because I can't return your feelings?"
He wanted to point out that it was a little too late to make such a statement, but he did remember that tightrope of denial that one made themself walk. He could only watch her making that dangerous trek now, but when she reached the inevitable fall back down to reality, he would be ready.
Now it was just a matter of biding time.
"If you decide you cannot return my feelings, then I will respect your decision."
She frowned at him, tapping her fingernails a few times on the tabletop. "Don't think I didn't catch that-the way you phrased that answer? If I 'decide'...You...you think I already..."
Her nails struck the table again, then seemed to catch her attention. He waited anxiously for her to finish that sentence. The only ending that fit would strike directly against her denial.
She seemed to realize she was on shaky ground. She bit her lip and stared at her fingers.
They twitched.
He decided a little push wouldn't hurt. Aya was the sort to need one from time to time. "You already...what?" he asked with misplaced question. He was actually asking her if she dared answer, not the words themselves.
She drug her lip hard through her teeth, as if simply biting it was just not enough. He couldn't help but stare, seeing the sharpness of her bite made him want to counter her move with gentle kisses. Or maybe a few bites of his own.
She sighed, splaying her fingers out now on the table as she forcefully returned her attention to him. "You're trying to lead me," she said pointedly.
"How were you going to finish that sentence," he persisted, with only a slight smile in reaction to her statement.
"You already know," she said after another resistant second.
"Maybe," he neither gave, nor took, he answered in the fashion that she did. Without true answer at all.
"You," she growled, "are so aggravating. Being in love makes you think you are clever or something."
His eyebrows slowly raised, feeling a sort of bemused amusement at her accusation. And faintly triumphant at how easily she had spoke of his being in love with her. Slowly but surely she was beginning to accept things. Even without noticing. Already he could see subtle shifts in her behavior, a growing comfortableness in their situation.
The fact that she was trying to openly discuss this with him was indication enough. Hours before a panic seemed to hit her eyes whenever there was even an allusion to his feelings for her...
And now she was speaking in the language of 'what ifs'. She said they couldn't. But now she was saying 'What if they did...?' It was a step in the direction that he needed, and though it seemed small, he knew it wasn't.
There were no small steps here. Not when every step brought them closer together. Every inch was a lessening of distance.
"Clever or not," he said in a soft lilt, feeling inordinately good about everything suddenly, "You still haven't answered my question. Now who's being evasive?"
Question mark on the end, but it so wasn't a question. It was a flirtation and a tease. The strange affection he felt that was both familial and desire. The strange creature that he was, both brother and lover. He was always told those two ideas shouldn't meet, but in him they somehow did. Met, and melded seamlessly.
"I am not being evasive, you are being patronizing." But her voice said she knew differently. She would not meet his eyes now, and lifted her fingers to her hair, smoothing out already perfect strands and instead tangling them.
He wanted to wrap his hands in her hair. He knew the texture already, silk and heat. His fingertips tingled with the desire. He slid them in a gentle line over the tabletop, but it wasn't the same. There was no heat here.
"Do you want me to answer the question for you?" he asked sweetly, and her head shot up, eyes aggressively defiant. She, of course, heard the danger in sweetness. Even if she didn't understand why.
"No! No..." she forcefully calmed down. "Aki, why can't you just leave it? I don't want to answer the question."
She gave a serious response, he could do no less, draining the tease from his voice to something gentle and patient, but no less firm. "Maybe you need to," he said.
She snorted, a bitter humour on her lips that bothered him. "Need to. We both already know the answer, isn't that enough?"
So she was conscious of the answer, but she knew speaking such truths aloud would change things. Always changed things. You could hide from an insinuation in your mind, pushing it back and back until it was buried under murkier thoughts. But once spoken aloud, it became more than a thought. It solidified into truth. Filled a space in reality.
Giving you no choice but to face it. They both may know how that sentence ended, but it wouldn't become truly real to her until she said it. If he could just get her to say it...
"No, it's not enough. Say it, Aya. Say it, and it won't seem so scary. If it's not true, then you should have no problem saying it..."
He didn't even try to hid the challenge. She wanted to have this conversation, she couldn't just begin it, then abandon it half-way through. He needed to get at least this much from her.
She needed it as much as he did.
She never did like being challenged, but her contradictory nature also demanded it. She worked best when she had something to conquer or defeat.
She looked off to the right for a long moment, then looked at him. She bit her lower lip again, clasped her hands, and he couldn't be sure, but he thought they might be shaking. Squeezing her fingers together hard made it impossible for him to tell.
"Well...you said it yourself. You clearly think I'm already in...in love with you." She choked a little on those last words, forcing them out quicker as if that would change the meaning somehow.
He observed her calmly as she fidgeted. "Are you?"
"Aki! Don't ask me something like that!"
He gave her a mild look. "You are."
"I didn't say that," she said quickly, looking slightly scandalized. Or hunted.
"You need to."
She just stared at him, clearly biting her tongue now.
"Say it, Aya. Just once."
She opened her mouth, closed it, tightened her woven fingers until they were bloodlessly white.
"I...I can't say that..."
"Yes, you can. Just say, 'I love you.' You've said it before."
"What would it even change," she asked, ignoring that last part. She had spoken those same words, but now the meaning behind them was different. She couldn't pretend ignorance anymore.
"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. We won't know until you say it."
It would change things, even if that change wasn't readily apparent.
"I..."
He waited anxiously, though outwardly calm. It wouldn't do to appear too eager. Though in his mind he was practically chanting 'say it'.
She stared at him for a long moment, then her eyes grew slowly thoughtful. A subtle air of triumph seemed to spark there. "I can say it if you really want me to. If you push me into it. But wouldn't you rather have a true confession from me...and not one you had to coerce?"
He froze at that, and realized she was completely right. And also, being completely manipulative. She seriously did not want to have to face the truth, and make it real by speaking it out-loud. She had found the perfect way to evade it.
He couldn't help feeling both amused and disappointed. He couldn't push the question anymore, but he wasn't quite defeated, oh no. If she wanted to play, then they would play.
He nodded, giving her a smile that made wariness flicker to life around her smugness.
"You're completely right, Aya."
She seemed nonplussed that he agreed, and dawning with suspicion.
"Are you done with dinner?"
She sat and seemed to examine the question for trickery.
Holding his smile, he got up and took both their bowls to the sink, then left them there.
He usually washed their dishes directly after their meal, and they both knew it. He watched her watch him break habit, and couldn't help but feel amused. He wasn't quite as predictable as she liked to think, and she was finally beginning to realize that.
She watched him move closely, and he decided he didn't mind. He had never taken himself for an exhibitionist before, but he liked her attention on him. It seemed to set a buzzing in his blood that filled him with warmth.
He felt like humming as he turned his back on her and wipied his hands dry on a tea towel. Part of him wanted to just...wiggle in place, knowing that her eyes were on him.
Maybe it was gratifying, knowing he finally had her attention. Maybe it was relief, to finally be himself with her, after feeling like he was holding half of his soul back for so long.
Maybe it was just the fact that he could finally let the love and desire live in his eyes, without feeling like he was constantly lying to her when he acted only as 'her brother'.
Whatever it was, he knew she didn't understand. Didn't understand how good it felt to finally...feel real.
Didn't understand how this feeling was so much more important than the world of 'suppose-to-be's.
She didn't understand.
Yet.