7. T and P

T and P

Hiro

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Nothing about this is a me thing to do. I get that, but I can’t stop it. Can’t help but feel blind-sided and overwhelmed, still not sure what’s actually happening. The pain pinging through my brain, along with the alien sensations makes me feel sick.

Even if I can’t define that, or the idea of her with him between worse and worst.

“Fine, just leave.” Aya chuffs out, her eyes as dark as I’ve ever seen them. “What the hell are you thinking?” The longer heart shape of her face is red, and she practically jumps as she demands the answer of me after Jourin brushes off his shoulders and goes out the still open door.

“ME?!” I flare back incredulously, slamming it shut with my back firmly against it so we aren’t interrupted again, even if we are overheard through the thinner walls.“What the fuck Aya!” I demand, staring down at her for the first time, well, ever.

Since we met, she’s either been taller or as tall as me. The new height difference must have happened while I was trying to figure out how to get us through Selection. I was relieved when I hit her height starting Growth, but admit that it feels oddly..... good to tower over her like this.

“Talk to me, Cub.” I breathe down whatever lunatic has taken over my head. Determined to be there like I promised to be way back when. She may not be emotive, but Ayame has always been as sensitive as she is sweet for the few people lucky enough to make it through all those guards she has.

She still won’t cry. Not even in front of me, and while I did learn my lesson about getting anywhere near a crying female in my Bonding Stages, sometimes I wish she would. Just so I could be there to hold her through it. Let her know it’s going to be alright and remind her that she’s never alone.

I know that there’s still fear. Still residual pain, and worry from whatever she went through before us. Even if Aya claims not to remember her past, the nightmares she still has as much as the language she uses says that she does. I’ll never call her out on it.

Even if Mom didn’t threaten vital body parts should I ever push her on what happened, I like to think she’ll tell me when she’s ready. At least I did. I admit, the older we get, the more bitter I get about it.

I’ve seen my recent behavior enough to know what it is. My unwillingness to admit it, even inside my head, may be the only thing that has me shoving my fists in my pockets. Forcing my ears to listen instead of my tongue to fly with things that can’t be unsaid.

I assumed that she was entirely innocent. I’d never even heard her talk about a girl or guy outside of friendship, and her being in this closet with me is picking at every assemblance of sanity I ever had.

“People wanting this is beyond retardation,” I watch as Aya’s whole body jitters fingers to toes as if she is trying to shake bugs off of herself. “Stupid fucking hormones. I was supposed to be done with school and all the bullshit, before I let on that it happened.” Unlikely since we still have a whole Stage between now and then.

“Any way I guess Jourin smelled the change, and the oh so perfect prince, fucking gag me…..” The vehemence of the statement is so visceral I side step just in case. “That chervil, kissing me without want or invitation to hurry things along……...” Aya gags, I clench, and am working through every way I know how to kill a person before they can blink.

Our art form, Shin-ki, literally translates as the Shadow Kill. Shinkori aren’t strictly assassins, but it doesn’t change the foundation of our knowledge. It is meant to be uses on Devils. The true threat and actual enemy of all people. If not, for the peace of our nations.

“Oooo,” I see the chill through her body as she strangles the air as if it’s his neck she’s ringing. “Breaking that big ass honker of his along with his nuts should have been a clear message...” The shudders and tongue scraping action of trying to get the foul flavor out of her mouth is as spastic as the rest, no matter how calm, how even tempered she’s trying to be.

“This is payback. Plain and simple. He knows that giving anyone, especially a lowly Feyling like me, attention is a target on my back. Trying to convince the masses that I’m Yon is just going to bring out the teeth, and I might as well get all of it out and over with in one foul swoop.”

I’ve never had to fight this hard to keep my focus or cool when she vents to me. All I’m thinking about is dismembering the ‘chervil’ no matter how screwed up and hypocritical that is.

Everything she’s saying makes sense, and it may be the first time I feel like the truth is a burden rather than a relief. The first time, I feel helpless because I don’t know how to reassure her or fix it.

Logically, the more she resists, the more pressure he’s going to put on her, and knows that we can’t put the same amount of pressure on him.

Jourin is untouchable, and every one knows it. It’s that, that he uses to his advantage. Why no one will say no bringing that sandpaper, nails on a chalkboard feeling. Why every part of him, rubs every part of me the wrong way.

Instead of using his position or influence to help the village, he uses it to his personal advantage and doesn’t understand what the word no means.

Ways that not even I knew that I knew to torture, break and kill a person enter my mind. I want to reel, want to rage, want to demand, to know why she didn’t prepare me for this.

While I was busy avoiding her with all their talk of Lunamin and the Falls, she’s been here dealing with this and Sages know what else without me. It’s the first time she’s ever been nervous.

First time Ayame has ever resisted me pulling her in for an embrace, since we met.

I can feel the angst crawling in her skin, or maybe it’s just my subconscious. The way that she’s acting and stiffening against everything that makes me feel the utter violation.

Whatever took over, fizzles out and down seeing the shit situation she’s in, and being proud of how well she’s handling it considering. “I don’t give a shit what he tells the rest, but I swear if that twat brain snot goblin tries to actually sleep with me, I’m going to chemically castrate him.”

I hold her as long as I dare, trying to get us both calmed down before we meet up with our friends. The distance she keeps between us has never been more excruciatingly apparent. Rather than eat or join in whatever conversation our friends are having around us, Ayame puts in her air pods and listens to music.

It’s always been her escape next to medicine, and the fact that she’s doubling down only proves how out of sorts she is. I want to curl her into me. Hide her in my chest. She may not be the sort to listen to or be affected by hearsay or rumors.

Aya always makes her own judgments based on facts rather than the wagging tongues that don’t have any real brains attached to them. Still, she’s so sensitive, and that aggressive entity is taking over again.

She hasn’t been this bad, since we took Aya in, and the thing I’m trying to stuff down and reign in, is clawing and chomping, seeing the color I hate more than anything. Every one of my protective instincts hone in to a point that reason can’t………..

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8: Hiro - My Sort of Cousin