He looked out the open window. It really was a beautiful day.
Groaning, he turned back to his book, but calculus seemed awfully dry. Still, it was better than thinking about... well, he didn’t want to think about that. Too confusing. Math was simple: one problem, one answer. Life should be as simple. No matter how much he thought about it, there was never one right answer. Different parts of his brain were telling him to do different things, but none of those options solved the problem completely. The only one that did was impossible. Absolutely impossible. He hated himself for obsessing over it.
The practice problems in the book weren’t all that hard. Simple, if you knew how to work them. Other people were always asking him for help. He wished there were someone he could go to for tutoring in life, but the only person he could think of who could help him was someone he wasn’t willing to go to. Thus, the math. The simple problems helped to distract him from the unsolvable ones.
One done. Good. That had been especially easy; he’d been able to solve it in his head. He flipped ahead a few chapters. These looked slightly more difficult. He chewed on the end of his pencil, trying to determine the best way to go about solving the first problem. Just as he was about to write the answer down in the margin, though, he froze.
He could smell her.
She’d been having sex again. He wondered who it was this time. Touga? Or maybe the one he’d seen her with the other day, one of those nameless boys she never saw twice. The thought made him grit his teeth. What was she thinking? All those boys, one after the other. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t fair. Why them and not--he stopped the thought before he could complete it.
He could hear the rustle of her skirt, the slide of her legs against each other as she walked towards him. Something fluttered in his stomach, and he shifted, eyes firmly glued to the book. She stopped next to the middle of his back. God, the scent. He stretched out his legs, shifting his weight again.
“I’m hungry.”
He risked a glance. His eyes fixed themselves on the point where the curve of her leg was hidden by the short Ohtori uniform skirt, and he quickly forced them back to calculus.
“Fix yourself something then. I have to study.”
“Oh, I already have.”
He felt her fingers briefly against the insides of his knees and wondered what the small weight they left behind was.
“Sugar cubes...”
Her hand pushed his tanktop up slightly and laid another weight down in the small of his back.
“Dried peach...”
She ran her fingers though his hair and pushed his head down onto his crossed arms, then put another small weight onto the back of his neck.
“And white chocolate. Sounds like a good meal, doesn’t it?”
He smiled and relaxed. This was a game they had played often when they were young and their parents had first started leaving them alone for long periods of time. Each scrap of food, no matter how messy, was eaten off the other’s body, and then they took a quick bath so the piano teacher wouldn’t find out they’d been eating junk food. He’d always let Kozue eat first, because she never wanted to wait, and she’d washed him first, because he couldn’t stand being dirty. An old game. He thought about it often now when he tried to sleep.
“Sounds like a good meal.”
Her skirt rustled again as she slid one leg onto the window seat to balance herself. His happy reverie suddenly broken, Miki barely suppressed a gasp as her knee pressed against the small strip of flesh exposed between his shirt and shorts, shooting heat into him. It was almost a relief when he felt her hair brush against his leg as she nipped the first sugar cube into her mouth. This was familiar. Smirking, he bent his other knee so that the remaining sugar cube was caught between his thigh and calf.
“No fair!”
When they were younger and he’d do this, she would wrestle with him until he gave up and released the morsel. Then she’d wrestle him some more, for punishment. It never felt like punishment to Miki. He liked being close to his sister. Expecting another wrestling match, he didn’t anticipate her tongue against his ankle. He gasped and jerked the foot out of her reach.
“Miki, you crushed the sugar cube! Now I’ll have to clean it up!”
He closed his eyes and whimpered as he felt her tongue in the crook of his knee, licking up all the loose sugar. Why did this feel so wrong now? It had never felt wrong before; how could something be right one time and wrong another time? He was shaking by the time she finished.
“Are you all right?”
Kozue couldn’t know about this. She didn’t think this way. She was good, and Miki was bad bad bad for feeling these things and wanting her to give him a bath like she used to.
“I’m all right, just a little ticklish.”
He could imagine her indulgent smile. He’d always been ticklish. It was something she used to take advantage of. She never tickled him now.
“I’ll be more careful.”
And she was. He only felt the slightest brush of her lips against the small of his back as she drew the dried peach into her mouth. It was enough, though. He shifted yet again, but couldn’t find any position that was comfortable. He wanted to roll onto his back or side, but Kozue coudn’t find out how sick her brother was. She’d never want to touch him again.
“Would you like some chocolate?”
“No, thank you.”
Kozue ran her fingers gently along the top edge of his tanktop, setting him shaking again.
“Are you sure? You seem a little jittery.”
He knew that tone of voice. Either he’d take the chocolate, or he’d tell her what was wrong. There was never a third option with Kozue. He only had one real choice, and he didn’t really want to take it. Who knew how she was planning on sharing? Still, it was better than admitting to things he shouldn’t feel in the first place.
“All right.”
He dug his fingers into his elbows as she fumbled with the chocolate on the back of his neck. It had melted a little, apparently, and she seemed to be trying to get it into a specific position before picking it up. Each brush of her mouth against his skin made Miki hate himself more. Finally, finally the weight disappeared, and Kozue pushed on his shoulder to get him to turn over. He twisted his body uncomfortably so that he could look up at his sister while still keeping his lower body facing downward.
Kozue had the very tip of the chocolate rectangle in her mouth, lips closed around it, and Miki stared. He couldn’t let this happen. Not with her--not with his sister smelling like that, not looking at him so lovingly. She smirked around the chocolate, then opened Miki’s jaw with her own hand. His eyes widened as she slid off the seat. Her face level with his, she leaned forward until the very tip of the other end of the rectangle was in his mouth, then closed it around the morsel. Miki whimpered.
This was so, so wrong.
She slid the chocolate further into his mouth. When about half of it was inside, she pushed slightly on his jaw; mesmerized, he used his teeth to steady it as she moved in on her own end. Miki closed his eyes tightly. He wasn’t worthy of existence. He shouldn’t be waiting for the moment when she--when his sister--shouldn’t be anticipating what was only a moment away, their lips almost touching.
There was a sudden, sharp sound, and the chocolate in his mouth jolted. Miki opened his eyes to find Kozue smirking at him, chewing on her half of the treat. She pressed her forehead to his and stroked the back of his head.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He blinked, bewildered. She laughed and pushed his chocolate all the way into his mouth with a finger. Mechanically, Miki started to chew. They hadn’t... He hated himself for his disappointment.
She swiped the melted chocolate off of his lips and her own with her thumb, then sucked on it. That was a rule, too--that if it didn’t make it into their mouths it was fair game--but Miki couldn’t think of it as a game anymore. Good people never even contemplated things like this.
Her fingers dipped lower to stroke the back of his neck, and she grimaced when her fingers came away coated with chocolate.
“I think we’re a little too old to take baths together, though. Don’t you think so, Miki?”
He met her eyes, and gasped at what he saw. No. That was his own perversion staring back at him. Kozue would never think like that. Never. She sucked her fingers one at a time, staring at him all the while.
“But if you’d like, I can clean you up real quick.”
If she thought like that, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye as she said that.
“N-no, it’s all right, Kozue. I’ll get it myself, later.”
She smiled and stood up. Oh, that scent... He closed his eyes.
“All right, then. I’m gonna go do my homework. Come down for dinner, okay?”
Miki managed to nod. He heard her skirt rustle and her legs slide against each other as she walked away from him. As soon as he heard the door shut, he rolled onto his side, facing the window. It was a beautiful day outside. He could feel the sun on his face and the wind ruffling his hair. And he was on the second floor, so no one would catch him in shorts and a tanktop and ashamed.
