Ink Stained

109: what's wrong?*

"Creepy, right? Sorta, but nota." Akane smiles sharply at the two. "You guys are like twins. You've gotta be identical." Pai gives her a flat look, to which Akane chortles. "Fine, fine, but you sure you ain't?"

Even then, she had been suspicious that there was some familial tie between her and Rikuto. Maybe cousins? Her parents never talked about any siblings, or her grandparents, but they had to exist.

But no – she and Rikuto were siblings. Twins.

She didn't know how to feel about it. The relief in her at the fact that Rikuto was alive, that he was here, within reach, warred with the confusion dominating her at – how could they be twins? Why didn't she know him, for all her life? Where was he, all that time?

The thought to shake him awake and ask – demand – answers to these questions briefly floated by her, but she blew it away. With his face turned to hers like this, she could see what she hadn't before with the bright fervour of excitement and fury clouding her thoughts.

Rikuto was as exhausted as she was. It was in the dark purple shadows tattooed beneath his eyes, and the pale, almost sickly shade of his skin, and the way he didn't so much as twitch at the sound of the bed creaking when she moved.

As deeply asleep and unlikely to easily wake as he was, she moved slowly, carefully, getting to her feet and quietly walking the few steps to where he slept in the chair. She dropped to sit on her haunches, arms crossed over her knees and resting her cheek on her shoulder as she looked up at him. He didn't stir, continuing to breathe in deep, even breaths. She watched his chest rise and fall with those breaths, almost half afraid he would stop breathing all together.

He kept breathing. Slow, deep, even breaths. The jittery nerves running like crackling sparks of fire through her veins settled minutely as she watched him sleep.

Rikuto, she thought. Even the sound of her voice in her head was quiet.

Rikuto, she echoed, her voice so quiet it felt like the barest touch of a gentle, cold wind on her cheeks.

My brother.

Your brother.

Kuniumi had known. All along, she'd known that Rikuto was her brother. Pai was too tired to find the kindles of anger she knew rested in her at the fact that here was yet another thing Kuniumi had wilfully kept from her for so long. But then she remembered how Rikuto had defended Midori from her. She remembered that it was Kageotra who brought both Rikuto and Midori to her.

Kuniumi wasn't the only one keeping secrets.

On the heels of that realization, Pai felt an abrupt vacuum in her chest as Kuniumi vanished. Her lips twitched as a vague irritation swept through her at how conveniently Kuniumi disappeared whenever she didn't want to do something. Pai wished she could do that, that it was as easy for her.

She looked back at Rikuto, tilting her head to the side as she observed him in silence. She couldn't remember if she'd ever told him about the woman who spoke in her head, the woman she always felt like a physical presence both inside her mind and always right beside her, yet disappeared whenever she so fancied. She remembered some things, but still, there was so many gaps in her memory.

Hesitantly, she rose up a little and reached out to Rikuto, half expecting him to snap awake and snatch her hand away before she could do anything. He didn't, though. He was so painfully tired.

She touched his hair lightly, running her fingers softly over the dark locks. She didn't touch the white roots, afraid that sensitivity would be what woke him. But she stared, her heart settling somewhere at her feet when a few pale strands of her own hair fell over her shoulder. Rikuto said Yamato wasn't the reason why his hair looked like it was becoming like hers, now. He said it was because he didn't know she was alive.