Brothers Conflict- Ema's Kindness

Chapter 35

Tanaka put the tray of tea on the coffee desk, poured a cup of tea to Ema. He peeked at Ema's flat expression, began to worried for his master. He cleared his throat and smiled, passed the tea to the lady.

"Master will be here soon, please wait for a moment." He said. Ema took the tea and nodded, took a sip of it. Tanaka smiled forcefully, wondering how things would be later.

He did noticed something was wrong between his master and the lady, but he wouldn't dare to make any assumption or asked one of them straightly. He just hoped their relationship would ease as soon as possible.

At the same time, Alexios who invited Ema to come today finally arrived. He seemed a bit nervous when he saw Ema sitting on the couch, adjusted his tie uncomfortably. Tanaka bowed to him and excused himself, left the room for the two.

Alexios walked to Ema slowly and sat a bit far away from her than usual. Ema smiled bitterly to his reaction, knowing he must still feel uncomfortable with her sudden confession weeks ago. She should apologized to him for her reckless decision.

On the other hand, Alexios was quite anxious to the situation. He was the one who asked Ema to meet but now he was so nervous that he didn't know what to say. He heard a lot from Edgar and knew the girl didn't really take good rest ever since he ran away and left her heart-broken.

He frowned slightly to the bags below her eyes, the sparks in her peridot eyes dimmed that she looked exactly like what Edgar said: a lifeless and fragile doll. And he was the one who responsible for this.

He cleared his throat, tried to act normally as usual. "Sorry for waiting. I have some emergent business need to deal with first." He said calmly. Ema shook her head and smiled.

"Not at all. I can understand." She said. No one said anything to continue their conversation. Alexios rubbed his hands, eyes staring at the teapot, considering any safe topics he could talk with her.

Ema poured another cup of tea for herself, sighed in content to the relaxing aura of the tea. Compared to Alexios, she seemed quite comfortable and chilling to the situation. Alexios wondered how she could still acted so naturally after what happened between them.

What he didn't know was Ema got used to the silence between them already. In the past, she was the one needed to continue their conversation, thinking any topics to say. Now their pose had changed and of course Alexios wouldn't know what to say, he had no experience at all.

This idea made Ema chuckled lightly, earned a confused glance from Alexios. She smiled and shrugged, not planning to help him this time.

With the time passed quickly but still Alexios only managed to ask some very formal question and the anxiety in his heart worsened with each second passed by. He frowned seriously, he didn't know or never expected talking to someone would be so difficult.

Ema sighed to his performance, knew today they won't able to say anything already. She put down the teacup and stood up, Alexios looked at her surprisingly.

"Well, I still have works later. Thank you for inviting me today, Earl Phantomhive." She smiled and bowed to him, went to the door.

Alexios's eyes widened to the way she called him, also the coldness and distant in her voice. He didn't understand why she changed her attitude suddenly, just liked the time when they still didn't know each other well.

She was so careful and cautious to him, just liked the way she treated him before.

"Wait!" Alexios said and grabbed her wrist tightly, stopped her to leave. Ema turned to him with wide eyes, blushed to his touch. Alexios bent his head, hand didn't let go.