Chapter 10 #2
He stands there frozen, unmoving except to breathe, for several long seconds. And Tommy, unpredictable, incandescent Tommy, doesn’t react the way I expect. He never does.
“Good?” he hisses on a whisper, spearing me with a burning glare.
He throws an arm to the side, waving it in Kira’s direction.
“I’m a fucking murderer, and you want to pay me to stay with your niece?
To be her fucking fiancé? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Good? Good? You want to pat me on the head and give me a gold star while you’re at it?
Give me the keys to Kira’s house? Let me hang around, even though I’m nothing?
Yeah, right. Fuck you. You don’t fucking want that; no one would want that. ”
I watch him, reading him, soaking him in. He really is like art. I don’t understand him, but he moves me anyway.
And he’s not done. “You think killing them was good? Well, no one else fucking agrees with you. How many men have you killed, hm? How sick in the head are you? How fucking damned are you, Young-gi?”
That’s the first time he’s said my name. Normally, I hate people using my Korean name. Only Kira uses it. But I don’t correct him.
“Many.”
“Many,” Tommy growls. “Fucking ‘many’. Yeah, I fucking know, Young-gi. I knew the moment I saw you. It’s all over you, it’s so obvious.
You don’t even try to hide it. But I’m not falling for your bullshit.
Whatever this is, I’m not buying it. I’m not going to agree to your plan, because there’s no way you actually want me around Kira. ”
“You don’t believe me?”
“What’s there to believe?!”
Good point. It wasn’t an expected question, but as soon as he asks it, I understand it. He needs me to reassure him, to make him believe me.
I grab his chin and hold his face up, so he has to look at me.
He gasps, jerking with an instinctive flinch, and I move with him because he should get a pass on flinching.
But once his initial surprise is gone, that’s when I wait to see what he’ll do.
I step closer, crowding him. I want him to listen. I look straight into his eyes.
He rebels against my silent command by turning his eyes away, but he doesn’t try to pull his jaw from my hold again, so I know his brattiness is just a way for him to communicate something, to prove a point maybe, or make some emotion clear to me.
I squeeze his jaw a little, but not hard, until he looks up at me, his eyes so angry and so… needy.
“I don’t repay acts of loyalty with abandonment.” I speak slowly, clearly, and try to put everything into words. “And I don’t throw away valuable things.”
He blinks up at me, his body going lax even as his fingers tighten on my wrist. “What does that even mean?”
That was pretty clear, I think, so instead of repeating myself, I wait. He scowls, and my eyes fall to his mouth when he mutters, “I’m not valuable.”
He’s arguing with me?
Testing me. Fine.
I slide my other hand behind his neck and tilt his head a little more, the angle almost severe, the pose almost uncomfortable.
He loses his balance, clutching my wrist to keep himself from falling backward.
He’s vulnerable like this, I’m right on top of him, and his eyes widen as his adrenaline spikes.
But he lets me do it, and I shake my head at him, slow and stern, as I look down at him. “Don’t lie, Tommy.”
“I didn’t–” his words sound strained through his puckered mouth, and he growls in annoyance because he has to speak with his lips all scrunched up in my tighter hold, and I think he might be embarrassed about that. “I didn’t lie.”
I give him a warning look.
The tension mounts between us.
He starts panting all of a sudden, and I watch with interest and curiosity as he shifts on his feet, like he’s having trouble holding still, or like his legs just wobbled beneath him.
“I’m not valuable,” he says again, a little weaker this time, almost trembling. Still arguing with me.
Another test. “If you lie to me one more time, you’ll be holding soap in your mouth, young man.”
His eyes widen, and I think I might have startled him. But, rather than pull away, his pulse jumps at the base of his neck, and his breathing gets even harsher. “You wouldn’t.”
I smile. I can’t help it, and I don’t know what kind of smile it is or why I’m enjoying this so much, or why I feel like I’m playing with my food. But I can’t stop the smile from growing, and he watches it grow and swallows hard.
“Lie to me again, and find out.”
We wait, both of us, to see what happens next. His eyes search mine, seeking and seeking, and he seems almost desperate. I can’t tell if he wants to find proof that I’m bullshitting him, or if he wants proof that I mean it.
Then, all of a sudden, his pupils contract to pinpricks and his facial expression shuts down.
He goes distant and far away, and I realize that I’ve lost him.
Just like that time in the gym, when he sat on the bench and spaced out.
He’s not seeing me anymore. I immediately let go of his face and start to guide him to a chair, but he pushes my hands away and then, in a blink, he’s back to normal. Or at least, the appearance of normal.
“Fine, whatever,” he grunts, collapsing lazily back on the couch. “I’m gonna watch this.”
I sit, and don’t even pretend to work as I stare at him.
And he watches the screen, but this time, I can tell he doesn’t see a single scene.
Finally, after almost half an hour of this, he sags into his chair, and shrugs like he’s lost all interest in me, in the situation, in everything.
“Sure, fine. I’ll be the fiancé. It doesn’t matter anyway. ”
Mood swings. I make a mental note to look into them, and their causes.
“I’ll get a contract for you to sign.” I pull out my laptop and start typing it up myself, but my mind mulls over the two times I’ve seen him do this. The first time, I was giving him bruise cream, and this time, I was holding his face. Is it physical touch that triggers him?
Or did I say a specific word? Did I remind him of a specific person? What emotion is he feeling when he loses touch like that?
I watch him watch the movie, and wonder if I’ll ever find out.
****************
Tommy
What. The. Fuck.
What the actual fuck.
Holy fucking fuck, shit fuck goddamn shit. What the fuck–
“Tommy?” Kira’s sweet voice rips me from my internal freakout. She’s rubbing the sleep from her eyes as the plane touches down on the tarmac, landing with a jolt. “You okay?”
Her little hand wraps around my arm, and the fact that she’s checking on me right now because she knows this is only my second time flying is so nice that it’s making me physically ill.
I’m fine. She stares at me, and I realize I didn’t say that out loud. Just play it cool. I’m fine.
“I’m great!”
Goddamnit.
She smiles at me, all sleepy and cute. I force my shoulders to relax and I smile back. Young-gi looms in my peripherals like a black hole; he’s terrifying and gravitational, and it’s taking everything I have not to look at him.
Because what. The actual. Fuck. Was that??!
‘Don’t lie, Tommy.’
“I didn’t–” my words come out garbled from his grip on my mouth, and I flush with hot embarrassment at the way he’s looking at my scrunched up lips. “I didn’t lie.”
His intense focus is like a spotlight, and I’ve never felt heat like this before. He looks at me like I should know better than to argue with him.
I start panting all of a sudden, flushed and wilting against him, because… because… because he’s saying I’m valuable. He’s saying shit that he can’t say. Promising not to throw me away? Saying I’m worth something, even though I’m not?
A new kind of fear, unfamiliar and somehow wonderful, builds in my chest and I almost whimper, but manage to keep it in.
“I’m not valuable,” I insist, more for myself than for him. I can’t forget what I am, who I am. It will only lead to heartbreak.
But he doesn’t let it slide. Almost fondly, and yet also not, he purrs -“If you lie to me one more time, you’ll be holding soap in your mouth, young man.”
Chills race down my spine and I get rock hard in my pants, arousal hitting me like a bus on the street. I just fucking got derailed by it, completely thrown because since when am I into that kind of shit?!? But–
“You wouldn’t,” I manage, narrow-eyed and wondering if he actually would - wondering why the idea of him making me do that just to keep me from insulting myself is soooo fucking hot.
He smiles at me, and it’s not at all like the smile he gave me earlier. That one was amused, like it was his version of laughter. This one is hungry and smug and teasing. It’s sexy as fuck.
“Lie to me again, and find out.”
I rub my chin as the plane comes to a rapid stop before it gently taxis toward the loading area. I can still feel his hands on me, holding me in place, making me listen. Making me pay attention when he told me I’m… valuable.
Whatever.
My adrenaline can’t make up it’s mind, and suddenly I’m sagging back into the sofa again for maybe the third time since Young-gi held me down and turned me the fuck on.
Feeling myself get close to the edge like that jolted me like it always does, and my arousal locked down and soured into sadness and emptiness and anger.
Just like when he touched me on the archery field, I couldn’t handle feeling that way.
But he’s still in the plane with me, trapped in this small space, and he won’t stop staring at me.
I can feel it, even though I’m not looking at him.
And my body keeps trying to respond to his gaze, my imagination keeps replaying those moments he grabbed my chin and made me fucking listen, and my dick starts to get hard.
And then I crash out again. Then it starts over.
It’s…
It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.