Meliora - Emanate - 33

[lady_mab]

No Kaito

I wasn't lying when I told Lionel that I have a lot of things on my mind as of late, and I guess Lionel wasn't wrong when he asked if Rhys was chief among them.

Maybe I have been thinking about him more than usual, but Mia's words at the holiday party have started chasing Lio's threats around in my head for the last week.

Has there been a valid reason to devoting more attention to him? Perhaps. He's my accountant, he's my best friend, I'm his Informant for a bizarre game that is slowly tearing him apart and all I can do is watch.

There definitely has been a reason that he's been the focus of attention as of late.

But Mia's curious questions and Lio's outright statements have gotten me more confused.

Of course, contemplating this mess after several drinks during a New Year's Eve party is probably not the best way to go about it.

Lysander declined my invite for him and his girlfriend, saying that 'she had other plans’, and he had prepared for a night in.

Rhys decided to show up, though I'm not too surprised because he likes to monitor his company's assets closely. Still, I catch sight of him as I weave through the crowds, and he always has a smile on hand for me. Probably because I didn't promise anything free, because tonight has nothing to do with Lacryma but everything to do with forgetting about it.

I join him at one of the freestanding tables a little after eleven. I bump my shoulder against his, and he returns the gesture though he doesn't turn away from his conversation from the couple on the other side of the table. I settle in in my usual fashion, and it's only a few seconds later that I notice our proximity, our elbows tucked into a neat corner against each other, and when Rhys shifts his weight from one foot to the other, it swings him into me.

He doesn't even hesitate, because this is usual for us -- at least it has been until I start questioning myself. Could have fooled me, Mia said. Lia and I have noticed a change in behavior between the two of you, Lio said.

Have I really been acting different towards him?

I don't even realize that the other pair has moved on until Rhys adjusts his position at the table. He leans one elbow against the surface and looks up at me. "Everything okay?"

"What?"

"You're staring off into nothing."

I blink several times before realize that I had been very focused on a spot next to our elbows. "Have I been acting strange?"

"Stranger than usual?" He laughs when I give him a small shove, even though that is the typical sort of answer I should have expected from a question like that. "Not necessarily."

"Oh, so you think I have been acting strange."

He gives me a fond sort of smile of distress. Only he can manage an expression like that. "I don't think any of us are in a position to judge from a state of 'normal' at the moment. Too many unnormal things happening. Non-normal. Hm." He trails off and turns his attention away to contemplate this.

I keep pushing because I have to know. "Good or bad?"

Rhys lifts an eyebrow and takes a sip from his beer. "Good or bad what?"

"My strangeness."

He sets the bottle down with a deliberate tap on the table and once again shifts to lean one elbow and regard me face-on. "What brought this on all of a sudden?"

"Nothing--"

Rhys arches an eyebrow.

"Okay, no, just... thinking about things."

"Don't think too hard. You're not exactly cut out for that."

"Oh, ouch." I press a hand to my heart as Rhys tries unsuccessfully to hide his laughter. "You don't really think that, do you?"

He turns his head away -- either so that I can't see his amusement or he can't see my feigned despair. "Of course not. I just think that, between the two of us, I'm the one more suited for that sort of thing, you know?"

"Are you making a jab at me because you got a fancy numbers degree?"

Rhys rolls his eyes and sighs, but I know enough about his moods to know that he's not annoyed with me. "One, I don't actually have a fancy degree. Two, you have a perfectly valid business degree and a successful bar to show for it." His lips are tugging into a soft smile. "I'm saying you run more on instinct while I am the one who tends to overthink every little thing."

"Alright, this is true." I hesitate, picking at my fingers in an attempt to sort through the cluttered confines of my thoughts. "What do you do when you find that you've been overthinking something that's beyond your control?"

He gives this question serious thought, because that's the kind of person he is. It's the kind of habit that I have grown accustomed to from him, and know when to predict it. "More often than not I give myself a stress ulcer, I think," he replies. "Or maybe a panic attack if my anxiety gets too high."

Laughter gets a hold of me, and I double over with giggles. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's not helpful in the slightest."

"I wasn't saying it to be helpful."

"I'm being serious though! What sort of steps do you take to stop over thinking about something?"

Again, Rhys considers this question with all the due focus that he gives to all questions posed of him. "If it truly is beyond my control, I just have to remove myself from the situation. If it involves me, and there is even the slightest bit of influence I can make over the outcome, then I think about if I truly want to be involved with it or not."

His eyes lift to meet mine over the rim of his glasses. The amusement is still there, but I can see the edge to his gaze. "Is everything okay?"

It is probably one of the dumbest questions to ask me because beyond my inability to stop thinking myself in circles with him in the middle, everything has been great.

Because he's still here, and things haven't changed between us despite what Lio and Mia are implying, and perhaps I've taken a bit too long to answer his question.

Rhys reaches out, his fingers brushing over my forearm, and suddenly I'm realizing that, perhaps, somewhere, somehow, something has changed and I wasn't aware of it.

But before either of us can press the topic further, a round of cheers fills every empty corner of the club. Everyone around us rushes towards one of the screens, and the music drops to allow for the TV volume to rise.

He turns away from the conversation, away from me, so I'm left studying his profile as he watches the screens. The countdown in the city center has reached the five minute marker, and everything is hurrying to get their last-minute drinks. I should be at the bar, helping, but my entire body is refusing to acknowledge that fact of common sense.

We're standing close to one of the screens, so people have started to crowd around us even though our backs are still to the small table. Rhys turns to talk to someone next to him, shoulder presses against mine. I finally manage to yank myself back to the present, and the force of it causes me to rock unsteadily on my feet.

Our hands brush, and a small part of me acknowledges a truth that the rest of me is neither aware of nor ready to admit. I wonder if I have any excuses -- I'm not drunk enough, I tell myself, or I'm too drunk for this, which is a lie, but might work.

The final countdown starts, and the voices in the bar resonate in time with the ball in the center of the city as it sparkles and gleams in its descent. At my side, Rhys doesn't count along. He just grins at the antics of the other patrons.

He's really happy, that small part of me whispers. This is the lightest I have seen his expression in a long time. Understandable, with everything that has been happening. Between his anxiety at an all time high, the attack on his birthday, and this whole damn game in general, I’m surprised that he can even smile at all, and I'm caught off guard at how long it has been since I've seen that expression.

A minute later, as the ball reaches the bottom, the new year is heralded by a chorus of cheers and drinks held aloft. I turn to watch the commotion around me, the festival of drunk kisses and celebration.

Then there is a hand on my chin and I smell Rhys' cologne, and suddenly he presses a whisper-soft kiss to my cheek. The entire room drowns in silence so that there is only the two of us as I find myself leaning in toward him to hear his "Happy New Year" delivered on a shy smile. When he starts to move away, my entire body is aware of the absence of his warmth from my shoulder.

I've lost it, the rest of me shouts as I reach after him. This is too much instinct to act on.

My hand curls around his wrist, and he halts immediately. But I push away from the table and use my momentum to swing around in front of him. His back hits the table, startling a soft 'oh' free. I lean in without giving myself the time to question my actions.

My lips press to his, slightly off center, and I can feel the edge of his glasses against my cheek. His chest swells with a sudden breath.

The kiss lasts a bit longer than it should have. I pull back only enough to see his eyes flutter open. The air in his lungs escapes on a quick huff, and his gaze meets mine before flicking down. He licks his lips and swallows a half-formed word.

We shift, his hand twisting in my grip, but someone grabs onto my arm and shoulder and I'm tugged away. There's an instant when Rhys' expression flickers from surprise to disappointment and my stomach plummets to somewhere below my feet because it's my fault.

I'm turned around by a girl I've seen at the bar several times. She grins up at me and says something I can't hear as the din of my surroundings rushes to fill the silence that had existed between Rhys and I. She stands up on her toes to kiss me.

It lasts no more than a second before she spins back to her friends and I'm left standing there with my mouth open in surprise. There's movement out of the corner of my eye.

When I turn, Rhys is already fighting his way through the crowds toward the door.

"Rhys--" I start, but my voice chokes in my throat and I have to swallow down the confusion and guilt. "Rhys!"

I shove my way through the bodies as he makes it out the door. I'm several steps behind, and I gasp at the shock of cold when I stumble out into the street.

The celebrations are still continuing in the buildings around Temple, and the sounds disorient me until I hear a muffled swear.

I whirl around to find Rhys scrubbing his face with one hand, the other bunched into a fist at his side.

I take a step closer, needing to explain myself. I still can't find the right words. "Rhys--"

"Don't, Kaito." He keeps his back to me. I don't want to know what the disappointment looks like right now. "Please, don't."

I breathe, slow and deep, hoping for a bit of clarity as the chill clings to the inside of my lungs.

Instead, he is the one to press on. "There are only so many things that I will put up with before even I snap."

That's a strange response, all things considered. I have to fight down my gut reaction, which is to tell him that it's not a joke, that I'm always serious when it comes to him. But I know that's not what he wants to hear from me right now.

He wants an excuse, an apology. Not an explanation that I don't have the ability to give.

So I run a hand back through my hair, gripping at the roots and falling back on one that is flimsy but functional. "Sorry. I guess I'm more drunk than I thought I was."

Rhys has half turned to me, but his eyes are closed and he sighs. There is something wistful in that breath, frustration radiating from the tired tilt of his head.

"I won't do it again."

This earns me a wry twist of his lips that seems so much more self deprecating than I am used to on him. "Which part?"

"Both," I find myself saying. "Either. Whichever you think is more likely to repeat." I take a step closer, because I don't want this space to exist between us when I'm the one that forced the wedge in there and kicked it as hard as I could.

He laughs, though it's as strained as his expression. "Alright. Fine."

I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. "Come back inside. It's freezing."

When he lifts his gaze to mine, there's an exhaustion there that I know I will not be able to break through. "Only to grab my jacket."

Something in me jerks off-center. "I thought you were going to stay--"

He shakes his head, and that something in me yells that this is all my fault. It doesn't have to be so loud. I know that very well. "I'll text you later. We need to set up a meeting to go over your financial plans for the new year." How easily he switches to business mode, but at least this I am familiar with. At least it is familiar for us. He steps in closer, close enough to touch.

And I almost do reach for him, despite my promise mere seconds before. It hadn't seemed like such a big deal earlier -- in the evening, in our friendship -- when our shoulders or hands would brush together.

I just had to go and act without thinking.

I lead him back inside so I don't have to look at him. He disappears into the crowd when I remain stationed at the door. A moment later, he returns with his coat in his hands.

He takes a breath as he puts it on, and for a moment, I think he's going to say something. But in the end, all he says is, "I'll talk to you later, Kaito," and then he's out the door.

This wasn't how this was all supposed to go. I was supposed to act like nothing was out of the ordinary, and we would carry on like usual. I was supposed to not let those things bother me, nor was I supposed to react to them. Because breaking the norm is how things get messed up.

My body protests, my brain scrambles to find explanations to give, but I don't go after him. It's best to just leave it to settle down and then we will be able to carry on like usual. I just don't know how long it might take, not when I was the one that broke such a firm boundary between us.

In the end, I force myself to work through the rest of the celebration, letting the bustle of the crowd distract me from the inevitable, and when I finally do go to sleep somewhere close to three in the morning, I pass out from exhaustion and bone-deep disappointment in myself.