I didn't expect her to come home so late.
I didn't expect the pounding of my heart to be this deafening.
When the door slammed open, my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
"Aoi."
She stood there, frozen for a moment, her eyes wide, breath coming in uneven gasps. She had just returned from her date with Kazuya, and the space between us felt charged, heavy with an unspoken tension. It suffocated me, wrapping around me like a thick fog that I couldn't escape.
"You - " I started, but the words died on my tongue. What could I possibly say to explain this storm inside me?
She didn't wait for me to find the words. Her voice, sharp and confused, cut through the silence. "What's your problem, Riku? Why are you acting like this? I liked him. He's not a threat. Why do you care so much?"
Her words stung, but it wasn't the anger that struck me. It was the hurt in her voice, raw and jagged. It was like she was speaking, but someone else had written the script for her. The words didn't feel like hers anymore, they felt like a lie.
I couldn't help myself. The words rushed out, more cruelly than I meant. "Don't lie. You don't care about him. You just… you just want me to care."
For a split second, her expression faltered. It was as if my words had cut through the layers of calm she'd built around herself. Then, without a second thought, she stepped closer, her breath coming in warm, uneven gusts against my skin.
"Why is it so hard for you to understand?" she whispered, her voice quivering. "Why do you think I've waited all these years? Why do you think I'm doing this now?"
Her words unraveled something inside me. Anger. Confusion. It was all boiling over, and I couldn't keep it in any longer. I froze, a deep, painful tension coiling in my chest.
"Don't," I whispered, but my body was already betraying me. It moved before my mind had a chance to process.
I reached for her, pulling her to me in a desperate blur of motion. And before I could even think about the consequences, our lips collided.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't sweet.
It was desperate. Hungry. Years of unsaid things, buried so deep we could barely even admit them to ourselves, exploded in that kiss. It was raw. It was suffocating. Every inch of me burned for her, and yet, a part of me knew that this, this moment, this kiss.. was a line we could never uncross.
Her hands found my shirt, gripping it with frantic urgency, pulling me closer as if she, too, was terrified of letting go. I kissed her like I couldn't breathe without her. Like this was the last chance I'd ever have to feel this alive.
But even as my body screamed for more, a dark voice in the back of my mind reminded me, this was wrong. This was too much. This was something that would ruin everything.
The kiss broke, both of us stumbling back, gasping for air as if we'd just surfaced from underwater. Her face, flushed and torn, mirrored the panic that twisted in my gut.
"This shouldn't have happened," I muttered, shaking my head. My voice cracked with the weight of it all.
Aoi's lips trembled, and her hands hovered in the space between us, unsure of what to do next. She opened her mouth, but I couldn't bear to hear what she might say.
"Riku… I - "
I cut her off, my voice barely a whisper. "Don't say it. Please. Don't make this harder."
But it already was. The damage was done. We had crossed a line that would never fade. We had shattered something irreparable.
She turned away from me, her shoulders tense, and I could feel the distance between us settle in like a cold, empty void. But this time, the silence wasn't just the absence of sound.
It was the weight of everything unspoken.
It was a broken promise.
It was love.
And it was forbidden.