Chains

                                                          C          H          A         I         N         S

Sex makes everything complicated. I know you’ve probably read those lines in romantic novels or have heard them in the cheesy romance movies but its true. And I know I’ve been overthinking things lately but all that feels like its melted away. Guess I really did need that to clear my system. I can see now why Hinata told me I was “pent up”. Guess I never really understood what that entailed until it literally left my body in my first orgasm. Then on my second, and third, and I’ll just chalk this up to I feel like all the tension in my body left and now I feel like I could float. Right up to that damned ceiling.

I’m the first to awaken. I look over at the man laying upon his stomach, arms swept around one of my designated pillows and breathing deeply. His nose is buried giving me a view of his face from the bridge up. He looks harmless when he’s like this. I know better. I trace the shape of him with my eyes before rolling to my back after pulling on a shirt discarded beside my bed. What have I done? I’ve complicated the situation myself. I gave in to temptation and furthered my own demise. Really Sakura where the hell is this supposed to take you?

Ah, here comes the felon couple strolling down the street happy but in secret they both have blood on their hands. I really am such an idiot. I press my palms into my eye sockets biting my lower lip to keep from crying. I really muddled things up this time. Oh I wont get Stockholm Syndrome. It could never happen to me yet here is the result of that, the proof lulling in a deep slumber next to me still smelling of sweat and musk. And I want to distance myself, to pull away right now, so why am I still attracted to that scent. What the hell is wrong with me?!

I fold to my side looking at him. I could do it while he’s off guard. I don’t have the strength to put my hands around his throat and suffocate him. But I could...he rolls to his back startling me. I pretend to sleep but he doesn’t stir after that. I trace his anatomy. Even beautiful things are killers Sakura. Kill one, save many. But how many are ready to take up his trade as a replacement? It doesn’t matter. I have to do this.

Slowly I make my way onto his midsection. I press my thighs to his outer legs locking him in place with my core and frame. I gingerly lift my pillow but something on the bedside catches my attention instead. I never even noticed him putting his weapons on the stand at the bedside. I pick up the large pocketknife unsheathing the blade. I place it under the slope of his chin and neck stinging his skin enough to stir him awake.

His hooded gaze lands on me. He feigns no surprise. If I linger too long I’ll psyche myself out. I can already feel my nerves fraying and my wrist will begin shaking soon unless I stable it. I use my free hand to encompass my wrist locking my arm in place. I’m keeping the sight of his hands in my peripheral to ban any movement. Ready to spring off him at a moments notice if need be.

“What a way to go. Even I wouldn’t slice a woman’s throat afterwards.” He’s referring to our hour long shagging session. I truly have been out of the game if I’m using a seventies reference to sex.

“Stop talking.” I keep my voice low and growly. I don’t want to wake up the elder brother who would easily throw me off him. It hits me. This is considered my second chance, my second offense. Third will come without warning. But it won’t if I apply pressure to my hands right here and now and jam the blade up through his tongue. I don’t have to strike to kill, if I can hit an artery he’ll bleed out.

“Go ahead. I’m not going to stop you.” I can feel the tremors in my hand. It will disrupt my locked joints if I don’t keep my head level.

“I said shut up.”

“I mean really. It’s not a bad way to go. Under these soft thighs of yours.” His hand moves, I hesitate and prepare to jump away. I shutter when the balls of his fingers glide across the span of my knee up to my hip.

“Stop!” I forgot. Don’t wake up the other one.

He puts his hands up in answer and lets them rest at his sides again.

“We don’t have all night Sakura. Either do it or let me get up and get something to eat. You and the purple hair probably will be starving.” How can he idly prattle on casually as though I’m not a threat willing to spear his tongue to the roof of his mouth?

“You’re not scared?”

“I stopped being afraid of death a long time ago Sakura. If this is how I go I’d rather it be you than at the hands of some disgusting pig.” I cant control it anymore. My hands are blatantly trembling. I keep the blade steady.

“What did you need to talk to me about...” His eyes flicker. It’s too fast to pin down and his face softens. His jaw loosens from its clench, his chest is no longer preparing to take a blow and he breaths softly not holding his breath any longer. I can feel him relax into the bed as I sink point three centimeters lower than before.

“Take the knife away and I’ll tell you. It’s hard to talk with you shaking so badly.” No. I need it for security. “You can hold onto it if you’d like, just move it away from my hyoid bone. Please.” I still, shocked. Perhaps he was trained in anatomy for the soul purpose of knowing how to kill someone efficiently.

I don’t resist when he snatches my wrist, I let out a startled gasp but he isn’t rough when he draws my hand away from his throat. I let both my fists gripping the knife still, stay aimed at him, fall into my lap.

“I’ve done so many jobs. Held all different races, creeds, and ages hostage. Like you, they beg, they plead, and they barter in order to escape. We are not responsible for the predicament you’re in.”

“Bullshit!”

“You imposed on us remember? I watched you leave that night, I watched as you took a cab and went home. What I didn’t expect was for you to come back to check on your friend. You gave me no choice.”

“Whatever! You’re still a criminal and you kidnapped us and now you’re holding us hostage for money!”

“We are but the second party. The hired hands and muscle to carry out the dirty work of fat lazy men that throw around wealth and power to flash their dicks in the faces of those inferior to them just to piss on their face and force them to bow just to get what they want.”

“I don’t...understand that reference.”

“Of course you don’t. You are a worker bee caught in the cog of life droning on in your little bubble of peace and tranquility. As it should be. But in the shadows this world is more corrupt than you could ever imagine. Do you know how many people get trafficked in and out of the city you live in? It’s a miracle you didn’t fall into this pit sooner.”

“You’re still a criminal, don’t justify your actions.”

“Ah yes, little miss princess. Do I judge you for your circumstances?”

“Circumstances? Ha! There’s no possible explanation as to why you chose this life other than you want to cheat the system and get rich quick!” His eyes darken. Black bottomless eddies swirling amidst the gray sheen of black.

“Yeah, having your entire family killed by one of those assholes swinging their dicks comfy in their red velvet chairs isn’t justifiable at all.” I stiffen. He’s lying. He’s trying to plea to the humanity still inside me as well as the female compassion that I can’t help shut out. It’s engrained in the very fiber of my DNA. Males and females really are two different creatures. But, his sob story wont sway me...

“Bullshit.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t need to convince you or prove myself to you but I’m going to tell you the story anyway and you’re going to listen. Got it?”

I can feel my fingers numbing.

“Once upon a time there was a happy prestigious family minding their P’s and Q’s going through life in their happy bubble. Their father worked extra hard as a salesman, their mother, a nurse. It’s an easy boy meets girl situation. The father was building an empire from the ground up with nothing but one hundred dollars in his pocket. It begins to take shape and an honest corporation for building vehicles blossoms. He marries his sweetheart, two years later she becomes pregnant and births an heir to this successful franchise. Five years blissfully go by and they have another son. Now you think there would be sundering between the elder brother and younger one but there isn’t. All is well. Until, that business catches the eye of a local scumbag who seeks to exploit its wealth and was born with a smooth silver tongue. A fake friendship builds for eight years until finally the plan to usurp everything my father built takes shape and comes to fruition. Dads closest friend literally stabs him in the back, forces him to sign a contract that hands the kingdom over to him in a legally binding agreement, and to secure his stronghold he gets his hired goons to wipe out the family. The brothers recede into the shadows defeated sole survivors. Another scumbag comes along takes these naive siblings under his wing and manipulate them into skilled killers. Both go to college, the one must hone his skills without the younger one for five more years until he is finally able to graduate and join him in the field. They’re naturals. They get a fearsome reputation. They exact revenge. Get the corrupted kingdom back and dismantle it. Now they are left with nothing but an empty feeling inside them and they have skills that will become rusty and useless should they stay frozen in the dark, idle. So they decided to pick themselves back up using what they learned to create a business they weren’t born into but bent into and made a new reputation that precedes them both. Now they regularly take jobs, for the highest bidders and gain a long list of names waiting for us to take said cases which I might add, we’ve never failed at carrying out, and it continues to grow. The end.”

It’s a lot to process. I feel...bad....somewhere during the story which isn’t a story at all, clearly it happened as he sarcastically tells me everything, the knife fell from my hands. I feel hollow inside. If all this is true then how can they even stand to be humans? How do they stand being around the same people that smashed them to pieces only to build both the brothers back up into fucked up former images of themselves.

He looks at me for a long while and I him. It’s been a long time since I couldn’t think of words to say something. Then it comes like a gentle rain and I softly speak in lieu of the silence.

“Why would you tell me this.”

“It wasn’t the only thing I wanted to confess. The thing I most wanted to admit and “talk to you” about was my feelings for you.” Everything goes in reverse. It gets stuffed back inside me as it runs backwards. His words, the night we had together, me running in the woods, the car ride here, going to Hinata’s apartment. It all runs back inside me and I feel like I’m going to explode. I shove off and away from him stumbling into the wall.

“No.”

He rolls to his side resting his jaw against his propped palm.

“What’s done is done and cant be undone Sakura.” My name comes softly from his tongue. The weight of a feather floating freely through the air until  it reaches my ears and crushes me.

“Stop.” He grunts getting to his feet while circling the sheets like a halo around his waist tucking in the extra fabric at the hips to secure the lose weight.

“I told you to stop!” I throw my hand up in an effort to create a barrier. As usual he uses his cocky swaggering stroll to close the gap between us ignoring my order. I use the only weapons I have. My palm connects to his cheek. We both still in shock and I begin my barrage of assaults by hitting and punching any solid mass I can make my fists come into contact with. It’s futile. Like drops of rain ricocheting off pavement.

He presses his body to mine sandwiching me to the wall and himself. I crumble into his embrace. He let me hit him. As weak as they were it was a stupid outlet on my part to regain some semblance of control. I look up at him with shiny green eyes feeling the warmth of our pressed bodies share a kinetic friction. He swipes my tears away with his thumbs. I promised myself over and over I wouldn’t give in. My resolve has always held up strongly.

Yet, this arrogant bastard...is my weakness. I haven’t accepted that yet. I deny and deny it. I refuse to acknowledge this whole fucked up situation.

“No you don’t.”

“I’ve spent months monitoring you. Studying you. You don’t think-“

“No! It’s just the coincidence of spacial reasoning! You think you like me just because we are sharing the same occupied space. If it wasn’t me it’d be another woman.”

“I already told you I’ve seen every type. Every shape. Every color. Each has a different personality. Each one came and went one way or another and never has one stirred my soul this profoundly until you’r...fucking nosy little self popped through those apartment doors and inserted herself into things. I’ve seen some break, I’ve seen some stay resilient. Hell, I’ve even caused some relationships to crumble.”

“That’s not something to brag about.”

“I’m not. Trust me. I’d rather not have all this on ones mind but my own...what I’m saying is all these jobs blur together. Not once has someone stood out aside from you.” I scoff.

“Sex really does make men say stupid things, myself included.”

“This isn’t about my dick and your wet pussy Sakura. This is about the feelings before we fucked, and the ones still lingering after. Jesus, men don’t openly talk about their feelings. We’re hardened shells. Simple. We say what we mean and we just do things. Women have to dissect, bisect, and do all this shit. But here I am pouring my heart out to you, something I don’t fucking do, and all I want in return is for you to hear me. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.”

“N-now you sound like a Dr. Seuss book.” I keep my gaze intentionally averted from his. Yes women do warfare differently. Men are straightforward. Basic. So why do we have to be there other halves and have the harder circumstances? Be complicated?  Why do our minds have to constantly buzz? Why do we aim for the weak spots mentally while men just use what they have to bash in their enemies faces? I know he’s being candid. It mustn’t be easy to expose himself. I’m one to talk. We share the same genetic makeup in that aspect...but when you look deeper we’re made up of completely different structures.

“Sakura.” I look at him, barely, through my lashes and then back to anywhere but his eyes. I settle on his collarbone since its in my focal point.

“What?” Everything inside me has been shaken and put back together wrong. He’s right...my bubble has been burst and now I needed to see things on the darker side, not just the light. How many times have I had patients wheeled in, shady characters with shitty backstories as to how they obtained the sharpened pipe sticking out of their side? How many times have I gone to the children’s ward where there lives nothing but empty shells sitting there on the ends of their beds stuck inside their heads to avoid reliving terrible memories?

“Just hear my words. And think on them. That’s all I ask.” He lets me go. I suddenly feel cold without his heated body touching mine and I can’t summon him back. He’s gone. And he’s left me with no other choice but to think on them.

Bastard...