Three.I had no expectations, but I knew it would be more than one.
“Why?”
“Why?” He sneers at me, getting bratty again, the way he always seems to when I’m around. “Does it matter?”
I don’t like to repeat myself, and I think asking the question in the first place indicates that it does, in fact, matter. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have asked. So I wait him out. It’s been a winning tactic before, and it is again.
He chews on his answer for a while, then looks away. Stiffly, almost robotically, he finally answers me. “I found out they kidnapped and raped a child.”
“So you killed them.”
“Yeah.”
I hum thoughtfully, and lean forward just a millimeter, maybe even less. I shift my weight so slightly I’m not sure he notices, but I feel the need to get closer. My voice lowers, and I barely recognize the gruff tone of it.
“Good.”
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 withyour 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 wasgood? Well, no one else fucking agrees with you. How many men haveyoukilled, 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, tomakehim 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 tolisten.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.
