Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“Is that what you want to be to me, then?” Iseya asked, deceptively soft when there was a core of flint to those precise words. “My peer?”
Summer drew his brows together. “I don’t know if you’re asking me that in a professional context or a personal context.” He darted his tongue over his lips. “And I don’t...know what your note meant. ‘Challenge accepted.’ I wasn’t trying to challenge you—”
“Weren’t you?” Iseya countered. Still so flat, so cool, almost mocking, and Summer deflated. “Isn’t that the point of your little game? Not just to challenge yourself, but to challenge me? To prove that you can convince me to break down my walls for you, one day at a time, one kiss at a time?”
That stung—like brambles wrapped around his heart and digging in, that stung, and Summer flinched, lifting his gaze to find Iseya watching him with that same icy, impenetrable stare, almost accusing.
“Why are you being like this?” Summer blurted. “Are you...are you that upset that I want to see you as a person instead of this...this terrifying figurehead?”
“I am not upset,” Iseya hissed, slamming the pen down atop the pages, the uncapped tip dipping to leave a deep red inkblot like blood spreading against white.
Summer just stared at him.
“You’re acting like you are,” he murmured, and bit his lip. “I’m...sorry. I’m sorry if you’re still...hurting so much that it feels like I’m playing some kind of game with you. Just...forget I ever asked. I didn’t... I didn’t mean to be disrespectful of...”
“Of what?” Brittle, sharp, Iseya’s eyes flashing—heat slashing through that ice like a stab of lightning. “What do you think you know about me?”
Right now, looking at Iseya felt like...
Felt like pleading.
Pleading with him to just...stop, when Summer didn’t have to be an expert to know that this...
This was the pain talking.
Not Iseya himself.
“I know that twenty years is a long time to grieve,” Summer whispered, heart in his throat.
This wasn’t how he’d wanted this to go. A simple wish, a silly game, an ache in the pit of his stomach, but somehow it had gone all wrong and he’d upset Iseya—but now that he’d started it, he had to finish it and say what had to be said to see this through.
He always said all the wrong things anyway.
He guessed that wasn’t going to change.
“And a long time to define yourself as if that grief is all you are,” he finished, the words driving through his tongue like iron nails.
Iseya faltered, physically recoiling as if Summer had slapped him. His gaze flickered strangely, before he looked away—and when he spoke his voice was softer, that lashing edge gone.
“If you think you will find anything else underneath that,” he murmured, “you will be sorely disappointed.”
Summer half-smiled, even though it hurt like someone had pulled his rib cage open and plucked one curving bone out to fit it to the shape of his mouth. “Is that what you’re afraid of? That you’ll disappoint me?”
“What makes you think I’m afraid of you in any way, Mr. Hemlock?”
“The fact that you won’t look at me directly unless you’re angry with me,” Summer pointed out. “Because I won’t look at people, either...because then I’m afraid they’ll see too much about how I feel.”
Iseya made a soft tch sound under his breath, lifting his chin a touch haughtily—and yet still those silver eyes remained on the bookshelf, not on Summer. “Is that why you avoid eye contact? A mystery solved, I suppose.”
“It’s why I do. I’m wondering if it’s why you do, too.”
“It’s considered rude to stare at people with prolonged eye contact in Japanese culture.” Iseya thinned his lips. “Granted, I was not raised in Japanese culture outside my family home after my adolescent years, but I believe the common phrase is ‘that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.’”
That startled a laugh out of Summer, quick but still enough to ease some of the tight feeling in his chest. “It’s not like you to be that indirect.”
“My father always told me I was too blunt. Perhaps I’m attempting to rectify that now.” But with a sigh, Iseya closed his eyes, lightly adjusting his glasses with his middle finger pressed against the bridge. “We should be discussing today’s lesson plan. Not being inappropriately confrontational with each other.”
“Kissing is already a pretty inappropriate conversation topic, so throwing in confrontation isn’t really that much worse.”
Iseya’s jaw twitched.
His finger slipped on his glasses.
And slid underneath one lens, nearly poking him in the eye with one gracefully squared, neatly manicured fingertip.
Iseya swore softly, squinting his eye up and pulling his glasses off, shaking them free from the loose tendrils of hair drifting into his face and glowering at the lens. “Why do you keep returning the subject to kissing?”
“Because I’m not sure what you meant,” Summer admitted. “You sent me that note, didn’t you? ‘Challenge accepted.’ This.”