“Yes, but—”
“You just wanted to see if I would choose you,” Rin cut him off with a nod. “I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because if we’re going to get through this, any doubts you may have need to be quelled. And I think I need this too. I need to know I can trust you with everything I’ve got.” Brennon may have kissed him at the bar that night, but there was no doubt in Rin’s mind if it’d been his brother there in his stead, the same thing would have happened.
Brennon would have kissed his brother and been none the wiser.
A lot of that was their own fault. They’d created these personas and had stuck to them, even once they’d come to this planet, so he couldn’t really fault his friends for not noticing. But that didn’t mean he didn’t still yearn for acceptance and belonging, the same as everyone else.
“It feels hot in here.” Rin fanned himself and then allowed Kelevra to move him so he was seated on the edge of the bed.
“That’s the pill,” Kelevra said. He ran a hand through his curly hair. “Your mouth might start to feel dry as well, and everything is going to get a little hazy. It’ll help you feel less focused and then you’ll answer all of my questions without thought. Are you okay?”
“Yes.” The room was spinning a bit, and Rin dropped back so he was lying on the bed gazing up at the ceiling. His reflection showed down at him, his cheeks bright red, his golden hair messy. He looked either close to tears or about to physically break something, and for some reason, he found that infinitely funny.
“What is it, Flower?” Kelevra sat down next to him.
He pointed up. “Sila.”
“You’re going by Rin now, remember?”
“Oh.” He dropped his arm.
“Does that bother you?” Kelevra tipped his head and Rin shook his. “Not even a little?”
“I have no attachments to either name.” He never had. “It’s just a name. You saw it yourself. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anyone can see me through it.” His father never had. “We even had a tell in the beginning. If we were in the same room and one of our names was called, more often than not, we’d both look up. People probably assumed it was because the other was curious who was calling their brother, but it was actually because sometimes we’d forget for a split second which role we were playing that day.”
“Roles?” Kelevra planted an arm onto the bed on the other side, so he was leaning over him. “Is that what you two call them?”
“There’s Sila Varun and there’s Rin Varun,” he said. “There’s him and there’s me and there’s us.”
“Us.”
“Yes.” He pulled his eyes off the mirror and stared at Kelevra instead. “The pill is working, isn’t it?” There was a light feeling to his body, almost like he was floating, but different since he could feel the plush mattress and the silky comforter beneath him. “Is this all you wanted to know?”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Kel asked.
He tried to think it over, but his thoughts felt like a jumbled mess, and before long they were tumbling out of him like an untethered stream of consciousness. “You know I’m an overthinker? It’s exhausting. I hate it. But I have to be careful. If I slipped up and someone discovered what we were doing, we’d be in serious trouble. That’s why we wanted to come here and live our own lives.”
“You were at Vail last year.”
“I was. We decided to try it out. Being ourselves. It was nice getting to enjoy the quiet, and I didn’t have to make too many friends, which meant my emotions weren’t always going haywire and I didn’t have to monitor my expressions so much. But then—” He stopped abruptly, frowning.
“Then what, Flower?” Kelevra prompted.
“You’re going to be mad.”
“That ship has sailed, sweetheart.”
“No, like, murderous mad.”
“Consort.”
“You know you do that a lot? You call me by something specific to get across a specific point. Flower when you’re being possessive. Consort when you’re reminding me of my place. Cadet when you want me to fall in line. Sweetheart…well. That one is pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?”
“Do you not like it?” Kel asked.
