and you taste like pain {eiji}

[ĸara вelova★]

She wasn't here to apologize, Kara reminded herself as she walked up the front steps of the intimidating loft Eiji inhabited. The sixteen year old took long, drawn-out breaths to calm herself and counted to ten before she knocked on the door.

She knew he was in. She hadn't been stalking him, but with her keen eye she certainly hadn't missed him arrive twenty minutes ago when she was invisibly robbing someone across the street. The girl now had a nice gold necklace she used as a layered bracelet, which accompanied the bracelet she'd liberated from Kellan Callahan many months ago. The mess of jewelry was hardly fashionable, but it meant something to the magpie of a teenager who wore them.

Despite it being a shitty day, with it raining on and off, Kara was wearing a thread-bare hoodie and ragged kapris. She looked miserable, and without the aid of make-up so many girls her age favoured, she looked younger than her real age, yet her eyes contradicted her youthful appearance. They looked like they'd witnessed many more years than she'd been on this earth. They looked old.

As she shifted uncomfortably in her soggy clothes, and as her ratty hair dripped down the front of her sweater, Kara waited. She wondered if Eiji would look throught that hole in the door and see her, and ignore her as he now was so good at doing, or if he'd open it to let her in. Kara was determined to do this without the help of her powers. What was 'this' she wanted to do?

No apology was going to be made on her behalf. She wanted to tell Eiji everything he missed, everything he was missing, and remind him what he would miss when she was dead. It was what she initially never wanted to happen, the reason she didn't want to befriend anyone ever since her revival last year. So why, why was she here with the single purpose to torture the boy?

Kara had to know. She couldn't die without knowing if Eiji ever cared about her. The way he was acting made her doubt herself. She didn't care about the other girl, at least this is what she told herself, but what Kara needed to see was that gleam in his eye that gave away what he was really thinking behind that stoic mask he always wore. The spark that told her he was listening, and that he had the grace to worry.

She needed to know if the boy she remembered was still there, or if she'd killed him when she made the mistake of trying to get back into his life.

[Eiji Almasy.]

The hotel staff thought he was dealing drugs; he didn't bother to correct them that they had the wrong door, and that it was really Andrew down the hall, who was in the business. He couldn't blame their assumptions; he took to answering doors, wary of something and always reluctant to let the person in; no one saw much of him, and when he did come out, it was at odd times of the day or night, at irregular intervals in the week; he would return with strange packages in the shape of bottles, or boxes and other items that no one could discern from a distance, and he supposed, the state of Elliot didn't help.

Despite the evidence against him, he thought it all absolutely hilarious, as he watched the room service lady sweep about the place with the eye and precision of a cop. In response to the rumors, the concierge scheduled twice a day cleaning services for his room; he reckoned in hopes of catching him unawares and maybe with a bag full of coke in hand. Some times he let them in and other times he turned them away. He appreciated the gesture, however backward it was, because it was the better alternative to being turned out, or worse, turned over.

Elliot was asleep on the settee and he was leaning against the back of it, looking completely unapproachable and apprehensive. His moment of humor was gone and the silence became a dull roar in his ears. His previous smirk ebbed away to a grim line and it was tension behind his crows feet; he couldn't trust to leave her alone with anyone, and he tried his very best not to think about any of it. Thinking about it only led to him wanting to do something about it, and because he couldn't, because it wasn't up to him, he could only be there and be what she wanted him to be; he wanted to smoke, and because he couldn't, not inside and not near her, and primarily because it was an admission of his weakness, he wouldn't allow himself to think that way, to be that way.

The knock on the door was almost a welcome distraction. It was a foreign knock, he knew without even having to turn around. Other people tended to call him before stopping by, or their knocks were light and careful, this one was loud, cutting. The woman in the corner of the room paused in dusting the vase, eying him in question as he stared ahead. It didn't take long for him to decide, and in a moment, he shifted, waving at her to leave.

"You can come back later," he told her as she passed him. She nodded, and he moved to open the door for her.

Kara was the last person he expected to see on the other side. For a second, everything was still; there was no flicker across his face, no slight movement from him that suggested recognition. His expression was so very near bland, and he felt so cold as much as he was hot; he was shocked, indignant and quaking. He looked dead, but he was a sudden mess on the inside; the painful grooves she had made inside him alighted and making themselves known.

He blinked, and whatever transgressed inside was gone, moving further back behind the door for the cleaning lady to walk past him with her trolley, but not before she took a long considering glance at Kara and not before the sleeping blonde was left in open sight. He followed the woman out and closed the door behind him.

"What're you doing here?"

[ĸara вelova★]

When the cleaning staff left his room, Kara ignored the feeling of suspicion that radiated from her. Instead the long fingers of her gift extended to Eiji automatically, searching for what his face hid. She'd promised herself not to use her powers to influence his emotions, but she certainly needed her powers to feel to discern whether or not he cared. Otherwise she knew she'd be fooled by his professional act.

Kara didn't pry by looking into the room, and therefore did not see Elliot inside. She didn't think it strange Eiji stepped out rather than invited her in - what with everything she did the last time she was in his territory, but it stung just a little. The frail-looking girl was pale and shivering, but instead of wanting to use this for pity she cursed the weakness. She didn't come here for his pity - that was the last thing she wanted to feel from him.

She flinched at his words but stared up at his chin because she couldn't meet his eyes. Kara replied evenly, "I came to tell you everything," almost everything, she corrected herself mentally, but Eiji didn't need to know the parts she was going to withhold, "if you have the time. If you don't, I can come visit another time," it wasn't meant to sound like a threat, but it came out that way anyway. Obviously Eiji didn't want her here, his stance and the set of his jaw spoke louder than his indignance and unwelcome regard. So Kara used his displeasure as a leg up so she'd be heard out - he wouldn't want her here, at least he didn't right now, but she daren't let herself hope lest he never did. If right now he didn't want her to visit again, he might be more inclined to listen to what she had to say, in anticipation of seeing her walk.

"It won't take long," Kara promised, and her eyes darkened as they lowered to his chest. At this rate, she'd be staring at his feet by the time she mentioned 'scientists', because the further away her gaze was from his eyes, the less likely she'd be able to see him judging her. She adjusted her power so only Eiji was encompassed in her sensors, embracing every one of his emotional changes and trying to interpret what they meant. It was like blurry mind-reading, her gift, but Kara's serious lack of social interraction made it even more difficult to understand what he was thinking.

She was trembling, a mixture of cold and anticipation shaking her small shoulders. When her eyelids were blocking her eyes, and Eiji couldn't see the pain in them, she looked so young as she stood there in front of him. She looked like she was cowering from a giant, frozen in place, unable to run. Vulnerable was the word for her. Many would argue it was impossible for Kara to be 'vulnerable', what with the strength she possessed, but right here standing in front of Eiji, she'd never felt so exposed in her life.

[Eiji Almasy.]

She still couldn't look at him. If he was capable of expressing in those moments, or doing anything at all, he would have. Probably would have snorted elegantly or twisted his face in displeasure, anything to have it known that it irked him, her inability to do anything remotely conventional, or perhaps polite.

Under a different set of circumstances, he would have invited her inside. It didn't sit well with him now, having her looking as depressing as she was, but even if he wanted to, he couldn't have allowed her inside his room. It wasn't to avoid the awkwardness of having her in the same room as Elliot, but it was more from his desire to protect the girl from anything that could upset her, and Kara was; well, Kara was a bad idea. It wasn't even a little funny how his perspective had changed these past months.

His better side warred with him and lost. He looked at her and couldn't find it in himself to care overmuch that he was being rude. Conversations promising of this nature shouldn't take place outside his door, but really, it wasn't even about courtesy as much as it was about his attempts to remain unchanged. He felt terrible, if anything, for wanting her when he couldn't have her, and when she was here, it wasn't anymore that it wasn't enough, it was that it wasn't right. She was like a piece of him that he had lost, but she no longer fit, though for not lack of trying on his part. He couldn't forget too easily what she'd done, as much as he had tried.

He glanced behind him to the closed door, thoughtful and weighing, not yet callous or entirely bothered. He returned his gaze to her right after, seemingly decided, and then leaned back against the far door, arms crossed.

"Aren't you gonna look at me?" he asked her, perhaps challenging, but mainly just frank, and where he would have normally kicked himself for being like a bastard especially when she looked so wretched, there was nothing; the lines of his face the only familiar feature, no brightness in his eyes or current of thought behind them.

[ĸara вelova★]

His casual was her casualty. Kara flinched again at his words and shook her head, the first honest gesture of their meeting, "No," she admitted. She wasn't going to look at him. She couldn't look at him and say what she needed to say.

Taking his static position as a yes, he'd listen, Kara began.

"A few months ago when the school was still in Missouri, I broke into a high-security lab," she winced at how technical her words sounded, and how the distance she was trying to put between herself and this recent past made it sound less than genuine. Plus, who would believe Kara had the skill required to infiltrate a 'high-security' underground operation? Even Kara suspected there was something amiss there, "The scientists there found me, and I tried, you know..." she didn't like talking about her gift as much as she detested using it, "and they realized I was different," her voice turned bitter, "and of course with my luck, the entire facility was dedicated to researching us."

Her eyes flickered to Eiji's face, an unintentional loaded look. She meant 'us' as the group they belonged to, not that they once were an 'us', but it reminded her of those more intimate moments they shared. She swallowed and already she was looking down the hall as though paranoid she was being overheard.

"I tried calling, and I sent you a message. You're the only number on my phone," she explained, feeling pathetic, "but you didn't answer. They..." she shied to the side slightly, as though recalling very vividly that damn scientist approaching her with his syringes, "they did tests on me. They took blood. They threatened to track you down when I didn't tell them what they wanted," She recalled her vague honesty, how she didn't know their answers exactly so she made them up with as much truth as she was willing to share. But it hadn't been enough, and they'd resorted to threats, even uncovering the real name of 'Lucifer' in her cell phone. It scared her, and she willingly relented. "I took them to the school, but I got away when we arrived. And those students that got kidnapped," Kara didn't waste her time acting like she cared about them, "that was my fault. The invaders, the school moving. Everything. Then people at school... you know Jessica..." she didn't know if he'd heard about what happened to the bitch, and she hesitated.

Throwing back her hood because it made her forehead itch, Kara fixed her hair so it covered a bit more of her face. The compensation didn't last long, and she took a silent breath before continuing her story.

"Jessica caught me at a bad time," she didn't mention Leo, because her encounter with him paled in comparison to what she'd done to Jessica, "and she said some things... about me, and about you," she didn't get into specifics, but the anger and the agony in her voice wasn't as concealed as she wanted them to be, "All of it was overwhelming. I... I came to your place after, and..." she wasn't sure if she should try and stick with the story she'd tried to feed him before, about the scientists coming back for her. It was so tempting, to try and convince him she wasn't a terrible person. His opinion was the only one that mattered to her, and she hated him thinking ill of her. She was unnaturally honest, and she didn't like it. It made her feel like she was standing in front of him naked - her lies were the thick covers she usually hid behind.

She was quiet in her internal struggle, which gave Eiji time to debate whether or not she was truthful, and whether or not he cared. Kara was too busy with her own problems to concentrate on how her story affected him, and her eyebrows puckered in her indecision.

"You were avoiding me, and with everything everyone was saying..." she hated using this as an excuse for what she'd done, all the damage, but it still felt like she was more injured than Eiji would ever be. And the vindictive part of her wanted him to feel more, to feel everything she felt, but she wasn't going to do force that. There was no way he would suffer the way she suffered. Kara, the eternal victim. She fiddled with the newly stolen necklace, fingering it and rubbing it against the other bracelet on her wrist.

Finally she found the courage to look at the boy, to meet his gaze, if only for a couple seconds.

[Eiji Almasy.]

At her response, he rolled his eyes; the most real thing he'd exhibited till that point. Of course, he didn't even know why he had bothered to ask because it wasn't like her to concede to his small, human requests. He hadn't ever asked much of her, only that she would be as honest as she could, and that she would look at him when she spoke. She was almost one for two now; almost, because he didn't know whether to believe what she was saying or not.

It wasn't the impossibility of it all that had him doubt her; ever since his own kidnapping over a year ago, he didn't think anything was too absurd for it to be true anymore. But he remembered what she had told him about Alexander Mendes, the quickness and fluidity of her lie, and he had to wonder now if it was all rehearsed or if she really was attempting to do some right by him. The last thought evoked a protest from somewhere, but it quieted before a much larger revelation.

Kara had once been one of the few people he had cared about unconditionally. He didn't love too many people but there was Kellan, Eve, Kaylen; and there were others he would never admit the truth of just how much he cared for them; Draco, Tristan, even that surly bastard Andrew. And Eiji certainly had friends; not people with titles to claim, but really, when it came to it, people that he liked and who would be there for him when it mattered. Kara, Kara had been different, and if he was going to be honest, if only to himself, he would say that she had been almost dangerous, because he had cared for her almost as much as he cared for Elliot, who was positively exponential compared to everyone else.

There was some life in the green that bore at her, faint but still a glimmer; he was thinking too fast, too much. He couldn't just let her words wash over him, there was so much to consider and to accept, and to say and to do, but his face remained expressionless and aside from the initial rapid acceleration when he had seen her, there was nothing else; he was impassive. Because what he had realized was that she had lost it; that part of him that had felt for her deeply, intricately, and he had tried so hard for, forever. And he had tried even harder to get it back. At the end of the roads, on his last cigarette, he would remember her, in that haze of nicotine and crazy, and he would just wish so adamantly that he could have it back to the way it was before.

The real truth, his truth, was that whatever she had seen in him, the thing that she believed in and that had kept her around all that time, had tried to win back; wasn't there anymore. It was hard to recover something that was dead, and that was how he felt half the time.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, but there was no poignancy to him, that should have come with the apology; "that I couldn't have been there for you."
And he was; it was getting easier every day to forgive himself for what she had had to go through.

He tried to force some warmth in his veneer, to show his appreciation at her sentiments; that she would place him above all the others, but he failed and didn't attempt for it again. He felt like he should say more; I would have helped you with Jessica, but she had known that and had left him out of it, and anyway, he didn't feel particularly responsible for her anymore.

He would have laughed suddenly if ti weren't for the fact that it required effort; that dark humor was returning again. Maybe later he'd walk around with a joint just to see how the staff reacted.
"You wanna know something?" he began, because he was so over caring about the subtleties and what they could all mean, "you think I'm this awesome person that you need to redeem yourself to, but you're so wrong. I tried to put you in the place of a girl that means a great deal to me and, yeah, it worked for a while, until she came back."

You should push her away; he should send her home now, he was vaguely aware of that. He didn't have the time to be a person right now, he could only be what she wanted him to be; but not telling her everything didn't seem to be a viable option anymore.
"I didn't drop you because I liked her more, Kara. I couldn't be around you because you wanted something from me that I couldn't give you. And I did that, I made it that way, but you made it harder. So, I don't know. Now you know, I guess."

[ĸara вelova★]

She understood more than he knew. All the signals, all those feelings, she couldn't find that warmth he once had when he was around her. That comfort he felt always and shared with her. Those book club meetings were the past, she knew it now, and just like water he was slipping out of her hands. No, he was already gone, and all she had left was the sediment and debry he left behind. And she couldn't bring herself to wash her hands of him. Not yet. Not until he learned.

"I didn't even know what to want from you," Kara's voice trembled with her emotion, and she swallowed before continuing, "I asked you once, if a friend died, would it be worth it? The friendship? You said yes." Her eyes darkened and bore holes into the floor, "I have to disagree."

Her own emotions were so wild, she was unused to the clawing sensation that felt like a piece of her heart trying to break free. In her attempt to calm herself, her power fluctuated defensively and she suddenly felt everyone inhabiting this floor. She felt the sleeping Elliot's muted emotions, however faint they were, and the pain saturating every deep breath, and if she were anyone more expressive she might have chuckled dryly.

They were all lucky, to not have to deal with pain like hers. Eiji was especially gifted; he was able to shake unwanted emotions with time the only aid. Kara held onto them forever, and whether it was because she was vengeful, or if it had something to do with her gift, she'd never know. She couldn't forget anything, anything that made her feel. But if Eiji asked her about Alexander Mendes, she wouldn't recognize the name.

"Now I know. Now you know. Now I leave." That was how simple it was. She turned so abruptly that some of her words were left behind before she moved. She was quick, one foot in front of the other, and she concentrated on her steps so she wouldn't trip and wouldn't think of anything else. She pressed the button, and the elevator couldn't come soon enough.

Don't worry, you won't have to deal with me for much longer, Kara said, and she wondered if he'd be this unforgiving at her funeral. Oh, she choked on a humourless laugh, that's right. She couldn't afford her own funeral. Maybe if she sold all her trinkets she could afford a coffin. Maybe it would be cheaper to burn.

Only Kara could consider her own methods of post-death treatment with as little emotion as she did. When the elevator arrived she collapsed into it and waited for the doors to close on their own. Then an explosion of hurt and guilt and sadness errupted from the quivering girl as the elevator descended to its next destination. People in the adjacent elevator shaft would suddenly start crying for no reason, remorse filling every rational thought.

By the time the doors opened to let an older couple into the elevator, Kara was standing in the corner of the small box without so much as a tear on her cheek.

[Eiji Almasy.]

She was walking away when she reminded him of how old he really was.

Eighteen wasn't so young, just old enough but always on that brink of barely. It always slipped his mind, just how easy it was to forget his age. It wasn't spectacular, how he seemed to deteriorate, but in the time it took for her to walk away from him, he looked more like a boy who was fighting not to fold beside his broken girlfriend; abnormally young, like he'd been left alone right before his teenage years and since that time, he still hadn't figured out just how to be.

He didn't need her, not her, and he didn't particularly need anyone else other than the people he already had, but she had left before he could finish.

Eiji locked the door behind him before turning a step and disappearing, reappearing on the other side at the back of the elevator she was in. Regret hung heavily in the air and he studied her face for a long moment; the green of his gaze still cold, but she hadn't seen him this close for a while that she wouldn't understand that it was just the way he was now.

The old couple did a double take but he disregarded them completely. He looked good despite everything, and yet at the same time, there was a quiet youthfulness about him; his windbreaker screamed of shoulders forced to fill, 3ft something corduroys with the sole intention of making any kid look tall. He looked indifferent at best, and vacant at worst, and he found himself almost wanting to become nervous; trying to will something tangible to take place, maybe a flutter or a jump just as a reminder of his own mortality. All of it reminded him of that time back in November, and how it had been like to feel nothing, and while this wasn't quite like it; the only security he had was that he honestly did have a complete handle on it. It was more of a conscience choice; it wasn't that he couldn't feel anymore, it was more that he'd blanked everything that couldn't measure up to be important.

There was no blatant brilliance, and eventually even the intensity he exuded faded into a faint buzz of trepidation waiting to erupt. He fell back against the wall and pulled a silver case from his pocket, flicking it open and lifting a neatly rolled cancer stick to his mouth. An awful looking smile formed around the cigarette as he pilfered for a lighter.

"You're always running," he said, but there was no inflection and he wondered if he should stop expecting it or if it was just her. His search didn't leave him empty, and soon he was lighting a cheap plastic lighter in front of his face.

"Why'd you come here today?" he questioned, looking less like himself but feeling more like it.

[ĸara вelova★]

If his sudden appearance startled her, she hid it very well. Kara gaze darkened as she stared right ahead, and when he spoke she chewed her lip to stop herself from replying. His question prompted more of her raw emotions, but as she did with everything lately, she quelched them before they had the chance to expose her.

Instead of answering, she cast a lazy glance over to the bright red non-smoking sign plastered to the elevator wall. He had to know it was against hotel policy. If he was exceptionally cruel, he'd set off the alarm and get them all stuck in the cramped little space. Kara was claustrophobic enough with just herself. She didn't need an elderly couple freaking out with her.

"Why didn't you go back inside?" Kara countered, taking a step away from him to lean against the elevator wall. She ignored the way her wet sweater stuck to her shoulder, and how it slid awkwardly to the side. She stared up at the descending numbers that indicated which floors they were passing. The elevator slowed, stopped, and the older couple got out. Kara seriously considered walking out after them, even though the ground floor was another five or six levels below. But, if Eiji was determined to follow her for that answer, he could find her anywhere. So she pressed the button to close the doors, and resumed her diagonal position against the side.

[Eiji Almasy.]

Because he was looking at her, his gaze followed to where she had glanced at. Something resembling a quirk featured on his face, which was really only a twitch of expression before it disappeared like much else; that part of him hadn't change, she couldn't really expect him to conform to rules so easily and readily. He took another drag and blew the smoke out after the exiting couple, who looked back at him scandalized but he only saved for them a wicked look, its motivation something he couldn't understand.

He shrugged, mind blank for a single moment before he was talking without a filter again.
"Because you don't get that I don't hate you," he told her, and his usual consideration to word things in a sincere way, and in a manner that didn't make it sound as if he was lying, was forgotten.
"But I don't like you either, Kara. I can't help it. Sometimes I want to, and sometimes, I don't know."

He paused, maybe in thought, or for just another draw of the cancer stick, but the vestiges of a boy he had displayed before were gone, and while his expression only grew worse, maybe regretful of the loss, he couldn't say that he wasn't grateful. Days of when he used to be able to find some relative peace with her no longer existed; she'd seen to that, while he had baited her.

"Answer my question," he said, tone clinical, "or do you think you're done, now that you've been honest?"

[ĸara вelova★]

Kara barely withheld an eyeroll. He was wasting civility on her, and it annoyed her that he thought she was so delicate. Not that he was wrong, but she certainly didn't like him assuming. She wanted him to say whatever he wanted, however he wanted to say it, but at the same time she didn't want to hear him admit he didn't like her.

She had the courage not to flinch at the sour tone of his last word. Honesty was something she didn't hold in high regard, nor was it something she practiced frequently. Eiji was rubbing her the wrong way today, especially seeing as how Kara had gone out of her way to tell him the truth. She had a natural inclination to lie, and she defied it every time to deliver him genuine facts. She wasn't a practiced story-teller, unsurprising from one so secluded from the world, but she thought she'd done a pretty damn good job explaining herself.

"What was the question again?" Kara asked, although they both knew she hadn't actually forgot. Instead of making him entertain her and repeat the question, there was a pregnant pause before she handed him what he was waiting for.

"I already told you why I'm here," she said at last, "To tell you everything." If he pushed further, he'd be met with wild resistance. He didn't have to know Kara wanted to hurt him with the truth, the way the truth hurt her. She wanted him to drown in guilt over his absense in her life, blame himself for the cruelties that plagued her. He was obviously suffering from nothing more than apathy when it came to her. It made her wonder if he was heartless enough to be stagnant if she revealed she only had six more months. It made her more determined than ever to hide it from him. Her scraped and scabbed heart wouldn't be able to take it.

She shifted her weight so she was no longer leaning on the wall, but it was obvious she didn't wish to move any closer to the boy. Kara instead shuffled to the control panel as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened and she looked up to see if it was ground level. But it wasn't, and no one entered. The doors closed on their own and the elevator continued to its original destination.

"You don't want to be here," It was a statement, not a question. It was also a suggestion, like 'wouldn't you rather be somewhere else?' but from Kara, it didn't need to be worded so eloquently to be understood. The slant of her eyes and the set of her chin spoke for her when she turned defiantly back to the boy she once called her friend.

[Eiji Almasy.]

His silent breath filled the air instead of a real conversation, and the smoke circled above their heads, but they were all irrelevant observations as he watched her. He used to be some form of restlessness, either pacing or tapping his fingers or feet, or jingling his keys, something. Now, he was the epitome of quiet concentration, or a type of languidness that spoke of something worse and secretive underneath. He held substance, he did, and there appeared to be more to him; if you looked closely, there was something very similar to turmoil brewing behind his expression, not hiding but just sitting there.

He watched her, because he tried to reattach the lines of feeling inside of himself, tried to understand what it was that had passed between them and he tried to find it again. He watched her speak, and he remembered how it used to fascinate him, because she hardly used to say anything at all, and he had treasured everything that did come out of her mouth; it was a certain level of respect that he wasn't sure she could ever achieve from him again. Not for his lack of trying though, but he supposed that was a lie, or for her part either, but then, that was another lie; there was much they weren't saying, as much as they had made their admissions.

He shrugged again in response; maybe he did, maybe he didn't.
"You didn't tell me everything," he stated, not from real certainty of what she was withholding, but more from simply knowing.
"Why'd you put me above the others? Why'd you destroy my place? Why did it matter, what Jessica said, what I was doing? Why did you come here today?"

There was some character in his words, and something more alive danced across his face before he turned to the side to rapidly smoke his cigarette, flicking the butt against the wall when he was done. It was the first notable sign of tension he'd displayed, but as quick as it had come, it disappeared before he could be bothered by it. Eiji glanced at her, askew, and then pushed off the wall and took a few steps toward her, gaze considering; bright.

"I think you wanted me to feel responsible, Kara. Guilty. Wretched," he told her, voice a version of quiet that was different from his indifference. She didn't know that he did feel that way sometimes, and sometimes, it was crippling.
"I'm not a good person. I used you, I'm not gonna get over that. I hope it makes you feel better."

[ĸara вelova★]

He was asking her why? Why he was so special?

"You were my friend." Kara blurted before she could stop herself. It was the first breach of her self control she'd ever demonstrated in front of Eiji, and it was so sudden and so honest and so... sour. The way she spat the word 'friend' made it sound like something to be thrown out. Something that had been in the fridge for too long and just discovered by its owner.

He speculated, he aimed, and he was rewarded with a direct hit. Kara shrugged; she wasn't going to deny she wanted him to feel horrible. His reminder that he wasn't a good person made her scoff, another unchecked action. He was pulling many of those from her today.

Staring up at the smoke as it swirled above their heads, the thin brunette let her eyes fall on Eiji, who, between his questions and his deductions had somehow slipped closer to her. He was far past her comfort zone, but the usual coward in her did not shy away.

"It didn't matter that you weren't good. You think you're the only one to entertain yourself at my expense?" Her mouth turned up in a sarcastic curve. "You're done with me. You've figured me out, or you've given up," Kara lifted her chin and repeated, "Either way, you're finished."

The rare show of defiance, of strength no one would suspect her of possessing, fascinated her. Since when had she grown so self-important? Eiji was rubbing off on her, and she wasn't sure if it was for better or for worse.

[Eiji Almasy.]

Her response actually answered nothing, but he refrained from voicing his dissatisfaction. Because he'd been her friend, it had lead to damaging his home beyond pretty much all repair? Some scars were harder to heal, and he wondered which he'd left her, if any.

He stood slightly before her, his pent up restlessness becoming uncomfortable. He itched to just grab her and force her into a surrounding that he was more suitable to, but as tempting as that was, he kept to himself because he couldn't touch her; didn't want to when she'd become every bit as unfamiliar as he was. He needed to pace, or at least another cigarette, but he stopped himself and simply shifted so he could lean back on nothing and stare at her in that irrepressible way, like he knew something she didn't and there was no way he would ever share.

"You're such a bitch," he said idly, his smirk like knives carving into his face; a grimace in a place deeper but lackadaisical on the front.
Her words were almost prophetic and he hated them. His overworked, overloaded mind came up with different interpretations for what she said. Finished; mentally, physically, emotionally and in every other aspect, because he was just so damn exhausted being the only life in his relationship, yet never exhausted enough to stop, just spent in a way that left him as a poor replicate of who he usually was. Or finished, with her, entirely; was she severing everything between them for good?

Eiji looked at her, the look on his face remote, kept at a distance with all the subtle vindictiveness he possessed before it.
"Well, if this is it," he said, light and conversational. He turned and pressed the next floor down and the elevator stopped it's descent not long after. He paused right before the threshold, gaze in her direction, looking all together different in that moment.

"Have a good life, Kara," he wished her, in some form of mock sincerity, "or pretend to anyway, if you can't try."
His lips twisted to show teeth and not expression, and he nodded at her affably, like an old friend even though he was anything but, before he walked through the open doors.

[ĸara вelova★]

His insult shouldn't've cut her. You're such a bitch, it was true but because it was, what did that make him? He was so much more, but there were no words, English, Spanish, Russian, to describe what he was. Regardless of being incapable of defining him, Kara clutched to the word as though it were a buoy and she was drowning.

Bitch. She destroyed his home. She was deliberately trying to drown him in his own guilt. The truth stung, and she looked away to escape the vindication in his gaze, despite his blase' delivery.

The forced emotion of his next words, the mockery of two friends speaking, it made her die a little inside. It was sickening, how close his tone sounded to the days when he tried to figure out what made her tick. His dismissal however, instead of delivering the final blow and leaving her breathless, made something inside her snap.

Have a good life, Kara, or pretend to...

She stalked out the open doors after him, damp boots squeaking unattractively on the marble floor. Her long legs and determination granted her more distance, and soon she was far enough in front of him to stop and turn. And slap.

Kara lifted her hand and swung it at the boy's face. It was the first time Kara had ever physically lashed out at someone, but something inside her, something Eiji awakened, made her violent and vengeful. She couldn't feel what he was feeling; she was so caught up in her own emotions, but she couldn't understand this. She just assumed he felt nothing. This misunderstanding was driving her insane.

"I have been more honest with you than I have with anyone!" She exclaimed shrilly, "And you can't even care! Do you hate me so much that I'm no longer human in your eyes? Or are you just a monster, with no feeling at all?" Her queer eyes searched his for an answer, "I can turn my emotions off, but they're still there. I hide from them. You," Kara jabbed a finger into his chest, "don't even feel anymore."

She wasn't sure what she was doing. Perhaps she was striking out for her own relief and satisfaction. Maybe she was trying to provoke a response from him. Like Eiji, Kara was getting fed up with the bullshit, and in her eyes it was all coming from him. The boy she used to worship was no longer sitting on that pedestal. The more Eiji treated her like she was the dirt on his shoe, the less she found she cared what he thought. It was equalizing, in its own way. Because there was no way Kara could reach his level, Eiji was stooping to hers.