Rei’s breath shivered against her tightly pressed lips and measured her exhales slow through her nose. Kitato had latched to the soft underbelly of her vulnerability and she hated how eager he seemed to burrow in. She thought he was terrible for playing like this, and worse because he’d found her weak and thought nothing of protecting his brother. It made her feel marginally better that Kit seemed so awful. It made her own, growing, self-loathing a little more bearable.<br/><br/>“Yes, let’s.” She agreed, and turned the key in the ignition. Rei realized she must have had very little dignity left to offer the relationship they’d consummated in her classroom, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of fawning. He had enough female attention to inflate his ego, and she could give Nahoya that much respect… paltry as it was. Closer inspection of her own behavior would have told her it was pride that restrained her over anything admirable.<br/><br/>She didn’t speak a word the whole way back, pulling into the drive and taking time to adjust her skirt and fix her hair. She wiped her lips and chin clean with the back of her hand, a vaguely frustrated motion, and finally looked over at Kitato. “It goes without saying, it never happened, right?” she said, her dark eyes deeply serious. Rei didn’t bother waiting for him to answer, shutting the door behind her and marching toward the little flat with such purpose it seemed like a more concerted effort than it should have been. Preparing herself to see Naho, probably, and to plaster on an expression that tucked away the persistence of Kitato’s tongue. Nice and neat, like she and Nahoya had been for years.<br/><br/>For a very brief moment, before she unlocked the door, she hated their practical love. A new sensation, because she’d been content in the early throes of apathy. She bit the inside of her cheek and told herself she’d make good on her ‘goodbye.’ Tomorrow, today could simply be relegated to a strange and inexplicable dream. She found Nahoya in the kitchen.