Rei made a small effort to pull her leg away from Kit, beneath the table. It was quickly apparent that any great and successful attempt would make a scene, so she stopped before she became insistent about it. Her jaw clenched, unhappy with Kit’s audacity, and left wondering if he’d meant a single bit about putting the day behind them. It would have been easy enough to assume he was being off-handed and unintentional about the gesture, had he done something like it before. But, he had not and it seemed to Rei that he wanted nothing more than to make a statement now. It was worse, because he seemed so unaffected by his own behavior, too.<br/><br/>She sighed softly and relaxed. If he was going to be this way, she could pull nonchalance too. Frustrating boy. Her commitment to ignoring Kitato was swiftly and sharply cleaved apart. Rei nearly winced when Nahoya was moved. In a way, it was incredible. “Ah, well, it’s only temporary though.” Rei said, picking carefully at her food. She took a bite, and was impressed by the flavor. Naho had always been a decent cook, but she was always a little delighted by his ever-steady improvement. How like him to be so dutiful with himself and with the ones he loved. That stung a little, too, but she was good enough to chew and swallow without making any faces. It wouldn’t help to make him think she didn’t like what he’d made.<br/><br/>“I mean, not that we’d ever kick you out.” She added, realizing she might have sounded a bit hasty to have Kit out of the house. Rei laughed. “But, I know how it is, right? You’re going to want to be on your own without us stuffy old folks in your way.” She hummed. It was a bit of a joke, because she and Nahoya were only a handful of years Kit’s senior, but they had treated that difference like it was greater in the past. She wondered if such a joke was inherently perverse now.<br/><br/>When Kit offered the morsel of meat, her instinct was to refuse. She was, at first, astounded that he was willing to be so open in front of Naho, taking so much advantage of his brother’s good nature. It then occurred to Rei that she was overthinking things. She flushed. What a wretched girl, to believe all this was about her or for her. She glanced at Nahoya, and when she found that he was watching her too, she took the bite Kit offered her like a sullen pet.<br/><br/>She bit down hard on the tips of the chopsticks when she felt Kit’s leg tug against hers.<i>What are you doing?</i>Rei shot Kit a faintly panicked look.<i>Please stop.</i>There was a sense of submission in the way she drew her lips away from the utensils and peered into her own bowl. If she was overthinking things, Kit was still toying with her. She’d admit that he’d flustered her if it would make him treat her more kindly.<br/><br/>It might have made her worse, accepting that she'd been affected by Kitato this way, but that little honesty might also be her only real recourse. Kit did not seem eager to make her life any simpler and Nahoya, in all his insufferable kindness, would do nothing to facilitate the distance from his brother she needed. She was cornered, and she wanted desperately to be given a way out; she could feel her pulse accelerate with the certainty that Kitato was being deliberate and the understanding that he definitively held the upper hand. It was frustrating. And still, she was blushing just enough that she might as well have been conspiring with him.