She jumped when he knocked on the window. She’d been lost in thought, mulling over the right or wrong of her present moral dilemma. Somehow, she’d convinced herself it was certain that such a primal collision would occur again. It should not have been so simple, but her psyche required that much surety of her faithfulness, at least. The thing she was grappling with, alone in the car, was the dishonesty of keeping her failure a secret. The self-righteous parts of her felt she should come clean. If there was ever a man who would try to see past such an incident, she thought it must be Nahoya. The rest of her, the practical Rei that could think of Naho’s happiness and his family and the things beyond the philosophical high ground, was certain she should carry this day to her grave.<br/><br/>When she looked at Kit, she seemed tired. She didn’t say anything when he got in the car, and she’d been fairly content with the idea that they’d proceed home in silence. To a point, now that the afternoon’s fervor had worn off, it seemed like the only appropriate way to regard what had happened between them. Like most things, a weight with soundless ripples in the sea between them. She hadn’t even started the car when he rebelled against her intended solemnity. “Kitato…” she started, either to tell him to stop talking or to ask him to forget. He offered the latter on his own and pressed her back into her own silence.<br/><br/>She’d thought, for a very brief moment, that they might actually share similar feelings on what had transpired. And really, Rei was probably right. She just didn’t know how to be honest with herself when Kit had stopped pretending. Perhaps, she felt like one of them had to. “Kit, please stop joking around,” she said, as if she were under and delusion he was at all kidding. It was a hard lie to sell to either of them, and the soft tangle of her hair around his fingers and the way she met his gaze with such intimate trepidation was certain to dispel the ridiculous thought in a breath.<br/><br/>Rei had closed her eyes before his lips quite found hers, and her kiss was painfully soft in reply. Maybe she believed, at least, that he’d meant this to be a sincere farewell to the urgency they’d entertained in the classroom. It made her heart ache strangely, as if she were sending off a longtime lover, and Rei struggled to understand the sensation. Had she wanted this so much without ever seeing it in herself? The slow surge of her pulse, teased into a faint flutter by the coaxing of his tongue, suggested that some part of her had. Whether it had been a need for Kitato, or simply something besides Nahoya’s ever placating brand of love, Rei had needed something. She made a soft sound against his breath and it didn’t sound like she was asking him to stop.