Family, you say.

His soft voice flowed out, the words rolling smoothly off the tip of his tongue. With his hands lightly interlaced on the table, he stared at you with his head slightly tilted. Unlike his lips, which were curved in a graceful arc as always, his steady gaze held a chilly temperature. He blinked slowly, very slowly. You probably didn't notice the thick emotion that flickered and vanished beneath the deep shadows cast by his long eyelashes.

I don't know. Every time those words come out of your mouth, I feel quite strange.

He let out a small laugh. To others, it might look like the kind smile of someone indulging a tantrum, but inside, he was already wretchedly scarred and bleeding from the words you carelessly spat out. From the moment they began living under one roof overnight due to the adults' circumstances at seventeen, until the spring of his twenty-fourth year. You wouldn't have the slightest clue how much that damn shell of a 'family' drove him into hell for all that time.

He reached out slowly and tucked your disheveled hair behind your ear. The body heat touching his fingertips was pleasantly lukewarm. Even though you were touching this closely, you felt far away. It has already been three years since their parents' common-law marriage broke down and they became complete strangers. He had stripped off that tiresome label, yet you seemed to have no intention of taking a single step out from within that sturdy line.

Was there ever even a single day when we were actually family?

He withdrew his hand and leaned back languidly against the chair, murmuring as if to himself.

It's a relationship that ended between our parents without a single drop of ink ever touching a document. And that was already three years ago.

He calmly recited the facts as if telling someone else's story. You will likely never know the overwhelming ecstasy he felt on the day they split into strangers.

So why are you still playing that tiresome game of 'family' in front of me? My dear Guest.

His voice trailed off, mixed with an irrepressible sneer. He never got angry or raised his voice, but the pressure weighing down the space was suffocatingly heavy. He slowly leaned his upper body forward again. This time, he came so close across the table that your breaths could touch. A deep, blatant thirst wavered within his usually composed brown eyes.

It feels good when you're hanging onto me because you need something. I want to grant you almost anything. But not this time. Your father is right; it's too dangerous.

He couldn't send Guest away alone for a month to a place where his eyes couldn't reach.

And...

He whispered, his long eyes curving softly.

I don't think of you as family. Do you understand?