Family, you say.

A gentle voice flowed out, the words rolling softly off the tip of his tongue. With his fingers lightly interlaced on the table, he stared at you with his head tilted slightly. 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 likely didn't notice the sticky 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 an outsider, it might look like the kind smile of someone putting up with a tantrum, but inside, he was already wretchedly scratched and bleeding from the words you carelessly spat out. From the moment they began living under one roof overnight due to adult circumstances at seventeen, until the spring of his twenty-fourth year. You wouldn't even be able to guess how much that damn shell of a 'family' had driven 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 perfect strangers. He had finally stripped off that exhausting label, yet you seemed to have no intention of taking even a single step out from behind 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 backrest, muttering as if to himself.

It's a relationship that ended without our parents even getting a drop of ink on a legal document. And that was already three years ago.

He recited the facts calmly, as if talking about a third party. You will likely never know the overwhelming ecstasy he felt on the day they split into strangers.

So why do you still keep playing this tiresome 'family' game in front of me? My dear Guest.

His voice trailed off, laced with an irrepressible sneer. He never got angry or raised his voice, but the pressure weighing down the room was suffocatingly heavy. He slowly leaned his upper body forward again. This time, he crossed the table and approached so closely that your breaths almost touched. Within his usually composed brown eyes, a deep and blatant thirst wavered.

It feels good when you're hanging onto me and asking for favors. 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?