TRUST ME | Brothers Conflict | ✔

16

It was still dark outside when I woke up, blinking in the darkness. Sluggishly, I sat up in my bed, wondering what had woken me up. My cell phone buzzed again, the screen which lit up casting a glow in my room.

Confused, I reached for my cell phone, accepting the call without bothering to check the display.

"Who's calling in the middle of the night?" I asked, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to chase away the drowsiness.

"Ah. My timing isn't that great, is it?" Kaname asked me, unmoved by the inconvenience he was causing for me. "Were you still asleep?"

"What time is it?" I asked him, turning to the alarm clock on my bedside table.

"Five in the morning," Kaname told me, the red digits on the alarm clock confirming that.

"And seven minutes," I added, grateful that this conversation wasn't as awkward as I had feared it would be.

"Did you make me walk to the kitchen while you were already looking at a clock?" He sounded exasperated, but it was the barely contained laugh which made his voice lilt that made me giggle.

"I'm sorry," I apologised, the words coming with ease.

"I should be the one apologising," Kaname claimed, the laugh disappearing. "But I think that my apology will only make things between us worse."

"Ah," I huffed, knowing what he meant. "If you want to tell me that you regret what happened this afternoon, then I don't want to hear it. If you want to say that our promises still stand, then I already know. But if you wanted to tell me that we could still be friends, then I think I would be happy -just a bit, though."

I heard his breathing close to my ear, the steady rhythm filling the silence.

"Okay," he eventually said. "In that case: do you still want to be my friend, [L/N]?"

"Thank you."

"The insincerity's dripping from your words," Kaname commented.

"What do you expect from me?" I asked him, too tired to pretend.

"I.."

He?

"Hurting you was never my intention, but despite that, I still did. I'm sorry for making you promise something you couldn't do. That kiss was a mistake on my part, giving you hope, while I already knew that there's nothing between this -knowing that there'll never be something between us."

"I made that promise, so it isn't something you should feel conflicted over. It's my fault for promising something and continuing to do the exact opposite."

I clutched my blanket in my hand, wringing the fabric. Reason did little to soothe the ache in my chest. I wanted to tell him that this was my fault, for expecting more from him than he could give me. Although I didn't want things to between us to revert to how they were, I could see that there was no other option.

"I'm sorry, [L/n]."

"Don't stress it. We're still friends, aren't we?"

"Of course."

Surprised, I looked in the direction where I was holding my phone against my ear. Gawking at the air was a ridiculous thing to do, but my still slumbering brain had difficulties processing that Kaname wasn't sitting next to me.

"Why don't we go somewhere? Are you free tomorrow night?"

"Y-yes."

"I'll come pick you up."

Kaname hung up on me before I could ask him what we were going to do.

Replaying the conversation in my mind, the simple 'of course' I kept echoing in my mind.