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Andrew’s technique for pouring sake is impeccable. It always has been. Precise and fluid at once, as if something inside him is more mechanism than pulpy flesh. It animates him, turns the softness of his body into steel which moves as though freed from the confines of gravity.
It is captivating to watch him perform the ritual. Right from the moment he lifts the carafe with judicious grace to the final rush of sake into porcelain, the sound as fierce and sudden as a small dam giving way. Throughout it all, Andrew remains perfectly still. His face does not move. It is so motionless that one feels tempted to drag a hand across it, just to see if the surface would ripple.
It’s beautiful to behold.
Which is why Andrew performs the ritual, and not Aaron.
Aaron is good enough for other things. His cue will come later. Perhaps after Ichirou Moriyama and his guest finish their drinks. After the pleasantries are dispensed with, and the conversation turns to what actually matters.
Aaron only needs to listen to the cadence of the conversation. To watch his boss’s hands, the angle of his chin, the way he holds his breaths back when displeasure begins to ferment beneath those rigid features. There is something unfinished about him—a face half-sketched, the softer details omitted, to be added at some indeterminate time later.
Andrew is better at this too, at anticipating Ichirou's desires before a single command leaves his mouth, only occasionally preceded by the silent tightening of the line that carves his lips.
Sometimes Aaron finds himself contemplating whether Andrew’s superiority in every aspect of their parallel lives is something innate. Luck, perhaps—the dice had to land one way or the other. One of them would always emerge as the better version. The edge favored by the light.
Or perhaps Andrew simply wrestles the luck in his favor. Perhaps he desires it more, and in the process of coveting, attains it.
Aaron always reaches the same final rung of the thought, familiar as the tang of his own blood from irritated gums:
Does it matter? Isn’t fate just another kind of accident? Another gift handed out unevenly?
He does not have the time to spare the spiral its assiduous attention.
The meeting is progressing faster than he anticipated.
The room was never warm to begin with, but the temperature drops several degrees when Nathaniel Wesninski pushes the cup of sake away and says, stiffly, “No, thank you.”
The blue of his eyes is glacial, dry ice sublimating into visible contempt. It reaches across the table like unwieldy tendrils of a low-hanging fog.
Aaron feels it from here, on the far end of the dark cherry wood. It ghosts over his nape, then settles into his gut with a gentle curl of unease.
His gaze flicks to Andrew, instinctively seeking guidance.
As ever, Andrew’s face betrays nothing.
But Aaron thinks he can see it—a single filament of tension pulled along the breadth of his shoulders. Aaron recalibrates immediately. He had assumed this would be routine—The Butcher sending his pup in his stead to reaffirm the rules of their arrangement with the Moriyamas. It would not be the first time.
But the brazen rejection of Ichirou’s offering, the absence of apology, the refusal to break the lull that follows—
This is not routine.
This is not how it is supposed to go.
The silence is so absolute Aaron can hear a door jitter somewhere deep in the bowels of the mansion. It feels like everyone’s breath is being held at gunpoint.
“Very well,” Ichirou says at last, taking a slow sip from his cup.
The sound of his swallow snaps the moment loose. Aaron’s lungs unhinge with it.
Andrew lifts the carafe carefully with both hands, indicating another pour, but Ichirou waves it off with a sly flick of his fingers.
“Is there another spirit you would prefer?” he asks Nathaniel, his head tilting almost imperceptibly to the side, the very imitation of an accommodating host.
No one is fooled. Least of all Nathaniel.
He meets Ichirou’s gaze steadily, the ice in his irises unrelenting, and says, “No,” again.
Aaron forces himself not to stare at the man who has told Ichirou Moriyama no twice in the span of a minute. Instead, he tracks Ichirou’s gestures.
A hint of something cruel touches the edges of his mouth, drawing out two pinpricks of dimples. His hand rises to the lapel of his black jacket, thumb slipping inside.
Andrew steps forward. He announces it first, turning his body as if in slow motion toward Ichirou.
Nathaniel’s men have been stripped of their weapons, but sudden movements are never wise. It was ingrained into the twins during their long years under Ichirou’s wing: haste in polite company is poor manners. If someone is startled, the fault lies with you.
Aaron waits until Andrew has slid fully into place before moving after him, mirroring his steps like a late noon shadow.
They take their positions on either side of Ichirou as he shrugs one shoulder free of his jacket. Andrew assists with steady hands, easing the fabric down. Then the other shoulder.
It is Aaron’s turn.
He catches the starchy weight of the jacket and pulls it cleanly away. For a breath, he and Andrew hold it suspended between them before draping it over the back of Ichirou’s chair with a small, precise flare, like the flutter of a fan opening and closing.
Then they are forgotten again.
The spotlight shifts back to Ichirou, whose voice rises and falls decadently as he resumes his questions.
How was the drive? Not too inconvenienced by the winter gale, one hopes. And the Wesninski Estate—all is well?
Aaron only half listens. His part in this is not finished yet.
He pivots toward Andrew, who mirrors the movement instantly, as if they share the same invisible strings. They close the distance between them in three measured steps. Then Andrew is near enough now that Aaron catches the faint trace of cologne, the clean scent of laundered fabric. The warmth of his body that should be there, but is absent.
Andrew’s fingers rise to trace the hinge of Aaron’s jaw. He moves slowly, as though searching for fractures in the timeline, his cool fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake. Aaron feels like a window fogged with condensation—see-through glass for Andrew to toy with.
Andrew turns his face to the side. Not rough, just quick and efficient. All for the single purpose of slotting his mouth against Aaron’s ear.
At last, a scrap of warmth: Andrew’s breath spilling over his skin.
“Have you noticed,” Andrew murmurs, so low only Aaron can hear, “that some of the usual Wesninski entourage is missing?”
Aaron nods once, eyes already sweeping the room, extracting what else he can glean.
He had noticed. The Butcher’s favored hounds are absent tonight. He simply hadn’t considered what that might mean until Andrew forced the shape of it into focus.
Names flash through his mind. Something almost cartoonish, incongruous with the sunken well of their eyes. Lola—that was the woman. And the man—Michael? No, Malcolm.
Andrew keeps speaking, his mouth brushing the shell of Aaron’s ear. The content is less relevant now. He lists the weapons collected at the door. The makes of the cars that arrived in convoy.
All information Aaron already possesses. But Andrew must keep talking. This is part of the performance.
At moments like this, Aaron likes to imagine what they must look like from across the room.
Identical by birth, of course, but made to resemble each other by hand too. Their hair cropped the same—blond and severe, the sides tapered to a fade. Twin gold hoops at their ears, gifts from Ichirou, like everything they own. Matching cufflinks nestled in the sleeves of their dark gray suits.
When they stand side by side, even Aaron sometimes hesitates before a mirror. It is uncanny. He has to resist the urge to lift a hand just to see which reflection would obey.
Now Andrew’s hand slides past the barrier of Aaron’s jacket and settles at his waist, fingers molding along the curve of it.
Aaron suppresses the instinct to shiver. Andrew’s touch is still cold. Colder than the hollow of a barrel.
But it is a reliable trick—the two of them entwined like this.
Usually it unfolds in the same sequence of events. Ichirou’s guests begin to steal glances their way. Polite at first, then steadily growing. Tempted by the sordid pull of curiosity.
By the time Andrew’s fingers commit to tracing slow, indulgent circles at the small of Aaron’s back, the staring becomes open. Sometimes it is enough to derail a conversation entirely.
Nathaniel, however, is proving to be a resistant audience.
He spares them barely a glance before returning his attention to Ichirou.
Aaron keeps his expression neutral, but he knows Andrew has come to the same conclusion about the lack of impact they’re making. Feels it in the stillness vibrating from Andrew like his muscle is elastic, drawn tight.
They’ve lost the room.
Aaron senses an escalation a second before it happens. Still, it makes his breath linger too long in his lungs.
Andrew’s voice falls silent. He draws Aaron’s earlobe gently between his teeth, and then lets it remain there, held wickedly in the wet heat of his mouth.
It’s harder now not to react. Every part of Aaron trembles with the desire to split open and give in. To let the truth of what his body feels show in the cracks. And worse, Nathaniel is just as unaffected as before, his gaze trained on Ichirou alone.
“My father is not well,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “He sends his apologies for not being here.”
Ichirou laughs, a short, perfunctory sound, as if Nathaniel has told an unfunny joke.
Aaron is fascinated by it. Surprise is rare in Ichirou, and when it appears, it alters the atmosphere of the room, hanging on like smog.
In his lapse, Aaron nearly pulls away from Andrew. But Andrew doesn’t allow it. His grip tightens, fingers spreading against Aaron’s cheek, holding him in place.
“Let’s not mince words,” Ichirou says after a beat. “He’s dead. Isn’t he?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aaron sees a smile creep across Nathaniel’s mouth like hoarfrost.
“Not yet.” The reply is low, almost playful. The words turn once in his mouth before he releases them. “Soon.”
“Interesting,” Ichirou says, neutrally, as though it is the least interesting thing he has ever heard.
“You’re surprised,” Nathaniel counters.
Distantly, Aaron registers the moment Andrew unlatches from his earlobe. Cold air rushes in to replace him, caressing his damp skin. But Andrew doesn’t go far. He remains anchored to Aaron, their bodies aligned as though sharing a single spine, their breathing falling unconsciously into rhythm.
Aaron can do little else for now but stay where he is and calculate in the aftermath of learning that Nathaniel is no longer a proxy. That he is a successor.
“I didn’t want you to be,” Nathaniel continues. “Which is why I’m here.”
“Tell me,” Ichirou orders.
Nathaniel does not. Not immediately. He lets the silence circulate first, stroking the untouched rim of his cup with his thumb.
Madman, Aaron decides—just before Nathaniel’s eyes lift. They single him out, unnaturally. The look bores into Aaron as though it can reach inside his skull and pluck the moniker straight from him. Just so he can revel in it.
Worse than a madman, Aaron corrects himself.
He is exactly like Ichirou.
Nathaniel’s attention returns to the head of the table.
“There has been a realignment in the organization,” he says, the first hint of calculated care entering his tone. “You will find that I am far more agreeable to work with than my father.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Ichirou replies, layering the words with just enough displeasure to preserve plausible deniability.
Cleverly, it leaves Nathaniel with no choice but to accept it.
Except the smile that follows is wrong, all sharp edges and a flash of crooked canines. A glimpse of his father.
“Mr. Moriyama,” he tries again, the note of deference sitting awkwardly on him, like a lamb’s pelt thrown over a wolf. “I come to you with goodwill.” He flourishes the words with a pause at the end, as though it could lend him credibility. “And I have a gift for you as well,” he adds. “If you will accept.”
Aaron cannot see Ichirou’s expression from where he stands, but whatever Nathaniel reads there emboldens him.
He gestures toward one of his associates—a tall man with long black hair secured in a low ponytail.
“I’ll have Jean retrieve it from the car.”
The gift turns out to be an old Japanese film camera.
It looks delicately preserved. There are no scratches along the body, no erosion of time in the metal frame. It’s probably rare and expensive, but Aaron doesn’t know enough about cameras to say for certain.
He only knows that Ichirou keeps a collection.
It’s an extensive one that spans decades, with a marked preference for Japanese models and their USSR imitations. They’re displayed behind glass in his private study.
Ichirou should be pleased.
He is furious.
After Nathaniel leaves, Ichirou dismisses everyone. Andrew and Aaron are nearly at the threshold when he raises his voice a single decibel.
“Andrew, come,” he calls. “Aaron too.”
They exchange a brief, wordless look and turn back, falling into step behind their boss as he strides down the hall.
His footsteps strike the wooden floors harder than usual, sharp echoes scattering ahead of them. The sound only softens once they reach his suite, swallowed by carpeted, replaced by the muted howl of wind battering the windows.
“We didn’t know,” Andrew begins at once, his tone contrite. “Our sources at the Wesninskis—”
“Be quiet,” Ichirou snaps, flinging his jacket onto a black leather chaise.
He stands in the center of the room. Andrew and Aaron hover near the door, instinctively keeping to the periphery.
The suite is empty. Aaron hadn’t expected Ichirou’s wife to be present—she keeps her own quarters—but the absence is still unnerving. There is no buffer between them and Ichirou.
Beside him, Andrew has gone rigid, his mouth drawn thin. Dread opens in Aaron’s stomach.
Think, he orders himself. Think like Andrew. Measure the angle of Ichirou’s shoulders. The tension in his jaw. The exact shade of this mood.
There is, of course, the matter of Nathaniel’s succession. A shift of power this sudden threatens to reorder the board. For a man like Ichirou, surprise is intolerable. Nathaniel moved without being seen. He may do so again, their sources at the Wesninskis be damned.
But that isn’t all.
Aaron sees it in the way Ichirou still holds the camera, cradled at his side, like he’s stoppering a wound. The brand name gleams against the polished body—Minolta. The letters are white as bone.
Ichirou’s interest in photography is not widely discussed. Unless you are part of his inner circle, unless you’ve stood in his private study and seen the albums stacked on the shelves, bore witness to the prints strung along the walls in their grotesque glory.
It is not information Nathaniel should possess.
“Take off your clothes,” Ichirou instructs.
He moves with sudden conviction through the suite, setting the Minolta down on his desk and reaching instead for another camera—an old Canon. The controls squeak faintly beneath his fingers as he tests them.
Neither twin moves. But it’s Andrew who speaks first.
“Not Aaron.”
There is no inflection in his voice. None at all. But the plea sits there anyway, sweet and desperate. Aaron can almost taste the cost of it, the bile surging in his throat in sympathy, at the way Andrew must have swallowed glass to say it aloud.
Not Aaron.
The words linger in the room, insidious. They crawl toward Aaron, settle into his bones. A shiver unfurls down his spine.
Ichirou’s fingers still on the camera. There is palpable disgust in his eyes when he lifts them.
“Oh, Andrew,” Ichirou says, impatience barely leashed, like he is explaining something obvious to a child. “You know it wouldn’t work. Without Aaron.”
When Aaron looks at Andrew, the impact nearly staggers him. Andrew’s face has gone ashen. A vein pulses stark at his temple. He looks moments away from violence—or worse, from asking again.
“It’s fine,” Aaron says quietly, resting a hand at Andrew’s elbow.
The numbness in his voice isn’t denial. He is fine. More fine than he expected. Perhaps because Andrew is here. Because this would be worse alone. Perhaps because none of this truly surprises him. There is a strange relief in it, like the guillotine finally falling after a long, pregnant pause. He has always suspected there was more to Ichirou’s staging of their performances for guests. How could there not be?
Andrew nods once, then he jerks his arm away from Aaron’s touch. Always two opposites at play within him, the tenderness and cruelty at each other’s throats. He strips quickly, discarding his clothes without care. But his eyes keep returning to Aaron, searching for more reassurance that Aaron can’t give him. Not yet.
It is warmer in Ichirou’s quarters. Shedding his clothes brings an unexpected, fleeting relief. The tremor that had begun to gather beneath Aaron’s skin recedes.
Ichirou gestures them deeper into the suite, toward the king-sized bed. He flips every switch, flooding the room in light.
Andrew and Aaron settle on the edge of the mattress. Side by side, their thighs spread in near symmetry. And yet—Andrew’s skin is warmer in tone, more golden. His muscles marginally thicker. Even his soft dick looks bigger.
This is how you tell us apart, Aaron thinks.
But that isn’t why they are here.
Or maybe it is—a study of contrasts, staged for Ichirou.
He disappears behind the camera lens, his face obscured, his gaze reduced to a single point of voyeuristic intent. He snaps photo after photo, rolling the film with his thumb and slipping instructions between each click.
“Look at each other.”
“Aaron, turn your head.”
“Andrew. Closer.”
“Rest your head on his shoulder.”
“I’ve got you.”
It’s Aaron’s voice that perforates the silence this time.
He feels Andrew stiffen the moment Ichirou tells him to settle into Aaron’s arms, his body turning brittle, as though it might ignite in Aaron’s grasp and whittle down to ash.
“I’ve got you,” Aaron repeats, sliding his fingers behind Andrew’s head to guide him.
Andrew’s eyes narrow with a fury so vicious it feels abyssal.
But he acquiesces.
He allows himself to be drawn down, sprawling across Aaron’s chest. Their legs tangle, fitting into each other until they fill every gap between them.
They could not be closer.
Andrew still feels fragile in Aaron’s hold, tension humming beneath his skin, but there is softness there too. Aaron supports him. Andrew holds him up in return, even if he doesn’t know it.
It almost feels like floating.
Like the way they must have pressed together, ensconced in their mother’s womb.
It is over quickly.
Ichirou doesn’t make it through the second roll of film. He gets what he wants—or grows bored. His fury seems to ebb as Andrew’s only mounts.
They return to their suite, two rooms nestled in the back of the mansion, separated by a single wall. Except Andrew chooses to invade Aaron’s room, crossing the threshold without asking. He moves to the window and unlatches it, shoving it open against the winter air. He shakes a cigarette free from the pack, his fingers trembling one moment and steadying the next.
He is silent. He stands with his back braced against the window frame, smoke pouring from his mouth into the dark.
Aaron understands that Andrew is checking on him without looking, making sure he’s unhurt. But Aaron is still fine. It’s Andrew who needs checking. Aaron just doesn’t know how to do it.
The photos weren’t even sexual. The worst of it was the very end, when they were lying in bed, briefly wrapped around each other.
Aaron doesn’t understand the point of depicting them like that.
He won’t. Not until later.
For now, he steps closer, ignoring the astringent bite of cigarette smoke that always leaves him faintly nauseous.
Andrew has redressed himself, but half-hazardly. The top buttons of his shirt hang undone, the skin at his collarbone brushed by the low light like a smear of melted butter.
“I’m going to kill him,” Andrew says evenly, the cigarette hanging from his lips.
Aaron gasps. His eyes dart around the room, as though Ichirou might be embedded in the walls, his face pressed between the plaster.
“Don’t say that,” Aaron mutters.
“I will kill him,” Andrew repeats, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. Something savage curls at the corner of his lips. “I will do it slow, and—”
Aaron’s hand clamps over his mouth.
“Stop.”
Andrew bites a gentle warning into Aaron’s palm. His tongue flicks against the skin.
Aaron’s breath escapes him sharply through his parted lips.
Maybe that’s what makes Andrew remember where they are, that this isn’t one of their performances. It’s just them and the cold winter wind slithering through the window, feeding on the smoke, leeching heat from their skin.
Andrew swipes Aaron’s hand away and tosses the cigarette out of the window.
“Go to sleep,” he tells him roughly, and then he leaves. But Aaron can still hear him on the other side of the wall, pacing in his room—back and forth, an even countdown of seconds ticking between breaths.
It’s safe to leave him to it, Aaron thinks, and forces himself toward the attached bathroom.
He does not take Andrew’s threats lightly, but he can’t do anything about them, and neither can Andrew, short of slitting Ichirou’s throat in his sleep. He won’t do it. Not so brashly.
Maybe he still has time to remind Andrew to be grateful. That there is a reason they are here. Why they rise every morning and go about their duties. It’s stifling and austere, but it’s their life. It’s what they have.
And if Aaron feels just as restless and caged, it’s for other reasons. He can’t blame it on Ichirou. Or on the bars of his confinement.
It’s the very same thing that makes him realize he is hard when he pulls off his pants, his boxers snagging on his erection. He can’t pinpoint when it happened exactly—probably when Andrew licked his palm. His tongue always feels good, sinfully hot and indulgent against Aaron’s skin. But he can never enjoy it in those moments, like earlier tonight when Andrew sucked his earlobe for distraction. Only when he’s by himself at last does he allow the sensation to spring back from memory, and overtake him.
It’s the same thing that makes him freeze when he catches his reflection in the mirror.
It’s Andrew looking back at him.
It’s not Andrew.
Aaron’s fingers drift to his collarbone, undoing the top buttons, recreating the sight of Andrew from before.
It’s the same thing that makes Aaron watch himself, affixed to his reflection, biting down on his lip and imagining that’s what Andrew would look like if he kissed Aaron for real.
It’s the same thing that makes Aaron shove a finger into his own mouth and suck, his cheeks hollowing with the motion, his arousal surging through his gut, making his cock throb in his fist as he strips it. He can only think about what Andrew would look like cast down on his knees, mouth fully sunk around Aaron’s cock, as he trips toward the edge.
It’s the very same thing that makes Aaron come so hard he nearly topples, his head hitting the back of the tile, saliva pooling around his fingers as he thrusts one and then another—three fingers pushed as deep into his mouth as he can manage, nearly gagging, moaning obscenely around the intrusion.
He hopes Andrew doesn’t hear him.
He hopes Andrew does.
He gives himself one last look in the mirror, his cock flagging now in his lap, a splatter of cum decorating the hem of his well-tailored pants, his eyes wild and broken, the light refusing to settle in them, like it shuns them.
He shudders and turns on the shower, shrugging off the rest of his clothes as the water begins to warm.
It’s much later when he re-emerges, but he can still hear Andrew pacing. He can still hear him when he buries himself beneath the comforter and switches off the light.
Andrew might pace until morning, like he sometimes does.
Aaron finds it soothing—the rhythmic thud of it—and jarring all at once as he's reminded of the uncrossable distance between them.
They will occur on this winter night like a smokeless fire, then smolder into morning.
Sometimes, in the deep recess of the late hour, Aaron allows himself to miss the days he should not, when his mind was always soaring, dampened by drugs, his back pressed against the moldy wall of a trap house.
There had been no walls between them then.
Andrew stayed close. He held Aaron and never let go. His fingers brushed the hair from Aaron’s forehead and cradled Aaron against his chest, something solid for Aaron’s fever dreams to anchor to, so he would not drift too far.
In a strange, twisted way, all of this between him and Andrew feels like his fault—the distance, the sickness that binds them. If it weren’t for his addiction, they wouldn’t have been homeless. If it weren’t for his addiction, they would never have been scooped up by someone like Ichirou. They would never have to owe their gratitude to a man like him.
The same old thoughts circle Aaron like vultures when he closes his eyes. He doesn’t expect sleep to come. He lies there for a long time. But somehow, the hours pass into morning, and Aaron manages to surrender to the dark. When the threadbare light crawls through the window, Aaron is still dreaming.
Andrew is in his bed, looking as though he’s fighting sleep, his lashes fluttering languidly. But behind the curtain of them, his eyes are bright—solid flecks of gold woven into liquid hazel. They look at Aaron with an absolution he does not deserve.
Aaron reaches for him, wanting to feel the span of his hand around Andrew’s cheek, cupping it like a weak flame struggling to catch.
Andrew’s eyes gutter out once, then flare open. He covers Aaron’s hand with his own and pulls it away.
If it were a dream, Andrew would let him do this.
Aaron sits up sharply, his head spinning. No matter how long he blinks down at Andrew, he’s still there. He’s real.
“Aaron,” Andrew murmurs, propping himself up on one elbow. There is urgency threaded through his quiet voice.
“What are you doing here?” Aaron croaks, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms.
“Aaron,” Andrew repeats, the way he does when he needs Aaron to pay attention.
Aaron is disoriented, feeling as though whatever sleep he managed has done him more harm than good. Still, he makes a show of listening as he forces his focus back onto Andrew’s face.
“We’re going to switch today,” Andrew says in the same low whisper. “I’ll take Katelyn to her appointment instead of you.”
“No,” Aaron says, harsher than he intends. Louder, too. He inhales deeply and tries again. “No. Ichirou will know.”
“He won’t,” Andrew insists. “You’ve gotten good at it.” There’s something snide in the way he says it, like he’s leaving part of the sentence unsaid. Maybe what he means is they’ve gotten good at being each other.
“What are you planning?” Aaron asks, fully alert now, the last trace of sleep gone.
“Nothing,” Andrew replies too quickly. He doesn’t even have the decency to look away.
“Andrew,” Aaron presses.
“Maybe it’s time for a realignment,” Andrew murmurs. He doesn’t smile, but it’s there in his eyes—that reckless glint.
The word ‘realignment’, coupled with that expression, summons Nathaniel Wesninski into the room like a specter. Hanging above them, watching like shards of glass poised for their necks.
“You can’t trust him,” Aaron mutters. Have you seen his monstrous eyes? His terrible smile? He wants to say it, but doesn’t, for fear of sounding weak in front of his brother.
“I don’t trust anyone,” Andrew deflects.
“It would be like…” Aaron falters, searching for the right comparison. “Like exchanging one leash for another.”
“Oh, but this would be a prettier one,” Andrew says breezily, pushing off the bed.
“You can’t be serious,” Aaron says, though he knows Andrew probably is. And he knows, too, that it isn’t only Nathaniel’s viciously beautiful face driving him.
Ichirou made two mistakes last night: letting Nathaniel into his house, and crossing a line with Andrew.
Andrew intends to exploit it, and Aaron will be utterly powerless to stop him.
“I am,” Andrew says, glaring down at Aaron, who is still seated on the bed. His height seems disproportionate to the shadow he casts. “Or do you want to wait until Ichirou notices the way you’re looking at his wife and kills you for it?”
“I don’t,” Aaron stammers, then composes himself. “I don’t look at her in any kind of way.”
Well.
Maybe that isn’t entirely true.
Maybe he does look at Katelyn, but it’s only curiosity. He wants to know if there’s anything behind the swelling unrest of her dark eyes. If there’s a person in there somewhere.
It might sound chauvinistic, to see her as he sometimes does: a beautiful porcelain doll, brown curls immaculate, eyes hollowed out, but it isn’t only her. It’s everyone in this house.
He’s constantly wondering if they’re all just ghosts, navigating the jigsaw of connected and disjointed rooms, searching for a way out.
“Sure,” Andrew snarls, then jerks his head toward his room, silently commanding Aaron to go there. To take his place.
Aaron grits his teeth and climbs off the bed.
Andrew’s final, mocking quip follows him into the adjacent room:
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
As Andrew, Aaron must stay close to Ichirou all day. There are meetings scheduled for later, and the twins will have a chance to switch back into their appropriate roles beforehand. But until then, Aaron remains alone with the man; more alone than he expected to be, considering the sprawling presence of Ichirou’s security.
They are in his office just after breakfast when Ichirou shows him the photographs.
The ones he took last night and somehow found time to develop between then and now.
Ichirou never wears the signs of sleeplessness openly—not in any obvious way—but Aaron studies him closely now and detects the faint unsteadiness in his fingers as he holds a cigarette over the tray. Some Japanese brand with an earthy, rich scent. The ash falls of its own accord while Ichirou’s hand barely moves.
“Andrew,” Ichirou says, without looking at him. He isn’t looking at anything in particular. His gaze hangs somewhere along the wall.
“Do you remember what you told me about my photographs? What you called them?”
Aaron swallows shallowly, counting on Andrew’s natural terseness to tide him over the pause. He has no idea what Andrew might have said. He can’t even begin to guess.
“I don’t remember,” he says blandly, the way Andrew might if he were being intentionally uncooperative.
Ichirou angles his face toward Aaron, though the rest of his body remains stationary. Even now, with his eyes fixed directly on him, it doesn’t feel like he is truly seeing him.
“Of course you do,” Ichirou says silkily. “You remember everything, Andrew.”
His hand hovers above the ashtray, scattering ash in a slow spiral, like disturbed sand. Then it jerks, as though he is recalling how to inhabit his own body.
“Now don’t be coy with me,” he continues, the irony almost playful, because it is Ichirou who is being coy. He can be charming when he wants to be, his voice coaxing and pleasant.
“You said it was not art.” Ichirou’s lips ripple with a smile. “You said it was a mockery.”
Unwillingly, Aaron’s gaze drifts to the prints lining the walls. Some are harder to look at than others. A stripper from one of Ichirou’s downtown bars caught mid-arch. A faceless man bound in wound-red rope, kneeling on pavement. A frail body—perhaps a teenager—collapsed face down, the floorboards around them dusty and gaping like the open mouth of some beast. It looks like one of the trap houses where Ichirou found Aaron and Andrew.
Aaron forces himself to look away.
Did Andrew really say that? Or is Ichirou testing him? Does he know Aaron isn’t Andrew?
“A mockumentary,” Aaron says, maintaining the pretense just in case, attaching a subtle thread of scorn to his voice that might make him sound more like his twin.
Ichirou lets out a short, amused huff and slides the photographs across the desk.
“And what do you think of these?”
Aaron steps forward and picks up the neat stack before any hesitation can manifest in his body. He flips through them one by one, seeing and not seeing, absorbing and not, until he reaches the end, then goes backward.
His fingers stick slightly to the glossy paper. For a moment, it feels as though his skin is coated in blood, the whorls of his fingerprints illuminated by the overhead light.
Carefully, he straightens the stack and sets it back down.
Ichirou watches him, waiting for a verdict.
They’re good, Aaron thinks, despite himself.
They look good together.
Not only because of the near-perfect symmetry they conduct between them, like an interplay of prismatic light, but because the photographs have captured the way Aaron looks at Andrew, as though nothing else exists in the room. And the way Andrew’s hands hover near Aaron’s, protective, almost gentle, as if they contain the power to keep him safe.
Andrew would hate them.
Which is precisely why Ichirou took them.
“More of the same,” Aaron says at last. A mockery, but of a different kind.
There it is again—a soft, amused huff from Ichirou. The corner of his mouth tips upward in something that could be a distant relation of benevolence.
“Very well,” he says, nudging the stack slightly closer to himself.
“Can I—” Aaron begins, drawing in a breath before forcing the rest out. “Can I have them?”
Aaron slips into Andrew’s role without a hitch for the rest of the day. So seamlessly, in fact, that by evening he realizes he’s made a fatal mistake in the process—he left the photographs in Andrew’s room, which had temporarily been his, when he stopped there to change for dinner.
He only remembers when he sinks down onto his own bed, tugging at the collar of his shirt for air.
The house is quiet, settling into another mute night. Even the winter wind has died, spent from the previous evening.
Aaron crosses the space separating his room from Andrew’s, not bothering to knock before he opens the door.
He had left the photographs in a hurry earlier. He wouldn’t even know where to look for them, but he sees them immediately. Or rather what’s left of them. A mauled mound of paper lies crumpled atop the sheets, stray fragments scattered at Andrew’s feet.
One torn piece holds part of a face—Andrew’s, or maybe his own. It’s impossible to tell now, with the image shredded and the features ripped apart.
Aaron is suddenly so angry he can barely stand it. The rage pulses through him like an electric current, threatening to stall his hammering heart. He stumbles forward, fists twisting into Andrew’s shirt and hauling him upright.
“Why?” Aaron seethes.
“Why what?” Andrew replies coolly.
Aaron doesn’t know what infuriates him more—Andrew’s impassive tone paired with the stark challenge in his eyes, or the fact that the photographs are gone. Every single one. They were beautiful. They were the only good thing about them.
“I fucking hate you,” Aaron spits, not knowing where else to put the rage coursing through him, the madness that sickens him from the inside out. So he pours it into the lie.
“You’re a fool,” Andrew says, unshaken. His voice remains steady. “Look at what this place has done to you.”
“Has it?”
What Aaron does not say is this: Did this place do this to me? Or was I always like this? And aren’t we the same?
He transmits the thought through his gaze alone. It must land blisteringly hot, because Andrew tries to pull back from Aaron’s grip.
Aaron shoves him away. It only sends Andrew back a step, returning him comfortably to the edge of the bed.
“You have three days,” Andrew says, cryptic enough to jar Aaron as he turns to leave. “Before he comes.”
The “he” used to mean Ichirou. Now Aaron knows it doesn’t.
“Stay out of our way,” Andrew adds.
Maybe there are more instructions Andrew intends to give, but Aaron has no interest in hearing them. He leaves the room, tempting fate with a sharp slam of the door.
Aaron does stay out of the way.
He’s calm when it happens, when the silence finally lifts from the house and a string of gunshots plays down the hall.
Well, his body isn’t calm. It still remembers what to do, how to ride the high of adrenaline. His hands grow slick against the cold grip of his gun, his pulse ricocheting in his ears.
But his mind is.
That part of him is perfectly at ease. Maybe because Aaron has spent too much time imagining the worst things that could happen, and perhaps he’s already survived them. Maybe he’s reached that tipping point people talk about, the resignation that eventually will come for them all.
Andrew appears at his side soon after, breath clipped, telling him they need to go, and that there isn’t much time. Ichirou escaped. He’s still out there.
But Katelyn wasn’t so lucky.
Even in death she doesn’t seem real. She lies too still, like a pebble forgotten at the side of the road. The brightest thing about her is the spill of blood down her ribs.
Aaron steps around her in the hall and makes a quick detour into Ichirou’s office. He’s grateful, suddenly, that Ichirou has always been meticulous about organization. All the film he’s ever developed is stored in a locked cabinet. Aaron smashes it open with the butt of his gun. He flips through the manila envelopes labeled by date until he finds the one he’s looking for.
He takes it and tucks it beneath his shirt.
The passing scenery is bleak in the last of the winter light, the ground drab as though all the color has been drained from it. It wouldn’t be so bad if it would only snow. It might soften the cold ravaging the empty fields along the interstate.
Inside the car, it’s toasty—almost stifling—and Aaron is tempted to shrug off his jacket. He’s tempted, too, to ask where they’re going. But if he were to rank the people least likely to give him a straight answer, every single one of them would tie for first: their stoically silent driver—one of Nathaniel’s. Jean, Aaron recalls, his mouth perpetually pursed as though he has never known the shape of a smile. Nathaniel himself, who sits across from Aaron, one leg thrown over the other, bouncing with a giddy impatience Aaron doesn’t trust. And Andrew, right next to Aaron, fingers inexplicably resting on Aaron’s thigh, as though he means to chain him in place.
So Aaron keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t ask.
Not even when they approach what looks, from a distance, like an abandoned airfield. Up close, the hangar appears just as dilapidated, barely holding itself upright. But concealed within it is a pristine plane—small against the long shadows of its wings cast across the pavement.
Aaron still doesn’t ask.
It isn’t until they file out of the car and the doors slam shut—helped along by a sudden gust of wind—that he realizes he should have asked. That now it might be too late.
“Andrew?” Aaron says, his voice thin, picked off by the wind.
Andrew doesn’t answer. He walks to the back of the car and pops open the trunk. He retrieves a duffel bag, then returns to face Aaron. There’s a bitter twist to his mouth.
“So you see, Aaron,” Andrew says quietly, “in the end, I’m the only one who has to wear a leash. You can be free.”
“No,” Aaron hears himself say, panic gathering in his throat. It spreads through him like molten lead injected directly into his veins. “Not without you. I’m not leaving you with him.” He nods toward Nathaniel’s silhouette, faintly visible through the tinted glass.
“I know,” Andrew replies.
His voice is detached, like this too has been rehearsed.
If Aaron weren’t so paralyzed by shock, he might step out of Andrew’s reach. But he can’t. He’s helpless against the coaxing pull of Andrew’s arms, the way they shield him from the elements, the promise they signify.
There’s barely a pause between the moment one of Andrew’s hands cups Aaron’s face and the other presses against his neck.
Aaron feels the taunting pinprick of a needle. Then numbness blooms, coagulating with the panic, rushing down his veins. Of course Andrew would stoop this low. Of course he wouldn’t allow Aaron the dignity of fighting him.
“I will still look for you,” Aaron manages through clenched teeth, his tongue already growing heavy. “I will find you.” He’s sure of it, no matter where that fucking plane takes him.
“Or maybe,” Andrew says softly, “you’ll finally stop being a fool.”
Aaron is so furious with him. Betrayed again. He can’t fathom how someone can try this hard to make him hate them. He struggles to see Andrew clearly through the hot sting of tears blurring his vision. He considers saying the worst thing out loud—the thought he’s only allowed himself once, and never again, but that tries to surface now like a body washed up after a flood.
Sometimes I wish you’d die. That way I wouldn’t be so ashamed of loving you.
But he can’t say it.
He can’t say that, or any of the other things, the confessions he’s carried for years, buried in his chest like a knife to the hilt.
He can’t. Because it might be the last thing he ever tells Andrew.
In the end, it comes down to two words: “Kiss me,” trembling treacherously out of his mouth.
Andrew’s lips brush over his. It’s the last thing Aaron feels—along with the solid reassurance of the envelope pressed against his skin—before the daylight inverts, fractures, and goes dark.