tactioception.

***

"What are you writing about?" You say in your usual jubilant tone of voice, uttering your words with outright interest and peering down to take a look in the paper that I'm holding on to. I swiftly hide it behind me, away from your gaze and dwell onto to the safety of the unseen. You smile at me, shaking your head, and just when I thought that you would let it pass, you deliberately hold me in my arms to take a grasp of the paper. But I quickly pull myself away from your embrace.

I think you know. You know that you did something wrong, and that's why your smile fades and silence comes in like an unwelcome visitor enclosing the room and filling us with its loathed discomfort.

"I'm sorry," your stare begin to wander around the room, but not shifting to meet my eyes.

I remain silent but my thoughts are loud. I want to touch you, to clasp firmly of your fingers and feel the warmth of your skin. I want to touch you, to feel the gentleness that your arms bring. The safest place that I know is right in your arms, yet, I know it could bring forth a danger to the both of us. But mostly, to you.

You finally look at me, your eyes widening in confusion when you see my tears fall. You walk towards me, each step breaking through my invisible wall that separates the both of us. You lean to me, carrying your weight, but at the same time giving your all to me, letting our bodies in a direct contact. I try to move backward, but you stroke my cheek and wipe away my tears. Your fingers bring me the sudden, but familiar heat, my heart in an inconsistent beat, and my breath that you cannily take.

"Don't cry," you say.

"I am not crying," I respond.

But my foolish tears betray me as they continue to flow.

You probably think that I am being emotional over something ridiculous. Or you probably you wonder why I am such a crybaby, but you choose not to ask. You're quiet, your lips are not moving, but it is enough because your touch speaks in a way that your words cannot thoroughly express but it reaches my very soul. It is not only my skin that feels your touch, but it penetrates through my whole being.

"I'm in love with you," you say. I know you would say that. Ever since that day when you first touched me, I felt something else. It is softer from the rough grasps of those who hate me, but deeper from the gentle touch of those who are concerned for me. It is not out of pity, but it is something else, something deeper than anybody else's touch.

My skin would radiate flames that could burn. My touch was like the thorns that could prickle and I am made of shards that could cause a wound.

But still, you touched me, despite all of these things, knowing that doing so would only inflict you pain.

And all the walls that took me years to build, broke down with that single touch of yours.

I know that this is not the right thing, but with that touch of yours, it feels like it is. I slowly hug you back, letting myself surrender to you. A smile form in my lips. All these times I wanted to touch you, and now that you're here with me, I do not want to let you go. "I'm in love with you too, my brother." I say the forbidden word, that word that binds us together and at the same time separates us from each other.

But our touch is greater than that forbidden word, or any word, for that matter.