The café on Rue de Rivoli was bathed in morning light. The tables outside were still empty, but inside, the red velvet chairs were already welcoming the first customers of the day. I arrived early, just as I’d planned. It was barely ten-thirty. I took a table in the corner, ordered a double espresso. My hand toyed with the water glass, my eyes fixed on the door.
Doubt gnawed at me from within. Emily was a liar, I was sure of it. But the very fact that she'd managed to plant this seed of doubt in my mind, that's what was driving me insane. Aya… Aya, my sister? How? Impossible. Everything between us, every touch, every word, everything we’d been through. This was just a lie to separate us, I knew it.
But that small part inside me, the part that was afraid, kept asking: What if? What if there was even a tiny shred of truth in her words? No. I had to stop thinking like that. I had to confront her, make her expose her lies herself. I had to close this door forever.
As noon approached, my heart began to pound faster. I saw her enter, wearing a dark blue dress, her blonde hair neatly tied back. A confident smile played on her face, as if she were coming to deliver a death sentence, not a casual meeting. Her eyes sparkled when she saw me. She walked towards my table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Her perfume was overwhelmingly strong.
"Good morning, Yoongi." Her voice was calm, but with a note of triumph.
"Good morning, Emily." My voice came out dry. "Where are the papers you mentioned?" I didn't want to waste time. Every second reminded me of what she might have done to Aya.
She let out a short laugh. "Impatient, as always. Patience is a virtue." She pulled a small leather bag from beside her and took out an old brown envelope. She placed it slowly, deliberately, on the table in front of me. "Everything is here. Marriage certificates, birth certificates, old letters between mothers and grandmothers. A long, confusing history."
I reached for the envelope, pulling it closer. My fear was real, palpable. My hand trembled slightly as I opened it. I started pulling out the papers, one by one. Faded photographs, old handwriting. My grandmother's passport. My mother's birth certificate… her date of birth… Aya's birth certificate, her date of birth… An old paper with my grandmother's handwriting, talking about an impossible love story. Everything was swirling in my head, I was desperate to find any mistake, anything that would expose her lie.
My eyes fell on Aya's birth certificate. Then my mother's birth certificate, then mine. The dates played tricks in my mind. There were old papers talking about adoption. Adoption papers. That's what was driving me crazy. Papers proving that my real mother wasn't the one who raised me. And that there was another family… And that grandmother knew all this.
My blood boiled. Emily sat watching me, enjoying the spectacle. Her smile grew wider and wider. "So, what do you think, Yoongi? Isn't the surprise wonderful?"
Then I found an old paper, clearly tampered with. A faded, erased date, with a new one written over it in a different hand. It was an adoption paper for me, but the date had been altered. It had been manipulated. Not to prove I was Aya's brother, but to make the whole thing seem overly complicated and mysterious. As if she wanted to tie the two strings together artificially. My grandmother's marriage certificate... it was much younger than it should have been to be my real grandmother. There was a missing link. There was a lie here. Not that we were siblings, but that these papers were all manipulated to appear that way, or at least to sow doubt.
I looked up at her. My heart hammered like a drum. Rage blinded me. "You're a liar, Emily." My voice was low but held the power of a simmering volcano. "You're a liar and a manipulator. These papers are fabricated."
Her smile vanished. Her eyes widened. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you're trying to create a reality that doesn't exist. This date is altered. This adoption paper, the stamps on it are faded and questionable. And what's written in it doesn't match any other document I've seen before. You did all this to separate us."
"I didn't try to do anything! I just discovered the bitter truth!" Her voice started to rise, people around us began to stare. "You're a liar!"
"Then show me the original. Where are the originals of these papers?" The challenge was clear in my voice. "These are just copies, and some are clearly altered. Where are the original birth certificates of our parents and Aya's that prove your claims? Where are the originals?"
She glared at me. Her face flushed. "I don't need to show you the originals. These papers are enough."
"Not enough, Emily. Not nearly enough." I stood up. I pushed my chair back with a loud scrape. "Everything you've done is a lie. A cheap lie to get what you want. I won't allow it. And I won't believe a single word you've said."
I looked into her eyes. They were filled with anger and despair. "You'll regret this, Yoongi." She whispered. "You'll regret the day you called me a liar."
"I'll never believe you again." I left the envelope on the table. "And I don't want to see your face ever again." I walked out. I left the café, the stares of the people behind me, feeling nothing but the rage boiling inside me. Emily is a liar. A liar. The word echoed in my mind like a reverberation.
---
I walked through the streets of Paris, the cool air on my face. I felt like I wanted to smash anything in my path. The anger at Emily was still burning, but beneath it, another volcano was simmering. Aya's volcano. The volcano of what she had done. The feeling of betrayal, of pain, was still there. No one could extinguish that fire. Even exposing Emily's lie wasn't enough to heal that wound.
All the way home, I kept thinking about her. Her face, her eyes, her touch. I felt a strange pull towards her, something stronger than any anger. Like a magnet. I wanted to scream at her, I wanted to reproach her, I wanted to break her as she had broken me. And at the same time… I wanted to hold her. I wanted her. I wanted to forget her and everything that had happened with her, I wanted to do everything with her.
My feet moved on their own. I wanted to arrive. I wanted to see her. I didn't know what I would say or do. All I knew was that I wanted to be near her, even if there was fire inside me. I wanted to understand why she did it. I wanted to blame her. I wanted to forgive her. I wanted to lay my hands on her. I didn't understand exactly what I wanted.
I kept walking. The streets were crowded, but I was in another world. A world with only me and Aya and the wound between us. I tried to banish Emily's image from my mind. Done. A page closed. Now, it was just me and Aya. And the problem between us was bigger than any lie Emily could tell. It was a real problem. A problem inside me.
I reached the building. I climbed the stairs, two steps at a time. Every step brought me closer to her, and closer to the confrontation I feared. And at the same time, I longed for it. I wanted to tell her I'd exposed Emily's lie. I wanted to tell her I was afraid I was her brother. I wanted to tell her I was still angry with her, but I still loved her. No, not loved her. I wanted her. I wanted her madly.
---
I opened the apartment door with my key. The place was quiet. The only sound was a faint noise coming from the kitchen. The sound of a pot moving, a soft clatter. I walked in quietly, smelling a faint aroma of food. My eyes immediately found her. She was standing by the counter, her back to me, wearing a simple house dress. Her hair was loose, flowing around her shoulders. She was chopping something on a wooden board, focused.
My chest felt tight. My breath caught. All the anger, all the longing, all the confusion crashed into me at once. I took two silent steps towards her. She didn't hear me. My hand reached out, grabbing her arm. She gasped, dropping the knife with a clatter onto the counter. She spun around, her eyes wide with shock, then fear, then something else, something that mirrored the turmoil in my own gaze.
"Yoongi!" she whispered, her voice barely audible. Her eyes were red, swollen. She had been crying.
I didn't say a word. I just stared at her, my vision blurring. The anger was a physical ache in my gut, but the desire… God, the desire for her was a roaring inferno. I pulled her to me, roughly, without a single word. My arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her off the ground. She let out a small cry, her hands instinctively grabbing my shoulders to steady herself.
I carried her out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into the bedroom. My grip was tight, almost painful. She wasn't resisting, just clinging to me, her face buried in my neck. I could feel her tears on my skin. I reached the bed, not bothering to let go, just letting her fall onto the mattress, my weight following hers.
I straddled her, my hands fumbling with the buttons of her dress, tearing at the fabric in my urgency. She whimpered, a soft sound, but she didn't stop me. Her hands went to my shirt, pulling at it with the same desperate need. I ripped my own clothes off, tossing them carelessly to the floor. The world narrowed to just her, just us, the raw, unfiltered craving.
I looked into her eyes, still red-rimmed, still full of questions. But I saw the fire there too, the desperate longing that matched mine. I leaned down, kissing her with a ferocity that stole her breath. My lips devoured hers, my tongue plunged inside, claiming her. Her body arched against mine, her fingers digging into my back. This was not tenderness, this was a savage possession, a desperate attempt to erase everything else with pure, unadulterated sensation.
I entered her without preamble, a deep, powerful thrust that made her gasp, her body tensing, then melting around me. She cried out, a sound that was half pain, half pleasure. I didn't stop, didn't slow. I moved with a furious rhythm, my anger and my desire merging into one overwhelming wave. She was dazed, lost in the storm, trying to hold herself back, but her body was betraying her, surrendering to mine. It was a chaotic dance, a violent embrace of two broken souls. I was driving into her hard, faster, needing to feel every inch of her, needing to lose myself. Her nails raked my skin, her breath came in ragged gasps. I looked down at her, her eyes wide, unfocused, her mouth open in a silent scream. And in that moment, as the world shattered around us, I felt an unbearable surge of both triumph and despair. What have we done now?