I really don't have much to say about this one. It's angst, written in first person and involves unrequited love because I myself have been feeling rather down lately, and that's all I can say. Also, you have no idea how hard it was for me to come up with a title for this.

Title: Slipping Away.
Rating: PG.
Genre: Err. Reflective angst?
Pairing: Onesided Fai x Kuro.
Theme: #30 -- I watch your back as you walk away.

----------------------------------------------
Slipping Away; by Corrupted-Phoenix.
-------------------------------------------------------

The five of us come from different worlds and travel through even more different worlds, none of which either one of us originate from. Some places are familiar; some are different beyond our wildest dreams. Snow is familiar to me, sand is familiar to Syaoran and Sakura, warm climate is familiar to Kurogane. I'll fit in with a magical world, Kurogane will find home in a battlefield. However, these are merely physical things.

Are morals still the same?

I've come to believe that they are not.

In Ceres, there are two ways to die; and only two. Loss of magic is the natural way. In that world, magic is what binds our souls to our bodies and keeps both concepts alive. As we age, our magic dwindles and loosens until the point that it breaks, separating soul from body. The body shuts down and the soul immediately loses memory of everything it experienced in that body. Then it instinctively wanders until it finds a new body to inhabit. That's how the life cycle in Ceres works. It's what we all believe there.

The other way to die is through murder. There are forbidden spells to remove magic, and though I've come to discover that those spells would not do much damage in other worlds, they are fatal in Ceres. But one doesn't even have to use a spell like that to murder someone, murder can be done any way you can think of. It's rather scary.

Those are the only ways to die. We do get sick, but we are immune to fatal diseases. We cannot kill ourselves. Our magic also protects us from suicide.

Apparently, that is not the belief in other worlds. Actually, I don't think I've come across even one world with the same view. It seems like everyone is still searching for the answer of life and death. They say that it's impossible (or at least near-impossible) to discover the truth behind it.

If morals are different, could it be that feelings are different as well?

Maybe there's a world out there where it's okay for me to love a man that will never return my feelings. Maybe there's someone out there that will understand me. Maybe there is a place I can sleep without nightmares. Maybe I can stop running someday.

It's these maybes that keep me going. Everyday I'm living on a maybe.

I can hardly stand it.

But putting up with things is something I am not unfamiliar with. So that's what I do. I put up with the mere friendship I have with the one the love, put up with the life I have, the goal I have, all so that I can have a chance at that one maybe I've wanted to come true for so long.

The one that believes that maybe Kurogane will love me.

It's a silly maybe, I know, but to me it is the one I wish for the most.

I'll flirt with him, tease him, talk with him, seek comfort in him, but I do not open my heart to him. I'm afraid that my heart is too weak to let him in, not matter how much I want to. It's in this sense that I sometimes think that maybe the magic around my heart has dwindled.

But he's always in my head.

I close my eyes and he's there. I open my mouth and his name tumbles out. I listen to hear his voice. He's driving me crazy.

I remember asking him what the standard morals were in Japan. He told me that no matter how much magic there is in any world, it is impossible to know what happens after death. It is a mystery of nature that will and can never be solved.

And it seems as though his Japan is not the only world who thinks that.

At first, I think it's silly. I've grown up with the morals of Ceres in my head, how could they possibly be wrong? This was my home world I was talking about.

But… wasn't it also my home world that I was running away from? Was I not running through dimensions and worlds to get away from the Ashura in that world?

It was then that I realized that feelings never changed, no matter what world I landed in. My feelings were always the same, day in and day out. There was nothing that could stop the love for Kurogane or the fear for Ashura.

But all the morals of other worlds confused me. Now I don't know which one to find reassurance or salvation in.

Maybe these other worlds are the right ones. Maybe Ceres had merely become lazy or ignorant, enough so to think they understood exactly what happened after life and death. Maybe those forbidden 'magic-removal' spells actually weren't what murderers used. Then I get confused again, because I don't see how any of this will help me in the end.

It seems like every time I look at Kurogane, all these thoughts and all these maybes pop into my head. It's like when I look at him, I actually care about my life and what will happen to me in the end. I can never stop that from happening. However, it seems he can.

All he has to do is set his beautiful red eyes on my own cold blue ones, and my smile falters. It's at these moments that I suddenly think my maybe has come true and that those eyes are concerned because they love me. There is a second in which I cannot breathe, but when I look harder and see that his eyes are suspicious and angry instead of concerned, I breathe again. And I also hurt again.

Kurogane will then turn and leave me alone again, and I can only watch his back as he walks away from me and everything I'm hiding behind this smile.

And it's these moments that despite how desperately I try to hold on, I can still feel my maybes slipping further and further away from me.