Revised for grammatical errors: February 28 10 This is the first fanfiction I've ever actually completed, usually I only write poetry. If you'd like to let me know what you think with a review, it'd be much appreciated.
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He was a doll. Not, like an American Barbie doll, meant to be dressed up and put through the social situations imagined by the young owner: dates with Ken, shopping, home life. Not that kind of doll.
He was not a baby doll, meant to be loved and cuddled and told the most secret of secrets, taken for walks in a stroller, cooed to sleep, and carried around because he was loved too much to be left behind for long.
Not meant for people, not meant to be loved by one, another type of doll.
A porcelain doll. The kind of doll that when received at birthdays and Christmas was put on a shelf to be looked at and admired from afar. The kind of doll not really meant to be loved by a child and enjoyed, a doll that was not meant for love, but simply for beauty. He looked the part, stormy, silky hair and amethyst eyes made to look even larger by his dark lashes and porcelain skin; his slender frame and pretty face made it so easy to be mistaken for a girl. Because he did not know what else to do, he played the part too.
At school he was "the Prince", a title given to him by some of his fans at the beginning of the school year that had stuck, and now even those who weren't fans called him by it.
He was on the shelf. Not, by any means forgotten, but not truly loved. No one ever wanted him to go out and simply have fun, no one asked him to join in the games played, whether it was sports, or simply a card game. He knew they all assumed that since he was so popular he'd have much better things to do, and he wished they wouldn't with all his heart.
He was also cursed. For a long time, he would blame the curse for his loneliness, he'd also blame Kyou, Akito, and his parents. It wasn't so pretty, this side of him that was selfish and blamed his lot in life on others, but he didn't think he could change, for a long time didn't think he needed to change, so it was simply kept hidden from those who needed him to be a pretty doll without emotions or wants of his own. Because if something that's needed only for beauty loses that beauty, or Beauty suddenly has needs of its own, it's tossed away.
Of course, the fact that he was cursed only made it all that much worse. Knowing that if you hugged a female you would turn into a mouse, wouldn't you keep away from girls too? So, out of necessity, he did. He would never forget his childhood friends, who had long since forgotten him, who had been made to forget him because he was different.
Because he was not meant to think or feel or dream or love on his own.
He was cursed, and he was cursed to forever be the Mouse, the perfect, special, never losing ever, boring, Mouse. In the old legend that he had come to loathe the Mouse hadn't cared for anything other than status, even if he had to lie and cheat and use those who were in the way.
The first people who ever wanted to include him had forgotten him, but then, they hadn't really known him either. It was still nice, but was he so strange that if people knew about him they would leave him? He was told, and shown, that yes, yes they would leave.
But there were people now, who knew him and didn't care.
There was Tohru Honda-san, the girl who had simply appeared in his life one day, and who had made his life better ever since then. It amazed him sometimes that she would actually care about him, about his pathetic family. She was poor, she had been living in a tent in the woods alone, an orphan -- but he was the pathetic one. Because she had so little, and could smile and laugh and actually enjoy being alive, a term he that in his most miserable moments he doubted could even be applied to him. The way she did little things just to make his day brighter, kind words, a gentle pat the shoulder, her warmth made her so beautiful. It sometimes seemed as if she was an angel meant to save his sad self and family.
Then there was Kyou. That stupid cat, his enemy, he wouldn't apply the term rival because there was no competition. He always beat the Cat, as the Mouse was supposed to. The most irritating thing about Kyou, was not the fact that he was cursed as the Cat and therefore meant to be hated by the Mouse, but the fact that he wanted his lot in life. That idiot Cat saw the mindless admiration he received, and was jealous. He wanted to be in the zodiac, wanted his place so bad that he would go out and train for months just to beat him, to be better. It would never happen. He was a fool, he was annoying, and from his place outside the zodiac, where he was touched and loved and wanted, he was looking in at the Doll, the thing that was not meant to even be aware that it wasn't loved and cared for, and felt envy. Of all the most absurd things, that had to top.
And then... then there was Haru. When they had first met, first actually exchanged words, Haru hated him. Haru hated him almost as badly as Kyou hated him, and even though he hadn't really known Haru, it still had hurt. But Haru wasn't like Kyou, he had screamed, he had shouted he had told him exactly why he hated him, and then, panting and out of breath from his tirade, had stood there and waited. Waited for this conniving Mouse, this admired Doll, this perfect and utterly broken Child, to say something in its defense. And when instead of denying what the Ox had accused him of, being the reason the he was looked down on, considered foolish and slow, when he instead asked if it was true, everything had changed. It was the first time he had ever helped anyone, the first time he was something more than simply something pretty and perfect to look a; he had been more than a child who was never supposed to fail, to lose, to be anything less then a perfect thing.
Haru had let him be more than that, without even knowing he was doing it, and Haru had loved him for it. Because in doing so, he had saved Haru from himself, from his anger and rage and hurt.
It was interesting he mused, these three people who he spent most of his time with.
One, who loved him, with her gentle warmth and friendship and enjoyed doing even the simplest things with him.
One, who hated him with a fiery passion, who did everything he could think of to beat him.
And One, who cherished him and loved him for saving him from himself, who still sought him out because he simply enjoyed being near him.
The only ones who forced him to come off his shelf of being perfect and simply something to be admired and looked at.
The only ones who let him be himself.
He was not meant for people, not meant to be loved by one.
Not meant to be touched, and loved, and envied, and played with, but those three were different, because they had simply never cared.
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