Making Do
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The path of duty set by the divine to dictate the rights and wrongs of existance.
To depart voluntarily from this path.
That is to sin...
Happiness is a strange concept.
It is something that many pursue, but few are truly able to grasp. It can, in essence, be defined in many ways. But most basic of these would be the idea that happiness is naught but an emotion. A complicated formatting of one's bodily chemicals that sets a person at inexplicable ease. A brittle state in which the mind floats in fanciful ecstasy.
She'd read once, in the form of literature known in his world as a textbook of science, that human beings are but animals. Nothing more, and nothing less. So why was it then, that their kind, their species as it were, was the only one in existence that willfully pursued this fragile sensation? Why was it that without happiness, a human being would think to have forfeited any reason in living?
He'd chastised her for thinking too much when she'd asked his opinion on the matter out of the blue one day, but he'd rolled his eyes and given her an answer anyway.
Other animals don't have souls.
It had been simple. He hadn't needed to give it much thought. He'd always been wise in that unconventional sense. And so a new definition had been reached.
Happiness is what soulless individuals do not have the ability to feel.
It is capable of being totally consuming, both inside and out. So much so that if it were lost, recovery becomes more difficult than many are able to cope with. There were some that had, once upon a time, found and lost their happiness through whatever reason in the course of their lives. The memory of what had once been, even in death, had ingrained itself into their spirits.
They had lost their very minds to it. Their very souls.
And as such, happiness, or the loss of it happiness as it were, could have also been described as the primary reason that hollows existed. And the reason that the suffering that stemmed from their existence existed.
He'd paused in his walking, exasperated, to remind her then. That by that definition, it also meant that 'happiness' was what had caused the need for those in her line of work to arise. And therefore, it was the primary reason she was who she was. The look he'd given her then had been a mixture of self-satisfaction, stemmed from her own flustered appearance when he asked if she still questioned the necessity of happiness, and mocking amusement at her annoyance toward his jibe.
She'd purposefully stormed pass him then but had been foiled in her attempt to walk on ahead by his larger hand enveloping hers and pulling her back. They had walked the rest of the way in silence. During which time, she had finished up the remainder of her thoughts.
Given the consequences, it would have been silly to think that anyone would go to any length for even a smidgen of this feeling of bliss that happiness could bring. It was all the more ridiculous that every single person that has ever existed since the dawn of time has been guilty of craving happiness at numerous points during and after their lives.
She was no exception. And neither was he.
So maybe she could understand why wars had been fought and lives lost for happiness. After all, in their case, worlds had been crossed for it. For this reason, she had concluded that the essentiality of happiness was just one of the many unsolvable mysteries that life, both immortal and not, held above their heads. And she'd been happy in her deductions as she'd cast a discreet glance at his profile.
Over the course of her time with him, she'd come to realize the fact that happiness, no matter how short-lived, might also be accurately defined as the most valuable thing in the world…
He'd raised an eyebrow then in silent inquiry as to the source of her wistful appearance. She'd feigned ignorance and faced front again. Maybe she did think too much.
Perhaps that was what kept their relationship so effective. She did the necessary worrying, and he would alleviate what was unnecessary. It worked two ways.
Whatever the case, she knew she had found this happiness. And it had been ironic. That the most valuable thing to her had existed as the cheapest and most easily attained. It had existed even though the things he had to offer her were few, and what she could have given him, lesser still. It had existed even though their time together was scarce, and even though her priorities in his world lay elsewhere.
So given the simplicity of it all, why then did the anti-thesis to happiness exist? Why then, were there people who had, their whole lives, searched for what they deemed as true happiness and never found it?
Her musings had been cut short then, by the need to leave for her world. She had resented going.
This connection that they shared. It would have seemed to all who knew them personally, inevitable. Predictable. She had yearned for it, and dreaded it all the same. For an indefinite length of time since she'd made the decision to be his, they had contented themselves with the mere presence of each other's company. It had been… comfortable. If adolescent.
But as it is in every developing bond, there comes a breaking point. In theirs, in everyone's. Call it human nature.
It starts out subtly at first; to crave what you don't have; to want more than what you do, but when want turns to need and need cannot be sated with what you already possess, it becomes painfully obvious that this breaking point has been reached and you can no longer go on with what you had been alright with before.
It had been more on his part at first. She'd blamed it on the standards that he had been put to. She had always found it silly how the society of his world frowned upon a male person who it perceived as unwilling to take a partner. The fact that what they had would never fall into any category of likelihood in her world or his, they had to live with. But it didn't mean that she couldn't frown upon it. She wasn't ignorant. She knew how he turned away the girls from his school. She knew about the rumours that had started because of his cold behaviour toward them.
It had made her insecure at first; knowing that she couldn't offer him what they could. She couldn't offer him her undivided attention. Her time was not her own. Her visits to him had been, and still were dictated by the people she was subordinate to. She couldn't offer him the reassurance that came with having a person to lean on in times of need, because there were times when she couldn't be there for him. And he for her.
By all accounts, what they had wasn't possible; by the standards of his world, she did not even exist.
And so, she had had to make do with keeping to the shadows. He hadn't blamed her; not at all. He'd claimed that he didn't care. That he was happy with what they had.
Perhaps it was this reassurance that had kept her at ease. Even when the innocent kisses had evolved into something more substantial. Even when the hands that delivered his tentative caresses had suddenly become more purposeful. Even when she'd find herself staying for longer and longer periods of time with him, walking the edge of her duties' limitations.
And she had reveled in it.
Time changed many things, but it scarcely seemed to touch them.
His father worried for him. He wondered why his college boy had yet to get himself a girl. Ironic, when his son had been bringing her home since he was fifteen. Although, she blushingly reminds herself, back then it had been for entirely different reasons than what currently transcribed. It had troubled her to a degree, the fact that he had grown physically, while she still looked every bit the young adolescent she had those long years ago when they'd first met. Maybe it still made her uneasy.
But as always, he hadn't cared. His confidence had relaxed her.
It was inevitable that she had found her self craving his company more and more. Her time away from him had seemed torturous, and her time with him, unparalleled in value.
It had been hard. To have had to put on all that farce. To have had to force herself to feign indifference in conversations about him with her superiors. To have had to pretend to be unaffected, when her visits to his world would be abruptly postponed. To have had to school her features, even when their time together would be interrupted by the prospect of an incoming hollow.
Should it have mattered that their relationship would always be in the shadow of her work? It shouldn't have. And she knew he would agree. It was difficult to cope with at times, but she didn't regret it. And in that knowledge, perhaps she had already found the answer to her question.
People become unhappy because they hold to too high a standard what happiness truly is. People become unhappy in the never-ending quest for happiness. People become unhappy when they fail to find contentment in what they already have. She'd come to realize that her happiness had come in the simple acceptance of her circumstances. It lay in the basic acknowledgement that what they had was enough.
It wasn't hard to make do. They weren't picky people.
They had kept with it, and things had naturally started to evolve. She had let them. For the first time in a long time, she had done something without thought to the possible consequences. Perhaps she was growing indeed.
And she was happy for that.
This hand on her back that supports her in the darkness that encloses them. It is the one that has caught her when, time and time again, she fell. These heated breaths that caress her skin and seem to fuel the warmth two bodies create. She is content in the knowledge that he draws them in. She is content in the existence of him.
There are no need for words of love and adoration. For to speak them, would be to demean what they have. It seems wrong to use a worldly means of expression, when they are, in effect, defying both their worlds just being where they are. These gasping pants that grasp for air essential are what pierce the silence in their place.
This body above that encompasses hers wholly to itself. It is one that has shielded her from harm. She savours the warmth of it, as she relishes the feel of these lips on her, and the strong grip on her hands that holds them soundly in their place. For these are things she knows that she will miss when she departs come dawn.
But that prospect doesn't faze her, for his gaze holds a silent promise. It allays fears, succumbs her. It is the one she knows she will be greeted by, each time that she returns.
She feels the yearning for release that builds and grows, as all else fade around them. She welcomes it.
What they have now, this happiness they share. It is the very touch of heaven.
Indeed... it is sweet sin.
End