Author: Celeste
Rating: PG-13 for yaoi themes
Feedback: keviesprincess@netscape.net (flames welcome because they're funny)
Pairing: Haru/Yuki (brief mentions of the Kyou/Tohru/Yuki triangle)
Summary: Yuki POV- Yuki learns about real love.
Dedication: Anrui and Mel, because Yuki is a really rich character that I would have completely ignored if they hadn't made me look a little deeper. *whispers to Kyou* I still love you best though. *pets*
A/N: *sob* Okay, this was just a quick improv on my part, but I still feel like I'm copping out with this continuous string of POV fic and nothing else. Bad me! Apologies in advance for OOCness, bad characterization, crappy dialogue…the works. I'm a lazy ass! Which is why I never beta anything seriously. *sweatdrop* And I'm also putting off the Gravitation piece that I started by writing this because, well, I still suck at humor.
Distribution: Ask, and you'll get it.
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I used to believe…
…well, I used to believe that in order to love someone…
…to really, really love them…
… you had to suffer for them.
You had to suffer for them somehow.
That was the only way, I thought, the only way to truly love someone.
There had to be pain involved. You had to be willing to burn yourself in that pain, to completely submerse yourself in it.
It was the only way to show them, wasn't it? The depth of your love? The devotion in your heart?
Little things like flowers or chocolates or little notes with little smiling faces drawn on them seemed cute enough, seemed sweet enough and little enough for a sweet and cute love to me. But they were not the things of real love. To me, in order to really, really belong to someone, to wholly give yourself to them, you had to be willing to endure anything for them.
To suffer.
That's what I used to believe.
It was a truth for me, an undeniable truth, a basic tenant of my constructions on love and life and everything in between.
And so, I suffered.
I suffered a lot.
Love was painful.
I had thought, for the briefest time, I had thought that I was in love, then.
I had thought that I was deeply in love her, so much in love because…
…because I was suffering.
I was suffering so much.
I used to watch that stupid cat, always fighting, always clawing, hanging on with every tooth and every nail until he was raw and bleeding and broken everywhere but in his will.
I thought it was disgusting, that it was shameless and crude, the way he was always fighting for his love of her.
Kyou used to think…
…I guess, he used to think that to love someone…
… you had to fight.
That you had to fight for them, always. No matter how much you hurt yourself for it, you had to keep fighting.
I thought that he was so wrong. So wrong and so stupid for bringing something so fierce, so hostile and so vulgar into something as pure as love.
It was reviling to me, to me who believed that the only way to keep love untainted, to keep it clean and pure and beautiful was to suffer quietly, to be willing to endure.
We were always different that way, he and I.
And so he fought.
And so I suffered.
And both of us, both of us were right, I think. Both of us were a little right.
Sometimes, you do have to fight.
Sometimes, you do suffer.
But then again, both of us, both of us…
…well, we were a little wrong, too.
I didn't know I was. I didn't know for the longest time, how wrong I was. Imagine how surprised I was about that, about everything.
I never expected Haru to be the one. The one to show me. I never expected Haru to ever prove me wrong, in anything. Let alone in everything. Let alone in this.
I never expected him, with those dull eyes and quiet, placid ways to be as right as he was.
I never expected him to show me.
He used to smile at me sometimes, for no reason. Just smile. And sometimes, he would gently reach out and brush my hand when he passed me, not quite accidental, but not quite purposeful, either. Just easy brushes of his hand against me. And he used to compliment me sometimes also. Just little things, just about things that I thought were stupid, that were useless and insignificant.
He brought me flowers sometimes too. Some were really weeds and some were really real flowers, but he brought them to me all the same, without reason, without consistency, he brought them. Just whenever he felt like it. Just whenever he thought I'd like it.
That I needed it.
He sat with me sometimes, too. When he found me alone he sat with me sometimes, and asked me little questions that I thought were annoying and pointless, and much, much too obvious. But even when I was cold with him, when I was annoyed and impatient, he would sit with me. Ask me little things.
Just so I wouldn't be alone.
Even though I told myself a lot of the time, that I wanted to be alone, that I needed to be alone because there was so much to do, so many things to finish because people expected it of me.
I had things to do. Things that didn't involve him, that he was hindering with his silly questions, his silly, needless questions. And I told him that, sometimes. When I was too raw inside to deal with it. To deal with him and those silly, needless questions.
But still…
…whenever I was alone…
…he would sit with me.
Just so I wouldn't be alone.
He would talk to me about little, silly things to let me know that I wasn't alone.
And soon, soon it didn't make me so annoyed and impatient.
Soon, I wasn't so cold to him. I was just, just a little bit warmer.
Because he made me feel less alone.
And soon, I began to smile back, a little bit. I wouldn't move away when his fingers brushed mine when we passed each other. I would thank him for those compliments he gave that seemed less and less stupid, less useless and less insignificant.
I didn't know, I didn't know that I was doing it, exactly. But I did, eventually. Just a little bit.
I was just a little bit warmer.
And he brought me flowers sometimes, weeds sometimes, but I began to think they were all beautiful, no matter what. And one day, I remember…
I remember that I told him once, I told him, just because he'd asked, that my favorites were Daisies because they were simple, and Orange blossoms because they smelled sweet.
He'd been delighted at that when he heard it, his soft smile had told me so, and he'd taken my hand, taken it like it was something he had done a hundred times before, as if my hand belonged in his, and pulled me gently along, told me that it was perfect then, that I was absolutely perfect.
I'd followed, I'd followed him and it was as natural as my hand in his was, until there was nothing around us but trees anymore, trees in the bud of spring and new life.
"Haru? Where…where are we going? Class will begin soon, you know…and we haven't…"
"It's okay. We have all the time in the world, don't we? There's always plenty of it. And I just want to show you, to show you something."
And then we stopped moving suddenly, stopped where we were standing under a copse of trees. We just stopped, and I heard him inhale, breathe softly in quiet delight.
"There…look."
And I looked when he pointed, when he whispered in tones full of simple joy. And what I saw, what I saw just made my heart swell as well.
"It's…it's a daisy."
"Yes…I saw it, I saw it coming up a few days ago, and I thought it was pretty. I thought it would be the most beautiful flower in the world. I would have, I would have picked it for you, but I just couldn't, when I saw it yesterday, so proud and pretty there. But I want you to see it anyway; I want to see it with you like this. It's better somehow."
"It is. It's beautiful. Thank you."
I squeezed his hand, I squeezed his hand still in mine and smiled at him, and my heart felt like it would burst.
"Thank you, Haru."
He smiled back, smiled back so warm that it felt like light on my face.
Then…
…well, then…
…he kissed me.
He kissed me under the trees and I never expected it. I don't quite think he expected it either. But our hearts were just so warm, so big and warm at that time with our beautiful little flower, I guess we should have. We should have expected it.
It was just a little kiss, a small kiss that he surprised me with. It surprised me because no part of it was painful, no part of it made me ache inside like the love I had for her had made me ache.
It was so different from what I was used to. Different than I expected.
Loving her, thinking that I loved her had always involved some sort of deep pain, dark thoughts and unfulfilled yearning. It was the kind of love that would have been tainted with the admission of it, with the physical or verbal confirmation of it. It was unrequited, distant.
I thought that was how it was supposed to be.
But this…I could, I could if I wanted to, I could kiss Haru back. And it didn't hurt, and I didn't feel tainted, didn't feel anything but our hands clasped together and his lips brushing mine, gentle, and warm under the trees.
I did. I felt it.
And so I kissed him back. I kissed him back under the trees, holding hands under trees in the early spring.
And that was when I began to realize…
…when I began to realize that…
…I love him. And I've never suffered for it. I don't have to.
He's never made me.
Not a single day, I've never suffered, never had to endure any heart wrenching pain to show him, prove to him, that I really, really love him.
You see, you see…
…he made me realize…
…made me realize that…
…love is little things. Love is little things like flowers or chocolates or little notes with little smiling faces drawn on them that are cute enough, sweet enough and real enough for a real, real love.
And…
…I don't suffer anymore.
I don't suffer at all.
I just…
…I just…
…love.
END