My first HYD one-shot, and about my favourite pairing, too. Inspiration for this struck at 2 o'clock in the morning, and refused to let me sleep until I'd written it. That's what you get for rewatching too many episodes of the drama just before you go to bed XD Anyway, my sleep-deprived rambling aside, hope you enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: I don't actually own Hana Yori Dango. It'd be pretty darn bad if I did.
As he sees it, there are two types of women in the world. It's no more complex than that, really.
The first type is what he would describe as his type. Beautiful women with glitzy, low-cut dresses, bleached hair, fake plastic nails and cheap imitations of expensive jewellery. They're not classy. None of their beauty is natural. Their apparent admiration for him is about as real as his façade of respect for them. Tonight, they'll have their fun together, but by tomorrow lunchtime, they won't recognise or remember each other. These women always look so different in the daylight, away from the electric flickering of nightclubs, and the dimmed lamps of hotel suites.
Soujiroh can look upon these women, and he sees the sleaze. He sees the dirt. He feels repulsion in his stomach sometimes, if he lets himself think too hard into it. They're so practiced. So seasoned. He doesn't want to let his mind stray to thinking of how many men they've had before him. Sweaty, gasping, panting, heaving men on top of them, in exactly the same position as he himself. He's just another attractive, wealthy man who can satisfy their desire for fun, while also bestowing them with expensive, meaningless gifts, and false feelings. Just as they mean nothing to him, they will take very few hours to forget him entirely.
He knows how false everything about them is. He knows how false he is around them. But he keeps on. Every night he goes out, he never once comes back alone. His list of conquests gets a name longer each time. Although he rarely even remember as much as their name by the morning after. He likes the ones that leave before he wakes up the best. It's easier that way. They can just fade away into yet another drunken haze.
Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly reflective with himself, a state he tends to avoid, he asks himself why he does it. Does he enjoy it? Yes. He'd be lying if he said he didn't. It's not just the sex, either, that he likes. He likes how they act out adoration for him in the couple of hours in which he 'acquaints' himself with them. He knows it's an act, but in some ways that's better than the real thing. No strings. No responsibility. No expectations. He can feel truly powerful for just a little while, with no adverse consequences. It suits him well.
Soujiroh knows this first type of girl entirely. There's no mystery in them anymore. Once you've had the first few, they're much of a muchness, he's always thought. He can't recall any that break the mould, except perhaps a few particularly pretty ones here and there.
No, he has a handle on this type of women. It's the second kind that scares him.
He'd put Yuki squarely into this category. It's because of this that he refuses to consider her. If she were the first type, he would have had her almost as soon as he laid eyes on her. She would, in his eyes, be one of the exceptionally pretty ones. The ones that stick in his head a little longer than most. But still, that would have been it, once the deed was done. He would forget her, and her him. That kind of one-off encounter with her would be completely within his comfort zone.
But Yuki is not that type of girl. Yuki is the other type. The type he truly despises.
He'd never let himself get to know one up until meeting Yuki. He sees something in them, and he knows that he could not forgive himself if he allowed himself to tamper, to dirty, to ruin, something that is never an issue with the women he tends to socialize with.
There's a pureness in girls like Yuki unlike anything that his conquests possess. It's a pureness that promises that every accidental touch, every softly spoken word, every meeting of the eyes will be remembered, thought over, with delicate, hopeful smiles.
It's too much pressure for him. He couldn't live up to it. These girls, unlike his type, have expectations, hopes, dreams. They want love beyond anything that could be given physically. They want someone who would take their heart and keep it safe. That's what Yuki is asking from him. It's what she hopes for from him. She wants him to love her, to care for her, and to keep her safe. She simply doesn't understand that he can't do any of those things. Not yet.
He's not ready yet. He's not ready to leave behind his life of cheap alcohol, cheap women and easy sex. To do that would mean venturing into territory he doesn't even want to contemplate yet. He won't leave it until he simply can't hide any longer. Until he becomes a true man. Until he's ready to love, and be loved in return. Until he's ready for relationships to mean something. To last for months or years, or perhaps the rest of his living days.
That time will come, without a doubt, and when it does, he hopes she'll be there. He hopes he won't be too late. If there's only one woman from the dreaded second type that would pull him in, ensnare him and not let go, he has no doubt in his mind that it'll be her. It hasn't happened yet, and maybe it won't even happen soon, but he's sure that someday, he'll fall in love with that girl.