All the Little Things
Rikku loved everyone like she loved sand dunes and seawater and machina. She loved Yuna because she danced and she cried when she thought no one was looking, but never over her own troubles. She loved Tidus for not knowing prejudice and holy laws and the truths no one wanted to tell him. She loved Lulu for being so much better than her, and Wakka for meaning well, and Kimahri for always catching Yunie when she fell. And she loved Auron because he was Auron, and because he didn't love her and that made it seem very poetic. She might have loved him most of all.
She loved him for not visiting the Farplane and for being so scary that she sometimes wanted to cry, and for never giving her sympathy because he knew she didn't really need it. She loved him because even though he insulted her when she was afraid of the Thunder Plains, he still let her hide at the Travel Agency. She loved that he was going to Zanarkand again, because no matter how stupid the pilgrimages were, it took a brave person to make the journey twice. But mostly, she just loved him because he was Auron.
She would never tell anyone. Someday she'd wake up, and she wouldn't love him anymore, and she would be glad for it to be over. Someday when she was old and he was dead she would find his grave and pour sake on it, because she knew he'd like that more than flowers. And then she'd tell him that she had cried over him when she was young and lovely-and-unlovely, and then she'd cry over him again until her spiraled eyes hurt. She'd wipe off the tears and smile, and then she'd hobble away and never look back. She was Rikku, and she didn't dwell on memories.
And one day she'd die and this would be her story: She loved everyone like she loved sand dunes and seawater and machina, and she loved Auron even more.
And then it would be The End.
(Final Fantasy X is owned by Square-Enix.)