Stone Façade
7.18.04
6:53—7:11 P.M.

Just a bit of a drabble, a break from 'In Fear Of'…Ken reflects on how he met Aya. It's a bit short of 500 words.

Stone Façade
by The Weaver Atropos

You've always been so stoically beautiful. Like a porcelain doll. I'm not sure there's another way to describe you. Yet, I know you're human. You've got a heartbeat…I know for a fact that you breathe—and you eat, too.

So why are you so inhumane? Why do you try so hard to be something other than a human? You treat us as though you've evolved to a higher state, and we haven't. When did humankind become so despicable to you?

I know the answer to my questions well enough. I know what caused your distrust and paranoia. It can all be summed up in one word: Takatori. The death, better say—murder—of a family, is hardly an easy thing to get over. But we've all been through pain—we've all experienced anguish. Why was your reaction—your defense to it all—so different? Why become withdrawn, immersed only in thoughts of vengeance?

It's because you're so vulnerable, isn't it? Because you weren't always this cold…because, at some point in your life, murder and pain had never been an issue you'd confronted. You were too guarded; too protected from the world. A child that is too shielded can only be expected to suffer all the more in life.

At least that notion gives me hope. It gives the hope…knowing that you weren't always this way…and that, on account of that, this isn't really you. There's a real Ran somewhere beneath the Aya you've created…a damaged man beneath the stone façade.

You were still a child when it happened, weren't you? Eighteen years is hardly long enough to live. Because you stopped living that day, didn't you? Just like I stopped living the day I was betrayed. I continued to function, to follow a daily routine…but that's not living. I didn't live again until I met you.

You were such a vibrant individual…so alive despite it all. You might've been outwardly dead, but those eyes, those amethyst eyes—they were hardly dead. They were burning, throbbing…yearning for acceptance…yearning for love.

You wanted to be loved, but were afraid. So I reached out to you, angry at your selfishness; angry that you wanted affection, but were so steadfastly ready to refuse the fact…to reciprocate what you wanted.

So I reached out in anger, and you reached back.

And then, for a moment, as we both stood, breathing quick, you slightly haunched over, me holding onto a nearby desk…we both knew. Your eyes focused on ine, pink lips falling open to draw in air…

And we both knew—
That was the moment we fell in love,
And the moment we began to live again.

::sigh:: I wrote a lot of small ficcys today…this was actually written with a pen and paper [I never write in pen and paper]. It talks about Ken, and his looking back on how he fell in love with Aya. If you hadn't figured it out, the last scene deals when they first met, we Ken notoriously punched Aya. ::big grin::