Disclaimer: I do NOT own Loveless or anything in it. It all belongs to Yun Kouga. I make NO money off of this. I'm just a poor fanfiction writer working on a fanfic at work.

000

Staring at the writing assignment written in white chalk on the improperly named green blackboard, Ritsuka couldn't help but feel hatred for the word emblazed into his side. Class writing assignments consisted of writing for ten minutes without stopping about a topic on the board. Class hadn't started yet, which meant he had a few moments to glare at the word circled in pink chalk. It was the word he despised more then anything, or anyone, in the world. More then Septimal Moon or Seimei's true fighter, whatever his name was.

"Alright, everyone!" Shinonome-sensei clapped her hands together once. "Break is over, and it's time for the final subject to start!"

Instantly the chatter around the room dulled into silence. Ritsuka continued to glare at the word on the board. It was like it was mocking him.

"I think we will end today with a writing assignment!" She grinned. "So as you know, you will have ten minutes to write down your thoughts on this topic. You can use essay form, shorthand, poetry, lyrics, lists; whatever writing type you prefer. Use the full ten minutes, and don't worry about something not being perfect. I will warn you all when there is a minute, thirty seconds, and then fifteen seconds left of the ten minutes. If you need to finish a phrase completely, you may do so after the time is up, but no more then that one thought."

"Come on, sensei, we know how this works." Yoji groaned from behind Ritsuka.

"Yeah, you're wasting time." Natsuo agreed from Yoji's side.

Shinonome-sensei flushed. "V-Very well, children. Get to writing! And…" She watched the clock until the second hand hit the twelve. "Go!"

The people around Ritsuka began scribbling away at their paper as he glared one final time at that terrible word and glanced down as blank, lined paper that had been sitting on his desk when he entered the room. "What is love?" He muttered softly to himself.

He could hear the Zeros snickering behind him as they wrote on their papers, making him afraid of what they were writing. Though, perhaps, they were laughing about the topic and the irony of Ritsuka having to write about it. How was he supposed to write about something that he hated? Something that now repulsed him and disgusted him and made him hate everyone and everything, including his side and the name written on it? How could he write about something he didn't understand nor feel!?

Ritsuka tapped his pencil on the desk, trying to get a single thought to enter his mind about what love was. He really had no idea. It wasn't like love was something anyone felt for him. Sure, he felt it for others, and Yuiko was so sure she loved him, and he'd seen other people that knew and felt and had love. But it still confused him to no end. How did people fall in love, exactly? Why did they fall out of love? Was love something felt by the heart or by the mind? Was it real? Was it an illusion meant to keep stupid, naive people happy? Feeling eyes on him, Ritsuka looked up to see his teacher giving him a scolding look for the noise he was making. He stopped tapping his pencil and leaned back in his seat. He twirled the pencil between his fingers elegantly, not dropping it once. His thoughts drifted back to the subject at hand.

How did people know that they felt love? Maybe they were mistaken? But if they were, then how come so many people believed they loved one another or were in love? People told Ritsuka that they loved him all the time. Were they lying? Confused? Wrong? The Zeroes once said that his name was ironic because everyone loved him while they all hated his brother; whose name was also ironic as 'Beloved'. But so what if the name was ironic from that point of view? As far as Ritsuka could tell, the name was spot on. He didn't understand love, so being 'Loveless' made sense.

Ritsuka noticed the quizzical look his teacher was giving him for not writing. He acted like he had an idea and went to jot it down. He saw her smile at him and turn around to write on the board. He sighed and hung his head low, as if obscuring his work. Instead of writing, since he still didn't have an idea of what to write, he drew little swirls and stars in the corner of the paper opposite of where his name was supposed to go.

So if people did feel love, hypothetically, and it wasn't made up, hypothetically, then why didn't he understand it? He'd heard once that people who didn't feel love or compassion were psychopaths or sociopaths. He didn't feel like he was at that point yet. But he knew that Seimei was. Did that mean that he was like Seimei? People said they looked alike, but did they act alike and feel the same thing? And why was one 'Loveless' and the other 'Beloved'? He shook his head to clear away that thinking. Just because he didn't understand love, it didn't make him a sociopath or a psychopath. It was just his nature to not understand or feel love. He thought that he knew what love was. But then again, he supposed he was what the others called a 'slave to the name'. They said Seimei and his fighter were like that; that their name possessed them and changed them. Did that mean that Ritsuka knew what love was before he was Loveless? Before the name came into play? That would make sense, because he clearly remembered thinking he was in love with Soubi before he left and his name appeared.

Ritsuka stopped doodling and looked up at the ticking clock. His teacher was writing on the board with her back to him, so she didn't see him staring at the clock, willing it to go faster with his mind and a spell he wished was real. When would it be a minute left already? The last minute always went by quickly.

Should he write about what he used to feel for Soubi? Was that love enough? Or would Sensei take alarm or offense to it and hire a team to go after Soubi and make sure he wasn't doing anything he shouldn't with Ritsuka? Should he write about his family? Even though he was messed up, Seimei had to love him on some level, or he wouldn't be so damn obsessed with him. If he wrote about that, Sensei might have him get his head examined. So what about his parents? Surely they loved one another…then again, his dad did walk out because he 'couldn't handle' his mother's tantrums. His father clearly didn't love him, or he would have saved him from his mother instead of running away from him. And his mother beat him more often then she didn't, so she probably didn't love him either. Wasn't the saying that 'you don't hurt the ones you love'? Or something like that, anyway. Wasn't another saying that people who abuse their kids were probably abused themselves? So maybe hurting him was her way of saying and showing that she loved him? Eh, maybe that was a stretch too. Perhaps he was thinking about this too much. But if there was one thing that Ritsuka was sure to do, it was to thoroughly think through and contemplate what the correct answer was before saying or doing something.

He looked back down at his paper as Sensei looked at him again to make sure he was still working. He was sure she noticed him looking down from the clock, but she didn't call him out on it or shake her head this time. He did some more scribbles in the corner.

It seemed like no one really loved Ritsuka to begin with, anyway. If he had never been shown love, then how could he know what it was? Sure, people claimed they loved him, but it couldn't be true. Everyone who 'loved' him ended up betraying him. His father left him alone, his mother beat him, his brother faked his own death, and even Soubi betrayed him and left with Seimei instead of sticking by his side where he belonged. So maybe love was just something that was intended to be used as a weapon? To injure or harm another? To make them feel special, only to rip the rug right out from underneath them. It sure would explain a lot of things. After all, Yayoi was hurt that Yuiko didn't return his alleged love, and Soubi had been betrayed by everyone that loved him, as well. Maybe love was to hurt people?

"One minute warning!" Shinonome-sensei warned.

Ritsuka sighed and wrote down 'love is pain'. He tapped his pencil on the desk a couple more times before deciding to erase it. He swiped the pencil's eraser across the paper until it was clean of his explanation of what love was. What could he write?"

"Thirty second warning!"

Ritsuka suppressed a groan as he tried to force his brain to come up with some kind of an answer that wouldn't alarm his sweet-natured Sensei. He still couldn't come up with anything. Surely it couldn't be this hard to come up with a definition of love. Even one word would do! But what word? The young neko sighed and wrote down a couple sentences.

"Finish up your final sentence!" Shinonome-sensei warned. "One you finish, you may hand it in and leave."

Ritsuka finished the sentence he had and, with the rest of the students, packed up to leave. Yoji and Natsuo had been the first two to hand it in and rush out the door to escape. He was the last one out, following behind Yuiko. Shinonome-sensei smiled gently at him.

"Are you all done, Ritsuka-kun?" He nodded and smiled back. "All done, Sensei. Have a good weekend."

She smiled and took his paper, putting it into the papers she had before shutting the manila folder that they were contained in. "You too, Ritsuka-kun." She replied.

He smiled and followed Yuiko out the door.

000

Later that night, Shinonome-sensei sat at the kitchen table of the home she shared with her older sister. She had the manila folder of writing assignments opened up. A green cup containing hot tea was steaming in her left hand as she held a red pen in her right hand. She wasn't planning on grading the students by answer, but rather by spelling, grammatical structure, and whether or not they had used the time they had been given to the best point; which she had determined by watching everyone. She was a little confused as to why Ritsuka had spent so long staring off into space when he was usually a very attentive student. His paper was near the bottom, as she preferred to grade them in the order they were handed in. Or at least as best she could as some students just threw theirs onto the pile and ruined her system. But that was okay; they had a lot on their mind. Even though they were all children still, they were sixth grades, and sixth graders had a lot to deal with now days. It wasn't like when she had been their age and it was all sunshine and playgrounds. Things were much different now.

Her sister took a seat at her right with the local newspaper as Shinonome-sensei took a sip from her cup.

"Grading writing assignments, Hitomi?" Her sister smiled good naturedly as she opened up the paper to read. She stole a cookie off the plate that had been put on the table by Hitomi.

"Of course." She smiled. "I like to do these at least once a week. Gets their creative and thoughtful juices flowing and gets them to focus on one topic for a few minutes, instead of a jumble of things."

"You really are a caring teacher, sis." Her sister giggled behind her paper.

"I try my best." Hitomi wrote a letter grade on one of the papers and moved onto the next.

"What's the topic this time?"

"I asked them 'what is love'."

"Oh, what a good question! Any good answers?"

"Every answer is a good answer!" Shinonome giggled and underlined an incorrectly spelled word. "There is no bad or wrong answer here."

Her sister chuckled. "I suppose you're right, sis."

Hitomi nodded and graded the paper before moving on. "Oh, looks like I'm on the last one!" She exclaimed, putting the last graded one upside down on the other papers. "Ritsuka-kun's."

"The troubled boy?"

"He's not troubled. He just has a lot on his plate." Hitomi nodded, taking another sip of her tea.

She looked down at the paper and her tea cup fell from her hand.

"Sis!" Her sister cried as the cup spilled brown liquid onto the table. She moved the students' papers before they could get damaged.

Hitomi stood quickly in surprise, picking up Ritsuka's already stained paper.

"What's wrong? What is it?"

Hitomi looked the paper over again to see if her eyes were deceiving her. "I…I have to call Agatsuma-kun, right away!" She grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen counter and fled the room, dropping the paper to the ground in the process.

"Gee, what got into her?" Her sister wondered, grabbing paper towels to clean up the spilled mess.

Laying on the floor, stained with brown, was Ritsuka's mostly blank paper filled with drawings in the corner.

I don't understand love, so how can I explain it? The sixth grader had written. After all, that's the reason I'm Loveless.