Title: Tin Soldiers
Author: Peroxidepest17
Universe: Kyou Kara Maou
Theme/Topic: No specific theme or request.
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: vaguely Yozak+Conrad, vaguely ConradxYuuri in the same sense, but not really. Probably more gen than anything. XD;;
Warnings/Spoilers: Tiny spoilers for Yozak and Conrad's pasts.
Word Count: 1,488
Summary: The tin men have no heart.
Dedication: requested by cheeseburger of doom- Merry Christmas!
A/N: I've never written Yozak before and my experience writing KKM is still rather limited, I think. But I tried my best!
Disclaimer:v Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

Yozak was a soldier first and foremost—knew that since the day a man came riding over the ridge on a magnificent horse and smiled at him. Since the day he'd met a boy just like him and hadn't felt so alone in the world anymore.

He learned he was a soldier in an army, that day.

And oldiers fought, soldiers marched, soldiers protected, soldiers obeyed. They lived for a greater good, sacrificed their bodies, their lives, their own hopes and dreams for the sake of someone else's. A king's, a queen's, a general's, a country's, an ideal's. They fought to make a better world for the things that mattered to them, and in the end, were not allowed to live in that which they'd helped to create. There was no place for broken tin soldiers in the peaceful world they'd fought so hard to maintain.

Conrad always smiled ruefully about it and said, "We just have to do our best." And he meant that for the sake of other people's families, for the sake of other people's wishes and dreams and destinies, they would just have to do their best.

They were soldiers, and had no dreams of their own, for they had been filled up with those of the ones they served.

Hollow men stuffed up full of bloodshed.

"Follow orders, eat well, rest when you can," were the three things Dan Hiri had left both Yozak and Conrad with after he died, and Yozak could still remember the old soldier's smile as he'd said those things from atop his magnificent horse, as he'd inspired two young boys to give up the individual parts of themselves to fight for something greater.

Sacrifices.

Perhaps it was the only thing Sir Weller had ever known, the only thing he'd truly believed in. He gave up the woman he loved, the comfortable life he could have had, and his own son so that he could continue to fight, after all. So he could sacrifice what he had to protect things that weren't his own.

Conrad learned that from his father perhaps, and Yozak saw his friend-and-then-commander grow up to be more and more like his father day after day.

No selfish desires. Follow orders. This life was not his own.

He lived for his country, fought for his country, would die for his country with a smile on his face and no regrets because he'd never had a dream of his own to fulfill anyway.

Yozak too, had grown to become like that, had learned over time that as a man of the army his life was in the hands of those above him— his existence was merely that of a little toy soldier there to carry out the duties asked of him by his country, his king, his commander. There was no room for other things, and he understood that he was committed to serve until he died.

His body was not his own, his actions were not his own, his heart was not his own.

Soldiers were not meant to love, dream, hope. Soldiers were meant to fight.

Made of tin and hollow inside— the means to an end. They were the cold dead metal men.

And growing up in light of that, in being nothing but a soldier his whole life, the closest thing Yozak could understand as love was a willingness to serve. Because he had no heart, it was all he could give.

And he knew he would serve Conrad until the day he died.

It wasn't love exactly, but maybe it was the closest thing someone like Yozak could come to it. A soldier's love.

And that was all he needed--all either of them needed-- to be content.

Then one day, a king came along who smiled like Yozak remembered Lady Julia smiling, and for a moment, he worried about his commander, that Conrad would forget who they were in light of that smile that tore him into the past.

Soldiers didn't love. They served, and that was the best any of them could ever hope to do in this world that was not for them.

Sometimes the look in Conrad's eye when he spoke to his new king made Yozak think that his commander wouldn't want to be that sacrifice anymore. And it made him instantly wary of Yuuri, because Yozak knew only that, knew only how to serve.

What would become of him if the one person on this earth he would die for as a soldier forgot all of that?

And so he railed against the new king at first, did his duty and followed orders like any good soldier would but never believed in Yuuri quite like Conrad believed in Yuuri. In the meantime he worried, and knew that even though he didn't understand love—it wasn't his place—he understood that things were changing. Dangerously.

Yuuri was changing things, and the men who weren't allowed to live in the world they'd sworn to protect suddenly smiled on their own now, laughed on their own, danced on their own, dreamed on their own like they had hearts of their own after all.

A dangerous thing for an army—deadly when they became individual fighters each and not the single, physical manifestation of one profound thought that they were supposed to be. Servants.

Naturally, Yozak was very concerned at first. This would weaken the country, he thought. It would leave them prey to internal chaos, external threat. The soldiers couldn't be men made of mere flesh in a world that sought cut them open—they had to be forged of metal and empty inside, strong to fight and hollow so they could be filled up with the will of those who led them.

But then one day, as he'd performed his soldier's duties, Yuuri smiled at him like a friend and not a king. Smiled and told Yozak, "I want to fight for you too."

Something about a king saying that boggled Yozak at first, because all his life he'd been told that he was someone who would fight and die for the will of someone greater than him, that he would sacrifice his life so that others may live theirs however they wished. A slave for freedom.

And then one day, a king smiled at him and told him that they'd do it together. No more sacrifices, no more living as ghosts amongst the people they'd saved. A life too, love too, a dream, a thought, a heart all their own. "I want to fight for you too," Yuri told him. "You're all important people to me."

People. Not soldiers.

At that very moment all of Yozak's worry seemed to drop out from under him, and he'd turned to his commander then, saw the gentle laughter in Conrad's eyes and something else that tasted suspiciously like independence. He felt himself smile in like then— laugh because it was absurd, ridiculous, against everything they'd ever been taught.

Refreshing.

And they gazed at each other for just a moment—two who had spent their whole lives side by side following the will of someone else.

"Serve well," Conrad told him in that instant, and Yozak felt that if he looked at this new king, if he looked at Yuuri and if he looked Conrad and if he breathed the fresh air he'd fought to protect and sang the songs his and others' efforts had helped to inspire, if he stopped for just a second and let himself be him and not a soldier, he could understand what love felt like.

A new king changed everything, and at that very moment, Yozak realized what Conrad had come to discover before him, looking into the eyes of a boy king who had love enough for every single one of them. And when he found what Conrad had found, he promised to serve for the rest of his life all over again, promised that he would follow that man and this king to the ends of the earth, to the end of his life if it so happened. Best of all he promised not because he was a tin soldier in a child king's army, but because he could feel his own heart beating in his chest for the first time in his life, full of something sweet and foreign called a dream.

That day, he promised to serve as best he could, as true he could, as long as he could. Not because he was empty inside, but because he loved.

He'd finally learned how.

And so it turned out that the tin men had had hearts of their own all along.

END