Hey everyone! Welcome to the prequel/side chapter to my last fic, "No Man Is An Island". This is Sebastian's POV as to the reasons for his hundred-and-then-some year absence in my story. It was written to Taylor Swift's "Eyes Open" from the Hunger Games album. I thought it appropriate, heh. It's sad, so you'll have to read NMiaI to get your happy ending. Thanks for all the love and support and I can preeeeetty much guarentee there will be more Kuroshitsuji fics in the near future. Enjoy!

Everybody's waiting
Everybody's watching
Even when you're sleeping
Keep your eyes open

They have been waiting for it for a long time.

They've been watching so, so closely, for the moment when they can leap from the shadows and slide their blades deep into your frail body.

It's been this way since before I knew you; the macabre way you were chained and whipped into near submission at such a tender age. At that time, you knew nothing of the cruelty of the world, but the deities sought to rectify that little problem quickly, didn't they?

Ah, Bocchan, this is why I admire you so. Any other child who experienced what you did would have surely crumbled into the dust. Ashes to ashes. But you, Bocchan, you grasped the thread that led you from Hell and into life again. That is a feat that few can say they accomplished.

And now that you live, you don't just survive…you thrive. Each day you seek to grab Life by its horns. Hmm, that phrasing needs more accuracy: you seek to grab me by the horns. And you have. Yet another astonishing feat. It's no longer a few that can boast this—only you.

I've watched since the moment you screamed into the darkness. It was not a cry of fear or sadness or giving up. It was rage: pure, unadulterated hate and I was smitten from that moment on. I must admit, in the time I have existed—millennia, Bocchan, millennia—I have never met one as wholly unspoiled and as wholly corrupted as you. You practically are contradiction…your small body and your larger-than-life attitude, your tiny hands that can make even my cheek sting, your heart of black and your golden soul…you are beautiful, Bocchan.

The tricky thing
Is yesterday we were just children
Playing soldiers
Just pretending
Dreaming dreams with happy endings
In backyards, winning battles with our wooden swords
But now we've stepped into a cruel world
Where everybody stands and keeps score

Permit me to admit something to you, my sleepy Bocchan. I want you.

It is not the usual want I am used to feeling. Though there certainly are the usual wantings mixed in, they don't capture the depth of this problem. Though I may give the outer appearance of tidiness, I am feral at heart. I like messy and torn and bleeding. I am a demon, I thrive in the chaos. I do want to devour your soul; in fact, I have long contemplated eating all of you, flesh and soul alike. I do want your body in other ways as well, to sink into you and claim you in ways that not even the despicable humans who touched you before have. You are mine, and I want you to know it.

But…

You have taught me the simplistic beauty in patience. In just watching.

I can see their faces, each more hideous than the last, turn towards you like flies drawn to the sweetest honey. The visage of greed and malice is one I am used to, but I hate it when they look at you. Keep your eyes open, Bocchan—I am there for most of it, to protect you from them, but even demons cannot be everywhere at one time. I have failed you more than once; each time I sink to one knee to beg your forgiveness, and each time, you extend your grace. It may be accompanied with a slap or cruel words, but forgiveness is always given. I wonder, Bocchan, is your mercy saved only for me?

So here you are, two steps ahead and staying on guard
Every lesson forms a new scar
They never thought you'd make it this far
But turn around, oh they've surrounded you
It's a showdown, and nobody comes to save you now
But you've got something they don't
Yeah you've got something they don't
You've just got to keep your eyes open

Certainly it could be thought so; you care for no one, and forgive no one else. Is that why the picture revealed me by your side as you slept? Because you are as intertwined with me as I am with you?

Gods, I hope so.

It is not only them that I seek to protect you from. It is also myself.

Never before have I doubted my own abilities, but you seem to bring out the worst in me. More than once I have turned away from watching you, or gripped a delicate object just a little too hard, when I am near you. For some reason you either don't notice these slip-ups, or pretend not to notice. You are still a child—you are very good at playing pretend.

It may sound incredibly cliché, but I lose sleep over you. Demons don't necessarily need sleep, but sleep is nice, thank you, and you never let me take my rest. If a demon could be tamed and caged, you have undoubtedly come close. I used to think that I could stop your games at any time, that though you are my Bocchan, I was the one with the power.

Everybody's waiting for you to breakdown
Everybody's watching to see the fallout
Even when you're sleeping, sleeping
Keep your eyes open

Keep your feet ready
Heartbeat steady
Keep your aim locked
The night goes dark
Keep your eyes open

…How wrong I was.

If I once intended to destroy you, claim you, and take your soul, it is barely a thought any more. It seems like such a strange concept now. Demons will live for hundreds, nay, thousands of years, looking for one such as you. They will search, find, and then consume, until then realize they wasted the blessing that is denied so many of us. I wish to not waste this gift. In fact, I starve for it. It churns within me whenever I see you. It aches, yet I don't want to place it; this feeling, this need, because frankly, Bocchan, it frightens me. I want to beat every one of your games, but never watch you break. I want to consume all of you, but never kill. I don't know myself anymore; I can hardly call myself a demon, because demons cannot feel these things. I wish to please you, Bocchan, in everything that I do. If I knew the word for this feeling, I would profess it.

You are everything. But I don't know how to say it.

That is why I must go.

Keep your eyes open

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