Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Kingdom Hearts. There's no way I'd write fan-fiction for my own work…well…okay, on second thought…

This story doubles as two.

For Monika,

Sunsets:

There was a sort of - poetry - sucking it all away. It was a beautiful way for something to die, to put it into perspective.

A fucking brilliant Sunset.

I know those have been done.

I know Sunsets are cliche. Not as cliche as sunrises, maybe, but cliché nevertheless.

But, God, it was gorgeous. Sublime, and fragile. It sucked everything out of me, circling back to the quiet concept of a Beautiful Ending. I always appreciated Beautiful Endings; in movies, books, songs, short stories, poetry...and, of course, in life.

I only had the pleasure of knowing one Beautiful Ending.

Well, on second thought, I suppose I had known two Beautiful Endings.

One was the Sunset.

There was just something so tragic about them; the death of the day. The death of potential, the death of the past. The birth of that painful, moaning nostalgia. Nostalgia, erupting with its sad, silent screams inside of my body. A body that I didn't exactly want, but that I should have been able to appreciate. It was lovely, really. I was quite - and I find it hard to say this and believe what I am saying - beautiful. Some people have said that about me - you included - and it felt good when they did...but it was always empty.

I was empty.

I wasn't where I wanted to be.

You weren't where I wanted you to be.

I know just how whiny this all sounds, and here I am, trying to redeem myself by admitting how lame it is...but I can't justify it to myself. I'm tired of rationalizing things in my mind, letting my brain swoop about like a half crushed, wilting insect trying to save itself; trying to make sense of everything and to accept what it comes up with. Trying to find something it can live with.

Because I am so fucking scared of being sucked into the darkness.

All those terribly conservative opinions of other people slowly managed to pry their nasty little selves into my own beliefs and so now I'm stuck here. I'm stuck here because I can't die.

...In my worst moments, I wish that I'd get cancer...or get hit by a train.

Then I realize how painful and slow that would be...and how I'm cursing myself for wishing stuff like that, and how if something like that ever happens, it will only happen once I have finally found some happiness, or at least a reason to live.

Right now, I think you're my reason.

Because you are the second Beautiful Ending I know, and you are even better than Sunsets...of course, nothing can beat watching a Sunset with you.

I want to do that again. Maybe in a cute little graveyard, like last time.

I carried something home with me that day, after we sat in the graveyard, dusk melting over us like candle-wax over fingertips.

I returned with something like death...and I sat at home later, and it took a while...

But I felt that something wither away.

Maybe I carried home a wayward soul, or an insecure memory of something lonely. I felt like I was being devoured, swallowed, consumed; the broiling enzymes dissolving me, and crushing me.

And they sucked it all away into the Sunset. A long-dead Sunset.

And I cried, and screamed and moaned until I found myself stumbling into the arms of a woman who couldn't do anything for me. She held me, my body tense as rigor mortis set into my soul, and spirit. She held me as I died - for myself - and maybe for some one else. Maybe for a ghost.

The ghost of an exhausted Sunset.

Writing this all down makes me feel self-indulgent. What are these stupid, selfish emotions to other people?

This stupid, selfish person?

Because I am just a person. I can't bring myself to say that other word...because every time I hear it from someone's lips, a little bit more is sucked away. A little bit more is stripped off of me for the freshest Sunset to lap up, so desperately.

I have a hate/love relationship with those Sunsets, I guess.

Because to me a sad ending is so satisfying, and so right...

But so bitter and dark - and hungry.

And it's just me and the Sunset sitting outside, all alone together in the withering Summer. I feel like we are hungry for each other, and I stretch out my tongue to caress its fading corpse, as it stretches out its tongue to steal my youth, my beauty - the only things I have - and to nurture my solo, nostalgic heart.

And that's the only kiss that ever made me feel like I was supposed to.

But that's not the only kiss I'll ever remember.

I recalled a kiss we shared once, as the rain smothered my face...

But wait, we were inside right? And the rain was outside...

and it was just you, crying.

A CD was blaring behind us; a girlish voice singing a girlish tune.

...your tears on my cheek.

And I didn't think about sunsets then.

But I do now.

Author's Note : Listening to 'This Time,' by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

This is more of a demi-poem than a one-shot short story. Oh, well. I was trying to keep the pairing subtle, but whatever. XD