A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.
His soul was fragmented, like a broken mirror, only able to be seen from the reflections of the shattered pieces, the refracting light of the crystalline surface showing off the damaged remnants of his longing-for-liberty soul. He was lost, yet the Shinda Sekai Sensen had found him, taken him in, and reunited him with his cool, vermillion-eyed beauty. He was free - finally free - from the agonizing confinement, the disparaging restriction his past life had been. He inhales deeply, stopping before a park bench and situating himself on it, the headphones hiding his ears drowning out the entirety of outside noise and external, idle babble.
He releases slowly the pent-up breath he had been holding, his cobalt orbs scanning the park area around him, observing the innocence and unadulterated hearts of the children sprinting and screaming in enjoyment. Unconsciously, he raises slightly his right arm, his hand resting, waiting, for something unseen and untouchable - something impalpable and intangible to the definite boundaries shielding the indiscriminate, thoughtless realities of the world around him.
"So that's where you've been hiding."
The voice breaks him from his thoughts, and he does not look to face the owner of the sweet melody. Slowly, he takes off his headphones, letting them rest on his shoulders; he does not need to look to know that it is her.
"I wouldn't call it 'hiding' really." He sighs, feeling his soul mate move to sit next to him.
"It feels like you've been hiding." Iwasawa mutters, glancing at the raven-haired teen before quickly looking away. "I haven't seen you, or even talked to you, in weeks."
"Sorry." Shinn says simply, inaudibly, almost as if entranced by the sun sinking slowly below the autumn horizon. Pools of azure stare blankly, and the soloist makes no effort to focus his tired eyes, merely turning to face the cool beauty next to him. "I'm sorry." He whispers.
Her ears had barely caught the muffled sound, and she turns to meet the lacking expression in his ungazing eyes. She frowns, recollections of their time in the Afterlife filling and flooding every empty crevice and each vague darkness of her mind. Forcing her stare away, she swallows the lump in her throat, watching the horizon swallow the last bit of sun to let the moon show off its own illumination. She feels a hand caress her cheek, quietly gasping at the sudden shock of the touch but keeping herself composed.
"Cheer up, Red." He says with a slight chuckle. "I wasn't ignoring you on purpose. I've been thinking too much, that's all."
She shoots him a bewildered look, her vermilion eyes blurry with both perplexion and tears that she had not formerly noticed. "Thinking's never a bad thing."
"It is when you do it too much."
"It clarifies what you don't know."
"It also puts you in worse moods than you should be."
"Shinn." She forces him to meet her gaze. "What do you think about?"
He rolls his eyes, aware that the vocalist could see the action clearly, trying desperately the find anything - anything - else to rest his eyes on. He fails, reluctantly staring back into the unending crimson gleam of his soulmate.
"You." He sighs, Iwasawa keeping quiet. "I think about how someone so strong and beautiful and flawed to the point of perfection could ever be interested in someone like me."
"I'm-" Iwasawa begins, but Shinn cuts her off.
"I think about how, if it weren't for the Afterlife, we never would've met. If I wasn't so selfish with my life, we never would've met!" He raised his voice quickly but calmed it just as fast. "It's like I'm the selfish darkness that nobody wants, and you're the beautiful lights that do nothing but give." He finishes with a sigh and sad smile.
Jet-black locks conceal the striking azure eyes shining with freshly-formed tears. He bites his lip, aware of the soft whimpers escaping his mouth, the cracks in his feeble shield, and the chinks in his weakened armor. He closes his eyes, blinding himself from the reality he had, for so long, yearned but could not fully grasp. The lump in his throat makes it hard for him to breathe, and he knows that she sees the uneven movement of his body - up then down; slowly ascending, then quickly falling - and hears the heavy breaths of his captive cries.
She frowns, noting his tightly-clasped hands gripping his own fingers tautly. Those spaces in between his fingers, she contemplates, are where her own hands should be. She moves her body closer to his, closing the gap between them and resting her shoulder against his. "Shinn." She begins.
The soloist stays silent, allowing her to continue.
"Maybe it is true that people don't want the darkness, but that's because they're afraid of what they don't know. They're afraid of what they can't see. In pure darkness, nobody can see anything." She inhales deeply, making sure her diaphragm fills to its fullest before speaking again. "But it's the same for light; people can be blinded by what's beautiful. So for us to really understand the merits and virtues of things, we have to understand that the world is comprised of beauty and ugliness and mystery. Because-" She pauses abruptly, realizing the pace of her breathing had quickened before calming it and continuing. "Because a certain darkness is needed to see the stars."
In between the minutes of silence and seconds of staring, their eyes had met, and Shinn's hand had found it's way toward Iwasawa's. In between the quiet atmosphere floating around them, his voice pierces through the constricting wordlessness.
"Masami?" He smirks slightly at the flustered look in her eyes. "Ya know, you're kind of awesome." He says slowly, his crooked smile favoring to rise higher right.
A/N: I do not own Angel Beats, and I hope you found some sort of satisfaction reading this. :3