Beginning Notes:  Not a popular pairing—not even a possible pairing—but the idea just came, so I had to do it.  You know how it goes.  Well, here it is, re-edited with OOC and all! 

Nigirishimeta sono te wo mou hanasanai

--Every Little Thing's Fragile

Kore Ijou Hoka ni Nani mo Iranai

(I Don't Need Anything More Than This)

               If something makes you feel dirty, so dirty that you begin cursing yourself for your unchecked weakness, hating yourself for the monster that you are…then surely that something must be terrible.  One's beauty draws out another's, and therefore, a similar corollary on ugliness must be true.  But the only terrible thing you could ever be is terribly beautiful, and as I watch your eyes move away from my gaze, I know that it's only me who is ugly.  

               I tell myself over and over again that it's just an appreciation, that I only admire you in the way the Greek men loved their boys.  Your quiet righteousness, as swift as bird's flight but always just as gentle….your mature perception, the way you pick up the discarded pieces of everyone else's details…how smooth your skin is against mine…your eyes, like hands in my soul, touch everything and pick it all apart…so much like your—

But maybe I'm appreciating you in a physical sense only.  That kind of thing always goes away quickly, doesn't it?  Doesn't it?

               It's funny, but in a sick way; I feel as though I've taken advantage of you somehow.  It's wrong, what I'm doing.  You're just a kid.  I wonder, if other people knew I was like this…what would they think?  The one who I love with all my heart…how would she react?  Would she, warm and loving, still smile that smile she smiles to everyone else?  Hey Leena, how does it feel having a boyfriend who is pervert?  Ha.  My conscience can scream all it wants, but nothing changes the fact that I'm here, holding you, touching you.  No one can understand how much I burn for you.  If they saw you the way I see you, with your sweet face on my chest and your silken fingers entwined in mine, then maybe they'd understand.

               As much as I love her, she doesn't provide…this.  This comfort.  It's been so long since I've been able to feel any sort of peace in this life.  Each day, I look to the future and see nothing but grey lights, dimming with each passing moment.  You're so young, yet you remind me of the past.  It was a different world and sometimes it would get hard, but at least I had lived, then.  And now…there isn't much.  Still, there is something about you that at least allows me to pretend that my life still has meaning.  And you're so beautiful.  I'm sorry.  You really are. 

I want to grab you and shake you and yell at you and demand that you stop making me love you.  I want to kiss you hard and laugh with you, and see you again (but I do see you).  No, I mean, I just want to cry and hold you.  I want to touch you.  With your long—no, it's short—blonde hair, and with those blue eyes.  It's you.  Yes, I am seeing you.    

               Sometimes, when we we're next to each other, and I'm upset about something, and you try to reassure me, a familiar smile flutters over your lips.  Your presence even feels like…yes, it's that same kind of warmth that rarely goes noticed by those around you, but once discovered, it's unshakable and…and I need you, I really do.  But I know that you won't have me as Love, for whatever reason.  In all honesty, that's fine by me.  Just stay by my side, as you are, golden and perfect, and smile at me.  Whisper my name like he di--That's all I need from you.

***

I…love you.

I see you more clearly than you could ever know.  One would think that with this many tears in my eyes, it'd be difficult, but trust me, I see you perfectly. 

You are like a stallion, proud and strong, most beautiful when he's running in the open fields.  I feel protected when I'm underneath you, and I'm even able to fool myself into believing that there is nothing that comes between us, that when your lips brush against mine like they are now, there's nothing but your skin against mine, nothing but slick sweat separating us…

That the phantoms of the past are gone.

Of all the things I ought to hate him for, I hate him only for leaving.  I miss him so much.  That is not to say I love him more than I love you; he is only a part of me because of fate's arrangement of the stars, but you…you are a part of me because I choose for it to be that way.  If I could rewind time, coming into this with the full knowledge of how you are and what you feel, I would still do it. 

But even more importantly, if I could rewind time, I would make sure he were still here, and that it was him in my place, taking this love.  Truly, nothing would make me happier. 

It's strange.  There are times when it is you who are the child, not knowing what you are doing in this life, or what you want.  You wander aimlessly like a man with both his eyes but is unable to use them.  The vision is there, but the sight is wrong.  I want to be the one that ties you to something, to guide you, but ropes aren't made of dreams.  I certainly don't blame you – what possible meaning could your life have now that it's light has been smothered?  No, I could never blame you.  Any pain that arises from all this…it's by my hand.  I hold the knife, and I'll continue twisting it deeper and deeper until everything's gone.  This is better than nothing at all.

Sometimes, when you run your fingers through my hair, from the top of my head to the ends, you keep on going past where my hair does not even grow and begin caressing the air. 

Strands of air are not true hair, Gareas. 

You tell me my eyes are the shimmering blue waves of the ocean in the summer when they're really a sea's spring green. 

You're living in the wrong season, Gareas. 

               But I won't stop you.  Even though you hold me as tightly as you would a ghost that is about to float away, even though the name that you cry out in the darkness is of two syllables, because I love you so much, this…this…is all I'll ever need.

Ending Notes:  I hope I haven't exhausted this theme, but I can't help it, I just love writing about Gareas' subconscious love for Ernest (cf. Bolt Of Blue).  But it makes sense, doesn't it?  Ah, it does to me.  The quote translates as "don't release this hand that you had once let go."  As clumsy as it sounds in English, it's quite poetic in Japanese.