He is a boy.
Nothing more, nothing less, she tells herself. The eternally infuriating smirk that covers up the deeper glimpses of his eyes is all a show, a charming little act that might blind weaker minds and make other knees buckle. Not her, though. She can see him for what he is.
He is a thief.
A simple criminal, her conscience attests. He takes things that do not belong to him. Granted, in the strangest ways possible – who'd ever heard of "honest warnings"? – but this does not lessen the degree of his wrongdoing. It only makes him that much more infuriating.
She hates him.
There are too many reasons to name, not including his arrogance, his perversion, his nonchalance, his lack of shame—
She knows she hates him from the burning feeling she gets deep in her chest whenever he appears.
(Always so close, a breath away; always with that vapor touch and lingering gaze.
It's these terrible tricks she hates.)
His words are insubstantial. She can't believe a thing he says, his honey-drenched fantasies and disillusioned realities – but the eyes say everything. It confounds her.
He couldn't be more than seventeen (not with his maturity level, anyways) - and yet she feels there are a thousand years sealed behind those eyes, some awful and cursed youth suspended in violet. It's a strange sensation, among the other stranger things he makes her feel. Sometimes she almost feels sorry for him, but she quickly crushes those perplexing naggings of sympathy.
After all, she's sure it's all a game to him.
"Do you believe in fairy tales?" he asked, with the crescent smile and some lonely side of the moon reflected in his eyes.
"No."
The smile widened, flickering moon. "Good. Neither do I."
And it was all of another time, a century ago when he was one hundred years younger but no different. Still trapped, playing the same sad game to the same sad result.
He'd fall in love again.
And then death would take them away into some warm darkness apart from him, and he'd remain in his own cool, dark glade. Sleeping again, to awaken to an endless nightmare.
So he'd steal to make up for the things stolen from him. There is a sense of vengeance in every warning he writes, every unfurling of black wings. Every piece of humanity that slipped through his fingers as smoothly as marble, every bit that might have anchored him to some kind of hazy reality, some warped semblance of happiness.
He might hold it for a moment before it disappeared into the second hand of time.
Never enough time, because-
There are no fairy tales.
And when she learns the truth – not from him, but from Daisuke, because she wouldn't have believed it out of his mouth anyways – somehow it doesn't surprise her as much as it should have. It all makes sense now: his irresponsibility, his rashness, his devil-may-care attitude about public and private property. The way he flung himself from those rooftops, almost as if he was trying to fall (but those black wings would always pull him up).
She can forgive him now. And a small part of her acknowledges that she's always wanted to—wanted to forgive him, justify his actions, pardon his sins, because that way it wouldn't be so terrible for her to admit that she liked him, just a little bit.
Now when she looks in his eyes, the tragedy is so clearly reflected in the violet that she wonders how she could have ever missed it. Had she really been that blind, that stubborn?
But he still smiles for her, just like he has for every other girl he's ever loved. (She wonders how many there were before her, and to what degree he loved them. Did he still remember the others, or was every girl a first love? The thought makes her heart clench unexpectedly.) He still smiles because he doesn't yet know that she knows the truth, and to him it's still the same game he has resigned himself to play.
So when she reaches out with a small white hand to touch him, he looks beautifully startled. His sharp young features are drawn into an expression of surprise.
"Riku?" he whispers.
In his breathless uncertainty, he looks more like a boy than ever.
She gently traces the curve of his jaw. He is trembling a little; or maybe it's her that's shaking, she isn't sure.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, not daring to look into his violet eyes anymore for fear of drowning.
There is a silence and she can hear in it his realization; a quiet understanding that gradually colors the silence and that draws her closer to him. His arms have found their way around her, and suddenly she is buried deep in his chest, where she can touch the liquid ache that his curse has planted within him.
She tells herself she won't cry, because tears never did anyone any good. But her eyes betray her and she finds herself shedding curious warm droplets that are salty on her lips. She feels his padded thumbs wiping them away, and it's marvelously, sinfully comforting.
She hiccups, and he laughs.
"Hey, Riku," he murmurs, still thumbing away the tears like that was what he was born to do. "Did I ever tell you that I like you?"
She resists the urge to roll her eyes.
His fingers stop wiping away the tears to cup her face firmly. His violet eyes are magnetizing, burning.
"Because I really, really do."
Her heart stops and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, because in the back of her mind a voice is telling her that fairy tales are only fairy tales because they never come true.
He's still a boy and a thief, and always will be.
So I was scrounging around in my backup files and found this old DN Angel fic that I never finished. It's probably like 2 years old lol. So I decided to finish it yesterday...yeah.
Man, I miss writing.