Permanently Made a Child

The rays of sunlight warm up my skin as I walk. The air itself is rather cold, its winter and the sunny weather is a welcome change. It's been raining today. But now I stare into the sky, trying to find some shapes in the few clouds that are there. But it seems I am lacking imagination because I cannot see anything.

"Kai-kun, this cloud looks just like a bunny, doesn't it?" you say without looking at me.

"Huh?" I reply while scanning the sky for bunnies, "Which one?"

"That one over there!" you explain and point out a cloud.

I turn my head to look at it from the same angle as you, listening to you ramble out a bunch of parts of the clouds and naming parts of the 'bunny' but I still don't manage to make out a bunny. Or anything else for that matter. "I can't see it." I finally state in the same tone I usually would everything else.

You look disappointed. "You don't want to see it, that's why you can't. Use your imagination." you tell me with a pout on your lips.

"I'd rather imagine different things." I retort and grin a little mischievously, my mind is anywhere but in the clouds.

"Kai-kun, you're impossible!" You pretend to be shocked and hit me on the arm playfully. Of course you understand what I mean with that and you're perfectly fine with it, I always say those sorts of things when I want to take your mind off something.

"How can you stand being with me if I'm impossible?" I ask, actually serious in my tone now.

Instead of answering my question, you lean towards me to give me a chaste kiss. "Because I love you", you whisper against my lips.

The apartment is quiet when I unlock the door. Ichigo, your cat…or rather our cat, is sitting in the corridor and meows when I turn on the light. "Hello there", I say and bend down to pet her, "I bet you're hungry." Ichigo meows again, as if answering me. She follows me into the kitchen and waits for me to give her some food as she hasn't had anyone else to feed her.

"I'm back!" I hear you call, "And I have a surprise!"

Before I have the chance to go looking for you, you're already standing in front of me in our living room. I pull you towards me and kiss you. "I missed you." I say, I couldn't help but be honest. You were really sick recently…you spent so much time in a hospital, with restricted visiting hours, now a few hours feels like an eternity despite my practice and solid heart.

"But I've only been gone for a few hours." you laugh at me, you find that when I'm honest about some of my feelings, you find them sweet but misplaced, so much so you find it funny.

I shrug. "I still missed you. What's that surprise you were talking about?" You always had the tendency to make me a little curious.

You motion for me to sit down on the sofa. "Close your eyes," you order, "I'll be right back." I hear you leave the room and come back a few moments later. "Now open your eyes."

I do so and there you are, standing in front of me and in your hands you're holding a little white kitten. "Isn't she cute?" you say and sit down next to me.

"She is." I agree.

"I fell in love with her when I saw her. I thought we could name her Ichigo." you say, excited as you usually get.

"Hmmm… it's a nice name", I say and take the kitten from you, "I bet she'll like it here, especially since you'll spoil her rotten."

You giggle; it takes me by surprise almost every time. "I so will."

I decide to go to bed early today after I have taken a shower. I walk into the bedroom, my hair still dripping with water and with only a towel wrapped around me. The bedside lamp is the only source of light. The lamp shades are red and the whole room glows slightly red in the light. It was your idea to buy red lamp shades. You said it created the perfect atmosphere for a bedroom. I've always let you do the decorating, I thought you had more sense for that, considering I didn't care what colored sheets I slept on as long as I slept on something. I only dry my hair with a towel before I slip in beneath the bed sheets. The huge bed feels empty and cold tonight though…almost like every other night.

You're waiting for me as I emerge from the bathroom. You look slightly bored, I let you wait and I know you don't like that. But I can't always do everything you want me to, can I? Even you have to be patient once in a while.

I had let you wait forever for this relationship we had to begin. I liked you, and you looked up to me as though I were the best thing in the world to you. I let you wait though…it made you upset and I didn't want to see that. I wasn't going to get into a relationship with you to save you the pain if my heart wasn't into it…my heart moved on though and I fell for the first time.

"You took ages." you simply state the obvious.

"I've asked you to join me in the shower, you were the one who didn't want to do that." I remind you while towel drying my hair.

"I didn't feel like taking a shower," you answer. But what you really mean is 'I didn't feel like having sex in the shower tonight'. I can only understand what you mean now, two years into this and moving in together. I could never understand you in the beginning, regardless of that you read me like a book. "And I didn't think you would take that long in there." you continue and pout like a child.

"Patience is a virtue." I state and grin inwardly. I'm teasing you and you know it. I'm merely waiting for you to lose your composure which would happen all too soon.

"A virtue that I don't have." you exclaim and get up from the bed.

You seemed to have a lot of patience in the beginning, you waited for as long as you did and it was a miracle you survived it. But when you finally get what you want and it's so close its tangible like we were…maybe you lose your patience, you lose your grip.

Next thing I know, we're both lying on the bed and you're kissing me with that passion that I've only experienced with you. I've never met anyone else whose kisses were more passionate, more full of need. And you need me. Just as much as I need you.

In all fairness though, there was no one else I shared this kind of relationship with. You were my first with everything, my first crush, my first kiss, my first everything…the first to drop someone as proud as me in so little time.

I've got my head on your shoulder, you shift uncomfortably a moment later and I lift my head to look at you, at which you just stare at me confused, "Am I hurting you?" You're so weak in comparison to me, where I've got all the physical strength.

"Not at all."

I lift my head from your skin and lie on the pillow instead because I still didn't want to risk hurting you. All I could do was stare at the ceiling before you chose to move beside me again and rest on me, making me wrap my arm around you. I'm so protective of you that it's not even funny. I'd never protect anyone in the past…but in your state of being its just so difficult not to be protective of you. I know that I can hurt you…I know that you're like a soap bubble to me, I could destroy you with the touch of a finger but I'm not going to. I've never tried so hard to control my strength before, but I am now.

The kind of impression you've had on me is strange. No body could ever do this to me. With a life like mine, with difficulties such as my own, I'd never have expected to have someone like you in my life. I always know when you're about to fall asleep. Your breathing evens out against my shoulder and you bury your face into it and grab onto my arm like you think I'm going to disappear. You shouldn't doubt me when I say I won't leave.

I had thought very little of teenage girls, they were all senseless, not mature enough and I accepted the fact that I'd never find anyone to be in a relationship with, just because I could never lower my maturity. But here you were, a teenage girl who had a lot of maturity, but a hint of childishness that made her a pleasure to be with.

It's still early when I wake up. The sun is just about to rise. I get up nevertheless, knowing I won't be able to go back to sleep anyway. I start brewing coffee and look out the kitchen window while I'm waiting. Sometimes I like the fact that the apartment is located at the top floor of the building. You can see the sun rise from here. It looks peaceful, with the city not awake yet. Only a few cars are on the street, most of them are cabs. I never used to like those early morning hours, I always preferred to train. Funnily enough I always trained on the beach…somewhere where the sunrise was perfectly in view and yet it had no importance to me. That somehow has changed, like so many things.

"Wake up, Kai-kun." you whisper in my ear and kiss my cheek.

"What time is it?" I mumble, still half asleep, refusing to open my eyes just yet.

"4:30" you answer as though it's completely normal for you to be awake at this time. In fact it is.

"What?" I groan, "Are you insane?"

"Please, Kai-kun. Get up and watch the sunrise with me…" you plead and tug at my arm to get me to get out of bed but I don't move at all, you're not that strong.

I reluctantly open my eyes, staring up into those beautiful brown eyes that I couldn't resist with my hazy mind. "You're not going to give up, are you?"

You shake your head and smile at me, like you know I'll fall for it again and again.

"Okay, fine, you won." I say, "You know I can't refuse any wish of yours these days…"

You kiss me softly on the lips, I hate it when you do that to me and keep taking me off guard like that, it makes me feel like I've lost a sense of control. I seemingly have lost nothing though, maybe a bit of my pride but I can't say I'm disappointed with that fact. I'm too proud.

"I know… that's why I love you so much." You wait impatiently for me to get myself out of bed, then drag me into the kitchen so that we can stare out at the rising sun. You wanted to get up on the counter to look outside properly but you can't push yourself off the ground so I help you up. The sunrise is beautiful, in all honesty, yet my eyes are on you and your eye for such a simple beauty.

You're so childish, I admire you for that. If only I had that same childishness, maybe then I wouldn't feel so old in comparison to you. We're almost the same age, we're both mature but you still have something childish about you, it makes you approachable to most people.

I don't need to look at the calendar to know what date it is today. I've been scared of this day for a while already. It's silly I guess. It won't do me any harm. What happened last year won't happen again, it's impossible. But I feel like everything is happening once again… I see it in my head. But now I'm too numb to feel the pain. I've been sad for too long and now I feel like I cannot feel anymore. Like all my feelings are used up and all that's left is numbness.

I leave the apartment a few hours later. I don't have to pay attention where I'm going. I've walked along this path too often in the last year. On the way, I stop at a florist and buy a single red rose. Your favorite.

It's Valentine's Day. We said we wouldn't buy anything because we don't need any gifts to show each other our love. Maybe you said that too because you knew that picking something out for you may hurt my pride. But still, before I head home I stop to buy you some flowers. Not because it's Valentine's Day, but because I know how much you like flowers. Especially roses. I don't buy many of them, only enough that they will look nice in that black vase that you always put on the bedside table when I get you flowers.

You're in the kitchen when I arrive at home. I guess you're trying to cook dinner. But I know it won't work and we'll end up ordering something. You're just too stubborn to admit you couldn't cook if your life depended on it but I love the fact that you won't willingly give up on something, no matter how many times you fail at it. And you do fail at it pretty badly.

I walk into the kitchen as quietly as I can just because I love embracing you when you least expect it, pay back for the times that you kiss me in my sleep or when I'm spacing out. "I'm back." I say, embracing you lightly from behind. You turn around to face me and raise an eyebrow when you see the flowers.

"I'm almost sure we said we weren't going to get each other something for Valentine's." you pout at me, as though I've broken a promise, or made you feel incompetent. I have a tendency to make you feel that way.

"I didn't buy them because of Valentine's Day." I reply, and that's the truth.

"But?"

"Because I love you and I know how much you like flowers?" I tried as though the reason were obvious. Rare is it that I tell you the words 'I love you'. You always say those words to me yet I could never do the same for you. I owed you that much but it always seemed as though I didn't need to say anything. You always knew how I felt about you. From the very beginning.

You smile, moving closer to me like you know I hate it when you touch me quickly, and kiss me affectionately. "I love you, too." Your hot breath is against my neck, you always liked it when I'd hold you close when you said that because I think it was the only way you were assured that I loved you without having to say it.

And that's also why I bought the rose today. You would have liked it. I kneel down to place the rose on the ground. On your gravestone.

One year. One year since I got a call from the hospital, telling me you had an accident with your car. You were still alive when they brought you there. I hurried to get there, to be with you. I drove so fast, I nearly caused an accident myself…maybe if I had then I would've joined you.

When I arrived at the hospital, they told me your chances of surviving were not high, your internal injuries too severe and the weakness of your body from being sick didn't help. I simply asked if I could see you. If I didn't already know what was going on, one could think you were only sleeping. Only some minor cuts were visible on your pale skin. But I knew you wouldn't make it. I already accepted that fact because I could already accept death as a fact of life from the age of ten.

Now I simply wanted to be with you and I was tempted to kill myself just to be with you. You probably didn't know I was there with you. But at least I had the chance to say goodbye. At least you weren't alone when your heart finally stopped beating. I just sit back and think, that I hope you were in no pain when you died, and that if you were, there was some sort of chance that I made you feel better.

That day...that day was the day I gave you your car keys back...I should've known better but I didn't. I remember that smile on your face when you through your keys in the air and caught them perfectly, right after I'd given them to you. I could have driven you to the countryside...I wasnt doing anything that day. It would be the same as today.

One year without you and I missed you every single day of my existence, and while in my mind you would just tell me it wasn't my fault, I still felt a little guilty for how things turned out. You were my everything. We'd spend nights that you'd tell me "Can it get better than this?" and my answer would always be the same. You were my everything. The one who made my dreams come true. My life turned into a broken dream when you died, it was worse than when I was a child, because with you I experienced real happiness and now I missed it. Now I'm left holding on to the memories you left behind. Trying to keep the pieces together, because I never want to forget only one moment that I shared with you, the love of my life.

A/N: So this was something very dangerous for me to post. I've mostly been known for writing romance and angst fics where the bladers are usually in good character(usually!) but this was something I wrote today when I was trying to get over my writers block. I've been trying to get over it for about a week and then suddenly I wrote this. I quite like how it turned out, and originally I didn't have a particular couple in mind. I was thinking of leaving the partner of Kai a secret, even regarding gender, maybe some one would have liked to picture it as yaoi but I wouldn't have managed that properly.

Like I said, originally there was no real character in mind, but for those of you that want a bit of physical description, as there is almost none in this oneshot, then you can take the OC as Tori from "Cats and Dogs" and "People Error". Those of you that have read those would see a bit of the resemblance in character but there is no real link between this oneshot and those two stories aside from Tori being a good muse for me.

So please forgive the fact that this had Kai rather OOC but in my mind, I wanted to try to picture what it was like for Kai to be in love. He is human after all so I wanted to try that out. Also, this is the first time I've written a whole oneshot in someone's point of view so please forgive me if I didn't do a very good job of it. Please leave a review and let me know what you thought.

P.S: For those who read "People Error" please have mercy on me, a chapter will be posted the moment I'm done writing it.