Author's Notes: My first totally clean fic, no sexual content whatsoever. ...I feel like I've finally become a man.
Before we proceed, let me tell you all that my first story on this site, "A Moth to a Flame", has now received over 200 hits, but only two real reviews, one of which a friend gave me out of pity. When I asked my friends on FF dot net, they told me they had fics with half that many hits but plenty of reviews. Now, it could be a coincidence that "A Moth to a Flame" has so few reviews compared to hits, but my suspicion is that a lot of you read the story, thought it was terrible, and were too afraid to place a review saying so.
I don't bite, folks. Bash my stories left and right, up and down, and call them the worst literature mankind has ever seen, and I will gladly welcome your demonstration of freedom of speech. If you think it's a waste of time to read my story, you should let other readers know - the whole point of FF dot net having public reviews is so that readers don't have to read garbage. Besides, very likely I'll even find your criticisms useful. It's happened before.
Golden Sun, and therefore all the characters and such in this story, are property of Nintendo and Camelot. Now, let's get on with it.
Don't Stand Too Far from the One You Love
by The Pairing Guy
Kushinada was beautiful. Susa knew that, but he would never say it, for the words did her absolutely no justice. Next to her, the word "beautiful" sounded forever drab, dull, and lacking in any charm whatsoever. So instead, during his courtship of her he had spent long hours scrounging his brain to come up with verses and haiku that might somehow describe even the tiniest fragment of her magnificence. And again and again the results were unsatisfactory, leading him to curse the wayward life he'd led before he met sweet Kushinada, the rough ways that had left him incapable of finding the fine words that might truly say how beautiful she was.
She wasn't just beautiful physically, though the mere sight of her did often so take Susa's breath away that he could think of nothing but wanting just to hold her, to touch her. Nor did the beauty of her gracefulness fully cover it, though that was greater still than her physical beauty. Whenever he saw her dance, he could feel the blood pounding in his veins, pouring into him a longing for her like a man wandering a desert longs for water. But she was beautiful in still greater ways than that.
She was beautiful in spirit. Though it took some time for him to admit it, from the first time he had witnessed her kindness, her gentleness, her compassion, his life was to serve her. Once he consciously realized how wonderful and right she was in the way she treated people, he knew he would do anything to win a place beside her.
To win her heart, he'd stopped at nothing, remaking his very self to please her, filing away his rough edges, his senseless anger, his recklessness. He tamed himself, learning to become gentle in word and deed but strong in mind and spirit. It was a monumental task, but when she first smiled at him - not with the smile that she kindly bestowed on everyone, but with a special smile that was only for him - he knew that it had been worth it.
He was happy with her. Happier, he felt sure, than any other human being had ever been. The sudden threat of the Serpent sundered that happiness. It made him realize the truth.
Kushinada was beautiful, more than any other person who walked the earth. She was precious beyond value, an irreplaceable gift to everyone she met.
And that was why he had to break off their betrothal.
Kushinada looked at him in silence for a long time after he told her, not understanding. "You love me," she echoed his words, "...but you won't marry me?"
"I failed to defeat the Serpent," he said simply. "I cannot protect you."
"But they said..."
"They lied. I was weak, and powerless. Your life was in danger and I could do nothing."
She shook her head. "I don't believe it. You're lying... to keep from telling me that you don't love me anymore."
"I swear by everything I hold dear that I will love you as long as I have being!" he snapped, his face turning red.
"Then why will you not marry me?" she asked simply. "You were not helpless against the Serpent. Felix had no reason to lie about that."
"All that matters is that I could not defeat the Serpent on my own," he said impatiently. "I cannot protect you."
"I don't need protection; I need you," she said, her eyes looking at him with such an earnest and lovely plea that he was rendered temporarily speechless. "Bandits may kill me a year from now, ending my life. But if you leave me now, my life ends today."
He could not hold her gaze. "You say that to keep me, but you know it isn't true. You will live very well without me, as you always did before. You will live longer, as you deserve, and as the people who know you deserve, if you find a better husband."
"How? Most that are not taken by old age are taken by disease. Who can protect me from that?"
"You deserve better than me."
She stared at him, tears beginning to brim in her eyes. "For me, there is nothing and no one better than you."
"You will see things differently, once you are wed to another."
"No." She said the word with complete certainty. "I will marry you. We will be happy together. We shall have many children, and our first son will be named Takeru. That is our fate."
He looked her in the face and shook his head. He turned and left her.
PAIRINGSPAIRINGSPAIRINGS
Of course, though Susa did his best to avoid his once betrothed, not seeing her again was not an option. Izumo was a small town, after all. He saw her at times in the market, or when his sister invited her over for a visit. Each time, she looked at him in a way that he could not endure.
Whenever she looked at him like that, he said, "You will be better off without me. Even if you don't need protecting, you deserve someone who could protect you. I know you will find someone who can."
And whenever he said that, she shook her head and replied, "I will marry you. We will be happy together. We shall have many children, and our first son will be named Takeru. That is our fate."
It didn't surprise him that Kushinada was so confident. After all, he had yet to break off their engagement publically. He didn't want to humiliate her with rejection, nor allow people to think that she had heartlessly spurned her. No matter what they told people, some were bound to come to one or the other conclusion. So instead, he told everyone that they were postponing the marriage. No doubt she took that to mean that his heart wasn't in refusing to marry her, but he would prove her wrong. Once the excitement around the two of them had died down, no one would think much of it when she married someone else.
PAIRINGSPAIRINGSPAIRINGS
One day he answered the door to find Kushinada standing there.
"I came to speak with your sister," she said.
"She's not here," he said sternly, hoping she would leave. Every instant he was with her was utter torment.
"I will wait for her," she said, and stood there until he let her in. As she walked by him, he could not help but again notice how she filled her every movement with the purest grace.
She sat down neatly to wait. After a minute, she looked up at him. "You look... well." The way her eyes unintentionally studied his form made him feel embarrassed.
"We shouldn't speak to each other," he said. "I failed you... You would be right to ignore me."
Kushinada stared at him a moment longer, and then her eyes cracked with pain, and she looked away. In a choked voice she said, "I will marry you. We will be happy together. We shall have many children, and our first son will be named Takeru. That is our fate." As he stood there in silence, he heard a sob come from her.
He realized then that he had been wrong, that she did not say those words out of confidence. They were spoken in desperation, in persistance. They were spoken to keep her from sucumbing to despair.
Guilt swept over him. He had not believed her, had not believed that she truly loved him to the point that she was not only willing to spend the rest of her life with him, but that she could not bear to spend the rest of her life in any other way. He had meant to close the door on a future that he felt was not worthy of her. He hadn't realized that that future also held her one hope of complete happiness.
He sat down beside her and spoke her name. She did not answer, and probably couldn't, because she was crying.
But words were meaningless anyway. So he put his arms around her and pulled her close. The way he held her spoke of an apology, and a promise to never again turn her away from his embrace.
She cried against her for some time, and he both felt sorrow for her pain and pleasure in the warmth of her against him. Then she leaned up to softly kiss him, and the kiss spoke of forgiveness, and a promise of happiness.
END