Note: This is one-sided Anikishipping with confirmed Spiritshipping. This is in Syrus' POV.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Take Care Of My Love
Did you know that you can love someone so much that it hurts?
I don't mean emotional pain, either. I mean physical pain. It starts in your chest and it hurts like hell. It's in your heart and it's strong pain. It can make you lose the ability to speak. It can cause you to act strangely.
Believe me, I know.
It was because of that pain - heartache, I call it - that I had one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
I had been reading a novel that day. The heroine had run to the hero of the story and confessed her love for him and he had taken her in his strong arms and kissed her until she didn't know her own name.
That heartache, I mentioned? It alters your rational thinking, too. It did that to me, and I actually believed that the romantic scenarios you read about in trashy novels actually apply to everyday life.
Heartache hurts but it's like any pain, I suppose. Sometimes it's faded and you don't notice it so much, and sometimes it's so strong that you want to curl up and cry. It hurts like hell, but sometimes it's better to pretend that it doesn't.
I had pretended for over a year before I made my mistake.
You don't fall into the arms of the person you love, them loving you back despite the fact that they've never once shown any signs of the fact. It might work like that on the pages of a book or the visual image of a movie, but in real life, it's so much more complicated.
/
When you think about falling in love for the very first time, you can't help but picture it as the feeling of flight and happiness. You picture you and that special person sharing your first kiss, losing your innocence together, being together. Most people will think this, whether they care to admit it or not.
I'm no exception. I'll admit it. When I first fell in love - when I knew for sure that the foreign emotion I had for him was really love - I lay in bed at night with fantasies swimming in my mind like colourful fish.
I pictured his arms coming around my waist and holding me close, pressing his body to mine. I pictured those soft lips descending on my own. I pictured the way his face would look when he experienced a type of pleasure that he'd never felt before, the way my own face would look, too, since I never had either.
Of course, not everyone falls in love with their very best friend.
Somehow it's worse when it's someone who's that close to you anyway. They put their arms around you in a friendly hug - one hundred percent innocent - and they don't even know how hard it is for you to hold yourself back from turning that simple hug into something more.
Also, it's not just anyone who can honestly say they fell in love with the hero.
I can say that honestly. Because I fell in love with Jaden Yuki.
Me. Wimpy little Syrus Truesdale.
But I was his best friend, which made little sense to me - Jaden was so amazing, how did I even vaguely match up?
If I could be his best friend, maybe I could be more? I thought about that possibility every day from about halfway through my second year at Duel Academy.
In my first year, I had formed a strong bond with Jaden, one I didn't understand properly. In my second year, it grew and grew until my heart felt pain - that heartache - for the first time. It took about half the school year for me to be able to admit to myself that I had fallen for the Slifer.
I had moved into the Ra Yellow dorm but I was no less Jaden's friend. I valued our friendship above most other things in the world.
/
As time went by, I valued him more and more. But I didn't tell him about my feelings. Why? Because he wouldn't understand. Jaden was childish, innocent - okay, I know he almost certainly knew more than he let on, but he had that air about him. I couldn't try to bring him into something he didn't understand.
I didn't want him to tell me that he loved me without understanding what type of love I meant, without meaning it.
But then our third year came, and for me, everything changed.
Jaden got another new friend, one that quickly became his best friend. That boy had blue hair and green eyes, an odd sense in fashion, and a friendly personality that was exactly like Jaden's in many ways. His name was Jesse Andersen.
I had seen my love struck reflection in the mirror enough times to notice love in a person's eyes when I saw it.
So imagine how I felt when I caught Jesse looking at Jaden the way I did.
Well, it intimidated me, knowing I had competition for his affections, but it didn't really worry me. Jesse was a nice guy, I can't pretend he wasn't. And I knew that Jesse wasn't going to jump Jaden - he probably thought along the same lines I did, and it was for that reason that I got along with him.
That, and the fact that I don't think Jesse worked out that I loved Jaden, too.
Still, Jesse's presence brought unwanted changes. I began to see less and less of Jaden. We didn't fall out or anything, it was just like we were growing apart. I spent more and more time away from him as he grew closer to Jesse, and every day I missed him a little more.
And then it all happened.
What I referred to as 'The Yubel Incident'.
/
I don't like to think back on my third year now, for many reasons.
I was turned into a duelling zombie by the possessed Marcel and then we managed to go home - not that I remembered too many details.
Jesse sent us home to Academy Island using his newly acquired Rainbow Dragon. But he didn't return with us. Jaden became distraught, and insisted that he was going after Jesse. Me and our friends went with him to those other dimensions, because that was just what we did.
I watched as Jaden lost himself to the Darkness, and I couldn't help but blame Jesse for it. It wasn't his fault, I knew that. But I hated seeing Jaden - who I loved so much it hurt - lose his way like that.
I won't go into details about all the incidents that occurred there. It's too painful to try and remember all that happened.
But I do understand this much: Jaden got us all home again. All of us, Jesse included. And he came back a week later. He was different.
That was when the pain for me truly began. Until then the heartache had been bearable. Then, it became different.
Because Jaden was more mature. I didn't know why at the time - it was later that I learned of his fusion to Yubel. At the time, I didn't know why he seemed to have grown up.
His face was more mature, his eyes more angular and his clothes modified to show maturity and skill.
At last, he looked like a man who might have a proper relationship. He no longer had the face of a completely innocent boy. He looked now, more mature, and to me, it was a huge turn on.
I loved the changes in his body. In his attitude, though? No, I hated those.
/
When we came back from the other dimension, I wanted to be with Jaden, but he ignored me. He just stayed in his room, constantly, ignoring everyone. I tried to talk to him sometimes, but he pushed me away. Eventually I couldn't take it. I did something stupid, and I barged into his room like a madman and demanded that he listen to me. He did listen. I wish he hadn't, but he was willing to do that much for me - and I thought that I was in with a chance.
I was planning to tell him that he was being an antisocial ass and that he should come out into the real world and talk to me, and his other friends, too. I had planned to just tell him that we missed him. Convince him to come back.
But that wasn't what I said. I don't know why I said all I did. I guess it just slipped out. I was crying before I was halfway finished with my speech.
I didn't tell him that we missed him, or that he was antisocial, or any of what I had planned to say to him.
Instead I told him that I loved him.
Jaden just gave me this confused expression, and I went on and told him about the way my heart rate got faster when I was with him, and about the way I wanted to be more than just an ignored friend to him. I told him that he was beautiful, and that I wanted him to hold me in his arms. I told him everything that was in my heart, and he listened, never once stopping me.
Afterwards, I found that cruel of him. At the time, it gave me hope.
But then I ran out of things to say, and all I could say was "I love you, Jaden."
I wanted him to say it back. I really needed him to return those feelings I had for him. I wanted him to hold me, love me, touch me.
I wanted him to give me an equally dramatic and romantic speech so that we could fall into each other's arms and not separate for the whole night.
He did none of that.
I felt hopeful - my heart was in my throat, I was still using it to speak - when he sat me down on the bed, but I didn't like the metre of space he put between us.
Jaden gave me his own small speech, but it wasn't the one I wanted to hear. He told me all the right things - right to him, not to me. He said that he was very flattered and that he was sure I'd find love soon. But he said that he didn't love me that way.
I suppose I realised then that he really was my Jaden, the one I'd known since first year, the one I'd known I loved since second year. He said he loved me like a friend, but that was it.
I would have been happy if he'd stopped there. But he didn't. He actually gave me a romantic confession speech - but not one meant for me.
It was meant for Jesse Andersen. Jaden told me about how he'd lost his heart to Jesse, and how he couldn't return my feelings.
I ran out then. It was one thing to hear that he wasn't interested. It was another to hear that he was in love with someone he'd met not even a year ago.
He had crossed dimensions for Jesse. Would he have done that for me? I didn't know. I didn't want to know, because I was afraid that the answer would be 'no'.
I ran straight to my room in Obelisk dorm, where I had moved up to. I flung myself onto the bed and cried tears of …
What, exactly? Rejection? Yes. But it was more than that. I was embarrassed.
Who can honestly say that they aren't embarrassed if they open their heart and get shot down by a confession of love for someone else?
Jesse was on the island. I don't know why he didn't go back to his original school, like Jim and Axel did. Maybe he knew of Jaden's state of heart more than I did. I knew that he was really the only person that Jaden was still talking to. He wasn't ignoring us if we approached him first, but with Jesse, Jaden occasionally went to him.
It didn't matter.
What mattered was what happened about three weeks after my rejected confession.
/
I had gone up to see Jaden, just to ask him to take a look at some new cards I had got, since my brother was busy.
Jaden and I hadn't talked for a week after I had confessed love for him, but after that, we gradually got back on track. We were best friends again. It wasn't the same as ever, but that was probably more down to Jaden's maturity and everything, not just my stupid heart. Jaden didn't seem to hold a grudge. He was as nice to me as he had ever been, when we were together.
So I was perfectly confident with asking him about some cards the way I used to do all the time.
I was just taking the cards out of my pocket, ready to show them to my best friend - what else could I call him, other than my I-wish love? - but something stopped me as I reached for the door handle that would allow me access to his dorm room.
I didn't see anything through the closed door. But I could hear something, and I stopped to listen.
There was sobbing coming from inside. I was a little worried, because I could tell that it was Jaden.
I'd never seen Jaden cry properly - unless you count tears of laughter - until Zane was 'sent to the stars' in the alternate dimension by Yubel, who had taken over Jesse's body. I knew he probably wouldn't want me to see. So I decided that I'd wait for a little while before going in to see him.
If only I had left then. But I was naïve. And so I pressed my ear against the door to see if he was sobbing a little or actually howling. If he was really upset, I wouldn't wait.
But at the closer hearing level, I could tell that Jaden wasn't sobbing at all.
He was moaning.
My heart began to skip beats. Had he hurt himself? Was it sick of me to hope that he was in pain, because I feared so much the other thing that might make him moan?
But my heart sank when I heard the voice from inside the room.
"Right there, Jess!"
Jaden's cry made my ears burn with embarrassment. I knew for sure, then, what was going on in there.
Jaden's moans were not of pain, but of pleasure. I suppose anyone can tell the difference, including me, but when I heard that first moan I still had hope. Teenage boys have needs. Maybe it was personal stuff?
But no. This changed the perspective completely.
Jesse was making Jaden moan like that.
It was then that I realised that Jaden hadn't been telling me that he was in love with Jesse the way I was in love with him - a one-sided thing. No. Jesse felt the same way for Jaden. They were together. That explained why Jesse hadn't gone back to his old school. He had stayed with Jaden because they were together. I had known that he felt that way for Jaden, but I didn't know they'd actually formed that sort of relationship.
I wished that I didn't know.
The worst part for me, I think, was that I was frozen with shock and fear and pain in my heart. I couldn't move, no matter how badly I wanted to run.
I was frozen in place like a possum playing dead, my ear against the door.
I wanted to vomit as I heard Jesse's gasps mix in with Jaden's moaning, and Jaden telling Jesse to "hit that spot again."
Eventually, I regained control of my limbs and I tore off away from the Slifer dorms.
I didn't even make it back to my own room before I threw up. I did, however, have the good sense to go into the woods so that no poor, unsuspecting student would slip on it.
When I was finished throwing up my lunch, I felt more empty than ever.
Jaden had a lovelife, and it wasn't with me. Instead, it was with Jesse Andersen.
/
I waited four whole days before attempting any contact with Jaden. I steered clear of Jesse, too - it was so hard for me to look at him, knowing that he was the sort of lover Jaden wanted.
Did I hate Jesse? No. I didn't.
Did I envy him? Yes. With every cell in my body, I was jealous of him.
I got to thinking - if I looked like Jesse, would Jaden have wanted me? If I was to dye my hair and wear contact lenses and lose my own sense of fashion, would he fall for me? If I acted the way he did, would Jaden love me?
Of course, the simple answer was 'no'.
During those four days, I had seen them together only once, at a distance. But that was enough for me. Too much, even.
Just seeing the way Jaden leaned against Jesse, the way Jesse leaned down to kiss Jaden's nose gently …
It boiled my blood.
I was so angry and jealous and upset that I avoided them, and everyone else when I could. But then, five days after accidentally hearing them making love, I turned a random corner at the same time Jaden did.
He stopped and looked at me, his face a mixture of curiosity and worry.
My face had become shocked and saddened the minute I saw his beautiful brown eyes. That expression was the one I was showing to him.
And when he asked me what was wrong in a kind voice, I couldn't help but tell him. After all, I didn't hide secrets from Jaden.
I didn't give him details, of course. I just said that I had heard him and Jesse. I wondered if Jaden might run off or get all embarrassed or laugh like he used to. But no, he did none of these things.
Instead, he just nodded, his face expressionless - I didn't like it when he looked like that, it reminded me too much of the Supreme King. I wasn't entirely willing to accept that he and Jaden were the same person.
"I'm sorry you heard that, Syrus" he said, his voice a whisper on the breeze.
I just nodded, and to my credit, I managed to keep my eyes on his. He didn't have the power to do that, though. He looked away a little, down at the ground.
"I don't know what to tell you, Sy" he whispered.
For whatever reason, that made my heart miss a beat. I was used to that feeling around Jaden, because of my love for him. But this was different. This wasn't a missed beat because of love, it was a skipped beat of worriment.
Jaden was feeling pain because of this. I was putting him in an awkward position - and for that, I felt terrible, because I did love him. I didn't want to put him into a place where he would be trapped and afraid of what to say to me.
I wanted him to talk to me the way he used to - unafraid and outright. I wanted him to tell me the truth.
So I asked him to do that.
And I gritted my teeth and forced myself to listen as Jaden told me that he and Jesse had been together for a while now - though what 'a while now' was, he didn't elaborate on. That could have meant a few weeks, a few days, since the beginning. I didn't ask for more information.
He told me that what I heard had not been his first time having sex with Jesse Andersen, and I honestly didn't know whether I was relieved or saddened further by this news.
I was saddened because that meant that Jesse had made love to Jaden more than once.
I was relieved because it meant I hadn't heard Jaden losing his innocence, because he had already lost it.
Once Jaden told me that, I don't know what happened really. I couldn't see through the blur of my own tears. I couldn't see, granted, but I could feel.
So I felt it when Jaden hugged me tightly and told me that I was still his best friend ever, no matter what. He said he was always going to be my friend, and that as a friend he did love me.
I suppose I was comforted by that simple knowledge, that he did love me - as a friend. But still I wished we could be more.
This was a monumental moment in my life, which is why I remember it so vividly.
Because this is the moment when I began to let Jaden go.
/
Life returned to normal after that, in all fairness. Well, normal for Duel Academy. It wasn't long before something else came up - something to do with the Darkness, though not the one that Jaden was a part of, from what I learned after the events. But nothing eventful in my life besides that.
I went around with my brother, I improved my duelling skills, I hung out with my friends. I talked to Jaden most days, and somehow, it was as if I'd never told him about my feelings. He held nothing against me.
The only thing that would mark that those days had been real - and not a technical nightmare - was that Jaden and Jesse would often be 'together'. Most people knew. Nobody really seemed to be bothered by it. Well, besides Alexis, but then we can all guess why. But she caused them no trouble, and neither did I.
It wasn't long before graduation when I eventually found myself along in a room with Jesse Andersen. How it came to that, I don't remember, but it was just us in the room, and he looked at me and then I suddenly heard him asking something.
"Are you mad at me, Sy?"
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know.
But I did know what he meant. He knew that I loved Jaden. Whether Jaden told him or he found out by the way I looked at Jaden still, I've never figured out.
But he did know. I expected at that moment, that he was going to threaten me to stay out of his way or tell me to please not bother Jaden.
But he didn't. Instead, he just said that he could see why I had fallen for Jaden.
You might think that this conversation - such as it was - would have been terribly awkward. But you know something? It wasn't.
I felt confidence, knowing that if anyone here was going to get angry, then it was going to be me. And I felt my own sense of maturity - developed over the years, rather than so quickly, as it had with Jaden - taking hold on me. That made me proud: that I would rather have an actual talk about this with Jesse, than just beat him to the ground, like my first instinct was to do.
I stood up, because awkward or not I wanted to leave, but I looked Jesse straight in the eye and spoke from the heart.
"You win, Jesse. Promise me something." I didn't want to give him time to answer properly, but I waited for his nod, and when he gave it, I continued. "Give Jaden what he deserves."
I could feel my glasses steaming up with my tears, and I felt my heart becoming heavy in my chest. I didn't want to admit defeat, but this was the only way that I would ever get over this entirely and be able to move on with my life.
"I will" Jesse said, his voice quiet - he was trying to make sure I didn't get angry.
He needn't have bothered. I was proud that I was in near control of my emotions.
I turned to leave the room but as I got to the door I stopped. I didn't turn around, because my eyes were filled with tears now, and control was vaguely beginning to slip.
I took a deep breath to make sure my voice wasn't shaky.
"Take care of my love" I said, and then I disappeared out the door.
/
After that talk with Jesse, I became a different person.
I still loved Jaden with all of my heart, and I knew that it wasn't going to fade any time soon, and I didn't want it to. I wanted to keep that part of my heart - the part that ached for Jaden and loved him unconditionally - alive in me.
Because that was the person I was. The person who had gained confidence and maturity at Duel Academy. The same person who had fallen in love with Jaden Yuki.
/
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and they're right. I haven't seen Jaden now in three years. We talk online and have the occasional phone call, so we're not out of touch, but we haven't actually been together in three years, ever since we left Duel Academy. It's nobody's fault, really. We just went our separate ways. I know we'll meet again sometime, and I look forward to it.
Jaden's still with Jesse, from what I've heard.
In these three years, I've still not let Jaden go completely.
I've let him go enough to let him be with Jesse and cause no troubles, to talk happily enough with both of them without feeling awkward.
But I haven't let him go enough to get over him.
I still love Jaden. Sometimes I wonder if I always will.
I think about him at night, sometimes, when I lie in my bed and look out the window at the bright stars in the sky, and sometimes - just sometimes - the constellations seem to make a picture of his face, the brightest stars the ones that hold the sparkle of his eyes.
I smile up at him.
And make a wish.
Please R&R