-1I have always found that lists are the best ways of answering a question. This way, you can see every section and how to answer it. Although this particular inquiry is a difficult one, it doesn't mean I haven't been asked before. In fact, I have heard this same one more often than not, numerous times both with contrary offers and sometimes a threat or two.

Now, I have grown older, so when the comment slips into casual conversation I no longer scream and throw myself in our bed of leaves, waiting for him to make me forget. No, now I smile. Because I've accepted that I'll never really know the answer. At least by now I have a few substantial reasons, although they hardly help being that they arise more questions. All in all it's tiresome to think about and leads me nowhere but in circles. But think of it I do nonetheless.

Why

I do not know. Perhaps because it is easy, but that's impossible since he is insufferable most of the time. I hate everything about his lips. Their ability to seal promises he'll never keep and make me forget how I'll feel when he does.

Because I've always loved him. No, we've both strayed. I to a man with compassion who will love me in the morning and he to a woman who smiles as she twirls around him with delicate kisses and who smells strongly of cinnamon. But for all the attributes we find attractive is such, we soon grow bored. I somehow always find myself before the familiar trees, always surprised being that I really didn't know how I got there. And he always lets down the rope, sometimes with flowers tied to the end and sometimes not. I open the flap and he pretends to sleep as I lay next to him. He catches the wisp of cinnamon as I find my way to his lips and smiles, rolling me over. Then as the moonlight seeps through and my eyes have been closed for a very long time I hear the soft "I love you" and I thank the stars my lips are facing away.

Because of the heat. The heats that always leaves me so terribly cold. The brief hours of the morning give worth to a nightly battle. A game we play where we both lose. He is always gone in the morning, and I never return that night. But the breathless, aching, moaning, burning desire is which he smirks and I shudder lead to the little hours. The hours before I find his scattered clothes gone and I sit in bed for a long moment, staring at the drawn flap of our tent. I can never wake early enough, and he never waits up long enough. One in ten we compete in this way, if only for the time we will never allow to the other.

Do

Action. How is it that a challenge always ends up with tangled hair full of leaves and that long tear up my shirt growing an inch or two? If the victory is accepted by both, that is. There are times when the quiet lust for battle becomes so strong that all we can do to stop from simply staring into the sky, letting our eyes glaze over and our hearts swell, is fight.

Hard ice against blunted steel. Blunted because of a battle he and a companion set of for in which only he returns, which he never speaks of. It is only in this way we can have true release. He'll never admit he wishes he had a mother to take me home to and I'll never say how I would rather go sledding on permanent ice, and on the backs of penguins. We speak through a parry, a block, a pulled punch, a hit. Often times we stand still, circling each other, hoping to communicate with our eyes what our mouths refuse to speak, our eyes that glisten lightly. We always challenge each other under the swift onslaught of night, that way we can't see the tears streaming down, and perhaps we can mistake a sob for the hoot of an owl. No one ever wins.

At times there is no movement at all. I'll see an arrow in the clouds or perhaps a boomerang, but my eyes no longer shake and my hands lay still. He walks by now, no longer stopping to stare at my back I wish he'd wrap his arms around. I've also seen his sketchbooks. Carefully hidden behind mountains of failed and unstamped battle plans lies a brilliantly done portrait of a woman. Sometimes there are fresh pencil marks around her chin or hair. He could never just let things rest. Only her eyes are colored in with a small smudge of color to their side. I see the tears smearing part of her hand and a track running down her stomach. He has her eyes.

You

There is no way talking about myself could aid to your understanding, because I don't even know, and I never will. I just let it be. I let myself laugh hysterically, weep bitterly, and moan softly. I let us… Be. Maybe because I'm not strong enough, maybe because I'm too strong. Circles within circles.

Stay

Our home brings back many things, most of which are not pleasant. I see the dam burst in my dreams and he feels the ice when the wind rushes by. He feels my tears slide down his hand as he bathes and I remember the heat of his betrayal as we lay by the fire. I feel like screaming when I hear the bird calls that lead my brother astray and feel a twinge of hot shame when I waterbend into a cup. Water for him. He sees the slight twitch in my composure and often dumps the water on the fire, gritting his teeth against the happy expression of trust and budding romance I had given him as he drove a knife into my back.

But the surprise and soft smile on my face when I find a flower on my bed when he has been gone for days and the way I twine my fingers secretly in his make us forget.

With

It was either very surprising to catch us kissing or very not when spotting us laughing. Expected or unexpected, no one ever understood us. A shaken head here, a raised eyebrow, or a tearful expression quickly hidden behind inquisitive laughter.

We were young when we crossed paths for the third time. I didn't let seeing him alive phase me, though it did, and he refrained from gathering me in his arms, which he would have liked to do. I asked how he was and he scoffed. I grew angry soon after and he only got closer. He made a crack about who was pinned to the tree this time and then felt the cool touch of ice around his ankles. I dared him, and he did. It was quite a while before his hands were pressed firmly enough into the bark and my back print was permanent, and we only then parted when our lips were red enough.

There was no going back after that, and no way of undoing opinions or false pretences. But he held me that night, and it was all for naught.

Him

He is everything I am and anything I'm not. He is the most stubborn, pig-headed, insufferable, moronic, sexy, loving, heartfelt, emotional son of a bitch I have ever, EVER met. His eyes give away nothing, his hands give plenty. His lips pass mine openly, but my forehead only when alone and I am half dreaming. His voice will whisper endlessly in my ear, but it only wavers in confession when he thinks I'm not listening. How many times have I smiled with my back turned? How many times does he return my I love you with his face buried in my hair?

I see happy couples giggling and holding hands, kissing quickly and whispering in excited, hushed tones. I wonder if he tortures her with a smirk or if she teases him with a glance. Do they stand by the firelight, waiting for the other to make the first move? Does he step forward first? Then he tangles his hands in her hair like she likes and kisses her breathless. When they're interrupted moments later he'll growl and gather her up, never letting her leave him, if only for the promise of that night.

No, their not that twisted. Not that lustful. Not that harmful or insidious. Not that wonderful.

That boy loves her eyes and her mouth. Jet loves my flaws.

Katara?

Because I love him. And I hate him. And I lust him. And I am him. And he is me.

Full circle. Vicious isn't it?