A/N - altered slightly because the first version took a really depressing turn and I've decided I want this story to be more hopeful.


He resisted the urge to look at the book again for a few weeks. Used every ounce of restraint he possessed before he went back. Taking the opportunity when Zack was out with friends to revisit those vivid images that had captured his attention so completely.

He barely spared a glance at the image of himself, afraid that if he looked at it too long it might change him somehow. Instead he turned to the next page, to see if there were any other images beyond his own, he hadn't checked last time; too overwhelmed to do anything but shut the book and get out of there.

There were other images. People from Shinra; classmates, instructors, the woman who worked in the canteen. All of them beautifully drawn.

What was it about this boy? What was it that allowed him to see the world the way he did? In a way that perhaps no one else could?

Angeal turned the pages slowly. Giving each image time to settle in his mind before he was ready to face the next.

He turned another.

He stopped.

Angeal had known Genesis Rasphodos his entire life.

He had seen him as a child, a teen, a man, a SOLDIER.

He had seen him happy, and angry, amused and afraid. Seen him lonely and sad, jealous and joyous, defeated and triumphant.

He had seen him through every up and down the man had ever faced and believed he knew every side of his friend better than anyone.

He had never seen him like this.

It was almost devastating to admit.

A glimpse of a man he knew so well but suddenly felt he didn't know at all.

There on the page before him, his friend was standing in the viewing room looking down onto the Cadets gym. That was clear even with how distorted the background was, an abstract mess of colours without detail that somehow managed to portray exactly what they were meant to without distracting from the main image at all. Genesis was facing the viewer but Angeal got the sense he had been looking through the window before that. Staring down into the pit of wannabes as the Red Commander had always called them.

Genesis's dislike of Cadets was almost as legendary as everything else about him. Most learned within their first day to steer clear of him, usually through word of mouth. Those who didn't hear the rumours or who were too stupid to take heed of them learned the hard way.

Like the other images this one had a line of text to compliment it.

To add context.

Angeal re-read the line a dozen times but it still didn't seem real. Maybe it wasn't? Maybe this was some work of fiction Zack had created? An imagined line from an imagined conversation. But in his heart he knew that wasn't true. This was real.

Genesis's true feelings.

"I hate them because I still feel like one of them. Just a child chasing a dream that is too big and always just out of reach, feeling like no matter how hard I try I will never be good enough"

Angeal thought he had seen every side to Genesis Rasphodos.

But never before had he seen him look so...hopeless.

Yet even then that wasn't the whole picture. There was a light about the image, almost as if he was about to burst into flame without any ever being drawn.

It was an energy. A fierce burning energy that was so unique to Genesis Angeal could almost feel his friends presence in the room with him.

It was the energy that drove the spirited SOLDIER forward. Drove him to keep fighting against all odds. Always striving to be better. Never surrendering.

Angeal decided that it was time he devoted more focus to his oldest companion. To showing him how exceptional he really was.

To helping him see it himself.

There was a fire inside Genesis Rasphodos, and it was bright and unyielding and beautiful.

Angeal was determined not to stand by idly and let it burn itself out.