Hello again lovelie, life is being a real nuckulavee at the moment so it might be a while before I get the chance to post something again, so I hope you all enjoy this chapter for now.
as usual thank you to lulucutie12 for following and reviewing, and Haiiro-Inu-ChanXxX for following and favouriting.
obviously I don't own magi ;)
Morgianna liked to think she had a pretty good understanding of love.
It had taken her a while to gain this understanding, but everything in life was a journey wasn't it?
Her favourite way of describing affection was the greek words she had been taught in english class.
She knew Storge, the instinctual affection of familial love through her parents and older brother. She knew it when she remembered her mother slinging her coat around Morgianna protectively as they took their first steps into the country on that rainy day, her father kissing her head with a warm smile when he finally came home from working his laborious hours at the dead end job he'd been forced to take. Both of her parents forced to sweat and bleed to scrape together enough money to feed their children and warm their thin walled apartment because no decent place was willing to hire two people who'd had the word 'refugee' stamped across their being. She knew it in the strength her brother Masrur had taught her by example when her parents had left them alone after dying in a car crash when she was nine. She'd known Storge before she even really knew what love was, it had been set into her soul for as long as she could remember.
She knew Philia, the friendly affection of platonic love through first through her brothers group of friends, the first time he'd brought them home she thought she might go blind at the sight of them. They were all so bright and open with their laughter and other expressions, Sharkan and Yamuriha with their intimate bickering, Drakon with his knight like sense of nobility, Hinahoho and his wife Rurumu who only came around sometimes because of their children, and of course there was Sinbad and Ja'far who were like the sun and moon personified. And when Sinbad had opened up his school and Masrur had taken a job there as gym teacher she'd made her first friends in Aladdin and Alibaba.
That first day she'd been so petrified of being so surrounded by people, she had no idea how to approach any of them. Aladdin had tried to get to know her regardless, he'd been patient with her slowness to react to his eager questions and invitations, he'd endeared himself to her within that first week. Alibaba hadn't been quite as instantaneous, her first impression of him was that he was a little try hard, a little unsure of himself, but he was Aladdin's best friend so she was happy to spend time with him. But then her therapist told the group that one of his other patients had made enough progress to move onto group therapy, Alibaba had walked through the door with a sheepish look on his face and the two of them had locked gazes. They'd shared their heart brakes with each other and she forged a connection with him that she'd never felt with anyone else.
She had struggled with Eros, romantic and passionate love. The first part of her struggle came with the romance, for a long time she suffered a misconception on what romantic love was supposed to feel like because of Jamil and all the things she'd let him do because he'd said he loved her. It had been Aladdin and Alibaba who had helped her realize what a toxic mess she was caught up in, that the words "I love you" and "you're mine" weren't the same thing, that it didn't matter how much he apologised afterwards she was to good for anyone who would bruise her. As dark as that chapter of her life had been she still thanked the rukh that it had been her friends who were there for her, especially since she was sure that if Masrur had found out the police would have never found Jamil's body.
The second part of her struggle had come with the passion, which she knew was just a censored way of saying sexual. Morgiana had never been big on touching... or perhaps it was more accurate to say she wasn't big on skin contact. Her brother wasn't one for physical affection aside from the odd hug or pat on the head but she had always been comfortable with that because it was him. Alibaba and Aladdin had picked up on that early on in their friendship and so they'd never tried to do anything that might make her uncomfortable, but they knew it was fine to reciprocate any contact she initiated. Mostly her issues with sex were in those days when everyone had been talking about their relationships, unappealing descriptions of long and heated kissing sessions, anticipation of inviting people over when their parents weren't home that had gone over her head. It had made her feel like she was lagging behind everyone else, it was a common fact that sex sold, sexualisation was everywhere you looked when it came to entertainment, so who was this weirdo that didn't want to make love?
It wasn't until one health class, they'd been discussing sex ed. And had finally started talking about the different orientations when she first heard the term asexual. The relief had flooded her system to finally have a certified word to justify how she felt.
So that was three out of four.
And then the Ren's had come to Sindria academy.
XXXXX
It had been about a third of the way into softmore year when the three of them were first spotted in the hallways, Kouha, Kougyoku and Hakuryuu Ren had ensnared the attention of the entire school the minute they stepped onto campus.
The Ren family had always been rather secular, unless you worked with (or more likely for) them you'd probably never met a member of the infamous family. So when three of it's younger members had appeared in the uniforms of a school that had been founded by a man their older brother and family infamously didn't care for, the rumours began spring up like weeds.
Every member of the Ren family who's old enough had served time commanding black ops units in the military, and the ones who weren't spent their summer vacations in the jungles being trained in Guerrilla ware fare.
The Ren's were actually a mafia family and the leisure complex they ran was just a front.
Ren Kouha was serial killer and his older brother Koumei disposed of the bodies by using them in his mad scientist experiments.
Their ward Judar was a junkie. (Morgiana knew for a fact this wasn't true but when you knew the truth of his situation it was still upsetting.)
Ren Hakuei was renowned supermodel in the eastern hemisphere.
The Ren's were actually Korean.
The three of them had stuck together in the first week, not really interacting with anyone else. Then Kouha had started dating his girlfriends and Kougyoku had made the swim team and the alien nature that had been surrounding them started to fade away. And then she'd been partnered with Hakuryuu in biology. Out of the three of them Hakuryuu had been the most visually distinct, not only with his black hair compared to his cousins red hair, but also the burn scar covering the right side of his face and his prosthetic arm.
Her first impression of him was that he was polite and respectful, to quiet for his own good, and awkward in a way that fondly reminded her of Alibaba. They started talking, in the moments before class started and in those times you could get away with whispering during lessons, they'd walked to and from the class together, sometimes he ate lunch at her table, Kougyoku and Alibaba had become fast friends at this point, and eventually he even invited her over to his house for study sessions, and slowly they got to know each other. It was the visits to his house where Morg felt she got a real understanding for Hakuryuu and the rest of his family, seeing Kouha and Kougyoku spar with wooden swords, their movements were quick and their blows were harsh but all the while they carried out a casual conversation, seeing Koumei perched like a bird at the end of a table covered in papers and accounting books, seeing Judar reveal some of his good nature from beneath his snark towards Hakuryuu, but especially seeing the delight he took in Kougyoku's wealth of expressions after he'd whispered something in her ear, seeing Kouen stand like a sentinel at the head of his family, Morgiana wondered if the weight on his shoulders had gotten any lighter since the day he took it upon himself when his father had died, but it looked like some of that weight was eased when Hakuei offered him her calm smiles.
After almost a month together Morgiana shared the story with him about how she'd come to this country and lost her parents, and he'd confided in her his memoiries of his mother starting the house fire that had taken his arm and his parents.
Then came the summer when herself, Alibaba and Aladdin had been invited up to the Ren's beach house for a week away. The first few days had been wonderful, Alibaba taught Kouha and Hakuryuu how to fish, Morgiana and Kougyoku had spent most of the day swimming at speeds none of the others could match, and Morgiana felt like the two of them were actually becoming close, Aladdin sat on the beach chewing on watermelon slices while Judar crouched in the shade and pelted him with ice cubes.
On the night before they were going to head home the seven of them had made plans to set of fireworks on the beach front. The sun had started to set while they were setting up the rockets, Hakuryuu had brushed his fingers against Morgiana's palm and asked her to walk with him for a while. The two of them walked until they were out of sight of everyone else, Morgiana held Hakuryuu's real hand so that he could feel her beside him.
"Morgiana..." he began saying,
She looked over at him with a questioning hum and waited for him to speak again.
"I- Your-" he swallowed nervously and fixed his gaze on the sand, "I think..."
Morgianna gave his hand a squeeze, and when he looked up at her she smiled as encouragingly as she could, Hakuryuu was prone to biting his tongue and fretting about what others would think about the things he said, she'd been doing her best to break him of this habit.
He squeezed her hand back and turned to face her, "When I first came to Sindria I was prepared to be a complete pariah, I'd never really had the chance to socialise with people outside my family before and... well, I knew how I looked." His eyes fell to his feet again so Morgianna grabbed his other hand and bent her head to catch his eyes again. Once she caught him in her gaze he seemed to regain some confidence. "But then I met you, and you didn't care about any of that, you were kind to me, you helped me make friends with others, and you didn't run away when I invited you into my life."
Morgianna felt a swell in her chest, "I feel the same." She told him, his head shot up to look at her head on, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.
"Really?" he asked breathlessly.
"Of course, all the time we've spent together, you've become very dear to me, like Alibaba you are one of my most beloved friends."
A tiny noise escaped his throat and the blue of his eyes seemed to dim a little, he squeezed her hand even harder and pulled her closer to him.
"That's not what I'm trying to say. Morgianna, the way I feel about you... you're more than a friend to me."
Every muscle in her body went taught like a guitar string, she felt a heat that had nothing to do with the sun spread all over her skin, what was he saying?
"You really are a magnificent woman! You're strong, beautiful, gentle. I'm not quite sure when it happened but I've fallen-"
"Please stop!" She shouted. No one had ever said these kinds of things to her before, and she'd never imagined hearing them from Hakuryuu, the words were triggering sensations all along her body that she wasn't familiar with.
She'd apologized to him and explained that she didn't know if she felt the same way, the way his face had fallen apart brought tears to her eyes.
"No one's ever said anything like that to me before, so I'm happy. But..." she'd trailed off while wiping her eyes.
Hakuryuu schooled his features and took a few steps back, letting go off her hands. "Please forgive me." he asked in a breathless tone, he wasn't looking at his feet again but his eyes were downcast, "I never meant to make you upset. Please forget I said anything." With that he began walking away and back towards where the others were.
Morgiana felt the shift in his mood and became worried. But he seemed to notice her just as quickly, he forced his face into a smile to calm her, "One of these days I'm going to tell you. I'll do it properly next time, so please don't worry."
They walked back to the others in an awkward silence, not touching.
After that things between them were never quite the same, Morgianna stopped coming over to the Ren house, they both left class a little more quickly than they used to and spent less time talking to each other in the halls.
The divide between the two of them was making her miserable, and what was even worse was the feeling that she had caused it. She said as much to Alibaba one day, while he was helping her train for her upcoming tournament, which was to say he was holding the punching bag steady.
"Don't even think that!" He yelped out as he was knocked to the floor. She'd hit the bag a little harder than she had meant to at the end. Whoops.
"If you don't feel the same way as him then that's just how you feel, it's nothing to feel guilty about." He told her, rubbing the sore spot on his chest. Morgianna came to sit cross legged in front of him.
"It's not that... not exactly. It's just that when he started saying that he- those things all I could think about was the last time someone had told me 'I love you'." She explained quietly.
Alibaba clenched his teeth as he often did at mentions of Jamil, "But you know Hakuryuu is nothing like that."
"I know, but the minute those memories popped into my head I started panicking and-" she cut her self off when she felt Alibaba placing his hands over hers, without her realizing it she'd started wringing them harshly in her lap.
"I just wish I had explained myself better back then. But even still I don't think that would help."
"Well... there's no point worrying about the past, but if you want to make things better from now on then maybe the first thing you should figure out is how you do feel about Hakuryuu."
Morgianna worried her lip as she thought, she thought back on all the time they'd spent together, tried to recreate the feeling that had bloomed in her chest when they'd first held hands. Alibaba maneuvered both their hands so he was holding he hands in the space between their feet, his silent presence was comforting.
"If her were to try and confess to you again. And you were able to keep yourself in the moment, how would you want to react?"
She thought about all the replays of that day she'd rewritten in her mind, ones where she'd done better, ones where she'd done worse, ones where she'd spared his feelings, and ones...
She smiled, "I'd let him tell me he loved me. And I'd hold his hands." And tell him that she thought she felt the same way, even if she wasn't ready to say it quite yet. And he'd understand, he'd wait for her. "I should talk to him." She said, springing up to her feet, Alibaba was still holding onto her hands though,
"I don't know if that'd be the best idea." he warned,
"Why?"
"Well based on what you've told me and... not at all personal experiences it probably took a lot for him to work up the guts for him to even try and tell you how he felt." There was a dimness in Alibaba's eyes that Morgianna saw when he sometimes talked about his home life, but he quickly blinked it away, "And not to be that guy but he is a Ren, being part of that family is an insurance for pride."
"What are you saying?"
"He said he was going to confess to you again right? Maybe you should let him"
Morgiana made a discontented noise.
"You were worried about hurting his feelings right? Think of this as giving him a bone."
She responded with a withering look, Alibaba let out a nervous laugh and asked her to just trust him.
And she had. But as time went on and Hakuryuu said nothing Morgianna couldn't help but wonder, had he changed his mind? She'd always know the damage was done but was it irreversible?
She'd thought the dance would have been the ideal time for him to make his move but what if she was waiting for something that was no longer an opportunity?
Would it be kinder on both of them if she just let him go?
