Standard disclaimers apply.
NOTHING IF NOT
By Cassandra's Destiny
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Nothing if not... pensive
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The danger in falling in love is not in the falling.
Even if you fall too hard, too fast, too deeply, standing up is an option too viable to ignore. Even if you find yourself broken after the fall, you can always pick up the pieces… make a conscious decision to find the shattered parts of you, and patch them back together.
The real danger in falling in love – in being involved with love – is the attachment that comes with it.
When a man and a woman enter into a relationship, when they put too much of themselves to and in each other, a danger that goes beyond being broken surfaces. The man and the woman are no longer two entities – the he and the she; instead, they become a they, the irrefutable collective.
Starry-eyed romantics see this as no danger, arguing that an out-and-out union of everything about man and woman is necessary to a loving and long-lasting relationship. Pragmatists, sometimes cynics too, will say that the matter is debatable. They will argue that lovers should be confident in who they are individually before all else, and the absolute fusion of man and woman will not only jeopardize the relationship in itself (over dependence in their partner), but will also make each of them vulnerable (susceptible sense of self). After all, when the they cease to exist, what happens to you?
Letting out a long exhale, Botan fell, back first, onto the bed. It has been four days since he left, and while going back from the airport, Keiko offered that she stayed with her for the mean time. She accepted, of course, perhaps unthinkingly hoping that it would make the days go by faster.
"Have you ever encountered the saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder? Many books and movies say that, so there must be some truth to it, right?" Keiko's words rang in her head.
She stared blankly at the ceiling for a minute, mindful of the clock ticking on the bedside table. Does absence really make the heart grow fonder? Actually, she couldn't care less. What's important to her is what she makes of the absence… his absence. If the time apart is as inevitable as it is, and as it always will be, maybe she should welcome it as an opportunity for character development.
From the many years of escorting souls to the Spirit world, she has heard one too many stories of lovers finding themselves out of love, each often running on an empty sense of who they are soon after. Who was she now without him? Who was he now without her?
This is the classic, albeit tragic story of lovers ceasing to exist, when she has already invested too much in them, and not enough in her.
"I'll be back… I promise."
There was no question that she has fallen in love with him – that she misses him – but she wants to be identified as Botan and he as Kurama. With his absence, she refuses to succumb to a forlorn feeling and the idea of being incomplete.
You don't want a man who completes you. You want a man who will love you completely.
"And I hope that man is him," she whispered to herself before falling into slumber.
