Short, musing one again.

Theme provided by: Kioko Yasu

Rating: T


011. Pride

A lot of people respected Seifer for his pride. Hayner had to admit the guy was pretty fucking arrogant, his only saving grace was the abilities and passion to back the negative trait up. Well-founded egotism was apparently sexy, if the girls who gossiped about the fighter were anything to go on, and the brown-eyed teen couldn't really argue with that. Pride, however deadly a sin it may be, came in more than one form though, some more recognizable than others. Seifer's kind of pride, the flashy, exceptional kind was the most obvious. Everyone knew about it; it was impossible not to know it because it was practically shoved in your face.

Hayner's kind of pride was one of the quieter ones, so much so most people didn't even realize he was prideful. His friends knew, and Seifer knew, but no one else could see it. It was the kind that made him get up again no matter how many times he was knocked down, physically or emotionally. That forced him to hold his head up defiantly against other fighters even when he was close to vomiting from the pain of a broken bone. That nagged at him for weakness the few times he seriously contemplated suicide, and by extension prevented him from mentioning those episodes to anyone else until much later. A pride that let him brush off homophobic slurs thrown carelessly at him like punches in a bar fight, because he knew he was honestly a better person than all of them.

It didn't, however, make him bulletproof. That was the thing about the deadly sins, as hyped as they were by religion, most of them really will kill you if you're not careful about it. His pride was what had him in the hospital at the moment, with nothing short of six broken bones after his hilariously bad luck landed him in the middle of a gang fight between the Twilight Disciplinary Committee and another group. He'd been too arrogant to take off and had ended up fighting as well. Hayner wasn't the fighter Seifer was, he wasn't exactly weak but he didn't kick the shit out of people on a near-daily basis either, so he was far worse off than the scarred blond that had been released yesterday. The jackass hadn't even visited him.

The last day before he was released from the hospital he woke to flowers on the table beside him, brightly-colored lilies. They were his favorite flower, but he didn't remember ever mentioning that to anyone. Pulling the small card out of them, he smiled slightly when he read the message and the signed initials. Maybe it wasn't impossible to be humble once in a while.

'Thanks. S.A.'