Authors Note: Pssssh. Ok, thank you all really. All your reviews kept me going after another bout of….badness. Yes, badness. I'd rather not display it all though, so I'm sorry. Thank you for caring so much. I realize it'd just suck really badly if I went and died without finishing this long-ass story but it really means something to me that most of you read the authors note.

Thank you all reviewers, and maybe in later chapters I'll do the individual thingy again.

Yes. That was sort of a confession on Soubi's part.

I wonder what'll happen next.

By the way, Rest In Peace, Casey Calvert of Hawthorne Heights.

They get me through everything and he died in his sleep…

I cried for three strait days.

Back to me….I figured I had a moment of happiness today, so I'm giving you a little bit of fluff…………….And a kind of disappointment.

Disclaimer: I don't own Loveless.

As Ritsuka lay sleeping in the bed, Soubi tried to figure out why the boy was so…distant.

It hurt the older man that the boy didn't think he could trust Soubi. It was understandable. He had just kidnapped the young man, forcing him out of his home. Out of his abusive home. Why didn't the boy understand how much Soubi loved him? It was something he would just have to convince Ritsuka of in time….He then realized that he never actually told the boy that he loved him.

"O shit…." At these words Ritsuka's eyes snapped open and he sat strait up.

"Are you alright?" Sleep was still quite obvious in the young mans face as Soubi crossed the room.

The boy nodded rubbing his eye with the back of his balled up fist.

When he looked up again, Soubi was smiling.

"I love you, you know." A small shocked look covered the boys face for an instant, and then it was gone.

"No, I didn't know…thank you for telling me…" His face was covered in the reddest of blushes now, and Soubi tired to ignore the fact that he knew the boy didn't love him as he leaned down.

He took the frail boy's lips in a gentle kiss, and as the boy opened his mouth to receive the kiss he wrapped his arms around Soubi's neck deepening it.

As Soubi tasted the small boy, he realized he had never tasted anything sweeter. He wrapped his arms around the boy so he could deepen the kiss further, not wanting to let the sweet innocent little lips desert him.

When he tried and Ritsuka let his tongue slip into his mouth it was as if he was in pure bliss, then he remembered where they were and broke off the kiss. It had left them both completely breathless, and both were panting heavily and Soubi crossed the room.

"We can't do anything like this yet…." With this the older man left the room, leaving Ritsuka to completely misinterpret the Soubi's hasty retreat.

"Did…..did I do something wrong?" Pain spread across the boy's face as he got off the bed and huddled onto the floor near the head of the bed. He felt completely alone as he knew that the older man would be scarcely seen that day.

"I'm sorry…." His little voice cracked into the room, and with no one to accept or deny his apologies, he started to cry. Not the kind of tears of that of a young child that didn't get his exact wishes, but that of a lost soul. The tears were the lonely, desperate, fearful, lonesome tears that so many have cried as memories played out over the sands of time.

The tears of an old soul, one that was hurt and depressed; the tears of the man sentenced to Hades for all eternity after being wrongly accused.

As Soubi walked through the snow he hung his head in pain and regret. He hadn't meant to kiss the boy; he had just wanted the boy to know his feelings. He couldn't help it…Ritsuka was enticing in everything he did. He was the miracle that Soubi had wished for all his life. Soubi was not one to do some thing as reckless as kidnap a boy in times of war and try to make the boy love him….

Soubi sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck.

He remembered the first time he had seen the boy. He was patrolling a certain street and he looked up to the sky, but his view was blocked by the large house with the tiny attic window that the boy was staring out. Then a hand, a woman's hand reached down and snatched a handful of the boy's beautiful black locks and dragged him away from the window. Soubi didn't remember ho long he waited for the boy to reappear, but when he did he had a large gash on his forehead and his eye was bruised to the point of swelling closed, but still the boy stared up looking at the stars, as if a god himself would come down and save him.

Ritsuka sat huddled into that corner until Soubi returned, only a half hour later. Ritsuka's head was resting against the wall and when Soubi bent down to pick the boy up he flinched.

"I'm sorry. Will you let me explain to you why I cannot touch you the way I want to?" Soubi's voice was low and sad, his tone mimicking that of a funeral director's.

At the boy's nod, Soubi stooped and picked the boy up, carrying him over to the chair and placing Ritsuka onto his lap as he sat down.

"We cannot be in this wretched country if we want to survive. You, Love, are probably in the bingo book, the book of people to be killed from your region. So we must go as far away as possible, and since I have relations in the United States I would take us there, but there is currently a war reining there as well. Before we can….be free, we must at least be in China. Please forgive me. Earlier….I couldn't help myself and I feared if I stayed in the room you would not like me as much as you do. You would probably hate me. Please forgive me, Ritsuka."

Ritsuka nodded with relief, his voice lost with the tears that flowed still from before. He turned on the older man's lap, and dug his face into Soubi's neck, wrapping his arms around the older man.

"Thank you for understanding….I love you, Ritsuka." The sigh escaped from Ritsuka's lips before he could stop himself. It was quiet, almost nonexistent, dry from crying.

"I love you, too."