HAPPINESS

Authoress: Alona Miitsnefes

Paring: Alfeegi+Ruwalk

Rating: G

Warmings: Miild hints of shounen-ai, oddness... um... methaphoricallness?

A/N: Written at two in the morning because the people shooting off rockets outside my window were keeping me up. I hardly know what genre to classify this as, so I'm just going with Romance/Angst, like nearly everything else I write.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Every morning, despite the fact that breakfast is served to us, Yellow Dragon Officer Ruwalk walks into the palace's kitchen and makes himself an omelet. And every morning, waiting for my own breakfast, I sit and watch him, just barely feeling the heat from the burning stove warm my face. It's the same every day.

He turns on the stove and sets a pan of butter on it to sizzle. Meanwhile, he pulls milk and an egg from the icebox. He cracks the egg into a bowl and pours in the milk. Getting the cutest frustrated pout on his face, he begins whipping the mix, though he never gets the milk and egg to mix just right.

Once he is as close to satisfied as he will get, darling Ruwalk puts the concoction into the pan. He curses under his breath as some burning butter jumps out of the pan and stings his hand, but doggedly continues pouring anyway. He watches, deeply concentrated, as the egg bubbles and begins to solidify. When he is happy that it will not drip, he carefully attempts to flip it over perfectly. Much to his annoyance, what he flips over is never quite a perfect circle. Fuming adorably in the general direction of the lopsided circle, he retrieves a plate and tips the offending omelet onto it.

He takes a fork and knife and sits down across from me, and asks the same question I am so accustomed to hearing.

"Alfeegi, do you want me to make you an omelet too?"

And just as every other day, I run a hand through my hair and reply, "No thank you, Ruwalk, I will make do with the palace's cooking."

He nods resignedly, and begins eating his omelet, methodically cutting it into bits and hissing as his brown and red hair is tipped with stray butter.

Every day he does this and every day I watch him, savoring the feeling of routine, the calm, the serenity of the one thing that will not change. Despite the chaos I know is forthcoming during the day, as during any other day in the Dragon Palace, I can allow myself to settle into a calm state for these few minutes, because this is safety.

Ruwalk glances up at me with a small smile every once in while, asking his omnipresent question silently. I smile back my small, sad smile. It is a smile that says clearly, "not today."

Some day, I will accept his offer for an omelet, and watch him make another one, this time knowing that it is I who will have the pleasure of feasting on it. Some day we will both surrender to what we both feel, but not now.

As happens on every other day, Ruwalk finishes his meal before I do, and stands from his place at the table.

"Have a good day, Alfeegi," he says, winking at me as he walks away.

"You too, Ruwalk," I call after him, meaning it with my very soul.

One day, I will break this routine, but that day will not be soon. It will not be soon because this is calm, this it serenity, this is safety. But most of all, watching my love and life perform such a simple task, this is happiness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Owari