medication, rated pg-13. saionji-centric (garbage challenge). series-set. 548 words.
(it's really not surprising/i hold a force i can't contain)
She is like a balm to him, cool on fevered skin and soothing to torn flesh. It is an odd feeling for Saionji Kyouichi, simply because he does not think he has ever met a person who has not awakened his more violent emotions in favour of all others. After all, there are two types of people in Saionji's world – those he sees, and those he does not.
He feels nothing for those he does not see, the crowds of girls who call his name and write him letters dripping with false honey, the crowds of boys who want to be him without any of the real effort it takes to be a real kendoka.
For those he does see, the emotions are too-bright and burning – jealousy, dislike, disdain, bitterness, hate.
This girl, the girl who brings him cups in the amusing shape of sheep, she awakens a too-bright emotion in him that he has not felt since childhood – sweet, calm affection. And it is different from what he felt as a child, for it is made more lovely by her easy acceptance of his friendship. She expects nothing in return for what she gives him, and his friendship is all he can offer her.
He can't offer it now, however. The Black Rose Society has offered him an in back into the world of the Academy and he can not turn the cool man down. The sweet salve of her presence has only masked the roiling emotions still deep inside of his ripped-up heart, and it can not heal it the way it needs to even under her gentle touch. He must step back into the world of this school as his old self to find his own way to real health again.
Now he will leave her, alone in this cheerful little room which is just now catching the last rays of the setting sun. He kids himself that she will understand, those dark eyes softened as always with the knowledge that he must go his own way while she goes hers. After all, they are two different types of people, aren't they? Even Saionji, with his complete lack of social grace, is aware of the gulf that lies between what she is and what he is. She calls them the "special" people; he simply calls them the "better" people even though he's not sure he believes it. He knows enough to understand that they are not necessarily better, only different.
In fact, as he prepares to take his leave of the sweet girl with the curling hair and dark soft eyes that he can't be better than her, not if he is doing a thing like this. This is the way the world works, however, and this is the path he has chosen. It would be nice to stay with her, perhaps, but the peace he has found here is only an illusion. She calms him, yes, brings his burning temperature down and fills him with a cool, sweet peace…but she is not a panacea. She can not fix everything that is wrong with him.
As he begins to do up the jacket of his council uniform for the first time in weeks, he wonders why it hurts so much to wish that she could.