Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, I'm just...adding to them in terms of their relationships, because I'm weird like that.

Lonely One's Love

Chapter 3: "Idealistic One"

By Cole-san

For almost his entire life, Lloyd Irving had never looked back. He forged his own path, based largely on his own personal ideals and convictions, and did his best to live a life with no regrets. Then he killed Marble...then he was banished...then he learned the truth of the two worlds...now...he had many regrets...

"I was so sure...so sure of what I was, what I wanted..." He thought. He was laying on the bed in his hotel room in Flanoir, his arms crossed behind his head, eyes staring up at the bland ceiling.

"Where did I go wrong?" He wanted to blame someone else. Yggdrasil, the Desians, Kratos...and for a brief moment...Colette...

"No! Don't even think that!" He told himself angrily. His friend was as much a victim as anyone. None of this was her fault. Yet a darker part of himself which he hated to acknowledge couldn't help but wonder how his life would have been had he never made friends with the girl all those years ago.

"That kind of thinking is stupid...She's your friend." His mind latched onto that with a fervor he usually reserved for intense battle. She was his friend. Like a life preserver, the thought held him aloft in the storming sea that was his mental state at the moment.

There were two people in their group whom he trusted beyond anything else. One was Colette, and the other was Sheena. He trusted Genis a great deal as well of course, but he couldn't help but be bothered, if only slightly, by the younger boy's intense dislike of humans. Yes, the boy had reasons, good ones, but hadn't he, a human, always treated him with nothing but kindness? Even though there were just as many if not more reasons for him to hate half-elves? Yes, Genis was his friend, a very good friend, but this racial boundary that separated them would probably always stop them from being even closer. The age difference was also a factor. Five years was a long time at their age. And there was always that fear...that small little fear, that he might actually agree with Yggdrasil...that he might actually join the enemy...

"What is wrong with me? Why am I being so suspicious of my closest friends?" He knew the answer. It was because of him...Kratos. The man was his father. He couldn't deny that fact much as he wanted to. But what really hurt, what really made that fact anger him, was that Kratos was a member of Cruxis. He betrayed them, and if you couldn't trust your own father, then who could you trust?

Ironically, the person whom he had once trusted the least, Sheena, had become the person he trusted possibly the most. Maybe it was because she was so open, much as she tried to not be. There were no hidden truths or suspicious actions from her. She was true and honest, much like himself. Colette was the same way really, but the fact that she could become the vessel of Martel made things...complicated.

"I'm afraid...if she does become Martel, then I'll lose her...so I've been distancing myself from her I guess..." He hated himself for it, but it was the truth, and since the revelation about Kratos, he'd been forced to be very truthful with himself.

"It doesn't help that both Colette and Sheena have been acting really weird lately." Both girls had been giving him the strangest looks as of late. He recalled that time they all went to the beach with newly acquired swimwear. The looks he'd been given by the two girls when he'd changed into his trunks had puzzled him to no end. He had to admit though, that he'd gawked at them when they'd come out in their own attire. It was embarrassing, but he had to admit, he found Colette incredibly cute right then, and Sheena...his reaction to her rather revealing swimsuit was even more embarrassing. He thought his nose would never stop bleeding. It hadn't been as bad as Zelos though, who'd outright fainted.

Then there was that time when they all were invited to that fancy dinner party. Decked out in his somewhat uncomfortable formal attire, he'd felt extremely self-conscious, especially when some of the women there had made strange comments and giggled to themselves at the sight of him. He supposed he must have looked really silly. He certainly felt like it. Not to mention very out of place. Colette reaction to him had been to turn red, but Sheena...she'd turned so red that he became slightly worried for her health. She'd also stared hard at the floor the entire time they'd spoken, except once or twice when she would glance up at him, then slam her gaze back down. Thinking she was as self-conscious as he was, he'd tried to compliment her to make her feel more at ease, but that had seemed to worsen things, as she turned even redder. Not that he had been forced to try that hard to think up compliments for her. She was stunning in her elegant dress, and he had to admit that from a purely physical standpoint, Sheena was probably the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Though Colette came in a close second.

He could admit that he was attracted to both girls, but he sincerely doubted that they felt the same way. Colette only thought of him as a friend. A very good friend of course, but a friend none the less. To be honest, it was hard to determine the extent of his feelings for her as well. He loved her of course, but was it as a friend? As a sibling? Or something more? Sheena was much more confusing if that was possible. He was pretty sure she either liked Orochi, Kuchinawa, or perhaps Zelos, considering how much attention she seemed to pay him, even if it was simply to rage at him or insult his lecherous ways. He knew he found her beautiful, and he admired her spirit a great deal, but was that love? HE didn't know...

"Stop thinking about it. Nothing will ever happen with either of them, so just forget it. We're friends, nothing more, nothing less." Nodding to himself, he decided to go to sleep. His mind and body were exhausted. Then he heard a knock at the door...

Author's Note: Okay, that's done, more or less. Sorry for not getting this out as expediently as I would have liked. School started on the sixteenth for me, and it's been sort of hectic due to them messing up one of my classes on my schedule, but I won't bore you with that. I'll bore you with this! Lloyd's part was actually the hardest to write, simply because he is rather hard to write in my opinion. He's simple-minded and clueless about romance, and that makes it difficult to write a love story centered around him. I tried to give him some depth, but I'm afraid he might have seemed OOC. I tried to maintain his ignorance while also making him realistic, but I'll let you all be the judge on whether I was successful or not. Anyway, think of these three parts as a prologue of sorts. The main story starts next time. Thank you for reading and until then...