Title: Little Things III- Amazing
Author: Celeste
Universe: Weiss Kreuz
Feedback:
Theme: N/A
Rating: PG-13 (mentions of yaoi)
Pairing: RanxKen
Spoilers: Nope
Word Count: 1,954
Time: The better part of an hour…
Summary: There are a million emotions associated with love.
Dedication: kanglin, because yes, sharing Yaoi is 3. Among other things. XD
A/N: This is me doing more weird narration choices because…okay, I don't really know. I wanted this to sound fluffier than it came out, but meh, I guess I can't be picky really because the entire time I was writing this I was telling myself I should be doing my Japanese homework instead. --;; Which I'm still not done with, btw. But yeah, I'm a bit surprised this came out as fast as it did considering I SHOULD SO BE DOING OTHER THINGS. cough Oh well. Too much stress is bad for the health anyway, if my daily headaches this past week have meant anything. ;; Anyway, this is a bit OOC, but the narration just sort of lent itself to the way it turned out and I was too lazy to do anything big edit-wise. Sorry!
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

Three: Amazing

You are constantly amazed by him, though you refuse to tell him directly because that would make his ego huge. It will become even bigger than it already is when you give him little concessions, like when you tell him that you think he is cute when flustered, or angry, or shy, or confused, or him.

You think his ego doesn't really need to be any bigger.

So you don't tell him, though you suspect most everyone knows what you think anyway, if Yohji's amused looks and Omi's broad smiles mean anything.

He completely baffles you.

Mostly, it is his laughter that gets to you most, his sparkling eyes and bright smile and the way he can simply look at you and infuse you with a strange sort of joy, the kind you never thought you'd feel again because you were certain, absolutely certain, that you no longer had the ability left within you. Not after the charred ruins of your home or the lifeless, limp body of your precious sister.

You had been so sure that this kind of joy you're feeling now was no longer a part of the you who was left behind after that night.

Apparently, he had thought otherwise, because looking back, it seems he had always been laughing at you from day one, seems as if he had been poking you to laugh along with him the entire time.

You remember that at first, it was anything from funny and all you really wanted to do was punch him in his smiling face for having so much joy despite everything, despite the past, despite the bleak future, the bloody, lonely nights.

You remember that he was always everything an assassin was never meant to be-- loud, effusive, passionate, full of smiles and laughter to go along with all that sadness and regret. You look back and remember that Ken has always been a little bit of everything, no matter what he's been through or what he has come to face. You think that after all this time, he is the one who refused to let you lose the memory of what it is to feel something, be it joy or sorrow.

Perhaps that was why you fell in love with him in the first place.

He has always been amazing to you in one way or another. At first you were confounded by the way he could smile- a thousand different smiles for a thousand different occasions- while you yourself simply felt empty most of the time, felt as if you had been cut apart and only fragments of what you once were remained. You couldn't believe that someone who had lost everything could retain all of himself if not his former life, and at first, you were angry at him for proving you wrong. You were angry that he could still be so much when you had suffered similarly, when you in contrast to him were but a shell of the person you once were.

You tried a hundred different times, to find the cracks in that emotive face which was so unafraid of you, the one that pushed and pushed and pushed, slamming through every wall you put up because he believed there was a real life person underneath, when you were certain that what he was looking for had long been killed, killed on the same night that your family had been.

You shoved him away and struck out at him, told him that he was a fool for believing that there was anything below the surface. You tried to convince him that you were exactly as you let him see you, subhuman, unfeeling, cold.

You were amazed when he simply laughed back at you. He smiled and then rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to irritate the living hell out of you.

Day in and day out, despite how cold you were to his offers of friendship and camaraderie, he greeted you in the mornings, engaged you in conversation, was unapologetic with his words and actions when you glared at him, and smiled back no matter how cruel you acted.

Day in and day out he battled back with a fierceness of spirit that showed no signs of retreating because he refused to believe that the brittle, silent surface you showed the world was all there was to you.

He baffled you.

Perhaps that was why you fell so hopelessly in love with him.

He didn't believe a word of your bullshit.

You fought tooth and nail with him to show him that you didn't care, and it got you so angry that before you knew it, all the emotions you thought you were incapable of after that night came flooding out, lashing at him because he infuriated you, confused you, impassioned you, made every single barrier you put up crack because you felt so much when he poked and prodded and smiled at you that it just couldn't stay bottled up.

He made you feel a million things you told yourself you'd never feel again.

Now, you think that maybe that was why you fell so completely in love with him.

It may have started out as teeth gnashing, fist slamming fury between the two of you, but the fact that he simply made you feel all those things again, all those things and more again… looking back, you're pretty sure you know why you fell in love with him.

He's always baffled you, but you remember what it was like when it turned into simple amazement.

It started when the fights left you panting, sweating, energized, when he left you with black eyes and a feeling of exhilaration that swept up all of your thoughts, left you wanting more. It started when he became a challenge instead of an annoyance, a force to be reckoned with instead of someone who just existed as you had, off to the side of real living.

You remember how you began to look for it deliberately, a reason to set him off. You wanted that firecracker temper of his to light up and take to the sky because the passion in his eyes when the two of you were at the center of a self-made tempest was one of the most beautiful things you'd ever seen.

Before long, you realized Ken and his ten million emotions, anger or otherwise, were all in their own ways, fascinating.

You wanted to see more. You couldn't get enough.

He was so many of the things you thought you'd lost, that fiery night years ago when everything you held dear was ripped away. He was all of those things you felt you'd lost, and maybe it was because he gave some of them back to you by proxy that you kept trying to get a closer look. Because when you remembered how it felt whenever you were around him, you were subject to a blaze of feeling that pulled you off your feet and sent you spinning into the heavens.

He breathed life back into you, and before you knew it, you couldn't live without this confounding, annoying, amazing man.

When you finally realized this, you forgot yourself and that ice-cold shell you'd built for yourself, and you found yourself, against your will, looking ever deeper, ever closer. You found that it wasn't just his blazing anger that drew you forward in awe, but that it could also be something as simple as his laughter, loud and unabashed, or his smiles, sweet and naively trusting.

You were so fascinated that you forgot yourself and that emotional isolation you so wanted. And one night, you reached out with a hand instead of a fist and used your mouth for far more delicious things than the exchange of cruel words. And the walls you built up shattered one by one.

Even after that night, when you still tried to fight it, he held on, kept pounding on the gates you tried to lock with that brute force of his, his army of a million and one emotions invading your tower of solitude until the fortifications crumbled to dust. You fought cruelly and ruthlessly, and he fought back with everything he had.

In the end, his forces were superior, and that laughing, smiling, glowing face of his became the new king of your heart.

You learned with time, that there was nothing left for you to do but surrender.

And there you were, unquestionably, irreversibly in love.

How he did it, it still amazes you.

He still amazes you.

He is amazing, because he can make you feel so many things even though you know that you and he are both killers, even though both of you have had everything that should have given meaning to your life ripped away.

He's helped you find something else that gives life meaning, and knowing him, you think that even though the cruel world in which you both live will undoubtedly try to tear him away from you, after seeing how he fights, you know it won't be easy.

You tried to do it yourself, after all, but he defeated you completely.

He makes you believe that there is hope in the end, that after all that poking and prodding and infuriating he's done, after the siege he's laid to your heart, he won't easily let you go because you know it's simply not his way. Everyday he is there, smiling, laughing, awing you to the point that you cannot believe that for all your love of him, he loves you back just as much.

Today, his eyes shine and he laughs and launches himself shamelessly at you even before the last customer is out of the door and Yohji is locking up. His arms wrap around your neck and bemusedly, you find yourself surrendering to the onslaught that he is once again. You are his absolute prisoner, holding him up as he rests his cheek against yours and complains loudly that today was the worst because it was so hot and summer is when the schoolgirls don't actually have school. He wheedles a promise out of you for ice cream later, and you find yourself agreeing even before what's going on completely registers in your mind. This earns a knowing cluck from Yohji and an amused giggle from Omi, and Ken really just doesn't care that the two of you are being laughed at by both of them.

You expect at least a kiss as compensation for your embarrassment, but Ken only complains of the heat again and peels himself off of you before enthusiastically hanging his apron up haphazardly on its hook and bounding up the stairs, calling down that if you don't hurry, he's going to eat all of the ice cream left in the freezer by himself.

You feel slightly horrified when you realize you are watching after his retreating form with a ridiculous little smile on your face, but for some baffling reason, you can't seem to wipe it off.

And you think to yourself that everyday, he amazes you.

You don't know exactly, what he'll do or say next, because there is just so much of him, so many facets that it can't be predicted. He constantly reminds you that humans have so many sides, so many ways of expressing and feeling, that you can never quite know what will happen next.

It leaves you feeling a kind of uncertainty that is thrilling and frightening all at the same time. Once again, you find yourself at a loss.

The only thing you can be absolutely certain of when it comes to Ken is that you're head over heels in love.

END