Disclaimer:I don't own Loveless or its characters, cuz they belong to Yun Kouga sigh

Only a Concept

Everything was cold and desolate. The world around was grey and lifeless, with pure snow falling gently to cover the world in a blanket of lies. Everything was frozen inside my mind, while the world outside was moving and buzzing like time could never stop. But I knew the truth; time was a mere thought among lies that are penetrable and easily broken. All it took to reverse the cycle of life was the simple turn of the clocks, slowly sending them back into the oblivion that everyone wished to forget.

I stepped off the veranda, my feet finding the seemingly untouched ground and forever staining the whiteness with my footprints. My body moved on its own accord, slowly walking away from the empty house full of abuse and foul words, towards a land in the recess of my mind that was untouchable to any other human-being. I was guided by the hallow promise of liberation, the soft words that said I'd be hidden from the horrors of my life. I knew it was all lies, because there was no escape from the images of my brother's death, nor the pain inflicted on my small body by my deranged mother, or even the neglect I suffered by the whole world.

Nirvana was only a concept, just as Love, Hope, Joy, and Time were. There were only a few things in life that were stable: Hate, Pain, Want, Anger, and Death; all others were merely ideas thought up by poets, artists, and writers to romance the truth of the world and its lust for things beautiful. Everything else was idiotic and false, because the world is full of lies.

I continued to walk, ignoring the heavy snow that was building up around my shoulders and ears and made my vision of what was ahead blurry. I ignored the cold that seeped into my lungs, burning a path along my throat, and chilled me to the bone. I ignored my whole body as everything began to feel numb and painless. Feeling was obsolete, and so the emptiness that crawled along my being felt just like home.

A tree, leafless and dead, stood as a black silhouette against a white background. Someone leaned against the dead foliage, their hands tucked into the folds of a warm-looking coat. I saw the figure to be a tall, lean, lanky man with fair hair and an outrageous purple coat. Bandages wrapped around his long neck, obscuring the mark I knew to be there, and butterfly earrings gleamed from his pale lobes.

I approached him silently, the soft crunching of snow beneath my shoes the only noise in this barren area. He knew I was here, I could tell by the slight twitch of his lips, but he did not open his eyes to gaze at me. He was peaceful as always, and it annoyed me to no end. But, that is why he fit in so well with this place: he was a bucket full of lies, concealing everything from me, just as everything else in the world.

I burrowed myself inside the folds of his large coat, clutching tightly to his skinny frame. Strong arms wrapped around my body, keeping me close to his person so that I might become warm by his body-heat. I had been stupid for only wearing a thin sweater and some equally thin pants when it was at a temperature close to freezing, and he would most likely chastise me after I was warm, but I wanted to become numb enough so that I wouldn't feel the pain.

After what seemed to be eternity, he finally spoke in his low, melodious voice. "I love you, Ritsuka." His grip on me tightened, as if he expected me to escape, while I only clung to him loosely.

I wanted to scoff. Love was only an idea, one that could easily be broken and framed in a picture. It was a word to conceal something much darker, something frowned upon by society: lust. And, in the case of our age-difference and the fact that I am a minor, the statement was a correct term. There was no room for this "love" in my life when it was predestined before birth that I would be "Loveless" while he was "Beloved", just as my dead brother. Rather then voicing these opinions, however, I held my tongue and simply stood in his tender embrace.

It was not long before I was completely re-heated and back to normal-temperature, but it was hard to pull away. No matter how much I willed myself, how much I berated my body for going against my orders and staying within the circle of his arms, I could not extract myself from the close contact I had with this man: this adult. And so, I stayed within the comforting hold he had on me, slowly drifting off to sleep within his strong arms.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, far away in a dark dungeon, a part of me cried that it was all a lie. It screamed and shrieked at me to not fall for the empty words this man said, for it would all shatter and fall to pieces. It screamed that I'd forget even more then I already have, and that I'd lose more then I'd wish to loose. I ignored this part of me and forced it back into its crypt with locks behind the barred doors.

Love was only a concept that could easily be broken and mocked. It was a fancy word to hide the ugly truth that society frowned upon: lust. Love was not for someone with the name of "Loveless", but it felt so right to hear him—Soubi—say those three words that meant more then I wanted to realize. Maybe "Love" for those who are not expected to love is something intangible and strange, but I felt that I could overcome those bounds as long as he was there.

"I love you, Ritsuka," he said into my ear before everything went black and soundless.