A/N: Sorry for the terrible delay between this chapter and the previous one. Anyways, for those curious, this story will be four chapters long because I've decided that I've thought of enough ideas to extend it into four chapters. That aside, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!
He fell in love with her the first time he met her.
It wasn't anything as fantastical as love at first sight. He may have been cursed with what his friends delighted in calling a "baby face", but he had long ago discarded his childish side that believed in fairytales in favor of forcing himself to grow up ahead of his fifteen years.
It was, after all, what everyone expected of him. His mother was always pushing him to be the "proper" son that could care for the family; his sister was always hiding behind him in hopes that he would protect her; his father was always talking about how he had to be the "man" of the house. There wasn't any room left for him to be a child, so he forced himself to grow up. He carefully buried the childish side so deep that no one would ever be able to find it.
At least he liked to believe this to be true.
"Stop pretending to be older than you are. Enjoy the age you are. You have the right to be a child for a little longer; you should take advantage of it."
Those were the first words she said to him.
As ordered by his mother, he had gone to introduce himself to their new neighbor. He was dressed in a clean, pressed suit with his messy hair expertly tamed. His carefully constructed façade was in place as it always was; he had visited new neighbors several times and had perfected the art of first impressions.
When the door opened, he found himself looking at a woman several years older than himself with pink hair that hung down her back. But what caught anyone's attention when they took the time to examine her were her eyes.
They were a startling blue that managed to compel the viewer to look deeper yet carefully kept them at bay. As he stared at those eyes that stared unblinkingly back, he saw something eating away at the edges of those blue eyes.
It wasn't until much later until he would learn what was eating away at both the woman's eyes and heart.
But as he met the woman's eyes for the first time and listened to her words, he instantly threw up every defense he had available to him. How had she seen through him?
How had this woman he had just met broken through his façade of so many years?
He laughed.
There was no way. There was no way this woman had broken through his carefully constructed mask. It had been a lucky guess, nothing more.
She just continued to stare at him with her guarded blues eyes as she waited for his hollow laughter to die down. After what the boy estimated must have been at least a minute of insincere laughter, his laughter died in his chest as he looked once more to the woman.
As he met those eyes, he could tell she was completely serious; she saw everything. She wasn't saying things at random, she wasn't just guessing. She had looked beyond the mask to find the young boy underneath.
As they held each other's gaze, the woman repeated her comment from earlier.
He wanted to laugh again.
But this time, he felt the sting of tears begin to fall unexpectedly down his face.
They were hot and bitter, but he couldn't stop them from sliding down his cheeks and into his mouth.
They tasted like lies.
So he stood there crying silently for years gone by; years during which he lived little more than a lie. The woman didn't move at all, she didn't gently embrace him or give him words of comfort. But what she did gave the young boy with the baby face more comfort than he could ever imagine.
She allowed him to cry.
Just as the hollow laughter had faded away earlier, the honest tears also stopped. But this time the boy felt refreshed. There was one person in the world that he didn't have to wear his mask in front of; this woman that he had just met.
"So that's who you really are. I'm glad to meet you," She said as she held her hand out to him and gave the slightest smile. As the boy took her hand, he looked into those eyes and saw nothing but understanding. There was no judgment, no prejudice, no disappointment in his childish nature.
That was when he fell in love with her.
It was a subtle change. In his childish mind, he had expected love, particularly his first, to be an all-consuming fire; something that dominated both his mind and soul. But what he felt for this woman was more akin to a candle flame rather than a roaring fire.
He felt like it was something of great importance that must be guarded against any force that wished to douse it.
So he was in love with her but he knew the love to be one sided; it had to be one sided.
She was significantly older than him, already putting him at a disadvantage. But it was the fact that she never let anyone in, never let anyone get close, that made it almost impossible to reach her.
Yet despite all this, he never stopped loving her. For five years he visited her at least three times a week. He would come to the house and simply be himself. For her part, the woman would allow him to come and she never questioned his motives.
It was during one of these usual weekly meeting that the boy saw something strange in her eyes. It was there and gone in an instant; a phantom that wasn't supposed to escape that had somehow managed to penetrate her defenses. It took the boy a few minutes of pondering to decipher it.
It was fear.
Every time the woman looked at him, her eyes were haunted by the past.
He wanted desperately to ask her what it was that haunted her, but he knew that she would never answer. Her defenses had been up for so long that one little boy wouldn't change that.
So he continued to love her from afar and worked in any way he could to rid her of the specter of her past.
Then his life came crashing down.
It was not long after his twentieth birthday when the letter came; the letter that would destroy so much.
He knew that a war had been going on for several years, but it had been an unimportant force in his life. He had never been forced to look at the reality of war just outside of his door.
That letter changed everything.
He was drafted.
He took the letter first to the woman that he loved. He watched as her haunted eyes scanned the words on the page. He felt like she read the letter for an eternity.
When her eyes rose to meet his, she was crying.
"You don't have the right to be a child any longer."
It was the first time he saw her cry; the first time in five years she lowered all her defenses.
That was when he knew he wanted to marry her.
Impulsively, he took her in his arms and held her tight. Even though he could feel a few of her stray tears soak into his shirt, her body wasn't shaking with each silent sob. To his surprise, she didn't push him away but instead allowed him to hold her in his arms.
"Please…"
The word bubbled up from some place he couldn't quite identify, but somehow, as he held her in his arms, it felt right. He waited in silence as the woman's tears seemed to subside and she gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head.
"I love you."
She said the words so quietly that he wasn't even sure he heard her right. But the next moment, she lifted her head from his chest and touched her lips softly to his. The contact lasted for no more than a second but the soft feeling of her lips on his confirmed what he had known for the past five years.
He loved her; he would always love her. He would do anything to protect her even if that meant leaving her.
They were married the next week. There was no ceremony; no pomp and circumstance. The two of them signed a piece of paper and were wed. The boy got to honestly kiss her lips for the first time.
He was sent off to training the next day.
The time that he spent in training was measured only by the letters exchanged between the two of them. It was through these letters that he learned about what had haunted her eyes for so many years.
When he received the letter containing the truth of her fear, he couldn't help but read everything over and over again; she was finally telling him everything; no secrets, no lies, no carefully packed away specters. It was all there for him to see. It only made him love her more.
He wanted nothing more than to run home to her and waylay all her fears, but all he could do was offer words to comfort her. He sincerely hopped it was enough.
As he waited for her reply, he wrote another letter. This one he had no intention of sending. Instead, he nestled the letter in a pocket next to his heart.
He hoped that he would never have to send the letter to her. If she received it, it would mean he wasn't coming home; it would mean he would never see that elusive smile again.
With his final words to her nestled eternally next to his soul, the letters and the days of training went by in a flurry of gunshots and pages. Before he realized it, the boy was standing on a battlefield with a bulky and awkward gun in his hands.
He could feel the battle raging all around him as he aimed and lowered the gun as he had been trained. The shots rang out, the bodies fell, the square in his pocket burned into his chest. His fingers grew numb and his finger pulled the trigger, his eyesight became hazy as the bodies continued to cascade down unendingly. But no matter how much time passed or how numb he became to the world, he felt each letter on the page burn into him.
The battle ends, but the numbness and burning remains.
He waits for a letter from her, something to rid him of the numbness.
Nothing comes.
The next battle starts.
He can't do it; he knows he can't kill any more. As he holds the worthless metal in his hand, he leaves the chamber empty. It doesn't matter if there's a bullet there. He knows he won't be able to use it.
Then he sees the boy charging at him. His hair is plastered to his face and he moves with an almost demonic rage.
BANG!
So many gunshots ring out on the battlefield, but he hears only one clearly. Then he feels the ripping pain in his chest. He wants to continue to stand, but the pain drags him to the ground.
A shot right to the heart; the soldier has done an excellent job killing his target.
Vaguely, he feels himself being rolled over as he looks up at his would-be assistant. He sees the face of the soldier, but instead of the all-consuming rage that he been the only emotion on his face previously, now his eyes flicker softly with a wide range of emotions.
Through the haze of his inevitable end, the baby-faced soldier reaches for the letter. He has rehearsed this so many times. The letter has to get to her.
He takes the paper into his hand for the last time. He can't even feel the burning sensation of the paper. He no longer understands why it's important for this letter to be taken from him, but he knows, he knows he needs the letter delivered.
"Please…"
His lips labor to form the words as the world grows increasingly hazy around him. He looks up at the man holding him who is both soldier and frightened child. He watches as the man's head nods in agreement. The baby-faced soldier feels the corners of his lips lift in what he knows must be a horrible mockery of a smile.
"I love her…whatever she has decided…let her know that…I love her…and our son…"
He wasn't able to say those words. He so desperately wants his lips to work, but everything around him is fading to black. He can't see any more. He can't even imagine her.
As the blackness of death callously sweeps away anything that identifies him as human, the last thing he remembers is beautiful blue eyes.
Then even that memory is swept away.
The baby-faced soldier that loved her is gone.
In his place is a letter in the hands of an enemy.
A final and desperate link.