A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, a86 - write a fic that does not use only one consonants (z), and for the One Prompt, Many Fandoms Competition, prompt: start and end with the letter "n".

Needs and Wants

Needs were things like air, food, water – maybe a roof. Needs were insatiable desires like the call for blood from the cherry blossom tree. Needs were things without which life was impossible –

And perhaps it was from the ambiguous definition of life that some people got the idea that love mattered as well.

Seishirou was sure it didn't, until he killed his mother. Her final words made him think: that prophecy that he would, like her, die at the hands of somebody he loved. He wondered if it wasn't simply her exhaustion with it all or some romantic notion.

Later, he wondered if there was some truth to the sentiment or whether he'd been swept up by the romance as well. Because he couldn't allow himself to die by just anyone's hand. It had to be a special person. And maybe he had found that person: kind, gentle…the complete opposite to himself. And he did want to be around that boy, around that complementary soul so the black in one and white in the other melted into a tender grey in between.

But where did want end and need begin was the question that begged an answer. And maybe he didn't want to know the answer. He left the boy, but in a moment of weakness or hesitation, he left him alive. Alive but marked. Marked so he could return whenever he needed because he vowed then it wouldn't be until it was unavoidable.

Because that was what marked the difference between a need and a want, not the world's opinion.