"It's endless, Basch."

Those words had been etched into the soft skin of his wrist since the moment he had been brought into the world. They gave him hope, they made him ache, they forced him to keep searching for an answer.

Who was it? When would he find them? And the most nagging question of all, what was endless? The pain? The sky? The final throes of death?

"You'll find them someday," the adults assured, and Basch would roll his eyes and scowl.

He was a too much of a cynical loner to find love, despite what the words seared into his skin said. Only his younger sister and childhood best friend could stand his company, and he spent more time with the latter as he had nighed his twenties.

"What's the point if he's going to die someday?" the blonde asked his best friend in frustration as they sat together on his porch. "What's the point of loving if love ends?"

"But Basch," Roderich would whisper, leaning against him as they watched a celestial artist swipe paint over the canvas of the sky to form sunset, "you don't understand. Love doesn't end."

"Everything ends," Basch replied shortly, watching as the beauty of the sunset became monochrome black.

As they parted for the night, Roderich took Basch's hand in his own and kissed it, gazing to him with intense violet eyes swirling with suppressed emotions.

"It's endless, Basch."

In that moment, everything in the whole world came crashing down on him.

Love. Love was endless.

Roderich died the next morning.