Author: Celeste
Feedback: (Yes!) [email protected]
Rating: PG
Pairings: one-sided Kyou/Tohru, mentions Yuki/Tohru
Summary: Kyou learns that winning isn't everything.
Spoilers: Not that I know of, really.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my sad, twisted scenario. As far as I know, anyway… *sweatdrop* I also would like to deny any responsibility for the actions of my muse.
Dedication: For Skye, because she's the only other K/T shipper I know. *sweatdrop* and I know this fic doesn't technically count, but I can't help myself. FB screams angst at me… Hmmm...I'll throw in a dedication to Jason too, just because he even braved my yaoi fic. What a nice guy!
A/N: Yes, yes, I suck at romance and should never, ever attempt it ever again, but this idea just came to me when I was whining to Skye about how I'm a giant chicken and never seem to be able to subject my favorite characters to any extreme angst. Well, here's me trying. *pets Kyou* hopefully he'll forgive me in the long run. Apologies for stupidity, randomness, OOCness, redundancy, the usual.
Distribution: I'm not even sure I still want it…
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Kyou always believed that if you wanted something, you had to fight for it.
The world wasn't a place...
...it wasn't the kind of place that just gave you things.
It wasn't like that.
It took things; it took things one after another if you couldn't hold on to them yourself.
But it never gave you anything for free.
Ever.
You had to fight for what was yours.
You had to win it and protect it. Not let anyone or anything take it away from you.
That was the only way you ever got anything in this world.
You had to be strong enough to fight for it.
No matter what it was.
You had to be strong enough.
Kyou had lost many things for a long time, one after another.
He'd had many things taken away from him.
And he'd always told himself...
...he'd always said it was because he hadn't fought hard enough to keep it.
That it was his own fault it was gone.
Next time, next time he just had to fight harder.
Be stronger.
He took his losses as lessons, tried to learn from them so that one day he'd be better, he'd be strong enough to hold onto the things he'd fought to earn.
His mother, his childhood, his humanity...
...he'd taken those losses as best he could. Perhaps he hadn't understood them that well when he'd experienced them, but looking back now, even though they hurt, he used them as reminders of what the world did to those who weren't strong enough.
It took things away.
And because it had hurt so much, he didn't want to feel that again, to feel that physical ache when something important was ripped away because he wasn't fit to keep it.
Because he was weak.
He treated everything as a victory or a loss. There were no in-betweens, were there? Either you were enough or you weren't.
There was no such thing as being close.
As being almost enough.
There was just no such thing.
You either were you weren't.
You were strong or you were weak.
You either won or you lost.
Life was a battle with distinct lines. He'd learned that along with his other lessons a long time ago, under the scrutiny of relatives at a funeral and in the cold eyes of a mouse-prince that told him he had been defeated once more, that he had lost because he was weak.
There was no space between winning and losing, loss and gain.
You didn't gain anything when you lost.
Just the knowledge that you were weak.
Again.
All you could do from there was take your defeat as a lesson, to learn from it and remember the pain so that next time you would try harder, be stronger, because the pain was so bad you never wanted to feel it again.
You never wanted to be reminded of your weakness again.
Work harder, fight harder, be stronger. Those were his goals.
Kyou believed that in this world, you had to fight for everything.
No matter what it was.
He'd believed that for as long as he could remember.
His body boasted the scars of every past defeat, the ones that physically wrinkled the skin on his body in pale, baby-soft slashes.
And when he thought of the hurt he'd felt in the past, the twitch of pain that rippled under his skin and muscle and bone told him that the scars that weren't visible were remembered as well.
Every part of him remembered the fight.
The pain.
Of losing.
Every part of him wanted to be stronger.
To be enough one day...
...to win.
To fight for and win something he wanted very, very much.
No matter what it was.
It was why he had fought so hard for her.
He loved her so much.
He wanted to prove to the world that he was strong enough to win this time, to be able to hold on to someone he loved this time.
He wanted to prove that he was strong enough to love.
That he was strong enough to be loved as well.
He hadn't been strong enough with his father, with his mother, with the family, to be truly loved.
Because he had been weak.
It was his own fault.
But he had worked very hard for a long time, had trained hard and believed hard, and tried so very hard because of that.
He had thought that this time, maybe he was strong enough to be loved.
He wanted to be enough.
He'd never been enough before.
And so he fought harder this time, for his love of her, hoped that he was strong enough to keep a cruel world from ripping her away from him.
He wanted to be able to keep this thing, this wonderful feeling she made him feel. It was a little strange. It had been a little strange at first. But it had been wonderful.
He didn't want the world to take everything away again.
Because he was weak. He didn't want to be weak anymore!
So he'd worked hard.
He'd loved her very, very much.
But the funny thing was...
...well, it was just sort of funny that in the course of his battle, in his desire to be strong and win...
...something changed.
It had been strange. It had been a little strange at first.
This thing that he desperately wanted...
...while he was pursuing it...
...it suddenly didn't really feel like a fight. He hadn't felt like he was fighting.
That had been a little weird.
It had set Kyou on edge slightly, had made him wonder if things were just falsely calm and that he was losing everything without even knowing it.
It felt like a sneak attack.
It was hard to fight when you didn't know what you were fighting anymore.
She would smile at him, and greet him, and be unbelievably kind to him and it made him feel warm inside.
But it also scared him a little bit.
It hadn't felt like a fight at all.
It hadn't felt like something was on the verge of being taken away.
It confused him a little bit too.
He knew how to kick and mutter at the stupid first years at school who thought she was the perfect balance of cute and stupid. He knew how to do that.
He knew to glower appropriately when other boys' heads tilted because her skirt was much shorter than those of her creepy friends'.
He knew those things. Those were battle things. The precursor to a fight. That was the world telling you nothing was forever, that it could take something away in a second if you weren't careful enough.
If you weren't strong enough.
But when she pulled him gently by the wrist on their walks home or when she carefully kept his meals leek free or washed his clothes with the same flowery smelling stuff she washed her own with...
...it didn't feel like he was fighting anything at all.
It made him feel a little warm inside.
He hadn't known what was happening.
He had been so ready to fight for his love, to work hard and be strong enough to keep it, this time.
He'd desperately wanted to be strong for her.
He'd wanted to be enough.
But it suddenly hadn't felt like a fight at all.
She never made it seem like a fight.
Looking back...
...maybe that was why...
He'd gotten too complacent.
He'd let himself be too boggled by this new warm feeling that he hadn't realized that the world was preparing him again, for what it liked to do.
Take things away.
Maybe it had been a fight after all, and he just hadn't known how to fight the right way.
He'd been unprepared.
He hadn't been strong enough, smart enough, to know, to be able to adapt and battle hard.
It had just been so new to him.
He hadn't known how to fight. He hadn't felt as if he had had to.
Maybe that was why...
Maybe it was why.
She hadn't chosen him.
It had hurt a lot, almost unbearably, when she hadn't chosen him.
He hadn't been enough, again.
He'd lost again.
He was weak. Not strong enough to hold onto the thing he wanted most.
The world took things away. That was just what it did.
He remembered the pain this time as well. Worse than any lesson before, he remembered that pain, the hopeless one that sang in waves under his skin, his muscles, his bones. A pain that touched every old scar and brought it to searing life again.
He'd been so angry.
So...hurt.
He never seemed to be enough. As hard as he worked, as hard as he tried and believed, he wasn't strong.
He'd felt broken. This time, this time it had hurt much more than the others, knowing this time he had tried even harder.
Perhaps he'd fought the wrong way, but he had still fought hard.
She hadn't chosen him.
The world took things away, when you weren't strong enough. It took them away.
That's what Kyou had always thought.
That's what he had always learned. Time and time again.
He'd thought it had been the same, with her.
He hadn't been strong enough again, and the world had taken her away.
That's what he'd thought.
But then one day...
...one day...
...he'd seen her with him, unintentionally, he'd come across them. They hadn't noticed him there in the trees, too caught up, too...happy.
That day, he saw them. And he watched her with him, watched how they were together, and he saw her smile, heard her laugh.
It had been...
...beautiful.
She had been beautiful.
Just being there, being happy. Being her.
He remembered feeling warm again.
That strange feeling he'd gotten before...
...it was exactly the same. It was the same thing.
He felt warm.
And...
..he suddenly understood.
Watching her, watching them. He got it.
He finally realized that to love someone...
...to really love someone...
...was enough.
He finally got it.
He understood... the moment he saw her smile.
Because she had been absolutely beautiful to him, when he saw her like that.
He'd felt warm inside. Every muscle, ever fiber, every pale scar had tingled and felt wonderfully warm when he saw her just as she was.
Beautiful.
And that had been enough.
Just to see that from her, even if it was caused by someone else, was enough.
He loved her.
And because of that, it was enough…it was simply enough to watch over her.
Kyou felt strong, suddenly.
He suddenly felt strong.
It was enough.
END