Chains
by Shira
I never intended to fall in love with him. It just happened. And I've been fighting with the ramifications of it since I first admitted to myself that I had fallen. Never in my wildest fantasy had I even considered that I might one day want to give my heart to another boy, but here I am doing just that. Yes, I've had plenty of crushes on girls too, but they never really materialized into anything, and this...this just felt right. It drives me crazy on a daily basis, but I know I'm meant to be with him, boy or no boy. We complete each other.
At first we loathed each other. His cold facade and uncaring remarks led me to believe that he was not a human, but a machine made to look like one. I know for a fact that love was the last thing on his mind. It got in his way. It was destructive to his purpose. But slowly as I began to discover the human inside the soldier, he too allowed himself to know me. He used to call me 'Baka' all the time, and he meant it. Now it's a pet name of sorts. I knew he was changing after he faltered when he came to shoot me dead that day I'd been captured. He couldn't do it. At the moment I didn't care why he felt he should let me live, but as I later thought about it, it was beginning to make sense.
So time travels on and here we are together. The sun rises and falls over his very being, at least to me, anyway. I don't know where I'd be without him right now, besides probably dead, and definitly lonely. I was so lonely before I found him. An empty shell with a thick crust. Empty of the people I had once loved, and of the love of myself. That's why I so eagerly took on this damn suicide mission in the first place. It took me a long time to realize it, but I didn't care what happened to me back then, because I had no one. So is this why after all the sleepless nights and tears I've shed I just can't break away the chains he has over my heart?
The others say I'm foolish, that I deserve better. But they don't know him the way I do. Really, I don't know what it is about him that makes me love him so, but I just do. Maybe it's his exotic look, or maybe it's the way he takes charge of a situation, always in control, I don't know. I only know that when I am near him I am on fire with the hot fire of passion. I yearn for his touch, for his smell, for the way he looks at me sometimes. He makes me go totally weak inside. They don't know that part of him, the part that loves and gives and strokes my hair at night until we both fall asleep. They only see the hard exterior.
It took a long time for him to accept the idea that maybe he loved me as much as I love him. He wouldn't at first, denying it profusely. He was especially cold to me then, and I feared the worst, that I had crossed the line proclaiming my affection, and that would be the end of our friendship. But he slowly came around, surprising me one day, meeting me with a casual hug as I stared at him working from across the room. I can remember how my body tingled with heartfelt pleasure when he did it, me not wanting to let him go. And our first kiss was electrifying.
Now I stand confused by him. He loves me, I know it. He's told me so in sincerity. But as we've grown familiar he acts like he just doesn't care most of the time. He doesn't let us get in the way of the missions, and he rarely lets his guard down. I respect that to a point, but he's left me yearning once again for the physical contact. Bad enough he would never publicly display his affection...he rarely does behind closed doors now either. I need to thicken up my skin, he tells me. But I was born a lover, and I need that to survive. I can't just cover it up the way he does. I want to shower him with my affection, but I don't dare, for I know he wouldn't approve.
Some days I call to him, simply because I need to hear his voice, and he answers with nothing. He looks at me like I'm bothering him, like I'm wasting his time. I sometimes walk past and purposefully brush against him and my skin is hot where we make contact. It doesn't affect him. The lack of response, although I know is not intentional, eats away at me from the inside out, gnawing at my heartstrings, making me want him oh so much more. That's because of the chains. I didn't object one bit when he laid the chains out and gingerly encased my heart in them. But now they weight heavy with my unfulfilled emotional needs, slowly suffocating me.
And just as I reach my emotional breaking point, he softens a bit, and feeds me a tidbit to hold me over for a while. We have a single night filled with passion that makes my head reel, my body ache and my heart soar. He lifts me so high that I cannot see the world below me. He opens up to me and tells me all the things that make everything better. He really does need me, but it is hard for him to say. I know this, I understand this, but it doesn't make the hurt any less. And then as quickly as that he is back to his hard, soldier-like self again, and I am left dangling on the edge of this cliff. The emotional roller coaster is wearing me out. Is this what the others see?
I lie in bed some nights, his form beside me, taunting me. My heat radiates the warmth of the desire inside of me but he doesn't notice it. touch me My body cries out to his unhearing self. kiss me I stare, unable to settle into a sleep, watching him, his chest rising and falling with every breath. please, I beg of you... My mind races as does my heart, fighting back the urge to wake him. My body is burning. Why do I fight it? I fight it because I can't bear to have him merely "go along" with me and then roll over and go back to sleep. I want his fire, for it to be one with mine. I want him to want me as much as I want him. I think about waking him again, and decide against it. I can't stand being this close to him, but I can't leave his side either. I want to reach under the blankets and wake him with my loving touch, making him feel the way he makes me feel, but I don't dare. I'm afraid of the pain of being pushed away. He's made me afraid of him. Some nights he reduces me to the point of tears and he doesn't even know it. I sob next to him, the pillow soaking up the tears, my body and mind screaming out in a distress that he is deaf and blind to. please touch me, run your fingers over me, I need you so badly. My body quivers next to him in the bed.
So I lie awake most of the night, hoping. Then, in the morning, he rises to greet me with a small peck on the lips and sometimes a hug, and he looks at me quizically as he pushes us apart. I hold on, try to breathe the sweet breath right out of him as we kiss. Desperate. Isn't that what you call it? Desperate to have what he can't, or won't, give me. But the chains won't let me go, so I don't even try to fight anymore. I've lost my chance to fight long ago. I fix my eyes on his, my compassion and desire pouring out all over me, and then I turn away to lick my wounds. They will heal, and be reopened, time and time again.
Chains.
I know he doesn't mean it. He's just indifferent to it. He says it's because of all he's been raised to be and all that lurks in his mind, keeping him from allowing his true self out. And that's what makes it hurt all that much more. If he did it on purpose I think I could break away. But I am forever trapped by him in this see-saw of a relationship. This is what the others criticize the most, I think. That I continue to stay after the mental and emotional anguish that he puts me through. Yes, I wish I loved one of them instead of him... maybe my warm personality would be rewarded more easily by the love of another. But I can't help it. Either way it hurts so deeply... to leave him, or to stay. So my love for him betrays me and I stay, allowing myself to be stepped on like an emotional floor mat. I suspect that he realizes this, but he doesn't change, can't change. They say that you can't change people. I guess I haven't changed either.
Chains.
|