If any day could be called ‘normal’ during the war, it would have been a day like this. The lingering smell of smoke was still present, but it had been there so long, that it would have been strange without it. The mask that he wore to cover his mouth and nose and to keep from inhaling the fumes and smoke needed to be replaced; it had gotten a bit singed during the last attack, but he could keep using it for now.

And five year old Kazuya was running back home.

It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair! Kazuya was thinking in his head, very much like a mantra. He heard his name being called and he stopped, to glare at his older brother following him with his younger brother in his arms.

Then with a shrug of his shoulders in a childish ‘I don’t care’ way, he continue to run away.

It wasn’t fair – he hadn’t wanted to go to the store. He had wanted to stay home and play catch. He had – and why did Yuya get candy bought for him when Kazuya got nothing? It was childish jealousy, but Kazuya was still only five and very much a victim of it.

He heard his name being yelled and he stopped, not liking that tone in Youjiro’s voice. He kicked at the ground as he waited for the oldest son in the family to approach.

“Kazuya! You do not run off like that!” Youjiro scolded loudly and Kazuya’s glare turned sulky as he kept kicking at the ground.

“I’m not a baby. Yuya’s the baby” Kazuya said rebelliously, “I don’t want to wait”

“Why have you been so difficult lately?” Youjiro muttered, but Kazuya still heard him.

“Because you’re mean! You only like Yuya and you hate me!” Kazuya accused, “And – and I want Kouji-nii-chan!” he burst out and then realizing what he was saying, he clamped a hand over his mouth as tears welled up in his eyes at the memory of the deceased brother.

“Oh.” Youjiro was at a loss as to what to say. He should have known though, “Kazuya, I don’t hate –”

Before he could continue, however, there was a wailing sound and all of them stiffened, even Yuya. Kazuya stared wide-eyed at Youjiro, who swore.

“Kazuya, take Yuya and go to the safe house. You know where it is, you’re a big boy. I’m going to find mom and dad and bring them there okay?” his father had hurt his leg during the last raid and thus, needed help walking long distances.

Kazuya nodded solemnly and grabbed his younger brother’s hands, “Yuya. C’mon” he muttered, eyes wide at the people panicking around him.

He watched as Youjiro disappeared from view and he pulled harder on Yuya’s hands, “Yuya. C’mon!”

“No” the two year old whimpered, “Too far”

“Yuya!”

“NO!”

“Yuya!” he pulled harder, not caring that it would probably hurt the toddler. The alarm was going off – and there was no way he would get to the safe house if Yuya was being so difficult!

There was a wail as Yuya fell to the ground.

Kazuya let out a frustrated shout, “Yuya. C’mon!”

Only wails met his ears, and as Kazuya approached, trying to pick up his brother to make it easier, Yuya hit him. He kept hitting Kazuya away, “NO. NO. NO!!”

Kazuya was close to tears – he had to get them to safety, or they’d be dead like Kouji-nii-chan. He didn’t have much time to cry – to his relief, a passing villager picked up his crying brother.

“Hurry, sweetie” the woman said kindly, despite the rush in her voice as she ran in the direction of the shelter. Kazuya followed gratefully, wiping away the tears that had formed in his eyes.

As they ran, Kazuya stumbled over the bits of destruction that had already affected the town. The objects that had been dropped once the siren had sounded, the gravel that was being loosened by explosions, and –

He tripped and fell flat on his face, skidding across rocks and gravel. He struggled to get up, trying to call out to the woman helping them.

And his eyes widened when an explosion nearby rocked the ground and he could see fire and –

Kazuya screamed loudly when both his brother and the woman suddenly disappeared under a section of a house that had fallen, its stability loosened by the fire destroying its foundations and the explosion knocking the weak section over.

“No!” Kazuya screamed, running forward, only to scream when fire appeared in his path. He backed away, whimpering loudly. He didn’t know what to do – what was he supposed to do?

Find something that has no danger of falling on you, his father’s voice when he was teaching Kazuya what to do during a raid, echoed in his mind.

Kazuya shakily stood up and crawled under an overturned truck, hiding there and peeking out every so often. He buried his face into his knees and tried to block out the sounds of the attack. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, but by the time the sounds stopped, he was shaking all over, he was terrified and he would be plagued by nightmares for a long time.

It was also the last time he would hear from any of his family in years.

--

“My parents died in that same attack” Kazuya said softly, looking at the wall behind Jin. The older man was still silent, as he had been ever since Kazuya had tried to explain what he meant, and had instead, started to tell Jin his first, real experience with the true reality of war, “My brother couldn’t get to them in time”

“What…what does this have to…”

“My brothers didn’t die though; they managed to live, but I thought they were dead for years and years” Kazuya continued. He took a deep breath, “At first, when I agreed to do this, it was because I was afraid. I was terrified of going through all that again – living in abandoned buildings, doing everything we could to get food and everything else. Do you know what it feels like to distract a store clerk just so a friend, faster and more innocent-looking than you, can steal food for who knows how many kids? I’m selfish because I didn’t want to feel like that again, so I did all this…because of that”

“Because you didn’t want the guilt of being a thief?” Jin asked sarcastically.

“No! Because I hated the desperation! Every day, we were always scared! I hated it – I hated it so much. I lost my parents in this war, and while they’re still alive, it feels like I’ve lost my brothers too! Feeling like a stranger in my own family’s home? Grieving because another friend died in an attack? Crying because I was hungry and nobody was kind enough to give me any food?! I hate it – I hate it so much!” Kazuya couldn’t help but yell, “It was horrible, and nobody – nobody – cared about us…orphans” he added the last word as an attempt to clarify for Jin.

“So you decided to do all this and make it worse by tricking us instead of telling us the truth from the start”

“And would you have listened?! Or would we have been plunged into another war? I’m sick of it, okay?!” Kazuya took a deep breath, “That’s why I decided to pretend to be Kazumi, because I could do something about it, and I was motivated by this hate of war. So I did it. But then…it got complicated…”

“What?” Jin asked. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t help asking more. Why did he want to know more? It – this was the guy who hurt him…

But he was also hurt himself…

“You” Kazuya retorted, “You got nice, and you suddenly started acting like you cared so much about me, about stopping the war. I thought – I thought you would understand”

“I understand the hatred of war” Jin responded, “I don’t understand the necessity of tricking me for so long, letting me believe in something that couldn’t even be!” He took a deep breath, “So…that’s my next question then. Why did you keep tricking me? You could have told me before I got in so deep…alright, I don’t know if I would have understood, but it wouldn’t have hurt so much to find out the truth…”

“Because…” Kazuya looked down at the sheets.

“Kamenashi” Jin said sharply.

“Because…I was being selfish. It felt nice to be cared about, it felt good to have someone like me the way you did” Kazuya mumbled, “Because I felt the same way you told me you felt, I like you so much, and I wanted it to last as long as it could”

He paused.

“And because I was afraid of being hated by you” he said finally, “I made it worse by prolonging it and letting you find out in the worst way, but I didn’t know how to tell you. I was too scared. You were going to find out the truth, you’d find out that I…am really not anyone special. I’m not a princess, or royalty, or even nobility. I’m just a war orphan, who was afraid that you’d see the truth: that as an orphan, I’m not special like you believe. I’m, as people used to call us” he let out a bitter laugh, “Just worthless”

He looked at Jin and saw a slightly disguised horrified look.

“Worthless, useless and if I knew what was good for me, I’d stop trying to survive” Kazuya repeated the words so often told to him. Yamapi had tried so hard to shield him from those words, but he could still hear even when Yamapi had covered his ears.

“Stop –“ Jin croaked, “What – why the hell are you saying this? That’s…”

“Because it’s true” Kazuya said solemnly, “You realized it too, didn’t you? I’m nothing special; I won’t be able to be the one you marry; all I could do was keep lying and keep tricking myself that it didn’t matter, that in the end, you would see me as what I wanted to be: special, to you, despite who I really am” he laughed, shaking his head, “But I’m not. You hate me now, and in the end, even my dreams end up like my life – completely fucked up. I messed up when it came to you. So, I don’t have any more explanations I can give you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But I hope you give Tsubasa and Tackey a chance to work out something like an alliance; that’s all I wanted from the start. But I suppose it doesn’t matter, anyways, because even if you don’t, I can’t complain to you – you won’t make it all better anymore, because like I promised, in a short while, I’ll be gone, out of your life forever”

Unable to keep them back anymore, Kazuya buried his head into his hands to hide and muffle the cries that were starting to escape. Jin stared.

“Ka –” he reached his hand forward and then took it back.

“Nobody is worthless” he finally said firmly.

Kazuya looked up through his tears, “Then what…what else could you possibly see me as?” he asked, “I am nothing special. In reality, I was just fooling myself when I thought I could make a difference, and when I thought you could love me”

Jin’s anger at the man had deflated a little by now, replaced by horror at the man’s self-depreciating words.

“I…once saw you as someone I could spend my life with” Jin started.

“Once…”

“And before this conversation, I saw you as a liar who had hurt me considerably. When I read that letter, I couldn’t believe it – you weren’t like that, you loved me, but…in the end, I couldn’t avoid the truth. I hated you so much”

“And…”

“And right now, I don’t know” Jin said, looking lost, “I can’t say I hate you – you hate yourself enough. Love…I still can’t forgive you just like that for lying to me, for hurting me, so I can’t say I love you…”

Kazuya looked down, fists clenching the blankets.

“I can say, somehow, despite all you’ve done, you are special to me. You’re not ‘worthless’. I just…” he sighed, “What’s the point?”

“I just…I just want to know if I became special enough to you, over all this time, for you to forgive and give us another chance…until Kazumi is found…just a little while more”

Jin stared, “I don’t have a chance, unlike you” he said with a frustrated sigh, “Even if I don’t tell my father, we’d be going through all this again in a few months. We can never have a happy ending…”

He stilled, staring across the room and then he stood up.

Kazuya’s eyes were sad, “I was told…in not so limited words…” he started as Jin headed for the door, apparently finding the conversation over, “that it didn’t matter as much if the ending didn’t turn out happy. What matters is that the moments of both happiness and sadness, can be cherished as something happy when I look back on this…and I can…” he whispered, “So, before I leave, thank you. Thank you for making me feel like the most important person in the world, thank you for caring about me, thank you for loving me at one point…”

Jin had frozen where he was.

“For a moment in our relationship, I felt that you would have gone to the ends of the world and suffered any hardship for me” he smiled tearfully, “Thank you for letting me feel like I was that special to you” and he bowed his head, not wanting Jin to see him cry.

He didn’t see Jin look back, or see Jin hesitate in his steps. He didn’t see the way Jin looked torn, looking as though he wanted to go back, but didn’t dare.

Then…

“I will do whatever I can to stop a second war”

He only looked up when the door closed and he could hear the footsteps slowly fading away. Then, he felt arms wrap around him, as someone he had formerly thought to be sleeping, hugged him tightly, comforting him.

“You’re special to me” he heard a whisper.

Kazuya only offered a sob in reply.

“Thank you”

But it didn’t matter.

Not when he wasn’t special enough to the one person he wanted to be that special to.

* * *

It was, in fact, Tegoshi who stopped Yamapi and Koki from rampaging through the halls in search of Jin so that they could throttle him. As he had explained, all Jin had agreed was to listen – he had not promised to forgive Kazuya, or get back together with him. He had broken no part of the deal.

However, Tegoshi did explain one thing.

“He didn’t look like he…hated Kame-chan” Tegoshi said, trying to find the best way to explain, “Like, he wanted to listen to Kame-chan and give it another chance, but…it was like, there was something stopping him…like he was afraid of something…”

And having once been a prince, although not in the same situation, that was how Tsubasa found himself venturing across the grounds, toward where a lonely silhouette sat in the distance.

The prince looked up when he saw Tsubasa approach and the king took it as a good sign that he was right, when he saw that the prince didn’t stiffen or flinch, like he would if he didn’t want Tsubasa there.

“Your majesty” Jin croaked out. Tsubasa tilted his head. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that the prince had been crying.

“Are you feeling unwell?” he decided to ask instead.

Jin shook his head.

“I suppose saying that I came out here by coincidence wouldn’t fool you” Tsubasa said after a long moment of silence.

Jin let out a laugh, “No, it wouldn’t”

Another silence fell over them.

“I’m not angry at…him anymore. Not really.” Jin finally said, “I realized that when I was talking to him. I couldn’t be angry – he hates himself so much, it’s like, if I hated him too…I just felt sad for him after all that he said”

“Yes, he hides it well…both of them do” Tsubasa said finally, “I suppose it’s why I’ve gotten so fond of him. He’s a living personification of why I have to make this alliance work”

Jin looked startled.

“Now why don’t you tell me, prince to former prince” Tsubasa quirked a smile, “What your feelings are on this. It’ll be completely confidential of course” he said, “But I have always found that talking to someone is much better than mulling it over by myself”

Jin stared and then he looked down, “I suppose…”

Tsubasa waited patiently.

“It was just…when I walked in there, I wanted so much to be angry, to be furious. But once he started talking, I couldn’t stay angry. I don’t know why it is, but I couldn’t…his reasons, everything, if I hadn’t been angry in the first place, I might have started crying for him. But I was, so it only made my anger slowly go away…why is that?”

Tsubasa couldn’t help but smile, “That…is the curse of being in love” he said slowly, carefully watching Jin’s expression, “The inability to stay mad at someone when they’re hurting, even after they’ve hurt you”

“I –”

“You fell in love with a person named Kazumi. A person you thought was a woman, a princess. But names are just names, and if you fell in love just because it was a woman, then that’s not really love, it’s sex fooling you into thinking it’s love” Tsubasa said patiently, “You actually fell in love because of his personality, didn’t you? How he always tried so hard to get him to like you? How he never gave up? How he so sincerely gives it his all if it means stopping a war?”

Jin stared.

“Don’t look like that – ever since they told me what happened, I’ve had time to try to evaluate how it happened” Tsubasa said, “Now, the question is…you once loved him. You were hurt by him, but there’s no denying you still, at the very least, like him like you did when you first realized your feelings. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing” Jin answered promptly, averting his eyes, “I…I don’t think – not only are we doomed not to be together, but…how can I trust him again after he betrayed that trust?”

“Trust is something you build up slowly, Jin…and if it gets knocked down, you give it another chance, or else we’d all be very lonely and trust no one”

Jin sighed, “Why do you want me to give him another chance when I’m marrying your daughter?”

“Because you remind me of someone” Tsubasa said with a grin, “He, too, thought that if it was pointless and one of them was going to marry someone, why risk getting both of them hurt? In the end, he had happy memories that he could hold onto even when he was surrounded by sadness and doubt” he paused, “I suppose it’s also because I want a happy, regret-less king taking over for me and caring for the safety of my people and right now, I don’t think you fit any of those requirements”

Jin stared.

Why did it sound like…?

“Think about it, at the very least. I’m not telling you what you should do, but think about it”

Jin watched as Tsubasa walked away.

I’m still a little angry, despite what I said. I still don’t trust him not to hurt me again…

But…

There’s no denying that he made me feel like the most important person in the world too…

“Thank you for making me feel like the most important person in the world, thank you for caring about me, thank you for loving me at one point…”

Same to you…


--- END CHAPTER ---


*hides* don't kill me!!!! I have a perfectly good explanation for this chapter....and why it ended that way. Because for one, although it makes sense to him, Jin in this story is a bit stubborn and he always needs a little push and a little time for him to do the right thing. Also, the 'omg, he had a bad past. i have to forgive him'...isn't realistic XDDD I mean, if someone had hurt YOU really badly, you wouldn't forgive what they did just because they had a bad past would you? Well...maybe it's just me then


Which is why this chapter ends this way. But have no fear~~ everything works out next chapter ^_____^ i think anyways~ That's why Jin does that. He's pretty much gotten over his anger, and like a friend (you know who you are ^^) said when i got her to read over the akame scene to make sure it was okay and not all stupid, it's like Jin wants to forigve Kame. Which is why he's been acting so...asshole-ish to Kame. Because he doesn't want to admit that he does, and yeah...He just needs a little push =P


And that's all for my analyzation of my own characters ^____^


Oh, and before i forget this time ('cause i forgot last time), remember those pairing banners from two chapters back? =P Well, xnyappyallyx made me another one. For the pikame relationship in PP =P



Pretty isn't it? <3333


And one more thing ^^ wait, no...two more things. But one of the things, I'll mention next chapter instead because this author's note is already getitng really long. (sorry Eiri-chan! I'll have to put the things we wrote on msn up next chapter instead ^________^)

Okay, so the last thing ^^


I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to brezo1816 . Hope you're having a wonderful day, Heather ♥