tearmeanewone | rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

[God. Gai was eight?]

[Elizabeth feels a shiver race up her back, but she holds as still as she can and keeps her arms around him.]

And you couldn't get out either, I suppose... Because otherwise they would kill you?

[Now Gai opens his eyes to look at her again, nodding.]

They killed another boy for crying because he missed his family. Show any sort of weakness, and you were disposed of. They didn't have the time or resources to waste on those who weren't going to do what they wanted.

[Now that, that does make Elizabeth shake slightly. Gai had been around these people, these animals who killed children. Like Daisy had threatened to do.]

[She pushes it all back, holds Gai tighter. This is hard, Gai hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest. But she's going to stay with him if it kills her.]

How long were you there? With them?

Until I was twelve years old.

[He tightens his own grip in kind, as much for his comfort as for hers. It's a portion of his life that he hates thinking about, even if he's well aware of the fact that it's in the past.]

I met a mercenary named Shibungi on the battlefield one day. He told me I had potential, said I should come back to Japan with him. So I did.

I can understand why... [Anything, anything to get away from all of that. But still, four years of showing no fear, no emotion--not being able to make a choice.]

And then what happened?

I got to find out just what had been going on in Japan with the GHQ while I was gone. Shibungi gave me more refined training, and with his help, I started Funeral Parlor in order to fight back against the GHQ.

[From one battlefield to another. It was the only way he knew how to live, the only place he felt comfortable. He'd become stronger for a reason, after all.]

And you were twelve? [Elizabeth tries to laugh, brushes her thumb across Gai's finger.] When I was twelve the only thing I was trying to refine was how to put a bow high up in my hair.

[The smile he gives her in return is a quiet, strained little thing.]

My childhood ended when I was seven, on Lost Christmas. I was an adult from that point on, whether I wanted to be or not.

[It's why people are often so surprised to discover his real age. He doesn't act like a young man at the tail end of his teenage years; he acts like a young man in his twenties.]

Do you ever wish you could have it back? Your childhood? [Elizabeth's eyes are starting to swim the more she thinks about Gai as a lost child looking for direction. She can almost, almost see it in her mind's eye.]

I don't know. It's hard to miss what you never really had in the first place.

[The few months he spent with Shu and the Oumas on Oshima was the closest thing he'd ever had to an actual childhood that he could remember. A lab rat before that, and a child soldier after... hearing stories of other peoples' childhoods always felt like some strange, foreign thing to him.]

[Elizabeth at least had some semblance of a childhood. Yes, it was spent in captivity instead of with other children and games played outdoors, but it wasn't nothing but fear.]

[She blinks and the tears spill over onto the pillow.] What's... what was 'Lost Christmas'?

It was the day on which Japan was nearly destroyed-- the day that started the Apocalypse Virus pandemic. And Shu and I were at the epicenter.

[Those tears don't go unnoticed by Gai. He moves to kiss them away, his heart twisting painfully at the sight. This is exactly what he'd feared - no, what he knew - would happen. It's hard for anyone to hear, he knows that much.]

I'm still not entirely sure how the two of us survived.

[The man in the red coat had said that he survived with his own strength, but was that really possible?]

I'm not going to question it. [Elizabeth's laugh is a little thick and wet, but she lets Gai kiss her.] I'm sorry. I just was thinking you would have made... such a terror of a little boy. [She laughs again, bites her lip and tries not to imagine it any more than she already has. She's failing. She's holding him tighter and wishing she could have saved him.]

[He tries for a laugh too, but there's no real mirth behind it, just a hint of what might be regret.]

Would you believe it if I told you that I was timid and shy before everything happened?

[Shu had been the decisive and brave one, and he'd looked up to him for it. Ironic, really, that he had become what Shu used to be while Shu became what he used to be.]

No, I would say you're lying to sound more impressive. [She laughs wetly again and pushes her forehead into Gai's just to steel herself.] But maybe not. I used to be so naive, I used to think things were simple, and that life outside of my tower would be beautiful all the time.

And you found out it was anything but.

[That's something Gai can understand. He'd had the truth of the world drilled into him at a very young age and life had never given him the chance to forget it.]

I thought I'd escaped one fate only to find myself in the middle of something even bigger. That's just the way life goes, and we can either sit back and let it happen to us or fight to make a change.

[Elizabeth bites her lip harder and nods. Yes, she'd found out life wasn't so simple, and was full of suffering and hate and hardship. She'd found that out quickly, when she was thrown into the deep-end.]

But you've escaped now, haven't you? [She squeezes Gai's hand.] Shift-explosives aside, life is simpler now isn't it?

Yeah.

[The smile he gives her now is a genuine one, as is the squeeze he returns. As full of suffering as life may be, it still has its bright spots too, and those are what make it worth living.]

Living here has been the second-best thing that's ever happened to me.

And the first was leaving Africa, I bet. [Elizabeth smiles back, happy to see Gai is smiling at her genuinely.]

Not even close.

The first was you.

[And he means it.]

..but... [Elizabeth looks floored. She hadn't expected to be put above escaping from a child soldier ring. Or any of the other things that had happened to help Gai down his path.]

But Gai, I haven't changed you in any monumental way, have I?

You have. You've shown me that despite everything I've been through, I'm still capable of loving someone else and being loved. I may be damaged, but I'm not broken, not as long as I can still feel.

You've given me something to want to keep living for, Elizabeth. Nothing in my world or any other could possibly compare to that.

Gai... [Elizabeth sniffs and blinks away the last of her tears.] You're incredible. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect love.

I'm not perfect. Quite the contrary. But that's exactly why I'm so grateful for what I have.

[He gives her a squeeze and brushes his lips against her forehead.]

Well, neither am I. But this-- [She squeezes him back.] It's more perfect than anything I've seen before.

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things

September 26th - The Marathon... tw for all sorts of horrible child soldier things