Game Ten: Growing Up.

‘A dream. Of many things. Faces I can’t see, voices I can’t hear, places I can’t go. I told you- I tried to tell you not to hope. False hope. I asked you not to go- it wouldn’t happen- it will not change. What you thought was there will never be there. What you wish to be will never be- so come back and let me go again. Innocence, you had your time, now just let me live alone- let me be alone and let me fill up with hate until you are gone.’

‘Is this what he hoped for- is this why things changed? How can I react to something like that? How can I listen to the truth from something that isn’t him? He told me things in a voice that was not his- he looked at me with eyes of innocence and I knew he was there- but how could I reply? They all hung around us like the dimming death I feel in these dreams. So I won’t play your games any more- I’ll play the role I was cast in by those around me.’

Slash. Swing. Stab.

It had been a whole night since Albel had adressed the others, and the comrades in the Kirlsa building were waking up with un-fond memories of Fayt breaking down into floods of tears. Yet Albel’s words stayed with them. Fayt was Fayt no matter how small he was, so did he really think this way about everything? Did what they say and do to each other affect Fayt that badly? Had Fayt been showing his true feelings all this time?

If so, then they had made it harder for the bluenette. With all their conflicts and rejections of the samurai, they had made things very difficult. Sophia mostly, who felt terrible. So Fayt liked Albel all along, and yet her feelings towards him had kept him from trying to see and accept this in Fayt’s favour. Well, from now on, things would be different; they communally agreed that they would either help the two warriors or leave them be.

Mirage took this time to point out that she had never said anything against Albel, but this was genuinely ignored as an older sister ‘I told you so’ remark. They were waiting in the rest room by the flaring fire early that morning. One would think that they hadn’t gone to sleep at all as they sat out before the sun had even risen, that they’d been worrying about Fayt and Albel the entire time.

And then from outside the warm room came a shuffling sound, of small feet moving downstairs far too slowly to just be a grumpy riser. A tiny shadow flashed in the creaking doorway, and then vanished, heading for the kitchen. They all swallowed, a pensive moment.

With his hand reaching up to the door handle he found the garden outside, used previously for two swordsmen to train- and it was already occupied.

Albel stopped as he felt a form shuffle closer. And he groaned silently.

“Albel?” Fayt began. Very difficult.

“What do you want?” quick, abrupt- just leave me alone.

“I think… I’ve found out why I'm so small…” Fayt told the samurai, who made no reply. “It’s because…well…do you want to know?”

“You’re going to tell me anyway.” True.

“Well… I needed so much to tell you something…well, everything, but I couldn’t… I was too scared… kind of stupid, huh?” Albel remained silent. “I-I think I became small so it would be easier to tell you how I felt…so at least I could try to explain things… I don’t really like doing that because things get so…hard…but I was being childish.”

Albel’s head rose, Fayt was right behind him now.

“I couldn’t see that not telling you was making me feel worse than telling you would…only now… I'm not so sure. I don’t want you to hate me, but I can’t do anything about that except to be nice to you…and train with you. You just want to train with me to get stronger, you made that perfectly clear even before…but I'm worse, I wanted to train with you…for something stupid that will never happen. I'm just selfish; I wanted us to be friends, so you wouldn’t hate me. I wanted you not to hate me… because I love you.”

His body tensioned. Never in his life had he felt this uncomfortable. Suddenly it all made sense. Training; not eating; wanting to be with him, wanting to be friends, wanting to defend Albel against his friends.

“What do you want from me?” He was the fool.

“It’s okay. I’ve learnt a lot as a child again… I know how… I know how you feel… I wish it wasn’t like that still… I just wanted to be close… but now…that’s never going to happen, it was never going to happen, it was foolish of me to think it would. Let’s just go back…” a breath of sadness, “to how things were before… or at least try?”

Albel shifted uncomfortably.

“ Just forget everything I said… it’s important that I knew how you felt by telling you how I felt, but now I know, it’s just going to eat away at me… so could you…just…forget that I said that I loved you? And forget about everything else that happened between us and what I said too…it’s not like my feelings are…overly important. Ok? I think I liked it better when I didn’t blurt out all my feelings to everyone…when I just kept them buried away.”

“How much will you remember?”

Fayt smiled weakly. “The important feelings…the kinds of feelings that help you get over the fact that someone doesn’t love you…moments when I thought for sure that…maybe you…”

But he’d been wrong. Albel looked ahead, frozen as Fayt paused in tears.

“Albel?” Fayt began, stepping closer, his breath on the back of Albel’s neck. “You’re the first person I ever wanted to try to tell… but…I don’t think I want to anymore… I don’t think it’s worth trying for… you know that too, right? If this love isn’t worth anything, how can anything not be worthless?”

A pair of arms slipped round his waist, holding on tight- they were holding his waist… it was almost as if, also by the sound of his voice, that he had grown up.

“What’s important now…is defeating Luther… isn’t it? This was completely selfish of me…I'm sorry Albel… when this is all over…and when I have no feelings left for anyone else, when my powers are sought throughout the universe… maybe I’ll fade away too…”

He opened his mouth to say something. Nothing came out.

“I do love you…” a last try, desperate of a relieving change, yet still he was silent, and for a moment the arms held him tight.

And then the arms left him.

“I'm going…for a walk…yeah…do you want to pick up from where we left off a couple of days ago this afternoon?” Fayt asked- faltering as no answer came again. “Okay then…maybe…another time.” Another time and place. In another universe, perhaps he was lucky.

He could tell that containing emotion was difficult for the bluenette, it was like he felt every beat of pain inside that boy, and he could feel it too. Or was that his pain?

I really have grown up more than I thought I would…I guess things don’t always turn out the way you’d wish they would. Goodbye innocence. Goodbye friends. Goodbye love.