Companion to the Kiss

Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

I watch him, and wonder why I even bother anymore. He's too far above me, too strong, too smart, too fast. I'll never catch up. Sometimes I give up, sit on the ground for a while, look at the sky and try to remember a time when this pointless race never existed.

As if it's really a race, when he has every head start and advantage. He's in a race car, and I'm tied to a ball and chain...there's no competition, not really.

But sometimes...the car runs out of fuel and crashes. Usually, it doesn't matter, but...sometimes it happens right in front of me, all fire and pain. And then I shine because, at those times, I pull him from the rubble and lay him on the grass. And for just one moment I run ahead, I protect him. I am strong and fast and smart. I am powerful.

It never lasts for long.

Then, there are times like this, when his strength becomes mine, when the fact that he could break me in half with his bare hand means nothing to the fact that I can turn him to putty in mine. Even if I'm supposed to hate him, my better, my rival, but I find I can't. He's lonely in his beauty, and even if it means nothing, I'll still try and protect him. I'm like a single ant fighting an army of soldiers, I guess. I can't really protect him.

But, I can try. And, sometimes, at times like this, when he's shocked and still and unable to move...when he's warm against me and my little whispered words can defeat him more utterly than any opponent...Sometimes, we both stop fighting and sit together in this warm place we've found.

And if we should kiss, who would know?

So, I kiss him, and he kisses me, and the we go off and pretend that we never did such a thing. We're ninja, we're fighters. He is Genji, mightiest of the mighty, nothing stands in his path. I'm only Vega, lowly and unimportant, like a grey, useless fish that you can't even eat. When he goes off to spy on foreign leaders and do impossible missions, I stay at home and do paperwork and hand out D-rank assignments to the genin.

I'm not very strong, like he is.

Except now I am, when we're together like this. I can hold him, and he won't escape, I can talk to him, say anything, and he'll listen as if it were the most important thing in the world. Isn't that something like love? Isn't that Love?

Afterward I'll pull him close, and we'll kiss.