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Should Love Hurt So Much?

by Zeitgeist ::: 16.Jun.2003

An embrace shouldn’t have to hurt so much.

A kiss shouldn’t have to mean death.

But with you, it always does.

Whispers

Why am I still so hung up over you? I could have a girl who treats me gently – well, perhaps not gently, but she is sweet and innocent, and she makes me feel like I’m worth something. I could have a woman who is experienced and exuberant, who leaves other men tingling with her seductive touch. Heck, maybe if I really wanted to, I could have a young man who looks up to me, who respects me like he did his beloved Captain so many years ago. But no… I’m still so fixated over you. Over you, the man I swore I would never become.

I thought I was past my infatuation as a young man. I was foolish back then; I was looking for relief, you were looking for – well, who knows what you were looking for, but I’ll take a guess that you were looking for someone to screw since your woman wasn’t endurable enough. Who better for me than the man I so respected as a warrior, and who better for you than the boy you could never defeat? It’s funny: the circumstances for our romance really couldn’t have been worse, but we always found some time in between battles to sneak away with each other. That was part of the thrill, I guess. I always thought of you as the enemy, the forbidden lover, even as you made lo – screwed me into the night several times over. My heart always beat quicker whenever I encountered you, whether we were in battle or in bed. You were pure passion, pure heat.

Opening

That was why, I suppose, I always labeled what I had for you as mere attraction. Besides, who really knows love at fifteen? The dreams of you faded over my ten years as a wanderer, so I passed it off as a fancy. Yet when I saw you sitting so calmly at the dojo, my heart began racing again – both out of fear and of anticipation. Yes, some part of me came alive again when I saw you, the part that had been dead for the past ten years. I quickly became disgusted by myself – how could I be so happy to see a murderer, this reflection of who I was back in the Bakumatsu? I rejected the feelings from my heart, much like how I rejected the Battousai from my soul.

But the idea lingered in my head. If what I had wasn’t really love, then how could so many feelings be awakened just by a glance at you? Even after ten years, you still make me think like no one else does. No one ever makes me question my beliefs or rocks the foundation of my ideals as thoroughly as you.

But… no. What we have isn’t really love. Love shouldn’t have to hurt this much.

Love shouldn’t be about trying to impale your lover to the ceiling. Love shouldn’t be a self-defense class. Love shouldn’t have to be so complicated.

Pierce

It shouldn’t be the biting words you delivered to me that day.

I still remember what you said. My conversations with you are the only ones I replay in my head over and over.

You had called my justice false. You had threatened the ones I do love. You… said you denied my existence…

Thrust

I think that was when it struck me. That was when I truly began hating you.

You never loved me.

You loved Battousai.

Battousai – the monster I created in the shadows, this false, warped image of myself. No wonder you came to the dojo, looking so smug and so confident. You thought you could draw Battousai out again. You thought you could have the man you knew once again.

And I let you. I let you have what you wanted, without even thinking about your true motives. You were always two steps ahead of me, Saitou. No matter who or what interrupted that fight, you had already won by the time my eyes turned yellow.

Thrash

I let you taste the blood again. I let you clash swords again with a warrior you once found worthy.

No. What we had was never love. Love is kind and peaceful. What love can exist between two swordsmen but battle? What love can exist between two murderers but death?

Slam

Still…

I did not resist when you called for me. I did not refuse when you kissed me with your blade.

I had chosen your false love over the real one sitting by the shouji, weeping and sobbing for my soul.

Because I’ve finally come to understand, you see, that your false love is more real than anything else. That pretty speeches and young tears pale in comparison to the fresh pain blossoming in my side, to you burying your polished blade into my body.

Then come.

Yes. Let’s.

We’ll love each other all over again. We’ll kill each other all over again.

Scream

I love you.

Now die.