Warning: This is a Milo X Camus yaoi fic, although there is no explicit content. But those that find yaoi unacceptable, or the pair unacceptable, you know what to do.
Disclaimer: I don't think this is the way Milo is in the original manga. But for the purpose of my imagination...
How could you...Camus...how could you?
How could you desert me? How could you sacrifice your life for him? How could you leave me behind in this world?
Did you honestly think I can forget you?
How can I, when my bed is still haunted by your gentle fragrance?
When my mind is still flooded with our memories?
Do you remember the first time we met?
Among all the saints just awarded his gold cloth, you were the only one not smiling. Do you remember the first word I spoke to you? "Why don't you smile?"
Oh, I said that again and again to you in later years. But those were the words that opened the gate of our relationship...
Do you remember, that I would come visit you everyday? Shura used to tease me about it, saying that I fell for you.
Oh, I punched him then, for I didn't realize it myself and refused to realize it.
Were you irritated at me? I know you prefer peace and quiet, which was exactly the opposite of what I was. But I didn't care how you felt about me...I just wanted to satisfy the callings of my heart.
I just wanted to look into your deep eyes and try to decipher them. I just wanted to hear your voice, and in order to hear it I would have to talk and talk and talk for you to even give a response. That was just the way you were. But I didn't mind. You usually frown when you see me. Or you'd roll your eyes. Very occasionally you'd smile, but you always tried to hide it.
Why? Do you know how beautiful you are when you smiled? How alluring? One smile from you can make my heart beat fast for hours, can brighten my mood for days. I was only eight that year, I didn't quite understand my feelings for you.
All of my friends thought I was great friends with the cold as ice Aquarius saint. Aioria used to joke that I was the only one that can unlock the icebox. I laughed bitterly at the comment then, because I knew the truth. You didn't treat me differently from anyone else, I was just the only one with the guts and the patience to approach you time after time.
So we stayed in this strange relationship for seven years. I don't even know what to call it anymore. Can I call it friendship? Sure, we were constantly together. But only because I insisted on tagging along with you wherever you went. Even after seven years, I couldn't see through you, and I couldn't define our relationship. To me, you were more than a friend. But perhaps to you, I wasn't even a friend.
Then you told me you had agreed to take on the role of teacher. You were going to Siberia. Tomorrow. You told me with no expression on your face, as if you couldn't care less about leaving Sanctuary, about leaving me.
The Pope had asked me too, a week earlier, whether I wanted to train young saints, and I had declined the offer. No particular reason, I just didn't want to focus my energy on anything else but you.
But you were leaving tomorrow. The training period is a long, grueling six years. Long for me, grueling for the student. I smiled and tried to hide the pain, and asked if I can visit.
"If you want." You turned to walk away. You said the last statement with such apathy in your voice that I felt my heart starting to break in pieces.
I should have known, that these seven years I was fooling myself. I thought I can unlock you, comes time. But I was wrong. I couldn't melt your heart...it was as frozen now as it was seven years ago.
I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. "Don't you feel anything for me? Who am I to you?" I shouted at you.
You turned around and looked irritated. "Tears don't become you, Milo."
"It doesn't matter! I just want to know the truth. Don't you feel anything for me?"
You looked at me with a strange expression in your eyes. "What do you mean by that?"
"You know what I mean! I have loved you for the past seven years. Couldn't you feel it?" I know that words I say may come back to haunt me, but I didn't really care. I wasn't going to let you leave without hearing an answer. I don't want to fool myself for six more years.
"..." You sighed softly. There was a long silence, and finally your words came out, like a knife stabbing my soul. "I know that, Milo. But I can't reciprocate your feelings. I'm sorry."
I bit my lips. "Thank you for your honesty." Not wanting you to see me in this state for a second longer, I turned around. The world ahead of me was blurry, and everything was in slow motion. Only your words reverberated around my ears.
"Milo...I hope we can still be friends..." You said softly.
I turned around and my lips curled up mockingly. "Friends? Were we ever?" Perhaps it sounded a bit sarcastic, but I wasn't sure if you picked it up.
"Of course we were. Best friends. You're welcome to visit me anytime."
I heard your footsteps. You were walking away. I turned around and admired your indigo hair flowing in the wind. Perhaps it would have been best if I walked away and never thought of you again. But I couldn't resist the last chance to admire your forever alluring beauty.
You fool, half of me was telling myself. You're only going to make the heartbreak worse. Turn around now and never think of this again.
But my body listened to my other half. I stood there in the wind, watching as you faded into the distance.
I can't remember how I got through the rest of the day. I just remember standing by the window in my bedroom, staring at the nightsky. I could see your temple up high, in the mists. I wondered what you were doing in there, your last night at Sanctuary.
Suddenly, I felt two arms enclosing around my waist. I turned around sharply, alarmed that I had not felt anybody coming into my temple, and looked into your mysterious blue eyes. There was something different about them.
They were as beautiful as ever, but the frost was gone.
Tonight they were clear like the nightsky.
"Milo..." I heard your voice, but I was so shocked by the scene that I couldn't react.
"Milo...I'm sorry I hurt you today. You stayed by me through all these seven years, never once cast off by my coldness. Without you, I perhaps would have gone insane already. I don't know what got into me this morning...I'm sorry." Your hands fell from my waist.
"Is that what you came to tell me?" your touch had warmed up my whole body, but I knew better than to let it excite me.
"..." You turned your head to the side for a bit, as if pondering. Then you faced me again. "No..."
It felt like forever, though in reality it was probably a few seconds. I waited for you to continue.
Suddenly, you put your arms around my neck and leaned in. I saw your face get closer and closer to mine, and then felt your lips gently on mine.
I was so surprised that I did not react for a few seconds. Then, my body took control. My hands held the back of your head as I slowly explored your lips and beyond.
Finally, I let go of you. Your cheeks are slightly blushing now, and under the moonlight, you have never looked more irresistible.
"Are you tempting me?" I asked. I have gladly fallen into the trap, no matter what the consequences.
You didn't answer. Raising one hand to your collar, you began to unbutton your shirt. Your smooth chest fell into my view. I felt my head explode. With the last ounces of rationality left, I spoke. "You're going to regret this."
"I won't." You replied.
You never told me what you really came to tell me that night. But you didn't need to...
I had imagined this, dreamed this, fantasized this a thousand times. But it never occurred to me that it would really happen. With you in my arms, I can hear your rapid heartbeat, feel your breath on my face, and hear and sense the most intimate side of you that you have not shared with anyone before.
You weren't the icecube they thought you were. Your inner passionate fires just needed to be lit...
You left the next morning without a word. When I woke up, you were gone. You never told me what you came here to tell me...
You never told me you loved me. But it didn't matter. I could see it and feel it, and they're all the more valuable than a few simple words. I visited you frequently in those six years, getting well acquainted with your student Hyoga.
I don't know when I felt that you had started to change. For the better or worse, I can't judge. To you adolescence passed by in a flash as you are now taking on the adult responsibilities of training a youth. You started to constantly worrying.
I could feel it, but I never said anything. Your heart doesn't completely belong to me anymore...
I know I shouldn't be so greedy. I once was so satisfied with a tiny smile from you. But things are different now. And when we're in our own world, I demanded that you focus on me and only me. Forget your duties, forget your responsibilities...
But I never imagined...that all these memories, these unspoken promises, cannot rank in your heart above your student. I'm being selfish, I'm not acting like a saint, this I know.
But I just couldn't believe you sacrificed your life for him.
Would you sacrifice your life for me? To me...the best sacrifice is you keeping yourself alive at all costs...forget honor and duty, disgrace or whatever else burdens you.
Have you never thought of what would happen to me if you left my life?
You have, I know you have. You tend to think too much of everything. Is this why you sent a mental message to me the second before you life left your body?
"It's better this way, Milo. For both of us." No goodbyes, no sentimental last minute reminisces, just a silent refutation. Yes, refutation! In the last moment of your life, you refuted the value of our relationship.
How could you...
Did you think I can go on living...and be happy...without you sharing a part? If you did...then sadly you don't know the real me...
I knew from the beginning that loving you was going to be a series of frustration, pain, torment, and with possibly no result.
Your cold eyes spelled out your wish of remaining in isolation and aloofness, the first time I was struck by their glance.
Perhaps you're right. It would be better for me if I was attracted to a female saint, or even an ordinary girl.
But I can't tell my heart what to feel...and my heart chose you.
I've never regretted it...even though I knew the costs of loving you. Yet still I chose to love you.
So how could you think that by ending your life you've released me from this sweet torment?
You gave your life for him...and you died. You never saw my tears which flowed for you...never felt them glide across your face...never tasted their bitterness...you died in the role of a teacher, not a lover, my lover.
And you left me in this cold lonely hell...where the only thing I have left is a shallow oath to a goddess whom I barely know and hardly believe in...
Perhaps a real man shouldn't place the sensations of the heart above his honor, role, and duties. But I do, and always have.
So why can't you...?
I allowed myself to be easily defeated by Radamanthys...I did not care any longer.
Ironically, he threw me into Cocitos. The ice hell. Frozen solid, and being reminded of you every moment. You who turned to ashes in Hyoga's arms.
But all that's over now...the goddess has triumphed.
She has revived her saints...but where are you, Camus?
I've been here in the Aquarius temple, waiting and waiting...but you did not choose to come.
Did you choose to ignore the goddess's revival call? Did you choose to avoid me? For the sake of choosing what's "better" for me?
Don't you understand that without you, there is no better. There is no worse either. My life has become a series of greys. No color, no mood. I'm a machine.
I can never forgive you for all you've done to me...but I love you all the more for it.
You once asked me, if I could choose again, would I choose you. I answered you immediately that I would. But I don't think you believed me.
So let me answer you again...
If I could relive my life...I would not change any of it. Seven years of pain and heartbreak while I try to unlock your heart, and six years of mutual love with distance...and finally, this eternal separation. I wouldn't trade a second of it...for happiness elsewhere.
When you surrendered yourself to me during that starry night in the Scorpio temple...I felt your inner soul. That was when I finally knew that the ice was merely a veneer. You may be cold during the day, but during the night when you snuggle in my arms and completely let down your guard...I know the message you wanted to say but couldn't say.
You're not an ideal person to love, but you're above all the ideals. They say that although we often have a list of qualities we look for in finding our soul mates...all the while we know deep in our hearts that we'd discard the list for the person we really cared about...
I know the feeling, because that's exactly what I did. When I chose you, 13 years ago.
I love you...
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"Tears don't become you, Milo." Your voice sounded in the background.
I spun around, not taking time to wipe them off my face. I was staring into your eyes again...those gorgeous blue eyes I could only see in my dreams since the day you left me.
"Now's not a time to cry, Milo." Your lips arched up into a small smile.
The smile on your face was one I've never seen before. For the first time, it's not accompanied by worry or anxiety. For the first time, it's one full of hope, joy, and happiness. For the first time, I felt tongue-tied around you.
"Everybody's back...and they are all wondering what happened to you. They expected you to be the first to knock on everyone's doors after we revived..." You continued.
"I've been waiting in the Scorpio temple for the past six hours..." Your voice softened...
Perhaps the goddess is rewarding me...rewarding us...
I took your hand. "In that case, let's not keep them waiting..."
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