Phoenix

I guess you might say it was predestined.

Set in stone from the first moment he entered our lives. Entered my life. I couldn't help myself. He was so striking, so cold. So different from all the rest of us. Nothing I did ever touched him.

I never actually thought he might be interested in me. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, I was drawn to him. Maybe it was the hard to get factor. Always want what's an arm's reach away. And he was definitely at least an arm's reach away. He was so standoffish, such a loner.

I was fascinated by him.

He was so easy to find in a crowd. You didn't even have to look very hard. Such bright red hair.

I remember… that first day.

He was the last of us to join. Ken, Omi, and I were already an established group, had relationships going. I was the oldest. The other two looked up to me, even though I wasn't the leader.

And then he came.

Before that, I had a special place. One that felt good. I felt… needed.

He changed all that.

He was the new, unspoken, self-proclaimed leader. He got things done. He was cold, hard, and silent. Deadly. HE was never late. HE never came home drunk. HE never bragged about his previous night's exploits. HE was always there to help Omi with his homework, or pick up Ken off the floor after some particularly idiotic accident.

I wasn't the role model anymore.

I think I hated him for that.

And that made him fascinate me even more.

I wanted to walk up to him, run my fingers through that cherry-red hair. Would it feel as cold as he looked? That gorgeous red hair. I wanted to cup his perfect cheek in my hand, and tell him how absolutely beautiful he was. I wanted to break that shell, that layer of ice that coated every inch of his being. That layer that protected him and thrust aside anything that was even remotely capable of breaching it.

I wanted it more than anything I've ever wanted.

I wanted to show him what it could be like. How sweet human contact, done right, could be. I wanted to crack that façade, blow his mind, and break open everything he had hidden away from the rest of the world.

But he barely knew I existed.

He kept to himself all the time, never talked to anyone unless spoken to first. He never initiated anything. He drew inside himself, shielding away from anything that might lead to some semblance of human interaction.

I started watching him.

Once, I saw him with his reading glasses on, fully absorbed in a book with more pages than I cared to count. Yeah, I'm not stupid, but I don't read for leisure. I have too many other things to do with my time.

Like study Aya.

Aya. He had a girl's name… but he was nothing like a girl. His features were delicate and sharp… and he had the most gorgeous red hair and violet eyes… but there was nothing 'feminine' about him. He was beautiful, in some pseudo-masculine way that captivated me from the moment I laid eyes on him.

There was an aura around him. It was fierce, incredibly fierce, and razor sharp. And it kept people away as sure as anything else he might have done to ward them off.

That aura… while it scared everyone else off… was nothing short of intoxicating to these eyes.

Sharp, fierce, raw power radiated from every inch of his delicately-boned body.

Ah, to watch him kill. Rage flushing his cheeks, shining in his clear violet eyes… Aya in a rage was one of the most erotic things I'd ever been witness to in my entire existence. And I'd seen a lot of things in my time.

I tried to talk to him, that time. While he was reading that damned book. I asked him about it, trying to be nice, trying to act interested.

He ignored me.

Not a glance, not a word.

I'm not used to being ignored. So yeah, I reacted badly. I probably shouldn't have, but it's too late for should'ves now.

I picked up his book and threw it on the floor.

I grabbed his face in my hands. Those reading glasses were in the way. I wanted to see his eyes, not those damned glasses. Only his beautiful eyes. I took the glasses off his face and threw them in the direction of the book.

Luckily no one else had been around then. Not that I would have cared if they had been.

I held his face tight. All I felt was ice.

He was so cold… so untouchable.

I wanted him.

I wanted him to want me.

I was so close to him now… his face in my hands. So… cold… God, it was like trying to touch an iceberg. His eyes, now only his eyes, bore into me like amethyst… cold and hard. They sparkled like gems in his face, glaring at me.

God, he was beautiful.

I wanted to tell him that.

Why couldn't I? God knows I'd never been lost for words before. I always had the right ones. Why did they all vanish the moment I touched him? His face was smooth… perfect. How did he keep his skin so soft? Oh, he felt good. I couldn't think straight; all that ran through my mind was how much I didn't want to let him go.

He pushed me away.

Hard.

Something inside me snapped. I looked at him with a stare just as cold as the one he had given me. We looked at each other for a moment without moving. Anger flashed in his eyes, and was gone.

I didn't want that cold stare directed at me.

Aya, be mad at me. Be angry. Just don't look at me like that… not with that cold, indifferent stare that you give everybody else.

But that was what I got.

Ice.

I pushed him back.

Hard.

I hit him.

I don't remember how many times. He never cried out. If he had, I would have stopped. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he liked the fact that I was hitting him… or maybe he just wasn't one to acknowledge the fact that I was beating his face to a bloody pulp.

I hated myself for that.

I hated him.

I loved him.

I broke his ice.

He grabbed my wrist, and twisted it behind my back. I couldn't see his face. All that to get through to him, and I didn't even have the triumph of seeing it.

I couldn't move without snapping my shoulder out of joint, he had me pinned so tight. His free hand grabbed my hair and pulled it, hard. The hand that held my wrist pushed me, shoved me down on my knees, to the floor.

His knee dug into the small of my back, my head was forced down, forehead pressing painfully into the cold floor. He still had that damned vicegrip on my hair, and twisted my arm even tighter.

Hell yeah, I screamed.

"Is this what you wanted?"

Was it? … I wanted him to break.

For me.

I wanted to see it. I wanted to know what I was doing to him. See what was going on in his eyes.

But he wouldn't give me that much. God, it was like he knew. He couldn't have, but damn it, it sure as hell felt like it.

I finally got it in my head to try and get up.

Not a smart move, Kudou.

He pulled my arm back and twisted the wrist at a terribly wrong angle, and simply shoved me down harder against the floor. He was on the floor too, now, he had to be. The knee had lifted from my back and had been replaced with something a bit softer… his chest, it must have been.

His voice was closer, hissing in my ear this time.

"Is this what you want?"

No, it wasn't.

The circulation to my wrist was cutting off, damn it. I grunted, but didn't answer him. Like hell, I was going to answer him. He wasn't giving me what I wanted; I wasn't about to give in to him, either.

He flipped me over, quick and neat.

The blood came rushing into my wrist, but before I could breathe a sigh in relief, he had a knee buried in my stomach. I let out a half-grunt, half-gasp as the breath that had been about to come out caught in my throat instead.

I could finally see his eyes.

They were as cold as the rest of him.

If he'd melted at all, he'd recovered. His eyes were nothing but chips of violet ice. I saw red, and thought it was his hair, but it wasn't. It was blood.

His knee was pressing into my stomach, still, and his hands were pinning my shoulders. He watched my eyes focus on the trail of blood running down his chin from a split bottom lip I'd given him, and his grip on me loosened a little. He reached up to touch the thin stream of blood.

As soon as he lifted off of me that small bit, I pushed him back enough to be able to sit upright. He glared at me, and his hand stopped mid-path on its way to his lip.

I didn't think… I just moved.

I grabbed his wrist like he had mine.

But I didn't twist his behind his back.

I opened his fingers, pressed them to my cheek. He just stared at me. His eyes were blank. Not cold… not warm… just blank. He didn't move. He didn't pull his hand away, but the only thing that was keeping it there was the fact that I was holding him. I had the distinct feeling that as soon as I let go of his hand, it would drop.

I let go.

His fingers brushed down my cheek, slid down past my chin, and his arm dropped to the side.

He knelt there, regarding me blankly. I couldn't tell if it was in disgust, or confusion, or some other feeling that I couldn't pin a finger on. He was too good at hiding what he was feeling; too good at keeping that shield up.

I stood up, pulled him with me.

Instead of bringing his hand to my cheek now, I touched his. He jerked away at the contact, looked at the ground instead of at me, backed up a step.

I wasn't taking no for an answer.

I took his face in both my hands. He struggled for only a split second, then went limp between my palms. I held his chin up, wiped the drying blood from his lip away with my thumb.

His eyes turned up at me, and for the first time since he'd stepped into my life, he spoke to me with those eyes. He wanted me to…

I kissed him.

Or I would have, if the door hadn't snapped open with a cheerful little jingle of bells.

Thanks, Omi. Great timing. Couldn't you have stayed at school for ten more minutes?

Aya hadn't moved… but I jumped back. Fast. I didn't want to be caught… holding Aya? Those violet ice eyes were still focused on me. In… disappointment?

Omi simply greeted us and ran up to his room to change out of his school clothes.

We were alone again, and the silence was awkward.

The moment was gone.

I tried to put my arms around him and apologize, but he pushed me away. And then he said the most I had ever heard him say in one sitting.

"You had your chance. You lost it. You…" he glared at me in something that might have been hurt, might have been anger. "Dropped me like something to be ashamed of." He stepped in close to me again. The closeness was dizzying, I wanted him so much.

His hand cupped my chin this time, held on tight.

"Fuck you if you think I'm a toy for you to play with."

I didn't think he was a toy.

Right.

Like he'd believe me if I told him.

I had a reputation.

Well… we both did. They simply didn't match up. The smooth playboy and the icy loner? Yeah right. And oh, how smooth I was being now. I could have laughed at myself. I would have laughed at anyone else that was acting the way I was right now.

He reached out and grabbed a fistful of my shirt, jerked me up close against him. I didn't fight… it got me close to him. His eyes were sparkling… Aya… so beautiful when you're angry…

Suddenly, he let me go, eyes wide.

Had I said that out loud? Well, shit.

I took my chance, and pressed it. Pressed HIM up against the wall.

Kissed him.

REALLY kissed him.

His hands clutched my shirt and I felt him try to push me away, but before he actually COULD, he changed his mind. His hands slid up and grabbed my arms instead, squeezing with everything he had in him.

My teeth grazed his split lip. He drew in a sharp breath and held on tighter. His eyes fluttered closed.

I stopped. No… I wanted them open. I tipped my face to the side, nuzzled the underside of his chin, and spoke softly.

"Open your eyes."

He didn't want to. He wanted to keep them closed, keep himself closed. Keep everything inside of himself, not have to be aware of what was going on unless he wanted to.

How'd I know that?

I just did.

I knew more about him than anyone might have thought.

And I didn't even know if he'd ever been kissed before.

I didn't ask. I didn't want to ruin the moment again. And a moment was all it was.

He hesitated for a moment, the only thing I'd ever seen him do that came close to fear. He was afraid of this… being close to someone. Having to actively participate in being close to someone. If he didn't have to watch… it didn't have to be him.

But I wanted it to be him.

His eyes fluttered back open.

I kissed him again.

For all his hardness… coldness… his kiss was all warmth and softness. He just… melted under me. I wasn't prepared for it, not prepared for him to go that fast. I held him against the wall and kissed him until I was out of breath. I held him tight… almost afraid that he was going to slip through my fingers.

And when I pulled back, he slumped against the wall, eyes closing, kiss-swollen lips parted enough for his breath to escape in a languid sigh.

I wanted him to open his eyes again. I wanted him to look at me and sigh like that.

I left him there.

Before he could open his eyes, I was gone.

Why? You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

That was months ago.

Why am I still thinking about it? I don't know. Yeah, I know, I'm a bad liar.

I wanted him. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to love me.

I still do.