[ Today's actual physical gift is a tiny box with a set of peacock feather earrings in it. It arrives on Dio's bed at some point during the day - was it put there while he was asleep? who knows? - but resting under it is an envelope with a letter. ]
Dear Dio,
You wanted a novel or a speech from me, and I keep thinking about what it would say. The truth is, giving a public confession to another teenager that I have warm fuzzy feelings for is easier than doing the same to you, because those feelings are simple. What I feel for Masaki or what I feel for Sam, those are easy to make public because they're the same kind of feelings that any young man my age might have for a friend or classmate.
We aren't simple, you and I. We have never been simple, from the start. What I wanted to make a business deal was never just that, from the very first day we met when I became panicked that you would grow tired of me before you'd even pulled out. I was crying then. I was crying when I pulled the trigger, and crying when I decided to do it, and crying long before that when I decided to modify my body to make sure that I could remain useful to you, even if my body disappointed you or my inability to give you the total loyalty you wanted caused you to be sick of me.
We are not simple.
We will never be simple, however hard I try to come up with some way to define our relationship that would make any kind of sense.
I can't come up with some cute little soundbite about what I want from you. It's not dating. It's not a business deal. It's certainly not just being friends. It's all the things that I originally held back from you, the kisses and gentle touches and playful conversations that don't involve either sex or booze. It's everything I told myself I didn't need - not just from you, but from anyone - that it turns out I'm rather pathetically surviving without.
Those aren't the only things I want though. That's the trouble of it. You met the side of myself that I hide from other people a lot first. The side that desperately wants to be wrecked by you. I do, you know. I want you to take me apart, some days. I want marks from your teeth, your nails, and I want the heavy weight of you over my body, and I want your hands around my neck.
You asked me about your tentacles. You used them that first day. I remember. I don't know if you bother thinking about that day, or any day we were together since, but I do. I remember sitting there in your lap and having your fingers sink into my flesh, and then being squirmed into by those strange appendages.
In my fantasies, you use them on me everywhere. In my fantasies, you feed at my throat with your teeth while your fingers find purchase elsewhere. In my fantasies, they squirm into my cock, sometimes.
In my fantasies, you're not some nice person that doesn't have any urge to hurt anyone. Instead, you're the kind of person who takes that urge out on someone who likes it, who channels it into pleasure for a partner who also doesn't have to pretend to be a nice person. Between us, in my dreams, we create a safe space to be whatever we want, as terrible as we want, as broken as we want.
That's an inherently private thing. It's inherently intimate and not to be seen by others, that particular kind of safety. As much as I might be totally fine seeing you with other partners or you seeing me with other partners, or being fucked by you in alleyways or wherever we happen to be, when I dream about you taking me apart, letting me cry as much as I want and bleed as much as I want and scream for more even when I'm limp and exhausted and sore, that's always a private thought.
The problem is that I want to be all that I am with you, and you've never believed in anything else about me but that dark side. I'm trying to show you. I'm trying to tell you now, that I do also want other things from you. I want you to tear me apart and then kiss every wound, I want you to drink from me and fuck me and then pull me against your body and whisper that you appreciate me, everything I do, that I've been good and you've enjoyed me and that you're happy to be with me.
Is that too greedy, Dio? I don't ask you to love me. I don't ask you to attach your name to mine in some way, or put me first, or even let me choose what we do every time. I won't say I don't want anything from you, because that would be ridiculous. Of course someone who loves wants to be loved in return, but after what I've done and knowing your feelings for people far more worthy than myself, I never expect to hear those words from your lips.
Don't even speak those words to me in a lie, please.
But if you could keep using me any way you please, for my blood, for my body, and afford me such small mercies afterward that I myself foolishly refused before, that would be the best compromise I could think of for the place we are now.
All that aside, me aside, I meant every word I said to you about supporting you, and about being proud of you, and about wishing that you could have the love and attention of someone far more worthy than I who was considering it. I've never begrudged you Jonathan, and I certainly wouldn't begrudge you anyone else. That's not my place, that's not what we are.
In a war it's pretty stupid to use up all your ammunition in such an early skirmish, isn't it? Perhaps I should have waited longer before writing you this. I should have held back and sent you more presents, or actually gotten up the nerve to come to you directly with some romantic gesture. I'm not saying it's over. I'm not saying I'm giving up or you're going to get off this light. But I couldn't wait any longer to give you this, either.
And even now I'm thinking of a million things I wish I could say but don't have words for. I know there are a lot of differences in the worlds we come from, and we're really different people. But what you've given me, the only reason I could point to for "why I love you" - which you asked me, didn't you? - is that being with you makes me stop and think about a lot of things I take for granted, about myself and about the world. I don't know if I would have made it through this last year without you.
I hope you enjoy the earrings, if not this letter.
[shot to the heart...]
Dear Dio,
You wanted a novel or a speech from me, and I keep thinking about what it would say. The truth is, giving a public confession to another teenager that I have warm fuzzy feelings for is easier than doing the same to you, because those feelings are simple. What I feel for Masaki or what I feel for Sam, those are easy to make public because they're the same kind of feelings that any young man my age might have for a friend or classmate.
We aren't simple, you and I. We have never been simple, from the start. What I wanted to make a business deal was never just that, from the very first day we met when I became panicked that you would grow tired of me before you'd even pulled out. I was crying then. I was crying when I pulled the trigger, and crying when I decided to do it, and crying long before that when I decided to modify my body to make sure that I could remain useful to you, even if my body disappointed you or my inability to give you the total loyalty you wanted caused you to be sick of me.
We are not simple.
We will never be simple, however hard I try to come up with some way to define our relationship that would make any kind of sense.
I can't come up with some cute little soundbite about what I want from you. It's not dating. It's not a business deal. It's certainly not just being friends. It's all the things that I originally held back from you, the kisses and gentle touches and playful conversations that don't involve either sex or booze. It's everything I told myself I didn't need - not just from you, but from anyone - that it turns out I'm rather pathetically surviving without.
Those aren't the only things I want though. That's the trouble of it. You met the side of myself that I hide from other people a lot first. The side that desperately wants to be wrecked by you. I do, you know. I want you to take me apart, some days. I want marks from your teeth, your nails, and I want the heavy weight of you over my body, and I want your hands around my neck.
You asked me about your tentacles. You used them that first day. I remember. I don't know if you bother thinking about that day, or any day we were together since, but I do. I remember sitting there in your lap and having your fingers sink into my flesh, and then being squirmed into by those strange appendages.
In my fantasies, you use them on me everywhere. In my fantasies, you feed at my throat with your teeth while your fingers find purchase elsewhere. In my fantasies, they squirm into my cock, sometimes.
In my fantasies, you're not some nice person that doesn't have any urge to hurt anyone. Instead, you're the kind of person who takes that urge out on someone who likes it, who channels it into pleasure for a partner who also doesn't have to pretend to be a nice person. Between us, in my dreams, we create a safe space to be whatever we want, as terrible as we want, as broken as we want.
That's an inherently private thing. It's inherently intimate and not to be seen by others, that particular kind of safety. As much as I might be totally fine seeing you with other partners or you seeing me with other partners, or being fucked by you in alleyways or wherever we happen to be, when I dream about you taking me apart, letting me cry as much as I want and bleed as much as I want and scream for more even when I'm limp and exhausted and sore, that's always a private thought.
The problem is that I want to be all that I am with you, and you've never believed in anything else about me but that dark side. I'm trying to show you. I'm trying to tell you now, that I do also want other things from you. I want you to tear me apart and then kiss every wound, I want you to drink from me and fuck me and then pull me against your body and whisper that you appreciate me, everything I do, that I've been good and you've enjoyed me and that you're happy to be with me.
Is that too greedy, Dio? I don't ask you to love me. I don't ask you to attach your name to mine in some way, or put me first, or even let me choose what we do every time. I won't say I don't want anything from you, because that would be ridiculous. Of course someone who loves wants to be loved in return, but after what I've done and knowing your feelings for people far more worthy than myself, I never expect to hear those words from your lips.
Don't even speak those words to me in a lie, please.
But if you could keep using me any way you please, for my blood, for my body, and afford me such small mercies afterward that I myself foolishly refused before, that would be the best compromise I could think of for the place we are now.
All that aside, me aside, I meant every word I said to you about supporting you, and about being proud of you, and about wishing that you could have the love and attention of someone far more worthy than I who was considering it. I've never begrudged you Jonathan, and I certainly wouldn't begrudge you anyone else. That's not my place, that's not what we are.
In a war it's pretty stupid to use up all your ammunition in such an early skirmish, isn't it? Perhaps I should have waited longer before writing you this. I should have held back and sent you more presents, or actually gotten up the nerve to come to you directly with some romantic gesture. I'm not saying it's over. I'm not saying I'm giving up or you're going to get off this light. But I couldn't wait any longer to give you this, either.
And even now I'm thinking of a million things I wish I could say but don't have words for. I know there are a lot of differences in the worlds we come from, and we're really different people. But what you've given me, the only reason I could point to for "why I love you" - which you asked me, didn't you? - is that being with you makes me stop and think about a lot of things I take for granted, about myself and about the world. I don't know if I would have made it through this last year without you.
I hope you enjoy the earrings, if not this letter.
Love,
Mikado