In my arms. This gentle deer, waifish and with the wide eyes, filled to the brim with imagination, excitement, wonder, and love. This woman. In my arms.

I feel as if I might crush Michiru, even while she nestles herself deep into my arms. One wrong move by my clumsy, large body. I feel overgrown, ugly, even brutish next to her shining grace. I find my hand wavering close to her face, wanting to sweep the tendrils of hair that still cling to her shiny skin, damp with perspiration. Even messy, her crystiline beauty never ceases to make me stop and gaze at her.

My lover now, as of this very night. The making love came before the actual feeling, but now in the after math, it grows to consume both my heart and hers, and searing itself there to make a home. It's amazing how it can stay, admist all the scars that lay there. They are from a past, a past I wish I could forget. But scars are never erased, except by her hands. Her delicate hands peeled away the old memories and the wounds that night as easy as they danced up and down my body. Tingles work themselves up my spine at the thought of it.

Friends we were, friends we'll remain to be. It amazes me now that she would even be my friend, let alone what she is now. I am just me, and even more awkward when we first met than I am now. And never will I compare to her. Elegance seems to radiate from her, even if she were to try and stop it, but she never has. Only she could make me, Ten'oh Harkua, the brash tomboy, stop and blush at my own feelings, at my own self. My body has never been so clumsy, so stupid before. I feel like a clumsy newborn, still growing accustomed to my body in which my soul resides, while she, she glides around on golden wings.

The others, they tried to make me feel as if I was weak, and strange for being who I was, but to no avail. But next to Michiru, I am nothing, as the others were nothing to me. I have never felt so heavy and light at the same time. While the moments with her are pure bliss, with ones with out her plauged with worry. Not only about where she is, what's she's doing, but where are we, and what we are doing. Is it wrong for me to love a woman? No. It is only right.

Wrong to make love to her, either? My concious mocks me. No. Every touch sends me realing into heaven, ablaze. She's beautiful, an angel, with glowing skin, soft hair, gentle eyes, and an delicate, lithe body. Some one who's outside beauty rivals the inside. It's one of the things that draw me like the moth to the flame. Her appearance makes me have to fight for her, and her faith and warmth make me love her. Love. I chuckle lowly. Me? Love. That's strange. That word does not leave my head. Only once before have I loved, and I still do. I love the one before her, for she melded into me. I was hurt, banished from the comfort of knowing there is someone that loves you, even though it was my hand that struck the final blow. It took so long, so long, to wash away the hurt, even though I, on the outside, appeared the same.

So now, I hesitate to think of love in terms of her. Our relationship just budding, when one so old still lives in my heart? I have a feeling that the waters of this woman's love can wash them all away. I don't want to open, though. I can't. Distant my heart must remain. Can I help it? No. I wait and pray for the day the words "Ai shiteru" fall off her lips. But what about my reply? And the truth in my reply? Do I love her? I don't want to claim it, not now, when we are new. Fresh. But I do, I do love her. I don't want to, but I do. Do I?

Once love is proclaimed, there is no going back. I don't want to have a broken heart if I ever have to leave. If I were to reply, "I Love You too" would I be truthful? My mind screams no, and my heart yells back that it is unsure. Accentuate the positive, I tell myself, say yes. Until the day when you are sure, hope that your claim to love is not called upon.

I turn back my thoughts to her, ignoring the selfish thoughts that invade my mind. I look at her, and two words escape her lips, her sweet, full lips. "My love..."

Her dream is turning more active. Her heartbeat, the flutter of her eyes, all of them are my spies. I look at her. "I know you. Even if I were blind, I would know you." I whisper gently to her, in her ear, like a sweet nothing. True, it means nothing, nothing and everything.

'Just as a place of shining light can fall into shadow, things that have life will surely die'. This ancient proverb rolls around in my mind, and I almost scream for it to stop. Calm yourself, I say over in my head. Love does not die. Love fades, but never ends, never dies, because love is a circle, the cycle. I shake my head and laugh softly, to not awaken my parner who is next to me. I'm rambling. I've got to love her, love her endlessly. Right now, I need to. I have to.

I wish I could look in to her dream. I would cross over time to watch over her. She dreams, even when she is awake, her mind is running in circles, trying to figure out her destiny, what she could do with the many talents. She's amazing, her intellegence, her wit, her strength, the way she comforts me when uncharacteristic sadness breaks through the surface of my demeanor. It swifly flees when her brightness comes around, as if the light that is her is a poison to anything dark.

Her light guided a path to myself. She helped me discover me, my feelings. I learned to care for her, care for her past the realm of friendship, but I was scared. Scared to admit it to myself, to her. Fear of trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my heart, or of watching fleeting happy memories of our friendship chase after her with a blinding speed. Even now I am scared, afraid I will crush her, frighten her. Not with my body, but with my soul, my emotions. Too strong, too soon. Will she think that? Will she run from me, from my overpowering love, that I fight to contain and to deny?

I can watch her now, comforted by her nearness. For now, that is enough. She loves me, I can feel it. Even if she doesn't, I do her, and for right now, even the feel of her bare skin against mine is a testimate of my feelings to her. I run a hand down her body lightly. She is so beautiful.

Wait, she is stirring. I lean down and give Michiru a gentle kiss, a wonderous awaking for my beautiful, beautiful kanojo.

My love.