Broken

Broken

Description: Vanille watches Hope grow up, he unknowingly breaks her heart in many little ways. FFXIII2. HopexVanille.

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Hope was seventeen now. He was studying at the Academy's university, and was doing incredibly well for himself. His pale cheeks had lost their childish puffiness, he had grown taller, and his shoulders had broadened. But he still had the face of an angel, and eyes the color of the ocean.

Vanille longed to reach out and hold him again. She ached to kiss his lips. She yearned to feel his body pressed up against hers. She was in love with him. She had been in love with him for three years now. With each year that passed by, it broke her heart a little bit more.

He was making more friends now that he was in university. He was no longer bullied for being too smart, or for being a former l'Cie, and he was blossoming right before her eyes. Also, to Vanille's grief, the girls were beginning to take more and more notice of his boyish charm and handsome looks. Though Hope never sought out the attention, he was too kind a young man to be anything less than polite and friendly to everyone whom he encountered. His gentle and quiet demeanor turned him into easy fodder for lonely, romance-starved young women.

She understood what these girls saw in him, because she had fallen for many of the same reasons. But for the first time in her life, she was jealous. Although he rejected every single date invitation he received, a part of her still envied these girls. She envied their freedom. She envied their ability to flirt with and ask out the young man whom she so desperately loved.

He had just been too young back then. She knew that. She sacrificed herself because she wanted him to have a world to grow up in. She wanted to watch him grow up. She wanted to see everything he would do, to see the man he would become, until she could be reunited with him. She just hadn't expected it to hurt so much.

Some days were better than others. Some days she was able to smile as she watched him studying or hunting. However there were other days, like today, where all she could do was weep.

She felt Fang's arms comfortingly drape around her shoulders. Sometimes Fang would try to talk her out of her slump. Sometimes her best friend would even coldly point out to her that Hope was bound to eventually meet and fall in love with another girl. Vanille had once been terrified that he might, when his only friend in high school, a girl whom he had known since middle school, had confessed to him. But to her immense relief, he had rejected her.

On this day, however, Fang did not speak a word. She had had the same dream Vanille did. She simply held her little sister and allowed the tears to stream down her pale cheeks.

"Fang," she hiccuped, "I miss him so much."

"I know," was all Fang said as she gently cradled the smaller woman.

The vision of Hope, curled atop the covers of his bed, clutching them as if for dear life, while he sobbed, was more than Vanille could bear. She wanted him to be happy. She didn't want this. No matter the reason, she didn't want him to suffer. She wanted him to remember her, yes. She wanted him to love her, yes. But she never wanted him to be in pain because of her.

Of all the little ways that Hope broke her heart, this one was the worst.

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~fin