Notes and stuff:  A simple fic that I had to work hard to post.  Thanks to Caroline Seawright for her patience and help with this particular ignorant fool.  Yienta!
 	Legalities:  The characters in this story belong to the original creator, Madame Rumiko Takahashi, may Christ Bless her Soul.  I am
using these character only to express what might be the entirety of My tortured soul.
 	Thank you.
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        One word...
 	By Myrriden
 	Edited by Nick Casler
------------------------------------------------------- 	It is in times like this that I begin to wonder if it is really
worth it all.  I mean; I see her sitting there, I think to myself," Do I really deserve her?"
 	I still don't know.  I mean, she's the first girl who actually
ever loved me for being...me.  How can I turn my back on that?  But,
do I really want to spend my life with her?  That is a question...I can't answer.
 	Knowing my own soul is a rather commonplace thing for me.  I like
to think I know myself through and through.  People might say that
I am deluding myself, considering all that I do; but I am not.  I
do what I do, as it is the only way to reassure myself that I am actually there.
 	I am actually there...
 	This world is a dark and lonely place, with nary a feeling trapped
inside a falsitude of warmth and sharing.  I've never known the love
of another.  My mother; my father.  Both never said a word to me,
other than a quick statement of some inane advice.  Then my mother
died, leaving me to strive for myself, as my so-called 'father' was
hardly ever there.  When he was, his anger taught me what to feel.
 	That is when I took to wandering.
	I thought I had met a friend at school, something that never happened.
 I was the outcast; the strange one.  He was a young boy, like myself
at the time, but always with a word.  One, such as myself, who never
knew a kind word, could take the double edged compliments at face-value.  
	It scored deeply when my friend, my only friend, began to steal
food from me.  It was not only the food, but he taunted and teased
me.  He took what I had given him, and threw it back in my face.
 Enraged at his audacity, I did what my father would have done, and
challenged him to fights, many fights, which he always won.  He always
beat me, forcing the anger and resentment ever deeper, until even
I could barely recognize my own tortured soul.
	Only the rage inside me, and the dark depression which had become my mainstay
throughout those years with my father, forced me to seek him out,
to settle the score.  To finally show him, the world, who was better.  
	Yet...even today, I have never truly been able to defeat him;
mind, body, and soul.  There has always been something in me...that has held back.
	But I know defeat.  I know it as well as I know the creature that
is myself.  I have been shunned and cursed many times because of
my abilities, or lack thereof.  My work with art, the poems and artifacts
I create, trying to set my cursed soul at ease, the very words of
beauty I seek to express...fail to allow others to truly know me.
	The last person to read a poem, a female friend of mind, exclaimed
with a mocking laugh, "What do you know about this?"
	It is this...these words and forms that I must use to understand
myself all the better.  Words are truly meaningless, unless you know
the person speaking them soul to soul.  Can one truly express, with
the inefficient force of air moving past the throat, how they feel?
 Actors strive to master the tones and facial expressions that enable
them to portray groups of emotions with one twist of a smile.  To
portray exactly what they're character feels.  But, it is impossible.
 	When I see the face, her face, of the one I love, the words catch
in my throat.  If only I could tell her everything I felt...the entirety
of my soul.  Impossible.  Truly and utterly impossible.
 	Not even the effect of this newfound emotion dwelling in my breast,
nor these simple words written on this piece of paper can help me
describe the feeling inside.  They cannot help to express me.  It
is nice, however to be able to write these things, to write and contemplate
these things on this sheet of paper.  It is nice to explore my feelings
by writing about them, hearing them in my mind over and over again.
	This is me?
 	Yes...
 	This is Ryouga Hibiki. 
 	Now I see that sweet face, full of tears, dipped into the arms,
as she sits there, crying...my soul is stirring...She had proclaimed
she loves me.  Why cannot I accept this for what it is?
 	Hesitantly, my arm gently places itself on her shoulder, against my will it would seem.
 	She looks at me now, the tears streaming, shock echoed in the
beautiful water eyes, a newfound smile touching the edge of her features,
"You came back for me?"
 	The words catch again.  I curse myself.  Did I come back?
 		For her?
 	I am arguing with myself so suddenly, it seems as if I am merely
using an excuse to live with the pain.  She deserves someone better...the
words of a weak man afraid of change, afraid to put his heart...the
newfound feelings inside, on the line for the one who awakened those feeling within his soul.
 	"I..." I still struggle, trying to find the appropriate thing
to say.  Without a thought, not of my own volition, I find myself
speaking, the words gibberish to my ears, the words rushing out;
like those of a man giving way to a wave of oncoming water, I have given in to the emotions.
 	First she is surprised, giving me a look that sinks my heart lower
the longer she gazes.  Then, as the tears begin to stream even faster
than before, she throws herself into my surprised arms, "I love you
too, Ryouga," she whispers, "Oh God, I love you."
 	Can one truly express the entirety of their soul in one word?  No...but they can in three.
 	Akari...I love you.
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