Ambiguous

He had done everything to try and fit in. He cut his hair like them, he dressed like them, but they just wouldn't believe that he was a boy. Julius had no friends at school because everyone thought he was a strange girl with a beautiful face and cutting eyes.

He got into fights often. Girls, boys it didn't matter. He couldn't remember the faceless boy he punched that particular day, but he remembered the bruises, the scrapes and the little girl who ran outside once all was clear with bandages. She was wearing orange, he remembered. He hissed as she cleaned a scrape on his elbow.

"It's Julia, right?" she said.

"Julius. There's an 's' at the end," he said. She only smiled.

"Well, 'Julius' be more careful when you talk to those guys. They always try to take your books and stuff," she said. He looked at her closely now with his unblackened eye. She was Candace from art class.

"Do they do that to you?" he asked. She never answered. Every morning before he went to school, he'd stop the bullies from getting to her, taking a beating every day just so she could get to school without a scratch. Julius expected a thanks, but Candace never said anything. She never knew, how could she thank him? Realizing that he would come to school scratched and bruised, she brought bandages and put them on him religiously at recess.

He wanted her attention, her looks, so he got it the only way he knew how. Torturing her. He would never touch her, but he never had anything nice to say.

"Kitty bandages? I hate those. Don't ever bring them again, you stupid girl," he snapped. The next day she brought plain flesh colored bandages. He never said that he missed the bright colors, nor did he comment on how she said a little less to him that day.

"No one likes you in yellow. You look like a cow in that," he said. In the coming weeks she wore less and less color. She stopped speaking to him in sentences of more than two words.

"That dress shows off your ugly knees," he said another day. Gradually, despite the summer's heat she started to wear longer dresses.

"But, Candace," he heard Luna say to her as they came to out to play. "You look so hot and miserable in that skirt."

Candace didn't say anything, but sat right by him in the blistering heat of the playground playing at whatever game he demanded. She bought him ice cream that day. He ate all of his and licked off all the sprinkles that she left behind on hers ("Because you eat it so slow!" he said).

When school started again, he waited for her, arriving at her house in the morning just to walk with her. Julius didn't say anything about the way she cradled her books across her chest like it was a protection from his angry words, or the way she flinched when he looked at her.

He just wanted her to look at him, give him any sort of attention whether it was fear or love. Anything so long as it was directed at him. The feeling was often insatiable. He remembered, it was shortly before she left, he wanted her to look at him so badly, but she cowered and hunched over no matter what he said. He grabbed her chin and held it so she couldn't turn.

"Just look at me, Candace!" he said. "Why don't you ever look at me anymore? Why don't you talk to me?"

She didn't say anything, but her face said it all. "I'm with you all the time, isn't that enough?" she would have said. Candace would never say it out loud, she was afraid of him. That wasn't what he really wanted. He knew what he wanted, but how could he just tell her? How could he make her be connected to that strange boy that no one wanted to talk to, the one she had taken pity on? He didn't want pity anymore. Pity was for someone who was pathetic. No, he dared to ask for more than pity from her.

One morning as winter rolled in, she met him before school. Without a word, she wrapped a scarf around his neck.

"It's getting cold," she said in that small voice of hers. He could never forget the warmth in her eyes, the feel of her fingertips brushing his neck and cheek. He looked down and saw that the colors were purple, pink and blue. All bright and vibrant, all colors she forbid herself from wearing. All because of him.

He waited for her the next day. She never came. Her house was empty. He found out at school that her father had died. He was her last remaining parent so that meant Candace and her sister moved away to live with their grandmother. All that time her father had been sick and she had been patient with him despite her own pain. While her father's life passed by with every stitch, she made him a scarf. A scarf for Julius: the most ungrateful, selfish boy on the planet. He sat on her front step after school and cried.

I really think there's not enough for these two around. Julius and Candace has to be one of the sweetest couples in the Harvest Moon series. Well, they are in my opinion...