Disclaimer: Tales of Symphonia is owned by Namco.
Concentric
adj. having a common center: said of circles.
Genis just wants to be brave.
In the faint, dimming moonlight, each small imperfection of his sister's face is magnified tenfold, each crease, each worry-induced wrinkle, the tightening of her jaw, the tiniest, faintest tremble of her lip. Raine never cries, but nightmares don't care about strength, or bravery, they don't care about honor or knowledge, and he quietly, reverently brushes away each escaping tear. His sister is so strong. He wishes he could look at each failure as a lesson, each disappointment as a learning experience. He wishes he could be brave for her.
----
Genis just wants to be happy.
Iselia is a nice place, he knows that, and Raine is cheerful for once. She's started teaching him kendama again, and he feels the tiniest, brightest flutter in his chest each time her hand grazes against his wrist: "You hold it just so, Genis, understand?" and it's so nice that it feels a little bit like pain. He wants to be happy, but there's something else besides the tightness in his chest that makes him scared; it's the people in Iselia, the way they smile at him and greet him in the morning, the way Lloyd leans over his shoulder to copy answers, the way Colette smiles at him and gives him hugs, bubbling with laughter, with warmth.
What scares him the most though, is his sister's happiness, the way she tucks him into bed at night and kisses his forehead, brushes silver bangs away from his face.
"It's going to be different here, Genis."
He doesn't think so, but he nods anyway.
----
Genis just wants to be apathetic.
Humans don't deserve to be loved, they don't deserve to be cared about, he doesn't care what Raine says, he doesn't care if Lloyd is nice to him and Colette gives him compliments, even when he doesn't deserve them. He doesn't care if the children at school give him high-fives when he gets the right answer in class, the only thing he remembers is when Raine knocked on door after door, asking, begging for help, for shelter, and the rain pelted all around them. No one answered, no one cared about two filthy little half-breed orphans. Maybe Raine's forgotten, but he hasn't.
He thinks humans deserve the ranches and Desians, but when Colette ruffles his hair and they watch the stars together with Lloyd, he recognizes this new feeling as conflict.
----
Genis just wants to be different.
His kendama lies forgotten near his bedside, Raine is shakily pressing a hand to her mouth, and he stares at her with something akin to wonder, a hand pressed to his throbbing cheek. Raine's face is flushed, her neck as well, and the pink of her skin turns the blue of her eyes to silver. He is captivated by her beauty.
"Never do that again," she whispers quietly, threateningly, and when he doesn't answer, she shakes him until his teeth rattle in his head. "Do you understand? Answer me, Genis!" Her voice is trembling, and up close, he can see the panic in her eyes, the tears. He doesn't want her to cry. He never wants her to cry again.
"I...I won't. I promise."
He's lying, but he's found it's easier to keep certain truths from her.
----
Genis just wants to be confident.
Colette stares at him blankly, a mindless automaton, and all the words of encouragement, the ideas and the theories die in his head. Lloyd tentatively brushes a hand against Colette's cheek and then recoils.
"She's cold," he whispers, mystified. Genis leans his head against Lloyd's shoulder, closes his eyes, and dreams of angels.
----
Genis just wants to be alive.
The Rheiard tilts wildly, making a nosedive toward the ground before Sheena pulls up suddenly, laughing and bright and alive, and Genis smiles despite himself. The Rheiards shoot and spin throughout the sky, but he has opted out of this game, as have Colette and Presea, Raine and Regal as well. A Rheiard that looks suspiciously like Zelos' hits a tree, and Colette looks up from her task of braiding flowers through Presea's hair to giggle.
"Hehe, that looks like fun." She gives Genis a curious look, as does Presea, and the two pairs of eyes, blue and green, are filled with a mixture of concern and curiousity. The scrutiny makes Genis nervous; it makes him scared. "Are you alright, Genis? Don't you want to play with the others?"
Genis spares a glance to his sister, watches her animatedly discuss theories on the end of the Balacruf era with Regal, alive like Sheena, but in another way, and shakes his head, pulling his knees to his chest.
"I'm fine, Colette. I'm just going to watch for now."
----
Genis just wants to be cold.
Lloyd kneels at Zelos' side, wiping at his eyes with his free hand, one of his swords clasped in the other, and he wants to be angry at Zelos, for making his best friend sad, for betraying them, he wants to stop thinking of this fight, of the angels and Mithos' flute, the look on Presea's face when they watched Ozette burn to ash, the way Sheena's jaw clenches when they mention Kuchinawa, the shadowed sadness in Raine's eyes when he asks about their parents. He wants to hate Zelos, but he can't help but cry a little, if not for Zelos, then for Lloyd, for Colette, for Mithos and Kratos, for everyone caught up in this, for Raine and himself.
He doesn't want to feel like this anymore.
----
Genis just wants to forget.
His mother looks so much like Raine it's a shock at first, sounds like her too, but that glazed, feverish look in her eyes does not belong to Raine, or anyone else. It is the look of a caged woman, a broken woman, and he's embarrassed that Lloyd has to see this, he's ashamed.
When Virginia turns her gaze to Genis, there's a flicker of something, something like sadness or sanity, he can't tell which, and she smiles at him in a way that sends ice-cold chills up his spine.
"Such a lovely boy. I hope my Genis looks just like you," she whispers.
When Raine runs out of the house, he follows.
----
Genis just wants to be loved.
Derris-Kharlan's illusion crumbles all around them, and he thinks of Mithos, high above the clouds, above everyone, alone and afraid, just like him. The earth trembles, and the sky flashes bright violet and inky, deep black and blue. Raine holds him close, humming a song he recognizes but cannot name, and quietly whispers, so softly that he almost can't catch it,
"Genis, we're not like him, understand? We're different."
He nods his head, to placate her, but he's unsure. In the end, are they really all that different? Half-elves, elves, humans, everyone, they just want to be brave, and strong, and cunning, they want to forget sadness and pain, they want to be confident, they just want to feel alive, they just want to have all the answers, they just want to be loved.
He understands Mithos. If the ends satisfy the means, who's to say what's right, and what's wrong?
All they ever wanted was to be loved.
----
This was an experiment. Is it creepy? Yes. Do I neccesarily think Genis has un-brotherly thoughts about his hot sister? Hell no. But it's fun(?) to mess around with ideas like this, so here we are.
Tell me what you think.
Supremia