Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

All characters belong to Himaruya Hidekaz

Arthur Kirkland was a needy man, but you wouldn't be able to tell from his rough exterior. The Englishman always had a scowl plastered on his lips and his abnormally large eyebrows were almost always furrowed. And I, well I thought he wouldn't be an easy conquest; I thought he'd at least play hard to get. Unfortunately, I never expected what was to come. I feel that if I had, I would have saved myself the trouble.

Arthur surprised me from the very first day I spoke with him; he had just transferred into my workplace. Now, I usually don't try to seduce my coworkers but his bright green eyes and serious attitude caught my attention. No one else bothered to get near him. You see, Arthur's body language, from a glance of an inexpert, seemed standoffish in an 'I'll kill you if you talk to me' kind of way.

With a sigh, I fixed my hair and put on a friendly smile before walking over to him in the break room.
"Bonjour, Arthur, I'm Francis Bonnefoy; I heard you just transferred here?" I stuck out my hand for him to shake and watched his expression turn from stern to surprised. It made me feel that he wasn't conscious of the way he came off to people. He took my hand, shaking it as his expression relaxed. His eyebrows played a big part in this and I found it amusing to the point where I couldn't help but widen my smile as he spoke.

"Yes, I'm Kirkland. Arthur Kirkland. It's nice to meet you, Francis." He then proceeded to smile at me It made his whole face soften. Honestly, it almost made him look like an entirely different person. There was something about his smile though. I believed it was a smile that a poet would probably compare to a Summer's eve or a sunset that made you realise that there is beauty in the small things in life. If only we slowed down to notice them.

Except this smile hid something else behind it's allure; Arthur's smile was only capable by the lips of a sad being. Its awful beauty would have made me gone speechless if I had actually cared but as it were, I didn't care for him or what the smile meant.

A few days later found us having lunch together. Somehow, I had chosen him as my next target. You see, I had this game when I was bored, and I guess you could say it was cruel. It had started because I had grown up hearing about love being amazing. Yet, I had never felt it despite all my lovers telling me they loved me. In the end, I chose to let people feel love for me and I'd have fun in the process always breaking their hearts when I had no more need for them. Needless to say, I never and would never fall in love. That was just me and I had accepted it.

Arthur, sitting across from me told me about his life; he spoke of his old job and how much he had hated it. I, being the polite coworker and friend, nodded and listened to his ranting. I laughed when it was appropriate and talked here and there while I let him do most of the talking.

'Yes.'

'You don't say?'

'Then what happened?'

Nearing the end of our conversation, Arthur looked at me with a questioning look. I cocked my head to the side as if to silently ask him what was the matter.

He looked down at his empty cup that had once held tea. Tea that he complained about. Arthur had always complained about many things.

"Thank you..for listening and..and well talking to me."

'When no one else did.' I understood the rest and thought this was the time to start reeling him in. I knew that I would soon capture his heart.

"There's no need to thank me, my dear."

There's a thing about trying to conquer hearts. You have to time your affectionate moments just right. Especially if you were just starting out with a new person. When you first start giving someone affection, it can go one of two ways. For example, a pet name could scare someone off or have them craving more of you. Making it possessive as in 'my dear' was an extremely risky move on my part. Particularly now that it came to this Englishman in front of me. I admit it had been rather soon to call him mine but I was prepared to fix it in case it went wrong.

I needn't have worried though for he looked up with a tiny blush adorning his cheeks and his lips curved into a smile.

It was the same sad smile.
I smiled back.
One thought crossed my mind that day, Arthur Kirkland must be miserable.

Later the same week, I had his number. Of course, I gave it a day or so before I called him. The excitement in his voice when he figured out I was the one calling him on, what I assume, was his lonely day off amused me. It was quite adorable really.

"Let's go out for lunch tomorrow, Arthur." I casually ordered more than asked one Friday night while on the phone with him. He easily agreed. By now, it had been a month. I usually would have start to feel bored with my game but Arthur somehow kept my curiosity going. Besides, it wasn't so bad having him to talk to.
As I sat at the cafe, waiting for the Englishman, I decided that that day would be the day I would capture Arthur's heart. As per usual, we laughed and talked as we ate our lunch. Nothing memorable had happened during lunch. After paying for our meals at the end, I suggested a walk and Arthur, like always, decided to do as I said. Of course, all the while giving me that miserable smile he always had. I thought that maybe that was how he smiled and I was just imagining the sadness I saw. We walked side by side with my hand brushing against his every now and then. He rambled on and I listened, waiting for my moment to move in but, to be honest, I was getting quite impatient. Arthur just didn't know how or when to stop talking sometimes!

"You know what's not fa-" I cut him off with a kiss and he absolutely melted. Miserable creature, as I had dubbed him in my mind, had been quite an easy catch after all. I watched his eyes close as I kissed him before I closed my own, my hand was gently holding his chin. I broke the kiss and, surprisingly, that's all that I decided to do; I didn't touch him for the rest of the day, not even to hold his hand.

More time passed and it seemed that we were getting closer. Weeks later, after a few more kisses, hugs, and hand holding, I felt I had his complete trust. The thing about Arthur though, despite months having passed by-I didn't know why I had let my game go so far-, he never once asked me what we were. Were we an item? Exclusive? Or was he just my plaything that I would eventually get bored of?

He never asked and I was glad of this fact for if he had, I might have had to end the game there and then. I didn't want that and I refused to acknowledge why I didn't want to end things with him.

It was nearing a year of having met Arthur and I had invited him over to my house for dinner. I prepared a fancy and very romantic dinner with the cliché candle-light and wine chilling in a bucket full of ice. When he came in, I handed him a dozen red roses and he smiled at me. I hadn't though of this at that moment, but I hated his smile. Couldn't his smile ever show he was happy with me? Couldn't he ever be happy with anything I did?
Leaving the food and wine behind, we kissed and I led him up to my bedroom. Arthur and I made 'love' that night. I was gentle as a lover should be, even if I didn't actually love him. He had held onto me after we had reached our orgasms and I collapsed beside him. The object of my game would always cuddle up to me but Arthur somehow seemed more needy when he did it. He had actually been considerably needy during the whole time of this game. Normally, he'd find that staying right beside me was all he needed in public. In private, he would regularly frequently hold my hand. It was this kind of small yet loving affection that I would sometimes consider going to far but Arthur's smile made me pity him and let me to believe that it was alright for him to at least have this.

A week later, Arthur hadn't shown up to work and I, by way of gossip, had found out he was transferring. To where, no one would say or they didn't know.

"Bastards." I called them out of anger before leaving to go to Arthur's apartment. As I think back on it now, I wasn't sure who I was angry at or if it was even anger at all. All I knew was that I had to find Arthur. We would argue once I did find him at his apartment.

Well, I say we but it was mostly me doing the yelling.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked as calmly as I could because I didn't really care.
I didn't care.
I didn't.

"Tomorrow. I was going to tell you tomorrow." I hate to say this but his voice was just as calm and he had the nerve to keep packing as he spoke to me.

"When are you leaving?" My voice had gone quiet as I began to fear his answer.

Arthur didn't even hesitate or look at me as he answered, "Tomorrow."

Tomorrow?! Feeling betrayed, I stepped closer to him and raised my voice. "Why would you wait until the day you leave?!" The miserable creature kept packing which made me angry; I couldn't help but grab him roughly by his arm. "Look at me!"

He did look at me this time, right into my eyes and, for the first time, since this 'relationship' began, I felt my heart stop. Arthur smiled his awful smile of his. Except, I may have caught some pity in his eyes. I would later ask myself why such a sorrowful person would pity me; I would also figure out that he had seen right through me. Arthur had seen something about me that I didn't even know could be possible.

"You know, Francis, your eyes are rather sad." My eyes widened as he cupped my cheek with his hand; my heart was racing as I saw his lips move but could hear nothing and wondered why I felt a pain in my chest.

"...lonely."

That one word snapped me out of my thoughts. "What?"
Arthur kept smiling and leaned in to chastely kiss my lips. "I said you're lonely."

I pulled away harshly and yelled at him, telling him he was wrong and left. I made sure to slam the door behind me to show how angry at was at him.

That night, I lied in bed thinking the same phrase over and over again. "He can leave, I won't care."

The next morning found me at the train station, looking for Arthur. He had never told me what time he was leaving so I ended up waiting for five hours before he showed up.

"My dear," I started and he raised a hand to stop me.

"My name is Arthur."

"Arthur I.." I began again and froze. What had I wanted to say? Why had I shown up for him?

"It's alright." He interrupted me and voiced what I was probably wanting to say. "I would say I love you but I don't quite know what love is. Neither of us do."

All I could do was nod before I found my voice again. "Yes, but if I had to guess what it is I'm feeling, I 'd say..I think I'm in love with you..."

After a pause and the sound of the last call to board the train was heard, Arthur chose his words carefully and spoke in loving yet sad voice as he gave me the same sad smile he always did. The words he had chosen were not of love or even words that gave me any hope at all. It only broke my heart that I had once thought was incapable of loving therefore incapable of hurting.

"Good-bye, Francis."

I watched him walk away and board the train or at least I had tried to considering that something had blurred my vision.

"Good-bye, Arthur."

Erm, I really don't know what to think of this.

The ending, I felt like I should have stopped at Arthur's goodbye but then I wasn't sure...

I wrote this four months ago when I had been out of the country with no Internet. I couldn't sleep and so I took out my phone and started typing.

I edited it a lot tonight instead of working on assignments I have due this weekend for an online class OTL

Honestly though, I had been wanting to write for quite a while now.

ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU LIKED IT.

Please excuse my mediocre writing skills.

Thank you for reading!

Reviews help me out a lot more than you could possibly imagine!