remember me just like this.

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare

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Love.

People say it is one of the most precious gifts civilization has been given thus far. A true grace sent by god to bless the world and all its citizens.

Or so every one has been telling Caius for his entire life, beating it into his mind, trying to force it down his throat.

He thinks it's a load of bullshit.

Love tears away at people's minds, gripping their hearts and pulling at the strings that guide their every move. A state of being people somehow find so riveting, so enthralling, that they are willing to spend their meager time on this earth chasing it. They let it drag them around with no regard for the consequences, not a care for the end that is bound to come sooner or later. Suffering through moments so grating, so cruel, so heinous, that all reason flies away in despair.

Yet people cling to it.

They wrap themselves around the very thing that hurts them, defying any and all rationale to let go. Refusing to give up the cause of the pangs that eat away at their minds and their souls. And when they are eventually thrown away from it, they scramble right back, pleading for its touch, for its clutch around their hearts once more.

Caius has never understood why people throw their lives away for something that feels like an idealized illusion. He prefers something more grounded in reality. The warmth of dinner held between his hands. The weight of a silver coin found on the street. Truths that could be felt. Measured. Trusted.

He held this truth close to his heart, closer than any single person could ever get. Closer than anyone ever would.

This carefully crafted belief was bound tight around him, so tight that nothing should have been able to pry it away.

So why was it that when he saw those amber eyes, everything he believed unraveled and fell away?