"So?" Angeal finally asked.

Honestly this was not what he'd expected. He'd thought Gen would laugh and call him an uneducated lout and that would be that. But Gen still staring at the little homemade card, his face a shade redder than his hair.

"'S terrible." Genesis muttered without looking at him.

Angeal was shocked, "You like it don't you?"

Genesis got even redder, "…Maybe."

"But it's a sappy love poem written by a criminally uncultured teen-aged boy!"

"I know," Genesis said. Now he looked at Angeal, smiling faintly. "How long did it take you to write it?"

It was Angeal's turn to go red, and look away, staring up at Gen's tree as he answered. "The beginning took a long time, but about halfway through something just clicked and the rest came really fast."

"It's terrible." Gen said again, "I love it."

Beloved,

My words are

Paltry pale things

Unfit but yet I try

To speak of light

And heat and wings

And all the thousand

Tiny things that are you.

Your laugh and eyes and smirk and chin

And all that I can't be without

Yet I don't feel quite so bad

That my words are

Sad and flat and

Stick when I do

Speak of you, for what

Words in any tongue

Could possibly recall but one

Of the thousand tiny things

That are you

And that I love.

---

Naturally I don't own either Genesis or Angeal SquareEnix does, the poem is mine though, so ask before you take that. This pairing whacked me in the face my first play-through of Crisis Core, which is really weird because I usually I don't notice slash until the fandom tells me it exists, weird...