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Quite soon after you first met, G'raha realized how large the gap between him and you was. Immediately after that, a second realization: he very badly wanted to close that gap.
He had given up hope not when he had decided to lock himself in the Crystal Tower, but even before - you were radiant like nothing he had ever seen before, and despite his misguided arrogance, he was just. A scholar who just happened to have the blood of Allagan royalty in his veins, apparently.
Of course, G'raha couldn't stop himself from daydreaming; of joining you on your travels, slowly growing closer to you, becoming important to you. Becoming someone you wouldn't want to lose. Of growing strong enough to protect you in turn. Nothing would ever come of it, though, he would need years and years to catch up, and you were needed elsewhere. He didn't know if you'd ever meet again, after all, you were the hero of the realm, swept up by adventures ever greater than before.
How he yearned to see the world... through your eyes or beside you, he didn't know which one was more alluring.
In a grotesque twist of fate, it looked like your paths would divert further than G'raha had ever imagined. The smallest chance of meeting you at a crossroads would be gone, as would you when he finally woke up. When the doors of the Crystal Tower closed, he felt his heart shatter a bit, a shard of it lost forever in the aether. Regardless of the people he would meet in the future, nobody would be quite like you. Nobody would fit in the cracks of his heart like you, unknowingly, do.
The memories of the short time he knew you would have to be enough to hold his heart together and maybe, just maybe, it would eventually mend.
(As he realized his new purpose hundreds of years away from you, as a protector of an entirely different world, thinking of you, still, always you - he found this to be true. The people he met were always important. Always radiant. Steadily not only mending his heart, but making it grow.
He would save them. He would save you.)
Now, though.
Ever since he had called you to the First, he had felt something different. After decades, centuries of thinking that nothing more than a lukewarm friendship could happen between you should he succeed in bringing you to him, G'raha wasn't sure how the daydreams he once thought unattainable were now resurfacing as something more. He had steeled himself, trying to lock his wishes away once more, but you seemed to be too good at picking locks. Despite his efforts to stay unaffected, just one moment with you made his chest grow warm and his stomach fill with butterflies.
He had felt a new spark between you while he was still only the Crystal Exarch to you. For a while he wondered if that was the reason, if the Exarch was the one to make you look at him in a way that made him feel like something elecrtic was coursing through his body - but when you called his name, the one he thought he might never be called again, G'raha was almost certain you were never fooled. That from the start, you knew.
And oh, did that make him feel something.
The way you remembered him - did he dare to hope? Was the something that he felt from you real or just wishful thinking?
(Maybe he was always enough?)
(Had you always looked at him like that? Was it just self-doubt clouding his judgment?)
Every time G'raha saw you, he could feel himself brightening and perking up. He could feel himself hanging upon every word you would say, leaning towards you like you were the sun he sought. (Perhaps you were.) And he knew, embarrassingly enough, that people around saw it too. Not that he could stop it - he knew he was being an open book and only hoped that you liked what you read.
Alas, his story had gone on long enough and though he was loath to do so, now that something he so selfishly wanted was almost in his grasp, G'raha knew his must end so yours could continue. Still, he was glad you'd given him this. He had lived for hundreds of years, but you managed to make him feel like a schoolboy with a crush, and what a delightful feeling that was! He could move mountains chasing that feeling! But because he was nearing his final chapters, he would not do anything about it. He shouldn't.
Somehow, even knowing all about your heroic deeds and what you could do, you still managed to exceed his expectations.
You had given him more hope than he ever thought possible. Of seeing the worlds you had saved, being able to do so because he was still existing, maybe being able to do so with you... and you seemed to want that as well. With him. Slowly growing closer to you... becoming important to you...
The emotion he still didn't dare to name even after all these years was burning brighter and warmer than ever and if he really looked, G'raha thought he could see at least a part of it reflected back from you.
Please, let it be real. Oh, Twelve, please let it be real.
(This time, succumbing to the Crystal Tower was less heartbreaking. He would miss it, of course, he would miss the First so much! But now, more than ever, he knew his heart was strong enough to persevere.)
When G'raha woke up to the sight of you wearing the brightest smile he had yet seen on your face, something soft glistening at the corners of your eyes, he finally let himself believe. When you welcomed him back, calling him by his real name - his intimate name, he finally let himself touch you, hands coming up to gently frame your face. And when you eagerly returned his kiss, he was certain.
What you said next he already knew: you love him, as he loves you.