I hate this place. I know they meant well, Une and Relena and the others.
It’s a peaceful enough spot, I understand that. And it’s beautiful,
in its way, if you like open skies and rolling hills. But it’s not you.
Bless you, but you always hated the countryside. You hunted and rode perfectly, of course, because hunting and riding were required in the country, and you could never bear to be less than perfect at anything. You laughed and danced and charmed your way through all those interminable shooting parties, always the consumate host, the most desirable guest. But all the time, you itched to go back to the city, to where things happened, where you could make them happen. I have to laugh still, thinking of how ill anything bucolic suited you. Perhaps it’s because Nature seemed to be the one thing you couldn’t bend to your will. I suppose, then, it’s a good thing that you aren’t really here. I think even your spirit would be bored.
Maybe that’s why I never came before—you’re not here. Not your body, and certainly not your spirit, your ghost, your soul, whatever energy it was that made you Treize. I’ve never felt that I had to be in a particular place to feel that. And if you were linked to some singular spot, it would hardly be this one, a place you’ve never visited either in life or death.
So why am I here, then? Why choose this place, of all places, to make my farewells? That answer, at least, is simple. Because Duo asked me to come.
He feels your shade between us, and it eats at him. I didn’t realize how much, or how deeply it hurts him that I’ve never truly let you go. I can’t bear to hurt him, Treize—any more than I can bear to say good-bye to you. And so here I am, pulled in two. As always.
If I listen hard enough, will I hear your voice in the wind? I doubt it…I listened for you for a long time. I can’t tell you how many times I waited to hear your laugh, your footsteps, anything to tell me you hadn’t left me. And always the same answer—silence.
So why would I expect to hear you today?
There are silences in my life even yet, but they aren’t dead, empty spaces any more. Early mornings, when I wake first and watch him sleeping…lazy Sunday afternoons, when there’s no one in the house but us…just yesterday, when he stood beside my desk as I worked and ran his fingers through my hair. He said it looked like a gold spider’s web in the sunlight…
He fills the spaces in my life now. That’s not to say he’s taken your place. No one could do that, not even him. But there was so much emptiness, even when you were still here. We gave so little of ourselves, didn’t we? So many things we might have been to each other, had we not been so stubborn, so proud.
But I learned, and I won’t make the same mistakes with Duo. I won’t let my pride keep me from loving him completely, from accepting the gift of his love. You and I, sometimes we pushed love away with both hands. Not this time. Life is too short…as you and I learned, to our sorrow.
I’m rambling now. But what else is there for me to say about this…about us? I have Duo now, and he has me. I won’t let anything come between us, not my stubbornness—nor his—nor my pride. Nor you. If saying good-bye to my past with you is what I must do to secure my future with Duo, then…then…I can do it. I can leave you to your peaceful hill and your empty grave. I can.
But perhaps Duo will forgive me if now and then, I still listen for your voice in the wind.
Au revoir.