A basket of dead flowers on his doorstep.
The smashed head of a doll lying like the scattered petals blown from the long arms of a sakura tree on his windowsill.
Letters with no return address and no contents, save for the occasional dead insect.
These were the things Gilbert gave to his lover, Roderich Edelstein.
The only problem was, Roderich didn't know that he was Gilbert's. That he was to love nobody else. That Gilbert watched him every day from outside his home, not knowing why Roderich never noticed him, save for a frightened shriek at one of his gifts, or said that he felt for him, save for a yell of disgust.
Regardless of Roderich's acknowledgement, Gilbert lived on. Roderich was always in Gilbert's thoughts, always there like the sun or the moon or the stars; lovely, beautiful, but unreachable. He had to show his love from afar, as he was but a lowly astronomer.
He went to work every day, where he was regarded as the favorite of all his students. He taught history, being particularly adept at teaching his students on the subject of war. Even through teaching, helping his students learn, he couldn't stop thinking about his Roderich. Why wouldn't Roderich say that he loved him?
He needed to give him more gifts, most likely. He just had to win him over. Win him over, yes.
That evening after coming home from work, he began searching for the perfect gift for his love. He threw his suit jacket off and stared out through the glass door leading to his backyard. He smiled, his eyes skirting the perimeter of his property until he was staring at his garden. Roses, pure, white. Perfect, he thought. I'll give him roses.
He went to his yard and stared at his rose bushes. Surely, lovely, living flowers would convey the sheer, burning fire of passion he felt towards his darling Roderich. The blooms on the bush spiraled outwards with their soft white petals and the shadows of their silent, still pantemime wafting in the breeze. Gilbert grinned, the light lashes that lined his pink eyes fluttering closed slightly as he crouched down to reap the gift he would give to his lover directly.
His pale skin and white hair perfectly matched the roses he was grabbing in large clumps with his right hand. Occasionally, he would feel the many thorns of the roses pierce the skin of his hand and wrist, but he didn't care. He was too far engrossed in the task he was carrying out, the task he was carrying out for the sake of love.
His hands moved quickly, controlled by a force incalculable by the average mind. He was deeply consumed in the bitter melancholy of the cheap, heavy perfume called obsession that he wore with him everywhere. He was obsessed for Roderich's sake. He was in love, or at least that was the way he saw it.
He'd considered whether he was insane before.
He'd eventually come up with the conclusion that, no, he was not. He decided that the original idea of himself being crazy was merely a distortion caused by the clash of mainstream soceity's tendency to be so unattached to the idea of beauty. Of course he found Roderich beautiful. Who wouldn't? He was chiseled perfectly into everything a human could call splendid, gorgeous, wonderful. Perhaps created by God himself.
Gilbert paused, having sent his hand straight into the bush full of thorns to come out with nothing save for plentiful scratches. He lifted his eyes. No more roses on the bushes. The pile of the many he'd picked sat next to him, enough for two bouqets. Gilbert smiled. It was perfect. Gilbert frowned. But it needed something.
Trying to imagine what he could add, he found himself lowering his eyes to red. His entire right hand was covered in pricks and tiny splotches of blood. The soft pink marks of irritation that surrounded the areas where he had been poked by the thorns matched the diluted crimson of his eyes that were now lit with the gentle bright of an idea.
He stood up and began walking back inside with the roses held in his right fist, his feet lightly crunching the grass. He opened the door and stepped into his kitchen, gingerly placing the roses on his counter before turning his head to the knife block. He swallowed, internally assuring himself that this was for the best, for his love.
He opened one of his drawers and got out a roll of parchment paper. Using a pair of scissors, he cut out a piece long enough to wrap the roses in and laid it on the counter.
He quickly ran to his bathroom and grabbed a roll of guaze. He was going to need it.
Having returned to the kitchen, he wrapped up the roses with the parchment, whispering about his pure adoration for Roderich.
He set the giant bouquet down on his counter and positioned it so that the tops of the roses were facing upward. Gilbert drew a knife from the block with hands shaking like boats rocking uncontrollably in a churning hurricane. He steadied his left forearm with his right hand, wincing slightly at the contact made with the small, stinging wounds on his palm. He, having stopped his fidgeting, lifted the knife in his left hand above his right hand. He recoiled slightly. He was doing this all for Roderich, lovely Roderich. Beautiful Roderich, his Roderich, his, all his. He was in love. He was in-
Schlick.
The sound of the knife dragging its way through the skin of his palm tore through the atmosphere built of Gilbert's own thoughts and also of the heavy silence that cushioned them.
Blood dripped from the wound on his hand down onto the roses. He grinned and began laughing maniacally.
"It hurts," He shrieked, shaking his head wildly, a German accent laced into the wild horse that was the sound of his own pain, "It hurts so badly!"
He shoved his right hand into the tops of the flowers and once again screamed from the pain. Sticky red flowed from the center of his hand, covering the middle of the bouquet and mixing petals into the cut. Gilbert screeched in his excruciating agony. It hurt so much, but it was all pain that he was enduring for his gift, the gift that would make Roderich love him. Love. Love. Love! It was all for love! It was all for the best in the end, all the grueling pain he was currently enduring. All of it would more thoroughly convey his pure adoration to Roderich.
He removed his hand from the bouquet and watched as blood languidly trickled from the cut he'd made down onto the tiles of his floor.
His gift was complete, now he just had to deliver it. Gilbert smiled eerily.
He was going to do so personally.
He picked up the roll of gauze and, blood still finding its way onto the floor, moved over to his sink. He turned on warm water and though it almost made him want to scream out in agony again, stuck his hand under the water to cleanse it of any wayward petals or dried blood. He watched as the red partially ceasced coming out of the wound and became diluted to form a much thinner pink.
He picked up a towel off of the handle of his oven and wiped off his hand before gingerly applying the bandages over his cut. Even through the many layers now covering the gash, he could still see red blooming through the white. He smiled a bit, thinking about the deliverance of his present that was soon to occur. He couldn't wait to watch Roderich grin, then to be held, touched. . .
It would all begin with the gift, Gilbert thought. With the gift.
Later that evening, a car arrived at Roderich's house. Gilbert had been hiding in Roderich's bushes holding the present, but was shocked to see another person there.
He watched as the figure inside of the vehicle exited it, narrowing his eyes.
The figure was female.
He gripped the roses more tightly now, muttering inaudibly to himself.
"A bitch. . . A whore. . . A wench. . . She is here to steal Roderich from me!"
He got up into a crouch when he heard Roderich's front door open and the excited footsteps of what Gilbert presumed to be Roderich himself. He scowled angrily at the exchange he heard next.
"Elizebeta, love!" It was, in fact, Roderich.
"Hello, darling." The foul, disgusting whore of a woman, her blasphemed name being Elizabeta.
She'd called him darling. Gilbert gripped the other gift he'd brought with him in just in case. He smirked. He would give her a present too.
Gilbert watched as the two shadows of their figures entered the house -leaving the door open, careless- both of them laughing and chatting easily.
He stood up, leaning against the bricks, laughing a bit to himself as he lifted the large metal mallet he'd brought. He would kill Elizabeta, then he and Roderich could be together happily.
He staggered up to the door and walked in.
"Roderich, love." He sang loudly, and both Roderich and Elizabeta turned their heads.
"Roderich, darling. . . Who is this man?" Elizabeta was now clinging to Roderich's arm. Gilbert smirked at her. Wench.
"Hell if I kn-" Roderich squited slightly before recoiling in visible fear, "This. . . I think he may be my stalker."
"Stalker? What are you talking about, love?" Gilbert cooed melodically, and Elizabeta turned up her nose.
"What is that stench?" She asked, almost rhetorically, before finding the answer in the bouquet Gilbert thrust at her boyfriend. "Oh. . . Oh my God! Is that. . . blood?"
Roderich found himself, along with Elizabeta, being backed up slowly into the corner of his kitchen.
"This is a gift, love. If you don't mind," Gilbert said, throwing the roses at Roderich's feet before holding the obviously heavy hammer behind his shoulder, "I will be taking care of your whore."
Gilbert swung the hammer directly into Elizabeta's face, smashing over and over despite Roderich's desperate pleas. She fell down to the ground, dead.
"Oh God! God! Why. . . You. . . You son of a bitch! Bastard! I loved her!" Roderich was furious, rightfully so. He didn't look down to see her face, rather, stared directly into the deranged eyes of the sick man before him.
Gilbert frowned, confused. Had Roderich been tricked by the witch? He stared down at her now-ugly face that would soon be decaying in the ground where it belonged. He looked back up to Roderich. His lovely, beautiful Roderich couldn't have possibly been ruined by such a disgusting, worthless whore. Or. . . could he have? Gilbert looked at Roderich's face reluctantly, not wanting to see in his love's eyes what his mind urged him to believe. Gilbert stared straight into his eyes, and he saw rot. He saw that his beloved had been fooled by the wench, and he sighed. It was all for naught. Oh well. It wouldn't matter soon.
"No you didn't, dear." Gilbert, once again, held the metal mallet behind his shoulder like a baseball-bat. "You're in love with me, and I with you. And as we both know," He grinned viciously before swinging, "There is no remedy for a sickness such as love."
And then, Gilbert swang.
