My Unrequited


Disclaimer: Gankutsuo is not mine.


I love him.

Albert de Morcef.

Silly of me. I shouldn't. Him and me? Impossible. Immoral. It can't be– shouldn't be. We cannot be.

Yet. I love him. Still. I love him.

I've loved him since… not at first sight. Then, when we first met, he was only a mark. My latest target. Business as usual.

But, afterwards…

He protected me. Me. Of all people. His trickster. His betrayer. His… Judas? Yes. Delilah? Even more. I played to his heartache. Catered to his loneliness. "I'm like you," I told him. "I like you."

I love you?

I lied to him– yet I had also told him the truth that I had not yet realized. The best poisons are the sweetest ones, are they not? The best lie is the truth.

Still. He protected me. Despite my trickery. Because of my kindness? Of what he thought I was?

I don't know.

He was in our power. Yet he was also above us. Beyond our understanding.

Beyond me?

I was… distracted. He distracted me. His honest kindness touched me. His nobility awed me. He was everything I was not. All I could not. What I wanted to be.

In that moment, without knowing it, I became his.

In hindsight, in afterthought, it all seems a bit silly. How impossible it was for us. After all:

"She's a boy???"

The look on his face was so precious. He had grown on me. Become precious to me.

Me. His betrayer, his trapper, his tormentor and teaser. The Count's spy.

"Would you like to see Albert again?" that terrible man tempted me.

Yes, I had answered at once. Yes. I wanted to see Albert again. To tease him again. (He is so cute when he blushes!) But also to serve him in return for his kindness.

And to love him unrequited.

The things we do for love. We are all fools for love.

"You!!!"

I shouldn't have. His life was troubled enough. He didn't need me to complicate things.

He didn't need me.

He didn't want me?

But he was kind to me. He was always so kind. Endearingly so. Idiotically so? Then he was my idiot. Just as I was his idiot. Two of a kind, him and me, birds of the same feather, both fools.

As long as he was mine…

But he was never mine.

He was hers. That girl. His childhood friend. His fiancée. His one, true love.

Eugenie Danglars.

Not me. Not Peppo. Never.

He deserves her. He deserves better than me.

And it is all right. His happiness is also mine. So long as he is happy, I am happy.

Then why does sleep escape me? Why do I only now feel like the liar and hypocrite and fool that I was– that I still am?

Why do I cry?

"Peppo?"

He stands at the nave of the dressing room. Smiling. Happy.

Oh, Albert…

"Are you done?" he asks me. "The wedding's about to start."

"Yes, Albert. I'm done."

"Great. We can't start without the bridesmaid, now, can we?"

"Of course not."

Even now he protects me. Even now he is kind to me.

"So long as you let this wedding go through…"

"I know the meaning between 'Happily Ever After' and 'Happily Never After', Albert."

"I was kidding, Peppo."

"I know."

Friends. This is what we are. This is who we are.

"Albert?"

"Yes?"

"I wish you and Eugenie the best."

"Thanks, Peppo."

"You're welcome."

Goodbye, my Prince Charming, my secret, unrequited love, my Albert de Morcef.

Goodbye.


The End