"No more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears…"
The words stabbed at his heart like knives. The snow was beginning to pile on the shoulders of his cloak, but he dared not move. He clung to the gargoyle, cold as ice, while Christine—his Christine—and that fatuous boy declared their love to each other on the roof of his opera house.
It infuriated him.
He created Christine Daaé; her voice was nothing without him. He was the one who wrote songs and operas after her, worshipped her, and did everything in his power to watch over her. And this boy that stood before her could just steal her love away?
No.
Their laughter echoed about the roof as they went back inside, warm in each other's arms. His rose lay in the snow, the red petals already frozen and drooping. Hot tears spilled forth from his eyes, leaking under his mask, down his deformed face.
Damn the mask!
He ripped it off, falling to his knees, bitterly weeping and crying out, "Sei come la schiuma del mare: ti abbracio e non ci sei, ti amo e sei sparito!"
He choked on his own words, his voice growing raspy from the cold.
"Sono anni che ti stavo cercando," he whispered, crushing what was left of the rose in his hand. Her voice was like an angel from heaven, and he would never admit it, but she was his angel of music. Every note she sang was accompanied by a full choir and orchestra behind her. All those years he'd been searching for love, for love and music, never realizing they were the same thing until he heard Christina Daaé's voice.
"Say you need me with you now and always…"
Their duet was like cold water to his face. Her voice wasn't so light and airy when she sang with him, down in his cellars and sewers. It was bitter, and it seemed almost full of spite and regret. But with this boy, no, he would never dare look into her eyes to see it, but from the mere sound of her voice she had found love.
And he was jealous.
The mask lay just a few feet away from him. The snow fell anywhere but on top of it, and its hellish features stood out against the gray roof.
Her voice rang out somewhere beneath him, the faint sound of an orchestra following close behind. Once again, those fools who ran the place managed to pick up the mess he'd made for them, and not only that, but still manage to get the show going again and pickpocket the audience with their claims of world renown voices. But all of this was put into the back of his mind when he heard her reach measure sixty-four of the aria, when the leading soprano would rise above the upper staff for sixteen measures. The music was biting the air around him, sending chills through his already frozen body, shocking his nearly still heart.
What a voice he'd created.
When her song was over, and those idiots the opera house called their audience began applauding wildly, he only then dared to open his eyes. He stood up on stiff knees and picked up the mask that separated him from the world. And as he put it on his face and disappeared just as suddenly as he had come, he turned and whispered to the winter sky…
"Toi et moi, ça ne changera pas."