Last chapter! I am sorry.

Nothing perfect ever lasts. Their summer of living together and being in love ended when Wesley moved to his own place at the start of the school year. They were very much still in love and they still spent countless nights together but the absence was felt when they were apart.

But nothing could sharpen the ache of absence than the thing that ended it all. Tadashi's life was consumed by the flames of a burning building when all he'd ever wanted to do was help people.

Tadashi had been better than most people Wesley had ever known. His friend group was tied together with the thread of Tadashi's love and support. It felt like everything he had become he owed in part to his dearest friend and lover. To accept that Tadashi was gone was unthinkable, and yet…

It was real. It was hard and it was cold but it was real. At first, it was just a numbness that he thought he could work through, pouring himself into his major and hoping that he could make something out of the inescapable pain. Working didn't help, the wound was still so fresh, so he went to the only people who could commiserate with what he was feeling, growing closer with his friends and with Hiro. That helped a little but there was still burning anguish inside of him, something that couldn't be extinguished with work, friends, vengeance, even muffins. He'd tried everything, and some of it had helped, but the only thing he really wanted was to talk to Tadashi again.

So he tried exactly one more thing. He got a bouquet of lavender roses, the ones that meant love at first sight, lied to the florist who thought they were for some girl named Rebecca, and then took the trolley to the cemetery.

He could have gotten there faster in his car or by train but he liked the time to think. Besides, he'd ridden the trolley many times with Tadashi while they were dating. He remembered hopping on with 'Dashi once just to get out of the rain. Neither one of them knew where they'd been going but it didn't matter because they were together. Wesley knew exactly where he was going now. Tadashi had made him more spontaneous, and the effects of their love hadn't entirely worn off, but he'd gone back to hesitating before he did things. Second-guessing, weighing the outcomes. An angry part of him wished that Tadashi had weighed the outcomes and never set foot in that burning building. Or, more precisely, all of him wished that Tadashi had hesitated, but only part of him was angry at his beloved for doing what he thought was right.

That was the part that came out first when he lay the roses at Tadashi's tombstone.

"How dare you," without meaning to he was already sobbing, "You should be alive right now! We should be together! We should be graduating together! You left all of this- everyone behind and-"

His anger faltered now, climbing back down his throat, "and I miss you, 'Dashi. I loved you and I miss you. It's not fair that you're gone. It's not fair that you're gone and I'm still here and I have to live in a world without you. I've loved you forever, Tadashi. Part of me…"

This was the hard part, the strange part, the letting go part, "Part of me wishes you never loved me back. Part of me wishes you hadn't confessed on the couch, that we never dated. It was the best part of my life and that makes losing you so much harder, so much worse. I wish I could still hold you and love you, I wish we were together. But I also wish that we never were. So that I could say this goodbye as your best friend and nothing more. I don't know if that would be easier and I feel so guilty thinking that way but- my mind's a mess, Tadashi. My brain is moving faster than my mouth. I have all these feelings, resentment, regret, love, grief. I wish you could be my Ligeia."

It was a story they'd read in high school, about a man obsessed with his lover, who lost her only to marry another who also died and was revived with the face of his first love. But the world didn't work like that. There had only been one Tadashi, and Wesley could never have him back.

"I'm still grieving. I still love you. But I think… One day I'll probably move on, right? And I just don't want to think that you'd hate me. Would you hate me? Would you have hated me if I'd rejected you years ago? Would you hate me if I left you now? I wish I could stay here and love you forever. But the world can't lose both of us, can it? Someone has to live and love in your honor."

Wesley took a breath of cold air and he realized this had been all about him. He'd never spent this much time talking about himself, not even when they'd been dating and Tadashi had asked him about his day.

"I feel selfish, nattering on like this about me. Hiro's doing good, Tadashi. You'd be so proud of him, he's growing into such a great young man. He's not the next you but I think you expected that. He's perfectly himself and it's so refreshing to see. Khary's doing well, too. I think you'd be proud of both of them. Our friends all miss you, but everyone is doing the best they can. You made us all better, we're just trying to live up to what you see in us."

Changing the topic made Wes see from a different perspective. He'd come here, desperate to talk to Tadashi, hoping he could get it all out and move forward. But all he could do was his best, and from where he stood, he couldn't move on just yet.

"I'll be back, my love. We have so much to talk about."

He leaned down and whispered the next part as if entrusting Tadashi with one final secret, "I'll love you forever."

And that much was true. He would revisit the grave many times, would mourn and argue and apologize, and eventually, he would grow. But one thing never changed, one thing remained perfectly unbroken. Wesley would love Tadashi forever.