So I sat in the shower. Waiting. Thinking. Hoping. For what? /Maybe I'm wrong?/ I shook my head, sending violent sprays of water toward the rest of the bathroom, since I had neglected to close the shower's sliding door. /Don't do this again! Don't delude yourself!/ My eyes shut tightly as I argued with myself, my fingers squeezing the small blade that I held once again. /Don't... don't give yourself that false hope again.../ I blinked. Water filled my vision, blurring everything around me. Looking down, I placed the blade against my wrist. /This is all I can do now. Perhaps it will make the both of us happy.../
~duo~
Like that morning, I didn't sleep for long. How annoying this was becoming. Not only did my life become a living hell, but I couldn't even escape it in sleep. Blinking my eyes open I flopped onto my back, suddenly quite interested in the ceiling light fixture. I looked at my watch. It was only about a half an hour later and the shower was still going... but I had no idea how long he'd been in there before I got home. /Have you been in the shower all day?/
I entertained the silly little thought for a moment, picturing Heero as a shriveled little prune of a boy when he finally came out of the bathroom. A quick glance around, however, told me that he'd been out of the shower at least long enough to straighten the room a bit. The clothes that were on the floor were gone, and his bedsheets were wrinkled. /Did you sleep all day, then?/ I bit my lip as I began to wonder what he'd done all day. Had he thought about me? I was sure he hated me by then... Biting hard, I closed my eyes and flopped over again, burying my face into the pillow, trying not to think of him.
~heero~
At the first cut, I winced, but it became painless. I had placed the blade at my wrist, at the place where my palm ended. Picturing him, it was easy to press down, and puncture that place. I winced because it hurt, but the pain in my chest soon made the pain in my arm almost totally unnoticable.
I had no idea whether I hated him or not. I knew that I loved him, however, and that I loved him more than my very life.
/Duo... how could you do this to me?/ But that was silly. He hadn't done anything to me. It was me sitting there, dripping my life away... It was me who had allowed that small hope in the first place. He didn't make me want him to love me... and he didn't make me so vulnerable as to believe that he did. This was all my fault.
Moving slowly, the hand holding the blade started a journey. It headed toward the inside of my elbow, following the blood vessel that was now bulging in my forearm. Unable at first to find it, that vein, I panicked, finally tensing all my muscles as I tried to figure out what to do. That showed me the correct path, and I was now following it. At brief moments, the water around me was tinged with red, becoming pink, then finally clear again. By now I wasn't seeing anything, though. My eyes, though still opened, perceived nothing around me, instead focusing only on his mocking, laughing face that I now saw before me yet again.
~duo~
Of course it didn't work. All I could think about was him, no matter what efforts I used against it. /Heero.../
The shower was still going.
I turned over and stared at the ceiling again. His face appeared there, smiling at me. It was the smile that he'd shown me the night before... right before he turned and buried himself in my embrace, falling asleep in my arms.
/He must hate me so much. But why? Because I love him?/ I tried to find answers. I hadn't thought about it earlier, but now I wanted to know. Almost curious enough to go to the bathroom door and demand he come out and tell me, in fact. Of course I didn't do that. I just lay there, placed my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling, speculating.
/Perhaps he's not... like that. Maybe I offended him. But then... why was he with me then? And why did he sleep with me? He -was- still there when I woke up.../ I'd succeeded in completely confusing myself. He was there when I woke up, and I had given him chance to leave before. Yet he'd stayed...
Then I tried it again.. tried giving him a chance to leave. He took that one. I was entirely baffled. /Maybe he thought I wanted him to leave... since I let go of him so much. Maybe this is all my fault.../ I shifted a little and placed an arm over my eyes, pondering that last thought. /Maybe he -does- love me.../
~heero~
I began then to feel sick. There was so much blood, and I was getting dizzy. The gash in my arm was now about a fourth of the way to my elbow. I had no idea how much you were supposed to cut, so I just kept going. My hand moved as if on auto-pilot, which I suppose that it was, since I was paying no mind to it anymore. All I could think about was Duo Maxwell. All I could see between the swirls of different colors and the vertigo spells was his face. His face... smiling at me, laughing at me, mocking me, laughing at me... even more. All I heard from all these faces was one sentence: Ai shiteru, Heero-chan. Ai shiteru... ai shiteru...
Things were beginning to fade. First I would see blackness mingled with the dizziness and Duo's face.. then there would be moments when I couldn't hear the shower. My body had long been numb. The water had grown ice cold as I sat there, but I couldn't even feel myself shaking. Almost as if I were in a dream, I began to hear his voice... a different sentence: Heero, come out.
Then a pounding started. I stopped hearing the water altogether. I had no idea whether my hand was still traveling the bloody path up my arm anymore. All that existed in my world then, was his voice.
And then that too disappeared... and all was black and silent.