Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Until My Dying Day ❯ Finality ( Chapter 10 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: KentraShinataku02 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.01.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 211 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.01.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 211 | Status: Work In Progress
Until My Dying Day
Part Ten: Finality
Heero jerked his head as the sound of the gunshot erupted through the silent darkness. A sinking feeling of dread settled in the deepest parts of his body as he closed his laptop and rigidly stood. His heart sped up as he peered into the outside darkness through the window. Senses coming to him quickly, he turned and bolted up the stairs, running into things along the way to reach the most logical person; Wufei. He would have pounded on his door, but at that moment it flew open as Wufei ran out and crashed into a startled Heero, in too serious state of shock to speak. For a second, he stared dumbly while clutching Heero's shirt, before pushing him away and jumping down the stairs, taking three at a time. Not wanting to jump to the same conclusions too quickly, he allowed Wufei to pass him by without following. He decided he would check Duo's room first, though on his way he noticed a strange factor. His own bedroom door was opened, the door that he strictly enforced must remain closed. Peering his head inside, unwilling to ignore the possibility that Duo was occupying the room, he noticed that though the room was void of human presence, the sheets were folded back, revealing a folded white piece
of paper covered in...
//Blood...// Heero realize, the dooming feeling tearing apart at the pits of his stomach. In a trancelike movement, unwilling to believe the inevitable, he slowly unfolded the bloodstained sheet, pouring out the tragically written words that were scrawled across the paper. His eyes grew wide while an eerie chill poisoned his body, and he realized that this was _Duo's_ blood spilling across his hands, something he knew but didn't want to believe.
'Heero,
Since I met you, I've admired you as a brother. Your strength and perfection always have made me hold you in very high regard, and though I've been a great annoyance at times, I hope you can find it in your hidden heart to forgive my memory.
All the times you guys pushed me away, you never worried when I needed it, and I know _damn_ well that _some_ of you have heard my cry. I caught Wufei listening at my door, and not even _he_ knocked to see what was wrong. Of course not, nobody cared, at least not until it was too late. You guys had a lot to deal with, I know that. I did too. But you
could have spared me a few minutes. Was it really too much to ask?
I'm sorry for the state of this letter, but insane people to tend to ramble, ne? Maybe you'll laugh at that, maybe I can crack that grim mask of yours. You made it clear what you wanted when I tried to jump from the car. You hit me. You didn't want to be responsible for my death. Now you don't have to be, because I'll be dead by time you read this anyways, and you won't know until too late. Conscience cleared.
I really should be writing this to Wufei as well, but I'm out of time to stay my hand, I'm too far gone. I really loved Wufei, everything about him is so perfectly fashioned, his eyes hold a beautiful black fire that only time will smolder. I love him, but now I know he will never love me. I don't think he realized, tell him for me, please Heero, just let him have a taste of the love that I feel for him.
I hope with every inch of my dying soul that none of you will cry for me, not that you would even think of it. I've taken my life from my own possessions and handed it over to Shinigami. It's too hard to live anymore. I figured you would understand this best, but you weren't as weak as I to completely give in. My unshed tears echo my heartbeat, pounding inside my eyelids to let me cry, and my wrists are running out of room for scars. Daytime is a living torture to me, and every sleepless night is worse. I know I must sound like the weakest man you ever met, but these short teenage years have already lasted an eternity.
Duo Maxwell
P.S. Wufei- I always told myself that I would love you until my dying day. I was right for once, for the first time ever. This time you can't say I fucked up. I love you.'
Heero stood with a face contorted by horror, mouth and eyes widened with the words that had just flowed through his mind.
"No..." he whispered sullenly, then, clenching the letter firmly in his hand, "NO!"
He fled from the room, jumping the entire staircase at once, though he landed on his knees at the bottom, and rushed outside, bypassing a bewildered looking Quatre and Trowa. A cry rang into the icy air around him, a cry similar to the one he had strangled only moments before, a cry that could belong to nobody else but Wufei.
"NO! No... Duo..."
Heero followed to sound of muffled crying, running as fast as he could until he saw the two figures that were illuminated by the moonlight atop a hill, one kneeling as he clutched the other to his chest. He sprinted up the hill, stopping horrified, meters from the two, staring as Wufei held Duo, a thick red substance flowing freely over his palms.
"Duo..." Heero murmured, startling the crying boy. Wufei buried his face deeper into Duo's lifeless chest, too ashamed to let Heero's eyes witness his tears. Heero rigidly put a hand on Wufei's trembling shoulder as the boy drew a sharp breath. He finally pulled up his head to meet the gaze that he expected to be sharp and berating, yet it was soft and filled with sympathy for a lost.... comrade? Partner? //No.// Wufei decided, //Yuy lost a _friend_.//
A silent discussion took place between their eyes, and Wufei nodded, wiping his tears on Duo's shirt. He lifted his lifeless body from the muddy grass, noticing how light he was from refusing food for so long. He barely withheld another crying gasp as his knees began to shake. Heero awkwardly spread his arms around Wufei, pressing them both to the body between them. Sensing that he could barely uphold himself, Heero took Duo's thin body from a reluctant Wufei as he also supported himself.
"It was my fault," Wufei croaked as they made their way back to the house, "He... he asked me if I loved him... and I told him that I didn't know..."
"Listen to me, Wufei: You can't blame yourself for this. He would have done it sooner or later. Once somebody gets that deeply into that mind state, they are not coming back to complete sanity," Heero explained sternly, as the silence descended again, only plagued by Wufei's struggled sobs. Heero staggered beneath the weight he was carrying, not because the boys were too much for him, but because everything seemed to be closing in at once. The very air around him seemed to be suffocating him with its weight. Duo couldn't be gone, it couldn't be real.
//No. Death is something that I just have to accept. That's what I've been doing all my life, right?// he thought, attempting to convince himself that the blood pouring from Duo's right temple was just a result of another irreversible death. It wasn't something he could control, not something he could change. Control. He could never grasp a fluent sense of control to prevent something like this, he realized as they were tainted by the light flooding from the porch, his lack of control apparent as one of his first tears trickled down his face.
Quatre and Trowa waited expectantly on the porch, Quatre more shaken than the confused Trowa, Wufei noticed as they inched nearer to the house. How would he explain what he had done? This was all his fault. The eyes of both waiting boys widened in unison as their vision fell upon the limp body, noticing a braid draped casually over his arm. Quatre gasped, knowing that he was dead upon seeing him, while Trowa stood in an uncertain shock, knowing nothing of Duo's depression or the events of the past weeks.
"Is he...dead?" Trowa asked cautiously, hoping that the answer would not come. Nobody answered, creating an uncomfortably long silence and revealing the inexplicable truth that nobody wanted to hear. Trowa lowered his eyes to the muddy grass beneath his feet as the boys walked into the door that Quatre held open. Duo's body was laid over the kitchen table before Heero grabbed towels from the cupboard and sent Quatre for a first aid kit, though knowing it was already too late for that.
"Might as well stop the bleeding, at least..." he muttered in an undertone, receiving only silence as an answer from Trowa and Wufei. He laid an ear to Duo's chest, yet in vain as his heart had given its last beats only moments after he had pulled the trigger. No breath emitted from his lips and the steady rise and fall of his chest had ceased. There was no need to call an ambulance, even if they had the money for it. The boy was dead, there was no changing it. It was so final. They would never see his smile or hear one of his trying, though sometimes perverted and unhumorous, jokes again, never shrug off the incessant idle chatter, never hear his crazy theories on life and death, and all of a sudden Heero regretted never being able to really _talk_ to Duo. He had never actually taken the time to care.
And now he never would.
+
Final. Everything was so final, death was always final.
//Whenever I learn to love someone, my mistakes result in their death. First Meiran, now Duo. I will never love again.// Wufei thought to himself as he washed the blood from the only thing that still appeared living on Duo's body, his silky chestnut hair. The sink was filling with crimson streaked water as Wufei cleaned the matted blood out as best as he could, tenderly avoiding the sloppy stitches that Trowa had sewn to close the never-healing wound. At least it stopped the blood from causing stains in the house; it had
already stained their souls.
Reluctantly, Wufei seized the band on Duo's braid, liberating the strands for a final time. It felt so wrong to touch his hair without his permission, not like that morning... That morning had been less than 12 hours ago. In only 12 hours he had undergone the most heavenly bliss and punished with the terrors of hell. Nothing would be the same, not ever. He would never have a chance to fix his mistakes, not one opportunity to say 'I love you.' And he knew, as he neatly rebraided the soft fibers between his fingers, that nothing could change finality.
He stared at the lifeless body, eyes shut and mouth hanging slightly open, eerie to see the usually energetic boy so frozen and still. He brushed a finger across his cheek, abruptly drawing back when the cold skin touched him. Tears began stealing down his cheeks again as he scolded his own weakness. He covered his face with a hand as he sensed eyes upon him, a presence from the opposite side of the room. He refused to turn to face the unwelcome visitor, refused to magnify his vulnerability to whoever's intrusive eyes studied him. He wasn't supposed to cry, he was strong. He was a man, not a child. But thoughts would not convince him of anything as he melted into the hand that settled on his shouldered and let his tears free. Two strong arms encircled him from behind, revealing Heero's identity. Wufei let the warmth spread over him, feeling Heero around him and allowing the heated skin to comfort him.
"There's nothing you can do," he whispered, "I know you loved him, but there is nothing you can do."
"I know..." he murmured in reply, nodding, "aren't we going to burry him?"
"We don't have a casket," Heero stated practically.
"Right..." Wufei commented half-heartedly.
"We could cremate him," the steel-eyed boy offered.
"No!" Wufei burst, louder than intended. His fingers were still toying with the tail of
Duo's braid; he couldn't bear to see all that destroyed. He couldn't destroy such beauty,
"Couldn't we find something to burry him in?"
"I can have Trowa help me build something with the wood planks in the garage. Get Duo prepared."
Wufei nodded as Heero left the room. He fingered Duo's knife in his pocket; he had carried it with him since he had taken it away. With sudden determination, he knew what he was going after. He would make sure that Duo would be buried with possessions that meant something, that told his story, even the mutilating tools of destruction that had ended his life. He already had Duo's knife and gun, yet there was still more he needed to acquire. Running to his bedroom, items listed in his mind. In the end, he decided on the weapons, a piece of the broken mirror, his CD player and collection or rock and punk CDs, a bit of the torn bed sheets and Duo's traditional priest outfit. He was already wearing his crucifix and the green hospital wristband, or else Wufei would have collected those as well. By the time he had dressed Duo in his clothes, which left him feeling intrusively guilty, the others were still in the garage building their rough version of a casket to give Duo a mildly proper burial. Duo hadn't had a proper birth, proper childhood, or a proper life really. Wufei would make sure that he had _something_.
He gently lifted Duo's body and carried him into the living room, laying him down softly on the long coffee table. He reached into the cabinet and pulled out two candles when Quatre arrived in the doorway, already a step ahead of him with three marble candles balanced in his arms. Wufei smiled to acknowledge Quatre's help and to thank him for the company. Though he would usually prefer solitude, he was decidedly grateful to avoid loneliness tonight.
Quatre's eyes were red from tears, Wufei noticed for the first time as he illuminated the room with soft, golden candle light, casting a ghostly shadow over Duo's death smoldered face. Their eyes met in a common bond, a communal compassion. Quatre, as well as Heero, grieved for his _friend_.
+
"I was too weak, too unsure of the capacity of my sentiments to fully admit, or even understand. I love him. I wonder if he would want me to share that with all you. I honestly don't know, but I feel it's my obligation to take responsibility to his death," Wufei explained quietly, meeting the gaze of each of his companions in turn through the dusky pools of candle light. His usually composed body had drawn his knees defensively to his chest and his posture left his shoulders slumped in sorrow.
"You have no obligation to his death, Wufei," said a voice to the right where Heero was seated next to him.
"Of course I do, if it wasn't for me he'd still be alive," Wufei said, letting sorrow spread over him.
"Don't be so big on yourself," Heero stated sternly, "he had so many other problems that he refused to show. I should have asked, but didn't. He used to hint to me sometimes...but I never asked. I guess it's time you see what he wrote to me." Out of his pocket came a battered, bloody piece of paper that was handed to Wufei first. Each of them read it carefully, disbelievingly, Wufei in horror, Trowa wearing the same unreadable somber face, and Quatre wide-eyed. Wufei's tears fell again as he kneeled to the table where Duo lay and planted a light, feathery kiss on his cold lips.
+
'Duo Maxwell, I will love you until my dying day' Wufei inscribed on the box that Duo was lying in, waiting for burial. Each of them had carved something different, be it words
like his own, or pictures like Trowa's two eyes and a scythe. On the top was written:
Duo Maxwell - Gundam Pilot
AC195 - Suicide
Taken by Shinigami
All of the items that Wufei had collected, along with Heero's suicide letter, had accumulated inside the coffin with Duo's body, awaiting his descent into the cold dirt.
A hole had been dug during the night beneath an old willow tree, and on the tree was engraved the only tombstone he would ever have. It read "Duo Maxwell 02 AC195" in the bark where the words would remain scarred forever, to keep his soul locked away in finality.
~Owari
Final A/n: Thats the end... no matter how hard it was for me to finish it, this was the first GW story I started, and it is time to move on to bigger and better things. I hope you all liked it, and weren't too dissapointed at the ending. Enjoy this, and any others of my stories you may come across!
Part Ten: Finality
Heero jerked his head as the sound of the gunshot erupted through the silent darkness. A sinking feeling of dread settled in the deepest parts of his body as he closed his laptop and rigidly stood. His heart sped up as he peered into the outside darkness through the window. Senses coming to him quickly, he turned and bolted up the stairs, running into things along the way to reach the most logical person; Wufei. He would have pounded on his door, but at that moment it flew open as Wufei ran out and crashed into a startled Heero, in too serious state of shock to speak. For a second, he stared dumbly while clutching Heero's shirt, before pushing him away and jumping down the stairs, taking three at a time. Not wanting to jump to the same conclusions too quickly, he allowed Wufei to pass him by without following. He decided he would check Duo's room first, though on his way he noticed a strange factor. His own bedroom door was opened, the door that he strictly enforced must remain closed. Peering his head inside, unwilling to ignore the possibility that Duo was occupying the room, he noticed that though the room was void of human presence, the sheets were folded back, revealing a folded white piece
of paper covered in...
//Blood...// Heero realize, the dooming feeling tearing apart at the pits of his stomach. In a trancelike movement, unwilling to believe the inevitable, he slowly unfolded the bloodstained sheet, pouring out the tragically written words that were scrawled across the paper. His eyes grew wide while an eerie chill poisoned his body, and he realized that this was _Duo's_ blood spilling across his hands, something he knew but didn't want to believe.
'Heero,
Since I met you, I've admired you as a brother. Your strength and perfection always have made me hold you in very high regard, and though I've been a great annoyance at times, I hope you can find it in your hidden heart to forgive my memory.
All the times you guys pushed me away, you never worried when I needed it, and I know _damn_ well that _some_ of you have heard my cry. I caught Wufei listening at my door, and not even _he_ knocked to see what was wrong. Of course not, nobody cared, at least not until it was too late. You guys had a lot to deal with, I know that. I did too. But you
could have spared me a few minutes. Was it really too much to ask?
I'm sorry for the state of this letter, but insane people to tend to ramble, ne? Maybe you'll laugh at that, maybe I can crack that grim mask of yours. You made it clear what you wanted when I tried to jump from the car. You hit me. You didn't want to be responsible for my death. Now you don't have to be, because I'll be dead by time you read this anyways, and you won't know until too late. Conscience cleared.
I really should be writing this to Wufei as well, but I'm out of time to stay my hand, I'm too far gone. I really loved Wufei, everything about him is so perfectly fashioned, his eyes hold a beautiful black fire that only time will smolder. I love him, but now I know he will never love me. I don't think he realized, tell him for me, please Heero, just let him have a taste of the love that I feel for him.
I hope with every inch of my dying soul that none of you will cry for me, not that you would even think of it. I've taken my life from my own possessions and handed it over to Shinigami. It's too hard to live anymore. I figured you would understand this best, but you weren't as weak as I to completely give in. My unshed tears echo my heartbeat, pounding inside my eyelids to let me cry, and my wrists are running out of room for scars. Daytime is a living torture to me, and every sleepless night is worse. I know I must sound like the weakest man you ever met, but these short teenage years have already lasted an eternity.
Duo Maxwell
P.S. Wufei- I always told myself that I would love you until my dying day. I was right for once, for the first time ever. This time you can't say I fucked up. I love you.'
Heero stood with a face contorted by horror, mouth and eyes widened with the words that had just flowed through his mind.
"No..." he whispered sullenly, then, clenching the letter firmly in his hand, "NO!"
He fled from the room, jumping the entire staircase at once, though he landed on his knees at the bottom, and rushed outside, bypassing a bewildered looking Quatre and Trowa. A cry rang into the icy air around him, a cry similar to the one he had strangled only moments before, a cry that could belong to nobody else but Wufei.
"NO! No... Duo..."
Heero followed to sound of muffled crying, running as fast as he could until he saw the two figures that were illuminated by the moonlight atop a hill, one kneeling as he clutched the other to his chest. He sprinted up the hill, stopping horrified, meters from the two, staring as Wufei held Duo, a thick red substance flowing freely over his palms.
"Duo..." Heero murmured, startling the crying boy. Wufei buried his face deeper into Duo's lifeless chest, too ashamed to let Heero's eyes witness his tears. Heero rigidly put a hand on Wufei's trembling shoulder as the boy drew a sharp breath. He finally pulled up his head to meet the gaze that he expected to be sharp and berating, yet it was soft and filled with sympathy for a lost.... comrade? Partner? //No.// Wufei decided, //Yuy lost a _friend_.//
A silent discussion took place between their eyes, and Wufei nodded, wiping his tears on Duo's shirt. He lifted his lifeless body from the muddy grass, noticing how light he was from refusing food for so long. He barely withheld another crying gasp as his knees began to shake. Heero awkwardly spread his arms around Wufei, pressing them both to the body between them. Sensing that he could barely uphold himself, Heero took Duo's thin body from a reluctant Wufei as he also supported himself.
"It was my fault," Wufei croaked as they made their way back to the house, "He... he asked me if I loved him... and I told him that I didn't know..."
"Listen to me, Wufei: You can't blame yourself for this. He would have done it sooner or later. Once somebody gets that deeply into that mind state, they are not coming back to complete sanity," Heero explained sternly, as the silence descended again, only plagued by Wufei's struggled sobs. Heero staggered beneath the weight he was carrying, not because the boys were too much for him, but because everything seemed to be closing in at once. The very air around him seemed to be suffocating him with its weight. Duo couldn't be gone, it couldn't be real.
//No. Death is something that I just have to accept. That's what I've been doing all my life, right?// he thought, attempting to convince himself that the blood pouring from Duo's right temple was just a result of another irreversible death. It wasn't something he could control, not something he could change. Control. He could never grasp a fluent sense of control to prevent something like this, he realized as they were tainted by the light flooding from the porch, his lack of control apparent as one of his first tears trickled down his face.
Quatre and Trowa waited expectantly on the porch, Quatre more shaken than the confused Trowa, Wufei noticed as they inched nearer to the house. How would he explain what he had done? This was all his fault. The eyes of both waiting boys widened in unison as their vision fell upon the limp body, noticing a braid draped casually over his arm. Quatre gasped, knowing that he was dead upon seeing him, while Trowa stood in an uncertain shock, knowing nothing of Duo's depression or the events of the past weeks.
"Is he...dead?" Trowa asked cautiously, hoping that the answer would not come. Nobody answered, creating an uncomfortably long silence and revealing the inexplicable truth that nobody wanted to hear. Trowa lowered his eyes to the muddy grass beneath his feet as the boys walked into the door that Quatre held open. Duo's body was laid over the kitchen table before Heero grabbed towels from the cupboard and sent Quatre for a first aid kit, though knowing it was already too late for that.
"Might as well stop the bleeding, at least..." he muttered in an undertone, receiving only silence as an answer from Trowa and Wufei. He laid an ear to Duo's chest, yet in vain as his heart had given its last beats only moments after he had pulled the trigger. No breath emitted from his lips and the steady rise and fall of his chest had ceased. There was no need to call an ambulance, even if they had the money for it. The boy was dead, there was no changing it. It was so final. They would never see his smile or hear one of his trying, though sometimes perverted and unhumorous, jokes again, never shrug off the incessant idle chatter, never hear his crazy theories on life and death, and all of a sudden Heero regretted never being able to really _talk_ to Duo. He had never actually taken the time to care.
And now he never would.
+
Final. Everything was so final, death was always final.
//Whenever I learn to love someone, my mistakes result in their death. First Meiran, now Duo. I will never love again.// Wufei thought to himself as he washed the blood from the only thing that still appeared living on Duo's body, his silky chestnut hair. The sink was filling with crimson streaked water as Wufei cleaned the matted blood out as best as he could, tenderly avoiding the sloppy stitches that Trowa had sewn to close the never-healing wound. At least it stopped the blood from causing stains in the house; it had
already stained their souls.
Reluctantly, Wufei seized the band on Duo's braid, liberating the strands for a final time. It felt so wrong to touch his hair without his permission, not like that morning... That morning had been less than 12 hours ago. In only 12 hours he had undergone the most heavenly bliss and punished with the terrors of hell. Nothing would be the same, not ever. He would never have a chance to fix his mistakes, not one opportunity to say 'I love you.' And he knew, as he neatly rebraided the soft fibers between his fingers, that nothing could change finality.
He stared at the lifeless body, eyes shut and mouth hanging slightly open, eerie to see the usually energetic boy so frozen and still. He brushed a finger across his cheek, abruptly drawing back when the cold skin touched him. Tears began stealing down his cheeks again as he scolded his own weakness. He covered his face with a hand as he sensed eyes upon him, a presence from the opposite side of the room. He refused to turn to face the unwelcome visitor, refused to magnify his vulnerability to whoever's intrusive eyes studied him. He wasn't supposed to cry, he was strong. He was a man, not a child. But thoughts would not convince him of anything as he melted into the hand that settled on his shouldered and let his tears free. Two strong arms encircled him from behind, revealing Heero's identity. Wufei let the warmth spread over him, feeling Heero around him and allowing the heated skin to comfort him.
"There's nothing you can do," he whispered, "I know you loved him, but there is nothing you can do."
"I know..." he murmured in reply, nodding, "aren't we going to burry him?"
"We don't have a casket," Heero stated practically.
"Right..." Wufei commented half-heartedly.
"We could cremate him," the steel-eyed boy offered.
"No!" Wufei burst, louder than intended. His fingers were still toying with the tail of
Duo's braid; he couldn't bear to see all that destroyed. He couldn't destroy such beauty,
"Couldn't we find something to burry him in?"
"I can have Trowa help me build something with the wood planks in the garage. Get Duo prepared."
Wufei nodded as Heero left the room. He fingered Duo's knife in his pocket; he had carried it with him since he had taken it away. With sudden determination, he knew what he was going after. He would make sure that Duo would be buried with possessions that meant something, that told his story, even the mutilating tools of destruction that had ended his life. He already had Duo's knife and gun, yet there was still more he needed to acquire. Running to his bedroom, items listed in his mind. In the end, he decided on the weapons, a piece of the broken mirror, his CD player and collection or rock and punk CDs, a bit of the torn bed sheets and Duo's traditional priest outfit. He was already wearing his crucifix and the green hospital wristband, or else Wufei would have collected those as well. By the time he had dressed Duo in his clothes, which left him feeling intrusively guilty, the others were still in the garage building their rough version of a casket to give Duo a mildly proper burial. Duo hadn't had a proper birth, proper childhood, or a proper life really. Wufei would make sure that he had _something_.
He gently lifted Duo's body and carried him into the living room, laying him down softly on the long coffee table. He reached into the cabinet and pulled out two candles when Quatre arrived in the doorway, already a step ahead of him with three marble candles balanced in his arms. Wufei smiled to acknowledge Quatre's help and to thank him for the company. Though he would usually prefer solitude, he was decidedly grateful to avoid loneliness tonight.
Quatre's eyes were red from tears, Wufei noticed for the first time as he illuminated the room with soft, golden candle light, casting a ghostly shadow over Duo's death smoldered face. Their eyes met in a common bond, a communal compassion. Quatre, as well as Heero, grieved for his _friend_.
+
"I was too weak, too unsure of the capacity of my sentiments to fully admit, or even understand. I love him. I wonder if he would want me to share that with all you. I honestly don't know, but I feel it's my obligation to take responsibility to his death," Wufei explained quietly, meeting the gaze of each of his companions in turn through the dusky pools of candle light. His usually composed body had drawn his knees defensively to his chest and his posture left his shoulders slumped in sorrow.
"You have no obligation to his death, Wufei," said a voice to the right where Heero was seated next to him.
"Of course I do, if it wasn't for me he'd still be alive," Wufei said, letting sorrow spread over him.
"Don't be so big on yourself," Heero stated sternly, "he had so many other problems that he refused to show. I should have asked, but didn't. He used to hint to me sometimes...but I never asked. I guess it's time you see what he wrote to me." Out of his pocket came a battered, bloody piece of paper that was handed to Wufei first. Each of them read it carefully, disbelievingly, Wufei in horror, Trowa wearing the same unreadable somber face, and Quatre wide-eyed. Wufei's tears fell again as he kneeled to the table where Duo lay and planted a light, feathery kiss on his cold lips.
+
'Duo Maxwell, I will love you until my dying day' Wufei inscribed on the box that Duo was lying in, waiting for burial. Each of them had carved something different, be it words
like his own, or pictures like Trowa's two eyes and a scythe. On the top was written:
Duo Maxwell - Gundam Pilot
AC195 - Suicide
Taken by Shinigami
All of the items that Wufei had collected, along with Heero's suicide letter, had accumulated inside the coffin with Duo's body, awaiting his descent into the cold dirt.
A hole had been dug during the night beneath an old willow tree, and on the tree was engraved the only tombstone he would ever have. It read "Duo Maxwell 02 AC195" in the bark where the words would remain scarred forever, to keep his soul locked away in finality.
~Owari
Final A/n: Thats the end... no matter how hard it was for me to finish it, this was the first GW story I started, and it is time to move on to bigger and better things. I hope you all liked it, and weren't too dissapointed at the ending. Enjoy this, and any others of my stories you may come across!