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My dearest, Atsushi,
I do not know where you are when this reaches you, I will have my sister send this to you but I hope that this letter finds you in good health. I write this letter to you as a means to bring an end to our relationship. Though our time together has been short, I hold those memories dearly. I write this letter as I lie on my deathbed and as I write this, I can’t help but reminisce about us. I remember our first meeting as if it was yesterday. I held some random flower that looked pretty, “Irises stand for faith, trust, wisdom, hope, and valor.” You said to me with a smile, I fell for you at that moment. You were a florist in that store, after that first meeting, I kept coming as much as I could, buying different flowers so that I could talk to you. To me you are my Iris, you are what I live for. I remember the day you trusted me to see your scars, how I wanted to bring the same pain you received to those who’ve given it to you, but you are far too kind. You forgive them as if they deserved any redemption. For you my dear, would I do anything so long as I see your smile. How I will miss your smile. Your smile rids all my worries, your smile brightens my day. You believe that you are the ugliest thing in this world, but my dear this world would be nothing to me if it weren’t for you. You, my muse, brought color to my dull world. I could paint you a million times and it still wouldn’t be enough to show you your beauty.
I apologize, my dearest, for leaving your heart in the dust. It is not my wish to hurt you, but what else can I do? I cannot stand to tell you this in person for it pains me to see you cry. How my heart fell into pieces the first time I saw you cry, I promised that I would never make you cry yet here I am writing you this letter. I do not wish for you to see me all weak. It would break me to see you all helpless. I fear that by the time this letter reaches you, I have passed. I have been diagnosed with an illness since childhood, it was not my intention to hide this from you. Despite that, I still chose to hide it from you, and for that, I apologize. I hope that you forgive my selfishness. I know that all this may come to you as a shock, but believe me, I had not known that my illness had gotten worse till it was too late. I get weaker and weaker as each day passes, I miss the times when I could go anywhere with no assistance, I am as fragile as a tapestry. Though I am in pain from my illness, it hurts me more that I won’t be able to see you as I pass. You are my sun, the sky is forever gray to me without you.
I write this letter not just to tell you about the end of our relationship but also to ask of you not to grieve over me. I would not want to leave this world knowing you are sorrowful. It is my wish that you find someone who you can spend the rest of your life with. I hope that person brings colors to your life. Shall you see the world in anything but dull with them. I wish for you to stop belittling yourself. You are more than enough dear, I'm sure that when you find someone special to you, they will agree with me, but if they do not, then they are undeserving of you. Do not base all of your happiness on others, yours matters too. And do not hide yourself dear, when they accept you for who you are, when they make you happy, when they are no reminder of your past, then I’m sure they are truly right for you. I have rambled on long enough, it is time for me to end this, but before I do so, I must tell you that this is not the only letter I have written for you, I have written so many but kept all of them to myself. I have put them all in a small box but I do not know where my sister has put them. If maybe she had sent it to you, I apologize for my cliched writing. And to that, I end my letter.
Sincerely yours, Ryuunosuke
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My dearest, Ryuunosuke,
You are a fool, a stupid, mindless, idiotic fool. I will deny you of your peace even in death. You have no right to end this in letters. If I must, I will face death himself to bring you back to the living, only then can you tell me this is over. Yes, I will meet death and make sure you regret ever writing this letter to me. How dare you think it is fair to write a letter never waiting for a reply. You think of me as some Iris? I will trample you like a flower. You anger me even in death. You reminisce about us as if you didn’t choose to move as far from me as possible. You remind me no more as Columbine, foolish and folly. If I truly am your Iris, why did you leave? Why did you suffer all alone, when I could’ve cared for you till the end?
My dear, you ruin me in ways you cannot imagine. I wrote you letters, and not once did I receive a reply. Till I got this foolish of a letter from you, how I had my hopes up from the sight of it. You know the fragility of tapestries yet you find yourself destroying ours. I thought I finally read you oh so well, I knew so much about you no matter how hard you tried to hide it. Times you walked on eggshells around me, hiding your clandestine meetings, every cough, every breath, and every pain. Yes, I’ve known for the longest time of your illness. You write so much of how much peace I bring to you yet you made me feel otherwise. You hid your illness from me as if I was some fool. Why is that? Why hide your pain from me? You know me better than I know myself, you know better than others how I would see past your illness, yet you hide it. My dear, if you asked, I would’ve gone to the ends of the Earth to find you a cure. If I had to sacrifice my life in return for yours, then I would do it in a heartbeat. I respected your choice of leaving because I wish not to hurt or anger you, but this is what I receive? You would hate to see me in pain watching you, but I’ve suffered more knowing you are different and I could not care for you. You, my dear, are a cruel cruel man.
No, I will not find someone else. You wish to leave, then so be it, but I will curse you, even in the afterlife. I will curse your name till my very last breath. Do you remember what you once told me, my dear? You said that love was the cruelest of curses, so I shall curse you with every single bone in my body. There is no one right for me, except for you. You are my camelia, a flame in my heart. You have seen me at my worst and you stayed, you became the worst and the best of me. I’ve been ruined that I cannot be fixed, but you stayed. You loved me as if I was brand new. What made you believe that anyone else could do what you could? What makes you think I’ll let anyone else try to understand me the way you did? I do hope that in receiving this letter you are at your happiest, so when you read this letter, you will feel guilt and regret. I hope that even in death, I will haunt your every being as you have mine.
Sincerely yours, Atushi
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My dearest, Ryuunosuke,
I apologize for my hostile letter, I did not wish to curse you as I did then. It had only been in a fit of anger, please forgive my manners. I’ve cleared my mind now, so I will write to you once again. I received your letters, each and every one of them and my dearest you truly know how to fuel my anger. Gin gave to me during your burial, which was today, if you didn’t know. I do hope in reading this, I gave you a lift in your spirits, because writing this has brought me such.
My moon, you’ve always shy’ed away from that nickname, yet here you are calling me your sun. Do you know why I call you that? It started from our very first meeting. Forgive my bluntness, but you reminded me nothing about those flowers. Upon entering the store, you looked as if you wanted to leave immediately, but you didn't. You looked quite intimidating staring at each flower I would say and I couldn’t help but watch, see which flowers you would pick. First sight of you reminded me of the endless darkness the night brings, but then you smiled at the Irises you held. Your smile shone like a moon in the darkest of nights. If losing me brought color to your gray skies, then you have brought abyssal darkness to mine. I never wanted to understand someone so much till then. You write of our first meeting, but do you forget, you ran away as soon as you bought the flowers after I spoke to you. I thought you would never come back after that, you have no idea how I regretted saying those words, but you came back. Again and again and again.
Though you are still a very foolish Columbine to me, you are more than a camelia. You, my moon, are my gardenia, an oath that I hold so deeply in my heart. Your departure has brought me to ruins. A year of silence from you, every letter I sent receiving no reply. Did you ever receive them? Did you read them? If so, why didn’t you reply? I wished to have seen you once more, I yearned for your face in your paintings. Do you know that in all of your hundreds of portraits there is only one of yours? And my dearest, I’ve taken about the same amount of painting classes as all your paintings combined, so that one day I could paint you the way you couldn’t even paint yourself. You saw so much from me yet you were blind when it came to yourself. Tell me my moon, what was there to see with me, because if I could, I would spend an eternity trying to understand every fiber of your being. You’ve told me so much about yourself, yet knowing you hid your illness makes me wonder, if there were parts of you that you hid as well. Not that I blame you for your secrecy, but I can’t help but wonder if I knew you bit more, would you have stayed?
I miss you so much, my moon. I’ve spent sleepless nights trying to paint you, writing to you, waiting for you, but you never came. There were times where I would spend weeks locked in my home, the others tried to get me out, tried to make me forget you. But I pushed them away, I locked them away. Does that disappoint you? I don’t want to forget you. I don’t think I can breathe so easily without you? How much do I have to wait till I can see you again?
Sincerely yours, Atsushi