[A few questions that I need to know
How you could ever hurt me so]
*...a puzzled glance at a boy...*

I've been thinking a lot about us lately.

How could things have gone so wrong?

We hurt each other so much, in different ways.

And maybe that was because we were both too unsure, too new to those emotions, too scarred from the war...

Too intent, too extreme, too proud...

Too many misunderstandings, too much confusion, too many hidden things...

Just too much of everything, except the one thing we both needed...

I thought I was doing the right thing, but I guess I made a mistake somewhere.

You never thought I could do it, could you?

You were probably so sure of how I felt, what I did threw you off.

Should I have done what I did?

I know *why*.

I didn't expect you to do that...

I wasn't ready deal with what you did.

It took all that I had to be with you. Then things changed because how could I have ever known that you...

Could I have prevented it? Could I have smoothed things over? Could I have taken the words back?

I've always known that the past should remain buried. It's one of the many lessons I learned. It only hurts when you realize that you can do nothing to change it. That it's too late to think of past mistakes, too futile to think of if-onlys.

But still...

*Should* I have let go?

I know I hurt you when I did that, even if you never showed it.

You probably never expected *me* to do that, just as I never suspected that you...

You were too proud... too bewildered by what I did, to let it show. But I know it hurt you as it did me.

The way you gazed at me through suddenly shuttered eyes...

I never knew how to act around you.

You never acted like anyone I knew, so I...

So I behaved as I normally would.

That might've been a mistake.

We were too different, too intense, too alike...

Simply *too* much for it to last...

It hurts.

It hurts to admit that.

I thought I found the one person I could trust, the one person I could always return to and would stay the same...

The one person who wouldn't ever leave because they were simply too stubborn to surrender.

And you never did.

That was why I thought I could count on you to remain as you always had, confusing as you were...

It's when things change that the hurting and the pain starts. Just like when...

No. Don't go there. Don't think about...

That one, who suddenly appeared, and just as suddenly left. I had thought that I had gotten used to how my life would be. But with a few kind words, I suddenly saw how my life could change. If only things didn't happen, if only I hadn't left then...

If only things didn't *change*.

But...

Did things really change? Or did they stay the same? After all, when was there ever a peaceful time in my life? A child of war knows no peace, and that was all too true in my case...

If only, if only, if only. Heh. I said it was futile to think of if-onlys and now here I am, with nothing on my mind but if-onlys.

But I can't seem to help myself.

It hurts to have the images endlessly run through my mind as they do.

It hurts, but I can't help thinking that I might've been better off without you. Maybe then I wouldn't be stuck in this turmoil of confusion and pain.

...

No. I wouldn't have been. I *can't* have been, because if I had never met you... if I had never *known* you...

I never would have known the kind of intense love I feel for you. It's a complex mix of love and pain and confusion and endless agony and infinite pleasure.

The kind of love that is suited to just how complex we are...

Even now, I know that what I feel isn't something that can be expressed in mere words.

We are more than we seem, and so is what I feel for you...

But I guess you never knew that.

What I feel for you...

I've fought it so hard and for so *long*...

After all this time, I'm still fighting it, because if I ever find you again and things go as wrong as it did the last time hidden emotions were exposed...

Then I couldn't take it.

I *need* you, even if I never admitted it, because you are the only one who can make me feel like this... *love* like this, and I can't settle for a pale substitute of the real thing.

Substitute. Yes, I could be with *her* and I suppose that I could be content.

But it wouldn't be the same as being with you.

God.

How can you do this to me?

Even when you're not here you still manage to confuse and infuriate me.

Hn. I guess it's all part of the reason why I fell for you.

Through the confusion however...

I know what to do when we next meet.

And we will.

We may be apart now, but eventually...

Eventually...

A mission will put us together, and then you can't leave.

Then all things hidden will be revealed.

What happens afterwards will happen. But I can't just let go...

Not again.

I will make you listen to me.

I will make you *believe* me.

I love you too much to let it end this way, Duo.

Go to the next part: You Drive Me Crazy
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