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If you had asked him to pin down the specific moment in time when he had fallen out of love with Matsubusa, Aogiri wouldn’t be able to. The lines between vehement hatred and ardent passion had become too far blurred and too muddied. There was no particular juncture in time in which it happened. All that Aogiri knew is that, in what felt like an instant in the grand scheme of eternal time, his relationship with Matsubusa had grown bitter; it had soured and wilted over time, transforming into something completely unrecognizable.
It felt to him as if he had simply woken up one day only to find that the only man whom he had ever loved had become someone else entirely.
He will tell you that he had no choice but to rename Matsubusa as his rival.
The fact of the matter, though, is that the roots of the poison tree had, by then, already planted themselves deeply inside his mind and his heart.
While Aogiri gave the sapling water, Matsubusa chose to feed the raging fire.
Aogiri carefully - methodically - watered the tree, watching the droplets run down into its gnarled roots and make themselves a home there
Matsubusa instead ignited the flames, watching in wordless fury as they hungrily devoured years of desire and devotion.
They each sunned the sapling with their own differing ambitions and their impossible ideals.
The malevolence and spite of the once-young tree only grew darker with time.
And by the time that the poison tree finally bore its fruit, Matsubusa had ceased to be.
That was the day that Aogiri found that he no longer recognized himself; the day when he looked down and realized that his own hands were stained, marred with sickening blood and vile hatred.
He held the redhead’s battered and bruised body tightly after he had stolen the last breath of life from his beloved, rivers of ugly tears flowing freely down his face as he wept; wept for what could have been, what never was, and for the love that he had forsaken so selfishly.
That was the day that Aogiri realized that he had never stopped loving Matsubusa at all.