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I sat down by my desk in the warm, dim light of the lamp beside me. The chair was exceptionally uncomfortable, but that was probably due to what I was about to write, rather than the chair itself.
I picked up my quill, it felt weirdly heavy, I held it over a blank sheet of paper, the black ink dripping onto its smooth, white surface. I did not know what to say, my emotions unclear and hazy, yet I knew I had to write this letter, even if it were against my own will.
‘Mon cher ami¹’, no, I could not possibly start this letter like that, so I ripped the paper apart into four and threw it somewhere on the floor mindlessly. ‘Vanitas’, this wasn't quite right either, it was laconic, dry, that was yet another page wasted.
What was it that I meant to say? What would be able describe my very view of Vanitas? Right, that was as close as I could possibly get, ‘Mon très cher² Vanitas’. He was just that, always and forever my dearest.
And yet… and yet mon amour³ felt too strong, something Vanitas would not want to hear. Besides, I could not truly tell if that would be the right word for me to use, regardless of his judgment of it, this was never love that I felt, no, it was something way more complex and beautiful than that.
I could feel my stomach clenching at the very thought of him, this was way more difficult than I initially thought it would be. I knew it would not be pleasant, but this was beyond awful, it was terribly suffocating, nauseating.
Oh well… I could not give up on writing this, not now at least. I had made up my mind and needed to stand by it. No matter just how painful the process would be, it was still truly necessary.
I tightened my grip on the quill and continued sketching out my thoughts. ‘You had forever been my greatest desire,’ I wrote, as my hand flinched at the last word. «Desire»? Sounds beyond unfortunate from under the pen of one who longed for your blood.
‘Vanitas, you were so perfectly imperfect – a human indeed,’ he was just that, endlessly breathtaking in every way imaginable. ‘I wish I were less of a coward, I wish I had told you all this before the end had come for you.’
‘I wish I had told you how much I felt for you,’ my hand had already been getting weaker, thanks to just how tense my muscles were. I wanted to say it all, but I felt, as if Vanitas would have never read this if I seemed to be too emotionally engaged, as he himself was not.
‘Beautiful, loyal, divine… All that you were and all that I miss, I do,’ my vision blurry, out of focus, ‘If only I could see you still, touch you, love you even…’
This was absurd, why was I so eager to cause myself such suffering with Vanitas’ face burned into my memory. I offered my hand, and yet he was just barely out of my reach.
That was in fact how it had always been for me. Anyone worth wanting, loving, cherishing… Them I could never have, as they slipped right out of my grip. I had no other words I could use in this letter – none that I had found fitting, really. I was shaking. In this pure grief I was in, I scratched out the previous lines of rather brief text.
«Grief»? He had made his definite exit long ago, yet this feeling had never passed. I had been drenched in this same sense of dread ever since.
‘If I were to meet you again, I would cry’, I wrote, my hand trembling, causing my writing to look like that of a kindergartener. My legs betrayed me harshly as I fell down to my knees, salty tears filled with sorrow streaming down my cheeks. “Vanitas, j’ai menti⁴,” I mumbled to myself in amuck, “I cannot bear your absence, mon cheri⁵, come back…”