It is during these times when all is quiet and I feel myself far removed from the world that, I go back to that place in time when I first saw that red light.

Suzaku.

The warmth against my skin, the sensation of falling, the vertigo, the unfolding of events.

Did it really happen?

Such a stupid question. Of course, it did. I need only look down at my wrists and touch the blue pearl on my ear and the answer would come to me, clear as crystal.

Suzaku.

Why?

What did it all mean?

It is silly to look at it in black and white. Life is never that simple. But there are times I cannot help but wonder. Was it just that simple after all? If it was a story in a book, then whichever way I look at it, it was all the same.

I had been the villain. The antagonist.

It was never Nakago. Never his fault. The choice had been all mine.

So does that mean, then, that, if we were put on a scale, I would have weighed less, had been of lesser value as a person, than Miaka ever was? Was it all a question of morality? Of values? An assessment of worth?

There had only been four of us. Four maidens. And there were a million girls in Japan to have chosen from. But it had to be me. Yui Hongo, the Seiryuu no Miko.

Why?

Did it all happen by chance? Were we just in the right place at the right time? Or was it all pre-destined? Ordained by some higher power? By an all-seeing god?

Why me?

Regrets? I have lots of those. But the experience in itself…Had time been reversed and I had been given a choice, would I have chosen otherwise?

Maybe…

But even if I had chosen otherwise, could I even deny the fact that I am capable of all that?

Hatred. Bitterness. Jealousy.

And loneliness. There had been so much that. So much that, had it been tangible, I would have drowned.

Even now I am still drowning.

Why? Why me?!

Suzaku, you took so much from me. You have made me less of a person.

Now I live by clinging to a lifeline.

Miaka. Keisuke. Tetsuya. Taka.

They know it all, and yet they’ve forgiven me. To them I owe so much.

So much love. Too much love.

I am drowning.

How ironic.

It is love that keeps me afloat and it will be the lack of it that will kill me.

It is their love now that gives me worth. Without it, I am nothing.

Each day is a day of penance. I can no longer feel hate. Not that I am incapable. One does not become a saint overnight.

But I fear hate for what it has done to me. I never conquered it. I just learned to run away from it. So now whenever I feel like I’m losing my temper, I clamp down on it hard and put a smile on my face.

I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to argue. My mistakes have been more than enough. No more. No more.

And how that consumes me. It is like a disease that eats away at my heart. So scared. So afraid of my mistakes. What if I do it again? Will Miaka be able to forgive me? I cannot bear it if she didn’t.

But I am tired.

I am beaten.

Suzaku, you have conquered me.

I give up. Set me free.

Cold. I feel so cold.

White.

Red on white.

Darn, I’ve stained the sheets.

Red on white.

Suzaku, let me be.

Red on white.

Suza….

Red.