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From the beginning, we stand to fall.
From the first steps we take, towards open arms catching us as we stumble.
I didn't count how many times I fell, although I remember some of them, engraved in my memory like rocks hurting my foot in my shoe. Small yet so significant at the same time. I always knew that the little things were always the ones we remembered best.
I, for example, hardly remember the exact details of when I blew my hideout up, earning the scar on my face. I know the main parts of the event, but that's about all. My mind is like that, always focused on the small happenings, the non-events even, and slowly erasing the main parts of my past.
Engraved in my memory, the little bag you held on the day you arrived at the orphanage. It was red and white, and I remember the way you threw it onto your bed, in what would become our shared room, and how you suddenly cried and clung to my neck. We stayed like this for hours until you fell asleep in my arms, on the floor. We were eight years old.
You fell, and we stood.
Set in stone, our first kiss. We had just left Wammy's after L's death, and I didn't even have to ask you to come with me. As I left, you began packing your belongings in this red and white little bag when you saw me fill mine, and you only smiled at me as a kind of 'thank you' while I waited for you in the doorframe, already ready to go, as you zipped your bag. But you didn't need to thank me; there was no way I would leave you behind, and the very idea that you might have thought I could brought tears to my eyes.
I suddenly realised how rarely I had expressed my positive feelings. I was always quick to explode when anger or frustration boiled inside me, hitting, beating, or kicking. But, for some reason, I kept all that mattered most to me bottled up inside, afraid to throw my feelings at your face like a message in the sea. Afraid that my message wouldn't reach the shore.
And yes, within these words lies a powerful metaphor, because you've always been the shore, the anchor, and the salvation in our tumultuous lives. No wave was strong enough that you couldn't steer my ship out of the storm.
And so, as you closed the distance between yourself and the doorframe, I grasped your shirt and pressed my lips to yours. You smiled during the kiss and returned it, just as if it were the most natural thing on earth between you and me. It probably was.
Tattooed on my skin, the scar from the explosion. You had set the explosives, but I wasn't meant to detonate them with myself in the middle, and you would never have planted them if you had known I would end up in this situation. I hadn't realised it would come to this, to be honest. I should have known. I should have understood, when you brought everything into the hideout in that black bag, that things would go wrong.
But when I saw the paramedics approach me through the smoke, the ashes, and with my only valid eye, since the other was covered in blood, when I saw the red and white truck they carried me to, I don't know, I wasn't afraid.
It took every lie you could muster to make them think we were here by mistake, two lovers caught up in their little affair, unaware of what really happened, to get me out of the hospital. I was quite certain you'd hacked as much money as you could to grease the police's palms, and it didn't matter to me that I couldn't even stand without falling when you helped me into your car. Once you sat in the driver's seat, you picked up a small red and white bag from the backseat and handed it to me. It was full of chocolates.
Sculpted in concrete, the day it both ended and began. The day we defeated Kira, we left all the credit to Near, and disappeared, dead to the world. I suspect Near knew we had survived, but he was clever enough to understand that we, as Matt and Mello, were definitely dead and buried, and that Mail and Mihael would finally be free—just free.
I remember how the customs officers rummaged through your bag; you had so many gaming devices in there that they thought you were involved in some kind of traffic. It was hard to convince them that you were just the worst geek on earth, but they eventually allowed us to board. You slammed the plane's overhead compartment shut over your little red and white bag, and so much for bringing all your games in the cabin for this sixteen-hour flight, because you didn't even touch them. You cuddled against me, and we flew like that, and it felt like sixteen seconds—having you there in my arms, simply enjoying your warmth, your presence, your scent, no longer dreading losing you at any moment.
Carved in marble, all these years together in a distant land, a lifetime of true love—something rarer than a total eclipse, experienced by only a few in this world.
And I cry today. I cry because all that's left of us is… nothing. So much beauty in this love, so much everything, and the world remains the same. No matter how much we loved each other, why is love never able to change anything? How can something so strong, so powerful, be just forgotten once it ends?
I sit by your grave; you would have turned eighty-seven today. I had already bought your Valentine's present, so I'm giving it to you today. Marry me, Mail. Yes, I should have asked you years ago…
While wars continue elsewhere, people still go hungry, slavery persists, and AIDS still claims lives, I am losing my faith in God today.
Because the extent of something as vast, as radiant, as extraordinary as our love wasn't enough to make a difference against evil. It never is, no matter how wide love can be.
Now that I am convinced God doesn't exist, I will join you in a few seconds. I can already feel the poison numbing the arm where I injected it. There's no hell for what I am doing, and perhaps there is no afterlife, and I won't see you again. But I am willing to take the chance.
So if you're somewhere waiting for me, then wait, because I'm coming with your little red and white bag that you forgot.
From the beginning, I stood to fall. Numb, then lifeless. On the cold marble of your tombstone.
From my very first steps, towards your open arms, catching me just as I stumbled, in this white light.
From the beginning… I stood and fell for you.