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My father warned me about false reflections, and yet I fell right into this one.
I had been deep in the mirror for almost three years. From my other father I inherited the idealization of the romantic, of love itself. From that day on I could no longer distinguish which of my two parents was my own reflection, the one I sought to imitate.
Going my own way was what caused the glass to break, I walked over the cracks until, finally, it shattered. I took the person I thought I loved the most at the time and wanted to drag her with me into my own trap. What was wrong with it? I didn't understand. Rather, I ignored it.
I was clouded by the perfect. My parents had always been the example of everything I longed for. Their relationship is simply touching, even knowing each other since high school I could tell they looked at each other with the same love twenty years later and after all they went through together, their bond had become unbreakable. They adore each other, have a whole language between them, there is respect, desire, wanting and still they had enough left over to give me. How could I not want the same.
How could I not fall head over heels for the reflection that presented itself to me my freshman year. How could I not pursue having a relationship just like them, if I finally found the Hunt of my Schoenheit's. I forgot that I already had those last names. It would be in this case the Goldreich of my Schoenheit-Hunt. My dear Chrysses Goldreich.
I started using my second last name more that year. They always told me the same thing, that I was like Vil. In ambitions, in personality, in appearance... Because it was what I had pursued the most throughout my life. It was simple to please my other father, for his I had to fight a little harder, just enough to proudly wear the title of his reflection. But it wasn't just him anymore. Rook. My good friend Cian said I was starting to look more like him, and he was right. It was time to take as a reference the one I admired the most.
When I looked in the mirror it wasn't me, I could only see the proud look of my parents, a shell as perfect as they were. My last names were more important than my name, so much so that they could outshine me without me doing anything about it. Until I met him and that image was distorted, they were no longer the only ones in the reflection, I also began to see myself, the three of us, me the faintest of figures for having begun to exist.
My two best friends also had problems with their own mirrors, but those stories are left for them to tell. I just wanted to point out that, despite having avoided by all means that as children of the great Malleus Draconia, Azul Ashengrotto and Vil Schoenheit we would have made the same mistakes, ended up projecting the three of us onto them. Different formulas, same results. The tragedy of the second trio, which failed for wanting to imitate the first. In spite of everything, I would attribute the greatest weight of her reflection to Lyssa Draconia, who, like me, in addition to suffering from unrequited love, was the one who was most burdened by her surnames of the three of us and also made changes in them when the time came.
Not that my love was unrequited, but there was a big roadblock in the way, that the morality of the affair was trapped by two people who dared not break up. Perhaps the blot accumulation started two years ago.
It began when I realized that for the first time a barrier rose before me that I could not cross. Chrysses, whom I longed for so much and could not have, became my obsession. Just as I was his, in another very different way and ending in the same fate.
The allusion to my parents was because he, like Rook did with Vil in his day. He filled me with beautiful words, he swore loyalty to me long before he became my vice, we could talk about anything, it was the first full trusting relationship I had, between us there was a connection, I was very sure. I longed for every minute to be eternal, for with him, I began to discover myself in countless ways. Chrysses never liked me for being Vil Schoenheit's son, but for being Belvedere, without surname, without reflexes, for being me. No one had ever liked me for being me. Although, to tell the truth, I never had the chance to be it in the first place.
Yes, Chrysses might have liked his partner before high school. But I was very observant, more so than he was as a hunter's son, and he never looked at him the way he looked at me, not once when I had the false pleasure of witnessing them in front of my sharp lavender eyes. I didn't see them sharing those insatiable conversations we did have, didn't do anything with him that he was doing with me. It was clear that I didn't feel the same way about him anymore, so why couldn't he be mine? I wanted to have him for myself in every way I could. I pulled strings to end up in the same class, I ended up convincing him to be my vice, I wanted to bamboozle him more and more and with each step in our relationship the more I wanted him all to myself. Furthermore, I dug my own grave. It was I myself who took me to those extremes of dark magic, I could never blame him for that now, before, well, it was a different story....
When I found out he had a partner, I was shocked. I must say that I did not expect it. He followed me in every little game, he even initiated one or the other, he showed me affection, he treated me and talked to me as if I was the most beautiful in all of Twisted Wonderland, so how could this bunny not be the one he loved the most? Ah, yes, he just loved me, true. But I wanted him to love me, to have the decency to open his eyes and tell me at once. I began to blame him wrongly, wasn't I more beautiful, the person he enjoyed the most? That he loved me madly then, where was the problem!!!? Ah yes, in his partner, whom he. already. stopped. loving. years. ago.
Then midway through senior year, Lyssa came into play. Lyssa, the Draconia of my eyes, left Night Raven College soon after her own overblot. Again, a mirror for each child, a story for each. Transferred to Royal Sword Academy, she ended up in the same class as Eustace Cinder, Goldreich's stupid boyfriend, and so, we hatched a plan. Prove that Eustace Cinder no longer loved my Chrysses and make him realize that deep down he didn't either.
In the quest to find weaknesses, Draconia offered to flirt with Eustace. As it turned out, the ashtray had been hovering around numerous Royal Sword Academy students behind my Chrysses' back for some time. We sent him an anonymous message with proof of his infidelities. You can imagine the rest.
They broke up, yes, not even the option of a time, as it was the one they had been unconsciously giving each other in a long-distance relationship. You could say they even spent mourning in it. My dear Goldreich was free at last, and I wanted him all to myself.
It was a dreamy two weeks. Well, one and a half filled with a Chrysses who seemed to be willing to love me freely. Until he learned that I had been involved in the end of their relationship. It was Eustace's unique magic that got the information out of Lyssa.
Our worst fight. The world fell apart for me, I didn't understand why he was so angry with me. They didn't love each other anymore and that was a fact, they were just delaying the inevitable, besides, he now loved me. Where was the problem?
The straw that broke the camel's back was the news that I no longer wanted to be my vice leader.
That's when I ended up in this situation.
Now I would say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that all this happened, it was my fault. I still love you like I have never loved anyone before. I know you stopped being the Hunt of my self long ago. Just as you love me for being Belvedere, I love you for being Chrysses. I wish I had the opportunity to let you know that.
Once again, I'm sorry, Chrys.
I see myself trapped in darkness. I am lying on a golden pallet, unconscious. A beam of light illuminates me. I still have the frayed garments of my overblot, a yellow and bluish dress. A bridal veil. Around it, there are only various pink and purple flowers. Fireflies flutter around.
Then I see Chrysses approaching. I don't remember anything that happened during the battle, but his appearance is almost as unkempt as mine. He wears the uniform of Pomefiore. On his dark, freckled cheeks, vivid tears slide down, I have never seen him with such a troubled expression. Then he approaches me and removes the veil from my face. I feel his tears on my skin. I hear his apology. He insists that it had been his fault for not being able to leave Eustace earlier even when I was right and, despite having blamed him before my overblot, I can no longer do so. Seeing him so broken and remorseful breaks my heart into a thousand pieces. I just wanted to hold him, to take him back....
Then he kissed my lips. I didn't want to count it as our first kiss, even though I wanted to rejoin them infinitely with his. I woke up and saw it firsthand, that look of relief in his golden eyes before he climbed onto the stage and hugged me with all his might as he filled my shoulder with tears. My dorm uniform had returned. I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could, catching his sadness.
If I could, I would hold him in my arms until the rest of my days.