It was all her fault - their fault.

The dark haired vixen stole your heart that day, do you realize?
She stole me from you, she and her evil possessive sisters.

How else could you have not loved me?

True, I was, for a while, your worst enemy, your gravest foe.
But that was much before you showed your true heart, you deeper
soul.  Then, it would have been stupid not to love you.

But, dammit, I told you I loved you, much earlier than any of
the three did, before they even realized.  But they grow way too
fast - that is your fault.

I would have sworn that she - they - was a dime a dozen, but I
was wrong.  You knew too well your own heart.  The Fates were
never to look kindly upon us.

I had thought it was possible to win you back, if they were to
disappear one day.  They did, too.

But you had grown too attached to them.  I felt the bitterness
to the roots of my hairs.  I reasoned, if you had lost just one,
maybe even two (just as long as it was the first who remained),
you would have been content, mollified.

You would not.

Days you spent, moping around our house, staring at each corner
as though they would appear in ghost.  Each one was important to 
you, in her own way.  One's laughter, the other's brusqueness 
and the third's childish ways, trapped in the lifelessness of
the room, the table, the floor.  I thought that I had seen and 
heard each specter through you eyes, then I realized - I, too,
missed them dearly, as dearly as if they were my own sisters.

I wonder if my loss would have been as appreciated.  I'd like to
think it would.

And, now, they have returned, and I am relieved.  You have never
been as happy, as content about life, as alive.

I sigh, a sigh of life changing.  Their mother, I wonder, does
she love you as they do?  No... I believe you will love her, 
through them, but only as coincidence, as logical consequence.  
I wonder if I will love her, at least as well.

No, I will not, either.

I... I choose, to love you.  Damn me and my foolish heart, my 
faulted ways, old within my lifetime.  Damn my foolish, aching 
heart.

I love you, Otaru.

***

Switch
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