AN: Alright, I know I said I'd finish my other fics before I started this, *dodges flying daggers from shadow* but I couldn't contain myself. I had to write it. Had to. Don't you see? I got the inspiration for a love triangle between Duo, Relena, and Trowa and I just couldn't get it out of my head. As a result, my other fics suffered writer's block like you wouldn't believe, so I wrote this to get it out of my system for a while. Symbol of Temptation and Very Many Little Things will still be the focus of my writing, but I intend to work on this full-throttle as well. Other than that, all I can say is that this fic is from Relena's POV, it's AU, and it's gonna be a long one.
Please don't hurt me.
Around This Life
Prologue
I choose a thousand different things to do every single day. Every moment of my life I am thinking. About the world, about my life, about the people around me. I know I can?t fix everything, and that?s exactly why I try. I?m not in this life to leave it. I?m in this life to live it. But sometimes, I wish I could fix everything. And sometimes, I wish I?d never fixed anything.
I still think back to the days before the engagement. All the many thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it seems like life never changes, like it?s a constant cycle. And then something happens.
Say, for example, that you were a champagne bottle. Then something comes along, shakes the bottle, picks up a corkscrew, jabs it in the cork, twists it in, pulls it out, and sprays your life, feelings, and every memory all over the place. Then you spend a good deal of time trying to get it all back in the bottle, only to later realize that your efforts are fruitless, and that a champagne bottle is a bad object to be used in a metaphor. Or maybe that?s just how it happened to me. And maybe that something was my mother, and that corkscrew was the suitor, and that cork was my fianc?. Or maybe the three of them were the bottle, and I was my own cork and corkscrew.
Thinking back, I can see how it was all my fault.
My mother had wanted me married when I was barely sixteen, but I eluded her. I told her that my responsibilities as a student were currently consuming my life, and that I wouldn?t be fit to be a proper wife at that time.
That was then, this is now.
I expected hundreds of suitors, perhaps even thousands, but there was no such thing. There was just one. One. My mother?s first choice. She demanded that I marry him or ?extricate myself from her house.? Her words.
I couldn?t deny her. She was my mother, and I, too, desired marriage. But not from him. Not from another man. I only wanted one man, and I only wanted one husband. This man was not him. This man was different, the complete and total opposite of the one I wanted.
His name was Duo. The one I wanted, that is. He met me and swept me off my feet with his words, his ways, and that never-ending smile. It felt as though he completed me, as though I?d be lost without him. I?d never loved anyone nearly as much as I?d loved him. He wanted me as his wife and I knew it, but we were so young, and my mother did not look upon him with approval. Her treatment of him lead to my initial rebellion, from little things like using improper grammar to acting somewhat hateful and crude at social gatherings. Eventually I began refusing to be seen with her, even though I loved her so much. I think my actions fueled her hatred of Duo, and her hatred of Duo fueled my actions. Yet another of life?s many endless cycles. And then he showed up.
Him. The suitor. For a while that was all I called him. Then there was the day I used his name. He?d asked me to say it, instead of using his official title. I hated the look in his eyes, the reasons for his being there. I hated what my mother had done, what I was doing to him. I hated that I was feeling so many things.
His name was Trowa.
This is how I came to love him, and how I chose.
\\\\\Short, yeah, but this is just the prologue. I want this to be done perfectly because I've never written a triangle quite like this before. I can't wait to write the rest of it. I'm going insane!
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Hehe. It's a secret.