I been thinking about the line in the original RE4, where Leon gives the audience insight on how he sees his relationship with Ada.
“She’s like a part of me I can’t let go.”
It may be a simple sentence, but it is the one line that captures the entirety of what Ada means to Leon. He doesn’t directly say that he loves her. He doesn’t directly say that he wishes he could be with her. Instead, he indirectly says that she integral to him.
And I came across an Aeon edit by Lil Rednote user JOI1024 (ID: 953318010) with the background music “爱你是我的秘密” (Loving You is My Secret) by 莊淇文29.
This is a song about the type of love that is quietly endured and is kept intentionally hidden. Some feelings become more profound because they are never spoken aloud.
我爱着好的坏的 - 真的假的 - 虚的实的那个你.
I love every version of you: the good and the bad, the true and the false, the illusion and the real.
He knows Ada is a complicated woman, but he acknowledges and accepts it. Unlike how he initially fell for her in RE2, he is fully aware of the nature of her work/life in the aftermath of RE2 and in RE4. He makes his sentiments very clear: his love is unconditional, he loves Ada in her entirety.
There’s no going back. It feels like nothing can ever return to what it once was.
Again and again, I fall in love with you.
I held you, yet our hearts were miles apart.
Leon knows that they could never be. His life is not his to decide and her life is revolves around her work. He stands for doing the right thing, and her focus is on what she was contracted to do. They repeatedly stand side by side, yet they’re separated by the lives they’ve chosen. In a way, he holds on to the feelings from when they first met when the main objective was supporting each other so that they could survive. It wasn’t the best circumstances, but it was much simpler than the reality they have now. And Leon accepts this but at the same time this doesn’t change his love for her.
“Loving you is my secret.”
“She’s like a part of me I can’t let go.”
He acknowledges that the relationship could never be, but he doesn’t attempt to erase the sentiments that remain. The love is no longer defined by the hope of being together, but by its special place in the deepest part of him.