Letters (valentines special)

The Big Woman

Hanako Yamada

Letters were no rarity. Messages in any form and shape were going around daily, physically, digitally, even by Hell Butterfly. However, most of those that Hanako had received were work related. Most. One wasn’t.

It actually did take Hanako some time to remember the one that had written the lines she was reading now. Had it already been that long already? On the other hand… Hanako found two conflicting feelings in her mind, that confused her for a moment. One feeling said it couldn’t be years already, she just graduated herself about a month ago. The other feeling said that it had been at least 400 years since she graduated, whoever wrote that letter must have made quite the mistake.

When she read on, she couldn’t help but blush a little, and was thankful she was alone at the moment. Back then, all those years ago, she had been completely and utterly oblivious to any and all advances by the author of this letter. Now, when she read that he had thought fondly of her, the memories from their time together at the academy came back. And with it the realisation that he had hit on her probably more than once. Now, Hanako still was far from being comfortable with that topic, but at least she wasn’t as oblivious to it as she had been. Although she might be even more shy, if possible at all, due to her stumbling ass over tits into her first experiences and biting off far more than she could chew.

She sat for about an hour, pondering what she should write in response to that letter or whether she should respond at all. In the end, she decided to do it, only because it would be rude to not do so.

“Dear Zefa-san,”

She paused. Was that too formal? Should she write -kun instead? But then again, it had been years since they last talked and it could be viewed as inappropriate. -san was the neutral suffix… Hanako decided to leave it in, as she wasn’t sure they were still close enough to use anything else or leave out the suffix completely.

“Thank you for your letter kind nice words writing. I do remember. It was been quite a while. I am glad to read that you have done well and are about to graduate. The Gotei will be lucky to have a new Shinigami of your skill.”

That was all so formal. After all, they spent a lot of time together before Hanako graduated, and Tento was, by her reckoning, her oldest…friend? Acquaintance?

“I am fine. Times have been challenging, but I’ve come out all right, I think. As you already know I am Vice Captain of the Fourth Division, but it took some time to actually come to this Division. I don’t know if you remember that one conversation about our future plans. Well, suffice to say it didn’t work out how I imagined it, even if I indeed ended up where I originally wanted to go.”

Yes, that was better. Some casual talk, invoking the old times. Also, at this point Hanako hadn’t received any formal request for admission into the Fourth, so she opted to not answer to that point. Anyway, there was another personal note needed.

“It has really been negligent of me to not write or call even once. But as I said, times had been challenging and I had to keep my eyes to the front, so to speak, to make it through. I hope you won’t hold it against me.

It’s nice being in contact again. I hope this finds you well and you continue to set high goals for yourself, as I remember you have in the past. Maybe we’ll run into each other, once you’re out of Shin’o.

-Hanako Yamada”

Hanako thought she had done pretty well, writing a personal letter. In truth, however, the letter had ‘awkward’ written all over it and someone like Tento, who knew her as long as he did, probably wouldn’t even need a signature to know it was from her.