Please Give Me Love c6

When you don’t write a letter for close to a month, you start forgetting how to write, so this is going to be a bit of a formal start to a letter, but please bear with me. I’ve been able to completely do away with all reserve at my new workplace, and I am living a joyous day-to-day existence that is completely opposite to how it was when I was working at the pre-school in Kitazawa. The best thing about this place is that there is no bullying. Everyone is kind and they’re all such wonderful people. Although there are problems that crop up from time to time having to do with the parents of the pre-school children, it’s nothing that bothers me that much. I’ve been doing well.

Currently, I am, as I was in the past, in charge of caring for the four year olds. Children who have just begun to speak are so adorable and pure. Everyday is fun, and I am able to work in a free and easy going atmosphere.

If it had been before, I probably would’ve felt repulsed by what slipped from my mouth, but I’m fine now. I’m grateful to time; I’ve finally been able to become at least a little more mature.

When was it…? Hmm… I think this was something that happened when I was on a stepladder hanging up decorations on the wall for the play that we were having, and while I was doing that, he silently came and held the stepladder for me. It was an action that he did nonchalantly, but his face when I looked down at him looked so honest that I ended up falling in love. It was my first time experiencing something like that, so at first, I didn’t know where these feelings came from, and I felt jittery because I couldn’t put these feelings into words. He was the one who asked me out. I’m pretty sure this was something that happened on my way home from work—oh, that’s right, this happened while I was waiting at the platform for my train to come. He brought it up out of the blue, and before I knew it, I had given him my reply: “okay.”

It’s been a long time since I stopped receiving letters from you, but I think you’re probably doing well taking care of another. For someone like you who is in that kind of situation, I wanted to tell you: “I’m fine. I’m doing well.” I wanted to put you at ease. I wanted to lighten the burden on your shoulders at least a little bit. I’m fine. I’m fine now. I’m more worried about how you’re doing though, Motojirou. It is my wish that I could pay you back for all the things you’ve done for me until now. That’s why…whenever you’re in pain, please write me a letter. I might not be able to kindly comfort you as you did me, but I will do my very best to write a reply to you.

Ririka.

P.S.

It has become a season warm enough to cause one to start perspiring. How are you making out?

It’s been quite a while now since I’ve completely stopped hearing from you, but I wonder if it’s because you’re upset with me for not having made an appointment with you before heading over to where you live? Or is it because something’s happened to Fuki-chan? At any rate, I have this gut feeling that I won’t receive a letter from you again.

I do feel a bit sad that our relationship would die out like this, but this is probably what life is like. It’s all about the repetition of meetings and partings. Life really is a mystery to allow for an immature person like me to be able to say something so pompous (it’s ridiculous, but fun at the same time).

Toono Ririka.

P.S.

I’ll definitely do my best. Thank you, Motojirou.

Dispensing with the preliminaries—

I imagine that you must be surprised by this sudden letter, but please read through this letter, at the very least for Motojirou. After reading the last letter you sent addressed to Motojirou, I thought that perhaps it would be best not to inform you of what has happened. But as I gazed at his picture, my heart wavered thinking perhaps I should let you know about the death of Motojirou, who worried about you to the very end, and upon thinking it over once again, I came to the decision that I should indeed tell you.

How is it that I should possibly begin to explain? As you have already realized, Motojirou never worked at the ropeway. That was a complete fabrication on his part. And I had the role of passing on your letters to Motojirou, who had been hospitalized for a long time.

He never allowed me or anyone else to read your letters. It was only when he realized that was the only way for him to read your letters that he came to ask me to read them for him. This is why with regards to the contents of your letter correspondence with him, I do not know the details. That is a world limited to you and Motojirou that continues to be protected preciously even to this day.

In the rest of this letter, I will be opening up to you about the truth. However, this is not Motojirou’s wish. I could have just remained silent, but I couldn’t help but think that you had a right to know the truth, so in place of Motojirou, I would like to tell you the truth.

Your father, Usui Akihiko-san, lost the will to work after losing his wife, and around this same time, he was met with an unfortunate luck in the form of a large scam, and overnight his trading company went bankrupt. There was the fact that he originally came from Tokyo on a marine products-related work position, but he wasn’t very well acquainted with the people here. Our relationship was one that was formed through the job my husband, who passed away, had, but still, our relationship was not a close one by any means.

And yet, while Motojirou was growing up, my husband passed away from an illness, and so we began to live together with just the two of us. Motojirou, who had reached adulthood, was able to land a job working in the local tourism department, but was not able to continue working for long. One day, there was an unusual change in his condition, and I found out that he was facing an incurable illness. This was something that happened in the summer of his twenty-second year.

At first, he took the information in in a blank daze, but next, it seems he realized the importance of what such a thing meant. He then did everything possible to go about tracking down the whereabouts of his father and younger sister who shared his blood lineage. I also aided in his search by tracking down an acquaintance of Usui-san’s. Gradually, we were able to narrow the scope, and one day, we managed to find out first your father’s whereabouts. Shortly after, we also found out that you were living in an orphanage not far from where he lived. That time, it was Mihara-sensei from the Light of Stars orphanage who acted as a go between to offer information. We were also told of how you had attempted suicide. Motojirou was very troubled by this. This was how he came to the decision that he wanted to first attempt to help his younger sister who was in the depths of misery, rather than reunite with his father.

At one point, it seems that he tried to end his letter correspondence with you when his time of death was nearing. He seems to have believed that it was his last role as a human to make his sister happy as best as he could. This belief also became a source of energy that supported him in his remaining days.

Another thing he did was fabricating an imaginary character named Fuki-chan (as you already know, he used my name). To be more accurate, it was this character “Fuki” who was Motojirou himself. If you read the letters he sent to you from the very beginning once again, it will become obvious. The times that he mentioned Fuki-chan being hospitalized and having collapsed, put simply, overlapped with the time during which he was experiencing these things. He was the one who underwent surgery, and who was suffering from his worsening condition. The letters in which his writing deteriorated overlapped with the time period during which his hand stopped moving as he willed it. And the surgery to make an incision in Fuki-chan’s windpipe that occurred at the end of last year was, of course, when Motojirou himself underwent this surgery.

He focused his entire being on writing that letter. And afterwards, the only reply he could give to your letters were the tears that he shed. There were also times when he could no longer bear the pain of his own powerlessness at not being able to protect you, and he broke down crying.

He was able to bring his life to a close whilst cheering you up. I imagine though that despite him experiencing the hardships that he did, it was also a time of happiness for him, because it was through his letter correspondence with you that he was able to find a reason for living. In the end, he departed from this world with a blissful expression on his face. He left this world with a gentle smile.

Nagasawa Fukino.

In addition, I have also included in this envelope a letter addressed to you that I believe Motojriou wrote shortly before his death. The reason I wrote “I believe” is because, as can be seen, I have not opened the letter, so I do not know for sure as to when it was written. I found this letter after his death at the bottom of the bag that he treasured. Usually, he would ask me to send off the letter the very day he wrote it, but even now, I am not sure as to why he had this tucked away. There were many times that I wanted to open the envelope and read the contents, but I wanted to respect his feelings so I did not. I would be grateful if you could accept his last thoughts and feelings.

My Beloved Toono Ririka-sama,

Almost two Christmases have passed since we first began exchanging letters. I never thought it would last this long. Since I get bored of things easily, it comes as a surprise to even me, who knows myself very well, that I’ve been able to chip away at one thing for over a year, and not only that, but that I’ve been comforting and cheering on someone whom I’ve never even met before. Our letter correspondence sure has continued on for a long time, don’t you agree? There’s no doubt that each and every letter from you has been precious to me. Has it been the same for you?

At the very least, what I’ve received from our letter correspondence has been immeasurable. I was able to gain the benefits of life in a significant way from having been able to exchange letters with you— more so than words can express. I think this is something I have to be very grateful to you for.

I think what’s important is not that we have a relationship in which we only speak the truth to each other, but that we can change the truth to a better direction, don’t you think? There’s nothing wrong with having no lies between us, but it’s not the case that what is right is only always the truth. Even amongst the truth there are mistakes and misunderstandings and absurdity. Our relationship needs to be one that can rectify those things, but somewhere along the way, we veered from that path. It might just be that this is something that only I’ve felt, but no change will come about if we are only sharing with each other our troubles. I guess one way you could put it is that this relationship has reached its saturated point.

Since going our separate ways is something that will definitely come one day, I think it’s better for us to put an end to this beautiful relationship called a letter correspondence with our own hands rather than wait for that time to come. We draw things to a close on our own. And each of us will graduate from this place, and depart for a new world—I think that’s what we need. Don’t you agree that for us, that is something that’s very important?

Even if we part, the friendship we built through our letters will continue on for eternity. I can write you a letter again anytime the mood strikes me. Even if—and this is “if”— I happen to die from an illness, I’m sure that I’ll be able to continue to live on in your memories. It’s the same for the other way around. In other words, we shared a period of time together. Even though we’ve never met, we shared our pain and suffering to each other. That’s why even if our letter correspondence were to end, I truly believe that our relationship will never fade away. Yes, I truly believe that. I have a feeling that one day, there will come a time when I’ll receive a letter from you again. And the start of that letter will, of course, start off “Hello Motojirou.” It’ll be written in your rounded handwriting…

Thank you. I feel blessed that we were able to have a beautiful relationship like that of a brother and sister in this duration of time that seemed short but long at the same time.

P.S.

What are humans anyway? Where do they come from and where do they go? Does God really exist? Why does God give us so many tests?

Please don’t laugh at me for clinging onto the past, okay? There are people in this world to whom only past has meaning.

What is it that I should believe? Is it true that Motojirou-san passed away? I just can’t believe that. I have a feeling that a big group of people is trying to play a joke on me— joining in to bully me. Or is it that someone who is using Motojirou-san’s mother’s name is playing some kind of malicious trick?

It doesn’t matter who– please, tell me that this is all just a lie. It’s more ridiculous to expect me to believe a stupid thing like that.

To think you’d tell me something like Motojirou had been battling a serious illness and lived his life next to death! If that’s true, that means all this time, I’ve been wasting his precious time seeking advice about trivial things from a person in his state. If it’s true that he is my brother, it’s even more so. My brother? How utterly ridiculous! You’re telling me that Moto’s my brother? And that he’s no longer on this earth? You’re telling me to believe something like that? Unless you prove to me exactly when Motojirou died, I’ll never accept it. Please also show me proof that he’s my brother. Investigate into the blood type or DNA or whatever and please only tell me the truth.

Please tell me the truth. What is the truth? Is this God’s way of punishing me for living the life that I have? Please, Motojirou’s mother. Please tell me only the truth. Tell me the truth— where and what is Motojirou doing right now? If he doesn’t want to continue his letter correspondence with me, what’s wrong with that? There’s no need to cook up some elaborate plot like this— I can accept that. But death! It’s just not possible….what a terrible thing to say! Please don’t lie to me. I need to know the truth.

May 25th.

After I sent off my letter, I re-read the letter I received from you. I read it again and again. It’s true, isn’t it? He really did die, didn’t he?

Please stop this foolishness. This really is one cruel joke, you know. To do something like this just because I was a bad girl…it’s not funny! If you’ve gotten sick of me, just tell me straight up. When you do something like this to test me out though, I feel as if I’m about to go crazy. Please, don’t make me suffer any more.

Ririka.

Dispensing with the preliminaries–

If it’s true that he’s passed away, I have to come to terms with it. No matter what kind of terrible reality awaits me, I’m going to accept it because I have to become strong like that.

Does this mean I will never be able to feel the joy of opening my mail box and finding a letter from Motojirou? Is this a fact?

If it’s possible for me to have a letter correspondence with heaven, I promise that this time, I’ll take it seriously and throw myself into writing a letter. I’ll make it so I’ll write a reply on the very day I receive a letter. So please…don’t tell me that he’s died. Please don’t make me suffer from such a lie.

Chapter end