Dear Nagasawa Motojirou-sama,

At first, I also held such suspicions. However, as dawn broke and morning came and the world once again began to show its lively movements…I don’t know why, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the single envelope that was simply resting on top of my desk — and I know this may sound strange when I say this — came from an estate trustee who sent it to me after searching the ends of the Earth for me.

And as I gazed at the words that were neatly arranged on the page, I’m not sure if you could describe it as a strange feeling of warmth, or it might be better to call it a kind atmosphere, or you could even perhaps refer to it as an understanding concern or attention, oozed out of the letter, and I felt as if there were no ill intentions that existed from the letter itself. It’s not that I’ve confirmed this, but I felt a sudden peculiar temptation to it.

How is it that you, who claims to have never been outside of Hokkaido, can guess so accurately my disposition? It cannot be described as anything other than odd.

“But in actuality, Ririka-san, you are someone who wants so badly to trust others.”

I have never loved anyone. And I’m not referring to a commonplace thing such as a sexual love, but rather, I mean more normally — well, you can imagine for yourself what could be defined as loving someone “normally” — at any rate, normally, just loving someone in general; I’ve never been able to do that.

I’ve never even sent a reply to the letters that I sometimes receive from those I know. If it can be something that can be resolved by a phone call, I resolve it as such, and get things done that way.

You also wrote: “You think all humans are idiots. You think they are all filthy, and you think that humans were born to deceive others, and yet on the flip side, you are someone who has yet to give up the hope of being loved by someone.”

I am not an outgoing person. But at the orphanage, if you had to place me in a category, I am probably seen as being one. Although I’m not cheerful, they judge from the surface, in other words, the affable exterior appearance — the mask — that I’ve been endowed with from birth, and the people around me, especially those who work at the Light of Stars Orphanage, have gone on and assumed that I’m a cheerful person. This has driven me to increasing aloneness—no, to further loneliness.

I can’t help but lash out against these actions called “to love” or “to be loved.” But, I don’t rebel against it using violence like the normal lot. No matter what cruel abuse I’ve had to endure in the hands of the employees at the orphanage, I’ve never once attempted to escape from this place. All I did was turn a blind eye to the world around me.

Because if you think about it, 99% of the world is made up of lies, and the figures of those who put on a happy face but entertain lies, and whom, although lonely, pretend not to be as they increase the number of e-mail friends, are so idiotic that I can’t even force myself to take pity on them.

That’s what I’d always thought. That is why my longing towards death stems from death coaxing me with its beautiful notion of escaping from all that is fake.

You also said that if that’s the case, I should try to find true love, and that I should try experiencing a life that is seeped in it.

Although a part of me is furious thinking how you should just mind your own business, another part of me feels a need to write a response to you.

So why is it that I wasn’t capable of ripping your letter to shreds and throwing it away? Foolish as it may be, it is because the reality of the situation is, I had become intrigued by your letter. Once I opened up your letter for the second time, I read it again and again until the words burned into my retina, and that was the point at which I began to write this letter as I am doing now.

To go back to an earlier topic, I’ve been possessed by this thing called “death” lately, and it has only been a month since I caused an uproar after attempting suicide. Since the start of this year, I’ve thought of killing myself dozens of times. The first time I actually attempted it though was last month, and although death seems at first to be something that comes easily, it appears it’s not something that will take you to the other side unless you go through a complicated procedure — it’s definitely not as simple as it seems.

I’ve only ever seen how one’s wrists are cut in scenes from movies, so there was no way to know exactly how to go about doing it the right way. I only had death on my mind, and before I knew it, I had made cuts that ran along approximately five centimetres across my wrists with a retractable knife. But as I found out, people can’t die from something like that. I know this is an odd thing to say, but humans are pretty tough beings, don’t you think? There was also the fact that I was discovered early.

The head of the orphanage had apparently reported what had happened to the police as being nothing more than an accident as a way to cover up the fact that it had been an attempted suicide, and my first suicide attempt ended with the incident being buried in darkness. The reason for this being that as of late, the Light of the Stars Orphanage is experiencing hardships from being attacked by the press for the abuse the children here have endured for many years at the hands of the head as well as several employees. They feared that if word about my incident got out, it would only serve as ammunition for another line of attack from the press. I know that that this isn’t something that I need to share with you, but since I was a child, abuse has been an everyday affair at the orphanage, and while living under the power of the tyrant, head Sasaki, who doesn’t treat humans as humans, the children lived day-in-day-out in fear, and one after another, they ran away. Among them, there were some who went to the newspaper office, and after explaining to them the circumstances, their story was written up in articles by the press some time last year, and it looks as if those working at the orphanage are now heading in the direction of exercising restraint against abusing the children.

Because it was an endless repetition of such events, I always thought that it didn’t matter if I died. I didn’t do it as a form of resistance. It was the last-resort measure for a person who was giving the silent treatment to society itself.

Another reason for this may also be because I am the oldest one at this orphanage. I guess this just means that I’ve reached an age in which society has begun to take seriously the things that I have to say.

Oh, but I still haven’t sorted out my feelings when it comes to why I’m writing such a long letter to someone like you, whom I’ve never even met before. It must be because I’m lonely. I’m probably playing right into your hands. It must be that I am at such a point of loneliness that I am willing to risk divulging every detail of my life to you, who may be a member of a malicious religious organization. Am I someone who should be pitied? My heart and nerves and soul have become so numb that they won’t do as I say.

I don’t know if it is because this is the longest letter that I’ve ever written, but it took quite a while for me to write this. I had to open up the dictionary numerous times, and perhaps its because I had to look up kanji that I’m not used to writing, but I think my writing might be a bit hard to read because of it. Please forgive my sloppy writing.

October 10th.

To be perfectly honest, I also grew up in an orphanage. Currently, I am working as an operator of an aerial tramway in Hakodate Mountains, but when I was 5, I was abandoned by my parents, and I was taken in by the Friendship Orphanage in Hakodate. About five years ago, I obtained a full-time position in a company called Hakodate Mountains Aerial Tramway Corporation.

To get back to the original topic, the staff member who asked if I would be your friend was a former co-worker of a staff member who works at the orphanage in which I grew up. It was about a month ago that the former teacher of mine from the orphanage received the letter addressed to me which explained how there was a girl who had circumstances as such and asked if I would be able to share my feelings with her and cheer her up, almost as a big brother would. So in other words, this letter was written shortly after your attempted suicide. I don’t know why I was chosen, but this talk made its way to me. My guess is that this was because I had had a similar experience (this is referring to suicide attempts), and when I was around your age, I had made repeated unsuccessful attempts to kill myself. I was moved by this staff member’s passion, so I offered myself for the role if she really thought I could be of help.

I felt a bit ashamed at my conceitedness and lack of responsibility for so easily taking on such a task. Perhaps this was why it took me two days to finish writing my first letter.

Although the staff member who contacted me asked me repeatedly to keep her identity a secret, it’s difficult to keep the circumstances of how I came to write to you a secret from you. Because anyone who suddenly receives a letter like that would be surprised and think “What is this?” and they’d become suspicious, don’t you agree? And one of these days, her identity was going to be revealed anyway, so I thought it wise to just open up about the details early on. I am revealing this at my own discretion, but this staff member is someone you are very well acquainted with— Mihara Noriko-san.

Although this turned out to be quite a long explanation, I wonder if this has given you a better understanding of the circumstances behind why I wrote a letter to you?

In half a year, you’ll be of an age when you will have to leave the orphanage, right? Mihara-san was worried about what will happen after you graduate, because she will no longer be able to watch over you. This was how she came to this idea that by you having a confidant, it might be able to serve as some kind of stopper, since she didn’t know if you might decide to attempt suicide again. I think she is consumed with worry about you, who tried to commit suicide without trying to reach out to her for help first. In your view, she may only be sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong, but her contacting me must have been her way of showing concern for your future.

I took advantage of Mihara-san’s request, either that, or of this coincidental encounter with you, to say to the eighteen year old me who felt utterly alone from the currently 23 year old adult that I’ve become, that in actuality, I was someone who always hoped to be able to trust someone.

It’s when I got out into society that I became a little, I guess you could say overly forward — or if you put a positive spin on things, I guess you could say able to have a positive outlook on life. I think this was probably due to the good people that I’ve met in the company which I am still a part of. Thanks to the blessed meetings within the company, since then, I have not once considered suicide. I think it’s because I was able to think that the society which accepts me does indeed exist. The job as an aerial tramway operator was the first place to belong that I, who had never had a place to truly belong, was given, so I truly believe this job is a calling of sorts. Currently I am normally –that’s right– I truly am able to live normally.

It’s true I’m soft-hearted, and I do have a personality that makes it impossible to ignore someone who seems to be living under vaguely similar circumstances, but please understand first and foremost that I did not write the letter to you as a way of pitying you or of deceiving you.

If it is all right with you, would you like to continue exchanging letters for a short while?

A fate of sorts.

Do you have someone with whom you can say what you truly want to say? I’ve never had a friend like that. Ever since I started this job, I’ve made many friends in this company as well as on the outside. I suffered during the time I was contemplating death because I couldn’t open up about my true feelings to anyone. Although you are someone whom I’ve never met before, I, as someone who can speak from personal experience, would like to tell you that one day, after you have escaped the temptation of death, you’ll discover a world in which you will be glad that you are still alive to experience. Although I know this is very meddling of me to say this…

Because I am someone who is all alone in this wide, wide world, I think it would be great if I can eventually think of you as someone like a sister. I would like to exchange letters with you with that extent of feelings invested.

However, since just a normal correspondence would be boring, may I suggest that we try out a little experiment? I have worries in life also, and I also have times when I want to open up to someone about the truth– so what do you say that we use this correspondence as a way of creating a secret between the two of us?

Since we’ve never met each other, I don’t think there’s anything for either of us to fear. You are almost graduating soon, and even though we do have the link of the third party named Mihara-sensei and my former teacher who allowed us to meet, once you’re out in society, those who work at the orphanage will have no influence on you.

This is just an example, but what do you think about this idea? We can set up one clear-cut rule: a rule that says we must never meet. This might sound like a ridiculous rule, but I think it’d be fun.

It’s when people meet face-to-face that problems arise, so if we don’t meet — no, if we promise not to from the very beginning — we’ll be able to achieve a true heart-to-heart exchange. I think this is a wonderful idea in constructing a pure relationship.

If you are willing to jump on board to this idea, I would like to think about putting this crazy idea to action.

But this isn’t really a secret, since it was written up in the local paper and those around me are vaguely aware of it. Okay then, how about this? I’ve never gone out with anyone yet. I have been confessed to in the past. It’s only once in a while, but there are women who tell me that they like me, although I don’t know what kind of misunderstanding made them come to such a conclusion. But not once did it ever lead to love. And in this point in time, I’ve yet to ever fall in love with anyone either. Perhaps it’s because of this personality of mine that makes me nervous when I’m face to face with women. Although in letters, I’m able to get across my thoughts fluently like this, I can’t when it’s face-to-face. That’s why — and I know it’s odd to say this — at the age of 23 years old, I am still a virgin.

It’s not that I am not able to trust anyone nor am not capable of loving someone, like you said about yourself. I am not so firmly shut as that. It’s that, although I desperately want to love someone, I still haven’t managed to connect well with anyone. I guess I’m just awkward like that. I also think it’s probably more accurate to say not that you’re not capable of love, but just that you haven’t figured out how to love. It’s the same case for me. This is my true self.

Although this has turned into quite a long letter, I think I will put my pen down here for today. There is a part of me that hopes that you will understand my feelings— since after all, you’re someone who wants so much to trust others.

October 18th

It’s true that compared to the other vicious workers at the Light of Stars Orphanage, she’s on the more decent side, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around her being that worried about me, even though I know that once you start questioning a person’s intentions, it’s limitless. It’s true though that I have grown, and our current relationship is pretty good, but back when I was in elementary school, she was a very spiteful person. Every time she beat me, she would defend her actions saying that it’s because she was treating me as a mother would that she could get truly mad at me like this. Since I was the one who rebelled first, I can understand what would make her want to hit me, but the small scar that I have on my right cheek was one that she caused after stabbing me with a pencil when I was in grade three. There are times when she’s nice and times when she suddenly changes character, and I still haven’t figured out which one is her real face. Well, since it’s almost time for me to say goodbye to this orphanage, that doesn’t really matter now.

Since there is no end once you start becoming suspicious of someone, I decided to just try asking her directly, and I also talked to her about how I had received a letter from you. She was honest with me and explained to me that she found a kind person who is around the same age as me to whom I could talk because she was worried about me, and she confessed to her involvement on the matter. She even had tears in her eyes when she went on to add that she wanted me to live strongly and not think about suicide, and that she was aware that she went a little too far by doing something like this. Without meaning to, I snapped at her saying how she should just mind her own business.

The reason for why I am writing is not because I’m lonely and I just want someone who will listen to my feelings. I don’t think I’m that pitiful. However, although I don’t know a good way to put it, at any rate, there is no denying that a deep need to write a response sprouted from within my heart. I couldn’t help but feel as if writing a reply was something important that I needed to do— as if by doing so, I was trying to find a small light of hope from such an action.

In addition, I am also in agreement with the rule you proposed in the second letter you wrote to me. I think your idea of never meeting is a wonderful one. For you to exist only within our correspondence has embedded in that idea the meaning that I am able to communicate with you in a place outside of this dirty world, and for someone like me, who has lived in the world of humans without a place to belong, it is an idea that allows me to feel at ease.

By following the words written down in your letter, I will be able to directly come in contact with your heart. From every word and every line that is neatly stacked on top of one another within the writing, I will be able to observe every precious contour of your character.

When I think about it though, it’s very hard to speak truthfully. I can’t figure out right away how or where I should begin— because if you think about it, “the truth” seems to be something that’s easily found, but it’s not, is it? It’s not uncommon to find that the things you thought were the truth turn out to be a lie or a falsehood, and because I’m still not mature as a human being, I still haven’t figured out what would be considered the truth.

One day, a thought struck me. Could it be that although the “truth” exists, the moment you tell it to someone, it ceases to remain so, and it is something that will only one day disappear?

However, one day, I was astonished. This was something that I noticed while watching others at the orphanage talking on and on about mindless matters from the corner of my eye. I realized that they weren’t talking seriously– that is, they were not uttering one word of truth. Because they were not serious, what they were saying were, without question, not the truth. It is because they tell each other lies that they haven’t crumbled, and it is because they deceive each other that they have been able to maintain their current relationships. They were living their days deceiving one another by mixing a large dose of unobtrusive lies within the facts. I thought that that kind of performance wasn’t something that I could mimic, so I became increasingly awkward and I clammed up. That’s when they got it in their minds that they were being ignored, and they misunderstood this as me closing my heart off from them and distanced themselves from me. There even started those who began to harass me, and there was a time when I was suffering because of my loneliness, and I was leading a difficult day-to-day existence. At first, I thought that the problem was that I wasn’t good at lying, and I tried talking nonsense like the rest of them, but in the end, I wasn’t capable of even doing that and I became increasingly isolated.

And via these books, I learned the trick to playing alone. With time, solitude became more and more fun. I also began to realize that not all of the books in the library were perfect. Right around the time I was almost about finished reading all the books in the library, I began to realize that there were duds among the gems. However, even those duds were interesting in their own way. I know this is impudent of me to do so, but when I read a book, I do so while criticizing its weak points, and I enjoy doing this as one might playing a game.

But after I’ve graduated the high school that I am currently attending, I will not advance to university. Although there were any number of universities I could have gotten accepted to from recommendations, since private universities cost quite a bit, I decided not to. It is the same for public universities too. Although everyone says it doesn’t cost that much, I think they are able to say something like that because they are people who have grown up in normal households. Although the teachers at the orphanage tell me that if I wanted to, I could attend night school or attend while working part-time, but I don’t know how to put it…but I hate this world in which one cannot survive unless he or she graduates from university. I absolutely hate socially accepted ideas that people accept for face value like how women must get married and have children by a certain age. In my eyes, I see it as the ugliest rule above all. I can’t help but think it is something that robs a person of their freedom and ties them down needlessly.

I am thinking of becoming a childcare worker. I’ve already acquired the license for it after secretly attending a correspondence school. To acquire the license while I was still attending high school wasn’t an easy feat. I think it was even harder than it would have been to study for the university entrance examinations. It is a license that I finally made mine after much hard work.

I have a feeling that just being in that kind of place is enough to feel that happiness, and by interacting with the children, I thought that I might be able to fill the void in my heart, because children are pure, right? I thought that if it were in front of them, I’d be able to show my true self. Since it is a career I’ll have for the rest of my life, I wanted it to have a workplace in which I am capable of showing my true self to others.

But I think that is a wrong way of thinking. Although this is quite an exaggerated statement, the job of a childcare worker is an important one that is even capable of steering the nation. I don’t want to waste my life just so that the school can maintain its outward appearance. Although it is possible to think of getting back at the world by landing a job that has a high salary and that everyone would be envious of, I don’t want my life to end up a lonely one from such a needless and worthless ambition.

If you graduate from a good university, you might be called an exceptional person, but what use is that to a person’s life? All I want is happiness. I hold in contempt the way of thinking in which gaining academic qualifications is thought to add luster to one’s life, or to acquire your ranking in life.

Toono Ririka.

Dear Toono Ririka-sama,

Please forgive me for not being able to reply right away. The first snow of the winter fell upon Hakodate Mountains and because it turned out to be quite a heavy snowfall, I was swamped with unexpected tasks these last few days. The Hakodate town enclosed in snow differs from the sparkling Hakodate during the summer time, and within the sorrow lies hidden a fleeting beauty– it is seeped in a sadness that cannot really be expressed in words.

I am not in support of Hakodate tilting sharply in the direction of becoming a tourist town because of the concerns the community feels about the financial difficulties and the outward flow of the population. It is my view that if they want to develop the place as a tourist destination, they should at least develop the town with more emphasis on its historic atmosphere. I think this because I love this town. What this town has to boast to the world is not its part as a tourism spot but rather, its simple and modest appearance. This is why the winter scenery of the Hakodate engulfed in snow that covers up the excessive development of the tourist sector is Hakodate at its most beautiful.

The orphaned me was taken in and raised by new parents around the time I was in junior high. Although I don’t know anything about my real parents, my new mother and father are both kind people, and in this aspect, I guess you could say I was a little more blessed than you. During the summer of grade 10, my father passed away, and currently, I am living together with my mother.

One reason for having given up the idea of advancing onto university was that I didn’t want to place unnecessary burden on my parents. Also, I didn’t want to put to waste the kindness of the person who was not only a friend of my father’s, but who had also introduced me to this job. My orientation towards relying on other people’s help may come as a surprise to someone like you, who is trying to carve out a life for herself, but because I know that I was able to grow up as I have because I have these connections with others, as long as I plan to stay in this town until the day I die, I knew that I could not just ignore these relationships. This is why I did not consider advancing to university from the get-go, and this is why I ended up taking up full-time employment with the Hakodate Mountains Aerial Tramway Corporation.

I don’t know which is better. For that reason, there is a part of me that made up my mind back when I was still a child that since this was the life I had been given, it is something that I should be satisfied with.

To decide your own path in life. Although this is a right, this world doesn’t so easily allow a person to walk so freely. This is why I think that perhaps the current you could be categorized as being happy because of it. Above all, the very fact that you have a strong aim when it comes to your life is in itself a splendid thing.

To make a long story short, the reason behind me choosing the normal (in other words, an unambitious) path of a career as an operator of an aerial tramway was my way of repaying the kindness of my parents, who saved someone like me who had repeatedly tried to kill himself from loneliness. Although I’m still not sure whether this choice was the right one, at the very least, before that can be taken into consideration, there is this thing called life I must address, and as long as I am alive, my path is naturally set out for me. This is why I said I admire you, who is able to strongly choose the path that you want to go down. I don’t doubt that that there is no mistake in such a path.

Mihara-sensei did not include a picture of you in the letter that she sent to me. This is why I do not know what you look like. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, because this allows me to imagine what kind of person you are. Part of the joy in a letter correspondence is being able to construct the figure of a person from their handwriting and their way of thinking. It’s the same for you too— please imagine me guiding customers at Fumoto Station. However, please don’t imagine me to be some handsome young man. I’m merely a normal human being and am nothing more than an unsophisticated man living in the countryside.

I plan on taking my mother to the lighting ceremony. She has a chronic illness and has been entering and leaving the hospital frequently as of late. This is why she can’t go out anywhere unless I accompany her. I plan on holding my mother’s hand firmly in mine as we look up at the magnificent lights of the tree twinkling.

I’m pretty sure that when the time comes, the brilliance of this tree will be aired on news channels across the nation, so if you have the chance to see it on TV somewhere, please imagine my mother and I at this event. Although I’m not Christian, in that moment alone, I’ll become a believer, and I will pray for your happiness to Jesus Christ.

Nagasawa Motojirou.

P.S.
I read what you wrote regarding Mihara-sensei. Since I have never met her, I conjured up an image of her on my own from the impression I received of her from her letter. However, since I’ve never met her, I’ll be careful to keep my imagination in check from now on. At any rate, she has not contacted me since that initial letter and so, I have not contacted her either.