The Art of Writing a Love Letter
To the Most Exasperating Woman I Have Ever Known (cont.) (September 18-October 10)
September 18
To: Her Ladyship Ōtsuka Hisako
When I swaggered into the lab ready to begin the week, I found that my computer and notes were missing again. Of course I turned the lab inside out, and I even scoured the shore of Nanao Bay, to no avail. I wasn’t even sure my letter would have reached you yet, but even if it had you couldn’t possibly have had time to accomplish this even if you’d freaked out and jumped on the next Thunderbird Express as soon as you read it. Yet you’re the only possible culprit. What sorcery is this?
I’ve taken the day off from the lab with a fake cold; as I rock back and forth in the fetal position, I can almost hear your cackling faintly echoing through my Nanao apartment. Komatsuzaki is coming to the lab next week. I was planning to lord my senior lab member status over him, but without any results to show for myself I’m afraid it won’t be a very convincing act. I’m actually crying right now.
I admit it: you were a step or two ahead of me. I understand fully now what a superlative human being you are. It’s painfully clear that I am not even in the same league. I am humbled, and as I write this letter I prostrate myself in the direction of Kyoto. See for yourself how my tears of penitence stain the page.
I will never, ever betray you again. So please tell me where my computer and notes are. I wouldn’t lie to you, not after the ignominy of this experience. I swear on the God of Boobs.
Your humble and obedient servant,
Morita Ichirō
September 19
Lady Ōtsuka, how the dog days of summer do tarry, delaying the long-awaited relief of autumn. I hope this abominable heat is not overly straining your delicate constitution. Please take care of yourself. And also please return my computer and notes. Morita.
September 20
Lady Ōtsuka, one or two days is not enough for the lingering heat of summer to fade, but my compounding worries compelled me to write this letter. Your anger is entirely justified, but I fear that the longer you hold on to it the more likely it is for some ill effect or other to manifest upon your health. I humbly urge you to let bygones be bygones, and return my computer and research notes. My fate is in your hands. Morita.
September 22
To: Ms. Ōtsuka Hisako
I am aghast at what Morita Tomihiko has done. I rue the day I foolishly put my trust in his hands. He’d seemed so busy with writing letters and novels that I never conceived he had the time to get up to such mischief, and after I’d explicitly instructed him not to take them to the laboratory until I said so, too. Pangs of conscience, my foot. Damn that man; I never thought that my greatest enemy would be hidden in plain sight.
I consent to the following three conditions:
- I will master the art of writing a love letter
- I will organize a gathering for Ibuki
- I will send a love letter to Ibuki
Satisfied? You trample over people’s marshmallowy-soft feelings like you’re shamelessly tracking mud into someone else’s house. “Don’t you turn into the type of pathetic jackass who gives a girl a love letter in public,” my granddad said to me on his deathbed. “One, the whole street would laugh at you. And two, you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning her heart.” He was right. I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. Are you rubbing your hands in anticipation of watching me charge towards my own destruction? Perchance will you be looking on with libation in hand?
It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’ll do what I must to earn your forgiveness: if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. I’ll just have to grin and bear it. My chances with Ibuki are nil anyhow, after what happened the other day.
The world is full of criss-crossing letters. Do you know which ones have the most degenerate power? It’s love letters and extortion letters. You have a talent for threatening people. What do you say we pool our talents, start up a letter-writing conglomerate that specializes in both love letters and threats? We could rule the world, you and I, carve it up with a silver pen.
I have to send a report to the lab advisor tomorrow. Without my computer and notes, I’m sunk. I’ll be banished for good. He’ll squash me flat with his iron hammer of rage. All that data that might have helped advance humanity into a new age will never see the light of day.
It’s all up to you now.
A love letter noob,
Morita Ichirō
September 24
To: Ōtsuka Hisako
How very long it has been since I last wrote you.
The mornings and evenings have suddenly become quite chilly; with little fuss or fanfare, summer has gone away. And thus does a most tumultuous summer come to a close. I would say it ranks as the fifth least productive summer of my life. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool optimist, as you surely are aware, who doesn’t dwell on the past. If I seem impatient to add more experiments to my workload, it is only because I am eager to produce more results. Yet at the same time, if I produce results I’ll have to go back to Kyoto, where I know you are lying in wait. That thought alone rather dampens my enthusiasm to see that city once more.
Yesterday the sky over Noto was crisp, clear, autumny. Since I was off, I roamed the streets of Noto, visiting the Noto Shokusai Market, brooding alone in Komaruyama Park over whether you’re really going to return my stuff. My dark thoughts were interrupted by a phone call from Taniguchi, who told me to meet him at Titty Shrine—Titty Shrine being the seaside shrine at which Takemikazuchi-no-o-no-kami is enshrined, right next to the laboratory. He’d never called me on a weekend before, and I trembled as I boarded the train, imagining how that old drill sergeant was going to rip me a new one.
From Noto-Kashima Station I walked along the shore, through the green rice paddies into the shrine forest, where Taniguchi was plucking at his mandolin.
“C’mon, cherry boy,” he called with a wry smile, and from the shadows of the dingy shrine he pulled out a briefcase containing what else but my computer and research notes. “Sorry,” he said. “Hisako’s got me by the balls.”
I was floored when he told me that you two had been dating since he was working in the lab in Kyoto. No way, I thought. Taniguchi—the jellyfish scientist who waxes poetic about seducing women, downs mysterious virility drinks by the liter, and strums his mandolin alone at the lab into the wee hours of the night—and you—the fashionista Empress of Evil—a couple? The only thing you have in common is how weird you both are—and then I noticed Taniguchi’s mandolin, and the Heart Sutra plastered onto it.
Now it all makes sense. Now I know where you went the night everyone in the lab came to Kanazawa—why Taniguchi abandoned me at Wakura Onsen that night—who that Ōtsuka Hisako doppelganger at Wakuran Onsen really was. And I also know why you just happened to target the lab here in Noto the exact night I went to Kyoto, and how my stuff went missing while my redeclaration of war was still whizzing through the mail, and why, for nearly the entire last month, Taniguchi’s been so sympathetic and helpful with my experiments.
I was blind, but now I see.
I know I would be a fool to expect a single word of contrition from you, but I’m gratified that Taniguchi apologized to me at Titty Shrine.
But why would he do this?
Why are there so many idiots in the world?
When you give people orders you make sure that they obey, and with respect to the conditions you forced upon me in the last letter I expect no different. The thought of it makes my heart heavy. For the past six months I’ve filled up countless pages with my scribbling, yet I’m no better at writing letters than when I first began, to say nothing of love letters. If anything, my letters tend to cause chaos. In fact the more I write, the further I get from bringing joy to the world (and to myself). My dreams of writing love letters have gone up in smoke. Don’t you think it’s messed up to force me—someone with a patchy history with love letters dating back to boyhood—to write a love letter to Ibuki? Is this really supposed to lead me to a happy ending?
All I want is to be happy with everyone. And if I can’t have that, then at least let me be happy on my own.
Morita Ichirō, Professional Instigator
October 10
Greetings from Noto. It’s really starting to feel like fall around here at last.
The other day Komatsuzaki and I rode the train here in Noto all the way to the end of the line, just to see what we would find. Red spider lilies were blooming all along the paths between the rice fields; it was a surreal sight, as though we’d crossed over to the other side, and if my softly swaying ride on that train had indeed been my journey into the next life it would have been a very pleasant way to go. I kid, I kid, I have far too much untapped talent to die just yet.
For the past few days Taniguchi has been mercilessly mocking Komatsuzaki and his marshmallow-ness. If he thought that leaving you back in Kyoto meant he’d be free from marshmallow ridicule, he had another thing coming. At first I felt sorry for the poor bastard, but then I remembered that I call him a marshmallow too. Anyways, now that Komatsuzaki’s bearing the brunt of Taniguchi’s ire, I’ve been able to get some peace and quiet. I look out the window, at the swells of Nanao Bay, and reflect upon my vigorous feud with you.
Let me tell you a story.
Once there was a middle schooler who wrote love letters. He wrote so many that they all piled up in his room. But one day he was rejected by the person to whom he had intended to send them. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t throw them away in the wastebasket, for his mother might have found them. He couldn’t throw them away outside, for there was no telling who might find them. So the boy burned the letters in his backyard. The flames rose higher and higher, as if they were fed by his unrequited yearning, and smoke billowed into the air. But as the boy fed the unsent letters into the fire one by one, he heard the wail of sirens approaching his house. Flashing red lights swirled round and round. The boy’s little sister had seen the smoke and, mistaking them for a house fire, phoned the fire department. All the neighbours came out to see what the commotion was about. When asked what he had been burning, the boy didn’t know what to say. He was so mortified that he wanted to sink into a hole in the ground.
What lessons can we take from this vignette, and from our own feud?
The moral of the story is: some stories don’t have morals. Life is full of stupid, pointless episodes.
I spoke with the lab advisor and Taniguchi today, and I’m pleased to announce I will be returning to Kyoto at the beginning of next month. Do be on the lookout for me.
Write back soon.
Yours,
Morita Ichirō