To the Most Exasperating Woman I Have Ever Known (June 5–August 2)

June 5

To: Ms. Ōtsuka

The cool weather persisted much later into the year than I was expecting, but it seems that summer has come to Noto at last. The rice paddies are planted now, stretching down along the coast in their grids of green.

How are the preparations for the conference coming along?

I seem to have hit a rut in every facet of my life imaginable, and so in order to escape reality I went to a town called Hakui yesterday. It is about half an hour away on the Nanao Line. If you’re wondering why I would waste a perfectly good weekend by going outside, don’t be, for (according to Taniguchi) Hakui is reputed to be the closest town around these parts to outer space, complete with UFO flyovers. But the whole day went by fruitlessly with nary a UFO in sight. Today I am writing letters in the Mister Donut in front of Nanao Station, bathed in the stench of a stagnant youth that is rotting away. The illustration is of the dolphin at the Notojima Aquarium. It’s quite cute.

When you have time, I would be most grateful if you would kindly tell me more about the matter I inquired about last time. I am also curious about your thoughts on Tengu Ham.

As I have much else to deal with, I shall leave things here for today.

Please give everyone my regards.

Yours,

Ichirō

June 10

To: A splendid mentor

Hello.

As a special treat, I am enclosing a self-portrait with this letter. Please enjoy this majestic rendition of yours truly. I drew it to kill some time while I was waiting for the train at Wakura Onsen Station. I went there this evening with Taniguchi, but once we came out of Sōyu he said out of the blue, “Alright, you can get back by yourself,” and with a rev of his car engine he was gone. What a terrible thing to do. I was morosely soft-boiling an egg in a hot spring when I saw someone who looked suspiciously like you coming out of a souvenir store. You didn’t happen to be in Wakura Onsen today…did you?

Komatsuzaki hasn’t been writing at all lately. I’m convinced he must be planning some foul deed. Be on your guard; every time you think you’ve got him figured out, he pioneers some new sort of idiocy to catch you off guard. More to the point, don’t encourage him.

You really are a bad guy.

That’s what Komatsuzaki thinks. You ought to teach him how to watch his mouth, especially to such a splendid, respectable person like yourself. Me? Of course I don’t think that at all. I think you are a wonderful human being, beautiful beyond compare, haughty and independent, overflowing with smarts, living how you please and contradicting yourself whenever you feel like it…truly, you are one of a kind.

And because I am so painfully aware of what a wonderful person you are, I humbly request that you give me an answer to the question I asked the other day.

Respectfully yours,

Morita Ichirō, King of Hot Springs

June 20

To: The indomitable Ōtsuka Hisako

My sincerest wishes that this rainy season finds you well.

Thick grey clouds hang over Noto, shrouding the mountains, the city, the sea. Taniguchi is in a fine temper at my incompetence, smouldering with wrath like Fudō Myōō. I feel that being constantly angry must be shortening his lifespan.

I was stunned after reading Komatsuzaki’s last letter. He said that the entire lab came to Kanazawa. Why didn’t anyone drop me a line if you were all coming to visit right next door? I may be focused on my training as a letter-writer, but that doesn’t mean I’m forbidden from human contact. Now I would never dream of complaining to you, but perhaps I might receive a modicum of consideration here…

Thank you for telling me in such detail how Ibuki is making raw eggs mixed in rice for this unknown man, and writing him letters, and gifting him socks, and doing all sorts of couple-like activities. How positively delightful it is to hear that she invited Saegusa for a succulent Chinese meal at the Tōka Saikan. Both she and Saegusa are fans of Morimi Tomihiko after all, which must have helped them hit it off. I fail to understand, however, what two ladies such as themselves find interesting in that man’s writing.

I beg you to tell me who it is that Ibuki is involved with. If he is someone with whom I am acquainted, all the more reason for me to know. My feelings won’t be hurt, really.

The Unflappable Morita Ichirō

June 29

Your Grace,

I was most honoured to receive your letter. I have been driven up the wall by a string of failed experiments. The stress has caused the peach fuzz which covers my body to fall out, and my feces have taken on an idiosyncratic rainbow hue. O, star-crossed Morita Ichirō, whither shalt thee be blown? O tempestuous Taniguchi, wherefore dost thee vent thy anger so? I am glad to hear that your conference presentation went off without a hitch. I read your detailed report on Ibuki with gratitude. I am delighted and I wish her every happiness. You seem to think this man is quite a catch. That is good. I am but the pale moon to his glorious sun, and that is as it should be. I must ask why you have not told me his name. There’s no need to spare my feelings. His name is certainly not something I absolutely need to know, but it’s also not something I absolutely don’t need to know. Don’t you agree? Don’t you think so? I must end things here for now. Taniguchi may actually drown me in the bay today.

Yours,

Morita Ichirō

July 12

To: Ms. Ōtsuka, the gold standard of evil

Lately the letters have come pouring in so thick and fast into my mailbox that it feels like my training has begun in earnest. No sooner have I read and replied to one missive than another clamours for my attention. Being that I’m the one who started this I know that I have no one to blame but myself. At times I feel like I could coax Lady Luck herself to my side with a stroke of my pen, but then I think of my job hunt and lose all motivation to write, doubly so when I think about how poorly my master’s thesis is going. Before you commit yourself to any kind of rigorous training, you must be prepared to fail. Not a single person would take any notice if I were to drop out of this self-imposed training, but that makes me bitter, and that is why I refuse to let myself falter.

The rain has been unrelenting for days, and I am at my wits’ end. I despise slugs. Have you ever stepped on a slug with your bare feet? The physical feeling is impossible to put into words; your mind is torn equally between ecstasy and dismay. I encourage you to give it a try. Only the other day I spotted a slug as big as a sweet potato by the waterway next to the research station. It is intolerable to live in the same country as such a disgusting creature.

Occasionally the clouds will part, allowing a glimpse of the blue sky yonder, and a majestic rainbow will stretch across Nanao Bay. But you only have a moment to suck in your breath and admire the view, for in a few minutes all will be grey once more. Not a moment goes by each day where my mind is not beset by some trouble or other; it almost feels like being back under your tyranny at the lab.

How was Tanabata? Do you remember what happened last year? You forced me to go to the botanical garden to cut bamboo, where the caretaker found me and chewed me out. I’ll never forget how you shot off like a rocket, leaving me to face interrogation alone…sometimes I still dream about it. It was a terrible thing to do. What a memory. I hate you.

I hear that Komatsuzaki fed his precious Saegusa some weird thing called a “Bubble-bobble Chimaki”. I can’t keep the tears from streaming down my face when I think about how his clever little idea somehow idiotically ended up giving his crush an upset stomach. Maybe so much of his brains have turned into marshmallows that he can’t come up with a coherent plan. I think he’d be better off giving up on becoming a stand-up human being, and focusing instead on becoming a stand-up marshmallow.

Thank you for your words of consolation.

As long as Ibuki is happy, I’m happy too. Your lecturing is perfectly unnecessary: I’m not so petty as to resent her, thank you very much. Morita Ichirō may not be much to look at on the outside, but on the inside he overflows with enough compassion to fill Lake Biwa. Therefore your concern is unnecessary. Now, may I trouble you to tell me what kind of man he is? Is he one of those musclebound types? Is he a clever sort? Is he a looker? It takes much more than those things to make a man. What is the gold standard, then? That is for me to decide.

Sincerely,

Morita Ichirō, the gold standard of manhood

July 22

I have a request for you today. Recently I received a rambling letter from Komatsuzaki, wherein he said that he met Saegusa at Yoiyama and made a massive blunder. I can only hope it didn’t involve him making some obscene display of himself, but from what I read he seems to be in a fairly unsound state of mind. He mentioned that he is absconding to India, so I beg you to find out what happened and stop him from going. By no means should you cram him onto a container ship bound for India. His stomach is as weak as his mind and I’m afraid that the water in India would do him in. A soft marshmallow requires a soft touch: that’s all I ask of you. With respect to the man with whom Ibuki is so in love, I don’t―I refuse―to believe that he’s really a playboy who pretends to be a sweetheart and seduces women all over Japan. Ibuki’s not the type of sucker that would fall for a womanizer like that!

Ichirō

August 2

To: The most exasperating woman I have ever known

My sincerest wishes that you are bearing up in the scorching heat.

Now that we are in August it is starting to feel like summer here in Noto. With my lab work making little headway, I turn to look out the window, through which I can see brilliant sunlight bouncing off the waves of Nanao Bay, and thunderheads rising up beyond Noto Island like vanilla ice cream swirled high atop a cone. Waiting for the train at the station, melancholy wells up as I listen to the cicada cries which cascade down upon me like twilight rain.

O, Summer Break! Will I ever again feel your warm embrace?

Thank you for telling me about the climax of Komatsuzaki’s romantic saga. So in the end it was your scheming that allowed him to stick the landing and salvage that Yoiyama mishap. That makes sense―not that Komatsuzaki pulled it off, but that he had help. There’s no way that he could have done this on his own. He proudly sent me a picture of her. I sent him back a letter ending our relationship.

That’s enough about him.

I am seething with fury. I am positively enraged.

After months of leading me on about Ibuki’s boyfriend you can’t just suddenly say it was all a prank.

I already knew about the part where she was a superfan of Morimi Tomihiko. But based on everything you’ve been writing any reasonable person would have come to the conclusion that she got a boyfriend. What a waste of my time and emotions. You knew I had the wrong impression the whole time, didn’t you? Think you’re going to get away with saying “it’s just a prank bro” and “learn 2 read”? Think again, fucker.

Do you have any idea what the past two months have been like for me?

Every day I toil away here at my research in this grey research station on this lonely stretch of seashore. By playing this prank you have not only endangered the master’s thesis of a model student, you have also impeded the progress of Science. You are not only hindering humanity’s understanding of those queer creatures known as jellyfish, you are also hindering its understanding of how to deal with the destruction of natural environments around the world. These problems affect not just me, but all of humanity. This is not the time to be smugly remarking “lol I knew you had a crush on Natsuko!” For shame.

I don’t need your advice telling me that I should write to Ibuki directly. This is my own problem to solve, and the last thing I need is for you to come butting in. Please just leave me alone. Morita Ichirō is a free man, a citizen of the entire globe.

The Komatsuzaki news, among other things, put me in such a bad mood that I went to Wakura Onsen with Taniguchi the other day and went drinking with a bunch of strange old guys. A beautiful lady saw me in the buff. Taniguchi says not to let you win. He also told me to outdo his old bones. Not long after he said that he tried to throttle me. Maybe he means to make me into a dead body before I can step over his. But it goes without saying that I have no intention of losing to you either.

I’m begging you, hurry up and graduate already.

Give the laboratory (and everyone in it) some peace and quiet.

You seem to be enjoying life to the fullest. I lay my pen down now, praying fervently that life has some sort of bottomless pit waiting in store for you. My letter may be ending, but I promise that I will have my revenge. Just you wait and see.

From Noto with love,

Morita Ichirō