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The pencil lead scratches against plain lined paper, the only sound in the quiet dusk other than the lone chirping of an early cicada and the quiet rustle of breeze through branches overhead.
"(Name),
"I remember your last letter to me. Well, this is my last to you."
I tap my chin and wonder if I should discard it already. What a corny start. I decide against it, though. It doesn't really matter how well it's written.
"I know I've never written any to you, anyway, haha. I'm not much of a writer. I guess it's my first to you, as well. The one letter."
I huff an amused breath through my nose.
"I don't know where to start, now that I think of it. I have a pen and pages upon pages of paper, and all these thoughts in my head, but I can't seem to write a word.
"Ok. I'll start with this: I love you. Or rather, I fell in love. With you.
"I didn't fall in love with you the second I saw you. It wasn't love at first sight, where I knew I'd pursue you to the ends of the earth. No. It snuck up on me. At maybe the worst possible time, when my feelings for you only added to your emotional load.
"Our first interaction was a pretty normal one. You looked just like everyone else; in the way that everyone looks different, that is. You have features you got from your parents, a mix of history and chance, the outcome of events and interactions and things that happened. You were the point all that had come to, the result, and you were standing there, just twiddling your thumbs. You had no idea what's you'd do to me. Neither of us did.
"You gave me that awkward smile. The one you give strangers to say: 'Hi! I see you'; I didn't think much of it, just gave you a small smile back.
"We became friends. I don't know how. I can never remember how I made my friends over the years. It just... happened. We got to know each other. We'd go to the cinema, we'd have sleepovers, bake cookies, tell each other secrets, tell our fears. It wasn't particularly amazing or different from other friendships. It felt normal -- a friendship that we were supposed to look back on and smile at when we were older, regardless of if we'd gone our separate ways and become strangers over the years or were just as close at age 60, looking back on the bittersweet days when we were young.
"I look back on it now. I'm not old. I'm young, just finishing school. I have my whole life ahead of me. I look back, and it's already bittersweet. That's what you did to me.
"I mentioned sharing secrets and sharing fears.
"You told me you were afraid of losing people you love. You were scared of the emptiness that followed: the hole that was their absence, leaving a deep, deep scar in the places that they had filled — the spaces they had occupied, their voice and the tempo of their breathing, the oxygen they took from the air.
"I would tell you I was afraid of deep water and that I was afraid of dying before I was ready. I'd begrudgingly admit that I was afraid of the dark and afraid of cockroaches.
"What I didn't tell you was that I'm scared of that, too. Losing people — the ones I loved. I know everyone, or, most people anyway, are scared of that, but once I realised my feelings for you, I was the most scared I've ever been.
"I guess you change when you face your fears. And I'm scared. I haven't changed. I can't face that fear.
"But I can face my fear of death. I'm ready.
"I'm not scared of death anymore.
"And I'm sure of it, because I'm sitting here, writing this right now, and there are five more letters, all of which I've had time to second guess each and all as I draft and throw them out and start again, barely finding the right words to express myself. This will be the last one I write, and I know, unlike all the others, that the recipient will never read it.
I sigh and glance at the sealed letters discarded in the grass in front of me, each closed and written with care, each addressed to different people: my mother, my father, my brother, my two best friends. In the end, though, they all mean the same thing. Each letter has the same message.
I shake my head and run my hand through my hair. It's sweaty and unwashed.
"I'll get to what I'm trying to say. How we met didn't really matter. What matters is how I saw you when I knew you, and how I see you now.
"When I knew you, I would always admire the way your face scrunched and how you held yourself, with arms crossed and gaze assertive. You seemed strong and ready to face the world coming at you from the outside.
"I would admire the way the sun dappled and played across your skin and how dust beaded on the body of your knitted sweater. I would watch as you drew on your legs with ballpoint pen, and I'd relish running my hands across and down those same patterns as I held your thighs around my waist. I'd relish the way your lips felt on my neck, even when they were dry and chapped, and I'd sigh as I played with your hair because I knew I'd forever find comfort in those memories.
"I always found you beautiful, even with the acne blemishing your skin and when your eyes were red and puffy, because you were mine, and I was yours. I would smile into your lips as I ran my hands across your stretch marks because you were perfect for me, and nothing anyone ever said about beauty would ever change that.
"I wouldn't find you ugly in those moments when you'd cry until you couldn't breathe or when you'd scream your anguish into my chest or when I saw your body bare. I would feel grateful in those moments. I would feel grateful because you trusted me and turned to me for help and weren't afraid to talk, because you know I'd listen without judgement, and I knew you wouldn't judge me either.
"I knew you wouldn't judge me. You didn't find me scary or repulsive, even when I said I had intrusive thoughts. Thoughts like running my car into pedestrians or cutting my hands off. You assured me that those thoughts weren't mine. Those weren't things I consciously brought into my mind, it was just my brain turning on itself. You were kind. You embraced my fears and kissed my scars, the scars I inflicted upon myself, understanding without a word. But maybe that understanding weighed on you.
"Maybe that's why you did it.
"What I can't understand is why you didn't talk to me about this. Why you didn't trust me with talking about it. Maybe you thought it'd burden me. Maybe you thought I'd get scared or maybe you thought I wouldn't care. I'll never know whichever it was or whether it was none, but maybe if you'd just told me, things would be different.
"I couldn't understand at the time, through my tears and the sound of my own screams as I tried to get to you, why you did it. But I think I understand now. I know it's not for the same reasons as you, but I think I understand, because each and every time I look at myself in the mirror, I wish that I was dead.
"I think I understand now why you did it. Grief does things to a person. Guilt does, too.
"Well, my pen is running out. My words have been cut short. This will be my last letter.
"I love you. And I know you loved me. But you didn't love me enough to stay, and I don't love myself enough to stay, either.
"Sincerely, Koushi."
I delicately place the ballpoint pen in the grass. I blink away the sticky tears dried on my eyelashes and neatly fold the page before slipping it into a white envelope, identical to all the others besides the names written on the front of each one. An orchestra of cicadas are buzzing in the branches overhead now, hailing the looming dark of late dusk. Pine needles prick my palms as I stand and gather the letters.
I exhale into the cool air and face your gravestone. The bright, pigmented light of the dying sun stains its flat, clean cut surfaces. Your name etched in bold print on its face beams at me mockingly. It seems to think that what's written there says all the reader needs to know about you. But someone that reads your name as they walk by on the pathway will never know the things you did or the places you went or the things you said. They'll never know your wants, your fears, why you cried or why you laughed or who you loved. They'll only know you as the faceless name carved into stone in block print by an indifferent machine, eroding away with each passing year.
I pull a ziplock bag out of my pocket and drop in the envelope. It's for the best, in case it rains.
As if you'll ever get to read it.
I rest the package at the foot of your gravestone. The dirt there hasn't been overgrown with grass yet, only compacted by moisture and overturned on the surface by the foraging of a bird.
It didn't feel like enough. I didn't write enough.
But I leave it there. I'll see you again soon, anyway, because it isn't necessarily a goodbye letter. At least, not to you.
I place the rest of the letters into my bag and set off down the gravel pathway toward the school. It's empty when I get there; everyone is still in class, working hard on studying and sitting exams, maybe some even wondering where I am. I slip the envelopes in my friend's lockers and promptly walk out, only taking a single glance back. I quietly wish them good luck with their next volleyball tournament.
Next, I walk to my house and delicately slide the remaining envelopes under the crack in the door. My family wouldn't read them until tonight, when they all get home. And I'll be long gone by then.
The last part of my walk is short and uneventful. I take the dog path toward the lake where you and I used to go after school and just sit under the trees, admiring the sparkling water banked by rocks as the sun's setting rays soaked into the scenery. The lake is still when I get there, ripples barely marring the flawless reflection of the trees and setting sun. It's perfect. It's just the place I would like to spend my last moments.
With the utmost care, I untie my shoes and set them on the border between the grass and the rocks boarding the shoreline. I tuck my socks in the holes and then take off my shirt, exposing my bare back to the cold air. I shiver and laugh. Something about the whole situation feels ironic, irreverent. I'm about to destroy the magic of this beautiful lake where old people walk their dogs every afternoon and parents take their children and young couples come to gaze out at the water, expecting the best from their future. I'm about to take that all away from them.
I stumble over the uneven rocks and grab one twice the size of my head. It's smooth and round and kinda cold. It's nothing special.
Sucking in a breath, I wade into the water. It's warmer than I expected. Fish flit around my legs as I walk in deeper, the water reaching my waist and soaking my pants, then my belly button, and finally my shoulders. The ripples are close to my face now and I stare and admire the little eddies as I hear someone's voice in the distance. I have to move quick.
Hissing through my teeth, I creep further into the water until I have to stand on my toes to breathe. Then I close my eyes and push off into the deep.
The rock weighs me down and I sink to the bottom. The pressure presses in on my ears. I feel my hair drifting across my cheeks and bubbles rising past my nose as I exhale into the water, letting every last bit of oxygen drift upward out of reach.
The water hurts at first. It feels foreign in my lungs and I can feel it suffocating me with every passing second. But then the pain recedes. As my body fights for air, my mind is enveloped by a strange sense of peace, like a blanket covering my ears and muffling the sounds of the desperate screams coming from my lungs.
It muffles the sound of splashing, too.
I sigh into the water and lay flat on the pebbled lakebed, the rock pressing on my stomach. I look up. The dim evening light overhead warps and shimmers, a kaleidoscope of reflections and broken images. I take in the sight before I close my eyes one last time and let the water guide me to my eternal rest.
It's funny how well the water muffles voices.
Through my sleep, I feel arms wrap around me.
And suddenly, our heads are breaking the surface. I hear someone gasping as they flounder back to shore; then the rough, uneven surface of rocks pressing on my back as someone beats on my chest.
Water spills from my mouth and my body gasps for air. Glorious, glorious oxygen rushes into my body and feeds my starving brain.
'Koushi.' Daichi's voice is thick with tears.