Lovers Absent Speak
by Dora-chan
Chapter I: Love Packaged In Envelopes
With Tsukasa's protection and jealous tendencies and Tsukushi's exasperatingly oblivious disposition, how is the couple going to endure four years with six thousand miles of salt water between them?
I thought it would be fun to look at the correspondence between my favorite Anime couple during their college years. :) Will distance prove a more devastating rival for Tsukasa than the watchful Rui who remains ever faithfully at Tsukushi's side?
Disclaimers: Obviously I don't own HYD, because if I did, then Hanazawa Rui would veeeeery likely have ended up with the girl.
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.
-John Donne
Makino:
HOW many times do I have to tell you to get a computer? Honestly, I can't believe I have to write letters--MANUALLY--in an age where only people living in caves in Afghanistan don't have an email address. How did people back then use to live with DSL and AIM? Actually, a more applicable question would be, how do you continue to live without DSL and AIM?
Anyway, I already know your response. "I'm too poor" .... "It's too expensive." When will the fact that the richest (not to mention the smartest, and the sexiest) bachelor in Japan happens to be your boyfriend finally dawn on you? I don't want to hear your protests so I will email Tama and have her send a computer to your apartment right after I'm done writing this thing.
I've tried calling you I don't know how many times these past few days, but I keep on forgetting that there is a time difference. I am annoyed. Time zones annoy me.
My fingers are hurting so I will end this letter here. Now that you are done reading this, go find a pen and some paper and write me back this minute.
-Tsukasa.
P.S.......I miss you.
. . .
. . .
Tsukasa:
A hundred, a thousand thanks for the computer. You "already know [my] response," eh? You were right--I am too poor and it is too expensive, but I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say......1) you forget that I just moved into another apartment with my brother, and 2) this apartment consists of one room, two futons, a closet. That's it. Literally.
So your computer is sitting here, v. prettily, sans electricity. Feel free to send me emails, but don't hold your breath for replies!
Don't strain your brain cell now, but until you figure out the complexity of time zones (time to put those mad 3rd grade math skills to good use), I'm afraid you're going to have to keep writing letters MANUALLY if you wish to have any correspondence at all :)
How are you doing in New York? Are you getting along well with your parents and your new acquaintances, school and business-wise? Tell me more about your life—your school, your work, your new friends. Are you happy, Doumyouji? I didn't know absence can be felt so keenly....I miss seeing you, and I miss hearing your voice. Tonight, seeing a letter written in your own hand, both relieved and worsened this feeling. Doumyouji, I miss you.
I had better go and make dinner for Susumu now, the poor boy. And anyway, I better stop before I start to sound too sentimental!
Always waiting,
Tsukushi.
. . .
. . .
Tsukushi:
I can't believe you don't even have electricity in your apartment! So you do live in a cave in Afghanistan.
You want to know about life here? Well, everything is fine. I'm gradually settling in, but I don't like how the maid keeps on bringing me coke when I clearly demanded coffee. What kind of a confused moron would order coke for breakfast? Then a lot of senseless gibberish (aka. English) would ensue on her part and I would demand that a new maid be hired. A new maid would come in the next morning and the same madness will repeat.
American maids are of appalling quality and I have been requesting a Japanese one to be hired, but Tsubaki just tells me to learn English. I don't follow her logic.
Business-wise......I have begun my business training. Accounting for a multibillion-dollar business is not actually as impossible as I had first thought. I have spent the past week perusing the balance sheet from recent years and I am suggesting to the board that the financial leverage be increased. Increasing long term debt will potentially raise return on equity although it also makes investments riskier. So I proposed the coming plants and production costs to be financed through long term liabilities and dramatically increase the percentage of debt in our capital structure because doing so will yield higher returns for stockholders in the long run.
Love,
Tsukasa
P.S. I found a plot hole -- if you don't have electricity, then how were you able to write a letter to me in the middle of the night?
. . .
. . .
Tsukasa
I don't know if you've noticed this yet, Mister Doumyouji, but I happen to your girlfriend, not your business associate!! I don't want you to report to me the tedious details of your company's well being you idiot! I think you are a little confused about your target audience. My goodness, did you accidentally send your accountant a love letter instead?
Hmm, speaking of love letters, now I think I want one. Yes, in fact, as your girlfriend I think I deserve at least one proper love letter from you. Take this as your punishment: I am expecting a love letter, but I don't want any trite pick up lines! (Ie. Anything that Nishikado is likely to say heh). Let's see if you can come up with anything that can impress this weed girlfriend.
Have to go now, Susumu forgot his keys again and is locked outside. And school starts next week so I have to start getting ready for my classes.
Meanwhile, I'm going to be patiently waiting for that love letter.
In waiting,
Tsukushi.
P.S. Regarding your "plot hole": it's called a candle. Long cylindrical waxy things that glow when lit. Spiffy little thing.
. . .
. . .
Tsukushi:
Punishment? What punishment? I didn't do anything wrong, and like hell I'm going to write something that can be used to blackmail me later on. Anyway, if anything, I should be the one getting love letters. I usually despise these disgusting habits, but I guess I'll let it slide this one time and read anything that you must be just dying to write me.
Oh, and the federal mailing system annoys me. It takes about A WEEK for them to deliver a frickin letter! SO many things could have been accomplished in the one week that it takes for the post office to mail one letter. Like, Soujiro could have slept with, cheated on, and broken up with half of Tokyo in that one week. Beckham could have screwed his team and country up all over again in that one week. Cuba could have been liberated in that one week.
So I'm sending my butler over to Japan with this letter. He's going to come back to New York the following morning to pick up your reply. See? It's so much more efficient this way. You just had to make this whole thing so damn difficult by not living like a sane 21st century person.
School doesn't start until another two or three weeks (HAHA to you). But work, Tsubaki, and (primitively handwritten) letters are keeping me busy enough. And I'm just going to get busier because I'm going to have all kinds of sickly love letters demanding to be read.
Would write more....(actually, I wouldn't, fingers hurting now) but Tsubaki is yelling again.
Love,
Tsukasa.
P.S. Wait--if you don't have electricity, then how do you get your phone to work?
........omg, THAT'S why my calls never get through! Holy crap, woman, move out of that hole.
. . .
. . .
Tsukasa,
And you accuse me of living in an primordial cave....there is this neat little thing called A CELL PHONE. Portable rectangular plastic things that ring when used. Rather nifty.
I can't believe you're using your butler as your personal international mailman.... "Efficient"??! Hmmm, let us consider for a moment the difference between the price of a Cathay Pacific ticket and the price of.......a stamp.
And to think that in your 2nd letter you tried to give me a lesson in accounting. I fear for the future of the Doumyouji Corporation.
It's not as though my brother and I ENJOY living in, as you said, a "hole"! =p We couldn't afford Eitoku's ridiculous tuition hikes and a good apartment at the same time. I'm going to go look for a 3rd part-time job tomorrow and maybe we can move to a better place soon. Wish me luck!
Alright. I'll fulfill that love letter challenge if you do it too. Something tells me I shouldn't do this but it seems to be against my weed nature to back away from highly embarrassing predicaments.
Yours,
Tsukushi
. . .
. . .
Bring it on.
Love,
Tsukasa
. . .
. . .
Tsukasa,
......You sent your butler flying 6000 miles overseas just to deliver a one liner?
Hey I was the one who issued the challenge, so you have to go first. Remember, no hackneyed sonnet-y phrases! That means no linking my face to a thousand ships, no plagiarizing the words of another man (ie. Shakespeare), and absolutely no asking me whether or not it hurt when I fell from heaven.
School starts tomorrow, so it may take me longer to send replies now. A good thing, as it might give your poor butler some rest.
Yours,
Tsukushi
P.S. You may want to switch mailmen. Your butler has a decidedly green complexion. Flying non-stop back and forth between New York and Japan seems to be finally taking its toll.
. . .
. . .
Tsukushi,
It is the east, and Makino is the weed. After the initial savor of her barbaric strength, who could help but pull a Darwin and launch a thousand ships after this impossibly cute mineral specimen, who proves that the fittest really does survive, if "survive" means to get the hottest guy in, well, the world. Long have this sexy, rich, fabulous young master tried to repress his feelings but it simply will not do, my feelings grow stronger by day. I want nothing more than to stick to you like spackle paste. You are gorgeous like a VERY gorgeous cow, and I am like a sexy, rich, fabulous young vegetarian who has to wait 4 years before I can finally taste the sweetness of steak. Words cannot describe how much I long for that cramp in the neck I get when I lean down to taste your lips. Nothing beats that cramp. It is the best damn cramp in the world.
love,
Tsukasa.
P.S. HAH, did you think this would be too difficult for me?
. . .
. . .
......to be continued!
Author's Note:
I know there are OOCness here, but I think people generally sound different in letters :) The written tone is usually slightly different than the verbal one, and one tends to reveal more in writing than when things are spoken. Anyway, I hope I'm not too off on characterization. If so, just drop me a quick note and I will try to work on it for the next chapter!
I admit that I lost interest in HYD for a while because of that whole Umi fiasco (I don't like Doumyouji with other women....I get jealous for Tsukushi!) But I JUST finished reading the rest of the series, and I want to say that HYD is, and will remain to be, the best damn series, ever.
;)
In the next chapter, one of these things will happen:
1) Papa Makino turns out to be a lesbian
2) Soujiro finds out that he is a figment of someone else's imagination. Angst!
3) Doumyouji finally, finally, finally calls Makino on the phone
4) Professor Snape will, to Doumyouji's dismay, propose to Makino.
Which one is true? (because the answer is SO not obvious.) To find out, keep reading!
