The click in the lock of the door broke me out of my concentration. I glanced up, tossing the letter down on the table as I watched the door swing open and my fiancé step into the entryway of our home, arms laden with bags full of groceries.

"I'm home," she called out cheerfully, giving me a happy smile. I swiftly rose to assist her, but soon found I wasn't needed. She set the bags down in the kitchen before I'd even reached the table.

"Welcome back," I greeted her, pulling her against me so I could kiss her head and pat it before we began putting the items in the bags away.

"Sorry I was gone so long," she murmured as she set aside ingredients for dinner. I paused at her familiar action; was it that late already? I glanced at the clock; sure enough, time had gotten away from me. It was now well past seven P.M. and time to prepare dinner.

"Not at all," I assured her, my eyes frequently drifting back to the table in the next room. "I had quite the day while you were gone."

She giggled. "I hope you didn't get into any trouble."

I mock-glared at her. "Of course not. I stayed inside and relaxed the day away, just as you told me to. I'm not a kid like you, getting in trouble everywhere I go."

"So he knows how to listen," she teased me, handing me a bag of shiitake mushrooms. I set it with the dinner pile.

I laughed with her, sliding some ground beef into the bottom drawer for tomorrow. "I have ears, you know."

She stopped her movements to look at me, surveying me from head to toe as I straightened. "Hmph. So you do," she observed sarcastically. She spun around to put more things away.

I sneakily stalked up to her, rapidly wrapping my arms around her waist as she separated two bags that had somehow become entangled with each other. She twitched, nearly dropping them in surprise as I pressed my lips to the skin of her neck tantalizingly, trailing my lips up slowly to whisper softly against her ear. "So do you. I like using mine to listen to your sweet voice at night when it's just us, so I can hear every little sound you make…How do you use yours?"

"Kunihiko?" she whispered at my unexpected actions.

At her low, questioning voice, I released her from my hold. Smiling at her gently, I continued to put groceries away.

I felt her eyes on my back and turned slightly as I reached up to put some spices away in a high shelf. "What's wrong?" I inquired at her strange look.

"By any chance, did something happen today?"

I dropped back to my feet, my mouth dropping open the tiniest bit with surprise. So she'd noticed after all. I didn't expect anything different from her.

But I forced a smile. "Let's eat first," I offered in lieu of a response. She nodded, understanding my tone. She wouldn't push me to discuss it now.

I offered to help, but after she declined it, I ended up watching over her silently as she cooked dinner. I'd taken to the activity lately whenever I had the chance. I could still recall the first time she'd ever cooked at this condo, back when she had first moved in and neither of us had expected to be where we stood today. She moved more confidently now, having grown accustomed to the kitchen's utensils and organization of the tidy space, but also having improved her skills through practice.

The further along she got in the dish, the easier it became to piece together the contents of tonight's meal. "Chawanmushi?" I exclaimed, pleasantly excited.

She laughed reluctantly. "It was supposed to be a surprise, but I didn't want to shoo you away. You looked so peaceful sitting there watching me."

"Oh." I wiped the back of my hand across my nose. Her smile grew at my gesture. "Is there a special occasion tonight?"

Her chest heaved with a repressed chuckle. "You'll have to wait and see."

Observing the concentration with which she worked kept my thoughts off of the letters residing impatiently on the table behind me. It wasn't like me to run away from a problem like this, but the effect Shintaro's memories always had on me were constricting me.

The doubts over my worthiness and feelings of guilt pervaded my heart, and I could almost feel myself being sucked back in time. Back to when I shunned relationships with anyone that could lead to an undeserved happiness. Back when I denied myself what mattered most and allowed the past to prevent me from moving forward.

No, I scolded myself as the painful sentiments reared their ugly heads. I've moved past this, haven't I? They're just letters. They have no deeper meaning. No backhanded retributions are hidden with their words. They were written ten years ago. I can read them. There's no reason I can't. It's not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault Shintaro can't read them with me now. Not my fault…

It's not my fault. Right?

"What's not your fault, Kunihiko?"

My head snapped up to meet my partner's concerned gaze. She'd abandoned the dishes on the table to come stand beside my stool. Her eyes shone with worry at the thoughts I'd unwittingly spoken aloud.

"It's nothing…." I whispered, half to her and half to myself. I realized how out of breath I sounded; my chest heaved with the effort of pushing the memories back. If it really was nothing, why was I feeling so conflicted about it? I flicked my eyes away as though doing so could hide my true emotions.

Sensing my distress, she rested one of her small hands lightly on my trembling ones. Her other smoothed a stray piece of hair back behind my ear, followed closely by her cheek, which she rested against my head. The soothing comfort she emanated calmed me instantly. I leaned forward onto her shoulder, allowing myself a brief moment to gather my thoughts in her embrace.

It wasn't fair of me to be so secretive, to gain so much strength from her when I hadn't given even an explanation in return. I needed her support, but by asking for so much and giving so little in exchange, I only caused her worry.

I breathed into the fabric of her shirt, "Hazuki stopped by earlier today. While you were out. She'd wanted to see you."

"That was kind of her. Is her honeymoon over?"

"Yeah. She just got back. She told me a little about it. Hazuki seemed so happy."

She smiled against my hair. "I'm glad."

"Me too. Shintaro must also be…right?"

"Yeah." She nodded her head once.

"But…" I inhaled deeply. "That wasn't the real reason she visited."

"It wasn't?"

"She came to give me these." At last, I found the strength to lift myself away and grab the letters from the table where I'd left them. The seal on one remained half torn; the letter I had almost opened was the one from me. Shintaro's letter remained undisturbed, as though it were still a fragment of the past simply misplaced in present time.

She stared down at the objects in my hand, looking confused. "She brought you letters?"

I nodded, gesturing for us to sit on the couch, the food on the table completely forgotten. I explained to her the story behind them and how I seemed to have forgotten it until Hazuki returned the letters to me. The brittle papers crinkled in my grasp as I detailed how torn I'd been between opening them and worrying about whether that might be disrespecting Shintaro's wishes.

"What if he's angry that I forgot something like this, which was so obviously important to him? I couldn't possibly read them with a clear conscience. I shouldn't even have them now."

But my arms wouldn't move. I could neither let them go nor hold them closer.

"I don't think that's it at all." Her brow crinkled slightly as she shifted closer to me. "You wrote these a decade ago, after all. Neither of you could have anticipated what would happen. Shintaro wrote his letters with the intention of delivering them back to their rightful owners on this day, I'm sure of it."

"…"

"Hazuki's right. Maybe these will help you move on. Both Hazuki and Shintaro have your best wishes at heart. Those are the feelings you should accept, Kunihiko, rather than suspect Shintaro of resentment."

Deep in my heart, I recognized the truth of her words. It would be more of a disservice to Shintaro's memory to shun a piece of our past than it would be to honor his memory by moving on with my life. Somehow, my eyes found their way back down to the paper I held delicately in my hands.

I put my finger under the seal to continue where I'd left off, my teeth gritted in concentration. My muscles hesitated to move.

"Let me help you," a soft voice murmured.

My eyes met her warm brown ones in the midst of a stunned silence. But I nodded without hesitation at her determined gaze, a grateful smile just barely held behind my lips. "Please."

She pinched the corners of my letter between her thumb and index fingers tightly. She braced them when I tore through the seal with my hand, to prevent the letter from ripping because of the stress. Her hands worked to wriggle the letter free from the envelope without damaging it. I watched with a detached mind.

What secrets about myself would I find hidden in these long-forgotten words? I tried to recall the person I'd been ten years ago, but he seemed like such a distant man that he could have been a different person for all I remembered. What and who did he value back then? What were his goals? How did he spend each passing day? What did he want in his future?

"Kunihiko," she called my attention back to the paper in front of my eyes. She laid it in my palms, folded neatly just as a business letter would be. I brought it closer to my face, inspecting the yellowed paper before I opened it and revealed the first words on the page to our eyes.