"Letter"

A Shaman King One-shot

Yoh/Anna pairing

Author's jibberish: This is a challenge from Kaiyrah. She said it has to be either angst or romance, must be written in an hour, and must be Shaman King. If you think this story sucks, it's her fault.

Dear Anna,

            I wonder how you're gonna react to this letter. In fact, I'm wondering if I should even bother to give it to you in the first place. But, this is a way to get something off my chest, and so, here I go.

            I never thought I would ever meet you. I've heard of you, just by name. My grandma had taught many pupils to keep the shaman tradition alive, but I never met any of her previous students. But that one day, when I heard Grandma was bringing you over; I should have realized you were a special case.

            In fact, I never thought I'd ever like you. I saw you walk in, hand in hand with Grandma. Eventually, I got enough guts to say you were cute. And you hit me. Hard. I learned my lesson after that. My grandparents thought you were perfect for me; you could whip the laziness out of my body and get me to be a great shaman. But every time I saw you, you hit, scratch or slap me and the tears would form. I honestly thought you were a devil and I didn't want to be around you. Then you came after me in Tokyo, training me to the brink of exhaustion, and I thought you were pure evil. But you made me stronger, and I never got the chance to thank you properly. And I noticed during my battles that you didn't help me out most of the time, but you stayed. Manta told me it was because you believe in me.

            But most importantly, I never thought I would feel so strongly for you. It's strange; I didn't really pinpoint it at one time in my life when I said to myself "Anna is very special to me." It was a whole lot of things over time that got me to think. Like when I do something stupid, you glare, narrow your eyes at me and it looks like you're at the end of your patience ready to slap me across the Pacific Ocean. Then your lip curves upward (to the right side, to be exact) and it grows…slightly. The others don't see it, but I do. And it's not that your lips erupt into a huge grin, but your eyes soften, and because of that, it looks like your smirk turns into a smile. And for me to cause you to smile…that is the warmest feeling.

            So, I was sitting outside yesterday, and I wondered what life would be like without you. And I realized

            Yoh looked over the letter and immediately his shoulders fell. "No way," he said, folding it in a tiny square and stuffing it between the pages of his English book.

            "Yoh! Hurry up!" came Anna's voice from behind him. "We have to get you back to training."

            In a rush, Yoh picked up his schoolbag, forgetting his textbook on his desk.

---

            Ding-dong.

            Anna opened the front door and found Manta standing there, holding a thin textbook in his hand. "Yes?" she inquired with an arched eyebrow.

            "Yoh forgot this at school. I just wanna give it to him."

            "He's busy training with Amidamaru. I'll give it to him," she told him.

            "Training?" Manta couldn't believe it. "Shouldn't that be over? There's no tournament…it's like you're slave-driving him--."

            Anna snatched the book away from him and slapped him across the face with it. The book fell to the floor, the spine facing up. When Anna lifted the book up she noticed a piece of paper on the floor. It was folded into a little square and some black ink scribbles were visible through the sheet. Curiously, she unfolded it and wonderment washed over her as she saw her name at the very top, in Yoh's writing. She slammed the front door shut, ignoring a shrieking Manta sprawled over their outside welcome mat.

            The moment she finished reading the letter, Yoh and Amidamaru came from the back. She turned to him, and Yoh and Amidamaru stepped back. She held it up so Yoh could identify it. "What's this?"

            At first Yoh didn't realize what it was until he noticed the English book in her other hand. His eyes widened and swallowed a very large lump in his throat. "How…?"

            "Yoh-dono?" Amidamaru asked.

            "I…uh, need to talk with her…alone, please?"

            "Very well." And with that, the samurai ghost disappeared. Once he did,

            "How-how did you get that?" Yoh asked.

            "Manta brought it over and this letter dropped out."

            There was silence once again until Anna asked, "Why?"

            "Why what?"

            "By your expression, it seems as if I wasn't supposed to get this."

            "Yeah."

            "Because it's not done?"

            "You were…never supposed to get it."

            Anna's throat began to heat up and she strode towards him, slamming the letter against his chest. "Don't finish writing it. I wanna hear the rest…now."

            Yoh's face turned to 5 shades of pink. "Now? But--!"

            "What did you realize? How would life be without me?" she growled through her teeth.

            Yoh stood silently for many moments and watched her face. Her jaw was tense, but he gazed into her eyes.

            "How would it be?" she repeated with her hand still at his chest, pushing the letter against him.

            Yoh heard her low voice, but he didn't pull his sight away from her eyes. And right before him, he watched her gaze soften, the fire of anger moving away. Yoh continued to stare at her as he placed his hand over hers, still upon his chest. "I wouldn't like it. In fact, I'd hate it."

            And at this, she exhaled, and a soft smile appeared on Anna's lips.

…fin…