In memory of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

NOTES: Akaya to Yanagi. Informal grammar.

Letter to Nobody

Writing the letter became the last resort for him.

It was the final solution he arrived at after dialing that all too familiar number and getting no service. The robot's monotonous voice rejecting his call replaced the deep, quiet voice he hoped to hear.

It was the final solution he arrived at after emailing that all too familiar email address and getting no reply. As carefully as he sorted through his junk mail, he still did not get the long awaited message.

So, writing the letter became the last resort for him.

He had already exhausted all means of communication, all attempts at trying to reach the other, his respected senpai.

'Dear Yanagi-senpai,' he wrote. His salutation literal rather than formal, for the other was truly dear to him. 'How are you? I hope you're well.'

He didn't mention himself. He didn't mention how he was doing in a foreign country across the seas. He didn't mention how his tennis training was going. He didn't mention how his family called him up early that morning to tell him of the tragic news, about the disaster that tore up his beloved hometown country. He didn't tell him how they were all safe and sound.

That didn't matter to him.

All he wanted to know, was how the other was doing. Because he had not heard from the other.

In the end, he mailed that three-lined letter. The ink-scripted words looking lonely and awkward taking up only the first few lines of the letter paper; the scrawny characters appeared as if they were silently wishing for more companions.

In the end, he didn't write anything else than the three lines, for the simple sentences revealed his feelings so fittingly. He stuffed all of his loneliness and hope into that thin envelope, hoping it would carry to the other what he wished to express, what he hoped the other would understand.

He sealed the envelope. An hour later, he stood in line in the post office, the letter in hand. He sent it off through express airmail.

Then, he spent the next few days waiting for the reply.

His days passed before his eyes like a movie being fast forwarded. He had been a part of that movie; he engaged in the daily rituals that he was meant to engage in as the character in his role: go to school, go to tennis practice, sleep, eat, finish his homework, and most importantly, check his mailbox. Yet, there was a part of him that wandered elsewhere.

That part of him watched him, watched as his life flew by, his physical body unaffected by the changes in day and night: one day, two days, one week, two weeks.

Until the earthquake and tsunami were no longer in the headline news or in people's exchange over lunch. Until people stopped pushing for donations at street corners.

Until he felt as if the entire event had been a mere dream...

What he finally received, laying alone as if forgotten in his mailbox, was that letter he wrote so long ago.

And the blue ink stamped across the front.

"Return to Sender."

Because the address was unknown.

Because the address no longer existed.

And the person he sent it to might as well stopped existing.

Because the person he sent it to might as well be a nobody.

He had written a letter to nobody.

Explanation:

For those of you who have friends or relatives there, I hope all is well.

For me, I hope that certain someone is unharmed as well.