Week Four Without You
Yuzu wrote letters. She wrote and wrote and wrote. She wrote until her hand cramped and she could barely let go of the pen and then she kept writing anyway.
One for dad. One for Ayu, and for Futoshi, and for Tatsuya. One for Yuya, a response to the letter he had sent her to reassure her, even though she wouldn't know how to return it to him. One to Yugo, one to Selena, one to the Rin and Ruri she had never met. She had so many things to say that she didn't know if she'd be able to.
Dad: I'm okay. I promise I'm okay. I'm working hard. I'll be home soon.
The You Show kids: Keep working hard. I'll be home as soon as I can. I can't wait to see how much better at dueling you've all gotten while I was away. Don't lose hope.
Yugo: Thank you for taking care of me. Please stay safe. This world of yours seems so dangerous.
Selena: I hope my words reached you. You're with the Lancers now, I can see that—that's good. I wonder what you're thinking now.
Rin, and Ruri: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish I knew why they wanted us. I wish I knew how to save you. You deserve to come home.
Yuya: Thank you. God, thank you. Thank you for sending me your words, for strengthening me, for reassuring me, for promising me that you're going to try as hard as you can, because it gives me the strength to work hard too. It gives me the strength to hope and believe too. I won't give up ever again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please remember that you are strong and that your smile has reached me.
Masumi:
And her pen stopped. Page after page filled with words and words and more words, things that the receiver would never see, but things that she wanted—no, needed—to say.
Masumi:
Her pen pressed to the paper after the name but her hand shook. No words flowed. Not like they had for the others.
She crossed out Masumi's name. Wrote it again, as though that would spark her thoughts. It didn't. So she crossed the name out and rewrote it again. And then wrote her name a third time without crossing it out.
Masumi. Masumi. Masumi. Masumi.
It was a chant, a meditation. The girl's name blurred before Yuzu's eyes but she kept writing it even as her hand started to shake and her eyes blurred with tears so that every incarnation of the name grew sloppier and sloppier until it was just a scribble without meaning.
She dropped the pen. Her head collapsed to the table.
Tears stained the paper underneath her.
Masumi, she thought to herself, in lieu of writing it. Masumi, Masumi, Masumi, Masumi.
What would Masumi have done if she had been here instead? She probably wouldn't have cried. She probably wouldn't have panicked. She probably would have taken to the D-Wheeler like a fish to water, and grinned with that competitive streak of hers, unafraid of the Friendship Cup competitors. Perhaps she wouldn't hurt as much when she thought about how she had just sent someone down below the city to work in a forced labor facility for the rest of their lives. That victory, in this case, led to the ruining of another's life.
Or maybe, instead, she would have been better at rebelling against the system. Louder. Harsher. Maybe her voice would have reached this bloodthirsty audience in a way that Yuzu's couldn't. She probably would have been able to be...stronger. Tougher. She probably wouldn't be breaking down right now and sobbing into a piece of notebook paper.
And that was when the words came. Yuzu snapped up, grabbed her pen, pressed it to the paper even though it was stained with tear drops and she almost tore through it a few times because it was still wet.
I need you.
I need your strength.
I need the feeling of you next to me, I need to feel like you're guiding me the way that you guided my hands on the piano.
I'm not strong enough. I thought I was stronger than this but I'm not. I thought I had learned enough but I haven't. I'm not cut out for this. I'm not...enough. I want to be enough. I feel like
I feel like
if you were here, I would be enough. We would be enough. Together, I mean.
I'm just
just
I'm scared
I need you.
I need you at my side, I need to hear you scolding me and snapping at me to get back on my feet and keep going. I don't know if I can do this on my own. I wish
I wish you were here so that
so that I could tell you
There was only a second's hesitation before she wrote the last line.
I love you.
Because, Yuzu realized, it was true. She loved Kotsu Masumi. She loved the way that the girl flipped her hair up in the air when she was trying to intimidate her opponent by looking confident. She loved the way she let out that little huffing sound when she disagreed with something. She loved Masumi's soft hands laying on top of hers, the faint scent of some kind of acidic chemical that must come from cleaning gems, the way that she blushed and stuttered sometimes and revealed that she wasn't quite as cool as she liked to pretend she was, that haughty look of self-superiority that seemed to melt into awkward respect when she didn't have a reason to pose.
"I love you," Yuzu whispered, her voice choked tight.
She balled up all of the letters and threw them into the trash can. She would never be able to send them.
She stared at the one to Masumi for a long time.
Then she balled that one up too and threw it out. She knew so starkly that it was possible she would never see Masumi again.
They were things that she would probably never be able to say.