Chp. 1- Mitsuko 101

Mitsuko always was a quiet person. It was almost atypical of the world she grew up in to be silent, for one reason or another- but she was simply disinterested. If she had a catchphrase (which would be far too predictable), it would be ‘why talk when nobody’s listening’. And that kind of sums up Mitsuko.

But I didn’t just figure this stuff out by opening some old diary by which due to the miracle of a dyed paper and ballpoint pen, Mitsuko bared her soul to me, unbeknownst to her. No quite anyway- it was something else.

* * *

Strangely enough, Mitsuko or ‘m’, as she referred to herself, was fluent in French, Cantonese, Japanese and English. Well, at least it was rumoured. When I first met her, she was dressed like a young boy would. Khaki hiking shorts, but not the “flattering” type I suppose; a loose shirt that appeared to be intended for sleeping in, and scuffed running shoes, laces tied doubly over themselves.

She was perfect.

Mitsuko was not exactly ‘natural beauty’, as most of my friends or colleagues would describe. Her boyish looks, hidden intelligence and reclusive nature made her the opposite of most high school boy’s desires.

I guess you could say I took a passionate interest in her. People didn’t understand Mitsuko, and neither did I, but that didn’t scare me, or label her a ‘loser’, I just thought she was pretty- and I knew she was smart. So I had to figure her out.

Which is kind of my thing, I guess. Figuring people out. Trying to analyse the dumb decisions people make, which is probably because I’ve never been able to figure myself out. Not that I haven’t tried. And it’s not like I pretended to be the mysterious teenager wearing all black in subways at 3 a.m. or anything ridiculous like that.

But both Mitsuko and I passed through school without more than brief passing in hallways and glances towards her in classes. But I didn’t just let it pass.

These are letters I wrote to Mitsuko. The first one was penned when I was 16, a few days after I saw first saw her.

Chp.2- The First Letter

23/11/12

Dear Mitsuko,

                        Hi. I guess it’s stupid to say hi after basically saying an endearing greeting already, but I guess you don’t expect this letter, so I feel obliged to break formality. I met you a few days ago, which is probably a long time before I will send this letter, but I will explain that later. I don’t expect you to write back, but I might write to you again, and if you actually read them then I suppose I should try a little harder to be less desperate sounding.

First of all, are you really multi-lingual? Some of the girls I know gossip about you and it seems so insulting to learn and refuse to speak a language once you master it. Let me know. Or don’t. Whatever. Not really whatever, because I do want to know, but, like, don’t make a big deal out of it.

Next, what do you do from day to day? I unfortunately don’t have gossip on that matter. I wrote this in a noisy library, surrounded by grade eight students so you’ll have to excuse my handwriting and sentence structure. Well I hope you do.

I don’t know if you will ask this, but, I don’t know it seems like the most obvious question- who am I? Well, I don’t know if you would talk to me if you knew, or if you would write back, so I have instead assigned myself an alias of “r”. I know its stupid, but I didn’t want to give any obvious hint of my identity, not that I’m particularly memorable anyway

.

And probably the most important question you might have- why? Well, while you don’t talk much at all, that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say. That’s my opinion anyway. And I don’t want to dismiss the possibility that you have something to say. I want to write other reasons, but I don’t want you to dismiss me as weird(er), so I will stop. If you ever want to write back, you can send mail to this PO Box 583, in the main Postal Office. They won’t tell you who owns it, I double checked, so please don’t try figure out.

Bye for now,

r.

P.S. I had to leave this inside your school locker, so could you please let me know a mailing address so I can not do something as intrepidly difficult as insert an envelope into a fully shut metal box. Please.

* * *

I didn’t hear from her for a while. But she wrote back eventually. To be honest, I had regretted sending the letter when the response took more than a week, and worried at any moment she would burst out in front of me and the first words I would hear her say would be ‘STALKER!’. So I tried to forget about the stupid idea I had of getting to know Mitsuko through a long series of letters. But then, as Autumn rolled around and the flowers of May blossomed, I checked at the Post Office (like I did every day), and was stunned to discover I had received something.

A square box- a tiny, square box. It was small enough to fit in your palm, and was brown. No wrapping, nothing. I was surprised such a thing even existed. Channeling my inner Indiana Jones, I shook the tiny brown cardboard next to my ear, to listen for the noise of something inside.

A soft, scuffling noise came from within.

I broke the box apart, disappointed in myself for having ruined what appeared to be someone’s craftsmanship.

A small piece of folded white paper fell out. My skin prickled and I looked around quickly to make sure I wasn’t being “punk’d” or some other social catastrophe. Not yet at least. I was hyperventilating with raw excitement as I stuffed the tiny entirety of the contents into the pockets of my backpack, no longer laden with books that the cyclic holiday of summer boredom had approached.

* * *

I had already assumed it was a letter from Mitsuko as soon as I got on the train. No one else had the mailing address- I hoped. I kept glancing round the train, not so much in my normal hyper-worried state, but in the fear that somehow, something dreadful would end the opportunity to read what obviously must be a confession of love. No, Mitsuko isn’t like that. Idiot. Is she?

It’s not to say that I had built up my own excitability with all the time waiting, but I had frantically overhyped my expectations of a piece of paper all the way home. But I ignored the promising smell of my mother’s charcoal-flavoured dinner for the comforts of my room. Amongst week-old dirty sheets I began to labour away at the task of unwrapping what I presumed was a letter. I mean, what else could it be?

I breathed for what felt like forever.

to be continued