I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm depressed. You're damn lucky I even finished this at all, let alone in time. All of you. In the course of one week, I've aged the equal of ten years, thanks to this cursed story. Read it, love it, hate it. It's no doubt error-ridden and awkward. It's no doubt devoid of emotion or humor. I've tried to be funny; I've hopelessly failed. I started this damnable thing in September. Why? It's bloody hard to write a comedy when all you've had are bad days all along. Groaning on towards its final demise, the Sailor Moon author in me has churned out this piece of sludge in hopes of staying fresh in people's minds and to keep a few people happy. Nothing- not my school career, my personal sanity, nor the re-opened wound of a death in my family in October has stopped me from completing this. To you, my electronic friends. And to you in particular, Xandman, who, in my darkest hour, blessed me with hints, tips, and, yea verily- entire sections in order to urge me onwards. You have any praise? He is the one who deserves it (minyee@unixg.ubc.ca), not me. I am worthless. Greetings also go out to Jon Carp (jcarp@med.unc.edu) and Levar Bouyer (l_bouyer@lvc.edu), the two best netpals a guy could ever have. And, on that happy note, let us read on. If you still care to, that is. ------------------------------ Love Letter: From the Desk of Ami Mizuno A fanfic by Victor Naqvi vnaqvi@hotmail.com ------------------------------ No, no sappy love quote or funny excerpt. I know I'm gonna hate myself for writing this depressing dirge tommorrow morning. And I am *not* goth, for your information. Get it out of your heads. No, I'm not an existentialist, either. I'm having a bad day. *** The brisk winter air greeted three particular Juuban Junior High School students as they swung open the doors and stepped outside to face the chilly afternoon, ready to head home after another day of school. As it was routine after school, these three particular girls would chatter about the days events, about class, people, gossip... But today would be a bit different. "Well, girls," Makoto said, zipping her green ski jacket up and adjusting her earmuffs, "You know what tomorrow is, right?" "Yeppers," Usagi replied, clasping mitten-clad hands together. "Valentine's Day! I'm gonna go home and write pages and pages and pages of silky loooooove to my Mamo-chan... sigh..." Makoto just smiled and nodded her head real polite-like, Ami gazed down onto the ground and blushed. And at that moment, Usagi whipped her head around to look at her, as if noticing her for the first time. "Hey, Ami! What're you gonna do?" "Umm, I uh-" "Oh, waitaminute. What about you and Urawa and- oooh," She had one of those foot-wide grins on as Ami blushed an even deeper shade of red. "So, what'cha gonna do? Bake him something? Write him a love letter?" "Mail him a tongue depressor?" Makoto giggled. "That's not funny." "Fine. But you are going to write him something?" Makoto said as she stuffed her hands into her winter jacket. "Well, I was thinking about-" "Can you believe it? Ami Mizuno, writing something not related to schoolwork. Let's just take a moment to think about it..." Usagi and Makoto both looked upwards, in mock contemplation. Ami was less than amused. "Uh, I've got to go home and-" "Study?" "-do something. See you tomorrow." "Bye bye, Dr. Looooooove. Hee hee hee!" *** Ami closed the door and stomped on the mat, allowing the snow to shake off her boots. She then shrugged off her black wool coat, brushed the snow off, and hung it neatly in the mirrored closet beside the front door. "Mom?" "In here, dear." Ami slipped off her boots and put them to one side, then strode across the main hallway into the kitchen. Dr. Mizuno was there at the table, a plate of muffin crumbs and an empty coffee mug in front of her, gazing at a yellowed piece of paper with a faraway look in her eyes. "I'm home from school, Mom. What's that?" She looked up at her and smiled. "Oh, it's an old love letter that I have. Your father wrote it, you know." She sighed, and absently played with a corner of fabric on her lab coat. "Now your father could write a love letter..." Again, her eyes looked distant, and Ami knew she was reliving some old memory of her and her husband, young and energetic, not a care in the world... Judging from the condition of the paper, the letter was probably written a long time ago, when they were just teenaged lovers... "...Anyways, that's the past, and I should look ahead, but still... So, what about you, Ami? Tommorrow's Valentine's Day, you know." "Don't I know it," Ami silently grumbled. "Don't you have someone to write to?" Her eyes brightened. "Oh, how about that nice young man who came by a couple times before... Urawa!" She smiled and snapped her fingers. "What about him?" "Actually, I was just-" "Going to go study? I know I've been telling you that all along, but times like these don't come often, and you just have to take advantage of it when it does." she pointed towards the old love letter. "Besides, he seems like a really nice boy." "I'll, umm, think about it." She turned to leave. "Okay, dear. Oh, look at this mess," she exclaimed, picking muffin crumbs off her clothes. Ami stomped into her room and sat down at her desk in a huff. Then, she cupped her chin in her hands and looked out the window, half watching the snowflakes drift down and layer the streets and sidewalks in a blanket of white. She went back, in her mind's eye, to the time when this entire mess started. They were both standing on the platform at the train station, amid a number of bustling folk boarding and getting off the bullet train that would make the second leg of its journey back to Kyoto. Urawa had held her hands in his, and asked her: -Will you write me? -Of course, she answered, blinking at the sound of the conductor's warning whistle. -Then promise to write me on Valentine's Day, okay? He gave her hands a gentle squeeze. She had nodded. Urawa leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before boarding the train and yelling a hurried "Goodbye!" before the door slid shut behind him. Ami stood there until the train had accelerated away from the station, nothing but a green-white speck in the distance. She shook her head ruefully and returned to the world of the present. She opened a drawer in her desk and extracted a few sheets of loose-leaf and a ball-point. Slapping them both on to the desk surface, she sat poised with pen in hand. She moved her hand down and depressed the nib of the pen to the sheet, then stopped. She remained like that for about five minutes' time, unsure of what to write. Finally, she let the pen drop to the desk, pushed the chair away, and got up. *** "Hey, Usagi! One of your dumb friends is here!" Shingo yelled at the top of his eight-year-old lungs as he dashed up the steps to the bathroom in which Usagi was presently taking a shower. Ami half-followed him in, knitting her eyebrows at the remark. Meanwhile, Shingo had gone and flushed the toilet. "Arrrgh!" No more than ten seconds later, Usagi ran out, naked as the day she was born, arms outstreched, hands wanting to wrap themselves around her brother's scrawny neck. Out of the corner of her eye did she catch her friend gawking at the spectacle before her, her face as red as the sun on her proud nation's flag. "Whoops!" She stopped on a dime, twisted around in midair (or so it seemed), and made a beeline right back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Ah, the joys of visiting the Tsukino household. A minute passed, and the door opened. A more, calm, collected Usagi strolled out, bathrobe wrapped around her. Her face was flushed, and her hair was still tangled. It was evident that she hadn't yet begun to shampoo it. "Um, hello." "Look, if this is a bad time, I could always-" Usagi waved her off with her hand. "Don't be silly! You know as well as I do that you're always- ahem- welcome here. Now," she said, placing a friendly arm around Ami's shoulders, "what can I do for ya?" "Actually, I came here for your help. I was going to write Urawa a letter for tommorrow, you see, and..." her voice trailed off, and she made a face as to silently beg Usagi to figure the rest of it out. Judging by the grin on her face, it wasn't going to happen. 'And what, my dear Ami?" She pouted. "Oh, I don't have to say it, do I?" Usagi nodded her head rather vigorously. "Yes you do. I want to enjoy this." Ami sighed. "AndIcan'twritealovelettersoIreallyneedyourhelpplease?" In the time-honoured Marlon Brando-Don Corleone tradition, Usagi pinched Ami's cheek. "Of course I will. In fact, I was just about to sit down and do mine for Mamo." She jerked her thumb towards her room. Shall we?" They both strode into the room, and Usagi shut (and locked) the door behind them. One did get a little paranoid when a possesed(?) kid brother was running around. Ami noticed that Usagi preferred to write while lying on her bed, as a few sheets of paper and a book to be used as a writing surface were set upon the matress, and the desk was used as a makeshift shelf for all her stuffed animals. "Now," Usagi began as she sat crosslegged on the bed and chewed on her pen, "the first thing you want to do is tell him what his love feels like to you." Ami's eyes brightened. "Really?" Maybe Usagi did have something here. "Sure!" Usagi shifted so that she was now lying on her stomach, and cupped her head in her hands. "Like how Mamo-chan's kisses feel like... like... like hot chocolate... With marshmallows!" Usagi hurriedly scribbled the idea onto the paper, and in doing so didn't notice Ami sweatdropping. "Oh, and it's not those large marshmallows either. Those small white ones, you know the ones that look like sugar cubes? And they'd kind of half-melt in the hot chocolate but won't melt all the way so it feels kinda squooshy in your mouth? And if you wait a long time but not so long that the hot chocolate gets cold or anything-" Ami scratched her head. "Uh, I've got to get going, Usagi." "-and then if you stir it with a fork, and I like using a fork to stir my hot chocolate because a spoon kinda makes the marshmallows stick in the center when you're stirring, some of the marshmallows kinda fall apart and it becomes marshmallow cream, which tastes absolutely wonderful, you know- Ami?" *** Knock, knock, knock. Ami stood at Makoto's doorstep, already regretting her decision to come. Maybe this whole letter-writing thing wasn't such a good idea after all. Maybe she should just turn around and go home. Maybe Urawa would understand if she didn't wr- The door flew open to reveal a breathless Minako. "Ami!" she chirped brightly, "come in, come in!" And with that, she caught hold of Ami's hand and pulled her in, chattering all the way. "Mako's in the kitchen, as usual. She found these new recipes that she wanted to play around with..." "Hi, Ami!" Makoto yelled from the depths of the apartment. "Um...hi," Ami returned weakly. Her reply was barely audible; it was doubtful that Minako even heard her, let alone Makoto. Minako, meanwhile, was still talking as she led Ami to the kitchen. "...been at it since she got back from school. Not that it's anything unusual, mind you, but I don't know how many more cookie sheets her oven can take before it just blows up." "Nonsense," Makoto countered, patting the side of her stove. Now that the other two girls had come into the kitchen, she could join in the conversation. As much as she could while running back and forth between appliances, that is. "Freddy wouldn't blow up on me, would you, Freddy?" she cooed to the oven. "So," she said, turning back to Ami, "what brings you here?" Ami coughed slightly, dragging her eyes away from "Freddy." "Well, I..." "Hang on a sec," Makoto interupted, rushing over to the mini-broiler upon the ding of a timer. "Hmm. Maybe a few more minutes. You were saying?" "She said, 'Well, I...'" Minako offered helpfully, hopping up to sit on the space she'd just cleared on the counter. She reached out to swipe some cookie dough out of a nearby bowl, and promptly got her hand slapped by Makoto. "It's not done yet - I still haven't put in the wets," Makoto scolded, cradling the bowl protectively. Ami picked an open recipe book and glanced down the page. "It says here to use 3/4 cups of water. " Makoto waved her hand dismissively. "Water? Nah, that's too bland. I'm going to try some milk instead." She licked her finger and held it up in the air, like a meteorologist trying to determine the wind direction. "It's a moist day. Less milk." "But Mako," Ami protested, the chemist in her coming up to the fore, "the book says..." Makoto looked offended. "Ami, Ami, Ami. The thing with recipes is that they aren't meant to be followed exactly. They just give guidelines, and you run with it. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and voila!" She pulled open the fridge door with her toes and grabbed a jug of milk that was surrounded by plastic containers. Balancing the bowl in one hand, she unscrewed the cap and splashed some milk into the bowl before replacing the jug and bumping the fridge door closed with her hip. "Well, I suppose..." Ami looked doubtful. She'd always seen cooking as a similar process to chemistry. After all, wasn't it all the same principle? You mix some reagents, add heat, and you come up with a new product. But then again, she was no cook and Makoto was no chemist. Maybe there was a reason for that. "So," prompted Makoto, rapidly mixing the ingredients with a wooden spoon, "do you need anything in particular? Cookies? Pot roast? Lasagne? I know your mom loves the stuff..." "No, no," Ami demurred hastily, "no, it's just that I..." "Cheese cake? Stew? Gah, I made a whole pot last night and I had to eat alone..." "No, really, I just-" "Casserole? Chicken?" "A LETTER, Mako! I need your help in writing a letter!" Ami finally burst out. Silence. Makoto and Minako looked at Ami, then at each other, and back at Ami. Ami, for her part, was just about ready to sink into the tiled floor. "I'm...I'm sorry," she said in a very small voice. "I just...needed...your..." she trailed off miserably. "Advice? But of course! You've come to the right person. Let Dr. Minako take care of all your problems!" Minako slid off the counter and bounced over to Ami, slinging her arm around her shoulders. "So, who's it for?" Ami blinked at the blond, nonplussed. "Well, see, I promised Urawa that-" "Urawa?" Minako began to grin. "Urawa?" Makoto stirred her spoon more rapidly, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. "Yes, Urawa," Ami said wearily, admitting defeat. "And yes, it is a love letter. Now please help me?" "Oh, forget about a letter," Makoto told Ami, waving her spoon much like a professor would wave a lecturing stick. "As I always say, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Just ask any of my ex's." "Don't listen to her," Minako countered, manoeuvring herself in between Ami and Makoto. "I think you should tell what you like about him." Makoto shook her head. "No, no, no, that's too obvious. Be subtle. Give him some cookies." "But I don't bake," Ami pointed out, beginning to feel overwhelmed. Makoto shrugged. "So give him some of my cookies." "They'll go stale before they reach him," Minako retorted. "Go with the letter." "No, go with the food!" "Letter!" "Food!" "Letter!" Ami started to draw away from the two combatants who had squared off in the middle of the cluttered kitchen. She was just at the doorway when her attention was caught by...something... "Um...Mako? What's that smell?" "Foo-" Makoto broke off and sniffed the air. "My meatloaf!" she shrieked, running back to the broiler, where plumes of black smoke were beginning to seep through the sides. She grabbed her oven mitts and pulled down the door, coughing and waving the smoke away as she tried to rescue what was left of her dinner. Minako, being the bright young woman that she was, recognised an opportunity when she saw one. Taking advantage of Makoto's distraction, she dragged Ami to the living room, where she plunked down a pen and a piece of paper on a table and sat Ami down. "Now," she began, pacing with her hands behind her back and looking very serious indeed, "you should start off with all the stuff that you find cute about him." Ami hunched over the paper, pen poised to begin writing. "Like what?" "Like his curly blond hair, for one." The pen hovered in mid-air. "But Urawa doesn't have..." "And his big blue eyes. Don't forget his big blue eyes." "But Minako," Ami began. "And his *dimples*." Minako had stopped pacing by now. She clasped her hands in front of her, hearts in her eyes. "Those dimples that flash whenever he smiles..." Ami just stared at Minako, but the blonde was oblivious. She was in a world of her own. "And he looks soooo good in his varsity jacket...here, give me that paper." Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the paper and pen right out of Ami's hands and started to scribble madly. Ami very carefully retrieved her scarf and jacket. "Um...I think I will go now..." she said to no one in particular. No one answered. *** The snowfall had started again. There weren't any driving winds, though, so the large flakes drifted to the earth gently. The sun had gone down about half an hour ago, and the city lights reflected off both the snow and the overcast sky, giving everything a pleasant lavender shade. Ami carefully made her way up the slippery steps of the Hikawa Shrine, silently wishing that the people who built this place would have had the presence of mind to install handrails. Such as it was, she made it up the 30-degree incline without any mishaps. Rei was just at the door of the temple, dressed up in a dark purple ski jacket and jeans. Her hair was in a ponytail that folded into itself to shorten its length, and the top of her head was crowned in a beige canvas cap. Her gloved hands gripped the handle of a wide shovel as she lifted the snow from the main walkway and tossed it over her shoulder onto the sides. After three more such motions, she stopped to remove the cap to wipe her brow, and at that point noticed Ami. "Evening!" "Hi, Rei," Ami replied. She tossed one end of her scarf around her shoulder, then trudged through the ankle-deep snow towards her. "Say, why isn't Yuuchiro doing this?" Rei resumed shoveling. "Hmph. I was the first one Grandpa saw." Her eyebrows knitted. "It's already 6:30 in the evening, I haven't had dinner yet, and I've got to shovel this entre walkway clean. *And* it's snowing! Can you believe my luck?" Then, a look of inspiration flooded over her face like happiness spreads over someone who just won the lottery. "You know, I could get this walkway done in half the time if I had someone to help me." "Well, all I really wanted to ask was-" Before she was able to complete the sentence, however, a shovel that seemingly came out of nowhere was shoved into her hands. "It's good for your back, you know. And besides, look at what a beautiful night it is! I mean, what other way would you rather be spending it?" "But just before you said-" "Never mind what I said. Shovel." Rei placed the scoop of her shovel on the ground and plowed a section of walkway clean. After a moment of standing still, shovel in hand, Ami slowly began to scoop the snow from the ground. "Anyways, what I wanted to ask- oof- was you help in a letter I want to write." "A letter?" Rei asked. "Yeah, a letter." Ami coughed. "Oh. I see. Well, at least you had the presence of mind to come to me first instead of Usagi or the others..." Again, Ami coughed. "Have a cold?" "Umm... no." "Good. Now I think that writing a letter to someone you care about is a bit flaky, if you ask me," she said. "It's been done to death. No, what you really want to do to show that someone that you really care about him is to write a song." Ami stopped. "A song?" "A song." "A song?" "Yes, a song." Not for the first time this evening, Ami felt her cheeks burn. "A... A song," she stammered. "Sure! What could be sweeter than serenading your love with a song from the heart?" "Anything!" she blurted. Apparently, Ami Mizuno knew the lesser of the two evils. Trying to write a love letter on her own merits was bad enough. Trying to write a sappy love song was the equivalent of trying to sneeze with your eyes open. Ami just couldn't do it. In and out. Deep breath. Frowning, Rei curled her arm around Ami's shoulder and shook her. "Oh, for- get a hold of yourself, Mizuno! And why on earth are your cheeks so hot?" "Peanut butter," Ami shot back. Frustration began to cloud her judgement. Now, there was a line drawn somewhere in the sand- er, snow that Ami refused to walk over. Songwriting happened to be across it. The mental image of her singing to Urawa, lips pressed on his ear, dancing together in the... now that she thought about it, it didn't sound so bad. Perhaps she could- NO! "Rei, I really appreciate your suggestion, but-" But, Rei was already halfway across the courtyard, heading into the shrine. "I'll be right back!" she called behind her. When Rei did come back, guitar and paper in hand, however, all that greeted her was a half-cleared walkway and a discarded shovel. "Oh, dammit." *** Ami raised her cup of tea and drank from it calmly, slowly. She returned the cup to its saucer, glanced up at her hosts, and smiled with satisfaction. The two persons sitting opposite her smiled back warmly. "So," Haruka began, forming her hands into a teepee on the table's surface. "You'd like to write a letter to someone you care about, right?" Ami nodded in reply. Michiru tossed her hair a bit and then proceeded to wear that 'I know something you don't know, doo dah, doo dah' look on her otherwise serene face. "You've come to the right place," she continued, as she crossed her legs under the table. "Where should we start from?" Ami asked her. "The eyes...." Haruka trailed off as she tilted her head downwards to Michiru's, "...And work our way down from there, hmm?" "I don't know, Haruka. I'm pretty impatient," Michiru countered, the first hints of a smirk forming at the edge of her mouth. There were some shifting noises under the table again. Ami's ears were on fire. "Look, guys. Do you really think I should start off with a more- more *physical* description of my affections?" she said, trying to veer the topic back on course. Haruka frowned, but she didn't take her eyes off Michiru. "That's fine. Of course, you can't be direct about it- there's always that hint of subtlety that makes it exciting." Michiru nodded beside her partner. "She knows all about it." "About my physical descriptions, Michi?" "Call them what you'd like, Haruka-kun." She smiled sweetly. Ami, until this point, had been looking on at the scene with her mouth tightly clenched, veins clearly displayed on her otherwise featureless neck. Then, she went from a shade of red to bone white and bit her lip. She looked at Haruka. "That's my leg." Haruka scratched her cheek. "Sorry." Ami, slightly off-balance, rose slowly from the chair. "I really appreciate you taking the time to help me and all, but I don't really think we're thinking- oops," she exclaimed as she half-tripped over the low piano bench, "on the same level here." Michiru shook her head. "You've got to loosen up, Ami." "Tell me about it." She maneuvered to the closet and retrieved her coat from the hanger. As she closed the closet door behind her, Setsuna came in from the kitchen, removing a pin from her hair and shrugging it loose down her shoulders. "Hi, Ami," she called. "Do you need something?" Ami stared at her plainly for a moment. "Forget it," she finally said, wrapping her coat around her and walking out the front door. *** Ami miserably trudged home in the ankle deep snow; the municipal works department hadn't begun to remove the snow from the sidelwalks as of yet. The trail of tire grooves in the snow from her driveway and the absence of the family car indicated that her mother had gone to the hospital for another of her graveyard shifts. Sighing, Ami fished the key from her pocket and made her way inside. She removed all her winter gear from herself and placed the boots on a slush mat, then padded across the hallway. Into the kitchen she ventured, took out some cheese and crackers, and began to make her way into the living room, when she eyed the white envelope laying on the hall table. She went into the living room, placed her food on the coffee table, then returned and looked at the envelope's surface. Urawa Ryo. She was suddenly moving, scooping the letter up and dashing back to the living room, jumping onto the couch. There, she used her fingernails to make an untidy cut along one side, then ripped the entire top section off of the envelope. She tugged the folded papers out and tossed the rest away. The paper that the message was written on was expensive; rice- parchment, it must have been. Urawa had used blue pen; his writing was naturally messy but not impossible to read. And there was a lot to read, surely; he had written small and used both sides of the two pages. She stayed there, sprawled on the couch, eyes darting over the page, occasionally cracking a smile, and absently sliding a cracker and a slice of cheese into her mouth, ignoring the crumbs that fell on to her shirt. Nearly a full hour had past before she was finally finished reading the letter, the last words echoing in her mind: Whatever you do, I want it to be from you. She needed no other motivation. *** Valentine's Day. *** "Urawa!" "Yes, mom?" "You remember that nice girl back in Tokyo?" "Yes, mom." "There's a letter from her on the dining table!" "Thanks, mom!" Urawa was in his room, trying rather messily to open the envelope. It wasn't one of his strong points, and so in the end decided to resort to the pen lying on his desk as a makeshift letter-opener. He retrieved the papers and placed them on the carpet, then sat down cross-legged in front of them. Just as he finished reading the header and the "Dear Urawa" section, the cordless telephone lying beside him chirped. He reached over blindly and grabbed the device, pressed the TALK command and nestled it between his ear and shoulder. "'lo! Hey, Oro! How's it going? Yeah, happy Val's Day to you too, man. What am I doing? Reading a letter someone sent me... Yes, it's her. What's it say? I can't tell you; these things are private, y'know?" "So how's the letter?" Oro asked through the phone. Urawa took a second to read a couple lines down. The flow of the letter was awkward. Here, it looked like she was trying to write a poem, but then gave up; over here, she was getting too technical in her description. All the writing was neat and percise, but the rhythm of the entire piece was broken and off key. But, there was one thing he picked up as he read on, one thing that he was eternally grateful for: her honesty. As sloppy as her style was, there was a certain breed of innocence that shone from behind those words which made the poor technicality of the piece fade away. He smiled. "Hello?" came the impatient voice. "You know what?" "What?" Urawa fell backwards onto the carpet, placing his hands over his head. "God, but I love that woman." Fin., Michi?"