Masaki's Journal, Expedition June 2016

[totallysane]

This is awfully soon in a relationship for love letters, but when I found out you were leaving, I needed to do something. I can't come with you. Oda said that it was all right to join even though so many other people were going, but I can't in good conscience leave the supply depot, and the settlement itself.

What to say to a new girlfriend who is going away in a world where the next day is never guaranteed though?

I'll start with how glad I am to have met you. It might have come across like I was really hesitant when we spoke on the network about having a relationship, but let me assure you that none of that is about you. There are a lot of things in this world that have been difficult for me, and you know that better than some people who have known me longer. Having met you and being given a chance to get to know you better makes me really happy though, even if what time we've spent together turns out to be all we have.

I don't want it to be all we have. I want to get to know you better. I want to find out what your favorite foods are, and what you like to do with your free time, and what your life was like at home. I want to know who your closest friends were, there and here. I want to find out who else interests you, not out of jealousy, but because I want to know what kinds of people are important to you and what about them is important to you and how you relate to people.

I want to know everything you enjoy so I can do it for you. I want to know what you don't enjoy so I can avoid it. I want to know what would be the best way to spoil you, because you deserve spoiling.

Someday, even if just for a day or two, I want to go to sleep beside you and wake up beside you.

See? And there already I feel like I don't know if I crossed a line. Is it too much to say that? I'm not a stalker. I have my own life here in this world and my own other priorities, and you know that. (Though some of those it seems we share.) But I do want these things with you, from you... and to give to you too.

When I look at you, I see something almost miraculous.

I know you struggle too. I'm not saying you don't struggle, or that everything is easy for you, or that you can't get frustrated or hurt or scared or upset. But when I look at you, when I see you move through this world, when I watch you smile, when you hold me while I cry or laugh with me, I see something amazing in you, something of a spirit that can not just survive, but do it with grace and joy.

I see someone I don't think this world can break. But if I'm wrong, I'll be right here with duct tape just in case.

...

Last night I had a dream that you and I grew up together in some world that probably wasn't either mine or yours. It was a pretty silly dream. This world did that to us once, tossed all of us together in a city that was some weird amalgam of different worlds, and made it as if we'd always been there.

I don't really want some kind of false reality, but I have to admit that the idea of growing up with you kind of had me waking up smiling. If only because I was thinking we could have gone to school together, and studied together, and sneakily held hands shyly in the library while doing our homework.

...

It's hard for people to believe sometimes that I like wholesome simple things like holding hands. That's something I like about you, that you know and understand that about me, while also knowing and understanding that I'm the sort of person to create the room that you walked into with the red thread around your finger.

I am both those things. I'll always be both those things. Thank you for accepting that about me.

...

Masaki, have I told you that I think you're incredibly beautiful? I can say it here because you can't cut me off and flail and blush at me. (Though that's cute too, and even now for all I know you're slamming the book shut and refusing to finish reading the page.)

But I do think so! I think your hair is such a lovely shade, and when the sun hits it, there's a particular shimmer that makes my heart skip a beat. Just because I didn't come to you on the beach doesn't mean I didn't see you, didn't relish that image of you under the brilliant sun playing in a way that is different from our real lives.

...

I wish I had gone to you on the beach, a little. But our lives here are what they are, and we both have a lot of other things going on. I was busy being chased by sharks, and you were busy with muscular men.

...

Have I made you laugh yet? I love your laugh, I want to make you laugh more often.

Will you laugh if I tell you that when I was trying to put this journal together for you, I propped a crude drawing of you up on my desk and talked to it out loud? "Masaki, I think you're beautiful," I told it. Except that of course it wasn't really as beautiful as you are. I need to steal a picture before you go. Not a dirty one! Just a picture of some type.

...

HI MY NAME IS RYUUGAMINE MIKADO AND I AM THE BIGGEST DORK ON THE PLANET.

Okay, we got that out of the way. You probably already knew it but I thought I'd make sure. I have no idea how to talk to girls. You would tell me if I were being too ridiculous, wouldn't you, Masaki? I'm no good at these things!

You always smile so much though! Even when I'm being sad at you. You have the loveliest smile, whether you're just yourself or that older sexy version. (Not that the older sexy version isn't going to be haunting my dreams for a long time. If only I'd been in a better place when I met her...)

...

I can't decide if I want to tell you things about myself here or wait until you return. It's kind of a nice chance, just to spill some things without having to say them to your face. But would it be too much? I feel like it might be too much.

I don't want to have secrets from you or lie to you about anything, though. That's kind of important to me, with how some other relationships of mine in this world have gone. But I also want to pretend we have all the time in the world to know each other.

Maybe just a small thing then. Maybe I could tell you that I grew up in a small town, with a best friend who was much braver and more open to trying things than I was. Can you imagine it, knowing me as I am now? I was a shy little boy who didn't have the nerve to even go on school trips. I never left my hometown until it was time for high school. My best friend would drag me out in the middle of the night to look for bugs, and I would flail about getting in trouble.

One day I looked up and there was a huge empty sky in my hometown, but it seemed like there was nothing there. So I left.

But you know, in Between sometimes I miss that sky. The sky here is different, not just because of the fog and the damage that's been done to the world, but because the air of growing things and that rural sense of healthiness just isn't here. I wish I could take you to those fields and walk through them with you, and drag you out in the middle of the night to look for bugs like my little kid self did with my best friend.

That's the kind of relationship I want with you, one where we can be children and adults and everything in between, every moment.

Is that too childish for you? Maybe you don't like bugs. Let me know.

...

After you left, that time you kissed my scars, the night where we were holding hands together, that next day I cried for a really long time.

I'm not saying that to make you feel bad.

Actually, it was really nice. No one's ever done that. Some day I would like to tell you the story of those scars, but I'm not sure I want to do it here. It seems almost like cheating, when I can't find out for sure if you want to hear it, first.

...

I want to know about your scars too. Everyone has some.

...

It's a little early to say a lot of the really flowery stuff. All the gross romantic things that I'd say to someone I knew better just don't seem to fit, even though I know that there have been times in history where a love letter might be an opening to a relationship rather than an intimate gesture in an established one.

But you know, I want to say a lot of that stuff to you. The way this world works, maybe things start out really intense sometimes, and that's why.

But right now, I would just love to be able to give you an armful of flowers and pepper your face with kisses and dance with you or something. (I'm not really a good dancer, but in my fantasy I totally am. Maybe if I believe really hard in the time between then and now, it'll work out. Or maybe I should actually ask someone to teach me before you return.)

...

I'm believing really hard that you're going to come back.

I'm not just believing it.

I'm not really a praying kind of person, but right now as I write this, I'm making a promise. Every day you're gone, I'm going to the Sanctuary to pray for your safe return. It's a promise.

...

Please take care of Dio. I hope that's not an awkward thing to ask.

...

Please take care of you, most of all. And don't forget to keep smiling. It's beautiful. You're beautiful. I know you probably can't take the mirror I gave you for your birthday with you on the trip, so just let this serve that purpose, okay.

Masaki is a beautiful woman, but also...

Masaki is a strong, compassionate, amazing, goofy, foolhardy, hotheaded, cheerful, friendly, ridiculous, sweet, caring, powerful, and kind woman.

She deserves every bit of love, attention, and care anyone gives her.

Come back and I'll show you I think so every day from here on out, okay?