Day & Night

Ch. 8 - The Letters

No Warning, No POV

Kyojuro sat down, unmuting himself from the meeting. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'm still preoccupied here at the hospital," he said.

"Ah yes, your father told us your fiancé had a terrible accident. I'm sure I speak for all of us that we wish her a speedy recovery," one of the men said, bowing. The rest followed except my father.

"Thank you," Kyojuro said and continued with the meeting without correcting anyone.

Tsukie situated herself to the best of her ability and started reading through all her friends and family's notes.

Next time you decide to drink and go on a mission, I'll have you arrested. -Sanemi

Tsukie sent a thank you to him, and the reply was almost instant.

Sanemi: Dumbass, you're awake. Good to know you're alive.

She thanked him and went to the next card.

Obanai said you wouldn't like the balloons, but he doesn't know you like I do. -Mitsuri

You upset Mitsuri again. I'll have your head. – Obanai

Tsukie just smiled and sent out more thank you texts to each person that had a card.

Tengen: And she lives!

Ruka: Good to hear that you are up, dear. Senjuro and I will visit soon.

Gyomei: Ah bless the heavens, Tsukie.

Muichiro: You were in the hospital?

Mitsuri: I knew you would love the balloons! So happy to hear that you're awake, Tsukie.

After getting through all of the cards, there were small sheets of paper behind them all. The first one wrote:

Sorry, my brother is an idiot. – Senjuro.

Tsukie covered her mouth to prevent herself from laughing and interrupting the meeting that Kyojuro was in. Kyojuro looked over, and he couldn't help but smile. He loved seeing her happy, especially after all the pain that he caused her. Before his father yelled at him, Kyojuro returned to the meeting.

The following sheets of paper were slightly longer, and the familiar handwriting made Tsukie's heart stop. She touched the paper, almost too afraid to read the writing.

Day 1

I threw away the first note and then the second. I couldn't get the words out on paper. Today everyone from the Hashira came, and our families did too. The looks of disappointment and pity are all they give me. I ate with Senjuro, and he told me his feelings about the situation. I've been a horrible brother to him, just like I was an awful friend to you these past few months. If I could go back and change what I know now, I would, but what happened, happened. Tsukie, this is all my fault, and I don't know how I'm going to fix it, but I'll do whatever it takes...

Day 2

I can't sleep without hearing your scream. So when I can't sleep, I just look over, making sure you're ok and read some articles. If they're funny articles or ones about animals, I will read them to you. I remember your favorite animals are the lemur, red panda, and otter. When we were kids, you would always tell everyone that your favorite animal were all the animals in the world. You know what they call you around our house? The snow leopard because of how you move through the night and those beautiful eyes of yours...

Day 5

Tsukie, I wish you would wake up. There is so much I want to tell you, need to say to you. Remember before our 20th birthday, we were on a family vacation to the tropics, and we were sitting on the deck? How you talked about one day slowing down to probably date? We are always so busy with our family businesses and the Hashira that we forget to take time to ourselves. We go on vacation with our families, but that's usually it for us. To be honest, I look forward to those vacations with you because there is a side that only I see. The carefree, laughable, relaxed person that you are. I'm sure that I'm the same way. I always like having a side of me that only you know about...

Day 9

Your family stopped by, and your mother kept eying me. Your mother slapped me too when I arrived at the hospital. Other than my own mother, she scares me. I can see where you learned intimidation tactics from. The two of you are scary but still have a smile on your face. I have always admired that about you. I feel like what I do is so brutal and heartless. But, what you do is like art. The way you move through crowds undetected, blend into the night truly is beautiful. You not waking up is killing me, Tsukie...

A tear fell from Tsukie's eyes, reading the notes. She let out a breath coughing Kyojuro to look over in panic but saw her reading the letters he wrote. He couldn't tell if those were tears of sadness or happy tears. Kyojuro started to get anxious, wanting this meeting to be over. The mood in the room changed. Tsukie felt so confused and didn't know how to handle her emotions and felt as though they were on a roller coaster. Which she wished would stop so that she could breathe. She felt like running and knew physically she could, but emotionally she needed to stay there. There were too many questions she wanted to be answered. So much was going on in Tsukie's mind that she couldn't quiet it down. She wished she was still asleep.

Kyojuro ended his meeting and immediately looked over at Tsukie. She had a blank stare on her face, and she was rubbing her bottom lip. He smiled, looked at her, and sat beside her, which didn't help her out of her thoughts. Placing a hand on her knee, Tsukie looked up, meeting his eyes.

"Ready?" Kyojuro asked.