Notes Left on the Doorstep

Ducks

It had become a habit, so much so the action barely registered in his consciousness. After waking up, in the tiny puff of time between stretching in bed and attending to his bodily exigencies, Giyu would pause by his bedroom window and look for them in his koi pond.

The ducks.

He called them Mr. and Mrs.

They were ordinary mallards, a male and a female. For several seasons, they made his backyard their home. There, they would preen each other, glide around the pond together, feast on the green grass and yellow dandelion together. They seemed in perfect sync with one another, as if they were soulmates. The perfect couple.

Giyu had become very accustomed to their presence, so much so that he felt rather lonely without them.

So that season when the Mr. and Mrs. split up and didn't return, Giyu felt a dribble of concern.

When a second season came and went, that dribble had swelled into a gurgling stream.

As yet another season passed without them, that stream had become an ocean, deep, dark, brooding.

Giyu missed the ducks terribly.

"Maybe they're never coming back."

+++++

Giyu was afraid of many things. He was afraid he might unknowingly eat a moldy strawberry. He was afraid the cashier at the grocery store might try to strike up a conversation. He was afraid his favorite anime might never get a second season. He was afraid of lightning (which he felt was reasonable), but surprisingly, not of thunder (it was just a loud noise after all). He was even afraid of orange – the color and the fruit – because it was unapologetically bold and boldly attention-seeking, as any fruit salad or Halloween display could attest.

Afraid as Giyu was of all these things, the trepidation that flooded his consciousness as he approached his neighbor's house (the one on the left as he exited his house) was a peculiar fear, much like the anxiety one might feel while standing in line for a rickety, old carnival ride, the kind that promises equal odds of excitement and death, the ultimate outcome depending entirely on the caprice of fickle fate.

Giyu hated that feeling.

The only thing he hated a hair's breath more was being rude or thoughtless, as he believed he had been to his neighbor (on the left as he exited his house) the night before. That unintended discourtesy had prompted Giyu to gift an aptly reticent apology note and a peace offering of home-baked cookies to said neighbor in hopes of redressing the wrong.

His intention was to leave his reparation on the neighbor's doorstep, ring the doorbell, and bolt - which he understood might also be construed as another discourtesy. However, since waiting for someone to come to the door involved potential conversation with people he didn't know, he deemed this a minor and permissible offense.

So doorbell ditch - that was the plan anyway. But the moment Giyu set the note and plate of cookies on the neighbor's doorstep, the front door flew open. Giyu tried to flee, but that hand was too quick to escape. It grabbed him unceremoniously by the hair.

"Hey! You're the guy who had sex his lawn at 4am," came the neighbor's voice.

Giyu turned a timid eye up at his neighbor, the one on the left as he exited his house. He wasn't prepared for what he saw. A petite woman, barely 5 feet tall, fair-skinned with purple-tipped black hair and wide violet eyes. At first glance, she looked delicate, almost frail, like a newborn butterfly. But in those violet eyes he saw endless armies of pluck and cunning. He saw a will that would never bend to whim or weakness. He saw instant separation from his beloved bodily organs should he ever piss this pint-sized potentate off – which, in that precise moment, he decided he would avoid at all costs.