Dear Kiku,
You make this so hard. You’re baking cookies right now even though you were throwing up this morning. I still say you should relax. It ain’t normal for someone to be sick every morning for the past week. I stopped telling you because you cried the other day. I’m not sure what I said that made you upset but I’m still sorry. I’ll just hold you until you feel better, if that’s what you want.
Bunny, you are the sweetest person I know. You were kind and warm enough to gain my trust. Hell, I don’t hurt either of the runts because you don’t want me to. You’re pretty darn special.
I don’t want you to cry. I want you to smile. Just wait, alright? I’ll be back before you know it. Also, go to Syo. You’ll both need each other.
P.S. Make sure you check what’s on the stuffed bunny’s ear. I’ll come back for you and your answer. I love you, Kiku.
Love, Satsuki
When she had come home, she hadn’t expected to be greeted with a stuffed rabbit and a letter on the living room table. Reading through the letter, she felt herself become numb, the words not registering in her mind. Reaching the end of it, she continued to stare in pure shock, as if the words staring back at her would suddenly re-arrange themselves.
With shaking hands, she reached for the stuffed rabbit, finding a ring on one of its ears. Staring down at the ring, her shock finally gave way, leaving her to fall to her knees as tears started falling down her face.
Despite the words on the letter saying that he didn’t want her to cry, she couldn’t stop the tears as they continued to fall, her body shaking with sobs.
She knew that it would happen, he warned her that it would a long time ago. But knowing that it would happen and it actually happening were two different things. She thought she was prepared for when he would have to leave, but it was obvious that she wasn’t.
She thought she had more time....
More time to spend with him. To enjoy living together. More time to tell him what she found out today: the reason why she had been sick every morning. Etsuko had made her take a test since she apparently recognized the symptoms.
A test that came out positive.
It was a fight to calm her shaking enough to put the ring on her finger, but she eventually managed. The feeling of the cold metal on her skin, the emptiness of the house that used to belong to the two of them, the knowledge that Satsuki was gone...
She couldn’t handle that by herself right now.
Grabbing the stuffed bunny, she hugged it tightly to her chest as she forced herself to rise to her feet and head to the house phone to dial a familiar number.
Satsuki did tell her to go to Syo, who was probably experiencing the same thing with his own Satsuki.
