The Mailbox: Part 1
Title: The Mailbox: Part 1/?
Author: Rissa
Pairing: TutixNagayan (hints of EijixDaiki?)
Genre: AU, supernatural forces at work, romance across time
Rating: PG, worksafe (for now)
Summary: Adapted straight from the movie "The Lake House/Il Mare". Tuti and Takashi share the same apartment during completely different years and find an unexpected way to communicate.
A/N: It took two years but I finally started writing it! You can blame fencer_x for the cracky yet oddly compelling fic premise.
Part 1 - Fated Meeting
On a crisp winter morning in January of 2005, Tuti shut the door to his apartment for the last time and bid farewell to the compact home he’d known for a year. His boxes had all been packed and were probably on their way to his new apartment halfway across the city, and what remaining items he hadn’t stored away were either stuffed in his duffle bag or being crushed inside his over-packed suitcase. It had amazed him how much junk he’d managed to accumulate in such a short period of time when all the packing was done. Perhaps what was even more astonishing though was that all of it had managed to fit inside his narrow shoebox apartment, and the justification for moving to a larger place had never been more obvious during the moving process.
Tuti hoisted the duffle bag higher on his shoulder so he could lock the deadbolt from the outside, giving the tarnished knob one last jiggle before he turned to leave. The corridor was chilly and didn’t feel much different from what the temperature probably was outside, and Tuti quickened his steps as best he could while carrying a bag and dragging a suitcase. He carefully navigated his way down the flight of stairs to the first floor and crossed the small lobby to the front entry, an area closed off by a set of doors leading inside and another facing the street outside. It was even colder inside the narrow entrance and Tuti’s fingers shivered and clenched around his suitcase handle as he stepped through the inner door. Rows of small metal mailboxes lined the walls on either side and Tuti crossed to one on the left, his tiny brass key sliding easily into one of the locks two down from the top.
There were a few letters inside the box and one glossy stack of flyers destined for the paper trash once Tuti got outside. He removed all of them and stuck the bundle under his free arm, then reached into his back pocket and withdrew a slightly crumpled envelope. He placed it on the floor of the empty box, the letters “13-C” lying face up and written in neat black ink, before he closed and locked the metal door.
“Is it that time, Tsuchiya-dono?”
The stocky man that had appeared on Tuti’s left received the taller man’s smile as he turned and withdrew the mailbox key. The elderly caretaker was leaning with both hands on a straight black cane, his wrinkled fingers spotted with darker patches of skin, and he returned Tuti’s smile with a thin-lipped one of his own. “Sorry Ijima-san, after today you won’t have to put up with me anymore.”
Ijima-san mustered a half-hearted shrug and held out his hand, but Tuti could discern the lines of sadness on his weather-worn face. “Most building managers aren’t lucky enough to have to put up with residents like you.”
Tuti barked a short laugh and placed the mailbox and door keys in Ijima-san’s waiting hand. “You could have been stuck with me a little longer had any of your two-room units been available. It’s a terrible loss.”
The balding apartment manager shook his head. “I have no illusions about this building. When my residents move on, I know they’re going to better things. You deserve to enjoy your success, Tsuchiya-dono.”
Tuti’s wide grin softened to a genuine smile, and he bowed as low as the bag on his shoulder would let him. “Thank you for everything, Ijima-san. I’m going now.”
“Please take care of yourself,” Ijima-san replied with honest feeling, bowing slowly and deeply in return.
* *
On a crisp winter afternoon in January of 2003, Takashi stood in the small lobby of his new apartment building and faced the business-like expression of the manager who had come to greet him. Takashi had maintained only a vague recollection of the owner since his visit to the complex two weeks ago when he’d inquired about available units; he could not place the man precisely in his memory, but it had been the building and not the manager that had left the biggest impression on him anyway. Ijima-san was shorter than Takashi by several inches and had piercing dark eyes, his thinning hair a silvery gray that matched his close trimmed goatee, and one of his hands rested on the head of a polished black cane. Takashi’s first impression of the man had invoked the image of a samurai sword instead of a cane and a sharp wit behind those aging eyes that could probably cut Takashi to ribbons with a few well-chosen words.
It was little wonder that he felt slightly intimated by Ijima-san’s assessing gaze.
“Your keys, Nagayama-dono,” Ijima-san said, holding out a small manila envelope for Takashi to take, the letters “13-C” written on the outside in thick blue marker.
Takashi accepted the envelope with a small nod. “Thank you.” He shook the two brass keys inside onto the palm of his hand, feeling the cool metal warm quickly against his skin.
“The smaller key is for your mailbox,” Ijima-san explained, nodding toward the wall of postboxes in the entry behind Takashi. “The other is for your room on the third floor.”
Takashi was in the middle of attempting to thread his new keys onto his cluttered keyring when he looked up and caught himself under another one of Ijima-san’s unreadable stares. “Um, mailboxes. Room key. Third floor. I think I can find it,” Takashi acknowledged with a small smile. “Thank you for your help with everything, Ijima-san.”
“Your paperwork is complete and there should be nothing further. If you require assistance my hours are on the door.” The older man shot one more narrow look toward Takashi’s feet before he inclined his head and turned to enter his first floor office, their exchange over.
Takashi let out an inward sigh as he bent down to pick up his plastic aquarium in one hand and take hold of the extended handle on his yellow suitcase with the other. The tiny wheels bounced the heavy valise over the uneven floor tiles as he rolled it behind him and headed for the stairs at the end of the lobby. His few items amounted to the sum total of his personal possessions at the moment: his suitcase, an overnight bag, and his pet turtle; hardly enough to start a new chapter of his life with. A few boxes were supposed to arrive today from his old apartment and a few more later on from his parents’ house in Kanegawa, but Takashi wasn’t relishing the thought of unpacking everything all over again.
Takashi stopped in consideration before he reached the stairs and looked back to the mailbox lined entryway. The inner-Tokyo moving service had taken his boxes that morning but Takashi had been delayed leaving his old building by a few hours later than he’d intended, and for all he knew they’d already come by and found him not even moved in yet. It wouldn’t hurt to check for a delivery notice.
He backtracked to the inner door and left his suitcase and Kameda’s terrarium by the wall as he stepped into the narrow hall and searched for his mailbox among the dozens of others lining the entryway. It was a moment before he located it on the left hand side, two down from the top. The smaller key slipped easily inside the lock, and with a quick turn it unlocked and opened.
The box was bare inside save for a white envelope with Takashi’s new apartment number written on the face in neat black handwriting. Takashi sighed aloud as he withdrew the letter and broke the glued seal on the back with the edge of his fingernail, wondering if his fears of missing the movers had indeed come true. A single sheet of pale yellow stationary sat inside, folded three times and with writing in the same black ink on the inner side. Takashi opened the letter and read it.
To the new resident in 13-C,
Greetings from the former occupant of your new apartment! I congratulate you for inheriting such a fine living space and I hope it becomes the same comfortable home for you as it was for me during the year I lived there.
I’ve placed a request with the post office to have mail sent to my new address, but if by chance some reach this mailbox please have them forwarded to the address at the bottom of this letter. I would be very grateful!
You should find the apartment in the same upstanding state it was left when I moved out. However the big stain in the genkan was there when I moved in, sorry. The old lady next door is completely deaf so have no fear if you like loud music or making lots of noise. The building manager Ijima-san is a great guy, but a bit of advice: he gets very cranky when he doesn’t get rent on time!
Former resident of 13-C,
Tsuchiya Yuuichi
Takashi was smiling by the time he’d finished reading the charming letter, and with a soft chuckle he refolded the note to return it to the envelope and placed both in his jacket pocket. It was welcome news that he hadn’t missed the movers. The day suddenly seemed a lot better by comparison, even if he had been late arriving and the manager had looked at him funny at his choice for a pet, since according to this ‘Tsuchiya’ he was inheriting a good home with a deaf neighbor and only a stain on the floor to mar the image. Life was slowly looking up.
His optimism proved to be quite literal in the end, as the trip up three flights of stairs ended up being more laborious than Takashi had anticipated, and he was breathing hard by the time he reached the outside of his apartment -- a painted wood face marked with chipped black lettering and a lonely looking peephole in the center of the frame. The key turned smoothly in the deadbolt and Takashi stepped into the narrow entryway, breathing in the musty scent of a space that had been without human habitation for some time. The walls were plain white and the entry was a square space of dark gray concrete, which led to a step up and hardwood flooring extending to the end of the shoebox sized room. A large window, curtainless and taking up almost the whole width of the end wall, allowed a generous amount of pale winter sunlight into the room, but did little to ward off the chill Takashi could feel even through his shoes.
The bare floor made him remember the contents of the letter and Takashi looked around his feet, trying to spot the stain that he had been warned of, but could find no evidence of one on the floor save for the natural color variation in the concrete. It was a little strange, but perhaps it had already faded and the guy had simply made a big deal out of nothing. With an inward shrug Takashi put the letter out of his mind and removed his shoes to further explore his new apartment.
* *
“Monster Box?” Tuti read aloud, his eyebrows hiking up on his forehead as he held the thick script in front of him.
Daiki finished passing out the last of the bundled reams and sat down in the chair opposite Tuti with a visible scowl for the loud interruption. The small office all four members of *pnish* currently occupied was illuminated by miniblinds that had been twisted open to allow in morning sunlight to accompany the humming fluorescent light overhead, but the light made little difference to the freezing temperature inside the room. The building either lacked any kind of central heating or the owner was a worse tight-wad than Daiki, which could explain why the two knew each other in the first place and why they’d gotten such a great deal on leasing the space. Frankly Tuti was tired of freezing his balls off for the sake of saving a few yen.
“I came up with the name,” Eiji announced, his fetching smile displaying a proud flash of white teeth.
“That isn’t something to brag about, idiot,” Tuti clipped back in an undertone as he dropped his script on the table and commenced rubbing his chilled fingers.
“Tsuchiya,” Daiki growled in warning.
Wasshi, who was sitting at the end of the table next to Tuti, shifted in his seat to put more of his back in the direction of the two members that were sending identical looks of irritation at each other. Neither seemed aware of anything beyond their staring match, and out of the corner of his eye Wasshi could see Eiji flipping idly through this script, unconcerned for the fight taking place.
“It’s just some kind of code name right? There’s no way we’d use this for real.”
“What’s your problem with it? Not like you could have come up with anything better.”
Tuti laughed loudly. “At least my name would make sense! You spent three months working on a script and went with a name like Monster Box?”
“It has monsters in it,” Eiji piped in, another impetuously full smile on his face.
“And-box?”
“What’s wrong with box? I made it, I can pick whatever name I want,” Daiki snapped back, setting his copy of the script down on the table with more force than was probably necessary.
“Do you even know what it means?” Tuti asked, his voice rising in pitch. His hands made a few erratic motions over the table, possibly attempting to mime the relative shape of an enclosed space. “A box! Box! You only picked it because that idiot thought it was a cool word.”
Eiji crossed his arms and leaned back with a languid slump in his chair. “How do you know?” he asked coolly.
Tuti slowly rolled his eyes in Eiji’s direction. The look on his face clearly asked ‘do I look that stupid?’
“It does too have boxes in it!” Daiki protested.
“You’re joking,” Tuti deadpanned.
“Well… not really boxes, it’s just… the story is like a box! It’s contained in a box. Like a book. Which is shaped like a box. It’s like we’re giving people this story when they come to see it, but giving it to them in a box.”
There was a collective silence that lasted until Eiji snapped his fingers, as if coming to a long-awaited realization. “A theater is shaped like a box!”
Tuti smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Of course! How could I have been so dumb? The theater is shaped like a box. It’s so obvious.”
Daiki’s face was filled with murderous intent, though Eiji only looked proud of his helpful addition to the mystery of the play’s unconventional title. When it seemed the inevitable explosion was nearly upon them, Wasshi hesitantly cleared his throat. “Won’t, ah… the DVD come in boxes?”
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to regard Wasshi with varying degrees of surprise and hostility.
“You’re not helping!” Tuti shrieked.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Eiji wondered with a slight pout.
“I liked Eiji’s reason better,” Daiki said, turning besotted eyes on their oblivious fuku-leader.
“That’s it, I changed my mind. I’ll be proud to be the laughing stock of Tokyo,” Tuti grumbled, slumping forward in his seat to stare down at the script on the table in front of him. “So? What kind of awesome, badass, super cool character do I get to play this time?”
“You’re a Buddhist priest that can seal away demons,” Daiki said with a dismissive sniff and a rustle of paper as he turned to the second page of the script.
“A priest huh? Okay, I think I can deal with that.”
* *
Takashi scurried through the glass doors on a gust of cold winter wind, woolen arms laden with plastic bags, and a messenger bag strapped across his chest adding more weight to the burden he was already carrying. The door slowly closed behind him on its own, allowing a few wispy flurries into the apartment entryway that melted moments after touching the rubber mat that had been set down on the floor. Takashi kept his chin tucked into his scarf as he ambled across the entry toward his mailbox, his gait made cumbersome by the load, and paused to juggle his bags as he searched his pockets for his keys.
It had been almost a week since he’d moved into the building and all of his possessions had been delivered and mostly unpacked, save those few he’d left sealed and stored away in the back of his closet. Takashi wasn’t expecting much mail to arrive so soon after, but he’d kept the prior resident’s request in mind and checked the mailbox every other day or so in case something was mistakenly delivered his way. So far, nothing ever had.
A loose book of glossy ads and flyers were all that sat inside the small box this time, and Takashi removed them with a curious glance before deciding that they were better off in the trash. The mailbox was empty otherwise and Takashi shut the cold door with a curt bang of metal against metal.
The lobby fared little better in temperature than the entrance and Takashi hastily made his way through with his head ducked down, wool hat on his head obscuring his eyes and probably giving him the appearance of a turtle pulling into its shell. The thought made him smile briefly as he began the arduous journey of lumbering up three flights of stairs to his apartment and the turtle that patiently awaited him there.
Takashi had kept his keys out and when he reached his apartment it took only a moment for his hand to find the deadbolt. His other arm was growing tired under the full weight of the bags and one can of paint hooked on two of his numb fingers, and as he pushed the door open Takashi transferred some of the items between his hands to lighten the load, leaving the task of shutting the door behind him to his foot.
It was completely stupid and unexpected, and Takashi would probably swear later that there was no way a grown man his age could trip over his own shoes, but it seemed to be exactly what happened. One moment he’d heard the door shut with a click, the next he’d found himself off balance and stumbling, the bags in his hands swinging erratically and causing his center of gravity to shift. The feeling in his cold hands had only just started to return, and too late Takashi felt the metal handle of his paint can slip from his weakened fingers.
The metal can hit the floor, bounced, and came down on its head. The lid popped off and spun through the air, and in the longest moment of horror Takashi had ever experienced he watched the contents of the can, a whole pint’s worth of white paint, empty itself on his entryway floor.
Takashi wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the unexpected turn of events, so he settled on a few expletives that helped him feel marginally better as he pressed himself against his entryway wall and carefully deposited the rest of his bags on the apartment’s wood flooring. The white mess had spread itself over almost the entire square of concrete and, to Takashi’s dismay, the tops of his shoes as well; though on second glance the splatters had a certain artistic appeal against the black veneer of his boots. Takashi shook his thoughts away as he removed his shoes, letting out a heartfelt sigh that turned into a frown as he stepped into his apartment and went in search of a mop to clean up the mess.
There was some good news to be had when Takashi discovered that he still had nearly half a can of paint left after the accident, but it took nearly half an hour to remove what remained of the spilled paint, and even then the results were not perfect. The floor had taken his attempts at cleaning the best it could but the porous concrete had been quick to stain with the whitish hue of the paint, and in the end Takashi was left with an off-white entryway with visible edges where the spill had not reached.
As Takashi dragged himself and the mop and bucket to his bathroom, he realized that all that remained was figuring out a way to explain the mess to the apartment manger and not get kicked out in the process. Or at the very least fined for his negligence.
Takashi dumped the cloudy water in the bucket down the tub’s drain before plugging the opening and turning on the hot water full force. He dunked the head of the mop into the swirling froth and indulged in a few lazy turns of the handle through the water, the image it invoked of a witches’ kettle being stirred by the handle of a broom not lost on him. The resulting steam was quick to fog the bathroom and Takashi found his inner thoughts wandering through the haze, unable to help wondering if his sense of foreboding about the stain was really warranted when he hardly knew the manager enough to guess his reaction one way or another. The last resident had said he was a nice guy, even if he had seemed a bit frosty toward Takashi at the start.
It was all moot of course if the last guy had been nothing but a crackpot giving Takashi false information, and who was to say he’d even lived there at all? There had been no mail, the manager had been cold and unsociable, and there had been no stain at all no matter how hard Takashi had looked…
Takashi’s eyes widened, his idle musings coming to an abrupt halt. Leaving the mop in the bathtub, he stumbled into the main room of his apartment and made a beeline for his small desk. It took a moment tearing through the scattered papers to find the folded letter he’d stuffed away so dismissively before, its edges a bit crumpled and creased from being folded for so long. With a strange tightness in his chest he pulled the letter from the envelope and flattened the page to read the one line that had, upon receiving it, puzzled him so deeply.
…You should find the apartment in the same upstanding state it was left when I moved out. However the big stain in the genkan was there when I moved in, sorry…
Takashi’s heart was beating rapidly and his gaze moved between the letter and the front entry several times, but the words in the letter didn’t change and the stain just visible from where he stood did not vanish. Somehow his legs managed to back up to the edge of his bed and he sat down hard on the mattress, holding the letter in his hand that had somehow, impossibly, known about something that hadn’t even happened yet. Had it really come from the last guy to live there? And for that matter, how could he have known about a stain that hadn’t even existed yet?
Takashi’s eyes fell to the final words in the letter, an address neatly printed and a name above it asking for his mail to be forwarded. There was really only one way to find out, and Takashi was more than entitled at this point to demand some answers from the other man. With shaking hands he grabbed a nearby pen and pad of paper off his desk and began writing his letter.
TBC
Author: Rissa
Pairing: TutixNagayan (hints of EijixDaiki?)
Genre: AU, supernatural forces at work, romance across time
Rating: PG, worksafe (for now)
Summary: Adapted straight from the movie "The Lake House/Il Mare". Tuti and Takashi share the same apartment during completely different years and find an unexpected way to communicate.
A/N: It took two years but I finally started writing it! You can blame fencer_x for the cracky yet oddly compelling fic premise.
Part 1 - Fated Meeting
On a crisp winter morning in January of 2005, Tuti shut the door to his apartment for the last time and bid farewell to the compact home he’d known for a year. His boxes had all been packed and were probably on their way to his new apartment halfway across the city, and what remaining items he hadn’t stored away were either stuffed in his duffle bag or being crushed inside his over-packed suitcase. It had amazed him how much junk he’d managed to accumulate in such a short period of time when all the packing was done. Perhaps what was even more astonishing though was that all of it had managed to fit inside his narrow shoebox apartment, and the justification for moving to a larger place had never been more obvious during the moving process.
Tuti hoisted the duffle bag higher on his shoulder so he could lock the deadbolt from the outside, giving the tarnished knob one last jiggle before he turned to leave. The corridor was chilly and didn’t feel much different from what the temperature probably was outside, and Tuti quickened his steps as best he could while carrying a bag and dragging a suitcase. He carefully navigated his way down the flight of stairs to the first floor and crossed the small lobby to the front entry, an area closed off by a set of doors leading inside and another facing the street outside. It was even colder inside the narrow entrance and Tuti’s fingers shivered and clenched around his suitcase handle as he stepped through the inner door. Rows of small metal mailboxes lined the walls on either side and Tuti crossed to one on the left, his tiny brass key sliding easily into one of the locks two down from the top.
There were a few letters inside the box and one glossy stack of flyers destined for the paper trash once Tuti got outside. He removed all of them and stuck the bundle under his free arm, then reached into his back pocket and withdrew a slightly crumpled envelope. He placed it on the floor of the empty box, the letters “13-C” lying face up and written in neat black ink, before he closed and locked the metal door.
“Is it that time, Tsuchiya-dono?”
The stocky man that had appeared on Tuti’s left received the taller man’s smile as he turned and withdrew the mailbox key. The elderly caretaker was leaning with both hands on a straight black cane, his wrinkled fingers spotted with darker patches of skin, and he returned Tuti’s smile with a thin-lipped one of his own. “Sorry Ijima-san, after today you won’t have to put up with me anymore.”
Ijima-san mustered a half-hearted shrug and held out his hand, but Tuti could discern the lines of sadness on his weather-worn face. “Most building managers aren’t lucky enough to have to put up with residents like you.”
Tuti barked a short laugh and placed the mailbox and door keys in Ijima-san’s waiting hand. “You could have been stuck with me a little longer had any of your two-room units been available. It’s a terrible loss.”
The balding apartment manager shook his head. “I have no illusions about this building. When my residents move on, I know they’re going to better things. You deserve to enjoy your success, Tsuchiya-dono.”
Tuti’s wide grin softened to a genuine smile, and he bowed as low as the bag on his shoulder would let him. “Thank you for everything, Ijima-san. I’m going now.”
“Please take care of yourself,” Ijima-san replied with honest feeling, bowing slowly and deeply in return.
* *
On a crisp winter afternoon in January of 2003, Takashi stood in the small lobby of his new apartment building and faced the business-like expression of the manager who had come to greet him. Takashi had maintained only a vague recollection of the owner since his visit to the complex two weeks ago when he’d inquired about available units; he could not place the man precisely in his memory, but it had been the building and not the manager that had left the biggest impression on him anyway. Ijima-san was shorter than Takashi by several inches and had piercing dark eyes, his thinning hair a silvery gray that matched his close trimmed goatee, and one of his hands rested on the head of a polished black cane. Takashi’s first impression of the man had invoked the image of a samurai sword instead of a cane and a sharp wit behind those aging eyes that could probably cut Takashi to ribbons with a few well-chosen words.
It was little wonder that he felt slightly intimated by Ijima-san’s assessing gaze.
“Your keys, Nagayama-dono,” Ijima-san said, holding out a small manila envelope for Takashi to take, the letters “13-C” written on the outside in thick blue marker.
Takashi accepted the envelope with a small nod. “Thank you.” He shook the two brass keys inside onto the palm of his hand, feeling the cool metal warm quickly against his skin.
“The smaller key is for your mailbox,” Ijima-san explained, nodding toward the wall of postboxes in the entry behind Takashi. “The other is for your room on the third floor.”
Takashi was in the middle of attempting to thread his new keys onto his cluttered keyring when he looked up and caught himself under another one of Ijima-san’s unreadable stares. “Um, mailboxes. Room key. Third floor. I think I can find it,” Takashi acknowledged with a small smile. “Thank you for your help with everything, Ijima-san.”
“Your paperwork is complete and there should be nothing further. If you require assistance my hours are on the door.” The older man shot one more narrow look toward Takashi’s feet before he inclined his head and turned to enter his first floor office, their exchange over.
Takashi let out an inward sigh as he bent down to pick up his plastic aquarium in one hand and take hold of the extended handle on his yellow suitcase with the other. The tiny wheels bounced the heavy valise over the uneven floor tiles as he rolled it behind him and headed for the stairs at the end of the lobby. His few items amounted to the sum total of his personal possessions at the moment: his suitcase, an overnight bag, and his pet turtle; hardly enough to start a new chapter of his life with. A few boxes were supposed to arrive today from his old apartment and a few more later on from his parents’ house in Kanegawa, but Takashi wasn’t relishing the thought of unpacking everything all over again.
Takashi stopped in consideration before he reached the stairs and looked back to the mailbox lined entryway. The inner-Tokyo moving service had taken his boxes that morning but Takashi had been delayed leaving his old building by a few hours later than he’d intended, and for all he knew they’d already come by and found him not even moved in yet. It wouldn’t hurt to check for a delivery notice.
He backtracked to the inner door and left his suitcase and Kameda’s terrarium by the wall as he stepped into the narrow hall and searched for his mailbox among the dozens of others lining the entryway. It was a moment before he located it on the left hand side, two down from the top. The smaller key slipped easily inside the lock, and with a quick turn it unlocked and opened.
The box was bare inside save for a white envelope with Takashi’s new apartment number written on the face in neat black handwriting. Takashi sighed aloud as he withdrew the letter and broke the glued seal on the back with the edge of his fingernail, wondering if his fears of missing the movers had indeed come true. A single sheet of pale yellow stationary sat inside, folded three times and with writing in the same black ink on the inner side. Takashi opened the letter and read it.
To the new resident in 13-C,
Greetings from the former occupant of your new apartment! I congratulate you for inheriting such a fine living space and I hope it becomes the same comfortable home for you as it was for me during the year I lived there.
I’ve placed a request with the post office to have mail sent to my new address, but if by chance some reach this mailbox please have them forwarded to the address at the bottom of this letter. I would be very grateful!
You should find the apartment in the same upstanding state it was left when I moved out. However the big stain in the genkan was there when I moved in, sorry. The old lady next door is completely deaf so have no fear if you like loud music or making lots of noise. The building manager Ijima-san is a great guy, but a bit of advice: he gets very cranky when he doesn’t get rent on time!
Former resident of 13-C,
Tsuchiya Yuuichi
Takashi was smiling by the time he’d finished reading the charming letter, and with a soft chuckle he refolded the note to return it to the envelope and placed both in his jacket pocket. It was welcome news that he hadn’t missed the movers. The day suddenly seemed a lot better by comparison, even if he had been late arriving and the manager had looked at him funny at his choice for a pet, since according to this ‘Tsuchiya’ he was inheriting a good home with a deaf neighbor and only a stain on the floor to mar the image. Life was slowly looking up.
His optimism proved to be quite literal in the end, as the trip up three flights of stairs ended up being more laborious than Takashi had anticipated, and he was breathing hard by the time he reached the outside of his apartment -- a painted wood face marked with chipped black lettering and a lonely looking peephole in the center of the frame. The key turned smoothly in the deadbolt and Takashi stepped into the narrow entryway, breathing in the musty scent of a space that had been without human habitation for some time. The walls were plain white and the entry was a square space of dark gray concrete, which led to a step up and hardwood flooring extending to the end of the shoebox sized room. A large window, curtainless and taking up almost the whole width of the end wall, allowed a generous amount of pale winter sunlight into the room, but did little to ward off the chill Takashi could feel even through his shoes.
The bare floor made him remember the contents of the letter and Takashi looked around his feet, trying to spot the stain that he had been warned of, but could find no evidence of one on the floor save for the natural color variation in the concrete. It was a little strange, but perhaps it had already faded and the guy had simply made a big deal out of nothing. With an inward shrug Takashi put the letter out of his mind and removed his shoes to further explore his new apartment.
* *
“Monster Box?” Tuti read aloud, his eyebrows hiking up on his forehead as he held the thick script in front of him.
Daiki finished passing out the last of the bundled reams and sat down in the chair opposite Tuti with a visible scowl for the loud interruption. The small office all four members of *pnish* currently occupied was illuminated by miniblinds that had been twisted open to allow in morning sunlight to accompany the humming fluorescent light overhead, but the light made little difference to the freezing temperature inside the room. The building either lacked any kind of central heating or the owner was a worse tight-wad than Daiki, which could explain why the two knew each other in the first place and why they’d gotten such a great deal on leasing the space. Frankly Tuti was tired of freezing his balls off for the sake of saving a few yen.
“I came up with the name,” Eiji announced, his fetching smile displaying a proud flash of white teeth.
“That isn’t something to brag about, idiot,” Tuti clipped back in an undertone as he dropped his script on the table and commenced rubbing his chilled fingers.
“Tsuchiya,” Daiki growled in warning.
Wasshi, who was sitting at the end of the table next to Tuti, shifted in his seat to put more of his back in the direction of the two members that were sending identical looks of irritation at each other. Neither seemed aware of anything beyond their staring match, and out of the corner of his eye Wasshi could see Eiji flipping idly through this script, unconcerned for the fight taking place.
“It’s just some kind of code name right? There’s no way we’d use this for real.”
“What’s your problem with it? Not like you could have come up with anything better.”
Tuti laughed loudly. “At least my name would make sense! You spent three months working on a script and went with a name like Monster Box?”
“It has monsters in it,” Eiji piped in, another impetuously full smile on his face.
“And-box?”
“What’s wrong with box? I made it, I can pick whatever name I want,” Daiki snapped back, setting his copy of the script down on the table with more force than was probably necessary.
“Do you even know what it means?” Tuti asked, his voice rising in pitch. His hands made a few erratic motions over the table, possibly attempting to mime the relative shape of an enclosed space. “A box! Box! You only picked it because that idiot thought it was a cool word.”
Eiji crossed his arms and leaned back with a languid slump in his chair. “How do you know?” he asked coolly.
Tuti slowly rolled his eyes in Eiji’s direction. The look on his face clearly asked ‘do I look that stupid?’
“It does too have boxes in it!” Daiki protested.
“You’re joking,” Tuti deadpanned.
“Well… not really boxes, it’s just… the story is like a box! It’s contained in a box. Like a book. Which is shaped like a box. It’s like we’re giving people this story when they come to see it, but giving it to them in a box.”
There was a collective silence that lasted until Eiji snapped his fingers, as if coming to a long-awaited realization. “A theater is shaped like a box!”
Tuti smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Of course! How could I have been so dumb? The theater is shaped like a box. It’s so obvious.”
Daiki’s face was filled with murderous intent, though Eiji only looked proud of his helpful addition to the mystery of the play’s unconventional title. When it seemed the inevitable explosion was nearly upon them, Wasshi hesitantly cleared his throat. “Won’t, ah… the DVD come in boxes?”
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to regard Wasshi with varying degrees of surprise and hostility.
“You’re not helping!” Tuti shrieked.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Eiji wondered with a slight pout.
“I liked Eiji’s reason better,” Daiki said, turning besotted eyes on their oblivious fuku-leader.
“That’s it, I changed my mind. I’ll be proud to be the laughing stock of Tokyo,” Tuti grumbled, slumping forward in his seat to stare down at the script on the table in front of him. “So? What kind of awesome, badass, super cool character do I get to play this time?”
“You’re a Buddhist priest that can seal away demons,” Daiki said with a dismissive sniff and a rustle of paper as he turned to the second page of the script.
“A priest huh? Okay, I think I can deal with that.”
* *
Takashi scurried through the glass doors on a gust of cold winter wind, woolen arms laden with plastic bags, and a messenger bag strapped across his chest adding more weight to the burden he was already carrying. The door slowly closed behind him on its own, allowing a few wispy flurries into the apartment entryway that melted moments after touching the rubber mat that had been set down on the floor. Takashi kept his chin tucked into his scarf as he ambled across the entry toward his mailbox, his gait made cumbersome by the load, and paused to juggle his bags as he searched his pockets for his keys.
It had been almost a week since he’d moved into the building and all of his possessions had been delivered and mostly unpacked, save those few he’d left sealed and stored away in the back of his closet. Takashi wasn’t expecting much mail to arrive so soon after, but he’d kept the prior resident’s request in mind and checked the mailbox every other day or so in case something was mistakenly delivered his way. So far, nothing ever had.
A loose book of glossy ads and flyers were all that sat inside the small box this time, and Takashi removed them with a curious glance before deciding that they were better off in the trash. The mailbox was empty otherwise and Takashi shut the cold door with a curt bang of metal against metal.
The lobby fared little better in temperature than the entrance and Takashi hastily made his way through with his head ducked down, wool hat on his head obscuring his eyes and probably giving him the appearance of a turtle pulling into its shell. The thought made him smile briefly as he began the arduous journey of lumbering up three flights of stairs to his apartment and the turtle that patiently awaited him there.
Takashi had kept his keys out and when he reached his apartment it took only a moment for his hand to find the deadbolt. His other arm was growing tired under the full weight of the bags and one can of paint hooked on two of his numb fingers, and as he pushed the door open Takashi transferred some of the items between his hands to lighten the load, leaving the task of shutting the door behind him to his foot.
It was completely stupid and unexpected, and Takashi would probably swear later that there was no way a grown man his age could trip over his own shoes, but it seemed to be exactly what happened. One moment he’d heard the door shut with a click, the next he’d found himself off balance and stumbling, the bags in his hands swinging erratically and causing his center of gravity to shift. The feeling in his cold hands had only just started to return, and too late Takashi felt the metal handle of his paint can slip from his weakened fingers.
The metal can hit the floor, bounced, and came down on its head. The lid popped off and spun through the air, and in the longest moment of horror Takashi had ever experienced he watched the contents of the can, a whole pint’s worth of white paint, empty itself on his entryway floor.
Takashi wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the unexpected turn of events, so he settled on a few expletives that helped him feel marginally better as he pressed himself against his entryway wall and carefully deposited the rest of his bags on the apartment’s wood flooring. The white mess had spread itself over almost the entire square of concrete and, to Takashi’s dismay, the tops of his shoes as well; though on second glance the splatters had a certain artistic appeal against the black veneer of his boots. Takashi shook his thoughts away as he removed his shoes, letting out a heartfelt sigh that turned into a frown as he stepped into his apartment and went in search of a mop to clean up the mess.
There was some good news to be had when Takashi discovered that he still had nearly half a can of paint left after the accident, but it took nearly half an hour to remove what remained of the spilled paint, and even then the results were not perfect. The floor had taken his attempts at cleaning the best it could but the porous concrete had been quick to stain with the whitish hue of the paint, and in the end Takashi was left with an off-white entryway with visible edges where the spill had not reached.
As Takashi dragged himself and the mop and bucket to his bathroom, he realized that all that remained was figuring out a way to explain the mess to the apartment manger and not get kicked out in the process. Or at the very least fined for his negligence.
Takashi dumped the cloudy water in the bucket down the tub’s drain before plugging the opening and turning on the hot water full force. He dunked the head of the mop into the swirling froth and indulged in a few lazy turns of the handle through the water, the image it invoked of a witches’ kettle being stirred by the handle of a broom not lost on him. The resulting steam was quick to fog the bathroom and Takashi found his inner thoughts wandering through the haze, unable to help wondering if his sense of foreboding about the stain was really warranted when he hardly knew the manager enough to guess his reaction one way or another. The last resident had said he was a nice guy, even if he had seemed a bit frosty toward Takashi at the start.
It was all moot of course if the last guy had been nothing but a crackpot giving Takashi false information, and who was to say he’d even lived there at all? There had been no mail, the manager had been cold and unsociable, and there had been no stain at all no matter how hard Takashi had looked…
Takashi’s eyes widened, his idle musings coming to an abrupt halt. Leaving the mop in the bathtub, he stumbled into the main room of his apartment and made a beeline for his small desk. It took a moment tearing through the scattered papers to find the folded letter he’d stuffed away so dismissively before, its edges a bit crumpled and creased from being folded for so long. With a strange tightness in his chest he pulled the letter from the envelope and flattened the page to read the one line that had, upon receiving it, puzzled him so deeply.
…You should find the apartment in the same upstanding state it was left when I moved out. However the big stain in the genkan was there when I moved in, sorry…
Takashi’s heart was beating rapidly and his gaze moved between the letter and the front entry several times, but the words in the letter didn’t change and the stain just visible from where he stood did not vanish. Somehow his legs managed to back up to the edge of his bed and he sat down hard on the mattress, holding the letter in his hand that had somehow, impossibly, known about something that hadn’t even happened yet. Had it really come from the last guy to live there? And for that matter, how could he have known about a stain that hadn’t even existed yet?
Takashi’s eyes fell to the final words in the letter, an address neatly printed and a name above it asking for his mail to be forwarded. There was really only one way to find out, and Takashi was more than entitled at this point to demand some answers from the other man. With shaking hands he grabbed a nearby pen and pad of paper off his desk and began writing his letter.
TBC