Letters Home- Correspondence 11/17
Title: Letters Home
Rating: Between M and T for battle scenes.
Summary: The one person the Sergeant loves to hate is now writing him fucking letters everyday, so of course he has to fucking tell her off....
Notes: Please look at the situation on the home front, or you can look at previous correspondences.
Letters Home
Tenth Correspondence
Hiruma found this march almost unbearable. The reality was that his arm still hurt and was still healing, on top of that he was marching across rough terrain that was bitter cold and littered with enemies. They never got ambushed but they did get almost caught in the crossfire from other battles and on one occasion walked into an enemy camp.
But that had come out much better than they had hoped because that particular camp had been full of half-starved, sick soldiers who were in no condition to fight. Though the Company was relieved not to have to fight since the enemy just surrendered, Hiruma was not of the same humor as his men. He knew what the reality of the situation was, so he was forced to give his men a blunt choice: either destroy their radios and any hope they might get a hold of supplies, or kill them outright now.
Now that the somber realization fell upon them, the Company went quite. Either choice would be bitter.
“If you plan to kill us, could you please let me write one last letter to my wife?” One of the enemy soldiers asked.
Turning around, Hiruma studied the enemy carefully. He had a certain feel about him that just screamed he was from the countryside. The man had fire in his eyes despite how sunken his face looked. He was ready to face his fate, that Hiruma could see, and he was deadly serious about his last request. Looking back to his men, Hiruma saw that they were… hopeful that Hiruma would accept it. After a thought about what the moral consequences of what might happen, Hiruma shut his eyes and made his choice.
“Yes.” Hiruma told the man. “I’ll even see the fucking thing delivered myself.”
The deciding factor had been the fact Hiruma had letters from home in his pocket. There was no way he was going to deny this man one last chance to say goodbye. Hiruma’s only hope was, should he meet the same fate, his own enemy will be kind enough to send one last letter home. Still, Hiruma silently vowed he would never, ever allow himself to be in such a situation where he had to write Mamori a goodbye letter.
A communal sigh of relief came out of the men of Company 021. Doburoku called a rest and then they began to exchange stories with their enemy about their homes. Most of the men from both sides were from the city, but the enemy was clearly startled to hear that Youichi Hiruma of all people was a country bumpkin. To further add to the shock Hiruma openly remarked that his family had orchards back home. Both enemy and ally alike were startled by this with the only exceptions being Sena and Ishimaru (Taki hadn’t been able to put the fact the Hiruma family orchards probably belonged to members of the Hiruma family together).
To everyone’s mild surprise the Sergeant for the enemy also had orchards back home.
“What kind of orchards?” The enemy Sergeant couldn’t help but to ask.
“Apples, pears, pecans, cherries, and… peaches.” Hiruma actually had to think about that for a minute. The orchards back home just seemed so far, far away. He’d missed a few harvests because of the war. Faintly Hiruma wondered how his old man had been doing. Probably okay, he took care of the trees by himself before Hiruma came to live with him.
“Peaches, huh?” The enemy Sergeant smiled. “My family grows oranges, but it sounds like your family has their hands full.”
“We let the fucking shrimp’s family use the fucking orchards as grazing for their sheep.” Hiruma barked a laugh. “So they help out in harvest.”
Sena only nodded. “Yeah. We always get the best apples.”
The rest of the conversation continued on in that matter while the other team had a chance to finish the last of their letters. They shook hands and thanked them for the good time.
“You are honorable. All I wanted from this thankless battle was to die at the hands of an honorable man.” One of their enemies admitted.
“We’ll make it quick and painless.” Hiruma promised while he loaded his gun.
“Thank you.”
The 17 guns of Company 021 rose up and took careful aim. Their targets shut their eyes and relaxed, waiting for their deaths with peace.
“On three.” Hiruma ordered. “Three, two, one- fire!”
Bang!
17 bodies feel, dead. It was quick and painless.
“Arrange them more naturally about the camp. Take what you want from their supplies. Fucking badly, have a hack at their radio, fucking scar-face and fucking old man look for any code sheets.” Hiruma commanded. He set to work helping arrange the bodies. In the end nothing of use was found, but amongst the supplies were a few pictures everyone decided were worth keeping.
Togano, being a man of words, said a little prayer for the fallen soldiers in that camp.
And with that Company 021 moved on, feeling somber.
Now being both mentally exhausted and physically drained, Hiruma called halt for the evening sooner than he had planned. Everyone could tell he was in a lot of discomfort. Munakata pulled the Sergeant aside and demanded to have a look at his arm. Hiruma gruffly allowed the request.
“You shouldn’t be moving it as much as you have been.” Munakata announced. “You’ll be in a lot less pain tomorrow if you don’t move it.”
Hiruma didn’t say anything. You don’t argue with a medic.
“I’ll make you a sling, the men won’t notice it.” Munakata assured him.
“The enemy will.” Hiruma replied gruffly.
“…Just try not to move it.” Munakata reminded him and returned to the camp.
Instead of returning right away Hiruma decided to look at his left arm. It was covered with a spider web of scars up his forearm on both the top and bottom. There were two deep craters of angry red flesh where the bullet had entered and exited. He’d been lucky, the doctors had said, that they had been able to put the bone back together. He’d been luckier still that his muscle hadn’t been too damaged. He’d lost a lot of dexterity in is left hand after the wound, but not as much as they had expected. There was a good chance he’d be able to get most of the control he had back.
But never all of it.
His left arm and left hand would always be slightly lame for the rest of his life. But slightly lame was a lot better than cut off, which would have been his alternative if he hadn’t been able to get the bone fixed. He looked at his long narrow fingers and traced them carefully with his right hand.
Biting back a cry of anguish, Hiruma had to remind himself that he had already accepted that he couldn’t feel anymore with his left hand. Pressure he could kind of tell, but the sensation of touch was gone. He hadn’t spoken about that with anyone because he had a feeling the answer was as hopeless as he thought it was. He couldn’t help but to recall Mamori’s words in her letter about his fingers.
“I kept all of my fucking fingers.” Hiruma muttered as he pulled the mittens on over his hands. She would probably kiss his fingers if she knew about it.
Speaking of Mamori, Hiruma recalled he had to write her again. Carefully he pulled out the previous letters she had written him and began to reread them while he still had the light and time to himself to do so. Several of the letters had become dirty and lacked the pristine whiteness of her most recent one; that was just the effect of the environment on them.
“What’s this?” Hiruma frowned as he saw something that wasn’t completely pure white at the bottom of his most recent letter. It was pink and lip shaped-!
Mamori kissed the bottom of the letter. She probably kissed the bottom of every letter to send her love to him from afar.
“Fucking woman-!” Hiruma hissed, feeling the emotions he’d been suppressing for a while swell up within him. He’d been very, very homesick. He felt dirty and disgusting for killing reasonable people he had gotten to know earlier today. And most importantly he felt like a jackass for how he’d been ignoring her worried inquires about his welfare.
Hiruma wanted Mamori here, especially after those dreams that he knew only had her in them. They were important, she was important.
And so Hiruma wrote her his next letter. It wasn’t long, but he knew she would like it well enough.
Fucking Woman-
Pvt. Kobayakawa is fine and in good health.
I am fine.
Happy?
-Y. Hiruma
The state of his left hand was not something Hiruma had the heart to tell her about. It wasn’t something he was really ready to face himself. Standing up, he walked back to camp to get some food and rest.
Company 021 was still somber and quite, maybe that’s why Hiruma had been able to fall asleep so quickly. Hiruma was almost always the last one asleep, so the fact he was the first was startling. Watches hadn’t even been decided yet-! Looking at Hiruma’s haunted, pained face, the Company wordlessly decided he would not be taking a watch. Doburoku, in a rare moment of lucidity, took over for once and saw the camp and watches organized.
Still, after stealing several glances at their commander, the company was under no illusion that Hiruma was in pain. They all knew that he was trying to uphold an illusion of strength for them, but the pained expression on his face in his sleep destroyed all of that in a hurry. After finishing with camp, the men huddled around each other and the small fire. Despite being asleep, Hiruma was kept close for warmth and what little comfort they could provide in this rocky area.
“So, Sena,” Juumonji began since he had found the silence too heavy, “who exactly is ‘Mamori’?” It’d been something everyone had wanted to know. Hiruma had been visited by all of his subordinates during his fever; everyone had heard him try to talk to this Mamori plenty. They all knew Hiruma was smitten in love with this woman, whoever she was.
“She’s my older sister.” Sena answered only earning him startled looks. “Well not by blood, but she took care of me since my own older sisters had children of their own to take care of by the time I was born….”
Sena was both the youngest in his family and the only boy. The Kobayakawa family consisted of seven women and one boy and two parents. Sena had several cousins (both first and second) since his parents had both come from big farming families of their own. His own parents had been almost too old to have children when he had been born. As a result Sena found himself being raised by his sisters and cousins more than by his own elderly parents. Mamori had become his friend and his sister in the sense that she was much closer in age to Sena than his own sisters had been.
“His family is very big.” Taki added. Taki was the town idiot, for the better or worse.
“Lots of girls too.” Ishimaru added, but that went unnoticed.
“What’s she like?” Takekura asked while he spared a thoughtful glance at their leader.
“Very motherly and kind.” Sena answered. “She’s the only person in town that stands up to Hiruma when he bullies people-”
“She actually stands up to him?” Yukimitsu was awed by this. Hiruma was a hard man, standing up to him was nothing short of a pants-wetting experience for anyone who dared do it when Hiruma thought they were in the wrong.
“Miss Mamori is very brave.” Taki added.
“She’s also very stubborn and demands Hiruma change his ways a lot.” Ishimaru added. Again no one noticed him.
“Sounds like a good match then.” Kurita remarked with a smile. “He needs someone who won’t let him walk all over them.”
“They love each other a lot,” Sena added, “even if they don’t say it.”
“She’s the ‘fucking woman’ he writes.” Munakata realized.
“Yes, yes she is.” Sena nodded.
“He calls her that because she’s a good fuck-!” Taki was cut off by getting a bullet whizzing by his face. Slowly, the men of 021 turned to look at their commander who was ‘sleeping’ while suspiciously cuddling his machine gun.
“Taki, you are an idiot.” Juumonji muttered.
“Big idiot.” Toganou agreed.
“Don’t piss off Hiruma while he’s sleeping.” Kuroki finished.
“Well, the rest of us should get some rest, he’ll only be more cranky if we can’t keep up with his pace tomorrow.” Doburoku reminded them.
“Yes sir.”
Six weeks later, after they got to the next base, sent out the mail, ran an ambush mission and returned victorious; Hiruma got his reply from Mamori. He read it in the privacy of his tent.
Youichi-
Thank you for telling me how the two of you are doing, I’m so relieved!
I’m curious, who all is under your command anyways?
Lots of love,
-Mamori A.
Mamori’s letters were bigger and with more space written between them. Obviously writing this letter hadn’t been painful like the others. She included more gum and coffee too, something Hiruma was grateful for. Smiling he leaned back on his cot and reread her small letter, observing the happiness in her lines. Happiness he put there.
It was good to know, Hiruma mused as he drifted to sleep, that he was still capable of making people happy. Because as of late the only thing he could bring was misery and death….
_=_=_=_=_
Yes, I had the gull to maim Hiruma. And then mess him up with shooting a bunch of nice people.