Work Text:
Write my letter
Feel much better
And use my fancy patter on the telephone
Makoto was pissed.
He was often angry nowadays, steam practically rolling out of his ears. Though he never thought of himself as an angry or violent person, here he was, considering plotting the assassination of a certain blond bastard. He had always thought it took more to get under his skin, but as Laurent seemed to often do, he proved Makoto wrong.
And that only made him angrier.
On that beach with the sunset pouring over the both of them, turning them into softer, golden versions of themselves, Laurent had promised to wait. He would give Makoto time to make up his mind: to decide whether to stay and live a life of luxury and excitement, or to run and live the honest life Makoto had always wanted. Since then, Makoto had made his way back to prison, albeit this time willingly, looking for a fresh start and to right his wrongdoings. 'Two or three years,' Makoto had said back then, making a guess at how long his prison sentence would be. 'However long it takes', the Frenchman had responded smoothly and without hesitation. Perhaps the lack of hesitation should have bothered Makoto more. After all, Laurent had promised to wait, but it seems he never promised that he would let Makoto make his decision without at least little influence.
A little influence was a vast understatement, it seems.
It only took Laurent a single letter to have Makoto's face flushing. With rage, of course, but also embarrassment. One torturous letter of affectionate French gibberish; it bordered on a love letter. It was addressed to "Mon Cher Edamame," and was signed with an atrocious "Gros Bisous, Ton Laurent". In between these letter writing crimes was essentially the ramblings of a desperate boyfriend begging his girlfriend to 'take him back'. It was ridiculous; completely absurd that a human being with a brain would write a letter so cheesy and on top of that have the audacity to send it. Only Laurent was capable of being so shameless.
Naively, Makoto had thought prison would give him time to clear his head and give him some space from the French bastard. The thick cement walls and iron bars were apparently nothing in the face of the determined Frenchman and the only real buffer put in between them was the six weeks between Makoto receiving the letter and the date on the letter. It was odd to receive the letter at all though, traditionally, while in prison you can only communicate with your lawyer or a family member. Makoto figured that Laurent most likely has a person on the inside, which would be how the offensive paper made its way to him. Makoto silently cursed the letter-transporter. In addition, to support this theory, written on the envelope next to the address was "Edamame Makoto", which most certainly was not Makoto's name. Despite this, it was still a lot of effort for one strangely romantic letter. Makoto had half a mind to rip it up and try to forget the insidious bastard. He instead, against his better judgement, folded it up, put the letter back into the envelope, placed it under his futon and carried on with his day.
In the weeks that followed, more letters came in, equal parts teasing and begging for "ma pousse de soya" to "return to your heartbroken partner". Laurent's usage of pet names became more and more liberal with each letter, and by consequence, more irritating. Each shared the same theme of "if you leave me, I would surely die of sorrow", and each received the same treatment; Makoto read it and would scoff at the melodramatic Frenchman, then it was folded, put back into the envelope, and hidden under his futon.The letters became a routine thing, as much as Makoto held distaste for the idea of how much joy Laurent derived from tormenting him, but there wasn't much he could do. His collection slowly grew and his cellmates teased him for keeping love letters from his 'girlfriend'. If only they knew.
During breaks Makoto would unfold the letters and reread them until the creases wore the paper down and the envelopes were no longer sticky. By the time one letter was practically falling apart from Makoto running his hands over it, another letter would arrive with Laurent writing about his travels and pestering Makoto to respond. Of course, Makoto never did, he still had some sense left, but he did seriously consider sending an angrily worded message back when Laurent found out the prison offered to teach leatherworking and took the opportunity to make a horribly filthy joke.
The worst of it wasn't the double entendres, not the pet names and not the incessant pleading. The thing that made Makoto's blood really boil was that Laurent has beautiful handwriting, but only when he wants to. It's a trait that was so explicitly, so very Laurent. Enough so that it infuriated Makoto almost as much as the man himself. The first letter was written in curling cursive, the pen pressing hard enough into the paper that Makoto could run his fingers over the letters and feel the indents, as if Laurent was trying particularly hard with this letter, whereas the second one was feather-light and carelessly written, "i"s missing dots, multiple spelling errors and extra loops at the end of letters. The handwriting was reminiscent of Laurent himself, a showman, a con artist, a facade of a man. It was harder to hate him when he was like this, when he seemed less untouchable. When he seemed human.
Makoto gently opened the envelope of a new letter, slid out the folded paper and made work of reading it with a fond smile.
Maybe this was part of Laurent's plan all along, to endear himself to the vulnerable young Japanese.
"Come back so I can shower you with kisses, mon coeur."
Or maybe Makoto needs to stop thinking about the bastard before he breaks out of prison to just strangle Laurent.