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Springtime meant the planting of new flowers in the school garden, the transitioning to the lighter summer uniforms and a general sense of freshness.
Hanako didn’t really care about any of those things.
It wasn’t like the changing of seasons had any impact on his existence.
Who cared about spring anyway?
But Nene had invited him to join her garden club session—so there he was.
Despite what his postmortem name might suggest, he wasn’t much of a flower person. He was, however, a Nene person and would gladly take the opportunity to watch her work in her adorable farmer’s getup under the guise of interest in botany.
A light pink jacket was pulled over her flannel shirt with denim shorts and a straw hat. The weather had warmed enough for her to forgo her usual leggings, leaving her legs exposed to the world.
Another reason why Hanako was there. He couldn’t very well leave his assistant alone in a school with teenage boys while she was showing so much skin.
No responsible boss would do that.
“I’m glad you came, I didn’t think you were into flowers,” Nene commented in a whisper as she brushed the residual dirt from her gloves. She had to communicate quietly, lest any of her fellow garden club members see her talking to thin air.
“I can appreciate nature,” Hanako answered, hovering a meter above the ground with his chin balanced comfortably in the palm of his hand. Truthfully, the only thing he was currently appreciating was the way Nene’s tight jacket hugged her slim waist and her twin plaits swayed in the breeze.
Not to mention the shorts that ended well above her knee, leaving her thick ankles exposed to the sunlight—
Ah, spring. What a glorious season.
Any further conversation (or ankle appreciation) was interrupted by some random boy from the middle school division suddenly barging in and confessing his undying love for one Akane Aoi.
The girl in question didn’t even get a chance to reject him before one Aoi Akane appeared on the scene and chased the poor middle schooler away with a baseball bat. No one was quite sure where he had come from. Hiding behind the bushes, perhaps; lying in wait for anyone who dared to approach his beloved.
Hardly anyone even bothered looking up at the scene.
“Does that happen often?” Hanako asked. He was slightly unnerved to how little attention the scene had garnered from its spectators. They mostly just went about their business as though nothing had happened.
“Very,” Nene said drily. “That’s the third time.”
“This week?”
“This hour.”
“Yikes.”
“But we’re all used to this by now,” Nene huffed.
And he couldn’t help but notice the underlying bitterness in her tone.
“Is something wrong, Yashiro?”
Nene put her trowel aside, clearly debating on whether or not to bother explaining it to him. “It’s spring,” she said at last. “And do you know what that means?”
“Flowers?” Hanako guessed, plucking a random dandelion and spinning between his fingers for emphasis.
“Love,” Nene corrected, a frown tugging at her lips.
“And … that’s a bad thing?” Hanako asked, perplexed. “I thought you were into that mushy stuff.”
“I’m into it when it involves me,” Nene grumbled, picking up her shovel and digging into the dirt with a little more force than was strictly necessary.
“Are you still mad about that love letter being signed to Aoi and not you?” Normally, Hanako wouldn’t have asked such a question out loud as it would earn him a head-butt, or some other form of punishment. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry about acts of violence as long as there were other living people around to witness and misinterpret her behavior.
The benefit of having witnesses who couldn’t see you.
At first, Nene’s eye twitched in anger, before it gave way to disappointment and her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to be jealous of Aoi. She’s my best friend, and it’s not like she enjoys all the attention she gets …”
“But~” Hanako promoted in a sing-song voice.
“But,” Nene continued. “I just wish some guy would notice me for once. Do you know, I’ve never been confessed to in my life? It’s always me pouring my heart out and getting rejected for it.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help you with that,” Hanako said honestly. Joking aside, he took his job seriously and knew that he had let the girl down by not granting her wish properly.
“It’s not your fault,” Nene muttered, tucking some seedlings into the fresh holes. “It’s my own fault for trying to use magic as a shortcut. I’m even lowering my expectations now. I won’t ask for a boyfriend anymore. I just … I wish that I could know that, somewhere, some boy finds me attractive.”
Hanako was saved from having to answer when another club member asked for Nene’s help in watering the seedlings. The girl gave him a discreet wave as she walked off.
Though he didn’t see her for the rest of the day, he wasn’t worried. It wouldn’t be the first time his assistant was moping over her lack of romantic partner. Fortunately, she was always quick to bounce back, so she would be back to smiling again soon enough.
That was good.
The despondent look in her garnet eyes bothered him more than he would care to admit.
~恋文~
The following day, Nene came to the bathroom for the usual routine of cleaning. “Can I have the day off today?” she asked, sounding a touch more weary than she normally did.
“Not unless you want to breathe through gills again,” Hanako quipped back, grinning. His smile was only crookedly returned as his assistant got to work.
Though the ghost was certainly no emotional expert, it didn’t take a genius to guess that Nene was still upset about their exchange from the previous day and her romantic failure. Yes, that had happened before, but she never dwelled on it for too long.
Perhaps the whole thing about springtime and Aoi’s hourly love confessions were taking their toll.
Hanako found his thoughts wandering back to this even after his assistant had left and the copper rays of sunset pierced through the stain glass window. He hated seeing the usually bubbly high schooler so downtrodden.
It didn’t suit her at all.
Surely, there had to be something he could do about it. But her wish was a tricky one—love wasn’t something that could be forced. As he had explained to her before, altering a person’s emotions was a dangerous game, and not worth the risks.
The world had rules and bending them to suit your fancy never ended well.
He was a non-living testament to that.
So, there wasn’t really anything he could do to get her a boyfriend. But … hadn’t Nene just said that she wasn’t even asking for a boyfriend now?
A confession, that was all she wanted.
In that case …
“I could always possess a guy and make him confess to her,” Hanako mused out loud.
That idea was dismissed as soon as it came. Too dicey, she would probably find out. The same thing went for bullying a random supernatural into posing as a student.
Blowing out a breath that ruffled his bangs, Hanako crossed his arms over his chest. He just wanted Nene to smile again, would that be so hard? She had seemed so happy just a couple weeks ago, clutching a love letter that she had mistakenly believed was addressed to her.
Wait a minute …
The ghost sat up abruptly, a grin blossoming over his face. There was a way to grant his assistant’s wish with no magic required. “Hey!” he called over to some Mokke that were playing in a corner. “Get me a pen and paper.”
The little pink supernaturals scowled petulantly, clearly not liking the order.
One blew a raspberry.
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Hanako asked dangerously, knife raised.
The Mokke squealed and hasted to bring bring him a pen and copy paper that they had likely swiped from one of the classrooms.
In the top corner, Hanako carefully wrote Nene’s name in kanji, trying to get the strokes right.
八尋寧々さんへ、
Then the pen’s nib stilled above the blank sheet as he fully took in what he was about to do.
A love letter.
Honorable No. 7, the leader of Kamome Gakkou’s school mysteries and fabled Hanako-san of the Toilet was about to write a love letter. If word got out, this could literally be the most humiliating thing to ever happen to him—and that was saying something.
His subordinates might never respect him again!
But … did they ever really respect him in the first place?
His own pride notwithstanding, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. He’d never had any crushes back when he was alive and he wasn’t sure how much of that human emotion had carried over to his supernatural self.
But it couldn’t be that hard. All he had to do was make up some disgustingly romantic speech and write it down. Then, he could slip it into his assistant’s desk where she could find it tomorrow morning. Nene would read it and then she would be happy again.
Problem solved.
The world would be right again.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Hanako groaned, knocking his head back lightly against the window frame. If someone had told him, a few months prior, that he was going to write a fake love letter just to cheer up a mortal girl, he would have laughed at the absurdity of it.
Seriously, a teenager whining over lack of romantic interest was hardly his concern. This was the type of living-person problem that he usually ignored. This was the kind of living-person problem he wasn’t supposed to worry about anymore.
And yet …
Nene had looked so disappointed. He never wanted to see her look like that. She was supposed to smiling like the bubbly, naive, happy-go-lucky person that she was.
But writing a letter like this almost felt like an indirect confession. And that was obviously ridiculous. He may have loved teasing his assistant, seeing her cute little pout and then getting to hear her laugh, like wind chimes, clinging to her until she had to go home and picturing them both in rather suggestive situations …
But that didn’t mean that he loved her!
Sure, he was clingy, but he never had any physical contact with another human in decades. And, as for the indecent thoughts … well, Hanako would be the first to admit that he had a dirty mind.
The important thing was, it didn’t mean anything.
And besides, when Nene was depressed then she wasn’t as productive as usual at bathroom-cleaning. She wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about rumor-changing either. So, therefore, he needed to cheer his assistant up so she could be more useful at her job. Simple.
It wasn’t even really for her, it was for the sake of her usefulness, and for the sake of keeping the relations between natural and supernatural.
Nothing personal about that.
Hanako nodded. Now that he had an acceptable (excuse) reason for doing this, he got to work …
～恋文～
The next day, Hanako sat on the windowsill and waiting for the ring of the bell that signaled the end of class. The previous night, he had tucked the letter into Nene’s desk, where she was sure to find it when she went to get her textbooks.
All there was left to do was wait.
Which didn’t take very long. Barely a few minutes after the bell tolled, the bathroom door swung open, crashing on its hinges after being forcibly kicked.
Hanako winced. “Easy there, Yashiro. Those daikon legs of yours are stronger than you think!”
In bustled Nene, hair a mess and eyes shining. Her face briefly twitched at the radish comment, but the irritation was gone as soon as it came. “You know what? I’m in such a good mood that your teasing won’t even bother me.”
“Oh really~” Hanako smirked, as if he didn’t very well know what had put her in such a good mood. “What could have happened to put such a grin on your face?”
He emphasized his question by cupping her cheeks in one hand and giving them a light squeeze.
Nene swatted him away affectionately, before whipping an envelope out of her pocket with a flourish. “It’s a love letter!” she squealed, like a teenage girl who had just gotten the chance to meet a pop idol.
“Letter, huh?” Hanako mused. “And you’re certain that it’s actually addressed to you this time?”
Pouting adorably, Nene pointed to the front of the envelope, where her name could clearly be seen in slanted kanji. “It’s me and there’s no doubt about it!”
Chuckling, Hanako folded his arms behind his head and leaned back against the window. “Well, congratulations. It seems that we’ve finally found a boy with a radish fixation. Rather odd thing to be attracted to, but each to his own.”
As if he hadn’t spent his own fair share of time subtly sneaking glances at her curved legs…
“Maybe some people are just less shallow that you,” Nene huffed, but her annoyance melted the moment she looked back at the letter. “You see, I knew there was some guy out there who would like me.”
Ah, she was smiling.
Not even her usual energetic smile either. This was one was softer, making the corners of her pretty pink lips curve upwards. It was nice, he decided. It was worth having to write a soppy letter for.
“It’s actually a beautiful confession!” Nene continued, now unfolding the paper. “Here, I’ll read it for you.”
“Eh?!” Hanako sat up so quickly that he nearly lost his balance. “That’s alright, I don’t need to hear it. Who cares about that mushy stuff?”
Just writing it alone with no one watching had been humiliating enough. But having it read back to him?
By Nene herself?
Hard no, absolutely not.
Unfortunately, the girl wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “Actually, I think it would be good for you to hear this. Maybe you’ll appreciate me more.”
Dear Yashiro Nene,
I am writing this letter to confess my feelings for you.
No, you don’t know me, not really. We only had a couple chance meetings. I’m not sure if you even remember my name. But that’s okay, this letter is one of appreciation.
You brought something into my life that I never knew existed before. I realized that your smile was the most precious thing I had ever seen. I wanted to keep seeing it, for as long as I could. I want to stay near you for just a little while longer.
I’ve also heard that you’re insecure about your ankles. I can’t imagine why, though. I think they’re beautiful. You should have more confidence, don’t lower yourself to some jerk’s standards. You’re amazing and deserve only a guy who can recognize and appreciate that.
I will never say these words to your face. Honestly, you could do far better than me. But I wanted you to know how much you have done for me. You changed my whole world, just by being there.
I’ll never forget you,
X
Nene looked up at last, eyes welling with happy tears. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she sniffled, dabbing lightly at the corners of her eyes. “I never thought any guy would ever say stuff like that about me.”
“It’s unbelievably disgusting,” Hanako complained, pulling the brim of his hat lower over his face to hide the blush on his cheeks that was threatening to betray him. “Who would write something like that?”
“Someone who’s obviously ten times more sensitive than you,” Nene huffed, cradling the piece of paper as if it were printed on gold, with platinum ink. “It’s not like you could ever say something this kind.”
You’d be surprised …
Hanako shrugged. “Not my thing. Anyway, do you have any guesses about who it’s from?”
“Not really,” Nene admitted. “But, from the sound of it, I don’t know him that well. I hope he’s at least as old as me. But his handwriting is more like an elementary schooler. Most of this is in katakana and the kanji are barely legible.”
“Hey, that’s rude,” Hanako protested. Okay, so kanji drills were his worst subject—but that didn’t mean he was a total idiot! “He probably tried really hard. And you can’t go around judging men based on their handwriting!”
Nene raised an eyebrow at his little outburst, but didn’t make a comment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“In any case,” Hanako continued. “It’s probably best that this guy stays a mystery. After all, he’s got your expectations up by saying all these nice things about you. You’d probably be disappointed to find out he wasn’t a hot guy.”
Yeah, she’d be so disappointed if she knew he had been the one to write it. It had always been kind of funny—listening to her whine that he wasn’t her type.
But now, that thought made him feel … empty.
“I don’t think I’d mind,” Nene said softly, with a conviction that took him by surprise.
She … wouldn’t?
“What’s this?” Hanako purred, cupping his chin in one hand, staring in mock thoughtfulness. “Has Yashiro finally realized that beauty isn’t just skin deep?”
Nene was silent a moment longer, tracing the untidy script as if it contained the answers to all her prayers. “I don’t think I’d mind how he looked, if he liked me that much, and could say such kind things about me.
Hanako probably stared a few seconds longer than he should have. The look on her face was different than anything he had seen before. He was used to the usual blinding grins whenever she discussed a boy that had caught her fancy.
But this was different …
Softer.
Nene’s expression grew dreamy once more as she ran her fingertips along the paper’s edge. “I’m just so happy that some guy finally confessed to me, it’s like a dream come true.”
Hanako regarded the euphoric girl beside him. He knew that this would cheer her up (that had been the whole plan), but he didn’t think that one letter would be this great. Maybe it was a girl thing? “You seem awfully happy about one letter. Does it really mean that much to you?”
Sighing, Nene carefully folded the paper and tucked it back into the envelope. “You remember my wish. All I wanted was for someone to notice me, to like me the way I am. This letter proves that a guy really can like me.”
“And you’re not upset?” Hanako probed cautiously. “I mean, this guy said that he would never try to get together with you properly, so you still don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t mind that?”
Nene’s smile turned oddly serene at that. “I think I need to take this one step at a time. For now, I’m just happy that a boy noticed me. Who knows? Maybe he’ll be ready to say those things to my face one day.”
No, no he won’t.
Hanako smiled brightly. “That’s the spirit, Yashiro! You just have to stay positive!”
The teen flashed her signature warm smile in return, before glancing up at the clock. “Break’s half-over, I should get going if I want to eat lunch before the afternoon period starts.” Putting the letter back into her bag, she made for the door.
Hanako watched as she paused in the doorway, delicate fingers curling around the weathered wood.
“Yashiro, what’s up? Is something wrong?”
“Hanako-kun …” Nene started, turning around and biting her lip uncertainly. “You’re a ghost, I know that you know certain things. Do you … do you think that this boy really meant what he said about me?”
The apparition’s mouth dried. Her garnet eyes weren’t sharp, or piercing. But somehow, their gentle gaze seemed to pin him on the spot.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m positive that he meant every word.”
At that reassurance, Nene visibly relaxed. “I’m glad!” she chirped, skipping out the door.
It was only when the door softly clicked shut behind her that Hanako finally released the breath he had been holding—not that it really mattered. Technically, he hadn’t lied to her just now. Everything he had written in that letter was absolutely true. It had just taken writing the words down, and having them glare up at him accusingly for it to finally register.
He loved her.
Damn, that was an unnecessary complication that was just going to make things harder for him.
Nene was his assistant—a convenient person he could use for his own goals, who he could mess with for his occasional amusement.
It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.
But, he had meant everything he had written in that letter. Including the part where he said that he would never confess his feelings to her face.
Hanako was many things, but naive wasn’t one of them. He could play pretend: breathe, blink, eat, sleep and touch just like a real boy.
But he wasn’t.
Not anymore.
He was merely a creature who existed to fulfill one purpose. “Hanako” was the fading shadow of the living human he had once been. And, even when he was alive, Amane hadn’t been a particularly good person either.
Nene could do far better than him.
Hanako leaned back against the windowsill, lips twitching into a faint smile. It was strange but, telling Nene all of those things (even if it was indirectly) felt good. If only because it had made her happy.
And he was determined to let her keep that joy, to let her live in that happy little bubble for as long as fate allowed her to. He wouldn’t tell her about the cruelty of the world.
Not when she wouldn’t even live long enough to fully experience it.
Ignorance was bliss.
Nene was happier not knowing the truth, she would be happier not knowing who had really written that letter.
But, unbeknownst to him, his dear little assistant was not quite as oblivious as he thought.
Because Nene had seen his handwriting before. She easily recognized the crooked, shaky katakana characters and slue of incorrect kanji.
And so, Nene skipped happily through the halls, love letter clutched close to her chest. She knew that this was as close to a direct confession as she would likely ever get.
But, knowing that Hanako liked her—even if he wasn’t willing to act on it, brought a warmth and confidence that put an extra spring in her step.
It was enough.
For now.