1 The Letter That Started Everything

Klaus Weber had always experienced the same dream repeatedly for a few months now. It reflected a scene from his childhood and his fateful meeting with a girl he had yet to meet again to this day.

. . .

Amid the downpour, one small boy ran across a narrow street.

He had an umbrella with him, carried from home after watching the weather report before he left. With it, the rain barely drenched his school uniform. He gripped his umbrella's handle tightly, resisting a sudden gale blowing against him.

"Freda, I'll be home before you know it. I have the medicine for your fever right here," he mumbled, almost a deadened whisper.

The dark-haired boy turned around a corner and made his way around the neighborhood. It was a typical Japanese residential area with narrow streets that seemed like any cars would be stuck if anyone tried to drive across.

He was only thinking of getting back home as soon as he could to tend to his ailing sister. After all, he had procured medicine for her after school ended that day. A thin smile appeared on his face when he imagined his younger sister's face. Clasping the small plastic bag in hand, he adjusted his school bag slung over his shoulder.

"Just a few more... Yup."

The boy went into another corner in the neighborhood. His sister had a concerning fever on that day. Without thinking much, he had gone to a pharmacy by himself while their parents were busy at work.

If they find out that he went outside during this weather, all alone, he would surely be reprimanded for it.

"...Huh? Why is she..."

He slowly halted in front of a girl about his age. This girl was crying—her face covered by her dainty hands.

With no umbrella nor rain jacket, this girl cried to her heart's content despite the downpour. More importantly, what was she doing by herself outside of her house's front gate?

"...What are you doing?" Klaus asked, albeit haltingly.This dark-haired girl didn't notice him and kept on crying and crying. The boy wasn't in any place to do a thing about this situation. In a way, he felt slightly timid around the crying girl because it seemed like she was badgering him to comfort her.

Even if this wasn't the case, the boy was stumped to think about any other possibilities.

"Y-you'll catch a cold if you don't take cover." Klaus's expression froze as the girl's wail got louder, and he timidly tried to talk to her. The girl didn't respond. The boy's voice got muffled by the rain, so he had to speak louder to get this keening girl's attention.

Should he hand over his umbrella?

The boy wasn't so positive as to think he would get his umbrella back if he did let the girl borrow it. After all, she might be someone from outside the neighborhood. Perhaps she was lost.

Without thinking much, the boy placed a hand over her shoulder, and she flinched.

The boy gave the girl his red umbrella. These two met each other's gaze for a moment before the girl took the umbrella without hesitating. He'd managed to assuage the girl's sadness with his offer, even if it was merely a scant amount.

However, the girl suddenly shook her head and shoved the umbrella's handle back into the boy's hands.

"Don't be silly. You'll get sick if you stay like this!" The boy berated her. He was genuinely worried, even though he was supposed to tend to his sister's need.

Surprisingly, the girl had stopped crying. She held the umbrella's handle gingerly in her hands.

"Thank—"

The boy continued to run back to his house before the girl could say her thanks. Without his umbrella, he could only use his school bag to protect himself from the downpour.

"..."

This girl continued to look at him until he had turned into yet another corner. Even when he had left her sight, she continued to look in the direction he went with drooping eyes. A foreign feeling stirred inside her chest.

As thoughts swirled in her mind, the young girl's small hands clutched the umbrella's handle.

"He's that one..."

The raucous rain muffled her soft-spoken words; as if the droplets of water, and rumbling clouds, would engulf her entire being.

Afterward, tiny pinpricks of sunlight dotted the gray sky, and as it tore through the clouds, a thin smile appeared on the girl's crestfallen countenance. It would not be far-fetched for one to say her heart previously bereft of positive emotions was slowly, but steadily, filled with rising hope.

. . .

At late evening after school had ended, the sixteen-year-old Klaus Weber immediately went over to his shoe locker and pulled out his shoes. He had put a bit of strength into his pull without him realizing, and a white letter immediately fluttered before his eyes. It took a few moments before Klaus could register the object lying near his feet.

"Wait, did I..." Staring at the nameplate soldered onto the shoe locker's door, he shook his head. It was indeed his shoe locker.

"Hm." He quickly glanced left and right. Good, no one else was there at the moment! It would be unwise for him to wait any longer, and so, he picked the letter and hid it in his schoolbag.

Opening it in his room would be the best choice. Though, even after Klaus had resolved to this, his heart couldn't stop thumping against his chest.

"A love letter? It can't be, right?" He said to no one in particular.

He balked at the fact that he'd just received a love letter. That couldn't be it? He never had any experience with this sort of event before, so he had many doubts. No one would think of giving something like this to him. After all, a lot of girls he knew described him as annoying since he wouldn't stop coming up with quotes during conversations. He was self-aware of this.

Though by letting his negative thoughts took over, Klaus quickly concluded that the sender had mistaken his shoe locker for someone else's. Hence the reason why he found the letter first.

Wait, this didn't feel right as well.

It was late evening. Wouldn't it make more sense for the sender to place the letter in the early morning? Leaving it in the shoe locker for a whole night would surely trouble the sender more than he or she would've wanted. That person wouldn't be able to get a good night's sleep, thinking about it.

"Ah... but what do I know? If it does turn out that he or she got the wrong person, I'll just put it where it is supposed to be."

A simple plan, but common sense would tell him otherwise if he thought about it a few more times. There was a good chance that the intended person was someone he didn't know at all, if barely. Klaus proceeded to focus his line of thoughts in a different direction. Indeed, he quickly thought that the sender didn't get his shoe locker mixed up, that he was the intended person all along.

Standing by himself at the school gate, Klaus mentally made a list of the possible girls who had placed the letter in his shoe locker. Could it be the class's representative, Kitabayashi Arisu? Or perhaps his secret admirer was the student council's vice president, Fukutsuchi Emiko! No, this list had some girls that were out of his league. He had to trim it down.

"What's this about a love letter?"

"Wah!"

Akeno Aoi–his childhood friend and best friend—looked at Klaus with a steady gaze, neither curiosity nor puzzlement visible in her eyes. At least Klaus thought so when he saw her.

"Nothing..."

Klaus put up a wry smile, somewhat contradicting himself. He was an open book to his best friend through and through.

"Nothing? I can see that you're nervous. Did something happened while I was gone?"

Aoi didn't appear to be worried despite what she said. Her emotionless countenance sometimes made even Klaus a bit dumbfounded when he wanted to respond to her questions.

These two walked to school every day, and it didn't take more than fifteen minutes for them to reach their neighborhood. Klaus halted in front of his house and slowly turned to face Aoi behind him.

"Have you ever thought of sending a love letter to me?" Klaus blurted out of nowhere, asking a straightforward question.

He'd hoped that his deduction was correct, that Aoi was the one who'd placed the letter.

"Let me guess. Someone sent you a love letter, and you haven't opened it yet. But since you're not close with anyone other than me, you're assuming I was the one who'd given you the letter."

She'd guessed everything!

"Um..."

"I see. Then, good luck with your first romance."

Aoi lazily waved Klaus goodbye and walked to her house a few blocks away. For someone who had known Klaus for a long time, she knew Klaus had no experience in this sort of matter. As far as she was aware, his focus was solely on his hobbies and fascinations.

Klaus's hobbies? During his free time before dinner, he would tend to his collection of books. Yes, each book, each story revolved around the character's relationships.

"Spirits Beyond. Rise of the Wandering Noble Family. Black Tears of Brynhildr."

It was only five more minutes before dinner, but Klaus decided to read one more book before then. He sat on a chair and skimmed through the scented pages of Spirits Beyond. It didn't take more than a few seconds until he had reached the page he wanted to read.

The page described a scene where the male protagonist who had grown up by himself stumbled into a certain girl. This girl recognized him as her younger brother, but he denied any relation between them quite adamantly. The protagonist had grown to hate his family for leaving him by himself and quickly ran away from the scene. He ran away from his older sister.

With a sigh, Klaus put the book away. This emotional scene always got him excited. More often than not, he would try to find time to read the book over and over.

"Spirits Beyond" wasn't the best book he had read, but the protagonist resonated with him quite a lot. An orphan searching for his family, but in the end, chose to forget about them.

A strange feeling welled up in his chest. Yes, the sense of uncomfortable deja vu hit him every time he read this scene. Why? He didn't know the answer.

"Ah, the time!" It was already time for dinner.

At the dining table, an elderly smiled at Klaus when he stepped into the kitchen. Dinner for that night was chicken curry with fragrant, fluffy rice.

Klaus had helped cooked the rice and cut the chicken into sizable pieces roughly an hour ago.

"Eat slowly. The food won't be going anywhere." Klaus's grandma let out a small laugh. Klaus shoved lumps of rice into his mouth, refilled his bowl of rice, and slathered more curry on his plate.

Since Klaus was young, this woman had been taking care of him by herself.

Words won't be enough to describe how grateful Klaus is towards her. Due to this, Klaus wouldn't hesitate to spill whatever he had in his mind.

"Grandma, someone put a love letter in my shoe locker!" said Klaus after he'd finished eating.

It was worth noting that he had not opened the letter yet. Regardless, he ran his mouth and spoke in a prideful tone. This accomplishment enraptured him this much.

"Who is it? Do I know her?" Grandma asked curiously.

"I haven't opened it yet. But whoever this girl is, I'll make her like me more with the newest quotes I'd discovered. She'll fall head over heels over me, I'm sure."

"Ah, but don't neglect your studies, okay? You're a smart student already, so I don't want your academics to be affected. Make good use of your time," said Grandma. "Anyway, don't forget to introduce her to me when you can."

"No problem!"

To be so excited, it was proof that this was indeed Klaus's first step into his adolescent romance. Not to say it was wrong to be thinking this way.

Klaus went back to his room after chatting with grandma for a little while and rummaged through his schoolbag. His fingers pressed the white letter as he pulled it out.

Sweat trickling down his forehead, he gingerly opened the letter with his free hand. A folded sheet of paper poked out from inside.

Thum! Thum!

Akeno Aoi let herself in through the wooden door and stared at the letter in Klaus's hands. She was in her pajamas. Looking at the letter in Klaus's hands, she raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't say you could come in!" Klaus said with slanted eyes. "And when did you come in?"

"You haven't read it yet?"

"No... I'm about to. Why are you here this late anyway?"

"I can't help but question myself. I want to know who it is."

"Tch. Don't be a busybody."

Klaus wanted to read the letter by himself, so Aoi's presence miffed him, more than he'd thought it would. Regardless, Klaus motioned for Aoi to sit on his chair as he unfolded the white sheet of paper.

It wasn't uncommon for Aoi to visit him at random times. After all, they had known each other since elementary. He was used to seeing her quite a lot after school.

"So, so, who is it?" asked Aoi with an indifferent expression. Her words didn't match the face she was making.

"...."

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

"Is this a prank?"

Klaus gave the paper to Aoi and sat on the floor. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed exaggeratedly. Snots of shame flowed out, and tears of embarrassment trickled down his cheeks. Who would do this?! A devil in human form! Klaus cursed silently.

Aoi stared at the letter, and as if wanting to exacerbate Klaus's mood, read the contents out loud.

"Klaus Weber, I'd known you for a long time. You might not believe nor remember me. To err is human, after all. There are so many things I need to tell you. I need to see you in person. I'll visit your classroom sooner or later, so be prepared.

Regards, your loving father."

"Is this a joke? Your father is..." Aoi wanted to comment on the letter, but Klaus's sobs ceased the action.

"My parents died a long time ago!" Klaus said with teary eyes. "The only ones I have now are you and grandma. Who thought about this heartless prank?!"

"Now, you're acting like a five-year-old... You're exaggerating. Ignore this and..."

Klaus shook his head and stormed out of the house, his hand gripped a slender wooden stick tightly. Where did he get it? Aoi called for him, but the man paid her the scantest attention. He would visit this student who'd sent the letter and wack him or her in the face!

Though, he had no clue as to who this person was, and more importantly, where he or she lived.

"Stop being an idiot."

Aoi pulled him by the collar and slapped him squarely on his cheek.

"Wha... Aoi?"

"You become an idiot every time you let your emotions take over. If I wasn't there for you each time this happened, then you would've been caught doing stupid things."

Again, Aoi said these words with little to no emotion showing on her face.

"And since I'm always with you at school, the other students will think I'm weird as well."

"That's your reason!?"

"Anyway, enough of this. Throw away the letter and finish your homework. I'll let you copy mine this time."

Klaus nodded and thanked the benevolent sister with a smile. He wanted to do his homework by himself before, but an offer like this was hard to resist. As for the stupid letter, he would just keep it for now until he could find the sender.