Black Thorns: Chapter 41

Dear Yuki-Onna,

For the first time, you’ll receive this as a series of text messages instead of a letter in a black envelope.

You must be wondering how I got your number, but it’s already saved under my name in capital letters.

I’ve rummaged through it and saw what you call me between you and yourself, my little minx.

At this point, you must’ve stopped whatever you were doing and are questioning why I started my text with the opening you received in letters for damn years.

The answer is simple, but not really.

See, Naomi. You’ve been living a lie fed to you by that fucker husband of yours whose murder I’m plotting as we speak.

He told you he was me, Akira, your pen pal that you wrote to ever since we were eighteen. But he’s only a pervert who read the letters we wrote to each other and then used them to keep us apart and worm himself into your life.

The day I saw you crying then smiling, I fucking had to get close to you, but I didn’t want to get too close because I get bored easily.

I didn’t want to get bored of you.

The idea of Akira came when I overheard you telling Lucy that you’ll one day marry a Japanese.

Here’s the thing, I felt a twist in my gut when you said that, but at the same time, I had this idea of becoming what you were looking for.

Don’t judge, it really sounded fucking genius at the time.

So I sat down in my room and wrote you that first letter by hand. Then I typed it out because I didn’t want you to somehow recognize my handwriting and call me out for being a stupid geek.

Then, I went through all the trouble of renting a PO box in Japan using my middle name, Akira—which also happens to be the first name of your bastard husband, the one he used to get to you. Fucker.

Anyway, I didn’t think you’d write back. I was throwing tasteless bait in open water, not really believing I would catch any fish.

But you latched onto that fucking bait and replied.

I wasn’t lying that time. I really did grin like a kid who saw boobs for the first time and had a mini hard-on.

Talking to you through those letters was different than I imagined. You were open, more open than anyone I knew in my life.

At some point, I wanted to get close, to grab you by the arm on campus and tell you I’m the same Akira you ask for porn site recommendations. The same Akira you friendzoned so hard that you don’t think of him as a man.

That’s what stopped me. The fact that you considered me a friend. I thought it was enough at the time. I didn’t want to lose the only meaningful friendship I had and the only person I can be my dickish self with and be told off about it.

I even loved how we talked about mundane things without thinking of consequences or what the other thought. We were judgment-free and that was liberating in my closed off, calculated life with my grandparents.

Sappy, I know.

But then, that bet happened and I got to know you in a different way. Not as the nerdy jerk you friendzoned into the following planet, but as the man whose crazy matched yours.

I’ve got to admit, I was a little mad that you never told Akira that you had those dark fantasies. I felt betrayed as your friend, which is why I turned into a judgy little bitch—and I might be a tiny bit sorry about that.

But at the same time, I felt special as Sebastian because I was the only one who got to see you that way. I got to touch you and fuck you like no other man ever would or could.

Akira still felt bitter and bitchy, though.

Yeah, I know. Jealous of myself much?

I was having an identity crisis. I was so sure you’d figure out I was the same person, so I spiced up the asshole parameter a notch so you’d never put two and two together.

But at some point, the line blurred even for me. I wanted to be the Akira you flipped the finger off to while you spoke to him about everything and I wanted to be the Sebastian that you look at with fuck-me eyes and let him fulfill your every fucked-up fantasy.

When I tried to tell you I’m Akira, though, the timing wasn’t right. You found out about the fucking bet and turned your back on me.

I couldn’t lose you as Akira, too, so I decided to never associate the two versions of myself to always be in touch with you.

But you ended up leaving us both, anyway.

And to make things worse, your husband used my alter ego to get close to you. I’m wounded that you thought the fucking asshole was me, baby. And you have to make it up to me for the rest of our lives.

Because, here’s the thing, I might be as Tsundere as you. Whether as Sebastian or Akira, the only woman who has ever managed to flip my world upside down is you.

And you bet your sweet ass that I will hold you accountable to it for as long as we live.

The one you named BABE on your contact list is the same pen pal who will send you black envelopes on our anniversaries.

He’s the pervert who’s fucking proud of your eclectic taste in porn.

He’s the person you understood and he understood you back.

He’s the friend who smiles when reading your words late at night.

He’s the man who fucking loves you with everything he has and doesn’t have.

Sebastian Akira Weaver