“Dear Crush…”

[presses intercom] carolyn please make a note in my diary to try extra hard to mess this hedgehog up for the rest of this week. starting now.

“Dear  [҉҉̸n̷̶̨̨͘a͠͏̕͠҉m̀͝͏̸e͡ ̴̷̢e̷͏r̵̢͢a̷̵̧ś͢e̸̶̷̵d̡̛́̕͢]̨͡͞͏,

                                 Kai says I have a lot of repressed emotions so he’s making me do this thing where I write letters to people and I say all the things I can’t bring myself to say for real. The recipient names are in order from least to most painful and every time I finish one, we do a shot (”of everything”) and burn it. It’s gonna make my company less “like having an inconvenient, whining axe wound”. We’re near the bottom of the list, so it’s probably gonna get weird.

 Let me start by saying I’m the owner of a company that has a hold on most of Spira; this week, I had a meeting where another company head had to ask my permission to trade in Luca. Just me representing Sovereign’s interests, and him with six of his people. I gave it to him, in exchange for Macalania. There’s no business in Macalania. I just did it to show off, to be honest; so he knew for sure that I didn’t need Luca’s business, to remind him who’s the boss here. Do you get what I’m saying? I’m invincible.

 I got that way after Anji died. I should tell you about her sometime. She was precious, you would have liked her, I think. When I lost her, I dealt with the grief by becoming too harsh and too cruel to entertain it. I expended a lot of effort turning myself into something… awful, actually, and what I didn’t use up in that, I poured into work. I kept up the practice of overworking myself when I’m out of sorts to this day. Sovereign does approximately 17.6% better during months where I would have otherwise been distracted by something. Business has been very good since you and I met.

 You scare me to death, do you know that? You manage to take the persona I spent years perfecting and just… rip it away, without even trying. After last time, I said I’d never get that deeply involved with someone again. Not in any melodramatic way; I just felt that, I’d had my chance and I’d managed to ruin it in the most complete and unforgivable way possible. It seems perfectly reasonable to assume that I don’t deserve to try again, so I thought fate, or whatever, would just neatly write my life around the issue, but it wasn’t that kind. Instead, it allowed you to drop in on me, and now I can’t imagine life without you.

 I’m most of a pragmatist when it comes to my own feelings. I know what my deal is, I know what you’ve done to me. But I can’t help wondering if this is fate’s idea of payback. Let her get close to this one, then take them away. To repay me for causing the death of a girl who, like you, was not meant to be touched by my destructive influence. Even if that weren’t the case, and I wasn’t in danger of losing you any second, the fact still stands that you are beyond me. I’m… nothing, really. Certainly nothing as special as you, and certainly nothing deserving of your attention, anyone would agree with that.

 I told myself there would only ever be Anji because I believed it. The closer I get to feeling for you what I felt for her, the more I wonder if it makes me a liar. I’m betraying her by even thinking like this, aren’t I? I’ll ask her. Her name is next, and last, on the list. It will probably start something like, Dear Anji, I am so sorry, Can you forgive me for this?
 For my sanity, I’d better keep my distance. I’d better stop myself from seeing you so often and then, hopefully, it will pass. Most things do. It hasn’t so far, but… it might.

 Oh, who am I kidding? We both know I can’t do that. I’ll come back like nothing happened. I might look like crap, but I’ll tell you I’m hungover and you’ll sigh and let it go. You don’t need to know I’m exhausted because I spent most of the night crying on Kai’s shoulder because vodka makes me teary and I–

 I’ll leave it there, shall I?

 See you tomorrow.

 xo Chu”