The Imperial War Correspondence Office existed in a building that seemed to lean slightly to the left, as if the weight of all the grief it contained had physically warped its structure. Buki noticed this immediately upon arrival—though he didn't understand why Clara's hand tightened on his shoulder as they approached the entrance.
The building was the color of old bone. Someone had tried to paint it cheerfully once, perhaps, but time and weather had reduced the facade to something that looked like it was slowly forgetting how to be a building at all. Above the door, a sign read: "Imperial War Correspondence Office - Delayed Post Division." The characters were precise, official, and somehow sad, like a military salute given to an empty grave.
"This is where you'll be working to find yourself," Clara said, and her voice had that texture again—soft, careful, like hands holding something breakable. "The postmaster is expecting you."
Emotions. Working. Employment. Civilian occupation. He filed the information away, though the purpose of such activity remained unclear. The war had ended. His mission parameters had terminated with General Hazami's death. What function did he serve now? What orders should he execute?
"Acknowledged," he said, then remembered: "Yes."
Clara's sad smile appeared and disappeared like a breath. "I'll come check on you this evening. Remember—if anything is too difficult, you can ask for help. That's what people do."
People. As if he were one of them. As if the designation applied to him and not just to the civilians who moved past them on the street, their faces animated with purposes he couldn't comprehend.
She left. He entered.
The interior of the office smelled like paper and dust and something else—something sharp and metallic that reminded him of the field hospital where he'd woken after General Hazami died. Not blood exactly, but the absence of blood. The space where blood used to be.
An elderly gramps stood behind a counter, sorting letters with movements that suggested a lifetime of identical motions. His hair was white, his posture bent, his eyes the particular kind of tired that comes not from lack of sleep but from seeing too much. When he looked up at Buki, something complicated happened to his face—recognition, though they'd never met. Understanding, though Buki had said nothing.
"You're the kiddo Clara told me about," the gramps said. His voice was rough, like stones grinding together. "The soldier." "Former Unit 47, redesignated Buki Kirā upon promotion to General's aide," Buki reported automatically. "Current status: inactive. Awaiting reassignment."
The old gramps's expression did something that might have been pain. "I'm Kaito Hanabishi. I run this office. And kiddo, the war is over. You don't need to report like that anymore."
Kiddo. The word arrived without context. But also—he'd heard soldiers use it differently. A term of... what? "What are my duties?" Buki asked, because duties he understood. Orders he could follow.
Kaito gestured to several carts overflowing with letters, packages, official envelopes stamped with military seals. "These are delayed war correspondence. Letters written by soldiers before they died. Notifications of death for families who never got them because of the chaos at war's end. Personal effects. Final words." He paused, and his voice became somehow heavier. "You'll be delivering them. Can you do that?"
Delivery. Transportation of items from point A to point B. Optimal route calculation. Efficiency protocols. "Affirmative," Buki said. "I am trained in navigation and have a 100% mission completion rate."
"That's not what I—" Kaito stopped himself. Took a breath. "Never mind. Come here. I'll show you how we organize the routes."
The next hour consisted of information: addresses, districts, delivery protocols, signature procedures. Buki absorbed it all with perfect retention, creating mental maps, calculating optimal pathways, organizing data with the same precision he once used for tactical planning.
What he didn't understand was why Kaito kept pausing, looking at him with that complicated expression, as if waiting for something that never came.
"You'll have a partner," Kaito said finally. "She handles civilian correspondence, but she'll help you with the war letters too. She's..." He trailed off as the door opened, and sound entered the office like a small explosion.
"Kaito-san! You won't believe what happened—Mrs. Tanaka's daughter is getting married and she wants me to write the invitations and she cried when she told me because she's so happy and I cried too and—oh!"
The teenager who had burst through the door stopped abruptly, staring at Buki. She was perhaps sixteen, her hair tied back with a ribbon that was coming loose, her postal uniform slightly disheveled as if she'd been running. Her eyes were large and bright and currently producing a slight increase in tear production—residual emotional response from previous crying episode, he noted clinically.
"This is Yuki Amane," Kaito said. "Yuki, this is Buki Kirā. He'll be handling war correspondence."
Yuki's expression cycled through several states in rapid succession—surprise, curiosity, concern, and finally something that looked almost like recognition, though they'd never met.
"You're a soldier," she said softly. It wasn't a question. "Former," he corrected. "Current designation: postal carrier." "You're so young," she continued, and now her eyes were definitely producing tears. "You're just a kid. You shouldn't have had to—"
"Age: fifteen years, seven months, twelve days," he reported. "Physical condition: optimal for assigned duties. No impairments." Yuki made a sound like she'd been struck. Turned to Kaito. "He's—is he—?"
"He's been through a lot," Kaito said quietly. "Be patient with him." Patient. Duration of waiting. Tolerance for delayed outcomes. But that didn't seem right. The word carried additional meaning he couldn't access.
"I have prepared an optimal route for today's deliveries," Buki said, because silence was accumulating and he didn't know what to do with it. "Seventeen addresses. Estimated completion time: four hours, thirty-seven minutes, assuming average walking speed and two minutes per delivery."
Yuki stared at him. Then, very gently, she said: "These aren't just deliveries, Buki-san. These are... these are people's worlds. Ending or changing or breaking. We can't rush them."
Rush. Excessive speed. Inefficiency through haste. But he'd calculated optimal speed. There was no rushing. Only proper execution.
"I don't understand," he said, and the admission felt strange in his mouth. He rarely acknowledged gaps in understanding. Gaps were weaknesses. Weaknesses were punished.
But Yuki just smiled—sad, like Clara's, but warmer somehow. "That's okay. I'll show you. Come on."
The first address was a small house on the eastern side of the city. Lower-middle-class district. Buki approached the door with military precision. Knocked three times, evenly spaced, waited.
An adult opened the door. Age: approximately thirty-five. "Imperial War Correspondence," Buki stated. "Delivery for Mrs. Keiko Matsuda." "That's me," the person said, and something happened to her face—hope and fear arriving simultaneously, fighting for territory.
Buki retrieved the letter from his satchel. Official military envelope. Death notification—he'd memorized the classification codes during training. "Official correspondence regarding Private First Class Hiroshi Matsuda. Killed in action, Battle of Kuroda Pass, six months prior to war's end." He held out the envelope. "Sign here to confirm receipt."
The persons hand moved toward the letter. Stopped. Her fingers were shaking—tremor frequency: 5.3. Her breathing had become irregular. Heart rate: estimated 120 beats per minute.
"He's dead?" she whispered.
Buki consulted the letter's classification. "Affirmative. Cause of death: artillery death. Time of death: 0347 hours. His personal effects will be delivered separately within—"
The sound the person made wasn't quite a scream. It was smaller than that, more broken. She doubled over, hands clutching her stomach as if she'd been physically struck. The letter fell from Buki's hand, forgotten, as she sank to her knees right there in the doorway.
"No," she was saying, or maybe it was a sound that only resembled a word. "No, no, no, no—"
Buki stood there, calculating. Medical emergency? Physical injury: none visible. Psychological distress: clearly present but outside his treatment protocols. Should he call for assistance? Report the complication? Continue to next delivery?
Then Yuki was there, appearing from behind him, kneeling beside the person her arms going around the stranger's shoulders. "I'm so sorry," Yuki was saying, and she was crying too now, her tears falling into the persons hair. "I'm so, so sorry for your loss."
Loss. The absence of something previously possessed. But the persons husband had been gone for months. The absence wasn't new. So why did the information change everything? Why did words on paper have this effect when the reality had existed long before?
He didn't understand.
The persons was making sounds—gasping, choking sounds—that reminded him of soldiers dying in the field. That same desperate quality, that same sense of something vital leaving the body.
"He can't be gone," the person sobbed into Yuki's shoulder. "He can't be. He promised he'd come home. He promised." Promises. Statements of intended future action. But General Hazami had—the thought fragmented. Static. His heart felt strange again. Pressure.
"Would you like me to stay with you?" Yuki was asking. "Do you have family I can contact?" The stranger nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. "My sister. She lives two streets over. But I don't—I can't—"
"I'll get her," Yuki said immediately. "Buki-san, stay with Mrs. Matsuda. Don't leave her alone." Don't leave her alone. A clear order. He could follow orders.
Yuki left. Buki stood in the doorway with a grieving stranger who had collapsed into a shape that barely resembled a person anymore. The morning sun was warm on his back. Birds were singing somewhere. The world was continuing, indifferent to the fact that this persons world had just ended.
"Why didn't they tell me sooner?" Mrs. Matsuda whispered, and he realized she was talking to him, though her eyes stared at nothing. "Six months. He's been dead for six months and I didn't know. I was waiting. I kept waiting. Setting out his favorite tea. Telling our daughter Papa would be home soon. Six months of lying to her. Six months of..."
She couldn't finish. Just made that broken sound again.
Buki calculated responses. Searched his database for appropriate civilian comfort protocols. Found nothing adequate. The social integration videos hadn't covered this. No one had trained him for this specific scenario.
"The notification was delayed due to administrative complications during war's end," he said finally, because data he could provide. Facts he could report. "Standard protocol requires—"
"I don't care about protocol!" The strangers voice rose sharply, and her eyes finally focused on him. "My husband is dead! Do you understand? Dead! He's not coming home! He's never coming home! And I waited and I hoped and I—"
She broke down again, folding into herself, and Buki stood there feeling the pressure in his heart increase. 4.1. 4.5. The number kept rising and he didn't know why.
General Hazami wasn't coming home either. He knew this. Clara had told him. He had processed the information, filed it appropriately. So why did this strangers grief feel like it was somehow connected to something inside him? Why did her pain register as familiar even though he felt nothing?
Yuki returned with an older person who immediately took Mrs. Matsuda into her arms. They went inside together, leaving Buki standing in the doorway with fifteen more deliveries calculated in his route.
"That was your first one," Yuki said quietly, and her face was streaked with tears. "Your first death notification." "Affirmative." "And you really don't feel anything? Looking at her pain, hearing her cry—nothing?"
He assessed his physical state. Elevated heart rate: present. Present. But feelings? Emotions? The specific subjective experiences she was describing?
"I have no data on emotional responses," he reported. "I can observe physiological reactions. I can classify behavioral patterns. But internal subjective experience remains... inaccessible."
Yuki wiped her eyes. "We have sixteen more deliveries today. Fifteen of them are death notifications." She looked at him with something that might have been pity or might have been something else entirely. "Can you do this? Can you hand people the worst news of their lives and feel nothing?"
Could he?
The question itself was meaningless. He didn't choose what he felt or didn't feel. The capacity had been removed, systematically, over years of training and trauma. Feeling wasn't a switch he could flip, a protocol he could activate.
"I will complete my assigned duties," he said.
Yuki's expression did something complicated. Then she nodded slowly. "Okay. But Buki-san?" She placed her hand on his arm—light pressure, warm temperature, purpose unclear. "These aren't just duties. These are people. Real people with real pain. Try to remember that. Even if you can't feel it, try to remember it matters."
Matters. Importance. Significance. Priority. He filed this away as new mission: Deliveries matter. People matter. Their pain matters. He still didn't understand why. But orders were orders.
By the end of the day, Buki had delivered seventeen letters. Fifteen death notifications. Two personal effects packages. He had witnessed:
23 separate crying episodes 7 instances of recipients collapsing or requiring physical support 4 cases of denial ("No, there must be a mistake") 2 cases of anger directed at him ("This is your fault! You soldiers killed him!") 1 case of complete silence (an elderly father who simply closed the door without a word)
He had recorded it all with perfect accuracy. Had observed every reaction, calculated every physiological response, documented every variation in grief presentation.
What he couldn't document was the feeling in his heart that grew heavier with each delivery. The pressure that had started at 2.3 that morning and now registered at 7.8. The strange tightness in his throat that made speaking difficult by the final delivery.
Yuki had cried at every house. Had held strangers while they sobbed. Had whispered comfort he didn't understand how to give. And she looked exhausted now, walking beside him back to the office in the dying light of evening.
"How do you do this every day?" he asked suddenly, surprising himself with the question. She looked at him, equally surprised. "Do what?" "Feel their pain. Cry with them. Carry all that..." He searched for the word. "...grief."
"I don't know," she admitted. "It's heavy. Some days it feels like I'm drowning in other people's sadness. But..." She paused, watching cherry blossom petals fall from a nearby tree. "But if I don't cry with them, who will? If I don't witness their pain, does it matter any less?"
Matter. That word again. "I don't understand," he said. "I know," Yuki said gently. "But maybe someday you will."
That night, in his room at Clara's apartment, Buki stood at the window staring at the city lights. His hands were steady. His breathing was regulated. His heart rate was normal.
But the pressure in his heart remained. 7.8. Persistent. Unexplained.
He thought about Mrs. Matsuda's face when she learned her husband was dead. The elderly father's silence. The young adult who had screamed at him that it was his fault, that soldiers like him had destroyed her world.
She was right, he realized. He had destroyed worlds. Many worlds. Before he delivered death through letters, he had delivered it through bullets. How many Mrs. Matsudas had he created?
The calculations wouldn't complete. The numbers were too large.
General Hazami had told him to live. To find what made his heart beat faster. But all he'd found today was other people's pain, reflected endlessly like mirrors facing mirrors.
And somewhere, buried under all that pressure in his heart, something that might have been grief—or might have been nothing at all—waited for him to remember its name.
Tomorrow, there would be more letters. More death. More worlds ending. And he would deliver them all, perfectly, efficiently, feeling nothing. Because that's what weapons did. Even after the war ended.
TO BE CONTINUED...