Happy Birthday, Kanata!
誕生日おめでとう、奏汰！
The day has finally come, that’s right, it’s your birthday! I feel I might have actually been more excited than you for this to happen, because I’ve been thinking about it since March. That might be a little silly of me, but I really like big occasions like this because I find it hard to get my feelings out and express how I really feel about people, and so having the excuse of ‘Well, it’s your birthday so I have to!’ Is really really useful for me...
I wish I could actually give you this message, or even just say ‘happy birthday!!!’ In person. I wonder how you’d react, sometimes. I hope you’d smile, because you have a very nice smile. Or maybe you’d laugh at me for getting so worked up over a simple birthday greeting. That’s okay by me as well, actually. I like your laugh almost as much as your smile, so if you laugh at me it would make me really happy. Although, it’s not my birthday, so really I should be doing something nice for you rather than the other way around, huh? I guess that’s what this message is?
I can imagine writing this whole message on lined paper and giving it to you with a present (I have no clue what I would buy though... what would you like?) and then watching as everyone else does the exact same thing... you’re gonna get loads of presents this year, possibly for one of the first times in your life. Well, i think you’ve definitely had some fancy, expensive presents from your family before, but I doubt you’ve had a fun party, and presents from all your friends packed full of love. Love can save the world, right? I’m really happy for you, more than I could say, and the thought of you sat at your desk surrounded by cards and presents and people, smiling calmly and thanking everyone gently, but with a slight wobble of uncertainty at the back of your voice makes me smile uncontrollably. I think you deserve to know how loved you are, and how much you do to make the world a little brighter~!
Uh, this is getting annoying and ramble-y, but you see, I’m really full of emotion and it’s probably a good thing you’re only fictional and can’t receive this message because I’d be a complete mess giving it to you. I love you more than words can say, more than actions can show, more than anything. Sometimes I have the uncontrollable desire to squeeze you tight, in the biggest hug my tiny body can, and pour all my love into you. Ever inch of my being, my whole volume, sometimes feels like it’s made of love for you. It’s absolutely infuriating, loving a fictional character this much and just wanting more than anything to talk to them when they look lonely, or cheer them on when things get hard. My manjuu of you has been subjected to many comfort squeezes and cuddles on your behalf, and a dumb part of me likes to imagine them reaching you.
Literally everything about you is perfect, you are the definition of ethereal, beautiful, both inside and out. It’s crazy!!! I don’t actually think you know how perfect you are!!!! I don’t think I could say ‘I love you!’ Enough to actually make you understand how much I love you, how much I love every tiny little thing about you! You don’t think you’re a hero yet, and you sell yourself short of who you are and who you’re going to grow into. You don’t understand ryuseitai yet, don’t understand what it means to be a hero, and if I could only say one thing to you I would tell you that it doesn’t matter. You don’t know it yet, because you don’t understand it, but you’re already a hero in so many ways! Today is supposed to be a day for celebrating you, right? People gather around you to tell you with warm smiles what you mean to them, and what you’ve done for them, and you’ve done so much, it’s crazy! It’s crazy how you don’t seem to realise this, and can think things like ‘I’m not a hero’ or ‘I’m not wanted in my unit, or around my friends’. So many people would be gathering around to tell you otherwise.
You’re a hero for ryuseitai. You help motivate Shinobu and Tetora, and guide them on to grow into themselves, a seriously awesome mentor. You help comfort Midori and make him feel safe in a unit where initially he feels a bit out of place. And Chiaki, you believed in him when not even he would believe in himself, and whilst he gave absolutely all he had to you, you gave back without realising it, you made his dream come true, you helped him become a hero. You’re a hero to the oddballs, too. It wasn’t just you, all of them were lonely and needed to feel close to someone else. You cared so much for them and tried so hard to be friends with them, and that matters so much to them!!! You’re a hero to the marine biology club! You created a safe space for Souma and Kaoru where they can be themselves, a haven away from the responsibilities and obligations of life, and both of them respect you so much! Souma admires you in the same way he admires Keito and Kuro—like some sort of responsible older family member, I guess—and Kaoru, well, the whole club was a wish granted for Kaoru. I think Kaoru got his wish, by the way. I don’t think he’s lonely anymore.
Also, well, this is embarrassing but you’re kind of a hero for me, too. When I found enstars, my life wasn’t great. I have been struggling with pretty severe anxiety issues for over six years now, and last autumn it felt like I was reaching breaking point. I couldn’t find happiness of joy in anything, and life felt empty and emotionless. I was always so stressed and afraid, and more than anything I felt lonely, doing everything by myself with no support. Uh... it’s really silly to say an anime character could save me from all of that, but you did. You weren’t my favourite character at the very beginning, but something about you had always felt special to me, from the first time I read about you in an event story~! I think it was Baton Pass, where I first ‘met’ you, if you like, properly.
To put it as briefly and simply as I can... I liked you because you made me feel like it was going to be alright. You take things at your own pace, slowly, never rushing or overthinking. It kind of felt like, I was trying to run ahead, and you held me back, making me take your pace instead. You’re always smiling, and laughing, and whenever I hear that, it makes me stop and think ‘wait, what am I stressed about when you’re so happy?’ I guess... it’s really hard for me to describe it, but it feels like during that hard time you were comforting and warm, like the embrace of the ocean!
And even though life is so much better for me now—I still struggle, but I’m getting good help and I’ve finally left secondary school—I love you just as much as I did back then! I think I probably love you more! A lot of people I know start to dislike characters that were huge comforts to them in bad times because they carry negative memories, but I could never see that happening with you! It’s really silly... but I wish I could do the same for you that you did to me!
Earlier this year, actually around the time I started planning for today, ryusei bonfire came out and I finally learnt about your life, and who you were before the third year. I know the two of us are really different, possibly quite close to opposites, and maybe I just have a lot of empathy towards you, but reading that event I honestly felt the pain you must’ve been feeling inside me, as if I was back in the past and hurting all over again. Your past doesn’t define you, so I don’t want to talk about it too much and bring up negative memories but... it was really nice, in a sad way. To feel that maybe, as if you actually knew me, you might’ve helped me so much because you wanted to be to someone else what Chiaki was to you in the past. That being, a hero.
So yeah, that’s why I think you’re a hero. I mean, it’s not the whole reason. It doesn’t always have to be deep and miserable, it’s also lots of little things that make you the person you are, and make me love you! Like all the little things you’ve done for your friends and schoolmates, and dumb things you do for me, like saying the ‘ensemble stars~’ sometimes when I open the app, or just... literally smiling brightly, singing happily... just, by existing you bring so much happiness into my life it drives me insane!!! I absolutely adore you on every level!!!
Like... I honestly could put pages and pages of hearts here and it wouldn’t be enough to convey how much I love you! I don’t ever know what to do with all my love, or how to express it, so I spend a lot of time just screaming ‘I love Kanata’ into the void of twitter and hugging my manjuu (a small substitute for the real you, but it’s good enough) and then feeling like a bad person because I can never get anything done. I can hear you in my head, sighing and shaking your head, probably scolding me for being so stupid and hung up on pointless things, possibly ryusei-chopping me (gently, I would hope) if I don’t brighten up and look at things logically.
Aaaaah but that’s just another cute thing I love about you!!! You’re very affectionate, but you’re also sensible and can be stern if you need to be, in your own way. It makes it hard to know what to think of you because you seem so sweet and airheaded, floating around happily, wearing the same serene smile as always, but you’re really quite perceptive and understanding, especially for someone who was raised to believe they weren’t even human. That just makes me respect you even more, though! It’s unfair! You’re so cool! Cool is absolutely not the first thing I would think of when I look at you, but you really are! You’re like... the awesomest person ever!!! You’re someone I really look up to and to that extent someone I think I could trust with all my problems, even if the solutions you suggest would probably be really wacky (such as: go for a swim in the fountain)...
But yeah... I feel a lot about you, I guess, so much that it’s hard to condense and put into words, so much that it fills me to the brim and sometimes just hurts!!! I think about you a lot, and I really wish you knew that because I worry a lot about what you think of yourself, especially at the start of the enstars year. I know I’m being repetitive, but I want to hammer into your head how important you are and how much love you deserve and actually are getting, even if you can see it yet because you ‘don’t understand’ or haven’t given others a chance to show you! I just want to hug you and squeeze you tight and show you through that how important you are and maybe get you to smile a little bit.
Of course, I can’t do that, but that’s okay. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels like that. Again, this is a day to celebrate you being born into the world, and where everyone stops and admires the glow you bring into life. Maybe it’s not hot and fiery like the sun, but more... gentle and kind, beautiful like the moon~
And I have total faith that you’ll be celebrated, and have the light you give off reflected back to you by the people surrounding you. You’ll leave home, and the fresh air of outside your house will be cool and satisfying, and feel warmer than being indoors. And you’ll go into school, and I will not be there to give you a hug but I know ryuseitai will be, waiting by the fountain. Even Midori, who seems like the type to despise group hugs, might join in a little bit.
And maybe, with that, the day will seem bright and beautiful, just like you, and you’ll feel happy and glad to be living the life you chose for yourself.
And if that happens, I will be perfectly content.
Happy birthday, Kanata!
30.08.19
