Banana Fish/Death Note Crossover, 2025-26
Mar. 17th, 2011 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiTitle: "Love Letters"
Fandom: Mainly Banana Fish
Characters: Ash, Eiji, Sing, mentions of other BF/DN characters and OCs
Spoilers: All of BF, light spoilers for DN and DN-Bodyverse
Warnings/Rating: References to physical and sexual violence, swearing, R for angst in this section.
Summary: Ash and Eiji have a fight.
A/N: In my universe, everyone quotes Tori Amos.
Teaser: Eiji: "I even dealed with what is the worst possible consequence for me: you being killed. Over and over. Two false alarms, then the real thing. I dealed with you being dead for 10 years. You have no idea what my life was like. Don't patronize me."
Letters 1987-1990 and Author's Notes
Letters 1994-1998
Letters 2003-2004
Letters 2006-2010
Letters 2020
Letters 2025-2026
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 23.08.2025, 4:03 a.m.
Hi Ash,
Just got to hotel in Berlin. They say don't sleep to avoid jet lag, but I say screw that. I am old man. I need sleep. I will nap after this mail. It is very muggy outside.
I saw dream on the plane that natural disasters were following me. Sorry. v. sleepy. More soon.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 24.08.2025, 1:14 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
Yeah, I never bought that jet lag thing. Let me know how the MSF thing goes. Don't sleep through it.
Blanca and I had a talk tonight. He's going back to Jamaica. He should. He's too old to do jack here. He's never even argued that since we brought him home. He's still an ace sniper, but if he ever has make a to run for it--well, this time was close enough. Plus, I don't like one bit the way his memory's going. By regular senior citizen standards, he's doing great, but for our work? It'll be a relief to have him gone, for him and me both.
Seriously, I don't wish him any harm. Happy retirement and so on. He deserves it the way people in Hamlet deserve not to be whipped. But by the same token, don't we all?
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 26.08.2025, 11:37 p.m.
Dear Ash,
Glad to hear Blanca will get to retire to a place he likes. I think he does deserve it. What I mean is: why not? He has done good; he has done bad. He is old; he has tried. Like you say, he is like all of us. Why shouldn't he go to an island and bask in sun?
The first day here went well. My Bangladesh footage and Dr. Hauser's commentary got good responses. Maybe we will raise about €20 mil. I had a nice dinner with an eco-attorney: very sexy young lady, not a day over 50 (^-^)
My mind is at home though. I'm nervous about Ming and Michelle as couple. Long-distance relationships are always hard. And Michelle is too old for her, and Ming is doing her pretend-to-be-happy thing.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 28.08.2025, 10:15 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
€20 mil -- not too shabby--depending on who gets to allocate it. In any case, you done good. You may now retire to Jamaica.
I agree Michelle's too old for Ming, but if she's gotta learn the hard way, she's gotta. Broken hearts make better people. I'm surprised Michelle's going for it though; she ought to know better. If Shorter were around, he'd sit her down and say, "Now, listen here, niece o' mine, you're a good kid, but you're 31." And he'd clap her on the shoulder and say, "So cut out the hitting on 19 yr olds. Atta girl." And it would be so.
So stuff happened over here. We stuck Blanca on a plane today, and then Yelena and I had sex.
Not in a celebratory way. It was a concatenation of circumstances: realizing we had the main house to ourselves now, her still feeling raw about Pyotr and the B from H. It was the definition of awkward. Do you remember once you told me when you had sex with this girl, and you were so nervous you couldn't tell if it was good or not? It was like that, except it wasn't really about nerves. It was more like I wanted to and didn't, and it all zeroed out into mathematically precise ambivalence.
I hate sex, Eiji. I've never done it in my life without feeling disgusted by the whole situation. But I get lonely sometimes; sometimes my body gets lonely, and I just want to be normal and have someone.
I don't know where this is going to go with her. I'm not in love with her, and she's not with me. Which is a huge relief yet... it's a lot of pressure us being alone up here. She was talking about asking her friend, Oksana, to come stay (I think I mentioned her before: Natasha's bff's daughter). Good idea. And I should probably move out.
Blanca sure cut a figure at the plane. He had this white hat. He looked like Humphrey Bogart.
A
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 28.08.2025, 10:25 a.m.
Thinking of M and M as a couple. Eiji, I killed both their uncles.
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 29.08.2025, 5:41 p.m.
Ash, broken hearts do not always make better people.
We raised €28 million, and now I'm waiting at airport. (8th hour waiting, on account of Hurricane Shilpi.)
May I ask, did you have consensual sex before? I think if not, or even if relatively few times, it is inevitable you feel ambivalent. It doesn't mean this won't change, but good needs to build over bad. You always get on well with Yelena. Maybe she's good for you? Are you sure she isn't in love with you? I say this because it's always complicated, such relationships.
I'm glad Blanca got safely to his plane. (At first I typed "planet.")
love you,
Eiji
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 29.08.2025, 5:46 p.m.
Ash, you killed Lao in self-defense, and you killed Shorter because he was better off dead. Both things were good decisions. Good decisions between horrible choices.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 30.08.2025, 10:32 p.m.
Hey Eiji,
> Ash, broken hearts do not always make better people.
But I don't think people without broken hearts can be good. Nice. But not good. Like that song from Into the Woods. I've met people like that: the world slips off their surface.
Yeah, it was my first time. Forty-seven years old. Yet for some reason, I go around telling everybody I lost my virginity when I was 8.
Yelena is not in love with me; she's says I'm a "grove in the snowstorm." But she's vulnerable. She's lonely and still a little bitter about her husband cutting out. And she's bitter about Pyotr cutting out to marry Yula. And she's going to miss Blanca. I never really appreciated how much his smug-smiling-ice-tea-sipping-lawn-chairing-pretending-to-be-somebody-out-of-a-novel-by-Fitzgeralding presence stabilized the household. Everything's off-kilter now, so yeah, we'd better be careful.
> Both things were good decisions.
What makes me cringe is that I cussed him out--Lao, when he was dying, when I'd killed him. The last words he heard were me calling him an asshole or something. I don't remember what exactly. (I know I don't have to say this, but don't tell that to Sing.)
€28 million is a good day's work. I wonder if I'll ever do a day like that.
A
P.S. Planet Blanca. God help us all.
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 31.08.2025, 2:18 p.m.
> What makes me cringe is that I cussed him out...
That's a heavy thing to live with. I'm sorry. I can say, "It's not so awful. You were stabbed and shocked, so you cussed him out." I can say that, but you still live with it. I'm glad you told me.
***
***
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Please update me
Sent: 15.05.2026, 7:24 p.m.
Hi Ash,
Are you ok? You didn't mail for the past three days. Please update me?
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Please update me
Sent: 17.05.2026, 1:07 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry for the silence. I got hacked (in a minor way) and then tailed. Long story short, I've spent the past few days dealing with that and not being able to go home and trying to get in touch with Yelena, so I could give her a cover story if she, P, etc. get pulled in for questioning. Hopefully, no one's tracked her. Caution says I should get them out of the country, but the other half says that's a panicky way to rip them out of their whole lives when they're probably not in danger. Anyway, dealing with it. Mail may be a little intermittent, but I'm okay.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 18.05.2026, 8:40 a.m.
Hi Ash,
I'm glad you're ok. Hope Yelena and Pyotr are too. 頑張って。
Things are calm over here. Ming cut her hair very short: she looks like Akira when she was a little girl. Ibe-san came for dinner a couple of days ago and said so too. Here's a picture I took of both.
Take care,
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 20.05.2026, 3:13 a.m.
With my friend, Vadim, in a shack. Retrenching. It doesn't matter what country I'm living in, Eiji: I always end up back here. Should have gone to Jamaica with Blanca. At least I'd be warm.
The other night I tried to count how many people I've killed since I got out of prison. It hasn't been that many. Only 5: averages out to less than one a year. And I actually think of that as "not many." I have a feeling the count's going to rise soon though.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 20.05.2026, 10:16 a.m.
Hi Ash,
Yes, maybe you should go to Jamaica with Blanca.
This morning, I agreed to do some fundraising for the algae project. Did I tell you about it? The one my friend Issei's friend works on? It's difficult to take exciting picture though! Also last night, Sing hurt shoulder again doing boxing. That is our news.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 22.05.2026, 12:47 a.m.
Shame about the algae pictures. Is anything I'm saying even registering at all?
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 22.05.2026, 7:03 a.m.
Ash, ever since I know you, you say you are trapped horrible fate of violence. You never accept another possibility. You don't even try. You say you're trapped because you're criminal and can't live in law-abiding world. Well, Sing was criminal too, and it is funny but he succeeds. Why is that, huh? You are most defeatist person I ever met. And you expect me to be so sorry for you? I am your friend, but I am too old for this shit. If you were my grandchild I would be (more) patient, but you are 47. Act like a grown up.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 24.05.2026, 10:52 p.m.
Eiji,
It's hard to know how to respond. You're wrong that I have some sort of easy out. I'm not Sing. He never got convicted. We both know that. I'm not going to argue about it.
I do get that you're tired of hearing me whine. Okay, I can whine less. But do you really not want to know what's going on in my life? I also get that you worry about me--though you pointedly left that out--but I can't just make myself be safe. I'm sorry.
I am sorry. But this is what I am. What part are you willing to see? What part would you really prefer not to see?
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 25.05.2026, 7:12 a.m.
Ash,
I never said you have easy out. But you do have out. If Blanca can go to Jamaica, so can you. He is also a criminal; he gets fake ID. He likes you: he would give you money in order to join him. There is no reason this doesn't work. So don't tell me you are stuck with "your life." This is more of the same. This is excuses, like a drug addict that says treatment doesn't help, so he won't try.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 27.05.2026, 9:15 p.m.
My God, you choose your comparisons carefully. I never knew you could hit so far below the belt. Never mind.
You're right. Nothing is making it physically impossible for me to retire to Jamaica and live very quietly under an assumed identity doing fuck all with the rest of my life. It's not as easy or danger-free as you make it sound by a long shot, but it's not undoable.
And I'm not going to do it. Because for all the shit, for all the danger, for all the shooting, even for all that I put Yelena in some danger, even despite all of it, I'm doing something good here. Maybe not the way you are, by raising money and publicizing worthy causes, but maybe something even you can't do. If I apply the right force--a threat here, a little strategic blackmail there--I can curb, I have curbed, the excesses of a lot of people. I've stopped dissenters going to prison. I've stopped farmers' losing their homes. I've stopped a couple of very bad men getting into power.
So, yeah, maybe I could retire to Jamaica, but the minute I raised my head, I'd be the same criminal in the same danger. And I'm not ready to curl into a ball like a frightened baby bunny just yet. I'm sorry if you can't deal with that.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 28.05.2026, 7:18 a.m.
Ash, I have been "dealing with that" since I was 19. I dealed with it all the time we lived in NY. I dealed with it all the time since you came back: 6 years. I even dealed with what is the worst possible consequence for me: you being killed. Over and over. Two false alarms, then the real thing. I dealed with you being dead for 10 years. You have no idea what my life was like. Don't patronize me.
Look, I am angry. But I am also glad that if you have to live with danger and crime, you are doing good, like you always did. This is one of the biggest things I love about you. It also never changes. I am so glad that's so. But I worry you think good social change is built from crime, even maybe by killing people. Who are you, Kira?
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 28.05.2026, 9:48 p.m.
Dealt :)
And yet more below the belt. The fact is, Eiji, no, not all necessary social change can be accomplished within the law. Law, at best, approximates justice, saith Plato. I'm not justice, and overall, I may be a lot worse than law, but I'm doing things that won't get done otherwise. I'm not going to stop, but I will whine about it less. That's the best I can offer.
I really am grateful, more than I can say, that you've stuck by me all these years. I can't imagine how much being caught up in my bullshit has hurt you.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 29.05.2026, 7:20 a.m.
Hi Ash,
"In the glories of the 80s, you said, 'I'm not afraid to die.'
I said, 'I don't find that remotely funny, even on this space cake high.'"
I will always stick by you, especially now that you are contaminated by emoticon. I love you.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 29.05.2026, 10:16 p.m.
"She said, 'My husband ran off with my shaman, but they love me as I am.'"
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 30.05.2026, 7:23 a.m.
Sing is your shaman? What are you saying?? (^-^)
love,
Eiji
P.S. You ok?
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 31.05.2026, 10:48 p.m.
Yep, we're okay. Vadim and I moved again; I think we're secure for now. More soon.
love,
Ash
Letters 2031-2032
Fandom: Mainly Banana Fish
Characters: Ash, Eiji, Sing, mentions of other BF/DN characters and OCs
Spoilers: All of BF, light spoilers for DN and DN-Bodyverse
Warnings/Rating: References to physical and sexual violence, swearing, R for angst in this section.
Summary: Ash and Eiji have a fight.
A/N: In my universe, everyone quotes Tori Amos.
Teaser: Eiji: "I even dealed with what is the worst possible consequence for me: you being killed. Over and over. Two false alarms, then the real thing. I dealed with you being dead for 10 years. You have no idea what my life was like. Don't patronize me."
Letters 1987-1990 and Author's Notes
Letters 1994-1998
Letters 2003-2004
Letters 2006-2010
Letters 2020
Letters 2025-2026
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 23.08.2025, 4:03 a.m.
Hi Ash,
Just got to hotel in Berlin. They say don't sleep to avoid jet lag, but I say screw that. I am old man. I need sleep. I will nap after this mail. It is very muggy outside.
I saw dream on the plane that natural disasters were following me. Sorry. v. sleepy. More soon.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 24.08.2025, 1:14 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
Yeah, I never bought that jet lag thing. Let me know how the MSF thing goes. Don't sleep through it.
Blanca and I had a talk tonight. He's going back to Jamaica. He should. He's too old to do jack here. He's never even argued that since we brought him home. He's still an ace sniper, but if he ever has make a to run for it--well, this time was close enough. Plus, I don't like one bit the way his memory's going. By regular senior citizen standards, he's doing great, but for our work? It'll be a relief to have him gone, for him and me both.
Seriously, I don't wish him any harm. Happy retirement and so on. He deserves it the way people in Hamlet deserve not to be whipped. But by the same token, don't we all?
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 26.08.2025, 11:37 p.m.
Dear Ash,
Glad to hear Blanca will get to retire to a place he likes. I think he does deserve it. What I mean is: why not? He has done good; he has done bad. He is old; he has tried. Like you say, he is like all of us. Why shouldn't he go to an island and bask in sun?
The first day here went well. My Bangladesh footage and Dr. Hauser's commentary got good responses. Maybe we will raise about €20 mil. I had a nice dinner with an eco-attorney: very sexy young lady, not a day over 50 (^-^)
My mind is at home though. I'm nervous about Ming and Michelle as couple. Long-distance relationships are always hard. And Michelle is too old for her, and Ming is doing her pretend-to-be-happy thing.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 28.08.2025, 10:15 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
€20 mil -- not too shabby--depending on who gets to allocate it. In any case, you done good. You may now retire to Jamaica.
I agree Michelle's too old for Ming, but if she's gotta learn the hard way, she's gotta. Broken hearts make better people. I'm surprised Michelle's going for it though; she ought to know better. If Shorter were around, he'd sit her down and say, "Now, listen here, niece o' mine, you're a good kid, but you're 31." And he'd clap her on the shoulder and say, "So cut out the hitting on 19 yr olds. Atta girl." And it would be so.
So stuff happened over here. We stuck Blanca on a plane today, and then Yelena and I had sex.
Not in a celebratory way. It was a concatenation of circumstances: realizing we had the main house to ourselves now, her still feeling raw about Pyotr and the B from H. It was the definition of awkward. Do you remember once you told me when you had sex with this girl, and you were so nervous you couldn't tell if it was good or not? It was like that, except it wasn't really about nerves. It was more like I wanted to and didn't, and it all zeroed out into mathematically precise ambivalence.
I hate sex, Eiji. I've never done it in my life without feeling disgusted by the whole situation. But I get lonely sometimes; sometimes my body gets lonely, and I just want to be normal and have someone.
I don't know where this is going to go with her. I'm not in love with her, and she's not with me. Which is a huge relief yet... it's a lot of pressure us being alone up here. She was talking about asking her friend, Oksana, to come stay (I think I mentioned her before: Natasha's bff's daughter). Good idea. And I should probably move out.
Blanca sure cut a figure at the plane. He had this white hat. He looked like Humphrey Bogart.
A
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 28.08.2025, 10:25 a.m.
Thinking of M and M as a couple. Eiji, I killed both their uncles.
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 29.08.2025, 5:41 p.m.
Ash, broken hearts do not always make better people.
We raised €28 million, and now I'm waiting at airport. (8th hour waiting, on account of Hurricane Shilpi.)
May I ask, did you have consensual sex before? I think if not, or even if relatively few times, it is inevitable you feel ambivalent. It doesn't mean this won't change, but good needs to build over bad. You always get on well with Yelena. Maybe she's good for you? Are you sure she isn't in love with you? I say this because it's always complicated, such relationships.
I'm glad Blanca got safely to his plane. (At first I typed "planet.")
love you,
Eiji
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 29.08.2025, 5:46 p.m.
Ash, you killed Lao in self-defense, and you killed Shorter because he was better off dead. Both things were good decisions. Good decisions between horrible choices.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 30.08.2025, 10:32 p.m.
Hey Eiji,
> Ash, broken hearts do not always make better people.
But I don't think people without broken hearts can be good. Nice. But not good. Like that song from Into the Woods. I've met people like that: the world slips off their surface.
Yeah, it was my first time. Forty-seven years old. Yet for some reason, I go around telling everybody I lost my virginity when I was 8.
Yelena is not in love with me; she's says I'm a "grove in the snowstorm." But she's vulnerable. She's lonely and still a little bitter about her husband cutting out. And she's bitter about Pyotr cutting out to marry Yula. And she's going to miss Blanca. I never really appreciated how much his smug-smiling-ice-tea-sipping-lawn-chairing-pretending-to-be-somebody-out-of-a-novel-by-Fitzgeralding presence stabilized the household. Everything's off-kilter now, so yeah, we'd better be careful.
> Both things were good decisions.
What makes me cringe is that I cussed him out--Lao, when he was dying, when I'd killed him. The last words he heard were me calling him an asshole or something. I don't remember what exactly. (I know I don't have to say this, but don't tell that to Sing.)
€28 million is a good day's work. I wonder if I'll ever do a day like that.
A
P.S. Planet Blanca. God help us all.
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. Flying helicopters
Sent: 31.08.2025, 2:18 p.m.
> What makes me cringe is that I cussed him out...
That's a heavy thing to live with. I'm sorry. I can say, "It's not so awful. You were stabbed and shocked, so you cussed him out." I can say that, but you still live with it. I'm glad you told me.
***
***
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Please update me
Sent: 15.05.2026, 7:24 p.m.
Hi Ash,
Are you ok? You didn't mail for the past three days. Please update me?
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. Please update me
Sent: 17.05.2026, 1:07 a.m.
Hey Eiji,
Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry for the silence. I got hacked (in a minor way) and then tailed. Long story short, I've spent the past few days dealing with that and not being able to go home and trying to get in touch with Yelena, so I could give her a cover story if she, P, etc. get pulled in for questioning. Hopefully, no one's tracked her. Caution says I should get them out of the country, but the other half says that's a panicky way to rip them out of their whole lives when they're probably not in danger. Anyway, dealing with it. Mail may be a little intermittent, but I'm okay.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 18.05.2026, 8:40 a.m.
Hi Ash,
I'm glad you're ok. Hope Yelena and Pyotr are too. 頑張って。
Things are calm over here. Ming cut her hair very short: she looks like Akira when she was a little girl. Ibe-san came for dinner a couple of days ago and said so too. Here's a picture I took of both.
Take care,
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 20.05.2026, 3:13 a.m.
With my friend, Vadim, in a shack. Retrenching. It doesn't matter what country I'm living in, Eiji: I always end up back here. Should have gone to Jamaica with Blanca. At least I'd be warm.
The other night I tried to count how many people I've killed since I got out of prison. It hasn't been that many. Only 5: averages out to less than one a year. And I actually think of that as "not many." I have a feeling the count's going to rise soon though.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 20.05.2026, 10:16 a.m.
Hi Ash,
Yes, maybe you should go to Jamaica with Blanca.
This morning, I agreed to do some fundraising for the algae project. Did I tell you about it? The one my friend Issei's friend works on? It's difficult to take exciting picture though! Also last night, Sing hurt shoulder again doing boxing. That is our news.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 22.05.2026, 12:47 a.m.
Shame about the algae pictures. Is anything I'm saying even registering at all?
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 22.05.2026, 7:03 a.m.
Ash, ever since I know you, you say you are trapped horrible fate of violence. You never accept another possibility. You don't even try. You say you're trapped because you're criminal and can't live in law-abiding world. Well, Sing was criminal too, and it is funny but he succeeds. Why is that, huh? You are most defeatist person I ever met. And you expect me to be so sorry for you? I am your friend, but I am too old for this shit. If you were my grandchild I would be (more) patient, but you are 47. Act like a grown up.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 24.05.2026, 10:52 p.m.
Eiji,
It's hard to know how to respond. You're wrong that I have some sort of easy out. I'm not Sing. He never got convicted. We both know that. I'm not going to argue about it.
I do get that you're tired of hearing me whine. Okay, I can whine less. But do you really not want to know what's going on in my life? I also get that you worry about me--though you pointedly left that out--but I can't just make myself be safe. I'm sorry.
I am sorry. But this is what I am. What part are you willing to see? What part would you really prefer not to see?
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 25.05.2026, 7:12 a.m.
Ash,
I never said you have easy out. But you do have out. If Blanca can go to Jamaica, so can you. He is also a criminal; he gets fake ID. He likes you: he would give you money in order to join him. There is no reason this doesn't work. So don't tell me you are stuck with "your life." This is more of the same. This is excuses, like a drug addict that says treatment doesn't help, so he won't try.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 27.05.2026, 9:15 p.m.
My God, you choose your comparisons carefully. I never knew you could hit so far below the belt. Never mind.
You're right. Nothing is making it physically impossible for me to retire to Jamaica and live very quietly under an assumed identity doing fuck all with the rest of my life. It's not as easy or danger-free as you make it sound by a long shot, but it's not undoable.
And I'm not going to do it. Because for all the shit, for all the danger, for all the shooting, even for all that I put Yelena in some danger, even despite all of it, I'm doing something good here. Maybe not the way you are, by raising money and publicizing worthy causes, but maybe something even you can't do. If I apply the right force--a threat here, a little strategic blackmail there--I can curb, I have curbed, the excesses of a lot of people. I've stopped dissenters going to prison. I've stopped farmers' losing their homes. I've stopped a couple of very bad men getting into power.
So, yeah, maybe I could retire to Jamaica, but the minute I raised my head, I'd be the same criminal in the same danger. And I'm not ready to curl into a ball like a frightened baby bunny just yet. I'm sorry if you can't deal with that.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 28.05.2026, 7:18 a.m.
Ash, I have been "dealing with that" since I was 19. I dealed with it all the time we lived in NY. I dealed with it all the time since you came back: 6 years. I even dealed with what is the worst possible consequence for me: you being killed. Over and over. Two false alarms, then the real thing. I dealed with you being dead for 10 years. You have no idea what my life was like. Don't patronize me.
Look, I am angry. But I am also glad that if you have to live with danger and crime, you are doing good, like you always did. This is one of the biggest things I love about you. It also never changes. I am so glad that's so. But I worry you think good social change is built from crime, even maybe by killing people. Who are you, Kira?
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 28.05.2026, 9:48 p.m.
Dealt :)
And yet more below the belt. The fact is, Eiji, no, not all necessary social change can be accomplished within the law. Law, at best, approximates justice, saith Plato. I'm not justice, and overall, I may be a lot worse than law, but I'm doing things that won't get done otherwise. I'm not going to stop, but I will whine about it less. That's the best I can offer.
I really am grateful, more than I can say, that you've stuck by me all these years. I can't imagine how much being caught up in my bullshit has hurt you.
A
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 29.05.2026, 7:20 a.m.
Hi Ash,
"In the glories of the 80s, you said, 'I'm not afraid to die.'
I said, 'I don't find that remotely funny, even on this space cake high.'"
I will always stick by you, especially now that you are contaminated by emoticon. I love you.
E.
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 29.05.2026, 10:16 p.m.
"She said, 'My husband ran off with my shaman, but they love me as I am.'"
***
To: Don Smith
From: Eiri Tanaka
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 30.05.2026, 7:23 a.m.
Sing is your shaman? What are you saying?? (^-^)
love,
Eiji
P.S. You ok?
***
To: Eiri Tanaka
From: Don Smith
Subject: Re. please update me
Sent: 31.05.2026, 10:48 p.m.
Yep, we're okay. Vadim and I moved again; I think we're secure for now. More soon.
love,
Ash
Letters 2031-2032
