Shit I had to edit this like 10 times.
And I’m not re-indenting the paragraphs.
God dammit, who the hell is spamming me? I mumble to myself (and technically to my cat too), swinging my backpack over my shoulder. The cat that was on my black straw hat (given to me by my brother’s friend Cole, along with the cat), Corinth, jumps down and pokes at my backpack. I unzip the zipper, and dig through it to find a leather envelope. Lets see what is in here. I open it up, pointing it outwards and upwards away from me, as 145 (The number of messages I have is written on the envelope) messages shoot out, as blue, flaming balls. They all pause mid air, form into the shape of a scroll, and turn into paper, no longer flaming, falling slowly to the ground. One in particular is a bunch of envelopes and letters tied up in yarn. I grab that one before it falls.
I pull the string off, and look through them. They’re all signed with the same name, “Noel”. But the last name is different on some of them. It was either Clay, Salore, or Holiday. Holiday is an odd last name… Most of them are familiar, just old messages that I probably stole a glance at but was too busy to come back and actually read them. The others are so old I just forgot about them. I must have known this person a long while back, since one of these is a childish and extremely cringey and embarrassing one to read. That was a love letter, which was given to me when I was 14 by whoever Noel is, which meant that it was about 10 years ago. That one makes me remember him vaguely; he wore an all black long-sleeved shirt and black jeans. He was skinny, and looked like he was a vampire, minus the teeth, with medium-length black hair. And those rectangular glasses. I remember first seeing him, after we both got our asses beat by the usual two neighborhood bullies, my older brother, his friend Cole (the only one who changed over time), and a couple of other kids because we were both what my older brother repeatedly called me instead of my actual name: Queers. It’s just another word for gay.
We met by the river next to Riverville, which was extremely far from where he lived, which was in the Summer Hold. He wasn’t even supposed to be over there though, oddly enough. He had run away from home due to his unfortunate living situation, which was similar to mine, just not as bad since his moms were usually passed out drunk during the day. We bonded over a while and got pretty close. His parents never came to look for him after about 2 months, so I decided to make the shed at the back of my house that I moved into so I could avoid a beating from either my dad or my brother and his friends into a mini-house for him and I. My parents (adoptive parents, and Midori is my adoptive brother) were fine with it since Midori encouraged them to let me do that so he wouldn’t have to (word-for-word): “hear his [my] pathetic whimpering in his [my] sleep or I’ll beat him like a fucking bald headed step-child!”.
His parents came back for him and moved away to the other side of the continent (I think New Mount Olympus). I never exactly got or did anything to say goodbye, except for a short kiss [Komi, that was not a short kiss. That was 12 seconds.- Midorinotmidori] and a hug, which was probably the best and only half-good thing that happened during my early teenage life, and it was only half good because I imagine the kiss sucked since we were 13, that was both of our firsts, and I think we were both crying and there was probably a little bit of nosed involved, but I won’t linger on this topic because this is not supposed to be a romance story so midorinotmidori don’t stop writing, and ignore the fact your wasting your time, 'kay?
I deleted all of the other ones except for the old love letter one and a few others like it, by literally telling them to delete themselves, and as a result they floated up, crumpled into a ball, and ignited into a small orange ball of fire for only a second before turning into ashes that flew off into the crisp night breeze. I get ready to close the envelope when another message shoots out. Must have been the one from just a minute ago. I open it up and read it.
Hey Komi. Been probably… 7 months and 27 days since I last messaged you. Not sure if you’re reading this… I hope you are, although you still haven’t read or opened any of my other ones. I’ll be arriving in Ironport on a boat today around 7:00 am. I miss you. It’s been a long time. Sorry about the name change though if you noticed that on some of my messages, I had to change my surname a few times because the Magic Council over here finds me spamming messages across the continent suspicious so I had to change my last name to get to you. I kept my first name the same hoping you would remember me, guessing that there are at least 1,000 other Noels. I hope we can meet up when I arrive, though. See you soon?
I toss the thick letter envelope back into my backpack, zip it up, and pick it back up over my shoulder. I shoo the cat away, and it runs off into the whispering forest, heading back home. Which will probably take it a day or so because I’m pretty sure it is mentally ill or something. Lets see the time… 6:22. I guess I have time to change before I get to the docks.