In case you’ve missed the news, Paperman is awesome. It’s been posted online just in time for the Oscars, so if you didn’t get to see Wreck-it-Ralph and catch this amazing short, now you can!
After watching it again (saw it before Wreck-it-Ralph last year) all sorts of feelings re-emerged, and this headcanon was born :)
Warnings: Sap, no dialogue (trying to do it in the style of Paperman, which has no dialogue, and doesn’t need it whatsoever), completely implausible
***
A love letter is not the way to get to Naoto Shirogane’s heart.
Still, Kanji Tatsumi is pretty old school when it comes to expressing his feelings, so a love letter is what she gets.
Signed with his name, sealed with a penguin sticker, Naoto rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh. At first she takes it as a joke, a friend mocking her because of the swarm of letters she gets everyday from the female student body – and yes, they realize that she is not a “prince.” She balls the letter up without opening it and tosses it in the trash.
The next day, when she finds the crumbled envelope in her shoe locker, penguin wrinkled and corners bent, she realizes that perhaps Kanji is being serious. She brings the letter to him and hands it back.
To her surprise when she leaves that afternoon the letter has returned to her locker, still wrinkled, the penguin sticker not doing a great job in keeping it sealed. Only half of the animal’s body is actually sticky, its blue scarf sticking off the envelope along with its cute feet. She frowns and snatches the letter out of her locker, marches up to Kanji, and shoves the letter into his hands before she walks off.
The next couple of days finds her locker building quite the collection of letters from Kanji Tatsumi, that very first one sitting on top of the pile. Clearly, since Kanji doesn’t seem to understand her bluntness, she decides to trash each one. Seeing his letters in the trash should get the message across.
Only it doesn’t.
Each envelope – decorated with a different penguin sticker each time – is put back into her locker. One penguin is blushing, another smiling, one actually wears gloves – which is completely illogical – and one is sliding on its belly. There’s the one who ice skates, the one wearing a bow, one sleeping one sneezing one eating one making a snowball one giggling – good lord how many penguins are there?!
Deciding that enough is enough she walks outside, carrying every single letter in her arms. Kanji is leaning back against the outside wall, watching as Naoto drops the letters. The wind comes kicking at just the right time and the letters are blown away, scattering across the school grounds and the bright, blue sky above. She looks back at him and dusts off her hands.
Clearly, this will get her point across.
To her surprise, this seems to work. When she leaves school for the day there’s no letter in her locker. There’s no sign of Kanji watching, there’s nothing but emptiness.
It hurts more than she wants it to.
But she isn’t interested in romance, in having a boyfriend or anything like that. Kanji will be better off finding some girl that can appreciate him, not some detective obsessed with solving cases. Somewhere out there, there’s a girl who can love him, who will secretly smile at him when he’s not looking, who will blush when she stumbles into him. There’s a girl who will fight along side him, stand by his side, and work with him to face any adversary There’s a girl who will see the good in him, who will see past the piercing and bleached hair.
Somewhere out there, there’s a girl who can love him like she does.
Her eyes widen and she presses her hand against her chest.
The realization has been made and it feels like a breath of fresh air while, at the same time, making her feel nauseous. He’s seen her dump all of his letters and has obviously decided to give up, her empty locker taunting her. If only she could show him some grand gesture, some way to let him know that his attempts have actually worked, that…
She stops. What if she could recover the letters? It seems impossible, but… maybe there’s still some outside?
She runs outside, briefcase in hand as she looks around the school grounds. There, in the corner of the school gates, are two envelopes addressed to her. She quickly grabs them, trying to see if she can find anymore. There’s one up in a tree, one in the grass, there’s one on the sidewalk. She needs to collect them, every single one of them, mentally trying to remember how many there had been in her locker and-
… is that… the first one?
She spots one that’s crumbled beyond recognition, penguin scuffy and envelope a vague shade of white. She runs over to grab it but the wind has a different idea, lifting it and carrying it off. Naoto frowns and quickly puts the letters she’s collected into her briefcase before she takes off running. She’s got one hand holding the handle of her briefcase, the other holding onto her hat as she chases after the paper. As she runs she feels something hit her back, then something else, then something else. She glances back, her eyes widening when her face is hit with an envelope, then another. It’s as if the letters are overtaking her, covering her body and pushing her forward.
She stumbles and struggles. She can’t see, she can’t see! She’s trying to apologize to the people she’s pushing past. She’s not this rude of a person but she has no control of her body. She’s trying not to lose sight of that first envelope but it’s too hard to see, too difficult to-
She ends up bumping into someone, the letters falling to the ground around her. She looks up, her eyes widening when she sees Kanji staring down at her. Somehow, she’s ending up at the textiles shop, and somehow that very first letter has made its way into Kanji’s hands. Naoto wants to attempt to explain but she’s too busy blushing and fidgeting. She hopes that, somehow, it’ll be enough for Kanji to understand.
Slowly, he hands her the first letter, trying once again to get her to read it.
Naoto smiles, opens the letter, and reads it.