Dear Senpai

Disclaimer: I do not own SkipBeat! or any of the characters from the Manga.

Summary: Lory has conceived yet another devious scheme, wrapped in the guise of a LoveMe assignment. All the girls have to do is to write at least one letter a week to the person they respect the most. Simple… right?

Dear Senpai 1,786 – His Greatest Achievement

My Dear Senpai,

Yukihito has promised me that he will make sure that you check your tuxedo pocket, assuming that you don't find this letter on your own. It was a mark or his love and respect for you that he insisted on being your manager "one more time," even though his duties as Maria-Shacho's Vice-President keep him so busy. I think that it is fitting for him to hold this post on this night, though I mean no disrespect to Shoji-san. Shoji is a good manager, but it was Yashiro who "had your back" for the first fifteen years.

Anyway, on to the purpose of this letter: CONGRATULATIONS! No person in this world can be more proud of you than I am at this moment as you prepare to receive your Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Academy of Entertainment. And no person deserves this award more than you do.

[The calligraphy here is a little erratic, as if written in an irritated rush] I will not be petty, but it is about time. Despite your stubborn insistence on putting my own LAA in the trophy case in a prominent position with all of our other awards, it has been the bane of my existence for the past six years. I cannot understand why the Academy would be so foolish as to award such an honor to me first. I don't see why all of these different groups keep insisting on heaping awards on me when [the paragraph stops abruptly here]

Forgive me. That is all in the past now because the IAE has finally come to their senses and recognized true greatness. Tonight everything will return to what it should be, Senpai.

As I write this letter I can look out of my tower office window and see you on the great lawn, rolling around and staining your clothes as our great-grandchildren crawl all over you. Who would have thought that you would have taken Otou-san's place as the Ouya-baka of our family? Yet somehow it just looks right for you to be there, with them. We have had a good first fifty years together, have we not?

Your prepared speech is sitting on my desk beside this letter. I love the fact that you count our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren as your true "lifetime achievement." Even if a couple of our children have displayed a certain "Koun-ishness," as the Boss used to describe it, they all evened out in the end. Doctors, Lawyers, Authors, Actors, Singers, and even one Rocket Scientist (though how Aori managed that with her highschool math scores, I'll never know); they each went on to become successful, or at least content.

Oops, I drifted off there for the last ten-or-so minutes. I need to get back to my letter instead of gazing down at you. Maria-Shacho agrees with me that, even at seventy-four, you are still the most handsome man we have ever seen (though we won't tell her husband that). I'm so glad that she was given the honor of presenting the award tonight. I think that she still loves you, you know. She might have given you to me, but I don't think that her heart ever completely let you go. I know from experience that a little girl can fall in love like that. I never once forgot my Prince Corn, even though it took me years to find him again.

I wish that Otou-san and Lori were still here to see this moment with us. Otou-san would have spent the evening regaling everyone within hearing distance with tales of your great deeds. Lori would have shown up riding an elephant, dressed as the King of Persia. But he would have been beaming with pride. Lori once confided in me that you were like a son to him after you escaped to Japan. He may have been the most eccentric person that either of us will ever meet, but I don't believe that any man ever had a bigger heart. Even Moko-san, who usually acted annoyed with just about everything the man did, still burns incense to his picture every week. I suppose that all of his LoveMe children, us first three plus the hundreds who followed, will always hold him close to our hearts.

Moko-san has promised, upon penalty of death, not to twit you about anything tonight. Sometimes I believe that you and she enjoy taking shots at each other entirely too much. If it weren't for her deep and abiding love for Yukihito, I might be concerned. After all, she is still one of the most beautiful women in the world, ranked right at the top with Okaa-san. If I live to be ninety-six I hope that I can look even half as good as she does.

Moko-san spoke with Sachiko and she assures us that arrangements were already made for a limo to pick up Sachiko and Okaa-san when they arrive at the airport. I don't know why Okaa-san still feels the need to attend fashion shows, but at least Sachiko is there to watch over her. We both knew that Sachiko would become CEO of Swan Design after Julie retired, and not just because she is the daughter of my best friend and married our Kuji. She is as beautiful as her Moko-san and as stylish as her grandmother-in-law.

Chiori phoned again to apologize for not making the trip. Not even she can control a tropical storm shutting down the airport. I assured her that we understood. After all, she directed three of your last four hit-movies, so she will be here with you in spirit anyway. Directing was such a fitting and natural transition for her. Like Moko-san, she never liked the shallow, vacuous stories that characterized too much of entertainment. Her determination to change Japan's focus one movie or television drama at a time has finally given Japan the credibility that it wanted, and I am so proud of her. (Of course I never told her about all of the times you grumbled about her in private when she made you re-do a scene).

Anyway, this letter has become much longer than I anticipated or intended. Just know this, Tsuruga-Hizuri-Senpai: I love you dearly and I am more proud of you than mere words can ever say.

With all of my love,

Your Eternal Kohai

oOoOOoOo

On the twenty-second of November, in the year two-thousand and sixty-two, veteran actor, model, and Professor of Film Acting at both Tokyo University and the Los Angeles Film Institute Hizuri Kuon stood before a packed crowd of nearly 10,000 at the Facebook Center in Anaheim, California to receive his Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Academy of Entertainment. At the age of seventy-four he still towered above almost everyone in the room. His blond hair and eyebrows were snowy-white, but his China-blue eyes were still clear. With great dignity and grace he walked up to the podium, accepted the trophy from Maria Takarada, the President of LME International, and kissed her on the cheek. Everyone laughed while she blushed and took her seat on the platform. Then he moved to the podium. In the expected silence he pulled out what appeared to be an envelope, which he regarded affectionately before setting it aside.

Then Kuon Hizuri, as western audiences knew him, delivered the following address:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the International Academy of Entertainers, Mom, friends, family, and all of those who are watching this event and lending me your kind support, Thank You for this Lifetime Achievement Award. It means a lot to me to think that you wanted me to have this.

"I have a confession to make: today I lied to my beautiful and beloved wife. Wait, don't be alarmed. I promise that it wasn't anything too bad. I simply allowed her to read the prepared speech that she thought that I intended to deliver tonight. But that was a ruse so that I could make sure that she was here and that she would not hide at home tonight…

"Now, Kyoko-dear, please stop glaring at me. It isn't anything bad, I promise.

"In my prepared speech I thanked you all for this award and I thanked all of the producers and directors and fellow actors and filming crews and makeup artists and everyone else that helped to make all of the movies and commercials and television shows and modeling shoots possible… and I still wish to thank all of you. Our audiences only get to see what we intend them to see… but to make that magic happen requires an army of specialists and technicians who, sadly, often go through their entire careers without getting the recognition due to them. So I thank you. This award belongs to each of you as much, if not more than it does to me.

"Next, my prepared speech suggested that my true lifetime achievement was my family; my three sons and two daughters; and my grandchildren, all sixteen of them; or now my great-grandchildren: so far there are seven of those and I love and cherish each and every one. Regardless of any success that I may have attained in my career, they are my true happiness and I am proud of every one of them.

"Yet… although I am proud of both my career and my family, I still do not count either of these as my greatest achievement. Ladies and gentlemen, my greatest achievement happened almost fifty years ago today, when the gorgeous golden-eyed woman who is sitting at the front table placed her hand in mine and agreed to be my wife. [He waited for the anticipated awww's and ohhh's to still before he continued]. And before you write this off as mere pro-forma words for a husband to speak, let me tell you a story:

"I first met my Kyoko when I was only ten… and she only six. I met her in a small, hidden clearing in the middle of the ancient capitol of Japan, Kyoto, and she impacted me so strongly that I kept going back to that clearing to see her again and again. I only spent ten days with her before I had to fly back to California, and I foolishly failed to provide for a means to contact her from a distance. Ten years later we met again, though I was working under the stage name of Tsuruga Ren. I recognized her, but she didn't recognize me. We each had our own issues at the time, yet I couldn't stay away from her. I was twenty when I fell in love with that sixteen-year-old golden-eyed girl, but it took me another two years before she ever gave me the slightest hope that she might ever love me in return. Those were a tense, painful and arduous two years, fraught with the fear that my Kyoko would open her heart to another man and that I would lose her forever [more aww's and ohhh's].

"Even when she confessed her love for me, I could not relax until she wore my ring on her finger and she spoke her vows to me. [A sheepish look and a soft chuckle] I was so tense right up until that ceremony that I actually slept for the first ten hours of our honeymoon… a great disappointment considering my reputation at the time, I'm sure [the crowd laughed and Kyoko hid her reddened face].

"But let me tell you, friends, that it was worth the ten years of separation and the two years of unremitting anxiety. Kyoko is my love, my companion, and my dearest friend. She sometimes calls me 'Senpai,' which means mentor in Japanese; but I have learned more about acting from her then she ever learned from me… Now stop scowling at me, Dear… She is the mother of my children and the ideal grandmother to our ever-growing brood. And although between us we have amassed a small collection of awards over the years [the crowd laughed again at this huge understatement], I only have to look at her to see the only trophy that I ever wanted and that I will always cherish above all others.

"And so, ladies and gentleman, I thank you for this Lifetime Achievement Award… and I dedicate this award to the one who matters the most to me: My Kyoko."

THE END

Author's Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope that you've enjoyed it.

I apologize for deviating from the letter-format in this final chapter, but I wanted to end this way since the beginning of the story and couldn't find any way that Kyoko would re-write these words into a letter.

If you will read my profile, I make note of two stories that I am currently working on in fictionpress. If you have the time I would appreciate it if you would give them a read and let me know what you think.