A retainer’s work is never done.
We return to the palace and our characters’ return to their daily lives, which means navigating relationships professional and personal and trying to find that tricky balance between duty and desire. Fortunately Shirayuki and Zen have not only each other, but a bevy of friends and coworkers to support them in their journey–including one new ally who could make all the difference in turning their quiet fairy tale into a political reality.
I’m gonna need a minute to gather my thoughts on this one…
Sometimes a story finds a way to hit every possible button for you at essentially the same time, creating a conflicted ball of feelings that’s equal measures of warmth and ache. It strikes not just one emotional note, but all of the emotional notes, encapsulating the complicated nature of humanity—the sadness present in joy, the gains received out of loss, or vice versa, too—through its characters and their lives. It overwhelms. It leaves you struggling to find the proper words to explain all these competing reactions. You write overwrought opening paragraphs attempting to explain it and you freaking know it sounds overwrought, but don’t know how else to explain it so you type it up and throw it onto the Internet anyway, hoping it doesn’t sound as hokey as you know it does.
So. Um. Yeah. “The Letter to Me” was one of those stories.
The Josei Next Door 