How These Things Work

Breakfast passed by too slowly. Annabelle could barely focus on her pancakes as she kept her gaze laser-focused on the envelope in her brother's hand. She wanted to push the pancakes away, but she knew that it would be very rude of her to do so. She made up her mind to be patient and tried her best not to think about the letter until her pancakes were done. 
     Of course, once breakfast was done, she had to help clean up. She stood next to the sink and was drying off the dishes as efficiently as she could. 
     "Hey Anna, are you excited to read the letter?"
     "Yes." She replied directly, keeping her hands moving.
     Gene looked down at his sister, then started helping her dry the dishes. 
     Soon enough, everything was put away and cleaned up, so the two of them went back to her room. The two of them sat down on her bed and shut the door to her bedroom. Only when her brother pulled out the envelope did she notice that it had already been opened. She frowned.
     "You read it." She sounded disappointed. 
     "Yep." Her brother replied. "Because last time, I was caught off-guard by the contents. This time I'm prepared."
     "I'm ten." She stated. 
     "That is still too young to hear about certain things."
     Annabelle sighed. She figured that she was old enough to know everything about anything, but her parents and her brother kept telling her that there were certain things she'd only get to know when she was older.
     "Anyway, this one is definitely... different." He said calmly, then pulled an ugly brown thing with pretty, blue, cursive words on it out of the envelope. It had been folded up neatly and pressed down to fit inside the envelope. 
     Annabelle's eyes became as big as frisbees.
     "Uh... Annabelle?"
     She smiled wide, and Gene found it somewhat unsettling. His sister wasn't ugly; he'd never, ever say that about her. However, she barely smiled. Her expression was almost always neutral or frowning, so seeing her smile was a rare occurrence, limited to the hour directly after church on Sundays and Wednesdays, and a handful of other occasions. 
     "Phone," she said, then added with a slightly embarrassed look, "please."
     He smirked and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Annabelle took it from him, opened a search engine, and typed something into the search bar hastily. He looked at the search results curiously, then realized that she was on an online auction website. She typed something into the website's item finder, then tapped on something that looked like a poster. She zoomed in on the image of the product and held it up to his face.
     "Look."
     Gene blew air through his nose and took the phone from her in order to examine the image more closely. 
     "It's an autographed poster for 'Miracle Miya.' What about..." The gears turned in his head and he looked back at the zoomed-in image. "No way."
     The handwriting on the poster and the handwriting on the cardboard were the exact same. 
     He took his eyes away from the phone and turned back to his sister, who was reading the cardboard letter. 
     "Hey!" He snatched the letter away from her. She narrowed her eyes very slightly at him. 
     He sighed and put his phone back in his pocket, then held the letter up. 
     "It's hers." She said confidently.
     "Maybe." Gene mumbled. He cleared his throat, then began to read the letter to his sister.
     "Dear Annabelle and Gene Southwell. I'm sorry for taking so long to send this letter to you. I couldn't figure out what to do in order to get this to you two until yesterday. Send the letter to the return address on the envelope. It's the address of a helpful person. He agreed to send and receive both of our letters despite the fact that doing so could cost him his job. Please don't tell anyone about this correspondence."
     Gene looked at his sister pointedly.
     She looked back at him plainly.
     There was mutual understanding between them. He returned to reading the letter.
     "I want to hate Mukashi. I want to scream at him and tell him that he should care about me. I want him to hug me and tell me that things will be alright. I want him to ask me about my day and really care about my response beyond a surface level assessment of my health. I want him to make small talk with me whenever we're walking. I want him to protect me because he wants to and not because he needs to. I want him to care about me. Is that wrong? Is that selfish? I don't care if it is. I'm sorry."
     Gene finished reading the letter and stared at it for a few moments. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for his sister's disappointment in her idol and the disillusionment that would follow after that. He turned to look at her.
     She looked directly into his brown eyes.
     "We should pray for her." She said flatly.
     "What?"
     "She's lonely."
     Gene opened and closed his mouth a few times. Annabelle kept speaking.
     "Can we write another letter to her?"
     "Anna, this woman isn't," he hesitated, "she's not," he hesitated again, "listen, she's dealing with adult problems. Things you wouldn't understand. Things that take a lot of therapy, time, and money to resolve correctly. I don't think we're in a position to help her solve these... extremely complicated issues." Gene reasoned.
     "She's lonely. We can help her feel less lonely."
     Gene glanced at the cardboard letter.
     "That's... that's not how this works, An-"
     "How does it work?" She interrupted calmly.
     "W-what?"
     His sister's voice was completely monotone.
     "Do we wait until she's not famous anymore? Do we wait until we can hire a professional? Do we wait until she stops sending them?" 
     She looked deeply into her brother's soul, her long wavy black hair now appearing to Gene like the tendrils of ancient beast hellbent on hearing what a mortal had to say. She opened her mouth for the last question she had, and her big blue eyes were almost like mirrors.
     "Do we wait until she's dead?"
     Gene sat in the room next to his ten year old sister. 
     "I-I thought... couldn't we just, er, pray? You're always saying that we should do that." He said, trying to veer her away from the subject of sending more letters.
     She stopped looking directly at him and laid down flat on her bed.
     "We can do both."
     "I thought... you know, there's that verse about how prayer is powerf-"
     "Don't twist the Bible or I'll tell dad." She said blandly, looking up at the ceiling of her bedroom. She watched the fan twirl.
     Gene shut his mouth.
     He looked back down at the letter.
     There was a large part of him that wanted to avoid any further interaction with 'Miracle Miya,' and get back to his normal, traumatized K-Pop idol-free life. Unfortunately, he knew his sister wasn't going to let him do that, and he wasn't about to spill the beans on this woman's private life just to get out of it.
     There was a small part of him that was curious about what would happen next in an almost detached way, as if this woman's life were merely a sort of private drama for his own amusement. He knew that it was wrong, but it was only a small part of himself.
     But then there was a tiny part of his soul that cared.
     He imagined, briefly, what it would be like to wake up in Miya's shoes. To have a manager that confounded and perplexed his feelings constantly. To have a schedule so soul-crushing that it made him wonder if he still had one. He sighed quietly.
     "Anna... what do you wanna tell her?"
     His sister remained flat on the bed.
     "That Jesus loves her."
     "'Course you do." He said with a sigh as he pulled out his phone and began taking notes.
     "It's important."
     "I know that." He said dismissively. "Alright, what else would you like to say?"
     "That she can send as many letters to us as she wants."
     "Okay..." He typed the words into his phone despite the slight unease he felt about the offer.
     "Mukashi was her manager, right?"
     Gene hesitated, then nodded. Annabelle tilted her head up and saw his response.
     "Tell her that she can't make people love her. If Mukashi doesn't want to be her friend, then she can't force him to be. All she can do is the next right thing, and then the people who care about that will n-notice and try to be her friend." Annabelle's voice softened.
     Gene stopped typing and looked at his sister, surprised. 
     "And if no one else c-cares... Jesus cares." She whispered.
     Annabelle didn't have many friends.
     Gene put his phone away, laid down, and hugged her.
     "I'll tell her." He whispered softly.