Mailman -- E-Rank Mission (Closed)

The sun lay beyond the horizon line, waiting its cue to rise into the sky, and Kaito was already up, a towel wrapped around his waste, brushing his long red hair to make sure it stayed pristine. He might be a brute with an history of violence, but he still had his pride, and his hair was part of that.

As he stared in the mirror, he thought about the task at hand, received in the mail yesterday, ironically. Due to a foreseen shortage today, the mailing service had reached out to the Kage office for extra hands; a usual occurance, as far as he remembed he had recieved letters in hand from village genin's. They were usually younger than him though. "At least I made something of myself", he resemtfully thought. It wasn't like he had been a genin all his life.

By the time he made it to the mail service, mailmen and women were already walking out of the door with the heavy bags by their sides. "Shit, I hope I'm not late." The jounin would chew his bones off his joints if he got a bad report from the postal services. He asked around for the lad he was told to contact, and upon finding him, feeling already hot, bothered and starting to prespire, the lad met him with a relaxed tone. No need to worry, he said, so long as it's all delivered and picked up by the end of the day, it's all good.

He was handed a duffel bag which he slung over his chest and let rest against his hip, realizing slowly just how heavy it was and how it would weigh on him the entire time he had it. Read the addresses carefully and make sure you're not handing over letters to people you don't know, he was warned. The letters shpuld be organized by delivery order but you never know.

Kaito nodded and thanked the mailman for the instruction, who thanked him back for the extra hand and gave him a mailman hat; shields from the sun and it helps people recognize the service he would be performing. He took the hat and took off.

He was given the seedy underbelly of the city to dwell into and deliver the mail; almost too good, since he lived there. His bag had the obvious symbol and look of the mail services, but he himself had only the hat, which drew people's attentions. Luckily (for him or others) no one tried to pick a fight. He would look at the street signs, look through the letters, make sure he had the right house number before sliding correspondence through the mail slit.

At some point, in a tall building, someone asked for letters to a specific door. He refused. As he moved past them, they grabbed his hand. A swift elbow to the face and a shove later, they left Kaito alone as he kept delivering letters.

The bag got lighter and lighter, and his stomach emptier and emptier, to the point it would growl lightly from time to time. He took a break to have a bite at a dark, damp and musty cafe; he felt wierd in the mailman hat, but no one brought it up. "I need to stop worrying so much about how people perceive me. It's gonna be the end of me."

The downside of emptying the bag at the edge of the city was that now he would have to refill it. He remembered the pick up points for mail; he had passed two of them already, and a third was just a little off his course. As he made his way, he thought about the kitchen work he used to do; his legs would be shaking as much as they did now, but life in the kitchen is a different kind of stress on the muscles.

The first two pick ups proved that the last pickup would be difficult; the bag was nearly full, and even though Kaito had tried his best to stack the letters as neatly as the mailmen had, it seemed more difficult than met the eye. As he expected, by the time he made it to the third point and opened it, the amount of letters inside would prove impossible to carry in a single go. "Damn, I don't wamt to have to do this route twice... I wanna go home already." His house was relatively close to where he stood.

He looked around for a solution, and serendipity offered him his cheap way out. A wheelbarrow leaned neatly against the wall of a grocery shop, where he inquired about borrowing the barrow. The elderly couple looked him up and down, but seeing the duffel bag with letters and the mail service hat, obligued.

Assisted by a single wheel and his upper body strength, the trip back with stacks of letters proved much easier than the trip out of the post office. Perhaps the endorphins were just free roaming his body, enabling him to ignore possible pain and just feel good with the activities. He helped the mailmen take the stacks of letters off the wheelbarrow, and thanked Kaito for the help once again, and handed him over an envelope with the payment for the day's work. Kaito thanked them back for the opportunity to help, as he had been taught by someone better than himself, and barrowed his way back into the grocery shop.

"Not as bad as I thought it'd be", he mused. He may even spend some of the earned money on booze to celebrate a good day.


---

WC: 954

(Exit)
Mission rewards: 500ryo
1st E-Rank reward: 5 Kunai
Stat Points: 1 Stamina, 1 Strength

Approved