| abstract | - A common Ship Tease device and an occasional form of Meet Cute and/or Samaritan Relationship Starter, a Returning the Handkerchief scenario usually plays out according to the following script: 1. Boy A has somehow dirtied/bloodied/soaked himself. 2. Girl B walks by and, seeing Boy A's plight, lends him a handkerchief. 3. The two might talk for a while, but Girl B usually leaves before Boy A has managed to clean himself up. 4. Left with just a dirty/bloody/soaked and borrowed handkerchief, Boy A sets off to clean it and return it to Girl B. Coincidence usually contrives to make this as awkward as possible, or Boy A is already incredibly self-conscious about the whole affair, either because a. Girl B is his crush, or b. he's aware of the trope's romantic implications. Note that the scenario need not be Strictly Formula to count as a Returning the Handkerchief plot: the core of the trope is that Girl B has lost something, and Boy A has it. The lost item serves to remind Boy A of Girl B and/or encourage him to seek another encounter with her. It is not altogether uncommon for the handkerchief to go entirely unmentioned upon their second meeting; in which case, the handkerchief is a MacGuffin that disappears from the story once it is no longer needed. For returning the handkerchief to make any sense, it has to be a washable cloth one (and it usually tends to be a fancy, decorated one at that), which is slightly peculiar considering the prevalence of simple paper tissues in modern society -- especially Japan. This might contribute to the fact that the trope is largely discredited these days; if a literal handkerchief does appear in the story, the setup is likely to be parodied or not played entirely straight. Today, this trope occurs mainly in Anime and Manga, but it also occurs in Western works - for instance, many Genre Savvy ladies in Victorian fiction provoked just this sort of behavior from gentlemen they were courting by visibly misplacing their handkerchiefs. Western audiences might be more familiar with a common Parody of this trope, in which Boy A immediately offers the handkerchief back after being done with his business, and Girl B politely rejects the sopping mess with a "keep it". The two forms likely evolved independently, however, and the classic gag is not this trope. Examples of Returning the Handkerchief include:
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