I have to make a Toby fanfiction; you do realize this, right? There's not enough Toby love in this place so I'm going to attempt to spread it around! Seriously, where my Toby fangirls at?
AUTHORESS NOTE: This Toby is based off of a merging of AP and ToT Toby, just so y'know.
Life, In Motion
"22."
Akari sighed, exasperatedly, as her eyebrows twitched. She grabbed the line and hurriedly pulled up the hook. Tearing another pair of shorts from her line, she tossed the garment into her rucksack, making a mental reminder to throw them out later. The farmer inhaled slowly, giving up on fishing for the day; she had already caught a good share of fish and was ready to relax.
The rancher packed everything up into a tiny pile on the beach. Her rucksack was tossed haphazardly to her left; her fishing rod was placed beside her bag. Stretching herself out, yawning, she placed her hands behind her head and laid down, facing the sun, and drowning in the light of day.
The summer sun was setting; the clean sea breeze carried with it some leftover heat of the day. As the birds cawed above her head, she could make out the sifting tides that rolled their way onto the sandy shore, welcoming the joining of the two different universes: the land and the sea.
Some all-too-familiar steps were heard, crushing the sand beneath their feet, beside her. Lazily, she opened an eye and saw the silhouette of the young fisherman of the island. Akari closed her eyes and receded into herself.
"Nice breeze," contentedly whistled the light haired boy.
"Toby, I'm tired."
"I can tell."
Akari opened her eyes and sent a soft glare at the young man. Hoping to shoo him away, she yawned, once more, and crossed her legs in the sand. But the fisherman relented and lay down beside the girl, blissfully sighing.
She sent him a sideways glance, "Are you just going to sleep there?"
"Yup."
"But I'm resting here. You should find your own spot."
"I could," Toby smiled happily, craning his head in the direction of the farmer as he spoke, "But I'm already here, right?"
Akari sprang up, her eyebrows twitching, and started to shove her fishing rod into her rucksack as best as she could, clearly having complications. She started taking out everything and placing everything back in, over and over, until she found the perfect position in the bag that held all of her items. Smirking to herself over her (very small and insignificant) triumph, she stood up, swinging her rucksack onto her back.
The fisherman quirked a brow.
"I'm going home."
"Why not let me walk you home?" Toby drawled out, implying the question as a direct statement.
"Eh? I don't need you to walk me home. I'm perfectly capable of walking home by myself."
"What if you get hurt on your journey?" Toby smiled, lifting himself off the sand and swaying slightly with the sea breeze.
"What if you get hurt by me on our journey?" Akari retorted back, clearly not wanting to deal with the fisherman's presence anymore. She enjoyed his calm demeanour but after a while she found him frustrating. It was like nothing fazed him; he kept a calm face at anything that was thrown at him, never once betraying his look of serenity.
"Well, what if the walk we share is the last walk of our lives together?"
"Huh? That's stupid. It's not going to be our last walk together."
"This walk," he purred, while turning his body in the direction of the farmer's shack, "Is our whole life together, then. The first step we take will be when we first met. Our life together starts with this one step."
"What would that make my house, then? Death?"
"Perhaps."
"So, do we stop existing, then? Or do we both just die?"
"Our relationship together disappears. One of us could live, maybe. But neither of us see each other again," Toby cooed, smiling joyfully to himself and taking the first step. Slightly disturbed by just how appeasing the angler was to the thought of them never seeing each other again or the implication that they could metaphorically die, Akari diligently tagged behind the man, like a duckling following its mother.
"Ah, I see."
"..."
"Hey, when we reach the inn, then what? How old will we be then?"
Toby hummed. He placed a balled fist to his mouth in contemplation, "I don't know."
Akari looked up to the fisherman as he chuckled to himself. Sighing exasperatedly, she crossed her arms, trying to understand just what was going on in Toby's head. Out of all the people on Waffle Island, Toby was the one didn't understand the most. He seemed to be so accepting of everything and everyone. He would put up with Gill's superiority complex, Chase's less-than-pleasant sarcasm, and even Luke's fanatic antics. Akari was never patient enough to handle all of them. While she could feign enjoyment in them, she felt like she was walking on eggshells around them; if she slipped up and was rude to them then that could cause problems, but Toby never looked worried about how he acted around others.
The sun set and darkness overtook the day, smothering the light from the land. The heart of the island beat beneath the feet of the farmer and the fisherman. The rhythm from their soles shook the ground; only the footfalls rang out from the pair, tossed by the light summer breeze, and blew into the trees. As the heart beat, energy filled the veins of trees and carried into their limbs; the trees shook, swaying to the treading of the two.
Akari exhaled.
"Something the matter?"
"It's nothing."
"You're not the type to keep things in. Are you thinking about something?" Toby light-heartedly pressed, analyzing the farmer's face for any signs of distress.
"How can you be so calm with everyone? And you're so carefree with life! I just don't get it!"
Toby's smile faltered as he stared down at the farmer who looked up with a determined look on her face. The piscator chuckled for a short moment and raised a hand to the young girl's head and ruffled her hair, which she agitatedly fixed back to its natural state.
"Well?"
"To be honest, I'm always worried about whether or not I'm boring to people. Everyone here... They're all very interesting. They have things to say. Sometimes I feel I'm not as exciting as them. I really wanted to fix that complex of myself."
"Wanted? Past tense?"
"I was a rowdy kid. I grew out of that phase because I accepted myself," Toby confided, "I accepted who I was – an old soul who's a calm, I guess you could say, lazy, person – by believing in who I was – who I am now. I could cater to what people wanted me to be, or I could follow my own path. Just like this walk, the only steps that matter are the ones we make ourselves, right? I took off down my own road. And here, well, we could meander from the path to your house, but we'll have to end up there eventually; it's best to accept the ending and write the story as we go along."
"Ah," Akari breathed out, seeing a side of Toby she never noticed. She wouldn't think he was introspective. "I think it's good that Toby is Toby, sometimes, then."
Toby grinned and earned a stare from the farmer.
"Oh, hey," Akari perked up, realizing where she was, "We're close to my place, now. So I guess we'll be dying soon, huh?"
"I guess so. But we had a good run, right?"
"Yeah."
"Any parting words?"
"Does our relationship need any?"
"I don't think so."
"Same," the farmer agreed, nearing her house. The sounds of their feet pounding the ground sent waves of music throughout the land. The echo filled the beaten path up to the farmer's house and the son of the pavement cried out.
Cherk cherk.
Flip flop.
Flip flop.
Cherk cherk.
Stop.
The chatter died. The reverberations cancelled themselves out from the island and a restless stillness hung in the air. The farmer bore holes into the center of her door; her hand slowly cast its way onto the handle, turning it slightly. She looked back at the jovial face behind her.
"Well. I guess this is goodbye."
Smile.
"Aren't you going to say something?"
"We agreed there'd be no final words, right?"
"Yeah."
Smile.
Akari let out a suppressed sigh, opening the door wide and taking a step over the frame. Turning her body, she viewed the silhouette of the fisherman raise a hand, bidding her a farewell, as he moseyed down the dirt road. She closed the door and chucked her backpack to the ground. A feeling of emptiness boiled inside her. Her face contorted as she tried to understand why she felt as if she lost something.
Succumbing to the idea that the walk shook up her emotional constitution, she huffed out, turning on her heels, and grabbed the door handle. She tore open the door, gazing into the night and focusing on the slowly moving creature in front of her.
"Wait! Would you like to come in for a drink or something?" Akari shouted defeated at the fisherman. Toby turned around, smiling gleefully at her, and contemplated the situation out loud.
"So what would that be? An afterlife?"
"Well. If you could stomach an afterlife..."
Drifting over to the distraught farmer, he paused in front of her then slowly lowered his head to her level. Akari could smell the sea; there was a fresh, clean scent that radiated from his clothes. He whispered softly, "If it's an afterlife spent with Akari, I think I can stomach it."
"Eh?"
The fisherman chuckled at the farmer, scooping her face in his hands. Her eyes widen and her heart began to rush. Her arms felt like loose strings, blowing the late night wind. She gulped and licked her lips, preparing for his contact as she felt his hot breath on her. Closing her eyes dreamily, she tilted her head, slightly upwards, in his hands and puckered.
When there was a soft pressure on the tip of her nose, her eyes shot open and watched the blissfully happy face before her recede. Dropping his hands from her and straightening himself, he chuckled at the visage in front of him that was becoming increasingly red. The fisherman ruffled her hair, again, but Akari made no movements to fix it.
"If stepping into your house means the death of our relationship, of us, then perhaps I should stay outside and have you haunt me. Then maybe, if either myself, or you, are so inclined, I'll step over this threshold and give my life for you."
Blink.
"Until then, Akari," the fisherman waved farewell to the stunned farmer who stood in the doorframe of her house. She watched the figure leave, disappearing into the darkness and returning to the world of the living. Running her hands through her hair and fixing her disheveled look, she smirked.
"I don't know what he's talking about; that boy is all shades of surprising."
... I now know why there aren't that many Toby fanfictions. They are hard to write. Geez. I really want to give a description of Toby's scent, but I keep thinking he only smells like fish. And I hate fish. Blagh. So, I went for the smell of the sea! ... Actually, he sleeps a lot, maybe he smells like grass, too? Yeah, yeah.
I think I wrote him slightly OOC, actually, since he doesn't seem like he'd be the proactive type. But when he asked Renee to marry him in ToT, he seemed pretty confident. I was surprised at that, actually. I think he's the 'I look nice and sweet, maybe a little shy, but if I have the drive I'll go for what I want" type-of-guy. Like an unexpectedly confident person. My gut is telling me I wrote him as a typical human being, rather than a stock character. OH WELL~
But seriously, how DO you fit a huge fishing rod into that tiny backpack?