Disclaimer: The characters and locations portrayed in this work are the intellectual property of Natsume - this cheesy little piece is a derivative work and not for profit.
This exists because I think too much.
Skye is much mushier than the Doctor in Mineral Town. Teehee.
They look at me different now. The townspeople, I mean. It's not that they really mean to, but I can see the way Rock grimaces when he mentions my marriage, or how Flora hasn't tried to strike up any conversations with me lately. They feel awkward. They have doubts about who I was really helping, when I joined them in their Phantom Thief stakeouts. I understand that – I'd feel the same in their shoes.
But they don't understand. How much has Skye really taken in the year and a half he's been around our valley? No doubt he was planning on taking some valuables when we first met at Romana's mansion, but he chickened out, I think. The kitchen was the only room found touched the next morning, and they hadn't even lost any silverware.
All he ended up stealing from the Blue Bar was a bottle of wild grape wine and a crate of milk (how he escaped with it, only the Harvest King knows), and though he left an impression, he really only took the worth of a couple hundred gold from anyone.
It makes one wonder. Anyway, he's never been a very good thief. Like he said at the beach that night, it's never been his preferred profession; the image of Phantom Thief Skye suits him, not the job. I've always thought it was a way to keep from admitting to himself how much he needed help.
Don't get it? See, it's like my parents, back when they were still around. They were friends with an older couple with a kid about my age, when I was only three or four. We'd have them over for dinner once a week and I'd play with their son. I remember how the father used to grumble about pride and pity, and his wife would shush him, and my parents would put a lot of emphasis on how much they enjoyed their company.
That was curry night, my favorite night of the week. I would sit in the kitchen while mom cooked, enjoying the smell, and sometimes she'd let me stir the pot while she chopped tofu or pineapples. We would always have way too much left, and my mother would say she made a mistake measuring portions and send leftovers home with our guests, claiming that we'd never manage to finish it all before it spoiled.
The mother looked worse and worse over the eight months that we knew them, growing haggard and pale, and one week they suddenly stopped coming over. When I asked my father, he said that they'd had to go away for a while. For years I didn't think about it, though curry has always been my favorite dish. In school, the other children thought I was weird for having such a plain favorite food, but Skye understood the magic – you can put anything in curry. You can eat it every day and never get tired of it, because there are a million and one different types, combinations of spices and vegetables and meats. It was the smile on Skye's face when I gave him that first bento of orange curry that made me fall for him.
Anyway, before I moved out to the valley, I got curious and looked that family up in the library's records – turns out the mother had been dying of cancer, and when her body finally gave out, her husband took his razor and followed her. I know it seems silly, but I don't think I can ever forgive him for leaving their boy alone in the world.
And I don't know what happened to their son.
But when I told this story to Skye last night, he buried his face in my neck and cried for five minutes, then kissed me 'til my knees were weak, breathing my name in my ear like some sort of prayer all the while, and I wondered for a moment at the softness of his hair and where had I seen that shade before? Then he pulled me closer and I stopped thinking.
Perhaps I have a small idea, after all.