Chapter 4: Distance
It is now Spring 27. Vale has just rode off to work in Konohana, while Nori is left at home. As Nori sighs stressfully, she is happy about one thing, it's her birthday! And she plans to celebrate her birthday like she has been since she got married. She's gonna work all day preparing a great dinner for her and her husband.
Vale on the other hand has a problem. Today he finds that his enormous strawberry fields are ripe with fresh juicy strawberries. It's already past noon, and he'll need to spend all day and night to harvest all the strawberries. He figures that if he works quickly, he'll make it in time for Nori's birthday.
As Nori prepares the master feast, she recollects the moments she had with her husband. How he flirted with her, and told her how pretty she was in a kimono. He would give her flowers every time he goes into the mountain and makes a bouquet. Such a sweet husband she has found herself.
Vale finishes harvesting half the strawberries, and he sees that the sun has started to set. He wipes off the sweat from his forehead and decides to pick up the pace. He is working as hard and as fast as he can; but he is no superhero and his stamina is only limited. Even though he wants to work fast, he is tired and losing pace.
Night has arrived, and Nori is prepping herself up nice and pretty. She wears her best outfit and puts on light make-up for the dinner date. After she is done, she prepares the table complete with a huge meal for her working man, and candles for that romantic touch. She looks at the time, it is 8:00 pm, and she expects Vale to be home any minute.
But Vale is not ready to come home. At around midnight, Vale finally completes his job. The strawberries are shipped, and the crops are watered. He tries to rush home, but the tunnel is too dark to navigate through. With the miners leaving their junk ores on the ground, his horse might trip and get hurt. If he rides through the mountain, he'll definitely be there after 6:00am.
Instead, he checks into the Konohana Town Hall and sleeps the night away. The villages don't have phones, so there is no way that Vale could call his wife to say that he cannot make it. He knows his wife will be upset, but he did not know that work would take so long.
Around the same time, Nori looks at the time. It is past midnight, and she loses faith that her husband will come home tonight. She changes to her night gown, and cries herself to sleep. This is the first time that she has slept alone since she got married. And she never thought she would sleep alone ever again.