As spring heated to summer, and the echo of cicadas hummed across the valley, Kutone's series of to-do lists had only grown in her notebook. On top of her accumulating notes on the townspeople, as well as the Junimos' requests at the community center, she had also recorded the goals she envisioned for the run-down Breezy Banks Farm. Crops were, of course, her first priority, but Grandpa's old tools needed serious maintenance before Kutone could attempt plotting out new patches of farmland. Pelican Town's portly and withdrawn blacksmith, Clint, provided the consultation Kutone needed on her tools, and recommended an upgrade to a copper base as a starter. He required, however, a small fee and the resources to begin the project.

Kutone could find said resources, Clint explained with a guilty grimace, if she headed to the mines past Robin's house in the mountains. Veins of copper ore were plentiful in the mine's upper levels, and despite the condition of Grandpa's pickaxe, easily mined.

Clint failed to mention, however, the slimes, bats, and bugs that angrily assaulted Kutone around every corner. Had Marlon of the Adventurer's Guild not crossed her path and allowed her to borrow a dull but heavy sword—worthwhile for bashing skulls or imploding gelatinous bodies—her gravestone probably would have read "Fatally bruised by a ball of goo," or something just as poetically stupid.

Copper ores bagged in hand, though, Kutone, with Marlon's help, found her way back to the exit, to find twilight descending over Pelican Town.

Marlon scratched at his bristles. "Not quite night, I suppose," he said in his growling voice. "You'll still have enough time to make it back to your home. I take it you need no escort from here?"

"None," Kutone replied, handing back her borrowed sword, and cramming her spoils into her pack. "I'll stop by the guild to buy a proper sword."

"You'll need lessons too, kid. You've got the spunk, but hardly the sense or skill. Gil and I could whip you into a proper adventurer."

They parted at the bridge, Marlon heading east deeper into the mountains, and Kutone west, thinking to take the backwoods road down to the Banks.

With the day fading, however, even the most familiar sights instantly became foreign. Spying a faint red light and tendrils of smoke down by the lakeside, Kutone veered south, keeping Robin's house to her right. Marlon had mentioned during her impromptu battle lessons, that the mine's creatures sometimes made it out into the valley. Hopefully she didn't need to fetch the guild master again.

But she recognized the silhouette against the lake's shine. No one else in town dressed head to toe in black, especially in the climbing summer heat, but luckily for Sebastian, night was a reprieve from the blistering daytime.

As Kutone calmed her alertness, she slowed her steps. After only catching glimpses of Sebastian over the spring months, she appreciated the private opportunity to try speaking to him again. With Kutone's attempts at even greeting him ending in ambivalence, Robin had also tried, futilely, to get proper introductions established between them. Her son, after all, tended to stick with his friends or his lonesome, and if that failed, he quickly disappeared.

His smoke, gentle like baby clouds, dissipated into the night sky. This place, the mountaintop lake at night, was most likely where Sebastian ended up when no one else could find him. It would be best for him, and for Kutone's standing with him, if she turned and walked away, but she'd never been a sensible woman. "I didn't realize you were a smoker."

Sebastian turned, shaken by the sudden address. He stared a long while at Kutone's face, then with a shrug, relaxed again. "If it bothers you," he replied, turning back to the lake, "no one asked you to stay."

"It doesn't," said Kutone. "Former city girl here. I've secondhand smoked pretty much everything you can imagine."

An amused "Heh," came from Sebastian's direction, possibly from a smirk.

Finally, Kutone thought, some kind of positive reaction. She maintained her distance from him, as she gently went on. "I don't usually see you around, so, I guess I was a little surprised."

"Don't be. I've been at this a while."

The night lit up once more, as the moon crested over the far mountainside. Though moonlight sparkled on the lake's surface, neither Kutone or Sebastian had anything to say. Again, she thought, this would be the perfect moment to turn and walk away. Maybe leave a "Nice talking to you" or "I'll see you around another time," but platitudes, Kutone knew too well, never really shook a body into action. Never really jarred new thoughts or sensations in a body. Impressions were key. So instead of leaving, as a sensible person would, she stayed, focusing not on Sebastian at the lakeside, but cricket song and lapping waves. Cigarette smoke flavored the cool air, and though Kutone never smoked, it almost tasted delicious. Almost.

They still made no further conversation. She didn't mind. Their overarching quiet tugged on some fond memory deep inside her chest. What had she forgotten?

The other, unfortunately, didn't feel the same. "I did say," Sebastian started, "no one asked you to stay. I'm not a conversationalist like Sam."

It was, she knew, a gentle push asking her to leave. She pushed back, not wholly used to this avoidant kind of back-and-forth. "I don't mind." Kutone loosened her pack and sunk to the ground. "I'll leave soon. Let me rest here for a little?"

He shifted from one foot to the other, sighed, then shrugged. "Suit yourself."

A night breeze drifted down the mountain, taking Sebastian's smoke along as it floated across the surface of the lake. For a moment, Kutone's hair went along with it, until the wind died into ripples and let go of her flyaway bangs. The tug on her memory intensified, as she drew her knees up to her chest. She had no other thoughts running through her head, not even the compulsory urge to find a topic of conversation. Likely because Sebastian himself had already shot down the notion. But, maybe the night, its air flavored with smoke, had something to do with it. Or her exhaustion, weighing her muscles down like lead, from the mines.

"Something funny?"

She hadn't realized she was smiling. The moonlight had probably illuminated her features long enough for Sebastian to stare; he glanced away as soon as Kutone looked up. He took a long drag as Kutone shook her head. "It's peaceful out here," she murmured. "Quiet."

"Yeah." He kept his voice low as well. "One of the good things about the countryside, I guess."

"Not necessarily the countryside. More like, this moment here. Like everything's stopped."

"You like it too?"

Kutone looked up again, this time, maintaining eye contact with him. She nodded, replying, "It's great," before she turned her eyes back to the rippling surface of the lake.

He dug his hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. "The beach's even better," he said. "Out at the pier by Lonely Rock."

"I bet. With the waves coming in and out."

"And with no one there. I'd go at night if I could."

"What's stopping you?"

"You see how far it is from here." He craned his head up, staring at the clear sky. "So I wait 'til it rains. I can stay out there all day."

"That sounds nice."

"If you're into that sort of thing." Realizing he'd spent his cigarette, he threw it on the ground, scuffed it out with the toe of his shoe, and picked it up again. "Guess I'll head back, then."

Kutone stood up as well, brushing her pants down. "Sorry to keep you."

"Weirdly enough, I don't mind it this time." A faint smile lighted Sebastian's features as he sauntered past her. After a few steps, however, he stopped, and turned to Kutone again. "You much of a book person?"

"Sure."

"Genre?"

"Some sci-fi. More fantasy." She could hear Mom's Oh Kutone, isn't it about time you graduated that sort of thing? No respectable company will take you seriously with those kinds of hobbies… and gripped her forearm to brace herself for Sebastian's reply. "Don't judge me."

Sebastian appeared to consider Kutone's words, then replied, "Newest Solarian Chronicles?"

Excitement leapt up her throat and burst out, "Yes! With the wizard and the missing staff, the necromancer in the tower—but the king back home and—and they just made it into a board game, right? With plans in the future for a full tabletop scenario—oh." She barely caught Sebastian's wide-eyed stare in the edges of the moonlight above them. "Oh." Hadn't she just learned to keep her emotions in check? She exhaled deeply, hoping to blow away her outburst. "I—I haven't read it yet. Moved here before I could pick it up from the bookstore."

To her surprise—and embarrassment—Sebastian chuckled, amused. "Weirdo," he said.

"I'm aware," Kutone replied, drawing her arms around herself. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I meant it in the nicest way possible."

She cast him a baleful expression. "You sure know how to rub salt into an open wound."

His amusement faded. "Sorry." An apologetic glumness shadowed his features. "I mean—I should have said—because it was kinda cu—no. Sorry. Just sorry."

Hand pressed over his face, he marched further away from Kutone, equally downcast by the sudden sour tone. But then, he stopped again, inhaled deeply, and tried one more time. "I was trying to say, I have the book. You can borrow it, if you want."

She turned sharply in her spot. "You're sure?"

"Just don't catch me on a bad day." He raised his hand. "Don't be a stranger."

"Same to you."

As Sebastian stalked away into the night, Kutone mentally revised her notes—he almost said I was cute?—and shook her head, denying the prickly warmth in her cheeks with a long breath. Honestly, good thing he stopped himself, because Kutone had no idea how to deal with the innocent confusion poking at the seams of her guarded conscience. She tingled in an almost-foreign way, like her body relived a past memory to which she had no access—no, she rejected her own access.

Because, without that access, without those good feelings her body insisted it remembered, Kutone kept herself safe.

She picked up and shouldered her pack, and stood for a while longer at the silent lakeside. Around her, cigarette smoke lingered, and distantly, a different memory spoke to her.

Am I alive?

For the first time since taking on Grandpa Issu's farm, since dropping Zuzu City for Stardew Valley, she responded to herself.

"I wonder..."