A/N: Long chapter as the backstory is reaching its climax! Enjoy the read and see you at the bottom :)
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc.
Chapter 11. The city of buds - Prelude: Part 7
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Gus had removed his cap to fumble it for whatever was causing that annoying tickling, the steadfast glare he wore almost bearing the exigency of an operation. He could tell something had been trying to crawl into his hair about the same time he came out of the plants, but now that itch was just becoming too greedy for its own good.
"Well damn.." He was only half-astonished, "Talk about buggin' my head.."
He brought the tiny grasshopper on his finger closer to his eye with a threat. The little insect flinched from the vengeful aura emanating from Gus, it had obviously picked the wrong ride. Thankfully it was allowed to spring away, and reflect.
"Hm..?" Kind of a question popped while fixing the bill of his cap, like a compass to point south, "What's with the long face?"
Jack barely rose distant lids, he seemed catatonic and not really in the mood to get up.
"Aah I know..." Gus scratched a slouched nape, "Ye're bummed we're not gonna get to see a bear, ain't ya?" He nodded the flimsy letdown.
"No.. that's not.."
Why could he still not give his words voice..? What he really wanted to say after seeing his grandfather resting with such a saddening smile against the tree... Even if only for a moment, it appeared... that Gus was leaving something behind..? A parting that Jack's conscience advised against asking just to alleviate his own concern.
"It be a pity for sure, but ya can't let it pull yer spirits down." His gaze travelled upwardly with a glint, "This is where the real fun begins!"
"...Huh?" Jack finally seemed to cast his thoughts aside, "What do you mean? Aren't we already there?"
"Gehehehe..." His whole body was chuckling, Gus was obviously plotting something... He turned around to show him, finger pointing the sky, "We're always aimin' for the top!"
"The top..?" He looked puzzled, it was still raining?
"That's right... The mountaintop!"
This time his focus went not up but on the background of Gus's finger, through an ascending trail decorated by towering pine trees that stood side to side, a mountain forest so thick it looked like morning couldn't penetrate the gloom... That's what he meant.
Jack's mouth was uneasy, "Must... not... falter..."
[...]
It had already been fifteen minutes since they set off under the rain and into the dusky forest. For a man at the age of sixty his grandfather had some impressive stamina deposits and an undaunted resolve, nothing would pose much of an obstacle before his march. He kept going ever up without even a suggestive slowdown in his pace. Jack's legs had already been burning away from the strenuous bushwhack from before, going up the mountain's top was going to turn them into charcoal. Well... At least he could put the rusty fireplace at the inn to good use, it seemed to have been out since the stone age.
"Woah—!"
Distracted while entertaining his hopelessness Jack's foot had slipped in dead reaction time.
A strong grip was already on his wrist, Gus had been keeping a close eye on him.
"Don't let that mattress of leaves fool ya, the rain's cookin' the mud below."
Jack exhaled a ton off his chest, this could have been bad.
"Right, I'll be looking out from now on."
With the next step he was checking the ground for being suspiciously squashy, and he'd do it carefully. Gus was about to start laughing through his nose, his grandson was producing noteworthy antibodies to slippery ground.
"Should'a brought ya a trekkin' pole. Y'know, the stick old guys like me ain't using."
Perfect timing to be scratching his already wounded confidence. Jack's smirk was tentative as he had been shyly keeping a question on the back of his head.
"Hey.. Do you.. Do you go for this hiking stuff back at the village as well?
"Aw crap..!" A dirk was stabbing Gus's spine out of nowhere.
"I mean, you know.. Leaf Valley?"
"~Aw crap ~aw crap ~awwww crap!" The dirks were multiplying, "He's asking about Leaf Valley! What the hell I do!?"
The corner of his eye was sweating, Jack looked so modest asking yet also curious to know.
Say a word about Leaf Valley when Jack was around?... Gus could already tell who was pushing dirks at him, it was Jack's father whose expression was about to blow from a sheer schizophrenic rage. For some reason he was dead certain that Gus slipping whispers about Leaf Valley to Jack was the equivalent of trying to brainwash his son with tall tales, to lure him into the darkest of alleys and give him wild ideas about shooting to be a farmer.
That was apparently the nightmare visiting Matthew every night and also what would slap him awake in the morning inside sticky pajamas. Matthew had wanted Jack to aim for office jobs, he was already bending his standards to swallow Jack going part-time, but becoming a farmer? It was the inconceivable opposite of what he wanted him to be. On the few times Gus would visit to spend time with Jack, the one unspoken condition Matthew had set in order to grant permission for a gamble that was already risky, was for Gus to keep a tight zip on his mouth about that place.
Leaf Valley was taboo.
"H-Hey wanna hear a joke?"
"..Eh? ..Awha..?" Jack's brows tilted off balance and into a frown, not the answer he was expecting.
"It's about where the sayin' not out of the woods yet came to be... 'Not out of the woods' like, look around us. Get it? Get it? GAHAHAHAHA... Haha!..Ha..."
"...Changing the subject huh?"
Jack was genuinely frustrated, his grandpa would always come up with something to throw off his curiosity about Leaf Valley. Ever since he was little, ever since he could remember his grandpa's earnest laugh, all he had dreamed was to hear stories about Leaf Valley, anything would do. How work in the fields was like, how cutting wood in the forest was like, how taking care of animals was like... He had never asked for a thing in his life, and even after all those years, Gus still refused him a favor this small as if it was a forbidden fruit. He was actually hopeful that his grandpa's idea to go hiking was the long-yearned moment where he'd finally break his silence and share stories about Leaf Valley.
It was one of the very few times Jack said it was fine to let himself get pissed.
"WOHOHO! T-THAT'S THE SPIRIT!"
Gus was suddenly making a run for it, all to avoid Jack's shoe from going like a pickaxe in his ass.
"Now ye're doin' it like a champ! ...Holy onions, I'm gonna burn that sack of fat in no time if he keeps it up like that!"
He wasn't sure if all that sweat was due to the fretful dashing he hadn't dared since his 20's, or the trigger he'd pulled on Jack's deep patience.
Almost there, Jack almost had him on the ropes. He'd corner his grandpa and have him spill every last bit about life in Leaf Valley.
But wait, Gus stepped to the side and disappeared behind a tree.
"Hey where are you..!"
An emerging light coming through the opening curtains of the trees showered Jack, who made a roof over eyes with his wrist. The rain seemed to have finally stopped too.
"Haa... Haaaa.."
Gus was out of breath, his back was hunched against the last pine tree, but even through his old age, fatigue and stress, he could still pull a cocky grin.
"We made it..!"
The mountaintop it was.
Jack tried to fumble for a pout to wear, but there was hardly one he could find in him. He wasn't certain if Gus had after all merely tricked him to speed up their cumbersome journey, or if it was something else dissuading him to talk about Leaf Valley. Suspicion waned as his grandfather marched eagerly towards the edge of the mountain without a worry on his face. Jack shook his head and gestured shruggingly to himself, there was just no way winning with his grandpa. He'd let him off the hook, for now..
"HOLY PUPPIES IN THE HEAVENS!" Gus cringed with half a step back, "WHAT A CLIFF!"
"You're kidding." Jack hopped closer to take a look.
"Watch it!" Gus extended his arm to put the reckless grandson at bay, "We don't want ya droppin' like a barrel down on Flower Bud!"
Gus couldn't hide the recurring shock as he steered back, this must've been the steepest of cliffs he'd seen in a while, it was on par with Pike mountain's. The wind swishing by the peak was giving the old man more than a few chills to consider.
"Tell you the truth I didn't expect some city mountain to amount to much, but god damn..!"
He just couldn't take his eyes off that scarp-like drop, not even a mountain goat would survive the fall and then the inevitable tumbling due to the gradient arc the cliff seemed to take while going down. Few rocks that were not firmly planted would dislodge and start tumbling down even now as he stood on the outlook. An appalling wince found Gus as he nonetheless watched the pebbles roll a really damn long way down with a fathomless dull impact in their echoes, through a serrated slope that looked like a sterile obsidian graveyard before the forest picked up again. Maybe rain was in fact a frequent phenomenon so high up here, so it had been eating away the mountain side through the years?
.
"...What the..."
Gus's eyes were widening with utter disbelief.
An unnatural mist was starting to gather over the scarp's grounds, as if a world of precipice was trying to conceal its deadly fangs.
...This was not Pike mountain, nothing like it at all...
His mountain was untamed and harsh, but it'd never try to hide its true intentions.
The old man was not overwhelmed anymore, what his eye gazed with a guarded stillness down there...
Was an enemy.
"This cliff shouldn't belong here... There's something off about it.. It's almost as if.."
.
"So?" Jack seemed in high spirits after seeing such a sight, "What are we gonna do now that we got here?" His expression was filled with promise as he asked his grandpa, "Shout as loud as we can maybe?"
Gus's skepticism about the mountain was put on hold, pulling Jack's leg came first, he was grinning...
"Gramps I'll go first!"
What else could it be after coming all the way up here? A shout contest. Jack moved closer to the edge but also with a cautious distance in mind, knuckles extending and cracking in front of him. He'd shout so loud there'd be no room left for Gus to fight back.
"What do'ya mean what we're gonna do? Ain't that obvious?" Just as he was preparing he caught his grandpa's boots moving next to him, his hand was on the zipper of his... pants? "We're takin' a leak."
"Ugh!" Jack was crushed on the ground by a tenfold gravity.
"Gahahaha! Kiddin' kiddin!" Gus was standing over the prostrate grandson, "Sheesh Jack, ye got no sense of humor. Kinda reminds me of your old m—..."
Attention fell on a detail on Jack's head, Gus remembered something he'd wanted to tell him on the way.
"Jack, ya need to lop off that shave brush." He didn't like that sprouting ponytail. "The wild look ya got goin' is all fine with me, 'bout time ya let yer hair grow, but this thing?... It's a god dam' tragedy."
Jack had flipped to a sitting position the moment he heard 'shave brush'. His arms wrapped behind his head to make a shelter on his ponytail. He looked really upset with the characterization.
"It's not like it was my idea you know! I—"
"Oh...?" Gus made out an embarrassed red across Jack's expression, "...a girl?"
Jack clenched his jaw, he was taken completely off guard.
"... girlfriend?" He latched on his chin suggestively.
"Just a friend." Jack sported a still embarrassed smile, but he made his point clear.
"Sorry, didn' mean to put ya in a tight spot.. What ya do with personal ain't my business after all." Gus shot his view on the horizon, "Show me around."
"Huh?" That took him by surprise again, "Show you around?" He was about to lift himself, but Gus sat on his knee instead, like a sentinel on the overlook.
"Yeah, the city. Looks like a maquette from up 'ere right? Easier to show me this way than takin' strolls through the crammed streets."
Jack mimicked his grandfather's sitting, he smiled as he spotted the first objective, "See over there? Second street from the bottom, right to the crosswalk?"
"Yeah." Gus drew the thick grey brows together, "That yer house right?"
"Right!" It was an easy one, Jack's head moved onto the next search, "Oh, over there, big building left to the park, large yard?"
"Uh.." He rubbed his beard, for a while lagging with unsure vowels, "Aw damn! That's yer elementary school! I remember takin' ya there on 4th grade!"
"...you remember that?" Jack's smile was cryptic, but happy... He raised his eyes again, sighing from within with the next one, "Large complex to the west, long parking lot."
"Dad's clinic." Gus stretched his grin wide, he was satisfied at how quick he was with that one.
"Hahaha you're totally in the groove grandpa!" Jack sat down on his hips, arms firm on each side behind him to support his back.
Gus watched the smile brighten on Jack, then how it toned down melancholically.. The boy's mind was obviously not dwelling here, not in the city.
"Hey, think we can see the inn you stayin' from 'ere?"
Jack almost twisted his neck from the surprise, "Um... Think so.. yeah." He stretched his eyes to find the mark, a couple of blinks were unavoidable. "The two hills across each other, way down to the south." Jack whipped to his grandpa's direction with uncontained eagerness, "See it?"
"Hold your horses, grandpa's eagle eye ain't as sharp as it used to be. It's more like a quail's now..." Gus was trying to make binoculars with his hands, wrinkly eyes were squeezing from the effort. The further he looked the foggier it was becoming. "Wooh!" He gaped, "No shit! That tiny thing next to the windmills?"
"It's actually two floors, but yeah! That's the place!" Jack never broke his eyes from the south. But soon... He would have to.
Gus let his arm rest on his knee, he had finished the scouting yet he wasn't speaking a word. It wasn't the inn which had put him in the stodgy mood, Jack's place was in fact quite the nice touch on the quaint hills... It was something else that seemed to trouble him.
The south was indeed rural, not really a countryside, but it had a couple of farms, small looking but still farms, few meadows for the livestock to graze, even a riverbank to cast a line maybe... However, the bigger picture was that of a last fort. A last fort against the city. He couldn't tell for sure, but those things on the city side of the river appeared to be cranes and dozers. They were on standby, ready to flatten hills and meadows to pave the road for new infrastructure. A month? Two months? Gus could already see the city's tentacles slithering over that shallow riverbank. Urban development was apparently already holding ownership of the deed for the hillside.
The deed...
His heart had forgotten how uneasy it should be.. The old farmer's mind had returned to Leaf Valley.
"They will be tearing down everything soon, along with the inn."
Gus wasn't even fazed by Jack's disclosure, his thoughtful eyes wanted to hear him out to the end, to hear out all those things Jack couldn't bring himself to say back at his father's house. The way his grandson had been looking through his window was like a mute cry for escape.. Now, up here on a faraway mountain, where no soul but theirs existed, Jack was finally being able to open the locket of his heart.
"Dad probably already told you, but for the past three years I've been going around the city like a broken clock.. It's only been a month since I moved south. When the innkeeper told me of the situation I realized there wasn't much we could do, it was already too late he said.. In spite of that he was so kind as to offer me a free lodging for the while they'd be packing up. The least I could do was to stay there and help everyone with the inn.. To help everyone treasure those last days, for as long as I could.. I don't know if it will be today, or tomorrow.. But when the inn is gone, I'll be out on the run again..."
Gus had been silently studying Jack who had curled knees up to his chest, his expression was quiet, but he was obviously suffering on the inside. "The city is haunting you, isn't it, Jack..?"
The grandfather looked up on the sky, the rain had ceased for a good while, but the clouds wouldn't go away...
"Wanna listen to a story?— Hey no bullshitting jokes this time, I swear!" He caught on time Jack's grumpy sulk, he really wasn't in the mood for jokes.
"Alright." Jack quietly nested his muzzle between knees.
"Hmm, it goes like this... It's more of an urban legend actually, as such sometimes it'd be a story the ol' folk would tell their grandchildren before bed.. That's how I learned it, from yer great, great grandma..."
...
"They said there was once a huge valley,
surrounded by tall mountains that pierced the skies,
forests so green as if they had been taken out from a fairy tale,
yet the most enchanting thing about the valley weren't its mountains, or forests.
It was its mesmerizing blue flowers.
Myriads of blue flowers spreading as far as the eye could see,
a true heaven on earth.
The people thought it was a miracle,
to have been blessed with such beautiful flowers.
When they'd open their windows in the morning,
they were refreshed by the pleasant aroma
When they'd go out for work,
the petals' azure color cheered them up and filled them with energy.
...However during one spring,
out of nowhere
...The flowers stopped blooming...
The seeds would sprout like they always did,
yet the flowers would never become flowers...
...They just remained buds...
It was as if they were afraid to bloom,
as if they felt something bad was going to happen soon.
Through the years that followed,
the valley had turned into a city,
a city where the buds never bloomed."
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Flower Bud city
...
Gus finished a story that had been passed down through generations, curious to see what Jack thought of it, he opened his eyes.
The boy had frozen midway crawling to him, his eyes were washed out, lips hanging loose. Jack was showered both in awe... and in fear.
"Well.. And seein' how things turned out, I think I understand how the flowers felt. The city soon fell into the maw of technology, everythin' was ripped apart, and nature was not a part of it anymore.."
Jack was still breathless, this hadn't sounded just like your run of the mill bedtime story... The morals behind it felt uncannily real.
"But hey, it's just a story." Gus pated Jack on the head with his elderly affection, "Don't let it get to ya."
He was still stiff collecting his composure, with emotions even more tangled than before he dragged his knees up again.
"Grandpa.. Do you believe.. true happiness exists somewhere?" The words painted how hard it was for him to ask.
The question was left hanging in the air for a few seconds, Gus was without expression.
.
"..Happiness?"
"Yeah.. Happiness.. I think I'm still looking for it."
"Looking for it?"
"Yeah, once I find it,
I'll return to dad.
I'll show it to him.
Make him remember what happiness is like.
Then he might be able to show me as well...
To show me his smile again..."
"...Jack..."
.
"Grandpa..? You are.."
Gus was hiding his face behind an arm, he didn't want to let Jack see what it was about, but it all became clear when he was unable to withstand an overflowing sniff. Tears were trickling in streams down his cheeks, the rivers joined at his bearded chin, ample drops pattered his trousers.
Jack's concern crawled to tend to him, but his head was quickly snatched into his grandfather's strong arms. He felt warm.. soothed..
"I had it all wrong about you... I thought you left home because you couldn't get along with your old man.. But now I see.."
Gus released him from the emotional cuddle, he stared into Jack with a wet face and sore eyes, but the brightest grin as well.
"Jack, a man who fights for the sake of someone else's smile... That man... can call himself a real man."
Gus still had a hard time coming around it, how his young grandson had surpassed his expectations in every way possible. Jack's way of living, the will to fight to make others smile... Was a pillar of hope and inspiration.
.
"You don't realize it yet,
but you are closer than you think in your quest.
The path you seek will be full of obstacles and hardships,
but only then will you be able to understand what true happiness is.
Because happiness does not remain to be found.
If you are true to yourself,
It will come to find you one day.
Jack, let this old man bring you a step closer."
.
Jack watched his grandpa stand up, he looked like a whole new man. He fumbled the pouch on his waist, all whilst his attention was on Jack.
"As an apology for yelling to you back home, allow me to give you something in return.."
Gus offered his arm, something of peculiar shape was in his palm... Oh... Jack waved a polite no thanks gesture.
"I'm really happy you want me to have this grandpa, but I think it's gone bad.."
"It's gone bad?" Gus had no idea what Jack was talking about, "The hell you sayin'?"
"That sweet potato?" Jack cautiously bent over it, "It's got holes in it, right h— GUAH!"
Gus floored him with his fist, a bull's steam blowing from his nasal vents. "A HUNDRED PUSH-UPS WHEN WE GET HOME!"
"Oww..." Jack was still seeing stars as he looked up "...!"
"This ain't no sweet potato, bumpkin. It's an ocarina." He held the protruding part close to his mouth while fingers positioned in a complex way above its holes. "Listen well, and memorize it."
Jack had never heard the word ocarina before, was it an instrument of some sort? A flute? Eh, probably the case... He rubbed his head with an unfortunate smile, now he knew why his grandpa got mad. He kind of insulted him calling the rare instrument a sweet potato that had gone bad... Jack resigned on crossed legs, he'd just sit and enjoy his grandpa's... musician skills!
.
The sound was different from what he'd expect. It resembled a flute, yet the notes were less shrill, like there wasn't much of an alternation to the sound. It sounded more natural, like his grandpa's breath, his emotions were freely flowing out. It had been only but a few seconds, but they were enough to make Jack forget about trying to describe the sound, and captivate him in Gus's movements instead.
Jack's attentive eyes were under a spell. He was witnessing his grandpa's coarse features soothe, lids touching ever softly, fingers caressing the ocarina's parts with a warm gentleness... The crafty man who liked to make noise had disappeared altogether. What was being unveiled through the notes, was a kind and sentimental existence.
High note, low note, lower note, medium note, a slow and sad pace, then a brisk cheerful one, a sad one again. Jack could practically see the notes flying from Gus's ocarina.
This wasn't just a song. It was a story, a story of a man. His happiness, his sorrow, his regrets, his hopes.
They were all conveyed to Jack through music.
"Don't gaze at the clouds,
Look forward,
And never give up."
.
The clouds had been banished by Gus's performance, his grandpa was radiating from the sun's rays that finally purified all the shadows, Jack's hesitation had been cleansed through the bittersweet song.
"Grandpa!"
Gus smiled with longing eyes as he turned to him, his grandson was holding something inside that excited fist. "Did it reach you, Jack..?"
He moved as if to march for his grandfather with the answer, "I finally know what I—..."
...He watched the smile fade from his grandfather's lips... and his eyes as they were slowly plagued by an imminent calamity.
Jack's view was tilting askew, he couldn't feel anything under his feet.
"...Why... He wasn't even standing near the edge... Why...?"
Gus's mouth peeled to bare the panic clenching his teeth.
A whole portion of the mountain... was on a landslide.
"Grand..pa..?"
Jack's vision blurred as his heart pounded, not because he was falling...
But because he wouldn't let him fall.
"JAAAACK!"
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09.05.17
End of CH.11
P.S: Next update is the finale of the backstory! Please look forward to it! Don't forget to drop a review!
~TBC
