Character: Hakuba with mentions of HakuKai
Genre: Bittersweet memories of childhood.
…
Meadow
There was a meadow not far from Hakuba's childhood home where he used to spend his days playing away the summer. He'd go down to the pond and study the wildlife there, crouching in the tall grass, staying remarkably still for a six year-old, and waiting for something, anything…a bird, a rabbit.
He ran through the field and climbed the trees, collecting leaves and rocks and making sketches to show Baaya…and Mother if Mother could be bothered (which was usually not the case ninety-nine times out of one hundred).
As he grew older and learned to read, he'd bring books along or he'd make a game out of identifying the trees, the plants, the animals, pretending he was Sherlock Holmes investigating.
Years later, he went back as a young man with his fiancé and recounted for Kaito the many adventures of the meadow and, with a sad, wistful smile, how he had been so content to play countless days away all alone with the trees, the grass, and the creatures.