A month had passed since Chiriko's death and life at the Konan Palace semed normal enough.
It was dinnertime. Tasuki was shoving food in his mouth with no abandon.
"Tasuki, don't eat so much," Chichiri said. "You'll choke."
"Who cares if he chokes," Nuriko said. "He's such a pig."
Tasuki said something loud and incomprehensible through a mouth full of food.
"What's that, Tasuki?" Nuriko said, leaning closer. "Can't here you, hon."
Tasuki pounded his fists on the table, cousing everyone to laugh.
"You know what this reminds me of?" Tamahome said. "That time when we were having a picnic on the hill and we had loads of food with us."
Mitsukake smiled. "I seem to recall that Tasuki was especially ravenous that day."
Tasuki swallowed all the food in his mouth. "Well, who wouldn't be? After a two-hour hike, of course I was hungry."
Tamahome started laughing. "Then, Tasuki gorged himself and practically choked until his face became as blue as the blueberry cake he was trying to swallow."
Miaka started laughing. "Oh, yeah. And then Chiriko said, "That's what you get for being such a fat pig, Tasuki-sama." Tasuki tried to beat him, but Chiriko jumped out of the way and Tasuki fell in the lake instead."
They all started laughing, but it soon faded.
"I miss him," Miaka said softly.
"Me, too," Tamahome said. "I would love to hear him play a little tune right about now on the little leaf whistle of his."
A wistful silence followed. Dinner ended solemnly and everyone kept to themselves for the rest of the evening, wishing Chiriko was still alive.
A few miles back, though, a young girl was singing. She looked young, but was really thirteen.
Ode, I'm almost there, she thought.