Title: Breaking the News

Hikari was helping his father plant the new crop for next season. It was only them out in the fields today. Mother, Bianca and little Mayor were at the house canning food for the winter.

It would not be much longer. Already the air was cooling, and the nights were slowly becoming longer. There was so much work that needed to be done. Every family member had to help out in some way to get everything in order before winter hit the land.

The crop they were planting was going to be bark root. Unlike other plants that needed to be planted in the spring, bark root grew the best in cold weather. So it needed to be planted just before winter started.

It is a very bitter root that Hikari hated in every aspect. He hated how it tasted, he hated how difficult it was to plant and he hated that his father insisted on planting it once every eight Solans.

Hikari knows that crops needed to be routed out because certain plants needed certain minerals from the soil and if they only planted one type of crop then the soil would be drained of the minerals that particular crop needed. So it was important to plant different crops every few seasons.

But that didn't mean they need to plant bark root. They could have picked a different crop, but for some reason beyond Hikari's understanding, Father liked bark root.

It was one of the many things they did not agree with.

"So, have you made any new friends lately? Female friends, hmm." His father asked teasingly.

Hikari wanted to throw something at him for asking about that.

"No." He replied. It was blunt and to the point. With an underlined message of how he didn't want to talk about his love life with his father. Or more like a nonexistent love life.

"Well, what have you been doing for fun?" His father asked. From an outsider's perspective, it was obvious the father wanted to start a conversation and learn what his son has been up too, but the son didn't seem to care in the slightest. And it seems like the last question hit a nerve for some reason.

"Nothing." Was Hikari's answer. He kept burying the root in the soil not bothering to look at his father.

Lucius took a deep breath and slowly blew out his frustration. He and his eldest son had been so close Solans ago, but his son had become more distant as he grew older. He didn't know what to do to get their relationship back to a good one.

After another hour of working, Lucius decided it was time to tell Hikari something important.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this since your mother wants to announce it to the whole family tonight but I think it might be better for you to hear it sooner." Lucius explained, still unsure if he should continue. He had thought long and hard on how his eldest would receive the news.

Despite what Hikari believed, Lucius knew his son well. In fact, he probably knew him better than anyone else in Perim. And so he knew that the news of his mother being pregnant again would not be good news for him.

It seems the ominous statement caught the boy's attention and now he was looking towards his father.

"What are you talking about?" Hikari asked, clearly not liking not being in the know.

"Your mother is pregnant." He said.

And as Lucius thought, Hikari did not take the news well. At first the boy only looked surprised, but that slowly changed into anger.

"Why are you two having another child! You can barely feed the ones you already have!" Hikari yelled. Good thing they were in the fields far away from the house. It would have been bad if the other family members had heard the yelling.

"We didn't choose to have another one, it just happened Hikari." He explained. That reply did not help calm Hikari.

"Y'all couldn't be careful and now our family is going to get ever poorer because there'll be another mouth to feed!"

This is why Lucius wanted to tell his son alone. He knew their financial situation bothered Hikari. He even suspected it was the main reason why his oldest child was so grumpy all the time. Having another child would put more strain on their income and so it makes sense that it would upset Hikari. That is not to say his son hated his family. No, in truth Hikari deeply cared about all of them. It was just that he hated being poor.

"Why don't you take the day off. Go to the village and come back in time for dinner alright." Lucius offered.

Hikari was silent for a few seconds. Still clearly angry.

"When you asked about what I've been doing and my answer was nothing, did you wonder why I gave that answer?" Hikari asked.

Lucius was not sure where Hikari was heading with this question, but he was certain he would not like it. Before he could speak again, Hikari gave the answer.

"It's because I'm always working on the farm and don't have time to do anything else." And with that said, Hikari ran off.

Based on the direction he went, Lucius guested his son took up his offer and went to the village instead of running to the house.

He didn't have the will to go after him.

Notes: So it's been a few years since I wrote something for this collection of stories and I thought I would try making something involving Hikari since a reviewer asked for him. I was trying to explain his personality a bit more since I don't think I spent enough time developing him in the main story. If I could pick two words that best describe Hikari they would be edgy teenager, but he does have reasons for acting that way.