Author's Note: Again, it may be too early with an update, but after reading this chapter over, I feel it's presentable. Thanks to everyone for reading! I hope you enjoy yet another chapter of The Takakura Tales!

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Chapter 4: Burning Inside

Summer is the worst of seasons. It's not only unbearably hot, but the humidity hanging over the valley is intolerable as well. Lilac and I were in agreement on that point while we exhausted ourselves trying to find some salvageable shade to rest in. I had laid myself against her broad side drifting in and out of sleep. There are some benefits to being an old man with only his mornings filled by honest work. As I lay there, I knew Tanya, in all her youthfulness, was unbothered by this clinging weather, and she kept going on about her business.

After basically confessing Marlin's love for Celia for him, she hadn't continued to pursue the man. When I asked her if she ever liked him to begin with, she merely laughed. "I did for a while," she admitted, "but he told me later that the two have an arranged marriage. I guess he wants to honor that."

"I always thought he hated that tradition..." I remarked with some sense of uncertainty.

"He does, but that doesn't mean he hates her," she reasoned. "That's what has him too confused to make a move." It was a familiar line of reasoning I'd only heard from one other.

She may have smiled then, but she looked so down. I recognized that expression because it, too, was just like her father. I had been trying not to compare them, yet no matter what she did or how, I saw Aaron. Every time I did it, I felt like I was being unfair. She was her own person, and here I kept making her into some image of him. I worked especially hard not to tell her. She didn't need to listen to an old man ramble.

There were times I knew it'd make her smile, though. When I pulled one of those from my mind, she'd beam radiantly at me, and she'd ask me to tell her more stories of her father on the farm. It thrilled her to no end. The cackle I once thought was harsh began to sound pleasant to my ears. Her joy was captivating. That happiness was certainly all her own.

You're becoming strange, Takakura. Very, very strange.

Yes, I could feel it resurface from time to time. I thought I could replace those emotions with fatherly devotion, but these things were becoming more complicated. Everything is complicated eventually, yet time was moving too fast. Perhaps in a way, it always had been racing ahead of me. If I had done myself in before meeting Aaron, maybe I could've been reborn. Surely a three year gap between us would've been more bearable.

"Never wish you could've died, Kura. I never want to hear it again," he scolded me, smacking me across the back of my head.

I whipped around, perturbed but not yet angry, "But, Aaron, it's the honest to Goddess truth! I'd rather be dead right now than to see you and Alexandra end it here. You're marriage was fine before I had to show up in your life. It's my fault she wants you gone..."

"No, that's not it at all. Alex... she only loves herself. Marrying me was only flattery to herself."

"She loves you, Aaron. You... you know she has to..." I nearly whispered. If I hadn't told him about that blasted property, he wouldn't feel he had anywhere to go. At least then he could keep the wife and daughter he loved more than even himself. Why couldn't he see that I was to blame?

The look he gave me was one of pity. He tried to ruffle by newly cut hair, marred by that lonely smile, as he said, "That's it right there... 'she has to.'"

"Taaakaaa!"

I opened a lazy eye as Lilac snorted with displeasure at being woken up in such a rude fashion. Tanya had strode herself over the back of her new stallion, Surge, and I asked myself what the true intent of this gift had been. The heifer was a token of hospitality, so what was the horse? Yes, I had given her the animal, but I had some doubts as to why I did the act. She commented once while I was preparing lunch (need I say why?) she had always wanted a riding horse. It was a child's dream, and being a "father" wishing to comply with his daughter's wish, I brought him with my own savings.

Is that really it, or was there an ulterior motive?

Of course not! How could I...

You tell me, Takakura.

"You okay?" she asked with her innocent, violet eyes questioning me. "Is the heat getting to you?"

"A little," I confessed.

"How about a swim then?"

"Where could we possibly swim around here?"

"Duh, there's a beach," she chided gently.

"True." Yes, but that beach was a place I tried to ignore. It was a setting I chose to use as a sacred land for questioning life and other things. Besides, the sun would've baked whatever energy I had left right out of me.

"You're out of it this week, more than usual even. Shouldn't you enjoy yourself a little?"

"Summer... doesn't agree with me," I muttered, resting my arm over my brows. "I'm too old."

"None of that 'too old' spiel. It's not gonna work with me anymore, big guy." Glancing up, I noticed she'd put her fists on her hips again. I had to chuckle. She looked fierce, all right. Just like a miffed child.

"The sun... that's the problem. It's too... intense. If heat's supposed to rise, why's the valley so blasted hot in summer?" I complained wearily.

I heard her laugh and felt her take my hand. She surprisingly managed to lift me up, and after seeing the shocked expression on my face, she smiled brilliantly. "You're not a big man at all! Come on, Bones, let's go to the waterfall. It's shady there."

I was a young man again as she led me down the forest path. I never dated in my teenage years, or any years in all honesty, but I imaged that this was how it felt. To find someone to love is never easy, and I guess I should've felt grateful she dragged me along. However, I was brimming with doubts. I'm an old man. Why am I going with her on a date? Wait, she never said it was a date, did she? Why would I even consider that?

I was clueless to my own heart. She was running so fast, and though I know the way, I was completely lost. I could only let her hold my hand.

"Tanya," I panted once we arrived at our destination, "it's not relaxing if you- have to- run..." She wasn't even sweating. Some spark lit into her eye as I caught my breath. We were standing right over the pool beneath the thundering waterfall. Although one can't see it from the base of the cliff wall, snow-capped mountains rose high above the valley. From up there, water came from the melting ice, merging from trickles, into streams, into rivers, and at last, into the sea. It was chilling to wade through the water here, but she didn't seem to realize or care. Her mind was dead set on going for a swim and taking me with her.

"Freshen up then!" she cheered, shoving me into the alarmingly cold water. I breathed it in with a yell as my knee wracked with pain until I managed to emerge and gasp for air. It felt as though my leg had been ripped apart. She cackled sitting there with her legs crossed. Her laughter only stopped when she glimpsed the pain in my weathered face. "You all right? Did I bang you up?"

"No," I lied, trying to pop my knee back into proper alignment. She hadn't meant to hurt me, so I decided not to worry her.

Her grin returned, more mischievous than before. "You're all wet," she snickered.

I stood there stunned and blushing for a moment before shrieking, "What?!"

She cocked her head to study me, the flustered fellow with the big eyebrows and long, drawn face. I couldn't help seeing her as a woman then. The gentle curve of her jaw, the small frame of her body, and the sincerity in her eyes were all the traits of a woman, yet her childish hairstyle and impish grin were that of a child. How I could say with the same honesty that she was beautiful and at the same time claim she was adorable? I was among the worst of criminals with thoughts such as those.

"Wait!" I panicked once again. "What are you doing?"

"Going for a swim?" she replied, pulling her shirt over her head revealing an olive green bikini top. I flushed deeper, flailing into the water again. I had to turn away. This girl taking off her work clothes and showing me her swimwear was my friend's daughter. His daughter of all people, and here I was getting upset with myself because I couldn't deny seeing her as something of a woman. She was... after all.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a motherly tone, touching my shoulder gently. No... don't... please, Goddess no...

I'm an old man! Young women don't swim alone with old men... and in a bikini, no less! I'm thirty-three, dammit! And, you're, what? Twenty? I-I couldn't... I wouldn't... I wasn't...

Was I?

All this time, I had been content to see myself as a father figure, and now... now I wasn't sure of that. It was eerie how I felt inside. She's so damn young, and yet I feel like I did when I first saw Alexandra. Five years between us was frightening enough while thirteen years was plain cruel. I couldn't ask for love out of a mere child. I shouldn't have let my illusions get so close to my heart. I was the one in the wrong. I made the mistake of making into something I wasn't...

"Son of a-"

"What? What happened? Wait, don't go down, Takakura! Is it your knee? It is, isn't it?! Ah, hell..." Her face was tight with worry. I shouldn't have let her drag me down there.

"Just fetch Marlin!" I snapped. "I'll drag my ass on my land."

"Okay... okay..." she whispered in hurt and concern, leaving me to care for my own worthless self. She ran in that terrible state. Not only was she crying, but she was running through the valley in nothing more than some remnants of fabric and string called a swimsuit. Even then, I could only watch her from behind arguing myself over whether it was a nice view or an unforgivable sin.

--

"Takakura, you're not a young man anymore. You can't just jump into these things so carelessly."

"Sorry... Tanya... she pushed me."

"Still doesn't mean you had to go jumping in."

"Dr. Hardy, what I'm saying is she pushed me into the water."

The man's good eye studied me for a time before he gave a heavy sigh. My body never did work right, but at least I can function without people's stares haunting me as I stumble by. We're both crippled though that's where the similarities end. His deformity was caused by kindness. Mine was teenage angst and stupidity. One would figure I'd have learned by now what my own thinking does to a man like me.

"You shouldn't involve yourself with someone that much younger than you," he warned. "I'm not saying it doesn't work out from time to time, but you look far older than you truly are. You've seen far more than that girl." He had come from town after getting a rather gruff phone call from an irritated Marlin, and he apparently was forced to cancel his visit to his former pupil in Mineral Town. Normally, I'm sure he would've been more gentle with his lecture, but my fooling around with someone a more than a decade my junior made him justifiably bitter.

"I know..."

"Do you know?" he asked sharply. The even way with which he spoke was far more intimidating in its blatant disapproval. "I don't believe that's the case. You've been at the bar with her at night while I've been trying to enjoy myself. Galen, too. We're true old men, genuine old men like us honestly see things."

"Are you accusing me of something?" I growled a challenge.

He merely glanced over his shoulder. "No, I'm giving you a warning. No middle-aged man should try to find love in someone so distant from his years."

"But, I'm not-"

"Aren't you? That's how Galen and I see it."

"She's just the daughter of an old friend, and you want to blame me for seemingly pursuing her?" I muttered remorsefully.

"Yes, with the way you look at her," he insisted, handing me my knee brace. "You're eyes can't lie. Even under those brows of yours, I can see."

I don't know whether I was flustered or furious. I rarely raise my voice because there's no need for it any longer. My body's too tired for that. I felt my cheeks burning with some emotion I could only understand as something foreign. I can't look into my own eyes when I look at her, so how can I know what lingers there? I was foolish not to recognize my short comings in that I perhaps loved her without knowing.

"Quit questioning yourself if you love her or not," he advised on his way out my door. "Ask yourself if as a middle-aged man, do you have the right?"

--

"Taka... are you all right?"

"As all right as I can be, I guess," I answered gruffly. She winced assuming I was angry about my tumble. Around her eyes, her face was puffy and red, but her tears appeared to have dried by the time I had limped out of my humble shack. She was carrying a small basket in her hands, and I could smell Ruby's famous secret spice most likely added to a nice curry dish. I took it gently as she handed it to me apologetically.

"Heh... Sorry about all this... I went overboard..."

"I'll be fine. I just have to wear a brace. An old man like me should be grateful it only came to that."

She boldly stepped in front, hands on her hips as she glared me down. Her narrowed eyes were uncharacteristically upset as she started in with a lecture of her own. "Why do you insist on calling yourself an old man? If you feel so damn old, then what are you doing here? My dad was never old, and he still died. What does that mean for you? Are you gonna die on me, too?"

"Tanya!"

"No, you listen here. I've had it up to here with you on that point. That's why I took you out for a swim with me! If being old is a state of mind, where does that leave you? It leaves you dead!"

Her words stung. It burned me inside, really. Even old men have fragile hearts, and she had struck the breaking point. I felt as though I should collapse in the dirt for the blow that had nailed me to my own cross. How many times I truly had wished for death, and now there was someone challenging me on it. No one had ever been so firm with me. If she was that much older than me in spirit, was I the one that was too young?

"I don't believe someone should wish for their death. It's worse than another telling you to die. At least then you can make your own choice on the matter, and you can chose to live. Once you wish for death out of your heart, there's nothing anyone can really do to keep you from dying."

Then what about you? Did you chose to die?