Chapter 2
He had cried himself to sleep, had just let the tears soak his pillow without a single care given as he stared out the window. He didn't know what else to do, was too upset, too hurt that his own parents would so easily ship him off like an unwanted dog. It made his chest ache, but almost as if he was being put out of his misery, he had finally slipped into slumber.
However, as he lay there on his stomach with the handmade blanket haphazardly strewn over him where his legs still stuck out and not enough to even cover his arms, someone was daring to poke the bear.
"Hey!... Get up! It's morning!" Snapped a grumpy sounding voice as whomever it belonged to slapped the back of his head.
Atsushi just groaned, but refused to open his eyes.
"Hey!... Lazy man child! Get your ass up!" Said the voice, this time with a firm kick to his back.
"Stop it... It's still dark." Atsushi whined, blindly and lazily flailing his arm to make the bug go away.
"The animals don't give a shit! Now up!"
He refused to move, was content to miraculously grow roots and anchor himself to the ground for the rest of time, but when someone, some inhumane monster straight out of nightmares and hell grabbed the shell of his ear, he was suddenly being yanked up and out of bed.
"Ow!... Stop it, Uncle Hiroshi! It's only 3 in the morning!" Atsushi yelped, grimacing from the pain as his uncle literally pulled him out of bed and dropped him, half of him, onto the floor.
"Get your ass up, goddammit! The animals are hungry! Get dressed and meet me in the barn!"
Before he uttered another protest, Hiroshi marched from the bedroom, leaving Atsushi laying in a heap on the floor and half hanging off his bed. He cringed as he rubbed his ear, frowning at how hot it felt from the strength the smaller man had used, but not wanting to incur more wrath, or more possible bruises that he would have to explain, he pushed himself up and begrudgingly put pants on.
Tying his hair back before lacing on his shoes, tennis shoes, he thumped his way downstairs and stepped out the front door as he pulled on his hoodie for a little bit of warmth to battle against the morning chill. Stars still twinkled overhead and the crickets still chirped and it was such an inhuman, unacceptable hour that really, there should only be one of them on a clock.
"Oi! Over here!"
He turned to look in the direction of the voice, seeing his uncle standing beneath the bright floodlight that shone down from the top of the barn. He wore work pants and heavy boots with an open jacket, and a ball cap on his head to keep the annoying little gnats from attempting to enter his body through his eyeballs. Atsushi hated bugs, especially ones that were so small be could barely see them, and as he walked, he couldn't take a single stride without flinching and waving his hand in front of his face to mass murder them all.
"Here... It'll help." His uncle said as he handed him the very ball cap from his head.
"What about you?" Atsushi asked, flinching again from a gnat whom had thought it a good plan to try and buzz up his nose.
"I'm used to it. Plus... I'd rather you wear it than listen to you whine." Hiroshi scoffed a crooked smirk.
Atsushi glared, but ultimately, took the hat and threaded his ponytail through the hole in the back before settling it down on his head. Somehow, the bill was like some mysterious force field and suddenly, the gnats were too stupid to get passed it. It actually was a help.
"Wow... Tennis shoes... How precious." Hiroshi deadpanned, having looked down and was glaring at them as if they had insulted his mother.
"It's all I have." Atsushi said with a shrug.
Hiroshi sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, "Don't get mad at me then."
"Why?" Atsushi asked, his brows furrowed once more.
However, Hiroshi just pursed his lips together before waving for Atsushi to follow, going to the wide, sliding barn doors and pushing them open one side at a time. They opened into a huge maw where Hiroshi flicked an invisible switch on the wall, sparking a string of free hanging light bulbs to a dull yellow glow where Atsushi's jaw hit the ground at what he was suddenly looking at.
The barn was big, huge even, with a U shaped mezzanine that was used as storage for large haybales, grain sacks and tools. Straw was strewn all over the place to provide cushioning for animals coming and going, but what struck him the most, was that god awful smell of livestock.
"Yuck... It smells." Atsushi frowned hard as he cupped a hand over his nose.
"Yup... You'd smell too if you pissed and shit where you slept. Put these on and grab that wheelbarrow over there." Hiroshi said, reaching into a pocket to pull out a pair of leather work gloves for Atsushi.
All the tall teen could do was stare at them, glaring at them as if they were a vegetable. He suddenly knew what his uncle was wanting and as he dropped his chin to his chest, sighing with a groan, he took them and put them on.
"Go on... The stalls aren't gonna clean themselves." Hiroshi said, trying not to smirk as Atsushi went for the twin wheeled wheelbarrow that sat propped up straight against a support beam.
"I hate you so much right now." Atsushi sighed, rubbing the back of his neck before grabbing a lift handle.
He righted the wheelbarrow and turned to wheel it back to where his uncle should have been, but when he saw that he wasn't there, he froze and looked around.
"Uncle Hiroshi?" Atsushi called out loud, but not really in a loud voice.
"I'm right here. Don't panic," he grumbled from behind him, "Here... Start forking the soiled bedding into there as I turn the animals out to pasture for the day." Hiroshi said as he dropped a heavy pitch fork down into the bin.
"You're serious about this aren't you." Atsushi sighed.
Hiroshi nodded, "Every freaking word, Kid."
With just a heavy pat to his nephew's shoulder, Hiroshi stepped passed him to begin turning the animals out where Atsushi just stood there with slumped shoulders and a light grimace on his face. He watched his uncle open the back of each paddock, ushering the animals out that were a bit lazy and lethargic and that made him curious. He had been expecting the animals to be just as wide eyed and bushy tailed as his uncle, but they looked just as tired and just as unwilling to put up with the ungodly hour as he was.
"Hey!... Snap to it, Kiddo!" Hiroshi said, slapping the boney rump of a cow to coax her outside.
Atsushi just blew out a breath before hoisting the wheelbarrow up and heading for the first empty paddock, unlatching and swinging the large gate open to see a huge mess of crushed straw, piles of old manure and even darkened puddles in a corner that made him shutter. It really did need to get cleaned, but the straw, as a whole, didn't look old.
"How often do you clean them?" Atsushi asked as he picked up the pitch fork.
"Every couple of a days, or so. Depends on how bad they get really. Since it's usually just me, I try to alternate so I can get other stuff done." Hiroshi said from across the barn as he opened the paddock that housed a pair of horses.
"How come no one helps you?" Atsushi asked, shoveling his first stake of soiled straw into the wheelbarrow that he had to scrape off with the edge of the bin.
"Help is expensive. As it stands, I'm just able to make ends meet. I can only afford a stable hand three times a week." Hiroshi said, coiling up a thick rope lead to hang it on a peg along the wall.
"Oh... But it doesn't look like you're struggling. Everything's neat." Atsushi said, hulking another load into the wheelbarrow as he worked his way inwards.
"I work hard, Kid. You see all those crops growing out there?" Hiroshi asked with a quick point to his fields.
Atsushi didn't stop working and just nodded.
"They aren't mine."
That got him to stop his pitchforking as he stood up and stared at his uncle, "But they're on your land."
"I know. They belong to a farm nearer to town that went corporate about... three? Four years ago now? They mass harvest feed and sweet corn and process the soy beans into a whole metric ton of different things. They have the equipment to harvest where I don't. Those combines are astronomically expensive." Hiroshi explained, not even looking at his nephew as he climbed a ladder up into the mezzanine.
"The what?" Atsushi arced a brow for a moment before returning to forking the straw.
"A combine harvester; Those huge machines that harvest massive swaths of crop at a time. They can mow down my fields and truck all of it out in just under a couple of hours. They typically cost anywhere from $100,000 for an old battered one, to $500,000 for a brand new one. That corporate farm rents my land for a nice little chunk of change and it's the only thing keeping my head above water." Hiroshi explained from up top.
As Atsushi scraped off the straw into the nearly full wheelbarrow, he looked up to watch his uncle begin tossing bales of hay down onto the barn floor where they landed hard and rolled despite being square.
"Mom never said anything about you having money trouble." He said before resuming his work.
"Not surprised. She wouldn't even breathe my name in front of that troglodyte she's married to. And I'm not having money trouble, I just don't have much to spare at the end of the day." Hiroshi said with another tossed bale.
Atsushi nodded and hoisted up another pitchfork full of straw, but as he turned to scrape it off, he frowned that the wheelbarrow was already full.
"Uncle Hiroshi? The wheelbarrow's full." Atsushi grumbled, setting the load of straw down and leaning the pitchfork up against the paddock wall.
"Huh?... Oh. Alright, one sec. I'm coming down." Hiroshi said, dusting his gloves off before climbing back down the ladder.
Hiroshi just waved for Atsushi to follow him as he marched out of the barn doors and out into the cool night where Atsushi picked up the wheelbarrow by the grip handles and wheeled it after him. The floodlight was able to light quite a bit before giving way to darkness and far off in the distance, at the edge of night, Atsushi could see the slightest lightening of blue.
He followed his uncle to the old tractor with its huge back wheels and long, square nose. He thought it resembled a tiny locomotive, but when his uncle walked right passed it towards a shed with no roof that he hadn't seen before because of the tall corn stalks, all he could do was arc a brow.
"Dump it in here." Hiroshi said as he opened the wide swinging doors.
The second they opened, Atsushi's eyes and nose burned from the stench, as it was full of old soiled straw that was molding and hot. He could even see steam wafting up from the browning pile. All he wanted was for the smell to go away and tucking his nose into his hoodie wasn't helping.
"That's gross." Atsushi mumbled as he frowned.
"Fork it all in there... Atsushi, where's the pitchfork?" Hiroshi asked, his dark purple eyes staring up at him as he crossed his arms.
"Um... Back there." Atsushi said with a point over his shoulder with his thumb.
Hiroshi sighed, "Go get it. You have to fork all of the compost in, or it just piles up against the door."
Atsushi tried not to audibly groan, he honestly did, but it came out anyways as he made the trek back to the barn to get the pitchfork. He found himself not minding it however, as it did give him a chance to breathe normal air before being assaulted again and when he returned to the compost pile, this time with the pitchfork, he buried his nose back into his hoodie and started emptying the wheelbarrow.
Load after load, Atsushi cleaned out the stalls while his uncle came in behind him and hosed out the floors, scrubbing what remained into a long grated drain in the floor of the barn. Atsushi moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, falling into a pattern of filling it, taking it to the compost pile and emptying it before starting over. It felt like hours and he had plugged away at it so hard that he had started to sweat. He suddenly felt like he was back at basketball practice where he would actually work and as he finally got the last wheelbarrow emptied, he realized that it was dawn.
"Not bad, Kid. Now start hulking those bales into the cleaned stalls and spread the straw." Hiroshi said, clapping a hand down onto Atsushi's back, where he had shed his hoodie from getting hot.
Mildly breathing heavier, Atsushi swiped the back of his hand across his forehead to rid it of sweat before setting the wheelbarrow and pitchfork aside and grabbing the bale string of the first bale. It was a heavy, cumbersome load, but with his conditioned body and physical strength, he lifted it up and onto a broad shoulder, much to his uncle's surprise.
"Holy shit, Kid... Where'd that strength come from?" Hiroshi asked, standing stunned as Atsushi heaved the bale into the first stall and dropped it down.
"Playing basketball." Atsushi said dully, taking the offered knife from his uncle to cut the strings.
"Seriously? That's a 100 pound bale, Kid. Basketball bulked you up that much?" Hiroshi asked in disbelief.
"Sort of." Atsushi shrugged as he stood up straight.
Hiroshi arced a brow, "Sort of? What the hell does that mean? You just hulked that thing up like you were lifting groceries." He crossed his arms.
"I um... I've been working out since I was 8." Atsushi mumbled as he tucked a loosened lock of his purple hair behind his ear.
"So you can work." Hiroshi said with a crooked grin as Atsushi started spreading the straw with the hosed off pitchfork.
"I didn't really have a choice then either. It was either that, or keep tripping over my own feet." Atsushi said with a soft growl laced beneath his words that his uncle caught.
"You sound like you harbor some disdain for it." Hiroshi said, leaning a shoulder against the open paddock to watch.
"Dad thought I was stupid when I was little because I kept bumping into stuff, or fell over nothing, or actually fell up the stairs. He was convinced until Mom had me tested." Atsushi said, his brows furrowed as he went back to the pile of stacked bales to get another.
"And?"
Atsushi glared, "Not stupid... Just a gangly kid who couldn't make sense of things because I was 8 and already taller than Mom." He tossed the new bale from his shoulder into the paddock.
"Gotcha... So you started working out to get the support you needed." Hiroshi filled in as he rubbed the back of his neck.
Atsushi nodded as he cut the bale strings, "Yeah... Then Dad sent me to Teikō and signed me up for basketball."
"As he tends to do." Hiroshi grumbled.
Atsushi just huffed as he spread out the straw, taking time to make the new bedding even and it took two more bales for a total of four to make it thick enough to meet his uncle's expectations. His uncle took over the spreading of the straw while Atsushi brought the bales over, even having to climb up the ladder to the mezzanine to toss more down. Every bale he lifted, his arms thickened with muscle from his biceps to his pectorals and it filled out his t-shirt so much that he actually started to feel constrained. He took in deeper breaths to fill his lungs as he lifted the bottom of his shirt to dry his face from sweat and with one, last bale, he lifted it to his shoulder, brought it to his uncle and dropped it down.
"That should do it, Kiddo." Hiroshi crookedly smiled as he dabbed his forehead dry and pulled off his gloves while he admired their work.
"Are we done for the day?" Atsushi asked, swallowing down his breath right before he yawned big.
"Ha! Not even close, Kid. Now we feed the animals, then we eat." Hiroshi said with a firm pat to Atsushi's arm as he walked by.
Atsushi dropped his head back to stare up at the roof, "But they're literally eating right now." He whined before whipping around to follow.
"Hey!... No whining! You take care of the animals, they take care of you in return. Now stay there while I get the truck!" Hiroshi called as he headed for the old, beat up truck.
Atsushi just sighed as he planted his hands on his hips and stopped by the door of the barn, letting the last of his panting breath settle back down to a normal breathing habit. He was coated in sweat, his hair clinging to the back of his neck and he felt gritty from the barn dust that was sticking to his skin from his work. He felt gross, but with the top of the sun just now peaking over the horizon, he was afforded with a moment of a countryside dawn.
Pulling his ball cap off to dry his forehead, the sky immediately got bigger, turning from the black it had been all morning to a kaleidoscope of golds and blues and whites that all mixed together like paint. What few clouds their were, were pink and orange and the sun's rays streaked like bands of golden ribbon through the trees that lined the two lane road. The air was so crisp, so clean that he couldn't describe in words that it was like to fill his lungs with it. Morning mist hovered above the grass, sparkling like each blade was made of gems from the dew and coming from every direction, every angle, the birds sang. It was not the sound of the city.
"Wow-" Atsushi breathed out, his eyes glimmering as he drank in the sight.
He was so captivated by the sunrise that it wasn't until the old cranky truck grizzled to life that he returned to the task at hand, tearing his eyes away from the planet's painting as his uncle drove the truck around and angled it so the long bed was aimed at the barn. He stepped aside as his uncle backed up, not stopping until the truck was directly underneath an overhead hook that was suspended from the rafters with chain.
"Alright, Kiddo! Climb back up there and start hooking a few sacks of grain on that hook, then lower it down nice and easy." Hiroshi said as he shut off the truck and opened the door.
Atsushi rasped his lips before putting his ball cap back on and offering one last glance up at the sky before heading back inside. He easily climbed up the ladder in just a couple bounds since his legs were so long and once up in the mezzanine, he scanned the scattered bales and tools, but saw no grain sacks.
"Uncle Hiroshi? Where are they?" Atsushi called down to the ground level over his shoulder.
"To the right!" His uncle called up.
Atsushi whipped his head to the right, seeing a portion of a sack sticking out from behind the bales of hay. He headed for it, ducking under horizontal rafters and making sure he didn't fall off because it was a long way down, but when he got there, he peered behind the straw wall and saw a small hill's worth of brown burlap sacks.
Drawing in a deep breath, he leaned down and grabbed one, dragging it out from the tight space before gripping it hard and lifting it. Grain, somehow, weighed more than hay did and to add a second layer of difficulty, the sack was flimsy. It didn't matter that it was physically smaller than the haybales, it was far more dense and required him to use far more strength.
With the heavier weight, Atsushi exhaled as he lifted the sack and hoisted it up to his shoulder, curling his arm around to hold onto it as he started back to the open spot in the mezzanine. He reached out with his available hand and grabbed the chain with the hook to pull it down with the links clanking through the simple pulley, but when he dropped the grain sack down at his feet, there was no where to hook it onto.
"Eh?... No loop?" Atsushi tilted his head as his brows furrowed.
"Hold the bag up straight and jam the hook right through it!" His uncle called up to him.
Atsushi nodded as he sat the bag up straight where the grain gathered at the bottom to leave a sizable lip of just empty sack. He gripped the hook and rammed it through, and since it was cast of a far more sturdy material than burlap, it pierced right through with a tear.
With the grain sack secured on the hook, he grabbed the other chain and pulled down, lifting the sack up without a single struggle as he swung out to hang over the bed of the truck. He lowered it down into his uncle's reach where he unhooked it and the hook raised back up.
"How many more?" Atsushi asked as he reached out and grabbed the hook.
"We'll need a total of six, so five more." Hiroshi called up.
Atsushi just nodded as he went back to the pile, but instead of grabbing one at a time, he grabbed fistfuls of burlap and dragged all five, but when one of the sacks caught on a troublesome nail that stuck up just enough from the boards, the burlap of one sack tore and grain poured out like sand from an hourglass.
"Uh oh-"
"See what happens when you get lazy! Those grain sacks aren't cheap you know!" He heard his uncle say, but what was odd, was that his words were laced with a laugh.
Gulping, Atsushi peaked out from beneath his cap to see his uncle slowly shaking his head with his hands on his hips, crookedly smirking up at him, but his eyes told him everything. They weren't angry like he was expecting, but rather annoyed instead. He had a city kid working in a barn in the middle of nowhere, so accidents were bound to happen, but that didn't mean Atsushi didn't feel bad for costing his uncle unnecessary money.
"S-Sorry, Uncle Hiroshi." Atsushi said, his shoulders dropping as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Least the chickens are fed. Could have been worse I guess." Hiroshi said, looking off under where Atsushi stood in the mezzanine.
Furrowing his brows, Atsushi dropped down onto his hands and knees and leaned over the side of the mezzanine, hanging upside down to look at what had drawn his uncle's gaze. The ball cap slipped free of his head, but hung there on his ponytail as his lips twitched up into a smile.
Far below, half a dozen chickens, all ranging in color from white, to tan, to brown, were happily pecking the ground as they ate the grain, softly clucking and hopping around without a care in the world. A gaggle of smaller yellow chicks bounced around with them, and they were so small, so fluffy that those sweets shaped like them and made of marshmallow fluff weren't all that far off the mark.
"Hey... They look like Peeps!" Atsushi smiled, dropping his arm to point at a cluster of little ones.
Hiroshi huffed a full smile, "Yeah... Fluffy little guys hatched last week. Come on down." He waved.
In his hurry, instead of using the ladder, Atsushi just gripped the edge of the wooden platform and swung himself around, lowering himself as if coming down from a pull up with thick arms. The height didn't matter, because for a kid whom was 6'10, reaching the ground was only a short, barely visible drop.
"Jesus, you're tall." Hiroshi scoffed as he jumped down from the truck's tailgate.
Atsushi rubbed the back of his neck to hide the ultra light blush as he walked up to where his uncle had knelt down to scoop up a small handful of grain without the chickens even looking at him.
"Take off your gloves and hold your hands together like you're cupping water." Hiroshi said as he lightly juggled the portion of grain in his hand.
His brows lightly furrowed, Atsushi pulled his gloves off and dried his hands on his pants before cupping them together with his palms up. He wasn't sure what was going on, let alone what was going through his uncle's mind, but when he poured the grain into his palms, he smiled up at him as if he was knowingly about to see something amazing.
"Go ahead. Kneel down. They won't come up to you if you look like a giant beanstalk." Hiroshi smirked as he crossed his arms.
Atsushi dully glared, "You're only saying that 'cuz my shirt's green."
While Hiroshi lowly laughed, Atsushi knelt down and hunched over low, somehow making himself smaller as he held out his hands close to the ground until his fingers actually rested on it. He stayed still, just watching the chickens and chicks peck around and pick up grain after grain. They looked happy, carefree even, until one, a small yellow chick with a short orange beak, looked at him with a titled head.
Atsushi's mouth twitched into a gentle smile as the small chick hopped closer, only taking one, or two at a time as the little guy tested the waters. When the massive thing didn't move, the little fluff ball hopped closer until he hopped right up into his palms to enjoy the grain he held. He could barely feel each little peck as the chick chirped and ate, and he really wanted to get a closer look, but was too afraid that if he moved, the little thing would be scared off. Small things were his bane, he knew it, they knew it, but this little chick, having the little beasty just hanging out in his palms, his smile grew all the way up to his eyes.
"He's so small." Atsushi said quietly, just watching as a few more chicks hopped over to see what their buddy was up to.
"Cute little dudes aren't they." Hiroshi said as he leaned up against the side of the truck to watch.
Atsushi nodded, but continued to smile and watch as the chicks pecked up every last tiny grain before hopping away, content to rejoin their kin as they cleaned up the mess he had made. He couldn't wipe away the smile no matter how hard he tried, let alone wanted to, but that's just it; He didn't want to.
Dusting off his hands on his pants, he stood up tall, still smiling down at the small creatures whom were happy and oblivious.
"They're cute. I wanna do it again." Atsushi said, finally tearing his eyes away from the animals to look at his uncle.
"Maybe some other time, Kiddo. Lets get the morning chores done, then we can eat."
At the mere mention of food, Atsushi's eyes widened and if last night's supper was any indication, it would be just as good. He whizzed up the ladder and hooked one bag at a time, not wanting to make another mistake even though the outcome would most likely be more chickens cleaning up after him. He lowered them all down for his uncle to unhook, but when the last bag was left, he worked a bit slower.
He carefully rolled the bag over onto its undamaged side to see the tear, which was a rather small hole, but had managed to spill a good portion of the grain that fell over the side. A bit more spilled, but with a bit of adjusting, and some cleaver hanging, he managed to hook it onto the hook without spilling more and lowered it down to his awaiting uncle.
The grain retrieved, Hiroshi got back into the truck where Atsushi climbed into the bed, not wanting to squeeze himself into the cab where he couldn't smell the crisp morning air. He drove out of the barn and around back to a closed wooden gate, where Atsushi opened it to gain access into the pasture. His uncle drove through and continued over the grass while he shut the gate and secured it, and with his previous mistake fresh in his mind, he made sure it was firmly latched before following the truck's path.
They spread the grain by the bagful into a long trough and several buckets in several different areas. The horses and cows quickly came up for their meal while Atsushi poured the third bag into the trough while his uncle tended to the goats whom were butting him in the knees because they thought he wasn't pouring fast enough. He snickered to himself as the third bag emptied, but when it came time to feed the pigs, Atsushi's appetite was nearly stolen from him.
He helped his uncle mix up a soupy mess of leftovers from god knows how long ago and it stunk to high hell, but the water from the hose he was pouring into the trough helped to keep the smell down. His uncle stirred it up into what looked like puke, but the pigs didn't care, because they were oinking and squealing and climbing over each other just to get at it. It made Atsushi gag a little until they were done and finally finishing with feeding the animals, the sun fully entered the sky and beamed its light on him.
"It is lunchtime yet?" Atsushi whined with a heavy sigh, completely tired and covered in sweat as he pulled the ball cap off his head.
"Lunchtime?" he rasped his lips together, "It's only 7am, Kiddo! It's breakfast!" Hiroshi started to laugh as he headed back towards the house.
"7! That exists?" Atsushi squeaked, staring in shock a moment before rushing after his uncle.
Hiroshi just shook his head as he pulled off his boots and set them side before heading for the kitchen with the intent of making food. Atsushi followed him, but the more he walked, the more gross he felt. The sweat had cooled his skin and made him shiver, and the grit from the dust made his skin look darker. The tiny wisps of hair that seemed to stay stagnant in their length no matter how long went between hair cuts, stuck to the back of his neck and tickled like someone was blowing on it. His hands were sore, almost audibly groaning every time he curled his fingers and dirt, from somewhere he had no idea, had gotten jammed underneath his fingernails. He was in no shape to eat, let alone touch bare skin in his current state and he was suddenly filled with the desperate need to take a shower.
"I'm gonna go bathe. I feel gross." Atsushi grumbled, reaching up to take the ball cap off and pull his hair free of the tie.
"Yeah... Just make it quick and don't use up all the hot water!"
Atsushi didn't stick around for much longer than that as he bounded upstairs and into his room. His clothes literally peeled off of him like he was peeling a banana and there was no avoiding the awful aroma of sweaty boy and barn with a sprinkling of ozone. It was the kind of odor that clung to the back of his throat and as he chose some clean clothes and picked up his bathroom bag, he vanished into the bathroom like he was trying to make it to the toilet in time.
Not wanting to risk getting dragged out of the shower by his ear, he made it quick, just washing himself down and throwing some shampoo in instead of taking the time to relax. His stomach was growling for food and frankly, that took precedence, so after only five minutes, he was done, dried, dressed and heading downstairs.
However, before he could step into the kitchen to see if his uncle had started cooking yet, the doorbell rang, instantly making him stop as if someone had pushed the pause button. He peaked into the kitchen to tell his uncle, but when he found it empty, he had no choice, but to answer the door himself.
The doorbell rang again as he rubbed the back of his neck, pursing his lips together nervously, but with the third ring, he sighed and started to pad his way over to the door.
"Um... Can I-" Atsushi started as he opened the door, but the moment he did, he froze and stared.
Standing on the porch, dressed in blue overalls with a cute purple tank top and a zip up over that, was a tall drink of water that even he had to admit was tall. She stood every bit of 6' feet, with soft pale skin and long, flowing jet black hair that reached the middle of her back. Her bangs swept over her left eye, shielding it from view and just below her right, was a small beauty mark.
"Oh!... Um... Is Hiroshi here?" She asked, her voice soft, almost nervous as she looked up at him and her hands tightened around the handle of a woven basket.
Atsushi blinked, "Um... Yeah." Was all he could manage to say.
"I'm um... I'm here to help for the day." She said, shying into her shoulders a bit as she bit her bottom lip.
Atsushi stood up straighter, but it put his eyes higher than the door frame and therefore, made him tilt his head over just to be able to see.
"Are you the stable hand he mentioned?" Atsushi asked in his typical monotone as he pointed at her.
"Um... Yes... If he mentioned me, that is." She said, her soft cheeks tinting themselves pink as she avoid eye contact.
"Oh... Uh... He's here somewhere. I think he's getting cleaned up though." Atsushi said as he gripped the back of his neck.
The girl cringed, "He didn't mention hiring more help. I hope it wasn't because of me." She shied into her shoulders some more.
"Huh?... Hire more help?... Oh! No! He didn't hire me. I'm his nephew." Atsushi said with a bit of a squeak as his eyes opened wider from his realization.
"Nephew?... He never mentioned he had a nephew." The girl said, her dark gray eyes opening as she actually made eye contact with the insanely tall boy blocking the whole door.
"He has four actually... oh, and a niece." Atsushi said.
"Oh... I didn't know that." The girl said quietly.
They stood in awkward silence, not looking at each other, or even making a move. They just stood there in each others way, bathed in the morning light of the new day's sun and the awkwardness was getting heavy, even for Atsushi.
"Um... W-What's your name?" The girl suddenly asked, still avoiding looking at him.
Even his cheeks started to feel warmed from a blush.
"A-Atsushi... um... Murasakibara." He near mumbled too lowly for her to hear.
"Hi... I'm um... My name's... T-Tatsuya... Tatsuya Himuro."