After a while, Takeru stops thinking it's strange that the boy is there every morning, waiting for him. Memories are fuzzy things, after all. It gets hard to remember when it wasn't the three of them - Poyomon, the boy, and himself. It's like trying to think back to when he used to be angry all the time. He's sure it happened, but he can't remember what it felt like any more.
The boy isn't always the same, though. On mornings after Takeru has one of his dreams, the boy seems more shy than usual, and it takes him a while to warm up to their games again. And he always seems to wander off somewhere when Takeru's other friends visit. Takeru doesn't mind this. He's never had more than one friend at a time anyway.
It's annoying when the man visits though, because even if the questions only last a few minutes, the boy doesn't come back for the rest of the day, and Takeru is left alone. He never used to mind being alone with Poyomon before, of course. But nowadays, it's just not as much fun. It's the boy who has most of the ideas, after all, and who is so good at explaining himself with mimed directions.
When the man visits again, Takeru knows what's coming. He will have another afternoon without his new companion.
"How old are you, Takeru?" the man asks. That's how their conversation always starts.
Takeru rolls his eyes. Even if memories get fuzzy, they've had this conversation enough times to burn it there in his mind permanently.
"I'm eight. I told you before," he says, sighing. "Why do you keep asking me that?" The familiar words roll off his tongue, but his heart isn't in the argument, not really. It's a clear day, and he'd been hoping to go exploring with the boy.
Poyomon looks at him. "Poyo poyo," he says, sympathy evident in his voice.
The man frowns. "Is something wrong, Takeru?"
That's different. Takeru looks up, surprised. The man never says anything different.
"You scared the boy away," he says. "And now he won't come back until tomorrow."
This time it's the man's turn to look surprised. The expression is so different that Takeru almost wants to laugh. The man has only ever looked so serious before.
"What boy?"
"My friend," Takeru says. "Last time you came and asked me questions, he stayed away for the whole day. And we were going to go exploring today, and now we can't and it's all your fault."
The man says nothing for a minute. Takeru frowns.
"Well aren't you going to ask the other questions? Why are you acting so different?"
The man doesn't say anything. Poyomon hops out of Takeru's hands, and bounces over to the man, looking up at him.
"Poyo poyo. Poyo. Poyo poyo poyo!"
Takeru hasn't heard Poyomon say so much in one go since the time he was out exploring and found a strange house in the woods, with windows that looked like eyes. The man seems surprised as well.
"Who is your new friend, Takeru?" he asks, after a moment.
Takeru shrugs. "He's a boy like me. Only quieter. And he always hides when the others come and visit me."
"And you enjoy spending time with this boy? This new friend?"
Takeru nods. "Why wouldn't I? He's my friend. That's what friends are for, aren't they?"
After that, the man doesn't ask about going "home" when he visits. Takeru is relieved, but he still wishes the man would stop coming back. The boy never does stay around when he or the others visit.
The period of change seems to be over. Takeru settles well into his new routine. Poyomon is there when he wakes, to wish him a "poyo poyo" or to console him after a bad dream. They venture out into the rest of the cottage. Sometimes Takeru thinks he sees movement, as though the boy has been inside all night too. But he never catches him, and of course, the boy doesn't talk, so he can't ask.
On mornings where Takeru has had a bad dream - and moreso after the burning dreams - the boy is shy once more. Takeru wonders if it's because he's quiet as well on those days, to start with. But after a while, the dreams always fade from his mind again, and the boy cheers up, and they have fun exploring, or making castles, or chasing each other around the gardens. Takeru is sure he's never been happier.
When his other friends come to play, sometimes Takeru wonders where the boy is. His other friends don't have the same good ideas, and they don't remember old games. Each time they visit he has to remind them how to do things. He doesn't mind, but playing with the boy is certainly a lot easier.
And then one day, Takeru wakes up, cuddles Poyomon, and walks out of the cottage to find that the boy has gone.
At first, he thinks the man will be visiting, but as the day goes by, and no one comes, he starts to feel confused. The boy comes every day. He's always there, unless another friend visits, and even then, sometimes Takeru will see something move out of the corner of his eye that might just be the boy, watching him.
He spends the day searching the house.
"Come out come out wherever you are!" he calls into every room. Into every barn. From every vantage point in the slightly misty world outside the cottage. Poyomon sits atop his head, crying "Poyo poyyyoooo!", as though he really wants to find the boy as well.
By the end of the day, Takeru is tired, and a little cold. And for the first time he can remember, he feels lonely too. Where did the boy go?
He makes his way to his room having picked at his dinner, and clambers into the nest of blankets and cushions which is his bed. Maybe today has just been a mistake. Surely the boy will come back tomorrow?
By the third morning, Takeru starts to wonder if the boy will ever come back. His friend for the day - the girl with red hair who's really good at soccer - tries to comfort him. But Takeru doesn't know how to explain what's wrong, and as she can't talk, there's not much that she can do to comfort him anyway. In the end, the girl sighs and leaves early, walking off into the desert which has appeared to the west.
Takeru dreams of the crying boy that night. When he wakes, eyes filled with tears of his own, Poyomon cuddles close to him. Where did his other friend go? Why won't he come back and play some more?
A.N.: So, here we have chapter four! It's structured a little differently to the others, because it has to encompass a lot of time in not a lot of words. Hopefully that was conveyed properly. I'm not ever going to specify exactly how much time has passed (I have enough of that level of detail in Hope's Fire), but you can safely assume it was a month or two. Of course, given that Takeru's memories are not all that solid, it sort of merges into "almost forever".
As always, feedback is very welcome! The information tease will start to let up from the next chapter, too. When I started thinking about this fic, I had originally planned for this to all fit into just two chapters, but alas, I am not a skilled enough wordsmith to condense everything which needed to be there into so few words. So. The main story will begin with Chapter Five!