Hinata blinked at the scarecrow in her yard that wasn't there the night before. She would have thought it was a joke if its pumpkin head hadn't turned to look at her, holding its arm loosely in its other hand. It was tall and thin, and its jack-o-lantern smile was hollow.

Who dressed the poor man in slacks and a crisp white shirt, then set him out to have his arm torn off.

Hinata scampered back inside to return with a spool of thread and a needle. Her skirt puffed around her as she settled into the grass. She waved him to sit down, and he did so ungracefully, flopping down like a rag doll. She dusted her hand over the tear in his shirt where his arm should have been. The shirt was torn out of its seam. "Who told you to come here?"

The pumpkin head tilted clumsy up toward the town. Well, that didn't tell her much.

Hinata threaded her needle and offered her hand. "May I?"

The scarecrow handed her his arm. Hinata considered it and its black leather riding glove before she set to work sewing it back into place. This is very nice clothing to make into a scarecrow. He wasn't the first enchanted creature to come to her little house up on the top of the hill, and he probably wouldn't be the last. The village was weary of the witch who was thought to 'see through' people, but most of it was just rumors. She wasn't good at fortune-telling, even if that was what her family specialized in.

But she was the only witch for miles, so when something weird came into town, it was sent her way. Straggly well-dressed scarecrow? Send it up the hill.

Hinata snipped the last string. "There we go. If you wait here. I think I have some stuffing for you, too." She collected her supplies and headed back inside. Returning with arms full of straw, he curiously moved his arm around before his head flopped up to look at her. "Let's see if we can fix that."

She crouched down and stuffed a few fists full of straw in his shirt. Once he looked a little fuller, his movement seemed to be less jerky. He was still a scrawny scarecrow. There was no fixing that. The shirt was too tight to stuff much more.

Hinata brushed off the stray fallout. "There you go. Handsome." She offered the poor thing a smile. Would he go back to his field now? "Whoever owns you should take better care of you. They have you dressed so well. I would think they would care to repair you." She looked into his hollow face and frowned. Sad.

She stood up and brushed off her skirt, giving it a shake to get rid of the straw debris. She watched the straw man clamber up. She gave him a wave before she went back into her house.

Hinata did a few chores before she remembered why she went outside in the first place and picked up her basket to pull clothes off the line, but to her surprise, she found the scarecrow still standing there in her yard, waiting. She came up to him with her basket on her hip. "You can go home now."

The pumpkin head slowly shook back and forth.

"You don't want to go home?" No again. "You can't go home?"

The pumpkin nodded.

"Oh." Well, she hadn't considered that, but that made sense as to why someone wouldn't repair such a nice scarecrow. "Is it too far?" Another, no. "Well…" She looked over at her garden. She had never bothered with a scarecrow. She had enough to lose some to the birds. "You can stay until someone comes looking for you." She waved her hand toward the garden.

And that's where he stayed day and night unless she was out in the yard putting up laundry or tending to her garden. Sometimes, she would look out the window, not see him, and wonder if he had gone, only to find him crouched down, pulling weeds for her.

Who would toss out such a nice scarecrow?

Maybe because he never seemed to mind when a crow came to sit on him, but that was only as long as that was where they stayed, up on his arm and not down in garden rows.

When the rain came, she felt bad for leaving him out in it, so she brought him an umbrella to hold. When the wind pulled it out of his grip, she caved and brought him inside. "My father would kill me if he knew I let an enchanted garden tool in the house." She hummed as she toweled off his pumpkin head. "I guess we better not tell him, hm?" She tried to step back but found his arms loosely wrapped around her back. She placed her hand on his big head and smiled. "You can come in when it rains now."

His arms slid away.

Hinata wasn't supposed to get attached to enchanted tools. They didn't have souls. What looked like emotion was just a product of whoever enchanted them and what they wanted them to be.

Why would you want such a sweet scarecrow? It made her heart hurt to think someone made him so darling and then abandoned him.

The next morning, he was back out in the sun, dutifully keeping her a garden free of birds. If only to collect them on his arms. Sitting out on her back stoop to eat with his company became her usual routine.

When the snow came and the garden was put to rest, she debated. What did people do with their scarecrows in the winter? She didn't have a barn, and if she did, she would feel bad locking him away. She brought him into the kitchen and sat him down with a new scarf that wouldn't keep him warm, but it made her feel like she wasn't just storing him in a corner like a broom.

She had been alone up in her cottage for a long time, and no one had to know that she put out an empty cup for him when she had tea or talked to him for hours. If anyone were to ask why he was there, she would probably answer that she brought him in to fix something.

Despite his frozen expression and his minor movement to react to what she said. She felt like he was expressive in his own way, and she knew that getting attached was going to hurt one day when his magic wore off.

When spring came, Hinata realized that his pants had gotten a tear at some point, and she set to work patching it before she sent her back out. When wildflowers started coming in, she found bunches of picked flowers waiting for her on the doorstep in the morning. One time, she even caught him collecting them.

What an odd, sweet scarecrow.

Summer came, and she found him a hat to shade his big head from the sun, not that it mattered much. His jack-o-lantern head was the only thing that didn't seem to show wear.

But one day, when she got her morning tea, in the chill of the morning that fall was bringing, she looked out to see no pleasant scarecrow in her garden. She set down her cup and put on her coat and boots over her nightgown to look for him, only to open the door to find him sitting on her step.

Hinata let out a breath of relief and leaned over him. "What are you doing here? I thought you might have run off." His head rolled up to look at her as he lifted his detached arm once again. "How did you manage that?" She stepped back inside to get her supplies before closing the door to keep the chill out of the house. "What were you doing?"

His head came up to look ahead. She followed to find a bucket of apples next to the pile of leaves they had swept up the day before.

"Climbing trees? I didn't want a pie that badly." Hinata scolded, finishing her stitching, and brushed the seam flat. "No more climbing trees." It was sweet that he took her offhand comments as missions, but it was going to get him destroyed one day. "What if you fell and smashed your head?"

That would be the end, probably. The pumpkin was probably what was enchanted. She didn't know enough about this kind of magic to know. She got up and brushed the gourd head with a sigh. One day, the enchantment would wear off, or he would fall apart too much for repair.

She was setting herself up for heartbreak.

Hinata dipped her head down, tucking her hair behind her ear, and kissed the top of his ridged head. "I'm going to go in. It's cold. I'll be out for lunch."

Before Hinata could get through the door, the end of her nightgown was caught. She looked back, expecting it to be caught on a protruding stick from his shoulder, but nearly screamed as she realized it was a human hand in a black glove.

Her whole scarecrow man was gone, and there sat a tall, slender man with long dark hair and the stark white shirt and slacks that the scarecrow had. He blinked at her before looking at his own hands.

He wasn't an enchanted scarecrow. He was a cursed man.

Hinata was engulfed by the tall figure that had been living with her. Her face flushed. All this time, she thought she was unloading all her thoughts on something, not someone!

She backed out of his embrace and looked up at him.

All those flowers, all those helpful hands, all those nights she thought she fell asleep without a blanket only to take up tucked in. They were real.

Without a word, he put his hand on either side of her face and leaned down to press his lips to hers.

Hinata closed her eyes. Maybe they didn't need more words.