"Takakura-san?"
He spent the entire morning at the beach, listening to the push and pull of the waves and trying to let it calm him. Really, there'd been no need to be so on-edge, but no matter how many different ways he tried to tell his mind there was nothing to worry about, that didn't stop it from sending a nervous shake down to his hands and forming a periodic knot in his throat.
She was supposed to be here today.
The sun was at its zenith when he decided to make his way to the main road that crept up to the mountain pass. She'd never made the trip before, and he hadn't a clue what kind of shape she was in or if she had the gumption to make it on foot like she said she would, but if she left after breakfast, the timing was about right for her to show up sometime around noon. He focused on the way his footsteps sounded crunching the gravel beneath him, eyeing the blooming yellow wildflowers dotting the foothills out to the south.
A shiver shook him as he recalled that night—close to twenty-five years ago, now—he'd stumbled back into the valley sweating and heartbroken. His progress in that time had been slow but assuredly steady, and he leaned into that knowledge in search of comfort.
Just as he was crossing the river, a figure he hadn't recognized crested the peak. Despite the growing knot of anxiety in his stomach, he smiled in a small way, just for the flash of a moment. He couldn't put word to the vague thoughts swirling around in his head; he was curious to see this woman, someone he'd only heard of in letters, and eager to test her mettle. Not many people decided to just upend their comfortable lives and set out into the unknown, especially for something as physically demanding and unglamorous as farm life.
Mostly, though, he was just excited—a rarity for him, and something he wanted to remember.
After that overwhelming night in the car, he never saw his friend again. He was hesitant to call it a bad night, but it certainly hadn't been a good one. He often wondered if the man he'd left behind felt the same, if it'd been so devastatingly forgettable that it was forever ingrained in his memory, too. When, the year after, a letter arrived the day before Forget-Me-Not Valley's summer festival, well, that was all Takakura needed to know.
Every year it was the same. The How are things? and the Me, I'm doing great! letters came like clockwork when the weather was at its most unbearably hot; in Takakura's mind, summer became their time, even if they weren't living here together anymore. Even as the bulk of the heartsickness faded, Takakura couldn't help but feel lighter when the crisp spring mornings began to turn muggy, when the yellows and pinks of the trees melted into deep, lush green. And if the other man held any resentment at all for the sour way in which they'd parted, it was never mentioned, not once.
Perhaps it was just as well.
Rather, Takakura found it surprisingly easy to find joy in all of the wonderful things his friend had going for him. A promotion, a pregnancy, a healthy delivery to a baby girl—Aya was her name, though he and his old lady had taken to calling her Pony sometime around her third or fourth birthday. Another promotion, a whopping seven-page letter detailing a recent vacation, a promise that'd never come to pass to haul his family down to the valley and meet everyone sometime, someday. Not that Takakura would hold it against him; to build a life was a busy thing. The former was simply an exception to that rule.
He had always asked after the family before explaining much of the same things year after year. The few new additions to the little town, and the people who'd moved on or passed away. Which crops had made him enough money to slack off for a season, or which crops didn't survive the flooding brought on by the late spring rains. His life was unchanging, and that was good enough for him. It even suited him, in his own opinion.
On the twenty-fourth year since they last saw each other, no letter came. The aching alarm in him was startling in its persistence: it had occupied his every thought as he worked day after day. He gave it a week at first; mail in the valley could sometimes be delayed, but usually only in the rainy season or in particularly bad winters. It was exactly one day after the first week was up that he set pen to paper (and what a strange feeling it was to not have any letter from which to craft a reply). It was a sparse thing, but dripping with his brand of contained concern. Your letter was missed this year. Are you well? Did you accept that new job the next city over, after all? Retirement might suit you better.
He'd known, though. He couldn't say how, but when he received a reply from his daughter instead explaining the sudden heart attack and his rapid decline in the city hospital, he somehow wasn't shocked. He'd mourned the loss of this man long ago—and besides, they were nearing middle-age, anyway. While they certainly weren't old, they weren't so terribly young anymore, either. Plenty of his predecessors on the family ranch who worked with their hands passed around now, from an overtired heart or from the unnoticed wear of the sun or from a cut that never quite closed up right.
"Um—hello? Are you...well, you must be Takakura-san, right?"
He snapped to attention, blinking away his thoughts and finally setting his focus on the woman before him. It was hard not to study her, hard to resist the urge to find traces of the man he'd lost in her, but even only seconds after meeting her he knew that wasn't right. She was her own person; it was only fair to get to know her, especially with his knowledge limited to what her father had chosen to write about. And from her letter, he'd gotten the impression that she wasn't unhappy—she just didn't seem to have a direction in life, and he could certainly relate to that.
In reply to her question, he gave a grunt and a jerking nod of his head. "That's me. But just 'Takakura' is fine, Aya. It's nice to finally put a face to the name your old man always went on and on about."
She lit up and that. "He told me all about you," she said, clapping her hands together and leaning towards him slightly, "and the valley. When I was little I thought this place was a fairy tale. My classmates all made fun of me when I mentioned it alongside Cinderella and things like that."
He hadn't expected so much from her right off the bat. Were it not for her contagious smile, he would've stared at her in his way, too unsure what he was supposed to say to that. People didn't typically talk to him, not really, and the comparison to her father flooded him largely without his permission. No one else—not until her, anyway—could get him grinning like a fool, but the short bark of laughter he gave was even more scarce. She'd managed to coax it out of him in seconds, though he was content for now to chalk it up to that anxious giddiness in his chest.
"It's the real deal," he said, holding out his hand and motioning for her to pass off her too-heavy backpack. "Whatever yer thinkin', I'm sorry to say the truth might disappoint you."
"Oh, not at all!" She shrugged off her pack, extending it to him after rolling her shoulders. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." He gave a nod back towards the east, slinging her bag over one of his shoulders. "Let's get goin' shall we?"
She fell into easy step beside him. From the corner of his eye he watched as she scanned the perimeter of Miss Vesta's farmlands, then whipped her head to the south to take in the view of the ocean from between the hills and the trees before she spoke.
"I've tempered my expectations a bit over the years, y'know."
"What's that?"
"You said I might be disappointed. I knew a bit of what to expect, coming to such a rural area, but—wow, it's just beautiful!"
His smile was small, but it felt good. Forget-Me-Not Valley was home, after all; its beauty had not diminished one bit over the years, and was easily his favorite part of living here. Maybe it could be something out of a fairy tale after all. He swallowed, too nervous to even spare her a glance. "I'm glad you think so too."
"I just wish he'd taken me here sooner," she said with a wistful sigh. "I think he might've been worried I'd convince him to pack up and move back."
He hardly knew what to make of such a comment. If her father hadn't been able to come back, that was one thing—but Takakura had never truly considered that maybe he just hadn't wanted to. That maybe farm life was too hard for him, or the valley too boring, or maybe something about Takakura personally had scared him off.
On the wide bridge, he came to a stop, forcing down the ache in his soul.
"About that," he said, because it seemed like something he should say, "yer old man...I can't tell you how sorry I was to hear it."
Pink blossoms from the cherry trees upriver had fallen into the water, flecking its surface with their pinpoint brilliance as the sunlight glimmered between them. It was a fine day, warm with a light, cool breeze, and he finally let himself look at her.
While he was not a particularly tall man, he still stood just a hair over six feet—the top of her head came only to his shoulder. Her hair was thick, and he wondered if she would tire of it come summer and chop it all off or if she would be the kind of person to pile it all on her head and keep working. It was so brown that here in the bright sun he could see it streaked through with rich auburn strips, framing her round face in a delicate way that did not match the spark of resilience in her eyes.
And speaking of those eyes—while she looked almost nothing like her father anywhere else, they held more of him than Takakura had bargained for. Wide, full of wonder and wit, and that spark that spoke of a wild streak just under the surface. Just as he was taking her in, he could see that she was doing the same, could see the gears working in her tilted head as she pieced together whatever she'd been told of him over the years.
Then, they softened. She was smiling now, and something inside of him gave a brief but prominent tug.
"It's all right," she said after a small hum. "We had time, y'know, to prepare for it and say our goodbyes. Still wasn't easy, but..."
She did not go on for a long moment, and her smile fell. He hated to see it.
"You don't gotta—"
"None of my life has really been easy, though." She faced him, but instead of the sadness he might've expected, he saw her smile replaced—rueful this time.
He didn't quite know what to make of that, either. Had her old man not brought her up right? What about her mother? Had she perhaps been the rebellious type? Those kinds of details were rarely written about—and how much could anyone truly say about the last year in one meager letter? And besides, she'd been the one to not only write him back, but to ask if there was a place for her on the farm. Not many people would upend their cozy city life in pursuit of something as dogged as this.
"Well," Takakura tried, hoping to ease whatever clouded her spirit, "farm work's not gonna cut you any slack, either, but it'll sure get yer mind off of anything that ails it. You sure you're up for the task?"
As sudden as a bursting firework, that sad look morphed into what he could only call determination. She looked him square in the eyes, and he knew at once she would be here to stay.
"You bet I am."
It was a grueling first few months. He hadn't taught anyone anything in years, but showing her the ropes was harder than it'd been with her father, in his memories, at least. Perhaps it was his age catching up to him—or that she wanted to learn everything, when he'd been just fine getting by on just enough for the last couple of decades. Sometimes it truly felt like another life that he'd stood bent over in the fields, yanking particularly stubborn weeds or whacking his hoe down into the soil or rubbing the green leaves between his fingers.
The work wasn't the hard part, no—he rather enjoyed feeling the exhaustion in his body night after night, and was especially proud that his arms and chest grew stronger again, evidence that despite aging, his body wasn't ready to fail him yet. She was a quick learner, and more than that she was an eager one, too. It was with a tireless concentration that she listened to his instruction, watched him at work, and asked her many, many questions. It all came so naturally to her; her presence helped whip the old farm into shape faster than he'd managed with her father at his side.
It wasn't even a chore to learn bits and pieces about her. In fact, he found he rather couldn't help but watch her when she wasn't looking. There were traces of her father to be seen here or there: the way she rested her weight on one leg and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, removing the beaded sweat but leaving a trail of dirt in its place. And sometimes she'd give him an excited look when he brought up the idea of a new animal, or when he told her he could spare some time to building a little pond beneath the cherry tree in the pasture. She even ran all over the damned place, seeming to hardly ever tire. He'd long since sold the old horse he and her father had raised, but maybe it was high time for another one.
There was plenty about her that was her own, too. The way she would tilt her head to the side as he explained some technique or another, or the way she would poke out her tongue when she was concentrating particularly hard on something—it was cute, though he would never speak that observation aloud. He also was especially fond of the earnest in her voice when she fussed over him after a hard day's work, unable to hide her concern. And if she wasn't right at his side, she was within shouting distance.
And he definitely enjoyed the warmth he felt when he glimpsed her porch light on at the end of the day. It'd been too long since he felt so comfortable on his own property.
No, the hardest part of Aya sweeping into his life was her tendency to be quite the social butterfly. She took to the townsfolk immediately, and they were charmed just as quick by her wit and her dry humors, and more so by the generous gifts of cow's milk and all the crops she could spare. She would make simple dishes and offer them to the young men, always sure to keep track of allergies and preferences. Of the wildflowers she would pick in her spare time, she kept some in a vase on her vanity at home and tucked the others behind the ears of the other young women in the valley. She was bold in all the ways he wasn't, and wondered if she had a proclivity for the ladies as much as the men.
Because of this, Takakura found himself the object of more village gossip than he had when he'd first moved here all that time ago.
My, little Aya is quite the go-getter, isn't she? said Miss Romana one morning at market, a knowing gleam in her eye. She'll run circles around you if you're not careful, son.
It's good to see more of you, old friend, Tei said one afternoon as their paths crossed on Takakura's way towards town. We were worried about you, cooped up on the farm all by yourself.
Yer in top shape! Kesaran bellowed one evening at the bar. Pasaran nodded in agreement, hailing Griffin for another beer. I'll drink to that. The li'l gal's got you going this way and that—good to see less of you in a place like this, ain't it?
It was exhausting, to be shoved into a social life when he'd been content to shut his down all that time ago. He didn't know what was worse: that no one seemed to hold his hermit lifestyle against him, or that they were welcoming him back with open arms. When Aya asked him about making money with her crop, he was surprised to find that he was excited at the prospect of going into the city. After explaining how he'd handled finances in the past, she seemed pleased, agreeing to it readily.
She was born and raised there—it only made sense she'd be happy to sell her produce to folks she likely knew. An idea struck him, and despite his desperation for solitude, he found himself speaking it without a second thought.
"You're welcome to come with me. If ya want to."
"Hell no."
He nearly sputtered, coming to a halt where they stood in the pasture. "Beggin' yer pardon."
The grass blew in the hot breeze, tickling his knuckles where they rested at his side. As he stood, a realization slammed him: summer had come in full force, and he hadn't even known it. Not only was he not anticipating the next letter anymore, but Aya's presence on the farm had taken up so much of his day-to-day that he could scarcely imagine his life as anything different.
Had he really been so content to waste away in his little house?
"Sorry," she was saying when he snapped back into reality. "I really need to watch my language, don't I? Um—about going into town. I don't think I'm ready for a visit. Not yet, at least."
He took her in, waist-high in the pasture with the knees of her leggings coated in dirt and wet grass. She looked shy, which didn't suit her at all; he was accustomed already to her hollering across the fields for him or sprinting down the hill to make it to Van's pop-up before closing time. As for her language, well, he couldn't fault her for that, as she spent most weekend nights at the bar happily soaking in Muffy's flirtatious banter and engaging the twins and Miss Vesta's brother in drinking games (and damn, could she hold her liquor).
"Nothin' wrong with that," he finally said, hoping to offer some comfort. "I usually find the trip pretty dull, myself. I'll be back before long."
He found himself sent to and from the city more often than not. It was tough work making out Aya's chicken-scratch handwriting as he walked up and into the mountain pass, but he always returned with what she'd requested—along with whatever cash was leftover from her hard-cultivated produce. It was late on one of these afternoons that he was in the storeroom, hauling up bags of chicken feed onto the lowest shelves when a dash of brilliant color caught his eye.
His breath hitched to see a blue feather sitting there, so nearly crushed by the bag he'd just placed to its side. With as much care as he could manage he held out his hand, brushing his rugged, tanned fingertips along its edges and finding them to be so smooth it almost did not seem real. They parted delicately at his touch, catching in the old, orange-hued light that hung from the ceiling that made it glow like it was made of magic.
"Oi, you're back later than—"
He spun too quickly, startled to hear her voice and embarrassed to be caught looking so sentimental.
"—I thought." She squinted, her eyes adjusting to the indoor ambiance as she watched him carefully. Her hand was still on the doorknob, holding it open wide. Around her, flecks of dust danced in the rays of the setting sun as if she stood in her own spotlight. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," he said. "Where'd you get that?"
She peered over his shoulder, standing on her tiptoes to see past him. "The feather?" When he gave an affirmative grunt, she shrugged. "I was out fishin' in the woods this morning and found it. Why do you look like you've seen a ghost? Do I need to call Dr. Baddoch?"
The chuckle he gave was laced with his incredulity. "Nothin' like that. It's just a rarity 'round these parts. In the city a blue feather in this condition could fetch you three figures on the low end."
"What's so special about it?"
"It's...well..." He swallowed, feeling that familiar but unidentifiable tug in his chest. "It's probably none of my business, but if there's anyone who's caught yer eye—"
An understanding flashed over her features as he spoke. "Takakura—"
"—then you might want to think about settling down sometime."
"I—"
"Starting a family, 'n all that." He hadn't meant to talk over her, but the potential of the conversation to slip into the awkward had taken root in him.
She crinkled her nose there in the doorway, obviously displeased by the notion—or maybe that it was coming from someone like him. She said nothing, just watched him with her lips slightly parted beneath those big, too-sharp eyes. It turned out, she had been the type to merely pile her thick hair atop her head and tie it in place to ward off the summer heat. A few loose strands of it had fallen to the left side of her face, and her cheeks were flushed from a hard day's work. Had she always been so beautiful, or had he just refused to see it until now?
He couldn't understand her resistance and now her silence; he'd seen the way she'd flirt with the men and the women in town, so surely something like marriage couldn't be too far from her mind. "It's how we propose here in the country," he explained. "And a farm-raised family is what your old man always wanted."
Her retort was immediate. "Well then why didn't he stick around?" She gave a slight jut of her chin to accentuate her indignance.
With the door still swung open, it should've been cooling off in the hot, stuffy storeroom, but Takakura had begun to sweat. She didn't seem angry, but he knew from a frustrating first few weeks of farming that even a sweet thing like her had patience with limits.
"Despite all my years of wonderin'," he said with a slowness that gave each word an unintended bite of severity, "I don't have the answer to that."
Whatever she'd opened her mouth to say was forgotten when a loud crack echoed overhead. With a gasp of surprise she jumped, spinning to crane her neck outside. The sky had purpled like a bruise while they'd talked, and thank the goddess that it hadn't had the chance to devolve into argument. Outside, the telltale sound of fizzling flame echoed across the hills. In the bustle of the day he'd forgotten already what one of the twins had told him just that morning.
"Supposed to rain tomorrow," he said to Aya, watching her watch the sky. "Firework festival's been moved to...well, right now."
She took a few steps out, her gaze still cast upward as he followed, hearing the whirring whistle of the second explosive being launched into the sky. He could see only the top half of it, blue lined with red, and he blinked away memories of the cityscape blocking his view.
"Get along, now," he said quietly. She turned to look at him, tilting her head in question. "You should be watching 'em with someone you care about."
In his mind's eye, she was giving him a nod with that determined look on her face he so admired before running off to wherever it was her soon-to-be-lover waited. He could see her with Marlin, or even with Muffy—she sure spent enough time with the both of them. But in the real world, she stood with her feet frozen to the ground, her eyes holding his as if in hostage. Then, they drifted towards the roof of the barn.
As she hoisted herself up on the boxes stacked outside the building, the first firefly of the evening lit up around her ankles.
He stared, her puzzling behavior forgotten for a moment as something inside him felt like it was beginning to be cracked open. By the time he realized she was climbing up to sit on the old wooden roof of the storehouse, it was too late to try to stop or scold her. He wasn't her father, that much was for certain, and from her unexpected reaction, he wished he hadn't tried to push her like one.
"Well?" she called from her new perch on the highest edge of the roof. "You coming or what?"
He did not want to believe what his gut was telling him. "Didn't ya hear me? You should be—"
"Are you coming," she repeated like a disappointed mother, "or what?"
Well, Takakura was a gentleman, and that meant he wasn't one to disobey a clear command from an otherwise lovely lady. He followed her path, testing the sturdiness of the boxes before trusting them with his full weight. She scrambled forward, offering her outstretched hand for support. He took it without a second thought, trying not to strain her with the force of all of his physique and ignoring that he scraped his bad knee on the eaves as she helped him up. The palm of her hand was hot against his, and when he successfully crested the roof and sat beside her, she smiled at him in a way that made his throat go dry.
As another firework exploded overhead—they had a clear view from up here, he was pleased to discover—he reached into his pocket to retrieve his silver flask. He only ever kept it half-full to keep from relying on it, and in the name of politeness he held it out to Aya before taking any for himself.
"Thanks," she said through her faded smile, upending it to take a small sip and handing it back to him in the same motion. She looked back up to the sky, the fireworks lighting up the whole farm behind them as the sun set fully beneath the horizon. When he brought his lips to the rim of the flask, they felt electrified—boyish, even—knowing that hers had only just touched it, that she trusted him enough to drink from something that was his. He swallowed slowly, taking in the feel of the liquid snaking down his throat and into his empty stomach.
"Sorry about all that," he said then, without really planning to. "It really ain't my business, tellin' you what to do 'n such."
She reached over and gingerly plucked the flask from his hand, their fingers touching slightly. After another tiny sip, she wiped at the corner of her mouth. Fireworks cracked and boomed overhead, and beneath them on the path between their homes, fireflies were dancing all over. Beside him, Aya was lovely as he'd ever seen her, sitting here on top of the roof with sweat at her temples and a small, glistening patch of whiskey on her upper lip.
Between the cacophony of the bursting lights in the sky, she said quietly, "I'd just wanna know why you think I give a damn about what my dad would've wanted."
He didn't know if he should feel heartbroken by that. His psyche split, half of it besieged by a harrowing thought that his friend wasn't just a poor father, but a flat-out bad one; the other, unable to blame her at all. Takakura thought of his own father. There was a reason he'd left home as soon as he could, and even nearing his fifties he fought the accompanying shudder at the memories.
"Guess it's not that I thought that, necessarily," he tried, passing the flask back to her. Maybe it was that the alcohol met no resistance in his belly, but talking to her felt easier than it'd ever been talking to anyone. "More like I just wasn't thinkin' at all. I'm not yer old man. It sure wasn't my place to speak up like one."
"Don't beat yourself up over it," she said, gently accepting his offering. "It's just that I spent my whole life doing what he wanted. Like—would you believe me if I told you this was the first time I've ever seen fireworks?"
That earned a double-take. She hadn't grown up a bumpkin like him, and he had firsthand experience that the city in which she'd been born held an annual display. "I wasn't much younger than you when I saw 'em for the first time, but you didn't grow up in the country."
She was mid-sip of his liquor, but swallowed hastily and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Exactly!"
"So what gives?"
"He always had some excuse or another. He would say we'd all go together when he got home from work, but he'd always conveniently end up working late. When I was little, I was so dedicated to his idea of seeing them as a family that I didn't mind. There was always next year, y'know? But by the time you're ten or eleven and it keeps happening, the magic just wears off. I had myself convinced I just didn't want to see them, and spite carried me the rest of the way."
It was a sad picture, but the man was dead now and Takakura had long since moved on. Though even if there was no use dwelling on the past, it pained some deep, untouchable part of his heart to know that maybe the farmer hadn't quite managed it.
"Well," he said, watching her with intent, "whaddya think?"
"Oh, they're just..." Her eyebrows pinched together atop a sweet smile as she shook her head. From the few hard blinks she gave, he was certain she was holding tears at bay. "They're everything I wanted them to be, Takakura."
They sat in silence, save for the fireworks. The moon hung like the blade of a scythe off to the east, and clusters of stars were already being blotted out by the cloud cover that would dump a late-season rainstorm on the valley the very next day. Their undersides were lit in all sorts of fantastic colors from the twins' show, all of it reflected on the ocean waves.
"I miss him."
She'd whispered it, but his ears were still sharp. He inclined his head towards her, unable to face her completely but finding a desperation mounting in him to ease the brewing storm inside her.
He bit back the urge to say, I do, too. It wasn't what either of them needed right then and there; no, just as he'd been by her side for half the year already, that was where he would stay. As her rock, her mentor, whatever she needed. He was good at being steady.
"Yer here, ain't you?" Where he wanted you to be.
"I..." She pressed her mouth into a thin line, glancing away. She'd gotten so soft that he had to strain his ears to hear her. "I guess that's fair, but it's not all because I want to do him proud, or anything like that. I mean, I do, but...
"This place is my escape," she carried on in a rush. "Back home, I wasn't really...well—you said you're not Dad. I'm not, either," she said, plain as anything. She handed his flask back to him, far lighter than he'd expected it to be. "He had friends everywhere, even a place like this. People—didn't like me back home. I'd been daydreaming about running away for years, to go someplace my parents hadn't planned out for me since before I was even born. To go someplace where no one knows my dad around every corner. To go someplace where the kids didn't make fun of me, where I'm not pressured into marrying the guy who grew up with me in the house across from ours, where no one knows me. Where I can be just Aya, and not Pony."
He could've smacked himself for so carelessly suggesting that she settle down. Deep down he swore to himself never to meddle in her business again, blue feather be damned. For all he cared, she could drop it into the river and let it drift out to sea. And hell, he knew plenty about not being liked, though he hadn't really done much in the way of trying to be liked over the years. Something else stirred in him, too, to hear that bite of disdain in her voice when she spoke the name Pony. It was how her father had always referred to her in his letters, the nickname clearly affectionate—he'd never considered what she must have thought about that, or that she'd even felt anything about it at all.
"Wasn't a nickname you preferred, huh?"
"No."
He paused to take another swig of alcohol, the flask's contents very near its end. She landed a playful punch to his side, teasing loudly, "Oi, save some more for me!"
"Well ain't you one to talk," he shot back with uncharacteristic levity, holding it back out one last time. "You've drank pert near all of it. Might as well finish up."
He was feeling good. A pleasant buzz was warming him from the inside, welcome now that the night was beginning to cool off with the oncoming rain. As she drank down the last of his whiskey, a flurry of fireworks shot up into the sky, all-encompassing and rattling his bones but beautiful just the same. The twins had gotten quite creative in the decades since they put on their first show, able to make all sorts of shapes and patterns and colors.
Finally the noise and the lights ceased. There was a ringing in his ears in the total silence that followed, but that was soon replaced with the soothing singing of crickets and the happy, rhythmic croaking of frogs in the treeline surrounding the property. Despite that the moon and stars were completely covered now by clouds, it was a fine evening—certainly not a bad way to spend the little rescheduled festival.
But when he looked back to Aya, he was troubled by the small crease between her brows and the way she was trying not to chew on her lip. She'd just confided an awful lot to him, a much older man she really didn't know all that well yet (though, there wasn't quite much to know of Takakura, and she'd come to understand that in time); for all she knew, he would chide or otherwise lecture her for being ungrateful to her parents and for making the rash decision to come to Forget-Me-Not Valley in search of her place in the world.
He was no hypocrite. Every one of the reasons she'd given were as intimately known to him as the back of his own hand, and they'd paid off, to boot. She practically ran the farm already, and was so well-liked in the valley that he hardly heard talk of anything else. If she hadn't been cut out for city life despite spending near twenty-five years there, then she certainly was welcome here with open arms. But there was one thing nagging at the peripherals of his mind.
"Why didn't you say somethin'?" he wondered aloud. He wasn't sure if she'd even give up an answer, but it was worth it to show her that she could trust in him. "About bein' called Pony over and over again."
"Because"—the look she shot him could have killed a lesser man—"no one ever asked."
He took a long moment, considering that with seriousness. They were close, sitting here out of sight of everyone in the valley. He could feel the moisture beading in the air, and without meaning to he saw the flash of a memory of her father's face staring back at his, his eyes sparkling. Takakura had wondered then, all that time ago, what it would be like to kiss him. He was happy to blame his inaction on the nervousness of youth, but he couldn't well let anyone else make the same mistake if he could help it.
"Was a long while back," he said lowly, watching her watch him, "that I realized somethin' heavy: if you don't ask, then you're bound not to get—and that goes both ways. Ya got that?"