Stories from a Wandering Tanuki Merchant: Love, Lose, and Love Again

 Prompt 82- Childhood Friend

 Word Count: 1282

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 “Can we talk?” Trigger asked Kyanoko, who was absent in the conversation they were having moments ago.

 “Huh?” She started, lifting her head off of her hand. “Sorry about that. What’s on your mind?”

 “Did I do something wrong?” Trigger’s head was tilted down slightly, looking at Kyanoko through sad and guilt filled eyes.

 “What? No, what makes you think that?” The tanuki felt more shocked than anything.

 “I don’t know you as well as I’d like to think- I get that. It’s just that-” Trigger suddenly found interest picking at some chipped paint on the table “-and I don’t know, maybe you’re going through something. But it feels like you’ve been distant with me lately.”

 “Oh.” was all Kyanoko managed to say about this confrontation. 

 “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. I-”

 “You didn’t do anything wrong, Trigger.” Kyanoko cut him off. He had full right to bring this to her attention and she wasn’t going to let him spiral. “This is… on me.”

 Trigger nodded his head. While the guilt was gone, he still looked sad. His eyes flicked to her hand. He bit his lip, weighing things in his head before deciding against whatever he was thinking. Trigger tucked his own hand under his chest before bringing his attention back to Kyanoko’s face.

 “Do you want to talk?” he offered.

 Kyanoko drummed her fingers on the table. She felt a heaviness in her heart and she did want to get it off of her chest. But she wasn’t sure if Trigger was the one to vent to. At the same time, it did involve him and perhaps he had a right to know. Or maybe it was better she kept this one to herself. There was nothing he could do to fix this.

 “Any luck with your mocktopus?” she asked.

 “Bugger’s been a pain. I bought another one, hoping that I could cross reference the two and figure out how the whole thing is meant to be put together.” Trigger had thankfully understood that Kyanoko was asking for distraction and didn’t pry any further. “If anything I just got myself more confused. There’s pieces in the new one that-”

 Trigger’s words fell into background noise. She wasn’t sure if it had something to do with her emotional state or just not understanding what he was getting at. But she still listened and gave him full attention, even though the words might as well have fallen out of her ears. At some point, he brings out one of the mocktopus and starts pointing things out. And then he took out one of his tools, a screwdriver that looked far too big for the delicate task. Kyanoko smirked.

 “What?” he asked when she shook her head at him. 

 She laughed.

 “What?” he repeated, with a more demanding edge in the tone. But it was still light. “Look, you have to tell me. It’s the law.”

 “Then arrest me,” she teased, sticking out her tongue. Trigger flicked his hand toward her and she pulled her head back, withdrawing her taunt. She wasn’t sure if he would have actually grabbed her tongue, but she didn’t want to find out. They laughed as old friends might and fell into a comfortable silence. But that silence that would have brought solidarity to her in the presence of someone like the kitsune Akata, brought the ache back in her chest.

 “Can I ask something of you?” Kyanoko asked.

 “Sure.”

 Kyanoko felt her stomach drop as she tried to bring her thoughts into words. “I think I need closure with someone… dear to me. But I don’t think I could do it alone.”

 “You don’t think it would be awkward with me third wheeling?” Trigger scratched an itch that may or may not have been real behind his ear.

 “I get the feeling they wouldn’t mind.” 

 

 “It’s nice out here,” Trigger commented, pushing away overgrown foliage.

 “We thought so, too.” Kyanoko smiled at him. She felt serene, but the sadness still lingered. 

 As they got closer to their destination, Kyanoko froze. Her heart pounding in her chest and her stomach tying into knots. She held her hand out to Trigger. The tanuki didn’t see him, but she felt the hesitance in his action as he took her hand in his. 

 “I’m here.” he assured her with a squeeze of her palm.

 Kyanoko took a deep breath, nodded, and pushed past the last bit of guarding trees that stood in their way. They stood on an overlook which peered into endless wilderness. At the edge, where they could always see the view- was buried Shuto. Kyanoko brought her free hand to her mouth as she choked back her immediate urge to turn into a sobbing mess.

 Trigger said nothing. But him being there was enough. This was the furthest she managed before. Kyanoko would not turn back now. She approached the grave and kneeled. Trigger followed.

 “Hi, Shuto. It’s… I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to visit you.” Kyanoko greeted. She swallowed down tears and sniffled. “A lot has happened in the past couple hundred years. I’m… I’m still not over you. How you left. How you lived for so little of my lifetime and yet you still lived a full life for yourself.”

 Kyanoko sobbed into her hand, and wiped her eyes with her palm. Trigger rubbed her back.

 “But I think I’m making progress. I made a new friend. He’s human, like you. He’s… not much like you beyond that, but-” Kyanoko turned to Trigger “-I think he’s still a good person.”

 Trigger’s eyebrows curled upward with his smile, making him look relunctant to accept the compliment.

 “I’m not ready to feel this pain again, Trigger.”

 Trigger looked between her and Shuto’s grave. He bit his lip. Kyanoko knew him enough to know that usually he would offer a light hearted joke to try and lighten the mood. But he was trying to find something else instead.

 “We still have time,” is what he landed on, and added, “There’s a thing humans say about dogs. For us, a dog will only live with us for a fraction of our life. But to a dog, we are their whole life.”

 And if this was any other time, Kyanoko would also make a joke. Something about how humans love dogs. Or how Trigger might have accidentally equated himself to one. But in this moment, it might have been the exact thing she needed to hear. 

 “What was he like?” Trigger asked. “I, uh, heard sometimes talking about someone you miss can help.”

 “Shuto’s… the reason we’re talking right now. I didn’t have any desire to transform into anything vaguely human-like.” Kyanoko sighed and smiled at distant memories. “We met when we were both pups. I was a cute baby, by the way. Just a little raccoon dog, if you’ve ever seen one. We played together. Grew up together.

 “At some point it bothered me that so many people saw me as his pet. So I learned the human form. It was so hard. Humans are so tricky to get right. It’s why I’m like this and not closer to-” she gestures at Trigger “-you. I know it’s so cliche, doing things you usually wouldn't do for a man. But I… I honestly think I might have loved him. Even if not romantically, just in some way- I loved him.”

 There was silence. Comfortable in a way. It still hurt her heart to know that she’d more likely lose another friend. But maybe it was better to hurt so badly in fifty or so years than it was to have never had a friend to mourn.