All Who Wander [Chapter 7 - SUMMER]

[Chapter 6]

With the weather warming up, without the massive snowfalls blanketing their attempts at crops, Katsuki was finally seeing green. The crops were tiny, sure, not enough to feed anybody on their own, but they were green, they were growing, and if nothing else, it looked encouraging, to the town. Every morning Katsuki diligently dug out any snow that had trickled in around the crops, thinned out any of the shoots that didn’t look viable, fed those ones to the reindeer, and headed up the mountain to fish.

That day, though, things were different.

Masaru had been telling his little tales again, teaching the local kids about their town history, and Katsuki’s ears had perked up as he talked. Back when Masaru had been a kid, the snow had melted in the summer. Not all of it, sure, they were too high up for that, but most of it. Was that why he’d had such shitty luck growing vegetables? Was the snow smothering them?

When Katsuki had heard those words, he’d run to the edge of town, where he and Melissa planted things. He’d dug up a bunch of snow, piling it up high, then he’d broken into the frozen dirt beneath it with his beat-up old shovel. It was maybe the hardest work he’d ever done, and he could feel himself sweating through his layers, despite his numbing fingers, but still he kept digging, loading dirt into the little wooden wagon he usually used to haul firewood.

When the cart was packed as full as he could get it, he dragged it back to the house, wishing he’d brought Toshinori along to pull it for him. He tried not to exert the reindeer too often, to let them conserve their energy and only work them hard when the town really needed them, but he missed the days when reindeer had run freely through the town without having to think about that kind of thing. He’d been given Toshinori when he was just twelve years old, born from one of the strongest, fastest reindeer the village had ever seen, and they’d been by each other’s side every single day since.

Without Toshinori’s help, it took him hours to get the dirt home, and wiggle the cart through the front door of the house. His parents were both out, visiting friends, so there was no one to stop him from lining a corner of the room with some old, cracked bricks, loading it up with dirt, and setting to work poking tiny seeds into the soil. By the time the front door opened again, his parents almost tripping over his cart in the process, it was too late to stop him.

“What the hell, brat?!” Mitsuki demanded. “Why are you filling my house with dirt?”

“I thought maybe the snow is the problem,” Katsuki explained calmly. “It smothers the seedlings a lot, so I always have to clear it away, and I thought maybe that and the cold were hindering how much they can grow.”

“So you planted them in my living room?”

“It’s a very interesting idea,” Masaru said, placing a hand on Mitsuki’s shoulder lightly. “If it works out, we can find a better space, instead of our home.”

“Our home is the biggest one in the village,” Katsuki pointed out. “I ain’t gonna ask one of them to do it, if we won’t do it ourselves.”

Mitsuki sighed, but the annoyance seemed to have seeped out of her, and she just nodded faintly as she headed for the kitchen to heat up some milk.

“I hope for everyone’s sake that it works,” she admitted. “But mostly for yours, so you don’t have to face my wrath.”

“Your wrath?” Katsuki snorted. “I faced that a thousand times for going too far into the forest or coming home late, I no longer fear your wrath.”

“What did you just say to me, brat?!”

“You heard me!”

He turned to glare at her, and Masaru quickly stepped in between them, smiling sheepishly as he held his hands out to keep them carefully separated.

“How about we go have that milk?” he suggested. “Katsuki, would you like some?”

“I’m good,” he answered quickly – he knew they were running low, even if his parents wouldn’t have hesitated to split it, or take less, for his sake. “I’m warm from all of this. But thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go see Melissa and maybe visit Toshinori.”

“Okay. Take care, son.”

“I will. You too.”

[Chapter 8]