a fool’s treasure hunt.
infragments:
She’d watched from the moment he’d picked one up. The curse didn’t bother her — there’s far worse things out there than the weight of a silly, habitual word like that — and found herself vaguely amused he’d made it as far as he had.
Not that she was eager to find another and beat that record.
“Don’t put too much thought into it.”
She picked up another rock.
Unlike the last, she didn’t take her time fishing this one. The smooth surface was perfect as was its shape, but she didn’t want to throw it. Instead, she stood back to her full height and let the rock flip between her fingers.
“It’ll be more of a pain.”
She tossed it over to him.
“Have any food at your place?”
It hit him squarely in the chest with a solid thdd. And then a second or so later, it joined the rest of the pebbles on the rocky riverbed.
Tsukumo took a moment to catch his breath, and once he’d sufficiently recovered, he was already on the move back to his relatives’ restaurant. He’d intruded upon their peaceful family life some four months ago, and they’d never stopped being as warm and welcoming as they had been when he first arrived.
Sometimes, he felt like he didn’t deserve that sort of kindness. He knew he wouldn’t have put up being nice four months into the game.
He shrugged again as he trudged past the long grass towards the stairs that led up to where the main road to town was.
“What do you mean do we have food,” snorted Tsukumo, “It’s a restaurant. We can’t run out of food.”
And then he stopped, glanced over his shoulder at her, and smirked, “But ... we might be out of your favourite chanpon. Who knows.”
