Roots and Rats (Hibiki, Koda, Sumio)

The afternoon light came in low and amber over the rooftops of Getsugakure. The kind of light that made even the plainest things look like they were worth something. After Suzaku-sensei dismissed class, most of the students had splintered off in the usual directions - toward the market, toward the training grounds, toward other people with easier lives. Koda Mine went toward his dorm room.

He kept a loose pace, hands in his pockets. The day had been fine, as far most of his days went. Running laps until his lungs ached, listening to a stranger explain what chakra was in a classroom that smelled like chalk and other people's lunches. Nothing had tried to bite him. He hadn't been asked to explain why his family crest wasn't sewn onto his clothes. And, most importantly, the academy provided free meals after Myorin-Sensei's lecture.

The village still felt like something he was borrowing rather than something that belonged to him. The stone paths were too clean, the lanterns too deliberate in their hanging, the smell of the sea too constant to ever really ignore. But it was warm, and the food stalls near the eastern gate had shown real promise.

Small mercies.

The dorms were a squat row of grey buildings set back from the main academy, newer in construction than the school itself. Koda climbed the stairs to the second floor without much hurry, listening to the sound of his own footsteps and the distant chatter of other students settling in. He had been given his room assignment that morning - 1C. His roommate, according to the slip of paper, was someone called Otanashi Hibiki.

He didn't recognize the name from class. He hadn't bothered to connect names to faces yet. Wanted to make sure he wouldn't get burned first. No sense in making connections and getting friendly with them, if this would all blow up in his face.

The door to his dorm room was unlocked, so Koda pushed it open.

He stopped halfway through, as the door hit against something inside. Koda paused, confused, before squeezing through the gap and entering the room.

Every available surface was occupied by a plant.

Pots of all sizes covered the floor in dense, overlapping rows. Tall stalks heavy with unopened buds pressed against the window. Vines trailed along wooden poles set up near one wall, and shelves that should have held texts and trophies instead were heavy with the weight of soil and foliage. The windowsill bristled with seedlings no bigger than his thumb. The smell hit him a second after the sight did - layers of damp earth and greenery and something floral he couldn't name. Rich, and foreign, and nothing at all like the stone and rat-musk of the warrens where he had grown up.

One of the two beds was buried under open books, stacked without any particular system. Clothes had been slung over the back of a chair and the lip of a half-open wardrobe. Three briefcases stood open on the floor at various stages of unpacking, their contents (gardening tools, folded fabrics, glass bottles of different sizes, etc) laid out around them like an explosion caught mid-blast.

The other bed was almost entirely clear. The only empty space in the entire room.

Koda stepped inside carefully, navigating a path between the pots with the practiced lightness of someone used to moving through tight spaces. He reached what he assumed was meant to be his bed, sat down, and looked around with an annoyed expression.

He had brought a single pouch with him. It held a packet of dried jerky (or rather, an empty packet, considering he had eaten on the journey to the village), a small knife, and a dog-eared notebook with most of the pages torn out - the latter being a gift from one of the Rat Elders. He had thought that, along with the clothes on his back, was a reasonable amount to arrive with.

The nearest pot contained what appeared to be a small sunflower, bright-faced and prematurely cheerful. Beside it was a canvas bag printed with a label he couldn't read, bulging with seeds.

Koda reached over, lifted the bag, and looked at it thoughtfully.

He opened it, and ate several handfuls of the sunflower seeds over a few minutes. They weren't cooked, or even salted, but still had a fresh and filling taste once he got past the shells.

As he ate, a soft creaking sound echoed through the room, causing Koda to turn. A large owl regarded him silently from its perch on the wardrobe, blue eyes sharp and piercing. Hidden from the doorway, but immediately obvious from his seated position on the bed.

"Wh-!?"

Koda lurched backward, nearly toppling the nearest pot, and caught himself with both hands against the mattress. The owl did not move. It simply blinked at him with those massive eyes, holding little other than the contempt that owls reserved for everything they thought lesser than themselves, which was most things.

Koda did not move either, for a very different reason.

He was aware, in a fully rational part of his brain, that a barn owl the size of his head posed him no meaningful threat. He could have named over a dozen different rats bigger than it, one or two he could even summon if he really wanted to. Hell, he had once watched Eeki carry a dead baby deer by the neck without breaking stride.

These facts did not prevent him from keeping very still until he was certain it wasn't going to move.

After a few tense moments, Koda exhaled. He straightened up, and continued eating the seeds, though he moved the bag to the far side of his lap, using his body to block the owl's line of sight with it.

"Don't look at me like that," he said.

The owl, of course, looked at him exactly like that.

He was midway through another handful when the door opened and a yelp cut the air - sharp and startled - followed by rapid footsteps. Something between running and a very determined walk crossed the room in seconds, and the bag was gently but firmly pulled from his hands.

The boy who had taken it was pressing it to his chest as though he had just rescued something from a river. He was slightly shorter than Koda, dressed in deep blue robes that looked like they were worth more than most people's houses, with a strip of embroidered dark cloth wrapped over his eyes. His face held a strange tension, the shape of a smile pulled over something more distressed. The way a person smiles when they are very deliberately trying to.

"A-ah! U-uhm, excuse me, sir, but those are not for eating! I brought those with me from my homelands and was planning on planting them..."

"Oh... Sorry." Koda really should have guessed - why else would seeds be in a room filled to the brim with plants? "I'll pay you back when I can, but it might take me a while..."

The blindfolded boy sighed, before the smile he was forcing took over more of his face, became more natural. The bag rustled faintly in his grip as he spoke.

"I brought them from home to plant on the rooftop garden. There is a species of sunflower native to the Land of Rice Fields that is quite rare to find outside the region, and the seeds needed to be carefully kept from moisture to survive the crossing. Quite difficult on a ship, but that is why I brought so many." A pause. "D-don't worry though! I still have plenty to work with! And once they grow, I can harvest more anyways!"

Koda grimaced slightly. Stealing his new roommate's apparently precious seeds was not the introduction he had planned.

The blindfolded boy set the bag down on the shelf beside him with some care, and before Koda could offer another apology, the boy seemed to remember something. He turned directly toward Koda and performed a bow, formal and low - and one that very nearly drove his forehead into Koda's nose. Koda leaned back at the last second to avoid the impact.

"Otanashi Hibiki," the boy said, straightening. "Of the Land of Rice Fields. I apologize for the state of the room - I intended to finish moving everything earlier today, but a prior engagement with the head fisher of the village ran long. I hope my plants have not caused you too much inconvenience!"

"...Koda," Koda offered. "Koda Mine." He rubbed the back of his neck. "The plants didn't bother me. I thought they were interesting, actually. I've just never been in a room with this many of them." He cast a look around the cramped green landscape of the dorm. "Why flowers, though? If you were going to haul all this across the ocean, why not something you can eat? Nuts, fruits. Mushrooms, even."

Hibiki brightened at this, his arms moving as he quickly crossed to the nearest plant and began demonstrating with light, careful gestures at the petals.

"Because flowers are beautiful!" he said. "They brighten the spirits of anyone who encounters them. A single well-placed bloom can transform the feeling of an entire room!" He paused, then let out a small, quiet laugh. "I can no longer see them myself, but I can still grow them for other people. I still appreciate their fragrance. And the act of caring for them."

There was a quiet in that which Koda didn't have an immediate answer to. So he didn't give one. Instead he stood up and moved toward another nearby plant - a deep blue flower, with an airy, almost imperceptible floral aroma. It likely wouldn't taste very good, but it was much nicer to look at than many of the meals Koda had eaten over the years.

Hibiki moved through the room with a confidence unfitting for the blind, his feet finding clear patches of floor without searching for them. The metal plates set into the heels of his boots clicked crisply against the floor, and something in the quality of those clicks seemed to shift as he passed from the open corridor to the plant-dense section near the window. Slightly more compressed, more frequent. Koda noticed this, but the meaning behind it was lost on him.

"Can I ask you something?" Koda said.

"Of course."

"The blind rats I've spent time with - they move cautiously. Use their whiskers more, go slowly, take small paths. You walk like you can see everything." He paused. "How?"

Hibiki turned his head slightly. For a moment, Koda realized his question might have come across badly. He wasn't sure how - he spent more time with rats than humans, after all - but broaching a topic like that on a first meeting might have been too much. Luckily, the blindfolded boy didn't seem to mind, tapping the side of his head as he spoke.

"Sound," he said simply. "The clicks of my heels, ambient noise - the way a room shapes the sound tells me the shape of the room." He tapped one heel lightly against the floor, and in the silence that followed seemed to be doing something with the echo that Koda couldn't quite follow. "I would not say it replaces vision entirely. But it is sufficient to navigate, and to notice things I might otherwise miss."

A small metal bin was attached to the outside of the window frame on a short hook. Koda had missed it entirely on his initial appraisal of the room, but Hibiki reached past the curtain to retrieve it. He tilted it toward himself and made a small, satisfied sound before upending the contents into a cloth pouch - a scatter of coins, a few paper bills, and at least two pieces of what appeared to be jewelry. He picked the jewlery out and pocketed it, before he cinched the pouch shut and rehung the empty bin.

Koda stared. "What is that?"

"A collection point." Hibiki crossed to the window, opened it wider, and made a short clicking trill with his tongue. From the eave of the building and the nearby telephone wires, a small congress of birds descended in a rush of wings - gulls, crows, and what appeared to be a very bold thrush - to receive several generous handfuls of grain that Hibiki threw from a large sac beneath the window. "I have been here two days now," he said pleasantly, over the sound of aggressive pecking, "and in that time I have introduced myself to many of the avian residents of this part of the island. They are very intelligent animals. With proper coaxing and the right exchange of favors, they are remarkably easy to work with."

"You... trained them?"

Hibiki seemed to flounder at that, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "A-ah, uhm, trained is a... strong word. I don't really like saying that about others, it's kind of... dehumanising, don't you think?"

Most people likely would have said 'no shit, they're not human', but Koda nodded sagely at the comment.

"It would be pretty rude to upset them."

"I simply explained what I needed and offered fair compensation." Hibiki closed the window after making sure every bird had gotten their fill, waving as they slowly dispersed back to their perches. "Lost coins, bills, and all kinds of valuables accumulate in the strangest places. Gutters, window ledges, the gaps between dock boards. Birds notice them because they are shiny and have keen eyes. I merely asked them to bring anything interesting to me, in exchange for regular feeding." He held up the pouch. "And more importantly, I can attempt to return any valuables to their owners. The jewelry especially - someone is missing that."

Koda looked at the pouch. Then at Hibiki. Then at the owl, which had not moved from the wardrobe since the moment of their first confrontation.

"What about her," Koda said.

"She is a... companion." Hibiki seemed briefly surprised, then smiled. "We met some months ago in a forest I frequented, before I left home. She reads to me."

Koda blinked several times, before shooting the boy a confused look.

"The owl reads to you?" he said.

"She has very good eyes," Hibiki said, and said it so earnestly that it took Koda a moment to realize this was not a joke. "I cannot read the class materials myself, after all."

The owl ruffled her feathers slightly, like a person straightening a collar. Koda kept his eyes on her a moment longer, then deliberately looked elsewhere. He didn't even know if the Rat Elders in his clan could read, but a seemingly mundane owl could? What sense did that make?

Hibiki held out the pouch toward him. "Here."

"What?"

"For you. There is more than enough, and the money would serve you better than it would serve me." He said it lightly, as though remarking on the weather. "You could furnish your side of the room, perhaps. Or a meal - something more filling than seeds."

Something in Koda's expression changed - a small tightening around the eyes, a tension in the jaw. He did not reach for the pouch.

"I'm not interested in taking on a debt," he said. His voice was even.

Hibiki tilted his head, confused. "What? Oh, you don't need to pay me back, this isn't-"

"I've heard that before. 'It isn't a debt.' And then, later, it is." The words came out sharper than he intended. He sighed, and the tension quickly faded from his voice. "I just... don't like owing people things. It gets complicated."

There was a small silence. Hibiki's expression didn't shift from that small, ever-present smile, but after a few moments, he abruptly laughed - something that almost made Koda jump.

"Hahah! Oh, my cousin Tarou was the same," he said, putting a finger to his blindfold as if wiping away a tear. "He refused every gift from foreign shinobi for the entirety of his career! He was convinced that accepting so much as a cup of tea from someone outside the clan would eventually lead to him being tortured for information!" Hibiki laughed a bit longer, before it slowed and a thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Hm... He was probably right, honestly. Our clan had enemies..."

Koda regarded him with an expression that suggested he wasn't entirely sure whether this was supposed to be comforting.

"However!" Hibiki continued, before Koda could speak, "There is a solution. Let me pay you for a service, rather than giving you a gift." He turned toward the dense landscape of the dorm room, holding his arms out wide. "I need to move all of this to the roof garden. There are bags of soil that are, frankly, beyond my ability to carry alone. I need the plants transported without damage. And I would rather do it tonight, before the soil bags attract any more insects than they already have - they can be quite stubborn to convince to leave..." He held out the pouch again, more gingerly. "Honest pay for honest work. It should be fine to take it, yes?"

Koda looked at the pouch, and then the room. Looked at the numerous bags stacked atop one another near the wardrobe that he had not fully registered until now.

"How much soil did you bring?" he said.

"...A reasonable amount!" Hibiki lied.

The soil bags were heavier than they looked.

They were stacked by the wall in large canvas sacks, each one dense and unreasonably solid for something that was just dirt. Koda crouched in front of the nearest one and gave it an experimental push, got roughly nowhere, and sat back on his heels.

"Eeki."

The word was spoken with a lower pitch, the kind that carried well even when it wasn't particularly loud. A moment later, from somewhere he couldn't quite see, a large black rat scurried quickly from beneath Koda's bed. Hibiki flinched slightly at the sudden emergence of the creature, backing up a step. A fair reaction, considering Eeki was as large as a dog and should not have been capable of squeezing into the space beneath the bed. The creature lazily yawned before sitting up on its haunches to look at Koda.

"Need the bags moved upstairs," Koda said. "As many as you can manage."

Eeki looked at the bags. He then looked at Koda. Even without speaking, his expression communicated a great deal.

"...I'm not asking you to carry them yourself. The others will help."

A short sound somewhere between a chirp and a sigh, and Eeki was gone, scurrying back under the bed. Koda formed three hand signs in quick succession and poured chakra into the Summoning Jutsu.

What followed was one of the more impressive organizational spectacles Koda had witnessed from the rats. Within a few minutes, nearly a hundred small bodies were moving efficiently through the room, navigating the pot-forest with a practiced ease found only in animals accustomed to tight spaces. The younger ones couldn't move the bags by themselves, but they didn't try to. Eeki directed them into teams - some wedged themselves beneath the bags to act as rollers, pressing their bodies flat against the floor. Others gripped the canvas and pulled. A few ran alongside each bag to help turn the group around corners and lift above each step, with more still rotating in behind as the others tired from carrying weight many times their own.

It worked, though was far from appealing to watch. Hibiki, standing nearby with a moderately-sized potted shrub held carefully in both arms, had been listening to all of this with that same small smile he never seemed to drop.

"They're very organized..." he said.

"Eeki is." Koda followed the progress of the nearest bag toward the door. "The others do what he tells them."

"You're not directing them yourself?"

"I could. But I'll be doing my own share." Koda picked up a pot similar in size to Hibiki's, already moving to the door. "Eeki's better at the logistics anyway. He's been doing it longer."

A brief silence fell as the pair moved out into the hall and toward the stairwell. "He seems like a good partner," Hibiki said.

"Yeah," Koda said. "He is."

They had managed two trips up the stairwell and before they realized another student was already there.

The blue-haired boy was asleep on the low wooden bench along the north wall, his head tipped back against the stone and a manga folded open and balanced over his face. One arm hung completely off the bench. His breathing was slow and even - the kind that came from a sleep so deep that they wouldn't wake even if their house was hit by a fire jutsu.

Koda set down his load and looked at him for a moment. Then he looked at the half-assembled greenhouse frame standing at the far end of the rooftop. At the low steel cisterns waiting on either side of the doorway. Then back at Sumio.

"...Do you know him?" Hibiki asked.

"Yeah. We met the day I arrived." Koda turned back toward the stairwell. "I don't think he'll wake up, though, so we can just leave him be."

He said it without any particular feeling about it, and Hibiki, after a brief pause, seemed to accept this as reasonable. They went back downstairs for the next load.

Sumio was still asleep on the third trip. And the fourth. By the fifth, several of the rats had apparently decided he posed no threat and were conducting their own small investigations around him - one perched on the bench beside his knee and appeared to be reading over his manga, and two more had taken an interest in his sandals.

The roof garden was already half-arranged in a way that suggested Hibiki had been up here before today. Koda paused next to the greenhouse frame when he arrived with the fifth load, setting down a pot of blue flowers while Hibiki set to work assessing the soil.

"Who built this?" he asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Hibiki admitted, crouching to feel the earth with his fingertips. "Someone at the academy before our class, I think. Maybe even one of the teachers. Dogen-sensei mentioned there were existing structures on the roof that I might use. I only supplied the plants and the soil." He pressed his thumb into the earth, assessing something invisible. "Which was still quite a lot - sorry again about that! And thank you for helping me."

Koda looked at the half-assembled greenhouse, the organized rows of pots, the massive steel cisterns on each side of the doorway. Even discounting the actual frames and the greenhouse itself, this must have taken hours of work. Hibiki had only been here a few days, and had already made this much progress? In something that wasn't even related to his jutsu?

"You must really like this stuff," Koda said. "To have put in so much work, I mean..."

He scratched at the back of his neck.

"It's, uh... Pretty impressive. To have done all this in only a few days."

Hibiki paused in his tending. A faint blush crossed his face and he began to pat the earth around the flower he had just transplanted a bit too firmly.

"Im-impressive!? N-no, I'm not impressive, this is just something I've been interested in for a while now..." He chuckled a little, and the color slowly faded. He finished with the flower before rising up, patting down his robes in an ineffectual attempt to clear the dirt from them. "...I'm not very accustomed to people noting such things," he said after a moment. "My clan was not very-" He stopped, seemed to redirect. "We were not in the habit of praising things that were expected. Much less something that was unnecessary." A small, pleased smile. "Dogen-sensei has been very encouraging. He mentioned it might have a practical use for the class, when I suggested planting a few toxic herbs from my homeland. I've been hoping Momika and Nana will come see it once it's more complete."

Koda made a mental note of the names as he set down his load. He didn't recognize them immediately, but if Hibiki had already made friends, that would be a useful introduction to have.

They fell into a rhythm after that. Hibiki carrying the plants he deemed too delicate for an unsupervised journey, Koda and the rats handling the rest. Several trips up the stairwell and back, the evening air cooling steadily around them. It took another hour and a half to finish moving everything - partly because Eeki's teams were efficient but thorough, and partly because Hibiki insisted on arranging each plant with a precision that Koda couldn't tell was because of some horticultural knowledge or simple aesthetic fussiness. Which was particularly absurd, considering the boy couldn't actually see the flowers he was arranging.

On one of the later trips, emerging from the stairwell with a pot under each arm, Koda found Sumio sitting upright on the bench with the manga open in his lap. Still looking like a person who had only very recently decided to be conscious. In his hand he had a small piece of bread, which he was absentmindedly tearing into small pieces. Nearly a dozen mice were standing around the boy, each waiting patiently to be handed a small chunk of bread. It almost looked like a construction crew on lunch break or something.

Koda walked over to the group and gave them a hard look, qucikly scattering the rats as they raced back to pull up the last few bags. He sighed as he turned to Sumio.

"Sorry about that." Koda set his pots down and glanced across the rooftop, where Hibiki was crouching beside a row of newly transplanted stalks and clearly very engaged with what he was doing. "They can get a bit, uh... clingy. When it comes to food. We're nearly done up here, you don't have to do anything."

Sumio's gaze traveled across the rooftop - the mostly-finished greenhouse, the organized rows of pots, the two large steel cisterns waiting patiently on either side of the doorway. He looked at the cisterns a moment longer than the rest.

"Those need filling?"

"Eventually. Hibiki was going to ask Dogen-sensei if he knew anyone with water release."

Sumio looked at the cisterns again. Then he let out the slow exhale, already knowing that who Dogen will assign to work on that task.

"I'll do it," he said. "But I'm sitting here until you're done with the rest."

Koda looked at him. "We're almost done."

"Then I'm almost ready." He replied, opening his manga back up.

By the time the last bag of soil was emptied and the greenhouse had been seeded with the more delicate specimens, the sky had deepened to a rich early-evening purple and the first lanterns were beginning to glow in the streets below. Sumio had migrated from the bench to a spot on the low stone ledge along the roof's edge, sitting with his legs dangling. He had watched the last twenty minutes of the operation with the specific quality of attention of someone who has nothing to do and nowhere to be, occasionally commenting on the placement of the transplanted plants and sending Hibiki into a 5 minute one-sideded debate on what order of plants would look better.

"That one's going to fall over," Sumio said, as Koda set a tall, narrow pot near the edge of the greenhouse.

"It isn't."

"The base is too small."

Koda moved the pot two inches to the left, into the shelter of the frame. He did not acknowledge that he'd done this.

When the last plant had been placed and the last tool set aside, Hibiki straightened up and dusted his hands against his robes with a satisfied expression. Then he turned toward the cisterns, as though remembering something.

Sumio was already moving. He climbed the short metal ladder on the side of the nearest cistern without ceremony, sat on the rim, and ran through five hand signs in a practiced blur. He clearly had experience with the jutsu. An instant later, a massive sphere of water ballooned from his palm and landed inside with a resonant, metallic crash. He worked without much fanfare - repeating the hand signs and releasing each sphere until the level climbed steadily toward the brim. He groaned as the first cistern was filled, more out of annoyance at having to climb down the ladder and move to the second tank rather than out of exhaustion.

"You're pretty good at that!" Hibiki said.

"I know." Sumio said, without looking up from his hand signs. A moment passed, before he seemed to remember something. "Oh, uh, I mean thanks..."

"Ah! I forgot - I hadn't actually introduced myself. I'm Otanashi Hibiki. It's a pleasure." That same respectful bow, which Sumio was thankful he was incapable of returning at the moment.

"Sumio. Fuchigami." He released another sphere. "Koda mentioned you."

"Did he? I hope it was favorable." Hibiki tilted his head in Koda's direction with a smile. Even with the explanation he gave earlier, Koda couldn't help but be a bit unnerved how Hibiki could tell exactly where he was despite that blindfold...

"He said you'd brought a lot of plants," Sumio said. "He was right." He looked out over the organized rows of pots for a moment, the greenhouse skeleton framed against the deepening sky, and something in his expression shifted faintly - not impressed, quite, but closer to that than the disinterest he showed everything else. "Did you set all of this up yourself? In two days?"

"The frame was already here when I arrived," Hibiki said. "But yes, more or less."

"Hm." Sumio went back to his hand signs.

The second cistern filled slowly, the sound of it like steady rain against metal. When it was done, Sumio climbed back down and dusted his palms against his trousers.

"You'll owe me one," he said to Hibiki, without malice.

Hibiki reached for the cloth pouch at his side. "I'm happy to-"

"Oh, I don't really want money, man." He held his hands up slightly, though his tone wasn't any more negative than the usual flat tone. "Feels kind of scummy, taking money from your classmate, y'know?"

Koda said nothing, head tilted down. The floor was suddenly very interesting.

"A favor's plenty - this wasn't even that hard, so its not a big deal." Sumio said simply. He collected his manga from the bench and tucked it under one arm, tilting his head toward the stairwell. "I'm heading back down. You want to find somewhere for dinner?"

"I was planning to eat with Momika and Nana." Hibiki said. "I was talking about my part-time job with the Head Fisher in the village, and she mentioned a restraunt she's been wanting to try. Oh, you're both welcome to join, if you'd like!"

Sumio appeared to weigh this option. "What kind of restraunt we talking? I went to a ramen place that was pretty good with Koda the other day."

"A seafood establishment. They're famous for a dish called the 'Tsunami' - if you can finish 100 assorted pieces of Sushi in an hour, it's free!" Hibiki's tone was excited, though clearly unaware that he was being used for a free meal.

"...Sure, I'll come." Sumio moved toward the stairwell, quickly disappearing around the bend.

Koda stayed where he was.

"Koda," Hibiki said. "Before you go. I would like to give you something."

Koda's expression shifted to the familiar wariness. "...You already paid me."

"This is separate! A gift, not a payment." Hibiki moved through the garden at an unhurried pace. How he managed to identify the plants was anyones guess, but he stopped near the end of the row and crouched down beside a cluster of small blue flowers. The same ones Koda had noticed when he first entered the room, the ones with the pale, almost imperceptible fragrance. He touched the nearest stem lightly.

"These ones," Hibiki said. "Take one. Whichever you like."

Koda came over slowly, clearly uncertain what was being offered to him or why. He crouched beside the pot, and after a moment of looking, picked the nearest flower - small, blue, five-petaled, with a faint yellow ring at the center.

"These aren't the poisoned herbs that Dogen talked about having you plant, are they?"

Hibiki's head tilted slightly. A faint smile.

"No, though I can get you some when they're in season." He paused, not indicating whether he was joking or not. "That is a forget-me-not. They grow wild in the Land of Rice Fields. Common enough there, but I thought they would do well up here." He paused. "They've also been called Scorpion Grasses, but I prefer their older name - Mouse's Ear."

Koda looked at the flower in his hand. Then at Hibiki.

"Mouse's Ear," he repeated.

"It suits you." Hibiki said it with complete sincerity, and the pleased expression didn't leave his face.

There was a brief silence. Koda turned the flower over once, looking at it - and then, after a moment, tucked it carefully into his jacket pocket.

"Thanks," he said. It came out simpler than he intended. He left his comment to hang in the air, getting up to follow after Sumio.

Seafood sounded nice. He didn't have it much where he came from.

Hibiki listened as the boy's footsteps slowly fadde, then turned back to his garden. The first proper evening wind came through from the direction of the sea, carrying salt and the distant sound of market stalls closing for the night. He reached down and settled the nearest pot more firmly against the soil. He allowed his face to fall as he touched the blue flowers.

When did he start growing them back home? Two years ago? Three? He couldn't remember anymore. But he could remember how they looked - that deep and consuming blue, the kind that you only see in the ocean. The fields of blue flowers in the clearing of the forest was the closest he had ever come to seeing the ocean - ironic that as soon as he loses his sight, he got to sail accross one.

Hibiki exhaled. He placed an index finger at both corners of his mouth and pulled it into a grin, dirt trailing the path they took across his skin.

"Don't forget to smile." he said softly.

He followed the retreating sound of footsteps down the stairs.