Day 68: Relationships

Takkan arrived to the following day’s theatre group meeting accompanied by Kuro-san. The two of them spoke briefly, after which the fox assumed his position at the centre of the growing crowd of animals and Kuro-san went over to speak with Gabu and Mei.

“Hello, Kuro-san,” Gabu said. “What are you doing here?”

“Good afternoon,” Kuro-san said, unperturbed by the bluntness of Gabu’s question. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll be joining the theatre group. Takkan told me all about it last night, and it sounds like fun.”

“That’s excellent,” Mei said. “Is there a particular role you’re going to play?”

Kuro-san nodded. “I’ll be a Sawa Sawa goat. One of your friends, Mei-san. Like Mii-san but...not Mii-san, if that makes sense.” It did not, but Mei understood.

“There are a lot of songs you’ll have to learn,” Gabu said. “And lines, if you have any. You only have about three more Theatre Days to learn them before the full moon.” Mei hadn’t realised there would be so few practice sessions before they’d be performing the full play. Gabu must have been keeping count.

“Takkan says he’ll teach me the songs personally,” Kuro-san said cheerfully. “And I’ll only have lines if one of the other actors isn’t able to be in the play. I think he called that being an ‘understudy.’”

Gabu looked confused. “Why would the other actors not be in the play?”

Kuro-san hesitated.

“In case something happens to them,” Mei tried to explain.

“Like a hungry carnivore who doesn’t share our love for the performing arts,” Takkan said, approaching out of nowhere. “Kuro will just be watching for today, at least to begin with. I thought you two could keep him company.”

Kuro-san smiled when Takkan arrived, but frowned at that last part. “Are you two not going to be acting either?” he asked Gabu and Mei. “I know Jess-san and Gon-san are playing your parts, but...”

“Apparently, having us play other roles would be confusing,” Mei said. “You’ll be the only real goat in the play.”

Gabu was still looking at Takkan. “You made plans for our actors getting eaten?” he asked.

“Of course,” the fox said. “All the prey animals, at least. It’s a miracle none of them have been eaten already.”

“It just seems a little...wrong,” Gabu said. “None of them are replaceable.”

“They’re irreplaceable as people,” Takkan said, “but not as actors. If we want the play to be a success, we need to be pragmatic. And before you complain that their lives are more important than the play—because I could see you were going to say that—planning for them being eaten doesn’t make it any more likely to happen, nor would not making plans be any good to them if it does.”

Kuro-san seemed torn. “I do see what Gabu means, though. Isn’t it tempting fate?”

Takkan gave his usual smile. “Just because you’re tempted by me, darling, doesn’t mean metaphysical concepts are likewise inclined. And anyway, if fate thinks that’s tempting, just wait until it’s seen what you’ve seen.”

Kuro-san smiled back, looking only slightly discomforted by Takkan’s public flirtation. “I wouldn’t blame it if it was,” he said quietly.

Mei had only just started trying to decide whether he had an opinion on Takkan assigning understudies—kind, yes; fair, probably—when the fox announced to everyone present, “We’ll be going over spoken scenes today. Anything involving an actor other than Jess or Gon. Let’s start with Mei sneaking away from the herd to visit Gabu.”

With practised ease, about half of the actors gathered into a convincing impersonation of a herd of goats, while the others stood off to the side. Sagi was still playing Tapu, although no one ever referred to him or most of the other goat characters by name. Officially, according to Takkan, “Any resemblance to real animals is purely coincidental.” Mei was glad of that; it would have been awkward for Mii if she’d had to watch an actor portray her specifically as an impediment to Mei’s happiness.

They started the scene. Sagi, a squirrel and a rat interrogated Jess about where he was sneaking off to. Greta noticed the commotion and insisted that the other goats accompany him for safety.

Jess led them to a bush where Gon was unsubtly hiding, half of his head protruding from between the leaves. Mei knew that, if he wanted to, Gon could make himself completely hidden, but it was better for the audience if they could see his reactions to the outrageous things Sagi was saying about wolves.

Eventually, Gon lost his temper and leapt out of the bush, chasing the unwanted visitors away from him and Jess. Takkan ended the scene there, and they skipped ahead to when Jess met back up with his worried friends, who were sure he’d been eaten.

Kuro-san stood by Gabu and Mei and watched with interest as scene after scene unfolded. He didn’t say anything other than to quietly complement the performances in the few seconds between each scene.

Very occasionally, an actor would forget a line, causing a noticeable span of time where nothing happened. The first time this happened was when the wolves were discussing their plan to hunt goats in Poro Poro Hill. Takkan had extended the song he wrote all those weeks ago to include parts for all of the wolf characters, Gabu explained in a whisper, but they were skipping over that song today to focus on the dialogue, which was somewhat harder to remember on account of not rhyming.

This scene took place just after that song. In it, Gon tried to convince Takkan (playing Giro) to hunt somewhere that he hadn’t made plans to meet a certain goat that very same day. Frank (playing Bari) was supposed to reprimand Gon for questioning their leader, but he stumbled over his first line and hesitated on the second.

When it became clear that Frank wasn’t going to remember on his own, Takkan called out, “If a line you forget, improvise instead.” It sounded to Mei like a mantra the fox had used often.

Frank looked up at Takkan, and then back to Gon, getting back into character. “‘What’s wrong, Gabu? Too good for Giro’s plan, eh?’”

“‘No, that’s not it at all,’” Gon said, perfectly mimicking the way Gabu spoke when he was nervous. “‘It’s just that I saw a flock of migrating geese over by Doki Doki Stream just yesterday, and they’ll be gone soon if we don’t hurry. Have you ever tried goose, Bari?’” Doki Doki Stream was, as far as Mei knew, not a real place, but it fit well enough with the other place names Mei had heard in his life that it might as well be.

“Good,” Takkan commended. “For future reference, the line is, ‘What’s the matter, Gabu? It’s almost as if you don’t want to eat goat meat tonight.’ To which Gabu replies...”

“‘No, that’s not it at all,’” Gon said again. “‘Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to find myself with a nice goat tonight’—and then I say the thing about the geese.” Mei was pretty sure Gabu hadn’t written that line.

“Let’s start this scene from the beginning, shall we?” Takkan said.

After that, on the few occasions that someone made a mistake, they self-corrected and the scene went on as if nothing had happened. If the actor had improvised over the forgotten line, Takkan would remind them of the correct line afterwards, except when the improvised line was deemed funnier or cleverer, in which case they left it in.

“Takkan’s really good at getting everyone to work well together,” Kuro-san commented at one point.

“It’s taken a lot of work,” Gabu said.

“I hope I’m not disrupting things by joining so late. I’d hate to ruin all of that.”

Gabu was silent for long enough that Mei began to worry he was going to confirm Kuro-san’s doubts. Mei was just about to say, “Of course not,” when Gabu said, “You’ll have to work hard at it, learning the songs and everything. But if Takkan thinks you can do it, so do I.” The wolf smiled at Kuro-san, keeping his jaws tightly closed and his fangs tucked away politely. “It’s good to have you here.”

“Thank you,” Kuro-san said, smiling back. “And I will.”

A few scenes later, Mei watched as Jess and Gon were spotted leaving the cave together by a goat, who had gone immediately to tell the rest of Jess’s (his, he corrected himself) herd. Meanwhile, Bari had told the wolf pack that Gon—Gabu—helped a goat to escape. The next scene would be Jess and Gon returning home and being forced to admit their friendship. The scenes at Baku Baku Valley and Sawa Sawa Mountain would happen at the same time, with the dialogue switching back and forth between the goats and the wolves, culminating in the song they’d practised last time, although they’d be skipping that today.

Before the scene began, Takkan invited Kuro-san to join the crowd of goat characters interrogating Jess. “When Mei announces that the wolf is his friend,” Takkan told him, “chatter worriedly with the people near you. You can also improvise lines if you’d like; it doesn’t matter if people talk over each other in this scene.”

Kuro-san happily did as he was told. He stood alongside the other actors and watched with genuine-seeming curiosity as the Elder goat, played by Janice, asked Jess to explain himself. A few of the other actors expressed their disbelief that the rumours could be true.

When Jess, after a very long pause, said “‘I’m sorry but...it’s true,’” Kuro-san and the other actors began murmuring to each other. Kuro-san said, “‘Oh no,’” barely audible over the commotion, and then went back to murmuring as Jess explained, “‘Well I know he’s a wolf, but he really is a nice person!’” A short distance away, Gon offered a similar explanation to the other wolves, but Mei was too focused on Kuro-san’s side of things to pay much attention.

The goat characters weren’t convinced. “‘Wolves are nothing more than liars and murderers, Mei!’” someone said. Sagi helpfully explained that wolves couldn’t help eating meat any more than goats could help eating grass.

“‘But he’s different from the others,’” Jess said, now seeming unsure of himself. “‘He’s special.’” On the wolves’ side, Gon was explaining that just because he was friends with one goat didn’t mean he was friends with all of them.

“This is when ‘Goats and Wolves’ would normally start,” Takkan said. “Let’s end it there. Well done, Kuro-san, and everyone.” The “and everyone” sounded like an afterthought.

That was the last scene in which any goat characters (other than Jess, of course) had any dialogue, and the wolves only had a few more. Once those were finished, the practice session ended for the day.

Gon suggested that next time, they should spend some time going over the scenes in the last third of the play, everything after he and Jess jumped into the river together. Those later scenes had been finalised relatively recently, and while Jess and Gon had practised them alone, they wanted to make sure there were no last minute changes that needed to be made. Takkan and Gabu agreed, so that became the plan.

Like last time, Jess and Gon went with Gabu and Mei back to Moonrise Hill. “Did you find out what happened with those stags?” Jess asked as they walked.

“We haven’t seen them since Philosophy Day,” Mei said. “They’re not still in your forest?”

“They could be,” Gon said. “We haven’t hunted any deer since Gabu told us what happened.”

“We could look for them,” Jess offered. “I’m sorry to have caused tension; we’d like to make up for it if we can.”

“We’d appreciate that,” Gabu said.

After a while, Gon said, “What’s the deal with this Kuro kid joining the play?”

“He and Takkan...recently got acquainted,” Gabu said. “He seems like a nice person. And he’s Mei’s friend.”

“He prefers to be called Kuro-san,” Mei said, because no one else was going to. “Do you have a problem with him joining?”

“Not at all,” Gon said. “Just a bit sudden. ‘Acquainted,’ you say?”

Mei hesitated. He wasn’t sure if Takkan and Kuro-san wanted other people to know about them, but then again, Takkan had gone out of his way to make sure Gabu and Mei found out, and neither of them had told them to keep it secret. Mei briefly explained about the pinecone adventure Takkan had sent them to find out about, including the surprise twist at the end.

“Huh,” Jess said, “it seems like everyone in the forest is attracted to males.”

“Except perhaps Greta,” Gon said.

“You think Greta likes other does?” Gabu asked, surprised.

“Have you spoken to her?” Gon said. “I’d be surprised if she ‘likes’ anyone in that way.”

Mei couldn’t argue with that. Instead, he said, “Toto seems to like Riri quite a lot. And there’s Frank and Janice.”

“They’re the sparrows who found us, right?” Jess said. “They used to come to Theatre Day.”

“That’s right,” Gabu said. “They’re busy raising their chick now.”

“Good fortune to them,” Gon said. “Takkan and Kuro-san, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised about the fox, at least. He keeps calling us ‘gorgeous.’”

“He does have a way with words,” Mei said.

They arrived at Gabu and Mei’s cave. Gon invited himself in, while Jess shrugged apologetically.

“What about you two?” Jess said. “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed last time?”

Gabu and Mei looked at each other. Neither of them had said a word to each other about getting married since everything that happened last Philosophy Day and afterwards.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jess said. “It took us weeks to make the decision for ourselves.”

“What was the ceremony like?” Mei asked.

Jess smiled, lost in thought for a moment. “It was wonderful. We went with a few friends to a meadow that means a lot to us, far from the mountain.”

“Where you first met?” Gabu asked. It seemed a silly question to Mei; they were from the same pack, so of course they would have grown up knowing each other.

“In a sense,” Gon said with a wry smile.

“We spent most of the day there,” Jess continued. “The rest of the pack thought we were out hunting. There was a lot of talking, mostly getting to know each other’s friends better. When it was time, we stood facing each other with everyone else in a circle around us, and we proclaimed our love for one another.”

“That sounds beautiful,” Gabu said.

“By rights,” Gon said, “wolves of our standing should have had the entire pack in attendance, but we didn’t want to make a fuss. There are a great many people here who would be honoured to be in your circle when the time comes. I count myself among them.” Jess nodded in agreement.

“Thanks,” Mei said. “That means a lot.” In truth, he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but it seemed the right thing to say in response to it.

“I don’t mean to sound rude,” Gabu said, “but what’s the point of getting married? The ceremony sounds nice, but it doesn’t make a difference to anything, does it? You two would still be together, married or not.”

“Other than being able to call ourselves husbands,” Jess said, “which we liked the idea of at the time and still do, the ceremony is the point. The reason for the circle of friends is to make sure the people you care about, who care about you, know that you care enough about your husband to spend your life with him. It makes your relationship official—more real, in a way—because other people acknowledge it. That’s how it worked in our pack, at least, and I gather it’s the same here.”

“Given the business with your pack—and herd—refusing to accept your relationship,” Gon said, “I expect having people formally acknowledge it would be a welcome change.”

“We don’t need anyone else to make our relationship real,” Mei said, “and most people here have been supportive already, but...” He looked to Gabu for confirmation. His wolf smiled encouragingly. “Yes, that would be nice.”