The Tenth Day of Midwinter

That night, Mei stayed awake while Gabu went out to get some food for himself and Kon-kon. The fox continued to be either unwilling or unable to say anything, and she needed a lot of encouragement even to nod or shake her head when asked a simple yes or no question. That meant a lot of one-sided conversations, or as Mei resigned himself to while they waited for Gabu to return, simply laying in silence.

When Gabu did return, bringing with him a dead rabbit, Kon-kon devoured chunks of it while Mei looked away. When Kon-kon had eaten all she wanted to, Gabu ate the rest so that it wouldn’t go to waste. After that, still in awkward silence, the three of them settled down to sleep, and the night passed peacefully.

In the morning, while Kon-kon was still asleep, Mei woke Gabu and the two of them went outside to speak without the little fox overhearing them. There were now large patches of snowless ground in the meadow. What had once been the snowgoat and the snowwolf had been reduced to featureless mounds of snow amid the grass.

Gabu and Mei looked at each other. This isn’t going as well as I had hoped, Mei thought.

I know, but it could be worse, Gabu thought back, indicated by a half-smile and a shrug.

She isn’t opening up to us, Mei thought with a long, meaningful look back at the cave.

Give her time, Gabu thought. He drew closer and offered the side of his head, into which Mei pressed the side of his own head. They stayed like that for several moments before breaking apart.

“It’s Anything Day today,” Mei said aloud.

“I know,” Gabu said. “I suppose we’d better take her with us. She might like it.”

“Hopefully the activity will be something she can join in with,” Mei said.

“Welcome, everyone,” Tanya said as the day’s activities began. “Before we get started, Nate has a song he wants to share with us. I think we’ll all enjoy it.”

Gabu, Mei and Kon-kon watched as a male badger emerged from the crowd and took his position in the middle of the group. Tanya moved back to watch.

“The people here are really, really great,” the badger sang.

Suddenly, someone in the crowd—Mei couldn’t see who it was—interjected loudly, “As food!” The was a ripple of surprised murmurs from the audience.

Nate seemed momentarily put off by this, but carried on regardless. “The squirrels in the treetops really are first rate.”

“As food!” the voice shouted again. The crowd parted slightly to reveal a female badger Mei didn’t recognise. A few people laughed nervously.

“They’ll bring you such delight—”

“As food!”

“All through the day and night—”

“As food!”

“In short, the people here are quite all right—”

“As foooooood!” Now that it was clear this was part of the show, more people were laughing openly, Mei and Gabu included.

“Becky!” Nate said exasperatedly.

“The animals are for food,” the female badger sang, still standing where the rest of the crowd had been a few moments earlier. “The animals are for food. Every night I’m in the mood for food, food, food!”

“Becky!” Nate said again.

“What?”

“Get over here!”

Becky slouched over to Nate. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re ruining my song,” Nate said, sounding genuinely annoyed.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’ll be quiet now.”

“Good.” Nate cleared his throat and started singing again. “Our residents are fine, as you will see—”

“As food—oh, sorry!”

“Our rabbits are amazing, I’m sure you will agree—”

“As f—” Becky silenced herself just in time.

“Our deer are just tip-top.” There was no interruption. “Our birds we’d never swap.” Becky practically vibrated from the effort of keeping quiet. “Their company you will enjoy nonstop—”

“As foooooood!”

“Urgh!”

“The animals are for food. The animals are for food. In case it’s not clear, I allude to food, food, food!”

“That is completely abhorrent!” Nate said. “Normal people do not treat their fellow animals as food.”

He was met with total silence. Becky turned slowly to look at him.

“What?” Nate said.

“You have no idea. Ready, normal people?” Three badgers in the crowd, hitherto unheeded, all replied, “Ready,” one after another. Together, they all sang, “The animals are for food.”

“Sorry, Nate,” one of the badgers said.

“The animals are for food.”

“I masticate,” the same badger said.

“This plentitude is just imbued with food, food, food!”

“Hold on a moment,” Nate said. “I happen to know for a fact that you, Maude, go on walks with Mrs Honeybranch the squirrel every morning.”

“That’s correct,” Maude said.

“And Aaron, you’re in the theatre group, alongside animals of all different species.”

“Sure.”

“And Mary, you helped that sweet family of chipmunks when their friend had gone missing.”

“True.”

“Ah, but Nate,” Becky said, “what do you think they do at dinnertime, hmmm?”

The three of them nodded. “Yeah.”

Nate looked distraught. The members of the crowd who weren’t part of the performance all laughed.

“All animals are for food. All animals are for food. Not one dude is left unchewed as food, food, food!”

“I hate carnivores!” Nate shouted, and fled back into the crowd.

Becky finished the song, “Fooooood! Fooooood! You animals are for… Animals are for… Animals are for food! Yeah.”

As the badgers dispersed and the raucous laughter of the crowd died down, Tanya returned to the middle of the group. “Well, that was unexpected,” she said. “Now, who has a suggestion for today’s—”

“Hold on,” a voice said from the crowd. A few people laughed, thinking they were about to get an encore. Mei recognised the voice at once. It was Takkan. The crowd stopped laughing when they caught sight of him. The fox’s fur was a mess and his face looked deadly serious. He walked into the middle of the group and said, “I, too, have a song I would like to share with you all.”

The group was silent. Tanya clearly felt as if she should say something, but had no idea what to, so she just opened and closed her mouth. Something about the way Takkan was acting was very, very wrong.

To Mei’s growing dread, Takkan started to sing. “It’s confusing! Bemusing! All consuming! Always losing! I’m so lost and I don’t know what to do. Same thing time after time, always an uphill climb. And for what? Just a brief rendezvous.

“After all of my pain, it’s the same old refrain. And believe me, I’m no mythomane! But although I’m a poet, I can do naught but coit. It’s called the Takkan problem.

“The Takkan problem! It’s a dark, dizzy, dreadful cyclone. My adroitness is baffling, yet my heart is unravelling! Why won’t anyone see how hard it is to be me? After all of this time I’m alone. I think you know what I mean: The Takkan problem!”

And so it continued, dreadful verse after dreadful verse. Takkan sang every note perfectly; he even hummed an accompaniment in the fractions of a second between each line. Even so, it clearly must have sounded better in his head than it did in real life. The lyrics were so self-pitying that it was excruciatingly embarrassing to listen to him singing them so earnestly. It was beyond attention-seeking; the only word for it was “desperate.”

No one could bring themselves to interrupt. When he finished the song, with one final elongated, “The Takkan problem!” no one knew what to say.

Takkan didn’t let the silence linger for long. “I’ve decided to leave,” he announced. “I’m going to Para Para Fields to be with my beloved Kuro-chan. Someday, the two of us may return, but failing that, I will always treasure the memories of my time in this forest, unfulfilling though it was.”

For a time, everyone was speechless. There was the brief sound of someone coughing, but no words followed it.

“How are you going to get to Para Para Fields?” Gabu said.

“I shall brave the icy winds of the mountain, just as you two did on your odyssey for love.”

Gabu’s voice went very quiet, but somehow still carried through the tense atmosphere. “No, you won’t,” he said gravely.

“I’m sorry?” Takkan said.

“No one is going up that mountain,” Gabu said. The only other time Mei had heard that tone of voice was when the wolf had lost his memories. It was a voice that permitted no disagreement, lest there be consequences.

“Then I shall find another way,” Takkan said, now turning to Mei. “Did you not take a safer route on your more recent journey over the mountain?”

“There’s nothing for a carnivore to eat that way,” Mei said. He still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. “There’s probably nothing for a herbivore to eat at this time of year either.”

“Then I am left with no choice but to go around the mountain. I shall do so gladly, no matter how long it takes, for nothing can stand in the way of true love. Farewell, my friends!” Without further ado, Takkan strode briskly away from the crowd and disappeared into the trees, heading west towards the mountain.

Mei sighed exasperatedly. For someone who was supposed to be clever, Takkan certainly wasn’t acting like it right now. “Stay here with Kon-kon,” Mei said to Gabu, and ran after Takkan.

He spotted the fox peering back the way he had come from behind a tree. When he saw Mei, Takkan continued walking forward, as if he’d never stopped. “Don’t try to stop me,” Takkan said without looking around.

“Okay,” Mei said. “Bye.” He stood where he was, watching Takkan stride further and further away. It wasn’t until Mei turned to start walking back to Gabu and the others that he heard the crunching of snow cease behind him. Mei smiled.

“Wait,” Takkan said.

“What is it?” Mei said, turning to face Takkan. “I thought you were leaving us?”

Now it was Takkan who didn’t know what to say, because Mei had left him with no good options. Having made his point, Mei decided to play along. “Please don’t leave,” he said.

“Why not?” Takkan said. “You and Gabu left your homes to be together. Why shouldn’t I do the same?”

“What do you think Kuro-san would say if you turned up unexpectedly, to where his family and friends live, and said you want to be boyfriends again? How do you think that might affect him?”

“I think there’s a chance, even if it’s a slim one, that we’ll live happily ever after together.”

“This isn’t a story,” Mei said. “And it would be a rather unrealistic one with an ending like that.”

“Well, I’m not going to sit around and play the doomed lover any longer,” Takkan said indignantly.

“Then stop playing around,” Mei said, starting to lose his patience. “Now, are you going to start acting like a rational fox, or do I have to start asking awkward questions, like why you were hiding behind a tree to see if anyone would follow you?”

Takkan looked like he was about to get angry, but then he sighed and hung his head. “What do I do?” he asked the ground.

“Get on with your life?” Mei suggested. “Do the things you enjoy. Don’t do the things you don’t enjoy. See if someone comes along who you’re interested in, and see if they like you too?”

Takkan opened his mouth, and Mei guessed what was coming next, so he said hurriedly, “And if you are going to ask someone if they like you too, make sure you haven’t just made a fool of yourself in front of the whole of Anything Day.”

“Oh, sweet existence,” Takkan moaned, “I actually sang that stupid song, didn’t I?”

“It wasn’t one of your best,” Mei said. “‘Mythomane?’”

“Someone who tends to lie or exaggerate excessively,” Takkan said, not meeting Mei’s eyes.

“‘Time and again’ would have been a better rhyme. Anyway, I’m going back to Anything Day. Are you coming?”

“Maybe next time,” Takkan said. “Hopefully, they’ll have forgotten about the song by then.”

Doubting very much that anyone would forget in a hurry, Mei returned to the meadow. The first thing he heard was the sound of singing, a wordless melody with a rhythm that went one-two-three, one-two-three.

When he emerged from the trees, he saw that a group of animals had formed up into a choir. He recognised many of them from the theatre group, and he was amused to see all five badgers who had performed the song earlier were among them. Everyone else was dancing, either individually or in pairs, or sometimes in small groups.

Gabu was trying unsuccessfully to get Kon-kon to dance too. He stopped when Mei approached. “Is everything all right with Takkan?” Gabu said.

“He’ll be fine,” Mei said. “May I have this dance?”

Gabu smiled. As the choir sang their one-two-three, one-two-three melody, the two of them stepped in time with the beat, forward and back, circling around each other with their eyes locked together. It wasn’t often that he and Gabu had a chance to dance together, it not being a particularly common activity on Anything Day. Mei wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“Everything’s going to be fine, isn’t it?” Gabu said, still smiling, as if he already knew the answer.

“You know,” Mei smiled back, “I think it might be.”

The moment of tranquility lasted until Gabu happened to look around. “Wait,” he said, and stopped dancing. “Where’s Kon-kon?”