The Sixth Day of Midwinter

Mei awoke just as the sun was starting to rise. If he’d had any dreams that night, then he didn’t remember anything about them. He was mostly relieved, but also, if he was being honest with himself, slightly disappointed. His confrontation with the fear goat, as he’d taken to calling it, would have to wait.

Feeling hungry, he went outside to forage for food. The snow covering the ground was noticeably deeper than it had been before yesterday’s blizzard. It took several minutes of digging to reach a single patch of disappointing, withered grass.

Eventually, Mei gave up and went into the forest to find some murasaki berries, one of the few types of edible berries that could reliably be found in winter. If the blueberries Gabu and the other wolves liked so much tasted of the colour blue, then murasaki berries tasted of cold. It was a hard to describe, unsettling sensation, quite separate from the purple berries’ actual temperature, which was why most animals avoided them unless there was no other food available. Still, they were better than starving, and easier to find in this weather than grass that was worth eating.

Gabu awoke not long after Mei returned. “How are you feeling today?” he said.

“I’m fine,” Mei said truthfully. “I just…thought I saw something in the snow yesterday that spooked me a little.”

“What was it?” Gabu asked.

Mei hesitated. “Just a shape. It was nothing.” He was pretty sure it had been nothing. “We should go and see how Janice and Frank are doing today, since we didn’t get a chance to yesterday.”

Gabu agreed, so they went into the forest together, heading toward the squirrel and mouse’s burrow. On the way, they spotted a familiar fox sitting by himself beside a tree, looking bored. He gave a half-smile as he saw them.

“Hello, Takkan,” Mei said. “You weren’t at Anything Day yesterday.”

“Good morning, you two,” Takkan said, slightly wearily. “That’s right. I was otherwise engaged.” He gave Mei an innocent-looking smile that betrayed only the slightest hint of mischief.

Mei thought he knew what Takkan was doing. The fox obviously knew that Mei and Gabu had asked the other foxes to invite him to join their games. Takkan clearly wasn’t going to say anything else, so the only thing that remained to be seen was whether Gabu and Mei would admit to having done so, or whether they would pretend that they didn’t know where Takkan had been. Mei countered by nodding his head encouragingly, signalling Takkan to continue without committing one way or the other.

“Thank you for asking those foxes to spend time with me,” Takkan said smoothly, conceding the silent battle of wits without acknowledging any such battle had taken place, “but I’m afraid it didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gabu said. “What happened?”

“They did what you asked them to do, but it didn’t quite feel like I belonged there. They all knew each other, and I didn’t know any of them, and it felt like I was intruding on their private gathering. It’s not your fault. Or theirs, for that matter. It just didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry,” Mei said.

Takkan stood up and paced around, not looking at Gabu or Mei. Birds and squirrels chattered overhead, not paying them any mind. Takkan sighed. “It isn’t just that I want someone to spend time with. You know, after all these years, I’ve never found true love.” Mei was a little surprised by the sudden change of topic.

“Not even with Kuro-san?” Gabu said.

Takkan shook his head. “If what I had with Kuro-san had been true love, then one of us would have compromised for the other. No, I’ve never found true love. All anyone’s ever wanted from me is the other thing, and even that never lasts very long.”

“What’s the other thing?” Gabu said. “Friendship?”

“Um,” Mei said awkwardly, “he means the other other thing.”

“Hatred?” Gabu said.

Takkan looked imploringly at Mei, who sighed. In all the time that Mei had known him, Gabu had never quite gotten the hang of euphemisms. He whispered a brief explanation in the wolf’s ear.

“Oh,” Gabu said, and then repeated what Mei had said in a voice far louder than words like that ought to be spoken in. Mei closed his eyes to avoid seeing just how many faces had turned to peer down at them from the trees. From the sudden silencing of conversations, he assumed it was most of them. “Oh,” Gabu said more quietly. “Sorry.”

“I suppose it must be my personality,” Takkan said miserably. “Do people think I’m trying too hard to be clever all the time? That’s what the other foxes thought, although they were polite enough not to say so.”

Gabu and Mei said nothing. Answering that question honestly probably wouldn’t be helpful right now.

“All I want is to be a part of something,” Takkan continued. “I want my existence to mean something to someone other than myself, but instead, all I do is look out for my own interests. That’s all I’m doing now too.”

“How long have you felt like this?” Gabu asked. Mei saw the answer in Takkan’s eyes.

Tough love was the solution here, Mei decided. “There are things about how you behave that tend to frustrate people, yes. Like how you sometimes treat people as if they’re part of a game that only you know about. But those are things you can stop doing if you want to, or you can decide you don’t care what people think and do them anyway. The point is that everyone has personality flaws; they don’t make you impossible to love.”

“You don’t,” Takkan said quietly.

“I don’t what?” Mei said, not understanding.

“Have any personality flaws. You’re perfect.” Takkan stared at a spot on the ground to Mei’s right.

Mei didn’t know what to say. Of course he had personality flaws. Recklessness, over-idealism, a tendency to overthink things, to name just a few. Could it be that Takkan…oh no. That made things complicated.

“But most people do,” Gabu said. “Just look at me.”

“You’ll meet someone,” Mei said to Takkan. “Someone who likes you the way you are—or, at the very least, only expects you to change in small, reasonable ways. If you try to be something that you’re not to make someone else happy, then neither of you will end up happy.”

“You just have to be patient,” Gabu said.

“In the meantime,” Mei said, “we’ll be here for you whenever you need to talk.”

“Thank you,” Takkan said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”

Gabu and Mei told Takkan that Sagi and the sparrows had both invited him to join them, but the fox said that he preferred to spend today alone. Mei wasn’t quite sure whether this was a good idea: It was clear that Takkan had several issues he needed to work out on his own, but it didn’t seem right that he should be spending the day alone in his present state. In the end, they had to respect Takkan’s wishes, and so they left him and continued towards Janice and Frank’s burrow.

“We need to do something,” Gabu said to Mei. “Cheer him up somehow.”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as cheering him up,” Mei said, “but it might be a good start. Any ideas?” Gabu shook his head.

They walked for a few more minutes in silence.

“I think Takkan might be…interested in me,” Mei said, quietly enough that he wouldn’t be overheard.

“Really?” Gabu said equally quietly. “I mean, I can’t blame him if he is, but what makes you think that?”

“Most people don’t say ‘you’re perfect’ to people they’re not interested in.”

Gabu was quiet for a moment as he tested that assertion against his own experiences. “I suppose you’re right. And are you interested in him?”

Mei had been hoping that question wouldn’t come up. He could lie to himself as much as he wanted, but he could never bring himself to lie to Gabu. “I…might be a little bit. Not much, though. I would never dream of choosing him over you.”

“It doesn’t have to be a choice,” Gabu said neutrally. “Darrel had two partners.”

Mei recoiled slightly at the mention of the stag who had tried to kill Gabu, and whose wife Gabu had unknowingly killed. “I guess so,” Mei said in the manner in which one might accept that the moon could have a scent: It was theoretically possible, but Mei had never held any expectation of experiencing it for himself. “Is this actually something we’re considering?”

“I just wanted to make sure you know that I would be fine with it.”

“Thanks.” Mei couldn’t think of any specific objection to the idea of having multiple partners, but it wasn’t an idea he was at all familiar with, at least not in relation to himself. Certainly not in relation to himself and any person other than Gabu. He’d have to think on it some more.

It had started snowing again by the time Gabu and Mei reached the burrow. The sounds of life and distant excitement permeated the forest. Birds called to one another overhead. Squirrels hopped from tree to tree.

They saw Janice sitting by herself under the birch tree whose roots concealed her burrow. She looked up when she heard Gabu and Mei approaching. There were tears in her eyes. She smiled sadly and shook her head. Mei’s heart sank.

Gabu, Mei, Greta, Sagi and Tanya all attended Frank’s funeral. Everyone who had been there since the very start, save for Darrel and Leo. There were also several squirrels, mostly Janice’s family and some of her and Frank’s friends. There were no other mice.

“He was a wonderful actor,” Gabu said. “I wasn’t sure at first that a mouse playing a wolf would work, but he was a better Bari than the one in real life. A better singer, at the very least.” A few people laughed quietly.

“He was always so brave,” Janice said. “It didn’t matter to him that his family didn’t want him being with a squirrel. He’s probably the first mouse ever to spend most of his life living in a drey.”

“I wish we’d had more time to get to know him,” Greta said.

“So do I,” Janice said, and that thought broke Mei’s heart.