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The sun rose over the horizon. It was another day in the fields and the weather was just beginning to bite with cold. Soon the first frost would hit and the growing season would be done for the year. He couldn't wait, the pesky crows it was his job to deal with were becoming quite the menace, pecking and eating at the corn surrounding him.
Sometimes he wished he could move, then he may hav e been able to swat them away and actually preserve mor e of the crops. As it was though, he was getting on in years, his stuffed overalls were wearing thin and the hay springing from the seams had seen better days. The wooden head sitting on his pole had cracked in the last year and a fissure ran down one side now. If he could feel pain, it might have hurt. He couldn't remember the last time his face had been painted, and he missed the lady who used to come visit him. She would always give him the best faces.
She used to talk to him too , and that made him feel special.
Several winters had passed since he last saw her flowing pink hair, and he wondered if she would ever come back.
The sun was high in the sky now, but the day was cool, wind rustled through his field and his sleeves waved on his crossbeam, under - stuffed and slightly tattered at the edges. If he could feel cold, he was sure that would be an accurate description of the weather. A particularly strong gust of wind turned him on his pole and he could see a different view of the area he watched over. It was the same as it always was, the corn field around him, a wooden fence at its outer boundary and a dirt road beyond that. It was quiet, until he heard someone humming and the telltale crunch of boots on fallen leaves scattered along the worn path.
The person was still out of his plain of view, but they grew closer and when he finally saw them, he couldn't believe his luck.
Walking up the path was the woman who talked to him. She was taller than the last time he had seen her, dressed in boots as he had thought , along with a heavy red dress and a coat buttoned up to her neck , a scarf over its top. Her pink hair had grown and was now well beyond her shoulders and fell down her back in its beautiful straight locks. She carried with her a basket and he couldn't help but wish she came here to paint his face. She was the best, after all.
A crow landed on his crossbeam and if he could have sighed, he would have. There was nothing he could do, however, except wish for the nuisance to leave on its own.
Miss Red Dress, as he would call her for now, saw him standing in the field and a grin spread across her face. She walked off the road and up to his field, hoisting herself up and over the fence before weaving her way through the corn to his pole.
"Kakashi-san! I've come to visit you! Have you missed me?"
He couldn't answer, of course, but if there had words been able to leave his non-existent mouth, he would have conveyed just how smartly he missed her painting skills and the sound of her voice when she used to speak to him about her days. She had been the only person to speak to him, other than the old farmer who had built him. It was a terribly lonely existence as a scarecrow.
"What am I saying, of course you have! Look at your clothes! They're all torn and your hay is sagging. What happened to your face? Poor Kakashi-san, you have a crack and all your paint has worn away !"
She set down the basket next to her on the ground and looked up at him, assessing the damage the years had done to him. She poked at the holes that needed mending for a few minutes before standing back.
"Don't you worry, Kakashi-san, I'll be sure to fix you right up. We wouldn't want you to miss the Harvest festival tonight! They say the moon is supposed to be huge and bright orange! I'll be sure to turn you toward it so you can see it tonight too."
The scarecrow appreciated her thoughtfulness and waited patiently as she went about repairing him. She started with fixing the holes, sewing together what she could with thick black stitches and patches where they were needed. As she worked, she hummed lightly, a pretty tune that he was sure he had heard somewhere before but couldn't recall where or when. Once he was mostly mended again, she stuffed new hay where his clothes had begun to sag , before leaving to find a stepladder. It was time for his face painting.
He was excited to have a face again, though the proximity of Miss Red Dress to him while she painted was a bonus side-effect. Her face so close to him as she worked, he could almost imagine what her breath felt like as it clouded in the air before her. The anticipation ate at him, even if he couldn’t show it.
Miss Red Dress breathed on her hands and rubbed them together briskly before she started . T hey must be cold, he thought, her knuckles were red and h er hands shook slightly . If he could have, he would have held them tight until they warmed up.
Before she began, the Miss Red Dress did something she hadn’t before—she brought her hand up and stroked his weathered, cracked face. Her fingers drug over the old wood and he swore he could almost feel them.
“You’re such a great listener, Kakashi-san. I miss talking to you. You never judged me-not once.”
A pained look passed over her face and she took her hand away, a drop of bright red blood collecting at her finger tip.
As if she could sense his reaction she quickly sucked at the wound to stop the bleeding.
“Don’t worry about me, it’s nothing. See? All better.” She showed him the finger in question and it had indeed stopped bleeding.
Her statement didn’t stop him from wishing he hadn’t been the cause of her pain.
Miss Red Dress seemed hardly perturbed at the prick and began painting as if she were there only yesterday. She started with the white like she always did, using broad, flat strokes with a large brush to cover the blank wood that had long since lost any paint . She was efficient and was finished with the white quite quickly, moving on to black.
This was his favorite part, where she gave him features, eyes, nose, a mouth, and most of the time even eyebrows - if he was lucky. Once she was finished, if he concentrated with all of his being, it was almost as if he could feel their presence, the ability to see more keenly, actually smell the wool of her coat, taste the corn dust in the air around him and return her smile .... but that was all in h is imagination of course, and not reality.
All too soon she was finished and packing up her basket and the stepladder.
"Thank you so much for protecting your field, Kakashi-san!" she said to him, "I'll be sure to stop by this evening to watch the Harvest Moon with you."
She gave him a beautiful smile and turned to leave in just the fashion she came, only pausing to wave back at him as she left.
…
When the sun began to drop over the horizon that evening and the moon Miss Red Dress had spoke of began to rise in the night sky, he couldn’t wait to see her. She had said she would be back, and Miss Red Dress never broke her promises. He swore he could feel a huge smile pulling at his face that only grew larger when he finally saw her walk up the worn path that night. She still wore her red dress and coat and carried a lantern with her to light the path. She had her basket from before and he wondered what she brought with her.
Hello. He wanted to say. I missed you.
She climbed over his fence once more and when she finally reached the tiny flattened area around his pole, she let her basket set on the ground and reached up for his crossbeam. The view he was afforded by her adjustment was breathtaking-if he had had breath of course-and would be a sight burned into his memory for the rest of eternity. The trees lining his farmer’s property and his field made a black sihlouette on the horizon, and just beyond that, high in the sky and shining bright, sat the harvest moon. It was simply massive and glowed bright reddish orange. He could look at the moon like this forever.
Next to his pole, Miss Red Dress laid out a thin piece of fabric and sat herself down.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Kakashi-san?”
“It is.”
From her place on the blanket, Miss Red Dress froze and looked up to his face, hers wearing an expression of utter shock and perhaps even a little fright.
“K-Kakashi-san... did you just speak to me?”
He glanced down at her, and found he could indeed move his head, and responded, “Did I?”
“You just did it again!” Miss Red Dress peered around the field, “Is someone there? Is this some kind of mean trick?”
He laughed lightly at the notion. No one but her and his farmer’s hired men had stepped foot in his field in a very very long time.
“I assure you, Miss, there is no one else in the field.”
She shook her head vigorously and squeezed her eyes shut, “No, no.... I’m dreaming- gotta be dreaming. You’ve finally lost it now, Sakura, talking to scarecrows and hearing them talk back...”
While her eyes were shut Kakashi looked back to the harvest moon and a huge gust of wind blew through the field, shaking the trees in the distance and waving the corn back and forth on their stalks. He closed his eyes to keep the flying debris out of them and when he opened them again, he was significantly shorter and not quite as stiff. Scratch that- he wasn’t stiff at all.
He glanced down at himself and felt strange . His clothes were the same as they always had been, but the hay was gone. The hay was gone and now at the ends of his sleeves were hands. He experimentally wiggled the fingers and was surprised that they moved so easily. He studied the rest of his new-found body and realized he felt cold at his feet. Hell, the fact that he had feet was such a surprise he almost fell back and off of them.
If he was this surprised he wondered what Miss Red Dress felt like and turned to her. She had her hands clamped over her eyes and whispered to herself over and over under her breath, ‘you’re not insane, it’s just a dream, you’ll wake up any second now and Kakashi-san will still be a scarecrow just like he always was. You’re not insane--”
“Miss?” He asked, taking an wobbly first step on his brand-new legs and almost losing his balance entirely. He had been much steadier as a scarecrow, for that he was certain.
She peeked between her fingers and screamed.
“Who are you!?” She looked almost frantic and he could tell she was confused.
He didn’t hold it against her, he was confused as well. This had never happened before, so why should it happen now?
“What have you done with Kakashi-san? Even his pole is gone!”
At that, he smiled, “If you’re speaking of the scarecrow that was but a moment ago standing here before you, worry not, for I am him.”
“Is that really you in there? If you’re really Kakashi-san, how long has it been since I last came to visit and paint your face?”
“If I’ve been counting correctly, it has been seven winters since your last visit, and this would have made eight.”
“It is you!” She smiled broadly at him and gave him a huge hug around his neck, knocking him completely to the ground.
“Oops, must not know my own strength.” Miss Red Dress apologized and pushed herself off him.
“You are quite alright, Miss, I haven’t grown used to this body either.”
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to come back, Kakashi-san. You deserve to have your face painted all the time, not as often as I feel like dropping by. Will you forgive me?”
“It is not so bad, not having a face, Miss, after all, scarecrows do not have senses in the same way that humans do. Or at least I don’t. It’s hard to explain, but it was all I knew, there was nothing to truly miss. Except you, of course.”
“You missed me?”
“Oh, most ardently . You see, Miss, you’re the only person who has ever truly spoken to me. It was a pleasure listening to you all those days and when you left, I missed that conversation terribly. I’ve wished I could speak with you so many times. To return your waves and kind smiles.”
“Sometimes I wished you had. And would you please call me Sakura? That’s my name.”
“Sakura. All right, I can do that.”
“And what should I call you? Do you have a name?”
He thought for a moment before responding, “What is a name? I don’t think I have one.”
“How about I just call you Kakashi-san. It seems a fitting name.”
“That’s fine by me.”
The two sat on her blanket and returned to their moongazing, asking each other random questions every few minutes as the curiosities popped into their heads. It was a whole new world for Kakashi, and he loved that Sakura was the one he got to share that night with. When her hands grew bitter cold, he held them in his to warm them up and smiled at her.
He told her everything he could think of, about how much he hated the crows, his day to day life, and mostly how he had thought of her often even when she had been absent.
Sakura explained to him why she had been gone, she had been ‘overseas’ learning from some fancy school, and had finally finished and returned home. She told him that she had missed him as well, had missed the ability to talk with someone who would listen. He reminded her that he in fact had not been able to respond but took every conversation with her to heart.
They spent hours and hours in the field that night, huddling together for warmth, under the moon, hands held tight together as they shared their deepest secrets. Kakashi felt he could share anything with her and she would understand, and he hoped she felt the same. Eventually they both felt extremely tired and knew it was unintelligent to try and sleep outside when it was so cold. He offered the old barn on the property, now used for nothing but tool storage, and she gladly accepted, to cold and tired to want to return to town, where her family lived and she had been staying.
He was overjoyed to spend even a few more hours with her, and before they fell to sleep, Sakura stroked the side of his face and confessed she thought she loved him. He had only been ‘human’ for about four hours, but for what depth of emotion he knew, he returned her feelings and told her as much, hoping to develop more in that department in the future.
Their eyes slid closed and Kakashi dreamt of a human life with Sakura, one of many joys and happiness.
…
There wasn’t really a waking the next day for him. His first sight wasn’t that of the horizon as it normally was, but instead the rafter beams in the barn on his farm. He thought to roll over and see if Sakura was still there, but he couldn’t move, and only discovered she was still there by the sound of her sad sigh. She crawled across their makeshift hay bed and ran a hand over the wood of his face.
“It wasn’t a dream, was it? I know it wasn’t. You were human last night, weren’t you, Kakashi-san?”
And then she waited, as if he could speak back to her, but he was human no more, and could do nothing but wish as he had once before that he could respond.
‘Yes, I was, and last night meant more to me than you can ever know.’
A single tear ran down her cheek and she lugged him out of the barn and back into his field. The day was cool again, the sun high in the sky and with little cloud cover, some warmth may have been felt. If he could feel, of course. He already missed the bite of the wind on his skin.
Sakura stood his pole in the earth where he had stood for years and years, then reached up high on the tips of her toes to leave a kiss on his cheek.
“I know you were real, Kakashi-san. I’ll be back to visit again tomorrow.”
She hugged him tight around the cinched waist of his hay-stuffed trousers, “Maybe one day I’ll be able to speak with you again. Until then, I’ll settle for the best one-sided conversation a scarecrow can provide.”
A crow landed on his crossbeam.
Kakashi hated crows that landed directly on him and if he could have sighed, he would have. He was frustrated at his lack of ability to move, yet again.
And as if she had heard his thoughts, Sakura shooed the crow away with a smile.
If a scarecrow could smile, he would have.