Chapter Text
Irwin stared at his friend as he cocked his head to the side in wonder of what the redhead was doing. Eleven-year-old Julian Liu had invited Irwin over to do what all kids their age would after school; play outside. But here he was, digging through a drawer in his room for something Irwin had no idea about.
“Ta-da!” Julian proudly exclaimed as he pulled out a small pocket knife from the drawer. Irwin widened his eyes in shock, trying to explain rationally that it was dangerous for Julian to be holding something like that.
Irwin huffed, “Do you want to stab me? What do you even plan to do with that?!” Julian let out a small laugh, almost as if to mock Irwin’s paranoia. Why would Julian ever do that? Especially not to his best friend.
“Follow me, and you’ll find out,” Julian grinned as he pocketed the knife and grabbed Irwin by his hand to leave the house.
-
Irwin shuddered more and more the further the pair got from the town area. The boys were now in a vast but remote part of their hometown, covered in bushes and tall, thick trees. Usually, Irwin would never be the one to cower in fear when they were adventuring, but this time was different, considering Irwin has no idea where Julian was bringing him, not even taking into consideration the fact that the latter still has a pocket knife in his pants.
“Julian, are you kidnapping me?” Irwin asked, with a slightly trembling voice when the two of them stopped just under a tree with a trunk that was wide, like a canvas.
Julian laughed as he took out his pocket knife and approached the tree. Holding it as if it were a pencil, he stopped to turn to Irwin and ask him something.
“Carving stuff on trees won’t hurt it, right?” Julian grinned with a cheery tone.
Irwin stopped shaking in fear at the belated realisation of the reason behind Julian bringing him here in the first place. He slowly smiled before laughing at how silly it was of him to ever doubt Julian.
“Yes, carving things into trees doesn’t harm it. Using a penknife won’t harm it since it isn’t deep enough to affect any of the tree’s important stuff,” Irwin explains with a bright smile while Julian kneels at the bottom of the tree.
“Did your mom tell you that?” Julian asks aloofly, scraping into the bark the shape of a star.
“Yeah. It’s something she told me when we went camping!” Irwin continues to smile, as he crouches down right at Julian’s side to get a better look at the star he has been carving.
Once Julian finishes the star, he passes the knife into Irwin’s hands. The latter then immediately turns back to the tree and carves a smiley face next to Julian’s star.
“I hate your mom, Irwin, She never listens to you or pays attention to you,” Julian confesses, as he runs his hands through the lines of the star.
Irwin doesn’t stop carving the face when he hears Julian. “I know you do. I appreciate your concern, Julian.”
Julian does not reply, but instead looks at Irwin with a slightly worried look.
Irwin finishes the mouth of the face not long after, and proceeds to lift his hand away from the tree to admire the drawings. He looks at Julian, who is also looking at Irwin’s smiley face.
“How about we sign our names? And put a plus sign in between, because that face is mine as much as it is yours,”
“How is it in any way yours?!”
“My penknife,”
Irwin squints at Julian in disagreement, but leans forward to carve out a simple “I Z” under the face.
“You mean it’s your dad’s,” Irwin corrects the younger, as he passes the knife back to him.
Julian does the same, adding a “J L” and a plus sign in between under the star carving.
“ ‘J.L plus I.Z’. Don’t older kids do this with their dates instead?” Irwin questions, with a wave of heat rushing to his face.
Julian smiles at the other with a shrug. Maybe to signify that he didn’t know, and that the damage is already done anyway. Or maybe it was something else Julian couldn’t quite put a name to.
“Let’s come by every month and do this, ‘kay?”
Initially, that was what they’d promised to each other.
And so for every 5th day of the next eight months, the boys came back to that same girthy tree to carve out something new. And right at the bottom they would see their initials, proudly crediting them for their work.
This went on until, of course, when Irwin stopped going to Julian’s after school everyday.
-
Irwin walked through the trees around the new building. His parents were building an animal shelter in this vast area of greenery, and construction work had just finished. The boy was now 13. Not as cheerful as he used to be, but just as knowledgeable.
The trees all looked almost exactly similar to each other, until he came across a familiar looking one right in the newly fenced up area of the shelter. It was larger than the rest, and its bark was engraved with numerous symbols and shapes. Irwin recognised a small crescent moon, prompting him to get a better view of the rest of the tree.
And there it was. Four letters, halved by a plus sign. Irwin traced his fingers around the letter J, and started to choke up slightly. He didn’t feel like crying, but it was more of the nostalgia that came along with the sight of the multiple carvings. He felt dazed just by slowly running his fingers through each of them.
So much so that he didn’t even realise his parents were calling out for him until his father ran up to where he was to drag him away.
“Tree carvings are somewhat beautiful, I would say. It keeps your memories. Does it not, Irwin?” Irwin’s father gently spoke in response to the marked tree.
Irwin flinched, not knowing that his father was behind him, proceeding to take all measures to hide the initials from his line of sight.
As he walked further from the tree, his heart sank deeper and deeper in his chest.
“I miss you,” He whispered to himself.