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Another successful harvest!
Of course, not sweet potatoes this time. Since the children at the Torii institute had talks about having kakiage together, it got Tempura thinking. Why not? It wasn’t like it was difficult to grow the vegetables for it once he learned how to. And so he did, and he didn’t regret the labor knowing that it kept him in tip top shape, and he would have a reason to have a get together and maybe this time Sukiyaki would acquiesce to a good ol’ hand to hand fight after a couple of drinks—
“Oh, right! Hah, almost forgot the alcohol!” He exclaims to no one in particular. Right, maybe he should get Miso Soup to tag along again. Extra hands means more things could be brought on a single trip to the school and it wasn’t like the temple (or the brothel Miso favors) is so terribly out of the way.
Tempura stops, spotting something in the middle of the road. Upon closer inspection, he finds it to be a lyre, something uncommon in these parts of Sakurajima. Did a traveler lose this?
“Oh my, now here’s a familiar face I haven’t seen in a while!” A voice wafts down from above. Tempura quickly whips his head about and finds the source up on the higher branch of an old Sakurajima pine tree. It takes a while, but he recognizes the brown robes and funny green hair.
“Hey Beer!” He greets jovially, waving at the robed figure. “Haha, what are you doing up there?”
The older Food Soul chuckles and waves a dismissive hand. “Oh just, just enjoying the view from up here! It’s quite lovely.” Beer calls down. Tempura thinks for a moment, and nods. True, he’s climbed many a tree and the sights were truly lovely, especially in the spring and fall.
“Well, the sight’s good and all, but you know what? Why don’t you come over to the school?” Tempura hefts the large sack on his shoulder and pats it with his free hand. “I got a good harvest and was thinking deep fried vegetables and grilled mushrooms sounds great to have with friends!”
He can’t see the expression on Beer’s face but he can hear his reply. “I was actually on my way there before I uhm, got distracted!”
He must have been away for a really long time if seeing the landscape of Sakurajima made him miss it so much. “Right, right.” Tempura says, “We can go together now though if you’re done sightseeing?”
“Oh no worries, I’ll just follow after you in a little while.”
Tempura blinks up at him. In some unexplainable cosmic pull, he looks to the lyre on the ground. Normally, nothing really fires off but maybe Miso Soup’s lectures about ‘thinking smarter’ has paid off, not that he would be aware of it.
And then it clicks in Tempura’s head.
“Are you stuck up there, Beer?” He asks. There is silence, and it stretches like the mochi Tempura often sees being sold in town during festivals until he hears Beer’s defeated, ‘yes’.
There is no hesitation in the fluid movements of Tempura carefully dumping the sack of his harvest on the ground and, in one concentrated leap, jumps up onto the branch that Beer was desperately clinging to.
“Whoa! E-easy there, I don’t think this branch can handle both of us!”
Tempura grins and bounces on the branch, making it creak dangerously. “Haha! What do you mean? This ol’ cedar’s probably as old as you!” He laughs. Beer’s expression says otherwise.
But enough about teasing the other, Tempura doesn’t want Sukiyaki and the kids to wait long and he still has to buy some alcohol. With a cheery ‘excuse me!’ he peels Beer from the branch, arms supporting his back and under his legs, and jumps back down. The jump would have injured a human but for Tempura, it wasn’t much. He takes a moment to let the impact settle, and checks on the man in his arms.
Up close, he thinks, Beer has a pretty good face. Kind of like Miso Soup, but there’s something rather mystical about his kind features. Tempura slowly gets up and lets the man reorient himself.
“Well that’s one way to get out of that predicament.” Beer chuckles, smoothing down his robes and readjusting his hair. “Thank you, Tempura. I don’t know how long I’d be up there if you hadn’t passed by. How about I sing you a tale about a strongman in Nevras as thanks?”
Tempura grins back in response. He picks up Beer’s lyre and hands it back to him before lifting up his harvest sack again.
“Ya can pay me back by coming with me to the school. I know the kids love your stories. And if you’d start training those muscles of yours, you wouldn’t get stuck in a tree like that! Us Food Souls are built different, you know!”
“Wah—! No, my poor old bones won’t be able to handle it!”
Tempura only laughs, slaps Beer’s back and handily ignores the pained whine from the taller Food Soul. “There’s always a training regime out there for you! Look, even the oji-sans in town can climb a tree easily!”
And that’s how the rest of the trip goes, up until they ‘fetch’ Miso Soup from the brothel and Tempura was tricked into carrying even the alcohol.