Grape Village (2)
The freckled boy's father was the village chief.
The man who represented the village. In other words, the one with the authority to grant Rian a plot of land.
Rian's plan was simple: borrow some ground, grow vegetables, and sell them to the green-haired merchant woman for a bit of coin. For that, land was essential — more essential than anything else.
There's an old saying that if you want to catch someone, you start by winning over the people around them. Whether the news was good or bad, everything that happened around the boy would find its way to the village chief and color his mood. A father's heart swells when his son does well and aches when he doesn't. If Rian earned the freckled boy's goodwill first and then approached the chief, the negotiations would go far more smoothly.
With that in mind, Rian called out brightly toward the boy.
"Hey, kid! Want me to get rid of those freckles for you? I bet they've been giving you a hard time!"
"Eat shit! I've never given a damn about my freckles!"
Oh-ho. Listen to that mouth.
Rian called out again, just as cheerfully.
"Don't be like that. Think it over, and if you're interested, come find me. You don't want to live with that face for the rest of your life, do you?"
"I do!"
The freckled boy named Dean shouted it at the top of his lungs and bolted from the spot.
"I'm gonna tell everyone you were possessed by a demon!"
But as he ran toward his father with all the force he could muster, his pace began to slow.
Hey, kid! Want me to get rid of those freckles for you?
Rian's words kept circling in Dean's head.
"Is he for real...?"
A painful memory from Dean's past. He'd once been rejected by a girl named Jesse — the one he'd had a crush on — because of his freckles.
Those freckles make you not feel like a guy. You feel like my little brother.
Dean had cried a lot that day. He'd cried his heart out. He was on friendly terms with Jesse now, but the lingering feelings hadn't gone anywhere. There was the anxiety, too, that some other boy might snatch her away. And so, little by little, Rian's words began to work on him.
"Damn it. It was probably a lie anyway..."
In the end, Dean stopped heading toward his father and turned back.
The next morning, Dean — who hadn't slept a wink from worrying all night — went looking for Rian with exhaustion written all over his face. Rian was sitting around chatting with two of the village men.
"This is a game called jacks. You toss the stones like this and pick them up while..."
Dean appeared out of nowhere and shouted at his back.
"If this is fake, you're gonna regret it! I won't let you off!"
"Hmm?"
Rian turned around, spotted Dean, and smiled.
"Freckles?"
"Yeah! Can you really get rid of them?!"
"I can't make them vanish completely, but they'll look better than they do now."
"How? Spit it out already!"
"It's not something I can just spit out."
Rian stood up.
"Come outside the village with me. We need to find some herbs that work on freckles."
"Don't lie! You're just trying to run away!"
Rian chuckled and glanced at the men. They snickered and turned to Dean.
"He's been going outside with us for days now. If he wanted to run, he'd have done it already, you idiot."
"He says he really likes our village!"
After a bit of back and forth, Rian ended up heading out of the village with Dean.
"Don't even dream of running away!"
Dean didn't trust him. He kept a bit of distance, a stick gripped in one hand.
"If I get a weird feeling, I'm gonna hit you. Watch yourself."
"Do whatever you want."
Rian paid him no mind, humming a tune as he rummaged through the underbrush.
"You're the village chief's son, right?"
"So what?"
"If I get rid of your freckles, shouldn't I get something in return?"
"What are you plotting?"
"Nothing in this world is free."
"You're a prisoner. You messing with me?"
"Let me put it another way. I'm helping you, so you help me. Isn't that just basic courtesy between people?"
"Courtesy?"
"Didn't the grown-ups teach you that?"
"Well... I have heard you should repay what you've been given..."
Looks like they were getting through. Dean fidgeted for a moment, then asked,
"What do you want from me?"
Rian smiled brightly.
"I heard from the guys that the merchant woman comes through here once every three months. I need some land before she arrives. Talk to your father and ask him to lend me a plot."
"Lend you land? Are you crazy?"
"Hear me out. Of the crops that grow on that land, I'll take six parts. You take one for pocket money. Your father can take three."
While they talked, Rian had been glancing around, and he happened to spot a fallen giant of a tree. A thick, massive trunk was blocking the path — so thick it came up to Rian's chest.
"Why did this break?"
"It fell last time when it rained a lot."
"Why hasn't anyone cleared it yet?"
"The adults keep saying they'll move it, but the tree's so huge you'd need at least thirty people. Nobody can find the time, so they just keep putting it off. They'll get around to it someday."
"That'll be a village festival, then."
Rian muttered it to himself as he walked toward the fallen tree.
"Wonder if I can do it. I've never tried anything this big."
He rubbed his hands together and set both palms against the trunk.
"What are you doing?"
Dean, watching from behind, looked puzzled.
"What are you trying to do?"
"What else? Clear it."
"How?"
"Just watch."
Rian grinned, then grunted as he started to push.
"Nnngh!"
And then the tree that looked like it wouldn't budge an inch began to move.
"No way!"
Witnessing the astonishing sight, Dean stood frozen in place, his mind gone blank. Rian rolled the tree with all his might and shoved it off the path in a single go.
"Whew. That was tough."
Having finished the job, he dusted off his hands and looked back at Dean. The boy's mouth hung open, his wits completely scattered. Rian walked up close and flicked a finger at his face.
"See a ghost? Snap out of it."
Dean flinched at the snap and came to his senses. He stared at Rian with an expression of utter disbelief.
"You're not a demon, are you? A human couldn't do that!"
"Quit the nonsense. I cleared this for you, so make sure you tell your father. Ask him to throw me a little something for my trouble. I'm not asking for much."
As if nothing had happened, Rian went back to casually searching for herbs.
This guy's as strong as a titan. He's a monster. A monster!
From that moment, the look in Dean's eyes changed. The aggressive attitude of constantly mouthing off at Rian seemed to have been taken down a peg. He'd become a bit more well-behaved, you could say.
Rian took Dean — who kept staring at him in wonder — around with him and found two kinds of herbs. After they returned to the village, he explained the method.
"Grind this one up well, spread it evenly on your face, then peel it off after thirty minutes. This one, dry it thoroughly in the sun, then decoct it and drink it like water with every meal. Don't skip either one even for a single day, got it?"
"If I do what you say, will the freckles really go away?"
"I can't get rid of them completely, but there should be an effect."
"If you can't get rid of them completely, what's the point? That's the same as doing nothing."
"Don't worry. You'll look a lot cleaner than before."
Dean tucked the herbs Rian had given him against his chest and went home.
That evening, the village chief came to the barn. In one hand he carried a thoroughly boiled chicken and a bottle filled with grape wine.
"Dean told me. You cleared that tree all by yourself?"
"The villagers seemed to be having trouble with it. It was nothing."
"I went and looked myself. I was truly amazed. The residents have been singing your praises."
He held out the chicken and the wine.
"I caught a chicken as a token of thanks. It'll be nice and hot and tasty."
Rian thanked him and immediately started tearing into the chicken right there. Meat in his stomach after so long made him cheer with joy.
"Sorry for locking you up all this time. Demons have been running so rampant lately that we misunderstood. We thought you'd poisoned the fields."
"It's fine. I can see how you'd think that."
The chicken was tender and delicious, so Rian was in a good mood no matter what he heard. It was so heavenly he felt it was more than enough compensation for four days of confinement. The grape wine filling the bottle was to his liking, too.
As he uncorked the bottle and wet his throat, the village chief spoke.
"You can go on your way now. I'll say it again — I'm sorry for holding you. I apologize on behalf of the village."
"From what people have been saying, the whole country's fighting demons right now?"
"I haven't been outside the village in ages, so I don't know the country's affairs in detail. I only hear bits from the merchants who stop by now and then."
Rian enjoyed stripping the meat off a chicken drumstick as he briefly exchanged news of the world with the village chief. Unfortunately, as the chief had said, he didn't seem to know much about the national situation. But Rian was able to obtain solid miscellaneous information about the village's surroundings — where the nearby villages were, who the lord was, what the village's specialty products were, and so on.
"I'll be going, so get some rest. I'll see you off when you leave tomorrow, so stop by my house on your way."
"Yes, thank you."
Just as the village chief was about to turn around with his hands behind his back, Rian called him back.
"Wait a moment. Did Dean mention anything besides the tree?"
"Mention what?"
Rian smiled brightly.
"Never mind. Please go carefully."
After the village chief left, Rian pushed the leftover chicken bones to one side and savored the bottle of grape wine. Outside the barn entrance, the moon hung far in the distance. A charming nightscape. Feeling a happy fullness, he thought of Audria for a moment, then of Dean.
"Well, look at this little schemer..."
He'd told the boy to ask his father to lend some land, but that topic hadn't come out of the village chief's mouth just now.
"Whatever. He'll bring it up when the time's right."
Rian had regained his freedom, but he had no intention of leaving the village for the time being. He had nowhere to go, so leaving blindly would only be a loss. He needed money to do anything!
Anyway, as Rian was lost in sentiment, reminiscing about the old days he'd spent with Audria, Dean was lying on the bed in his room, carefully spreading the ground herbs over his face.
"I'll just go along with it, assuming I'm being played. If it's a lie, just you wait. I'll tell Father."
The next morning, the moment Dean woke up, he went looking for a mirror. He peered intently at his face, tilting his head.
"Hmm... the freckles do seem a little fainter..."
That entire day, he decocted the dried herbs as Rian had instructed and drank them with every meal.
Two days later, he looked in the mirror the moment he woke up again.
"They seem even fainter than yesterday... is it working?"
Three days later, the moment he opened his eyes, he looked at the hand mirror he'd placed by his bedside.
"Huh? The ones that were here are gone?"
Four days later.
"Oh, what's this? These ones are gone too?"
A smile formed on his lips of its own accord.
And on the fifth day, Jesse, whom he happened to run into on the street, looked at him closely.
"Dean, have you been taking care of your skin lately? A lot of your freckles are gone, and your skin looks paler."
"R-really?"
Having the girl he had a crush on say that made Dean extremely happy inside. He coughed and played it cool.
"Skin care? Nah, I guess it just gets better on its own as you get older. I'm not a kid anymore — I'm a proper man now."
On the sixth day, staring at the mirror from morning, Dean felt like he could float away looking at his clearly transformed facial skin.
"From now on I should call him Big Bro! He's an amazing person!"
Then came the seventh day. With a large portion of his freckles gone and a great deal of confidence in his face, Dean carefully brought it up to his father at dinner.
"Um... is there any unused land in our village? Not the lord's direct holdings — I mean among the village commons."
"There's fallow land we left to restore fertility, but why are you suddenly looking for land?"
"Well..."
Dean hesitated, then said,
"If there's unused land, how about we try leaving it to Big Bro Rian? He seems to know a lot about farming."
After finishing, he quickly added,
"He said he wouldn't take all the crops he grows. He'd give me a little for pocket money, and shares for you and the villagers too."
"Hmm..."
The village chief thought for a moment, then said,
"I told him to leave, but he didn't, and I've been watching him wander around the village helping with work. He does seem to have a knack for it. The other day I watched him shelling bean pods next to Mrs. Miren, and his technique was definitely something else."
Suddenly the father's eyes gleamed sharply.
"Those were definitely a farmer's hands."
Sensing his chance, Dean pressed.
"So let's trust him and give it a try. Okay?"
The next morning, Dean skipped breakfast and dashed to the barn.
"Big Bro! Big Bro!"
Rian, who'd been sleeping on the straw, woke up and frowned.
"Who's 'Big Bro'?"
"Of course you're Big Bro!"
Rian yawned long and wide, smiling.
"Doesn't that feel awkward all of a sudden?"
Dean rubbed his nose, embarrassed.
"Thanks to you, I've got my confidence back. Th-thank you."
"You were a fine kid even with the freckles."
"R-really?"
"Yeah. I just helped you become an even finer one."
Rian yawned again and stretched.
"So what's this about?"
"Father gave his permission!"
"For what?"
"What else! He gave you the land!"
"He did?"
In an instant, all sleepiness vanished. Rian stood up, delighted.
"Where is this land? Let's go take a look right away."
A short while later, observing the land with Dean, Rian's face quickly grew troubled.
"That's strange. Why is the soil like this?"
"Like what?"
"The land has no vitality."
"Isn't that because it's fallow? I heard it's recovering its fertility."
"No. Separate from that, the soil is contaminated. That's odd."
Dean asked with a worried expression.
"Does that mean we can't farm it?"
"If we plant here, only stuff with poor marketability will grow, like your grape fields."
"Then what do we do?"
"What do you mean, what do we do. We still have to try."
Rian smiled brightly.
"Just trust me. I'll make it work beautifully."
He spoke with confidence, then turned on his heel.
"First let's go eat. I'm hungry."
Watching Rian's casually walking back, Dean was certain his words were no empty boast.
It's weird, but if Big Bro says so, it feels like that's how it is. I get the feeling he'll pull off anything, no matter what.
Dean looked down at his feet.
"Contaminated land..."