A wind ahead of the rainy season slowly crossed the surface of Dragon God’s Lake.
Kopo leaned his elbows on the stone bridge railing , watching the weeping cherry along the river. Its flowers had long since scattered , and now blue leaves filled every branch, casting shade over the water’s surface. Undeniably deeper than a week ago. More still, compared to two weeks ago. And yet Kopo had never once witnessed the moment of that change.
“Vegetables are heavy.”
With a heavy voice, Mocchi came across the bridge pulling a cart. A pile of root vegetables and leafy greens brought down from the mountain field gave off the smell of earth in the damp morning air.
“Feels especially packed in this year.” Mocchi stopped the cart and looked up at the thick blue leaves with his narrow eyes.
“…Packed in?”
“Nothing comes all at once. Every morning, a little more, without you noticing.”
Kopo looked again at the weeping cherry’s leaves. Each one alone was an ordinary green, but gathered together they’d become enough to block the sunlight.
“I’m bad at the ’little by little’ thing. If I don’t have it all done the moment I notice, I feel like I lost.”
Mocchi thought for a moment, then lifted one of the root vegetables from the cart. Its solid, earth-covered weight caught the morning light.
“This packed in without anyone noticing too.”
Kopo took in those words and stayed quiet for a while. The pre-rainy-season air was thick with the smell of green, and he noticed the ground’s dampness had reached all the way to his toes.
“…Is that just how it is?”
“That’s just how it is.”
Mocchi pulled the cart across the bridge. Kopo didn’t leave the railing, watching the shifting shadows of the leaves on the water’s surface as if counting them one by one.
Margin note: That night, when Kopo opened his blank notebook, a faint shape of green leaves had appeared on what should have been an empty page. He never noticed it, even the next morning.
【Today’s Motif】
- Shōman (Lesser Fullness): One of the 24 solar terms, falling around May 21st. The turning point when all living things grow a little each day, “filling” heaven and earth in small measure.
This is an English translation of “ちょっとずつ満ちる”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).