This story is part of the Wanderer series.
Gaze wandering away, her eyes stopped at an irregular shape. A small tree. Or, at least, what looked like the remains of one. For how large the base was, it was far too short. Jagged in shape, its trunk sharply tapered off the higher it went. It appeared like a shard jutting out the earth. Though it retained some green, the trunk itself appeared dull compared to the surrounding trees. A hole in the canopy above hinted at its past footprint, and the stray branches creeping in from the other trees gauged the length of its absence.
Nozomi stood still, eyes round, blinking a few times. Rin, hearing the footsteps were no longer behind her, stopped wheeling her bicycle and turned her head. Seeing Nozomi’s fixation, she too observed the tree.
“It got struck by lightning, I think.”
Nozomi turned her head towards Rin, gaze widening.
“Two summers ago. Or… longer than—”
“Huh?! Lightning hit it?!”
“I don’t know!” Rin raised her voice with her. “It was already splintered when we came here.”
“Why did it hit it?!”
“I…! don’t know…” she faltered.
Without another word, Nozomi glanced at the tree again. Then, her gaze heightened, peering around the sky. Relaxing the bicycle slightly towards herself, Rin watched the girl’s naive fear with a slight breath out.
“It was raining hard when it happened,” Rin added. “That’s what the old man said.”
Nozomi glimpsed towards her again.
“It’s not going to randomly strike.”
Brows unfurrowing, the girl’s shoulders dropped. “Oh.”
Returning her attention to the tree, she gazed at it again with unhindered curiosity. Rin’s assurance seemed to dispel her fear immediately. With a bit of a raised brow and a closed-mouth murmur, Rin attended the tree once more, slightly perplexed by the girl’s huge swings in mood and comfort. Staying put, there remained an awkwardly large distance between the two to hold a proper conversation. Yet, that did not perturb her from opening her mouth again.
“When we came here that summer…” Rin aimlessly recalled. “We helped the old man clean it up.”
Nozomi continuously swapped her gaze back and forth, her attention drawn back every time Rin spoke.
“There were blackened parts… And there were splinters everywhere. We had to be careful.”
Rin breathed out, her eyes reflecting her pity.
“When we were done, this was all that was left… All that was clean.”
“Why not cut it down?” the girl bluntly asked.
Rin raised her shoulders, eyes directly confronting Nozomi. “You don’t just cut down a life, no matter how splintered it is!” she retorted.
“H-h-huh?!” Nozomi stumbled back. “It’s alive?”
“It’s still alive! Can’t you see?!” She waved a hand towards it. “It’s got leaves!”
Nozomi hurriedly gave the wooden shard a glance-down. “Y-yeah…”
The two went silent again. After her initial anxiety from Rin’s outburst wore off, Nozomi leaned to the left, then to the right, neck twisting to keep her head leveled, trying to see the tree in a positive light. But, no matter what angle she approached from, the tree remained pitiful. An entity that was barely hanging in there.
Worked up now, Rin raised her shoulders, squaring them to the bicycle, and continued pushing it along towards the house.
“Now stop gawking at it,” she huffed. “Come on!”
Seeing Rin leave her, she uttered a subtle cry, tensing her shoulders and pacing after her.