Shared laughter is the best kind of currency. Its value can be greater than gold and earning it lightens the heart. Whether it be with friends or a lifetime partner, it is a joint investment that pays endless dividends that compound over time into a good life well lived.

- Kuya Tio on Enjoying Life, Kuya Tio’s Guide to a Healthy and Happy Homestead.

I was getting a little nervous that my date with Kaori was going to get ruined. More specifically, it rained on. The day after the festival, a storm rolled in just after noon. I ended up hunkered down in my house working on my fletching, something I hadn't really gotten much done with, though I now have plenty of room to dry material for arrow shafts. By nightfall, the storm had turned into just a steady rainfall, and it was still technically raining by morning. The clouds broke and the same sun came out just before noon, and I headed into town not one hundred percent sure when or where I was supposed to meet her.

It was kind of an odd feeling. On the one hand, this was supposed to be a date, and I would normally expect to be more nervous. However, on the other hand, it was Kaori. I got along well with Kaori, so I'm not exactly sure if the whole thing about it being a date actually changed anything. Even if it didn't work out, I still got to take a day off and relax. I couldn't imagine anything going horribly wrong that would make the worst case anything other than no second date. There was however, the nagging feeling that I had no idea what I was supposed to do on a date. While I've been with plenty of girls, I had never been trying to find out if I wanted to spend more than a few days or weeks with them.

It was my dad's advice to find a good wife, as well as the advice of pretty much every other old man, and somehow it wasn't exactly sitting well with me. I didn't want to think to myself that the advice might be flawed. It was the one thing my father thought that he accomplished correctly in life. In hindsight, I guess my mom was pretty awesome.

The town itself was back to its old look and feel pre-festival. Literally, all the decorations had disappeared overnight, well, overnight and through a storm. The normal hustle and bustle was in full swing as people went to and fro doing their various jobs, tasks, and following their whims. I went straight to Kaori's dad’s place as it was the only place I figured I'd find her, and I was told to wait outside by one of the waitresses when I entered the building.

I pretended not to notice Kaori coming around the side of the building and looked off into the town square where a couple of the banners that had been there on the festival were still strung across. I briefly wondered if maybe those banners were there all year. I think they were there at the other little celebration thing they did with the tree. I continued to stare at them wondering if they were possibly there all year until I was poked in the side.

"Hey," Kaori said in her customary greeting.

"Hey," I returned, keeping in the current tradition.

"I was going to show you a spot by the river just outside of town," she started but shrugged. "That's probably pretty wet right now. So there's a pavilion just on the road to seven."

"Sure."

"Sure? That's all you have to say? No. Ok, Kaori. That's such an amazing idea?" She teased. I laughed, and Kaori gave her customary giggle, ending in a snort.

"Well, I haven't seen it yet. How am I supposed to know if you're being brilliant or just taking me to the slums?"

Her ears dropped down, and she looked slightly confused. “What are slums?”

“Where all the poor people live.” Did people here not know what the hell a slum was?

"Ok, that doesn't sound so bad."

"In Lianzhen, it means they're tightly packed and live in trash next to the waterfall where you have to scream at the person next to you in order for them to hear you."

Kaori’s ears flattened to her head. "Oh, that kind of sounds bad."

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"Yeah, it's not a great place, lots of crime too."

"Wait, you're from Lianzhen?" Kaori asked, her ears perking way up with clear and obvious curiosity.

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"Problem? Lianzhen is supposed to be like, the most beautiful city in all of Mizuyamachi. And you're just from there like it's nothing."

"I guess it's pretty. I haven't actually been to any other large cities to compare it to."

"I'd love to see it someday."

"I'll head back there someday to visit family. I'd be happy to play tour guide."

"What’s it like?"

"Lianzhen? Well, you know, three tiers. I lived on the lower tier because I'm not rich and worked on the docks. Central tier is mostly the Mage College, some temples, some samurai, and some bureaucratic stuff. Third tier is where the Lord lives, huge manor that just kind of hovers over the top of the waterfall, and there's a lot of other rich people up there. My uncle had a nice place on the third tier. So I've actually been up there a couple of times."

"Your uncle is Lo Bao Han?"

"Yes, he's the one I inherited the property here from."

Kaori nodded her head as we left the town proper toward seven. The world around us smelt fresh after all the rain, but as the heat was climbing and so too was the humidity. It clung to the skin and made it slightly difficult to breathe, but wasn't too terrible yet.

"You get a lot of girls interested because you're the nephew of Lo Bao Han?"

"No, but I got a lot of old men talking to me because they know Lo Bao Han."

Kaori giggled and bumped into me with her shoulder. She pointed ahead and said, "there's the pavilion. There's a spirit shrine along a trail up into the woods just a little bit."

"Sounds nice."

"Yeah." Kaori said before adding, "Got in trouble a few times as a kid playing around there. Mom used to say, ‘Don't mess with the spirit shrine or the spirits will mess with you. That's what happened to your sister Suki.’"

"You have a sister named Suki?"

"No, unless they were being completely honest, in which case, yes, but I never met her because she messed with the spirits." Kaori’s giggle made it clear she was pretty sure she never had a sister named Suki.

When we got to the pavilion, we sat down in the center of the dry surface, and Kaori spread out our lunch. Dumplings, biscuits, rice, and a bunch of sides, with the main focus on a few strips of pork drenched in some savory sauce.

"This is delicious."

"It better be. I stole it from my dad."

I giggled along with her. "Maybe your dad would make a good wife."

"My mom thinks so."

We giggled and laughed and snorted at that.

“You prefer Sake or Mijiu?” She asked.

“Honestly, I can't tell the difference.”

“Really?” She turned her back to me for a moment before shifting back around with a small cup thrust at me. “Taste and guess. You got a fifty-fifty chance.”

I took the cup and made a show of scrutinizing the color and odor before taking a tentative sip and considering. “This is indeed Sake.”

“Pretty good for someone who can’t taste the difference.”

I nodded sagely. “Being able to read helps.”

Kaori’s ears twitched and she frowned at me before looking back at her basket. She pulled the bottle up just a bit, fully exposing the label. She threw her head back and laughed. I laughed with her.

We sat there for what might have been hours sharing stories of our childhoods. Me on the city streets of Lianzhen and her here in Sharinzhen. Despite the setting, kids apparently acted mostly the same, a lot of getting into trouble, trying not to get caught, and eventually getting found out.

Lunch went great, and the rest of the afternoon went along quite well as we strolled back into the town proper, dropped off the basket, and walked towards my place so I could show Kaori my house. She teased me a bit about being attracted to Lia because, of course, she knew that the carpenter wasn't into men when I had originally told her. It was just funnier if I found out myself. After a tour of the property and the house, we sat on the floor, our feet kicking over the pounded dirt floor of the Doma, as we chatted.

I'm not exactly sure at what point we were kissing. She was soft and warm and sweet. Not the traditional beauty. Her features were plain, her nose was wide and flat, her skin a bit darker and less fair, but I didn't care. Things were getting heated until Kaori asked a very specific question, which completely killed the mood. She clearly just couldn’t get over the no children thing.

I walked her home, but I guess we had hit the worst-case scenario. There would be no second date after this.

Chapters after this…

11: Yuji finds out a rumor, dialogue with Kaori’s father

12: dialogue with Ling Su, Yoko, Wei Lin

13: dialogue with Yoko, Harvest

14: Harvest festival

15: Barbarians