Tayumori News - The 45th Leaf - Ricca the Squirrel of the Detour
"I'm good at walking through the maze of tree roots."
(Morito-kun 🎩)
＊～＊～＊～＊～＊
Morning in Tayumori
The sound of the wind
had changed softly.
Not the usual
"whoosh"
but
somewhere
slow
and a little lonely
a "rustle... rustle..." sound.
🐿️"Hmm...
today's wind
seems like it wants to go a little far away..."
Ricca the squirrel sensed it immediately.
This isn't just a regular delivery.
It's a wind of "someone
thinking of someone else."
💌The small letter received from Posu-suke
had light softly bleeding into it,
and where the address should be,
it was written like this:
"To you
who hasn't been found yet."
🐿️"Hehe,
it's my turn..."
⸻
Ricca the squirrel hopped onto the wind.
But that day,
the wind didn't take the usual path.
It turned right
at the branch path where it should have turned left.
It went around in a circle
and took a winding turn
at the tree shade where it should have gone straight.
🐿️"Huh? Eh? That way again?
Ufufu, okay,
I'll go with you..."
In the meantime, Ricca the squirrel
wandered into a hollow of a tree she didn't know,
and lured by rolling nuts,
she tumbled all the way
to the very bottom of the forest.
But in every detour,
she found
the "fragments of feelings"
placed there quietly.
🍂 A shy "I'm sorry."
🌧️ A "Help me" that couldn't be said well because of loneliness.
🌸 A "Thank you" that bloomed in the heart
without telling anyone.
Ricca the squirrel
gently put them all in her pocket
and tucked them away next to the letter.
⸻
When the wind finally said "Here it is,"
Ricca the squirrel
was in a place
far, far away.
But there,
as if it had been waiting,
a single glowing leaf fell down,
and there,
words appeared softly.
"I went around and around and got lost,
but I met many things I love.
So this place wasn't far.
It was the closest to my heart."
Ricca the squirrel's detour
wasn't a lost path,
it was a "wide path," wasn't it?
⸻
That night,
after the forest gnomes had fallen asleep,
Ricca the squirrel was on a tree stump,
secretly licking a walnut candy.
The wind was blowing quietly,
as if stroking
Ricca the squirrel's tail.
🐿️"I'm glad
I'm Ricca the squirrel of the detour..."
⸻
And,
the next morning,
on the leaf letter
that had fallen in the square,
this message was floating:
"So 'I love you' can reach someone
even if it's not a straight line."
Ricca the squirrel saw that and said,
"It was a detour, though...
Now, I feel like it reached because of that.
Because I took the detour, there were things I could see..."
⸻
🌬️
The wind's route is not straight.
But,
love is always
blooming quietly
along the detour.
The only one who can pick it up is—
"Ricca the squirrel of the detour" only 🐿️💫
🌲Today's word from the gnome🌲
"Riding the wind
and turning around
is the most exciting thing."
(Mash-kun 🍄)