Peter cried his eyes and heart and soul out for about half an hour.
After crying out and letting his emotions pour out for so long, although the problem was not completely solved and the heartbreak will not dissipate for a while longer, he told me that he felt a bit better.
We drank the tea that had already grown cold on one single gulp and made our way out to the shop to pay. Peter exited the shop while I paid the money to Sumi. I noticed that the corners of Sumi's eyes were a bit wet. She noticed that I had noticed and understood everything so she bashfully averted her gaze away from me.
"Thank you for giving us some private time."
I said nothing more and left the shop. Peter was waiting for me outside.
"It is starting to get dark faster," Peter noted as he looked around. It was only five in the evening but the darkness had already started to settle. Winter was fast approaching and I could feel the cold wind brush against my face.
"Let's get going."
We started walking down the same unpaved, dust-filled road. We had walked only a few steps when an old woman came walking towards us from the opposite direction.
Upon seeing me, she smiled and raised her hand in greeting.
"Ya, young lad!"
"Hello, Mrs. Takamura." I greeted her in response. She was Sumi's grandmother who ran the shop together with her.
"I see you finally have some company today after all these months. I thought for sure that all of your friends had left you and was worried that you were all alone now." She slapped me hard on my shoulder as she laughed.
Peter, who was next to me, chewed over her words and cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Alone for a few months? What do you mean, granny?"
"Oh, he has been coming here every day all alone for the past two or three months. I used to see all of you four lads come together every day before so when I saw him alone for all these days, I was a bit suspicious and wondered where all of you had gone."
"Hey, is that true?" Peter asked me with a strict tone.
Before I could say anything, Mrs. Takamura spoke once again.
"Yeah. He was here only yesterday, in fact."
"Oh, I see. Thank you for the information, granny. I will make sure you get the vegetables from my farm at cheaper prices this time around." Peter said. The vegetables that they sold in their shop came directly from Peter's farm. He sold those to Mrs.Takamura cheaper already relative to the market price so that price going lower meant more profit for them.
"Sweet!" Mrs. Takamura expressed her delight openly and then having dropped a bomb on my lap, trotted off without a single care in the world.
"Hey, what's the meaning of this?" Peter held me to my place with his stern gaze.
"It's nothing. I just felt like spending some time alone. That is all."
"That I got already from hearing granny. I want to know why you felt like spending time here all alone, not to mention, for two whole months or maybe even more."
"I just...felt like it."
"There is no way that's true. For how long do you think I've known you? Close to twenty years, buddy, I know you in and out. And I am well aware that you spend time here all alone when there is something going inside that head of yours that you don't want to tell anyone else."
If someone were to ask me the demerit of having a close friend that you have been around for a very long time, then it would be that you can't hide things from them or try to lie your way around.
"Hey, listen, bud." Peter's voice turned a tad softer and he looked at me with his tender eyes.
"If there's something in your mind, then tell me. I don't know whether I can do anything to help you out but I can at least listen to you. And I assure you that instead of bottling up your feelings, it is better to let them out and share them with someone else. You have my guarantee on it as I have experienced it first-hand just moments ago."
He was referring to what he poured out back in the shop.
"Won't you let me repay what you've done for me moments ago?"
I remained silent wondering what I should do and eventually...
"Okay, fine. But promise me that you won't tell anyone else about it."
...I decided to confide.
"Got it."
Then the two of us moved to the same place where I had first seen that girl.
*
"So that was why you came here every day?" Peter surmised after hearing all of my story.
"Yes."
"Why the hell did you not tell sooner?"
"Yeah, I wonder why, I don't know myself."
It wasn't as if it was something that I could tell no one about. I just happened to see a girl once and fell in love with her at first sight - a cliche story that you saw in movies and read about in books - so there was no grave reason for me to have kept it a secret from Peter or from anyone else. But, I didn't see it as that big a matter that I go around and announce to my friends that I have fallen in love when they have not even asked me in the first place and the conversation had not veered off in that direction. If I did say that out of the blue, then, it would have been weird, like I am tooting my own horns.
"Well, no matter now." Peter got up and dusted off his pants. "Now that I know, let me help you with this."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I said I would help you find this girl."
"What? Really? You don't have to."
"Why not? It's fine after all."
"No, it's not. Especially when you are dealing with your own feelings." Peter had just been heartbroken. He had a lot on his plate already and here he was offering to help me find the love of my life. It would be cruel of me, to say the least.
"Don't worry about it. I lost the love of my life and I don't want my friend here to go through the same pain so that's why I am pitching in to help."
"But-" I was still not up to it so I was about to protest but Peter cut me off.
"And it will serve as a diversion to my mind. If I focus on finding that girl for you, I will have less time to think about Paige. So, for my sake as well, let me do this. And you don't get to say no."
Peter walked off, having given his final verdict.
I hurriedly got up and ran after him until I caught up to him.
"You are a strong man, buddy!" I ruffled his hair.
"Get lost!" He kicked me on my shin.
*
The next day, I and Peter were walking through the same steep slope.
He had said that he would help me find the girl and when he called me today to meet up and search for her, I realized that he was not joking. When I told him that I never believed that he would actually come and thought his words from yesterday were just his emotions getting the better of him, I received another kick on my shin and on the exact same spot as yesterday.
We climbed the slope and now we were walking on level ground.
"So, tell me more about this girl. Like, how she looks and where she lives."
When Peter asked that question to me, my brain, suddenly, froze. My mind went blank and I could think, feel and hear nothing. Peter noticed the change in me and stopped in his tracks.
"What happened?"
"I don't know anything," I said after a brief silence.
"Huh?"
"As I said, I know nothing about that girl."
Peter's mouth hung open to such a degree that I thought even an adult elephant will fit in.
"Dude, are you for real?"
"Yes," I admitted, as much as I hated to.
Peter marched toward me with heavy steps and caught me by my collar.
"Are you stupid? You know next to nothing about that girl and you say you want to find her?!"
"Yes, I do."
"How?!"
"I don't know."
He was about to shout again in anger at my stupidity when he realized that I had been doing something even more stupid than this for a long time now.
"Wait a damn second. So you mean that you came here for two months, every single day, to look for that girl when you didn't even know anything about her?"
I could only turn my eyes away from me.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You fucking stupid asshole!" He shook me violently by my shoulders. "How the hell are we gonna search for her then?! When you don't even know what she looks like?!"
"No, I know how she looks." I protested. Not all of his accusations were true, Milord.
"Then tell me what she looks like?"
"She....." I tried to remember. ".....is beautiful."
Right as those words left my mouth, I received a punch to my gut.
"Are you fuckin' playing with me or what? How will you search for that girl when all you remember is that she is beautiful? There are many beautiful girls around here. How would we know who is the one we are searching for?"
"Come on, don't get so angry. I remember that she was wearing a pink top."
"So, are you saying we will have to check up on every single beautiful girl that we happen to see wearing a pink top and ask her if she is the one we are searching for?!"
"God!" Peter let go of me and rested both of his hands on the top of his head in utter frustration at the stupidity of his friend, which, in this case, was none other than me.
"How fuckin' stupid can you be, eh? God, I should have never agreed to help you. Now, how the hell are we supposed to find her?"
I went to where Peter was, who was yelling and cursing like a frustrated old geezer, and placed my hand on his shoulder.
"You don't need to worry. If I see her again, I will know right away."
"And how will you know?!" He shouted at me, angrily.
"I know her eyes. I remember those eyes of hers. Those eyes, which, when I saw for the first time, I knew that I wanted to see them for the rest of my life. I will never forget them and once I see those eyes, and once those eyes get my docile heart pounding, I will know right away that, she is the one."
Peter who had been angry moments before looked shocked for some reason. His mouth was once again agape and after a while, he closed them. A thin smile played over his lips.
"Are you fuckin' serious?" He said, not to me or anyone else but to himself, as if my words had pulled at some strings of his emotions. As if there was something about my words that he found amusing though what it was, he didn't tell me.
He looked at me, his eyes now softer and gentler.
"So her eyes are the only clue we have."
"Yes."
"Then what are we going to do?"
"We will wait, here, in this place, until I see those eyes again."
"And how long will that take us you think when we have literally no other hints to work on?"
"Who knows? Maybe a month more? Or maybe even a few years." There was no way for me to be sure.
"Do you think you can wait for that long?"
"Yes, I can and I will." I will wait for as long as it takes if it means that I will get to see those eyes full of love once again.
"You are a patient one," Peter remarked.
"Maybe."
Peter laughed for some reason. It lasted a short while.
I started walking off towards those heights when Peter stopped me.
"Stop."
"Hmm? What?"
"You are planning to go to that same spot, aren't you?"
I nodded.
"Instead of sitting here in just one place and waiting for her to just show up, why not we stroll around this area? Maybe she came here just once due to some work and lives somewhere else around here?"
I gave some thought to his words and found that he was right. I had seen no progress these past two months just sitting here. Maybe I will find her if I enlarge my search scope.
"Okay, let's do that."
I turned around and the two of us started to walk in the residential areas.
"Hey, I have been meaning to ask you this, you see," Peter asked when we had walked for about ten minutes and reached a big peepal tree that had a circular space beneath for people to sit down and relax.
"Yes, what is it?"
I sat down and so did Peter.
"What if that girl is not from here? She might have come to visit her relative's home from somewhere else and just happened to pass by that area at that time and you happened to see her? What if she has now gone back to her own house, never to return here again?"
"Thinking about it logically when I have not seen her once for these past two months, that is a very satisfying conclusion."
"Right?"
"But, I don't think that is true."
'Why? You have some concrete proof that she lives around here?"
"No. Nothing concrete like you want to see."
"Then how can you be so sure?"
"Because my heart says so. Because my heart is screaming at me, that I don't give up, that I will see her here, once again."
"I see." Peter smiled and then jumped off the circular sitting area. "If your heart is screaming at you, then, it must be true." While we both knew how stupid of a reason it was, we both found ourselves agreeing to it.
"Let us continue the search, shall we?"
Thus, we continued the search with my aching heart the only proof that I will see her again.