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FATHER FATHER !
"WAAHH! IT'S SO BIG!" Umeopenly gawked at the rather huge castle, head hanging outside the window. It was truly big, bigger than he imagined it to be. Gyutaro had to blink multiple times to see if his eyes were working correctly. Seriously, how rich was this man!?
"Ume, sit down properly or else you'll fall." Her father softly chided. Ume plopped her behind on the soft cushion, but still had an excited expression, small feet swinging.
Gyutaro looked at his father with a mean expression. "Who are you to tell Ume what to do?"
The man pointedly stared at his son. "Her father." His eyes clearly saying, 'Really? That's all you got?'
Gyutaro glared at him fiercely but said nothing, only crossing his arms.
Zero for gyutaro, two for the old man!
"Onii-Chan! Onii-chan! Look!" Ume beamed, clinging unto her begrudged brother.
"There's a Bridge! Oh-oh! theres a big pond! I wanna go there! It's sooo big!"
"Yeah, Mhm. Birds." He grumbled, clearly with a lack of interest.
"That huge tree you see from afar is located in the garden. Did you know it has a name?"
Ume looked curious. "Trees have names?"
The man nodded. "All trees have names. Everything in nature have their own names Ume. But it is we who cannot understand them, so we bestow them names that we understand to differentiate them."
The small child looked eagerly at the gigantic tree from afar. "So what's the tree's name?"
"It is called 'Obaaba's plum's tree' because long ago in the Kamakura period, a young woman who had a great love for the earth planted the tree seed as a offering to the God of Healing. At the time, her husband was a sick man who had no hope of surviving his illness." Their father explained.
Ume was completely invested; her brother though, not so much. "But after a week of carefully nurturing the plant, as soon the seed grew into a sprout, her husband become a little bit better."
"Only then did the woman realize, the more the tree grew, the better her husband's condition became slightly better than before."
Ume was standing on the edge of her seat. "Did the woman's husband survive?"
"Sit properly or else you will fall." With pursed lips and eyebrows creased in concentration, Ume shifted in her seat by placing her hands on her lap, back straight and chin tilted up. The man tried not to smile at the endearing sight.
