Eliot wiped the sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt, squinting into the sun. The spring air was cool, but the work warmed him fast. Stacking lumber in neat rows along the side of an old tool shed on the Nakamura farm. He'd been helping out here a few days a week, fixing fencing, carrying feed, occasionally translating receipts or doing some bookkeeping when needed.
"Take a break," a voice called behind him. "You're not a machine."
He turned to see Mr. Nakamura, late sixties, compact and sun-worn, he was holding out a bottle of barley tea. Eliot took it gratefully.
"Thanks."
They sat on a nearby bench under a tree in full bloom. The wind carried petals through the air like falling confetti.
"Your sister said you used to work in finance?" Mr. Nakamura asked, sipping his tea slowly.
Eliot nodded. "Mostly tax and small business support. Before…"
He trailed off. Mr. Nakamura didn't press.
"She told me you're staying. Or thinking about it."
"I don't know yet," Eliot admitted. "Everything's so different here. Quiet."
"Quiet is not bad," Nakamura said, leaning back. "Quiet gives the soul space to breathe."
Eliot chuckled dryly. "I'm not sure my soul remembers how."
"You've lost people," Nakamura said, not as a question, just a quiet truth. "That never leaves. But if you're lucky, it softens. Becomes part of the soil, not a weight on your chest."
Eliot looked down at his hands, callused now from weeks of physical work. Different hands than the ones that used to type late into the night or sign legal letters. These hands had purpose again.
"It feels strange, sometimes," he said. "To be needed again."
Mr. Nakamura nodded, then gestured toward the field behind them, where his grandson was chasing chickens, laughing.
"Life doesn't care how broken you are. It still grows, still calls you back to it. You just have to say yes, a little more each day."
Eliot let the silence stretch.
"I've been saying yes," he said finally, "but it still feels like I'm lying sometimes."
"That's fine," Nakamura said with a grin. "Say it until it becomes true."
They sat there for a while, watching the petals fall.
When Eliot got home later that afternoon, Roset met him at the door. She didn't say anything, just handed him a small plate of onigiri and a look that said you're doing well—even if you don't believe it yet.
He smiled, quietly.
Maybe... just maybe... this place was starting to feel like something more than temporary.