Carrots, Cabbage, Red Peppers || Rantaro Amami

It's Never Just Rain

In Budapest, Hungary, Rantaro didn't hire a tour guide. Similarly, across Ecuador and through Peru, Rantaro traveled alone. But in New Orleans, Louisiana and Bluffton, Texas, he developed reasons to hire one, and in Afghanistan, it was near impossible to cross the border—much less get around inside—without one. Off the banks of a serene river that crawled into Canada from the great Lake Superior, Rantaro scored a rowboat with not just a tour guide, but a private investigator, too.

Two weeks back, a headline caught Rantaro's eye, and he added Nipigon River, Ontario, to the list.

At Rantaro's side, the guide told stories about the great lake, soaked with his Midwestern accent. One serpent from a Native legend, named Mishipeshu, lurked in the depths of Superior's waters, possessing features of both a panther and a dragon. On a river like the Nipigon, Rantaro guessed the creature would have little influence, but he nevertheless tried to follow the guide's tale.

Under a kindling of dark clouds, the water was still as glass. Rantaro pictured the monster slithering in the shadow of their boat, weaving between the ripples of the oars, deciding whether to let the passengers stay afloat. He wondered if the creature had a soft side: whether it was kind to the broken-hearted, or perhaps protective of young, defenseless girls. Rantaro tightened his grip on the oars.

"...but nah, I still don't know why ya' doin' this." Rantaro had missed a subject change.

"Huh?"

"I'd like to know, too," the investigator chimed in. "But you've been secretive, so far."

Shifting his gaze between the two men, Rantaro felt his doubts wriggle from the back of his mind to the front.

Give up.

He was sure that's what they'd say.

"I..."

Someone as irresponsible and reprehensible as you has no right to redeem yourself, anyway.

That's a bit harsh.

"I just like exploring. And understanding." Rantaro decided. "This case caught my eye."

The case—it was a longshot, but what item on his list wasn't—was a list of reports of unaccompanied children in the Thunder Bay area. When questioned, the kids refused to comply, disappearing soon after. Numerous sightings had occurred in the last few months, but somehow, they slipped through the hands of law enforcement.

"They could be dead, you know," the investigator grumped. "If we find bodies, will you be prepared to see them?"

All afternoon, the old man Rantaro had hired as a private investigator had been brooding and sulking in silence—not in a way that came off as boredom, but in a way that conveyed fatigue, annoyance, and dissatisfaction. Rantaro knew he wasn't being taken seriously. The character he was playing was naive: a teen driven by wanderlust, looking for adventure, but ignorant about life's harsh realities. His appearance complimented the act, and as much as his modern clothing and accessory choices brought him pride, as much as he resented the surface-level assumptions others made about him based on what he wore, he also understood how useful his mien was as a farce.

While naivety was an easy enough character to play, the investigator's comments had an impact. Would Rantaro be able to accept the truth, even if the truth was so cruel? He flipped through his mental catalogue of made-up scenarios, bookmarking the page with polaroids of his sisters' dead bodies. Mangled, maybe. Hanged, starved, sick, drowned, or trafficked until there was nothing left but a shell. His gut hardened at the possibility, and the breeze licked goosebumps on his skin.

Even if you try...

Masking his paranoia, Rantaro leaned back and offered a grin.

"Sure, I've seen plenty of bodies in my day."

The investigator kept eye contact. "Have you?"

"Yeah, in all the games I've played—"

The rowboat lurched, as if it had hit something in the water. The corners of Rantaro's vision darkened, focus darting from one side of the boat to the other.

"Tha' wind," said the guide.

"Yeah, the wind," Rantaro managed. Distracted, Rantaro only noticed his palms were being squeezed when the man performing the gesture spoke.

"Look, kid, you've got money. I get it," the investigator's demeanor caved into sympathy. His hands were dry. Scarred. Cold. "You think you can live your dream.. What is it? Vigilante? Detective? Journalist?"

Movement in Rantaro's peripheral vision withdrew his attention from the tender moment. A figure in the woods? No, it was in the water. He tried not to let his nails dig into the man's hands, but he was focused on static in his ears that began to sound like a voice, clearing as if being uncovered, brick by brick, from a pile of mental rubble.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but you're soft. This field... it's not for you." The investigator continued.

As if watching footage from a dropped camera, the scenery plummeted. The horizon angled and disappeared, and thick murk draped Rantaro's body. At a slug's pace, his senses crawled back: he no longer felt the wood of the rowboat beneath him, nor the chill of a man's hands. Shivers. He was freezing—freezing, and enveloped in water. Rantaro only ever toyed with the idea of religion and legends, but he wondered: if he pled to Mishipeshu, would the serpent spare him now?

Wait, that's wrong. He had jumped in, and there was a reason.

The voice from before penetrated his deafness.

Rantaro swung his arms and legs, forgetting the drag of water and moving only an inch.

"Wait, I'm here—" is what he wished to say, what he had tried to say, but his words suffocated, his sinuses stinging at the invasion of water. His lungs recoiled at the droplets in his windpipe, but in an ironic lash, Rantaro only inhaled more of the lake, his senses numbing as his movement slowed.

But he was so sure.. so sure it was her voice.

Against his will, Rantaro broke through the surface, wrenched into the rowboat's splintered sidings.

"Hey!" Water dripped from Rantaro's ears, muffling the guide's panicked expressions.

"Ya suicidal or somethin'?!"

A set of hands gripped each of his arms. In the heart of the vessel, two men, shriveled up yet hardened by their years, held down the pale teen with too much lake water in his brain as he croaked spatters of Nipigon and mucus on his knees. Meanwhile, droplets of a different source spit like gravel against his already sopping hair.

"...My bad," Rantaro choked out, gazing up to study the rain's ripples on what had before been a glassy surface. "Just rain."