On that day, only the passion fruit still remembered

Far

off on the hillside, shapes flickered indistinctly; the fox could not see clearly. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. The scent was strange, yet pleasant.

"Why have you stopped?" The red panda came over and squatted down beside him.

"Over there on the hillside... something seems a little strange."

The red panda stood up, showing his black belly as he peered into the distance. "Doesn't look like much. Shall we go take a look?"

"I smell something strange, but it's actually quite nice." The fox flicked his ears. "I don't know if it's anything to worry about."

"Just be careful, that's all." The red panda wagged his big tail. "Let's go."

The fox answered, lowered his body, and sniffed and listened carefully the whole way.

Only when they got closer could they see clearly: there might once have been a few houses on the hillside, but now they were broken and dilapidated beyond recognition, with only thin posts left, covered in green.

"Maybe... we should just go around them." The fox said quietly to the red panda. "Those look like a few houses over there."

"Houses...?" The red panda blinked and thought for a moment. "It should be fine... didn't they say... 'that' has all disappeared?"

"That's what I heard." The fox nodded. "But we've never seen it with our own eyes either... if it's still there..."

The red panda sniffed. "Why don't we go take a look? As long as we're extra careful, it'll be fine."

"If we get discovered..." The fox paused. "I've never seen it either, but I've heard it's very dangerous."

"We're downwind right now, so let's go slowly." The red panda was raring to go. "Crawl through the grass slowly. If there's danger, we run right away. How about that?"

The fox blinked, recalling the legends he had once heard. Bright light and a huge noise, a burning heat passing through the body, and the terrible pain of being stripped of fur. The fox shuddered.

The fox glanced at the red panda, who was looking at him eagerly, raring to go.

"...All right." The fox nodded. "Be extra careful."

The

red panda nodded excitedly, splayed his four little short legs, and lay flat on the grass, wiggling his plump bottom as he crawled forward. The fox followed close beside him, eyes and nostrils wide open, ears pointed the whole time toward those houses.

There was no sound, only wind. That strange fragrance, though, grew stronger and stronger.

They drew closer and closer to the houses. The fox carefully raised his head, only then realizing he had been mistaken. They were just short posts, stuck straight into the ground, with plants climbing over them, tangled together. That strange fragrance was coming from these plants.

The red panda smelled it too, and his eyes lit up: "Aha, we've run into something good to eat!"

"Quiet!" The fox called in a low voice. "First let's go see what's on the other side of the hill."

The red panda stuck out his tongue, and together with the fox he went around that patch of short posts and slowly climbed to the top of the hill. The fox poked his head over and looked down the slope. There was nothing but grassland. The fox wrinkled his nose and sniffed, pricked up his ears and listened. Still only the sound of wind.

"Good, good." The fox let out a long breath. "It should be safe."

The red panda jumped up and ran into the middle of that cluster of short posts. "Come quick, come quick!"

The fox followed, sniffing and examining carefully the whole way. On the grassland, every so often, a short post was stuck into the ground, and originally there had been wire connecting them, but by now most of it had rusted and broken, and what remained looked precarious too. Green plants climbed over the posts and the wire, and every leaf was divided into three lobes, like the big footprint of some animal. In some places hung purple balls bigger than the fox's front paw, and the fragrance came from these.

No

...there were other smells too. The fox lowered his head and searched, and only then noticed that the grass beneath this patch of posts was different. There were some red things on the ground, like rotten mud, giving off waves of sweet fragrance and a somewhat pungent smell that made the fox feel a little dizzy.

"What is this?" The fox muttered.

"This?" The red panda smiled. "The stuff on the ground should be strawberries. Too bad we came late; the strawberries are already overripe and rotten. Strawberries are so delicious."

Hearing the name "strawberry," the image of a wild goose suddenly surfaced in the fox's mind.

"This patch of posts." The red panda walked twice around one post, then whoosh, climbed up, and held up a purple fruit. "So this was where passion fruit was grown."

"Passion fruit?" The fox shook his head, driving the image of the wild goose out of his mind. "This is a fruit?"

The red panda twisted the fruit off and tossed it to the fox's feet. The fox looked carefully, touched it lightly with the tip of his nose. "It's hard. Not ripe yet?"

"Now is exactly when it's ripe." The red panda twisted off another fruit and tapped it lightly. "You have to open it; the stuff inside is what's good. Sour and sweet, and it quenches your thirst too."

The fox said oh, picked up the passion fruit from the ground in his teeth, raised his head, and bit down with a little force.

The passion fruit burst apart with a pop into several pieces, and the fragrance exploded in the fox's mouth all at once. The juice flowed into the fox's throat, and before he had time to taste it, he gulped it down.

"How

is it, how is it?" The red panda sat on top of the post, hugging several passion fruits. "Is it good?"

The fox spat out the shell in his mouth, a little embarrassed. "I didn't get to taste it..."

"Hahaha!" The red panda threw all the passion fruits in his arms over. "I'll help you open them!"

The red panda slid down the post, picked up a passion fruit, knocked it against a stone, and broke it in half. "Here."

The fox looked carefully at the half fruit the red panda handed over. It was almost all juice, with some black speckles inside. The fragrance was so strong that the fox gave a little sneeze.

"The black ones, those are seeds, right?"

"Yes." The red panda had already finished drinking the other half of the passion fruit, licking the corner of his mouth. "It's fine to eat them too."

"Oh." The fox stuck out his tongue and poked it into the passion fruit. The sour-sweet taste immediately spread all over his tongue; together with the strong fragrance, it was unlike anything the fox had ever eaten.

"...Delicious." The fox licked the corner of his mouth and stared at the cleaned-out shell, still wanting more.

"There's plenty here." The red panda picked up another and broke it open, handing half to the fox. "The two of us can't finish them all."

The fox drank it down in a few gulps and sighed happily, then thought of a question. "These... passion fruits, they probably didn't grow here by themselves, right?"

The

red panda shook his head. "Of course not. These must all have been, um, that, planted. You can tell from these posts. This definitely wasn't formed naturally; there's even wire wrapped around them."

"Then..." The fox grew worried again. "That?"

"Don't worry." The red panda waved his paw grandly. "It can't have been recent. Look at that wire, it's already rusted beyond recognition. It must have been planted before 'that thing,' and then just left here all this time. The strawberries too. If 'that' were still around, it wouldn't have let these strawberries fall and rot; it would have harvested them long ago."

The fox relaxed and nodded.

"It's always like this." The red panda waved his paw, still stained with passion fruit juice. "You often find things 'that' planted in the past, and you can always eat your fill."

"Oh..." The fox said. "I was careful to avoid them the whole way and only walked in the wild, so I never ran into any."

"You'll find more in the future." The red panda said. "On my way here I passed some, and once in a while I saw houses too. But I never found 'that.'"

"Maybe it really has disappeared." The fox said.

"I think so too." The red panda cracked open another passion fruit and buried his head in eating. "By the way," the red panda's voice was muffled, "there's so much passion fruit here, should we stay a couple more days?"

"Hmm..." The fox thought for a moment. "How long can these fruits keep?"

"How long?" The red panda flicked his ears. "They should keep quite a long time. Why, do you want to bring some to eat on the road?"

"Mm-hm." The fox nodded. "I was also thinking, I want to send some to Rabbit and Beaver and the others. It's a good chance to write a letter back too; it's been a while since I wrote to them."

"Great!" The red panda jumped up and nimbly climbed the post. "I'll pick the fruits, you write the letter. How about that?"

"Mm." The fox smiled, watching the red panda carefully selecting passion fruits, and thought of the faces of Rabbit, Beaver, and Mole.

To be continued