All Who Wander [Chapter 8 - TOMATOES]

[Chapter 7]

Izuku groaned as he rolled over, grimacing at the sore spots in his back where rocks had been digging in all night. He’d spent weeks sleeping on a real bed at home, he’d kind of forgotten what it was like to sleep on the hard ground again. His only saving grace was that it was getting much warmer, so he’d been able to sleep on top of his sleeping bag instead of within it, giving him a little extra padding against the intrusions.

“Izukuuuuu!”

He smiled at the familiar voice, sitting up to untie his tent flap and let Eri dive in to meet him.

“I didn’t know you were back!” she said excitedly, hugging him tight. “I’ve been taking the super-best care of the farm; I poured sour milk on the radishes when ours went bad, and I buried all the potato scraps at the end of the row, and me and my Dad even went and fertilised the cherry trees and picked a bunch and they were super juicy and good. How’s your Mom?!”

“She’s really good,” Izuku laughed, hugging her back. “Thank you for taking care of everything for me. I’ve missed eating cherries with you, we’ll have to go pick some again today.”

“Yes please! The townspeople miss having so many, Nejire said! That’s why me and my Dad came and picked some, but also because they’re my favourite.”

“We’ll pick as many as we can, then.”

“Woohoo! Now come look at the farm!”

He followed her out of the tent, yawning and stretching, but when Eri eagerly ran over to the trellis he’d built before he left, he froze. Thin green plants were poking up all over the farm, and Izuku gasped, sprinting over to look closer.

“My Dad talked to the trader when he came through last week, and the trader said he thinks they’re called tomatoes, he remembers the sticks and the plants from a long long time ago.”

“Tomatoes! I read about those!”

He dove back into his tent for his book, flipping through pages until he found the familiar section, and bent down to let her look. Sure enough, the sprouts drawn on the page were identical to what was currently growing around them, and he and Eri beamed at each other – it was so good to know what he was growing, so they could start planning their next experiments!

When their excitement had calmed a little, Izuku returned his book to the tent, and grabbed his rake and buckets from the little pile of stuff he’d left behind. They settled into their familiar routine, fertilising the trees and plants of the forest, and filling bucket after bucket with all the cherries they could possibly carry. As it was, Eri had to drag a couple of buckets along behind her as they headed for the town, thankfully rescued by Mirio coming out to meet them at the farm.

“Welcome back!” Mirio called, as he hurried across the paddock. “It feels like it’s been forever!”

“I knoooow!” Izuku whined. “I was having fun at home, me and Mei did a ton of planting and stuff, so I ended up being there so long and I missed you guys!”

“You must be starving for a good egg by now,” Mirio said with a laugh. “Are you taking the cherries up to town?”

“Yeah!” Eri grinned, jamming a couple more in her mouth. “I have so many coins that they jingle!”

“Come on back down afterward, I’ll have a good meal waiting for you.”

“Thank you!” Izuku beamed. “Take some cherries with you, too!”

Eri handed him a bucket, and when Mirio began to take some out, Izuku shook his head.

“We got such a massive haul today, take the bucket,” he insisted. “You always share everything with us, it’s the least we can do!”

“I’m always happy to share with you guys! And thank you, they look amazing. Maybe I can make a cherry custard, with all those eggs you picked up earlier.”

“Please please please!” Eri gasped, bouncing up and down. “I love cherry custard!”

“I know you do,” Mirio said fondly. “I’ll see you after your town trip! Bring Aizawa with you!”

Eri picked up her lone remaining bucket, wrapping her arms around it this time to carry, and Izuku hitched his pair up to match. One day he was gonna have to find a better method of carting them around, instead of just rotating through the cheap metal buckets he’d slowly amassed from the general store – Mei had suggested a wagon of some sort, but he had no idea where to even start with something like that.

They decided to stop by Eri’s house first, to leave some cherries for her and Aizawa to share and to invite him down for a meal, but when they opened the front door, Eri ran off into the bedroom without another word, leaving Izuku blinking after her.

“Surprise!” she said, dragging out a big cloth bag. “It’s not quite made, you should finish it in your tent!”

“A present? For me?”

“Uh-huh! I picked up all the feathers the chickens lost, and I washed the bits of leftover wool when the sheep up the hill got shorn, and Mirio helped me gather up all the extra straw at your farm while you were gone. It’s not very much yet, but it’s what my bed is made of, and you can keep adding more, so you can have a comfy bed to sleep on!”

“Really?” Izuku asked in disbelief, his eyes a little watery. “You did all that for me?”

“Uh-huh! Only I couldn’t get a proper bed to put them in, but you told me you were sleeping on top of your blankets, so I thought maybe you could put it inside your blankets.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Izuku agreed. “You’re amazing, Eri. Thank you so much.”

“I wanted to help!”

“She’s been working very hard,” Aizawa said fondly, joining them in the hallway. “How was your trip?”

“It was really good! I’m just gonna go sell some cherries then we’re all heading to Mirio’s for food, will you come join us? I’d love to catch up with everyone, hear everything that happened while I was gone!”

“Only if you tell us your stories, too.”

“Deal!”

“I’ll come for a walk with you, I need to check in with Nejire anyway. Give me one moment.”

“No rush!”

Eri left her bucket of cherries in the kitchen, then hitched up the bag of soft things, insisting on carrying it for him. Aizawa picked up one of the heavy buckets when he returned, and Izuku gave them both grateful smiles, before they headed for the store together.



—



Izuku sighed, wiping sweat from his forehead, and Eri giggled at him from the doorway of his tent. It was the only shade they had on the farm, even if it wasn’t exactly cool, and Izuku and Aizawa had insisted she took plenty of breaks to get out of the sun, even if that was all they could manage.

“I’ll get the water!” she offered, springing to her feet and grabbing a clean bucket.

Before Izuku could say a word, she was racing off toward the little stream, and Izuku could only smile faintly at her back as she vanished into the trees.

“Thank you for being so kind to her,” Aizawa said, straightening up and stretching out lightly – hours hunched over tiny tomato plants took a toll on the best of them. “She used to spend so much time just milling around the house or following Mirio around, it’s been really nice to see her so interested in something.”

“She’s the sweetest, I love having her here,” Izuku assured him. “I missed her when I was gone. And everyone else, of course, but especially Eri.”

“She missed you too. She’s been down here every day. She claims it’s just to check on the plants, but I think she was hoping to see you, too.” He paused, glancing up at the big hill where Izuku’s home village sat, then back to Izuku again. “We don’t get as much rain around here in the summer, but I hope you know Eri and I are happy to help out, if you want to visit home again. We can walk down in the morning and water your plants before she goes and helps with the chickens.”

“Would you really? That’s so kind of you, thank you.”

“Of course. It’s no problem at all. Especially when you’re out here supplying the town with food. Everyone raves about the buckets of cherries you bring in, not to mention the potatoes. Everyone here is eating well, for the first time in years.”

“Really? I’m so glad to hear it, I didn’t think I was making much of a dent in the problem!”

“Your potatoes have helped us stretch everything else further, plus the extra radishes you’ve been growing, and that means Mirio has extra eggs and milk to pass along, too. Then you bring in all the cherries too, which have never been so plentiful in my life, until you started taking proper care of those trees. Our vinegar makers have a huge batch underway, which will help us out over the colder months. And we use the pits from them to make oil, too. Since we all have other jobs, we haven’t had the time to spend gathering so many from the forest, or planting so many radishes and potatoes, so you’ve made a significant impact on everyone here.”

“I’m really happy to hear that. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, are you still teaching school? Mirio mentioned before, that you’d taught him, growing up.”

“I am, but there aren’t so many kids around, now, so we just do a few hours a day.”

“Do you think the kids would like to learn about farming?” Izuku suggested meekly. “I’m not an expert, of course, but if you wanted to bring them down to see the farm, maybe they could learn like Eri has?”

Aizawa just stared at him for a moment, silent, and Izuku felt his face flood with warmth.

“It’s just an idea, of course! It’s probably silly!”

“I think it’s a very good idea,” Aizawa cut him off. “I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of it, before.”

“I guess we all just think of school being reading and writing and math, right?”

“Right,” Aizawa agreed. “But there’s no reason it has to be exclusively those things.”

“Exactly!”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thank you.”

“My pleasure! I hope it helps!”

Eri came running back with her big bucket of water, and Izuku grinned at her, patting her on the head fondly when she set it down at his feet.

“This looks so refreshing, thank you Eri!”

“Drink up!”

They sat down together in his tent, with Eri and Aizawa on his sleeping bag stuffed with padding, and Izuku on a folded blanket he’d bought in town, when someone had sold it to the general store. They drank from metal cups that Mirio had donated to them, weeks prior, and took comfort in the shade, even if it was still stinking hot.

“What are your plans for the future?” Aizawa asked. “Do you think you’ll go back home permanently at some point? Or put down roots here? Or are you just planning to keep going back and forth forever?”

“I want to be a traveller,” Izuku explained. “I actually only thought I’d spend a week or two here, when I arrived, but there was so much to see and learn, and then Kouji gave me the tomato seeds, so I wanted to see how those turn out, and I guess I just keep finding more to do, here!”

Aizawa glanced at Eri, and she just grinned back.

“He told me a long time ago!” she explained. “I’ll be a little sad when he’s gone, but Izuku says he’s been dreaming of this since he was as big as me, isn’t that cool?”

“Very cool,” Aizawa agreed. “What about you, Eri? What do you dream about doing?”

“Having a pet bunny!”

Izuku couldn’t help but laugh, and Aizawa just smiled fondly, nodding.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he said. “Maybe we can go visit Kouji again soon, and feed the wild bunnies.”

“Yes please!”

“You know, Izuku suggested something to me, just before,” Aizawa said. “He said we could bring your classmates down here, and they could learn about taking care of a farm.”

“Oooh, that would be fun! Can we all pick cherries together?”

“Of course. We can all bring a bucket or a blanket and pick some cherries to take home to our families. We can talk about fertilising plants, you can tell them how you bring the manure over every day, and we can weed the crops and weave any new tomato plants through the trellis together.”

“Can we milk the cows with Mirio?”

“I’d have to ask, but yeah, I bet we could go learn about cows and chickens from him, and maybe about sheep and horses, from the Tsunotoris. And if it goes well, I could talk to Kouji, and we could learn about caring for the wild animals, too. Over time, we could maybe visit all the different jobs in town, to learn about them and teach people what they could do when they’re grown up.”

“Yeah!”

“Thank you, Izuku. You’ve really brought life back into Chimura.”



—



As the days passed, Izuku watched his tomatoes grow bigger, and begin to change colour. Painfully slowly, they went from tiny and green, to big, red orbs. The day he found his first batch that were entirely red, with no green spots left, just like his book had described, felt like the most important day of his life. He tugged at one gently, letting it fall off into his hand, and with shining eyes, he laid it carefully in one of his buckets. He continued down his rows, plucking each one that had turned red, then with the bucket clutched protectively in his arms, he hurried down the path.

Mirio was only just emerging from his house when Izuku arrived, and for a moment he just stared. Izuku knew he probably had a crazed look on his face, with how excited he was, but he didn’t even care how ridiculous he looked.

“Miriooooo!” he called, jumping the fence with only a tiny stumble at the end. “Tomatoooooo!”

He held one aloft, waving it excitedly, and finally Mirio understood, a bright grin stretching across his face as Izuku got closer.

“Are they ready?!” Mirio asked, hurrying over to meet him. “Have you eaten one yet?!”

“Of course not! I can’t eat them without you and Eri and Aizawa!”

Mirio just laughed, clapping him on the back fondly, and nodded him toward the house.

“Eri will be here any minute now, and I think Aizawa was gonna come have a chat about stuff for his school, so today might be your lucky day. Come give me a hand with the cows?”

“Of course!”

He set his bucket of tomatoes down at the door, and hurried after Mirio, helping him open up the big barn doors to let the cows roam free. He was still an amateur milker, even though he'd once, briefly, thought himself an expert, but Buttercup had been very patient with him, and he felt like he was slowly getting the hang of it.

“I think I’m gonna go visit my mom tomorrow,” Izuku said, as they milked the cows together on little wooden stools. “Some of the other tomatoes are super close to being ready, so I want to take them home for Mom and Mei.”

“That makes sense! You don’t want to take these ones and go today?”

“Nope! I want to share these with you guys and the town. I need to take one to Kouji to try, since he gave me the seeds, and Eri and Aizawa of course, because they helped so much with the plants, and hopefully Nejire and Tamaki too, since they’ve been so helpful with the weather and the store! I think I’ve got juuuust enough here for everyone, so tomorrow’s batch can go home with me!”

By the time they finished milking, Izuku heard a familiar voice echoing in the distance, and he turned around with a grin to see Eri sprinting down the hill, Aizawa not far behind. He ran over to his bucket, picking up a tomato again, and brandished it at them triumphantly.

“Look what we grew!” he called. “I think they’re ready to eat!”

“Oh my gooooosh!”

Eri clambered up the fence, carefully swinging herself over the top and climbing back down the other side. Not far behind, Aizawa opened the gate a crack, sliding through before the cows could get close enough to make an escape attempt.

“I’ll go get the eggs,” Eri said, grabbing her basket. “Don’t start without me!”

“We won’t,” Izuku assured her. “We’ll get this milk bottled and wash the tomatoes, then you can join us to try the first one!”

When they all finished their jobs and made it to the table, Izuku carefully cut the first one open with Mirio’s sharpest knife to keep from squishing it. It felt more like a cherry than a tomato or radish, much more delicate, but unlike the cherries, there was no hard pit on the inside to work around. His knife went straight through, and they all marvelled over the insides, the little segments full of seeds and wet, almost liquid flesh.

“Do you think we could grow more from these seeds?” Mirio asked. “They look the same as what you planted, right?”

“Pretty much,” Izuku agreed. “The colour is a little different, but so are the radish seeds, when you harvest those and dry them.”

“Could I take some and try it?”

“Of course! But the book says you can eat it seeds and all, so let’s eat this one first, and try seeds from another!”

He cut each half again, giving them a wedge each, and all together they took a deep breath and put them in their mouths. For a moment the room was silent, and then Aizawa’s eyes widened, and when Izuku bit down, he understood why.

“Oh my gosh,” he said, covering his mouth to make sure he didn’t spit any out by accident. “It’s so juicy?”

“Like a cherry!” Eri agreed, swallowing her piece quickly. “It’s so good!”

“And so different,” Mirio said, eyebrows knitting together as he stared at the bucket of them. “I didn’t expect them to be so unlike anything else I’ve tried.”

“I think I’ve had one before,” Aizawa said, picking up another one to inspect. “They don’t look familiar, but I swear I’ve tasted one, a long time ago.”

“Then I’m glad we could bring them back to you!” Izuku grinned. “Take some each, then I’m gonna go run up to Kouji’s house! It’s only fair that he gets to try one, too!”

“After breakfast,” Mirio reminded him with a chuckle. “He won’t even be awake yet.”

Izuku’s stomach growled, and he smiled sheepishly, nodding.

“After breakfast,” he agreed. “I can’t wait to see his face!”

When they’d had their meal together, Izuku picked up the bucket, still half-full of tomatoes even after he’d given handfuls to Mirio and Aizawa to take home. While the others went to discuss school stuff, Izuku hurried up the hill to the general store, waving at Nejire through the front window as she got ready to open up for the day.

“You’re early!” she said, as she unlocked the door to let him in. “Everything okay?”

“I brought you tomatoes!”

Nejire just blinked at him, and Izuku pulled one out to show her, knowing his expression must be going crazy with excitement again, but hoping she wouldn’t mind.

“I grew them!” he explained. “Well, we grew them – Aizawa and Eri helped out a ton. And Kouji gave me the seeds, first. And all the coins you paid for my cherries helped me get the tools and things I needed. It was a team effort!”

“This is amazing, Izuku. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She inspected one, turning it back and forth to admire the red flesh, and squeezing it lightly to see how firm it was.

“I’m not sure what I can pay you for them, I’ll have to see how they sell, is that okay?”

“Oh, no, I’m not selling them!” he assured her. “I wanted to give you some as a gift! Can I leave you some for Tamaki, too? I’m gonna take some up to Kouji as well, to say thanks for the seeds.”

“A gift? Really?”

“Yeah! I haven’t tried cooking them or anything yet, but you can just eat them like that and they taste really good! Oh and I’m gonna go take some to my mother, tomorrow, so I won’t be around for a couple of days, again. So try some while I’m gone! There are more growing, so I hope you like them.”

“Thank you, Izuku, that’s so nice of you.” She hugged him, and Izuku felt himself blush. “Do you need anything for your trip?”

“I’m good!” he assured her. “But thank you! Take care while I’m gone, I’ll be back again soon!”

He took a bundle of tomatoes out of the bucket for Kouji, then handed over the rest of the bucket for her and Tamaki to split, giving her a last smile and a wave before he headed off toward the next hill.

[Chapter 9]