For his whole life, Bunny was never anything but skinny and frail. His physical fragility set him apart in Ji village, where most children were naturally very stocky. If a Ji village child was born weak, a bit of extra nutrition usually put them on the path to thick-skinned, village kid toughness. This was definitely not the case with Bunny. If he ate more than a small portion of food, it went right through him and out the other end—he suffered from repeated bouts of diarrhoea. Worse still, he was often in bed semi-comatose with fever for whole days at a time. Then of course, there was his voice, which was girly soft and shy.
"Alright, then I'll take you out to play every day," Gela said to him.
Bunny spoke up, with his soft, little girl voice: "I want big brother Gela to play with me every day!"
By now, Bunny was a little tired out, so the two of them lay down in the tall grass to rest a while. The grass danced above their heads, and a breeze that was playing in the stems made them brush against the boys' faces. Above the mountain-slope-breeze the sky plunged into its depths, the occasional cloud drifting through it, bright white like freshly washed wool that's been pulled to look fluffier. A healthy number of insects were scuttling up and down the swaying grass stems. The ants in particular seemed in a hurry to reach the tops of the stems, only to realise they could go no further, so instead they stretched their feelers up into the void, twitching them around as if probing the emptiness, before turning around and descending the grass stem back down to the ground. Ladybugs shook their nimble wings out of their pretty, rainbow shells when they'd climbed high enough to flit over to the next grass stem or wild flower. Lying on the ground below were fat grasshoppers, while above, there hovered the dragonflies, confident in their balance.
"Close your eyes Bunny, if you don't close your eyes then you won't be able to get proper rest" , Gela instructed young Bunny.
"I want to rest, but I don't want to close my eyes, either" , the toddler replied.
Bunny's forehead wrinkled the way grown-ups' foreheads wrinkle when they feel the weight of worry or sorrow.
"But I'm tired. My heart, is tired. The grown-ups all say that I won't live long."
After Bunny died, Gela always remembered how his face looked like a grown-up's that day. But he wasn't a grown-up, he was three years old, and his voice was soft like a girl's. From that day, Bunny's growth played out in a singular pattern, to the beat of a heart that was easily and often tired, like the hearts of some grown-ups are. His neck remained long and slender, and his eyes bulged out in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a fish.
A well of powerful latent compassion surged up from someplace deep inside of Gela. The sensation rose, and rose, until it washed through his brain, pounded against his forehead, and turned back down towards the depths. Seeing through blurry, wet eyes, and with a tingly nose, Gela spread his hands wide and held one over each of Bunny's eyes.
"Have a rest, my friend, this way it's just like if you closed your eyes" .
Gela's tone turned from authoritative to imploring:
"Let's be friends. I don't have any friends, and neither do you."
Bunny replied, softly: "Ok, we're friends now."
Gela was ecstatic. He led Bunny proudly back to the village square, and announced the news to his mother:
"Ah-ma, me and Bunny are friends!"
Sangdan swept Bunny into her arms for a ferocious round of kisses to the face, while at the same time managing to use her to keep up a stream of chatter.
"That's wonderful, that's so wonderful, my Gela has a friend, and a lovely little brother, too!"
Bunny's eyes stretched wide in terror—his feet flailed desperately in an attempt to escape Sangdan's embrace, though of course, a weak little child like him never could have freed himself from such a tight bind. He opened his mouth and bawled. Bunny, the boy with the always agitated dark blue vein on his temple, and the soft, girlish voice, was now crying at a volume that seemed far beyond the capacity of his tiny body, replicating a a noise comparable to a tree full of large and raucous crows. Stunned, Sangdan's grip loosened, and if not for Gela's lightning like reaction speed, Bunny would have fallen to the floor. Instead, Gela caught him. The vein over Bunny's temple was jumping around much more frenetically than usual, almost as if it was about to burst through the thin, translucent layer of skin that contained it. Gela was frightened, and when he spoke there was tragedy in his voice:
"Please, please, I'm begging you, don't cry, please stop crying, if you don't want to get us killed, please stop crying!"
The child slowly took control of his heaving. His sobs were so violent that it seemed each breath he forced down his windpipe might get stuck down there, and prevent the next one from ever coming. The blue vein rose up higher under his pale skin and began to twist and writhe like some kind of horrifying bug. With each laborious sob, the bug wriggled, threatening to burst through Bunny's delicate skull skin. Now Gela was really scared. If the bug broke through the skin, everything would be over. His legs went floppy. He fell to his knees, holding Bunny's face in both hands while kissing the blue vein repeatedly. Throughout this whole time, Gela's precious Ah-ma was laughing—foolishly, and with all her strength.
Bunny finally calmed down. Sangdan turned the house upside down looking for something edible. After rummaging for a while, she found some food, which she stuffed into Bunny's mouth, and kept stuffing until no more would fit. She began laughing again, and Bunny began to laugh with her. Gela wasn't laughing; he was slumped motionless against the wall, his body feeling like elastic. The only thing he knew and felt at that moment was that this frail little child scared him. He wouldn't go bothering Bunny again, he told himself.
