A few days after Mikhail's arrival, Konohana held our first music festival, and everyone was excited for it. I felt nervous, however; try though I might, I just couldn't think of Mikhail as a stranger, nor could I forget that kiss in the moonlight. I arrived at the town hall shortly before the start of the performance and found Kana had saved a seat for me. Unfortunately it was front and center, where I could hardly escape Mikhail's notice.

Ina had found a suitable accompanist for Mikhail, an elderly but skillful piano teacher from a nearby community named Elaine. She introduced Mikhail to enthusiastic applause and handed the stage over to him. I felt my heart pounding when he announced that the pieces he'd selected held a deeply personal meaning to him, and that he hoped we would all enjoy them as much as he did. With that, he picked up his instrument, and began to play.

As I'd suspected, he'd chosen some of the old love songs we used to play together. I felt my cheeks grow hot; it felt as though he was playing only to me, as if there was no one but us in the room—perhaps in all the world. When he finished, there was a moment of silence as everyone awoke from their reveries, having all been enthralled by the beauty of his music. Then everyone rose to their feet as they gave him a standing ovation.

He smiled and bowed, and as he straightened up, he caught my eye and smiled. Then, in response to the audience's praise, he gave a single encore: a piece of his own composition. He explained he'd written it upon his arrival, inspired by the beauty of the village and its surroundings. It was beautiful, like a dream given the wings of a songbird, soaring higher and higher into the heavens. I felt breathless by the time he finished, and after he bowed and departed, the audience continued applauding him loudly for several minutes.

Everyone talked about the music afterwards, how wonderful it was, how lovely the selections, how talented Mikhail was, both on the violin and at composing. For my part, though, I just wanted to leave, to be alone and quiet somewhere to think and to remember the feel of the music. So I stayed only as long as good manners required, then I quietly slipped away. Once home, I grabbed my fishing gear, saddled Nimbus, and rode off towards the mountain.

I left Nimbus tied just off the path, at the head of the trail leading down to my favorite fishing spot down by the waterfall. I found the energy of the falls revitalizing, and I liked that it was secluded—even if my horse tied at the trailhead kind of gave me away, it still wasn't too easy to spot me unless someone was really looking. Plus it was the only spot in the area where one might catch a decent size cherry salmon, which were a favorite of mine. I cast my line and waited patiently, and while I waited, I thought about Mikhail.

Since that night, Mikhail had been true to his word. He'd been friendly yet reserved whenever we met in public, just as new acquaintances should be. Yet I would occasionally find him watching me with a certain look in his eyes, or catch a nuance in his words or his tone of voice, or hints in his choices of music. Little, subtle cues that no one else could possibly pick up on, let alone draw the correct conclusion from, yet the constant barrage of innuendo was beginning to exhaust me and leave my nerves frayed. Perhaps it would be better, after all, to come clean—to admit to our past history. Then at least the strain of keeping our secret would be gone. It would give fuel to the village gossips... but at this point, I felt that even having people gossip about me would be better than this.

But I wasn't sure, either, how the news would be received. Perhaps if I could talk to someone about it? Someone impartial might see more clearly, might have some ideas how to handle this situation I'd gotten myself into. But who...? My closest confidantes were Eileen and Kana. I was closer friends with Eileen, but she had the disadvantage of living in Bluebell. The long travel time made it difficult to just pop over for a quick chat. And it was too late in the day now to go so far and be home in time for bed. I'd have to wait until tomorrow at the soonest if I wanted to confide in her.

Having caught a good string of fish, I returned home. I decided that I'd go visit Kana, and if the opportunity arose, I'd fill him in on my dilemma and ask his advice. I dropped off my fish in my refrigerator and put Nimbus in the barn, then after a moment's hesitation, I grabbed a bottle of honey wine that Eileen had given me a few weeks back. I thought a glass—or maybe two—might help me relax, since I still felt keyed up and jumpy.

I knocked on Kana's door and he called for me to come on in. I opened the door, held up the wine, and asked if he was busy. He grinned, and replied, "I am now! Let's see, where'd I put that corkscrew?" as he opened a drawer and started to rummage around. He found it, grabbed a couple of glasses and set them on the low table in his living room, gesturing for me to join him as he sat down on a cushion on the floor. "So what's the occasion?" he asked as he opened the bottle and filled the glasses. "We celebrating something?" he looked at me curiously as he handed a glass to me. "Oh, hang on...."

He jumped up and went into his kitchen, and I heard him rummage around. A minute later he returned with a large wooden bowl and a few bags. "Here we go. I never drink on an empty stomach, y'know. You'll regret it in the morning if you do," he assured me as he dumped nuts, crackers, and pretzels into the bowl. "Not exactly gourmet, but it'll do. So what's up?" he said, sitting down and taking a sip of the sweet wine before grabbing a handful of snacks. He leaned back against the table and watched me, waiting for my answer.

"Oh, nothing special," I said, sipping my wine and selecting a cracker to nibble. "I've just had a hard few days and need to unwind."

"Hey, you're not overdoing it again are you?" he asked, sitting up and looking at me fiercely. "I warned you about that. You should listen. I always give good advice—always."

I smiled and assured him it wasn't anything like that. He sat back again, looking relieved, and said, "Well, if you aren't overworking yourself, then what's got you stressed out? I'm guessing you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to talk about it. So... talk!"

I nodded nervously, finished off my cracker, then gulped some of the cool, syrupy wine to moisten my dry throat. "Well... " I started, hesitantly, "It's kind of a secret."

"Good secret or bad secret? Don't worry, I won't rat you out—not unless I absolutely have to, that is. I mean, if someone's doing something to hurt you...." He scowled and looked intently at me.

"Oh, no—it's nothing like that," I assured him. "And I don't really know if you could exactly call it either good or bad. Just... a secret." Kana sat back and waited patiently, sipping his drink and waiting.

"You know the new musician?" I asked after a moment.

"You mean Mikhail? Well, not really know him—I've met him once or twice. Seems okay. Really quiet and kind of stand-offish, though. Great with the violin, though. What about him?" Kana asked.

"Well... I know him."

Kana raised an eyebrow as he looked at me inquiringly. "Oh yeah? How long? Not exactly the best of friends, I assume?"

"I've known him for nearly eleven years, though I haven't seen him for the past eight. As for how closely.... Well, we... we were in love."

"What?" Kana exclaimed, startled. "Like, love-love? Or just kind of a crush love? Or what?"

"Love-love, and very much so. I was just thirteen and he was only a year older when we fell in love, but it was the real deal in spite of our ages. We fell more and more in love each day for the next two years and a few months. But... but then his teacher, who was also his guardian, told me he was taking Mikhail away. He... he said I was ruining his chances of becoming a world-class violinist, and that if I truly loved him, I'd let him go and break off all contact. I thought it would kill me, but I wanted to give him that chance. So I did it. I let him go. And then I didn't see or hear from him again until the day he moved here."

"Whoa, that must have been a real shocker."

I laughed bitterly, then drank a little more of my wine. "You have no idea. I fainted. Then we had a long talk, and I told him what had happened. He had spent all those years hating me, thinking I'd just tossed him aside and hadn't really cared for him at all. I can't tell you how much it hurt when I found out that's what he thought of me. But I was glad that at least it hadn't all been in vain—he really did become a successful violinist, and I'm happy for him. But... "

"But you're still in love with him? Is that it?" Kana asked, scowling into his glass as he swirled the amber fluid around.

"No, not exactly. Not quite that. I mean, I do love him, but I'm not sure that I'm still in love with him, if you know what I mean? I don't know if I can ever love him like I used to."

After a pause to reflect, Kana replied, "Yeah... yeah, I think I do. You can love someone without being in love with them, and you can be in love with someone but not really love them. It's best if you have both sides feeling both ways, yeah?"

"Yeah. So anyway, that same night, he came back and we talked again. He said he realized that he still loved me, that he had always loved me—even when he also hated me for what he thought I'd done to him—and that he would always love me. So I told him that I wasn't sure how I felt anymore, and that after so much time apart, we're practically strangers. I said that since as far as anyone else knew, we were strangers, we should just go along with that and get to know each other all over again. Then, maybe we'd find ourselves in love again—or maybe not. But at least whatever happened would be based on reality and not on some fantasy from the past."

Kana nodded as he reached for the wine bottle to refill our glasses. "Makes sense. Hey, want a sandwich? This wine's really sweet—I could use something besides just these crackers and things."

"Sure, that sounds good. Thanks," I replied as I sipped my wine.

He rose and started to assemble some sandwiches, saying "Go on, I'm still listening."

"Well, there's not much more to tell... " I trailed off.

"So you wanted to keep it on the QT... and he refused?" Kana asked as he put the ingredients away.

"No, he agreed. He said that if that was what I wanted, that's what we'd do. But... " I trailed off.

"But?" Kana prompted, bringing the plate of sandwiches over and sitting down across from me. He bit into a cheese sandwich as he waited for my reply.

"Well, I mean, he hasn't come right out and said anything to anyone. He's kept our secret so far... kind of...."

"So then why are you telling me all this, especially if you agreed to not tell anyone?" Kana said.

"Because... I just can't take much more, that's why." I blurted out, choking back a sob. "He doesn't do or say anything overt, not around others anyway, but he hints and intimates and looks at me in this certain way when no one's watching. And if I come across him somewhere out of the way where we're all alone, he doesn't even try to hide his feelings—every word, every look, every gesture openly declares his love for me. And I can't take it. It's exhausting me. My nerves are frazzled, and I'm almost at the point of becoming a recluse. Or leaving—I've even thought of that, of just giving up my farms and going someplace far away. But I really do not want it to come to that. So I thought... I thought maybe if we stopped trying to keep our past a secret?"

"I see. So then, why haven't you? Why come to me?" Kana asked. "Why not just go ahead and tell everyone?"

I blushed and looked away as I replied, "Well, I'm sure you'll think it silly of me, but... I'm afraid of gossip. I'm afraid of what the people here or in Bluebell might do or say if they found out that Mikhail and I had a history together, let alone that we kept it secret. I don't want them making it into something it wasn't, you know, reading more into it than is there, or...."

"Or otherwise spoiling the memories you cherish of your first love. Is that it?" Kana asked.

I looked at him in surprise, "Well, yes, I suppose you're right. That's it exactly. It's nothing to do with either of us now—it's the memories of those beautiful, happy days together before everything was ruined. I don't want people pulling them out to examine under a microscope, you know, and trampling all over them."

"Yeah, I get that, really I do. I felt kind of the same way after my mom died. I didn't want to talk about her with anyone—I didn't want anyone to say something that might spoil the memories of her that I held dear. But you gotta give the folks around here some credit. Yeah, sure, both towns have some gossips. But you know, even the nosiest among us aren't malicious. When the people here gossip, they do it because they're interested in others and because they care, not because they want to pull others down or be hurtful or petty. So I'd expect that the news would at most cause a brief sensation, and most of the women, not to mention several of the men, would talk about it for a few days or so. But I think most of the speculation will be about what might happen between you two now and in the future, not about your past. And I don't think anyone will think less of you because you didn't 'fess up right away."

He finished the last sandwich and his glass of wine and stood up, picking up the empty plate and taking it to wash. "I can't tell you what to do, you gotta figure that out for yourself. But you wouldn't have come here to tell me all this if you hadn't wanted my advice. So my advice is this: just come clean. You don't have to make a big fancy-schmancy announcement, ya know. Just, if the opportunity arises, kind of casually mention that you'd had a bit of a romance with him when you were both kids, but that you hadn't seen him for years, until he moved here. I think you'll find I'm right about how people react. And I also think it'll be a big relief to have it all out in the open. Secrets and deception are just too much trouble to keep up. It's better to just be honest from the get-go. Yeah? So take my advice and go tell that guy that you're fed up and that you want to come clean to the villagers."

"Yeah. You're right, Kana," I said with a smile.

"I always am," he interrupted cheerfully.

"So that's what I'll do," I continued. "I just hope that he won't feel like he'll have free rein once the secret's out. He's not the only guy in town, after all!" I said with a laugh.

"No, he sure as heck is not. And I think he'll find that out for himself soon enough," Kana replied, looking at me with an oddly serious expression.

I excused myself shortly after that and headed home. It was late, and the wine had made me drowsy. The next day was Tuesday, and I decided that I wanted to tell Cam about Mikhail and me before he heard it elsewhere. I also wanted to talk with Eileen about it, if I had the chance. So I resolved to head over to Bluebell the next afternoon, to be there when Cam closed his shop for the day. Then Wednesday I would talk to Mikhail. That was his birthday, too, I suddenly remembered. Back when I knew him before, he'd preferred simple foods like tofu as well as Oriental teas. He hadn't liked fancy cooking or rich foods or desserts—his tastes had bordered on the ascetic. So I decided I'd take him something I remembered that he liked (and hope his tastes hadn't changed very much since then), and then I'd tell him I'd changed my mind about keeping our past a secret. As I prepared for sleep, I already felt as though a weight had been lifted from my mind.