Year of the Bun [1] - Mochi Harvest

Midicus let the wind blow around him as he stood there, staring at the crop in front of him rather dumbly. He had been given a harvest knife and told to make himself useful, but safe to say he didn’t exactly know how. Despite having had to do many tasks before, harvesting grains wasn’t one of them, he collected plants before, but never something that actually needed a firm hand to it. Midicus had been so distracted by this line of thought, that he hadn’t even noticed the bun walking behind him until a hand on the shoulder snapped him out of it. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” Dan said simply, the blue bun looking at the other with clear annoyance. “Oh, no- I know what I’m doing, at least a little bit, it’s just that-” Midicus had started to speak, but Dan shut him up with a few more words. “It wasn’t a question, you’ve been staring at the rice for five minutes without doing anything. You clearly don’t know what you’re doing.” Five minutes… had he really been thinking for that long? It wouldn’t be a surprise considering-

“Hey. Don’t get stuck in your head again.” Dan sighed, having noticed Midicus' eyes somewhat glazing over. Maybe he did that all the time, maybe it was just because he was out here. Either way, what was important was that Midicus needed to be useful somehow or they'd never get anything done. “Listen, I know what you can do, it’s so simple nobody could mess it up.” With that, the knife that had been in Midicus’ hand was taken away, instead having a large flat basket placed in his hands.

Dan didn’t even have to hear any words to know that Midicus was confused, as soon as he saw the look in the other bun’s eyes he started explaining, not wanting to hear any more verbalized cluelessness. “It’s not for picking up rice. You’re going to use that to toss the rice around and make sure there’s no dirt or weeds in there. The rice is heavy, most everything else is light, so the wind we have will blow most of the things that aren’t rice away. As soon as you know the rice is fully cleaned, you do another batch.” Midicus nodded. “Alright, that does make quite a lot of sense. So, do I just do that here or?” Another sigh, this one somehow more annoyed than the first. “No, go over to camp and I’ll bring the rice over, there’s a mat there as well, put that on the ground before you get started.”

As the red bun started to walk towards the camp, he looked at the basket in his hands. Rice collecting was certainly more complex than he had originally imagined. He hoped that this would be the most difficult of the ingredients on the journey, because this alone was already making him exhausted. He knew he had gotten there as soon as he heard a drowsy voice greet him.

“Hello Midicus!” He looked around for a moment before his eyes moved downwards, bringing the basket out of his vision to see Shibani sitting- or perhaps more accurately, laying- there with an interesting bit of rice in his grasp. It was then he remembered the rice they had seen in the cave, and he laughed slightly. “Went on an adventure, did you?” Shibani just smiled. “I wanted to make sure Dan had the best ingredients, so I went to grab it while you and Dan were talking- but, um, don’t tell him I was the one who got it, please?” That smile the other bun wore would have made it certain that Midicus listened, but it’s not like it was necessary. Midicus wasn’t exactly a snitch, especially not in cases like this. “Of course, I have no idea how it got here, it must've been some sort of magic.”

Shibani gave a soft giggle, watching as Midicus took the special rice and went to get the mat. “Is Dan making you winnow?” the soft bun asked, hearing a sigh in response. "Is that what this is called? He said that this was something nobody could mess up.” Shibani nodded. “It’s true, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I find the sound to be really-” A yawn. “Calming…”

Midicus let out a small laugh. “Noted, so if I look over and you’re not asleep while I’m tossing the rice, I’ll know I’m doing it wrong.”