Chapter 29 The Weight of Familiar Strangers (Part 3)

Pete shoved open the shack door with such force that it slammed against the wall, rattling the frame. The sharp bang sliced through the salty air and made Kai flinch where he leaned lazily against the counter. The usual grin faltered on his face as he turned toward the intruder.

"Kai, we need to talk," Pete growled, his tone hard and unyielding.

Kai blinked, then forced a smirk, as though humor could smooth over the storm cloud in Pete's eyes. "Hey, Pete. You here for another round of beer?"

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Pete's voice cracked like a whip, filling the cramped space of the shack. "You've got some nerve, running your mouth about everyone else while leaving out your own mess. Why didn't you tell me about the affair?"

The smirk evaporated from Kai's lips. Shock stiffened his posture, his voice lowering into something closer to defense. "The affair?" he echoed slowly. "Pete, I thought you knew. Everyone knows."

Pete's eyes narrowed, arms folding across his chest as if bracing against the truth. "Don't forget—I'm supposed to be the introvert. The ghost farmer who keeps to himself. Nobody tells him anything. So no, Kai, I didn't know. And now you're going to start talking."

For a moment, silence thickened between them, broken only by the crash of waves outside. Then Kai let out a low, defeated chuckle—bitter, tired. He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking smaller, stripped of his bravado.

"Alright," he muttered, his voice rougher now. "You want the truth? Fine. I'll tell you everything. But don't mistake this for me making excuses. This isn't a story I like to revisit."

Pete dragged out a chair, the wood scraping across the floor. Kai also grabbed a seat and sat opposite him. The seaside shack, usually humming with laughter and clinking glasses from tourists during the day, felt stifling—its shadows deepened, the air thick with salt and something unspoken. Kai leaned back in his chair, taking off his purple bandanna and running a hand through his disheveled hair, eyes fixed on the table as though unable to meet Pete's stare. For the first time since Pete had known him, the carefree variation of Kai looked genuinely uneasy.

Pete nodded curtly, his arms crossed over his chest. "Go on, then. I'm listening."

Kai sighed, tapping his fingers on the table as he gathered his thoughts. "I've always been… well, I've always caught the attention of women. It's not something I ever tried to do on purpose, but you know how it is. Some people take the whole 'tall, dark, and handsome' thing a little too seriously. And yeah, some of those women were married. But I always drew a line. I didn't want to be that guy, the one who ruins families."

He paused, his eyes flickering toward the waves outside the shack's window. "Then there was Popuri. I loved her, Pete. I still do, honestly. But she wanted to wait—said we shouldn't take things further until we were married. I respected that. I wanted to be the guy she deserved, so I kept my distance and didn't push her boundaries. But that… that made things harder."

Pete furrowed his brows, his voice sharp. "Harder how?"

Kai exhaled, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. "Rick, for one. He hated that I was dating Popuri. Thought I wasn't good enough for her or that I was just playing around. He was always watching, always waiting for me to mess up. It put a lot of pressure on me, you know? Trying to be perfect for her, knowing Rick would run to Lillia with anything he could twist into an excuse to split us up."

Pete stayed silent, his expression unmoving, urging Kai to continue. Kai hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. "And then… there was Sasha." The name hung in the air like a lead weight, and Pete felt a knot tighten in his chest.

Kai continued, his voice quieter now. "It happened last year. I don't even know how it started. She came by the shack a lot, usually complaining about Jeff or just looking for someone to talk to outside of her friends. I'd listen to her vent, sometimes offered her some food—it wasn't anything special. But then one night, she stayed later than usual. It was after the chicken festival. Jeff had made some comment that really upset her, and she was… inconsolable. I poured her some wine, I'd been drinking too. Not enough to forget, but enough to let my guard down." Pete's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

"It just happened, Pete. I don't even have an excuse for it. I was weak and a little frustrated, and I betrayed everything I stood for. I hated myself for it the moment it was over. I told her it couldn't happen again, and she agreed. But that didn't change the damage that was already done."

Kai leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face as the weight of the memory settled over him. His voice was low and heavy, tinged with regret. "Sasha promised me she'd keep it a secret. I should've known better. She ended up telling her little circle of gossipy friends—women who live for drama and nothing else. It wasn't long before the story spread like wildfire."

Pete crossed his arms, his jaw tightening. "And then what?"

Kai gave a hollow laugh, one devoid of any humor. "As soon as Manna got wind of it, she made sure everyone knew. She has this… talent for delivering news in the worst possible way. And of course, Popuri was one of the first people she ran her mouth to."

Pete's eyebrows furrowed. "And Popuri? What did she do?"

Kai looked down at the table, shame flooding his expression. "She came straight to the shack. I didn't even see her coming. One moment I'm standing there, thinking about what a mess I made, and the next…" He gestured toward his face, his lips twitching into a faint, humorless smile. "She slapped me. Hard. I think my ears were ringing for a good minute after that."

Pete didn't react immediately, letting the weight of Kai's confession settle between them. Kai chuckled bitterly, though his eyes reflected none of the mirth. "She didn't say much after that—just that we were done. Told me I wasn't the man she thought I was. And honestly? She was right. I'd broken her trust in the worst possible way. She walked out, and I haven't seen her the same way since."

Pete let out a breath, shaking his head slowly. "Kai, what were you thinking?"

"I know," Kai said, his voice quiet and heavy. "I know, Pete. I loved her. I still do. But that doesn't change what I did. I messed up, and I lost her because of it. And honestly… I deserved to."

The room fell into silence, broken only by the faint sound of the waves outside. Kai looked out the window of his shack, his expression distant. "I don't blame her for leaving, you know. She deserved better than me. Still does."

Kai let out another heavy sigh, the sound dragging through the quiet shack like an anchor scraping the seafloor. His shoulders sagged, weighed down by guilt he clearly hadn't put down in a long time.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Pete," he said, his voice rough, strained. "Trust me, I'm still embarrassed about all of this. It's not exactly something I want to bring up. It's easier to… pretend it never happened." He paused, rubbing the back of his neck, his gaze fixed on some invisible point on the table. "The only reason I even came back this year was because I thought… I don't know. Maybe Popuri would've forgiven me by now. After the dust settled, I figured I could apologize. Maybe even get a second chance."

He straightened in his chair, though his eyes remained clouded with regret. "But she's still upset. And honestly? I don't blame her. Thinking I could just stroll back into town and everything would magically reset—that was stupid. Wishful thinking."

His gaze drifted toward the shack's open doorway, out to the sunlight and the faint hum of the waves beyond. Pete followed his eyes, knowing exactly who Kai was searching for. But even at the thought of her, Kai's expression didn't lighten.

"If it's any consolation," he went on quietly, "Sasha and Jeff are doing better. They… worked through it. Somehow." He let out a humorless laugh, one without an ounce of mirth. "Though that bar was already set pretty low. Still—progress is progress. But Karen…" His voice cracked ever so slightly before he steadied it. "Karen hasn't forgiven me. Not even close. Every time I see her sitting out there on that beach, it's like she's reminding me of what I did—how badly I hurt her and her family."

Pete leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. His voice was firm, but not without compassion. "Kai, you can't leave things like this. If you care about Popuri—even just as a fellow resident of Mineral Town—you have to make it right."

Kai exhaled sharply, his shoulders tightening as though bracing against invisible blows. "I know, Pete. I know. But…" His fingers drummed restlessly on the table, betraying nerves his voice tried to hide. "I just don't know how. I feel like I've lost everything. Popuri. The town's respect. My reputation. It's all gone." He gave a hollow smile, one that didn't reach his eyes. "And now? Now I'm just a guy who flips food in the Summertime and tries to keep his head down."

Pete let Kai's words settle, heavy and unshakable, like stones sinking to the bottom of his chest. When he had stormed into the seaside shack, his anger had been a white-hot blaze. He had come ready to unleash it all—rage, accusation, maybe even his fists if it came to that. He had wanted Kai to feel cornered, guilty, exposed.

But now? Now the fire dwindled to something else entirely. Not anger. Not even disgust. Sympathy.

Kai wasn't a monster. He wasn't the town's pariah because of cruelty or malice. He was just a man who'd made a mistake—a colossal, ugly mistake, yes—but one born of weakness, not wickedness. And Pete could see it plainly in front of him: the way Kai carried himself, every word weighed down by guilt like a chain clamped around his neck.

Something shifted in Pete then. Something uncomfortably familiar.

He thought back to Flowerbud Village. To his own past. To the incident when he was a boy—the one that had turned him into the village's shadow, whispered about but never fully trusted. The way people looked at him, the quiet judgment that never seemed to fade no matter how much time had passed. Pete had lived with that weight his whole life. He still lived with it. And the scars? They were invisible, hidden so deep that only he knew they existed.

Here, in Mineral Town, things were different. His "other self"—the Pete who came before—was quiet, withdrawn, maybe even forgettable. But the people here respected him, still welcomed him whenever they crossed paths. No lingering judgment. No whispers. Just acceptance.

But Kai? Kai was different. When Pete had first begun asking questions around town about the missing people, Kai's name had been an odd one. The villagers fell silent, their gazes sliding away, their voices clipped. Pete had assumed Kai was another name on the long list of absences—like Kent, or Degas, or the carpenter trio. But the truth was worse. Kai was here, alive and present, but treated as if he weren't. A figure tolerated but not embraced. Allowed to exist, but rarely acknowledged.

Kai wasn't a bad man. He was simply someone who had faltered, and now he was paying the price in isolation. A punishment Pete recognized all too well. Because he knew what it was like to want to fix something broken, only to realize it could never be made whole again. He knew the helpless ache of reaching for a past that had already crumbled to dust.

And Pete also knew the hardest truth of all: some bridges, once burned, could never be rebuilt. No matter how much you wanted to, no matter how much you tried to rewrite the past, some things were beyond repair.

The realization struck him like a cruel twist of fate. He wasn't angry at Kai anymore. Not really. What he saw, sitting there across from him in the dim light of the shack, was himself. A mirror. A cruel inversion of Flowerbud Village, where Pete had been the one burdened with guilt, and now he stood on the other side, judging the man who carried it instead.

He looked at Kai—at the slump of his shoulders, the defeated stillness in his posture, the way his regret etched itself into every line of his face. And then Pete thought of Popuri. His Popuri. The one from Flowerbud Village. The one who had loved him and trusted him, only to suffer betrayal of a different kind. He thought of how he had tried to forget her, to piece together what had been shattered, only to discover that some things could never be the same again.

The weight of that memory pressed down on him like a stone, until the anger was gone entirely, leaving only empathy—and the bitter taste of understanding.

"Kai," Pete finally said, his voice low and steady. "You can't fix what's already broken. But you can try to make amends. It might not be enough—it probably won't be—but it's better than doing nothing. You owe Karen and Popuri that much."

Kai nodded slowly, his eyes heavy with the burden of understanding. "Yeah," he muttered. "I know. I just… I wish I could go back and change it all."

Pete's lips pressed into a thin line, his own memories flashing before him. "We all do. But all we can do is try to be better moving forward."

And with that, Pete rose from his chair and stepped out into the fading light, the door creaking shut behind him. His chest felt heavier than when he'd stormed in, burdened not by anger this time, but by a sorrow he couldn't shake. Sometimes, he realized, sympathy wasn't enough. Sometimes the weight of the past was too dense for anyone else to lift.

Inside, the seaside shack grew unnaturally still, as though Pete's departure had drained the air from the room. Kai lingered in silence for a long moment, then dragged himself to the fridge. He pulled out a bottle, snapped the cap off with a practiced flick, and tipped it back. The sharp burn of alcohol slid down his throat, but it offered no relief.

"This is more than I deserve," he muttered, staring at the half-empty bottle as though it held the answer.

He drank again. And again. Until the edges of the world blurred and the guilt quieted just enough to let sleep take him. Just another night endured, another hollow victory—surviving until the sun rose again.