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Sometimes the island seemed too small. There was always somebody at the plaza, or somebody walking down the roads. Always somebody. Could be Kiki, or Eugene, or Ed, or Violet.
Could be anyone.
There was always somebody at the plaza. Phoebe woke up latest among everyone, she figured that out quickly. And every day, she woke up to a crowded plaza, a multitude of her neighbors deciding to do god-knows-what, sometimes even getting up to their shenanigans in the presence of a visiting vendor.
It was somewhat annoying.
(But it was somewhat endearing.)
Yet, sometimes the island also seemed too big. The number of inhabitants was easy to both forget and remember - that there's only twenty of them in total. 10 residents, 10 people managing the shops and the buildings and services. And despite that already small number, Phoebe only frequently saw a handful of her neighbors each day, and it was sometimes too easy to forget that Tutu or Annalisa or Zucker lived here. Hell, even Sly, who's taken to the indoors recently; or Boris, the much older warthog who doesn't seem to have much of a connection with anybody else. They were so rarely at the plaza.
The Resident Representative was among the few - if not the only - neighbors she consistently met at the plaza. He's always running about at full speed, wearing a new outfit each day, almost always with those bandages covering the scars on his face. Sometimes he'd have a net, sometimes he'd be heaving around a ladder, and sometimes it'd be a watering can, sloshing about with water as his footsteps pounded down the pavement. He was always more than happy to talk with her. They’d have long chats; she’d tell him stories about home, they’d talk about food, or gardening and flowers.
He talked so rarely about himself, though. The phoenix had to admit that she knew nothing about him. She knows he misses Audie, one of their first few neighbors who moved away a long time ago. Phoebe could barely remember her, but she never spoke against his feelings. She knows he’s just started trying to breed blue roses. She knows he likes wearing dark clothes, despite the sometimes sweltering heat of their island.
But his life before the island?
Nothing.
All Phoebe knows is that he’s been a great friend; that he’s expressed his gratitude for her (and everybody else’s) companionship in more ways than one; and that she always, always meets him at the plaza, every day. No matter the time, morning, noon, or night - they always met eventually.
Always.
.
Until they didn’t.
A full day had passed in which she never met him at the plaza. Not in the roads, not in her garden, not at the beach or the shops - he never came around.
She thought that, maybe, he was just extra busy today, and they just weren’t at the same places today.
Okay.
But she didn’t meet him again the next day.
She was visiting Boris, and it was great. They shared cups of coffee and they talked; K.K. Oasis blared as they sat on the golden throne of his and caught up. And it was fine. But then she found that her feet were jittery, the heels of her claws clicking against the gold. Her feathers ruffled as they clasped around the cup.
Usually, somebody came by to visit. Somebody else Boris invited.
But he didn’t come.
...Phoebe wondered if the black bass that stared back at her, idle in its aquarium, understood any of her inner turmoil.
“Say, have you seen Sunflower?
Butterbean?
Maximum?”
M-o-rino?
...Nobody else called him that. Sly stopped calling him Maximum a few weeks ago. Switched to Butterbean. (She remembers him lamenting the nickname change, but not wanting to hurt Sly’s feelings after he asked to change it so many times. He was so attached to Maximum, but couldn’t explain why.)
Everybody calls him Sunflower.
Only she called him M-o-rino.
(His first nickname. She remembers him beaming when she first brought it up with him.)
She hasn’t heard herself call the name “M-o-rino” in a very long time, and the realization
scared her.
She’d come by his house, sometimes. She could see the automobiles he was planning on fixing, now discarded and rusting in his yard. The pilot’s helmet was abandoned, gathering dust and likely now a home for insects along with the box it rests on. The lights are off, some of the curtains drawn. Nothing comes out of the chimney.
The pirate doorplate, a grinning skull greeting visitors, “WELCOME,” seems stuck in place now. Unused and unmoved, since the door hasn’t been opened in so long.
...Where could he have gone?
Phoebe visited Resident Services. Isabelle last saw him at the NookStop, and last spoke to him at the fireworks show several weeks ago. Tom Nook hasn’t spoken to him in ages.
The Nooklings haven’t seen him. They usually see him everyday.
Blathers hasn’t seen him - or maybe doesn’t remember seeing him. He usually comes in to assess new fossils every day, but also, Blathers is incredibly sleep deprived. She decided not to trust his word.
Sly - who Phoebe isn’t particularly close to, but knows how much the man is fond of him - hasn’t seen him either. “A few days after the fireworks show,” he said, “We talked for a bit, but he was busy.”
Then the Able Sisters.
Mable noticed his absence too. “Sis is really worried about him,” she said, “He normally comes by every day and talks to her before browsing, but he hasn’t come by in so long.”
Phoebe hadn’t even realized Sable knew him personally.
But it seems like everyone noticed his absence.
(Even Ed, who admitted to being slightly relieved at not having to stand him sometimes hitting him over the head with a net. Still, even he seemed to miss the man’s presence, if not at least notice it.)
So where was he?
She visited the airport.
Maybe he took a flight somewhere, she thought. Maybe he left in the middle of the night, when nobody else was awake. Maybe he had spare tickets to some far off island and left them behind.
Who knows.
Who knows?
Who knows but the dodo at the desk.
She walked up to him and asked, point-blank, “Have you seen him?”
The Resident Representative. The man with the band aid on his face, always. The man with the bamboo wand and the colorful fishing net and the rusted old cars he never knew how to fix in the first place.
Orville shook his head, a nonchalant shrug. “He rarely even flies here,” he said.
It took every ounce of her will, every fiber in her body, to not scream and explode. The nonchalance was jarring. She couldn’t fault them - he doesn’t fly off-island very much, so he has no reason to be frequent here - but the nonchalance was jarring . Frustrating, even.
She demanded he show her the records, still, just in case. Show her all the flights taken from the past days, ever since the first fireworks show. He complied, if not in a bit of distress. If it went on any further, Wilbur might have had to come in and lend a hand or kick her out.
But there was nothing. No commercial flights taken by the man. Just cargo. Just Nook Inc. deliveries and supplies and all that shit.
But no sign of him.
She left soon enough without another word but “Thanks.”
His house was enormous.
Well, maybe it wasn't a mansion, but it was definitely bigger than every other house on the island. She remembers congratulating him on the expansion.
...There is nowhere else.
He’s not at the campsite. He’s not at the park. Not the bamboo forest, not the neighborhood, not the shops, not the orchard.
And definitely not at the plaza.
There is nowhere else.
Her heart hammering in her chest, her head throbbing with anxiety, whole form trembling - she walks up the steps, her talons clicking all too loudly against the stone.
She raises a fist to the door, takes in a deep breath
and knocks.
Thump-thump-thump.