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The cupboard swings open once more.
It isn’t the silent creeping list of a horror movie, or the deliberate kind of quiet of a child trying to rummage where they aren’t aloud. It’s loud and uneven, beginning at the apex like the mating call of a bird that is long since extinct and for good reason.
Din begrudgingly adds trainee carpenter to his list of responsibilities and gives the door another kick for good measure.
It swings open once more.
“One more item for the list,” Din tells Grogu, his ever-present wide-eyed shadow.
The sun spills through the low window, the sky beyond stained a collection of oranges and reds that promise the day will be warm and clear. It illuminates Grogu, already dressed in a too big coat, the sleeves clumsily folded back to expose his fingers but already beginning to slip free as he drags the crayon across the paper. Din knows without looking that it will be green.
He also knows that Grogu will already be wearing his welly boots, also green with an approximation of a frog face painted on them in chipped black paint.
“Are you ready to go?”
Grogu tips his head to one side, a gesture Din recognises by the feel of it, and grins. “Bah.”
“Got some new people coming by today. Referrals from Omera,” Din reminds him. He turns away to poke at the cupboard once more, keeping half an eye on Grogu in the reflection of one of the pots left soaking in the sink. It was important to give children choice’s, he thinks he has read that in one of several books he had frantically collected when Grogu had been a newborn, just the barest scrap of a thing, tiny in his Din’s arms, but it could have also been advice.
Din has to attend to the shop, admittedly a rather grand title for what was a glorifed stall cut in the side of a shed, but Grogu can colour if he doesn’t want to potter around the gathering of allotments. New people are… tough , something Din understands well.
“Patu,” Grogu declares, waving the crayon clutched in his grubby hand — already sticky with something Din didn’t want to guess at — and that was the matter settled.
“Alright. Go get your bag and we’ll head over.”
⁂
There’s a man standing next to the stall when Din manages to wrestle the half-overgrown gate open with a shriek that could wake the dead if it still hadn’t been early enough that they would have rolled over and requested five more minutes.
He doesn’t turn at the sound of the gate, or at the crunch of Din’s boots over the smattering of gravel that claims to be a path, restricting Din to studying the curve of his back and the slope of his shoulders.
The man is welded marble and he is desperately trying to not fall apart at seams. Din knows the feeling well enough, like calling to like with the same shivering pull of the moon on the ocean.
There is a dog at the man’s side, broad and squat, lopsided somehow with paws that were too big for it and ears that were too small. There isn’t a vest, only a harness and a leash looped around the man’s gently swinging hand.
“Is she working?”
The man doesn’t twitch — the instinct long since hammered out of him — but he does turn enough to peer over his shoulder. His gaze skims over Din, down to Grogu, and back to Din where it catches and stays. “She isn’t— not a—“
Likely still in training, then, or maybe, the man just didn’t want the world peering over its fences at his business.
“I know Cobb,” Din says, picking his way past the man on the side with the dog. Her tail thumps against the gravel in welcome. “I recognise the bandana, that’s all.”
The man doesn’t sag in relief, but there’s something close enough in his trembling sigh. “You’re Din?”
“Yeah.” Closer now, he can see the purple hue beneath the man’s eyes, the pale cast to his skin that speaks to too long shut away inside. He is handsome in a decaying way, a temple left to crumble into ruin and thought abandoned. Then, he smiles. “And this is Grogu.”
Grogu, clinging to his leg, balanced on his boot, untangles one hand enough to wave.
The man waves back in kind, tucking his free hand back down at his side. “I’m Boba.”
“Bah,” Grogu echoes in disbelief that quickly morphs into excitement. His hand flails, catching Din in the thigh. “Bah-bah!”
“It’s his favourite sound,” Din explains, watching Boba intently. He felt balanced on a knife’s edge, waiting to see if this fledgling attraction could be cultivated a little more, could be encouraged to put down roots and see what came of it.
“Good choice,” Boba rasps, and Din turns away to hide the clear wash of relief.
“Have you done any gardening before?” Din asks, settling himself back into an attempt at professionalism, stretching up to hook his fingers into the shutter to begin waking up his small shop.
“Only… windowsill? And that was when I was very young.” There’s a warning rumble to Boba’s words, a reflexive flash of his teeth, and Din grins where the other man can’t see him. They were very alike, after all. The dog’s collar jingles as she climbs to her feet, the soft thump of her head impacting fabric in an alert, and Boba steps back from the edge. “Sorry.”
“You’re good, I get it. How are you with spice?”
“I’m great with it.”
Din reaches over the divide, fumbles a moment with the collection of neatly made bags of scrap fabric and paper pressed into compliant envelopes, and retrieves the items he was looking for. “We can start with this.”
The bag is mostly plain except for a hand drawn label scribbled onto the front depicting a lopsided red triangle and an unhappy face with a jagged zigzag for a mouth. Grogu hadn’t been fond of the chilli peppers when he had last tried them.
“Tomatoes?” Boba asks, frowning at Din, before he glances at Grogu.
Grogu pouts.
Din, above his head and out of his eyeline, mouths ‘ chilli’ at Boba, slow and deliberate.
“Chillies.” Another smile, wide enough to highlight the dimples in Boba’s cheeks. “Good choice.”