Who else would choose to deliver here so often and far from everyone else? This man was an absolute headache, a troublesome soul and a dud customer but I can't afford to miss him. He goes through paper like you would throw food to a starving child, like the process were just so disgustingly easy and cheap. Like the matter doesn't rely on a number of hours and materials. To finish his weekly supply so hastily one has to wonder why he even needs paper in the first place. Paper as precious as this...

'I'll put it to good use!' He'd tell me with that fake and insufferable smile on his lips as he fidgeted nervously. As if his habits were in any way endearing in the slightest.

Ugh. Damn lowland nobleman. Just thinking about it is pissing me off. The most spoiled creature, the most wretched waste of a soul, the filthiest. The lowest of the low.

We were at least not from the valley. Our skin did not resemble polished stone and did not hold a glow that matched the rising sun itself. We were not built like the men who ran rivers or the warriors with their obsidian spears and jade and turquoise jewelry. But despite how low a highlander like me sat, the mountains we resided in were apparently nothing but dirt compared to the jewels of the capital.

"Yolotl! Hey!" I heard a familiar voice calling from the opposite direction and slowly stopped my speed walking. From the river to the left of me, there emerged the sopping wet frame of an older friend, and his round and tanned face filled with joy.

It was my dear friend, Hyats'i. A fisherman's son with big shoulders, broad back, and an ability to lift more than a mere ten average men. It was comical, watching him traverse the narrow creek. Hopping along the stepping stones with the grace of a giant fawn.

Though his big limbs are much larger, his wobbly hop-step movement always makes him seem so dainty. This boy had the strength to break even the heaviest tree branch, and to twist thick metal without a sweat. Yet here he was, picking each leg up higher and higher off the stones with such caution. Almost slipping once or twice as he hurried over to me, carrying his fishing baskets as well.

"Why the sour face?"

That's just my face and you know it. I shrugged as a greeting, nodding his way. My dear old childhood pal, an airhead. Who, like the young kids I met earlier, will not shut up despite being capable of it.

He began to ramble, all the while following me step for step, adjusting his hold on the heavy baskets so he could turn his entire body to look at me. That stupid, loopy grin that was wide on his features did not go away once.

I lazily nodded along, paying as close attention as I could. Even though his face looked calm and as charming as it always had been, his wavy and glossy black hair, tied back yet bouncing to the movements of his bobbing and shaking frame, glistening like the morning sun reflected on a deer's antler, hinted at the nervousness I always assumed he had. He must not have been catching any fish again.

Oh, Hyats'i is done babbling?

I nodded again as he finished his blathering, this time smiling wider. He took this chance to hand me one of his baskets. He was carrying several nets inside. Not a single fish in sight. My eyes shifted over to meet his, and I tried my best not to react when that face faltered for a split second. His grin was back on him as quickly as I noticed and he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

"If your family wants any..." He joked weakly. His gaze traveled to the path ahead and I knew that was his signal to part. Hyats'i affectionately wrapped an arm around me, a solid thud landing on my back as he squeezed tightly, with much struggle. I myself tried not to snicker. The boy really needed to keep his strength a bit more controlled. He was no longer the spindly kid from before, able to nearly snap me in half.

As if.

"It was good to see you, my friend." 

"This will be the last time you'll see me unless you let me go, idiot."

"Oh...Let me just..."

I laughed under my breath, patting his shoulder. This was his goodbye. The way he said things and touched others made that fact clear to everyone. No wonder his father had said he was born of waves. With a smile just like the bright stream at midday. With movements akin to that of a water surface's gentle lapping against the coast, or with a flowing current brushing and pulling through a mountain of rocks. He seemed to mimic the body of water at will.

Ah, I sound like a damn poet, thinking these strange metaphors of a childhood friend. I shrugged him off and continued on my way, doing my best to keep up a slight smile.

That idiot always did take any excuse he could to talk to someone. He'd talk to rocks when he was younger, it's how I met him. And seeing him just standing there and staring so intently at a rock, making conversation with himself, convinced a young me to walk up to him and ask for my rock back.

It's a funny story actually, I was fiddling around with my sling again and happened to be down by the river that day. My mother was washing our clothes nearby, scrubbing at my loincloths and her huipiles in the stream and hanging the rags on branches. I aimed for this duck and to no one's surprise, completely missed and hit this boy just coming up for air from a dive. 

Right as the stone slid off his wet hair and straight into his hand did I laugh. Instead of yelling or cursing me and the ground beneath me like others would, he just stared blankly at the rock. Then for some reason he began to ask the rock where it came from? I've seen my share of fools but this has got to be one of the oddest encounters I had as a child. I just wanted that stone back, I felt no need to taunt or curse him so I just made my way over to him, almost toppling over from the stream's current. It was just a rock, I should have just left it at that. It wasn't anything special, just some pebble I picked up off the ground near my mother's foot. 

But man did I want that rock.

It was my rock.

I saw the rock first so it's mine. I owned that rock from then on.

I threw myself at him and just sank right into the mud underneath, splashing around like children do. No matter how many times we were pried off each other and pulled up from the ground did we stubbornly return and keep on tugging, hitting and clawing until the other had the rock. But Hyats'i never relented and kept his firm hold on it while mine slipped loose too easily. So by the end of the fight did the boy come out the winner, letting go of his iron grip around my wrist. I sulked then, squinting at the smooth stone, unable to look at his wide victorious smile.

Then a ridiculous idea popped into my head. I can still clearly recall that. The fact that I believed it was okay, what I did. He won fair and square, even as I landed a lucky scratch or punch did not seem enough. The boy was not flaring red from my punches and barely a red spot marked his tan skin.

 I couldn't believe I lost and couldn't stop the sinking feeling, as if I had failed a duty as a man. I had been humiliated by the win. So, in my dumb kid mind, it only made sense. 

The resolution was to eat the stone.

My front teeth still have marks and scratches along the inside because of that stupid rock.

What an odd way to make a new friend. 

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

This idiot always stuck close, he was always an oversharing chatterbox, always caring a little too much about those he became close to, and was quite clueless. It wasn't just a surface-level kind of idiocy but a deeper kind of naivety. I want to call him dense and inattentive, and in some instances he could be, but this man has a unique way of just paying attention. And it may seem superficial but that airhead can pick up on minute details and make simple conclusions no one can really dissuade him from believing.

That's rare. And I want so deeply to protect that smile of his. The smile he saves for others, that honest emotion of joy he so clearly expresses for anyone he crosses paths with. I may have been the one to come to him as a kid but that idiot is the one who practically attached to my waist like some leech and followed me along.