First, we got story of Sasaki Kojiro, legendary samurai who rebelled against his master for honor of his people but also for honor of his.

After that we got story of Sasaki Otowa, his wife which maybe wasn’t as famous as her husband but also sacrificed much in order to afford good childhood for her kids. Her story in particular ended when she adopted the kid but its not time to see what happened to him yet, now we have another character whose story I would like to share. Someone who is in my opinion second most important person you need to have in your life, best friend.

Meet Isa Lilana, the disappointed lover.

Its 1617, hot summer day, might not even be summer since most of the days are hot in Philippines, one of the warmest countries in east Asia. It might be May or even second half of April but it is definitely past April 11, because Hana already turned 6 years old. It has been quite some time from last chapter, one year exactly since Otowa adopted the kid, she named him Ernesto but that’s about it you need to know about him until we get to his part of the story.

Since, like I said, it is very hot day, most of the kids decide to go swimming in their free time. Local river is your best friend if you are a 6 years old kid in Philippines during 17^th century, right? Some kids like to run around and jump into the water, causing it to splash all around in order to fresh as many people as possible, some kids like to swim in river. Breaststroke or Backstroke were most popular ways for girls as they are very calm and with Backstroke in particular you can just lay in water, get tanned while also getting chilled by the water beneath you, while guys liked to do Front Crawl as they can splash a lot of water at others with it, by using their feet. Not many kids knew or cared about butterfly as it served no purpose for them.

Sasaki Hana has couple of friends but not many, she is introverted but not much, her name got changed when she moved to the city, she is now called Hana Diwa.

Hana Diwa is swimming in the river, really close to the coast, just enough for her to lay on the water surface and spend as much time as she can resting on the sun while appreciating the heat. Swimming backstroke is probably Hana’s favorite thing to do in free time because just like I said, you can just lay on surface, enjoy the sun and remove everything from your mind, but Hana used it for something else. Instead of removing everything from her mind, Hana liked to create fictional stories just like her brothers did. In her stories though, there is nobody named Kojiro, all of the stories she creates are very short and not tied to singular character, of course she is kid so her stories aren’t on some advanced levels but I find them pretty interesting.

While she was laying there, eyes closed, she accidently bumps into something. With Hana bumping her head into something soft, the story she was creating ends. “Damn it, guy just died, don’t interrupt me!” Hana said while getting up. Of course, nobody died, Hana was referring to the story she was thinking of and the guy in it who has been shot in head by the laser beam, just before she hit something.

When Hana stood up, she was face to face to really pretty girl. “I’m sorry, I didn’t look where I swim, I accidently bumped into you, sorry, my name is Isa Lilana, did you say someone died?” Said the pretty kid.

Hana didn’t know what to say at first so she started mumbling, but when she finally got together, she said “My name is Hana Diwa, what about you?”. Isa laughed at the fact that she just said her name and Hana asked for it, but she repeated as nothing happened “Oh…yes I didn’t introduce myself, sorry, my name Is Isa Lilana.”. she played along, because she thought that maybe Hana has some hearing problems which is the reason why she didn’t hear Lilana introduce herself just moment before, this way Hana won’t feel bad for not hearing her even though Hana can hear clearly. Hana actualy heard Lilana introduce herself second ago, but got really nervous and accidently asked for her name.

Hana has this tendency to laugh, quite often, out of nowhere so she did, and instead of regular “what’s funny” she usually gets from confused kids around her, Lilana joins her and starts laughing as well. As soon as they finished laughing Hana asked Lilana to be friends on which Lilana agreed with big smile.

It’s been quite some time since Hana was made happy by a Filipino.

After finishing swimming, they both went to one of the stall’s to try Sampaloc candy, candy Lilana was realy shocked Hana never ate before. She describes it as one of the best candies in the world.

Sampaloc candy is made using tamarind fruit, its both sweet and sour which is accomplished by balancing sourness of tamarind’s pulp and addition of sugar. After sugar and some other ingredients are added, the mixture is shaped in small, bite-size candies. Its mostly popular in Southeast Asia and South America.

They start hanging out regularly, every other day, sometimes even few days in a row, and I’m sure you can guess what happens next, they become very close friends, start hanging out more and more, they also meet each other’s friend groups as well, even though they don’t have many positive things to say about them. Hana thinks Lilana’s friends are quite mean while Lilana thinks Hana’s friend group is a bit weird, which at the end doesn’t matter since they are only ones important.

They already shared their common interests to each other during this period of slowly becoming closer and closer but since we skipped it, I will tell you some of them.

Hana enjoys swimming with her favorite style being already familiar backstroke. Fishing and running are also one of her many interests, as well as playing with sticks as if they were swords, daggers or just regular sticks. She doesn’t enjoy sweets nor spices either.

Isa Lilana enjoys cooking, mostly sweets which doesn’t appear useful when it comes to their friendship. Other than swimming she also enjoys looking at the starts and finding patterns in the sky, or as we call them, constellations.

A year later Hana and Lilana are still best friends, one day they decide to go to the forest and collect mushrooms for the soup. Lilana collects mushrooms with her mother all the time so she knows which one she can eat and which ones are poisonous. Hana on the other hand is a bit sceptic and doesn’t completely believe in Lilana’s ability to differentiate good from bad mushrooms, sure she might get most of them right but if she misses once and accidently puts one bad mushroom in the soup, they might both die.

While they were collecting suspiciously looking mushrooms from the forests ground and lower parts of the trees, Hana heard something from far away. She at first panics as it could really be anything ranging from mouse to a deer. Lilana, who didn’t hear anything, kept collecting mushrooms while Hana went to find something with what she can fight, thick stick or bit bigger rock.

From the bush close to them rushed the scary animal that at the moment of panic was not to be recognized.

But when Hana got to herself she realized it was just a squirrel, a bit bigger than a normal one but nothing that wants their blood. She looked around to find Lilana but its just then, when she realized how much is Lilana actually scared of wild life as she was able to climb to the nearest branch in matter of seconds, even though that doesn’t make any sense since squirrels can easily climb trees, but at the moment of shock and because of level of stupidity she had with herself, that seemed as most rational thing to do as squirrel is not on the tree but on the ground.

Hana is now protecting Lilana from dangerous animal with her stick that she found, but doesn’t help much as when monster was threatened with her enormous weapon, it quickly found shelter on the same branch Lilana did.

She falls from the tree that instant but as soon as she stood up she thanked Hana for saving her life as the squirrel is no more a threat.

This may not sound like a big deal or anything but in Lilana’s eyes, she was in near death situation and Hana saved her life. This may be the very first good thing anyone has ever done to her.

That moment of panic and sudden relief, mixed with scary thoughts of dying but glorious visions of her saving, Lilana decides that Hana is her favorite person from now on, and she will always be there to help her which is least she can do for her savior and best friend.

This moment is really important in their relationship as Lilana now feels much better when around Hana, she feels protected, safe and comfortable just by seeing her.