Interlude: Yachi Comes Calling

Interlude:
Yachi Comes Calling

 

WHEN I GET HOME from school, I spot Yachi hunched over, sitting in the middle of the hallway for some reason. What is she doing? I kick my shoes off and walk up to her, but she doesn’t even notice my shadow approaching. I give her butterfly hair a little tug.

“Mmm?” She looks up. “Well, if it isn’t Little.”

Now I can see what’s in her lap. “Is that an encyclopedia?” There’s a bunch of pretty birds on the cover, including one I recognize: a parakeet.

“Shimamura-san allowed me to borrow it.”

“Oh, you’re right! That’s from the bookshelf in our room!”

Dad bought us a whole set. There’s one about fish, one about reptiles, and one about bugs too. My sister really hates that one.

“I am still woefully ignorant about Planet Earth, you see,” she says with her usual smug chuckle. I hope the encyclopedia tells her it’s not normal to have blue hair.

“Why are you sitting out here in the hallway?”

“It makes no difference where I sit,” she answers flatly. I guess that’s true. She has a weird outlook on a lot of things, but it doesn’t make her wrong about any of it, per se.

Yachi goes back to staring at the encyclopedia—real intensely, almost like a statue. The only part of her that moves is her wispy butterfly hair. On a whim, I stick my finger in her loopy-loops. “Are you having fun?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Do you like birds?”

“I am studying.”

She sounds kinda…annoyed at me. “Grrrr.” She’s no fun.

Should I drop my backpack off in our room? Nah. I walk straight to the kitchen, where I find my mom refilling the pepper shaker. There’s a bunch of grocery bags everywhere, so I guess she just got back from shopping.

“I’m back, Mom.”

“Cool. Welcome home.”

“Can I have a sweet snack?”

She turns to look at me, then scans the shelves. “Something sweet, huh? All right, hold out your hands.”

I do as she tells me. What’s she gonna give me?

“I said hands, plural,” she insists.

I hold out my other hand, too. Whatever it is, I guess she’s gonna give me a lot.

“Here you go.”

Without a sound, my palms turn white.

“Is this just…sugar?”

“Well, you said something sweet, right?”

Grinning, she licks the sugar from her fingers. This is all I get? I stare down at my palms.

“Is she gonna like it…? I don’t know…” Disappointed, I head back the way I came. Then, when I return to Yachi’s spot in the hallway, I call out to her: “Yachi! I brought you some sugar!”

…Will it work?

“Yay!”

It worked. I can’t believe it. Yachi dives face-first into my palms and vigorously licks them up and down. Her chilly tongue slides between my fingers—it tickles! She vacuums up every last speck of sugar. Now her mouth and chin are covered in it.

“Look at what a mess you’ve made!”

I set down my backpack and pull out a pack of tissues. But as I’m wiping Yachi’s mouth, Nee-chan walks out from our room with two packed bags. She drops them off by the front door.

“Oh, hey, welcome home,” she says when she sees me, followed by “Oh, wait, one more thing… No, two more things!” Then she runs back to our room. She’s in a rush.

“Nee-chan’s going on a school trip tomorrow,” I explain to Yachi.

“I see, I see.”

Somehow Yachi can juggle eating sugar, reading the encyclopedia, and talking to me, all at the same time. Her eyes and ears and mouth are all doing different things… Well, I guess that’s normal. But in Yachi’s case, it feels like they aren’t really connected.

“Have you ever been on a trip, Yachi?” Oh, wait—her being here is probably the same thing as a trip.

“I believe this counts as one.”

“Right…”

“You see, I hail from far in the west.” She points at the wall on the left side. Is that where the west is?

“How far is far?” I ask.

“On foot, it would take you seven million years to get there.”

“…Oh.” I can’t picture it at all. “If I went there, would there be others like you?”

“There are others like me all around us as we speak.”

“No there’s not!”

“Would you like to study with me, Little?” She picks up the encyclopedia and offers it to me.

“Ummm…okay.” Feels like anything’s fun as long as we’re together. “But just so you know, I like fish better than birds.”

“I see,” she replies. “Just a moment.” She takes the encyclopedia and dashes off to our room. After a little while, she comes back, carrying a different encyclopedia with a cover that’s bluer. “I have exchanged the books.”

“How very thoughtful of you,” I say, mimicking the way she talks. Oops! It tends to slip out if I’m not careful.

She sits back down in the middle of the hallway and opens the book. I try to peer over her shoulder, but no luck.

“I can’t see, Yachi!”

“Oh, dear.” Right as I try to lean around her from the side, she jumps to her feet. “In that case, why don’t you sit here, Little?”

She pushes me into the spot where she just was, and I tumble into it. At first I think it won’t change anything, but then she leans her weight against my back, and her sparklies rain down on me. She’s always cold to the touch.

“Now then, let us begin our studies.”

“Yachi, can you see from there?”

“Not to worry. I don’t need my eyes to see.”

“…What?” I look over my shoulder at her.

She points at her eyes with her fingers. “I only made these in order to blend in with other Earthlings. They move, but they otherwise have no function. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

I don’t get it. She’s telling me the eyes I’m looking at don’t actually work? But they’re looking right at me, and they’re wet, and they’re blinking… I just don’t get it!

“Then how do you see?” How do you see the encyclopedia, or the sugar, or me?

“With this!” Beaming, she taps lightly on her skull.

“With…your brain…?”

“Yes.”

She barely explained anything, but I guess that’s all I’m gonna get. Now I can’t even focus on studying.

Yachi’s mysteries extend beyond just her looks. The longer I think about it, the deeper down the rabbit hole it goes—and the scarier it gets. But one look at that sunny smile and everyone seems to forget.

Something tells me this adorable creature resting against my back can’t be found in any encyclopedia on Earth.