SAYINGS

Hmm, hmm, hmm-hmmmm, hmm, hmm, hmmmm.”

Kun opened the door to the courtyard, put on his sneakers, and shut the glass door behind him. He felt great. Humming a song and swaying to the rhythm, he climbed down the stairs. Just then, he heard a horrible screeching cry.

Caw. Caw, caw!

A hot, humid gust rushed over him. The air around him suddenly seemed much stuffier, and his skin felt sticky with sweat.

What was this? What was going on?

Kun turned around. Where the little courtyard with the single oak tree had once been was a sight he’d never seen before.

Everywhere he looked was choked with tropical plants.

“…??”

There were West Indian jasmine, elephant ears, giant ferns, box fruit trees, Chinese evergreens, and fishtail palms. It’s a jungle, Kun thought. There were ruffled fan palms, screw pines, sea mangos, and weeping figs. All the different species were crowded together, climbing over one another as if fighting for space. Kun took in the sights as if he were perusing an illustrated encyclopedia.

Caw, caw!

There was the screeching sound again. Beyond a huge date palm, he spotted two big birds flying side by side. They must have been making that racket. Farther up, he could see a domed glass ceiling with an iron frame, and he realized he was in a greenhouse, not a jungle. He looked down and noticed the paths among the plants were paved with hexagonal tiles.

In other words, this was probably a tropical garden.

“Huh? It happened again,” he muttered. Once more, he’d wound up in a strange place. He stepped forward through the muggy air, looking around.

Crunch.

“…Mm?” He moved his foot. Some kind of crumbs were lying on the tile. He squatted down and picked up a piece between his fingers. It was light brown.

“What is this?”

He saw something else farther ahead, so he stood and walked toward it. This one hadn’t been crushed. The color and shape looked familiar. He snatched it up and shouted, “A whale cookie!”

Still farther ahead, he found an octopus-shaped cookie and picked it up. Beyond that was one shaped like a sea urchin. He took that one, too. It was just like the story of Hansel and Gretel.

“There’s another one! And another! Hee-hee-hee!”

Now he was having fun jumping from one cookie to the next and collecting them. Before he knew it, he had strayed from the tile path and was following a soft, mossy trail. He grabbed a squid cookie from the far side of a fern leaf, then reached for a dolphin beyond that, but his hand froze in midair.

A pair of shoes stood next to the cookie.

Kun gaped at the brown leather shoes and the folded-down white socks. A brilliant blue butterfly flitted around them, and he followed it upward with his eyes, slowly lifting his head.

“…?”

A girl dressed in a navy sailor-style junior high uniform with a red neckerchief stood in front of several huge Japanese banana leaves, looking down at him with big, round eyes. The ends of her black hair formed a delicate web on her shoulders. A sailor suit and a banana tree. That alone was a strange combination, but to make it even more peculiar, the girl had a whale-shaped cookie sandwiched between her nose and her pouting lips.

“Big Brother.”

“Huh?”

Kun stared at her with his mouth wide.

The girl removed the cookie.

“Stop playing with my face.”

Still gaping at her, Kun asked, “Who are you?”

“You’ve been hitting me and making me cry…but we won’t worry about that now.”

Sounding a little angry, she sighed and placed her index finger over her lips as if to control herself.

“Right now, the problem is…those!”

She pointed into the distance with her right hand.

When Kun rose and spotted her hand, he noticed a familiar-looking red birthmark on her palm.

“I wonder if she’s…,” he whispered, eyes wide, “…Mirai from the future?”

Sensing his gaze, the girl quickly hid her hand behind her back.

“Don’t look!”

Kun toppled backward onto the pillowy moss, eyes still bulging.

The fern leaves swayed softly.

Mirai of the future had been pointing at the set of Girls’ Festival dolls.

Kun made his fingers into a pair of binoculars and peered at them, too. On the other side of the dining table, Dad was working at his laptop. In front of the glass doors, the oak tree looked a little embarrassed to be standing among so many tropical plants.

“One year for every day…” Mirai hid behind a Monstera leaf as wide as she was with her arms stretched out. “That’s what they say. You probably think one year is nothing, right? But what happens when you add a year every year?” She sounded upset. “Well, what happens?”

Kun looked at Mirai. She lowered her voice as if talking to herself.

“I might not be able to marry the person I like…”

She was referring to what Granny had told them the night before, about how a girl’s marriage would be delayed if the dolls weren’t put away by a certain date. Kun turned his finger-binoculars toward Mirai and leaned in.

“…”

“Wh-what?”

“Who do you like?”

Mirai flinched and blushed.

“I—I—I was just talking about the future.”

“Hey, are you gonna have a race?”

Mirai blocked her chest with her hands as if she was worried about something. “A-a-anyway, we have to get Dad to put away the dolls now.”

But…

“No!” His face whipped to the side.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t be friends with you.”

Mirai placed her palms on Kun’s shoulders and turned him toward her with a serious expression on her face.

“I can’t talk to Dad myself, you know.”

“Why not?”

“Just because. Please, Big Brother?” She gently shook him. He averted his face again.

“I’m not your brother.”

For a moment, Mirai was silent. “Fine.” She sighed. “Is that so? I see, I see.” She eyed him coldly and raised a finger. “Well, if you won’t help me, we’ll just have to play the bee game.”

“The bee game?” Kun asked, turning back toward her.

Mirai jumped up, stuck her other index finger in the air, and began the chant.

“Wiggle your butt,” she said, swishing her rear end back and forth like a bee. “Go for a strut.” She drew a figure eight with her torso.

“…?”

Kun stared at her odd behavior. She giggled, and the next instant, she was jabbing his arm with both fingers.

“Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz!”

“Hee-hee-hee-hee!” The ticklish Kun giggled, twisting to get away.

“Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz!”

“Hee-hee-hee-hee!”

He squirmed in agony as the pokes continued.

“Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz, bzzz!”

“Hee-hee-hee-hee!”

It was almost too much, and he wriggled even harder.

Suddenly, Mirai stopped. Freed from her attack, he planted his hands on the ground and panted. She swept her hair back at a job well done.

“Well? Gonna listen to me now?”

Kun turned his flushed, sweaty face toward her.

“Do it again!”

“?”

Mirai blinked in confusion. Kun repeated his request quietly.

“Again.”

Caw. Caw, caw.

The familiar screeching cry echoed from somewhere in the distance.

Click, click, click.

Kun could hear Dad using his mouse. He climbed the steps from the courtyard to the dining room. His father, still absorbed in his work, didn’t turn to look at him.

“Daddy.”

“Yeah?”

“Look at the dolls.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can we put them away?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Daddy.”

“Yeah?”

It was no use. Dad wasn’t paying the slightest attention to his responses, so he probably wasn’t going to take care of the dolls.

“Aw, man!” Mirai was hiding in the shadows of the jungle when Kun returned from the dining room. “Well, you’ll just have to be a big boy and do it yourself.”

“Okay.”

“‘Okay’? Oh, whoa, whoa—wait a minute.”

“What?”

“Show me your hands.”

“My hands?”

He stuck out his muddy palms.

“They’re filthy! You’re covered in mud. Don’t worry about the dolls.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“But why?”

“Because I don’t want you touching them with your dirty hands. Hey, did you just pick your nose?”

“No.”

“I think you did.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I saw you!”

“I didn’t pick it.”

“Don’t say that while you have a finger in your nose! Anyway, never mind. I’m not asking you to do it anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Stop that!”

“What?”

“Don’t wipe it on your pants!”

She sighed. He was hopeless. With a determined look in her eyes, she hunched down and crept forward. Hiding behind a potted agave plant, she glanced at her father, then sneaked behind the oak tree and scurried over to the steps. Hurrying up them quick as a cat, she put her hands on the door and gently pushed it open just wide enough to slip through.

“…”

After sliding off her leather shoes, she stepped into the dining room and quietly peered around the end of the table. Dad was occupied with his laptop screen. Good. He hadn’t noticed her. She glanced up at the dolls on top of the cabinet, then scanned the room as if she was searching for something. Where were the boxes to put them away? She didn’t see them on this floor. So where could they be?

Dodging Dad’s line of sight like a spy, she climbed the stairs and dove into a blind spot. When her head reached the level of the living room, she peered around. On the far side of a small potted Monstera plant, she saw a large cardboard box. She crouched down and made her way over to it. After another check to make sure Dad hadn’t noticed her, she very quietly opened the lid.

“Found it!” she whispered before she could stop herself. Inside the box was a variety of smaller boxes, and on top of those were two pairs of white gloves, a feather duster, and a pamphlet explaining how to repack the dolls. The gloves were to keep sweat and oil off them. She gave the pamphlet a quick read through before slipping it into the chest pocket of her sailor uniform.

Then she crept back down to the dining room and peeked over the table.

Dad still seemed completely oblivious to her presence.

“Hmm…,” he murmured.

She put her head down, pulled on the white gloves, and carefully—ever so carefully—reached out for the raised platter set in front of the dolls.

Suddenly, Dad looked up. “Huh?”

Mirai started at the movement.

“!”

She snatched back her gloved hands.

“??” Her nearsighted father thought he’d glimpsed a pair of white gloves mysteriously appearing and disappearing. He blinked hard twice, then rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. Slowly, he tilted his head to check whether anything was under the table.

Mirai squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.

Dad continued to bend sideways even more slowly. He glanced down.

“Huh?”

The baby Mirai was missing.

“Where did she go?”

Only her blanket remained in the bouncer.

He leaped up in surprise. This was no time to be working! The blood drained from his face as he began scouring the room.

“Mirai, where are you?”

While this was going on, Mirai of the future scuttled frantically out from under the table toward the courtyard. The flooring creaked noisily, but she had no time to worry about that. A second later, Dad crouched down and crawled under the table.

“Mirai, where’d you go?”

Mirai dove from the open door into the tropical garden. At almost the same moment, Dad stood up and examined the bouncer one more time.

“Huh?”

The baby Mirai was fast asleep underneath her blanket, although a bit lower than before.

“…Oh. Guess you just slipped down.”

He sighed with relief, wrapping his arms around her gently so as not to wake her, and readjusted her in the bouncer.

What in the world had just happened?

Kun blinked in confusion.

Just then…

“Did you see that?”

The human version of Yukko had appeared by his side. He was looking through a pair of finger-binoculars.

“The baby disappeared and then reappeared. Weird, isn’t it? What do you think could have happened? What I think is, Mirai of the future and Mirai the baby can’t exist at the same time.”

“Exist?”

Mirai, who had been lying with arms and legs outstretched on the grass, heaved herself up and put her shoes back on.

“You’re one to talk about weird existences. Don’t you think you’re the weird one here? I mean, you’re speaking in human language.”

“Now that you mention it, I don’t,” Yukko replied, as if human speech were completely normal for him. Mirai gave an annoyed sigh, then walked over to him.

“Anyway, that’s not the issue right now. We need to focus on getting those dolls packed. You don’t have time to wonder about the weirdness of things, Yukko.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. We need your help.”

Mirai produced the pamphlet from her breast pocket.

“Ah yes.” Yukko took it from her and leafed through it.

Mirai looked at Kun—

“You distract Dad.”

—but the boy was blushing shyly.

“…What?”

“Do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“Do it again.”

“Do what?”

Kun didn’t answer. He just looked up at her and wiggled bashfully.

Dad stood up, walked over to a bookshelf against the wall, and withdrew an architecture book.

“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”

He could hear Kun laughing in the courtyard. He glanced outside, but Kun was nowhere to be found. He must have been on the far side of the oak tree.

“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”

There was his laugh again. Dad couldn’t help smiling at how happy his son sounded.

“Heh-heh… Wonder what’s so much fun out there,” he mumbled to himself, flipping the pages of his book.