The bone marrow filled with laughter as platelets and myelocytes splashed in the water.

It was a lazy summer day. The myelocytes had a free day today, and they decided to play in the lake. Some platelets decided to join in on the fun.

Two myelocytes were sprawled out onto the sand next to an blonde immune cell. One myelocyte was a neutrophilic myelocyte. He had wild, shaggy hair that stuck out in all directions and covered both his eyes. The other myelocyte was eosinophilic, and her brunette hair was tied into two pigtails that stick out on both sides of her round, baby-ish face. Both wore a T-shirt and shorts, white for the neutrophilic myelocyte, pink for the eosinophilic myelocyte.

Their senpai, an adult eosinophil, sat with them. She wore her usual pink uniform, but all three cells were barefoot. The myelocytes' sneakers lay discarded next to Eosinophil's knee-high boots and socks.

Eosinophil was writing in a pink notebook dotted with red flowers. The eosinophilic myelocyte was reading, while the neutrophilic myelocyte was drawing in a sketchbook.

It was nice.

Eosinophil brushed some strands of hair from her bangs out of her face and wrote down a short haiku in her book.

Splashing in the lake.

Myelocytes and platelets play.

Nice, warm summer day.

"Senpai, I don't understand this word!" The Eosinophilic Myelocyte partially rose from the ground and walked on her knees over to Eosinophil, holding the book and pointing to the unfamiliar word.

"That's metabolism. It means the different processes that happen inside living things that happen to allow life to exist."

"Wow…" the young myelocyte's eyes sparkled as she looked up to her senpai in admiration. She laid down on the ground again, taking a stack of sticky notes out of the pocket of her shorts, writing a note, and placing it in the book.

Eosinophil blushed softly. It had been a while since she had started being Senpai to the myelocytes, but she still wasn't completely used to their gazes of admiration. Or at least, she wasn't used to myelocyte EO-8601's gaze of admiration.

Myelocyte U-8000, the neutrophilic one, was a little older than EO-8601, and more laid-back as well. Plus, she couldn't see his eyes.

Still, she knew both myelocytes cared deeply for her. The idea flustered her a little, but it also warmed her down to the mitochondria more than the summer day.

Oh, that's good.

She wrote down another haiku.

Reading on the beach.

Kouhais both look up to me.

Warms me to my soul.

Kouhais' loving gaze,

Flusters me a little bit,

But mostly spark joy.

She tapped her lips with her pen. Do these work? Maybe "flusters" sounds too out of place. Hmm…

"Zero-kun, what are you drawing?"

"Nothing, Hachiro."

Eosinophil looked up. She bit back the urge to chide 8601 for calling her friend "Zero." When she first heard it, she thought it was an insult. It turned out that it was simply because his number designation contained three zeros. Apparently, he also thought it was cool.

It was hard for Eosinophil to remember sometimes. Even though she had a close group of friends who loved her like a sister, she had experienced bullying from other cells. She knew how it felt, and she especially knew how it affected one's self-esteem. She was still rebuilding her own self-esteem, and she vowed that, even if she was having trouble standing up for herself, she would stand up for any other cell she saw being bullied with everything she had in her.

Zero-kun's voice shook her from her thoughts

"Hachiro, stop!"

"I wanna see!"

"No, let go- ah!"

8601 and Zero-kun's tug-of-war over the sketchbook ended when Zero-kun lost his grip, causing both of the young myelocytes to fall backwards onto the sand. 8601, affectionately named "Hachiro-chan" by her peers due to the first two numbers of her designation, clutched tightly to the sketchbook.

She scrambled to get up and flipped the sketchbook open. Eosinophil thought she should say something.

"Um, Hachiro-chan, please give that back-"

"Why are there tons of pictures of hands and feet?"

On the page she had opened up to, there were indeed multiple sketches of disembodied hands and feet in various poses.

Zero-kun stood up as well, huffing at the younger myelocyte.

"Hands and feet are some of the hardest things to draw. You gotta practice a ton if you wanna get any good."

Hachiro barely listened as she flipped through the pages.

Now Eosinophil was starting to get annoyed. She loved Hachiro, but she knew how she would feel if someone flipped through her book without permission. Without saying a word, she swiped the book right out of Hachiro's tiny hands.

"Hey!" she protested.

"Hachiro-chan, it's extremely rude to look through other people's private belongings. U-… Zero-kun… told you no, that means you need to stop. Okay?"

Hachiro looked down at the ground. "Okay…" she mumbled sadly.

"Now, apologize."

"Sorry, Zero-kun…"

Zero-kun hugged his sketchbook to his chest. "It's okay," he said reluctantly.

Eosinophil's mitochondria twisted uncomfortably in her chest. She hated to scold Hachiro-chan, but sometimes she got a little too wild. If she was going to be an eosinophil, Hachiro would have to have the discipline to control herself. Over-enthusiastic eosinophils can cause allergic reactions, and Eosinophil didn't want that. Even more, Eosinophil was Hachiro's senpai, and it was her duty to be a good role model and guide the myelocyte towards being a good, kind, respectful cell.

It was difficult, because it often felt that correcting her was something a bad senpai would do. She never remembered Basophil correcting her or U-1146.

Although, she and U-1146 weren't Hachiro-chan. They had different problems he helped correct.

She looked down at Zero-kun. "You don't have to show anyone your drawings until you feel ready. I didn't let anyone see or even know about my special book for the longest time. Don't worry."

"T-thanks senpai," Zero-kun replied, blushing slightly.

"I also want you to know, if you ever want to show someone your drawings, but don't want everyone to know about them, you can always show me." Eosinophil pulled her cap down, an old habit of hers. "I don't want you to go through the same self-doubt I did. I promise I will never think any less of you for anything you draw or write."

The flush on the myelocyte's cheeks deepened. "Th… thank you so much, Senpai."

Eosinophil ruffled the boy's hair, smiling softly. "You're welcome."

"Senpai, do you wanna go play in the lake?" Hachiro-chan asked excitedly.

"Oh, I'm not dressed to go swimming right now," Eosinophil said, gesturing to her uniform. "I don't have a swimsuit with me. You go ahead, I'll enjoy the sand."

Hachiro-chan happily ran off to go play in the lake, but Zero-kun stayed back.

"Um, senpai…"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for getting my book back for me, senpai."

"Of course! You're very welcome!"

"Um… you said I could show you any of my drawings…" He paused, looking down at the ground. "Well, I made this for you, because you're always helping us… thanks."

He gave Eosinophil a paper and ran off without another word.

She watched him run off into the water, before looking down at the paper.

It was a drawing of her.

Eosinophil couldn't believe it. It was an extremely good picture. Maybe there were some mistakes (he was still just a myelocyte, after all), but it was much better than anything Eosinophil herself could draw. She took in every detail of the picture.

Zero-kun obviously worked very hard. He had been observing her as she sat writing. He had marked down even the tiniest details. The way she looked up when she was thinking of something, the way she tapped her lip with her pen, the way she braced her book against her knees, the way she curled her toes in the sand, even the way her clothes wrinkled and ruffled in places like the elbows and the shoulders and the rolled-up hem of her pants. She couldn't believe someone so young drew this!

In the bottom corner, he signed his name. Zero. Next to his nickname was a little heart.

Wait a minute…

Blushing?

Giving her a gift?

Drawing her?

Signing his name on a gift with a heart?

Does he have a little crush on me? she wondered.

At first, she got worried. He was just a little myelocyte! How could she possibly tell him that she was way too old? She had no idea something like this might happen, this had never happened to her before!

Wait…

This had happened to her before, but opposite.

When she was a myelocyte, she thought Basophil was very handsome when she first met him. She developed a small crush on him, even though he was older. Still, it only lasted a little while before it faded away on its own, and Basophil never said anything to her.

Smiling, she carefully folded the paper, took out a paperclip, and secured his gift in her book. She forgot, little kids latch onto things sometimes, and sometimes they mistake their feelings of admiration for something else. It was normal, and she had been the same way with Basophil. She didn't have to worry about anything. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was really adorable! Maybe she was a good senpai after all.

She smiled, thinking about Basophil. She hoped she could be as good a mentor to these myelocytes as he had been to her. She hoped she could guide them to be good immune cells, and she hoped she would be there to see their graduation.

That was the future, anyway. For now, she would watch them play in the lake with their classmates and the platelets.

It really was a nice day.

The End