Mukai didn't like it when people used words she didn't know.
"Hatori is our brother now, ok? You remember him, right?" asked Shigeko. Mukai nodded. Of course she knew who Hatori was, he was the one with the best games. He had gone away somewhere with Caterpillars. She understood that. She didn't understand, though, what Shigeko meant by brother.
What was a brother?
"Hatori's coming back?" asked Mukai. That was the important part. If he came back then he could put better games on her phone. Mama kept on taking it away because she played on it too much. There was no such thing as too much! Everyone knew that.
"No, not yet…I mean if he wants to he can but I don't think that he wants to since he's Dad's kid now…he used to be his best friend so maybe he has to get used to it…but don't worry, we'll get used to it too." Said Shigeko
"I don't think she gets it." Said Sho. He was right, Mukai didn't get it at all. She didn't know why people had to leave sometimes, especially the fun people, and she didn't understand what Shigeko was talking about either. She was bored, too, this was boring. She wished that Ryou didn't have to live in the hula hoop now, they could have gone off and had an adventure, like the time they found pandas or the time they went to the doggy store or the time they went in the sewer and found all those mama rats and baby rats. Anything would have been more fun than being at home.
Home could be so boring sometimes.
"Sho, come play with me. Right now!" said Mukai. Sho looked up and shook his head. He was taking the ham-ham house apart. That wasn't fun because then you had to wash the pieces and there were a lot of them. Also the ham-hams got made when you took their house apart. But the ham-hams could be fun to play with when they didn't run away and hide…actually ham-ham hide and seek could be fun.
Almost as fun as real hide and seek.
"I can't play with you right now, I have to get all these tunnels clean. Big Sis can play with you." said Sho. Mukai looked Shigeko up and down. She wasn't as good at playing games. She didn't know a lot of them, she couldn't climb or jump, and she didn't know where to find pandas either.
"We can play if you want, Mukai." Said Shigeko
"You don't know how." Said Mukai
"I know how to play lots of things. Remember when we played dolls yesterday? Wasn't that fun?" asked Shigeko. Mukai shook her head.
"You're boring." Said Mukai. It was true. Shigeko was very boring at playing dolls. She never made them fight. She just put them in different clothes and stuff. She never let Mukai dress them, either, because she didn't know which dresses went with which dolls. She didn't see why Elsa and Anna couldn't switch dresses but Shigeko had said that it was important….she was kind of bossy, like Sho and Mama had said.
"She's kind of right." Said Sho with a laugh.
"See? I'm right." Said Mukai
"Well, um, I can try not to be boring. What do you want to play?" asked Shigeko. She ducked down as Sho walked past her carrying a bunch of ham-ham house parts with his colors. Playing with Shigeko was boring but helping Sho out would have been even more boring…and she wasn't in the mood to be bored. If she had been then she would have gone to play with Mama. Mama was always trying to teach her letters and make her do yoga and pick up her toys and stuff like that. She didn't know why she had to do all of that stuff, nobody else did.
Everyone else got to have fun.
So she would try her best. Maybe Shigeko had just never learned how to play games. Maybe Sho had just never taught her…that hadn't been nice of him. It was important to make sure that the people around you were happy and having fun, that was how friends worked, and Sho and Shigeko were best friends. That was why they lived in the same house. Mukai used to think that Shigeko was Sho's mama but then Mama had said that they were brother and sister…which meant friends who lived in the same house?
She wasn't sure, actually, but she was sure that she knew what she wanted to do.
"Hide and seek! Right now! You go and hide now, ok?" asked Mukai pointing to behind the couch. That was the best spot to hide in. One time she had hid back there for three whole shows and Minegishi still hadn't been able to find her.
"You want me to hide? Isn't it better if you hide and I seek you? Because I can count higher?" asked Shigeko
"I know how to count! Now go and hide!" said Mukai. She knew how to count really high now, she wasn't a baby. Shigeko always thought that other people were babies, even Sho had said so. She pointing behind the couch again…but Shigeko walked down the hall. What? Didn't she know how to play hide and seek?
Obviously not.
If she had known how to play then she would have realized that the best place to hide was behind the couch. She knew how to fly, too, and she could have hidden up on the ceiling like Ryou did sometimes. But, of course, she was probably going to come up with a bad hiding spot like in the corner or the bathtub or the clothes hamper. Mukai would have to teach her how to play hide and seek…and dolls…and everything else that mattered.
She was a good friend like that.
"One….two…three…." said Mukai as she covered her eyes. She didn't do the halves because they made her all confused. She could never remember which came first, half or quarters. She didn't want to get confused. She knew how to count. Shigeko thought that she knew everything, most grownups did, but Mukai knew things too. She wasn't a little baby anymore. People still treated her like a baby, though.
Like Mama.
If she were to go home right now Mama would have picked her up and sat her at the table and made her learn things. Or Mama would have given her a bath and washed her hair…and she was the worst at washing hair. That was pretty much the only thing that Shigeko was better at than everyone else. She never tugged when she brushed Mukai's hair, and she used a comb too. Mukai had told Mama to only use the comb, and only when Mukai's hair was wet, but Mama never listened. She still thought that Mukai was a baby.
Everyone did.
She couldn't help it that she was the littlest person in the whole house. She didn't ask to be the littlest. If she could have switched places with Sho then she would have. She would have loved to have been that tall, and to have been able to decide her own bedtime, and also Sho could do a lot more with his colors than she could…she wished that she could have been Sho…or maybe even Shigeko. Shigeko got to pick her own bedtime, too, and she even got to tell other grownups what to do. Also she got to wear makeup and brush her own hair, she didn't have a Mama to tell her what to do. She was so lucky.
Even if she did say stuff that made no sense.
Like how Hatori was her brother now…their brother. She had heard the word before, brother, they lived in families. She had seen families on TV. Families had a mama and then a man and then some kids. Mukai didn't have one of those. There were a bunch of boys who lived in their house but they were all friends. Also she was the only kid…so then how could Hatori have been her brother if he wasn't a kid and also there were a lot of boys who lived in the house, not just one?
It was comfusing.
"Eleven…thirteen….fourteen….seventeen…" said Mukai. Sometimes numbers could be confusing, too. After then she got kind of mixed up. She only had the ten fingers to count with, of course. After that she just had to remember their names but there were so many and she didn't even now which one she was up to by now…she opened her eyes. All ten of her fingers were up…but she knew that there were more numbers in this world than ten.
Caterpillars had said so.
She had asked him, once, how high the numbers went. He had told her that they just went on forever. She didn't know how much forever was but she knew that there must have at least been as many numbers as there were ham-hams in the world….and there were a lot of ham-hams. They were all squished in to one part of the ham-ham house now and they were upset…she could hear them squeaking. It sounded like they were sad.
They needed a little more space.
Mukai went over to the ham-ham stuff and got out one of the balls. Sho put them in here sometimes when they needed a time out. Sometimes they got into fights where they bit each other and ate their babies. Ryou had said that hamsters could be real assholes sometimes. Mukai agreed, but not with the bad words because then Mama would have made her sit in time out. She didn't want to go and sit in time out, it was boring, even worse than being a ham-ham in a super crowded ham-ham house.
They needed a little more space.
She took the cap off of the ball. It took some time because her fingers were a lot smaller than Sho's…this would have been a lot easier if she could have switched places with him. She was still so little, so little that she even had trouble with the door to the ham-ham house. She tried to use her colors but they wouldn't listen. They didn't ever listen as good as Sho's and Shigeko's did. She didn't know why. Usually when she told people to do things then they did what she said…most people. Mama never did what she said. Mama was mean like that.
Mama was kind of like a ham-ham.
"No, ham-hams, don't run away!" said Mukai. They didn't listen, they never did. They all just started running out when she opened their door. She had to use her colors to stuff them all back inside so she could close the door again. The ones that ran away didn't even try to go into the ham-ham ball. They all just ran away!
It wasn't fair.
One…two…three…more than that had run away. She couldn't count them all, they moved too fast. Now Sho was going to be upset again…it wasn't fair! Why hadn't the ham-hams want to listen to her? She didn't understand. She was tired of not understanding things…and she was tired of people not understanding her. Sho was going to get mad and tell her that she was too little to play with the ham-hams and then Shigeko was going to take her back to Mama and Mama was going to make her do boring stuff and-and it just wasn't fair!
Life was unfair.
Caterpillars had told her that, before. He had said, when she had been mad about…she couldn't even remember, that life wasn't fair. He knew a lot of things…but not about everything. Things had to be fair, right? Otherwise then why were there rules and things? Rules made everything fair, like how everyone only got to vote once for what movie they were going to watch, and how people weren't allowed to take really long baths because then if you had to pee while someone was in the tub it was bad. Also about how Ryou had to live in the hula hoop now…wait, no, that wasn't fair either…why did so many things have to be unfair?!
Caterpillars would have known.
She needed to ask him…but he was far away. He didn't live her anymore. He'd had to leave her and…wait…he had a phone! She could see it, there, Shigeko's phone. It was plugged into the charger on the wall. She knew that Shigeko had Caterpillars' phone number and she knew what the pattern to unlock Shigeko's phone was. Mukai wished that she'd had her phone, it had games, and…wait, no, this wasn't about games. This was about Caterpillars!
She ran over to the phone.
She picked it up and unlocked it. She knew how to call people without reading. First she touched the picture of the book and then she just had to scroll down until she found Caterpillars' picture. Shigeko's phone was very easy to use. Not like Mama's phone, she didn't have pictures for the phone numbers, and Ryou's phone was the worst of all. He had to talk to it and it only understood him. Mukai's phone understood her but Mama has took it away…it wasn't fair…why did things have to be so unfair!?
Caterpillars would have known.
"Shigeko?" asked Caterpillars. The phone had only had to ring a few times, once she had remembered to hit the green phone button, and she knew that she had an important question to ask but…but now she was mad! She wasn't Shigeko! She was Mukai and she would never be Shigeko and she knew that she was going to be little for the rest of her life and that her colors would never listen to her and-and she would never be able to fly and-and it just wasn't fair!
"It's not fair!" said Mukai
"Mukai?" asked Caterpillars
"I'm Mukai! I'm not Shigeko!" said Mukai
"It's wonderful hearing from you, how have you been?" asked Caterpillars. How had she been? Couldn't he tell how she was? He needed to listen with his ears!
"I'm mad because it's unfair!" said Mukai
"What's unfair? Maybe I can rectify the situation for you." said Caterpillars. Mukai put the phone on the ground and slapped it…and all that did was put the speaker phone on. That wasn't fair either…nothing was fair! Nothing in the whole world was ever going to be fair and-and that was so unfair too!
"That's not fair! I don't know that word and-and I'm little and-and all the ham-hams ran away and-and Shigeko doesn't know how to play hide and seek!" said Mukai
"That…is a very long list. I'll start from the beginning. To rectify something is to correct it." Said Caterpillars. She knew what correct meant, it meant right, and she would have known the other word if she had been bigger…she didn't know why she had to be so little. She hadn't asked to be so little.
"Still a big word." Muttered Mukai, crossing her arms.
"It is, you're correct. Now onto your second point. Yes, you are very small, but one day you won't be." Said Caterpillars
"What day? Tomorrow?" asked Mukai, looking up. She had seen a movie where a big kid went to bed and then woke up a grownup. She wouldn't have minded being a grownup. She would have been able to do whatever she wanted then, she even could have had her own ham-hams and they never would have run away…it would have been so wonderful.
"No, quite a few years from now, a decade perhaps…ten years. A decade is ten years." Said Caterpillars. Mukai looked down at her hands. She opened them up and looked at all of her fingers…that was a lot.
"That's a long time." Said Mukai. She closed her fingers. She couldn't even imagine that many years. She could barely imagine three years and that was how long she'd been alive for so far.
"It is, but time passes by more quickly the older you get. Onto your third point. The hamsters have run away…that's a good thing. Terrible creatures hamsters, all rodents really. I have no idea why your brother is so fond of them." said Caterpillars. There was the word again, brother. But that was a TV word, not a life word. In life people didn't live in little houses like that with just a man and a woman and a boy and a girl. TV was just people playing pretend and then someone recorded it with a phone. That wasn't life.
"What's that mean?" asked Mukai. There was the word again, brother. She knew what it meant…sort of…but people should have only used words from the real world and not from the TV world. This was real life, not pretend.
"What does what mean?" asked Caterpillars
"The word! What's brother mean! Come on, listen with your ears." Said Mukai
"You…do not know the meaning of the word brother? How? Oh, never mind. You're young and your vocabulary is limited. A brother is a male sibling…Sho. Sho is your brother." Said Caterpillars
"Sho's not my brother, he's my friend. Brother is from TV, it's a TV word." Said Mukai
"I….am trying to follow….I see now, yes. You believe that people can only operate under one condition. This is false. A brother can be a friend and a friend can be a brother. So therefore Sho is both your brother and your friend." Said Caterpillars
"Sho's two things?" asked Mukai. She hadn't even known that a person could have been two things. She was only one thing, she was only a Mukai.
"Yes. He is your brother and your friend just as Shigeko is your sister and your friend." Said Caterpillars
"Shigeko's two things too?" asked Mukai. Did that mean that everyone in the world was two things? Could they be more than two things? Could they be three things? Or four things? Or five? Or even ten? She didn't even know if she knew ten whole things that a person could be.
"Yes, she is. She is your friend and your sister. You have two, no, you have three siblings. I don't know if you've been informed but Hatori is now your brother as well." Said Caterpillars
"Hatori is two things now? Who else?" asked Mukai
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean but I am your father and…well not a friend but…I am your father. We'll leave it at that." Said Caterpillars
"What's that mean?" asked Mukai. She had heard that before…father Christmas? No, no, Caterpillars wasn't Santa. She had met Santa and even lived at the North Pole for a little bit. That had been a lot of fun, actually. She had no idea why they ever left.
"Father? How do you…I suppose your upbringing hasn't been anything close to ideal…and I have been nothing even close to an ideal father towards you. Very well, a father is the person who made you. The male person who is responsible for your creation. The creation of all people, really, but in terms of this family…in terms of, your brothers, and your sister, I am the father in this family unit. Oh, also your mother, Tsuchiya, is your mother despite the fact that she is not the woman who made you…I don't know what became of her." Said Caterpillars. Mukai frowned. That hadn't answered any of her questions.
"What's that mean? Made?" asked Mukai. You couldn't make people, they weren't cakes, and…wait…where did new people come from. She had seen babies and they were the new people but then where had they come from? Did people make new people like they made cakes? With flours and eggs and water…was she cake?
She liked herself. She was skin.
"Made means…you are too young to know the mechanics of it. Just know that I had a hand in your creation. You exist because of me and…and I admit that in the beginning I was not kind to you at all. I apologize. I have no idea if you even remember but…but if you do I understand if you don't want to forgive me." said Caterpillars. Forgive meant sorry….what was he sorry for? Maybe because he was gone…that was enough, she thought, to be sorry.
"I forgive you, now come home." Said Mukai
"I…I have no idea when I will be able to do that…but your mother has been good to you, yes? And your sister?" asked Caterpillars. Sister…she knew who that was! The other thing that Shigeko was…but no, she wasn't good at all.
"No, Shigeko's bad. She doesn't know how to play hide and seek. That's very bad." said Mukai
"Well then you should show her how it's done. Also, and I'm not sure if you figured this out yet, but people seldom look inside of washing machines. At least Tadashi never did…Fukuda, to you." said Caterpillars.
"Fukuda's two things too?" asked Mukai
"Tadashi…Fukuda is many things…but I don't want to speak of him right now. Why don't you go and find Shigeko, yes? Or ask her to find you…or something. I have to go now. Goodbye." Said Caterpillars before he hung up. He didn't even wait for her to say goodbye, which was kind of mean. She tossed the phone onto the couch. She had to find Shigeko.
And then she was going to tell her to hide in the washing machine.
She hadn't even thought about hiding there before! Caterpillars always had the best ideas. He was smart like that. Maybe because he was two things. Father and Caterpillars. She didn't know if she was two things…maybe that was because she was so little. Maybe when you got older you got to be two things…she couldn't wait until she was something other than Mukai.
Not that she wanted to stop being Mukai.
She liked being Mukai. She liked being able to play all day and climb and she liked how people were, mostly, nice to her….though she didn't like how all the ham-hams had run away from her. That hadn't been a good thing…they were the best at hide and seek, she decided. Not her, no, because she wasn't as little….though nobody was worse at hide and seek than Shigeko.
Mukai could see her colors through the walls.
"Found you!" shouted Mukai as she kicked the bedroom door opened. Shigeko was hiding under her covers, Mukai could see the lump. She ran over to the bed and jumped on it. She didn't know why Shigeko was hiding, Mukai could see her colors-
-wait, no.
She jumped on the lump…and it wasn't a person. She stopped jumping and pulled the covers to the side. it was just blankets and stuffed Elsas and Olafs. She pushed them off the bed. She had no idea how she could have been wrong…where was Shigeko? She could see her colors but…but she wasn't there…it wasn't fair! Mukai laid down and kicked the wall. This wasn't fair! This wasn't fair! This wasn't-
What was that?
She rolled onto her stomach and scooted to the end of the bed. She'd heard something…hey! The bed was growing hair! She could see…that was Shigeko's hair! Either her or one of the things with two many teeth…she leaned over and tried to poke the hair…she pulled her hand back. She sat up and grabbed one of the Elsa dolls.
Elsa could see what it was. She was brave.
"Take that!" said Mukai as she threw the doll at the hair. Shigeko's colors got brighter…there she was! She had been hiding there the whole time…Mukai took back what she had said about Shigeko being bad at hide and seek. She jumped off the end of the bed and laid down on the floor.
That was definitely Shigeko.
"You found me!" said Shigeko as she crawled out from under the bed. Mukai reached out and pulled on her hair. Ok, ok, she was good at hiding…but now it was Mukai's turn.
"You're not bad at hide and seek, Shigeko. You're good at it…you're two things." Said Mukai
"Thank you, Mukai. I love you, little sister." Said Shigeko as she pulled her hair out of Mukai's hand. Mukai nodded…little sister. She got called that sometimes…was that her other thing? Was she two things after all?
"I'm two things?" asked Mukai
"You're a lot of things, Mukai. You're my sister, you're three, you're really good at hide and seek, you're loving, you can yell really loud-" said Shigeko
"I'm the best at hide and seek! You have to count, now, and then I can hide. I'm ten things." Said Mukai
"You're more than ten things." Said Shigeko with a laugh. Mukai shook her head and grabbed Shigeko's hands. She put them over her eyes.
"Count now. I'm going to go and hide…but don't look in the washing machine!" said Mukai before she ran away. Shigeko said something about her not being allowed in the washing machine…that was good. if Shigeko thought that she wasn't allowed in the washing machine then Shigeko would never have looked there! It was so smart!
Caterpillars was really good at hide and seek.
Sure he sometimes used words that she didn't know, and he was far away, and he had waited until this long to tell her that people could be two things…but she missed him and she wanted to play hide and seek with him. Sho too. Also Hatori. They were a family. Mama was invited, too, if she felt like playing and not making Mukai do boring things. That would have been so much fun…
But only if people shut up, played the game, and didn't try and tell her any words that she didn't already know.