An Over-Eager Eosinophil

"Hachiro-chan, slow down!" Eosinophil called to the myelocyte.

Hachiro, leaning on her training spear, panted from her exertions. She was still so young, her baggy pink T-shirt almost reached down to her knees, making it almost look more like a dress than a shirt. Her brown pigtails stuck out from under her cap, and her face was shiny with sweat.

"Don't worry, Senpai, I can do even better!" she said between breaths.

Eosinophil huffed. She had been the eosinophilic myelocyte's senpai for some time now. She loved EO-8601, affectionately nicknamed "Hachiro" from the pronunciation of the first two numbers, like a baby sister. She wanted to help Hachiro in any way she could.

Unfortunately, Hachiro seemed to have the exact opposite problems that Eosinophil herself had as a myelocyte. When Eosinophil was younger, she was often scared by the bacteria puppets her sensei would use. She often felt weak because she couldn't easily phagocytose bacteria.

Phagocytosis: The process by which white blood cells destroy germs such as bacteria, by engulfing and digesting them. Made up of "phago" (eat, devour), "cyte" (cell), and "-osis" (the process of).

Sometimes, other cells would bully her, be it her fellow myelocytes, or ordinary cells throughout the body. She was lucky she had a group of close friends who stood up for her through it all. Even now, she still struggled with self-esteem issues, though she was getting better.

Hachiro, however, had no such problems with self-doubt. In fact, she was all too eager to attack anything and everything, sometimes even injuring her teachers.

It had gotten to the point where U-1110, Eosinophil's own former teacher, asked her to help Hachiro. It warmed Eosinphil's mitochondria that he saw her as a competent mentor for a myelocyte, that he thought she had grown enough since then. Unfortunately, Hachiro was proving to be quite the handful.

"Hachiro-chan," said Eosinophil, trying to keep her voice even, "why do you attack everything so hard?"

"Because I've gotta be the very best!" Hachiro answered, still panting.

Eosinophil shook her head. "Being the best doesn't mean just attacking everything in your range of vision. It means knowing which battles to fight, and giving it your all. You can't just lash out like this. Is something wrong?"

Eosinophil looked at her little kouhai, who avoided meeting her gaze.

"Hachiro-chan…" Eosinophil said again.

"I just… -sniff!- I just wanna be able to fight all the germs." Tears streamed down Hachiro's face as she struggled to hold back her sobs. "Everyone says Eosinophils are weak and I'm the only one in my class and I just wanna be awesome like you and show them they're wrong and--" Hachiro's words became unintelligible as she started crying in earnest.

"Oh, Hachiro-chan! Come here!" Eosinophil knelt down and held her arms wide. Hachiro ran forward into Eosinophil's arms and cried onto her shoulder as Eosinophil hugged her tight.

"It's okay, Hachiro-chan. Don't listen to the bullies one bit. I remember they used to say that about me."

Sometimes they still do, Eosinophil thought to herself.

"But you know what?" she continued. "When a parasitic worm invaded the stomach lining, I was the only one who was able to take it down. That's what we're made for."

Hachiro continued to sob and hiccup. "But… but it's so hard to complete the bacteria training and everyone makes fun of me and I don't like it!"

Eosinophil shifted so that she was sitting down in a cross-legged position, with Hachiro in her lap. She continued to gently rub the back of Hachiro's head.

"That's because Eosinophils aren't meant to fight bacteria. We're meant to fight parasites. Just like neutrophils can't fight parasites, because they're meant to fight bacteria. We protect the body and each other from all kinds of threats. Neutrophils and Eosinophils are a team."

Hachiro nodded, still hiccupping, her tears leaving small dark spots on Eosinophil's uniform. "I still wanna be able to fight the bacteria, though."

"You know why I want you to slow down? To calmly think about which battles you pick?" Eosinophil asked.

Hachiro looked up at Eosinophil with listening eyes and shook her head "no."

"Because Eosinophils are much more powerful than you think. We have to be careful. If too many of us gather in one area or we are too reckless, we can cause inflammation. If we're really not careful, we can cause the body to have an asthma attack, or an allergic reaction. That's why there's so few of us, so that we don't cause an accident," Eosinophil explained.

Eosinophilic Asthma: Asthma caused by inflammation of the lungs due to overactive/over concentrated eosinophils. Tends to appear in adulthood, and is not easily treated with conventional asthma treatments. The exact cause for eosinophilic asthma is still unknown.

"Really?" Hachiro asked.

"Really."

I wish I had someone to tell me this when I was her age.

"So the most important thing isn't to fight harder, but to fight smarter. You have to slow down and really thing about the best way to defeat a parasite. You don't want to waste all your energy on an attack that doesn't work, or worse, hurt any cells nearby."

Hachiro looked down at the ground. "No…"

Eosinophil gently hugged the little girl. "Don't worry, we'll work on it together. You'll get it. It takes lots of practice."

Eosinophil didn't hear a reply, but she could feel Hachiro nod while hugging back.

"Let's go get a quick snack, practice just a little more, then we can be done for the day. Okay?" She moved to look Hachiro in the eye.

Hachiro looked at the ground, still seemingly uncomfortable. "Okay…"

"It will be okay, Hachiro-chan. I promise. With your determination and lots of practice, I think you'll be even better than me!"

Hachiro gasped. "Really?!"

"Definitely."

Hachiro leapt into another big hug. "Thanks, Senpai."

"You're very welcome," Eosinophil said with a smile. "Come on, let's go get a snack."