Part 2: The Kitsune
I awoke Friday all twitchy. Friday I was to move from the hotel to Katy and Eric's apartment. I was very keen to get to the friendly comfort of their place but I was going to miss the nearness of the hotel. I was quite fond of only needing to walk five minutes to be 'home' and comfy in bed. This was particularly handy on nights when drinking had occurred. I, uh, tend to deal with fluids rather quickly.
The majority of the reason for my twitchiness was that I had to pack all my stuff up to cart over to the apartment. Packing makes me nervous. I'm always afraid I shall miss something. I looked over the room three or four times in order to make sure I'd collected everything. I believe I got it all.
I checked out of the hotel. I checked in my luggage. They would hold it for me until that night, which is very nice of them indeed. In the meantime, we're going to Aiku Falls and have a picnic at the falls.
I met up with Eric and we wandered about the non-mall collecting items for lunch. One of our stops is the oft-talked about Mr. Donut. I love this place. From what I've seen, Japanese places like this run rather differently than American places do this sort of thing. In America, all the donuts and sandwiches and such would be behind glass. You would select your items and the grunt behind the counter would collect the item with a piece of wax paper in his hand before placing it in a box. In Japan you pick up a tray and a pair of tongs. The selections are still encased in Plexiglas, but the front section is open. You select your items with the tongs, place them on the tray and then go to the register when you've gotten everything. My eyes were a bit bigger than my stomach, which was no surprise due to my lack of a proper breakfast. I selected a couple donuts and a strange frankfurter sandwich that looked rather interesting. At the register, one young lady totaled up my selections while another removed each item from the tray and wrapped each item separately before placing it in a bag. It was all very fascinating.
From there we met up with Katy at the station. I hadn't been expecting to see her just yet. Yesterday she had spoken of staying at home in order to nervously tidy the apartment in preparation for my arrival. Apparently she was able to accomplish this to her satisfaction earlier than expected. This was a good thing. I was of the opinion that the trip would be more fun with her along. We did a bit more shopping for food at the station. I bought a drink and a different sandwich. Then we hopped on a bus out to Aiku Falls.
The bus ride took forever and a day. This was approximately an hour and a half longer than expected. We removed ourselves from the bus at Aiku Falls in part because it was our destination and in part because it was the last stop for the bus. By this point we were tired, hungry and slightly floaty. A trip to the bathroom took care of that last problem.
A small collective of stalls had collected around the bus stop at Aiku Falls. We wandered by them, but didn't pay them much mind. There was also an official looking tourist collecting building which was grand due to the fact that it had the bathrooms. It also sold soft serve. I think every tourist destination in Japan has soft serve. That's just a guess however; I didn't visit all of them.
There was a collection of even smaller stalls that sold fried snacks and candies on the walkway to the shrine. We nodded at the shrine and promised ourselves to investigate it at further length on our return. We were too hungry to deal with it now. We had a hike ahead of us. As far as I could tell, we went through the forest, first up and then down, down the side of a road, and then down some stone steps. The trip was about a kilometer in length. A kilometer is about a ... well, it's either more than a mile or less than a mile. Eitherway, it's a long way to walk when you're hungry. We headed off into the forest.
We hadn't gotten far when we came across a young lady whose dress had gotten tangled in a tree. The ribbons behind her had gotten all knotted around the branches and she was unable to reach them in order to unknot them. I approached, intending to be gentlemanly and assist her, but not wanting to frighten her by just appearing in her personal space, I turned to Katy. "Hey, lend a hand, I've forgotten, how'd say hello in Japanese?"
"Konnichi wa," the young lady said. "Hello would also have been acceptable."
"Ah, English. In that case, might I assist you in extracting yourself from your current predicament?"
"I would appreciate the assistance."
Carefully I unwrapped the tangled cloth and silk from the branches. While we were in such close physical proximity, I took the opportunity to politely check her out. She was the cutest thing I'd ever seen that wasn't a baby or a puppy. Long jet black hair and a button nose on a round face, she was just neat. Her clothing flowed around her, disguising what lay underneath. It didn't matter.
A moment later, I had completed my mission. I stood up and stepped away. "There you go. All set."
Carefully she stepped away from the tree, making sure she didn't get caught up in the tree again. "Thank you very much," she said with a slight bow and the sweetest smile you ever did want to see. "I am Kasumi Mendo." Politely, we introduced ourselves to her. She nodded to each declaration of a name. "You are going to the Falls?"
"Yup."
"Would you mind if I accompanied you? I am also heading for the Falls."
I knew how I'd respond, but turned to my friends to get their opinion. Eric was already grinning enthusiastically. Katy was not. She was frowning slightly, almost puzzled looking. I raised my eyebrows questioningly. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Yes?" I verified aloud.
"Why not?" Eric questioned.
"Sure," Katy added.
"Then it's settled." She smiled again and we set off again.
A minute or so later we got to the Part That Was Very Steep Indeed. To make matters worse some of the rough rock steps were damaged or destroyed by tree roots. Kasumi lightly bounded down the steps as if they were nothing. Katy's problem with heights kicked in and Eric and I assisted her slow descent to level ground. Once we were all at the bottom, I turned to Kasumi. "So, you're from around here then?"
She blinked, looking puzzled. "What makes you ask that?"
"You descended the steps rather easily, as if you had a lot of practice with them. It was just a guess."
She smiled again. "Well, you are right. I am from here. You are quite clever."
I flushed in the beam of her extreme cuteness. "I have my moments I suppose."
As we walked on, Katy motioned me to the back of the group. While Eric chatted away to Kasumi, Katy could speak to me in a whispered privacy. "I don't trust her."
"Whyever not?"
"I'm not sure yet. Something doesn't feel right about her."
"Personally, I'm not seeing it."
"That's just because she's cute."
"No, it's because she's cute, smiling at me and talking to me. She also hasn't run in fear of me yet. These are all Good Things."
"Whatever. Just be careful here."
"Okay."
We rejoined the others. Kasumi gravitated back to my side. I was not displeased. "Eric says you are visiting for the week."
"That is correct."
"You must leave so soon? You will not get to see much of Japan."
"I know. I could only get so much time off of work."
She nodded in understanding. "Work can be very demanding. Are you a detective?"
“No. Why do you ask?"
"The manner in which you used logic earlier made me think so. It felt like a very natural action for you to take mentally."
"That makes sense. No, I do nothing so interesting. I'm a computer operator."
"What does that entail?"
I sighed. This is always a tricky thing to explain without getting exceptionally detailed. When I get exceptionally detailed, people's eyes tend to glaze over. I'm reasonably sure that some of my friends still think that I sit in a chair all day staring at a screen, pushing a button. To be fair, if you watched me all day and had no clue what I was doing and why, it might look like that's all I'm doing. As we started to walk down the concrete bridge to the next set of stone steps, I tried to explain. "At a very basic level, I'm a babysitter for a number of computer systems. We have a number of items and jobs that we monitor and check to make sure they are working properly. If they are not working properly, we are also the first line of defense. If we can fix the problem, we fix it. If we can't fix it, we're the ones who call the people who can fix it. I suppose there's some detective work to discovering why certain problems occurred and how to prevent them from reoccurring, so I do some of that. There's more to it than that, but basically that's what I do."
She nodded, pondering this. I glanced back at Katy and Eric. She was whispering to him, probably the same theory about Kasumi that she had presented to me. Eric's face was currently blank. "Well," Kasumi noted, "it sounds very interesting."
"Thank you for saying so. Generally it's not."
We started down the stone steps to the foot of the Falls. The steps started out very large and broad but soon grew very small and cramped. Once again, some of the steps were damaged. It was nothing particularly complicated to navigate, but less complicated than the Very Steep Steps of before. In my opinion at least this was the case.
"Would you be able to assist me again?" Kasumi stood there on a narrow step, offering her hand to me. I simply nodded and took her hand, carefully guiding her down the many steps. This was something I just didn't understand. Admittedly my experience with the Japanese people is somewhat limited but what little experience I do have jived with the information I did have when coming here, that the Japanese are a little shy, but not unfriendly. As a whole, they politely keep to themselves. So, why has this young lady offered to make polite prolonged physical contact with me? After the way she bounded down the other, much steeper steps, she can't really be requiring my assistance here. Something's going on and it confused me.
We made it to the foot of the Falls. Large rocks were scattered here and there like blocks dropped by a child. We found a few that would serve as seats and sat to eat. Kasumi sat next to me, slightly in my personal space. I blushed slightly. She wasn't touching me, but I was constantly aware of her nearness. Katy kept giving her a look. Not an angry or antagonistic look, but just a polite watch, as if Katy expected her to do something.
We started unpacking our lunches. Upon opening my bag with the donuts, Kasumi sniffed the air curiously. "What is that smell?" she mused aloud.
"Donuts. I have a marble frosted one and a lemon filled one."
"Lemon filled, of course." She brought her attention fully back to me. "I know we haven't known each other for very long, but could I ask a favour of you?"
"Certainly."
"Could I have the lemon filled donut? If it's not too much to ask."
"Sure. I don't mind. I think I brought too much food anyway." I handed over the lemon filled donut.
She grinned at me. It was a strange sort of grin. "I do appreciate this." She stood up and then leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. "In your manner of speech, I owe you one." She set the donut in her mouth and walked back towards the stone staircase. She didn't head for the stairs, but walked towards the wall. We watched her go, curious to see what was going on.
She stood against the wall and made sure none of the other visitors to the Falls were watching. With the donut still in her mouth she grinned and then winked at us.
I'm not sure how to explain what happened next. There was no sound, but there was a feeling like a sound, like a poof. There was no puff of smoke but suddenly the incredibly cute girl with a donut in her mouth was gone, replaced by a fox with a donut in it's mouth. I swear it grinned at us and then bounded away, quickly darting out of sight.
Speaking solely for myself, my jaw dropped. My brain also decided to go numb briefly.
It was Eric that spoke first. Perhaps his brain unfroze first. "Kitsune," he muttered.
"Kitsune," I mumbled in echo.
"They're kami, spirits of nature, godlike beings."
I spoke slowly because my brain was still trying to decide what was going on. "Thank you, but I had remembered what that meant."
"That one might have been the kami of the shrine at the top of the hill. Kitsune are strange creatures. It's a good thing it was happy around us or it might have caused all sorts of trouble. Changing the weather, trying to possess us, trying to steal a soul, Kitsune have lots of different abilities and moods."
"And that one wanted a lemon filled donut."
"Apparently."
The possibilities overwhelmed me briefly. I stared at my sandwich.
Katy chewed moodily. "I told you she was up to no good."
And she was right.
