Adachi to Shimamura - Volume SS1 - Chapter 30

Take Me with You When You Grow

I WASN’T EVEN HALFWAY through my slice of toast when Mom suddenly proposed, “Let’s go to the aquarium!”

“Where did that come from?” Dad asked her.

“It sounds fun, doesn’t it?” she answered with no further explanation. 

Naturally, he gave up trying to understand her. “Yes, dear.” Whenever the conversation went along those lines, you knew Mom had won. 

“I just remembered how badly I wanted to go a few years back,” she added.

“The aquarium, you say? Ah, of course,” Yachi nodded sagely as she spread jelly across every inch of her toast.

“I bet you’ve never been to one, have you, Yachi?” I asked.

“An astute inference, Little.” Her cheeks looked as soft and jiggly as the jelly. “Papa-san taught me that an aquarium is akin to an apartment complex for fish.”

“Eh, more or less,” Mom shrugged.

That was a funny way of putting it—as if the fish had to apply to move in. But I was woolgathering.

“So, anyone here got plans for tomorrow?” Mom asked.

Dad let out a defeated chuckle. “Not yet.”

“Me neither,” I chimed in.

“Hmmm,” Yachi muttered pensively to herself.

Mom essentially ignored her, exclaiming, “Well, you do now!”

And so, just like that, she’d added a new activity to the calendar. It’d been some time since our last family outing, so I didn’t mind. Plus, I liked fish—I wouldn’t have kept one as a pet for so long if I didn’t.

After washing the dishes, Mom walked into the living room and plopped down. She pulled out her phone and started scrolling, chin in hand.

“You can reserve tickets online these days? We’re living in the future!” She looked up and pointed at each of us in turn, counting. “Okay, two adults, two children…”

Then she froze, her finger hovering over the screen, and looked back at me.

“Right! Silly me, I forgot.” Reaching out, she tousled my hair, her eyes twinkling. “You’re all grown up now. Time flies, eh?”

Yes, I was now in high school. Dad’s hair was graying, Mom looked a little thinner, and my sister…

With a sigh, Mom averted her gaze. “Three full-price tickets, huh…?”

“Ugh. Could you not be such a cheapskate?”

She cackled gleefully without a shred of guilt, then grabbed Yachi by the collar and yanked her into her lap before she could sneak off to the kitchen. “As for you, missy, I’ll tell them you’re under ten. So don’t correct me, all right? Not that anyone but us would ever believe you!” 

Yachi struggled to escape at first, but eventually gave up and sat quietly. 

She claimed she was centuries old; the exact number changed every time we asked, but it was always six hundred and something. Personally, I didn’t think she was lying, and to be frank, I didn’t really care how old she was anyway. She hadn’t changed a bit since the day we first met (on the outside, at least). But I suspected she inspired a lot of changes in others—my family, in particular. 

***

As we stepped out into the nearly full parking lot, the winter wind hurried us in its usual restless fashion, slapping at the gaps between our sleeves and our skin. When had I last visited an aquarium anyway? I dug to the bottom of my memories, but couldn’t recall even the slightest shred of such a visit. Was I really no different from Yachi? So much for playing a wise big sister. 

With a self-deprecating smile, I took Yachi’s hand in mine. Today she was dressed like a sea otter. Unfortunately, that made other visitors think she was part of an event. Soon, we couldn’t walk two steps without people flagging us down for photos. Some didn’t even ask first—rude much? Meanwhile, Mom smiled and posed as if she were a staff member. That didn’t surprise me in the least. 

“I thought this attire would help me blend in,” the little otter murmured after yet another photo, staring down at her onesie. Wait, that was why she wore onesies all the time? But why had she expected a sea creature to “blend in” on dry land?

“To be fair, you look right at home in it.” In a sense.

“Ho ho ho! I’m glad you’re of the same mind.”

She was so cute, it made me smile as we walked. 

Following in Mom’s shadow, we broke away from the flow of the crowd, passing through a special exhibit and enjoying the jellyfish before heading to a section called the Mermaid Sea—the aquarium’s biggest tank, where the dugongs lived. 

A faint green glow lit the room, as well as the water in the tank. There, dugongs swam quietly through the ersatz ocean, accompanied by schools of skinny fish.

“Oh ho. So this is the fabled dugong.”

“Correct.” 

Yachi stared intently at the tank, watching the animals like a hawk. Something told me I would see her in a ­dugong onesie next. 

“Wait. Where’s Mom?” A second earlier, she was just ahead of us, but now she was nowhere to be seen. 

“She ran into the gift shop to buy Hougetsu something. We just got here, though… You’d think she would realize that we’ll have to lug it around the whole time,” Dad sighed.

“Hunh.”

“The woman has no patience, I tell you.” He seemed amused by the situation, if a little exasperated. 

“My guess is that she is buying otter cookies or dugong crackers,” Yachi declared with a smug chuckle, as if she was some kind of genius detective. I chuckled too, trying to imagine what the souvenir might be.

In the past, there’d been five people in our house—me, Mom, Dad, Yachi, and Hougetsu, each of us a support beam keeping the roof overhead. We spent so many happy years together, I’d just sort of assumed it would always be like that. But that “always” was over now.

You know, time had a funny way of feeling like forever, while in actuality, it was robbing you blind. I couldn’t say I was a fan.

My sister had her own place now, and she only came to see us a few times a year, so she wasn’t automatically included in these sorts of family events anymore. When I stopped to think about that, it made me want to scream. By hoisting Yachi in my arms, though, I could hold myself together a little longer.

“Huh? Is something the matter?” Yachi kicked her dangling legs, the aquarium light tinting her hair green.

Everything could change. Even something as foundational as family could disappear in an instant, and there was nothing you could do about it. One day, the aquarium and dugongs and whole world would cease to exist, just like the “always” I’d thought I had. 

Yet even with dark shadows cast across her face, Yachi was still the same.

“I’m sure you’ve got a long life ahead of you,” I began, “but…”

Maybe she could take my “always” with her, wherever her eternal journey led—if it had a destination at all.

“You’ll always remember us, won’t you, Yachi?”

Remember me, my mom, my dad, and my sister. Remember the life we once lived.

“Of course I shall.” She turned to face me, her blue-tinged lips curling into a smile. “Rest assured I am everywhere, everyone, and everything.”

As she spoke, entire galaxies expanded and contracted in her pupils—swirls of purple and black scattered with tiny white stars. They said that the eyes spoke louder than the mouth; if so, hers could recount the laws of the universe and the far, far future. So even if I didn’t entirely understand what she’d said, I knew she was probably right.

“Oh, good. That’s a relief.”

“Indeed.” 

With that, Yachi spun back to face the tank. As the dugongs twirled their tails and reveled in their allotted ocean, we simply stood there together and enjoyed the show.