yuzu has a minion!

shisa the Liifuu

Have you ever stepped on an orange? A rotten orange to be exact? I'll never forget the sound. The slippery squish. The juices soaking out and in-between my toes. Entirely my fault, by the way — the fruit had nothing to do with it besides being in the trodding zone, my mass weighing down on its dying body.

Farm worker was never on my list of careers, I reflect as I bounce up and down trying to dispell the sticky curse cast on my foot. At least I get to spend time in Okinawa — one of Japan’s southernmost islands. I’ve always wanted to come here.

Why weren’t you wearing shoes? You may ask, with a healthy dose of condescending derision. Ugh, I am!… well, on one foot, anyway. The foot unblighted.

The disappearance of its twin is a mystery.

Yesterday at around noon, I ate lunch at the teahouse with the other workers. Before entering, I, of course, politely took off my shoes, and left them at the genkan. Once I’d finished my mentaiko onigiri and four cups of sencha, I returned to find only one shoe.

When I had a spare minute, I feebly attempted to research how to say “my shoe is missing” because this is a sentence I never thought I’d have to say. I yield to google translate, and it gives me 私のカツがなくなった, but I’m not sure if I trust it. By this point, I’ve realised expressing that I am missing a shoe wouldn’t really help me anyway. My shoe is gone, but I must go on.

There’s money to be made. There’s tankan to pick.

I barely get to finish that extremely capitalism-adjacent thought when movement in the kei truck to my left attracts my eye.

A tankan drops to the ground as a paralix emurges! A small red one!

It lies supine in an open box of the orange fruit that populate the truck’s trayback with its toothy mouth magnetised to…

“That’s my shoe!!” I screech in english pointing desperately to my naked foot and then to the box where the paralix dined on my ASICS.

“You're a thief! 泥棒だよ！”

The paralix yawns, ignoring the accusation in both languages.

It’s at this point that I have an overdue realisation.

It all makes sense now! Who stole the ham out of my sandwich at lunch today? Last tuesday, who took a harrowingly sized bite out of my Misudo donut? Why my Suica card had mysteriously developed teeth marks! And why the TP rolls in the squat toilet were consistently chewed to bits!

I had found the cuplrit.

A liifuu minion pops out of the box to the left of the paralix — its fur a warm terracotta. Its peculiar appearance gives me pause. I’d seen it before…

“Huh, I thought your minion was a shisa statue…” my brow tightens when i realise, “he’s your lookout?! Isn’t he?!”

“I see you’ve met Yuzu.”

My accusing pointer finger goes limp as a short man, head overwhelmed by silver locks, appears.

Sato-san, the fruit farm's overseer, turns to the young paralix, his face wrinkled with a smile, “久しぶりですね.”

To that, the paralix blinks, then goes straight back to chewing my right shoe.

My eyes almost turn inside out, “wh— why are you being nice to it? This little bastard’s been giving me hell for weeks!”

The half-Japanese half-American man laughs heartily, “I thought Australians were supposed to be laid-back.”

Despite myself, I let out a puff of disgruntled air.

“Yuzu’s grandmother, which we named Mikan,” he added with fondness, “stole my shoes when I was about your age.”

“So criminal behaviour runs in the family, huh?”

“It means he likes you,” Sato-san tried to say, but I’m already rolling up my sleeves and readying my claws.

“Come here, you!” I lunge at the stack of fruit boxes, “I’m taking you in! The authorities must learn of your—AAHHH!”

Yuzu leaps out and blinds me with his body. A waterfall of tankan go with him, and I end up re-stepping on the same rotten tankan, and fall arse-up.

I land in at least four boxes worth of scattered fruit. Yuzu quickly returns to enjoying my shoe, now happily positioned in my lap. I glance up at Sato-san who seems to be inbetween emotions, and all I can think to say is…

“ごめんなさい.”

credit
background (c) brooke lark Unsplash
font (c) googlefonts cherry bomb one
pet profile, story, art (c) goodboy
yuzu png (c) tokiwa