Chapter 4: My Best Friend

“Yes... , “ she quieted down a little bit. She seemed nervous and skittish at his reaction.

Gary stood up from the bed as he walked up to her. He saw how short she was compared to him, but curiosity was controlling him. It was an honest emotion as he stood next to her and moved his hand. She watched his reactions as he lightly gripped her hand. She felt the soft padding of the bottom of her fingers. Eventually, Gary wrapped his hand around hers and used his thumb to brush the top portion of her hand.

“Fur... , “ he remarked. He smiled at her. “You are so soft.”

“Thank you,” she quietly remarked.

Gary then used his other hand and touched her arm to feel the soft fur on her. It was subtle but there. The warmth of her body seemed fine, and he finally was able to get a hold of his senses.

“I wished the fairy tales to be true,” Gary said. “I hope I am not dreaming.”

“You are not,” she said as she used her hand to feel his arm.

Gary let go of her arm and backed away from her. He practically leaped up into the air and cheered. “Yes! My best friend is a rat!”

“Shoosh!” Fumi told him, putting her finger to her snout-like nose. “It’s ok when we are in enclosed spaces like this home, but it is good that you try not to tell others around you that. I was ... when we find somebody that we are supposed to like and tell them... , “ she paused. “We are supposed to wait much later before telling other humans what we are. My mother might not be happy that I told you too early.”

“Why?” Gary asked as he sat down on the bed.

“Our true identities must be kept secret in human society except for the few humans we meet.”

“I don’t understand. That is so awesome. I feel like this a real cartoon or something.”

“I know,” she said as she used her hand to push her hair away from her eyes. “It is important that humans don’t know about our true identities. If they do, it will gather unwanted attention with us. We might be targeted by the wrong type of humans or that they might want to harm us.”

“I saw the fight, though. One of them grabbed you by the neck, but he didn’t manage to hurt you.”

“It is true. He couldn’t hurt me if he wanted to. Mortals cannot hurt us mythics.”

“Mythics?” he asked.

“It is a word one of our family members learned of in a war not long ago. She overheard the term that the gods, the fairy tale characters, and other mythical creatures called themselves that.”

“So ... you are telling me that the stories I read ... there are actual fairy tale characters and gods out there?”

She nodded her head. “Yes, although I haven’t seen them yet.”

“Wow. So ... the stories I read. They’re all true!” he said with glee.

Fumi smiled at him. “It is true. I am still pretty young. I only know of my family and others that are like me. I just know this from what my mom told me.”

“The picture, I remember your grandfather in it. He was fifty years old in that picture. That explains why your grandmother looked so young. You don’t age?”

“We grow to adults and stop. It works that way with all mythics ... I think. We never grow old like you humans do. It is a gift, and sometimes it is sad.”

“Why?”

“We end up falling in love with humans that grow old and die. We simply outlive them.”

“Aren’t their other rats out there? ... are they like you?”

Fumi shook her head with almost disgust. “No ... no. The only rats that are with us are our family members. Only the great mother Yuki, survived. She birthed the rats like herself ... like me ... and that is it. We can’t marry our brothers and sisters ... that would be ... gross. In the end, we find humans that we trust or part of our family to become our friends and loved ones.”

“So, you have taken the risk to tell of your true identity then?”

“Yes,” she said as she walked forward and bent her knee to him. “I am choosing you to be my dearest friend. You will be my companion. Here in this house, you see me as the rat. Outside you see me as the human. What you see me is my true form. Please ... please don’t tell anybody. Don’t even tell your mom unless we tell you that it is safe. Is that understood?”

Gary nodded his head. “I promise you.”

“If you tell anybody, I will be mad at you. We might even have to move away as a result ... and I have heard worse stories. Our secret is paramount.”

“I won’t tell anyone ... ninja rat.”

“Ninja rat?”

“Yeah, you are like ninjas. You sneak around in human form, but nobody knows who you really are. You are like ninjas.”

“That is funny,” she said as she put her hand to her chin. “I always thought of ourselves as more like chameleon lizards, but I like ninjas too. Our family did a lot of things similar to ninjas in the past. Maybe we still do ... I have to ask my mom.”

“How many of your family is out there? Do you have sisters ... brothers? What about your father? I have so many questions to ask.”

Fumi turned her attention to her closed chest that sat in the room. She stood up as she walked over to her cabinet and fished out a key. Gary was still amazed as he looked at her form. Her tail would curve and twitch about as she walked and moved. She sat down by the chest and used the key to unlock it. With a simple turn and click, the chest opened up. Gary himself stood up and walked around the bed to stand next to her.

“Inside this chest is things that only our family and dearest friends can see. Maybe some of this can help answer your questions.”

Fumi pulled a series of photographs. Some of the pictures were everything from black and white photos to ones taken just recently. The first photo showed a picture of a rat woman that wore a similar kimono. She stood posing alone with a simple landscape background to it.

“This is a picture of my grandmother taken after World War 2. She was very important in helping find the sacred seed from the money tree. Without her, our family would have never had the money that you see now.”

“The money tree?” he asked.

“Yes ... I don’t know much about the story, though. I just know that she played a big role in it.”

Gary almost thought more about the idea of it until she pulled out the next picture. The following picture showed a rat woman with white-spotted brown fur and red eyes. She had long black hair on the top of her forehead that fell from her head. She wore a blue kimono dress.

“This is my mom,” she told him. “This was taken before she ... got pregnant with me.”

“Wow. Your mom is so pretty,” he told her.

“Thank you. Each one of us has different coloration and fur patterns. There are not many that have the solid albino fur as I have.”

“Or the red eyes.”

“Heh... , “ she chuckled. “I think that is just from my mother’s side. Yuki herself has white fur like mine. Her eyes are blue, though.”

“Do you have brothers or sisters?”

She did not reply but instead showed another picture. This one had a photo of her mother but with a protruding belly. She had her hand to her stomach and smile on her face.

“Unfortunately ... no I don’t have brothers or sisters,” she explained. “My dad ... umm ... it would be best if I explain that another time. It is why I am a lonely child and don’t have siblings,” she pulled out the next picture and showed the same image of her mother now holding a baby rat pup that was suckling from her breast. There was a look of peace in her face as her mother was cradling her infant.

“That is you?” he asked.

“I guess you already know of the birds and the bees, then?”

“I know a little bit. My mom told me about ... what is going to happen to me about eight months ago and how babies are made.”

Fumi nodded her head. “That is good. We know all too well about it. We have absolute respect for our mothers and fathers and the gift of bringing us to the world.”

“So ... how big is your family? If you have no brothers and sisters, I imagine it isn’t that big.”

“There is about hmmm,” she thought about it for a few seconds. “About 1,200 of us.”

Gary’s jaw dropped open. “That is a huge family.”

She shrugged a little bit. “Many are my grandmothers and their mothers, etc. I have many cousins, nieces, and nephews. We are huge, but we are scattered everywhere. Most of our family lives in Japan, but some live here, China, India, Russia, and Southeast Asia. We live forever, or at least I think we live forever. For example, the great mother Yuki still looks as young as my mother does.”

Fumi went and pulled out another picture. She went and showed him a picture of ten of the rat people that she belonged to. There were nine girls, but one of them looked different.

“Is this what the boys look like?” he asked her.

She nodded her head. “Yes, he is ... I can’t remember his name. It is hard to remember a family of my size.”

The males looked similar to the females. They wore male clothing. Gary also noticed the lack of breasts on them too, that was a visible sign.

“I noticed that your close family there is not many boys...” Gary commented.

“That is because boys are not born that often. There is one boy born every... , what is it? ... There is one male born for every nine girls. I don’t know why it is like that.”

Fumi went and pulled out more photographs. She pulled out an old black and white photo of one of the rat women. She wore a typical style clothing of the time the picture was taken.

“This is ... hold on...” she thought about it. “Ah ... I can’t remember. She is one of the first three daughters of Yuki ... hmm ... well, it is some of the pictures of us when photography was invented. We took them in secret. We either had a human photographer for one of the husbands in the past, or we taught ourselves how to use them.”

“That is so amazing,” Gary told her as she pulled out one last picture from the chest. She showed the picture, and it was a similar one to what he saw earlier. It showed an enclosed environment, most likely a living room with four women and Fumi’s grandfather. All the women were rats this time. This one picture had Fumi in it, but she was much younger than her other photos.

“That is me in that picture. I was about seven, I think.”

Fumi went and set aside the photos and reached her hand into the open chest. Her hand pulled out a book of some sort. It was written in Japanese and English. She looked at the cover, and then she pulled it close to her as if she almost displayed some embarrassment to finding it.

“What is that?” Gary asked.

“Umm ... well...” Fumi said as she looked at the book and then gripped onto it tightly. Her rat-like fingers seemed to relax as she finally put it down on her lap. “This book is really for me. It is a how-to book for my family. All children born in my family are given one of these books. It is designed as a book of life and how to live with humans. It is considered to be very important as each printed copy is given to the child and directed by their parents to read it as each year passes for the child.”

“Really?”

She opened up the book. “Yeah ... since I am twelve, I can read up to page 67 in the book.”

“What do you mean the book is a how-to book?”

“It is ... the book tells about our history of the Yuki family. It describes how we were a people that hid in the shadows to what we are now. It is the day to day life of things such as the Yuki women and how to operate in society. It is a book on how to meet ... boys and...”

This caught Gary’s full undivided attention. He was watching her closely with the book.

“You humans have magazines,” Fumi explained. “The articles and descriptions in those magazines give descriptions of society. It is like this in our book. It talks about how important having a family and living with humans are.”

“What does it tell you?”

“It tells me that for a girl like myself, it is vital that I find a boy to become my friend like it is the most important thing in my life right now.”

“I wonder why it is so important.”

Fumi shook her head. Again she looked somewhat embarrassed. “I ... don’t know why it is so important, but I believe that when I reach thirteen that I am allowed to read the next chapter of the book.”

“I can go and read it...” Gary implied as he reached to the book. She pulled it away from him.

“No ... it isn’t possible,” she explained. She showed him the reason. The book had a case lock to it. The lock had a keyhole on it that prevented the user from actually going any further. It was impossible to go any further than page 67. “When I reach the age of thirteen, my mother will unlock the next chapters for my age.”

“You mean when you become a teenager...”

She nodded her head as she pulled the book back to her lap. She opened up the book for him to see it. “It consists of everything and the importance of having a ... boyfriend.”

“So you becoming my friend is because of what the book is telling you?”

“No! ... no,” she shook her head. “I want you to be my best friend ... my boyfriend because of far more than this book. I just ... it is giving me some indications that it is something that will happen to me. It just won’t go into detail about it.”

“What do you mean something that will happen to you?”

She opened up her book and tried to show the pictures to him. It was difficult for him to understand, but some of the photographs were intriguing. Some depicted drawings and diagrams of the human body and the body of the rats. She flipped the page as it showed a sketch drawing of a rat girl and a human boy kissing each other. Again she gripped onto the hardcover tightly as he looked at it closely. He almost pulled his head back a little bit as if he was embarrassed.

“It is a how ... to book on kissing?” he asked nervously to her.

“Yeah ... it explains that,” she replied.

“It’s funny,” he twiddled his fingers. “About a year ago, I would found the idea of kissing a girl to be gross or funny, but...”

Her embarrassment faded quickly upon hearing him say that. She suddenly got very curious. “Wh ... you like kissing?”

“I ... don’t know. Maybe I like the idea of kissing a girl if it wasn’t ... if others didn’t see it but just us.”

“Heh ... the book even says that too,” she chuckled. “It recommends that I kiss my boyfriend regularly as a sign of intimacy and to feel it.”

“Really?” he replied with curiosity. “I mean ... ehm,” he choked. “Love, right?”

She flipped the pages back as she showed a sketch of the rat girl hugging the boy and another of them holding hands together. “It always tells me how important it is for me to be with a boy and that I should show as much love as I can to somebody I meet.”

Gary could see her inflections. He felt the urge to touch her. The feeling of her fur was an interesting one for him. It was a natural curiosity.

“Maybe it too early to feel this way,” Gary explained to her. “Maybe in time ... those feelings will be better known to us.”

She nodded her head as she put the book back into the chest. She then took the photos and put them back inside before she closed it up and locked it up again.

“I agree with you, Gary,” she told him. “About a couple of years ago, I found the idea of love between a boy and girl to be ... gross, but it is more appealing now than it ever was. It’s like I am in-between on a balancing beam now more than ever. I understand your feelings and feel that only some time will fully answer those questions. Besides ... we just met each other anyway, right?”

“Right... , “ Gary replied with some slight hesitation. “Right now, let us just be friends.”

There seemed to be some happiness in Fumi’s inflections. They sat comfortably on the carpet as they looked at each other. Gary slowly reached his hand to touch her face. His curiosity once again led him naturally to explore his new friend.

“It’s like you never had a rat for a friend,” she happily mocked him.

They both grinned as Gary put his hand to her long furry nose. Her nostrils flared a little bit as he felt the soft fur on her face. The coat was not thick or coarse but felt similar to most rodent fur. Some people consider rat fur to be closer to bristle-like hair found on pigs, but it is smoother to the human touch. While a rat’s coat was not as soft as a rabbit’s fur, it was still very delicate to handle. It is not surprising that rat fur, like most rodent fur, is used in some fashion clothing.

Her instincts made her turn her long nose to his hand to smell it as he touched her long flowing hair. She, in return, started putting her hand to his arm as if she was feeling him as well. He pulled his hand back.

“I am sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t know if I was hurting you or not. I just never met a girl with fur before.”

“It’s alright,” she told him. “You can’t hurt me. Mortals ... errr how the book refers to you as humans, can’t physically hurt us. It takes a lot actually to inflict pain on a mythic.”

“Like the fight today...” He said.

She nodded her head as she pulled her arm away from his. “Yes. That bully couldn’t hurt me no matter how hard he tried.”

“I guess I wasn’t much of a hero to you then...”

“No! That isn’t true,” she replied. “What you did today was brave. I only regret seeing you hurt. If anything, the way the book tells us, the way my mother raised me, and how I view things, if I see a human mortal go and put his life and body to defend those from harm, it means that you are a good person. It is why I choose you to be my best friend. Seeing you get hurt would hurt me; that is how I view life. I see you as the knight that came to defend the princess Gary, don’t forget that.”

This made him happy. He grinned as he looked at her some more. There was a devious like grin that appeared on his face.

“What?” she asked with curiosity.

“So I can’t hurt you, but are you vulnerable to... , “ he didn’t finish his sentence as he reached his hands to her stomach. He began to tickle her through the fabric of her kimono.

“No ... no, I am,” she began to chuckle. She tried to put her hands to his, but he started his assault on her. His fingers were relentless as he tickled her.