failure I am.”
“So you will get another job. Not like your dog died or anything.”
Tabitha took a deep breath. Bungo’s eyes had darted to the TV. He was just as mercurial as his sister was.
There was an NHK interview segment broadcast going on. The camera panned across the visage of the sapphire blue LED lights hung on zelkova trees in Omotesandō shopping district. A reporter and her camera crew were interviewing people around Tokyo about their Christmas plans.
“Do you understand what they are saying?” Bungo asked.
Tabitha shook her head. “I just turned it on for background noise while I packed.”
Bungo leaned across the kotatsu and touched Tabitha on the shoulder. A surge of static electricity flowed through the point of contact. Stunned, she recoiled, dropping her fork. “Now you can.” Bungo smiled.
Tabitha turned back to the TV. The Japanese dialogue became intelligible. More than intelligible. She could understand the nuances of the interviews as soon as each word was spoken.
A college student (21) in Omotesandō: “Well, I just got off my part-time job, so now I’m going to meet my boyfriend at a fancy restaurant, and tomorrow, I’m having Christmas dinner with my parents.”
The frame cut to Roppongi where another interview was in progress. The reporter was addressing a businessman in a backdrop of dimly lit back alleys and solicitous signs to drinking establishments and nightclubs. “I’m just going to work tonight, and tomorrow night, my coworkers and I are going to a beer garden,” said the man who declined to give his name or age.
An upbeat office lady (32) in front of the Hachiko exit at the JR Shibuya Station: “I have the day off work, so I’m going to Tokyo Sea with my husband and children!”
Tabitha was sweating now, and it wasn’t from the warmth emanating from the kotatsu. It was from the fact that she could also read and understand the telops (TELevision OPtical Slide Projector), the Japanese captions on the screen, as though they were in English. She looked at Bungo, who was crouched on his haunches like that was a normal way to sit.
“They all sound so assured,” Bungo remarked about the people on TV. “They are well-off here with their friends and families. Do these confident people make you wish you were back in your country?”
But Tabitha wasn’t listening. “How did you do that? I-I can suddenly read and understand Japanese.”
“I should think so. It would be a hassle later if you could not.”
“But… but…” Tabitha wanted to protest, but for what she didn’t know.
“You want a logical explanation for why you can suddenly understand Japanese?”
She nodded. He had understood her before she could ask.
“Foxes are yōkai. I transferred a fraction of my power into you. We can do things like that, you know. But if it makes you feel better…” He withdrew a book from the pocket of his red parka and laid it by the spine on the kotatsu. The book opened flatly to a chapter heading about the kitsune, and Bungo pushed it across to her. “The Irish writer of Japanese folklore, Lafcadio Hearn, described our powers like this,” he said, pointing to a highlighted passage.
Strange is the madness of those into whom demon foxes enter. Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps… Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages of which they were totally ignorant prior to possession. They eat only what foxes are believed to like—tofu, aburagé, azukimeshi, etc.—and they eat a great deal, alleging that not they, but the possessing foxes, are hungry.
— Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. 1
Tabitha read, but couldn't quite process the incredulity of everything that had happened since Bungo had knocked on her door. This passage was about demon foxes in Japanese folklore. Folklore about mythical foxes. Not a zoology book about real foxes. Meanwhile, Bungo was devouring his inarizushi, a food she understood foxes were supposed to like. However, it wasn’t as though she were watching a movie that required a suspension of disbelief. This was real life, and the man claiming to be a fox who was sharing her kotatsu with his eyes glued to the TV was something Tabitha still found absurd. Yet, Tabitha couldn’t help but question the basis of her doubt. She couldn’t think of any way he would’ve been able to project the silhouette of a fox on her veranda and then download an entire language into her brain. Was he a demon fox or not? The unknowability of it all was driving her crazy.
“All this is too meta for me, so I’m just going to ask you simply,” she sighed, sliding the book back across the table. “Have you possessed me?”
“How could I?” said Bungo between bites of the inarizushi, “I thought you did not believe in demon foxes.”
“For Darwin’s sake, let’s just say I believe you!” Tabitha exclaimed, “Have you or haven’t you possessed me?”
“Not enough to make you run naked through the streets anyway.” His answer vacillated between fact and fiction so that Tabitha couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or not. “I hope you are not superstitious.”
“I’m not superstitious, but strange things have been happening since you arrived.” Then Tabitha thought back. “And you said you were here to grant my wish? What did you mean by that?”
A vulpine smile curled on his lips as he sensed her confusion. “All in due time. Why speed up this perfectly auspicious evening?”
As Christmas Eve wore on, Bungo helped Tabitha pack the six months’ worth of things she had acquired in Japan into the cardboard boxes. Tabitha protested at first but relented when Bungo proved to be a master of Tetris and succeeded in maximizing the space to squeeze in all her worldly possessions.
They were done in under an hour, so Tabitha told Bungo all about the experience of teaching English at Iwai Girls’ School. About how she felt bullied by the students and teachers of the school. About how she had left America because she believed that she could reinvent herself in a new country. She had felt trapped in a cubicle working a thankless nine-to-five for a company selling pet thermometers, a job she believed was beneath her. She longed to change the condition of her life, so when the opportunity to teach English in Japan arose, she jumped on it, believing that her students would respect her, even adore her. Now six months later, she’d been fired. It’d feel like a dishonorable discharge to return to her hometown, a place she’d never felt needed by anyone. She loved her family, of course, but what would they think if she came back home? And the problem with staying with Mrs. Ishida was that it’d feel like a betrayal of her independence. Moreover, she’d feel like a failure for the rest of her life. “I need to feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. I need an actual reason to stay in Japan, not something that involves me bending over backward.”
Bungo looked back at Tabitha as though he knew exactly what she meant.
“I can give you a reason to stay in Japan,” he said.
“What?”
“Pack your passport and visa. I am taking you to Nagano tomorrow.”
Tabitha sputtered out her shandygaff. She looked at Bungo now, incredulous. How similar he was, Tabitha realized, to his younger sister. Unlike her, both of them were full of purpose, and they declared things unilaterally, convinced they could make them happen.
“B-but I haven’t agreed to anything yet!”
Bungo flipped open a cell phone and showed Tabitha a picture message. It was a .jpeg of an ema. “You paid 500 yen for this wish. You have not changed your mind, have you?”
Sure enough, the picture was the ema she’d written hours earlier. “I paid 1,000 yen for it,” she corrected through gritted teeth. “I haven’t changed my mind, but I’d like to know exactly where you want to take me.”
Bungo conjured an English travel guide from his red parka, which Tabitha now suspected included a pocket vortex for unlimited storage. He opened a bookmarked page and pointed to a small entry for a Japanese inn.
The Okami Inn has been family run for ten generations. In winter, it is a popu
lar destination for visiting Japanese macaques and sightseers alike.//Address: Kitsune Street, Okami Village, Ryokan District, Nagano Prefecture 392-04XX//Phone: +81 269-33-XXXX
“Wait a minute, isn’t this place all the way up in the mountains?”
“Yes, so?”
“So what am I supposed to do when I get there?”
“Work full-time as the inn operations manager. The proprietress is looking for someone to work there. It should be right up your alley.”
Tabitha looked hard into Bungo’s face expecting him to say, “Just kidding!” again. A new job just landing on her lap hours after being fired? Things like that just didn’t happen. Bungo grinned, waiting for a response. She wanted to say yes. With everything that already happened that night, what did she have to lose? Finally, she nodded, conceding that it would do her good to get out of the apartment on Christmas.
“Good, then it is settled,” said Bungo, getting up to leave. “Tomorrow, I will take you to Nagano with all your things. Get some rest, and Merry Christmas!”
The next morning, all the cardboard boxes Tabitha had packed the previous night had disappeared, inexplicably replaced by a red spin-down luggage case.
“Good morning, Tabitha. Ready to go?” Bungo asked, rotating the mysterious luggage case around its axis. Tabitha was still wearing her pajamas, but that hardly seemed to matter now. She slipped her arms through the sleeves of an overcoat Bungo had