{"id":137951,"date":"2022-07-23T17:38:58","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T17:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=137951"},"modified":"2023-11-04T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T15:06:22","slug":"the-alternate-appeal-of-a-jelly-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=137951","title":{"rendered":"The Alternate Appeal of a Jelly Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI was midway through a series of concept sketches when Chuchuko popped out of my drafting table with a high-pitched dojyan. <\/em>\u201cOhay?gozai-nezu, Otsuji Yuko!\u201d chirped the RariJump mascot. \u201cYou have two guests waiting in the president\u2019s office. Your presence is requested immediately! Otsukaresama deshita!\u201d With that, the hot pink mouse swan-dove back into my table, rippling my sketches like reflections on water.\n<\/p>\n

\nGuests? I didn\u2019t get <\/em>guests. I didn\u2019t want guests. But I would <\/em>get yelled at if I didn\u2019t show up in five minutes.\n<\/p>\n

\nI holstered my plastiq stylus and saved my work; belatedly I noticed the horrors that had snuck into my doodles yet again. Skulking among studies of a book-loving omu-raisu were disemboweled teddy-bears and headless kittens. The art of kawaii was surgery, taking ordinary things and amputating what was sharp and hard and ugly, injecting them with fluff like a botox treatment; these were botched patients I couldn\u2019t remember cutting, more kowaii than kawaii.\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead of SAVE I hit TRASH. Yet another file of morbid crap onto a heap eight months tall. You weren\u2019t going to be anything anyway, Chappu-chan. We both knew that. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI headed for the president\u2019s suite, confident that this was going to be nonsense.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe offices of RariJump Kawaii Company occupied the outermost ring of Cooperation Tower, some eleven million stories outwise from the face of the moon. From the window that was our whole southern wall you could spend a lunch watching Visitors arrive at the General Port a microscopic thirty stories outwise, via space-crunch and fusion catapult and asteroid barge. Our location was worth the rent as high as a small GDP: looking in, they\u2019d see our most famous characters parading from left to right across the glass, welcoming friends from afar to our humble space elevator. We were never more than a presh-reg glitch away from a critical decompression, but a good first impression was a first stab in an industry as murderous as cuteness.\n<\/p>\n

\nGuests. <\/em>Plural, and how perfectly ominous. My mother and sister maybe, to confirm that I was still alive. More likely, HR here to politely fire me. It would be about time.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCome in, please,\u201d said President Abioye Okabe at the sound of my knock. I found him at his sequoia trunk desk, its polished stump littered with bobble-head Moto-Shiba-kun\u2019s and beanie-bodied Giving You Song\u2019s and other RariJump top-selling characters.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTake a seat, Otsuji-san,\u201d he said, smiling broadly. He waved me over to the emptier of two chairs. The other contained a stranger, a plain man of silvering hair. His armband bore the emblem of two clasped hands. He glanced at me once and returned to not seeing me.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is Mister Sauerbrey,\u201d Okabe said, \u201cfrom the Cooperative. He\u2019ll be moderating as needed. And these\u2014\u201d he gestured to the other<\/em> two guests, \u201c\u2014are Lovely Vanilla-san and Chocolate Tiger-san.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI didn\u2019t sit just yet. Standing to either side of him were two Visitors like I\u2019d never seen.\n<\/p>\n

\nThey were of the same xenospecies, erectomorphs like us humans but much taller; I was a sixth less than Okabe\u2019s six-one, and they towered over him. They possessed digitated fingers, though wrongly jointed, and their faces were reminiscent of Homo sapiens<\/em> in the way that tigers are reminiscent of cats. Too-huge eyes, thickly lashed, lips painted on. Rubbery cables of something approximating hair were tied into rainbow-dyed twintails on one and a bubblegum princess cut on the other. One had skin of eggnog, the other cookies-and-cream, and nearly every inch was flyered in character stickers; I recognized more than a few RariJump products among them.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy eyes burned at the brightness of them. They were dressed in the fashion of human Decora Girls: frilly skirts and blazers fit for a different phylum, clashing legwarmers puddled around their shins, each finger ending in a fifteen-centimeter false nail painted pink and blue and polka dot. I might have been offended at the blatant cultural appropriation were the aesthetic not so unnervingly inapplicable. <\/em>What would have been cloying on a Japanese teenager was on them as good as a ribbon around a centipede.\n<\/p>\n

\nToikitti, I realized after a bamboozled lag. The rarest of Visitors to Cooperation Tower.\n<\/p>\n

\n<(:D)(\u00b4?`)(^-^)(?)?> the one on the left said.\n<\/p>\n

\n<(:D)( (\/???)\/)(<=3)> the other replied, seeming to concur, and both laughed in sync. Less like people, more like hyenas.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cPlease excuse me, Okabe-san,\u201d I said, still hovering by the door. \u201cBut what exactly is going on?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe president beamed like a solar flare. \u201cOtsuji-san, do you remember Goodnight Smile?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes, of course,\u201d I answered warily. Goodnight Smile had been one of my bigger successes. My sleepy reindeer with her omnipresent sleep mask had appeared on a few decently-selling lines of bedtime supplies, but that was about it.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was also my last<\/em> success since Eiichiro had gone away.\n<\/p>\n

\nOkabe could hardly contain his excitement. \u201cThen you will be overjoyed to know that our guests here have just put it an order for two million<\/em> pairs of your<\/em> Goodnight Smile house slippers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI looked back and forth between the twin Toikitti. The rightmost grinned; its teeth were small and uniformly sharp, like the tines of a comb.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI am very confused.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe shrugged and motioned for the Visitors to explain.\n<\/p>\n

\nThey crossed the room and backed me up against the door. The tang of port-issued disinfectant was overpowering; they must have docked within the hour. <(->)(:DDD)(Q-Q)(->)(T3T)( _(._.)_)(>)> the leftmost, Lovely Vanilla, chittered. As the emotograms left her tongue, the tower\u2019s AmBab snatched them and reorganized them into something intelligible to the human brain.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are honored to finally meet you. It is a human custom to shake hands in order to express appreciation, yes? May I do so?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBy all means,\u201d I said, and found my hand swallowed by their spidery paw. Their flesh was textured like a lollipop, with subtle seams between joints. Mechanisms revolved on tracks around their heart-shaped irises.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are the biggest fans of Goodnight Smile,\u201d the other, Chocolate Tiger, eagerly explained. \u201cSee?\u201d They parted their hair-analogue to show me the slipper hung from her chiropteran ear-analogue. \u201cWe love all of your characters, but Goodnight Smile is our favorite.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cExtremely yes!\u201d Lovely Vanilla agreed, still pumping my arm. \u201cShe is \u2018Super Kawaii!\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI looked to the president for help.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOur guests have a special request for us,\u201d he said. \u201cOne that I have agreed to fulfill, in light of their exceedingly generous purchase.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou mean that I will fulfill,\u201d I replied, putting two and two together.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cJust so,\u201d he said, pleased to have me on the same page. \u201cBeginning tomorrow your priority assignment is to design a spaceship.\u201d His tone narrowed to a point. \u201cYou weren\u2019t doing much anyway.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nI returned to my apartment forty floors moonwise in the Residence Block to find a message from my mother waiting to ambush me. I let the apartment read it off as I changed clothes and watered the cat. \u201cYuko-chan. I hope you will call me when you get this message. Yukiko and I are worrying ourselves to death over you. We know you are hurting, and we want to help make it better. Please, call me. Love you, Your Mother.<\/em>\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nMore of the same then. Delete message. That was one of the secret perks of living in the middle of a space elevator on the moon. Moonwise or outwise, everyone was far way.\n<\/p>\n

\nDesign a spaceship. <\/em>I hid from the new assignment in the shower, where the hot water helped defrost my icy guts. It must have sounded so simple to Okabe-san, from whom everything got done via inter-office memo. No no no, <\/em>he\u2019d chuckled, don\u2019t worry about the hardware of it. All they want is the aesthetic. <\/em>As if that were appreciably easier for me.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith my mauve-dipped hair in a towel turban I came to sit on the edge of my bed. Eight months later and my husband\u2019s shape was still imprinted into the mattress. I swept my hand through that crater, hoping against impossibility to scoop up some dreg of his warmth. But no, nothing.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy apologies, Okabe-san. <\/em>It was hard to see the world in pastel colors with an open wound in your bed.\n<\/p>\n

\nI retrieved my pants and turned out my pockets; a glossy black business card dropped into my palm. The man from the Cooperative had remained silent throughout the meeting but had smuggled this into my hand as we\u2019d shook our farewells.\n<\/p>\n

\nI brushed my thumb along the icon of two clasped hands and hissed at a nip of static. I dropped the card as a thread of blue light lanced from its center. I scrambled for a T-shirt to throw on as that thread dilated into a window in AUGer space. If only I\u2019d bowed like a more stereotypical Japanese,<\/em> I thought. I\u2019d have saved myself this imminent trouble.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\u201cYou want me to be a spy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe official term is Voluntary Xenological Informant,\u201d Sauerbrey said. \u201cBut basically yes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHis light-knit simulacra hovered a foot above the fallen card. This rendition made the government man no less unremarkable. If bureaucracy had a mascot character, he was it.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI refuse. Please leave me alone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHear me out. This is a matter of Security and Advancement. Of all those Visitor species known to us, the Toikitti are the most obscure. We view your situation as an opportunity to further Human-Alien Cooperation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAh, yes, Cooperation. The cultural doctrine that had seen humanity through a universe older and smarter and tougher than us. It hadn\u2019t taken long after first contact, when our fleet of quaint little warships came up against the Hanrit species like a bird against a glass door, for war to start showing diminishing returns. As much as we loved it like an old sweatshirt from college, we had to let it go. From the rubble of outmoded nation-tribes arose the One Earth United Government and Cooperation Tower, a neutral agora facilitating commerce and cultural exchange between Visitors in the furtherance of intergalactic good will. And if we happened to pick up whatever exotech they didn\u2019t keep a close eye on, well, who got hurt?\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf we want to Cooperate we need common understanding,\u201d Sauerbrey went on, \u201cand these bastards are a big sparkly question mark. We\u2019ve established a Minimum Tolerance Basis with them but beyond that, we don\u2019t know where they\u2019re from, we don\u2019t know how they reproduce, and we don\u2019t know what makes their ships work better than ours. About all we do<\/em> know is that they go nuts over our cute crap.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe official term is kawaii,<\/em>\u201d I shot back, a little offended. \u201cIt\u2019s different. And it\u2019s not crap.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhatever, sorry. All we need is for you to record your interactions with them. Give us more observations to work with than what we\u2019ve got. We\u2019ll be providing you the necessary equipment.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m not hearing anything about a carrot here,\u201d I said, folding my arms.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019ll do you one better,\u201d Sauerbrey replied, his gray voice suddenly going ice-blue. \u201cHere\u2019s a stick. If you choose not to comply, as is your right, the Cooperative might decide that this highly in-demand apartment here would better serve a citizen with a higher Utility Score. Apropos of nothing, your boss tells me you\u2019re in something of a slump. I\u2019m sorry to hear that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. \u201cFine.\u201d Losing my home meant losing my job. I\u2019d plummet as hard into my old room at my mother\u2019s place in Nowhere Prefecture as if I\u2019d fallen there from all the way up here. I told you, Yuko-chan, <\/em> she\u2019d say. You go to live with the aliens<\/em> (using the Cooperative-discouraged slur) you wind up broke with a probe up your backside. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut worse than saying I told you so, she\u2019d pity me.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat<\/em> I could not stand.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cExcellent.\u201d Sauerbrey\u2019s lips twitched into the bare minimum of a smile. \u201cYou\u2019ll receive what you need via GoPak within the hour. Have a good evening, Miss Otsuji. Best of luck.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\nEight AM Lunar Time at the General Port, and already as bustling as a souq in Marrakech. The arrival platforms beneath the docks had been adapted into an informal marketplace where you could go to brunch on tempura-fried hellprawn from Picaresque-8 and sip espresso with an Irhuz hotel princess on holiday, where a hayseed \u0178hh could squander xeir hard-earned vertebrae on Earthly tchotchkes and gewgaws. Everywhere you looked was glorious Cooperation. Human and Visitor working together to hawk interplanetary fusion cuisine and exchange nervous First Encounters in pay-by-the-minute love hotels, discovering new points of commonality and making one another better. I may not have liked Sauerbrey, but I believed in his cause.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti and I rode a cramped lift outwise to the docks overhead, where ships exiting the Custom\u2019s Belt were parked\u2014whales and leviathans of exotech like eldritch fossils hung in a museum. I gripped the safety railing, and grappled with the instinct to keep the Toikitti in view at all times. Chocolate Tiger at least seemed interested in the task at hand. Lovely Vanilla, on the other hand, was live-streaming the whole thing.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe<\/em> Otsuji Yuko wants to see our<\/em> ship,\u201d she was saying to the phone screen implanted into the palm of her augmented hand. \u201cWe can\u2019t wait to show her. Let\u2019s watch!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhich one\u2019s yours?\u201d I asked, squinting at the parade of miles-long spacecraft.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere,\u201d Chocolate Tiger replied brightly, aiming a candy-cane-striped claw. \u201cBerth 844.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI don\u2019t know what I\u2019d expected, but I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised. The Toikitti ship was a poof ball the size of a hockey rink hanging in its berthing grips like a claw machine prize. I pulled the lift in close to run my hand along it and found that its hull was furred and yielding. Heat washed across my palm in waves\u2014the ship had a pulse. Like the Toikitti themselves, a slurry of flesh and tech. I moved back for a wider angle; it had a face as well, six beady eyes and a gormless, catlike smile.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIsn\u2019t she adorable?\u201d Chocolate Tiger swooned. \u201cHer name is (?\u2022?\u2022?)(*\u00b4?`*).\u201d This was translated to me as Walk-along Friend.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe love her very much, but she is getting old,\u201d Lovely Vanilla added sadly. Not to me, but to her audience lightyears away. Exactly two seconds of tears streamed from her eyes. \u201cWe need to retire her soon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cShe is still cute though,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh yes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThat\u2019s what you consider kawaii then?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nBoth Toikitti nodded vigorously, jangling their necklaces of charms and keychains. \u201cVery much yes,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said earnestly. \u201cIt is important that one\u2019s ship be kawaii. You will be looked down on if it isn\u2019t. If you<\/em> are not kawaii, you will be looked down upon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut don\u2019t worry, Otsuji Yuko,\u201d Lovely Vanilla chimed in. \u201cYou are super<\/em> kawaii.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nWhy they thought that, I couldn\u2019t say. Outside of work I was in jeans and a T-shirt. I wore my hair in the fastest ponytail possible. But never mind their nonsense\u2014I gnawed my thumb to help mute their giggling and thought. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nKawaii came from the basement of the brain, where outgrown instincts still skittered around like silverfish. Kawaii was the innocence of infants, their soft-bellied vulnerability, the urge it envenomed us with to adore and die for them, distilled into an adjective and spritzed on absolutely anything. My company produced everything from Cocoa Kuma Squeeze Pudding to Sanny the Moon Rabbit toilet seat covers. Kawaii was anything that made us want to crush it against our heart and feed it treats. But I did not feel that from the Toikitti ship, and I couldn\u2019t say why.\n<\/p>\n

\nChocolate Tiger cocked their head. \u201cIs that all you needed to see, Otsuji Yuko?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, not quite,\u201d I said at last. \u201cWe humans have a certain conception of what constitutes kawaii, and you have yours. There seems to be some overlap, but I don\u2019t believe they line up perfectly. If I\u2019m going to do this right, I need to understand what kawaii means to you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti glanced at one another, conferring on a wavelength beyond my perception. \u201cWe understand,\u201d they said in unison. \u201cWe will do everything we can to make your vision a cute reality.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAs disconcerting as they were, so verging on human but so far from it, their enthusiasm at least was genuine. Best case, your career takes an Olympic leap forward, <\/em>I told myself. They make you a Champion of Cooperation.\n<\/p>\n

\nWorst case, you still get fired and career falls apart. <\/em>Okabe hadn\u2019t put it in those words but that was the easy translation. Two million pairs of house slippers would keep him happy right up until I failed to do it again. This was my unspoken last chance.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGreat,\u201d I said, knocking back a big gulp of dread. \u201cLet\u2019s get to work, I guess.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes,\u201d Ichrii primly agreed. \u201cBut first! As is tradition, a selfie.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA what?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThey struck together, quick as mantises, clamping me in between the two of them with Chocolate Tiger\u2019s claws cradling the small of my back. Lovely Vanilla extended her arm and flattened her hand; the phone screen on her palm showed me that I looked as baffled as I felt.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBig smile!\u201d Lovely Vanilla chirruped, and despite myself, I did.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe tool of the scientist was a microscope. The tool of an anthropologist was a shovel. The tool of the character designer pretending <\/em>to be an anthropologist was liquor.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIs this<\/em> cute?\u201d I asked, raising my voice over the clomping computer music, and placed on our table a miniature plastiq teapot with a dopey sloth face on one side. Chamakemono-san, not our most popular character, but up there.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti bent and examined it with eyes squinted exaggeratedly.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said with an air of great deliberation. \u201cHe is kawaii.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut,\u201d Lovely Vanilla cut in dramatically, \u201cNot super<\/em> kawaii.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe looks<\/em> soft,\u201d Chocolate Tiger agreed, swaying slightly. \u201cSoft is cute. But this little fellow is blue and hard.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI see.\u201d I made a note of that in my AUGer-space notepad. I also updated my tally of how many drinks they\u2019d had so far. It had taken ten of the Oort Lounge\u2019s foofiest cocktails to get them tipsy. In that time, however, I had determined that they were lovers, though in a more professional sense than I could wrap my preconceptions around. Similarly, they were resistant to being labeled male or female; they simply couldn\u2019t translate the concepts into terms they understood. I\u2019d learned also that their hominid silhouette was a recent fad kick-started by our first contact, that they were naturally more sphecoid. Their dress, their speech patterns, their very physiology, all an emulation of what they found most adorable in humanity.\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019d asked before drink one what kawaii meant to them, but they weren\u2019t quite able to say. The tower\u2019s Ambient Babel System had fumbled with their answers, given me gibberish. For that at least they were apologetic. We\u2019d have to hash it out the hard way.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAll of these human drinks are super delicious,\u201d Lovely Vanilla said to her hand, still narrating to her followers. She rattled the dregs of her Galatea Sunrise. \u201cMaybe Otsuji Yuko will let us have another!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes, that would be wonderful,\u201d Chocolate Tiger chimed in. \u201cWith more strawberries please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou two are going to drink my bonus before I even get it.\u201d I rolled my eyes and pinged for the waitress to slither back around. This nightclub too was Cooperation at work. If we couldn\u2019t defeat the universe we\u2019d lure it inside us with good food and new sex and subsume it. Seven decades ago the Hanrit had held a gun to the Earth\u2019s temple to make us stay down. These days they were running drinks and working for tips like the rest of us. Please, tell me again how we lost that war. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI waited until the Toikitti were happily nursing their curly straws before bringing out the next subject. \u201cNext up we have Shutoko-chan,\u201d I said, sliding the figma carefully out of its box. \u201cWhat\u2019s your hot take on her?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShutoko-chan was the protagonist of Rocket Star Gatling Girls<\/em>, a popular anime from a few years back. By day she attended Zen’n? Academy with her friends, and at night they henshin\u2019d into Calibre Witches to fight the forces of InvaDark. As a toy her head was bigger than her body, her hair curling into drills and to help prop her up. In one hand she brandished La Justice Gatling, the gun that could purify evil at six-thousand rounds a minute. It was safe to say to say the Toikitti appreciated softness; I wanted to see how they responded to something with more of an edge.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe two of them stared at her for a good long while, their pupils flexing into acute and obtuse polygons. I watched their lips recoil from inky gums, unsheathing those wire-cutting teeth.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot cute,\u201d Lovely Vanilla said revoltedly. Their pupils settled into affronted slits.\n<\/p>\n

\nI hadn\u2019t expected such a sanguine reaction. \u201cWhy is that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said, prodding Shutoko\u2019s magical machine gun like I would a live cockroach. \u201cA weapon is not kawaii.\u201d They took the figma between two claws and tugged on her gun with two more until the piece of sculpted plastiq snapped. Their expression grew instantly sunnier. \u201cThere,\u201d she said, relieved. \u201cThat is much better. I like her now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe lens in my left eye spasmed, swallowing video. Sauerbrey, you peeping tom.<\/em> \u201cYou don\u2019t think danger is cute?\u201d I asked, drumming notes into my notepad. \u201cAs it happens, a lot of people like this character. They\u2019d say the gun is part of her charm. It accentuates her innocence.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely Vanilla furiously shook their head.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut why is that?\u201d I persisted, equally fascinated as frustrated.\n<\/p>\n

\nChocolate Tiger made a motion like a shrug but one too rehearsed to be anything but mimicry, a gesture understood academically but not emotionally. \u201cCan a solution easily study the equation that produced it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThat hit me like a slap across the jaw. Until now I\u2019d had them pegged as vapid and flighty as cats.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cEspecially a solution as complex as a person,\u201d they went on. \u201cWe Toikitti are very clever, but we are still the product of unobservable chemistry, like you. Through technology we can reconfigure our bodies, but we can only guess how they were configured a million years ago. The same is true for how we think, wouldn\u2019t you say, Otsuji Yuko?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAll we know is what we like,\u201d Lovely Vanilla blithely agreed. \u201cWhy worry about it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are familiar with your species\u2019 propensity for introspection,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said. \u201cWe have always found it quite adorable. Do you know why you are that way?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot really,\u201d I said, backed into a rhetorical corner.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThen what good has your worrying done you?\u201d they triumphantly replied. \u201cYour worst predator is doubt. A thing unborn is already dead. Would you not agree?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think I\u2019m not as drunk as I should be,\u201d I groused.\n<\/p>\n

\nI dialed up a sh?ch? for myself and while we waited for the neon-flushed dark to deliver it I presented the next subject: about two tons of synthetic cotton crammed into an eight-inch amigurumi corgi doll. Lovely Vanilla and Chocolate Tiger gushed like a couple of broken dams.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nI came home late to find my husband had called. My heart leapt and then slammed itself against the floor of my chest when I saw he hadn\u2019t also left a message.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe had left divorce papers though.\n<\/p>\n

\nThey hovered in my apartment\u2019s AUGer space, alongside my morning alarms and shopping lists, revolving slowly and blinking red for attention. Would you like to autosign? <\/em>My apartment asked. Y\/N? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI clenched and unclenched my hands to break the ice in my veins. This was it then. I\u2019d waited, dreaded, <\/em>for so long I\u2019d begun to think it would never happen. But this was really it.\n<\/p>\n

\nSomehow, I\u2019d hoped he\u2019d\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nNo. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d hoped. Every little girl was entitled to their one prince, but they were stupid to think he\u2019ll come back.\n<\/p>\n

\nWould you like to autosign? Y\/N. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI ran the documents through the apartment\u2019s on-board lawyer. No chicanery, no buried snare clauses. He didn\u2019t want to play games. Just a clean break. From me.\n<\/p>\n

\nWould you like to autosign? Y\/N. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nDo it.\n<\/p>\n

\nY. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe papers turned green and disappeared out of the reach of second thoughts.\n<\/p>\n

\nI held my breath five, ten, thirty seconds, then let it go. I\u2019d hoped to feel some catharsis, but no. Nothing changed from one moment to the next. My brain knew it was over now, oh sure, but my heart still hoped in the face of finality that he would call again.\n<\/p>\n

\nI sat down on the kitchen floor and cried until Sauerbrey called.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe apartment answered on its own. Secret powers of the Cooperative, I supposed. \u201cThat was good work today, Mrs. Otsuji,\u201d Sauerbrey said. Just voice, no visuals, and thankfully so. \u201cWe were hoping you could take a stab at getting on their ship next. We want to see how they behave where we don\u2019t have cameras.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhatever, fine.\u201d Who knew how I\u2019d do that, I just wanted him to go away.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOnce again your cooperation is appreciated.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cPlease, respectfully, leave me alone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nA long silence on the other end. I thought maybe he\u2019d come back swinging his golden government scepter around telling me to watch my plebian tongue, but he simply said, \u201cI hope you have a better night, Mrs. Otsuji,\u201d and hung up.\n<\/p>\n

\nWell. Still an asshole, but maybe I\u2019d overestimated his circumference.\n<\/p>\n

\nI cleaned myself up, got ready for bed. Emily was at my AUGer-space window patrolling for simulated neighbor cats, so I pulled my large-size plush Goodnight Smile down from the bookcase and crawled into my gone husband\u2019s blast radius with her. I love you,<\/em> I whispered into her ear, crushing her to my chest until her antlers squelched like pseudopodia, as the night wound tight around the spindle of Cooperation Tower. She\u2019d sit and gather a year of dust before she left me. She never could, with her swollen head and endearingly amputated legs. Cute things were better than real things sometimes. With their claws and teeth surgically extracted, all they could do was smile at you. Without bones, they could fit into any cavity you needed filled.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy baby,<\/em> I tell her in my thoughts. You were the last beautiful thing I brought into the world.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut not the last thing.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nOver the next few evenings I took the Toikitti out for more surveys and considerably more drinks. It continued to infuriate me that they couldn\u2019t articulate their own tastes despite recognizing them so intuitively. I could only chalk it up to a differently wired switchboard of instinctual priorities. The Toikitti seemed to lack the existential angst that compelled humans to vivisect themselves down to the Id, to scrape at their own excavated trauma like a mysterious bone. They knew that they enjoyed bright and clashing colors but had little wonder why that was. Why bother, when this little human was feeding them new and increasingly gooey desserts on a conveyer belt?\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the end it wasn\u2019t necessary for the job, but that was the fundamental difference between our species: humanity was curious, and they<\/em> were hungry.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn our fifth night out, they asked to go dancing at the Mare Nectaris Club. I wasn\u2019t much for that myself anymore, but I was content to observe them from our booth. They abandoned themselves in that music, so alien to them. I envied their absolute self-certainty. They savored each new moment they came upon with no wondering why or if they should. One hand taking what it wanted, the other somehow not knocking it away.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDance with us,\u201d they beckoned, bobbing in that dimmed gravity. But I could think of no song that would not make a fool of me.\n<\/p>\n

\nSo I kept drinking.\n<\/p>\n

\nBy the time we stumbled into the alley I\u2019d had eight shotbulbs of Knaipurish toad-wine and was feeling like an infant in a universe made of blanket. Part of that had been the Toikitti egging me on; part of it had been my need to slip a mitten on my heart.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRef just called time, ladies or gents,\u201d I said, teetering towards the curb outside the club, where a GoPak was waiting in standby hover to box me up and ship me home. Normally it\u2019d be an easy fall but trying to navigate a busy Directed Gravity Corridor whilst utterly sloshed was a hairier prospect. \u201cYou two have a safe hike home. Try not to get mugged by one guy sitting on another guy\u2019s shoulders.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cActually, we were wondering if you would like to come home with us,<\/em>\u201d Lovely Vanilla said.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNow that we are such good friends,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said, \u201cwe thought it would be fun to engage in a consensual sexual encounter together.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThat took a minute to paddle the length of my booze-basted brain.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou mean you want to\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe two nodded excitedly and on the same axel.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe think you are kawaii, Otsuji Yuko,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said, outlining a heart with her fingers.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSuper<\/em> kawaii,\u201d Lovely Vanilla added.\n<\/p>\n

\nI glanced between the two, trying to figure out how that would even get started without a step ladder available. \u201cIs\u2026 is that even possible?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh certainly,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said. \u201cToikitti are an eight on your Veittman Scale of Xeno-Pudendal Interoperability. Our genitalia and yours are highly compatible.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOtsuji Yuko does not think we have done our research,\u201d Lovely Vanilla said to the audience in her hand.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDoes that line work on all the ladies?\u201d You always heard about this sort of thing\u2014alluringly tentacled Visitor sex-tourists whisking your hominid-ass away for a night of psychedelic interstellar Diplomacy, but I never thought it would happen to me. I looked Lovely Vanilla up and down, and they swayed their hips as if to flaunt what they were offering. I conceded that they at least had the correct curves in the correct locations. I was more curious than aroused, but I was very<\/em> curious.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd it had been a long time since I\u2019d been with someone.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAlright, sure, why not,\u201d I finally said. I was in that Goldilocks Zone of inebriation where I was prone to make bad decisions but sober enough to be cool with it. And was it not, after all, my duty to go where no woman had gone before? Gosh, how could a self-respecting spy not jump at the chance.<\/em> \u201cJust take me there before I smarten up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti smiled and took me by either hand. They and the swarm of butterflies in my stomach carried me the way back to their ship, where I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one of them was their equivalent of male after all.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIt was good. It was fun. It was weird, but fun.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd even though it shouldn\u2019t have, it felt like cheating on Eiichiro.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIt was terror that woke me up. As the alcohol drained out of my system the understanding that I was alone on a Visitor\u2019s spaceship skyhooked me into reality. I shot up, heart plinking my ribs like piano keys. But the Toikitti were curled up on the bed beside me, harmless as kittens. Fear of the unknown cooled slowly into wonder at it.\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019m in their ship. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nCareful not to rouse them, I crawled out of bed to do some espionage in the light of sobriety.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe ship\u2019s interior surface was as warm and spongy as the inside of my lip. It sucked fetishistically at my toes as I navigated by the room. Toikitti d\u00e9cor was as gaudy as their fashion; plushies lay in random heaps or hung in arrangements that meant nothing to me. I could feel the camera in my eye palpitating anxiously as the government transmuted vision into intel.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn an alcove like a canker sore I found a little Goodnight Smile alarm clock, a bit of deliberately archaic kitsch that hadn\u2019t caught on. Yet here she was, enshrined by visitors from lightyears away. They really do love her, don\u2019t they? <\/em>I smiled to myself. Who didn\u2019t want to see their kids do well?\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019d wanted to give her brothers and sisters. A character designer couldn\u2019t retire on one success\u2014I didn\u2019t want to get edited out of history like the guy who first drew Mickey Mouse and whose name wasn\u2019t Disney. But in eight months I hadn\u2019t come close; every attempt had died in conception. Sperm wasted on a thigh. Whenever pen touched paper my sketches inevitably disemboweled themselves. Things meant to be cute came out monstrous, botched by my knife.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou are distressed, Otsuji Yuko. What\u2019s the matter?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI turned, startled. The Toikitti was a bare tree on a moonlit field. I only knew it was Chocolate Tiger by the lay of their hair. Beneath their clothes they were as sexless as a wasp, their tech-blended thorax contoured but not endowed.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d I said, returning the clock to its place. \u201cI should be getting home actually. I\u2019ve got a cat to feed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou can\u2019t lie. I am listening to your pulse, not your lips.\u201d Chocolate Tiger\u2019s claws alighted upon my shoulder. \u201cYou can give some of your hurt to me. That is the purpose of friends.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI hadn\u2019t been touched that way in a long time. But their skin was like hard candy, not the velvet my body craved when sober.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLike I\u2019d tell you,\u201d I said. \u201cHow would you even know what I was on about? You\u2019re not human.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDo you think us incapable of empathy, Otsuji Yuko?\u201d Away from the public eye their voice had lost that affected mewl I found so grating. \u201cMy species can feel pain as well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDo humans always understand other humans?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo,\u201d I admitted, feeling like dirt.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo then.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI thought of my mother, calling every other day to make sure I wasn\u2019t dead.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDo you know what a husband is?\u201d I asked. \u201cI used to have one of those.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI told them the story of Eiichiro and me. I did leave out a fair bit of chaff; like most romances, our love was only unique to us. I\u2019d just transferred from the RariJump office down in Old Tokyo; he was a xenobotanist for the Cooperative working to make sure Earth didn\u2019t get overgrown by some innocuous alien shrub. We\u2019d met online, when he DM\u2019d me to tell me the flower I most reminded him of was the Knaipurish Ice Rose. I\u2019d had no idea what that was, so of course I had to let him explain over tea. Good times followed. Ordinary, but many, and ours.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA while into it we\u2019d decided we wanted a baby,\u201d I said. Well, I<\/em> decided, because I was the one who needed convincing. And he\u2019d convinced me good, got me invested deep in all that poesy about the miracle of childbirth.\n<\/p>\n

\nI told them the story of why he was gone now, pulling it out of me hand over hand. Living on the \u2018Tower you consented to a checklist of risks. Most of them microscopic, invisible, like gamma rays, like disease. You couldn\u2019t keep a place like this perfectly sterile. Visitors came in basted in the toxic gases they respirated. They arrived carrying parasites and viroids, sweating natural carcinogens and doling out STD\u2019s. Your immune system was a gutter and every radioactive star in the universe was taking lightspeed potshots at your DNA. They warned me about all that when I applied, but all I cared about was getting off the same old planet as everybody else.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe came out\u2026 wrong,\u201d I managed. But how could they know what that meant, what an incorrect human looked like. The Toikitti had told me how they grew from anonymous hundreds of larva oviposited in the fat of other animals. They wouldn\u2019t understand the horror of feeling keratin scales scraping out of you, of seeing your child\u2019s everted eyes glistening red like licked lips.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe never cried. He\u2019d died before he\u2019d been born. There in my hospital bed, as I regurgitated his corpse inch by bloody inch, I swallowed the name he would have had so that I could scream.\n<\/p>\n

\nEiichiro left as soon as I could take care of myself again. He said it was him, not me, but that was a lie. The Ice Rose gave seeds of cubic crystal carbon, every one of them a perfect diamond. Eiichiro left because I was not his flower anymore.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI used to love my job,\u201d I said. \u201cI, I made things. I got to manufacture smiles. My job was to make people happy. <\/em> I mean I wasn\u2019t the best, but people really did love my characters. I felt so lucky, so talented. I\u2019d think of all the little girls on Earth going to bed feeling safe because they had a stuffed Goodnight Smile in their arms. I\u2019d see a little kid drinking juice out of a Goodnight Smile sippy cup, and I\u2019d just\u2014\u201d My voice broke there. Could only take so hard a beating.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhen Eiichiro left he took all that with him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI went to sit at the foot of the bed. Ichrii had woken and was listening quietly. I did not feel any better than before. I only felt inside-out.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI can\u2019t design your ship for you,\u201d I said, eyes in my hands, holding the tears in. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. There\u2019s just nothing good left in me. I don\u2019t know how to make cute things anymore. I wouldn\u2019t have had my baby if I\u2019d known that first.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI told them all that, and they soaked it up like fresh sponges. They crawled to me and laid their hands upon me, webs of pulsing warmth. They were bereft of context, I realized. Not cluttered with preconceptions. They couldn\u2019t judge, make me into something I wasn\u2019t. They did not understand enough to let my tragedy shrink me in their eyes. They were with me in that dark place, not above me looking down. They cared, and nothing else.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYour doubt is your worst predator,\u201d Chocolate Tiger chided. \u201cYou have made people so happy, Otsuji Yuko. So many like us, that you will never meet. We know you will again. You are kawaii, and so kawaii must come from you. It is simple logic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI don\u2019t think it works that way,\u201d I said, but with a hiccupping laugh.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOf course it does,\u201d Lovely Vanilla replied dismissively. \u201cYour ship will make the universe gasp in awe. We are without doubt. Everything is cute to someone. Be sad that you lost your child. But be happy you can still make another.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRemember Goodnight Smile\u2019s favorite saying.\u201d Chocolate Tiger made antlers of her fingers. \u201cIt is printed on her tag. Ashita wa mi kaif? no okurimonodesu.<\/em> Tomorrow is an unopened gift.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nAs the simulated sun climbed out of the simulated sea outside my bedroom window, I poured over the video I\u2019d recovered from the Toikitti ship. Getting them back from Sauerbrey hadn\u2019t been hard. Yes, they were government assets now, but it wasn\u2019t as if I hadn\u2019t seen them once already.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI got on the ship like you wanted, didn\u2019t I?\u201d I\u2019d argued. \u201cYou know what I had to do to make that happen?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes,\u201d he\u2019d replied, itchingly uncomfortable. \u201cYes, we know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThen I want my carrot already. Come on, it\u2019s five seconds out of your day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019d developed an idea of what the ship needed to be, though not much more than a quilt of their individual tastes, and lacking a face. It would have to have a face like Walk-along Friend, for their ships were family as close as cousins. The Toikitti had made that clear. And I had to do this right for them.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt hadn\u2019t caught my eye at the time but had lodged itself in my subconscious like a bee sting. Hidden in the scrimshawry of their furniture, in the embroidery of their rugs and pillows, a tessellated motif. It was like a football, but with two buds\u2014perhaps ears?\u2014and curling flanges that could be tusks or tentacles. It was everywhere in the parts of the ship I\u2019d had access to, if you knew to look for it.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy job was done with a scalpel, not a hammer. You could turn out someone\u2019s pockets with a whap of blunt appeal to the brain, but real kawaii was an emergent property of a mindful arrangement of elements. This shape was the smallest particle of their ship\u2019s aesthetic. My instincts told me it was therefore the most important.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAh!\u201d Chocolate Tiger exclaimed when I brought it up at our date at the Comet Tail Diner later that afternoon. She began to bounce with excitement. \u201cYes, I\u2019m glad you noticed. That is an animal from our homeworld.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely Vanilla had ordered themselves a whole strawberry shortcake and currently wore half as a beard. \u201cIt is called a <(???)(>–<)(>:3)>,\u201d they said, which the tower translated to me as \u2018Jelly Fox.\u2019\n<\/p>\n

\nAll I had was coffee, which the Toikitti wouldn\u2019t so much as sniff without a half-gallon of creamer. \u201cWhat, are they cute or something?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti replied out of the same throat. \u201cOh yes. Extremely cute!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI was able to put it together that the jelly fox was to the Toikitti what the panda or the kitten was to us: something universally adored, a kawaii Rosetta Stone. The black-eyed artist in me smelled material.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019d like to see one,\u201d I told them. \u201cCould help with the ship.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCertainly.\u201d Chocolate Tiger chirped. \u201cWe shall have one delivered immediately. You will have anything you require\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWait, no,\u201d I hurriedly cut in. \u201cI don\u2019t need a live one. Video would do fine.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNonsense,\u201d Lovely Vanilla insisted. \u201cThe expense is no matter. Now please, let us have more cake.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThat expense is a matter to me.<\/em> But I let it go. They were going to do what they were going to do. \u201cAlright,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not going to get stuck taking care of it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d Chocolate Tiger grinned. \u201cThat shouldn\u2019t be a problem.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nI was turning the corner towards the DGC home when a man coming the other way stopped in place to gawp at me.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYuko-chan?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI froze from the gut outwards. My husband stood an arm\u2019s length away, the bookbag I\u2019d bought him for his birthday slung across his hip, his glasses sliding off his nose just as they always had.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy heart leapt out of my chest to get at him. I could suddenly taste our last kiss as if it had only been moments ago. I remembered how we\u2019d come together on the dance floor at the Mare Nectaris Club; they\u2019d turned the gravity all the way off for that last song, but in his arms I\u2019d never felt surer in my place in the universe.\n<\/p>\n

\nThen I looked at his face and saw that he already regretted calling my name. In the reflection in his glasses I could see the black ghost of our child clinging to my belly. Some part of me reached for him and, he flinched away as if from a leper.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m late,\u201d he said, an excuse I hadn\u2019t asked for, and hurried past me.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt hurt like being killed a second time. My thoughts swelled with stillborn things I could have<\/em> said, should<\/em> have said. In the dreamlike edges of my vision crawled caterpillars of chained torsos, halved kittens and hemorrhaging figma. Of course he ran away\u2014he always could see through me, and he knew I\u2019d gone bad to the marrow.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith an exertion of will I choked down those brilliant, useless words. I blinked my eyes until I\u2019d shooed away all the ugly things infesting my head. I know you hurt too, Eiichiro. He was both of ours, and you had a name for him as well. I\u2019m the receipt for what you lost. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nI ground my teeth until sparks flew. But I don\u2019t forgive you.\n<\/p>\n

\nI will prove you wrong. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIt took three weeks for the jelly fox to arrive from wherever the Toikitti requisitioned it from, and another for the Cooperative\u2019s xenobiology team to clear it for interaction at the STF. You didn\u2019t get to bring anything new into the \u2018tower without the government invoking its right to Primae Noctis. From what I heard it had involved some intense negotiations, but I suspected that had been Sauerbrey playing hard to get.\n<\/p>\n

\nI rendezvoused with the Toikitti at the Sterile Inspection Facility some two hundred floors outwise into the administration block. We were required to go through separate multi-stage DeconSec procedures and sign disclaimers agreeing that the Cooperative would not be at fault if this thing ate my face off with its alien enzymes. I showered and signed and jittered in the waiting room.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe STF was a rotunda surrounding a sterile containment unit with an airlock in one side, through which the guards admitted us. The only thing inside was a cardboard Standard Transportation Unit with its lid off.\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely Vanilla was live-streaming again. The small space felt overcrowded, knowing how many others were looking on and commenting. \u201cOtsuji Yuko is about to meet a jelly fox for the first time,\u201d she whispered, like she was trying not to spook me. \u201cI am so excited. Could this be true love? Let\u2019s watch!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nIt didn\u2019t look at all like a fox. More a blob of white mochi with an oily sheen. It did indeed have two pointed flanges like ears, and four stubby tentacles around its base. There was no mouth I could see, but it did have two huge, watery, and admittedly loveable eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\nI stood back to observe as Lovely Vanilla scooped it into her palm, squealing like a starstruck schoolgirl. Chocolate Tiger oohed as she stroked its invertebrate back, eliciting a low and rhythmic trilling. The jelly fox was not frightened\u2014if anything, it basked in the attention.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMay I hold it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nChocolate Tiger’s smile chopped her face in half. \u201cPlease! Everyone should know the joy of a jelly fox.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe creature took up both hands and was surprisingly dry, its outer membrane textured like fine-grit sandpaper. Even so, its charm hit me like the heat of a rocket launch. Placid as a lapdog, it pawed at my face as I looked it up and down. I couldn\u2019t imagine how I\u2019d make it more kawaii than it was.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti had no instinctual fondness for their offspring. I wondered if this instead was, for them, the mean against which the cuteness of a thing was scored. But what would evolution want with it?\n<\/p>\n

\nI put the lid back on its box and set the jelly fox down on top. \u201cI need to make some sketches,\u201d I said, unsheathing my stylus. \u201cTake some photos too. Try to restrain yourselves, please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti looked at me like I\u2019d announced Christmas was delayed until March.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy work took an hour, and then another. For such a seemingly simple silhouette the creature offered a wealth of new contours to explore, new colors to play with, new material unconstrained by associated memories and emotions. I filled a book of virtual paper with assorted poses and alternate color schemes, seeing what the creature wore best. In some sketches I’d shaved down some features and exaggerated others, uncovering its most appealing proportion.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn others, I\u2019d cut it in half.\n<\/p>\n

\nI could feel creativity lunging from my fingers, scenting the undiscovered vein of cuteness within the jelly fox, closer to escape than ever before. But as I continued to draw, it hit me like the shock of cold water that I\u2019d set myself a trap. For all its novelty there was nothing about this creature different from the kittens and puppies I typically operated on. Nothing that made it impervious to my clumsy scalpel. Watching the jelly fox explore its enclosure, I could only imagine how it would look transplanted with the blood-swollen eyes of my child.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy skittering stylus slowed to a stop, fell slack in my hand. It didn\u2019t matter how alien the subject. I couldn\u2019t make it my own without butchering it.\n<\/p>\n

\nI switched off my notepad and sat quietly for a while.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIs that all you need, Otsuji Yuko?\u201d Chocolate Tiger asked.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cShould be,\u201d I heard myself say.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFinally.<\/em>\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI looked up to see Lovely Vanilla squeeze the jelly fox like a hamburger and bite into its face.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe stylus slipped from my fingers.\n<\/p>\n

\nChocolate Tiger bent to sink their protracting fangs into the jelly fox\u2019s flank. It squealed miserably as the two Toikitti pulled it apart like taffy. They tossed their heads back in the manner of crocodiles to wolf each half down without chewing. Blood the phantasmagoric color of an oil-slick runneled through the camouflaged aqueducts in their candy coating.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy?\u201d I asked, when it was over.\n<\/p>\n

\nTheir eyes flicked towards me, pupils drawn into black slashes, and I cringed involuntarily against the sealed airlock.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo sorry,\u201d Lovely Vanilla mewed, as Chocolate Tiger leaned in to groom their partner\u2019s neck. \u201cWe should have saved some for you. But we couldn\u2019t help ourselves. It was super kawaii.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe light in the room went health-hazard yellow, and an alarm began to blare. I could hear the guards shouting something fuzzy on the other side of the airlock. Any moment they\u2019d break in and arrest us for violating quarantine procedures. I braced myself to be tased to the floor, but first I had to know:\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy do you think I\u2019m<\/em> cute?\u201d I asked, my heart beating fast enough to escape gravity.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Toikitti cocked their heads, perplexed.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat a silly question,\u201d Lovely Vanilla said.\n<\/p>\n

\nChocolate Tiger, coming up for air, strummed her segmented tongue along bloody teeth. \u201cYou\u2019re cute because you\u2019re small, and soft, and sweet, Otsuji Yuko. Like a Jelly Fox.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe day after I saw the Toikitti off at the General Port I was called in for a debriefing in the administration block. It was serious but not testy; the Cooperative just wanted to know what I\u2019d gathered from my time with them that the cameras and microphones hadn\u2019t. I got a fruit cup for my trouble, along with a mug of surprisingly alright coffee that Sauerbrey brewed himself.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy mistake was assuming that to reach the same destination, you had to come from the same direction,\u201d I explained. \u201cWhich, you know, is never true. I assumed that for them to have similar reactions to ours towards similar things, they\u2019d have had to\u2019ve followed a similar evolutionary path. But in hindsight that was a little anthrocentric of me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSauerbrey narrowed his eyes at me. \u201cCan you elaborate?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI shrugged. \u201cSure. I\u2019m not a scientist though\u2014this is all uneducated hypothesizing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot a scientist. Noted. Proceed, please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhen we<\/em> think something is cute,\u201d I continued, \u201cit\u2019s because it inadvertently triggered our nurturing instincts\u2014hit the baby button. Toikitti don\u2019t give live birth or raise their young; the same buttons aren\u2019t there to be pushed. When they think something is cute, something else is triggered. And why\u2019s that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI paused to kill the rest of my coffee.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey\u2019re predators.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI put my mug aside and leaned conspiratorially across the table. \u201cThey like loud colors because a million years ago that\u2019s what gave their prey away in the wild. They like soft textures because solidity indicates a shell they\u2019d have to overcome. Big heads and stubby limbs imply helplessness. You and I would see something to protect. They, on the other hand, would see an easy meal. We\u2019ve both arrived at the same place, culturally. An appreciation for a mostly same-y aesthetic. We just came down opposite paths.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSauerbrey\u2019s eyes widened at some private horror. \u201cWhen they said you were super kawa-ee\u2014\u201d<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d I hastily interjected. \u201cThey know better than that. You\u2019ve seen they\u2019re perfectly rational creatures. Just like how we don\u2019t take time to care for every feral raccoon we come across.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCigarette?\u201d Sauerbrey asked, offering a fresh pack of synth-spliffs.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot my thing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe rolled his shoulders and sparked up. \u201cJust between you and me, I\u2019m not seeing a lot of room for us to get along in.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cReally? I see the opposite.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes. I think with the way they are and the way we<\/em> are, we can Cooperate happily.\u201d I took from my pocket the gift the Toikitti had given me before they\u2019d left for home: a Goodnight Smile keychain that Chocolate Tiger had plucked from their plushy rosary and tucked into my hands. \u201cYou know why we make stuff like this?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey remind us of babies?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI squished Goodnight Smile between my thumbs, shunting fluff into her head and then down into her belly. \u201cMore or less. And what are babies? Soft, helpless, entirely under our control. Same place, opposite directions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSauerbrey\u2019s lips unzipped into a smirk. \u201cI see your point.\u201d He stood up and pushed his chair in. \u201cThe Cooperative thanks you for your assistance, Miss Otsuji.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe stopped halfway to the door. \u201cYou didn\u2019t have your camera in when you showed them your design,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s going to bug me if I don\u2019t ask. How\u2019d they like it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI had to smile.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe day before I ended things with Sauerbrey I saw the Toikitti off at the General Port.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFor remembering,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said, folding the Goodnight Smile keychain into my fingers.\n<\/p>\n

\nI stood on the lift and they stood on their ship\u2019s wet tongue with their crated SIMK on a gravity pallet. Their purchase of two million house slippers had more accurately bought them a discounted Limited License to produce that many with a Standard Industrial Matter Kiln thrown in at no charge, it being easier to print the product than move it in bulk between star systems. \u201cWhat do you want all that for anyway?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cResale of course,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said. \u201cWe are not your only fans. You are highly in-demand.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe want to hang your art upon the stars.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI hung my head and sighed, to hide a smile I could do nothing about. \u201cCome back when the ship\u2019s born,\u201d I told them. \u201cI want to see how my baby turned out.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe two Visitors nodded and curtsied. I pictured them fussing over the gesture for hours like self-conscious tourists and snorted a laugh.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOf course, Otsuji Yuko,\u201d Chocolate Tiger said. \u201cAnd thank you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely Vanilla turned and raised her phone-hand to get a shot of all three of us. \u201cIt is time to say goodbye to Otsuji Yuko! So sad, but so happy too. Bye-bye Otsuji Yuko, we will miss you!\u201d She blew a lipless kiss at her followers, but I felt it anyway.\n<\/p>\n

\nI waved goodbye like a dope as they boarded. I could admit I\u2019d miss them, to myself at least. Was it strange to love another only for the child we had in common? Just because they cherished what I cherished? If that tendency was perfectly human then it was perfectly more than human as well: I knew the Toikitti felt the same. Perhaps that was how one held hands between stars.\n<\/p>\n

\nI felt guilty for not cluing them in that Sauerbrey had probably bugged their SIMK. That it was a matter of time until we knew where to find them in the universe. But I wasn\u2019t such a good person that I\u2019d risk prison over it, and the seal between our species was broken regardless. The Toikitti would gobble up those cheap slippers, the custom ship, and then come slavering after our cuteness like sharks scenting blood.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe were going to get to know each other very well, very soon.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nAfter the debriefing I called Eiichiro. I wanted to show him what I\u2019d made for the Toikitti. I wanted to smear his face in it and laugh. But I was informed that my ID had been blocked by the receiving party.\n<\/p>\n

\nOh. Well.\n<\/p>\n

\nI hung up knowing this was not the last time I would try to reach him. The hope that he\u2019d one day let me through burned to the touch but wouldn\u2019t snuff out. I didn\u2019t expect I\u2019d stop looking for him in the crowd on the way to work. Eiichiro was not a physical thing but an aching absence with his profile, and the one quality of a vacuum was that it must be filled.\n<\/p>\n

\nI wanted him to know he\u2019d done wrong and rush back into my life forever. I wanted him to know he\u2019d messed up so I could refuse him and be done with it. I didn\u2019t know which I wanted more, and either way there would be no closure. I knew that. I\u2019d always want it anyway.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut he was<\/em> wrong about me.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat, at least, I could live on.\n<\/p>\n

\nI called my mother next and got her voicemail. Disappointing, but in that, at least, a jammed door, not one bolted shut. \u201cHi mom,\u201d I said, thinking not one word ahead. If I hesitated I\u2019d remember to fear pity again. \u201cI\u2019m sorry I haven\u2019t been in touch. I just wanted to tell you not to worry. I\u2019m okay. I\u2019d like to come see you and Yukiko on Earth some time, if that\u2019s alright. I can tell you about my new job.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019d told President Okabe the same thing I told Sauerbrey, and he\u2019d all but winged his credit card at me. Where the Cooperative would see an opportunity to raise civilization up upon the rock of cultural intersections, an entrepreneur saw profit to frack from our differences. And what made the Toikitti distinct, he\u2019d asked, from the Hanrit or the Yhh or any other Visitor to the tower?\n<\/p>\n

\nNothing but meaningless DNA.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe next day I reported to work as the head of RariJump\u2019s new Alternate Appeal Division. The founding principle was the bone of the Invisible Hand itself: for every taste, a market. The human model of kawaii would begin to show diminishing returns as just one of an expanding menu of flavors. There was an unexplored universe of design space out there for other, stranger definitions.\n<\/p>\n

\nWithin the first week I\u2019d filled the memory of my new drafting table to traumatic levels with the morbid grubs of my imagination. No, I didn\u2019t expect I\u2019d ever be rid of them\u2014stains don\u2019t rub out in people. But not every kid comes out pretty, everything was cute to someone. The difference between kawaii and kowaii<\/em> was a matter of microscopic lightyears.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere other people might have had pictures of their children, on the wall of my office I hung framed copies of the designs I\u2019d given to Chocolate Tiger and Lovely Vanilla. I came to enjoy the expression on each new hire\u2019s face when they saw them for the first time. Lose the monkey in you,<\/em> I\u2019d say. What would a carnivore find cute?<\/em> When the Toikitti returned they\u2019d come in a swarm, I imagined, and my team would have to be ready. We\u2019d wake up one day to find the stars blotted out by their tourist fleet. A hundred ships in my design all mimicking the popular original. A hundred soft, terrified, newborn babies crawling crippledly through space. Super Kawaii, through a certain eye.\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely Vanilla and Chocolate Tiger had been correct. My ship would make the universe gasp.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf not necessarily in awe.<\/p>\n

Evan Marcroft is an aspiring speculative fiction writer from Sacramento California, who uses his expensive degree in literary criticism to do menial data entry. Evan dreams of writing for video games, but will settle for literature instead. His work can be found in a variety of venues, such as Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and Asimov’s. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was midway through a series of concept sketches when Chuchuko popped out of my drafting table with a high-pitched dojyan. \u201cOhay?gozai-nezu, Otsuji Yuko!\u201d chirped the RariJump mascot. \u201cYou have two guests waiting in the president\u2019s office. Your presence is requested immediately! Otsukaresama deshita!\u201d With that, the hot pink mouse swan-dove back into my table, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105839,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20076],"tags":[20077],"class_list":["post-137951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-36-summer-2020","tag-the-colored-lens-36-summer-2020","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/105839"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137952,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137951\/revisions\/137952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}