Earthlings. Sayaka Murata

I answered without turning around.

      Upstairs there was a strong smell of tatami and dust. I went through to the far room and put down my things.

      Uncle Teruyoshi told me that long ago this used to be the room where they kept silkworms. Apparently there used to be lots of bamboo baskets packed with eggs, which hatched into larvae that grew rapidly and spread throughout the second floor. By the time they spun their cocoons the whole house was full of them.

      I’d seen pictures of silkworms in school library books. As an adult, the worm transformed into a big, white moth, much prettier than any butterfly I’d seen. I’d heard that silk thread was harvested from the worms, but I’d never gotten around to asking how they got the thread and what happened to the silkworms afterward. How magical it must have been to have all those pure-white wings fluttering around the house! It was like something out of a fairy tale, and I loved this room where the baby silkworms had been laid out in rows.

      As I slid open the door to leave, I heard the floor creak faintly.

      Someone else was up here.

      I moved toward the room that everyone called the attic, although it was still on the same level as the rest of the second floor, and slid open the door into the large, pitch-black space. This is where Granny stored all the old toys Dad and my uncles and aunts once played with, along with a large number of books that someone or other had collected. We children always came here to look for treasure.

      “Yuu?” I called into the darkness.

      Our feet got really dirty when we went into the attic, so we were always being told to make sure to wear the sandals we use to go out onto the veranda, but I was too impatient to fetch them. I just took off my socks before stepping into the darkness.

      “Yuu, are you there?”

      I headed for a small point of light emanating from a tiny lamp, the only light in the dark room even at midday. There was a rustling, and I almost screamed.

      “Who’s that?” came a small voice.

      “Yuu! It’s Natsuki!”

      A small white figure appeared indistinctly from the depths.

      “Natsuki! Finally!” Yuu was standing there in the faint glow.

      I ran over to him. “Yuu! I missed you!”

      “Shhh!” he said, hastily putting a hand over my mouth. “We’ll be in trouble if Granny or Yota hear us.”

      “Yeah, true. Our love’s still a secret, isn’t it?”

      Yuu looked at me shyly. He hadn’t changed at all in the past year. Maybe it was because he was an alien that he didn’t grow. But even in the dark, I could tell it was him from his light brown eyes and thin neck.

      “At last we’re together again!”

      “It’s been a whole year, hasn’t it, Natsuki. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you too. Uncle Teruyoshi told me you’d be coming today, so I got up early to wait for you. But he said you’d be late.”

      “Is that why you’re up here playing on your own?”

      “Yeah. I got bored.”

      Yuu hadn’t just stopped growing, I had the feeling that he’d even shrunk. Cousin Yota had filled out since last year, but Yuu’s neck and wrists looked like they’d gotten even skinnier. Maybe it was just because I’d grown, but he looked so fragile that I couldn’t help feeling worried.

      I grabbed the edges of his white T-shirt and felt the faint warmth of his body as my fingertips brushed his skin. Maybe it was because he was an alien that his body temperature was low. His hands felt cool as they connected with mine.

      “Yuu, are you going to be here for the whole of Obon this year?” I asked, gripping his hands as hard as I could.

      Yuu nodded. “Yeah, I will. Mitsuko took a long vacation this year, so she said we could stay.”

      “Great!”

      Yuu called his mom Mitsuko instead of Mom. Apparently she’d told him to. Aunt Mitsuko had divorced three years ago, and since then she’d depended on Yuu as though he were her husband. He said he had to kiss her cheek every night before going to bed, so I’d gotten him to promise to reserve the proper kiss for me.

      “What about you, Natsuki?”

      “I’ll be here all through Obon too!”

      “Great! Uncle Teruyoshi bought some big rockets for the fireworks this year. He said we’ll let them off on the last night.”

      “I’m looking forward to the sparklers too!” I said excitedly.

      Yuu gave a little smile.

      “Will you go looking for the spaceship again this year?”

      “Sure, if there’s time.”

      “But you won’t go away with the aliens straight away, will you?”

      Yuu shook his head. “I won’t, I promise. Even if I find it, I’d never leave without saying goodbye to you, Natsuki.”

      I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d pestered Yuu to take me with him in the spaceship, but he’d said he couldn’t. He promised to come back for me sometime, though. He was sweet but strong-willed.

      I had the feeling he might disappear at any moment. I wanted to become an alien, too, and I felt jealous of him having somewhere to go home to.

      “Yota said he was secretly going to open up the well, without the grown-ups knowing.”

      “The old well that’s been closed up forever? I want to see it!”

      “Sure, let’s go see it together. And Uncle Teruyoshi said he’d take us to go watch fireflies once it gets dark.”

      “Brilliant!”

      Yuu took everything seriously, and whenever he saw something strange he wanted to know all about it. Uncle Teruyoshi loved telling us about this house and the village, and he ended up spending more time with Yuu than anyone else.

      “Yuu! Natsuki! Come downstairs and have some of this cold watermelon,” an aunt called.

      “Let’s go.”

      Yuu and I left the attic still holding hands.

      “Afterward let’s go play together, Natsuki.”

      “Yes, let’s.”

      I nodded, feeling myself blush. I was so happy to be with my boyfriend again.

      Dad was one of six siblings, and the extended family gathering for Obon was always madness. We couldn’t all fit in the living room at once, so the sliding doors between the two large tatami rooms at the end of the house had been removed, and a long, low table was set up with cushions on the floor for our meals.

      The house was full of bugs, but nobody made a big deal of it. Back home in Chiba even a small fly would cause panic, but Mom and my sister never made a fuss about the insects in Granny’s house. The boys would eagerly run around killing them with a flyswatter, but even so there were still always flies and grasshoppers and bugs I’d never seen before crawling around the room.

      All the girls old enough to help went to the kitchen to make dinner. Even my sister was quietly peeling potatoes.

      I was put in charge of dishing up the rice. There were two rice cookers sitting side by side. I filled bowl after bowl as six-year-old Ami, the daughter of one of my cousins, put them onto a tray and carried them through to the long table in the tatami room, helped by Cousin Mari.

      “First lot of rice coming up! Make way, please!”

      Cousin Mari slid open the kitchen door, and she and Ami went past the family altar to where the uncles were sitting around one end of the table waiting.

      “Stop daydreaming and