“Um, Miyuki are you sure about this?” I say into my phone. 

“Yep, I think it is.” I hear some noise on Miyuki’s end. I hear him yell something out in Japanese to someone on the other side. “Your professor released the latest practice test right?”

“Yeah, but couldn’t we do it on campus then?” 

“Nope. The Success Center has a strange rule about using their computers to take online tests.”

“That's a strange rule.”

“Yep. anyway, I want to see for myself how you actually take a test on your own. These tests don’t affect your grade and that you can take as many times as possible, so they are good to use for developing good habits and practices.”

“But they are optional.”

I hear Miyuki mutter something under his breath. “Seth, I am starting to understand why you got those low scores again.”

Miyuki’s words stung a bit. Sure I am improving, but I am still struggling to keep up. Every session, I would pull out my notes I had taken and we went over everything on the homework online. We would do the same problem multiple times regardless if I got it correct or not. It was time-consuming. Still, his methods work. Most of the stuff is sticking in my head now and I don't feel discouraged as much.

“I am going to text you my address. Can you come around lunch tomorrow?”

“That soon?”

“Yeah. you both don’t have classes tomorrow and the only classes I have is at night so it’s fine. We would have the house to ourselves except Momo and my dad when he comes by for lunch.”

Who is Momo? “But couldn’t we do it on the weekend or at my place?”

“I don’t know if your parents can see through a tanuki’s illusions like you can, so I don't want to risk it. As for the weekend”--Miyuki went silent--“my place gets rowdy on the weekends.”

“Oh.”

I hear some noise on Miyuki’s end. “Sorry, my dad just called me for dinner. I’ll text you the address later.” Before I could respond, I heard a click, signaling the end of the conversation.

I put my phone on the nightstand. I turn my attention back onto my laptop beside me. Ever since I met Miyuki, I've been doing my own research into tanukis. My results have been...mixed at least. Most of the sites I find repeat basically the same thing. Tanuki are youkai with the powers of illusion and shapeshifting. They enjoy playing tricks, getting drunk on sake, and playing with their bellies like drums. The stories I found seem to not agree rather the tanuki are good or not. When I try to dig deeper into it, I keep hitting brick walls. It could be that is just everything I need to know about the tanuki. 

But it doesn't explain why I can see through Miyuki’s illusions. The stories I found that feature the illusions and tricks never mentioned a person seeing the tanuki from the word go. In most stories, the tanuki does something to arouse suspicion and the characters do something to break the illusion. But I never had to do that. Miyuki’s illusions were up when we met, so I shouldn’t have seen the real him.

I groan, “This is too much for me.” I close the page and close my laptop. I rub my temples. “Nothing I found really explains anything I witness. Maybe I should just stop asking questions and just accept that my reality is just going to be this weird now.

###

I pulled up in a driveway and just stared at the house. The place was big, easily three stories tall. The neighborhood was also more upscale than I was used to. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb for some reason.

I exited my car and walked over to the front door. My heart started to beat much faster than normal. I rang the doorbell.

The door opened and I saw Miyuki. In a polo shirt and...a kilt? “Oh hi, Seth. Glad you were able to find us.” he was holding something. 

It was roughly the size of a small child and looked a bit like Miyuki himself. If I had to guess, it was a younger tanuki he was holding. Its head was in Miyuki’s neck fluff.

“Uh hi,” I said distracted by what he was holding, “And that is?”

“Oh sorry,” Miyuki turned to the small tanuki, “Momo, it's okay he’s a friend. You don’t need to be scared.”

Momo turned to face me and put his head back into the fluff.

“Haha, sorry about that. Momo is not a fan of strangers.”

“It’s understandable,” I answered.

“Why don’t you come inside,” Miyuki stepped aside so I can get through, “just ignore the flying fish you see.”

“Huh?” I looked around the entrance as I stepped in. The only thing around was a few tables and the stairs leading up, “I don't see any fish.”

Miyuki looked shocked, “Sorry, I forgot you can't see our illusions.”

“That's a pretty important thing to forget. Is it alright if I take off my shoes?”

“Sure, put them by the door.”

I took my shoes off and placed them by the door, “So why are you making fish fly?”

Miyuki led me into the house. “Oh it's not me, it's Momo. he saw a commercial for an aquarium and has been using his illusions to make fish fly throughout the house. There is a jellyfish above you by the way.”

I duck down and waved my hands above me, hoping to hit the invisible jellyfish. “So do tanuki really create illusions as young as Momo here?”

We walked into the living room. “Momo developed his earlier than expected and it sort of has been a pain ever since. Every day, he creates things seen on TV or books and plays with them for a while. Then he gets bored and creates other things he saw somewhere. Rinse and repeat till bedtime.”

We both sat down on the couch. “I see. That sounds rough. If my nephews had that power, I can’t imagine the havoc they would wreck upon everyone.”

“I mean to be fair, my brothers and I did the same thing growing up. Honestly since there were more of us back then, so we were probably worse than little Momo by himself.”

“What did you do?”

We both sat down on the couch, “Usually when we would play pretend and conger up illusions. What we conjured up depended on what we were playing. If we were playing explorers or something like that, we would turn the inside into a dungeon or jungle. We would make illusions of monsters that we would have to fight off with our weapons we also conquered till one of us breaks something and gets scolded by father.”

“I see. That sounds interesting.”

“My favorite memories are when we conjured up pokemon and had battles in the backyard. They were so much fun.”

“Wow, I am actually jealous of you right now. Who wouldn’t want to have a real-life pokemon battle?”

“They were good, till we had to stop.” he started to look sort of embarrassed, “Once we summoned a Groudon and Kyogre, Dad and Father had to put their foot down and made a rule about pokemon battles.”

“Dad and a Father? You have two dads?”

“Huh? Yeah I do.” Miyuki got a shocked look on his face, “Wait is that alright with you? I promise my parents won’t do anything to you or anything. They are polite and--”

“Whoa, calm down Miyuki. I am fine with your gay parents.”

 He leaned in close, “Really?”

I put my hands up sort of putting a wall between us, “Yes really.”

“That's a relief.” Miyuki pulled himself away from me. “I was concerned for a moment there.”

“About?”

“Well, some didn’t respond well when I say I was raised by two males. One bit-- lady actually called CPS on my parents because she was that homophobic.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah, once the case was closed we moved as far away as possible from her and that community. This community here is much better really. Hopefully Momo would have a much easier childhood then I did growing up.” At that moment, Momo starts to squirm and coo in Miyuki’s arms. “Oh, I guess you are tired of being held now, Momo.” Miyuki put Momo down on the floor. The second that the tiny tanuki touched the floor, he crawled to a pile of toys in the corner.

Despite how interesting this talk is, I can’t let it distract me from my main goal of being here. “So, um, Miyuki about the tests.”

“Oh right, the test. Sorry can we hold off starting them til my dad comes home?”

“Uh, sure but why?”

“I rather give you my full undivided attention while we test so I can catch anything the first time. Don’t worry, dad should be back soon. He usually comes by for lunch.”

I hear a door open somewhere, “Tadaima.” I heard a deep voice said.

Miyuki turned to the direction of the voice, “Papa okaeri!”

“Miyuki,” the voice responded, “doshite kaunta no ue ni kame ga iru no?”

“Momo ga yatta.”

I hear the owner of the voice open another door, “sodesu ka.” the voice closed the door and made his way towards us and I saw who was just speaking. The man was similar to Miyuki, except his fur was a darker color and slightly bigger belly. He wore a plain grey tee-shirt and a plaid kilt as well. His eyes stared at me in shocked then turned to Miyuki, ”Karedesu ka?”

“Yeah,” Miyuki said in English. “Seth this is my dad, Banko Irwin.”

Mr. Irwin gave a slight bow, “hello,” he said with a sort of accent, “It is nice to meet you.”

Is it a tanuki greeting? It might be rude to not do it back. I got up from the couch and gave a slight bow in return.

“Ah,” Mr. Irwin said, “Usually they offer their hands instead as a greeting.”

I felt flustered, “Oh, I'm sorry.” I stuck out my hand.

The big tanuki chuckled and took my hand. His hand didn’t feel that much different from Miyuki’s hands, with the paw pad and fur. Mr. Irwin moved his eyes on Miyuki. “Your friend is sort of flighty.”

“I guess he is just nervous, Dad.”

Mr. Irwin bends down and when he comes back up he is holding Momo. “Anyway you said you're going to study or something?”

“Yeah, do you mind watching Momo for a few hours?”

“Sure I don’t mind.” Mr. Irwin walked around the couch and sat on it. He put an ice pack on his crotch, “The roads were much rougher on my balls today. Not really in the mood for more driving right now.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Miyuki grabbed my hand and pulled me away, “Come on, I'll show you to my room.”

Wait, what does he mean by that? Why is he putting an ice pack on his crotch? What do the roads have to do with his balls? Does it have something to do with him wearing a kilt? Wait, why is Miyuki wearing a kilt too? Aren’t they Japanese? Why is a Japanese yokai wearing a Scottish outfit? Why am I still questioning my sanity after all this time? I should just stop it and just accept reality.

We stopped in front of a door. “Here it is,” Miyuki opened the door, “Welcome to my room.” 

As I entered the room, my eyes immediately noticed the flatscreen TV on the wall. Underneath the TV was a stand of gaming consoles, a different system in each cubby. Wii, GameCube, Wii U, Gameboys, DS, 3DS, even a Switch was in there. Next to it was a bookshelf but instead of the usual books I expected, I saw games for all the consoles neatly organized. On the side of the bookshelf, there were labels with what system each shelf goes to.

“Wow,” I said, “You seem like a Nintendo fanboy.”

Miyuki gave a slight chuckle, “What can I say, I enjoy Nintendo. Juro is more of a Sony fan and uses a lot of those games in his streams and videos.”

“Juro? Streams and videos?”

“My older brother. Well, one of them. The other is Kakumyo. Kakumyo and Juro are twins and are 5 years older than me. Besides Momo, I have one other younger brother who is still in high school, Montaro.”

“Okay, but what is this about videos and stuff?”

“Juro makes videos as a hobby and posts them online. Mostly walkthrough of older games and such. He’s somewhat popular, especially for the furry fan base.”

Wait, why would your brother have a furry fan base and...wait I need to get on topic. “Um, so the math stuff?”

“Oh right. I’ll go set it up.” Miyuki walked over to a large standing desk situated in the corner of the room. Miyuki turns on the computer and starts booting up, “I’ll take you to the webpage once I log us in.”

“Um okay. Sorry for the trouble.” I took another look around the room and noticed something missing, “Um, Miyuki, where's your bed?”

“Oh, that? I sleep on a futon. It’s folded up in my closet right now if you want to see it. I only pull it out when I need to sleep or dry it out.”

“Oh okay,” I said, trying to avoid asking more questions. I stared at Miyuki, his tail swinging back and forth in tune to some song he was humming. 

It really dawned on me how just strange my situation was right now. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn't aware that things like Tanuki and yokai even existed around me. How close it seemed to just be. What other things exist but are hiding from me? How many close encounters did I even have where I could have just stumbled into this world? If I found this world sooner, what kind of person would I be today?

Miyuki typed in the password and was greeted with his homepage. After a few clicks, the image on the screen changed to our college’s website. “Can you handle the rest? I need to get you a chair.”

I nodded and walked up to the screen. I navigated till I reached where my practice test was and clicked on it.

###

“Aw man,” I muttered as my score on the practice test was shown on screen, a low 47.

“Yeah, that sucks,” Miyuki said as he peered over my shoulder.

“I don’t get it. I thought I understood the material.”

“I thought you did too, well until the score really.”

“What am I doing wrong on the test?”

“Seth, do you mind showing me your notes?”

“Sure,” I handed Miyuki my math binder and he started to go through my notes.

“One thing I noticed right away is that you go to your notes immediately after you get a new problem.” He said without looking directly at me, “While your note-taking has improved, your binder is still a mess. I’m surprised you can find any notes in it with all the scratch paper in between. Did you have to keep it so badly organized?”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you or anything, you just need to do better at organizing your notes.”

“So what do you suggest?”

Miyuki was quiet for a moment. “Oh,” he exclaimed, “That should work.” He returned the binder back to me and opened one of the drawers on the desk. “I know I had a spare one somewhere.”

I stepped away and gave him some more space. “Um, what are you looking for?”

He ignores me and opens up another drawer, muttering to himself in Japanese. 

I lean against the wall and just watch him for a minute, my eyes sort of focused on that tail he has. The way it was moving was just so soothing to me.

“Found it,” he said, knocking me out of my daze.

“And that is?”

He showed it to me. It was a plain notebook, with black and white splotches on it. “This is going to help you with organizations. Kakumyo showed me this trick. Simply put, you do your homework in here instead of your binder. At the very least, separating homework and notes should make it easier to find what you are looking for.”

I take the notebook from Miyuki, “Thank you. I’ll start working on it when I get home.”

“Why not now?”

“Well don’t you--”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“You are not going to use me as an excuse. Seth, you need to put in much more work if you want to pass. That means working more even if you don’t want to. You can’t just do the bare minimum and expect a passing grade.”

“I am not doing just the bare minimum in my classes.”

“You know I never asked you but what are your other classes?”

“I’m only taking one other class at the time, Psychology. Since this is my first time at college, my parents want me to just stick with two classes for now to not overwhelm me.”

“And that is going?”

“Good, I have an A in it.”

He looked shocked, “You’re joking.”

“Why would I joke? Here let me pull up my grades.”

“No, no, you don’t need to.” Miyuki started to scratch his head, “Seth, may I see your notes for Psychology?”

“Uh, sure,” I reached into my bag and pulled out my Psychology binder. 

He grabbed my binder and opened it. Miyuki got a pleased look on his face. “Wow, this is much neater than your math binder.”

I groaned. “Yeah, you pointed out my messy organization before.”

“Hey, Seth?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are some of the notes in different colors? Some are black and others are red.”

“Well, black is stuff I copied from the textbook. Things in red were added later, like examples the professor pointed out.”

“I see.” Miyuki hands me back my binder. “Okay so I have a few ideas I want you to do for me.”

“And those are?”

“First I want you to get rid of any scratch paper in your math binder. Throw it all out.”

“Okay?”

“Do all the homework in the notebook I gave you.”

“You already said that.”

“When you do your homework, be as detailed as possible. If you have to make notes on how you did the problem, add them.”

“Okay then.”

“And finally, I want you to use sticky notes.”

“Um okay, but why sticky notes?”

“For examples. You would probably score higher if you have examples to go by instead of just notes during your tests. You can use the sticky notes as a sort of bookmark for each problem. The notes should have enough space on them so that you can at least identify which note connects to which problem.”

“I see.” I can kind of see what he was saying.

“Well if you got it, let's get started.”

“With?”

Miyuki scowled, “did you really just forget already? That notebook is no good to you if you don’t fill it with problems.” Miyuki opened up a drawer.

“But I don’t have--”

“I do,” he pulled out a stack of sticky notes of various colors from his desk. “Seth, you are not getting out of this. As long as you are here, you are doing it. Surrender yourself to the will of Math.”

I chuckle. Guess I am not getting out of this one.