Through the Circle

Harajuku was an exciting place, but it was not a simple one to navigate, even at the best of times.

When Mirai had sprained her ankle during a soccer game – that her school won, thanks to her – she had figured she’d be back in business in a day or two. That had come and gone, and now, on Sunday, she was sitting at home in her apartment. She had one foot in a tub of warm water, one hand on the TV remote, and a parfait on the table in front of her. She was wearing the same bright red housecoat she’d put on in the morning, and had done her hair up properly just to look good in the mirror.

It wasn’t like she couldn’t walk at all, but making it to the McDonald’s down the street through the crowds would take effort, and being seen missing a step around her classmates would be embarrassing. Her grandpa had taken the car out of town, and he drove even more slowly than most people his age, so it’d be dark before he was back. In other words, she couldn’t hang out outside. She couldn’t practice for their next game. She couldn’t do anything useful!

“This sucks!” she exclaimed, drowning out the TV.

“As you’ve said,” Veil, her Griffon, responded from the far arm of the couch. She turned her head to look at Mirai but otherwise didn’t budge an inch from her comfortable, paws-tucked position.

“And you!” Mirai pointed at Veil with her free hand. “You can at least exercise! We’re partners, aren’t we? So you should be exercising twice as hard for both of us!”

“Sure, because that totally exercises my wings.” Veil broke her pose for just a moment to stretch, fanning her wings out for emphasis, before tucking her paws back under her belly. “I can just fly around the apartment if I want exercise. Why do I need that?”

Mirai made sure not to pause for too long. “Because you need to exercise your legs, too. How are you supposed to protect me if you just sit on your paws all the time?”

“With wind magic, of course.” Veil looked slightly up and away, as if trying to scoff with a beak. “It was a nice thought, Mirai, but humans had it all wrong with that… hamster wheel. First of all, I’m not a hamster!”

“And it’s not a hamster wheel! Those are wider and smaller!”

“It’s the same idea! You’re trying to trick me into moving nowhere, just like humans do to themselves with treadmills!”