Chapter 17: 15

Chapter 15

Can You Turn Human?

Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil

 

The delivery comes quite quickly, the inflatable pool arriving the next morning.

The package is quite heavy. After signing it, Bai Yao has to spend some effort to move it to the back garden.

He’s going to fill it up after lunch, but the little sea otter is curiously pacing about the box, poking with his nose, and giving Bai Yao inquisitive squeaks, asking him what this is.

Since the little sea otter seems excited by new things, Bai Yao gets a spare dagger from the kitchen and opens the cardboard packaging up. Then pulls the inflatable pool out of the bubble wrap.

It’s pink.

With Balala the Fairies painted on.

Bai Yao “fucking hell.”

And it’s not just pink, it’s bright, neon pink. With rather galling glitter all over the place. Even a little primary schoolgirl would probably find it tacky.

He wants to cuss, and after taking some time to contemplate, he pulls out his phone to get customer service.

Three minutes in and there’s already a polite reply.

[We’re sorry, dearie, but we’re out of stock on the blue one, which is why we sent you the pink one instead. If it is not to your liking, I’m afraid you will have you send it back, and we will offer you a full refund]

He immediately picks a refund. His passive aggressive rant already typed out, though, is stopped short when the little sea otter doesn’t seem to mind at all. He’s sitting there, patting at the flat, uninflated pool on the ground all excitedly, like he’s hoping it’d fill up with air and water by itself.

If he really refunded it right now, he’d probably cry.

The little soft crybaby will be really sad.

Bai Yao hesitates.

He didn’t see many blue ones when looking for inflatable pools two days ago. Many of them are pink. If he returns this way, it might take two other days before the new one arrives. And really, it’s cruel to be packing the unpacked inflatable pool back up in front of the little sea otter.

It’s not like customers would go into the backyard area during business hours. If he needed, he could probably just conceal it with some branches and stuff.

This is for the little sea otter’s use, so as long as he likes it, then it’s probably fine.

So he sends this message to the waiting customer service agent, [nevermind, this works]

Bai Yao puts his phone back in his pants’ pocket, and rolls up his sleeves to inflate the pool.

After unfolding, the pool turns out not to be a square one either, but circular. Bai Yao pumps it up, gets a hose and fills it with water.

When Bai Yao turns to return the hose, the little sea otter already looks like he can’t wait to jump in.

The pool is filled, so the sea otter’s paw would push its surface down and he can’t actually lean and support himself over. When Bai Yao is back, he sees the sea otter standing all tall and straight like a sea otter lollypop, with his head hanging just over the pool. His whiskers are already touching the water, but his body is still hopping in place, unable to make it over.

It makes sense, because sea otters have short paws that are barely able to extend past the top of the edge of the inflatable pool. He’s not able to jump much.

The short webbed feet aren’t suited for jumping over or even climbing. Bai Yao, amused at the sight, decides to stand and watch it as today’s entertainment.

After a while, he finally walks over, lifts the sea otter up, and throws him into the water. The little sea otter, with his head a little submerged, is lifted off the ground with a squeak and ends up in the water while still in shock.

In the water, he’s almost like a different creature. He’s dexterous and agile. One push from his webbed feet is able to send him two laps around the pool. After a few days without swim, the little sea otter has been really pent up, and he’s jubilantly swimming in the water.

With one swift movement, he dives down…
… And crashes right into the bottom of the pool, before slowly floating back up like a piece of floating log.

Bai Yao “…”

Watching the little sea otter holding his head with his fuzzy paws, Bai Yao would like to burst into laughter, but he holds it in.

Maybe he should have just bought him an Olympic pool at 8 metres deep.

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With the pool in place, the little sea otter is no longer interested in hanging out inside the restaurant. The entire morning he spends lounging in the pool, grooming or counting the treasures he holds in his pocket, while placing some small pebbles on his tummy to sunbathe.

He also takes the scallop shell that Bai Yao pried open for him that very first night out, admiring it between his paws, booping it with his nose, brushing it against his chest, like he’s trying to make it shinier.

Bai Yao, meanwhile, got himself a warm cup of coffee to drink while sitting on the lounging chair just outside the backdoor to relax by watching him play before going off to make lunch.

And midday comes, when Bai Yao notices the time on the clock, and figures he has just enough time to do lunch and prep work if he starts now.

“Hey…” Bai Yao suddenly realises he doesn’t know the sentient sea otter’s name, and calls out, “dummy sea otter?”

Well, it’s not going to do to call him some variation of sea otter every day, but he doesn’t know his name either. He’s not a pet, and probably has his own name. He can’t just force a name on him.

The little sea otter hears Bai Yao calling for him, and immediately lifts up his head, hurriedly covers his shells with his paws, trying to stuff them back into his pocket.

During which one of the pebbles on his tummy falls into the water and sinks. He makes a saddened squeak while quickly putting pebbles in his right pocket and shells in his left.

Then he holds his arms tightly in place, squeezing them tightly and securely, while giving Bai Yao this innocent, dumb look of ‘there is no treasure buried here’ vibe.

Looks like the little sea otter hasn’t forgotten when Bai Yao almost threw his beloved shells away when he was showering, and he is still suffering from trauma. Now he’s even more defensive of his beloved shells.

Bai Yao goes ‘tch,’ thinking he might just die to his dumb antics one day. The pool is shallow enough that he just rolls his sleeves up again and retrieves the sunken pebble at the bottom, putting it back on the little sea otter’s tummy, before looking at him on the poolside, leaning closer, and then asking, with their noses almost touching, “why are you treasuring all these junk? Are you a hoarding addict?”

The little sea otter doesn’t seem to mind being called that, but is simply happy his lost pebble is found. He hugs it happily, because whenever he dropped a stone in the ocean, he could never find it.

Bai Yao then says, “time to get out of the pool. We have to eat soon.”

The little sea otter swims a few more laps before climbing back out, clumsily hauling himself over the edge of the pool, almost tumbling in the process. He then closely observes the distance between himself and the grass underneath.

It’s a little high, honestly, so the little sea otter wants Bai Yao to carry him down. Though looking up, Bai Yao is already in the restaurant, so he can only extend his stubby paws to reach for the ground, and squeaks in disappointment.

The little sea otter follows Bai Yao slowly, and finds somewhere quiet to start grooming his wet fur.

Bai Yao pulls the fridge open and asks, “what do you want for lunch?”

Some ingredients and condiments are close to running out, and Bai Yao expects to make a trip to the market down south for a shopping trip. He takes out the food to prepare for lunch, while writing down a shopping list on the stack of notes stuck to the fridge door.

The little sea otter thinks about it, then shakes his head to indicate he’s fine with whatever.

Bai Yao wasn’t expecting an intelligible answer, and was only asking out of politeness. He takes the bag of fresh abalones still in their shells and some peas towards the stoves, when he suddenly thinks of something, and stops.

The little sea otter understands human speech, he can also nod and shake his head in response to inquiries from Bai Yao.

So that question… he could just ask.

He turns around, and sees the little sea otter covering his eyes with his paws. That article he read said that this is because sea otters have no fur on the palm of their paws, so they put their paws on their eyes to warm them up.

This is a normal biological behaviour for the little sea otter.

Though in Bai Yao’s eyes, it almost looks cute in a dumb kind of way.

“Can you turn human?” Bai Yao asks.

It’s a rather sudden question, and the sea otter tilts his head, moves one paw away from his eye, blinking at Bai Yao.

The question went from ‘what do you want to eat’ to ‘can you turn human.’ The little sea otter falls into thought for a while, unmoving, before nodding slowly.

Bai Yao narrows his eyes and falls into thought. He is a sentient sea otter. He can turn human, and is aware that he can turn into a human.

It’s unlikely he’s part of that cult that insists on using their animal forms, so there is only one possibility left——He does not know how to turn into a human.

“Then…” Bai Yao pauses, “do you know how to turn human?”

Bai Yao makes sure to emphasise the ‘how,’ and observes the sea otter’s reaction closely.

Knowing that one has a potential is very different from knowing how to realise that potential. He might not know how to turn human even if he knows he can. Bai Yao already has an answer in himself, and yeah, he’s been blind from the very beginning. He should have just asked.

The little sea otter looks at Bai Yao, then outside the window, looking confused, before shaking his head very slowly.

It’s just as Bai Yao thought. He nods and asks gently, “do you want me to teach you?”

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