"The arctic owl is a common variety predator bird of the Northern Hemisphere. They are beautiful white birds rarely found in Japan except in the northern regions. I saw one in Sapporo - a pearl I had to see, warming in the setting sun, as I remember - she was off in the distance. I knew she watched my approach, but I couldn't say how I knew. When I got closer, I could see bright yellow eyes, glorious like a sun - or rather they appeared provocative, similar to the sun when your mother opens a curtain to wake you up in the morning - anyways, she encouraged me with those eyes. Not once did she look away and even when I was beneath her perch. It was there that I saw a small rodent carcass lying in the shade of the tree. The welcoming yellow eyes abruptly turned devilish, carnivorous, and hungry. I was young then. I didn't really understand that she wasn't looking at me, not in the slightest, not with her eyes at least."

Yukino's eyebrows arch high an instant before she glances at me. Just as quickly, they descend, but not before a glint told me she wouldn't miss an opportunity to scorn my morbid story. I paused just long enough, but it was Yuigahama taking the lead.

"Owls can't move their eyes. They have to turn their heads at everything they see. Like this."
Yui straightened her pose, she appeared both formal and childish. Her brown energetic eyes melt into a bloody amber reflection when wide open in the listless sunset hanging lazily through the clubroom. She puckered her lips into a beak, then quickly and sardonically craned her head left-to-right. "Hai-o Yukino - Hiki! I. See. You."

"Stop it Yui, you sound like some sort of fish-eye vampire stalker." There it was: low-key, inside, and ambiguous. Textbook Yukinoshita. Do they set up these one-two knock-outs ahead of time?

"How exactly would a vampire stalk fish eyes?" I wonder aloud. It is a sort of bait Yukino would never bite on, but she snatches it off the hook.

"Perhaps Dracula morphs into a white-owl on summer afternoons." Somewhere in the back of my head Komachi racks points up for Yukino. One, two, and three, but even I could laugh at it. There is a silence, it implicitly gives me permission to continue my unpolished diatribe.

"You see – a vampire aside - snowy owls and many other birds have astounding vision. Their normal eye sight is like looking through binoculars. They can pick out the smallest rodent in a field of grass over fifty meters away. These highly tuned senses have one glaring weakness: have you ever looked at anything that was too close with a telescope? It is fuzzy and indiscernible; however, her gaze followed me as if she knew. I must have been an amorphous blob in her vision. Maybe she remembered me as the boy in the distance. Had I been bigger, she would have been scared away. If I moved too quickly, then her flight response would kick in. If I was too much smaller, I may have been lying under the tree myself."

"That isn't very true Hachiman. Owls may not be able to see what is near them, but they have other senses. She could have heard you." Yui's response is timid. "She could have honed senses to protect her weakness. It is like a blind man using a cane"

"Or like a child reading." Yukino's rebuttal is acupuncture delivered in monotonic syllables. I almost missed it. She continues because - "Hikigaya, an owl doesn't just get extra sensing powers. She doesn't need to be near-sighted to live. You are thinking her senses are somehow supplementary to her survival, but they are complimentary. The proof is in the prey she hunts. When soaring through the sky, she can see the target and make judgments about its actions. When it's time, she will strike. She strikes knowing her limitations and knowing her prey. If the strike misses because of an unplanned attack, she has the opportunity to strike and strike again. Nature has sharpened her to a point where the other senses are ni- gross." – Because she isn't one for lauding herself over another.

Yukino stops short to comment on the creepy smile on my face. I chastise myself for nearly chastising myself for showing interest. She must have realized what she was saying was quickly drifting away from owls. A labyrinth opens in my mind as I begin to wonder about the sincerity of her remark; but, I shut the doors quickly, I can't zone out while she has a higher score.

"Yui, is Yukinoshita a cool name for a vampie?" Yukinoshita, is spontaneity more true and reliable than a measured response?

"Oi, I am not stalking y-" I decide to interrupt her thoughts for a second time, besides I still wanted to finish my point.

"Both of you are right. While in the wild, you will always find creatures adapted to the wild. There is no need for a bird to worry about one action or another. If restless: she flies. If hungry: she eats. It is when we look beneath this basic survival that we see the true savagery. There is not one owl, but many owls. Each had predecessors which picked to feed on the weaker and smaller. Somewhere in this lineage, the choice vanished and it got to where these birds must eat the smaller to survive. I could accept this, but as an owl - just table scraps between us - stared at me, I realized: there was no owl." They both stare and I look away, I could hear my tone go dreary and methodical. Camouflage to hide my anxiety.

"She had the beak and hunger, the eyes and aptitude, the color and beauty, and yet, this wasn't an owl. You see as she stared through me, I noticed her curiosity. It was as pure and plain as white feathers. With great sadness I recognized this innocent staring contest was a cry of help from an owl that didn't want to be an owl. She is not allowed to have contact with other creatures like me. Mostly, in a situation like this, she ends up food for some other creature. Since it was an insignificant event, she could share her conflicted secret. I adapted to this new unveiling then still something more sinister peaked out: right when it matters least, only then, can she be herself." This is nature's tune and you dance until you can take no more and nature goes on piping.

Yui bursts in laughter. She is some kind of heartless monster. "An owl that isn't an owl? Hiki, you know there aren't vampires, right?"

Yukino's sullen look lifts with Yui's rhetorical question. She rejoins her book without any further response.