Kazuki stopped practicing and climbed up the whale-shaped jungle gym. His brother scaled up after him, and the two sat side-by-side at the top.
“I saw you from the veranda, and thought I’d come say hi!”
In front of them, the sakura trees were in full blossom, with Skytree looming up in the distance. Just beyond the promenade sat the Sumida River, its water quiet that spring night.
Kazuki felt a prick of guilt, and unable to hold his silence any longer, finally asked, “Were Mom and Dad mad?”
“Nope. They’re not mad, but they are worried. Worried that you’ve never really liked wearing matching outfits with us. Do you really…hate it that much?”
Yes, completely.
“No, it’s not that. But I’ll be in middle school soon. It’s time I grow out of that kinda stuff.” Kazuki’s excuse was sloppy, thrown out to brush his brother off, but Haruka seemed to buy it.
“Ohh, okay. You’re already an adult, huh…?”
If only that were true, then he could live on his own. Right now, though, Kazuki was just a helpless child.
“But you know…” Haruka took Kazuki’s hand in his. “Even if we wear different clothes, even if you grow up and we’re not together anymore, we’re all still connected by a great big circle, from beginning to end.”
Even now, Kazuki still remembered the warmth he felt from Haruka’s hand.
“From beginning to end!”
Haruka’s words brought him jolting back to reality. This was Sara’s meet-and-greet, and right now he was Sara. He had to respond with Haruka’s secret code.
“We’re all connected…in a great big circle.” It was a struggle to squeeze the words out, and he wondered if his voice wavered.
“Ehehe! Thank you!” When Haruka smiled blithely at him, Kazuki swore he heard a creaking sound, as if his heart was bending, warping inside his chest. And then—
“That Sara’s a fake!” Sara’s manager reappeared, bursting through a door on the side of the stage.
Throughout the event center, noise erupted from the crowd. It was little wonder why; the manager wasn’t wearing any pants.
“A fake?” Haruka murmured.
“Where’s the real Sara?!” The manager shrieked.
Enta flung himself at the man, trying to hold him back. “Gah! This guy’s a pervert—a flasher! Watch out, Sara-chan!”
“Urgh! What are you doing?! Get off me, four-eyes!”
“Oh, stuff it! You wear glasses too!” Enta protested.
As the two quarreled, Haruka argued, “This is the real Sara-chan! She has to be, she said the secret code!” Kazuki had never seen his little brother speak so fiercely to someone before. Neither had his parents, he was sure.
Everyone was taken aback at the sudden disruption.
“Oh dear. What’s going on, dish?” A dreamy voice echoed from the back. There, at the exit farthest from the stage, stood Azuma Sara. Behind her, hunched over and breathless, was Toi.
“Huh? There’s…two of them?” Haruka stared at her in disbelief.
“Sara-chan! You’re all right!” exclaimed the manager.
“I went out for a cup of fresh air, dish.” Sara seemed completely unaware of the fact that someone had attempted to abduct and confine her.
As she merrily made her way to the stage, Haruka shouted at her, “From beginning to end!”
“Hm?”
“It’s my secret code with Sara-chan!”
Of course, there was no way for the real Sara to know what he meant.
“And…you are?” she asked.
The boy’s expression changed in an instant. “I knew it, you’re the fake! Right, Sara-cha—” Haruka whipped his head around to face who he thought was the real Sara, but the manager ripped her wig off, revealing his older brother, Kazuki. “Kazu-chan…?”
Though he stood on a stage bathed in lights, Kazuki’s vision went completely dark.
Chaos erupted in the event center, but on the stage itself, an eerie quiet settled.
“Kazu-chan… Ah!” Just as Haruka called his brother’s name, a small bag from inside his pocket floated up through the air before soaring off into the distance. “That’s my…!” The boy reached his hand out for it, but it had already floated out of reach.
Enta, who had been with the manager, watched it go. “Don’t tell me there’s another Kappa Zombie?!”
Kazuki took advantage of Haruka’s distraction to snatch up his wig and retreat from the stage. Only his headdress, which he hadn’t had time to retrieve, was left behind.
Haruka called after him. “Wait! Kazu-chan…!”
But Kazuki ran as fast as he could, as though he could outrun the echo of his brother’s voice.
Scene 5
ENTA ARRIVED at their usual spot—the Kappa Plaza. He found Kazuki, as expected, still dressed in his Sara outfit, his back facing Enta.
“Kazuki,” Enta started to say.
Kazuki let the wig slip from his hands, and it hit the ground with a soft fwump. “It’s over. Everything I’ve done, all of it…”
There was nothing Enta could say. He knew exactly how Kazuki felt, to a painful degree.
“You knew he’d find out eventually. That day just happened to be today,” said Toi, breaking the silence.
“Kuji…!”
“Everything people try to hide gets found out eventually. That’s all there is to it. It happens to all of us.”
Toi said it perfectly. Enta had struggled desperately to keep his feelings for Kazuki a secret. When it leaked out that Enta kissed Kazuki when he was sleeping, Enta resigned himself to believing that this was the end.
“This was foolish from the start,” continued Toi. “Did you really think you could keep it a secret forever?”
“Enough already!” Enta snapped at him, tired of hearing it.
Toi, however, ignored him and continued pressing Kazuki. “Why are you pretending to be the victim? You’re the one who did this, the one who hurt your little brother. You’re the perpetrator!”
Kazuki’s shoulders jolted, and in the same instant, Enta seized Toi. “He doesn’t need to hear that from a murderer like you!”
But the moment Enta said that, he realized something. Toi’s words hadn’t just been meant for Kazuki—he was speaking to himself as well. Still, Enta couldn’t back down now.
Nor could Toi.
“Then you tell him! If you’re really some ‘Golden Duo,’ then knock some sense into him already!”
“I…” They were both glaring at one another, each with a fistful of the other person’s shirt in their hand, when Kazuki’s voice broke through and caught their attention. “I’m the one who hurt Haruka. Even though I swore the first time would be the last, I’m the one who hurt him again.”
“Kazuki…”
“Again?” Toi whispered quietly, only for his voice to be blown away as Keppi wailed.
“Desiiiire…Extractioooon!”
In the next instant, all three of them had been turned into kappa.
“That was really rude, doing that out of nowhere, Keppi!” Kappa-Enta complained.
“Kappa Zombies come out when it gets dark. Thus, I changed you into kappa. Is there a problem with that, ribbit?”
Toi replied, “Yeah, this whole thing is a problem, actually.”
Noticing Kazuki’s silence, Kappa-Enta tried to change the subject out of consideration. “So, the thing that Haruka swiped from him… Uh, what are those things called again?”
“This Kappa Zombie’s desire is for fragrance bags, ribbit.”
“Yeah, that’s what they’re called! If it’s something really important to Haruka, we definitely have to get it back! Right, Kazuki?”
After a moment of silence, Kappa-Kazuki just gave a small nod.
“Kappature it!” Keppi cried as the three of them flew toward the creature.
“This sachet smells good~!” The Kappa Zombie mercilessly showered them in a pleasant fragrance.
“Ooh, it does smell good…” murmured the three. It rendered them lightheaded, unable to draw out their usual power.
“Memories of smell remain until death! I want to drown myself in her scent!”
Fortunately, they were still able to successfully stop the creature’s onslaught. Then, with Kazuki at the forefront of their attack, they plunged toward the Zombie’s butthole.
“You can’t rely on something you can’t see!” shouted Kappa-Kazuki.
“Gyaaaah!”
“We kappatured it!” they yelled in unison.
As Kazuki held the creature’s shirikodama, he was shown a vision of the man’s desire, of his girlfriend peeling off her boots and smearing her feet over his nose.
“Aah… Spicy…” said the man.
“So that’s it,” Kappa-Kazuki realized, “you were searching for the smell of someone you cared about.”
“My secret’s been sniffed ooooooout!”
Nioino’s Kappa Zombie body began to fracture.
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
And then all together, “Sarazanmai!”
“Leaking.”