The first scene, as Kazuki’s secret began to flow through their minds, was of him and Haruka by the whale-shaped jungle gym.
“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.”
“Haruka…”
“Ehehe! Kazu-chan, let’s go home together, okay?”
Haruka’s words brought him back to his real family. After that, Kazuki recovered the striped clothes he’d thrown out. His parents watched with a look of relief on their faces. Their daily lives returned to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. Kazuki immersed himself in soccer, improving his skills until he and Enta were considered the Golden Duo.
Days and months passed. The color of the soccer posters on his wall faded quite a bit. One day, during spring break just before his second year in junior high, he met a woman as he was headed home after soccer practice.
“Kazuki…!”
When she softly wrapped her arms around him in a hug, he caught the scent of sakura—a smell that was like a key unlocking his distant memories. He had no memory of meeting her before, yet her smell was so familiar to him.
“…Mom?”
His birth mother was carrying a fragrance bag on her that smelled like sakura.
“Why are you…?”
As Kazuki watched this replay of his memories, he realized that this was the bag his brother had been carrying in his pocket. The one that flew away when the Kappa Zombie showed up.
“Why was Haruka carrying my mom’s fragrance bag? Unless…!”
Normally the shirikodama would pass from each one of them, but instead it went flying out from Kappa-Kazuki’s rear, only to be reabsorbed by the Kappa Zombie.
“I got it baaaack!”
This was the first time they ever failed a mission.
Tink, tink, tink…
Water was boiling in an earthenware kettle, causing the lid to clink noisily.
“You didn’t defeat the Kappa Zombie, so there will be no Wishing Plate today, ribbit. You idiots have made me so angry I’m boiling tea on my belly button! Ribbit!” Keppi wasn’t speaking figuratively either: there was quite literally a kettle of tea boiling on his belly button. “And, of course, you cannot return to your human forms, ribbit.”
“What?!”
“Tch…”
Enta and Toi, now stuck in their kappa forms, were none too pleased by this development.
“I’m fine staying like this,” Kappa-Kazuki muttered.
“Wh-what are you saying?” Enta demanded.
“Haruka must have known… He must’ve known we weren’t real brothers!”
Kazuki explained what had happened after the flash of memory he leaked to Enta and Toi.
Scene 6
“YOU’RE IN THE SOCCER CLUB? And you’re a forward? That’s incredible!” His mother appeared out of nowhere, but she was beautiful, kind, and full of smiles. Kazuki struggled to hide his confusion at first, but as they spoke, his reservations gradually subsided.
When Kazuki was young, he worried that his real mother was actually a horrible person after all. As he grew older, he became more certain that she was as awful as he feared, but his fretting just motivated him to cherish his current family even more.
In truth, shortly after Kazuki was born, her husband—his birth father—had died in an accident. Kazuki’s anxious grandfather pressured her to give her baby up. Knowing the full story about how he’d been adopted, Kazuki couldn’t find it in him to blame anyone.
“Honestly, I was so immature back then,” his mother said. “I lost the person I loved, and it was like my world turned pitch black. All I wanted to do was run from the pain of reality. But after we were separated, I thought about you all the time.”
His mother spared no detail in explaining why, exactly, she had come to see him. She even disclosed the specifics of her current situation. “Actually, I have a family now that’s just as important to me as you are. I know it’s very selfish of me, but I still desperately wanted to see you,” she said, embracing him.
He could no longer catch the scent of sakura anymore. Instead, he remembered the scent of sweet milk and sunshine. “I have family that’s important to me too. And a really adorable younger brother,” he said.
“Kazuki…”
He wondered what she thought. Kazuki couldn’t tell for certain, but the two of them smiled at each other. He said, “Let’s keep our reunion a secret. And tomorrow when you leave from the station, I’ll go to see you off.”
“All right.”
He felt more at peace than he ever had before, honestly happy from the bottom of his heart. Kazuki was part of a real and beautiful family, even if he hadn’t been born into it.
The next morning, he carefully snuck out of his house before anyone could see he was awake. His birth mother was taking a long train ride from the Tokyo Skytree station back to her family. After mulling it over the whole night, Kazuki decided that his current family was, truly, the most important thing in his life. That was why he wanted to keep his meeting with his birth mother a secret, so as not to worry them. Yet despite all his caution—
“Kazu-chan!”
He was waiting at a busy intersection on the east side of the Azuma Bridge when his brother came racing down the bridge toward him.
“Haruka, why are you here?”
The younger boy finally caught up, completely out of breath. “Where are you going? I’m going too!”
“You can’t.” He was going to see his birth mother off. There was no way he could bring Haruka along.
“Why not? Is it because I’ve been bad?!” Haruka sometimes worried that he was being punished for something he didn’t know he’d done.
“I never said that.” And I have to hurry, Kazuki thought. The time for his mother’s train departure was fast approaching.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll be good from now, so…don’t leave, Kazu-chan!”
“Enough!” Kazuki impulsively batted his little brother’s hand away.
“Ah…!”
They both inhaled sharply at the same time, as Kazuki realized what he’d done and Haruka processed the rejection. But Kazuki was out of time. He had to leave his brother behind or he’d never see his mother again.
At some point, the light turned green. Kazuki hardened his heart and started to make his way across the crosswalk. The pedestrian sign began to flash, signaling that the light would change again soon.
“Wait…wait! Kazu-chan…!”
He had no real memory of what happened after that. Just vague things, like the dark shade of the pedestrian light, the sunlight pouring over the street from the west, the growing puddle of painfully vibrant red. Red. RED. It all played out in slow motion, as if he were in an underwater world. And ever since that moment, Kazuki couldn’t breathe properly.
The Kappa Plaza was dead silent, almost like the bottom of the ocean.
Kappa-Kazuki’s voice was so uncertain, so broken, that the words came out like bubbles, floating up and disappearing. “I felt so much regret… It’s just like Kuji said, I am the perpetrator. Haruka will never walk again.”
“But…but…” Unsurprisingly, Kappa-Enta was the first who steeled his will to speak up. “I don’t know how to say this, but…you’re not responsible for what happened, Kazuki.”
“Everyone told me the same thing. My dad, my mom…even Haruka!”
Enta went quiet after Kazuki said that.
“No one blamed me! Even though I’m the one who ruined everything!”
Kappa-Toi just watched quietly.
“That’s why I decided to punish myself. I decided we’d stay a fake family forever. But they all keep trying to treat me like I’m really part of their family.”
Tears welled up in Enta’s eyes. It was as if Kazuki were telling them that he’d never let anyone else in his heart ever again.
“Every time I see Haruka’s wheelchair, I can’t breathe. I quit playing soccer, but it’s just not enough. So I stole Nyantaro. I even became Sara so I could be connected to Haruka…!” As he spoke the last of his confession to them, Kazuki’s eyes filled with tears. Everything he said was the truth, one he kept hidden from everyone until now. One he’d turned his back on for so long—his true, bleak, dreary self.
“Saying it was all for Haruka is a lie. I…I deceived Haruka to protect myself. I…”
He wanted to be connected, even if he had no right to be.