Ping!
His phone beeped with the sound of an incoming message. Stickers and messages began popping up one after the other in their group chat window.
Enta: 😣 I just woke up!
Toi: 😡 I’ll snap your plate in two!
Enta: 🙏 Sorry!
Although Enta was the one to warn them all against sleeping in, he was was late today.
Kazuki: Enta will have to treat us to kappa croquettes! 😉
Kazuki grinned as he typed out that short message. Soon, the app indicated that both of them had read it, and what followed was a seemingly random exchange of stickers.
The fact that we transform into kappa and extract Kappa Zombies’ shirikodama is a secret to everyone. We’ve had a few close shaves, but the three of us are connected by Sarazanmai. I’m sure we’ll be okay, no matter what happens.
Or at least, so he’d thought.
“Huh…?”
The ball fell from Kazuki’s hands. The cicadas sounded even noisier today. Enta and Toi were speechless. The practice area they worked so hard together to clean was trashed once again. It looked even worse than it had yesterday.
Kazuki mumbled, “It can’t be…”
“Again?” Toi grumbled.
“No way, not after we worked so hard to clean it!”
“Someone’s trying to harass us.” Toi concluded.
“What? Why us—?” Enta started to grumble back at the other boy.
“Again!” Kazuki interrupted. “Let’s clean it again. We’ll show them. We won’t give up that easily!”
“Kazuki…” Enta stared back at him.
“…Yeah,” agreed Toi.
Things moved quickly once their minds were made up.
“Okay! Let’s dish out all we’ve got and clean this place up!” Enta swung his arms in a circle, stretching them, and then began collecting the garbage.
Toi was about to follow his lead when suddenly…
Brrr… Brrr…
His phone vibrated with an incoming call. He didn’t have to check the screen to know who was calling. There was only one person in the world who would contact him like this.
“Sorry, I gotta take this.” That was all he said before walking off.
“It’s rare for Toi to talk on the phone,” Kazuki noted casually as he watched Toi climb up the stairs.
“Gotta be his brother, right? I assume,” said Enta.
“Oh, I guess so.”
“Kuji doesn’t seem to have much interest in making calls or sending messages, but he’s always hooked to his phone.”
“Really?” asked Kazuki. “Well, I kinda get that, though. I’m sure he’s always waiting.”
The two of them recalled Toi’s brother, whom they’d seen when the other boy’s secrets leaked in Sarazanmai. Those memories were from four years ago, so Chikai probably looked different now. Ever since the two learned the secret that was supposed to stay just between Toi and his brother, they avoided bringing up his family.
“Now come on!” said Enta. “Let’s get cleaning!”
“Okay!”
They rolled up their sleeves and started cleaning up the mountain of filth. There was even more garbage and graffiti than there had been yesterday, and it took a bone-breaking degree of effort to get it done between just the two of them.
“It’s just not coming off!” Enta cursed as he scrubbed furiously at a splatter of red paint plastered across the wall with his deck brush.
“We might not be able to get all of this off…” Kazuki, who was doing the same beside him, was beginning to get discouraged as well.
Just then, the two heard footsteps coming down the stairs above them. Kazuki noticed and stopped scrubbing. “Toi?”
“You’re late! Today’s croquettes are gonna be your treat!” said Enta.
“…Sure.” Toi’s response to Enta’s ribbing was half-hearted.
“Huh?” Enta blurted, confused.
“Sorry,” Toi said. “I won’t be able to play soccer with you guys anymore.”
For a moment, even the cicadas seemed to fall silent.
“The phone call was from my brother. That big job he had, it didn’t work out. You guys get it, right? It’s not a normal job. One mistake can be deadly. But my brother’s comrades betrayed him.”
“No way…”
Toi slowly descended the steps. “Apparently, it’s only a matter of time before the police have a warrant out for him. I’m going to meet up with my brother and leave this city. So…forget all that talk of me joining the soccer team.” He traced his hand over the wall, still stained with streaks of paint.
The bright midsummer sunlight cast thick shadows at the base of the bridge, hiding the expression on Toi’s face. Only fourteen years old, the boys didn’t know what was appropriate to say at a time like this.
“I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this. It just means I can’t put my past completely behind me.”
Had Kuji Toi always been the type to make decisions without anyone else’s input? It sounded like he’d given up on everything.
“Just one more,” said Kazuki, his voice booming.
“Huh?” Toi glanced back.
Kazuki’s eyes were full of intense determination. “The Wishing Plates! Just one more and we’ll have five. Then we can help your brother!”
“Kazuki…” Enta was naturally shocked to hear that proposal coming from Kazuki, given that the latter had been collecting them for Haruka’s sake up until now.
“If we do that, you won’t have to leave anymore, right, Toi?”
“I-I guess.”
“Well, then that’s that! Right, Enta?”
“Yeah! Let’s get that last plate for Kuji!”
Dazed, Toi stared blankly at the two boys as the sun glared overhead.
The three of them went to the shopping district to buy snacks. They ate as they walked, laughing over the fact that they’d spent the whole day cleaning again without being able to practice at all. When Toi tried to treat them both to croquettes, they turned him down, saying, “Come on, we were just kidding about that.”
When Kazuki spotted a convenience store along the way, he popped inside to buy water for Keppi. As Enta watched him go, he commented, “That’s who Kazuki really is, you know. That’s how he was before Haruka’s accident. This is what I’ve been wishing for this whole time, for him to smile the way he used to.” His cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s as he chomped down on his croquette.
As Toi watched, he remembered something that was worrying him earlier. Kazuki was still inside browsing, so he had some time. “You sure you’re okay with this?”
“Hm?”
“Weren’t you gathering those plates so you could make Kazuki’s wish come true?” As far as Toi could recall, all of Enta’s tears, laughter, and anger had been for Kazuki. Toi hadn’t known them for long, but even he could tell the two had a lot of history.
“What? Are you trying to be considerate? What’s next, are pigs gonna start flying?” Enta joked.
“Don’t mock me!”
“Okay, sorry, don’t get so mad!” Enta rummaged through the plastic bag he was holding as he answered the question. “Like you said, I still want to make Kazuki’s wish come true.”
“Then why—”
Enta interrupted Toi by holding a croquette in front of his face. “And! Right now, his wish is to help you!”
Toi gaped, unable to say anything.
“Get it? Then take this. Here!”
“…Thanks.” Toi hesitated before timidly reaching a hand out for the croquette, but his fingers swiped empty air.
“Nah, this feels too weird. I changed my mind!” Enta wore a triumphant smirk as he held the treat just out of reach.
“You—I’ll run you through!” Toi roared.
“Ehehe!”
As the two of them bantered together, Kazuki stepped out of the store with cucumber-flavored Shirohasu water in hand. “Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Something happen?”
“Nope!” the two replied in unison. Enta grinned while Toi angrily bit into the croquette he managed to wrest out of the former’s hand.
Kazuki, chill as ever, seemed content to drop the matter.
“Ribbit, caution!”
Meanwhile, Keppi was busy patrolling Kappabashi’s main street. Or so it seemed from the outside, anyway. In reality, the crown prince of the Kappa Kingdom was currently in the middle of a date with Asakusa’s local idol, Azuma Sara. Since Keppi wasn’t human, however, it looked more like a woman cradling a creepy pet in her arms as she walked.
“We’ll correct the wrongs of this city today as we always do, ribbit.” He had a stiff expression on his face as he fixed his gaze on the kappa statue at the side of the street. The short, plump Keppi stretched his legs out and slapped a sticker on it that said “This is a kappa.”
“You’re complately amazing, dish! ✩”
Keppi’s gaze turned to another green statue often seen near drugstores. “This one…is NOT a kappa!” He slapped a sticker on it that read “This is a frog.”
“Ahh, you’re so complately dreamy, dish! ✩” His every action made Sara’s heart beat with adoration.
Keppi turned to her, his eyes earnest as he declared, “And this kappa…belongs to me and only me, ribbit…”
“I love you complately, dish! ✩” Sarah said before planting a kiss on the white, squishy mochi’s forehead (or, at least, the closest thing a creature like Keppi could have to a forehead).
“We’re the best couple on earth, ribbit…”
The two were lost in their own little world as darkness began to descend.
Balls, balls…
Balls, balls…
Otter odd-er
Steal those balls
From a world otterly filled with lies
Steal the balls, balls
Rip open the heart of truth under dominion,
An imitation lies beneath the heat at your fingers
Don’t let go of your desires
Our wish is for a night without end
Our first encounter is a morning that never begins
Wring out desire
Below the city, Reo and Mabu’s ritual played out, unbeknownst to anyone else.