Interlude:
Dream
“I HATE THE RAIN,” Reo spat. He absently clawed at his chest, a habit he’d had since the two first met.
It had been raining since early that morning in the Kappa Kingdom. The royal family proclaimed it the long-awaited beginning of the rainy season. Festivities sprang up in the town outside the castle. Around the country, kappa were stepping outside to let the rain of life shower over their head plates. They also celebrated by pouring water over each other’s plates.
“Why?” Mabu asked, curious. He had never heard of a kappa that hated rain before. Plus, there was a festival going on, which meant there were delicious food and rare toys all over outside. He wanted to show Reo all of those things.
“Getting my body wet just makes my heart sting even more.”
Reo once had someone whose head he wanted to douse with water, but they were gone now. With the war, everyone was gone. There was no roof under which he could seek solace, and thus his plate overflowed with water. Like him, it had nowhere to go, leaving it no choice but to soak into the ground.
Reo gripped painfully at his chest. Mabu reached over and wrapped his warm hand over Reo’s. “From now on when it rains, we’ll just have to spend the whole day together,” Mabu said, his expression sincere.
“Huh?”
What are you trying to sound so casual for? Reo wondered. And how will that solve it? I don’t get you at all.
“I’ll pour water over you, so you pour water over me,” said Mabu.
Reo made a strange face. He raised his brows, then lowered them again, blinked, opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally, he let out a sigh. In a voice as quiet as a single droplet of water falling, he said, “That’d make me happy.”
Hearing that, Mabu squeezed his hand. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy too.”
Reo made another strange face, one Mabu found himself thinking he’d like to see again.
His consciousness suddenly returned. An otter was in front of him, peering down.
“Odd-er. Maintenance is over, Mabu.”
“…Thank you.” Still feeling a bit hazy, he lifted himself up and straightened his clothing.
“You’re always spacing out. What do you even think about while you’re in maintenance?”
“I had a dream…from long ago,” Mabu answered, a gentleness in his eyes, as if he could still see the young Reo from his dreams.
“Are you otterly certain?” The otter’s voice sounded unusually surprised.
“Yes. I’m not supposed to be able to dream, but every time I come here, I always dream about when Reo and I were young.”
Mabu was right—the otters had equipped him with a machine heart and brought him back, but it didn’t possess unnecessarily complicated functions such as the ability to dream.
“That is an otterly surprising development. It’s proof that you’re slowly becoming the real Mabu. You mustn’t slack off on regular maintenance in the future. Understand?”
“Yes,” Mabu answered obediently.
When he stepped outside, he discovered it was raining in Asakusa.
Mabu loved the rain. Just hearing it soothed his heart. It was raining the day they met as well. Reo looked like a god back then, the droplets bouncing off his golden hair. He was rather brusque, knocking Mabu’s hand away when he extended it.
Years later, Reo apologized to him for what happened back then.
“I was glad to see those red marks on your hand,” he said.
Mabu hadn’t understood what he meant by that, but when he replied, “If you’re happy, then I’m happy too,” Reo got mad at him.
He loved seeing Reo smile—loved seeing his brows lower and his mouth open wide, shining like the sun. He could admit that the rain didn’t seem to suit Reo.
Mabu was so caught up in remembering the past that he was slow to get moving. He made haste back to the police box.
“I have to hurry home…”
I don’t want to break my promise to you any more than I already have, he thought.