Plate 2:
Cats
Scene 1
“I WOULD LIKE YOU ALL to continue transforming into kappa to pluck out the Kappa Zombies’ shirikodama, ribbit. And if you have a wish you would like to have granted, then…”
A voice seemed to echo in Kazuki’s ear just before he woke up.
He opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling. He slept on the top bunk of the bed, close enough to the ceiling that he would bonk his head if he tried to sit up. Curtains bordered with red and white hung over the large window beside the bed, but enough light slipped through the cracks to inform him that it would be sunny today.
“A plate that can grant wishes…” He absentmindedly recalled the events of the previous night. Had it all just been a bad dream?
“Kazu-chan!” A cheerful voice called up from below him.
Kazuki slowly lifted himself up. The voice belonged to a little boy who was perched on the bed below, looking up at him. He was Kazuki’s younger brother, Haruka. “Hey, for Nyantaro’s meal
today, do you think we should do Fishtopia? Yesterday was Beeftopia, right?”
Kazuki didn’t answer, but just climbed down the ladder and moved to the sliding door. Haruka didn’t seem particularly fazed by his lack of response. Instead, he began typing a message into his cellphone.
“Um, let’s see… Sara-chan, good morning! Do you like cats? And…send!”
Your average Japanese house had a limited number of places where you could escape from everyone else. Kazuki seated himself firmly on the toilet with his smartphone in hand. The newest message displayed at the top of the chat screen read, Sara-chan, good morning! ✩ Do you like cats?
Kazuki immediately set about typing his response. Good morning! ✩ I love cats, dish! ✩ He hit ‘send’ and then breathed a sigh.
The header of the chat box read Harukappa––Haruka’s account name.
Kazuki’s life revolved around the daily routine of masquerading as Azuma Sara so he could connect with one particular person. That person was his little brother, Haruka. And it was for Haruka’s sake that Kazuki now wanted to obtain the Wishing Plate.
“Good morning! ✩ Every day is happy! And with your lucky selfie, you’ll have even more happiness on your plate! It’s me, Azuma Sara, dish! ✩” The serene sound of Sara’s voice slipped in from the living room television.
“Good morning! ✩ It’s me, Harukappa, dish! ✩” Haruka waved his hand at the screen.
“Haruka, stop looking at Sara-chan and eat your food,” his mother chided.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Do they call you ‘Harukappa’ at school?” his father asked doubtfully.
“Ehehe! That’s a secret!”
It was a normal, everyday exchange between family members, one Kazuki eavesdropped on from the other side of the door. He hauled his box out of the room, already dressed in his school uniform. He had to pass by the living room in order to get to the front door. His heart felt heavy just thinking about it.
Despite his efforts to silently sneak past without being noticed, Haruka spotted him anyways. “Oh, Kazu-chan!”
“Morning, Kazu-kun,” his mother called. “Breakfast is ready.”
It was the same every morning, repeated ad nauseam. There was enough breakfast for four, but Kazuki’s answer never changed. “Sorry, I’ve got to get going.”
“All right… Well, take care,” she said.
“Wait, hold on! I’m going too!” Haruka hurriedly gulped down his food while Kazuki waited at the entrance for him. This, too, was part of their daily routine.
Their apartment building overlooked the Sumida River. Sumida Park ran along the river’s bank, bustling with sightseers, dog walkers, and joggers in the morning. Haruka sat atop the embankment wall of the promenade, feeding Fishtopia to a chubby orange tabby.
“Hey, do you think Nyantaro has put on a bit of weight? She was much slimmer when we first met her, right?”
Kazuki, who was busy checking the lucky selfie horoscope on his phone, replied distractedly, “I doubt she’s changed at all.”
Haruka laughed, as if recalling their first encounter with the feline. “It made me so happy when you introduced me to Nyantaro. I always wanted a cat, and you were the one who granted my wish!”
“Now then, what will today’s lucky selfie item be?” On the screen of Kazuki’s phone, Sara watched the spinning roulette wheel until it stopped. “Meeoow! It’s a cat, dish! ✩ I love cats, dish! ✩”
As he watched her spin around, holding the plate with the word “cat” written on it, Kazuki felt a wave of relief hit him. “Thank goodness, she really does like—”
“Oh, you’re watching Sara-chan! So, you like her too?” Haruka asked.
“Nah, not at all.” Those words didn’t carry much weight, considering both his phone case and the strap attached to it were Asakusa Sara merch, but he couldn’t risk outing himself.
“I love Sara-chan!” said Haruka. “You know, I actually have this really incredible secret, and I’m going to share it with you and only you!”
“Huh? I don’t need to hear it.”
Kazuki had a bad feeling, so he tried to brush off his little brother’s words. Haruka ignored him and continued, “I’m actually friends with Sara-chan. We exchange messages every single day. See?” He beamed as he held up his phone with the chat window open.
Kazuki struggled to sound calm as he asked, “Are you sure you’re not just being tricked?”
Haruka was already a fourth year in grade school. It was difficult to believe that he’d been entirely fooled by Kazuki’s sloppy cross-dressing. Kazuki was testing him, daring to hint that it was a fake to see how he’d respond.
“I’m not, it’s the real Sara-chan! Look! See all of these pictures?!” The boy puffed up his cheeks and swiped through the images on his phone. Among the gallery of selfies was Sara with a squid, Sara with a pot, and Sara with some rice.
That’s me, and that’s me too—they’re all me! thought Kazuki. They’re all selfies of me cross-dressing!
“Ehehe, you’re speechless, huh?”
Having confirmed that his younger sibling didn’t hold a sliver of doubt about his (or rather, Sara’s) identity, Kazuki struck a small victory pose.
In a condo in another part of the city, the constant, rhythmic noise of a running shower acted as a backdrop to the sporadic sounds of a struggle, punctuated by splashes and a hushed groaning. Three men stood in the dimly lit unit bathroom, surrounding a fourth. That man’s face was covered by a piece of fabric as he was forcefully shoved down into the filled tub.
One of the men, propped against the wall and wearing a gray suit, asked, “How’d you sniff out this route?” His voice almost sounded bored, disinterested.
“I don’t know! I don’t know any—bwah!”
The man in the tub wasted his opportunity to speak, so back he went into the water. The person holding him under was a boy in a black hoodie—Toi.
“Tch…” Toi clicked his tongue. The man’s legs and arms were bound, but he was a full grown, muscular adult, difficult to restrain. Still, Toi showed the man no mercy. Even when the man was completely submerged and ceased struggling, he didn’t let up.
“We don’t wanna have to do this to you either, ya know? But if you refuse to talk to us, we got no choice…”
“Bwah!”
Toi loosened his grip and let the man burst back into the air. The drenched captive gasped for air, but then froze as the man in the suit whipped out a glimmering silver object.
“…but to run you through!”
The cold taste of steel shivered on his tongue as the ruler was jammed inside his mouth.
Two black shadows lined up at a water bus stop near the edge of the Sumida River early that morning. One of them was Toi, and the other was the main in the suit. A lollipop protruded from between his lips, at odds with the rest of his attire.
“I swear, you better be careful, you hear? Not like I can come save you all the time.”
Toi’s slip-up had invited trouble. The morning’s events had been an effort to clean it up.
“I’m not going to do something stupid like that again. So take me with you.” Toi peered up entreatingly at the man.
The suited man responded only with a look of annoyed exasperation. “We’ve already talked about this. You’ll just get in the way.”
Toi expected that answer, but it gutted him more than he anticipated to hear it put so bluntly.
“You understand, right?” said the man. “If this next one goes well, we’ll be rolling in money. But if they catch us, it’s over.”
“If it’s money you’re after, I can get it!”
For a moment, the man stared back in disbelief. “Hah, you got some guts. If I screw things up, I’ll hold you to that, ’kay?”
He wasn’t taking Toi seriously at all. It was always like this—he always treated Toi like a child. And now, once again, he was leaving him behind.
The water bus glided up in front of the two.
“Welp, time to fly. Don’t do anything stupid, you get me?” The suit-clad man tousled Toi’s hair.
He should’ve batted the man’s hand away and told him, “I’m not a kid anymore!” But Toi never could bring himself to do that.
“You too, bro,” Toi called after him.
Chikai, his older brother, disappeared onto the boat. They wouldn’t see each other again until his brother successfully finished his next task. They shared a promise for the distant future, but there were no guarantees in the present.
Toi had no intention of sitting around in the interim. He intended to get his hands on a Wishing Plate—for his brother’s sake.