Plate 1: Boxes
Plate 1:
Boxes
Scene 1
YASAKA KAZUKI had three habits that he refused to budge on. Everyone had habits like that, however big or small: things like eating taiyaki from the tail first, washing your arms first in the bath, or starting a mystery novel by reading the ending first. It didn’t matter if anyone else understood them; they were absolute and binding.
Kazuki was currently holding a cardboard box in his arms, one that featured the logo of a major international distribution company. Dressed in his breezy school uniform with blue stripes around the sleeves, cradling that ordinary box in his hands as if it were something precious, he began to cross the great bridge that stretched out over the Sumida River.
If someone visiting Asakusa for the first time stood on the red Azuma Bridge and took in the surrounding area, they would be greeted by a strange, mismatched landscape. The Sumida was sandwiched between two wards. On one side was Taito Ward, with its Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate, numerous historical buildings, and traditional industries. On the other side, where Skytree was located, was Sumida Ward, populated with eccentric, futuristic buildings. The odd sight of the past and future mashed together was normal to Kazuki, who lived in Asakusa for fourteen years now.
Really, there were only three things that were important to Kazuki.
“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 Matsuya department store came into view just as he finished crossing the bridge. It featured a large screen, from which drifted the sleepy voice of a girl.
“Here we go! What will be the item for today’s lucky selfie?”
The girl on the monitor began to dance to a mysterious tune. She wore a headdress that looked like a plate decorated with a ribbon, and a boldly arranged kimono with a tulle skirt that swayed as she moved. Azuma Sara was a local idol, and this program was named after her—Asakusa Sara TV.
Kazuki froze, eyes intense with emotion as he gazed at the girl on the screen. It was a quiet, special moment, removed from the morning’s hustle and bustle.
“Duh-dun! It’s a box, dish! ✩ The more boxes you have, the happier you’ll be! ✩” A roulette wheel spun, finally landing on a tile with the word “box” written on it. The girl danced around a CG background, surrounded by paper decorations and a cartoon mascot made in her likeness.
The light turned green, and Kazuki continued walking, pushed along by the wave of people.
“…A box, huh?” He glanced at the box in his hands, but just as quickly abandoned the idea. No, not good enough, he thought. The more boxes, the better. He couldn’t allow himself to compromise his mission.
“You’ll have even more happiness on your plate if you send your lucky selfie to someone you care about, dish! ✩ Okay then, have a wonderful day, and may you have lots of luck dished your way!”
“May you have lots of luck dished your way…” he echoed.
Kazuki’s wish, unnoticed by anyone else, was meant for only one person.
His three habits were:
1. Walk around holding a box.
2. Check the lucky selfie horoscope.
And finally: 3. Exchange selfies with that person every day.
He opened the messaging app on his phone and typed into the conversation box: It looks like I’ll be able to clear today’s mission quickly, dish! ✩ The “dish” and star emoji were tacked on for added charm. He hoped that was forgivable, since there was only one person in the world he’d send such cutesy messages to.
The word “read” appeared beside Kazuki’s message, and the child on the other end soon sent him a reply accompanied by a cheerful sticker.
Good morning! ✩ Let’s share happiness with each other today as well!
That was all the motivation Kazuki needed to do his best today. Honestly, he didn’t care if it was sickeningly cutesy; no one else knew about this relationship, and he’d gone into it knowing he could never let anyone find out. But that was fine. It was enough for him to have this connection.
Kuji Toi broke rules, carefully and yet boldly.
The high-rise parking lot, barely spitting distance from Skytree, was largely deserted during the day. A faded sign gently admonished readers to Beware of Car Vandals, but that was scarcely enough to persuade Toi to abandon today’s prey—a Lexus with a polished sheen that looked entirely out of place in the shabby garage.
He lazily folded back the hood of his black sweatshirt, and then smoothly pulled out a gleaming silver ruler from behind his back. Without hesitating, he jammed the object right into the window frame of the immaculate Lexus.
Bang, clack, bang, bang…Pa-chik!
Wait…Pa-chik?
His hand froze at the absurd sound. Slowly, he twisted around to look in the direction of the noise, only to find a girl standing there in a strange pose. No—it wasn’t the pose that was strange. The clothes she wore were fantastical, as if she jumped straight out of a television set. She had a headdress that looked like a plate and a kimono boldly altered to include a mini-skirt. While he admittedly had zero interest in trending fashion, he could tell at a glance that this outfit wasn’t normal.
What really caught his attention wasn’t the clear distress in her large, round eyes, but the cellphone clutched in her hand.
“You…you took a picture of me just now, didn’t you?” His voice flooded with anger, forming words that were less a question than an accusation, one that he was already certain was true.
“I didn’t take a picture.” Her conflicted expression seemed fragile, somehow, as if she might disappear if he touched her.
But that wasn’t important right now.
“Don’t play games with me. Give me the phone!” Toi demanded.
“I can’t!” Her eyes, formerly sweet as candy, became unexpectedly firm as she refused. She had a Sara mascot strap attached to her cellphone, which bounced as she moved. “I have to complete my mission for them, dish!”
Dish? Toi’s thoughts froze at hearing that strange word thrown in at the end. The girl used that opportunity to turn and take off running.
“The more boxes, the more happiness, dish!”
Her black hair bounced as she ran, her feathery skirt flipping up to reveal supple thighs and, just a little further up—
No, that’s not what he was supposed to be focusing on!
“Stop right there!” Now that he’d finally come to his senses, Toi sped after the girl who was quickly putting distance between them.
“Please, allow me to connect with them today as well…” Kazuki whispered.
Before him stood a gleaming, golden statue of a kappa. A kappa might seem an odd choice for a statue, but this was Asakusa’s Kappabashi Kitchenware Town. Taito Ward’s historical buildings and traditional industries had no shortage of kappa objects that had been left behind over the years, to the point where it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call the area a kappa battleground. But the golden majesty of the kappa enshrined in this plaza gave it an impressive presence, superior to the other, lesser kappa that filled the district.
Why was it gold? And who created it in the first place? No one knew, but at least its appearance gave off the sense it was divine. Kazuki occasionally came here to pray in front of Kappa-sama’s statue.
“Hey!” An angry cry rang out through the small plaza.
Kazuki glanced back to find a boy standing at the plaza’s entrance, anger and rage obviously thrumming through him.
“Hey, did a girl in a weird outfit come by here?” the boy in the hoodie asked, marching closer one step at a time, a long, narrow weapon gripped in his hand. He was kind of terrifying.
“N-nope,” Kazuki replied, completely uninterested in getting involved in the mess. Unfortunately, he then made a vital mistake by readjusting his grip on his cellphone. The strap on it slipped out of his fingers, dangling in the other boy’s view—the same strap that they had, with the Sara mascot on it.
The other boy’s sharp eyes took notice, and his expression darkened even more. “That phone… I knew it, you have some connection with that girl!”
“I-I’m serious, I have no idea who you’re talking about!” Please, make him leave me alone! Kazuki prayed inwardly. God, Buddha, Kappa-sama!
“…I’ll run you through!” A sharp, gleaming light slid down the metallic stick in his hand. Kazuki’s prayer seemed about to go unanswered as the boy leaped forward to attack, brandishing the weapon.
Fwoosh!
Kazuki escaped by a hair—actually, no, he lost a few as he narrowly managed to evade the first swipe, clinging to the feet of Kappa-sama’s statue. That was the second mistake he made that day—and the biggest one of his life.
Krak!
The statue was balanced on one leg, and the ankle of that leg just snapped.
“Whoooa?!”
Bwoooosh!
Kazuki and the broken statue fell in a tangled heap. As soon as they hit the ground, a strange smoke billowed out around them. It consumed the boy in the hoodie as well, filling the entire plaza.
When something unforeseen happens to a person, they nearly always react in the most stereotypical of ways. The two boys were no exception, screaming in unison, “What the heck is thiiiis?!”
When he came to, Kazuki found himself at the back of a classroom, sitting at the desk closest to the window. This was his seat, in his classroom, at his school—Asakusa Sara Junior High.
“It was a dream?” His mind, still in a haze, wandered to the box. Panicked, he whipped his head around, only to discover that his precious box was where he always left it, safely tucked under his desk. “What a relief.”
As long as the box was safe, he didn’t care whether the whole thing had been a dream or not. Kazuki unconsciously classified things into two categories: things that were important to him and things that weren’t. Anything that landed in the former category, he clung to, tight enough to crush them. One might generously call him single-minded, but to put it bluntly, he was obstinate.
“Kazukiiii!”
The person that now entered the classroom didn’t fit neatly into either of Kazuki’s categories.
Jinnai Enta was the kind of kid who tried to uphold the rules. The entire world seemed to run on rules, and there were consequences for breaking them. In soccer, for instance, which he completely devoted himself to, you could be kicked off the field for violating the rules.
But, right after they finished their early practice this morning, the soccer team’s adviser delivered some shocking news.
“What’s this about you quitting the team?! You haven’t said anything to me about this!” Enta blurted in a rush, still dressed in his practice uniform with a ball in his arms.
“I figured I’d talk to you about it later,” said Kazuki.
“What, update me after the fact?! Aren’t we supposed to be the Golden Duo? We have been ever since we were kids!”
Kazuki was making that same bitter face he always did when he heard the words “Golden Duo.” Here we go again, Enta thought.
They’d taken the term from a soccer manga that was popular years ago. Of course, Enta hadn’t known about the manga during its publishing run; he spent his childhood overseas due to his parents’ jobs. He was pretty sure he only heard about it from his soccer-loving older sister. When he discovered the series, he became enamored with it, and was soon after knee-deep in playing the sport itself.
“Good morning! Homeroom is about to begin!” The boundlessly cheerful voice of their classroom teacher, Jinnai Otone, preceded her into the classroom. This hot-blooded adviser to the Asakusa Sara soccer club was also Enta’s older sister. “Ah, hey, Jinnai! Haven’t I told you repeatedly to change into your uniform after morning practice?!”
“Ugh, Sis,” Enta grumbled. “Now’s not the time for that, okay?!”
“That’s Ms. Jinnai to you, so long as we’re at school!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” he said, defeated.
“One ‘okay’ is more than enough, thank you!”
His usual banter with his sister cut off his previous conversation, so Enta reluctantly slunk over and took his seat in front of Kazuki. “I won’t accept this, just so you know,” he told him, his tone confident and proud, befitting Kazuki’s childhood friend.
The truth was, Enta knew deep down that it was unlikely he would be able to change Kazuki’s mind. Maybe what he really needed to do was be a more assertive presence in Kazuki’s life. But their friendship and his position as Kazuki’s childhood friend meant as much to him as soccer; it was a field he didn’t want to be kicked off.
“Now, allow me to introduce the new transfer student!” said Otone.
That was odd. Transfer students didn’t usually come this late in the year. Enta briefly glanced at the podium but immediately lost interest. A cute girl might have been one thing, but the person standing there was an unsociable-looking boy. He had a black hoodie pulled over his uniform, with a rigid belt and crude lace-up boots. You could tell with one look that he was a delinquent, best to be avoided.
“This is Kuji Toi-kun. Be nice and get along with him, everyone! ♪”
Like that’s gonna happen. He’s not even interested in greeting us, Enta thought, taking out his irritation from earlier on the transfer student. But then a loud sound rang out behind him.
Ga-thunk!
When he glanced back, he found Kazuki wearing a look of shock as he stared ahead at the podium.
“Kazuki?” Enta said. He had a bad feeling about this. And his bad feelings had a habit of being right.
Both Kazuki and the delinquent uttered the same words, words that were more than enough to plunge Enta further into the pit of foreboding.
“It…wasn’t a dream?!”
The boy from Kazuki’s dream transferred into the same class as him. If they were a man and woman, this might have set them on the path of a delightfully otherworldly romantic comedy, but the unfortunate reality seemed more like an enemy encounter with a very-much-in-this-world delinquent wielding a ruler. Said delinquent seemed to remember Kazuki’s face as well, and the last thing Kazuki wanted was to be blackmailed by him.
Hmm. For some reason his throat felt awfully dry today. During their recess, he purchased a bottle of water from the school canteen, opened the cap, and—
Ching!
A faint, refreshing sound chimed in his ears. Gluk, gluk, gluk, gluk…
Kazuki couldn’t help the sigh that slipped past his lips after he dumped the cold liquid over the top of his head. “Aahh…”
Beside him, the transfer student from earlier, Toi, was also bathing himself in water at the same time.
“Aaahh…” they both said together.
The otherworldly string of events continued.
Their next period was gym. As Kazuki stood in front of the vaulting box, he heard that sound once again echo in his ear. Ching!
In the next moment, both he and Toi stomped hard on the ground, their legs splayed wide apart like sumo wrestlers, chanting, “Dosukoi!”
Enta stared at the two of them as if they were aliens from another planet.
Ching!
The next time Kazuki heard the noise, he was in the school kitchen, chomping on a cucumber. “Otherworldly” no longer did the situation justice; they were entering full sci-fi territory here.
For better or worse, at least he wasn’t going through it alone. Toi, the delinquent, had his back pressed against Kazuki’s as he munched away on a cucumber, too. The two boys turned at the same time, and their eyes met. In unison, they exclaimed, “Something is calling to us!”
Scene 2
“TIME FOR THE NEXT news item, dish! ✩ This morning, the kappa statue in the shopping district was found broken. Ka-klink!”
An old woman sat in front of the television—which featured Azuma Sara’s offhanded news delivery—with a gaudy bandana wrapped around her head, hands pressed firmly together. The room she occupied was built in the traditional Japanese style: a tatami-floored living space sectioned off by sliding paper doors, leading outside into a vibrant garden. Adorning its interior was a chaotic spread of Asakusa performing arts and soccer memorabilia. The former was her hobby, while the latter reflected the hobbies of her grandchildren—an older girl and a younger boy.
One of those grandchildren was Enta, who was currently mumbling to himself as he gazed down at a box that just arrived. The large exterior box made the tiny one tucked inside seem even smaller. Contained within the latter was a friendship bracelet made of knotted red embroidery floss.
“Ugh. I went to the trouble of buying this, but now what do I do with it? I knew it might take a while, but I really believed he would come back eventually.”
When Kazuki first began taking a break from club activities, Enta hadn’t pushed him to come back. He tried to be understanding of Kazuki’s feelings, but believed that, eventually, time would fix everything.
“Kazuki sure was strange today, though. Was it because of that delinquent transfer student? Actually, it seemed like they knew each other. That jerk, what was he doing going off on his own and getting involved with a creep like that, anyway?”
On the television screen, Sara was getting all pumped up after having shattered a glass bottle. “The Asakusa police don’t currently have any leads on the vandals and are still investigating,” she said. “Hmph! ✩”
“I bet the culprits will have their shirikodama plucked right out of them by Kappa-sama,” the old woman remarked.
Unfamiliar with the term she used, Enta echoed back, “Hm? What’s a shirikodama?”
“It’s an organ located within a person’s anus,” his grandmother told him. “Back when I was a little girl, our parents used to warn us that if we were bad, Kappa-sama would come and pluck out our shirikodama.”
Enta struggled desperately to imagine his grandmother’s “younger years,” but his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Otone throwing open the sliding door.
“Enta! You wasted your money again, didn’t you? I see that box. What did you buy this time?!”
“It’s not what you think! This is for Kazuki,” he explained.
It would be his older sister who caught him, of all people. Enta developed a bad habit of spending too much money on online shopping. This was different, though. And now that his sister knew—his nosy, gossip-guzzling, rumor-loving sister—it was only a matter of time before she leaked it to Kazuki. If Enta was going to give him a friendship bracelet, then he wanted to do it on his own terms, when he deemed it appropriate. And that time was not right now!
“N-no way…” The menacing look on Otone’s face disappeared as her eyes widened in shock, staring at something behind Enta.
He followed her gaze. The box, which had moments ago been sitting atop the tatami, now floated in the air. It whizzed right out of the room and through the garden, disappearing instantly.
“W-wait! That’s my box!”
Ching! Ching!
Kazuki and Toi returned to the plaza where they first met that morning. There was no mistake: that strange noise they’d been hearing was definitely coming from here. Yet other passersby seemed entirely deaf to it.
“So no one else can hear it, huh…” Toi mumbled.
“We’ve been cursed by Kappa-sama,” said Kazuki, “for breaking the statue.”
“There’s no such thing as curses.”
The plaza had yellow tape reading “Keep Out” strewn across it, and the area around the broken kappa statue looked like a sectioned-off crime scene.
Ching! Ching!
“If the police catch us, we’ll get arrested, won’t we?” Kazuki asked.
“The heck am I going to get caught by the cops!”
Kazuki squeezed his box tightly in his arms and shouted back, “I don’t want to either! Not if it means I won’t be able to connect with them anymore!”
Bwoooosh! Suddenly, smoke started spilling from the broken kappa statue’s splintered buttocks.
“Something’s coming!” Kazuki exclaimed.
“A fart?!”
In the next instant, the statue’s beak flapped open, triggering an enormous explosion.
Once again, the two boys screamed in unison, “What the heck is thiiiiis?!”
“Good morning!”
As the smoke gradually cleared away, the haze lifted from their minds.
“We had this same exchange…” Toi began to say.
Kazuki finished, “…this morning.”
“I’ve been waiting for you two, ribbit.” Atop the pedestal, previously occupied by the kappa statue, now stood a new object—a large, white, round piece of mochi. “I am the Kappa Crown Prince, Keppi, ribbit.” The strange noise they’d been hearing all day was coming from the mochi, echoing off its head as it struck itself with a cucumber. “I erased your memories of this morning, ribbit.”
“You erased our memories?”
“Yes, com-plate-ly.” The mochi gave a jiggle as it moved, bringing its drowsy eyes and beak into focus.
“Whoa!”
“I can’t let you off so easily, not now that you know who I am, ribbit.” The words were threatening, but somehow lacked the necessary tension to be effective. The mochi began munching away at the cucumber it was holding.
“Wait, ‘ribbit’…?”
“Don’t curse us!” screeched Kazuki.
“However…nomnom…it must have been fate…nomnom…for the two of you to have woken me up…nomnom. Thus, I called you…nomnom…here again…gulp.” The mochi extended his legs forward and shockingly prostrated himself before them. “Human children! Please lend me your aid, ribbit! I beg of you, ribbit!”
Kazuki, who was holding his academic good luck charm out as if it were a talisman to ward off evil, paused for a moment. Who would have ever dreamed he’d hear a stock phrase of mecha and magical girl anime thrown at him, here, at Asakusa’s Kappabashi?
“Pass,” Toi said decisively from beside Kazuki, wielding his silver ruler in hand.
“Huh? Are you sure you want to refuse like that?”
Even though you might be cursed for it? That was the part that worried Kazuki, but Toi was far more pragmatic. He didn’t even believe in the existence of kappa.
“See if I care,” Toi spat. “Who’d listen to something a frog says anyways?”
“…I’m not a frog.” The voice crept up in volume from the ground below.
“Huh? A frog?” With those words, Kazuki stepped on a landmine.
“I said that I’m not a damn frooooooog!!” Keppi abandoned his superficial politeness and whizzed up into the air, spinning rapidly as a runaway train on his stubby, plump legs.
“Something crazy’s going on!” The two boys turned their backs on Keppi in an attempt to run, finally sensing danger, but before they could flee—
“Desiiiire…Extractioooon!”
—they received a blow to their behinds, the likes of which they’d never felt before. Kazuki’s consciousness abruptly cut off.
Scene 3
“HUH?!”
The next time Kazuki awoke, the sky turned to midnight around him. He heard a pained groaning in the dark, eerie quiet.
“Mmm… Uuungh…” Keppi stood before him, currently in the process of pooping out something roughly the same size as himself. “Mmm… Ahaa…”
Plop…
“Whoaaa! A kappa?!” Kazuki exclaimed. Keppi excreted a kappa wrapped in an amniotic sac. “Kuji became a kappa!”
He could tell that the creature was Toi. How? Well…
“Look who’s talking, you’re a kappa too!” Just as Toi pointed out, Kazuki became one as well.
“As a prince, it sends me into a rage when people insult me by calling me a frog. So I plucked out your shirikodama, ribbit.”
“N-no waaaay!”
Kazuki and Toi both became kappa.
“This is the Desire Field, ribbit. The underside of the human world. Humans can’t see kappa or this world, ribbit.”
It was as if Kappabashi was submerged under water, for it was cool and dreary, dappled with a scattering of glowing red lights.
“In other words, the two of you are both alive and dead, ribbit.”
“Alive…?”
“…and dead?”
The conversation sounded more like fantasy than reality to the two freshly-turned kappa.
“Wait! My box!” A familiar voice called out. Enta was running toward them.
Kappa-Kazuki ran to meet him without thinking. “Enta, it’s me!” he cried, but Enta didn’t seem to be able to see him at all.
“Leave this to me, ribbit. Here we go… Pfft!” Keppi took out a blowpipe and aimed a shot straight at Enta.
“Gah?!”
The letter “A” appeared on Enta’s forehead for a moment before quickly disappearing. Enta blinked for a moment, then gasped. “Wah! It’s a huge frog!”
“I’m not a frooooog!” Keppi roared.
“Gyaaaaah!!”
Enta’s cry echoed throughout the Desire Field.
In the southern part of Kappabashi Kitchenware Town, two handsome police officers worked in a police box, known only by a handful of people. Despite working in an age of massively popular social networking websites, they remained relatively unexposed to both the goodwill and the contempt of the internet. The Asakusa district was peaceful, and most of their work involved searching for missing pets and handling lost items. Or at least, that was how it appeared.
“Now for our next piece of news, dish! ✩ All across Asakusa, there are reports of a strange phenomenon: boxes flying around under their own power. Bo-box!”
The two officers wore composed expressions on their faces, tuning out the bizarre news program.
When he awoke, Enta, too, had become a kappa. “Huh…?!”
“Tsk, tsk. I’ve acquired yet another boring shirikodama, ribbit.”
Kazuki ignored Kappa-Enta, who still hadn’t grasped what was going on, and asked, “What exactly are these ‘shirikodama’?”
“It’s an organ in a human’s body that stores Desire Energy, ribbit.”
“Turn us back right now!” Kappa-Toi thundered, unwilling to tolerate this madness any further.
A dark shadow slunk up behind Kazuki and snatched the box out of his hands, then speedily slunk away.
“Ah! That’s my box!”
Kazuki looked up to see numerous black, flabby creatures soaring through the air, each with a box in hand. A shining red lamp hung from each creature’s head, making the group of them look like a school of deep-sea fish.
“Those are the Kappa Zombies’ underlings, ribbit. Humans can’t see those either, ribbit.”
“My box was flying through the air like that, too!” Kappa-Enta fussed, panicking.
Beside him, Kappa-Toi was secretly losing his composure as well. His precious box was included among those that the underlings—or whatever they were called—were carrying away. “I’ll be in big trouble if they open that box…”
“I want to get my box back!” Kazuki exclaimed, unusually emotional.
Keppi said, sounding almost reproachful, “Follow me please, ribbit.”
“You three will fight the Kappa Zombies for me, ribbit. They cling to the desires from their previous lives, trying to fulfill them, ribbit.”
The red Azuma Bridge, which should have been a familiar sight, had been transformed into a bizarre apparition. Pale, pulsing rings of light surrounded it, and the box-carrying underlings puttered around it. Standing in the middle was a creature, a thing, vaguely person-shaped but with an enormous box where its head should have been. The box had both eyes and a mouth, a mouth that chanted the same incoherent phrase over and over again.
“Boxes…boxes…I want boxes…”
If they were to believe Keppi’s story, then this “Kappa Zombie” must have possessed a strong attachment to boxes in its previous life. And indeed, the underlings blanketed the bridge in countless boxes. But none of this was relevant to their current predicament; what they really needed to know was how to defeat said monster.
Kappa-Kazuki didn’t intend to surrender his box to the creature. Enta and Toi seemed to be of the same mind on that.
“You can destroy a Kappa Zombie by plucking out its shirikodama, ribbit. You can extract them as well, now that you’ve become kappa yourselves, ribbit.”
The only route left for the three humans-turned-kappa was to pluck out the Kappa Zombie’s shirikodama.
“Now, sing the song!” Keppi commanded.
The moment they heard Keppi’s voice, they stopped thinking, and their bodies began to move. Kappa-Kazuki opened his mouth, and a strange song flowed out of him. It was an intense ballad, one he had never heard before, and yet it felt familiar to him, like he’d known it since long ago. Beside him, Kappa-Toi and Kappa-Enta joined their voices to his. As they belted out the lyrics, they felt themselves begin to manifest their full kappa power.
“Kappature it!” As Keppi gave them the signal, the three formed a line with Kappa-Kazuki at the tip, hurtling through the air straight toward the Kappa Zombie’s rear.
“Gyaaaaaaah!” The zombie’s soul cried out, echoing across the Azuma Bridge.
Kazuki plunged inside the Kappa Zombie’s butt. Surrounded by darkness, he squinted his eyes and frantically looked around. It didn’t take long before he spotted an orb of pulsating light flying toward him. In case he had any doubts that this was the creature’s shirikodama, it had the kanji for ‘butt’ written across it.
“I’ve got it!”
With the glowing ball in Kazuki’s hands, Toi and Enta, who were holding onto his legs, braced their feet against the edge of the zombie’s hole and began to pull.
“Heave!” said Kappa-Toi.
“Damn, he won’t budge!” said Kappa-Enta.
The Kappa Zombie frantically clenched his sphincter as tightly as he could to keep them from extracting his shirikodama. “Stop it! Don’t steal my desire!” If anyone had been watching, they would have witnessed a surreal sight: besides having the lower half of a kappa’s body protruding from its butt, the zombie was also leaking a mysterious liquid from the same orifice.
Kazuki refused to give up. “I have to pluck out this shirikodama! I have to, so I can connect with them!”
At the end of their long tug-of-war, the three defeated the creature’s sphincter and extracted its shirikodama.
“We kappatured it!” they yelled in unison.
The shirikodama was cool and moist in Kappa-Kazuki’s hands. “So this is a shirikodama…”
In a flash, the shirikodama seemed to warp the world around Kazuki. Instead of the Kappa Zombie, an unfamiliar man stood in front of him, one whose face he couldn’t quite make out. After a few moments, the man abruptly began to strip. Once the man was completely naked, he took the box that was sitting beside him, one with the logo from that major distribution company on its side. The man turned it over, lifted it up, and gently placed it on his head. The moment he did, Kazuki felt his heart fill with an inexplicable sense of contentment and relief.
Then, just as suddenly, it felt like something inside him was in free-fall, plunging down from his brain to the middle of his chest.
“Now I get it,” he said. “You liked getting naked and wearing stolen boxes on your head!”
Goop.
The Kappa Zombie’s shirikodama began to melt.
“Ugh?!”
Keppi’s resounding voice cut in. “A shirikodama melts when it touches the open air, ribbit! Hurry and transfer it to me, ribbit!”
“T-transfer?! How?!”
As the three panicked, not knowing what to do with the melting shirikodama, Keppi’s voice resounded inside their heads again, “Sarazanmai, ribbit.”
Instinctively, all three shouted loudly.
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
And then all together, “Sarazanmai!”
As Kappa-Kazuki swallowed the shirikodama, a blinding light radiated out of his body. In the next moment, their consciousnesses seemed to melt like chocolate.
Who could say if it was real or a dream? It was a strange feeling—like becoming one with the universe, as if his body wasn’t his own. He wasn’t sure if he was Yasaka Kazuki, Kuji Toi, or Jinnai Enta. All three of their consciousnesses were harmonizing in perfect synchronicity. It was as if they were molecules drifting in a hot, primordial ocean, smacking against the thin membranes separating them, and combining into one.
The heat was enough to make him want to scream. The energy was like nothing he’d ever felt before, and the pleasure felt like purifying water welling up beneath his skin. It was like waking up in the morning and being liberated from the pent-up desire that kept you up all night. It was the same sense of ecstasy mixed with shame you got from touching yourself for the first time. It just felt good, pleasure so intense that even though you felt unspeakable guilt for experiencing it, was too amazing to quit. Once you knew a world of pleasure like that existed, there was no going back.
The magnetic pull of the Kappa Zombie’s shirikodama was so strong that it had no trouble at all dragging out the desire lurking deep within Kazuki’s own heart.
“Leaking,” they heard Keppi’s voice echo.
His consciousness jumped, rewinding back to that morning’s events as he had experienced them. It felt like seeing the past recaptured on screen. But there was something none of them understood at the time. Beneath the surface of every event—no, beneath the surface of the whole world—existed a whole other story.
The morning’s events, as Kazuki experienced them, began when he was heading to school. After checking Azuma Sara’s lucky selfie horoscope, he headed to a children’s park with his box in tow. His objective was what stood in the center of the lot—a multipurpose toilet. He entered the handicapped stall and, without missing a beat, began his usual daily routine.
“This is me from this morning?” Kazuki suddenly realized, awakening from his daze. The borders of his body were still fuzzy, and yet he could feel cold sweat pouring from his skin like a waterfall. “Stop it, don’t loooook!!”
Unfortunately, without a mouth to speak, Kazuki’s cries of protest went unheard, and the reel rolled mercilessly forward.
In the private space of that bathroom, Kazuki abruptly began stripping off his uniform. Then he began to dress himself in an outfit he unpacked from his box. Once the clothes were done, he donned a distinctive pair of red shoes. After that, he pulled on a wig of lustrous, long black hair. Once he smoothed it out with a brush, he puckered his lips and began to apply a thin coat of pink lip balm. His reflection in the mirror looked exactly like Azuma Sara, the idol.
The shirikodama, wrapped up in Kazuki’s desire, bled into Toi’s consciousness. Sara-Kazuki, on the prowl for that day’s lucky selfie item (boxes), wandered inside the garage just in time to witness Toi’s vandalism. What followed was exactly the same as Toi remembered from that morning, with one new piece of information: Sara-Kazuki’s objective had been the stacks of boxes in the parking lot, not Toi or the crime he’d been committing.
“So you were that girl from the garage!” Toi shouted, although his exclamation also produced no sound.
The scene changed once again, the truth about what happened surging through Enta’s consciousness like a wave.
Sara-Kazuki managed to lose Toi. He quickly slipped out of his costume and back into his school uniform. He kept an innocent look on his face, box in hand, as he left the multipurpose toilet behind. When he stopped by the Kappa Plaza, he immediately uploaded the selfie he’d taken with his box to the chat window in his phone app, along with a message to that person: “Today’s lucky selfie mission is complete, dish! ✩”
They responded moments later. “Thanks! I’m so happy every day, thanks to you, Sara-chan, dish! ✩”
“I can’t believe it! So Kazuki has been dressing up as Azuma Sara and pretending to be her on a social networking app…?” Enta was similarly unable to give voice to his astonishment, but with their minds merged together, the other two could feel his shock loud and clear.
Equally loud was Kazuki’s cry from the heart. “The secret that I couldn’t share with anyone… Now everyone knoooooows!!”
The Kappa Zombie’s shirikodama now safely transferred. Keppi gulped it down. “Desire consumed.”
Scene 4
“WE’RE BACK in our original forms, back to being human! And my box is back too!” Enta’s joyful cheer echoed through the Kappa Plaza.
Toi stood there with a disturbed look on his face. His precious box had been returned, now snug in his arms, and the matter was settled. But it was difficult to pass off that profoundly strange experience as nothing more than a dream. The sensations felt all too real. “What was that thing we saw when we were transmitting the shirikodama?”
Keppi sat upon his pedestal, looking sated and satisfied as he answered. “Buuurp… Sarazanmai connects your bodies and minds, ribbit. It also means that you share all the secrets you don’t want anyone to find out, ribbit.”
“So that was Kazuki’s secret?” Enta asked, his gaze aimed at the entrance of the plaza, where Kazuki sat huddled with his arms wrapped around his legs. His box toppled over beside him, the feminine costume inside it now spilling out onto the ground.
“…That’s right,” said Kazuki. “I’m a freak that dresses up as Azuma Sara and takes selfies of myself!”
Enta couldn’t keep quiet when he heard such shame in Kazuki’s tone. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, sure, I was surprised, but that’s not going to change our relationship at all.”
Toi, in contrast, huffed as if he were exasperated. “Are you serious right now? That dude was wearing girls’ clothing and posing as an idol!”
“The two of us have a bond that can’t be broken so easily!” Enta retorted. “Besides, Kuji, breaking into people’s cars is a crime!”
“I don’t need to be lectured by you.”
“What did you say?!” Enta, always hot-tempered, grabbed Toi by his collar.
“Enough, enough, enough!” Kazuki’s loud voice stopped them both in their tracks. He started snatching up the pieces of his costume that littered the ground, chucking them back into his box. “I don’t need your opinions! I’m not even remotely interested in having you try to understand! This connection is mine alone, my connection with them! I’ll tell as many lies as I need to keep it that way!”
Silence fell in the plaza, one that was interrupted moments later by Keppi. “Now, now, let’s all take some time to cool down, ribbit. As thanks for your help today, I’ll give you a gift, ribbit.” Divine light began to spill from the shell on his back, until the entire plaza was bathed in blinding rays. The shell popped open in a dramatic billow of smoke, revealing a golden plate. “This is a Wishing Plate, capable of granting anything you desire, ribbit. Now listen closely, because what I’m about to say is important, ribbit. This is an incredibly valuable plate that can only be produced by me, the crown prince of the Kappa Kingdom.”
“Seriously?!” Enta swiped the plate from him. “Can you get a year’s worth of kappamaki with this plate then? Kazuki loves those cucumber sushi rolls!”
The plate, which Enta was brusquely turning over in his hands, flashed with light and the words “A Year’s Worth of Kappamaki” appeared on its surface. In the next instant, an enormous cucumber roll came smashing down to the ground.
“Gwah?!”
Keppi hopped up onto the enormous kappamaki and declared, “Your wish has been granted, ribbit.”
Ka-klink!
The golden plate cracked and splintered, disappearing without a trace.
“Wait, hold on a second! That didn’t count!” Enta hung his head as he tried desperately to gather the fragments in his hands, but it was already too late.
Toi stared, gobsmacked, at the unbelievable scene that unfolded before him. “So what he said was actually true?”
“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…”
Kazuki, who watched in silence, only reacted after hearing that last bit.
The world overflows with connections. Blood connections, geographical connections, emotional connections. Everyone is connected in this world.
But those connections disappear easily. I know that better than anyone else.
This time for sure, I have to protect our connection. No matter what it takes.
The Azuma Bridge was so quiet at night. It was hard to believe that until moments ago, it had been crowded with zombies. The light from the bridge’s pillars rippled beautifully on the surface of the river below.
Kazuki stood at the river’s edge with his box at his feet, the contents of it no longer a secret known only to him. Cradled snugly in his hand was a phone with a Sara mascot keychain attached.
The message on his screen read “Goodnight, Sara-chan.”
All he wanted to do was reply with a simple goodnight in return, but his fingers felt impossibly heavy as they tapped across the keyboard. After much struggle, Kazuki finally sent off a short “Goodnight, dish! ✩”
Then he lifted his box and started toward home.
Scene 5
WHILE KAZUKI AND THE OTHERS slept off their exhausting day, a man pled his innocence to two police officers at the Asakusa Otter police box in the southern part of Kappabashi Kitchenware Town.
“It wasn’t me-ow that did it! You’ve got the wrong purr-son!” He sat at a work desk, facing a number of sorrowful-looking stray cats. A phone, presumably his, lay screen-up on the desk.
One of the police officers, a pale individual with glasses, fixed the man with a sharp glare. The door to the police box snapped shut on its own. The ground below the suspect shifted to show the glowing image of a bright red heart.
“For those souls without beginnings or ends, those unable to connect…” the man with glasses said in a low voice, giving the signal.
“Now, let us open a door…” The other officer, a flamboyant man with blond hair and brown skin, abruptly pointed the barrel of his gun at the suspect.
“Eek?!”
“Is it desire?”
“Or love?”
A mechanical humming came drifting in from somewhere, followed by the beat of a taiko drum that gradually grew louder. It was clear that something terrible was about to happen, yet the man couldn’t move.
Without a moment of hesitation, the blond officer pulled the trigger.
“Desire Extraction!”
In the moment after the two policemen exclaimed that phrase, the man’s body was nowhere to be found. All that remained was the cellphone on the table. Its pitch-black screen now showed a single, bright red symbol of a heart, with static running across it.