Plate 2: Cats
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.
“Time for our next piece of news, dish! ✩ This morning a man’s remains were discovered by the Sumida River. Riveer~! ✩”
An elderly woman sat in front of a television set, a colorful bandana wrapped around her head, watching as Azuma Sara gave a carefree delivery of some grave news.
Her grandson, Enta, was nearby, opening the box he worked so hard to retrieve the night before—the one that had Kazuki’s present nestled inside of it. At least that’s what was supposed to be inside of it.
“What the heck is thiiiiiis?!” he instinctively howled, backing away. “This isn’t my box… Wait, does that mean this is Kuji’s…?”
“Enta!”
“Eek! Sis, don’t scare me like that!” He hid the package behind his back as Otone eyed him suspiciously.
“What are you yelling about? And have you been ordering stuff online again?!”
“No! This is Kuji’s, I accidentally grabbed it,” Enta explained.
“Oh, wow. You two are getting along that well, huh?”
“The heck we are! That bas…I mean, Kuji’s a dangerous guy!” I can’t let that punk get any closer to Kazuki, Enta thought.
Inside the box behind him was a gleaming, silver handgun.
Scene 2
ENTA COULD BARELY FOCUS during the school day, and when it was over, he used the excuse of a stomach ache to skip out on club activities. Now, he was standing at the front gate. Frankly, he wanted to consult Kazuki about the gun situation sooner, but since Toi was seated directly beside Kazuki, Enta had lost his nerve every time he looked back to try. His only option now was to catch Kazuki on his way home.
“It’s not like I’m scared of Kuji or anything. It’s just awkward and inconvenient to have him sitting close by when I’m trying to talk. Last night I just went with the flow, but I never liked him in the first place. I need to make sure that Kazuki never hangs around him again.”
As Enta mumbled to himself in anguish, Kazuki passed right in front of him with a box cradled in his arms.
“Wait, Kazuki!” Flustered, Enta chased after the other boy, swerving around him so he was facing Kazuki.
“Enta?”
“Uh, hey, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Sorry, I’m in a hurry right now. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Huh? Hey, w-wait!”
Kazuki began walking off, leaving a dumbfounded Enta behind.
“What the heck?! I thought we were supposed to be the Golden Duo?!”
Behind the wailing Enta, Toi exited the school gate and started walking in the opposite direction. Without, of course, sparing a glance Enta’s way.
One of Asakusa’s most famous tourist spots was Japan’s oldest amusement park, Hanayashiki. It was crammed onto a tiny strip of land and jam-packed with a whole array of attractions. Its main attraction was a roller coaster, the oldest in Japan. Although there were other roller coasters touted as “the fastest,” “the tallest,” and “the most fear-inducing,” this one was a contender for the most thrilling. Just stopping and thinking about how old it really was could induce an adrenaline high. But there was also one curve where the track pressed terrifyingly close to a wall lining the boundary of the park. It felt like one wrong move would send you crashing right into it.
This was the wall that Toi was walking along now.
The interior of the park, with its echoes of cheerful laughter, stood in stark contrast to the exterior, with its distinct, foreboding aura. Toi had his black hood pulled up over his head and his jacket zipped all the way shut as he navigated the maze of residential complexes to a certain building. Inside, he strolled up to the elevator entrance, bumping the button with the middle knuckle of his index finger. After the doors eventually slid open, he stepped in and immediately pressed the “close doors” button with the same knuckle. Then he pressed several of the numbers on the pad.
He’d seen his brother do the same long ago and asked the purpose of it. His brother responded, “This way, they won’t be able to follow you.” Now, he didn’t even have to think about it. His body just moved automatically. It was little habits like this that made Toi feel connected to his brother.
He disembarked from the elevator and walked soundlessly to a room at the end of the hallway. When he quietly tried the door, it swung open to reveal a room lit with bright, purple growing lights. Tall plants with broad, five-fingered leaves lined the floor. Others hung upside down along the wall, drying in front of the ventilator. A desk was squeezed into the space, atop which sat some powder, ground down from the plants’ buds.
Toi slipped on his usual mask and thin plastic gloves, now firmly in work mode. In this secret room, he began dividing the dried marijuana and stuffing it into bags. To further camouflage them, he then tucked several of the tiny packets into a bag with cat food packaging on it.
This was the biggest source of Toi’s income. His clients were all regulars he inherited from his brother. He never sold to the same person twice in one month. He never met them directly. Toi was careful not to rouse suspicion, and had taken several other meticulous measures to avoid notice as well.
And yet someone sniffed out his route, and he’d inconvenienced his brother as a consequence. Now he was desperate to try to recover from his failure.
The flip phone he used for business began to vibrate—an order from one of his customers.
“Yeah, no problem. I got some exceptionally high-quality stuff right now. The pickup will be at…”
If he made this work, he would be one step closer to living with his brother. No sooner had he thought that than—
Thunk!
—something heavy slammed against the top of his desk.
“Huh?”
“Mreeow?”
When he ended the call and looked back, Toi found a chubby orange tabby with one of the packages he’d just finished sealing—the word Fishtopia stamped across the front—clamped inside its mouth.
A cat?
The two stared each other down, but it was the cat who moved first.
“Mreow!”
Despite its chubby physique, the cat was unbelievably agile as it slipped past the plastic sheet hanging around the perimeter of the room, and then leaped out the small crack in the open window. And, of course, it took the cat food bag with the freshly packed weed still inside it.
“Dammit! Wait right there, you stupid cat!” Toi yelled loudly after it, scrambling noisily as he jetted out of the room.
“Strange, I don’t see a single cat around here.”
As was his daily routine, Kazuki was dressed as Azuma Sara and searching for the lucky selfie item of the day. He could usually complete a mission this simple immediately after school let out, but this one was proving to be harder than expected.
“I figured a cat would be a piece of cake to find—whoa!” Something slammed into his back, pitching him forward. “That hurt…”
“Mreow!” The culprit was an orange tabby.
“Nyantaro?! Don’t surprise me like that. Although…maybe the two of us can come to an agreement here.” As Sara-Kazuki approached, ready to snap a selfie, the cat began desperately screeching at him.
“Mreow! Mreeeow!”
“Huh? Where’d you get that Fishtopia bag from?” Kazuki wondered.
“I found you, you fat-ass cat!”
“Kuji?” Kazuki glanced back to find a ruler-wielding Toi standing there, looking absolutely furious. It felt like déjà vu.
Toi completely ignored Kazuki and his Sara cosplay, and swiped his weapon at the animal, ripping through the bag it was carrying. “Give it back! Or I’ll run you through!”
Panicked, Kazuki inserted himself between the two. “Knock it off! This cat is really important to Haruka and me!”
While the two yelled at each other, the cat in question began to sniff at the small packets that tumbled onto the ground.
“Just shut up and move it!” Toi shouted. “Huh?”
“Mreeeoow.” With a gulp, the cat swallowed up one of Toi’s precious packages of weed.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! I’ll slice your stomach open!”
Toi began whipping his ruler wildly through the air. Sara-Kazuki struggled desperately to hold him back, yelling to the cat, “Nyantaro, run for it!”
“Mreow!”
“As if I’ll let you get away!”
Thus began the Great Asakusa Chase.
“Damn that Kazuki. How does he expect me to handle this all by myself?”
Elsewhere in the city, Enta walked down a street with Toi’s box in his hands, still fuming over being turned away by Kazuki earlier.
“Guess I should go to the police. That’d be the normal thing to do in this situation, right?”
Isn’t there a police box near the entrance to Kitchenware Town? I guess I’ll just go there. Just as he thought that, though, something reached out and snatched him by the ankle.
“Gah!”
Enta was yanked inside the Kappa Plaza, where he discovered Keppi, shriveled and covered in sweat. The deflated mochi was lying on his side on the statue’s pedestal, his arm outstretched, clinging to Enta’s foot.
“I’m dying of starvation… Save me, ribbit.”
“What do you think you’re doing, Keppi?! I don’t have time for this right now!”
Scene 3
“MREEEEOW,” said the cat. Behind her, the symbol of Hanayashiki Park, Bee Tower, jutted up toward the sky.
“Quit running all over the place and get down here!” called Toi, brandishing his ruler at the cat as it stood on a rail up above him.
Sara-Kazuki intervened once he caught up. “Nyantaro, run!”
“You jerk, quit getting in my way!” Toi barked at him.
“I will get in your way!”
The cat took the opportunity to make her escape, disappearing over the other side of the railing and into the park. Toi scrambled for the park entrance with Sara-Kazuki hot on his heels. “Don’t follow me!” he yelled back at the other boy.
“I will follow you!”
The competition was fierce, and yet, both of them froze in their tracks at the entrance. There, they both gazed up silently at the oversized sign hanging over the entrance.
Couples Only Today! ♡ Hosting a Lovey-Dovey Bee Ninja Festival!
In smaller text below: Only Couples Allowed ♡
Apparently, the park was trying to increase its weekday visitors by holding unique events like this.
“…Let’s do this tomorrow instead,” Toi proposed.
“Yeah, good idea,” Kazuki agreed.
Just as they turned to leave, a hand reached out and grabbed both of them.
“Nin! Nin!” exclaimed the man locking each of them in place.
“Wha?!” They both gaped in surprise.
“Allow me to escort our next lovey-dovey couple!”
By the time they realized what was happening, it was already too late; an all-too-eager park assistant, decked out in a ninja outfit, was forcibly dragging them inside the park.
“Delicious, ribbit~! ♡ Delicious, ribbit~! ♡” Keppi poured the bottle of cucumber-flavored Shirohasu mineral water—which he forced Enta to purchase and bring to him—over the top of his head. Gradually, he returned to his former, rotund self.
“Yeah, yeah. Glad to be of service, ribbit,” Enta muttered. “Jeez. Kazuki’s just left me on read, as usual. What should I do?”
“Buuurp! Now’s not the time to dilly-dally, ribbit. Seeds of evil are taking root in the city right at this very moment, ribbit.”
“Hm? ‘Seeds of evil’…?”
Beep-beep!
Enta’s phone chirped. “Kazuki?! Ugh, it’s just my sister…”
It was a selfie of Otone and her boyfriend on a date at Hanayashiki. He had to wonder if it was even professionally appropriate for her to be sending such a picture to one of her students—even if that student was also her little brother. “Some people sure do have it good, out there having fun, oblivious to the suffering of others,” Enta sighed.
“You said it, ribbit. Those two have a duty to defeat the Kappa Zombies, but they don’t seem to appreciate our impending crisis, ribbit,” Keppi commented, peeking at Enta’s phone.
“Wait, what two?” Enta narrowed his eyes and searched the photo. There was Otone, beaming like the protagonist of a 90s shoujo manga, with her boyfriend hugging her from behind. In the background, he could see a couple perched on a kids’ ride. “Is that…Kuji and Kazuki?!”
Long ago, before Hanayashiki’s mascot was Panda Car, it was Bee Boy, originally known as Bee-chan. Few people nowadays remembered the origin of Hanayashiki’s symbolic Bee Tower, or the Bee Boy symbol stamped on it.
Kazuki’s appearance gathered a fair amount of confused looks as he walked about the park. On top of his Azuma Sara disguise, he wore a bee antenna headband, stylized black ninja garb, bee wings on his back, and a large, striped stinger on his butt.
“Today’s lovey-dovey couples will dress up as bee ninjas and must keep their hands interlocked at all times,” they were told. It was a bee-ninja couple cosplay event.
Kazuki stared vacantly at Toi’s back as the other boy walked ahead of him. The latter entered the park reluctantly in pursuit of the cat, and adamantly refused to participate in dressing up. After a verbal altercation with the park assistant, Toi compromised, wearing the bee part of the costume over his usual black hoodie. The result looked ridiculous, like a gag costume someone might wear after losing a bet. Kazuki found the half-baked disguise utterly embarrassing.
“There he is! That fat cat!” Toi flew after the feline, letting go of Kazuki’s hand.
Kazuki snapped back to his senses and charged after the other boy. How many times were they going to do this? Every time Toi let go of his hand, it only resulted in—
“You there, the lovey-dovey couple! Holding hands is proof of your love! You must hold hands at all times!” The ninja-garbed assistant blew his whistle in warning at them.
Kazuki caught up with Toi and yanked his hand, grinning at him. “I’m so sorry I let go of your hand, dish. ✩ My darling. ♡”
“Let go of me!”
“Couples that don’t hold each other’s hands get forcibly removed from the park!” the park assistant snapped at Toi.
“…Tch.”
With that, the (not so) lovey-dovey couple resumed their handholding as they hunted down the elusive cat through the park’s attractions. After a substantial amount of time spent searching in vain, they ended up riding the Sky Ship.
“And now our lovey-dovey couples will be guided on a trip through the sky!” the assistant announced airily.
Kazuki and Toi found themselves gliding through the air on a boat decorated with hearts. In front of them, Nyantaro trotted unconcernedly along the upper rail.
“Nyantaro! Hurry, run!” Kazuki called after him.
“Hey, you, enough of that already!”
“That cat helped Haruka and me connect with each other.”
“Who the heck is Haruka?” Toi asked. “Your lover?”
“Haruka’s my…beloved younger brother.” The beloved younger brother that he deceived by pretending to be an idol. As the words left his lips, Kazuki averted his eyes. Despite the rush of guilt that welled up in him, he just really wanted to see Haruka smile. There was no repaying the debt he owed Nyantaro for bringing them closer.
“I can give up on the cat then,” Toi mumbled.
“Really?!”
“But in exchange…give me any Wishing Plates we get.”
After a brief pause, Kazuki said, “That I can’t do!” He couldn’t give up on securing a Wishing Plate—not even to guarantee Nyantaro’s safety. Those plates were the only way for him to make his long-held desire a reality.
“Quit being so selfish about everything!” Toi snapped at him.
“You’re one to talk! What do you have against Nyantaro anyway?!”
As the two quarreled, keeping their hands firmly locked together, the cat in question disappeared.
Scene 4
AN IMPOSING HUSH settled over the large conference room at the Asakusa Police Station, where a meeting was presently underway. A sign on the outside of the door read Asakusa Suspicious Death Investigation HQ.
The chief’s voice echoed inside the dimly lit room. “We have identified the body we found early this morning. Thirty-eight-year-old unemployed Nekoyama Moukichi.” The profile revealed that the deceased’s name included the kanji for “cat” and “fur.” “Six months ago, he was arrested as a suspect in connection with the Asakusa Cat-Skinning Case, where someone captured strays and flayed their bodies. He was released after we failed to bring charges against him. We’ll be investigating his death as a homicide.”
There was an audible ka-chik as the projector flipped to the next image on the slideshow. One was an image of the cats in question, initially gathered as evidence. The scenes depicted were too gruesome for any feline enthusiast to behold. The prevailing mood in the room was clear; it wouldn’t be surprising for someone to hold a grudge against the perpetrator of such a brutal crime.
In the midst of all of this, two people abruptly stood up. It was the two police officers from before.
“We’re the ones who took care of him!” said the blond one.
“It was just yesterday!” said the one with glasses.
Yesterday evening, to be precise. The incident took place at the police box where the two worked.
“It wasn’t me-ow that did it! You’ve got the wrong purr-son!”
“For those souls without beginnings or ends, those unable to connect…” The man in the glasses, Akutsu Mabu, held up a photo that showed Nekoyama at the scene of the crime, hauling a cloth bag stuffed full of cats he kidnapped.
“Now, let us open a door…” The blond officer, Niiboshi Reo, suddenly aimed the barrel of his gun at the man. “Is it desire?”
“Or love?”
A large taiko drum appeared above Nekoyama’s head.
“Desire Extraction!”
Nekoyama was instantly absorbed into the drum and disappeared completely.
Bam!
Accompanied by the thundering of the drum, the floor of the police box began to descend downward. The captured man was stuffed inside a box, and then sent along a conveyor belt along with numerous other boxes, carried into the depths of an enormous underground structure. Each box was sealed along the way with the stamp of a red heart. As the boxes began to pile up in the hundreds, a red crane suddenly descended out of nowhere, seizing the towering pile and carrying them off.
“Don’t let go of your desires!”
“Wring out desire!”
Reo and Mabu danced together down to the innermost depths of the building. In a dimly lit room, a taiko drum hovered in the air, wrapped in rings reminiscent of the planet Saturn’s. Nekoyama Moukichi’s captured body began to transform as the rings pulsed with light.
Reo ripped Mabu’s shirt open across his chest. Deep beneath Mabu’s pale skin, a gray, glowing heart trembled violently in response. Reo didn’t hesitate; he sank his fingers into the other man’s pale chest. It spasmed, as it always did. Not a single drop of blood spilled as Reo wrapped his hand around Mabu’s heart. Mabu’s mechanical heart flashed with blinding light: a sign that the two of them were connected.
Reo was unmoved by Mabu’s ecstasy as he vigorously yanked the organ out of the other man’s chest. The room’s darkness filled with a vibrant red, like the crimson petals of a flower only the two of them could bring to blossom.
Scene 5
NYANTARO LAY ACROSS THE ROOF of one of the candy houses dangling from Bee Tower, fast asleep, a bubble of snot protruding from her nose.
“What the heck are you doing there?!” Toi, who kept his fingers threaded with Sara-Kazuki’s this whole time as the latter fussed over the feline’s well-being, was becoming increasingly fed up. “Hey, fat cat! You wait right there, I’m going to go over there and snatch you up!”
The cat jumped up, as if sensing Toi’s hostility, the snot bubble giving an audible pop as it burst. “M-mreow?!” Seeming to forget just how high up she was, she leaped off the edge of the roof—and began to plummet tens of meters to the ground below.
“Nyantaro!” cried Kazuki.
The inevitable tragedy flashed through both boys’ minds. But, mere inches from the ground, Nyantaro’s body suddenly froze. The next moment, she began rotating in circles as she levitated off toward the Azuma Bridge. It was just like what happened with the boxes the previous night.
“Could this be…?” began Toi.
“No way…” added Kazuki.
Suddenly they heard Keppi’s voice behind them. “This is the work of those Kappa Zombies, ribbit!”
“Kazuki! Are you all right?!” Enta blurted.
The other boy was dressed in a ninja bee outfit as well, holding hands with Keppi, who was dressed as a Japanese courtesan.
Fwooosh…
A sudden gust of wind carried off Keppi’s kimono singlet. The Kappa Crown Prince was left balancing on a couple of bamboo stilts with only his gaudy make-up still intact, his chest puffed out to resemble a woman’s.
Sara-Kazuki was shocked into speechlessness until the sound of an incoming message brought him back to his senses. It was an SOS from Haruka.
Harukappa: Sara-chan, big trouble! Nyantaro has gone missing!
“Haruka’s asking for help!” he said.
Toi stared in the direction they’d last seen the tubby feline flying, and venomously spat, “I need that weed so I can make money!”
“You can fix everything by becoming kappa and extracting the Kappa Zombie’s shirikodama, ribbit.”
“No, we can’t!” said Enta. “Kuji! Don’t get any closer to Kazuki!”
“Enta…?”
Enta turned to his confused friend and explained, “Listen to me, Kazuki, that punk was carrying this kind of dangerous weapon around!” He held out a worn Tokarev TT-33. It was unmistakably Toi’s gun.
“Bastard, where the heck did you… Just give it back!”
“No way!” Enta snapped back.
“That’s not something you should be carrying,” Toi warned.
“Like I care! Anyway, get away from Kazuki!”
“Everyone…” Kazuki began, breaking the silence he maintained while the others argued. “We all have things we can’t talk about. I want to save Nyantaro, for Haruka’s sake. And I need Kuji to be able to do that!” He looked Enta straight in the eye, giving the latter no choice but to bite his tongue.
Kazuki willingly bent his butt toward Keppi and braced himself as the kappa-like creature took the plunge.
“Desiiiiiire…Extraaaaction!”
A rickshaw went flying down a street, whizzing by shop fronts and a Shinto shrine.
“Let’s combine our dishtopian strength and plate this zombie, ribbit!”
“So I guess we’re doing the shirikodama relay again,” Kappa-Enta mumbled.
Kappa-Toi ignored him in favor of asking, “Are we gonna have our secrets revealed like last time?”
“Battle always entails risks, ribbit.”
“No matter what happens, I will save Nyantaro!” declared Kappa-Kazuki.
“Kappature it!”
Cats were the object of this zombie’s desire. A desire, Kazuki discovered once he extracted the shirikodama, born from rejection when the man’s cat-crazy girlfriend became so obsessed with felines that she chose them over him.
I want to be a cat. He could hear the man’s inner thoughts. I’m so jealous. I wish she’d play with me, too…
Kazuki could feel the man’s satisfaction as he fantasized about wearing a suit made of cat fur, sleeping peacefully on his girlfriend’s lap, lost in a world of dreams.
“So that’s it. You wanted the person you cared about to love you. That’s why you collected all of that cat fur, so you could become a cat yourself.”
“Oh no, you found me-owt!”
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
“Saraaa!”
And then all together, “Sarazanmai!”
They were familiar enough with the process on this, their second time, that they spent only a few moments drifting in the waves of pleasure. And almost immediately afterward, Keppi’s voice echoed.
“Leaking.”
Kazuki had been the one to pluck out the shirikodama, so once again it was his secret being leaked. He had mentally prepared himself for the possibility, which did little to make the situation more palatable.
The three shared the same mental image of the Yasaka household’s living room. On the television, a couple of adorable kittens were playing with each other. Haruka watched them eagerly, while Kazuki sat beside the other boy with a look of disinterest on his face.
“Aww, they’re so cute…I hope we can have a cat someday.”
Pets were prohibited in the condominium where Kazuki and his family lived.
“A cat, hm…” Kazuki eyed his little brother and the television as he concocted a plan in his mind.
The scene changed, revealing a luxurious home with an expansive lawn. Kazuki stood in front of the mansion, his gaze focused on a gaudily dressed Nyantaro.
“Yasaka and that fat cat? What’s he doing?” Toi’s suspicions were soon answered.
Kazuki approached the terrace where Nyantaro (actually called Elizabeth at the time) was sunbathing. He snatched up the feline, and then ran for his life. A few days later, as Haruka sat at the river’s edge, Kazuki approached him with the cat in his arms.
“Look, it’s one of the local strays! Her name is Nyantaro.”
“Oh wow! So cute!!”
The cat now had a small chunk missing from one of its ears, usually a clear indicator of a stray. The one on Nyantaro, however, was something Kazuki had done himself.
“Kazuki, you stole someone’s cat and forced it to become a stray?!” Enta’s voice trembled with emotion, shocked by Nyantaro’s secret origin.
“That’s right,” Kazuki admitted. “I did it to make Haruka happy!”
“Desire Extraction!”
As the Desire Field dissipated across town, the two police officers, Reo and Mabu, were riding an elevator deep inside their underground lair.
“It appears we have some meddlers.” Mabu held a familiar photograph in his hand—the one with Nekoyama at the scene of the crime. As they watched, the man disappeared from the picture.
Reo quirked a brow and said softly, “Let’s hurry. Only those who can connect to their desires have the ability to grasp the future in their hands.”
The elevator soared endlessly upward, giving off an eerie hum as it went.
Back at the Kappa Plaza, Nyantaro was safe and sound—perched atop the cement statue stand and straining over her makeshift litter box. Apparently, she hadn’t found the opportunity to relieve herself amid the day’s adventures. Cats were naturally prone to constipation, especially overweight ones like Nyantaro. In front of the feline, an awkward silence settled between Enta and Kazuki, the latter holding a plate he’d just received from Keppi.
“Um, hey. I get that Haruka is really important to you, but it seems kinda wrong to steal someone’s cat. I feel bad for Nyantaro, too, considering you injured her when you—gwah?!” Enta went flailing forward after being kicked from behind. “What the heck?!” He looked up and found himself staring down the barrel of a lead-colored gun.
Toi held the weapon, a plastic bag dangling from his gun hand and a box in the other. “Someone steals from you, you take back what’s yours. And I’m taking this bag of weed.”
The contents of said bag were likely the cause of Nyantaro’s constipation.
Toi threw the box at Enta, who was still frozen from having a gun turned on him.
“Hey, this is mine!” Inside was the friendship bracelet Enta purchased. He mistakenly switched boxes with Toi during all the commotion the night before.
“Just be glad I didn’t toss it,” Toi huffed. Next, he turned his gun on Kazuki. “Now hand over that plate.”
“No!”
Having anticipated that answer, Toi quietly said, “You and I aren’t so different. We’re the kind of people who’ll do anything to get what we want.”
The accuracy of that statement struck Kazuki speechless, but Enta cut in to cover for him. “Kazuki wants to use that plate for his little brother! He’s not like you!”
“Ah yes, I forgot to mention something, ribbit.” Keppi interrupted once again, standing atop his bamboo stilts as he said, “The plate I bestowed upon you this time is a silver Wishing Plate. You’ll require five of these in order to have your wish granted, ribbit.”
“What the?! You could’ve told us that sooner!” seethed Enta.
Toi dropped his gun and turned to walk away. “I’ll get the next one.”
Kazuki had a bitter look on his face as he watched the other boy leave. “Still, for Haruka’s sake, I have to…”
Sara-Kazuki and Nyantaro sat together at the edge of the Sumida River. He had the chat window open on his phone, having just sent his selfie with the feline a few moments ago.
“Phew. I managed to finish today’s mission.”
So much had happened that day. Kazuki was exhausted from all of the running around.
His phone rang with a bing as Haruka’s reply came in.
Harukappa: Nyantaro! I’m glad she’s safe!
Harukappa: I just knew it. Your selfies really do bring good luck!
“I’m so glad it’s over.” Kazuki sighed with relief, and a strong wave of exhaustion washed over him. Nyantaro was snoozing away next to him, so maybe he could grab a few winks as well. Sara-Kazuki shut his eyes as the gentle trickle of river water lulled him into a deep sleep.
At the water’s edge, beneath the glistening night sky, a dark shadow appeared over the sleeping Kazuki. Nyantaro woke, sensing their presence. “Mreow?”
The feline’s round cat eyes watched as Enta leaned down to plant a kiss on the unconscious Kazuki.