Plate 4: Soba

Plate 4:
Soba

 

Scene 1

 

THE MEMORY still haunted Toi’s dreams. The memory of a winter four years ago, before he left Asakusa. The hollow sound of a gun firing, a flash of light, then the cloying stench of gunpowder and the vibrant color red. The air was bone-chillingly frigid outside, and yet the thing in his hand felt even colder.

“In this world, it’s only the bad people who survive.”

The expression on his older brother’s face was seared into Toi’s mind, unforgettable.

Scene 2

 

“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! ✩” Sara’s dreamy voice came drifting out of the living room TV.

“Good morning! ✩ It’s me, Harukappa, dish!” Haruka called back, waving to the TV.

“Tomorrow is finally the day, Haruka,” called his mother.

“Yeah!”

“Enta-kun is coming as well, isn’t he?” asked the boy’s father.

“That’s right! I can’t wait!” Haruka’s cheerful voice echoed throughout the Yasaka home.

After a deep breath, Kazuki slid the living room door open. He was immediately greeted by Haruka’s smile as the boy sat atop his wheelchair.

“Kazu-chan, morning!”

Their father, a designer, had renovated every corner of their house with keen attention to detail. All the steps that might impede a wheelchair were removed, and the toilet and bath areas were widened. He installed new doors that slid aside rather

than swung open. Handrails decorated the walls across the house, so that Haruka could eventually use them for balance once he was able to get back on his feet again.

Kazuki turned his eyes away from all of that as he stood there, waiting.

 

It was routine for Haruka’s father to accompany his younger son to the promenade and then back home again so Haruka could feed Nyantaro. And, like always, he took a seat on the terrace of a nearby coffee shop, sipping his drink while he waited for Haruka to finish. Kazuki knew that this was his father’s way of giving his sons some space to talk… but he never knew how to take advantage of it. He slumped back against the embankment wall, smartphone in hand as he checked on today’s lucky selfie horoscope.

“Now then, what will today’s lucky selfie item be?” On the screen, Sara stopped the spinning roulette wheel and said, “So-bang! It’s soba, dish! ✩”

“Soba, huh…” Kazuki mumbled to himself. Fortunately, there was no shortage of soba restaurants in Asakusa. Instant cup soba could just as easily work, too.

Just as Kazuki was making these plans, an incredible piece of news suddenly drifted to his ears.

“And finally, an important announcement! Tomorrow in Asakusa, I’ll be at a meet-and-greet event, dish! ✩ That’s right, you’ll be able to shake my hand, dish! ✩ I hope you’ll all come to see me~! ✩”

“What?!” Kazuki shrieked.

“Hey, Kazu-chan, this means tomorrow I’ll be able to meet Sara-chan!” said Haruka. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Wait, don’t tell me…you mean the handshake event?”

“That’s right! I’m kind of nervous since it’ll be my first time meeting her in real life!”

Sara droned on from his phone, “Okay then, have a wonderful day, and may lots of luck be dished your way!”

 

If you took Asakusa’s Orange Street into the Tanuki Shopping District, one of the first places you’d see was a soba restaurant called Sobakyuu. The place had a solid reputation, with regulars constantly bustling in and out. Despite that, few people remembered the old store before its current ownership took over.

Toi currently lay in the apartment above the restaurant, on the phone with his brother. It was a tatami room, six straw mats in size. Cardboard boxes were stacked around the room and left sealed, the same way they’d been since Toi’s return.

Toi could hear both his brother’s voice and the slosh of water through the receiver. He didn’t need to ask to know what his brother was doing. Not after all these years.

“Yeah, nothing much to report on my end,” he said. “How about you?”

“Same old, same old,” answered Chikai. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Okay…”

“How’s your new school? Made some friends?”

“I don’t need friends. We’re going to blow this place eventually anyway,” said Toi.

“C’mon, don’t say that. How’s our aunt and uncle? They’re looking after you, right?”

Toi huffed. “Who cares about them?”

“Are they saying nasty things to you because of me? Sorry ’bout that.”

“I don’t care what they say to me! You’re the one who protected this store, so how can they—”

“It’s fine,” Chikai said, cutting him off. “That’s between you and me. A secret we’re gonna keep for life.”

“I know. You protected this place, so that’s why I decided I’d wait here for you.”

As he lay on his back, surrounded by the thick smell of tatami, Toi twirled the gun in his hand. The same gun that upended his older brother’s life just four years ago. To Toi, the gun felt like the embodiment of a curse. He kept it with him all the time. That way, even if the two of them were apart, he could still feel like they were connected, like he shared the weight of his brother’s sins. The weight of it kept him grounded, the mercilessly cold steel of it a reminder that he would never be forgiven for what he’d done.

“I’ve got good news. I should be able to drop by and see you soon,” said Chikai.

Toi launched himself up off the floor. “Seriously?! So, I can go with you next time, then?!”

“Hmm, I don’t know, can you?”

“We promised, right? That once everything was settled, the two of us would live together. I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

“I feel the same way, you know. I feel so bad that I couldn’t be with you more.”

A knock sounded, and Toi slipped his gun in behind his belt. He knew they would never open the door, but it never hurt to be careful. The frightened voice of his aunt drifted in through the thin paper of the sliding door. “Toi-chan? A boy is here to see you, says he’s your friend.”

A friend?

He had no clue who that could be… Okay, no, he did know who it could be, he just loathed trouble.

Toi walked down the steps in a foul mood. When he got to the bottom, he locked eyes with his uncle, who was busy prepping for the restaurant’s opening. He deliberately averted his gaze and headed out the front door.

His aunt’s worried voice chased after him. “You stay out so late every night, where are you going? You’re not doing anything dangerous, are you?”

“Not like he’s going to listen to you! He’s too stubborn to cut ties with that murdering bastard of a brother, after all!” For better or worse, Toi’s uncle was an honest man, and he didn’t mince words.

Toi didn’t want to listen to their jabbering any further, so he slammed the door shut behind him. The name of this place hadn’t changed, but everything else had, ever since the incident. The flavor of the soba, Chikai, and even Toi himself.

 

“So it’s you…” He suspected as much, but it irked him to be right.

“J-just so we’re clear, I only lied and said we were friends so I could call you out here, okay?!” Enta stood in front of him, still clad in his practice uniform.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Enta considerately led them away from his family’s restaurant and to an empty lot to talk, but he had no compunction about broaching the very topic Toi would have rather left untouched. “Oh, and I didn’t know your family ran a soba restaurant! My family eats Sobakyuu for New Year’s every year. The soba at your place is really good!” Enta made a big display of bouncing his soccer ball around, juggling it with his feet as he spoke.

It left Toi dumbfounded. “Glad to hear it,” he said dryly.

“But you transferred to our school from somewhere else, right? How come?”

Toi sighed and stared up at the sky as he slowly began to explain. It wasn’t because Enta had complimented the restaurant, or anything—his mood had just softened, and he wasn’t bristling anymore. “After my mom and dad passed away, we left Asakusa for a while. My relatives inherited the store. I just live there.”

“Oh, okay…sorry,” Enta said, apologizing sincerely.

Toi changed the subject. “Anyway, what’d you come to me for?”

“Oh yeah! That’s right!” Enta dropped the soccer ball and bowed his head down in front of Toi. “I’m begging you! Please give your Wishing Plate to Kazuki!”

He suspected as much. This was the only reason Enta would bother approaching him, after all. “I don’t… He’s put you through the wringer and caused you nothing but pain. How are you not fed up with him?”

From Toi’s perspective, Kazuki’s indifference toward Enta couldn’t be so easily forgiven. Especially since the other boy’s feelings bled into Toi’s consciousness, and he was now keenly aware of just how Enta felt. It was also obvious that Kazuki had no room in his heart for anyone but his little brother.

“Kazuki saved me from a life of loneliness. And I’ve decided that it’s my turn to help him this time!”

Those words jolted Toi’s memory.

 

His brother had told him long ago, “In this world, those who can’t survive have to disappear.” And those who disappeared were forgotten. That went for people as well as towns, buildings—everything. Once something disappeared, it was overwritten by something new, like data. And in this city, no one stopped to notice. Asakusa was a city prone to sudden, extreme change. Tourist spots that couldn’t cut it were left struggling to outlast each other.

With the city as a backdrop, he found himself wandering to the seaside water bus stop where he’d last seen his brother.

“‘It’s my turn to help him,’ huh…?”

It pained him to admit it, but Enta’s words and feelings tugged at his heartstrings. Both Enta and Kazuki were trouble, but Enta in a different way than the latter.

That thought seemed to summon the other troublesome person in question—Kazuki—who appeared decked out in his Sara outfit.

“There you are! Kuuuuji!” Sara-Kazuki came blasting full speed down the promenade toward him. The other boy didn’t even slow as he approached, but instead, threw his arms around Toi.

“Guh?!”

He could hear Kazuki’s voice ringing in his ears. “Help me kidnap Azuma Sara! Dish! ✩”

“What?!”

With that, Toi found himself caught up in what would most definitely turn out to be immense trouble.

 

“Phoo, phoo…”

Sara-Kazuki had purchased some instant cup soba from the convenience store and was now sitting in the high-rise parking lot, blowing on his noodles to cool them. His lightly colored lips were puckered adorably as he did so.

Pa-chik.

Toi captured the image on his smartphone before mumbling in exasperation, “Okay, you’ve gotta be kidding, right?”

“Ehehe, I am being completely serious, dish! ✩” Sara-Kazuki tilted his head back slightly and smiled.

The memory of their first meeting flashed through Toi’s mind. He’d been in the middle of trying to break into a car when Kazuki, dressed as Azuma Sara, happened upon him. At the time, he honestly thought that Kazuki looked cute.

“Tomorrow—shlurp, shlurp—before the handshake event, I’d like you to—shlurp, shlurp—kidnap her—shlurp, shlurp…” He was noisily slurping up his noodles, as was custom, yet the fanfare seemed ridiculous considering he was eating only one noodle at a time.

“You really suck at eating noodles,” observed Toi.

Gulp…gulp… As Sara-Kazuki tilted the bowl back to drink the dashi broth, the light in the background framed his silhouette like a painting.

Ba-thump, ba-thump.

Toi found the thrumming of his heart annoyingly loud.

“Pwaaah! You’re the only person I can entrust with such a request, Kuji.”

He felt slightly disappointed watching Kazuki return to his normal self after looking so cute, but Toi dismissed the thought, trying to keep his cool, aloof air. “If you get found out, you know it’ll be serious trouble.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be taking her place. I promised Haruka I would use our secret code when we shake hands.”

“Gimme a break,” said Toi. “You know there’s no way this is gonna go well.”

“I’ve kept this secret all this time! And I have to keep up the charade that I’m Sara, for Haruka’s sake!”

Toi was at a loss against Sara-Kazuki’s impassioned pleas. Once again, his thoughts were sent reeling back to the past.

 

The weak have to be protected in order to survive. That was a lesson he learned early.

A flier had been posted on Sobakyuu’s door. Dear customers, it read. Due to the untimely death of the owners, the store will be closing.

In the winter when he was ten, Toi’s parents passed away. Later, he pieced together that his parents had been saddled with an enormous debt after being conned by one of their friends. Chikai was already hanging out with the wrong crowd back then and rarely came home. Even so, the young Toi had no one else to rely on except his older brother.

Time went by in a daze as he gazed at the urns where his parents’ ashes were kept, and at their portrait. Both sat on a floor desk beside him. Even when day turned to dusk, he couldn’t even bother to flip on the lights.

One day, a sudden, violent thumping came up the stairs, and Toi’s entire body tensed. The door rattled as it was thrust open, revealing Chikai wearing an embroidered baseball jacket.

“Brother…” Toi mumbled, but before he could welcome his older sibling home, he heard something light and round bounce off the floor and come rolling to a stop at his feet. It was a ten-thousand-yen bill that Chikai balled up and tossed at him.

“There. Use that and figure out how to feed yourself.” Chikai began rifling through his parents’ chest of drawers, grinning as he produced a pearl necklace.

“That’s Mom’s,” Toi said reproachfully.

Chikai, whose mood had taken a dark, vicious turn, spat back, “Once you’re dead, it’s all over. If it means we can get some cash, I’m sure that’s what those two would’ve wanted.”

The way Chikai referred to their parents as if they were strangers—“those two”—seemed to open up a chasm between them.

“Dad always said not to do bad things,” Toi protested.

That didn’t stop Chikai from continuing to rummage around for any other valuables. “Yeah, like an idiot, he pretended to be some kinda saint and look where it got him.”

Toi couldn’t hold back his anger anymore. “I hate you for saying such horrible things about Mom and Dad! It should’ve been you instead of them!”

Thwump! In the blink of an eye, his brother was upon him, grabbing him by the jaw and shoving him roughly up against the wall.

“Hrgh!” Tears sprang to his eyes, both from fear and the pain.

“I’ll run you through…!” Chikai threatened, then calmed himself down enough to say, “Listen up, Toi. In this world, it’s only the bad people who survive.”

 

On a different evening, he watched through a window as his brother met up with someone in the alley behind Sobakyuu. The man was muscular, with a fierce look on his face. Toi had no way of knowing at the time, but this man was Yuri Kamome, the young leader of a powerful group in Asakusa called YURIKAMOME.

Kamome tried handing a cloth-wrapped object to Chikai. “Chikai, you’re an adult now. You can handle somethin’ like this,” he giggled.

“No, I’m not ready for that yet,” replied Chikai.

“Then how about this. I’m leaving this in your hands for safekeeping, as an older brother to a younger brother. You won’t refuse me then, will ya?”

Chikai sensed that refusing the man any further would be a bad idea. He let out a quiet sigh and said, “All right,” as he took the object.

Kamome’s laughter echoed eerily down the dark street.

Toi crawled into bed and pretended to sleep. It wasn’t long before Chikai came into the room. The floor desk rattled as he slid one of the drawers open, but just as quickly he headed back out again. Once he was gone, Toi slipped out of bed and timidly checked the drawer. Tucked inside, gleaming silver in the dark, was a Tokarev gun.

“…My brother really is a bad person.”

In front of their parents’ portrait, Chikai had casually left another wrinkled ten-thousand-yen bill.

 

Soon enough, Sobakyuu was forced to close its doors.

“Are we going to be thrown out? Are we going to lose Mom and Dad’s restaurant?” Toi asked his brother, who’d returned home for the first time in a long time.

But his brother only replied coldly, “Those who can’t survive have to disappear. Disappear and be left behind, forgotten.”

“I don’t want that! I don’t want to forget them! Not our parents, and not the taste of our soba, either…!” Toi vehemently opposed the idea, though there was nothing a powerless child like him could do about it.

The day before they were to be evicted, his aunt and uncle came to clean up the store.

“Stop it! Don’t touch our restaurant!”

As Toi clung to his uncle’s legs, the older man stared down at him as if he were some kind of bug. “You can complain all you like, they’re still going to evict you tomorrow.”

“It really is a shame this place has to close down,” said his wife.

“That’s how it goes if you can’t pay. You and your brother should just be glad that we’re looking after you.”

It really is over, Toi thought, about to give up. But then—

“If it’s money you need, I got it.” Chikai pushed the door open and stood at the entrance.

“Chikai! Where have you been all this time?”

Chikai ignored his uncle’s question and slammed an attaché case down on a nearby table. It was lined with stacks of cash and, in the center, the deed to the restaurant. “I got the restaurant back, and I’m giving you this cash. So…” He turned to his aunt and uncle, who were struck speechless at seeing such a huge sum of money for the first time in their lives. “Please, take over the place.”

It was a bitter decision for the two brothers to have to make.

Toi understood now how powerless he’d been, and that he was nothing but a burden for his brother to protect.

 

“Kuji? You listening?” Sara-Kazuki called out to him, disrupting the pool of memories he submerged himself in.

“Huh? Oh, my bad,” said Toi.

Sara-Kazuki was bent down on the ground, a blueprint spread out beneath him. He moved chips across it, ones with portraits drawn on their sides. “You following me? The day of the event, Sara will enter this waiting room. First, you need to lock her manager in this bathroom. After that, you can call Sara out of the room, and I’ll use that opportunity to sneak in.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, this plan is perfect, dish! ✩”

“Hold on a second.”

“Hm?”

“How come I’m the one doing everything?” Toi complained.

“I told you, you’re the only person I can trust with this! I have to concentrate on passing myself off as Sara, disssrgh…!”

Sara-Kazuki’s voice turned into muffled groans as Toi squeezed the boy’s face in his hand. Kazuki dropped his cup of soba, and it went plummeting downward before coming to a soft stop a few inches above the ground, where it began to float upward.

“My soba!” Kazuki gasped.

“A Kappa Zombie!”

 

An imposing hush settled over the large conference room at the Asakusa Police Station, where a meeting was presently underway. A paper 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-year-old Sobatani Yudeo.” His profile revealed that his name included the kanji for “boiling hot soba boy.” “He’s the owner of the restaurant Soba no Yu. Six months ago, he was arrested on suspicion of sneaking into the home of one of his female customers and stealing her used bathwater. 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 through the images, eventually landing on a photo of the crime scene. Hoses crawled down from the window of the victim’s bathroom, pumping into plastic containers where the criminal stored the stolen bathwater.

The prevailing mood of the room was, Damn, this guy’s seriously creepy, isn’t he?

“We’re the ones who sucked him up!” said Reo.

“It was yesterday’s soba!” said Mabu.

 

Yesterday evening, to be precise. The incident took place at the police box where the two worked.

“Well, I have to prep for opening tomorrow, so…”

“For those souls without beginnings or ends, those unable to connect…” Mabu held up a photo of Sobatani threading the hoses through the woman’s bathroom window, plastic containers in his hands.

“Now, let us open a door…” Reo aimed the barrel of his gun at the man. “Is it desire?”

“Or love?”

A large taiko drum appeared above Sobatani’s head.

“Desire Extraction!”

Sobatani was sucked into the drum and disappeared completely.

 

The Desire Field wrapped itself around the entire area of Asakusa, and the Zombie’s underlings began swiping all of the soba throughout the city. Sobakyuu was no exception.

“Oh no! Our soba…!” Toi’s uncle watched as their bowls of noodles went flying away, one after another. Helpless to stop them, he collapsed to his knees.

 

Toi watched the scene unfold on Keppi’s monitor.

Enta gasped from beside him, “Wait, that’s Sobakyuu, isn’t it?!”

“Tch,” Toi clicked his tongue. He grabbed Keppi by the beak and threateningly hissed, “Turn me into a kappa right now!”

“Ribbit?!”

Toi turned his back to Keppi, and the Crown Prince of Kappa slammed into him from behind.

“Desiiiire Extractioooon!”

 

“The object of this Kappa Zombie’s desire is soba, ribbit.”

“Kuji, is your restaurant going to be okay?” asked Kappa-Enta.

“Huh? Kuji’s family runs a soba restaurant?” Kappa-Kazuki’s eyes widened. It was the first he heard of this.

“If someone steals from you, you take back what’s yours!”

 

“Kappature it!” Keppi cried as the three of them flew toward the creature.

“I love the girl who likes my soba!” The Kappa Zombie mercilessly threw bowls of soba at the boys. “Leftover bathwater isn’t enough! I want to be with her so bad!”

Kappa-Toi gave the creature’s whining a direct, verbal smackdown. “You’re just forcing your selfishness on other people! If you really ‘want to be with her so bad,’ then man up!”

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

Kappa-Toi dove into the creature’s rectum and grasped its shirikodama in his hands. He desperately cried, “I want to protect the same thing my brother fought to protect!”

 

“We kappatured it!” the three declared.

As he held the ball of energy in his hand, Kappa-Toi saw the man’s desire—him and the girl soaking in a bath filled with soba water, her eating noodles soaked in broth made from her leftover bathwater.

“I found the perfect dashi…” said the man in his fantasy.

“So that’s it,” Kappa-Toi realized. “You wanted to use the bathwater you stole to boil soba…”

“My secret’s been found ooooooout!”

Sobatani’s Kappa Zombie body began to fracture.

 

“Saraaa!”

“Saraaa!”

“Saraaa!”

And then all together, “Sarazanmai!”

As the transfer of the shirikodama began, Toi felt something akin to resignation. That emotion was soon transferred to the other two as well.

 

“Leaking.”

 

They saw a scene from a winter day four years ago. It was right after Chikai disappeared after saving Sobakyuu.

Toi’s breath puffed out in white clouds as he ran through Asakusa. “Brother, where did you go? Don’t leave me behind!” As he passed by one alleyway, he heard a familiar laugh.

“Ehehehe…”

He stilled his breathing and peered out from the shadows, spotting Yuri Kamome and his underling, Yasuda Yasu.

“Kwaaah! Chikai, that bastard. Looks like he hasn’t gone back home yet. And the old man workin’ there says he cut ties with Chikai, so he doesn’t know nothin’,” said Yasu.

“Ah, well. It’s just a matter of time before he slips up. He’s barkin’ up the wrong tree if he thinks he can defy us, steal from us, and get away. Ehehehe.” Kamome’s eyes peeled wide open as he laughed. “If you find him, shoot him. He’s got my gun.”

“Kwaaah!”

Having heard their conversation, Toi hastened back home.

 

Now that Sobakyuu had reopened, customers were gradually beginning to return. When Toi pressed the door open and entered, his uncle immediately scolded him. “Toi! I told you to enter from the back!”

Without stopping to reply, Toi scrambled up the stairs to the second floor. Inside the room, a single thousand-yen bill sat in front of his parents’ portrait. It hadn’t been there this morning. When he yanked the drawer to the desk open, he found the gun still remained, its presence as oppressive as ever.

So, his brother wasn’t walking around with the gun on him. As he went to shut the drawer again, a slip of paper tucked beneath the gun caught his eye. He pulled it out and flipped it over. It was a photo of him and Chikai when they were younger, smiling. One they’d taken together as a family when Toi was five.

Warm memories filled him, one after the other. Making and eating soba together as a family. Him and Chikai standing out in front of the store during Sanja Festival, wearing happi coats and selling soba. The two of them walking to a flower garden together on one of their rare days off.

“Brother…!”

 

I knew this was going to happen…! Toi was prepared for his memories to leak. But when he thought about how that meant reexperiencing that day all over again, he couldn’t help but feel like he was somehow betraying his brother. This was supposed to be a secret between the two of them, forever.

The shirikodama transferred to Kazuki.

YURIKAMOME, frustrated by being unable to locate Chikai, had set its sights on his younger brother instead. Toi, however, couldn’t risk being a burden to Chikai by letting them capture him. He ran with everything he had.

Above him, on the Azuma Bridge, men in the same embroidered baseball jackets he’d seen his brother wear were talking about him.

“That little brat… Where the heck is he hiding?!”

“We need him as a hostage to lure Chikai out! We have to find him!”

“Kwaaah!”

When their footsteps began to fade, Toi chanced a peek out from the tunnel where he was hiding, its entrance lined by stones. He had to hurry. But where? Where could he go? His footsteps felt heavy as he wandered down the tunnel.

“Hey, kiddo, where you goin’?”

Toi’s head jerked up to find Yuri Kamome standing ahead of him at the exit.

“Ehehehe. How about I tag along with you?”

One step, then two. Kamome was making his way closer.

 

Unable to stand it anymore, Kazuki cried out, “Run!”

Having received the shirikodama from Kazuki, Enta shared in his friend’s terror. But it was the eerie calm that settled over Toi in the vision that worried him.

 

Bang!

For a split second, the inside of that tunnel lit up like a sunny day. A lead bullet buried itself in Kamome’s stomach, and his hulking form sank to the ground. The scene played out in slow motion for Toi.

He was breathing as hard as if he’d just run a sprint. He belatedly realized his hands were trembling as they clasped the grip of the pistol.

He’d taken a life. With this gun.

Behind the fallen Yuri Kamome was a silhouette he knew all too well.

“Bro…”

He had been searching so desperately for his older brother, and now he felt like running away.

This was awful. Scary. He was a murderer.

Help! I’m sorry. Dad, Mom…!

Chikai walked straight toward him.

Toi’s legs refused to budge, as if his feet were sewn to the ground. He snapped his eyes shut and felt something icy brush against his hands. It was Chikai’s hand. With a soft touch, his brother peeled Toi’s trembling fingers back and lifted the gun away. And with it, the cold sensation of the steel against his skin was gone as well.

Chikai aimed the gun at Kamome’s still body and pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

The ear-splitting sound broke his paralysis. He glanced up at his brother, who stared at Kamome’s corpse without an ounce of emotion on his face.

“In this world, it’s only the bad people who survive.” Chikai knelt down so he was at eye level with Toi. He gave his little brother a smile for the first time. “I’m the one who killed him. With this gun.”

“Huh?” he gasped in shock.

“The two of us are going to survive this world, no matter what it takes. You understand, right?” Chikai squeezed his arms tight around Toi.

It was the first time that had ever happened.

Toi clung to Chikai, whose back felt so broad that no matter how much Toi stretched, he couldn’t fully wrap his arms around his older brother. He felt embarrassed by how young he was—helpless, weak, unable to do anything but stand around and be protected.

“Yeah…yeah!” Toi said finally as hot tears bubbled up, wetting his frozen cheeks.

Never again would the two of them be separated. They swore as much that day.

“No!”

His sorrowful cry echoed in their shared ocean of emotions.

 

After the Desire Field faded, Toi noticed he had a new message on his phone.

Chikai: The situation’s changed, doesn’t look like I’ll be able to come back. I’ll contact you again later.

A few short, curt sentences. His brother had dished out similar bad news countless times before. Today’s, however, was particularly disheartening.

 

“Unfortunately, today’s Wishing Plate is silver once again, ribbit.”

“Tch…” Toi snatched the proffered dish up, but when he tried to leave, Enta stopped him.

“H-hey, hold on a second! I saw what happened. Toi, you…that guy…”

“Yeah. I killed someone,” Toi finished for him.

“How can you…how can you be so cool about it?”

There was no point in trying to argue about it, at least not in Toi’s mind. He had no interest in associating with these two anyway, so it was best for them to hurry up and distance themselves. “If I hadn’t shot him, then he might have killed me. Or he would have killed my brother.”

“Still—” Enta started to protest.

“You want to argue so bad over whether it was justified or not, go ahead. But concepts like good and evil don’t mean squat to the powerful. That’s why I decided that I need to get strong, so I can survive and stay with my brother. I can take whatever judgment you want to dish out, I don’t care.”

“But…”

“But I won’t allow anyone to put my brother’s sacrifice to waste. If you spill my secret…”

In the blink of an eye, Toi whipped his ruler out, grazing the tip of Enta’s nose. The other boy squeaked in surprise.

“I’ll run you through.”

 

Toi left the collapsed Enta behind and started to leave the plaza.

“Kuji!”

He didn’t need any more trouble. But no sooner had he thought that than Kazuki came running after him.

“Here, my Wishing Plate. You can have it.”

“Kazuki?!” Enta exclaimed, crawling after them on his hands and knees.

Toi glanced at the silver Wishing Plate and then at Kazuki’s face. “What’s this about?”

“I think you deserve this more than I do.”

Enta couldn’t hold his tongue after hearing that. “What are you talking about?! You’ve been doing all of this for Haruka, right?! Why are you handing your plate over to someone like Kuji, of all people?! Isn’t Haruka important to you?”

“I…” Kazuki balled up his fists, squeezing out the words. “I hate Haruka.”