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It’s Saturday morning, and Enta is ready for it. Beyond ready. He was born ready for this Saturday.
Just in case, he goes through the checklist.
Lucky hat? Check.
Satchel of quarters? Check.
A burning unrequited crush that needs to be constantly buried with good old-fashioned weekly gambling sessions? Check, unfortunately.
Well, as checked as it can be, seeing as he is too young to gamble, and therefore must ‘gamble’. The difference? Copious amounts of sugar to drown his frustration when he loses tickets instead of cash. Somehow, he’s still okay with that.
Now all he needs is his grandma, then they can go to the Smart Ball Shop and spend the day losing their quarters and their worries.
“Grandma, time to go!” He yells, stepping into the living room. Usually, his grandma is in front of the television, sipping tea as usual while she watches the morning broadcast. However, today the television is off, and she is nowhere to be found. Weird.
Maybe she’s outside, Enta thinks. Crossing the living room, Enta carefully slides the door open just enough for him to peek his head out between the wood. He surveys the area, but she isn’t sitting on the porch, nor is she hanging the laundry on the line or tending to her small vegetable garden.
She couldn’t have left without him, right?
No, he shakes his head. It’s not like her to be missing, especially on Pachinko Saturday. Maybe… She had to go to the store? Or maybe… It’s the enemy?
The Otter Empire is gone, he knows this. He was there to personally see the Otter disintegrate, its form torn away bit by bit until there was nothing left. And if, if for some strange reason the Otter was back, Keppi would summon them and they’d fight again.
But what if the Otter was back and Keppi didn’t know yet? What if it had taken his grandmother and turned her into one of those monstrosities? What if they had to fight her?
Enta’s mind goes into overdrive, then suddenly he’s a kappa in a rickshaw. Confused, he looks to his left, where Kazuki sits primed and ready to battle. To his right, a figure made of straw, with a crude sketch of Toi’s visage pinned to the face and a blue scarf tied underneath the head. In front, Keppi, pulling the cart along.
He blinks, then he’s no longer in the rickshaw but on the Azuma bridge. The battle tune starts, and on instinct Enta falls into a pose, ready for the Sarazanmai.
‘ There’s something I have to take back… ’
He looks up and chokes when he sees it’s his grandmother, except bigger, covered in what looks like sludge and throwing pachinko balls. She screeches, and Enta falls back with a scream. His eyes flutter close as he drops closer and closer to the ground, but instead of hard, splintered wood like he expects, Enta hits the tatami mats on his floor. He’s at home, of course, looking for his grandmother, not fighting an imaginary monster.
Out of his delusions but still delirious, he sprints to the location of the one other person he knows is in the house.
“Sis!” Enta yells, slamming open the bathroom.
Otone, who had been in the middle of putting in her contacts, shouts in surprise and yanks her hand away from her face before she can hurt herself. “Enta, what the heck is your problem?!”
Enta ignores her. “Sis, have you seen Grandma?”
“What does that have to do with you almost gouging my eye out?” She retorts as she settles back into her previous state.
“Sis. Where. Is. Grandma?”
Otone sighs wearily. It is a sigh of frustration, one that every older sister with a younger brother has mastered since the day he had grown old enough to talk. A sigh laced with every grievance that she’s held from birth until now. It leaves her body with enough force to physically wear on her, and after she manages to get the contact into her left eye, she slumps against the sink and looks at him sideways.
“I haven’t seen her today, Enta. Why?” She punctuates the end of her sentence with another sigh that says, ‘I really wish I were doing anything else right now, please leave’.
Enta, unable to sense the turbulent atmosphere his sister is emanating, stays where he is and says, “We have Pachinko today, and she isn’t here. She’s always here.”
“Maybe she forgot?” Otone suggests.
“She never forgets Pachinko Saturday, we do this every week. No, something’s wrong, terribly wrong.” Enta grips the brim of his hat anxiously. “What if she was kidnapped?”
Otone pushes herself up with a snort. She looks in the mirror, carefully holding her eye open to insert the remaining contact, then she turns back to Enta. Noting the look on his face, she narrows her eyes. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Oh my god,” Otone bursts into laughter. “I can’t believe––Kidnapping!”
“Sis, I’m not kidding!” Enta yells. Unfortunately, this just sets her off into another, louder round of guffawing.
“No one’s going to kidnap our grandmother,” Otone says through heaving breaths. She wipes a tear from her eye, using her other hand to steady herself against the sink. “She’s probably just taking a break today to relax.”
Enta wants to scream. Why isn’t Otone taking this seriously? It’s clearly a big deal because there’s no way Grandma would leave him on this, the holiest of days. Besides, what would she even be relaxing from? All she does is sit at home all day and hang out with him, that’s relaxing enough as it is!
“Well, I’m going to look for her. Please keep a lookout and text me if you find anything.”
He hears a bored ‘ okayyy’ as he turns to leave, and he understands that she will most likely be useless. Well, time to begin operation: Find Grandma.
The first place Enta decides to look is the Kappa shrine. It’s in a pretty populated part of town, which means that the likelihood of running into his grandmother is high if she was taking a walk. And, if his fears were founded and she had been taken by the revived Otter Empire, then at least Enta will be in the best location to fight.
Along the way, Enta calls Kazuki. He knows that Kazuki is more reliable than his sister, and Enta trusts him with every fiber of his being, courtesy of their longtime friendship and his longtime crush. If there was anyone that would be able to help him in his hour of need, it would be Kazuki.
Unfortunately, Kazuki is busy today, with Haruka, he says through loud cheers and mechanical motors whirring in the background. Apparently, they’re at an amusement park. Kazuki says that he hasn’t seen Enta’s grandmother today on their walk, but he promises to keep an eye out. Enta understands, and he’s grateful for the small bit of extra help, but still, the fact of the matter is that Kazuki will not be helpful today, either.
When Enta reaches the shrine, he’s not surprised to see Keppi and Sara there at the base of the statue, surrounded by an overwhelming saccharine haze. What does surprise him, though, is that Keppi is nestled in Sara’s lap in the same four-legged form that Enta had become accustomed to seeing him, and Sara looks distinctly human. Didn’t they both change their appearance before?
He doesn’t get a chance to question it though, for Keppi shifts sideways and catches him in his peripheral. “Oh Enta, what brings you here today, kero? Here to see me and Sara’s lovey-dovey atmosphere?”
Enta wrinkles his nose in disgust, ducking to dodge a stray translucent heart in the air. “Definitely not. I’m looking for my grandmother, have you seen her? She’s about this tall–” Enta puts his arm out to demonstrate–”White hair, wrinkly, and usually wears a headband.”
Both Keppi and Sara hum in thought. “I haven’t seen anyone with that dish- cription~,” Sara replies, and Keppi shakes his head to signal that he hasn’t seen her either.
Enta sighs. It’s not too surprising to hear that she hasn’t been here. “Thanks anyway, you two.” He turns to leave, but the lovey-dovey atmosphere has gotten so thick that he can barely see the street. “Ugh, can’t see anything in this fog.”
It’s almost like time stopped, and suddenly Enta feels a menacing presence behind him.“... What did you call me?”
“No, wait–!”
Everything happens in a bit of a blur. One second, Enta is staring down an irate Keppi. His feet move faster than his brain can come up with the next decisive action, but then the next thing he knows, he’s huddled on the ground, covered in a mysterious liquid and feeling a growing hunger for cucumbers.
Distantly he hears Sara’s apologetic tone. “Oh no, Enta! I’m sorry! I’m going to calm Keppi down, so come back later~. Good Sarakku!”
Then, she’s gone, and Enta is alone.
After shaking off his shock, Enta feels his way through the Field of Desires. Even though no one can see him, Enta still finds himself hiding behind street signs and in the alleyways as he goes, navigating the town until he comes to a lone bench near the water. He collapses into it, then sighs out the full breadth of his feelings.
It’s been hours, and he still doesn’t know where his Grandmother is. She could be dying, or hurt, or both! And the worst part of it all: he’s stuck as a kappa, so even if he did find her, there would be nothing he could do about it!
“Life sucks,” Enta complains to the water.
Then, Enta’s phone rings. He pulls it away from his chest, where he had looped it around his neck for safekeeping, and gazes at the contact screen. A perfect selfie of his sister smiles back at him, and Enta can feel the panic unknotting in his chest.
“Sis? Hey, what’s up? Did you find her? Is she safe? Did she say anything about Pachinko?” Enta’s questions spit out in rapid-fire succession, and he forces himself to pause so Otone can reply.
“Oh,” Otone’s voice is colored in surprise. “Oops, I meant to text you, sorry!”
“Wha? Wait--” The line goes empty, and Enta hangs up, furrowing his eyebrows. Why didn’t Otone want to talk on the phone? Was she in a place she couldn’t talk, or maybe...maybe she didn’t want to be overheard? Enta’s mind starts to veer towards the strange and dangerous, but then a quick chime from his phone brings him back to the present. Right, he had to make sure everything was okay!
Opening his phone, Enta flips over to his messages, then opens a chain of unread messages from his sister.
- So I was thinking about this problem I have at school.
-I always run out of chalk because the other teachers use it, and I’m the one who has to get more!
-So, a solution I thought of just now, chalk lipstick!
-It’s like regular lipstick, except instead of lipstick in the tube, it’s chalk!
-I can use it secretly and never run out again!
-What do you think, is it a good idea?
Enta stares at the screen for a moment, then rereads the messages. There must be something he’s missing, right? There’s no way his sister would spam him with these messages and these stupid ideas instead of finding their grandma, right?
“Ugh, sis you’re so useless!!” Enta yells to the sky.
He sinks into the bench as the fruitless results of his labor weigh down on him, and he starts to think that maybe he should give up the search for now. Just go back to Keppi and apologize until his throat is hoarse.
However, something miraculous happens. He hears a voice, and not just any voice, but his grandmother. Enta raises his head in disbelief, scanning the area for where the voice came from, and across the water, at the top of the hill near the street, he sees a familiar bob of white hair.
“Grandma!” He shouts, launching himself off the bench into the water. He swims faster than ever before in his life, tiny legs propelling him better than his normal human ones, and he can’t help but chant in his head Grandma, grandma, grandma! You’re alive!
Once he reaches the other side he scampers up the hill using all of his limbs for leverage, and when he gets to the top he finally, finally finds her.
As it turns out, she doesn’t seem to be harmed or injured at all. In fact, she’s having a tea party with that black-haired police officer turned rickshaw driver?
Enta approaches their small, portable table and takes a seat next to his grandmother, who seems to be in the middle of gossiping about the neighborhood. The man (Mabu, was that his name?) glances at Enta briefly, but otherwise doesn’t react. He nods where appropriate while Enta’s grandmother speaks, and comments on certain parts of the story, which makes Enta wonder, just how do these two know each other?
He tunes out their voices as the gossip goes on, but then his grandmother sighs, dragging him back into the conversation.
“Ah, Mabu-chan, I’ve missed our weekly tea sessions. Why didn’t you tell me you left the police box?”
Mabu ducks his head in a small bow. “My apologies.”
“It’s okay, dear. I’m happy I was able to run into you,” She smiles, and Mabu returns it with a small smile of his own.
Enta’s seen all that he needs to. He nods to Mabu, then slowly makes his way back to the Kappa Shrine. Keppi, now in a more pleasant mood, quickly changes Enta back to normal. Enta thanks him, then heads back to his house and finds Otone lounging in front of the television.
“Oh, you’re back. Come, sit,” She says, patting the space beside her. “So, did you find her?”
Enta takes a seat, then rests his head on his arms. “Yeah, she was having tea with a rickshaw driver.”
“What?”
“Apparently they know each other.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Otone laughs. “She knows a lot of people in the town.”
“I didn’t know she had friends other than me,” Enta says.
“Uh, yeah. Adults can have friends too, you know.”
Enta sighs wistfully, turning his head to the side. “I guess so.”
They settle into silence, broken only by the chimes and shouts of the announcer of whatever show Otone has on. Enta shifts his head, and his lucky hat falls off onto the table. Well, it’s not like he’ll go to play Pachinko today anyway, so he doesn’t need it.
Somehow, that doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.
Just as he’s reaching his point of acceptance and growth, Otone snickers beside him. “Pfft, I still can’t believe you thought someone actually kidnapped our sixty-something-year-old grandmother, what an idiot.”
“Shut up, Otone!”