Then why did you have to choose these Chinese characters?
I‘ve been teased so many times about my name since being on the ’disadvantageous’ side of two-against-one scuffles against some punk Yankees in junior high that I’ve gotten used to fending it off.
“Say something, Shibuya Yuuri!”
“Then is Harajuku disadvantageous?!” 1
I’ve heard that tired cliché fifty thousand times. Incidentally, that’s in fifteen years of existence.
Yup, my name’s Shibuya Yuuri. Not the characters for ‘fertile country’ or ‘gentle pear tree’ or ‘enduring lapis lazuli’, but Shibuya ‘Advantageous’. My brother, who’s five years older, is Shibuya Shouri. His name’s written with the characters for ‘victory’ and read ‘Shouri’ (it looks it might be read ‘Katsutoshi’, but it’s not).
As I was flying down the road on my bike, coming home from my new prefectural school, surrounded by the luxuriant new leaves of May—that’s when it happened.
I’ve always wanted to be like that person, so I joined the baseball club in junior-high, but there was someone else who became my aspiration too starting from senior-high, so I was talking about if I’d join the Kendo Club or something with a biking friend I’d just made. Five minutes after we went our separate ways, I was pedaling hard in great spirits when I came across a sight in the quiet park near my house that I couldn’t just let pass by.
Money-collection.
That’s what they call it, but in actuality they’re just goons in the age-old business of exhorting money. Today of all days, the whole lot of them—two goons and one victim—are from my sa-junior (the same junior-high?). Glasses-kun, cornered with his back to the rear restroom wall, is Murata Ken, who was in my class in my second and third years of junior-high.
Yeeeah, whatever, I’m on a bike, so if I just slip past them. I can zooooom on by—it’s not like Murata Ken knows who I am, anyway. We’re not friends or anything, and we’ve barely ever even said two words to each other. Well, sure, I act like an advocate of justice and stuff, but nobody’s looking at me hopefully or gratefully or anything...aaaaaaargh...
I slowly stop the bicycle.
Aaaaah, dammit...my eyes meet Murata Ken’s.
“...What’re you guys doing over there? Not committing some crime together, are you?”
And so I, Shibuya Yuuri, face off with two Yankees and get to hear for the around fifty-thousandth time: “Then is Harajuku disadvantageous?!” Thanks to that middle class sense of justice I was born with, thanks to that sense of honor that says two against one is unfair.
“You‘ve probably got your wires crossed somewhere—we were just doing some ’money-collection’. Just lawfully collecting some of those notes from his wallet, ya know?”
Get a map and tell me where in the world that’s lawful.
The senior-high students, looking like they’ve lost all nationality in their navy-and-gray uniforms and matching blond hair and colored contacts, drive a kick into my stomach and shove me against a rough mortar wall.
“But because you had to go and stick your nose where it don’t belong, our little duck’s run off. Eeeh? You’re the son of a banker, so you gotta know how important customers are, don’tcha?!”
It’s true. Wait, what the heck! Murata Ken, who I was going to save, just turned his back on me and ran off at full speed. But anyhow, I’ve been told I’m cute, so. I look around for backup, but at 4:30 in the afternoon, no one’s around the park but elementary school kids.
“So why’d you come save him, anyway? You guys friends or something? Or are you secretly kissy-kissy with each other?”
“Shut up! I just like the name ‘Ken’. ‘Kin’ and ‘Ken’ are at the top of my favorite names list.”
The name of the teacher I secretly revere is ‘Kin’, and my favorite historical films actor is ‘Matsudaira Ken’.
“Haaaah? Shibuya Yuuri Harajuku Furi’s favorite names?”
They start snickering. I draw back fist and knee to pay them back in style, but Yankee A grabs hold of my hair and drags me into the dim restroom.
“Hey, wait...you bastards...! This is the women’s bathroom! The sign’s right there! Are you blind or what?”
“Oh, is that right? Huuuh, well, whatever. There’re more stalls in here anyway—we’ll need our privacy, won’t we?”
“That’s right, there’re more stalls. Secrets should be kept secret, right?” Yankee B chirps back, right in tune, and digs into my school bag for my wallet. The blue strap of my cell phone snaps, and the phone tumbles out. It hits the wall, and the ringtone sounds.
“...what is this ring, you ever heard it before?”
“Huh. Aaah, what the hell is this? I totally feel like I’ve heard it somewhere—argh, I can’t remember! It must be, you know, from TV. A historical drama or something?”
“What, there’re guys who use ringtones from historical dramas other than Mito Koumon these days? And that strap, that’s from pro baseball, ain’t it? I don’t believe this, Shibuya Yuuri, what’s going on, Shibuya Yuuri?”
“Shut UP! Like you guys would know anything about the merits of baseball! Hey, stop that, you bastard...!”
Yankee B digs out the bills. A pair of Souseki-sensei’s. 2
“Whaaaat the heeeell?! No way, you really a banker’s son or what?! Or is your old man a tight-fisted miser who don’t lend you any money?—thought you’d be carrying more, no-credit Shibuya-chan.”
“My dad’s job doesn’t have anything to do with me!”
Not that I’d tell them this, but most of my money’s in 500-yen coins. I keep getting change, but they’re mostly useless for vending machines, and they pile up in the blink of an eye.
“Daaaaamn, and here I thought we’d get the bank to pay for Murata, but his account credit limit’s at only two blue bills. 20,000’s the absolute minimum—20,000, ya hear?”
The grip on my hair suddenly tightens. There are three light-blue doors in the hijacked girls’ restroom. I’m dragged into the middle one, and a hard kick to my back sends me to my knees. In front of my eyes, rather unusual for a park’s restroom: a brand-name foreign-style sit-down toilet.
“Hey, you’re not going to...come on, guys, you’re not thugs from the 1990s, so...”
“For someone who passed the prefectural exams, it don’t look like your head’s working too well, so we gotta give you some references for the future, right?”
No way, they’re not really planning to shove my head into the toilet bowl or anything, are they? No matter how goon-like they were in junior-high, this is the twenty-first century! That sort of bullying is totally retro, right?!
“We’re gonna kill you if you mess with us. Next time it’ll be for real.”
As I feared, the enemy forces my head into the Western-style toilet. I guess retro is making a come-back.
I try to hold my head up, but I have about ten seconds to steel myself.
But what is a Western toilet, anyway! If I imagine it as a somewhat strange wash basin—the function is the same. My chin touches the water and I reflexively try to lift it, but the pressure against the back of my head doesn’t let up at all. I give up, take a deep breath, and brace myself.
Nobody’s ever been flushed down a modern toilet before—I mean, they’d make the Guiness Book of Records if they did. So in other words, if I just close my eyes and hold my breath for a few dozen seconds, no matter how hard I’m pushed or how hard the top of my head is pulled...huh?
Yankee A or Yankee B’s hand is still holding me down. But something else is trying to suck me in: a strong force from the center of the toilet’s black hole!
There’s no way, right?! Do brand-name toiletry have such hidden powers?! So the ultimate secret behind their awesome strength is that they have vacuum cleaners inside! I can’t hold on any longer, and as my head, shoulders, and back are sucked painfully inside, I, Shibuya Yuuri, let out a scream, while thinking:
Am I going to be the first in history?
The first guy in history to be flushed down a toilet—?!
Papaaa.
What is it, Yuuri?
Why do you only take me on the ‘Star Tours’ when we go to Disneyland?
Oh, do you not like the Star Tours, Yuuri?
No, I love it! But I‘ve ridden it so many times now that I remember everything the ’pilot droid’ says!
Yuuri, you’re amazing! So you’ve memorized all of the pilot droid’s lines? Then, Yuuri, let’s take the Star Tours ride one more time to see whether or not you’re right! When you’re all grown up it’ll definitely come in handy one day.
It’s certainly come in handy!
After all these years, I thank my dad for that while I hold onto my hazy vision as it begins to return. He probably couldn’t have predicted more than ten years ago that his son would be flushed down a toilet, but taking the Star Tours ride ten times in rapid succession at the Tokyo Disneyland has certainly turned out to be useful.
After being sucked into the swirling current, everything was the same as the scene I saw repeatedly as a kid. The droid’s shout, and then the warp. The grainy light of the stars stretch and distort into long glowing tails, then become stars again. My body also stretches and distorts, then...
...Or not.
I can’t really have been flushed down the toilet, can I? I mean, my body’s maturing quite normally, and I have the average physique of a first-year senior high school student.
I stretch out my arms and legs as far as I can, and lie spread-eagled on the dusty ground. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an unpaved road. There’s nothing but the cloudless blue sky above me. The atmosphere seems unfamiliar with concepts like pollution or depletion of the ozone layer; it’s pure and clean beneath a clear blue sky. When I tilt my head, I can see green on both sides of the road. On my left is a luxuriant forest, on my right a sloping meadow and somebody’s house. The house appears to be made of stone, and in the distance I can vaguely see some sort of animal. A goat?...or a sheep?
I’m probably here because I was with that lot, and I stopped moving after they thrust my face into the toilet bowl, and then they panicked and immediately scurried to abandon me somewhere where I wouldn’t be found.
So where is this, anyway? The scenery is like something that wouldn’t be found in modern Japan, and I mutter as I sit up, “...The Alps?”
From Heidi? Though I can’t figure out how I would’ve been transported here.
My moist school uniform clings disgustingly to my body. If I think about it carefully, the moisture probably came from that public lavatory...I need to stop thinking about it carefully. Water is water, just simple H<sub>2</sub>O.
A young woman carrying a large basket comes walking down the road. The wicker basket hanging from her hands falls from both at the same time. Huge fruits—apples?—thump onto the road and start rolling down the hill.
“Excuse me...” I start to say, and gulp. The woman is staring at me. I stare back at her. What I’m thinking is—
She’s one of those people who dresses up in costumes (cosplayer for short).
What is with that skirt that’s so long that it drags on the ground? And that old-fashioned kercher tied beneath her chin? And those blue eyes and dark gold hair?...is she a foreigner?! Why is there a foreigner wearing Heidi of the Alps’ long apron climbing up the hill with a basket? And why has she started yelling with her basket lying where it fell at her feet, pointing at me?
“Ah, um, excuse me, I’m really sorry if I scared you. It’s just that I was abandoned here—I really have no intention of causing any harm or being violent or anything like that...”
Maybe her voice is substitute for a siren?—one after another, people fly out of fairy-tale stone houses and come rushing up the slope. There are men and women and children. But they’re all—
“...Uh, they’re all cosplayers?”
No, that’s not right, these people are certainly not modern Japanese. To begin with, all of them are foreigners. Speaking from a Japanese perspective, we can’t think of these people born with gold or brown hair, with blue eyes and split chins as anything but another race. An army of ten or more of them, carrying handy farming tools like spades and hoes and sickles, gather around us: the woman who’s still screaming, me with my legs about to give way.
“Wait a minute, really, please hold on! I was just dumped here! Uuuum, how do I say this plausibly, uuuuh...abandoned! I was just abandoned here! Oh!...Oh, I know! I get it now...yeah, I mean.”
My brain and tongue are going full steam ahead in my state of emergency. Houses and a group of foreign cosplayers that don’t look like they’re from Japan. Everything clicks in my head.
“This is a theme park, right?!”
That’s right. Foreign cosplayer group, foreign-style houses: this can’t be anything but one of the theme parks used so often in those two-hour suspense dramas.
“Hahah, right, that’s it, right? I’m so stupid for not realizing it earlier. I’ve been dumped in a theme park. But then where is this? From the looks of it, maybe the Russian Village in Niigata
? Although that’d mean that they went pretty far when they dumped me, huh?...Wa, OW, uh, what was that, Russian Village people—wait, why are you throwing rocks and stuff at—ouch!”
All the foreigners working at theme parks should have been informed of the stupidity of Japanese people. But then why are they throwing rocks at me as I’m frantically trying to explain? Even though I guess I got in without buying a ticket, preparing to use rocks and farm tools (also utilizable as dangerous weapons) against me is going a bit overboard, isn’t it?
“Ah, um, my wallet was taken earlier, so I came in without paying for a ticket, but I definitely will another day. Or if you let me make a local phone call...”
Local?
Warding myself against stones and mud with my hands, I turn my back towards a farmer who thrusts a spade that looks like a gigantic fork at me and wonder as I stare dumbfounded at a frightened baby who’s burst into tears,
How much longer is it going to remain light? Wasn’t it already past four in the afternoon when I started at it with those Yankees? I supposed it’s not unimaginable that I was unconscious for fifteen hours, but that no one found me, not even the theme park’s security personnel? And besides, my uniform is still completely soaked even though it’s May. What in the world happened to me?! My head is so full of question marks that it’s about to hit the ground from the weight. Even though they’re throwing rocks at me completely without reason, nobody’s coming to my aid.
I hear a powerful commanding voice and abruptly lift my head. Thankfully, the rocks stop.
“Who...” I start to ask, and choke as I see the man on the horse. His clothes are of the same design as the villagers, but from their sleek texture of obviously higher quality. The man climbs down from his high-strung horse and takes two steps towards me.
Football player—this guy’s definitely an American football player. He’s got the biceps and the chest. And the dazzling blond hair and turquoise-blue eyes, a prominent aquiline nose that’s a bit crooked to the left, and the slightly split chin which is the prototype of the classic macho Caucasian. If there were any Japanese girls around here who like foreigners, they’d be lining up to ask to take his picture, and the older ladies would be sticking rolls of money into his bikini pants—he’s that good-looking. His only defect are those gigantic triangular nostrils also peculiar to Caucasians.
I secretly decide to name him Denver Broncos, since that’s the only NFL team I know. He has a word or two with the villagers, and then kneels and peers at me.
“...Um...thanks so much for calming everyone down...”
A gigantic hand that matches his build firmly seizes my head.
He could probably do a 90-yard long pass with that grip. Or even a touchdown. But my frontal lobe (no way?) doesn’t get hurled; he doesn’t move for a few seconds, and his fingers tighten around my head.
“Ow...” I moan involuntarily in a small voice as pain assails me from five different points. But it’s probably the shock more than the pain, like the shock and dismay of stabling your own fingers by mistake coming before the pain. And the man lets go, while at the same time a sound pours into me. The path from my ears to my brain blazes with agony as if water is running through it.
Wind, trees, the cries of animals, the animal-like wails of a baby—and then words.
Suddenly everyone starts speaking in Japanese. What, so everyone knew Japanese after all? Well, yes, of course, coming to Japan on their own (though I guess they brought their families) to work with tourists, they would have needed to master everyday Japanese, right? Then why did they only talk in Russian (?) until now? Sheesh, tough customers, aren’t they? The handsome macho grins broadly.
“Well? Can you understand me now?”
“Aaah, I guess it really does feel kinda strange to hear fluent Japanese coming out of a foreigner.”
Now that we can communicate with each other, I feel the tension drain out of me a bit. For now, I need to figure out what the heck is going on. I ask in a pseudo-foreign accent to help them understand me more easily, “So you see, I don’t even know myself how I got tossed out here, so I have no idea where or what time...oh, right, I have a watch, so I know what time it is, but...uuuuum...excuusie-meee, where-ah I am? How I go home from here-ah?”
“What the?” Denver Broncos (or maybe American Football Guy) looks down at me, hands on his hips. “Here I was thinking you looked promising, but did we get a simple idiot for the Maou this time?”
Idiot?
“...How can you call a sensitive young man an idiot the first time you meet him?”
My bad habit rears its head. I‘ve had it since elementary school: when my brain ceases to function, a red light starts flashing, and I start talking frantically. It must be that I’m trying to give myself time to think while I’m chattering away like mad—my fourth grade music teacher was quite impressed. She gave me the nickname ’Turkischer Marsch’. She was the only one to ever call me that.
“Well, sure, I’m enrolled in a medium-ranking prefectural school, and nobody’s jealous of my grades or anything. I mean, I am a returnee, after all—I lived in Boston for half a year after I was born. So what’s with this ‘idiot’ stuff all of a sudden? Come on, idiot? Despite how I look, my dad’s an elite banker, and my brother’s at Hitotsubashi after passing his exams on his first try.”
I’m boasting about my family to cover up for my own mediocrity.
“Incidentally, my mom graduated from Ferris!”
“Fe...what? Is that some provincial aristocrat?” he responds, and I stop short. I guess bragging about academic history isn’t really globally effective.
“So...”
So theme park actors should stop calling their guests idiots. For those in service roles, customers are gods. I somehow climb to my feet to lecture on that point of Japanese-style management.
The people playing villagers shout astoundingly, “The Mazoku is standing up!”
“He’s clad in black a real Mazoku he’s gotten up hurry up and get the children inside!”
“Oh no oh no he’s going to burn down this town just like Kentenow twenty years ago!”
“Wait a minute this one’s still young and he’s unarmed look he’s got black hair and black eyes I hear that if you catch someone with the twin black you can get the power of immortality and one of the western dukedoms is offering a reward for one!”
“Yeah I heard that too that there is a head that can fetch a small island.”
“Be careful no matter how young he is he’s still Mazoku and he’ll be able to use majutsu.”
“Oh but this is Lord Adalbert Lord Adalbert is here Lord Adalbert please protect this village please use your godly powers to seal this Mazoku and keep us from harm!”
What in heck are these people saying?! I can’t even figure out where the punctuations go in their sentences; it sounds like Japanese, but my brain can’t parse it. I unconsciously check my right wrist again. My solid, ungainly G-Shock watch is still there. I don’t know if it’s actually working or not, but at least it’ll give me a bit of boost to my attack power? Wait a minute—attack? Wait, what the heck am I thinking here? But however I look at it, these people are hostile towards me, and I have the right to protect myself from anyone. This is a state of emergency—wait, no, it’s an urgent evacuation. Or is it legitimate self-defense? Complete panic mode!
The villagers set up their dangerous weapons and sidle towards me with a do-or-die look on their faces. The guy they call Adalbert doesn’t hold any farm tools or rocks. Instead, he’s wearing a long sword at his side. You could say he’s a guy with a high attack power.
“Hey hey, calm down, everyone. He doesn’t understand anything yet. If we use this chance to explain to him...”
I can hear some sort of rhythmic sound approaching from a distance behind me. The pounding, which grows louder very rapidly, throws everyone into confusion. The sound is familiar—like hoofs: several horses galloping along the ground, their mighty hoof beats like the earth rumbling.
“Yuuri!”
Someone calls my name, and I turn.
The knight on the white horse who’s come to save me...
“...Ske...!”
It’s quite understandable that seeing them, my impressions would end at “ske.” The three riders galloping towards me aren’t knights, and they aren’t riding white horses—and just a little above them in the sky, something utterly impossible is approaching. ‘Something’ there is flying towards me. Something which I’ve never seen or even imagined in my fifteen years and nine months of existence.
It’s a model skeleton, worn a light brown from age, with what looks like wings made from bamboo frames glued with oiled paper sprouting out of it. And yet it’s flapping those wings noisily, flying through the sky as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
So skeletons can fly if you attach wings to them?
Wonderful, wonderful, exquisitely done! I can’t see any of the wires or hover mechanisms or propellers they’re using to keep it afloat. I wonder how they made it.
“Get away from him, Adalbert!”
The three horses galloping towards us are liver chestnuts with black on their foreheads, and riding on them are men holding drawn swords who look like soldiers. ‘Liver chestnut’ is a JRA term, so the residents probably wouldn’t understand it. I can’t see the face of the young man who appears to be the leader, but he commands the other two sternly, “Don’t use your swords against the inhabitants! They’re not soldiers!”
“But, Your Excellency!”
“Disperse the crowd!”
The three horses force their way through the crowd of people who are playing the part of villagers, neighing and rearing. I cover my mouth against the considerable cloud of dust and cough wretchedly, violently. Blue and orange sparks flash within the beige-colored cloud, followed by the heavy klunk of metal clashing against metal. The group runs around trying to escape in a chaos of screams and the rustle of grass.
Someone grasps my arms. The surrounding scene gradually recedes.
“Adalbert von Grantz! Why are you encroaching upon our borders?!”
“You’re the same as ever, Lord Weller, Mr. Hero-Among-Cowards!”
Oh, I get it. It’s like in one of those Sengoku-era battles, where etiquette says you have to announce you’re this-and-that and you’ve fought a hundred men and won a thousand battles before you fight? —That’s what I’m thinking, when my body is slowly lifted from the ground. On the slope where the dust has cleared away, the villagers, chased by the cavalry, are running for their homes, and the young man has leapt off his horse and crossed swords with Amer-Foot-Guy. As I’m thinking that the ground has gotten rather far away, I’m abruptly turned and carried away. My arms, which are bearing my full body weight, are ablaze with pain.
“Why am I flying...no way?!”
The elaborate model skeleton whose construction I can’t figure out is transporting me away with both of my arms in its grasp. It’s flying unsteadily forward with its brown oiled-paper-like wings beating laboriously. No matter how much I look at it, it still looks like a skeleton with wings attached. Even though I’m looking up at it from directly underneath, I can only see an expressionless jaw and cranium attached to the top of its spine, and its eye sockets are dark, hollow cavities.
“Um, er, I guess, thanks.”
Though I’ve been abducted, it’s putting so much effort into it that I thought I should at least say thanks. The wings of the aerial model skeleton are desperately beating to keep us afloat, and one false move would probably send us plunging to the ground. Adalbert glances at us in the midst of his sword fight with Lord Weller, the apparent leader of the soldiers, and calls out, “You come well-prepared, using the Kotsuhizoku to carry him away!”
“They are loyal to us. They do not lose themselves over personal grudges.”
“And you, Lord Weller? Woah there.”
I crane my head as I’m being carried away and see the Mr. Universe called Adalbert narrowly leap back to avoid the sword point of Lord Weller, the leader of the soldiers.
“Don’t you think it’s a waste for your skills to be used by that lot?”
“Unfortunately, Adalbert—”
As usual, I can’t see anything of Lord Weller but his khaki back and dark brown head. But somehow, I know that for a moment he smiled.
“—my love isn’t as single-minded as yours.”
His subordinates, having driven all of the villagers off, gallop back, and the two disengage at the same time. Adalbert flies to his horse and yell to me, as I move to about a tree’s height:
“Be patient for a bit—I’ll come to save you soon!”
“Save me...?—I don’t even know if I’m being kidnapped by the good guys or the bad guys right now!”
Below me, the brown-haired leader stop his soldiers, who are about to chase after the enemy.
“Leave him!”
“He’s one man. He’s at a disadvantage right now, and we’ll probably be able to take him if we can catch up with him.”
Lord Weller (face still unknown), snaps an answer in reply. He’s so cool!
“Our top priority right now is to get His Majesty to safety!”
This His Majesty that they need to get to safety—could they be talk about super-kabuki me? I guess I’m now participating in the production of this ultra-elaborate attraction of this ultra-novel theme park in the role of His Majesty; I surreptitiously murmur, “...For now, could you maybe get me down from this ultra-well-made sky ride?”