MaruMA:Volume10:Chapter 1
Chapter 1
“You look really good.”
Having been complimented by her son’s schoolmate, Shibuya Miko blushes in spite of herself.
“How mean~ Ken-chan! Who’d have thought that you were a master at buttering people up too~”
“I’m not! Although the pattern is a bit RETRO, there’s a sense of Taisho period romanticism!”
These are his honest words. On the way here, he lied to four teachers and a junior high friend. He's tired of lying.
“Ah, but still, but still~ It's not like I was thinking of wearing a furisode[1] now that I'm this age, you know? I mean, that’s just too shameless. After all I’m already over forty and married. I was just thinking, ‘it’s about time to take out the winter clothing’, then I just happened to come across the kimono I used to wear when I was younger. And just when I was lamenting, ‘I was able to wear such cute colors when I was younger,’ suddenly a devil’s voice whispered in my ear, ‘Why don’t you try it on and see…’”
Mama Shibuya, also known as the ‘PINK PANTHER of Yokohama’[2], says lightly.
Of course, now she loves wearing cute clothes even more than she did in her youth, but these things have to be put aside for now.
By the time Murata had run to Shibuya’s house when his own school festival was reaching its climax, it was already past five in the afternoon.
He didn’t take a cab, just ran like that straight from the bus stop.
Although it’s already late autumn, the exertion heated him up enough to fog his glasses.
When he frantically pressed the doorbell like he was about to do a ding-dong dash, the one who responded was a dazed Miko in a kimono covered with huge lilies, saying, “Aiya, it’s Ken-chan!”
“At first I planned to have a daughter then give it to her when she’s all grown up so I haven't worn it until today, but ironically I ended up raising only two rough boys instead. Life really doesn’t go your way. Now all I can do is wait for Yuu-chan to get a girlfriend and for her to marry him. Ah, but would it be too shameless for a bride to wear a furisode? Hmm, but if she's in her twenties, it should be roughly OK, right?”
"It's not roughly, it's very OK. And even if you don't give it to Shibuya's girlfriend, I think it will be fine if you wear it yourself, Mrs. Jennifer," Murata answers amicably as he wipes his foggy lenses with the sleeve of his uniform. However, within his heart he clicks his tongue at his friend who hasn't explained the situation.
Shibuya, how much have you told your family?
Judging from his mother’s expression of happiness, Yuuri definitely hasn’t come out about being engaged to a pretty boy. Even if the other party is as cute as an angel, he is still a bona fide man. Not only that, it seems he has an adopted daughter waiting for him in the castle and he is already an unmarried father at age sixteen.
If he were to say such an impactful truth, how interesting… no, how shocked this family would be.
The man who shares Shibuya Yuuri’s secret — Murata Ken — thinks this in his heart.
This had better not come from my mouth, because I want to see how this family will react when they hear their own son say something so shocking.
“Come to think of it, Ken-chan, what’s up with Yuu-chan? Wasn't he with you today?”
“I’m here to talk about that, ma’am!”
Hearing the tone from her favorite detective shows, Shibuya’s mother grips her hands and frowns.
“W-what happened?”
“Things got heated between him and a girl from the same middle school, and now they’re even in a karaoke competition!”
“A karaoke competition?!”
“That’s right, singing Ozaki Yutaka’s songs too.”
“Such an old song! Ah. Sorry. Uh—uh—uh… Really? You’re talking about the Yuu-chan who only knows the various baseball team anthems? The Yuu-chan who firmly believes that ‘Take Me to the Ol’ Ball Game’ is a love song can sing mainstream songs now? People really can change with an effort.”
“If he wants to, he can probably sing ‘MY WAY’, too.”
“Of course, and even Kayama Yuzo’s version!”
Anyway, Murata tries to explain in brief words that Yuuri wants to report the results of the battle to him later, and thus may not even come home tonight, so he specifically asked him to come over and grab a change of clothes if possible.
Shibuya's mother is rather surprised by the situation being the opposite of usual, but she buys the story easily and lets Murata in.
Murata climbs up the familiar stairs and heads for the door at the end of the corridor.
It's the room of someone he knows well. He has a general idea of where things are. It probably won't take him too long to find what he's looking for.
Just as he’s about to turn the brass doorknob—
“Wait a sec!”
Someone grabs his arm forcefully, and that’s not a friendly force.
Raising his head, he sees Shibuya's brother. Murata smiles without panicking or making a fuss.
“Hi, Big Brother-”
“We’re not close enough for you to call me big brother, friend of my brother.”
Looks like the eldest son of the family, Shibuya Shouri, is guarding the door for the second son. Eyes narrowed in displeasure are looking down on him from behind the reflective lenses. He can't go so far as to say that they are siblings who don't resemble each other, but the aura that radiates from them is completely different.
Murata replies with an unafraid smile, “That's not very mature, brother of my friend. And you’re a college student, too.”
“So you're saying that because a high school brat is immature they're allowed to barge into other peoples' rooms? If you have even a bit of common sense, then you shouldn't act like a thief, right?”
“What do you mean, like a thief? How scandalous.”
“Don't worry, no one is listening. Although if there was anyone else around, I'd show more a smile while dealing with you. I'm a very sociable person normally.”
A gentle demeanor, excellent grades, currently studying at Hitotsubashi University as a model student who is even praised by his neighbors. That is Shibuya Shouri's public face. According to his brother's description, he's smart, but he's a bit of a weirdo who likes dating games[3]. In any case, he is 180 degrees different from the passionate baseball boy second son.
“Even if you want to search the room, you have to wait until Yuu-ch… until my brother’s around. About that, where is Yuu-chan? Don’t tell me you threw him in a strange place and then ran back by yourself."
And he has an extreme brother complex.
“Shibuya is heating things up with a middle high friend he hasn’t seen in a while, and the two are competing in karaoke…”
Of course, this is crap too.
In reality he was in the middle of rescuing a WATER OLD BOYS who was drowning in a cold swimming pool when he got swept away by an unknown current and vanished, probably to the other world. Although Murata felt it was still too early to go back, Yuuri strongly wished for it so there's nothing he can do about it.
Only this time, he waited with unease afterwards.
“… He’s not back yet.”
“What? Who?”
“Shibuya.”
“Huh? But you just said something about him and a middle high friend? What do you mean, he’s not back yet?!”
No matter how many months he stays in that other world, normally he’d be back in a moment. He normally only disappears for a few minutes, and before everyone else notices anything amiss, he’d reappear somewhere near the place he disappeared. Although sometimes he’d be wearing G-strings.
“I waited five minutes, ten, and I still didn’t feel him come back.”
“Karaoke takes at least thirty minutes.”
“I’m not talking about karaoke!”
Seeing the brother of his friend completely at ease, Murata feels like punching the wall. How much has Shibuya told his family? For example, has he told his brother and parents that he’s a mazoku? But thinking about myself, I haven’t told anyone about the fact that my soul is the Daikenja[4]. But the head of this household is indeed a member of earth’s mazoku, so it wouldn't be strange at all for him to bring it up over tea and…
“… There's no way he'd do that and say that he’s the Maou.”
“Maou?” Shibuya Shouri looks as though he’s seeing something intriguing, and then he once again crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Didn’t think that there was someone else who worships the Maou other than Bob.”
“It’s not worship. It's not a religious figure… What did you say?!” Murata abruptly raises his head, grabbing the other person’s shirt and shaking him hard, “What did you say? What did you say just now? Did you say Bob!?”
“Hey!”
There are a lot of Bobs in this world. When you say Bob, you could be talking about Bob Dylan, or abbreviating 'I am Buraemon'[5]. There’s also the possibility that it's a nickname for Bobo Brazil[6]. Right now, he can almost hear Yuuri saying, ‘Murata, how old are you?”
But if it was mentioned by the eldest son of this special family, it wouldn’t be surprising if he meant that Bob.
“You know Bob?! Then please help me contact him immediately. Do you know where he is? This is urgent, I really need his help!”
“Wait a sec, your g-g-g-g-glasses are gonna fall! What’s the matter with you? Coming here and yelling Bob, Bob. You want me to contact him? I’m not some brat's secretary. Speaking of which, did something happen to Yuu-chan? How is he?! Before you make that clear, how could I possibly help you?”
Murata takes a deep breath and swallows. “Do you really want to hear? I think it’s better if you don’t know.”
“Is there anyone in the world who wouldn’t want to know about their brother?”
“Looks like you really do have a brother complex!”
Murata wants to laugh out loud, but instead he starts calculating at a ferocious speed. He has to determine where to start from and how much to divulge as quickly as possible.
“If I tell you, will you help me contact Bob?”
“I’ll consider it.”
Turning back the reel of memories, the last time he met Bob was in the last last life. Around the Second World War, when he was in his prime. Come to think of it, ever since he was born as Murata Ken, he hasn’t met Bob once.
This was all Bob’s fault for being too preoccupied with the continuation of the earth mazoku line and never attempting to contact him at all.
| Back to Prologue | Return to MA Series | Forward to Chapter 2 |
References
- ↑ Kimono for unmarried women
- ↑ In the original text, Yokohama is written in kanji but then has text written above indicating that it should be read as 'hama'. So in the end, it reads as 'Hamano Pink Panther'
- ↑ It says galge in Japanese which is a term that Westerners also use, but I used 'dating games' instead because I'm not sure how niche that term is, to be honest, and the term 'bishoujo game' that was brought over from the Chinese version seemed kind of outdated to me (although once again, not too up on that lingo. I'm more on the otoge side of things). Also, if someone was unfamiliar with the term, they might think it was a game for little girls. Another note, galge refers to non-pornographic dating games. They may be risque, but once the porn line is crossed, it immediately becomes an eroge.
- ↑ Daikenja is written in katakana and with an elongated last syllable which makes it sound like a pun on Power Rangers or some similar type tokusatsu show
- ↑ The Japanese is Boku Buraemon with dashes above Bo and Bu (Bobu is how Bob is written in Japanese) This is basically yet another joke involving Doraemon.
- ↑ One of the first African American Pro Wrestlers in the US
