K - Four Seasons of K Short Story 4

Koin.o.bori[*] by Suzuki Suzu

“Come to think of it, Children’s Day is coming soon, is it not.”

The moment Hisui Nagare made this remark, everyone’s chopsticks froze mid-motion.

At the time, Gojou Sukuna, picking his avocado salad, thought to himself, ‘Here Nagare goes again, saying weird things.’

'Here Nagare-chan goes again with his weird remarks,’ Mishakuji Yukari thought to himself at the same time, taking a bowl with miso soup.

Iwafune Tenkei wasn’t an exception, thinking to himself as he gazed at pure white rice, 'That Nagare sure loves him some weird stuff’.

Only Kotosaka, pecking at fried chicken, thought at the time, 'Yummy!’

After a momentary silence, time started flowing again. Their tableware producing quiet clicking, each of the Jungle clansmen made an attempt to change the subject.

“By the way, Yukari, how did your latest mission go?”

“Again? That’s all you do lately!”

“Well, it couldn’t be helped, I had an emergency.”
“Oh right, thanks to that we can forget about toilet paper trouble for the next year or so though.”

Listening to this exchange that sounded more like a family banter than a discussion between clansmen, Hisui ate his avocado salad, sipped his miso soup, and after finis.h.i.+ng his rice and fried chicken, spoke up. “Come to think of it, Children’s Day is coming soon, is it not.”

Time came to a standstill yet again.

There were 2 patterns when Hisui Nagare brought up weird topics. The first one was when something weird suddenly occurred to him and he immediately voiced it. In this case, given a little time, he would let go of the subject like nothing happened more often than not. It was the second pattern that presented a problem - when Hisui tried to put into action something weird that he had thought up in advance.

The will of the Green King, Hisui Nagare, was iron. After all, he was a man who didn’t shy away from doing something as reckless as challenging the strongest king, the Gold King, all alone for the sake of his ambition. You could ignore once what Hisui Nagare said, but if he bothered to repeat himself, trying to stop him was futile - this truth was fast becoming common knowledge among the Jungle leaders.

“…Indeed. In the world up above the Golden Week is about to begin, I suppose.” The first to reply was Yukari. If there was no avoiding it, then he chose to dive into it head-first, fueling further discussion on the subject. “But well, it should be a rather distant topic for us, or what, did something happen? A random guess: do you want us to go on a trip somewhere all together or something?”

Sukuna and Iwafune started chiming in, too, probably getting the clue.

“A trip? Like last year when we went to a crater?”
“In that case, we gotta make appropriate preparations. But what made you bring up such a topic all of a sudden, Nagare?”

Hisui, gazing at his clansmen, slowly shook his head. “No, I have no interest in a Golden Week trip. What I want is to celebrate Children’s Day.”

Yukari and Sukuna exchanged glances, talking to each other with their eyes only.

'Do you get what he means?’
'No, he totally lost me.’

Hisui spoke up, although it was unclear if he did it because he sensed his clansmen’s confusion or not, “There was something that I have been pondering ever since Sukuna joined Jungle. To be exact, the premise is that since we have a child among our members, we have to celebrate Children’s Day.”

“For that reason, I was preparing for it since last year. I researched the origin of Children’s Day, screened customs and events a.s.sociated with it, stocked up on the necessary materials…”
“Listen to what I said!”

Completely ignoring Sukuna’s burning anger, Hisui continued with a distant look, “I would like to celebrate it not only for Sukuna’s sake, but for my own as well. In hindsight, I hardly ever had a chance to enjoy Children’s day, you see. So I thought it would not hurt to make use of this opportunity and try. So I request we put it into practice.”

“So long as we are staying here, at our secret base, there is no need to worry about that kind of public attention. We can celebrate to our heart’s content. Since we have both the place and the occasion at our disposal, there is no reason not to.”

“Understood. I will certainly appreciate your help on the matter, Iwa-san.”

Faced with the two kings who came to a mutual understanding, Yukari and Sukuna could only exchange looks yet again and breathe out sorrowful sighs.

The secret base was a s.p.a.cial long-abandoned underground water reservoir that Hisui illegally took over and remodeled. With the exception of the area where the Jungle leaders lived, it was an unduly wide empty s.p.a.ce, sprawling far and wide. Colossal pillars standing tall at fixed intervals in the endless dark brought the image of an ancient temple to mind.

Walking between those pillars, Sukuna voiced one simple question, “By the way, is Children’s Day something you’re supposed to celebrate? Isn’t it just another day off?”

“Originally, it was called Boys’ Day. It originated in China and included a custom of decorating the gates with irises and cleansing the evil, which essentially represented the warring spirit - that is, it bore the meaning of honoring the art of war, and in the samurai society of j.a.pan, it became a day to celebrate boys’ growth and health. These are the roots of this marked day that later became modern Children’s Day.”

“I ain’t doing that. Just. No. Way.” Turning Iwafune down, Sukuna even shook his head pointedly from how much the idea evoked rejection in him. He also griped tighter the long stick that could become a scythe at any moment if he so wanted, his battle readiness eloquently showing that no amount of coercion would make him yield even an inch in this matter.

“Nowadays, the only celebratory practices remaining are carp flags and bathwater with iris petals. I considered doing armored warrior cosplay, but after taking into account the time and effort it would take to complete material selection, organize the manufacturing process and convince Sukuna to put it on, among other things, I had to perish the thought. Regrettably.”
“So you were planning to force me, huh…”

They threw comments in the same vein back and forth as they walked, until Hisui, who was leading the procession, stopped in his tracks - or more accurately, stopped his wheelchair.

“Whoa, that’s…”
“When did you…”

The clansmen couldn’t help half-shocked, half-impressed noises that escaped them.

The object those utterings were about was a giant pole. Towering on a foundation so st.u.r.dy that it probably could only be made on the spot, it had a presence about it that rivaled that of the surrounding colossal pillars. Illuminated from the four sides, it commanded the impression of a through-and-through monument.

Hisui crossed to the pole, and only then turned to the other three. Usually Hisui’s poker face remained emotionless, but this time, with shades of light and shadow playing on his face, he looked vaguely proud.

“I have everything prepared. All that is left is to pull that rope to raise the koin.o.bori flags.”

And like he said, the koin.o.bori had been prepared as well. Four emerald green flags lay there, like fish washed ash.o.r.e.

“If you already went that far, you should’ve just finished it and raised them yourself…”

“Sure! Leave it to this old man!” Iwafune rolled up his sleeves excitedly and grabbed the rope.

Meanwhile, Yukari and Sukuna noticed a certain fact and, exceedingly puzzled expression on their faces, turned to each other to exchange troubled looks again.

“Hey, whatcha two standing there for? You got a mission from the king! Get pumped up and let’s do this already!”

“Iwa-san, you’re a king, too, though.”

With visible reluctance, the two grabbed onto the rope as well.

Observing them, Hisui nodded to himself with satisfaction, then announced like a host, “And now, celebratory raising of the koin.o.bori flags for Children’s Day. Please begin.”

Prompted by his words, the three tugged at the rope simultaneously.

“Well, I had a feeling it would turn out this way.” Yukari’s short harsh comment echoed through the sprawling s.p.a.ce.

They did raise the koin.o.bori. If three clansmen put effort into it, raising a flag or two was a piece of cake. The flags slid higher and higher as they pulled at the rope, eventually reaching the top of the pole and stopping.

On the pole, strangely brightly lit with light among the otherwise sinking into darkness pillars, 4 carp-shaped flags were suspended. The green bodies of the fish, hanging down listlessly, brought to mind morbid a.s.sociations with corpses hung by the neck and looked like a ghastly objet d'art at best.

Sukuna tagged at Yukari sleeve, asking, “I haven’t really seen the koin.o.bori before, myself, but… Are they supposed to look like that?”
“Well, at the very least, the koin.o.bori that I’ve seen in my life streamed in the wind triumphantly.”

Gazing expressionlessly up at his objet d'art, Hisui whispered a single word, “Wind…”

No wind blew in the underground. Naturally. Neither Yukari nor Sukuna knew how the Green King, Hisui Nagare, could overlook that simple and obvious fact.

Hisui’s head dropped limply as he said in a quiet voice, “…Iwa-san, Yukari, Sukuna. I sincerely apologize. It is a grave overlook on my part. For some reason, I was under the wrongful impression that once raised, the flag would flutter on its own. Regrettable lapse of memory.” Hisui, as he spoke dispa.s.sionately, didn’t look any different than how he usually did. Except… “Children’s Day celebration resulted in a failure. I will clean up here myself, so you can now lower the koin.o.bori. Thank you for the effort…”

It left him feeling depressed, after all. Hisui Nagare may appear expressionless and unsocial, but he wasn’t emotionless, and his clansmen knew it perfectly well.

Iwafune, Sukuna and Yukari looked at one another. Communicating their intention to each other took only a moment, and once they had confirmed it, they all started on a slow approach to Hisui.

“Giving up that easily ain’t like you, eh, Nagare?”

Hisui lifted his lowered head. His eyes went just a little wide as he turned to look at the three.

“Like Iwa-san said, you’re a king, so all you gotta do is just order us around.”
“Now then, let’s get ready.” Yukari put his hands on the wheelchair’s handles and rolled it. Winking at Hisui who started up at him, he added in a light tone, “If wind doesn’t blow, we just need to make it blow. That’s how we do things at Jungle, isn’t it?”

It was hard to call the secret base, originally constructed as a water reservoir facility, a place suitable for humans to live in. Hisui, having chosen this place out of necessity to hide from Timeless Palace, remodeled it in a few ways. He added lighting, installed a security system for the pa.s.sages that led outside, built a 4 tatami living s.p.a.ce… and also restructured water discharge channels, adding a number of vents.

“And hop!” Sukuna, jumping down from one of such vents, held out his PDA with a grin. “I dialed it up as far as it went, and it’s ready to start operating any time. I rerouted all the power from the other fans to this one, so I guarantee we’ll get us a good wind.”

“I’m all done sewing the koin.o.bori. Had to shorten them a wee bit, but they still look nice enough.”

Sukuna, Yukari and Iwafune gathered back together at Hisui’s side.

No wind blew in the underground. But said underground had the necessary equipment to make wind blow. So the plan was to move the pole, placing it in the vicinity of a vent, and make the koin.o.bori flags flutter in an artificially produced wind. Of course, they had to make up for the meager strength of such wind by reducing the ma.s.s of the koin.o.bori…

Iwafune, Yukari and Sukuna cooperated, dividing the tasks between themselves and quickly completing all the groundwork. Hisui didn’t waste time giving some instructions, and in no time, everything fell in place, illuminated koin.o.bori flags shaped like carps hanging loosely in front of Hisui’s eyes once again.

“All that’s left is to turn on the fan in the vent, and we’ll have us some wind. I transferred the operator rights on the fan to you, Nagare, so you do it.” Grinning Sukuna flashed a thumbs-up.

Hisui blinked twice, stared at him for a while, then bowed his head to his clansmen. “…Iwa-san, Yukari, Sukuna, thank you very much.”

“You were so pumped up about this whole thing that I found myself wanting to see it, too. Alright, turn it on, c'mon!”

The clansmen’s antic.i.p.ating gazes focused on the koin.o.bori flags.

Hisui, too, staring up at the pole’s top once again, murmured, “Commencing operation.”

A low rumble resounded. The fan, activated remotely, started rotating, slowly at first, then faster, gaining speed by the second. Its low droning echoed through the darkness, and before long the flapping of cloth started mingling with it. The four carp flags streamed in the wind, like they came back to life, swimming in the water.

“Quite beautiful,” Yukari voiced his impression honestly.

Illuminated from all sides, the 4 green carps swayed, fluttered and danced in the wind, beating their tails as they did, and indeed, it was a beautiful, if somewhat fantastic, sight.

“Ohh… So this is the koin.o.bori, huh! Pretty cool I gotta admit!”
“Yeah, and it sure makes a far greater impression like this than if we did it outside. Oh well, all our troubles were worth it, then, heh.”

Sukuna and Iwafune nodded to themselves with obvious satisfaction, and only Hisui didn’t say a word, gazing at the swimming fish fixedly.

Tossing a glance at him from the side, Sukuna spoke up, trying to make it sound like an afterthought, “Speaking of, this is my first time seeing the koin.o.bori, is this your first time, too, Nagare? Is that why you wanted to see it?”
“No,” Hisui quietly shook his head. “This is not my first time. There was one other time when I saw the koin.o.bori, although I cannot remember when and where.”

Hearing that reply in a murmuring calm voice, Sukuna’s breath caught.

Iwafune said that due to being pursued by Timeless Palace, they had never had a chance to do the koin.o.bori flag raising. In which case, the one other time when Hisui could see the koin.o.bori had to take place before that. That is, before he had become the Green King. At the time when Hisui Nagare was still a normal human who had normal parents and lived with them as a family.

In a natural progression, the three’s gazes s.h.i.+fted from the carp flags to Hisui then. It was unclear whether Hisui felt those stares or not when he continued, as if speaking to himself, “The meaning and influence of the koin.o.bori that I saw at that time is very different. But… I feel that this one is more beautiful.”
“…”

Silence fell for a while, and then, Iwafune’s mouth spread in a grin as he clapped Hisui on the shoulder. “Is that so. Great, then.”

Hisui took his time to gaze at Iwafune, then Yukari, then Sukuna, and only after that said, “Yes. Great indeed.”

A tiny smile curved his lips then.

T/N: koin.o.bori = carp-shaped flag raising