Work Text:
It starts small.
At first, Mrs. Tanaka doesn’t even notice anything wrong. She’s not ashamed to admit that her house is a tad messy. The detritus add character, she thinks, even if her husband disagrees. If he doesn’t want to keep stepping on small candies and snails, then he can clean it up himself (she’s seen the seemingly endless supply of golf balls in the backyard—hypocrite)!
Given the overall state of the house, it takes a while before she starts to notice things going missing. First it’s the little pyramid of caramels atop the kotatsu, along with the neat lines of batteries and erasers. Later, it’s the trail of hard candies and acorns on the floor. By the time Mrs. Tanaka has finally noticed that something is up, her neatly arranged plate of parsley is gone! She worked hard on that!
She goes to question her husband in the backyard. He shrugs, insisting that he hasn’t seen anything. Mrs. Tanaka looks around. The backyard looks…well, not clean, but much greener for the lack of golf balls, toys, and gardening equipment scattered across the lawn.
“Did Takeo tidy up?” Mrs. Tanaka asks, baffled. She loves her kids, she really does, but they definitely take after her in terms of cleanliness, especially her youngest.
“I haven’t seen Takeo all day,” Mr. Tanaka replies, continuing to gently propel golf balls into the nearby hole.
Mrs. Tanaka huffs. “Well, if it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t you, then who did it?”
Mr. Tanaka shrugs again. One of the golf balls knocks a sparrow over with a hollow thunk. The sparrow doesn’t so much as flinch.
&&&
Takeo Tanaka is just completing his 57th lap of the neighbourhood when he feels something small and lumpy bump against his ankles. He looks down. Something tiny and green looks back at him.
“Hello,” Takeo says.
The little green thing doesn’t reply. Takeo can just barely make it out behind the cluster of what looks like miscellaneous household junk. A dried squid clings to the ball at a tangent.
“What’s your name? Are you picking up around the neighbourhood?”
The green thing still doesn’t respond. The junk ball nudges against his feet insistently.
“That’s nice. I hate cleaning, but it would be nice to walk outside without twisting my ankle on a stray banana.”
Nudge. Nudge. A piece of broccoli goes flying off the ball at one particularly hard nudge.
Frowning, Takeo picks up the junk ball and inspects it. The tiny green thing follows with a barely audible squeak, holding onto the ball for dear life. Up close, he can see what looks like various food items, candies, coins, batteries, stationery, toys, and of course, the dried squid. Removing items from the ball proves easy. The green thing squawks in outrage as Takeo disassembles the ball, batting at his fingers with itty bitty fists. The core of the ball proves to be a brightly coloured ball covered in smooth bumps. It’s weirdly sticky. Takeo amuses himself for several minutes by sticking and unsticking his fingers over and over again while the green thing tries to chew at his fingertips.
Takeo carefully picks up the green thing, bringing it to eye level as it squirms. It…looks like a person. Well, it looks like a cartoony person that Takeo might doodle on his notebook when he’s bored in class, rather than an actual person. It—he? she? they?—is wearing an odd green hat with an antenna, a green smock, and purple leggings. Sesame seed eyes squint as the little guy scowls ferociously.
“Aaww, you’re so cute!” Takeo coos. “Hey, are you an alien? Or are you a fairy? I’ve never seen anything like you before.”
The maybe-alien squeaks like a dog toy, waving its fists threateningly. It is adorable.
“Don’t be mad! I was just curious.” Takeo gently places the tiny person onto the ground. He watches as the itty green thing runs to the lumpy ball and begins pushing it around. The scattered items attach themselves to the ball with cute doot doot noises, making Takeo giggle. He helpfully nudges a few items closer to the ball’s wobbly circuit. Once all of the items in the area have been collected, the ball takes off like a shot across the bridge leading into town.
“Bye!” Takeo waves at the ball. He thinks that he sees the green maybe-alien make a rude gesture at him. He snickers, getting to his feet. A flock of flamingos soar overhead, heading towards the park. A ninja climbs up the side of the embankment leading towards the train station. It’s lunchtime; time to head home.
&&&
It’s a nice day, Granny Takako thinks. Sunny, with clouds scudding across the sky; warm, but with a light breeze. The forecast had warned of possible light showers in the evening, but for the time being, the only risk to life and limb is the child-sized ball rolling around.
(‘Rain’ can consist of many things around these parts: water, plastic buckets, balance toys, radishes, etc. On really bad days, heavy objects like televisions and cash registers drop out of the sky. Once, there was even a shower of pianos. The noise had been deafening and it had taken weeks to clean the keys out of the gutters.)
Granny Takako watches idly from her cushion by the riverbank as the horrible ball charges about town, hitting children at high speeds and sending them flying off into the air. The kids tend to land on their heads, dazed. Sometimes they can recover in time to run away from the death-ball. Other times, they get plucked right up. In the fifteen minutes that she’s spent watching it, the ball has almost doubled in size. Screams and shouts emanate from the ball. Limbs twitch and wave frantically. So noisy.
She sips from her cup of tea. The Suzuki twins and Ito girl gallop by in a panic with the ball in hot pursuit. Granny Takako sighs in appreciation as a troupe of ballerinas twirl by downstream. A troupe of kappa does the human (yokai?) wave underneath a bridge. One of the Suzuki twins clatters back the way she came, only to screech to a halt in front of Granny Takako.
“Granny!” The girl shouts.
“Hello, dear,” replies Granny Takako.
“You have to run!”
“Run? Why?”
“There’s a weird ball…thing that’s kidnapping people and destroying the town!”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes! It got Kano and Daichi! I barely got away with my life!”
“Ah, that must have been hard for you, dear.”
“Granny, it could come back at any moment!”
“That’s nice, dear.”
“Granny! Come on—oh no, it’s back!”
Granny Takako watches placidly as the horrible death-ball comes tearing around the corner, now taller than a grown man. The townsfolk flee from it like mice from a cat. The Suzuki girl hesitates.
Granny Takako pats the girl’s hand comfortingly. “You go on ahead, dear. These old legs aren’t much for running these days.”
“I can’t just leave you!”
“You can and you will. Granny needs you to use your sprightly young legs to go and warn others of this threat before it’s too late.”
“Granny…” Tearfully, the girl holds Granny’s wrinkly hand.
Granny Takako places a hard candy in the girl’s hand. “Be good and listen to your elders now. Off with you!”
The Suzuki girl nods, eyes awash with tears. She dashes off, only hesitating for a brief moment before running out of sight.
Granny Takako smiles. She finishes her cup of tea and places it on the shell of a nearby sea turtle. The ball approaches, multicoloured and wriggling like a bag of eels. Soon, it’s all she can see.
&&&
Takeo briefly, but fervently regrets not having gone to the washroom while he had the chance. He does not, however, regret fucking with the little green probably-an-alien dude. Sure, when the maybe-alien and his sticky ball—now over ten times its original size—had reappeared and gunned for Takeo in particular, he’d been terrified. After the initial moment of fright, however, Takeo found himself having fun. It wasn’t everyday that a boy could say that he’d been chased down by a real-life alien, after all!
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to run for long before he’d tripped and gotten scooped right up like a piece of lint by a lint roller. The initial few moments on the outside of the ball had been rather uncomfortable: getting repeatedly mashed into the ground and into whatever object/poor sod was in its path was not fun. The experience had gotten less painful, if not quite comfortable, once the ball had picked up enough layers to cushion him. Getting hit by people’s flailing limbs wasn’t fun, but at least his face wasn’t scraping against the concrete anymore.
He’d even managed to find his grandma and parents! Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Tanaka had not appreciated being kidnapped by an alien. Takeo and Mr. Tanaka had spent several long minutes listening to her complain about the indignity of the situation, as if they weren’t right there with her. Granny Takako had simply nodded along politely, her ever-present tea cup in hand. The sea turtle acting as her coaster nods along with her.
Takeo wonders how his sister is doing. Hopefully, she remembers to use the washroom before the little green dude and his ball catches up to her.
&&&
Tae Tanaka is, fortunately, sitting right next to a washroom at the moment. Unfortunately, it has been occupied for almost the entirety of the flight.
The seatbelt sign is on. Tae fidgets in her seat. A clown runs up and down the aisle, arms waving back and forth frantically. A pheasant, a monkey, a dog, and a small boy chase each other down the other aisle. Various colourful birds flap around the ceiling of the plane. The red macaw occasionally lays an egg on the head of whatever unlucky passenger happens to be underneath it at the time.
Reports of a possible alien invasion or a very weird terrorist attack play on the shared screen at the front of the cabin. Shaky footage of a round shape crushing entire buildings and swallowing them up appear beside the news anchor. The scene switches to a reporter interviewing witnesses. One witness is a panda. A monkey with a party hat clings to its back.
Tae hopes that the plane will land soon. Actually, Tae hopes that there’ll still be land to land on by the time the plane reaches its destination.
&&&
Across the world, in a living room somewhere in Canada, Tomo Tanaka witnesses the end of the world. It has come in the form of a massive ball that is apparently capable of picking up entire landmasses from the earth like she would pick off pineapple from a pizza. It’s passed by at least four times now, drastically increasing in size each time. Entire trees, mountains, and even whirlpools stick out of the lumpy ball in a way that defies all logic.
She leans against the windowsill, chewing on an apple. The crunching in her mouth almost drowns out the deafening noise from the ball. It’s like a hundred thousand earthquakes, avalanches, and volcanic eruptions at once, mixed with a godawful chorus of tearing metal and bizarrely cute doot doot sounds as it picks up new stuff.
Devon, her roommate, sidles up next to her. He says something, but the overpowering sound of the literal wrecking ball making another pass drowns him out.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” Tomo shouts. She can just barely make out the sound of sirens in the distance whenever the ball rolls out of sight. She feels pity for any emergency workers that have to deal with this shit. No amount of training in the world could ever account for this.
“I SAID, DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE FLY SWATTER IS? THAT FUCKING RABBIT GOT INTO THE PANTRY AGAIN!” Devon responds. As if to prove his point, the pantry opens to reveal a man in a rabbit suit. He’s holding a blue balloon in one paw.
“JUST SPRAY IT WITH THE PLANT MISTER!”
“I CAN’T FIND IT! I THINK THAT THE VENUS FLY TRAP ATE IT AGAIN!”
“DAMMIT, ROGER!” The plant in question cackles silently, gaping maw opening and closing rapidly. The rabbit man continues to stare, the unchanging smile of the costume belying its eerie blank eyes. “I DON’T KNOW WHERE THE FLY SWATTER IS! JUST HIT IT WITH A ROLLED-UP NEWSPAPER OR SOMETHING!”
“GOOD IDEA!” Devon walks off to do just that just as the ball rolls by again. It is much closer this time. The ground tilts beneath their feet in a way that resembles a seesaw, flinging unwashed dishes and clothes into the air. Devon and Tomo lose their balance, falling on their behinds.
The rabbit man is unmoved. Its unblinking eyes continue to stare into the middle distance. Tomo can hear the sound of a cabinet falling over somewhere in the apartment, punctuated by the sound of glass and ceramics shattering.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Devon gasps. “THAT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE A NORMAL EARTHQUAKE.”
No, it did not. Tomo staggers to the window as the living room is cast into darkness once again. The ground wobbles violently, swinging the door to the pantry closed. The rabbit man is left in darkness once more.
&&&
High up above the clouds, in the dark expanse of space, the ball—the katamari—is held up in judgement. The Prince is a infinitesimal speck next to his father, the handsome and charismatic King of All Cosmos. He listens as the King analyzes and critiques the katamari, nodding along absently. Blah blah blah, too many plants, could be bigger, blah blah whatever. The Prince is much more interested in the present that he managed to roll up. It’s a crown! He’s always admired the crowns that his parents wear and now he has one of his very own! He’s so excited to try it on!
To the former denizens of Earth, however, the King’s spiel sounds less like speech and more like an amateur DJ discovering scratching for the first time. The effect somehow managed to be both ear-piercing and boneshaking at the same time.
“What is he saying?” An elderly man tremulously asked his grandson, who simply shrugged in response.
“Is that God?” A young woman asked.
“I sure hope he’s not, or else I’m gonna need to rethink a few things,” joked her companion, staring at the very prominent, erm, bulge exposed by the mustachioed, gray giant’s fashionable tights.
“Really?”
“What? Don’t tell me that you aren’t thinking it too! It’s just—right there!”
“Can he hurry it up? I have an important meeting at 11,” complained a very oblivious man in a business suit. A koala clung to the arm not holding a briefcase.
“Is that Sakamoto I hear?” A voice asked faintly from the other side of the ball.
The businessman perked up. “Adachi, is that you?”
“Oh, it is you! Yes, it’s Sena Adachi. Uh, just wanted to let you know that the meeting’s been canceled indefinitely. Y’know, on account of the apocalypse and all.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.” The koala honks to show its thanks as well.
Spiel finally done, the King of All Cosmos tosses the katamari into the void above, where it explodes. The unwilling occupants of the katamari exclaim and gasp as it detonates with the force of creation itself, tearing them apart molecule by molecule until there is nothing left of the individual, recombining the mess into sometime wholly new—
and
there
is
L I G H T—
&&&
The birth of a new (old?) planet is both mind-blowingly awesome (in the archaic definition of the word) and astoundingly mundane at the same time. If Takeo hadn’t personally experienced the Big Bang 2.0 himself, he would have thought that this was all a dream.
The former denizens of Earth walk, run, fly, and roll around the surface of their new planet, free to stretch their limbs at last. Everything is back in its proper place, bar one or two misplaced continents here and there.
Mrs. And Mr. Tanaka are back in their house with all their junk. Mrs. Tanaka even got her plate of parsley back! Takeo trundles along his usually path around the neighbourhood, greeting the flamingos and ninja with great cheer. His grandmother, Takako, sits contentedly on her cushion by the river, happy to watch the new alien occupants chase one another around with sticky balls as they compete to see who can forcibly redecorate the town the fastest. There’s the green one, of course, along with an orange one with a pointy butt, one with a strawberry pattern, a cow-themed one that walks on its udders… Granny Takako elects not to think too hard about that one.
Across the ocean, Tae and Tomo reunite on the roof of a hotel, which is itself situated atop a beached cruise ship. For some reason, the airplane had respawned on top of the hotel when the new planet had formed, making for a precarious debarking procedure. Thankfully, the giant squid nearby had been happy to help lower the passengers safely to the ground in exchange for whatever airplane food had been left over.
This new planet may not be Earth, but it’s pretty damned close. So close that, when the King of All Cosmos goes on another bender and blows the galaxy into smithereens again, the first place that he sends the Prince to is—
“Oh God, here it comes again! Run!”
“Are you fucking serious?!”
“I just cleaned everything up!”
And so, the cycle begins anew.