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“Yuji, do you remember what you need to buy?” Choso asked his little brother from the entrance of the tattoo parlor.
The boy looked up at the sky to think. “Ground beef, green onions, and tomato sauce.”
“All right, and what are you going to do with the change?”
“Buy candy!” the boy said, his eyes sparkling.
“No, you’re bringing it back to me,” his brother corrected him sternly.
The boy looked at the floor and pouted. Choso sighed; he just couldn’t with him. Ever since this boy had come into his life, it was as if his heart had softened.
“Fine, you can buy yourself a piece of candy, but just one,” Choso emphasized the last condition, raising his index finger. Then he crouched down to his brother’s height, and the chains on his pants jingled as he bent down. “Do you remember where you’re supposed to go?”
“Over there,” the boy said, pointing to a distant spot—the top of the hill visible at the end of the street.
“To the Panda Store. Very good. And how are you going to cross the street?”
“I look both ways…”
“...and cross when the light turns green,” they said in unison.
“All right. Don’t get lost, okay?” Choso ruffled his little brother’s hair even more before saying goodbye.
“I won’t!” Yuuji adjusted his tiger-plushie backpack and turned to set off on his adventure. “See you later!”
They waved goodbye, and Choso watched him go, just to make sure the boy made it safely to the corner. There he saw him walking away among the crowd in his light-up sneakers, the tail of his tiger backpack bobbing back and forth with each step.
“Choso, go inside now—the boy’ll be fine,” his brother Esou scolded him as he disinfected the seats.
“But…”
“The boy is already five years old; there are kids who do the same thing as soon as they learn to walk,” added his brother Kechizu as he drew some designs on a piece of paper.
He was right about that, but even so, Choso felt a knot in his stomach.
The three older brothers had grown up together and supported one another their whole lives until they struck out on their own and opened a tattoo shop, but Yuuji had only had the support of his grandfather during his short life. Having lost his grandfather and with no other relatives besides his three half-brothers—whom he hadn’t known until then—it was only natural that they wanted to look after him. Especially Choso, who doted on him endlessly, but had to let him go on his own—it was necessary for Yuuji to become an independent and responsible boy.
Choso got up and went into the shop to sit down and check the business’s social media, though in reality he wasn’t paying attention to the messages he needed to reply to or the appointments he needed to schedule. Instead, he hopped from chat to chat with a distant look in his eyes, a flood of unlikely scenarios running through his mind. What if he got lost? No, the path was a straight line—it was impossible. What if he forgot something? Well, that was part of the process; he had to learn. What if he got hit by a car?
A deafening screech rang out from the street, followed by the sound of metal colliding.
“Yuji!” Fearing the worst, Choso jumped up from his chair and ran out into the street.
“There he goes again—he just can’t leave him alone,” Esou sighed.
“He’s a lost cause,” Kechizu replied.
Outside, a crowd had gathered around the accident. A car had plowed into the side of a bus, and the bus driver had gotten out to fight with the other driver. Everyone was watching the fight, but Choso was scanning every figure around him, searching for a small figure. He didn’t relax until he spotted, in the distance, a pink blob with a tiger-shaped backpack about to cross the street. There he could see that the boy was following his advice, since he looked both ways before crossing; even so, Choso couldn’t go back into the store. The world was so crazy—what if a car hit him? Well, realistically speaking, there wasn’t much he could do, but the anxiety was killing him, and he couldn’t leave his little brother alone.
He started walking behind him as if nothing were wrong—after all, he was a brother worried about his family. What's wrong with keeping an eye on him without him noticing, just to make sure he got to his destination safely?
He continued on his way from a safe distance. By then, Yuuji stood in front of the park and saw that he had stopped to look at the playground. At the moment, there weren’t many children there—at least none of his friends—but he did notice that the Penguin King slide was empty.
“He’ll go there to play and will forget about everything,” Choso thought.
However, Yuuji shook his head to shake off the temptation and kept going.
“Good boy—what a responsible kid you are, Yuji!” Just seeing him do that made him smile to himself.
It wasn’t much further to the Panda store; he was almost there when he noticed something unusual. Outside the store, there was a police car, and one of the officers was waiting outside.
Could something have happened?
Yuuji approached the man standing outside. He was tall, and when he took off his cap to fan himself, he revealed his white hair just as messy as his little brother’s. From the way he acted, Yuuji must have asked him something, and whatever he said made the police officer bend down and ruffle his hair with his hand.
His brother finally entered the store, and Choso hurried to follow him and find a hiding spot. The police officer was still fanning himself, and when he saw Choso, he didn’t take his eyes off him. It was normal for that to happen, especially since the three brothers had the typical “bad boy” look—covered in tattoos, piercings, and chains on their clothes. Choso ignored him and leaned against a wall inside the store so that Yuuji wouldn’t see him when he came out. The officer’s partner came out of the store—a man as tall as a lamppost, but with his black hair pulled back into a bun. Although the officer had an elegant bearing, Choso couldn’t help but notice the evidence that he’d once had ear extensions. He wasn’t the best person to judge, but just how lax were the hiring standards for police officers these days?
The store doors opened with the jingle of bells, and Yuji and Mr. Panda exchanged a “See you later.” Finally, Yuji stepped out with his backpack stuffed full of ingredients that looked like they were about to spill out (Mental note: buy him a bigger backpack). The green onion swayed as he walked like a metalhead at a concert, and the packaged meat was dangerously exposed to the sun—though if Yuji didn’t get distracted on the way, it would be fine to eat.
“See you later, Officer!” The boy waved to the albino police officer as if he were a friend from school.
“Take care! Watch out for strangers! Especially the ones who follow you home!” It was a generic safety message, but for some reason, Choso felt as if it were aimed right at him.
Yuji flexed his arm to show off his little muscles. “It doesn’t matter—I’m strong, and so are my brothers! If anything happens, I’ll hit them and run off to tell them someone was bothering me!” the boy replied with all the confidence of a shonen protagonist and continued on his way, completely unconcerned.
The police officers laughed heartily at the boy’s bravery and watched him silently as he crossed the street properly. Choso came out of his hiding place and, to avoid running right into the police officers, crossed over to the opposite sidewalk. He walked with his heart swelling with pride; even though their brotherly bond had begun in a sudden and forced way, it made him happy to know that he finally considered them genuine brothers—at least enough to let them know if he was in danger. Speaking of danger, as he walked on, he sensed he wasn’t alone; that feeling was all too familiar. Ever since his first tattoo, not a day had gone by without him feeling it to some degree of intensity. He glanced at the convex mirror on a lamppost and saw two figures with extravagant gaits, unbecoming of public servants of their rank. One was strutting around with a can of strawberry bubble tea in his hand as if he were a thug who owned the street, and the other walked hunching over like a vile alleyway Yankee. The question echoed in his head once again: What the hell is going on with cops these days?!
The situation was getting unbearably awkward—if he spoke up, they’d judge him; if he didn’t, they’d judge him too. Deep down, he knew what he was doing was very suspicious, but what’s wrong with being a concerned brother?! The four of them walked down the hill at different paces, with Choso always keeping his distance from Yuji and the other two getting closer and closer to him, until finally, in the middle of a street, Choso turned around and found himself face-to-face with the suspicious stares of the police officers.
“I’m that boy’s brother,” Choso replied curtly.
“Hmmm…” The police officers looked at him with even more suspicion.
“Well, I’m his half-brother on my mom’s side, but I’m still his brother!”
“Hmmmm!”—the suspicion intensified to the point where you could almost feel it.
“It’s true! Stop looking at me like that! Ugh, look…” Choso pulled his cell phone out of his pocket—an old model adorned with three charms: a red-and-black butterfly, a green monster with two mouths, and a little tiger. He pressed a button on the side of the phone, and the screen lit up to show the police officers the family photo: It was the grand opening of the shop. The three adults in the photo looked like they’d stepped out of a visual kei band—all wearing dark clothes, piercings, heavy makeup, and striking poses that exuded a casual yet intimidating aura; and in the center of it all was a yellow-and-pink figure, arms at his sides. A grin from ear to ear and an attitude as if he were the big boss of the place and the other three his bodyguards.—See? This is our family photo.
“Pfff!” laughed the albino.“What kind of Addams Family is this?!”
“Now that you mention it, I have seen that kid in the stories about that store,” said the guy with the ear extensions.
“WHAT?! I told those two not to post about Yuji!” Choso roared.
“Ah, don’t worry. They cover his face with a tiger emoji—they also call him Tora-kun. That’s how they protect his identity,” Extensions-san continued.
Choso sighed in relief. “What a relief. I don’t want to think badly of the customers, but…”
“I see. You never know what kind of audience those things might reach.”
“Hey, why do you follow that place, Suguru?”
“Ah.” Suguru paused for a second. “You know, Satoru, for research purposes. You never know,” Suguru hesitated.
“Huh? Why? What case are you working on?....”
The rest of the conversation faded from Choso’s ears because, out of nowhere, a certain chat popped into his head.
“Did you asked us for a tattoo? Wasn’t it something about some six eyes in…?”
“Not at all! Not at all! We cops can’t have that kind of thing!” the man in question tried to brush off the subject with feigned calm.
Choso was almost certain that chat existed, but when he remembered the area where he wanted the tattoo, he decided not to bring it up again. He doubted that cops would be checked in that area and didn’t want to complicate things further, even though the one now pressuring him to confess was his nosy partner. He wondered how he’d get out of this situation until a scream made his blood run cold.
Choso looked back and saw Yuji running down the hill after the green onion that was rolling out of control toward the highway. The runaway green onion had escaped from the backpack, and the boy was now running to retrieve it, oblivious to the oncoming truck. Being so responsible, Yuji was willing to put himself in danger to do the right thing, without considering whether it was worth giving his life for even a simple green onion. Choso started running without thinking and barely felt the pain in his lungs as his hoarse voice screamed his brother’s name.
It all happened in a second that felt like an eternity to him. The screech of brakes, the crunch of a crushed body, and the sight of a light up sneaker flying through the air. The fragility of a small body became evident in that moment.
The world fell silent, and the boy was unable to fulfill his mission.
Beneath the truck’s wheels lay the lifeless evidence of a crime.
Shattered and bruised.
There lay the remains of the metalhead scallion.
From behind the fourth wall, this depraved pumpkin writer wishes him a safe journey to the heavens. (We lost a baddie.)
“Itadori-kun! Don’t do that!” A boy a little older than Yuji was gripping his shoulders tightly. He had black hair, with his bangs covering one eye, and was wearing a “Human Earthworm” T-shirt. “You won’t be transported to another world if you get hit by a truck!”
Yuji froze in shock.“B-but… the green onion.”
“It’s just a green onion, Itadori-kun! It’s not worth the risk.” The boy’s mother, a cheerful woman, crouched down to comfort him, handing him a green onion from her shopping bag.“Here. Problem solved, and if it happens again, you can always stop by the house to ask for one.”
“Yeah, please, take green onions away from her.”
“Don’t be picky, Junpei; green onions make any lunch look tastier.”
“That’s not it—they just don’t suit you.”
“Here we go again! I’m going to the market, not Tokyo Fashion Week.”
Mother and son continued talking and trying to calm Yuji down in their own way, until Junpei noticed something.
“Hey, isn’t that your brother?”
“Huh?” Yuji looked back and saw only two police officers talking to the truck driver. It seemed the green onion would get some justice in the form of a ticket for ignoring a stop sign. “No, those two are cops… Hey, when are we going to see “Five Nights at Alfredo’s?”
“Is Friday after school okay?”
“Yeah!”
“Um… but isn’t that movie rated for kids over twelve?” Nagi, the mother, remarked. “Besides, I don’t think it’s come out in Japan yet.”
“I downloaded it,” Junpei confessed, giving a thumbs-up without a hint of shame. “There are no age restrictions on the internet.”
“Son, don’t say that in front of the law,” his mother warned him in a low voice, keeping a smile on her face to cover her tracks.
Both children confirmed the date and said goodbye. Mother and son walked away, chatting—probably about the ethical boundaries of piracy and children’s access to the internet applied to the Japanese context. As for Yuji, he stuffed the scallion as tightly as he could into his backpack so the incident wouldn’t happen again and walked the rest of the way up the hill.
“That was close,” Choso sighed. Then, seeing that the police officers were distracted writing a ticket and there were no more snitchy witnesses around, he resumed his escort duty. It was the last stretch, but the most challenging one for his little brother, since they still had to walk past the Great Penguin King’s park—and if he wasn’t mistaken, his friends usually came out to play at this time of day. If Yuji passed the test, he’d get a perfect score, though Choso wouldn’t be upset if he got distracted for a little while—after all, he was just a kid.
It seemed the perfect score was in jeopardy. Our protagonist stopped in front of the park entrance, raised his arms to wave, and dashed into the playground. Choso soon reached the entrance and saw that his prediction had come true. His friends, Nobara and Megumi, were talking to him. Could they be inviting him to play or something like that?
There was no sign of the unexpected danger that was approaching. A one-eyed white cat crept out of a bush, heading straight for the tray of meat sticking out of the backpack. To make matters worse, Yuji decided to set his backpack on the ground so he could play. From their loud conversation, Choso could only make out the last name of a gymnast nicknamed “Mr. Spin,” and he watched as Yuji imitated him by spinning like a top in the air, oblivious to the disaster lurking nearby.
Nobara and Yuji were having their own kids’ Olympics, jumping and doing somersaults all around. However, Megumi wasn’t much of an Olympic judge; he just pointed at Yuji’s backpack.
“Yuji, why is your backpack making a noise?”
Everyone fell silent, and the only sound in the air was the wet crunch of something being chewed.
Then all hell broke loose. Yuji ran to grab the backpack away from the cat, Nobara ran towards the cat with her toy hammer in hand, and Megumi… Megumi just watched the chaos unfold. When he opened the backpack, Yuji saw that the cat hadn’t eaten much, but no matter how clean a cat is, it’s not healthy to eat something that’s already been chewed. The boy clenched his fists tightly in anger—not at the cat; an animal is never to blame for following its instincts—but at himself for getting distracted. Meat wasn’t a cheap ingredient and was only used on special occasions; tonight’s dinner was supposed to celebrate that the shop was finally turning a profit big enough to treat themselves.
He felt his face burning and his eyes filling with tears. He wasn’t afraid of punishment—he was sure his brothers would take it in well—but the disappointment of a failed mission weighed heavier than any punishment or harsh joke.
“Yuji.” Megumi came over to comfort him. “I have a little pocket money left; if you want, we can buy more.”
Nobara came over, holding the one-eyed cat by the scruff of its neck. “Yuji, look! We can sell this cat! We’ll tell them it’s an exotic one-eyed cat, and they’ll pay us a fortune!”
Then Yuji wiped away his tears and started laughing. “Thanks, but I’m the one who has to fix this.” He paused to think for a moment; the change wasn’t enough, and his allowance was in his piggy bank at home—his brothers would find out if he went there.
“It’s not necessary, Yuji.” Choso, sensing his younger brother’s distress, decided to come out into the open and crouched down to his little brother’s height. “You’ve done enough. I’ll take care of buying what’s left.”
“But…” Yuji pouted.
“Yuji, you were able to run an errand all by yourself—that alone proves to me that you’re a big, reliable boy. We’re proud of you.”
Yuji smiled at the compliment but also scolded him: “But you could’ve done something too, Choso-nii! If you were following me the whole time, you could’ve told me about the cat!”
“Huh?” Choso was stunned. Did that mean he’d realized all along that Choso was following him, or had he only just figured it out? “Since when did you know? Did you actually see me?”
Yuji shook his head. “You never leave me alone, so I knew you were there following me like a Shinigami.”
A certain famous shinigami who was crazy about apples popped into Choso’s head—“ShiKIgami, Yuji,” she corrected him, emphasizing the “KI” sound. “Shinigamis are the gods of death. Shikigamis are spirits that protect you.”
“It’s just that you seem more like the former,” Nobara remarked, and Megumi didn’t hesitate to agree.
“Yeah, when kids pick on me at school and I can’t hit them back, I tell them I’m going to write their names down in my notebook and my brother will take them to hell.”
“Yuji, that’s so grim! What kind of manga is Kechizu showing you? I’m not like that!” his brother protested.
The two kids in the back giggled at how the boy in pink was telling stories about teachers and classmates traumatized by his big Shinigami brother, covered in piercings and tattoos. Meanwhile, the brother seemed to shrink smaller and smaller, embarrassed to be seen that way. In the end, all he could do was sigh and try to change the subject.
“Well, I guess we have more guests coming over for dinner. Do you guys like spaghetti and meatballs?”
The menu was met with great enthusiasm, even from the quietest one, and the three children set out to prepare dinner alongside a shinigami (Choso: “I’m not a shinigami!”). Choso sent a message in the group chat for the three caregivers to let them know they’d be coming over for dinner, and shortly afterward, Megumi and Nobara’s mothers gave their approval and even allowed them to stay overnight. (There was even a message saying, “If he wants to, let him move in there,” from a certain father with a gambling addiction, but it was deleted a few minutes after Megumi’s mother reacted with an emoji.)
The water began to boil, and Choso started counting on his fingers whether to add two or three packages of spaghetti; two would be fine, but just barely enough. If the kids asked for more, it would be a problem, though he didn’t want to overfeed them either. His gaze was fixed on the helpers standing next to him at the kitchen counter, but he wasn’t paying attention to how each one was making the meatballs in their own style. Megumi shaped the meatballs with industrial precision; each one seemed to be exactly the right size, even without a scale to verify it. Nobara wasn’t far behind, but at some point the meatballs stopped being round and took on more interesting shapes like stars, hearts, and so on. Apparently, the cook had been influenced by the person next to her.
“What are you doing, Yuji?” Choso snapped back to reality when he saw his little brother shaping the meatball into strange forms. That was deliberately not round.
“Meatballsaurs,” the boy replied, as he poked the back of the supposed stegosaurus to form its iconic plates. Even an expert archaeologist would have trouble distinguishing it without further clarification, but in Choso’s eyes, it was a stegosaurus—an exact replica!
Finally, Choso settled on three packages of spaghetti to hae seome left for the week lunches, and it was time to cook the meatballs. First up were Yuji’s “meatballsauruses,” which were placed in the skillet, and Choso flipped them with the utmost care, as if they were a gourmet dish from an expensive restaurant—but physics are unforgiving, and once cooked, they ended up smaller and even more misshapen. Next, the other meatballs were seared, and they didn’t suffer the same fate. Among the squadron of perfect spheres, many stars and hearts held up with dignity. In the end, whether misshapen or perfect, large or small, they all coexisted in harmony within the sauce.
Then the table was set, and even though Choso tried to keep things orderly, the dishes were passed from hand to hand until they reached the table. The air was filled with comments about how delicious dinner looked, until Esou’s somewhat disgusted “What are those things?” was quickly silenced by a stern look from Choso and Yuji’s “I made them!” . In that moment, they went from being a strange sight to a gourmet, handcrafted meal. Dinner was a simple dish for a grand celebration. The tattoo business was thriving, and the youngest member of the family took his first step toward becoming a more mature and responsible child—so they raised a toast with beer for the adults and juice for the kids to mark these important milestones.
The evening unfolded amid anecdotes, jokes, and the brothers’ recounting of the day’s adventure, which was even compared to an episode of Shin-chan. In the end, the little faces covered in tomato sauce got up from the table, the adults took care of the cleanup, and dinner wrapped up with plans for a movie night. But not before sending the kids off to brush their teeth and wash their faces (“Your faces aren’t plates,” the adults joked).
The kids’ council took forever to decide on a movie for the night; they went through a thousand titles—movies, TV shows, even YouTubers they could watch—and poor VJ Kechizu kept changing the lineup every 5 seconds until he issued an ultimatum: “If you don’t decide, I’m not putting anything on,” followed by protests from the kids. And since they couldn’t decide, VJ Kechizu ended up putting on just any old show on TV. There were about twenty minutes of protesting during which they still couldn’t reach a consensus, until they ignored the show entirely and fell into deep silence. Fumihiko Takaba’s stand-up comedy had the opposite effect on the kids, and they soon fell asleep; it wasn’t until Kechizu and Eso let out a giggle at a joke that Choso ordered them to be quiet.
Noticing the three asleep, the three siblings obeyed and set up their own movie night. They laid out the children’s futons they’d saved for these sleepovers and took the kids one by one to rest in the bedroom. They were so sound asleep that the trip didn’t even bother them, and they slept like cats until the next day. Only Yuji reacted; he complained in his sleep and muttered:
“Swiper Cat, no swiping! That belongs to my brothers!”
Kechizu and Eso stifled a chuckle and went off to set up the older brothers’ movie night. Choso, on the other hand, stayed there for a moment.
“Swiper Cat, no swiping, or you’ll deal with us,” he whispered.
Yuji nodded in his sleep, and apparently, the one-eyed cat never disturbed him ever again.
The last things he felt before succumbing completely to sleep were a grateful hand on his hair, his brother’s proud congratulations, and the joy of growing up a little bit bigger everyday.