Chapter 7:

Strange Tales from Pokomaru-kun's Studio (3)

The Great Detective Doesn't Fall in Love


“Hey, are you all right?”

Groggily, I began to stand up and, in the distance, I could make out the figure of a bipedal frog running off to God-knows-where. Having resisted the urge to give chase, I turned to Sana who had called out to me.

“I’m fine,” I assured her.

The attendant gave me a solicitous look whilst simultaneously gesturing for me to leave the bumper cars’ platform. I could see that the parkgoers queuing behind us had taken their seats and were eagerly waiting for the ride to begin.

“Fine, fine, I’m leaving. C’mon Haruhi, let’s –,”

Haruhi was nowhere in sight and our bumper car was now occupied by a nondescript family of three.I failed to spot her even after a cursory glance around the platform, and we opted to leave first as the attendant looked to be getting seriously annoyed.

“Did you see where she went?” I asked Sana as we walked past the Poko Poko Merry-Go-Round.

“I ran over to check up on you as soon as you lost to Kairian,” she shook her head vigorously.

“Hey,” I began to say, “I didn’t even know we were fighting, OK? That frog is pretty sneaky too, attacking me like that.”

“You were the one sneaking up on him though…”

“His back was turned to me; and besides, I was just trying to get his attention.”

Sana remained unconvinced, but she didn’t press the point further. Instead, she began to direct me towards a wooden platform near the centre of the park. A dozen attendants could be seen preparing the stage. “That’s where Pokomaru fights Kairian. Come on, hurry!”

“But they’re still setting up… the event isn’t going to begin for another half hour or so,” I said; despite that, I put up very little resistance as Sana grabbed my arm and dragged me over.

“This area is going to be very crowded soon. We have to get good seats,” she insisted. “Look, there are the others!”

Sure enough, I could see the Shinsengumi members perched on the edge of their front row seats, seemingly absorbed in watching the stage, even though nothing was happening yet. Takashi was sitting in the row behind them, scrolling through something on his mobile phone. He looked up when he saw us approaching.

“Where’s my sister?” he asked, pocketing the phone.

“Who knows?” I shrugged. “She ran off somewhere after the bumper cars. I lost sight of her because the frog was following us again.”

That frog?” he was pointing at something, and I instinctively glanced in that direction.

Looking over the shoulder of one of the groundsmen was Kairian himself; from our vantage point, it almost looked as though he were directing the setting up process, and that the groundmen were taking orders from him.

“Can we be sure that’s the same guy?” I asked Takashi.

“I was just thinking that myself,” he replied. “The guy following Sana around could easily be any maniac in a suit. Maybe we were wrong to assume he was an employee at the park. I mean, that guy doesn’t seem like a stalker…”

“Stalking parkgoers would certainly be grounds for dismissal,” I quipped.

“Hey, hey, it’s starting!” Sana shouted.

The Shinsengumi boys in front of us burst into raucous applause, as curious passers-by quickly filled up the remaining seats. What looked strange to me, though, was that the stage had only been set up halfway, not to mention the fact that the principal actors were not on it. In fact, the audience was primed on something that was happening just next to the stage.

Takashi consulted his phone. “The show isn’t supposed to start for another twenty minutes.”

Unfortunately our front row seats did not provide the best view of the action, but I could just about make out two large figures grappling with each other. One of them belonged to Kairian, whom we had spotted earlier talking to the groundsmen, and the other was certainly his rival, the ubiquitous Pokomaru.

The chanting of the crowd confirmed my suspicions and, unsurprisingly, they were overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. The pink, vaguely feline Pokomaru and the frog were locked in an embrace as they scrambled up the side stairs that led up to the stage.

Next to me, Sana was giggling. “Pokomaru is putting up a much better fight than you did.”

I ignored her. “This show is pretty intense, huh?”

For events like these, you would generally expect over-the-top acting and heavily choreographed action sequences; however, the scenes unfolding before our eyes was anything but that. To me, at least, it looked like a genuine scrap, and the only thing over-the-top about it was their ridiculous costumes.

It goes without saying that a mascot costume will severely hinder your mobility, so the regular rules of fighting would not apply. For instance, Pokomaru’s attempts to get Kairian into a headlock failed because his comically short arms couldn’t wrap properly around the frog’s neck, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

Additionally, the costumes’ heavy padding also ruled strikes out of the equation; on second thought, the two didn’t have the means to actually hurt each other, and they now realised it. Their fight had turned into a battle of attrition, and they were now resorting to simply ramming into each other.

Strangely enough, the audience was engrossed in the bizarre spectacle.

Kairian would knock Pokomaru down to the groans of the audience, but they would let out a thunderous cheer when their hero staggered to his feet again. When the favour was returned and Kairian was down, the audience would suddenly start counting as though this were puroresu or a boxing match.

In the end, it was the frog whose stamina gave out first. A shove from Pokomaru sent Kairian sprawling to the floor, and there he stayed, his chest heaving up and down. Pokomaru celebrated the victory by jogging through the makeshift aisles and high-fiving the fans.

Sana and the Shinsengumi were certainly into it, and I could even spot Takashi recording a video on his phone, presumably for Haruhi’s benefit. Amidst the festivities, I saw Kairian staggering to his feet and slinking back behind the red curtain – suddenly, a light pink paw was on my shoulder.

“Big bro, you know Pokomaru-kun?!” Sana and the Shinsengumi looked in awe of the furry, ursine creature standing over us.

Pokomaru leaned his head close to mine and began to speak in a muffled, albeit excited, voice. “Come with me, Watson. I’ve figured it all out.”

“Haruhi…?” I didn’t get much of a say in the matter as Haruhi propped me up and led me onto the stage. My companions, who had also heard Haruhi’s voice behind Pokomaru’s visage, followed after us.

As we skirted behind the curtain, a dazed looking emcee appeared and began to screech into the mic although his words barely registered with me. Individual staffers were littered around backstage, looking confused for the most part. The person that stood out the most, however, was the one sitting on an ice cooler, Kairian’s head lying at their feet.

I took a good look at our stalker’s face – bright, verdant eyes and long hair, bluish in the shade, which cascaded down over the back of the blotchy frog costume. Her skin glistened with sweat, and long fringes of hair were stuck to her forehead. As we approached, she made a conscious effort to steady her breathing, a bottle of Pokomaru branded green tea clenched in her hands.

Haruhi discarded the head of her own costume and spoke softly to Sana. “What, you can’t recognise your sister after I ran her ragged?” she was grinning from ear to ear.

“Big sis!” Sana ran over to the cooler and was now hugging the girl’s leg; well, she still had Kairian’s body sans the head.

“Not much of a mystery at all,” Haruhi addressed all of us in a clear voice. “Simply a case of a concerned elder sister looking out for her younger sibling. With that said, you’re not entirely blameless, you know? If you had told Sana about your part time job from the beginning, she wouldn’t have followed you here.”

The girl in the frog costume looked somewhat embarrassed. “I didn’t want her to tell our parents,” she directed her excuses at Haruhi. “They’d go nuts if they found out I had a part-time job.”

“Just wait a second,” Takashi inserted himself into the exchange and pointed an accusing finger at the girl in the frog costume. “Just who is this?”

This has a name,” she retorted tartly, pushing Takashi’s hand away from her face. “It’s Mochizuki Akiha.”

Smugly, Haruhi elucidated the situation for us: “This is Sana’s ‘stalker’ and older sister. She’s also a part-timer here at the park and plays Kairian in the Pokomaru World stage show.”

“Explain the part where she decides to dress up as a frog and follow us around the park,” I said.

“She was following Sana, obviously – to make sure she was safe. I would do the same if Riku, Hinata or Shota were running around this place by themselves. Rather than stalking, maybe we should say she was trying to supervise?” Haruhi mused.

“A co-worker told me they saw my little sister enter the park not long after I did, so I put on the costume early and decided to follow her around and make sure she was OK. I guess I wasn’t very inconspicuous, huh?” the girl named Akiha laughed sheepishly.

“How did you figure it out, Holmes?”

“Who else could it have been? Clearly, there was no elaborate scheming behind the stalking since Sana never told anybody she was planning to come here today,” Haruhi explained. “And Sana said she explicitly saw her sister come up the path to this park. If she lost sight of her, it’s only because Akiha entered the park via the entrance for seasonal ticket holders or staff. When you factor in the sudden appearance of Kairian, then you can conclude that it’s the latter.”

“Sounds more like a misunderstanding than a mystery…” I murmured.

“They all count,” Haruhi was beaming slyly in my direction.

Sana whispered something to her sister, who responded with an understanding nod. Akiha then turned her gaze towards me, her face tinted slightly pink as a result of, I assumed, her earlier skirmish with Haruhi/Pokomaru. She inched closer to me; a bit too close for comfort but I didn’t protest.

“How’s your arm?” she asked, not unkindly.

“Oh yeah, my arm is great!” I flushed slightly and began to swing my arm around as though to flex its strength. “I do calisthenics so I’m pretty limber… you didn’t hurt me at all, hey?”

“Big sis knows aikido!” Sana declared proudly, obviously referencing the earlier fiasco at the bumper cars.

“That’s enough flirting!” Haruhi interjected angrily, locking her arms in-between mine. “I’ll leave you two sisters to it. Gentlemen, we still have some time so let’s enjoy the rest of the park,” she led us away.

“How did you take the Pokomaru suit off so quickly?” Takashi asked, looking puzzledly at the shell of the pink costume, which had been carelessly strewn on the floor. His curious protestations were cut short by the Shinsengumi, who were pushing him away from the scene.

As we walked around the stage area back to the attractions, we passed a middle-aged man, the very picture of a veteran actor jaded by showbusiness, flanked by two flustered staffers. He was speaking vehemently and in an incredulous tone.

“Listen to what I’m telling you! Somebody definitely stole my costume! I can’t find the damned thing anywhere…”

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