╔════════════╗
⚠️Disclaimer⚠️
This story contains strong language
and violence, please proceed
with caution
╚════════════╝
....
"I want to eat a galette~"
Crescent said.
Crescent is a big fan of the gravure model, Funny.
Funny runs a galette shop called ‘Funny Galette’ and he wanted to try out a galette from there.
After it's first shop opened in Tokyo it quickly spread throughout Japan and became a chain store. A Funny Galette store even opened in Fukuoka.
The Poppies don't exactly know where the store is though.
But after this year's rice harvest they were free and they decided to go to Fukuoka on a weekend.
They all decided to wear their school uniforms.
Popee, Kedamono, Stain, Crescent and Boron were going to eat Galette. They searched for Palvan and saw him fishing on a bridge. They invited him to join them but he refused, saying that he usually fishes for river shrimp around this time of year. Palvan continued to fish quietly.
The river shrimps that gather under the bridge are then captured and dried in the sun.
"That guy, why does he have to be so bitter...." Boron sighed.
"And why should we eat at a galette store just because Funny owns it?" Boron complained.
Boron was a cynical person who looked at the world at an oblique angle, and it was obvious that he was not looking forward to trying a galette unlike Crescent.
Crescent was a guy that let emotions overtake him easily, he could quickly switch from being gloomy to ecstatic. He was excited to go eat a galette.
Stain was the oldest of the Poppies, being 30 years old. He was a very timid and quiet guy. He was willing to try a galette.
Kedamono would eat anything so it didn’t matter if it was galette or not, he’d eat it anyways.
Popee, he was not particularly not interested in eating a galette.
His heart was longing for something else.
He wanted to see the world outside the village.
He yearned to go to a city somewhere.
He wanted to leave the village and start his own life, a life without Papi.
The Poppies decided to start walking on a Friday afternoon.
They planned to camp overnight, and board a freight train that would lead them near the town of Fukuoka. It would be a long journey and they would first have to walk on the long roads of the Kyushu mountains before ending up in Fukuoka.
"Isn't this a bit risky?" Stain said nervously. As they all walked together Stain started playing 'stand by me' by Ben E. King on the harmonica.
They were at the outskirts of the village when they spotted a dead body in the middle of a field, they took a closer look at the corpse. It seemed like he had a heart attack, but the Poppies weren't shocked.
This was common in the village since a lot of elderly people lived here.
Crescent: "Oh man, this is bad... We have to do something!"
Boron: "Well, we can't really do anything about but set up another flag."
Boron began to undress his lower bottom and tied his red underwear to a stick as a flag.
This was a signal to other villagers that there was a corpse here. People who have time will carry the corpse to the center of the village and bury it.
After Boron was dressed they decided to camp.
The Poppies chat around the campfire they had made.
Kedamono: "I wonder how that guy felt about the village before he died... He didn't regret living in the village, did he?"
Everybody is at loss for words.
Kedamono seemed to really like living in the village.
"There's lots of fresh and delicious food here~" Kedamono boasts.
"Yeah, but.... There's no young women here T_T" Crescent sheds a tear.
Stain: "At least we don't have a lot of people here, if there was there'd be so much crime going around,"
Boron: "Wherever you go, humans are all the same! Everybody has criminal tendencies and love is just a fantasy, an illusion. We'd be better off alone staying here,"
Each of them had various feelings for the village. They spot the freight train and get on board it. After a long ride they get off.
After walking for a long distance on the Kyushu mountains they see the city of Fukuoka in the distance, being illuminated by the morning sun.
“This is it! Fukuoka city! Galette, here we come!!!!”
The boys' faces lit up and they ran down the mountain enthusiastically.
------------------------------------------------
They all walked around searching for the store.
Crescent gripped a flyer of 'Funny Galette in his hand.
Finally, they arrived in front of the Funny Galette store.
They all wanted to go in, but they were hesitant because the store was full of girls.
On the other hand, after that long trip they were sweaty. They also had a bit of mud and dirt on them after travelling on the mountain and fields.
And they were wearing Geta (japanese sandals) so they felt out of place.
Boron: "We can't go in like this! We'll look like chinchikurin!"
Chinchikurin is a term that simply means dickhead or asshole, many adolescents and adults don't like this term.
Stain: "But we don't have enough money to get new clothes!"
Crescent: "What are we supposed to do now?! How are we gonna get more money?!"
After thinking for a while, Popee shouts.
Popee: "So what about our appearance?! We travelled this far just to get galette! If these Fukuoka guys laugh at us then they're idiots who don't know how much we've been through to get here! I'm going in!"
Popee stomps off and heads towards the store.
Before he could enter a man calls out to the Poppies.
"Hey, you young gentlemen! Did you come to eat galette? I'll bring you to my shop instead!"
The man introduced himself as Tetsuzo, he was a middle aged man who had a slight kansai accent.
"My galettes are cheap yet still delicious!"
"Are they big though?" Kedamono asked,
"Way bigger and better than Funny Galette's!" Tetsuzo answered.
Everybody but Crescent seemed to be keen about this.
The food in Funny Galette cost more than ¥1,500. But yet there was not enough money among the Poppies.
They thought for a while and decided to accept Tetsuzo's offer.
"No!!! Funny!! (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞"
Everybody followed Tetsuzo while Popee dragged a tearful Crescent behind him.
They followed Tetsuzo from the main road to an alleyway. They wondered if there would really be a shop in this dark place. They started to doubt Tetsuzo.
Then they came across a wooden house, it smelt like rotting wood and the floor was greasy.
"You sure we could really eat galettes in this kind of place!?" Popee exclaimed but Tetsuzo was confident. "Wait here and I'll get the galettes for you boys," Tetsuzo said before disappearing off.
The Poppies were anxious about this.
After a bit of waiting, Tetsuzo brang out dishes similar to Okonomiyaki.
Crescent took a bite, "huh? This, isn't this Okonomiyaki?"
Everybody goes quiet but they were hungry so they finished eating the dish.
"Alright, that'd be ¥5,000 per person,"
The boys were startled by the high price.
They started arguing with Tetsuzo about it.
"You guys are too loud! You ate your food and it was good! Now shut up and pay!"
Suddenly Popee hits Tetsuzo with a frying pan at the back of the head and he falls to the ground.
Popee turns to the guys, "I'll make another galette!"
Everybody cheers with him.
Weak Tetsuzo knelt down before the Poppies.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to trick you!"
It turned out that this sketchy shop was, in fact, an Okonomiyaki shop called Tetsuzo’s Okonomiyaki.
Tetsuzo also came from Masuda village and the shop was first situated on the mountains of Kyushu, it then was relocated to Osaka, then Hiroshima and finally to Fukuoka.
There, the Okonomiyaki shop flourished but then when Funny Galette arrived it stole the spotlight, a lot of female customers went there.
Funny Galette also advertised a lot on television.
Funny Galette was becoming really popular.
At this point, the Okonomiyaki shop couldn’t compete with it’s rising popularity.
When women wanted to go to the Funny Galette shop the men followed them and soon Tetsuzo’s Okonomiyaki was rapidly losing customers.
“I can’t win…. I can’t beat her…. My okonomiyaki is better in taste but…. I can’t win because of that stupid gravure model!” Tetsuzo bursted into tears and the boys sat there in dead silence.
Boron: “Oh, uh, don’t worry Sir, everything is going to be better…. “
Boron turns to Popee.
Popee sympathised with Tetsuzo.
He thought of his future, even if he did leave the village the farming techniques would not be helpful in cities. It would also be a pain that he would also have no money or friends around.
All that Tetsuzo had was nothing, yet he was able to set up his own shop.
“...Shut up!!!” Popee yelled before hitting Tetsuzo again with the frying pan.
He hated the fact that he was sympathetic towards Tetsuzo. So, to deal with that feeling he hit him with a frying pan.
Popee’s friends tried to stop him, they dragged him away from Tetsuzo and left the shop.
Boron: “Sorry about that sir! We’ll leave now!”
They arrived at Ohori park and stared at the pond in silence.
Finally Popee broke the silence, “That guy…. I got irritated at him. He managed to leave the village. That’s why!”
His friends knew how he felt somehow.
Boron: “Let’s eat real galette this time. If we don’t then we came here for nothing! We’d really be chinichikurin.”
Popee’s face suddenly lit up,
“Yeah! We’re not chinchikurin! Let’s go eat a galette for real this time!”
Everybody cheered and headed off to Funny Galette.
THUD!
Popee kicks the door open with his foot, as if he was part of a Yakuza.
The Poppies walked into the store, hands in their pockets, the staff and customers looked at them with a puzzled look.
The Poppies sat down at a table and waited silently for someone to take their order. A woman walks over to them to take their order.
"One Galette!"
"Me too!" "Ditto!" The guys said.
The waiter was beautiful, but they didn't take notice since they were excited for galette.
When their order arrived they didn't know how to eat it, the galette was similar to crêpe. But they didn't know how to eat thin food with a fork and knife.
The cute waiter realised this and asked "is this your first time here?"
Popee: "Oh, uh, yeah."
Then Lifa, the waiter, taught them how to eat a Galette.
Stain was enchanted by her kindness and gentleness.
Stain: "I- I want to marry her~"
He muttered happily to Crescent.
Crescent smiled at the cup coaster he was holding which had a picture of Funny on it.
"That's good to know"
Everybody was captivated by Lifa's looks.
Then they ate their galettes.
….
"Huh????" The guys were quiet for a bit.
"...Tetsuzo's Okonomiyaki tasted better…."
The Galette lost to Okonomiyaki in terms of taste.
------------------------------------------------
The evening came and there was a lonely atmosphere.
Kedamono: "Hey, we should pay our bill at that guy's place…."
Crescent: "oh, that's right. I guess we wasted our money at Funny Galette for nothing really."
Everybody felt the same thing so they headed off to Tetsuzo's Okonomiyaki.
"Tetsuzo-!" They entered the store and called out for him, but there was no response. That was odd, he was here a while ago.
They entered the kitchen and saw someone who had fallen and was bleeding.
"What the-?!"
The guy had a strange perm but they rushed over and helped him up.
Then they spotted a dead body of a stranger near him.
The Poppies were startled.
They noticed Tetsuzo in a dark corner of the room, trembling. He held a bloody knife in his hand.
Tetsuzo: "I- I did it…."
Apparently, the two guys who were bleeding were part of a Yakuza and came for Tetsuzo but were ultimately stabbed and killed by him.
Boron: "Oh fuck- Hey! Let's get out of here!"
Crescent: "Oh no no no, this is the worst!"
Kedamono could smell the corpse.
Popee: "Everything is gonna be alright, sir, do you have any red cloth???"
Tetsuzo looked at them confused before shaking his head.
Stain: "Oh great…."
The Poppies were going to put up a flag with a red cloth just like the custom they usually do in their village but without it there's nothing they could do about it.
Tetsuzo: "Even if you did that wouldn't change the fact that I killed them!"
"Well then what are we going to do?" Stain said in a panicked tone.
Tetsuzo: "Oh! I have an idea"
Tetsuzo asked them to use the shop's Kei truck to dump the Yakuza corpses into the sea.
Boron: "Are you crazy?! We're not going to be involved in this! Let's just go home!"
However, Popee decided to listen to Tetsuzo.
Popee: "This guy came from the same village as us and managed to leave! I was thinking that if we manage to graduate we could leave the village… Someday…. And the Okonomiyaki was good too!"
Kedamono: "Oh, and the Okonomiyaki tasted like the ones from our village!"
Everybody: "......................"
When they got to the sea they dumped off the dead bodies into the sea.
Tetsuzo: "Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much! I'm leaving Fukuoka tomorrow, so would you like to have my okonomiyaki? You boys don't have anywhere to stay tonight too, right?"
The boys nodded and he invited them all to his house to enjoy some Okonomiyaki.
Tetsuzo: "We'll be making the last okonomiyaki for today, could you help me?"
Tetsuzo handed Popee a knife and asked him to help cut a cabbage.
The atmosphere was happy and everybody was excitedly making okonomiyaki.
"Bon Appétit!"
Everybody enjoyed their meal.
"This seems fun, why don't we all go back home on Monday?"
Everybody laughed
Tetsuzo looked at them and smiled, "welp, i'm going to take a smoke," he said before leaving.
But he didn't return.
Instead the police arrived.
They were alerted that a murder occured here in the okonomiyaki restaurant and dumped into the sea. They were notified that the criminal was in their house and they used a knife at the murder scene.
Popee remembered that Tetsuzo asked him to cut the cabbage.
The Poppies were deceived by Tetsuzo.
The Poppies were arrested by the police and taken in for questioning.
"Wait! We didn't do it, damn it! We swear that old man did it!" Popee's cry echoed through the city while the moon shone.
------------------------------------------------
Detective: "We interrogated all of you and all of your stories were consistent with each other. We'll set you all free,"
The five Poppies were released from police custody. They all were weakened by the sudden and frightening interrogation.
Police officer: "Is the criminal using this time to escape?,"
Detective: "Most likely. We took too long interrogating these guys…"
When the Poppies exited the police station they saw Papi and Palvan waiting for them in the middle of a roundabout with a truck.
Popee: "Tch, old man…."
Papi nodded his head to him and told them to get on the truck.
They all boarded the truck without a word.
The truck started and it puffed out smoke.
Police officer: "Wait, hold on a minute- This is traffic violation-"
Detective: "You don't need to. It's Mr. Papi this time,"
Police officer: "What? Well we really overdid it this time…. If it really is Sir Papi-"
The detective shushes him, "Shhh! I don't even know if it really is…."
In the shaky truck, everybody was speechless of the situation.
Boron began to cry of relief.
Boron: "Ah shit… How did we even get into that situation? We really are chinchikurin…"
Everybody else began to sob.
The Poppies have come to know the difficulties of society.
They were tricked by Tetsuzo, someone who they began to trust, and almost ended up in jail.
Popee tried to get away from his father by leaving the village, but ended up being saved by him.
Popee: "We can't leave the village yet… We can't graduate from highschool yet…. We're so easily deceived… We're fucking chinchikurin!"
Popee's eyes began flooding with tears.
In the driver's seat, Papi was also trembling with tears.
Palvan patted Papi's shoulder to reassure him.
The truck takes a highway back to the Kyushu Mountains.
THE END.