"Welcome back, our dear audience," said Hao cheerfully when the curtains rose. "Before we go to the second act, let's have a recap on the events in the first act – we met Thumberena, and we also met the fairy and the old woman, who both had issues in life. Now we continue."
Chapter 8: Thumberena Part II
Hao started his narration. "Now the lotus has blossomed, and the old woman was delighted with its beauty."
Ryu appeared again, holding the flower and sniffing it delicately. "What a lovely flower!" The moment he brought it close to his nose, Hao snapped his fingers, and the flower exploded right under Ryu's face.
"Oooh!" squealed the kids in delight.
"And from the flower emerged a maiden whose height is insignificant compared even to my…" He looked down at his pants and the audience' eyes widened, waiting for what he would say. Hao looked up and winked. "…belt."
Collective groans from the more adult audience.
Ren at last appeared in the scene, sitting inside a neon pink paper flower.
"Neon pink?" cried the judges in disbelief.
Hao heard that. "I told you those seeds were magical." He coughed. "And so, the small delicate maiden looked up and found the burnt face of the old woman due to the explosion. She smiled."
Ren looked up at the direction of the stage light, pretending to look up to the old woman from somewhere, while Ryu's dubbed voice floated in the stage.
"I will name you Thumberena!" said Ryu's voice.
Ren wanted to snort, but he delivered his line anyway. "Thank you, Ma'am. I love that name."
Hao snickered. "And Thumberena curtsied."
Ren looked at him in shock. That wasn't part of the script!
He snickered some more. "Thumberena CURTSIED."
The fuming Tao had no choice but to hold the hem of his skirt and curtsy.
Horo, who was tying Manta into the string, saw what Ren did. He burst out laughing, and in doing so, accidentally lost grip of Manta. The fairy yet again dropped face first on to the stage floor.
Thumberena looked at the fairy in disbelief.
The kids giggled. "Told you they're relatives!"
Hao cleared his throat. "The fairy suddenly dropped in to check if the seeds she gave the old woman weren't expired, and now that she saw they weren't, she would now collect the payment for the seeds. So off she went to find the old woman." He smiled at the midget, who instantly seized the chance to run back into the backstage.
Hao turned back to the audience. "Thumberena is very happy living with the old woman, and vice versa. However, their happiness together wasn't bound to last, because the happiness of a human being is weak, and the human beings are pathetic and feeble-hearted. Thus to change this, we need shamans who can dispose of these human beings who are only polluting our world-"
"Hao Asakura!!!" yelled a voice from the backstage and the audience.
Hao grinned. "Oops…I just thought I have a parliamentary immunity here and privilege speech too. Now where was I? Oh yeah, so someone else noticed the beauty of the little maiden. Every afternoon, he would be there ogling Thumberena. It was the frog. "
Lyserg in a frog mascot was pushed out from the backstage, and he marched towards the centerstage fuming.
"Teacher was wrong; frogs can walk on two legs!" said one kid.
Hao snickered. "Yes, only English frogs can do that."
"Really?" said the children, fascinated by how much their King Hao knows.
Ren then pretended to play and skip around as Lyserg hid behind the stone, watching him.
"Such a cute maiden!" he said, dishing out his best Oscar-winning performance. "Kokak."
He scowled when he heard his friends in the backstage laugh maniacally. He sighed; they wouldn't understand true acting even if it was right under their nose anyway. He continued to speak. "I want to have her for my wife….kokak."
Hao nodded. "So when the English frog saw the chance one night while Thumberena was sleeping, he pounced on her, grabbed her, and kidnapped her!"
Lyserg tensed his muscles, then began to leap on his legs madly towards the Ren in the neon pink flower. He carried Ren on a piggyback, then started to leap out to the backstage as if he was a frog. Unfortunately, he underestimated Ren's weight, and on his second jump, he tripped, accidentally hurling the screaming Ren out into the backstage.
"Will Thumberena be alright?" asked the kids curiously.
"The frog should have just walked," said another child.
Hao came to the center of the stage. "So what will happen next to our heroine? Will she survive her fractures? We will find out when we return-" He was about to pull down the curtains when he heard a scream.
"I'm fine! Let's go on with the story!" said Ren, limping towards the stage.
"Yay for Thumberena!" cheered the children.
The onmyouji smiled. "Fine, if you say so." He walked back to his place. "Now, let's go back to the story. Thumberena was kidnapped by the frog, and he was now forcing her to be his wife…"
Lyserg clasped Ren's hands. "Please make this amphibian happy by being his wife, oh beautiful Thumberena…kokak."
Ren buried his face on his hands and shook his head firmly. "Never!" he cried in a girlish voice. "I am not happy here. Just bring me back to my dear old woman!"
Lyserg shook his head. "You'll be happy here too. You'll be the queen of my kingdom."
Hao snickered. "Well froggy, how would you expect Thumberena to marry someone as ugly and clumsy as you are?"
The dowser glared at him. "Shut the f*** up, Hao Asakura." He then saw the audience blink, so he added, "Kokak."
Hao smirked, then went back to his narration. "To be sure that Thumberena won't try to escape, froggy left her in a floating leaf in the middle of the river as he busies himself in building a love nest for the two of them."
Lyserg smiled at Ren. "I'll be back, my beloved bride." He suddenly felt the urge to look out onto the audience, and then blinked.
Marco was watching! And if there was Marco, then there must be…
The silver-haired girl smiled at him and waved. The dowser felt his whole body petrify. Jeanne-sama, the Jeanne-sama, was watching him!!! And he was dressed in a frog costume!!!
He couldn't take it anymore. "Aaaaaargh!!!!!" He ran out into the backstage in shame.
Hao smirked. "And Thumberena cried and cried; a frog didn't want to marry her! A cursing clumsy English frog at that! He refused her in the last minute!"
The judges' jaws dropped; indeed, the story had a weird twist.
"The fishes and the flowers heard her melancholic cry, and out of pity, but mostly out of annoyance with her noise disturbing their peace, the fishes nudged the leaf forward, sending Thumberena adrift. The micromaiden was only too happy to be away from the disgusting frog. So for many days, she drifted, and sang with the birds and marveled at the beauty of her surroundings."
Meanwhile, Yoh and the others were sighing in relief. Hao was beginning to take the narrator's job more seriously.
"However, her happiness was short-lived, for she was able to attract the attention of a beetle." Hao snickered. "Her sex appeal is really something, huh? And are all forest animals that horny, always stealing women just like that for wives?"
Chocolove appeared, wearing a cockroach costume.
"Eew," said the kids collectively.
"Do cockroaches look like that?" Hao asked in fascination, inspecting the rare species of crossbred beetle and cockroach standing on the stage.
Chocolove went to Ren, grinning. "Wow, you'll make a lovely wife! I'm taking you with me now!"
Ren did his best to look afraid. "No, no, please. I am quite happy where I am now…"
"Nonsense!" Choco then grinned. "Hey, do you know what one beetle said?" Without waiting for his answer, he said, "It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog…" he sang. "Get it? Beetle? Beatles?"
Blank looks. But before the cockroach could think of another joke, Hao spoke up. "After failing to make the Thumberena laugh, the cockroach seized the girl by the waist and kidnapped her. Poor girl…why does she end up being lusted on by losers anyway?"
Ren glared at him as Chocolove dragged him indeed, by the waist, into the backstage.
Hao continued. "However, when they arrive in the beetle's house…"
Ren was dragged into the center stage once again, and he blinked. He forgot to cast the characters for the beetles' relatives!
"Yipes!" yelled Chocolove when he saw Amidamaru, Mosuke, Bason, Tokageroh, and Eliza garbed in cockroach costumes. Ren checked the audience and saw that they didn't think it weren't ordinary actors they were seeing in the mascot costumes.
Ryu's dubbed voice appeared again, in an even higher pitch this time, just as Amidamaru stepped forward. "What kind of creature did you take home for us?"
Horo's high-pitched voice went next as Bason stepped forward and inspected Ren. "Her arms are too pudgy! And what's with her pointed hair? Ugly!"
Faust' voice came when Tokageroh stepped towards Ren. "She is too human-like," he said in a deep, sexy cool voice, making some of the girls in the audience scream and squeal in delight. Indeed, Tokageroh sounded like a radio DJ.
Manta's voice went next when it was Eliza's turn. "She has no feelers! She is ugly!"
"You really think so?" asked Chocolove, rubbing his head. "Oh…alright."
Hao smiled. "And with that, the beetle-cockroach threw her out to the nearest garbage incinerator."
"No, he didn't!" yelled Ren.
"Thumberena, don't complain. I am the narrator here," said Hao, smiling. "According to the script, you will meet a mouse, so where else can you find a rat but in the trash? Field mice are not realistic."
Ren was about to protest when Hao added, "Anyway, according to the script, you should be depressed because you feel so ugly, after you were refused two times. If I were you, I would commit suicide. Life's handing you a message already."
He faced the audience. "What will become of Thumberena now that she ended up in garbage? Will she stink? Will she be able to fight the urge to take a bite of that half-finished quarter pounder beside her?"
"Eew!" said the audience in chorus as Ren fumed.
"We will find out in the third act!" And with that, Hao closed the curtains, but not without screams from the female voice, demanding to show them the voice actor of beetle in a cockroach costume no.3.
Yoh grinned as he put on his costume. "Faust, they love you!"
The doctor grinned, then hugged Manta. "Thanks for voicing my beloved Eliza!"
Manta freaked out. "Yoh!!!"
Hao smiled at them. "Get ready for the third act, you guys." He smiled at his younger brother. "Good luck, kiddo!"
"Thanks, aniki!" Yoh grinned back.
tsuzuku