Introducing a familiar family member and teacher...
A little fun fact: This chapter title is derived from "Suijin" (水神), the term for supernatural water beings in Japan's Shinto religion.
Sewer-Ojin
Deep down in a cavernous system of tunnels connecting to one big main shaft, sounds of life echoed across the walls. One could be forgiven for attributing those sounds to that of sneaky critters making their homes below the busy urban streets, but that wasn't really the case here. In fact, those sounds were more akin to a TV set playing, with someone helping themselves to treats.
"Okay guys, remember the plan?"
Hiro made sure not to whisper to his brothers too loudly, since they all had to rely on their dad not hearing what they were up to in order to make the plan work. Mon eagerly nodded and gave two thumbs up. Hoku tilted his head to the side with a nonchalant grin. Basho…well, he was calibrating something. Hiro though those responses were good enough, so he turned back to face the task at hand.
On the wall of one larger room, a theater screen-sized projection was playing, bright, colorful, and in hi-def. The display unsurprisingly emanated from a projector that sat on an end table in the center of the room. Standing next to it was an armchair, one that was very puffy and spacious due to the way the cushions were so big and round.
"So how do we get Oton out of the room without him asking why?" Hoku made sure to mention.
"Shh!" Hiro shushed his brother, pushing his own hand on top of Hoku's head for good measure. "I'm working on that!"
The sounds of the show playing from the surrounding speakers had just rang out its latest catchy pop tune when the plan was put into motion. "Sunmahen, Mokuhen-Oton," Hiro spoke out first, sliding sideways in a zip-like entrance in front of the projected tv show playing. His 3 younger brothers also followed his lead, standing on both sides of him and imitating his jovial but consciously polite posture. Hiro continued, "We were just thinking. You mind if we borrow the living room for ourselves tonight?"
Sitting on the armchair, a short and round grey-furred rat in a brownish-green robe was slurping a mega Slurpee-sized drink from a straw. He was in the middle of taking his drink when he heard Hiro's voice reach his ears through the slurping. He paused to open one eye to take a look at his eldest son. He quietly snorted, which then turned into a snicker, which then grew into a giggle. "Haha, good one Aka-chan," he let out a rumble, "you might just be funnier than Murasaki-bō this time!"
"Told you I was funny…" Basho whispered smugly but then gasped once he took a double take to process the rest of the statement he heard, turning to look at Hiro and sounding incredulous, "…Tei, choumatte! How are you funnier than me?"
Hiro, on the other hand, couldn't help but beam from his dad's words. "I did it," he thought happily and tearfully, "I got Ojin to laugh the same way Basho does." But he opted to continue with the plan, feeling the need to say something to keep the ball rolling. "Well, it's just that…we see you at the TV all the time, and maybe…" He wasn't getting anywhere with this.
"Hey Ojin, how about I hook up your show in your bedroom? It'd be even lazier." Basho quickly butted in, though he did so rather aggressively which may have been due to the remark of him not being the funniest anymore.
"Nuh-uh," the rat dad known as Mokuhen shook his head, "I've been sitting on this chair for hours now and my oido is asleep, just the way I like it."
Hiro's thoughts raced in his mind. His plan was going downhill fast. It was supposed to be simple: the guys would go in, politely convince their dad to leave the room for a bit, and they would all get a grab at his private collection he kept on the shelf that stood to the side. "Well Ojin," he tried to sedge in a second time, his fingers on both hands twiddling against one another, "We were thinking that…we got into those American movies about Lou Jitsu again recently and we wanted more time to look at his moves."
Mokuhen burped. "Oh, so you want to be a Lou Jitsu star?" he asked the boys with a curiously challenging tone.
Hiro was furiously nodding his head with a smile, his cunning spirit now having returned as some fruit was being borne. "Yeah! Yeah! We wanna get some Lou Jitsu study time! And we all know you like Lou Jitsu too, so…" Everyone held their breaths, hoping they offered something of substance to get through to the rat man with.
The rat-man sat quietly on his armchair for a few seconds, then took a bite of the cake slice sitting at his side. "Alright then." The boys were letting out quiet cries of victory, accompanied by the exchanges of fist pumps with one another. But Mokuhen lifted a closed hand to his face. "Ahem." The boys turned their eyes back to him immediately. "Since you've watched those movies before, I figure we should have a pop review first." Surprisingly for the boys who knew him all their lives, he hopped off his behind and stood on his own two feet atop the seat cushion. "Saa, hajimede."
The boys eyed him in anticipation. "So, where do we start?" Hiro asked carefully.
Mokuhen smirked. "Right here, of course." He tensed his legs, a little bounce on the seat cushion giving the boys a vague clue to what he was doing, but not enough to actually have an answer. But the rat didn't give them any time to ponder before he launched into the air like a rocket, springing off the chair. "Your practice starts now!"
The boys, with their wide eyes, saw the silhouette of their dad from above do a somersaulting twirl in the air, his tail whipping in an arc, before coming back down hard on their position. They instantly knew this was not going to be painless.
It was only for about 10 minutes, but for the boys, it felt like 10 hours of getting their shells kicked nonstop. They always knew, at the back of their minds, that their dad was an expert at ninjutsu or something, but they never thought it would go so far as imitating every one of Lou Jitsu's moves more smoothly and elegantly than any of the four. His reputation as a couch potato only made that revelation all that more confounding. 10 minutes of getting tail-whipped head first into practice-ramen bowls was enough for Basho, Hoku, and Mon to decide on urging Hiro to move on to Phase 2 of the plan.
"As usual, your skills are still in the 'knockoff'-stage," Mokuhen sauntered off back to his armchair.
"So…" Hiro wheezed as he shakily lifted his head out of the splattered ramen noodles and lifted a trembling hand with his pointer finger unfolded, "…do we get the room?"
The father of the turtles laughed again. "Of course, why not?" He didn't quite catch the boys letting out a collective sight of relief, with even Mon letting his head fall back down face first into the noodle bowl he was recently splattered into. "It can't hurt to let you keep me company tonight." Mon yanked his head back out of the noodle bowl while the other three went from being relieved to being in disbelief.
"Uh, actually," Hoku felt it was his turn to butt in, "We were asking for private bro time here."
"Private bro time?" the rat immediately turned around, a little surprised by what he heard. "Brr, no thanks! That should be something only done in your rooms." Basho thought of raising his hand to vehemently clarify that it was none at all what their dad thought they were implying, but Mokuhen wasn't finished. "So why don't you watch Lou Jitsu with me, so I can walk you through the steps?"
That…wasn't what the boys expected. They were thinking he was going to boot them all back out and force them to come up with a new plan, but…he was offering to share the living room and his TV time with the boys. Well, the plan to get him out of the room was simply so they could grab a particular item from his shelf of collectibles.
The item in question was one that possessed a detail the boys had seen before: a stylized letter M with a dash on the rightmost line. They weren't sure why their dad had something that matched that description, but they had recognized that same pattern in another part of the city while out exploring the rooftops. It was Mon who caught a glimpse of the carved sigil on the brick wall of a random building and alerted his 3 older brothers of the discovery. Even more so, all of them were sure that they caught a glimpse of the carving glowing a little bit. Knowing that a glowing brick wall was nowhere near ordinary, Hiro tried to touch it to see he is he could make it do something, but the glow completely died down before his fingers reached the brickwork. It was then that they remembered having seen the same marking on one of their dad's antique mini-vases, leading to what they tried to do now.
Even if the plan wasn't going the way they wanted, sitting with their dad to watch movies together wasn't a bad trade-off. Hiro figured that this could still work as a distraction. He turned to Basho, Hoku, and Mon. "Keep him talking," he whispered.
About a half-hour into the movie, three of the turtles – especially Mon – were asking their dad question after question about everything in the movie, from the moves of the main actor Lou Jitsu to the way the scenes were shot, all to keep his attention on them and not on Hiro who was tiptoeing behind towards the collectibles shelf. Hiro was only within a few inches of having the tiny M-marked vase, all digits of his hand about to close in on it.
"You know, boys?" Mokuhen spoke up. Hiro froze up, rushing back to his former seat next to his dad's chair at the same time he noticed him get off it. "It really makes me feel good to see you having an interest in the things I like as well. I'd like to give you something." At that same moment, Hiro was glad to have moved back to his seat as he didn't want the rat noticing what he was trying to do at all.
The four boys watched as he went over to the shelf lined with collectibles and used his tail to scan for an item. They all tensed and held their breaths while they watched him, hoping with all their might that he would pick the vase they were after from the start. The tip of his tail went left and right, up and down, until it slowed down to stop at an item.
"And here you are," he remarked, wrapping the tail tip around a tiny ring-like trinket next to the little vase. The turtles' anticipated expressions deflated on the spot. The rat turned around to hold the little trinket in his tail, his arms behind his back that showed everyone just how relaxed he was, even if he was always like that. "I think you all deserve something of mine as a present. Hope you like it." With a flick of his tail, he sent the little trinket flying up into the air and falling in an arc towards them, being caught in Hiro's hands.
"So, is this thing, like, 'our' present or just for one of us?" Basho spoke up warily for the rest of his brothers.
Mokuhen shrugged his shoulders and lifted both his hands in indifference. "Eh! Shiran kedo na! Back to my show!"
In the same second after he said that, all four boys were simultaneously pushed out of the living room, sliding across the floor without giving them a chance to stand. In no time at all, he went back in to resume his sitting and snacking.
The boys blinked silently, their eyes initially observing their dad's quickness to indolence and then slowly swiveling down to the little trinket held in both of Hiro's hands.
"Well, we got something off dad's shelf," Hoku broke the silence.
"Sure, but not the one we wanted anyway," Basho huffed. "Just how's this trinket's supposed to…" he trailed off as he followed his three brothers' concentrated stares at the item, noticing the insignia on its main face. "…oh."
"Guys," Hiro announced quietly and happily as he kept his eyes on the mystical stylized M-symbol on the trinket, "I think we should really thank Ojin for this later."
Terms:
"Mokuhen" (木片): splinter, piece of wood
"-chan" (ちゃん): honorific that addresses a person with endearment and emotional closeness – mainly for close friends, family members, lovers, young women, adolescent girls, cute/small animals, and babies + little kids
"-bō" (坊 or ぼう): honorific that serves the same purpose as "-chan" above, except that when it comes to young children, it's used exclusively for boys
"Aka" (赤): red (color)
"Murasaki" (紫): purple (color)
**** Note 1: When Hiro addresses his dad as "Mokuhen-oton", he uses "oton" like a title/honorific and says it last/after the name. It's true for any title/honorific and when addressing anyone. Example - "General [Name]" is spoken in Japanese as "[Name]-General", so in Hiro's case, he's effectively calling his dad "Papa Mokuhen". Also just like how it is with the original, "Mokuhen" is not the actual name, just an alias/second name.
**** Note 2: You know how Hiro was addressed by his father as "Aka-chan", which is supposed to mean that he's being called "Red" in an endearing familial way. But did you know that when you put together the words "Aka" and "-chan", it forms a separate vocabulary word, meaning "baby" (赤ちゃん "akachan" in Standard Japanese | Kansai/Osaka dialect: ややこ "yayako"). It might make you see that little remark in a different light…
**** Note 3: Also, the honorific "-bo" sounds like "Bo staff" (aka – purple turtle's signature weapon), don'tcha think?
Dialect words/phrases:
Oton (おとん): Dad (casually addressed) | Standard Japanese: Otōsan (お父さん)
Sunmahen (すんまへん): "Excuse me/us" (for interruptions) | Standard Japanese: Suminasen (すみません)
Tei (てい): "Hey!" (as in 'Hey, you!', attention-grabbing exclamation) | Standard Japanese: Kora (コラ)
Choumatte (ちょうまって): "Wait a minute!" | Standard Japanese: Chottomatte (ちょっとまって)
Oido (おいど): butt (a person's behind/rear) | Standard Japanese: Oshiri (お尻)
Ojin (おじん): Pops (colloquial term for 'dad' or 'grandpa') | Standard Japanese: Jiji (じじ)
Saa, hajimede (さぁ、始めで): "Let's get started" | Standard Japanese: Saa, hajimeyou (さぁ、始めよう)
Shiran kedo na (知らんけどな): "Don't know, don't care" | Standard Japanese: Shirimasenshi ki ni shimasen (知りませんし、気にしません)