Giving Water to the Dead

Giving Water to the Dead

Flora Winter’s

I do not own Ghost Hunt and I’m not making any money here either.

Summary: After a strange attack, a young man begins to go through some disturbing changes. Will SPR be able to help him? This story will contain boy-love, language, OC, and violence.

Warning: This story will contain homosexual themes. If you (the reader) is not down with that, then I strongly recommend you reading something else. Other than that, please enjoy and review.

Chapter One

We try to catch you in the dark
With a certain kind of kiss
We invite you to the darker side
A kingdom without light

--Blutengel

Two Months ago…

Pale blue incense slithered through the sweet air from the brass burner and Akihiko Sato yawned, closing the magazine he had been reading. He looked over at his American employer and smiled with perfect white teeth. She was leading a client into the back room where fortunes were always told.

Madam Serena’s real name was Alice Hall. She had won the lottery in Kentucky, moved to Japan, so she could devote her life to the paranormal. In all honesty, the country bumpkin was crazier than a fox on crack.

It had been pouring the rain five months ago when he had stumbled into the shop in order to escape the downpour. The amber eyed woman had been putting out bottles of crystal-essence waters, telling him that he was hired right then and there. Of course, his mouth had hit the floor, bruising most terribly. How in the world had she known he was in desperate need for a part-time job in order to shut his stepmother the hell up? That was when he had noticed he had fallen inside a redheaded witch’s magic box.

So, here he was, reading about Wicca, and why demons were such lousy lovers. Sure, the sex was hotter than hell, but who in their right mind would want to end up as a pile of ash in the sheets? It just didn’t make any kind of sense. People were insane. That was just all there was to the matter.

He reached for his cell-phone, looking to see that it was his boyfriend. “Hello, Nowaki.”

Nowaki Takigawa was a freshman in college while he was still a senior in high-school. The two of them had met at his sister’s wedding to Nowaki’s older brother. Well, actually, the two of them had fallen over each other while trying to get to the seven-layered cake that looked like it had been baked by God herself. The two of them had ended up with cake all over them. It had been love at first lick.

“I’ve made reservations, Aki,” Nowaki said. His voice was deep and so very sexy. It always caused his knees to tremble. He made the blue-eyed stud read him stories every night before they had sex. He knew it was kind of weird, but who cared?

“You did?” He asked, cocking his head to the side, blinking in confusion. “Why?”

There was a dramatic pause and then an annoyed sigh. “What do you mean, why?”

Aki looked around, feeling like those amazing blue eyes were burning right into him. He scratched the back of his head, giggling nervously. “Because…because you love me so much?”

“That is one reason,” Nowaki said, sounding highly agitated. Aki knew that if he could see him, the brunette would have smoke coming from his nose like a dragon. He could feel those category-five winds beginning to hit him in the face. “But, there is another reason as well, Aki.”

Madam Serena poked her gypsy looking face through the shimmering beaded curtain, glaring amber daggers at him. He almost fell off his stool. Why was she looking at him like that? It was very scary.

“It’s your one year anniversary, you idiot!” She hissed, rolling her eyes at him. “And here I thought you Japanese were so smart.”

He put his hand over the phone. “I’m half-Japanese!” He snapped, blowing his blond hair out of his eyes. “Cut me some slack. My dad did weed, Al.”

She snickered. “Idiot…” She departed too quickly for him to throw the magazine he had been reading at her veiled face.

“Did I suddenly lose service?” Nowaki asked on the other end. “Or did you have an aneurysm from thinking too hard?”

“I’m sorry, Nowaki,” he apologized, looking at the statue of an Egyptian deity. He believed it to be Anubis. “I’m a real idiot. I can’t believe I forgot our one year anniversary.”

Nowaki laughed. “Well, at least you admit it honestly.”

Aki pursed his lips. “Where do you want me to meet you?” He quickly wrote down the address, telling him that he loved him more than chocolate covered strawberries on a plate of pink cherry-blossoms.

“I love you, too,” Nowaki told him, hanging up.

Aki put his cell-phone back into his backpack, looking at the address. This restaurant was near that place where Nowaki’s weird cousin sometimes worked. What was it called again? Oh, yeah! Shibuya Psychic Research! SPR! He had read an article about them. Alice said they were the real deal, if a little sloppy at times. It caused him to wonder how Houshou was doing. He distinctly remembered rubbing cake in the guy’s stupid face for laughing at him at the wedding. The two of them had been like cobra and mongoose ever-since.

“Thank you so much, Madam Serena,” Mrs. Endo smiled pleasantly, waving to him with a gloved hand. “I’ll be sure not to buy that can of corn at the grocery tomorrow. I’ll buy peas instead.”

The door jingled-jangled and Aki looked at the wicked witch. “Huh?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”

He nodded. Many disturbing thoughts came to his young mind. He didn’t want to know.

“Oh, that’s funny!” She snorted, laughing out loud.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said, looking at her.

She slapped her knee. “You didn’t have to.”

He cocked his head to the side once more. “Huh?”

“You’ve got anniversary on the mind, my beautiful Aki-sama,” she laughed, wiping tears from her eyes. “I can’t believe you put your stepmother’s ten carrot diamond anniversary ring in the blender. It’s hysterical!”

He fell off his stool, crashing to the floor with a thud. How the hell did she know that? She was always pulling random memories from his mind. “Well,” he said, getting to his feet. “She shouldn’t have bragged about it.”

“Where is Nowaki-kun taking you, my gorgeous slave?” She asked, throwing off her silk veil. She was always making fun of the way Japanese people addressed each other. Well, she was rich. Hell, she was super rich. She could call him Akihiko-Shithead and there wouldn’t be damn thing he could do about it. Well, he could scowl something terrible, but she would only laugh, while hugging him to death.

He put his hand to his mouth in shock. “You mean you don’t know?”

She smiled and it was viciously wicked. “Oh, I know.”

“THEN WHY ASK IN THE FIRST PLACE?” He roared.

“Just to have you yell at me,” she chuckled, dancing around the shop to the beat of New Age drums that were playing over the loudspeakers. “You have such a sexy voice, Akihiko-Shithead.”

He ignored her. “Was that your last client?”

“Aw, come on!” She said, stomping her foot. “You’re supposed to scowl so I can hug you to death.”

Again, he ignored her.

She finally nodded her head, lighting a fresh stick of incense before a large statue of a porcelain Quan-Yin. It was his favorite in the whole shop. “Would you like a reading?” She asked him. “It’s free.”

He shook his head. “Not after what happened the last time you read my fortune.”

She had told him to be very careful around horns. So, every time he would hear a vehicle honk it’s horn, he would jump, duck, and roll for cover. But, that wasn’t the kind of horns she had meant. His biology class had taken a fieldtrip to a petting-zoo. He had gotten rammed in the butt by a goat that had escaped from its pen. It had knocked him flat on his face. Everybody had laughed at him. He could still hear a girl ask him a very stupid question. He didn’t remember her name. “Is that what it’s like being gay?”

“Are you sure?” She asked him. Her eyes were twinkling in the candlelight.

He nodded. “I’m very sure, Al.” He moved and accidentally knocked his glass of water off the counter. It shattered on the floor, spilling everywhere.

Alice took a startled step forward and then gasped. She put a hand over her mouth, looking down at the mess with wide eyes.

“What?” He asked, looking around for something to clean it up with. Where was the mop and broom again? “It’s only water.”

“Blood,” she said, pointing down at the puddle with a trembling finger. “I see blood, Aki.”

He looked up at her. “Blood?”

She nodded, looking around the shop. “Someone means you great harm.”

Who didn’t? That was the real question. His stepmother hated him, he worked for a crazy American, he was half-white, and many kids at school didn’t like him because he was gay. It was mostly the girls. He didn’t know why. The guys didn’t really care. That meant there was one less guy in the ever-competitive game to score.

That was when he noticed that the water did look red. It was from the light on the counter. “Funny, Al,” he said, picking up the glass, being very careful. “You really had me going there.”

“I’m not joking,” she said, taking off her silver pentacle. There was a beautiful quartz crystal in the center of the star. “I want you to wear this tonight. Don’t take it off. It will protect you.” She put it around his neck.

He knew she wasn’t kidding. She would never joke like this. She was giving him her prized possession for crying out loud. He had never seen her without this necklace for the five months he had been here.

“And if you lose this,” she told him, going for the mop. “I will harm you myself.”

That caused him to laugh. He knew she meant it, too. This really was her favorite possession in the world. Her partner in America had given it to her before leaving on a trip. She had died in a car crash on her way back home. So, this was something very special to Alice.

“Aki,” she said. “I want you to call a friend to walk with you. I don’t think you should walk to see Nowaki alone tonight.”

He nodded. He would do whatever she told him, because she knew things about him that nobody else did, not even Nowaki. “I will,” he told her, taking the mop. “Now, how do you turn this thing on?”

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“Tell me again,” Ryu Murakami said, walking beside him through the silent park. “Why do you have this job you don’t even need?”

Ryu was a senior like him. He was tall, muscular, pale, had dark hair, and eyes like a winter storm. The guy was wickedly handsome and had become his best friend in middle-school. Some students had been picking on him, making fun of his hair and eye color. So, Ryu had beaten them up. Ryu had told him that he was from Hong-Kong and that students made fun of his accent and his strange eye color. The two of them had tons in common.

“I told you,” he said, looking up at him. “My stepmonster was giving me hell. This job is one of my three only heavens away from her hell.”

“Ah,” Ryu said, smiling up at the sky. “Nowaki, me, and the wicked witch.”

Aki nodded. “Yes.”

“So, tonight is the one year anniversary, huh?” Ryu asked, turning to wink down at him.

Aki grinned. “Yep.”

“What does college-boy have in store for you?” He asked, sticking a large hand into his jean pocket.

“He wants me to meet him at this address,” he said, looking at the paper. “I know that it is a restaurant near where his cousin sometimes works odd jobs.”

Ryu nodded. “That sounds like fun. I bet it will be something really fancy.”

“What’s this?” Aki asked, stopping, looking at his tall friend’s broad back. “Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?”

Ryu snorted, turning around. “You wished.”

Aki laughed. “Thank you for coming to walk with me, Ryu.”

The muscular teen cocked his handsome face to the side. “Yeah…I was wondering about that.”

“I, uh, well, I spilled this glass of water on the floor and Alice said that it looked like a puddle of blood,” he told him, walking over to where the fountain was. The park really was empty. He looked at the time on his cell-phone. He had twenty minutes until he had to meet Nowaki. “She told me that someone meant me great harm, and gave me this necklace to wear for protection.” He pulled it out of his shirt, showing it to him.

“It’s very pretty,” Ryu told him. “It looks expensive, too.”

“Actually, it’s more than expensive,” he said, looking at it in the light. “It’s priceless.”

“How so?” Ryu asked, walking over, taking a seat beside him on the fountain. The water was shooting up into the sky.

“Her lover gave it to her before leaving on a trip,” he said, looking up at the moon. It was so bright and full of silver. “She died in a crash on her way home.”

“Wow,” Ryu said, putting a large hand on his slender shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “That’s got to be tough.”

He looked down at his lap. “I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to Nowaki…or you.”

Ryu smiled. “I’ll beat the hell out of anybody who tries to hurt you.”

Aki laughed. “Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. “Let’s get going. I don’t want Nowaki to freak out and call the cops on me again.”

“Right,” Ryu said, hopping up. For his height, and bulk, he was so graceful. “Can I ask you something?”

Aki turned to look at him. “What’s stopping you?”

Ryu looked down at his feet. “I don’t know…”

“Huh?” Aki asked.

“We’ve been best friends for almost six years now,” he said, sticking both hands into his pockets. He stopped talking. It looked like he was having difficulty in trying to say what he wanted to get out.

“Ryu,” Aki said, smiling at him. “It’s just me. Say what you want.”

“I love you!” The taller teen blurted out, looking away from him. “I loved you from the moment I first punched that jerk’s face in for saying your eyes were ugly.”

Aki froze. Hell, he was gawking. What the hell?

“I feel so stupid,” he snarled, turning his back on him. “I love you and you’re in love with somebody else. You come to my house, crying, telling me you’re gay, and in love with somebody. My heart soared through the damn roof, only to come crashing down when it wasn’t with me.”

“Ryu…”

“I didn’t want to say anything, because you looked so happy when I told you that it was okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around himself. He looked like he was so cold. “I wanted you to be happy and I fooled myself into believing that I could be happy if you were happy.”

Aki took a small step towards his friend. Was he crying? He had only ever seen him cry once before. It was scaring him.

“I’m sorry, Aki,” Ryu said, dropping his head, slumping his shoulders. “I just…”

“No, I am,” Aki told him, walking up to stand beside him, taking a larger hand in his own. It was cold as ice. “I love you, Ryu. You’re my best friend…but…I’m in love with Nowaki.”

“I know,” Ryu whispered, suddenly pulling his smaller frame close, holding him in his arms. “I know…”

Aki was stunned. He had had no clue that Ryu had been in love with him for all these years. Wow! He really was a stupid blond.

“Ryu,” he said, hugging him back. “We really should get going.”

“I’m sorry, Aki,” Ryu said, spinning him around with tremendous speed. His strength was incredible. He felt the silver chain snap from around his neck. “I just…can’t live without you.”

“What are you doing?” He cried out in sudden fear. What was Ryu doing? This was his best friend? Alice’s words came back to haunt him. NO! This was Ryu! “That was Alice’s!”

The moon, it was so red. It looked like an angry ruby in that black sky. Where had all the stars gone? He struggled and felt that large hand cover his mouth. It was so cold. He was pulled back against that marble hard chest with such power.

“I love you, Aki,” Ryu whispered in his ear, and he screamed into that hand when he felt razor sharp teeth bite down into his neck. He struggled and screamed in those powerful arms that could crush him.

His vision blurred and the tears stung his eyes. What was happening? Why was Ryu doing this? Why was his best friend killing him? That moon was so red. Alice…Nowaki…

The pain suddenly stopped, and his head lolled on his shoulders. That hand moved from his mouth. He tried to speak, tried to scream. He had no voice. He was weak, so very weak. He was spun around again, and would have thrown up, had he had the strength to do so. His head fell back, and he was gazing up into molten mercury orbs. Ryu’s pupils were like twin silver slits. His skin was shimmering like pale moonlight. He was horrifyingly beautiful. That dark hair of his slithered and coiled around his handsome face like serpents.

“I love you, Aki,” Ryu smiled. “I want to be with you for forever.”

Those sensual lips fell on his and something warm filled his mouth. It tasted so good. He felt himself falling back, falling, falling.

“Forget,” that hypnotically seductive voice cooed to him. “Forget…my Aki.”

Darkness took him.

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There was a beeping sound in his ear. It made him groan. Why was it so annoying? He hated annoying sounds. They pissed him off.

“Aki?” A concerned voice asked.

He opened his eyes, blinking a few times. The room was in shadows. There was only a small light on. “Nowaki?”

The brunette nodded. “Oh, thank god. You had me scared to death. Your dad and stepmonster just left to get coffee.”

“Where am I?” He asked, trying to sit up, hissing in pain. “What happened?”

“Don’t move,” he said, helping him to get comfortable, calming him down. “You don’t want to jerk your IV out. I know how you hate needles.”

“What happened to me?” He asked, looking into those wet blue eyes.

“You don’t remember?” Nowaki asked.

He shook his head, cringing in more pain. “Would I ask you if I did?”

The brunette gently ruffled his hair with a large hand. “You were fifteen minutes late, so I came to look for you. I knew you were coming my way through the park, so I took that route. That was when my cell-phone began to ring. It was you, only it was Ryu.”

“Ryu?”

Nowaki nodded. “He was scared to death and yelling. He said this huge dog had come from out of nowhere, jumped you, and bit down on your neck. I took off running when I heard the sirens.”

Aki lifted his hand that didn’t have the IV in it, and felt the large bandage on his neck. “Where’s Ryu? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Nowaki told him, resting his head on his tummy, smiling at him. “He got the dog off you, but got his hand bitten in the process. I’m just so happy that you’re all right and that he was there with you.” Tears came to his eyes and they fell. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened had he not been there.”

“Is he still here?” Aki asked, caressing a smooth bronze cheek.

“He was released hours ago,” Nowaki told him. “He said to call him if there was any change and that he’d be back as soon as visiting hours begin. I’m going to bake him a huge chocolate cake. Does he like chocolate?”

Aki smiled and then gasped. “Alice’s necklace! Where is it?”

Nowaki held it up. The chain had been broken, but that could be fixed. He was so relieved.

“You’re awake,” a voice said from the door. It was his father. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive,” he smiled, waving to him. “You can tell the stepmonster to put the shovel away.”

“Silly boy,” the cruel ruler of hell chuckled, stepping up beside his father. She was pure evil. She was even wearing red. Red? “I don’t even own a shovel, but I hear they are quite cheap.”

“Will you two please stop, Ami?” Mr. Sato fumed, shaking his head. “I swear you two are like twin cobras.”

Aki grinned. “You know we love each other…in our own very special little ways.”

The devil queen nodded.

Aki squeezed Nowaki’s hand. “I love you.”

“Do you love me more than chocolate covered strawberries on a plate of pink cherry-blossom petals?” Nowaki asked.

Aki nodded. “I love you more than jewelry and nice shoes.”

Satan in break-neck heels gasped, putting a hand to her throat. “How dare you speak such blasphemy in my presence?”

Mr. Sato groaned. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Nowaki Takigawa.”

“Of course he knows what he’s gotten himself into,” the Harpy Queen of Endor harped. “Just how many times, that’s the question.”

“More times than all the shoes in your walk-in-closet,” Aki told them, making Nowaki blush like a golden rose. His dad nearly choked on his coffee. The beast didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.

“I’m going to go call Ryu,” Nowaki said, pecking him on the forehead. “That way he can rest easier knowing that you’re well.”

Aki nodded. “Thanks.”

“I’ve got to hand it to you, boy,” the Shrew of Babylon grinned with snowy white teeth, behind painted red lips. “The two of us have one thing in common.”

“What’s that?” He asked.

She whispered close to his ear. “Keeping our men dick-whipped.”

He snorted, and looked over at his dad. “Did they catch the dog?”

TBC…

Please review and tell me what you think.

Flora.