Pulp Life

Rokkakku Takes a Break


13. In a Good Mood



"You should come," Kojiro Saeki said, his voice low and throaty. He tried to keep the volume down as low as possible, but his teammates were still snickering at his conversation, Bane going so far as to make kissing faces at him. "We have the house to ourselves, and I'm sure Oji wouldn't care."

"Hmm," said the voice on the other side of his cell phone, and Saeki thought (hoped) that it had a rather flirtatious tone to it. "I'm not sure."

"Oh, come on, we rarely get to see each other."

"Are you saying you'll make the trip out worth it?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

"Well. . . I suppose I don't have too much work to do this weekend."

"So you'll come?"

"I'll come."

Saeki couldn't help the grin that spread over his face as he hung up his phone.

"Sounds like some one's getting laid," Bane teased, earning him a smack on the back of his head
from Ryou.

"Idiot," Ryou said. "Don't be so crude."

The bus rolled to a stop in front of an old wooden house, and the boys clamored past Oji to get out. They had only been on the bus for an hour, but an hour was still too long for a group of boys their age to be cramped up like that.

"Oh, man!" Aoi called out, all but jumping out of the bus. "This is going to be so great! I've been waiting for this forever!"

"How?" Itsuki asked. "We only found out we were coming here a few days ago."

Aoi ignored him. "Do you guys want to go find the tennis court? I know there's one around here somewhere."

"Aoi, it's past ten," Saeki said, but it didn't seem to damper Aoi's good spirits. In fact, most of the team was looking pretty upbeat.

"You're right, Saeki. Let's go skinny dipping!"

"I'm in," Bane replied. "You guys can bring our bags in for us, can't you?"

"You can bring in your own damn bags," Satoshi muttered, but the other two were running of, Davide following. Ryou looked at where they were running off to, looked back and shrugged, and then ran to catch up.

"Why aren't you guys going too?" Itsuki asked.

"Waiting for better ways to pass my time," Saeki said, following Oji as the old man made his way to the house.

"I guess I'm just tired," Satoshi said.

"Hey," Saeki replied, "you should cheer up. We're on vacation, after all!"

Oji was holding up a note that he found on the countertop in the kitchen, and the three boys all read it as it was hanging out of his hand.

"Why?" Itsuki asked. "Why can't we even go upstairs?"

Saeki sighed. "I guess it can't be helped, if they just fumigated. It's fine though, they said we could go up there starting tomorrow."

"This sucks," Satoshi said. "I think I'll go look for that tennis court, burn off some stress. See you guys later."

Satoshi walked out of the kitchen and back towards the front door, grabbing his tennis racket along the way. Oji had already ambled over to the kitchen table to sit down at one of the chairs there, taking a bad of candy out from his pocket. Saeki and Itsuki decided to leave him for a moment and explore the first floor.

Aside from the kitchen there was a small guest room and a large living slash family room that opened up onto the patio. Saeki figured they could fight it out for spots in the bed, and every one else could crash on the couches or in sleeping bags. Although. . . there was a pretty inviting hammock out on that patio.

"I think I'm just going to relax outside while I wait for Fuji," Saeki said, heading towards the patio door.

Itsuki nodded, thinking maybe he'd go challenge Satoshi to a game. He followed Saeki out onto the patio, but from there he took the old, wooden staircase down to the ground. He wasn't sure where the tennis court was, but it wasn't near the house and there was only one path leading away from the house, so it was as good a bet as any.

He made his way through the dark forest, grateful for the small lights that were found sporadically on the path. He hadn't thought to bring a flashlight out here with him, and it would have been too dark to see otherwise. After walking a little he could see a stronger than usual light, flickering in front of him, and made his way towards it. Sure enough, it was the tennis court, lit only on one end by a light on the outside of some shack there.

Satoshi was sitting under the shack, and Itsuki made his way towards his teammate.

"Hey, Satoshi," he called, "what are you doing just sitting there?"

But the other boy wasn't answering, so Itsuki quickened his pace. Now that he thought about it, Satoshi looked strangely still. Strangely. . . limp, shoulders strangely slouched and fingers curled upwards on the asphalt.

Itsuki was almost running now, but froze as soon as he was in front of the other boy. He didn't know whether to throw up or yell, and felt bile pooling in his mouth. The bottom half of Satoshi's face was covered in blood. His mouth was slit on both sides, from the corners of his lips outward, cheeks split open in some gross perversion of a grin.

"What a bother," came a soft voice, and Itsuki spun around to see Rikkai's Yukimura. "I wasn't expected one of you to come by so soon."


14. Say Ahh...


Itsuki was about to yell for the others when he felt some one from his side kick him in the face. It happened so fast that he wasn't sure what was going on, but then he was prone and struggling on the floor while some boy with glasses held him down.

"Yukimura," the boy said, and the captain of Rikkai entered Itsuki's field of vision.

Yukimura smiled, holding up a container of bleach. "Open up wide, Itsuki-kun."

Itsuki struggled, clamped his mouth shut, but it didn't take them long to force the narrow opening of that jug into his mouth, and then his tongue was burning. His throat was burning. His lips and skin were burning where it spilled out of his mouth. Soon his body started convulsing, reacting to the toxic chemicals being forced into it. And then, after some time, he went completely still.

"Well," Yukimura said, getting up. "Two down. How many more to go?"

Kite grinned. "Let's go see, shall we?"


15. Candy


The old man wasn't even doing anything but crunching on those stupid m&ms. Rin watched from his place hidden in the pantry, door open just an inch so that he could see what was going on. This was so effing boring.

"Take care of the ones in the house," Yukimura had said, like all of the sudden he was the boss of every one. Effing Yukimura. Rin was getting sick of that boy's schtick and fast.

At any rate, now he was stuck in the house, apparently with the old man coach while Yukimura and Kite were out in the woods having fun hunting down tennis boys. Life just wasn't fair.

The old man had dropped that little bag of candy now, m&ms coming to spill out onto the floor. An irregular blue sphere rolled towards Rin, stopping right in front of the pantry door. The old man ambled out of the chair and started heading towards him, stopping over to pick up each individual piece. Man, could he be any slower?

Finally, finally, the old man was right in front of the door. Rin's movements were fast and efficient, honed from years at the dojo. He pushed the door open and grabbed hold of the man in one smooth movement. One twist of his wrist and there was the satisfying sound of bone crunching. Rin slowly lowered the old man, neck now broken, to the floor.

There was a sound from outside then, a car pulling into the driveway, and Rin smiled. Hopefully this development would be a little more interesting.


16.
 The Sound of Waves


Aoi watched as his friends ran ahead of him, already having caught sight of a small cliff that they could jump off of. He heard three splashes in the distance, one after the other, and smiled. He could tell already that this was going to be a great trip.

But he had time to join his friends. Instead of heading up to the cliff face he climbed down a short path of rocks, coming to a small stretch of sand. Here he sat down, content to just feel the sand underneath his fingers.

Aoi closed his eyes. He could hear it all around him. His friends laughing, the ocean, the wind. It was so nice, just to lay here like this for a moment.

* * *

Kite was the one who had found the ax in the woods, as they were walking down to the beach. Kite was the one who carried it over. And Kite was the one who swung it down in a neat arch, cleanly severing Aoi's head from his body.

Yukimura picked up the head, its expression frozen in near bliss, and pitched it into a ocean like it was some type of ball.

"Help me with the body?" he asked.

"Of course," Kite agreed, and they both carried the body, still bleeding profusely, to the edges of the waves.


17. Perfect Blue


Davide sensed something was wrong, nerves prickling all along his body. He looked around, but it was dark, and all he could see were the cliffs and the swells of the ocean. Then he felt it, hands grabbing him from beneath the water and pulling him underneath. . .

"Got you!" Bane said after they both surfaced, Davide sputtering as he came up. Ryou was laughing as well, now just a few yards away and within his sight.

"Wow," Ryou said, after he finished chuckling, "but it really is dark. We should have brought a lamp out here."

"Yeah," Davide agreed, looking up at the little moonlight that was filtering in through the clouds. The water was pitch black under the night sky, but during the day it must be a vibrant, beautiful shade of blue.

"We should play marco polo," Bane said. Even in the darkness Davide could see Ryou shrug.

"That could be fun."

"Okay, I'm it," Bane said, "I'll even give you guys a minute head start."

Bane turned around, not facing them, and Davide and Ryou shared a smile before agreeing to go in opposite directions. Davide headed to the opposite side of the cliff, swimming through a narrow bridge that had formed in its side, and treaded water was he waited in an alcove there.

The water really was rather pleasant, though, he thought, and he ducked underneath to submerge his whole body. When he looked up he could see the starry sky through the water, beautiful and silent. A figure appeared in his vision then, standing on the rocks above him and looking down, and Davide wondered if it was Bane or Ryou and why they had gotten out of the water. He started to swim up to see, but then two hands were moving down into the water, pushing down on his shoulders. He twisted, but the grip grew stronger, and he lost some air in his surprised gasp.

This isn't funny, he wanted to say, but he was still underwater. He was flailing now, frantic, huge gulpfulls of water entering his lungs. He was coughing, struggling, the water around him a flurry of air bubbles, and still those hands wouldn't let him go. Water, blue and dark, and Davide stopped moving, one moment of peace before it was too much.


18. Red


"Marco!" came Bane's voice, much to close for comfort, and Ryou waited for as long as he thought would be acceptable before calling "Polo" back. Ah, but he was much too close, and wherever Davide was hiding he was doing a good job because Ryou couldn't hear him at all from here. He ducked under the water, swimming a few yards before popping back up.

"Marco!"

"Polo!"

Way too close, Ryou thought, he could almost see the other boy now. He swam closer to the cliff, hand reaching out to grab onto a rock there, but then there were arms on either side of him, pinning him in place.

"Marco," Bane said, and Ryou could definitely see him now, eyes gleaming and mouth smiling right in front of him.

"Now that you've got me," Ryou said, "what are you going to do with me?"

"I can think of a few things," Bane said, his head tilting downwards. But then he stopped, a puzzled expression crossing his features.

"What's wrong?" Ryou asked."

". . . nothing, I guess," Bane replied, "just, with the light, or something, the water against your skin looked almost red."

Ryou looked down. It was hard to tell, because the water was so black right now, but against his skin it really had taken on a reddish hue. He scooped up some water, and it was clear and pink against the skin of his palms.

"What-" but then his eyes caught sight of something oval shaped, bobbing a few yards away from them in the water, and even from there it didn't look natural. One of his hands wrapped around Bane's forearm, suddenly cold.

Bane looked over in the direction Ryou was staring, and a chill went through him to see the strange object there.

"It's probably nothing," Bane said, "maybe some animal that was killed. We should go to a different part of the beach."

What happened next was so fast Bane was scarcely aware of what was going on. Hands, reaching around Ryou, pulling him back to slam against the rock there. A boy with square glasses. . . the captain of Higa Chuu? Ryou's horrified expression, arms reaching out towards him. And then a pocket knife, drawing a line across Ryou's throat until it was a gaping black hole. At some point Bane was backpedaling, and then he was furiously swimming towards the shore, a scream caught in his throat but knowing all the while that he needed to run.


19. Dash


It was no time before Bane made it out of the water, and then he was running, as fast as he could, up the beach. His hand made a grab for his cell as he was running, and he dialed the numbers for emergency as he dashed into he woods.

Pick up, pick up, he thought, and as soon as he heard that telltale click he was screaming into the phone.

"He killed Ryou!" he yelled, his voice a half sob. "He's going to kill me! Kite Eishirou-"

But then he was being tackled, the cell phone falling out of his hand. He was being turned over, and then his stomach started to burn as a knife was repeatedly plunged into it.

Kite must have stabbed the boy ten times before he finally stopped struggling. But then he got up, looking over to see Yukimura closing the cell phone.

"Do you think it will be a problem?" Yukimura asked.

"It will take them awhile to trace the call, if they even can. We'll probably be gone by then."

Yukimura nodded, falling into step with Kite as they headed back towards the house.


20. Kiss



"Oi, Fuji-sempai. Is it really okay that we came here?"

"If Fuji says it's okay, it's okay," Eiji said, in the middle of flipping from one radio station to another.

"Saeki said it was alright for me to come," Fuji said, lips set in his typical smile, "I don't think he'll mind if you two come as well."

"It's too late for him to complain about it, anyway," Eiji concurred.

"Hmm." Ryoma leaned back in his seat and pulled his baseball cap lower. "You said there would be a tennis court, right?"

The three friends pulled up to the house then, a wooden structure looming large above them.

"Oooooh," Eiji said, sticking his head out the window, "it looks like a haunted house."

"It looks like a normal house to me," Ryoma replied, getting out of the car.

The three grabbed their bags and walked up the steps to the door, letting themselves in when they found that it was unlocked. The stepped past the kitchen and into the living room, where they could see a familiar mop of bleached hair sticking out of the hammock.

"Now," Fuji said, a light gleam in his eyes, "if you two will excuse me."

"Have fun, Fuji," Eiji called after him, as Ryoma blushed in silence.

Meanwhile, Saeki was laying in his hammock with his eyes closed , just enjoying the fresh air. He felt the hammock shifting under another person's weight, and then the feel of a body straddling his lap.

"Fuji," he said, and he opened his eyes to see Fuji smiling down at him. "It's been such a long time."

"I told you to come to school at Seigaku," Fuji said, leaning forward to capture Saeki's lips in his own.

"Too far from the beach," was Saeki's reply, when they parted, but then Fuji was kissing him again. A subtle shifting of position, and then their bodies were pressed together, chest to chest, groin to groin. Saeki was half hard and pushing upwards, and then Fuji was pushing his arms up, tying his hands together above his head.

Saeki chuckled, breaking their kiss. "Did you bring ropes or something with you?"

"Or something," Fuji replied. "I'm a resourceful guy."

Fuji smiled as he held up a handkerchief, and Saeki didn't protest when he tied it around his eyes. "Kinky. Are we just going to do it out here in the open?"

"Isn't it more fun this way?"

Saeki couldn't see anything anymore, but he could feel Fuji as he leaned back down for another string of kisses, hot and insistent. He had missed Fuji, always, whenever they were apart. Ever since they were kids, him, Syusuke, and Yuuta, playing together all afternoon while their mothers chatted over lunch and tea.

"Oh," Fuji said, and as he sat up Saeki missed his warmth already. "Hold on, I have go get something."

Saeki sighed as Fuji got off the hammock, and he could hear footsteps heading back into the house. Soon enough the footsteps were coming back, and he smiled as, once again, a warm body climbed onto him on the hammock. A whisper of fabric, against his cheek, and he obediently opened his mouth. The fabric was wrapped around his head, coarse against his tongue, effectively gagging him. Then a hand, finding its way to the crotch of his pants, and he moaned as best he could around the gag as it massaged him through the fabric of his jeans. His zipper being tugged open, and then a breeze against his erection as it was pulled out into the air, long fingers curving around.

And then Saeki screamed, or tried to, as something went horribly, horribly wrong. A sharp, shooting pain coursed through him, and he curled into himself and fell, half in and half out of the hammock.

Hirakoba jumped off the hammock as soon as that Saeki guy flinched, landing gracefully just a few feet away. What a waste, he thought, looking at the impressive eight inches he held in his hand before tossing it off the patio. Saeki was screaming now, the noise muffled all too well by the gag, hands frantically pulling at the fabric that tied him to the hammock. A river of blood was pouring out from where his cock used to be.

Hirakoba wondered if the guy would die from the blood loss alone, but he didn't really have the time to find out. Leaning forward, he stabbed the long knife he had taken from the kitchen into the bottom of Saeki's stomach and pulled up. His guts spilled out as his middle was split open, effectively disemboweled, and after awhile he wasn't screaming anymore. Hirakoba smiled and dropped the knife, making his way back inside the house.



21. Wada Calcium


Eiji hummed as he looked through the pantry in the kitchen. Ryoma was reading the note that they found on the counter.

"Why would they fumigate when they have tenants?" he was asking himself, but Eiji was only half paying attention. "Hmm. . . made made dane. Sempai, I'm going to check out what's upstairs."

"Suit yourself, o-chibi," Eiji called back, his voice taking on a sing-song tone. Canned vegetables, sauces, vitamin supplements. . . oh, bread. Maybe he'd make a sandwich. He grabbed it and made his way to the refrigerator, which he was happy to see was freshly stocked. He took out some meat and mayonnaise and set everything down on the kitchen table, when a noise of the pantry caught his attention.

Eiji frowned and got up, walking back to the pantry to see that a plastic jar of calcium supplements had fallen onto the floor. He bent over to pick them up, but barely had time to put them back onto the shelf when the door closed behind him.

"What-" he turned around, eyes widening to see some one else in that tight space with him. But he didn't have a chance to get out any more than that, because strong hands were wrapping around his throat and pinning him to the wall.

Hirakoba wrapped his hands around the small redhead's throat, lifting him off the ground at the same time he slammed him back against the wall. His grip tightened, the flesh around it turning white and folding over. Eiji's hands were scrambling at his, trying to get him to release, but his air supply was beings steadily cut off. His legs jerked back and forth, but it wasn't long before his body went completely limp, hanging like a rabbit from his hands.

Hirakoba let go, and Eiji folded into himself on the floor. Now, where were those other two.


22. Ten


Fuji smiled as he came back out into the patio, a small packet of condoms in his hand. A smile that was quickly gone when he sensed something was wrong, before even seeing anything. He stopped, eyes small slits of blue, before walking tentatively forward. Then he saw him. Saeki, completely still on the patio, lower body on the ground and upper body hanging from where it had been tied to the hammock.

His sneakers caught as he walked closer, and he knew that it was blood that he was stepping in, sticky and fresh. When he got close enough to see what had happened he could feel tears coming to his eyes, but right now the prevalent emotion coursing through his blood was anger. There was a knife there, and he picked it up, somewhat sickened to think that this was the knife that had killed Saeki. But his keen vision had caught sight of something in the woods, some small flickering light, and that's where he headed now.

Soon Fuji came upon a tennis court and a small shack. He held his knife up, pointed towards it. There was a noise from inside, and Fuji was glad his intuition hadn't failed him this time.

"Who's in there?" he asked, startled himself by the anger in his voice. He swore, whoever was inside of that shack, he would kill him. "I'll give you until the count of ten to come out."

"Ten." One step closer.

"Nine." Still another step, knife ready.

"Eight." And on the count of eight, three small explosions shattered three different points on the door, creating three small holes. Fuji didn't have the time to realize that they were bullets, because at that point he was already dead.

Yukimura opened the door and stepped out of the shack, Kite's gun hot in his hand. Guns certainly were efficient, he thought, stepping over Fuji's body, but they weren't really any fun at all.



23. Fence


Ryoma found himself at the top of the stairs, looking around. It certainly didn't smell like it had been fumigated. Maybe they had done it awhile ago and just wanted to be safe. At any rate, Ryoma thought it seemed perfectly fine to stay up here instead of in the musty downstairs area of the house.

He made his way down the hallway, and into a bedroom there. He placed his bag down on one of the beds and made his way to the window, hoping he could see the tennis courts from here. He opened it, leaning out. He could see the forest and the ocean beyond that, but no tennis courts. He was about to pull himself back inside when he felt two large hands pushing against his back. He was falling, and the last thing he saw were the spiked poles of an old wrought iron fence, rushing up to meet him.

Kai cringed as Ryoma fell onto the fence, his body making a strange squishing noise as it was skewered in two different places. Now his body was suspended halfway up the fence, limbs hanging down from where he had been impaled in his eye and in his stomach.

"Oops," Kai said, "I didn't mean to do that."

"Yes, you did," Tanishi said. "You pushed him, after all."

"Yeah, but, I figured he'd land on the granite and die there. I mean. . . ouch. Just ouch."

"Whatever."

The two turned around to see Hirakoba and Kite and the door, followed by Yukimura.

"Where's Akaya?" Yukimura asked.

"With Chinen," Tanishi said, gesturing at the neighboring bedroom. It looked as though they were all there.

"Well," Kite said, as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "it seems as though we have the house to ourselves now."