One Shot. Haunted
Title: Haunted
Characters: Kato Shigeaki, Kamenashi Kazuya
Rating: G13
Disclaimer: I own the story ONLY
Summary: Kame invited Shige to a haunted house but things don't turn out as expected.
A/N1:Throughout the story there is a recurrent song, Strangers in the Night, by Frank Sinatra, here is the link if you are interested (I recomend you listen to it, at least a part so you know what they are hearing)
A/N2: This was requested by someone last year, so I got the plot idea from them
A/N3: Originally posted here
Halloween 2008
Kame stood in front of a grand western style mansion. The owners had made an excellent job remodeling the building to make it look out of a horror movie. It was no wonder why this was considered the best haunted house, at least according to the woman he had talked to.
“This is where we are meeting the others?” Shige asked behind him.
“Yeah, but they just texted me. They’ll be a little late,” Kame replied with an apologetic smile.
He was lying. The plan had never been to meet anyone else. He had rented the whole house just for the two of them. He had not had any other choice since the other man never took a god damn hint. Kame had tried asking him out for dinner; Shige had shown up with Koyama, who had brought along Massu, for some reason, who had brought Nakamaru along. He had cornered Shige and tried to confess, only to have the other man give a tired sigh. ‘Great, the bullying is getting a little too creepy. Who put you up to this. It was Nishikido, right? It has to be that jerk…’ he had said and continued with a ramble.
A couple of years later and Kame was still set on getting Shige. It was a matter of honor at this point, really. He was going to get Shige. Period. End. Of. Story.
This particular idea had come from Jin. He had been saying how horror movies worked wonders with girls. Watch a really gory horror movie and just wait for the girl to get scared and cling to you looking for safety and comfort and then you make your move.
Sounded good; except, Kame couldn’t see Shige losing his composure over just a movie. And then it had come to him. A haunted house. Except he would tell the other man it was an actual haunted house, not a fake one. That way Koyama would never accept to tag along, let alone bring Massu over. And he had threatened Nakamaru not to show up for good measure.
“I didn’t know you were into this kind of thing,” Shige commented. “And I don’t really understand why you invited me.” The distrust was obvious in his tone.
“You are one of the few people I know brave enough not to run scared at the first squeaky door. And it’s not that I’m into it it’s a new project. I have to film a night at a haunted house. I really don’t know who would want to watch it but…” Kame shrugged.
Shige nodded and said nothing else. The whole thing sounded a bit fishy. He hadn’t heard of any such project and if he was to be involved it should have been his manager contacting him, not Kamenashi himself. Still, Shige had showed up. The truth was he liked Kame. Really liked him, and he wanted an excuse to be with him and find the courage to say something. And the bulling had lessened with the years so the chances were good enough. Although, honestly, he didn’t like the idea of spending the night in an abandoned house.
“Should we go in? No use in waiting out here. Or are you already scared?” Kame teased.
Shige did look unsure, to say the least. He was fidgeting as if he couldn’t stay still. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he murmured eyeing the house distrustfully.
Kame smirked. He was going to make Shige freak out and cling to him looking for comfort if it was the last thing he did.
The heavy door creaked and moaned as it opened in a very spooky fashion. The inside, however, unlike the outside, was a little disappointing, Kame thought. It looked abandoned. There were yellowish white sheets covering some of the furniture. What was left uncovered was coated with a thick layer of dust. There was no special lightning, simply the reddish light from dusk filtering through the windows.
“This is it?” Shige asked a second before the door slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed around the house.
Both men jumped back facing the door.
“Drafty place, huh?” Shige chuckled nervously.
Kame hid a smile. This was more like it. “It is a haunted house,” he murmured keeping the teasing tone out of his voice. Now, this is why he had spent so much money for. Shige would be clinging to him in no time. “Come on, let’s investigate a little.”
Shige nodded with a frown. He didn’t like that place, at all; and he wasn’t one to be affected by this kind of places.
Kame mentally pictured the house plan. He was told that the first effects would take place in the dining room. Blood was supposed to “spontaneously” leak from the walls. He walked out of the entrance hall and into what seemed like a living room more than a dining room. Great, those incompetents had given him the wrong plan. No matter, he could make this work. The correct room could not be far anyway.
They looked around. Above them, hanging from the ceiling, there was a luxurious chandelier, made with what looked like crystal. Again, everything was covered with sheets and/or dust. Well, everything except for an old phonograph. The wood was in perfect state and the metal was shiny as if freshly polished, offering a stark contrast with the rest of the room.
“Wow, look at this. This is so cool!” Shige exclaimed, his previous uneasiness completely gone. Of course he would get all excited about an antique. “Do you think it works?” The other man said as he inspected the artifact. As he did so, he bumped into the piece of furniture it was on and the phonograph started playing, filling the room with a ‘60’s song Kame could recognize.
“Oh, it does work. It’s Frank Sinatra. Strangers in the Night.” As the romantic tune played Shige bit his lip. This could be it, his moment. Before the rest came, he had to make his move. Now or never. “You know this song is considered one of the most romantic songs of all times” he commented matter of factly even though he really had no idea. Could be true for all he knew.
Kame’s first impulse was to sigh. Not another fact rant. But immediately after that, another thought flashed into his mind. This was it, this was the moment.
“It is. You know… I like to dance… It could kill time before the others come… I’ll even let you lead,” he offered as if he wouldn’t had done that anyway. Kame got closer to Shige in an almost predatory way and Shige was not budging. They were both determined.
As the music played, they both swayed, slightly embarrassed now that things were starting to actually happen.
“You know… I’ve always l…” Shige started but stopped when they heard a screeching sound coming from the phonograph and the recording started repeating one phrase over and over.
I must have you, I must have you, I must have you, I must have you, I must have you, I must have you…
Then there was a draft of air that sounded more like a loud sigh and the next thing they knew the chandelier pummeled to the floor, the crystal shattering into little sharp pieces.
“Are you okay? Oh, shit, you’re bleeding,” Shige said.
Kame touched his cheek and when he looked at his fingers he saw a little blood there. “What the hell? That was dangerous! Are you insane? I have photo shoots and a drama!”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Um… god. Is he crazy?” Kame lamely covered up.
Shige frowned deepened. “Ok. It’s fine, it’s just a shallow scratch.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“That’s fine; don’t apologize. How about we get out of here? I don’t know about ghosts but this place is falling apart, it seems.”
Kame sighed. He had to admit defeat; his plan had failed. Or maybe not, there had been that moment before the chandelier. In any case, he let Shige grab his hand and lead him back to the door which, they discovered, was now firmly shut.
These guys were good, Kame thought. He was not happy about the chandelier thing, and he was going to complain about it until he was blue in the face later but now he had to get his plan back on track and show Shige just how awesome, cool and fearless he was in the face of danger (planned by him) and (fake) ghosts.
“What the hell?” Shige was saying, starting to panic.
Kame put a hand on the other man’s shoulder soothingly. “Come on, there has to be another door out,” he said while thinking about finding the dining room with the bloody walls.
They walked back to the room with the phonograph, where Frank Sinatra’s voice had been replaced by a crackling noise as the disc kept turning.
Shige hurried over to the old machine and lifted the arm and the sound stopped.
“It was creeping me out,” Shige smiled apologetically.
Good, Kame thought but said. “It’s fine. Come this way, I think this hall leads to a kitchen and there might be a door there.”
As they walked the hall, which seemed impossibly long, the little light that came from the outside dimmed until it disappeared completely to give way to full night. They found light switches along the way, many didn’t work, others turned on yellowish lamps that flickered randomly and every once in a while they could feel something that might have been the weirdest draft ever felt. It was as if the whole house took a deep breath. Kame was not sure how that trick was done, but if he hadn't hired the place, he would be almost ready to run out the door.
They ended up in a spacious kitchen. As the rest of the house, it looked unused but it was stocked with old appliances that must have been the latest technology decades before.
There was a door with glass panels overlooking a spacious garden filled with overgrown plans twined together forming a sort of cave or maybe maze was a better word, that even from the kitchen looked claustrophobic.
"There's probably a way out through the garden," Shige commented. He wanted to get out of the house. Desperately. The feeling had been growing as they both ventured inside it. Shige felt they were being watched. By what, he was not sure but it was like it was also breathing on his neck. Constantly.
“I am not going through there,” Kame said with a disgusted look on his face thinking about all the possible bugs that surely inhabited the leaf-infested garden, for lack of a better word.
Shige took a breath to say something but stopped and tilted his head listening to something.
"What..." And then he heard it. It was Frank Sinatra's voice.
"Maybe the others are here." Shige's voice trembled slightly.
The song stopped and started repeating the same lines as before. Must have you, must have you, must have you...
The kitchen began to shake, cupboard doors opened and closed with the movement. Kame looked at Shige, he was pale, his eyes wide, and he was holding on to a counter. This was the time. Kame had no idea how these people could pull off these tricks; even he was getting scared and he knew it was all for show. Still, this was his moment. He made his best "confident drama hero" interpretation and decisively went to Shige. He was going to put his arms around him and show his cool, calm self in a dire situation and the other boy would cling to him like one of Jin's girls.
Except at that very moment a heavy, wet sounding blow to the kitchen door made them turn around to face with a creature that had once been human. It was covered by black hair plastered to the face, which mixed and twined with still wet weed. It banged on the door as if demanding desperately to be let in with hands covered in a black substance and hideously torn chipped nails.
The creature was not trying to get in, it was saying something. It's voice sounded as if the weeds had penetrated even its throat giving a wet obstructed sound. "Get out! Leave now!" It was saying, demanding. And then, they heard the sound of a kitchen drawer open and many knives came flying towards them. Shige pushed Kame down and barely managed to avoid them.
Then, as suddenly as everything had started, it stopped. Both men looked up to see 5 knives sticking out of the wooden door. Kame saw red. He stood up in a rage and started bellowing.
"What the hell are you doing!? This is dangerous! Do you people realize that?" He yelled at no one in particular and the whole room.
"Who are you talking to?" Shige asked still on the floor.
"These fucking idiots! I Paid you to scare him not kill us!" Almost blindly, Kame started to open every door, with forceful sudden pulls and then slamming them. Finally, he saw what looked like a pantry door. He ran to it and opened it with a frustrated shout.
Nothing but old empty containers, dust and cobwebs.
“How the hell are they doing this?” He kept murmuring moving around looking for cables and tricks to no avail.
Finally he noticed Shige was standing still, looking at him with a frown Kame had always thought was sexy but didn’t feel so good now that it was directed at him.
“Umh… what…”
“You paid people to scare me?”
"Well... I..."
"I thought we were over this picking on Shige thing. At least with you..."
He didn't look angry, just tired.
"No..."
"So what? The others are hiding somewhere laughing?"
"No..."
"Whatever, I'm leaving."
"No, no, wait!"
Shige stomped out of the kitchen, Kame calling behind him.
"Tell them to open the door."
"I can't! I don't know where these people are or how they are doing this." Kame was really scared now.
“Right,” Shige rolled his eyes looking over his shoulder.
“I swear!”
“Like I’ll bel…”
He stopped short ,someone was standing at the front door, their back to them. It was a petit woman with long dark tangled hair. Pretty haunted house cliché looking. And then the song started to play again all around him. Great speaker system.
“Look, I know you’re doing your job but you can stop that. I’m leaving.”
Shige walked straight to her. The woman didn’t move at all. Shige sighed. “Excuse me.” Nothing. He let out an exasperated sigh and started to walk around the woman in the tattered light pink nightgown but he was suddenly up against the wall. His feet didn’t touch the ground and sharp nails digging in the flesh of his neck. The flesh was pale but at that distance Shige could see a purple bluish hue, as if it had been under water for far too long. He managed to take a couple of breaths before the air was completely cut off and the smell of rot and decay filled his nostrils and made his eyes water. However, the worst were the eyes, milky white, seemingly blind and infected.
His vision started to blur, his head felt about to explode and then he was on the floor gasping for air. There was a piercing shriek and then all sound stopped including the music. Complete silence, only Shige’s raspy breathing and no one else but him and Kame, sitting against the wall, white as paper.
“What the hell was that?"
"I don't know... I told you I don't know how they are doing this. I... I don't think these are tricks."
"Well we are not staying to find out." He grabbed the other man's hand and headed to the door. he yanked on the door nob, kicked it and even tried to use a chair with the only result being a broken chair.
Next he grabbed one more chair and went to one of the windows and hit it with all his might. The glass didn't even crack.
"How is this even possible? Was it replaced by a special glass? Still it should..."
The music started playing again and by now they had realized it wasn't a good sign.
It was already night so the house was dim lighted by a few yellowish light bulbs which started to flicker.
The music kept playing and, like before it stopped in a loop. I must have you. I must have you. I must have you.
Kame felt the back of his neck prickle. There came a cold breeze that brought a rotten smell followed by Shige's scream.
He was kicking at a hand that had a tight grip on his ankle. It was the same woman, if you could call her that, as before. She was grabbing Shige's leg and crawling up on top of him and Frank Sinatra's now distorted voice kept repeating incessantly I must have you. I must have you. I must have you.
"Like hell you must! Get off of him, bitch! He's mine!" He shouted and threw a kick which went right through the creature. It wasn't as if he had kicked air. It was more like kicking through slime, sticky rotten slime. But the kick seemed to make the thing disappear, unfortunately it also made Kame slip and fall on Shige.
Again, everything was silent. No music, no screaming.
"Are you okay?"
Kame looked down. "I should be the one asking that. But, yeah. You?"
Shige nodded. Under different circumstances, Kame thought, it might have been nice, Shige's body under his, warm; and he now noticed the other man's hands were on his hips, his breath on his face. Screw the circumstances, this was still nice.
"The idea was not to make fun of you." Shige frowned. "I didn't hired the haunted house to make fun of you."
"This is hardly the moment..."
"I know, but still. I wasn't making fun of you. I just wanted to... well... it sounds stupid now." Kame felt his whole face, even his ears, heat up.
Shige had never seen confident Kame blush. Cute, but so not the time.
"It's fine. We should find a way out of here. This is definitely not the haunted house you hired."
"It's the right address but... Those were not tricks... and what company is going to risk hurting people and getting sued? I don't know what's going on but..."
"It doesn't matter, we have to find a way out." Kame nodded. "So, could you..."
Kame realized he had been on top of Shige the entire conversation and his face turned red again but he hurried to get up and then extended his hand to help the other man stand up.
The front door and the windows were not an option. The kitchen door was not entirely ruled out but Kame preferred to stay clear of the weed-infested garden. They walked cautiously along the corridors. The house seemed endless from the inside and on some points it seemed as if they were walking in circles, even though it shouldn't have been possible.
Sometimes, they felt the cold breeze and the distant sound of the music, but the woman hadn’t showed up so far.
Shige stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "This is getting us nowhere. We should either go into one of the rooms and try a window or take our chances with the kitchen door, if it can be opened at all." He didn't wait for an answer, he just grabbed Kame's hand and opened a random door without thinking it much.
The door closed behind them, slowly, naturally, without slamming or startling them. The room was a bedroom. The furniture was not covered by sheets like the living room. There was also very little dust. The lights were on, as in all the rest of the house, and they could see a stylish double bed that had been obviously decorated by a woman. There were picture frames on a drawer chest. Kame tightened his grip on Shige's hand following as the other man approached the piece of furniture and picked up a frame. There was a picture of a man and a woman. The woman was small, with shiny black hair tied in a tight braid. She was smiling shyly at the camera. Next to her there was a man...
"He kinda looks like you," Kame whispered.
"He does?" Shige asked.
"Definitely. He's not identical, but the resemblance is there."
Shige looked at the man in the picture. Maybe Kame was right but he really didn't see the relevance in that.
"Do you think the woman in the picture is the woman that attacked you?"
Shige directed his attention to the woman. "I don't know... the woman in the picture looks a lot more alive."
"Idiot." Shige chuckled, getting a sideway smile from the other man. "But if she is, maybe that's why she seems to be targeting you since you look like that guy with her."
"It only happened twice, not enough to say that for sure. And she gave up pretty fast. Probably cause I'm yours, huh."
Kame looked away, suddenly very aware that he was still holding Shige's hand. He let it go and walked to the window, running his hand on the back of his neck. "Well, that was j..."
Shige frowned when Kame stopped talking. "Kamenashi-san (kun?)?" He was looking out the window and was now shaking like a leaf.
"What the hell. How is this possible?"
Shige hurried over and looked out. They were looking down to the garden. Unkept and overgrown, with a big fountain in the middle of it.
"H-how can we be in a first floor if we never climbed any stairs?"
Shige had no answer. His brain was working but he really had no answer.
Both of them jumped back when dark wet hands flattened against the window glass. It was the first ghost again, the one they had seen in the kitchen banging his hand on the window, its mouth articulating, showing a blackened tongue, dripping greenish thick liquid. Get out it was saying. Get out.
"We are trying!" Shige shouted.
Kitchen. Get out.
The music started playing again. louder and closer to them this time.
Shige sprang into motion, again with Kame in tow. He ran, not really knowing where he was going just following his gut, probably. He found a flight of stairs they had never climbed and ran down. The lay out of the house was clearer now, not changing as it had seemed before. The loop of music seemed to follow close behind them, never changing.
I must have you. I must have you. I must have you.
Well, that thing was not having anything. Shige tightened his fingers around Kame's and just kept moving until he saw the door they had crossed god only knows how long ago. Shige had been right, it was the kitchen, the knives still embedded in the wood of the door that led out side. Shige started to rush to it but a firm tug stopped him. He looked back to see a terrified Kame. He was even paler now. His eyes round, like a deer in front of the headlights, his pupils dilated by fear.
"Are you sure about this?" His voice trembled.
"Honestly, no. But I am sure we have to get out of here."
"But that thing outside..." His voice small, almost like a child's.
"I really don't know... I just..."
The music was all around them now and the smell of decay flooded the room. The door to the garden started shaking as if someone outside was trying to open it and something inside was trying to keep it shut.
Kame was shaking even more now but nodded. They ran to the door and pulled on it until it flew open and they both flew out. Some branches made way for them while others tried to grabbed them. They just ran almost blindly. They made it to the fountain they has seen from the room. It was enormous and its green stagnant water made it impossible to gauge the depth.
"Which way do we go now?" Kame asked.
"I think I saw a low wall we could climb that way.”
"Okay, let's go." Kame managed to say before a heavy blow pushed him into the fountain, which was more like deep pool. He couldn't swim out; he moved his legs and arms but nothing; he was being pushed down, deeper and deeper. His eyes stang and he couldn't see anything in the night inside the murky water.
He sank to the bottom and there he saw a light. Was he dying? There was something in the middle of the dim opaque light. A figure. He reached out and grabbed a thin, bony wrist. He had no idea why, but he did and then he felt a hand close around his own wrist and pulled him up.
Shige broke the surface first followed by a spluttering Kame and right behind them a third male body emerged, long dead, nothing but tattered rotten clothes, bones; any piece of rotten flesh long gone.
They hurried to get out of the water, clinging to each other, shivering in the cold October night.
About an hour later, they were sitting at the back of an ambulance. They had managed to call the police. They had, after all found a dead body.
The man, or what had once been a man, was taken out in a black bag and loaded to another ambulance. A policeman, or maybe an inspector, had talked to them and was now talking to their agents, who were really earning their pay by trying to manage the situation that was far from the ordinary drinking party or a one night stand getting out.
The police told them they didn't know who the dead body was yet. And about the person that had chased them, it was probably some escapee from an asylum, probably high on drugs, which explained Shige's bruised neck and ankle.
They knew better. What had chased them was not anything human. No way.
They were alone now, the police, paramedics and agents occupied with paperwork or something, they didn't care. The sat there forgotten and their numb minds were fine with it.
"I'm so sorry. It was all my fault. I just wanted you to see me as..." Kame shrugged. After all that had happened he had not idea what he had been thinking before.
"You didn't meant for something like that to happen, nor could you have foreseen it. Nobody could have. What happened was not..." Shige shook his head not knowing how to go on, uncharacteristically out of words.
Kame shivered and Shige scooted closer, putting an arm around the other man's shoulder. Kame looked up, his face merely an inch from the other man.
Their first kiss tasted faintly like the stagnant water they had both submerged in and it was short, since they broke it as soon as they heard someone approaching. Their agents probably didn't need another scandal to cover up. They didn't care, they would have many better ones in the future.
They were taken to the hospital and given antibiotics and all kinds of shots; after all, who knew what was in that water. They both had a slight fever but nothing too serious. They were both scolded for doing something so reckless. "Really, you should know better. I did not expect something like this from the two of you."
Sometime later, they heard that the body found had belong to the first owner of the house, who had disappeared some 40 years before. His wife was found dead in the tub not long after the disappearance. Everybody had thought that she had been abandoned by her husband and that, depressed, she had taken some pills and fallen asleep in the tub, accidentally drowning. Shige thought that probably that's not what had happened. The whole truth would probably never be known, but he strongly believed that something much more violent and sinister had taken place.
Kame and Shige continued dating in secret, against all odds, but they rarely spoke of the events that had brought them together. Shige knew Kame thought that he was somehow related to the man in the picture. It might have been fairly easy to find out but Shige didn't want to. He didn't see the point in it and Kame respected his decision. It was, after all, his.
One of the few times they did talk about the subject, it was a hot summer morning. The sun was shining bright through the window, a soft clean breeze was coming through the open window and there was nothing remotely sinister about the moment. It was a couple of years after the events, as they would refer to what had happened. They were both in bed, a light sheet loosely tangled around their legs, lazily just laying, more than occasionally running their fingers lightly on whatever exposed skin they could easily reach.
Out of nowhere, Kame confessed that he had tried to contact the company he had called to rent the haunted house not long after they made it out and the company didn't exist. Had never existed, as it would seem. He had no idea how he had ended up there. Shige had circled his arms around the other man's waist and brought Kame's back to his chest and had rested his chin on his boyfriend’s shoulder but said nothing. One more mystery to add to that Halloween night.
That was the last time they talked about it. There was, after all, not much to talk about. In the end it had all worked out. After six years, they were still together, even if only a handful of people knew about it. Nothing remotely close to the events that had happened to them had happened since and they both fervently hoped would never happen again.
It actually did on the seventh anniversary of their first kiss, but really, that's a story I still haven't been able to get out of them.
Hoped you enjoyed it! Did you get scared? ;) Let me know what you think!