Vacation of a Lifetime - 2a/2 - AoiXRuki
Title: Vacation of a Lifetime
Chapter: 2/2
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE
Pairings: AoiXRuki
Theme: 010: Dead Tree - Dir en Grey @ 50stories
Rating: PG-15
Genre: fluff, (attempt of) horror and humor
Warnings: Implied sex, a few curses. Unbeta-ed mistakes.
Disclaimers: Oh… they're certainly mine, ALL mine. Yep. But then again, you know I have the tendency to be delirious.
Summary: The band went to a cottage at the beach together in one of their rare weekends. It's going to be a fun summer vacation, and everyone's going to love it... or at least that's what Reita thought before they departed.
Comments: Second part, and I know it took me long to post it when I've promised I would post soon... I'm so sorry... I could just blame my hectic schedule but in the end it's still my fault for being a bit (?) lazy. XDD
This was so fun to write, I definitely had my laugh, so I hope it's going to be fun for you guys to read too. Yep, without further delay, here's part two!
Vacation of a Lifetime
Part 2a
The rest of the journey went by quicker than I had expected it to; although, for all honestly, I wasn’t sure that it was because the road we had taken really was short-distanced. I checked the time blinking on my cell phone screen and figured out that we took just as much time as we had taken to leave the big city and reach that gas station. But I guess with Kai being hyper (worse than he had been before he got land sick; I seriously feared that we’d fed him with too much sugar in the restaurant…) and Uruha being just as excited, and probably me being a bit too carried away too, the next thing we knew we had already reached the small town where Uruha said his aunt lived. When we hopped off from the car, I had to be honest I was feeling somewhere between overly riled up and excessively worried. The feeling grew worse and got me a bit sweaty when we saw Aoi and Ruki stepping off of Aoi’s sedan; I couldn’t help recalling what I, Uruha and Kai had talked about so enthusiastically in the car during the journey from the restaurant here-which mostly was associated with Aoi’s paranoia. Okay, practically that was all we had been talking about: Aoi’s extreme fear against scary stories and/or places.
At that moment I had to forget about my worries for a while because Uruha was leading us towards this small but very comfy rural house, a lady-probably eight or ten years older than me-was walking off its front verandah to greet us. Before that day I had never met the aunt Uruha had been talking about, but even if I had been given an earlier notice I would’ve been just as shocked to know that this lady was Uruha’s aunt. Unlike any other aunts and/or uncles Uruha had, this one differed a whole lot she might’ve been wrongly located in Uruha’s list of relatives. Her appearance was nowhere near Uruha. But then a kid-aged about seven or eight-jumped out of the same door she had come from, and I knew it right then and there that they were related but somehow the genes had skipped a generation. That kid grinned and I thought I was seeing Uruha in a small version.
Anyhow, yes, that was Uruha’s aunt, and unfortunately-as she explained to us-she couldn’t come and stay with us at the cottage because her husband was coming home that day. She said she didn’t get to see him often because he worked as a pilot, and this weekend, quite coincidentally, he was coming home (from France, was it? I wasn’t sure…). We said we understood and it was really okay if she couldn’t come with us. Aoi and Ruki, though, looked so darn obviously happy that she wasn’t coming. I could just sense them beaming with joy and I had to hold myself back from pouncing Aoi’s face when he said: “We’ll do just fine by ourselves, Ma’am, perfectly fine…”
The grin that filled his face and the way he put his arm around Ruki’s shoulder spoke more volumes than necessary. At that moment right there, I made an oath to myself that I would never pick the room that was the closest to these two’s room when we got to the cottage.
Uruha’s aunt gave us the key of the cottage and told us she had cleaned the place for us to use (she was so nice I could just kiss her, although Uruha would hate me for the rest of my life if I dared to do that), and bid us to be careful and not do anything that would endanger us there. I think I became the only one who took a personal note on this last advice because everybody else had already hopped their way to the cars, impatient to get to the main destination.
We could see the beach, strewn faraway, blue and glittering beyond our windows after we drove for like fifteen minutes or so, but bordering our sights was a thick forest-its dark green crown looked like a giant molded frame that pestered our sights and wouldn’t budge no matter which angle we turn our heads to. Uruha murmured that this was the forest he had told us about, at that Kai whispered an awed “Ohhh…” from the back seat, and solemnly-as if all of us were quietly recalling the story that Uruha had said happened in that place-we continued until we found some sort of a small office building.
“This is the information center,” Uruha told us while stepping off the car, “We park our cars here and walk the rest of the way to the cottage.”
I’m sure I paled at hearing what Uruha just told me. Walk? With the ridiculous amount of luggage we carried, we had to walk? I lurked over my shoulder to the back seat where Kai was almost buried under bags, and felt horrified just to imagine carrying all those barehanded to wherever it was we were heading.
Uruha seemed to understand my fear when he grinned and said, “Relax, it’s just a five minutes walk. We won’t break a leg, I promise you.”
A leg probably not; but I was so close to swinging one of Ruki’s outrageously heavy bags and bashing Uruha’s head with it, just to exemplify my inner conflicts, while we paced down the sand, practically drowning by every step we took. Aoi, who, just like I did, had involuntarily taken the lead of the band’s caretaker too, didn’t look too happy with the task being given to him, which was to carry his own two large bags and two of Ruki’s medium sized ones-isn’t it silly how one man could pack so many things just for a two days vacation to a beach? I suspected that in that one bag Aoi was carrying Ruki had packed his collection of sunglasses because he kept asking Aoi to be careful with it and not to bump it on anything. It was a miracle that, with Aoi’s infamous temper, he could bear with it and hadn’t done anything harmful to Ruki… as of yet.
We did pass by the forest-the legendary forest, as Uruha had put it. For a reason I didn’t know of, all of us fell silent as we walked around the fenced area; it was either we all remembered the story Uruha had told us or that all of us could feel that dark, unfriendly aura that the forest seemed to emit. I wasn’t saying that because all of us had suddenly turned supernaturally gifted or something like that, but it really didn’t take a highly sensitive person to be able to sense all this weird sensation hovering all around us, making me feel as if some invisible giant octopus was trying to suffocate us with its tentacles.
The bags didn’t feel so heavy anymore when we rushed our steps, deeming to escape from the uncomfortable area as soon as we could manage.
The scorching heat was unmerciful but apparently Uruha was right-lucky for him, because if we had had to walk for one minute longer I wouldn’t have been able to hold myself and not do something Uruha would remember for the rest of his life. Five minutes later we arrived in front of a small, wooden building that was almost completely white, save for its roof that was dark green. Overall, it was a typical sea-side cottage model, designed to have a shady porch and big windows. I immediately remembered about the pictures Uruha had shown us, and I was absolutely right: the real thing was everything and more than those pictures could have ever described us. It was beautiful, to say the least, and I only wished we had more than just two days to spend here.
20 minutes later, after a long struggle of Uruha trying to unlock the front door (hadn’t been such an easy task, I supposed, to find the right key amongst dozens that his aunt had given him, and all the while having Ruki and Kai pestering him non-stop, asking him to hurry up), we scrambled into the cottage, squealing and giggling like kindergarten kids being shown a room full of toys. Just like the outer appearance, almost everything inside was white as well-white walls, white floors, white sofa. We could see sea shells almost everywhere, decorating the place, from the large bookshelf to the tables and to the walls.
There were three rooms in total: two were located at the back of the cottage, facing right towards the beach, and one was closer to the front door, right beside the small kitchen area. Ruki immediately dragged Aoi towards one of the rooms that faced the beach, the one on the left. I, in the mean time, remembered about the oath I had made to myself and quickly dumped my things into the room that was close to the front door, and I could see Uruha following me to do the same thing. He must’ve had the same idea as I had, and I thought, at that time, cramping in one bed with Uruha was going to be so much better than to have a bed by myself but not be able to sleep the whole night through-which was what certainly would happen if I picked the room right next to the room that Aoi and Ruki chose.
Kai picked that room willingly, by the way, and he was so happy when he saw how spacious the room was and how wonderful the sight from the window was. The only thing I could do for him was to give him an advice (which was to prepare a good pair of earplugs before he went to bed), but when he asked me why, I found out that I didn’t have the heart to explain.
Once the room arrangements were settled, the sky outside had begun to darken, and the sun was glowing in the warmest color I’d ever seen, slanting lazily towards the horizon. I heard various versions of awed expression from my sides when we stepped off the back porch and dipped our feet in the warm white sand; I could simply say that it was heavenly-the sight, the air, the feeling, everything. The heavily crowded, stressful streets of the big city vanished without a trace from my mind, replaced by the wondrous, almost unreal spectacle that I could see in front of me.
It took one maniacal scream from behind me to end my serene pondering and the next thing I knew, I had sand inside my t-shirt, tickling the skin on my back, and I saw Kai dashing quickly to safety, laughing like a mad man. It was probably at that particular time when I was chasing after Kai, swearing I would get him as wet as a man could ever be before the sun completely set, that I missed seeing Uruha when he was dragging Ruki back into the cottage. Something was starting but at that time I hadn’t paid too much attention, and honestly I hadn’t been expecting anything grand.
Keeping my own words, it really wasn’t even fully dark yet when I’d gotten Kai totally soaked. The view of him squeaking for help under water was just too amusing to ever forget.
After a moment of reliving our childhood-tossing sand and pushing each other to the water, screaming and laughing and giggling in a way which we would never let the public see-and after watching the most remarkable sunset ever, we all had a quick bath and changed into dry clothes. When I walked out of the bathroom Kai was already getting busy in the kitchen; didn’t surprise me at all to find out that he had brought with him food supplies that would’ve sustained us for weeks here, if only we had the chance to. For dinner it was grilled tuna fillets and I couldn’t have been happier that, for once, Kai did not cook any vegetable at all.
It was a luxury of a lifetime as we all ate on the back porch, sitting and gazing out towards the wondrous sight presented by God for us: the sea that glittered under the full moon and stars that we had never known existed-since we couldn’t see them on the polluted skies of the big cities-and it was just as though everything was made of black satin with embedded diamonds. Oh God… and here I am starting to sound so damn poetic; Ruki will definitely laugh at me once he hears me talking like this. But I’m helpless; everything looked so beautiful that night it had everyone feeling romantic.
But of course, I wasn’t as lucky as having someone beside me to share all the romanticism with, unlike the couple of lovebirds that didn’t seem like being too embarrassed anymore with showing fact in front of people’s eyes. While I, Uruha and Kai shared the stair step to sit on, Aoi and Ruki practically covered the entire surface of the long bench with their entwined bodies; I only wished the sounds of waves could’ve been louder to cover up the soft sounds of lips meeting lips-and no, I really didn’t need to look back and check to know the details of what it was they were doing. The images in my head were so clear they were actually giving me a headache.
If only either of us remembered to bring fireworks, I’d love to stick one under that bench Aoi and Ruki were inhabiting and light it… see if they liked the feeling of something exploding on their asses…
Before I went totally berserk and flipped the bench over or do something else in order to stop those two from making out anywhere near me, Uruha suddenly whispered something that effectively put everything into standstill-and yes, that even included Aoi and Ruki.
“I can almost see her,” so he said, “Walking slowly down the shore towards the end of her fate…”
At the very same time Uruha spoke the wind blew past us, sending a gust of sand to the air, whirling momentarily before the same wind blew it apart into nothingness. I seriously had chills on my spine, because for a moment there, I thought I saw something… something inhuman. Maybe it was just a spur of intuition, or maybe I was just seeing things, but the point was, being where we were, it was as if all aspects that made the story so dramatic became more intense, compared to how I had heard it earlier that noon in the restaurant. Sitting on the porch right there, I could just feel the hairs on my nape stand while we silenced after hearing Uruha’s statement.
“Hey!” Uruha spun to face me and everyone else, shocking us with the sudden change of volume of his voice, “Let’s go and take a look at what the shrine looks like!”
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who shouted “WHAT?!” at hearing that.
Aoi, of course, became the first to object. “Hell no, what’s the use?” he spluttered, disentangling his body from Ruki-at least this had gotten them to stop, I quietly thought. Ruki probably realized the way I was glaring at them because then he inched a little bit apart from Aoi, his face was undeniably bright red under the unmerciful neon light that shined down on him.
“I’m just curious,” Uruha said, “I just want to see it.”
“But the place is fenced for a reason, Uruha,” Aoi argued, “It means no one is allowed to enter, and why should we even think about breaking that rule now?”
“Oh, Aoi, you’re no cool,” Uruha huffed, “Since when do we play by the rules? I mean, we’re just going to take a brief look, maybe take a picture or two, and then leave the place. It’s not like we’re going to camp in there or anything…”
Obviously, the argument between Aoi and Uruha was bound to never end, so then Uruha requested some back up from me and Kai. “You two are curious, too, aren’t you?” he asked, and I must admit it right then and there, out loud, that yes, I was curious too. The adrenaline that was pumping through my veins reminded me about a time in the past when all of us had an almost similar experience, only we were in an old, abandoned hospital back then, doing a shoot for a PV. Uruha had dared us to take pictures of the deserted chambers and alleyways, and so we did, and I swear to God it became the scariest experience I had ever had. This, though, if we ever got to do it, was probably going to rival it.
Kai said he wanted to go too (he was doing that routine of bouncing his ass on the surface he was sitting at, evidently showing his excitement), so that left Ruki to say something. We were all looking at the small guy while the man himself squirmed at being placed under the spotlight without being given a prior warning. I could see that Aoi was putting forth all of his ability to look as pitiful as possible-big, puppy dog eyes and quivering lips and all-and I was already expecting that Ruki would simply turn down the challenge and stay here with Aoi. But then, despite looking like he’d gone through the hell of battling against his own will, Ruki said: “I want to go see the place too…”
My gaze shifted quickly from Aoi to Uruha to Ruki, back and forth, and I could never miss the look of victory that glowed on Uruha’s face and the guilty look on Ruki’s, and I definitely couldn’t miss how Aoi looked like he was about to cry and ready to bale out on us right then and there-to run towards his car and leave us deserted there, probably. And then I noticed that queer way with which Uruha was glaring at Ruki, and how Ruki seemed to shrink under the scrutiny, and I instantly remembered the suspicious grin that I had seen on Uruha’s face when we left the restaurant that noon. I really didn’t have to be a genius to figure out Uruha had been planning out something, something evil by the looks of it, and he had made sure Ruki was participating in it.
My only guess was, by the end of all this, Aoi was either going to hate us for the rest of his life, or deleting us from his memory as people he had ever known. I could only pray that Uruha wouldn’t take things too far-because he always had the tendency to-and make us mourn the loss of a guitarist before this weekend was even over…
Aoi looked like he wanted to ask if he could just stay here and leave it all up to us to have some fun on our own, but then Ruki turned to him and put on that remarkably undeniable pout and asked: “Baby, you’re not telling me to go alone without you, are you?”
I swear to God that was exactly what Ruki said, and I’d be doomed if I lied, but that was the very first time I had ever seen Ruki acting so needy towards anyone. However, the method worked like magic, and Aoi relented shortly after Ruki persuaded him and promised him he would never leave his side.
It was too quick that Uruha ran into the cottage and came back with three flashlights and a backpack in hand-obviously he had planned the whole thing to the very details; the smile never leaving his face while he made arrangements on how we should go.
“Now,” he said, “Since I myself have no idea which way to take to reach the shrine, we’ll go in two groups. I think it’s quite obvious that Aoi will go with Ruki-“
“Like you could ever separate them…” I mumbled.
“-and so that leaves the three of us together,” Uruha turned to me and Kai, “Unless either of you wants to join Aoi and Ruki instead.”
I’m pretty certain that Uruha had meant that as rhetoric and we weren’t actually required to answer it.
“Why can’t we all just go together?” Aoi whined once more, while Ruki was clutching on his arm as if he worried Aoi was going to run off from the place if no one was keeping a hold on him.
“Because, Aoi,” Uruha answered, emphasizing his words like he would if he were talking to a kindergarten kid, “I’ve already told you, I don’t know the way to the shrine, and I think we‘d stand a better chance to find that shrine if we split up. If you’re afraid you might get lost, we do have our cell phones, Aoi, unless you’re planning to go psychic and communicate with telepathy-which, unfortunately, the rest of us can’t manage-and-“
“OKAY!” Aoi cut off, “I get it.” He stood up, huffing in irritation (I couldn’t help but grin at seeing his face; he looked as if he wanted so badly to stomp his feet on Uruha and make a jelly pudding out of him). “Let’s just get this over with so I can go to sleep,” he said, but I wasn’t sure that was the main reason why he had been so reluctant to come with us on our little adventure. He’d rather die than admitting he’s scared, I guess.
So then, five minutes later, we had put on our sandals and were standing in front of the cottage. I could see Uruha walking towards us wearing a huge grin on his face, but as he came nearer he quickly put on that serious expression again and spoke.
“So here’s the deal: the teams start from different points. There are two entrances to the forest and each of these teams will take one. I’ve done some calculating and I think if we walk straight ahead then both teams will meet each other in the middle of the forest. That’s where the shrine is, I suppose…”
“You suppose??” Aoi groaned in disbelieve, and then continued to rant about how stupid and overly spontaneous the whole idea was, and how idiotic it was to even try to go in to an unknown area, and how even more idiotic it was to go in the dark of the night. He did make a point when he said we should’ve gone when the sun was up, and I kind of agreed with his logics that, if we went during daytime, we wouldn’t risk getting lost. Aoi ranted about a lot of things and was going to go on about a whole lot of other things, but before he could continue Ruki looked up at him-again putting on that infamous pout-and Aoi went completely silent.
Well, at least now I know what to do when it seems like Aoi is losing control of his temper. All I have to do is push Ruki to his lap and that’s that. Problem’s over.
It wasn’t as dark as I had worried it would be, once we started walking to the direction that Uruha was leading us to; the moon looked like a faraway installed neon bulb that shone upon us-white and ghastly-and allowed us to walk freely without needing extra lighting from our flashlights. Aoi had-thankfully-stopped complaining like an old hag and followed us obediently heading closer towards the forest. It was visible already: dark and unfathomable as to how vast it really was, and it was splayed there like a menacing giant that lay quietly, spreading traps for stupid people like us who dared trying to trespass into its territory. I sound like I’ve been talking to Aoi too much, and maybe I have… but there was just that disturbing thought inside my brain that, maybe, just maybe, Aoi’s fears had their reason to exist.
Anyhow, it was too late for me to want to go back or to even complain about the whole plan, because then we had reached the fence that bordered between us and that big, dark and evil forest. I must say, it was on levels far ahead of what I had previously thought of the place. Scary and threatening wouldn’t suffice if I had to describe how the forest looked like at that moment, because coming face to face with it, too close for our own wellbeing, I felt urged to follow what my legs wanted me to do… which was to run away from that place as fast as I could. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way; the silence that enveloped us at that minute was overwhelming, as if we had lost our abilities to speak all in the same time.
But then it was Uruha who finally broke the silence, coughing lightly.
“Yes, well…” he mumbled carefully-as if afraid he might wake something up if he spoke too loud, “The main entrance is around here, as far as I remember.”
He led us along that fence until we came to some sort of a wooden gate. There was a rusty padlock hanging on a hook that protruded from that gate, and I thought it was supposed to keep the gate locked safely, but with how the gate itself appeared like-so old and feeble that I was afraid we would break it to pieces if we dared laying one finger on it-the padlock looked kind of useless. But all in all, from what I’d seen, it didn’t seem like anyone had been here for… ages. I could understand; who would want to go sightseeing in a place like this? Other than horror-maniac freaks I really couldn’t think of anyone else.
“Yep,” Uruha mumbled, “This is it.” He observed the gate and the padlock for a while before he turned to us. “Aoi and Ruki can take this entrance,” he spoke to the mentioned two, “While the rest of us will take the other one-which is somewhere a bit further down there, I think.” He pointed towards his right, far to the darkness and I couldn’t really make out what he was pointing at, but I guess I just had to trust his leading for now.
Ruki nodded but Aoi looked like he was preparing yet another long, stubborn retort. “And how do you suppose we get in?” he asked smugly, pointing a finger towards the rusty padlock, “It’s locked, Uruha.”
I saw Uruha heaving a sigh.
“Yes, I know it’s locked, Aoi. Don’t you think I have calculated that, too?” He gave us an exasperated look and then swung his backpack from his back to the front, digging his hand inside it for a while. My eyeballs surely hobbled out of my skulls when I saw a screwdriver coming out of the backpack-why on earth would Uruha be bringing a screwdriver? What was he trying to be, a secret agent? Oh wait, I know a more fitting term: a burglar.
Even Aoi became speechless when Uruha handed him the screwdriver, probably thinking if he dared saying one more word to argue with the other guitarist he would have the screwdriver landing against his skull in a not very nice way. Uruha gave him several instructions-just like a head burglar would do to his subordinate before they went cracking a vault-on how to break the padlock, and warned him to be careful not to knock gate unless it might fall apart to pieces. With how he sounded, I became even more convinced that Uruha had a dark background that I had never known of-a member of a yakuza clan, probably-and who knows just how many banks he had robbed?
Aoi held the screwdriver tightly in his hand, gave one final desperate glance towards us, and finally swung the heavy tool and hit it against the padlock. The loud noise it made echoed throughout the whole area and I thought, for a second, that we’d woken up everyone around, but then I realized that there wasn’t anybody else there… anybody that was human, at least. My nerves felt like they were being stretched beyond normal and they could just snap every time I heard the noise of the screwdriver hitting the padlock, but before I blew up to pieces, the padlock finally gave up and fell off from the hook-helplessly broken after the ruthless way Aoi had treated it.
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To part 2b --> click
Chapter: 2/2
Author: akichuu
Fandom: the GazettE
Pairings: AoiXRuki
Theme: 010: Dead Tree - Dir en Grey @ 50stories
Rating: PG-15
Genre: fluff, (attempt of) horror and humor
Warnings: Implied sex, a few curses. Unbeta-ed mistakes.
Disclaimers: Oh… they're certainly mine, ALL mine. Yep. But then again, you know I have the tendency to be delirious.
Summary: The band went to a cottage at the beach together in one of their rare weekends. It's going to be a fun summer vacation, and everyone's going to love it... or at least that's what Reita thought before they departed.
Comments: Second part, and I know it took me long to post it when I've promised I would post soon... I'm so sorry... I could just blame my hectic schedule but in the end it's still my fault for being a bit (?) lazy. XDD
This was so fun to write, I definitely had my laugh, so I hope it's going to be fun for you guys to read too. Yep, without further delay, here's part two!
Vacation of a Lifetime
Part 2a
The rest of the journey went by quicker than I had expected it to; although, for all honestly, I wasn’t sure that it was because the road we had taken really was short-distanced. I checked the time blinking on my cell phone screen and figured out that we took just as much time as we had taken to leave the big city and reach that gas station. But I guess with Kai being hyper (worse than he had been before he got land sick; I seriously feared that we’d fed him with too much sugar in the restaurant…) and Uruha being just as excited, and probably me being a bit too carried away too, the next thing we knew we had already reached the small town where Uruha said his aunt lived. When we hopped off from the car, I had to be honest I was feeling somewhere between overly riled up and excessively worried. The feeling grew worse and got me a bit sweaty when we saw Aoi and Ruki stepping off of Aoi’s sedan; I couldn’t help recalling what I, Uruha and Kai had talked about so enthusiastically in the car during the journey from the restaurant here-which mostly was associated with Aoi’s paranoia. Okay, practically that was all we had been talking about: Aoi’s extreme fear against scary stories and/or places.
At that moment I had to forget about my worries for a while because Uruha was leading us towards this small but very comfy rural house, a lady-probably eight or ten years older than me-was walking off its front verandah to greet us. Before that day I had never met the aunt Uruha had been talking about, but even if I had been given an earlier notice I would’ve been just as shocked to know that this lady was Uruha’s aunt. Unlike any other aunts and/or uncles Uruha had, this one differed a whole lot she might’ve been wrongly located in Uruha’s list of relatives. Her appearance was nowhere near Uruha. But then a kid-aged about seven or eight-jumped out of the same door she had come from, and I knew it right then and there that they were related but somehow the genes had skipped a generation. That kid grinned and I thought I was seeing Uruha in a small version.
Anyhow, yes, that was Uruha’s aunt, and unfortunately-as she explained to us-she couldn’t come and stay with us at the cottage because her husband was coming home that day. She said she didn’t get to see him often because he worked as a pilot, and this weekend, quite coincidentally, he was coming home (from France, was it? I wasn’t sure…). We said we understood and it was really okay if she couldn’t come with us. Aoi and Ruki, though, looked so darn obviously happy that she wasn’t coming. I could just sense them beaming with joy and I had to hold myself back from pouncing Aoi’s face when he said: “We’ll do just fine by ourselves, Ma’am, perfectly fine…”
The grin that filled his face and the way he put his arm around Ruki’s shoulder spoke more volumes than necessary. At that moment right there, I made an oath to myself that I would never pick the room that was the closest to these two’s room when we got to the cottage.
Uruha’s aunt gave us the key of the cottage and told us she had cleaned the place for us to use (she was so nice I could just kiss her, although Uruha would hate me for the rest of my life if I dared to do that), and bid us to be careful and not do anything that would endanger us there. I think I became the only one who took a personal note on this last advice because everybody else had already hopped their way to the cars, impatient to get to the main destination.
We could see the beach, strewn faraway, blue and glittering beyond our windows after we drove for like fifteen minutes or so, but bordering our sights was a thick forest-its dark green crown looked like a giant molded frame that pestered our sights and wouldn’t budge no matter which angle we turn our heads to. Uruha murmured that this was the forest he had told us about, at that Kai whispered an awed “Ohhh…” from the back seat, and solemnly-as if all of us were quietly recalling the story that Uruha had said happened in that place-we continued until we found some sort of a small office building.
“This is the information center,” Uruha told us while stepping off the car, “We park our cars here and walk the rest of the way to the cottage.”
I’m sure I paled at hearing what Uruha just told me. Walk? With the ridiculous amount of luggage we carried, we had to walk? I lurked over my shoulder to the back seat where Kai was almost buried under bags, and felt horrified just to imagine carrying all those barehanded to wherever it was we were heading.
Uruha seemed to understand my fear when he grinned and said, “Relax, it’s just a five minutes walk. We won’t break a leg, I promise you.”
A leg probably not; but I was so close to swinging one of Ruki’s outrageously heavy bags and bashing Uruha’s head with it, just to exemplify my inner conflicts, while we paced down the sand, practically drowning by every step we took. Aoi, who, just like I did, had involuntarily taken the lead of the band’s caretaker too, didn’t look too happy with the task being given to him, which was to carry his own two large bags and two of Ruki’s medium sized ones-isn’t it silly how one man could pack so many things just for a two days vacation to a beach? I suspected that in that one bag Aoi was carrying Ruki had packed his collection of sunglasses because he kept asking Aoi to be careful with it and not to bump it on anything. It was a miracle that, with Aoi’s infamous temper, he could bear with it and hadn’t done anything harmful to Ruki… as of yet.
We did pass by the forest-the legendary forest, as Uruha had put it. For a reason I didn’t know of, all of us fell silent as we walked around the fenced area; it was either we all remembered the story Uruha had told us or that all of us could feel that dark, unfriendly aura that the forest seemed to emit. I wasn’t saying that because all of us had suddenly turned supernaturally gifted or something like that, but it really didn’t take a highly sensitive person to be able to sense all this weird sensation hovering all around us, making me feel as if some invisible giant octopus was trying to suffocate us with its tentacles.
The bags didn’t feel so heavy anymore when we rushed our steps, deeming to escape from the uncomfortable area as soon as we could manage.
The scorching heat was unmerciful but apparently Uruha was right-lucky for him, because if we had had to walk for one minute longer I wouldn’t have been able to hold myself and not do something Uruha would remember for the rest of his life. Five minutes later we arrived in front of a small, wooden building that was almost completely white, save for its roof that was dark green. Overall, it was a typical sea-side cottage model, designed to have a shady porch and big windows. I immediately remembered about the pictures Uruha had shown us, and I was absolutely right: the real thing was everything and more than those pictures could have ever described us. It was beautiful, to say the least, and I only wished we had more than just two days to spend here.
20 minutes later, after a long struggle of Uruha trying to unlock the front door (hadn’t been such an easy task, I supposed, to find the right key amongst dozens that his aunt had given him, and all the while having Ruki and Kai pestering him non-stop, asking him to hurry up), we scrambled into the cottage, squealing and giggling like kindergarten kids being shown a room full of toys. Just like the outer appearance, almost everything inside was white as well-white walls, white floors, white sofa. We could see sea shells almost everywhere, decorating the place, from the large bookshelf to the tables and to the walls.
There were three rooms in total: two were located at the back of the cottage, facing right towards the beach, and one was closer to the front door, right beside the small kitchen area. Ruki immediately dragged Aoi towards one of the rooms that faced the beach, the one on the left. I, in the mean time, remembered about the oath I had made to myself and quickly dumped my things into the room that was close to the front door, and I could see Uruha following me to do the same thing. He must’ve had the same idea as I had, and I thought, at that time, cramping in one bed with Uruha was going to be so much better than to have a bed by myself but not be able to sleep the whole night through-which was what certainly would happen if I picked the room right next to the room that Aoi and Ruki chose.
Kai picked that room willingly, by the way, and he was so happy when he saw how spacious the room was and how wonderful the sight from the window was. The only thing I could do for him was to give him an advice (which was to prepare a good pair of earplugs before he went to bed), but when he asked me why, I found out that I didn’t have the heart to explain.
Once the room arrangements were settled, the sky outside had begun to darken, and the sun was glowing in the warmest color I’d ever seen, slanting lazily towards the horizon. I heard various versions of awed expression from my sides when we stepped off the back porch and dipped our feet in the warm white sand; I could simply say that it was heavenly-the sight, the air, the feeling, everything. The heavily crowded, stressful streets of the big city vanished without a trace from my mind, replaced by the wondrous, almost unreal spectacle that I could see in front of me.
It took one maniacal scream from behind me to end my serene pondering and the next thing I knew, I had sand inside my t-shirt, tickling the skin on my back, and I saw Kai dashing quickly to safety, laughing like a mad man. It was probably at that particular time when I was chasing after Kai, swearing I would get him as wet as a man could ever be before the sun completely set, that I missed seeing Uruha when he was dragging Ruki back into the cottage. Something was starting but at that time I hadn’t paid too much attention, and honestly I hadn’t been expecting anything grand.
Keeping my own words, it really wasn’t even fully dark yet when I’d gotten Kai totally soaked. The view of him squeaking for help under water was just too amusing to ever forget.
After a moment of reliving our childhood-tossing sand and pushing each other to the water, screaming and laughing and giggling in a way which we would never let the public see-and after watching the most remarkable sunset ever, we all had a quick bath and changed into dry clothes. When I walked out of the bathroom Kai was already getting busy in the kitchen; didn’t surprise me at all to find out that he had brought with him food supplies that would’ve sustained us for weeks here, if only we had the chance to. For dinner it was grilled tuna fillets and I couldn’t have been happier that, for once, Kai did not cook any vegetable at all.
It was a luxury of a lifetime as we all ate on the back porch, sitting and gazing out towards the wondrous sight presented by God for us: the sea that glittered under the full moon and stars that we had never known existed-since we couldn’t see them on the polluted skies of the big cities-and it was just as though everything was made of black satin with embedded diamonds. Oh God… and here I am starting to sound so damn poetic; Ruki will definitely laugh at me once he hears me talking like this. But I’m helpless; everything looked so beautiful that night it had everyone feeling romantic.
But of course, I wasn’t as lucky as having someone beside me to share all the romanticism with, unlike the couple of lovebirds that didn’t seem like being too embarrassed anymore with showing fact in front of people’s eyes. While I, Uruha and Kai shared the stair step to sit on, Aoi and Ruki practically covered the entire surface of the long bench with their entwined bodies; I only wished the sounds of waves could’ve been louder to cover up the soft sounds of lips meeting lips-and no, I really didn’t need to look back and check to know the details of what it was they were doing. The images in my head were so clear they were actually giving me a headache.
If only either of us remembered to bring fireworks, I’d love to stick one under that bench Aoi and Ruki were inhabiting and light it… see if they liked the feeling of something exploding on their asses…
Before I went totally berserk and flipped the bench over or do something else in order to stop those two from making out anywhere near me, Uruha suddenly whispered something that effectively put everything into standstill-and yes, that even included Aoi and Ruki.
“I can almost see her,” so he said, “Walking slowly down the shore towards the end of her fate…”
At the very same time Uruha spoke the wind blew past us, sending a gust of sand to the air, whirling momentarily before the same wind blew it apart into nothingness. I seriously had chills on my spine, because for a moment there, I thought I saw something… something inhuman. Maybe it was just a spur of intuition, or maybe I was just seeing things, but the point was, being where we were, it was as if all aspects that made the story so dramatic became more intense, compared to how I had heard it earlier that noon in the restaurant. Sitting on the porch right there, I could just feel the hairs on my nape stand while we silenced after hearing Uruha’s statement.
“Hey!” Uruha spun to face me and everyone else, shocking us with the sudden change of volume of his voice, “Let’s go and take a look at what the shrine looks like!”
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who shouted “WHAT?!” at hearing that.
Aoi, of course, became the first to object. “Hell no, what’s the use?” he spluttered, disentangling his body from Ruki-at least this had gotten them to stop, I quietly thought. Ruki probably realized the way I was glaring at them because then he inched a little bit apart from Aoi, his face was undeniably bright red under the unmerciful neon light that shined down on him.
“I’m just curious,” Uruha said, “I just want to see it.”
“But the place is fenced for a reason, Uruha,” Aoi argued, “It means no one is allowed to enter, and why should we even think about breaking that rule now?”
“Oh, Aoi, you’re no cool,” Uruha huffed, “Since when do we play by the rules? I mean, we’re just going to take a brief look, maybe take a picture or two, and then leave the place. It’s not like we’re going to camp in there or anything…”
Obviously, the argument between Aoi and Uruha was bound to never end, so then Uruha requested some back up from me and Kai. “You two are curious, too, aren’t you?” he asked, and I must admit it right then and there, out loud, that yes, I was curious too. The adrenaline that was pumping through my veins reminded me about a time in the past when all of us had an almost similar experience, only we were in an old, abandoned hospital back then, doing a shoot for a PV. Uruha had dared us to take pictures of the deserted chambers and alleyways, and so we did, and I swear to God it became the scariest experience I had ever had. This, though, if we ever got to do it, was probably going to rival it.
Kai said he wanted to go too (he was doing that routine of bouncing his ass on the surface he was sitting at, evidently showing his excitement), so that left Ruki to say something. We were all looking at the small guy while the man himself squirmed at being placed under the spotlight without being given a prior warning. I could see that Aoi was putting forth all of his ability to look as pitiful as possible-big, puppy dog eyes and quivering lips and all-and I was already expecting that Ruki would simply turn down the challenge and stay here with Aoi. But then, despite looking like he’d gone through the hell of battling against his own will, Ruki said: “I want to go see the place too…”
My gaze shifted quickly from Aoi to Uruha to Ruki, back and forth, and I could never miss the look of victory that glowed on Uruha’s face and the guilty look on Ruki’s, and I definitely couldn’t miss how Aoi looked like he was about to cry and ready to bale out on us right then and there-to run towards his car and leave us deserted there, probably. And then I noticed that queer way with which Uruha was glaring at Ruki, and how Ruki seemed to shrink under the scrutiny, and I instantly remembered the suspicious grin that I had seen on Uruha’s face when we left the restaurant that noon. I really didn’t have to be a genius to figure out Uruha had been planning out something, something evil by the looks of it, and he had made sure Ruki was participating in it.
My only guess was, by the end of all this, Aoi was either going to hate us for the rest of his life, or deleting us from his memory as people he had ever known. I could only pray that Uruha wouldn’t take things too far-because he always had the tendency to-and make us mourn the loss of a guitarist before this weekend was even over…
Aoi looked like he wanted to ask if he could just stay here and leave it all up to us to have some fun on our own, but then Ruki turned to him and put on that remarkably undeniable pout and asked: “Baby, you’re not telling me to go alone without you, are you?”
I swear to God that was exactly what Ruki said, and I’d be doomed if I lied, but that was the very first time I had ever seen Ruki acting so needy towards anyone. However, the method worked like magic, and Aoi relented shortly after Ruki persuaded him and promised him he would never leave his side.
It was too quick that Uruha ran into the cottage and came back with three flashlights and a backpack in hand-obviously he had planned the whole thing to the very details; the smile never leaving his face while he made arrangements on how we should go.
“Now,” he said, “Since I myself have no idea which way to take to reach the shrine, we’ll go in two groups. I think it’s quite obvious that Aoi will go with Ruki-“
“Like you could ever separate them…” I mumbled.
“-and so that leaves the three of us together,” Uruha turned to me and Kai, “Unless either of you wants to join Aoi and Ruki instead.”
I’m pretty certain that Uruha had meant that as rhetoric and we weren’t actually required to answer it.
“Why can’t we all just go together?” Aoi whined once more, while Ruki was clutching on his arm as if he worried Aoi was going to run off from the place if no one was keeping a hold on him.
“Because, Aoi,” Uruha answered, emphasizing his words like he would if he were talking to a kindergarten kid, “I’ve already told you, I don’t know the way to the shrine, and I think we‘d stand a better chance to find that shrine if we split up. If you’re afraid you might get lost, we do have our cell phones, Aoi, unless you’re planning to go psychic and communicate with telepathy-which, unfortunately, the rest of us can’t manage-and-“
“OKAY!” Aoi cut off, “I get it.” He stood up, huffing in irritation (I couldn’t help but grin at seeing his face; he looked as if he wanted so badly to stomp his feet on Uruha and make a jelly pudding out of him). “Let’s just get this over with so I can go to sleep,” he said, but I wasn’t sure that was the main reason why he had been so reluctant to come with us on our little adventure. He’d rather die than admitting he’s scared, I guess.
So then, five minutes later, we had put on our sandals and were standing in front of the cottage. I could see Uruha walking towards us wearing a huge grin on his face, but as he came nearer he quickly put on that serious expression again and spoke.
“So here’s the deal: the teams start from different points. There are two entrances to the forest and each of these teams will take one. I’ve done some calculating and I think if we walk straight ahead then both teams will meet each other in the middle of the forest. That’s where the shrine is, I suppose…”
“You suppose??” Aoi groaned in disbelieve, and then continued to rant about how stupid and overly spontaneous the whole idea was, and how idiotic it was to even try to go in to an unknown area, and how even more idiotic it was to go in the dark of the night. He did make a point when he said we should’ve gone when the sun was up, and I kind of agreed with his logics that, if we went during daytime, we wouldn’t risk getting lost. Aoi ranted about a lot of things and was going to go on about a whole lot of other things, but before he could continue Ruki looked up at him-again putting on that infamous pout-and Aoi went completely silent.
Well, at least now I know what to do when it seems like Aoi is losing control of his temper. All I have to do is push Ruki to his lap and that’s that. Problem’s over.
It wasn’t as dark as I had worried it would be, once we started walking to the direction that Uruha was leading us to; the moon looked like a faraway installed neon bulb that shone upon us-white and ghastly-and allowed us to walk freely without needing extra lighting from our flashlights. Aoi had-thankfully-stopped complaining like an old hag and followed us obediently heading closer towards the forest. It was visible already: dark and unfathomable as to how vast it really was, and it was splayed there like a menacing giant that lay quietly, spreading traps for stupid people like us who dared trying to trespass into its territory. I sound like I’ve been talking to Aoi too much, and maybe I have… but there was just that disturbing thought inside my brain that, maybe, just maybe, Aoi’s fears had their reason to exist.
Anyhow, it was too late for me to want to go back or to even complain about the whole plan, because then we had reached the fence that bordered between us and that big, dark and evil forest. I must say, it was on levels far ahead of what I had previously thought of the place. Scary and threatening wouldn’t suffice if I had to describe how the forest looked like at that moment, because coming face to face with it, too close for our own wellbeing, I felt urged to follow what my legs wanted me to do… which was to run away from that place as fast as I could. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way; the silence that enveloped us at that minute was overwhelming, as if we had lost our abilities to speak all in the same time.
But then it was Uruha who finally broke the silence, coughing lightly.
“Yes, well…” he mumbled carefully-as if afraid he might wake something up if he spoke too loud, “The main entrance is around here, as far as I remember.”
He led us along that fence until we came to some sort of a wooden gate. There was a rusty padlock hanging on a hook that protruded from that gate, and I thought it was supposed to keep the gate locked safely, but with how the gate itself appeared like-so old and feeble that I was afraid we would break it to pieces if we dared laying one finger on it-the padlock looked kind of useless. But all in all, from what I’d seen, it didn’t seem like anyone had been here for… ages. I could understand; who would want to go sightseeing in a place like this? Other than horror-maniac freaks I really couldn’t think of anyone else.
“Yep,” Uruha mumbled, “This is it.” He observed the gate and the padlock for a while before he turned to us. “Aoi and Ruki can take this entrance,” he spoke to the mentioned two, “While the rest of us will take the other one-which is somewhere a bit further down there, I think.” He pointed towards his right, far to the darkness and I couldn’t really make out what he was pointing at, but I guess I just had to trust his leading for now.
Ruki nodded but Aoi looked like he was preparing yet another long, stubborn retort. “And how do you suppose we get in?” he asked smugly, pointing a finger towards the rusty padlock, “It’s locked, Uruha.”
I saw Uruha heaving a sigh.
“Yes, I know it’s locked, Aoi. Don’t you think I have calculated that, too?” He gave us an exasperated look and then swung his backpack from his back to the front, digging his hand inside it for a while. My eyeballs surely hobbled out of my skulls when I saw a screwdriver coming out of the backpack-why on earth would Uruha be bringing a screwdriver? What was he trying to be, a secret agent? Oh wait, I know a more fitting term: a burglar.
Even Aoi became speechless when Uruha handed him the screwdriver, probably thinking if he dared saying one more word to argue with the other guitarist he would have the screwdriver landing against his skull in a not very nice way. Uruha gave him several instructions-just like a head burglar would do to his subordinate before they went cracking a vault-on how to break the padlock, and warned him to be careful not to knock gate unless it might fall apart to pieces. With how he sounded, I became even more convinced that Uruha had a dark background that I had never known of-a member of a yakuza clan, probably-and who knows just how many banks he had robbed?
Aoi held the screwdriver tightly in his hand, gave one final desperate glance towards us, and finally swung the heavy tool and hit it against the padlock. The loud noise it made echoed throughout the whole area and I thought, for a second, that we’d woken up everyone around, but then I realized that there wasn’t anybody else there… anybody that was human, at least. My nerves felt like they were being stretched beyond normal and they could just snap every time I heard the noise of the screwdriver hitting the padlock, but before I blew up to pieces, the padlock finally gave up and fell off from the hook-helplessly broken after the ruthless way Aoi had treated it.
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