Rui Habashira stood alone in the abandoned warehouse, enjoying the rare peaceful moment away from those hopeless idiots on his team. Practice had ended and everyone had finally stumbled their way out of the building. Megu and... what's-his-face, Westley or Kazumi or whatever (Rui could never remember that 62 bastard's name... or ethnicity too apparently) always lingered behind, trying to persuade Rui to join them on a trip to the supermarket or laundromat or some uncool boring shit like that.
Rui hated going to the laundromat, because that senile old fisherman with the leg-lamp was always hanging around there. Rui assumed the laundromat was the guy's home, since he certainly never used it for laundry. The old man reeked of fish and slept in the corner of the dingy building, always clutching that ridiculous lamp tightly in his arms. It creeped Rui out, quite frankly, and he made a point of avoiding the place – which probably wasn't a good idea for someone who wore a lot of white and cruised around on a motorcycle all day, but oh well.
Pushing thoughts of laundromats and creepy old men out of his mind, Rui walked towards the back of the dilapidated building, where the Zokugaku Chameleons stashed all of the random junk they had acquired (sometimes even legally) over the years. There were stacks of cardboard boxes filled with old CDs: Kishidan, The Stalin, The Yellow Monkey, Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, and other such bands that reflected his team's musical tastes. Rui snickered when he saw a pink Shazna CD hiding among the mix. Guess everyone liked "Melty Love" at one point or another. There weren't only shitty Japanese CDs in the boxes, of course, but also old issues of Jump, porn, football magazines, more porn, TimeShare brochures, and a dachshund hound statue made out of spoons (Rui didn't want to ask). Rui kicked the boxes of junk away, exposing a large shape concealed beneath an old bedsheet.
He pulled the sheet aside and revealed not a group of children in a poor-quality ghost costume, but a grand piano in a poor-quality ghost costume. No one knew how this mysterious piano managed to turn up there; it seemed to have come long before the Chameleons took over the old warehouse near their school. In some ways, this piano creeped Rui out more than the laundromat. There was something eerily suspicious about the instrument. For one, it was covered in more chains than a Lithuanian bondage slave. The piano's legs were bolted to the floor and the chains even covered the keys, preventing them from being played. Rui never bothered to mess with these chains before, since he had a piano at home and also a portable keyboard.
Playing piano was something his parents forced him to learn. "Oh, it'll make you so cultured. It'd be good for college. Blah, blah, blah." Same old shit parents always say when what they really mean is "It'll make us look good." Initially his parents suggested he learn the violin, but the f-holes made him uncomfortable, so they settled for piano.
Whenever they managed to force him to practice, he suddenly became obsessed with it, smashing his head against the keys whenever he missed a note. The whole ordeal left him angry and also with a nasty headache. Yet gradually, over the years, music had mutated into an almost pleasant experience. Try as he did to forget about the damn thing, he always found himself drawn to the piano. Rui and music developed a sort of grudgingly accepting relationship, reminiscent of one between a diabetic Luddite and a dialysis machine.
He even bought an old keyboard at a pawn shop and spent some time playing it on top of a parking garage, a place well away from his nagging family. He recalled a time when it was absurdly windy and he was up there, playing the keyboard, when a sudden gust attacked his folder and sent sheet music flying over rooftops and into trees. He had to sprint around from roof to roof, collecting all of the papers like in some demented video game. He had to admit, though, it was pretty fun. Good practice for football too.
Unfortunately, he "accidentally" broke the keyboard the other day. Getting pissed off at "semihemidemisemiquavers" (who the hell named these things? Those British...) and kicking it off the roof was totally an accident. Now, he had nothing to play except the piano at home, which he'd rather not. Hence Rui's newfound interest in the creepy grand piano in the warehouse. He was bored and wanted something quiet he could do by himself that didn't involve the porn magazines in the box.
He recalled one time when he fell asleep watching clips of some football game late at night. In his dreams he could hear someone playing "In the Hall of the Mountain King." He woke when the crescendo escalated and immediately ran to the piano, but there was no one there, so he passed it off as some retarded dream. I mean, come on, the idea of a ghost playing the piano at night was just far too cliché for even Rui to take seriously. Nevertheless, it wasn't the first time that happened and it bothered him. Not that he'd ever admit to anyone that he was afraid of a fucking piano.
Rui pulled on the chains covering the keys. They were strong, but extremely rusted and the padlock on them looked ancient. It really shouldn't be any trouble to pry it open, he thought, as he jammed his balisong into the lock. After much furious groaning and creaking, the lock gave way and Rui opened the dusty lid. This lock was only for the keys; the locks for the strings and all of the other chains were still in tact. Rui wondered why the hell someone would go through all this trouble to chain up a musical instrument. Did someone stash a bunch of treasure or drugs in it or something? That'd be kind of awesome, yet... unlikely.
He polished the dust off the keys with his coat sleeve, again not worrying about laundry, and began to play Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu. Rui liked Chopin. He heard there was a vidoe game coming out about the composer, but he didn't really know anything about that. He didn't want to be seen reading a video game magazine by his teammates. That was just too geeky.
He continued to play the slightly creepy song, his eyebrows knotting with concentration, his long fingers dashing along the keys, when suddenly "B-sharp" screamed. It sounded more than just out-of-tune. The whole piano shook and then uttered a terrifying roar. Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration; it was more like a burble, albeit, a terrifying burble. Rui was so surprised that he fell backwards off the piano chair.
"What the fuck!"
The piano seemed to cough in response.
"What's wrong with this piece of shit?" Rui gave it a few solid kicks.
The other chains binding the piano to the ground disintegrated and the lid rose open by itself. It then continued to cough and sputter some more, as if it was clearing its throat. Which is absolutely ridiculous, since pianos don't have throats.
"Ah, thank you. I feel much better now," the piano said.
"I knew there was something fucked up with that piano..."
"I am the spirit of the deceased Jabberwock and I have possessed this musical instrument," the piano declared in a deep, yet still burbling, voice.
"What, really?"
"No, I'm just a talking piano. But at last, AT LAST, I have awakened. Playing that song just happened to be the exact antidote to my curse. What a lovely coincidence! Anyway, submit yourself to my awesome power for I plan to dominate the world!" The piano then laughed in what it hoped was a most maniacal and evil manner, before dropping down to a normal, somewhat uncertain tone. "That wasn't too cliché, was it? I've been planning it for years and really wanted to get it right."
"Keh! That was terrible!" Rui said while clutching his leg; he cut it on the piano chair when he fell back. Maybe making a piano chair completely out of razor blades wasn't such a cool idea after all. "Shut up, your voice is so fucking annoying. I was getting really into that song when you interrupted me, bastard."
"Bwahahaha," the piano laughed and shot out a treble clef from under its lid at Rui. "Let's have a tea party to celebrate my return!"
"Fuck no." Rui dodged the treble clef, pulled out his balisong again, and approached the instrument. He was sick of being pushed around by assholes like Hiruma and Agon and even his brother. There was no way he was going to let a piano order him around too. He'd show it what a badass he really was.
Rui vs Pian- suddenly Rui's cellphone rang.
"Oh shit, what does he want now."
Youichi Hiruma had just finished frolicking through a field of daisies and volunteering at the soup kitche-- wait, that doesn't seem right. Let's try this again.
Youichi Hiruma had just finished terrorizing his teammates with a machine gun and blackmailing a hobo when he decided it was time to call it day. He gave a call to his personal taxi service, but received no answer. The hell? Looks like he'll have to go check up on that lizard punk.
"Damn it, let me go, you out-of-tune bastard!" Rui yelled.
In a manner of minutes the piano had managed to swallow his cellphone into the unknown abyss under its lid and to tie him up with the old chains it was once trapped in itself. How a piano managed to do this was unknown to Rui, but he suspected it had something to do with "quantum."
"Yes, yes, go on," the piano said while pretentiously sipping tea from a dainty china cup.
It was then that a certain spiky-haired demon burst into the warehouse.
"Hey you damn lizard, I called you five times an-" Hiruma stopped abruptly when he beheld the scene in front of him. "The hell are you doing? "
"What's it look like I'm doing, asshole?" This was all Rui needed. He couldn't decide what he hated more: talking pianos, laundromats, or that demonic quarterback. This day couldn't get any worse.
"What are you sitting around here, having tea parties with your fucking piano for? You have to pick up the laundry from my team for the game tomorrow."
"The fuck? Since when!"
"Excuse me..." the piano tried to pipe in.
"Since they went training in a swamp. Quit wasting time. Or do you not value your precious bike anymore?"
"Hey, leave my bike alo- why the hell were they training in a swamp?"
"I would just like to say..."
"Great place to practice the offside rule."
"No kidding?"
"Excuse me..."
"Yeah, try it sometime, lizardface."
"Pardon, but..."
"You're just making shit up again. Like I'd fall for such a lame-"
"I'm a talking piano! How can you ignore me!"
"Shut the hell up!" Rui and Hiruma said in unison.
"At least have some tea," the piano mumbled weakly.
"I'll have the Earl Grey," Hiruma said with a demonic grin.
"Don't go siding with it!" Having a tea party with a demonic quarterback and a psychopathic piano were right under "go to the laundromat" on his list of things to do that day.
"Are you afraid of a piano? Ha, that's great." Hiruma was just about to pull out the Devil's Handbook, when the piano suddenly lunged at him. With a "YA HA!" he jumped in the air to dodge its attack, but the piano simply sprung open its lid and sucked the quarterback into the aforementioned abyss.
"What the fuck!" In this sudden state of panic, Rui was able to gather enough strength to loosen the chains and attack the piano. This wasn't the wisest possible course of action, as the piano simply roared horrifically (or at least burbled horrifically) and swallowed Rui as well.
Rui remembered falling. Falling a very long way. It wasn't very exciting. Mystical swirling lights and lights warped around in the background and Rui swore he caught a glimpse of a mime playing the ukulele in the background as well, but then he just tried to ignore it. Eventually he landed. He remembered that being very painful.
When he finally regained consciousness, Rui found himself in some sort of glass dome. A familiar figure was standing not too far off. Man that was stupid, Rui thought, why did he jump in after the devil? It's not like he was still his slave. Damnit.
"Hiruma!" he called. "Where the hell are we?"
"That fucking piano teleported us a very interesting place." Hiruma grinned again. He seemed very amused by the whole situation, which just made Rui feel more pissed off.
"Interesting!" Rui shook his head with exasperation and then stopped. He just realized exactly where they were.
They were in a spacecraft, in outer space, of course, but this wasn't the most disturbing part. An enormous two-ton pipe organ seemed to be the pilot.
"You have got to be kidding me. Pianos in space?"