I don't believe me! This is like, the millionth story I've started! I haven't even finished any of my others! sighes Oh well, at least I picked an appropriate Pen Name……..
WARNING: This is AU, btw, and if you don't like yaoi, you are homophobic, and don't feel all warm and fuzzy inside when two boys tell each other how much they love each other and then kiss and such, the little green arrow is the thing you will wish to push. You have been warned, so don't come crying to me about how offended you are. I will show you no sympathies. ALSO if you happen to be offended by mentions of the occult or witchcraft, go the same way as the homophobes. Flames yummy s'mores. Characters will also be OOC. Thank you for your time.
"A séance, Hirokazu?" Lee raised an eyebrow while Takato tried to hide his snickers behind his hand. Hirokazu chose to ignore all of this as he tossed the wooden board in his hand into the air, catching it deftly as it fell to the earth again.
"Why not?" He demanded. "We have nothing else to do. Besides, we've got this!" He brandished the Ouija board at them. "You never know! What if we're contacted by restless spirits of the dead!" Takato shifted, peering at the board with a mixture of amusement and curiosity on his face.
"I don't know 'Kazu. Do you really thing it would work?"
"No." Hirokazu snatched the board away and stuffed it in his bag. "But if anyone else has a better idea as to how to spend our Friday night this time, I'm all ears, because honestly, if I have to spend one more night at the arcade or the movies, I'm going to kill someone, just to see what jail is like."
Takato and Lee didn't laugh. Hirokazu was just the kind of person to do something crazy like that.
Jumping of the table he had been seated on, Hirokazu slung his bag over his shoulder, giving them a two finger salute over his shoulder.
"Tell Ruki and Ryo for me. Anyone who's not to chicken can show up at the cemetery tonight at ten."
Takato and Lee looked at each other when Hirokazu had disappeared from site.
"He gets stranger by the day." Lee commented. Takato simply nodded.
"We'll have to be on the lookout for his tricks tonight. I have no doubt that he'll try and scare us." Lee nodded and with that, they both turned and left, not even thinking about refusing the other boy's suggestion, for all their teasing. He was right; It's not like they had anything better to do after all.
Ten O' Clock P.M. on the Dot, the Old Cemetery
"So everyone's here!" Hirokazu had a manic glint in his eye as he watched the four other people gather around the circle of candles he had set up below him, making sure to stay out of site in the huge old cedar tree he had climbed.
The night breeze was gentle and it carried the scents that would be long gone by day. Hirokazu loved night time. And it was peacefully quiet here. He figured maybe he should consider coming here when his parents fought. It was a lot better then the rest of the city which was noisy and smelled like exhaust and fast food restaurants.
"Where is that creep. He sets the time for this stupid rendezvous, and then he's late!" Taking that as his cue, Hirokazu hooked his legs over the branch he was sitting on and swung backwards, just as Ruki was saying "When he gets here, I'm going to-!"
"Going to what?" Hirokazu laughed as Takato squeaked, Lee started slightly and Ryo blinked slowly at him. Riku, however, grabbed the laughing boy by his collar and drug him bodily out of the tree, releasing him as he hit the ground with at thud.
"Owww! Hey, that was just mean you know? You guys are the ones that kept me waiting, you know?" Riku cuffed him on the back of his head.
"You're the one that got here early, and if you don't get on with this stupid game of yours, I'm leaving!"
Rubbing his head and muttering, Hirokazu cast the girl a baleful glare as he moved to sit Indian style in front of the board in the center of the circle of multi-colored candles. The others silently followed his suit.
"We all gotta hold hands." He said, not at all happy to be sitting to the left of Riku. He did, however, note the blush that spread across her face as she took Ryo's hand in her own. Takato and Lee's own matching crimson stains on his right also did not go unnoticed.
"Hmmmm, blackmail." He thought as he watched in amusement and slight longing. "I'm glad that never happens to me." He added for good measure.
"Ok, now we all need to close our eyes and concentrate." He said, slipping his own eyes shut. He took a deep breath and recited what he had heard the psychic at the fair chant out.
"Oh spirit, trapped in this world of flesh and blood,
Be not afraid of us.
Let us know the reason of your confinement to this world.
Let us offer you our worldly help.
For a moment nothing happened. They all sat with their eyes squeezed shut, listening in anticipation despite themselves. After a few seconds of hooting owl and happily chirruping, They all peeked first through their lashes, then, upon encountering no hovering white bed sheet, or ghoulish, rotting, blood dripping, transparent apparition, they fully opened their eyes to stare at one another in accusing embarrassment at having ever participated in something as childish as this. They immediately dropped hands.
Just as Ruki was opening her mouth to deliver some scathing comment about their choice of nightly activities, a sudden gust of wind rushed through their little group, extinguishing the candle flames and leaving them in complete darkness. So sudden was their emersion in the impenetrable blackness, that Takato squawked and jumped, landing on something warm and squishy that said "oomph" in Lee's voice, and Ruki was half way finished reaching once again for Ryo's hand before she realized what she was doing and stopped, reaching instead for the flash light she had laid by her leg earlier.
"Well, that was unexpected." Hirokazu said with a shaky laugh once they could all see again. Takato blushed and climbed gingerly out of an equally red Lee's lap as Ruki snorted and Ryo laughed.
"What ever. I've had enough of this crap. I'm outta here." She said, standing. Like one, they all rose with her, turning to leave as she did.
After about three steps in the direction of the exit, Hirokazu stopped, catching a soft, almost nonexistent sound on the breeze. It was then that he noticed that, sans the sound he was now straining to catch, the soft footfalls of the others growing further and further away, and the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze, all other sounds had silenced.
" 'Kazu? What are you doing?" Takato's voice invaded his hearing, and for a moment he was afraid that he would loose the soft sound he was straining to hear. But as the sound of the other's footsteps stopped and Takato's voice faded away, he could still hear it. He cocked his head curiously in the direction.
"Don't you guys hear that?" He asked softly.
"Hear what?" In the near dead silence, Lee's quiet voice was like a shout. Hirokazu waved his hand in an impatient "be quiet!" gesture.
"The crying!" he whispered back. When they just gave him blank looks, he elaborated. "We're not the only one's here! Someone is crying! Can't you hear it!"
"Very funny 'Kazu. We're not falling for it." Ruki said in an annoyed voice. Hirokazu blinked at them.
"Pardon?" Lee rolled his eyes.
"We're not going to fall for one of your stupid pranks and let you scare us all half to death. Again." Hirokazu just continued to stare at them, keeping track of the soft sobbing to his right all the while.
"You really don't hear it?" He asked after a few seconds of silence had passed. It was pretty soft, but surely now, with all the sudden silence…… Now they were all looking at him in concern.
"All we hear is the wind and the owls and the crickets, and your insane chattering." Ruki sniffed, turning her back on them and casting them into darkness again as she pointed her flashlight in the opposite direction. The others followed quickly. All but Hirokazu, who stuck his tongue out at her back.
The moon was out enough that he could make out basic shapes, and he had a flashlight of his own, which he now pulled out, walking instead in the direction the sobbing was coming from, tracing the soft sound carefully. It sounded louder as he drew nearer to the center of the graveyard, and as he passed a rather tall row of angels and crosses, he spotted, in a rather bright beam of moonlight, a small, huddled figure sitting at the base of a duel headstone.
Approaching slowly so he wouldn't startle what he could now see was a boy about his age, sitting head on knees, arms wrapped around his shins, sobbing softly, Hirokazu slowly with drew the handkerchief his mom made him carry from his coat pocket.
"Hey." He said softly, his voice barely above a whisper. The boy's head snapped up, glasses and pale skin both catching the moonlight and Hirokazu's flashlight beam and making him appear to glow gently in the dark. A steady flow of shimmering tears made their way down both cheeks. His eyes were wide and his mouth open in surprise.
"Ah, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Hirokazu apologized quickly, dropping to his knees in front of the boy, offering the handkerchief to the boy, who took it hesitantly while still staring at him like he had two heads and a couple dozen noses. Seeing that the boy wasn't going to say anything, Hirokazu continued as gently as he could.
"So, what are you doing here so late at night? Aren't your parents worried about you?" he asked. This seemed to wake the boy from his shock slightly, though his voice was dazed when he answered.
"What about you? Your parents probably aren't going to be to happy to find you gone." Hirokazu winced.
"My parents wouldn't notice if I threw myself off the roof of an apartment complex." he said with a laugh. A pained expression came over the boy's face and he hurried to continue the conversation on a different subject.
"So do you come out here often? I don't blame you. It's nice here. Quiet. Peaceful. You would expect a graveyard to be creepy, you know?" The boy let out a shy smile, small, but still there. His tears had almost stopped, just the occasional one rolling gently down his cheeks. Emboldened, Hirokazu was about to say something when the other boy beat him to it.
"I live here." Hirokazu blinked, his train of though derailing for a moment.
"Huh?" The boy's smile widened fractionally.
"You asked if I came here often. I live here." he repeated. His voice had lost it's dazed quality, but he still sounded like he only half believed Hirokazu was talking to him.
"He must be ignored a lot in school or something. A nerd? He has the look of it, all clean cut and the huge glasses. Not that they don't make him look cute. Like an anime character." He thought with something of a smile.
"You must be the caretaker's kid." He said out loud. The boy blinked up at him blankly. Or maybe not then. "Well, anyway," He continued "the name is Hirokazu, you can call me Kazu if you want. I think that if you hang out around here a lot, we're going to run into each other. It seems like a great place to come and relax, and I think I'll take advantage of it." he winked as the other boy took his hand and shook it. "I'll be quiet as the dead, so don't worry. You don't find may places like this. And you are?"
"Kenta…." Now the boy looked vaguely worried about something, but Hirokazu simply dismissed it.
"Well Kenta, I'll be seeing you." He stood and walked off towards the entrance, calling over his shoulder "By the way, you need to go home. Your hands are freezing!" And then he disappeared behind the towering Angels and crosses.
Kenta continued to stare at the place he had been standing blankly until a gentle hand on his shoulder made him jerk his head around.
"Juri." He breathed. "You startled me." The red head standing next to him smiled apologetically before her expression turned curious.
"Were you and that boy just talking!" She demanded. Kenta's expression turned dazed again.
"Yea. I don't believe it! He could see me!" he looked up at Juri, delight crossing his face. "He could see me! And he's coming back! He said so!" Then his expression turned to bewilderment. "But I though the living couldn't see the dead? So how could he see me?" Juri shrugged.
"I've been at this deceased thing as long as you have, remember? I'm still a little fuzzy on the rules too." There was a pause. "What do you mean "he's coming back"? You know there are people around here who won't like that." Kenta winced and looked back at where Hirokazu had been standing a little while before.
"Yea….." He said softly.
TBC
Me: I really need to stop posting stories with chapters. If you like it, tell me and I'll write more.