The sex that Nishizono Shinji had with his old friend Hisoka was incredibly satisfying.

He didn't actually know how old his current body was – fifteen? Seventeen? Twenty? It didn't really matter, though, since his mind, his consciousness, his essence, that drifted from body to body was still thirty-two-years-old; it was only a container, but it made scratching his ravenous sexual itches a tad difficult.

"You are not Shinji, no way, no how," Hisoka had said when they'd met up as previously arranged through a series of emails

"I had some work done," he'd replied, with feigned disinterest. "Do you want to fuck, or not?"

"Maybe you are Shinji," Hisoka had said, reservations melting away at the candid invitation from the young man wearing Nishizono's trademark black suit and white dress shirt, unbuttoned to the bottom of his sternum.

"Sorry there's not much room," Hisoka had apologized, as he opened the door into the thirteen-tatami apartment. There was barely enough room to turn around, so Nishizono disrobed where he stood while Hisoka scrambled to set out the futon.


It had been more than satisfying, thought Nishizono as he licked the blood from his right hand. Too bad I had to kill the bastard; I just can't take the chance that someone knows that I'm still alive. Fuck, it's going to be hard to find someone to fool around with now...

He groaned as he stood and searched through the draws in the kitchenette. He found Hisoka's good knives, the kind made for cooking, and put them out as he considered his next move.

The apartment was a good one, even if it was small. It was so much better than sleeping in the car he'd stolen back in Kyoto. He went to the window and lit a cigarette. The stench of trash from the collection site below the window wafted up and overpowered the tobacco.

I can use that, Nishizono thought. I wonder how much he paid in rent?

Still nude, Nishizono ground out the butt and wandered back to the dead body on the floor. Sure, Nishizono was sore as hell, and banged up to boot, but he'd given better than he'd gotten this time. The scratches would heal, the burn would subside, and even the black eye would fade over time, but the twisted neck that allowed Hisoka to stare up at the ceiling while lying on his stomach was permanent.

Nishizono went back to the cupboards and searched through the meager belongings until he found a supply of trash bags.

Wait! What's that?

At the back of the cupboard, an old-fashion meat grinder lay unassembled. He smirked.

Burnable? He considered as he looked over his shoulder at the cooling remains of his friend. He picked up the biggest knife and tested the edge against his finger, eliciting a dark bead of blood.

"Well, Hisoka, at least you know for sure that I wasn't lying; I really am Nishizono Shinji."


Even though Hisoka had had good quality knives, they weren't meant to cut through bone, and Nishizono found himself exhausted early into the process of filleting the flesh from the bone; the whole thing was just tedious.

You couldn't have splurged for a room with a bathtub, you cheap-ass mother-fucker, Nishizono thought as he crouched just outside the door of the shower stall. Hisoka's dull eyes stared at him. He stabbed the corpse in the eye, and wrenched the gooey orb from its socket and tossed the offending matter into the toilet with a satisfying ploop.

I should have insisted on going to a love hotel. I could have left the body there, but no, I wanted to save a few yen.

Discarding the bone of the right forearm into the garbage sack, he ran another lump of flesh through the grinder, turning Hisoka into a lovely slurry of pork-like sausage.

Fuck, I'm hungry. I should have made him buy me something to eat before bringing me back here.

His back hurt from the thorough fucking and the labor-intensive dissection of the body. He stood and stretched. He'd seen a noodle place on the way from the train station. He needed food to fill his failing reserves.

Weren't younger people supposed to be more energetic? Or does that only count if the soul is young as well. Shit!

Nishizono threw a bag over the remains of the corpse and dressed. He checked Hisoka's wallet and found close to twenty-thousand yen. He took just enough for dinner, and left the rest on the counter.

He lit another cigarette as he locked the door with the keys he found in Hisoka's pants. As he bit down on the cancer stick to keep from accidentally dropping it, he felt one of his front teeth wiggle.

Damn, I guess he punched me harder than I thought. Now that I'm stuck in this body, I'd better go see a dentist. Poor dental hygiene is a killer, he chuckled.

As he turned, he saw a young man, approximately his body's age coming up the staircase, his arms loaded with a pile of books.

"Hi," the stranger called out. "Are you looking for Hisoka? He's usually at the Pachinko parlor at this time of day."

"No," Shinji smiled. I might as well get to know the neighbors. "Hisoka is my cousin. He's been called away for business -"

"Did he get in trouble with the Yakuza, again?" the young man asked, shaking his head.

"Something like that," Nishizono replied through an exhale of smoke. The boy was even younger looking the closer he came. The boy stopped in front of the apartment next to his.

"Oh no, what happened to your eye; are you in trouble with them too?"

The boy reached out as if he would touch the forming bruise around his eye where Hisoka had elbowed him hard, and on purpose. The pain had driven him wild beneath Hisoka.

"Nah, just an accident. I'm going to house sit for him for a while. He likes this place and doesn't want to lose it, so I'm going to live here for the time being and pay the rent."

"Oh. Well then, we'll be seeing a lot more of each other then," the boy blushed, looking down. "I'm Naoka."

"I saw that," Nishizono indicated the name plate by the door that read Kusangai Naoka and wondered why Hisoka and the boy were on first name basis, and why he'd given his first name to a complete stranger.

"I'm Amamiya Shinji," he replied. Every one of his alias has a shred of truth in them, even if Amamiya-kun was long dead.

"Do you go to school around here?" Naoka asked.

"No," Nishizono said, grinding out the butt under his toe. "I stopped going to school after the fire."

"Ah, well if you need to know anything...," Naoka said, backing up a step, instinctually seeking to put space between himself and the dangerous spark in Nishizono's eyes as the psychopath recalled the pleasure of the night he'd committed his first multiple murder.

"When is trash collection?" he asked, and blinked a few times, trying to remember to smile at the other without intimidating him. It was a difficult smile, one that curled half of his lip and looked pained and awkward and not at all together sane.

"Oh, that's easy: burnables on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Have your bags out by noon. And non-burnables and recyclables on Tuesday, same time."

"Good, good. So I have time to clear out the spoiled meat Hisoka left in the fridge before the pick up tomorrow. He left the place a disaster, I mean, fuck me sideways, but if you were having someone house sit for you, you wouldn't leave the place a shittin' mess, would you?"

The boy blushed and nervously touched his hair behind his ear. A manga dropped from the stack of books he had in his hands and they both bent to retrieve it. Nishizono caught it with his finger and pulled it toward him. On the cover, two young men embraced passionately on a pastel background. The boy's blush grew deeper, flushing up his ears and into his hairline.

"I love that series," Nishizono lied. He'd never read it, but he knew a yaoi title when he saw it. He flipped through the pages, noting the romantic setting and copious close ups of male genitalia. "You a fan or just a casual reader?"

"Uh…"

"Maybe you can lend me your favorites sometimes? And I can lend you mine," he said, leering openly at the boy.

"Yeah, sure," he stuttered.

If the boy wants sweet romance, I can give him that… for a price, Nishizono thought.

"I was going to go get some noodles at that joint by the station, is it any good?"

"It smells better than it tastes and it's really overpriced," the boy said, once again able to handle the direction of the conversation. "You'd be better off picking up something to cook at the convenience store down the other end of the road."

"I've been working all day to clean this shit hole of an apartment, and I just really want to be lazy and let someone else make me a decent meal. Any suggestions for a good place to find to find one?" he asked, leaning against the boy's door.

"If you don't mind my mess, you can join me for dinner. I was just going to make some curry…"

"I love curry," he smiled, actually meaning it. I'll have you licking the curry off my fingers as I fuck you raw.

"I'll just need to run down to the store and get some meat. What do you like?" The boy smiled.

"You said the store is right down the road? Since you're cooking, I'll go do the shopping," Nishizono offered.

"I can't allow that, what kind of neighbor would I be, letting you pay for your own dinner?" Naoka protested.

"What kind of neighbor would I be…?" Nishizono let the words sit. "Besides, I've got a craving for pork. Let me do this for you, as a way to celebrate our new friendship."

"Oh, ok," Naoka stuttered.

Yeah, this should be fun.