-Sunday-

Oishi, seated on the speedboat heading towards their destination, was screaming his head off. The sky was blue, the ocean was beautiful, the weather was nice, but he was screaming his head off nevertheless, because he was so frustrated. It's not like he ever cared about the weather anyway.

"But this isn't right! We can't stay for a week on a deserted island with no telephone or any means to contact with the mainland. What if someone gets sick? What if someone is injured? What if we blow up the house? What if…"

"Come on, stop worrying already," Eiji, his doubles partner, said reassuringly as he leaned lazily on the boat guardrails. "It's not like we are six-year-olds or anything. We won't have any accidents."

"You promise?"

"I pro…AAAH!" Eiji toppled over the rails and fell into the water before he could even finish his sentence.

For a few seconds, Oishi stared blankly at where his partner just disappeared and resumed his whining. "But I still think that this is crazy! And Fuji, why did you bring a dog?"

"Why not?" Fuji countered, looking completely innocent, "Look, isn't Fujiko cute? I think she likes you."

The small schnauzer at Fuji's feet looked up at Oishi hopefully, as if she was expecting Oishi to feed her or maybe she thought that Oishi was food.

"Who in their right mind would ever name their dog Fujiko…" Oishi sighed, reflecting sadly that he would never understand Fuji.

Still, Fuji and Fujiko wasn't really the strangest scene on the crowded boat.

"Cluck, cluck, cluck," clucked Tezuka's chicken.

"Buchou, is this one the chicken you once said you had named Atobe? He's so cute," Momo cried, scooping the chicken up into his arms, getting pecked all over in the process, but he didn't seem to mind.

"No, this is Archimedes the second, Atobe's cousin." Tezuka explained. "Atobe was already killed because my mother used him to make our Thanksgiving dinner." Remembering his beloved chicken Atobe brought tears to Tezuka's eyes, and he turned away to not let his teammates see him cry. Tezuka always had a soft spot for chickens.

Oishi decided that Fuji wasn't the weirdest person aboard. Tezuka was even weirder.

"I wish I had brought Karupin," Ryoma muttered aside, looking enviously at the pets Tezuka and Fuji brought.

"Fshuu…" Kaidoh nodded in agreement. He would be rather glad to have a cat to play with. After all, he wasn't really looking forward to spending a week on a deserted island with a bunch of crazy people. He might become crazy too. That way, there wouldn't be any sane people left in Seigaku. He tried but could not suppress a shudder.

Ryoma sipped his Ponta, noted that Inui was reading diligently and asked, "Inui-senpai, why are you studying anyway? We are supposed to be on vacation, aren't we?"

"Yes, but I need to prepare for my GRE so I can get into a good university abroad," Inui explained.

Ryoma looked bewildered, "Isn't it a little bit too early to prepare for that?"

"You never know," Inui lifted his glasses, "but anyway, are any one of you going to fetch Kikumaru out of the water or something? I believe he's already been down there for five minutes. There is a ten percent chance that he has hit his head on the bottom of the boat and fainted, a five percent chance that he bumped into the motor, and a twenty-five percent chance that-"

"Ah, I forgot all about him," Oishi said embarrassedly.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING HERE FOR? GO SAVE HIM NOW!" Everyone screamed at him.

Oishi sighed and wondered why everytime someone was in trouble he had to be the one to fix it. He simply did not understand. But he obligingly jumped into the water anyway, not that he believed that Eiji was in trouble at all. He was probably waiting for Oishi to come down so he could throw seaweed at him.

When it came to his doubles partner, Oishi was usually right. Eiji was indeed waiting for Oishi to come down so he could throw seaweed at him, and did so. Oishi pondered sadly why his teammates had to act like they were half their actual age.

"Splendid weather, Tezuka," Fuji said, gently running his hand through the fur of his schnauzer.

"Yes, splendid weather."
Despite everything that was going on, these two were indeed quite peaceful.

- - - - -- - - - -- --

"We are there. I see land!" Momo shouted, standing at the head of the boat and gesturing wildly. "See, Echizen? That's the Statue of Liberty."

"Not funny, senpai," Ryoma smirked and pushed Momo into the water.

"Not again…" Oishi sobbed to himself.

Meanwhile, Fuji was having a happy conversation with the men who owned the boat.

"You will come to pick us up a week later, right?"

"Yes. We need to have a vacation these few days too," the boat owner said, grinning. The men liked the Seigaku students immensely already because these students provided them interesting subjects for teatime chitchat. This was the first time in their ten years of ferrying experience that they had ever met people who could fall into the water so many times in one single trip. They couldn't wait for the students to leave so they could laugh at them behind their backs.

"That way, if there's a hurricane this week, we will have to depend on ourselves," Fuji said, smiling as if it were good news.

"That way, if a serial killer appears like in movies, we will have to depend on ourselves," Inui said aside to Kaidoh, smiling as if it was good news.

Kaidoh could only hiss in reply. He didn't think that it was good news at all, but then he decided that even if there was a serial killer Inui could not be harmed in any way, because Inui was even scarier than a serial killer.

Inui, queer as he was, was never a prophet. Yet the simple joke actually foretold the tragic end of the Seigaku tennis club.

The house they were staying in was quite different from what they had expected. They had thought that Atobe's house would be extravagant in every way, yet the house was a large, unassuming, plain Chinese-looking building, built with wood. There were nine bedrooms, and each regular claimed one. The living room was huge, with a piano standing in a corner. The dining room was next to the living room, and the kitchen by the living room. There was also a disco room and a strange exhibition room full of curious looking dummies dressed in beautiful renaissance-style clothes. It seemed that the designer of this house also had interest in designing clothes. A small library was situated at the end of the long hall, which was decorated with oil paintings. Next to the library was a door that Atobe had deliberately emphasized that must not be opened.

"But the more he says not to open it, the more we will want to open it," Momo pointed out.

"We might find some good data," Inui said.

"But Atobe said no…" Oishi protested meekly. He was one of the few who were not that eager to know what kind of secret Atobe had hidden behind the door. Tezuka was also one, but it was only because the name Atobe made him remember his dead pet of the same name, and he felt too sad to think about anything else.

Fuji, who preferred direct approaches, reached out and tried the door, "It's locked."

"Well, we will definitely find out his secret one day," Eiji said optimistically. "Perhaps he has treasure hidden in the room."

Eiji was a simple person, so he would only think about simple things like treasure. Inui, meanwhile, was not a simple person.

"I think it must be like Bluebeard's chamber," he said thoughtfully. "He probably has all the corpses of his ex-girlfriends hidden inside. Maybe we can even find Kabaji in there." Except that it would be pretty hard to kill Kabaji.

There was a Chinese garden surrounding the house, complete with little bridges and little streams, as well as a fake stone mountain, just like Eiji had guessed. A set of stairs led downward to a dark storage room. From the looks of it, no one had probably been there for a long time. Behind the house were the tennis courts and the swimming pool, and a bamboo forest. When the wind blew the bamboos swayed with the breeze, making frightening noises that sounded like several coffin lids were being opened. If one heard the noise alone one could be quite scared, but since they were not alone and there were some hotheaded youths among them, they decided to explore the place right away.

"Can't we wait until tomorrow?" Oishi sighed exhaustedly to Eiji and Momo who were happily trying to drag Ryoma to the forest with them, "Aren't you two tired after the boat trip?"

Apparently they weren't tired at all.

"But it's late. Look, it's almost dark outside…" Oishi began desperately.

"Then we can bring flashlights," Momo cried happily, immediately pulling out a flashlight.

"Seems fun," Fuji joined in, stepping forward with his dog.

If it were only Eiji and Momo, Oishi could talk them out of it with Tezuka and Kawamura, but since Fuji joined, talking them out of anything was out of the question. Therefore, after they put down the luggage in their respective rooms, the nine regulars, a dog and a chicken grabbed flashlights and headed for the bamboo forest.


Mmm, this is going to be longer than I expected it to be. It might take a few more chapters before anyone gets killed…

Hachinoko: Thanks for reviewing! I believe that there is a Disneyland in Tokyo? I've never been to one before…(cries)

Thanks for reading! Reviews are very welcome. Happy New Year!