Chapter 3: Forbidden fruit

17:24 PM (Japan Time), Wednesday June the 1st…

"… Hello? Oh. Tooru – kun."

"Ah. Noa – kun. I was helping cleanse the warehouse."

"Can I give you a helping hand?"

"Thank you."

"Dekao – kun did look defeated today, eh?"

"Sure did. Guess he won't be playing victim anymore if the same punishment is in store for him."

"By the way… Don't you feel different today?"

"Well…"

Tomono stepped into the P. E. warehouse and met with Hikawa who was sweeping the floor with a broom: they began to chat and Tomono suddenly asked a question: Hikawa trailed off and looked somewhat nervous, for once.

"Yeah. Dunno why, but… I feel different… I can't properly describe it: it's like some instinct had woken up on me."

"How curious. I've got that same hunch too… I dunno why I felt compelled to come here…"

"Yeah… Maybe… We both have the same desire?"

"Guess that. Wait a min."

Tomono opened the door a bit and looked out: there wasn't anyone in sight and most of the voices and noise was outside of the perimeter: he closed the door and Hikawa took out the keys to lock the door from the inside: both then nodded to each other.

"You brought it along?" Hikawa asked in a hushed tone of voice.

"I did. Every day that isn't P. E. class…" Tomono admitted.

"Huh? Wait a min… This box…?"

"What's up?"

Hikawa spotted a small cubical cardboard box the flaps of which were badly closed: he opened it and gasped so Tomono peeked over his right shoulder and gasped too: there were several large latex vibrators, clothes pegs, egg – shaped vibrators, anal beads, ball-gags, black wool blindfolds, urethra beads and bell-shaped vibrators.

"What's with this box? It's TOO convenient." Tomono looked suspicious and mistrusting.

"Maybe it's the 4th year students who meet in secret here: maybe they come on the weekend or at night and use a copied key to get inside and then lock it from the inside. And they might play here too." Hikawa suggested to him.

"Ah. If it's just that… If we then cleanse them then they shouldn't have any complains."

"Sure. So? Do we dare?"

"Yeah. No – one will be using the warehouse today by now. And as long as we are back at home before 7 PM then there should be no problem. Can we go all out?" Tomono grinned.

"Heh. Sure. I wanted something different, for once. The dominatrix games with Sakurai – san… They are refreshing, yeah. But I miss some yaoi, for once. And since you're used to doing it with Rafael…"

"Yeah. Guess that. Alright. Let's gear each other and take turns: do you want to go first?"

"Yeah. I'd be grateful if I could."

"Then it's settled."

"Good. It's time for some fun."

"And since we'll only do it once… It won't harm. We've still got plenty of time to work up the exams."

Tomono unbuttoned his upper shirt and took it out while pulling his lower shirt: he happened to be wearing a pair of leather bands which travelled across the sides of his body and originated from a leather collar around his neck: Hikawa was doing the same and he had the same bands on him as well.

"It makes me feel hot." Tomono giggled.

"Same reason… When I go to the toilet at break time and I can drill myself then I feel all tension leaving me…"

They finished taking out their clothes and then they both clipped a couple of clothes pegs to their nipples while setting up a couple of egg vibrators over and below them.

"Let's go on."

"Sure. This is but the gearing up." Hikawa grinned.

They both then picked the urethra beads and slid them inside of their penises: they gasped from the feeling and seemed to feel ecstatic already: their next item was the bell-shaped vibrator which covered their penises' heads.

"And now the rear…"

"The rearguard…"

"Not bad." Tomono giggled.

"Thanks."

"Times have sure changed, eh? I'm sure that 20 years ago no – one would've thought of that. But the boom of yaoi and other genres has changed perceptions. We should be glad we live in a country where it's still legal and it's not pursued. I don't see why these collectives are object of so much prejudice… I guess a lot of people get stuck with the idea that sex can only be between men and women." Tomono exposed.

"Yeah. Oh well. Let's set the gloomy talk apart and go on."

"True, true."

Tomono stuffed the vibrator into his ass and Hikawa did the same but he inserted the anal beads as well: he turned around and placed his wrists parallel to each other: Tomono placed a couple of handcuffs there and turned around next after placing another couple on Hikawa's hands: he let him cuff him as well.

"Should we add the ball-gags and the blindfolds?"

"Yeah. It'll be more exciting!"

"Then I'm in. Let's go."

"Sure."

Hikawa got down on his knees: Tomono picked the two ball-gags he'd left atop a shelf and dropped one on Hikawa's hands: he then turned around and used his fingers to place it on Hikawa's mouth and then close the band: Hikawa got up and Tomono got on his knees as Hikawa did the same to him: Hikawa placed the blindfold on him so Tomono did the same orientating himself via touch.

Heh, heh, heh. This feels cool… I can't wait to check out how it feels to have Tooru – kun's penis inside of me!

Noa – kun… Let's have fun!

Tomono faced the west wall and Hikawa began to pump into his ass once they'd both turned on their vibrators: Tomono inwardly moaned and felt how his penis was dancing.

Ah! It feels good! Too good to be true! We're gonna have a lot of fun together, Tooru – kun! This afternoon just got interesting! I feel the passion climbing up… I want more!

Whoa. Noa – kun feels good…! Better than I thought…! I'm not used to penetrating so… But we'd already had sex before, a while before the whole "Z – Militia" affair… I want to have fun with him… I never get enough fun, really! I deserve it!

Tooru – kun! Faster! Pump faster into me! I want to feel your penis inside of me…! And then…! I want to bring pleasure to you!

Hikawa pumped for a little while more before he stopped and pulled out while taking a step back: he unplugged the anal beads and stuffed them into Tomono as he turned around and Tomono began to have sex with him next: Tomono's pacing seemed to be faster even.

Ah! This feeling! I missed it! Since I always play "slave" in S&M and Raf is the one having sex with me… I missed this feeling! I'm going to pump for a while and then we'll take out the ball-gags to kiss each other. We'll go off one after the other… It'll be refreshing!

Ah! Noa – kun! You feel so good…! Bully me more! I want to be bullied today: we're both such masochists, really! I like being bullied: it makes me feel completed!

I think you want me to pump more into you, eh, Tooru – kun? I'll grant you your wish! Heh, heh, heh!

More! More! Until I faint! Heh, heh, heh!

Tomono kept on pumping for another minute or two and then stopped, panting: both of them were drooling by now and they turned around to begin to rub their penises against each other as a teaser before they took out each one's ball-gag.

"Heh, heh, heh… Intense, isn't it?" Tomono giggled.

"Sure… I wanna kiss you…! I want to be naughty…!"

"Same over here…! Let's kiss! My boyfriend!"

"Yeah! We're now boyfriends! Naughty yaoi boyfriends!"

They began a passionate kiss: Tomono turned around and pulled out Hikawa's urethra beads and vibrator: he released and stained Tomono's chest but he remained conscious to pull out Tomono's own beads and vibrators: he moaned and released as well: both then panted and collapsed on the floor with Tomono atop Hikawa.

"Heh… I wanna nap… With you at my side…"

"Same here… Huh… Sleepy…"

17:58 PM (Japan Time)…

"… Huh…? My head's spinning… What happened? Why is all black and why do I feel something warm close by…?"

"Uh-unh…? I was cleansing the warehouse…?"

"Huh? T-Tooru – kun?"

"Huh! N-Noa kun!"

"What happened?"

Both guys began to slowly wake up and they seemed to be disoriented about what had happened: they stood up and helped each other took out the blindfolds and the cuffs: they then turned off the vibrators and looked at how they were stained with a lot of white stuff.

"I suddenly feel ashamed." Hikawa muttered.

"Yeah. My self-control vanished… We should've done this at my home, not here…"

"Say…"

"What's up?" Tomono frowned.

"Don't you have a bad hunch? Like something bad is gonna happen or is going on right now?" Hikawa asked with angst.

"Now that you mention it…"

"Let's get dressed and rush!"

"Rush? Where to?" Tomono frowned.

"I've got a hunch that something might've happened to Hiro – kun and Drake – kun! Let's hurry it up!"

"R-roger!"

Both silently dressed up and tossed the stuff in the box without bothering to close it again: Hikawa unlocked the door and locked it again on their way out as they rushed away.

"Huff, huff… I hope we make it on time!" Hikawa muttered.

"And what if nothing's happened at all?" Tomono asked.

"Well! At least I'll prove I worry about them!"

"Huh. You've got a point."

They rushed down a street and Hikawa crashed with one of two pedestrians who were walking down another in the corner of them.

"Uwah!"

"Whoa!"

"S-sorry."

"… Hikawa – kun? That you?"

"Huh? Ah! Zarashe – kun! What a surprise! Why are you here?"

"My school happened to end one hour earlier since a teacher was ill and there wasn't a replacement one… What's with the rush?"

"W-well."

"Is that… Beta X?"

"Chut! Call me "Bernard"… I don't want to raise attention!"

Zarashe, the newcomer, was about their age and he seemed to be about their height too.

He had black messy hair and green eye irises.

"Whoa. So Saito – kun gave you the new-gen "Copy Roid" too?"

"Yeah. Please lower the voice."

Beta X was sporting normal clothes so as to not to call the attention but they were a middle school uniform anyway: he'd put on sunglasses over his eyes and he had a green cap which partly hid his blonde hair: he could be a few inches taller than Zarashe.

"What's with the rush, anyway?"

"We fear that Hiro – kun and Drake – kun are in danger. Don't ask me why: I've just got that hunch."

"A-alright." He was surprised.

The group of 4 rushed until they reached Hiro's house, a small house about the size of the others and some blocks away from the Hikari house, the roof of which could be spotted some hundreds of meters SW from there.

"Here's the place. I'll ring the bell." Hikawa announced.

"Alright."

"… The windows are closed… Maybe they've got the AC on…" Zarashe muttered as he glanced at the balcony.

"I don't hear it." Beta X whispered.

DING DONG DING DONG

"… No reply?" Hikawa frowned.

"Maybe they've got music on?" Tomono offered.

"Could be." Beta X shrugged.

"… Huh? The door isn't properly locked! How careless." Tomono suddenly spotted.

"… Were that to be the case…" Hikawa grimly muttered.

"Oi, oi. You're not gonna tell me you believe a burglar got in and robbed them, right? Drake is Delta, ya know. He's using a Copy Roid. He could beat any burglar with ease." Zarashe whispered.

"But what if they took Hiro – kun hostage? And it's not like Drake – kun can blow his cover just like that." Hikawa whispered back.

"You've got a point." Zarashe muttered.

"Let's go in. It may have been a prank by Hiro – kun, anyway."

"Could be, yeah." Tomono agreed on it.

The four of them got inside and closed the door: the house was unusually silent: the ground floor seemed deserted and Tomono checked the shoes cupboard: there were two pairs of sneakers there.

"They're both home. Unless they have a spare set of sneakers, that is, and they went out." Hikawa deduced.

"They're not replying to the PET. It's either switched off or it's run out of battery." Beta X announced as he interacted with Zarashe's PET (colored white and golden).

"It could be a prank or to prevent Forte from dropping by with his lame jokes, too." Zarashe offered.

"We can't discard anything at this stage."

"Let's first knock on their door, shall we?" Tomono suggested.

"Of course."

The group climbed up to the first floor and Hikawa knocked on the door: there was no reply.

"Huh… Hello? Hiro – kun? Drake – kun? Are you there? Hello? Can we come in?" Hikawa asked.

There was no reply: he tried to open the door but it was locked from the inside from the looks of it: Beta X suddenly gasped and seemed to notice something.

"Chut. I heard some buzz-like sounds… Engines… Small engines… A computer's humming… That's not surprising but those buzz-like sounds are picking me… I feel like I've heard them somewhere else." He whispered.

"Ah! Of course. You can hear things normal hearing can't hear."

"Some slight wood creaking, too…"

"We only need X – Ray by now." Zarashe tried to pull a joke.

"Who knows?" Beta X wasn't impressed.

"Engines…? Wood creaking…?" Hikawa wondered.

"I've got a bad vibe about this, really." Tomono admitted.

"What do we do?" Zarashe asked.

"We'll later apologize if we're doing the wrong thing but… I don't think this is normal. Even if they were… hum… Well. Even if they were having sex right now, I think that you'd heard moaning and such, right? And I'm sure Hiro – kun would reply." Hikawa exposed.

"Guess that. The engine sounds… One of them feels like a rotor."

"Spinning vibrators, then…? Hum… Let's go!"

Hikawa rammed into the door with the right shoulder all of a sudden and got bounced back: Tomono and Zarashe joined him and they felt how the lock was about to yield.

"If needed I'll pay the new lock. But I've got the hunch that we gotta do this here and now." Hikawa told them.

"I've got that hunch too!" Tomono admitted.

"One, two… THREE!"

SLAM! BLAM!

"By all the…!"

"What in the… This isn't normal! At all!"

The door finally yielded and the group ran in: they gasped when they saw that both Hiro and Delta (who had black neatly combed hair) were set in S&M gear like Hikawa and Tomono had done: they were strapped to a wooden horse with a metallic upper edge: two spinning vibrators were inserted into their rears and a short metallic chain connected their collars: they were scratching each one's ball-gag against the other and they didn't seem like they were enjoying it given their attempts to escape.

"Let's take out the plugs!"

Both guys rushed over and did so: Hiro & Delta released and fainted…

18:49 PM (Japan Time)…

"… This is ODD."

"Not "odd", Mr. Denpa, sir… It's WEIRD, sir!"

"Calm down, Mr. Hikawa. I know it's been a shock."

"Their explanations were ambiguous at the best. But it's obvious that someone from the outside is involved, sir."

"Hum… Someone from the outside… That mouse…?"

The 4 rescuers were talking with Mr. Denpa inside of Hiro's house living room: he looked concerned and worried about what the 4 of them were telling him.

"Do you have a suspect, sir?" Zarashe asked.

"Yeah. Keitai Denwa… A former double-agent… He spied within us for some years, faked his death and emerged again last summer only to vanish… I got a report which suggested to me to keep an eye out for the guy… He's dangerous. He knows too much. He happened to hack into Mr. Sponsor's MacBook last summer, too." He admitted.

"So he knows about the "Copy Roids"…"

"Yeah. But he never used a Navi. And I don't think he will. He's old-school: he's not that good at computers."

"So then… He does everything physically? He doesn't rely on accomplices?" Hikawa asked next.

"Hmmm… He had one last summer but I think that they only got along because the accomplice was more skilled at computing and could gather info… But he might've found a new one, true. We can discard nothing at this stage."

"Mr. Denpa, sir?"

"Agent Umi?"

"Yes, sir. We found something, sir."

"What is it?"

A man on his 40s with short black hair came down from the upper floor and walked into the living room.

He wore a black suit, a blue tie, pants and brown shoes.

He sported sunglasses.

"A name… Beneath the horse… A piece of paper… Here…"

He handed Mr. Denpa a plastic bag with a piece of paper which had the words "ALIVE CELL" written into it using a computer font: the color of choice was red over a black background.

"Alive Cell?" He wondered.

"It reminds me of Dead Cell… You know, sir, from MGS2…"

"Ah! Of course. And there was FOXALIVE too… Maybe it's supposed to be an irony made on the original meaning of the "Dead Cell" name: to kill off terrorist cells…"

"It could be the culprit's name." Beta X suggested.

"Could be, yeah. Reeks of a challenge to us… But if we don't know where to start from… What did they say?"

"Hiro – kun got back home. He started feeling cocky and all and wanted to, well, to pull a prank on Drake – kun. But he suddenly started feeling dizzy and fainted and Drake – kun admitted that he also did so. When they woke up they were on that situation."

"They heard nothing?"

"Nothing. It'd seem the culprit simply set them up and somehow got out while locking the door from the inside."

"What kind of lock is it?" Mr. Denpa asked.

"A security chain, sir." Agent Umi specified.

"Hum. Ask them if they remember how many slabs it has."

"Roger."

"You suspect something?"

"A trick I've spotted twice or thrice… A very elemental one but which tends to be ignored…" He admitted.

"… Mr. Drake says he's sure it's 3 slabs long. But checking it again I found it has 4 instead."

"I see. They added an extra slab and, this way, they can place it on the lock from the outside with ease. They're crafty." Mr. Denpa wasn't surprised by the reply.

"What do we tell the others?"

"Hmmm… Well. Tell them the truth. But we don't need mass panic: filter it to a selected few. If you don't feel like you can then you can pretend nothing happened. There are no witnesses who saw anything weird and it's not like we came with the sirens and all. Only I and Agent Umi came over so…" He exposed a course of action.

"Alright. We'll talk it over."

"They say the AC was working before they fainted."

"I see. The culprit surely used the AC to insert chloroform into the room and knock them out… Maybe we need to talk with Mr. Sponsor so that he can fix the Copy Roids' sensors and avoid them from shutting down when they detect chloroform… He must've overseen that."

"Surely." Beta X shrugged.

"I'll contact him personally. Maybe we need to ask for a helping hand to search the Reverse Internet. There could be some rumors or traces of our culprit there."

"Alright. We're going back to Kyoto and we'll try to search for info as well from there."

"Send greetings to Hikari – kun. But I better get on the move if I want to catch the train and get to Uncle's home by dinner time."

"Alright. Bye."

"See you."

Zarashe and Beta X came out: Hiro and Drake (Hiro in his school uniform, Drake wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and socks) came down while looking sleepy or exhausted: Hikawa and Tomono yielded the sofa and they sat down there.

"Are you alright?" Hikawa asked.

"Somehow… I'm not gonna make jokes about that anymore. Lesson learnt… Thought I was gonna go mad there…" Hiro groaned.

"We were lucky, really… But that fit you had there, Hiro – kun, was unlike you… Suddenly saying I sucked and all…"

"Did I?" He frowned.

"Weird. I feel like I said something odd a while ago too…"

"I've got that feeling too…"

"That can't be a coincidence." Mr. Denpa sentenced.

"Then what? Some kind of hypnosis radio signal?"

"Could be. It's not crazy. With today's tech… Our culprit could've gotten that somewhere." He admitted.

"The question is… Is this Keitai Denwa's work? Or is it someone else who is totally unrelated?" Hikawa summarized.

"That's where we're stuck. I'm afraid we'll have to wait and see if we can determine where that damned thing came from and how they got it inside of the house to begin with… Maybe they posed as a transporter and made it look like it was new furniture to be delivered…"

"It's a highly possible scenario… We're dealing with a smart villain."

"Too smart for my taste, even!" He grumbled.

The group sighed in defeat and a gloomy mood hung around them…

23:23 PM (Japan Time)…

"… I told ya. I'm a GENIUS."

"Insofar."

"What was that? Oh man!"

"I'm being cautious. That of tomorrow might fail. There might be some unforeseen factor. And, also… That of the day after tomorrow… That's the critical part."

"I know, I know."

"Why don't you cancel it? If you stop at tomorrow then the chances of you being discovered will lower considerably."

"Man. That'd be missing a chance to shine!"

"Fine. I only contacted you because you happened to have been in the same org I was. That's all. I never had any real interest in whatever you do… Except for humiliating the "Committee" guys… Did you get me, Alive Cell?"

"I know, Keitai, I know."

The conspirer, Alive Cell, was discussing with the man known as Keitai Denwa over the phone like the other days: Keitai sounded skeptical and mistrusting while Alive was getting cocky again.

"Fine. But remember. You're to dispose of this phone before going out and there'll be no further contact unless I find a way to approach you: I'll have to use a proxy or a middle man. No way I'm stepping into Japan again: get me, Alive?" Keitai instructed.

"Ya needn't tell me everything 100 times!"

"Fine. But he who warns a traitor is not."

"Heh, heh, heh… My plot's perfect and unbeatable! Just you wait, Committee! I'll make ya sink in shame and disgrace~!"

Alive laughed while Keitai, as usual, remained quiet…