Ten Little Soldiers

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.


VII: Red Herring

Four little Soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

The ship was gently swaying in the waves and Kobayashi Yuriko was feeling a little under the weather. It was the precise kind of motion that set her off. She had travelled on a powerboat as it was cutting through the water and on a sailboat on a windy day and been alright both times, she was alright with the rougher, more violent motion of a rollercoaster and such as fast boats and cars, sport cars having their own special brand of goodness and coolness. But this slow, rolling, swaying movement up and down, left and right, like clockwork… this wasn't so great. It had been alright when the ship had been moving, but now they had arrived to the harbour.

She hadn't noticed how much noise the ship's engines had made anymore, not until they had stopped and the steps and voices of fellow passengers had left them. Only three of the passengers were still on the ship and it was rather lonely feeling. Also, her measles were itching and the cream she had been given wasn't doing much.

"This is an outrage," Shinonome Hisae proclaimed and while she seemed to feel that great many things were outrageous, starting with the cafeteria's food back in the precinct, her erstwhile partner and her mother's repeated attempts to marry her off, Yuriko was with her on this one. "They can't just keep us penned up with that damned pervert like this! This is a barbaric measure!" Her face was peppered with measles also and when it was also flushed with anger the effect was a bit much. Pink sweater wasn't helping any. Yuriko didn't even want to know what she looked like; she avoided looking into the mirror when she had to go to the tissue-sized bathroom.

"Sadly it seems they can," she said when Hisae-sempai paused for breath and looking around in their cabin. There wasn't much to see: two dorm desks, two dorm chairs and a bunk bed, all dull brown and light gray. The ship they were travelling on was rather small, but the size of the cabin hadn't seemed so important when they had thought they wouldn't spend any time there aside from sleeping. The only spot of colour was a painting of a woman standing on a bridge under a starry sky and even that was mostly black and red.

"Let's try positive thinking; at least the door has a lock," she tried to lighten the mood, though in hindsight maybe it wasn't such a good topic as her attempt to placate her friend just set Hisae-sempai off again.

"That perverted, demented excuse of a doctor is the reason we are locked up in here in the first place and then he has the cheek to come on to us and fondle me! If I didn't know the penalties the act carries I would have broken his arm and I may yet be pushed to do so anyway, not that the fascists who are running this ridiculous quarantine even care." Her hands balled into fists and relaxed again, accompanied with a sad sigh that seemed dispirited compared to the rant that had preceded it. There was a good reason to hold them there and Hisae-sempai knew it.

Shinonome Hisae was as beautiful as her name – it was written with the kanji for early dawn and eternal blessing – with her inky black, long hair and big, dewy eyes and the most beautiful ankles and wrists Yuriko had ever seen. Usually she was also quite calm by nature and more reserved when complaining about the many indignities in her life, though definitely nowhere near the Yamato Nadeshiko type, but two days into the quarantine and she was beginning to crack. Yuriko had always been a little envious of her sempai, but now she was counting her blessings. She was homely, but now she also went mostly unmolested.

Also, feeling sick and she couldn't be sure if it was only because when the ship was moving she was fine, but when it was at port and just bobbing in the water she felt ill, or if it was whatever had infected them. The man swore it was harmless and so far it had appeared so, but she wasn't putting much stock into the word of a man who carried around genetically altered bacteria in his coat pockets.

"Damn that doctor and his unidentified disease with :hic: it's stupid :hic: side effects and spots :hic:!" The disease that made them suffer from hiccup at random intervals, in addition to the measles and heightened sense of smell. The smell of the pork sandwich had nearly made Hisae-sempai throw up earlier and Yuriko couldn't bear the smell of tuna now.

"Never fear, I can cure you, beautiful ladies, I have the technology!" loud voice exclaimed and the door opened with a meek creek like it hadn't been locked in the first place. In the doorway stood a man in white laboratory coat, presenting proudly a test tube with some kind of bubblegum pink liquid in it. "I also made ointment for your itchy spots while I was at it. If I may have the honour of applying it on your pearly white skin?" he finished hopefully, fishing a jar that had once held hand lotion, but was now apparently filled with something else, from his pocket. Yuriko didn't even realise she had her slipper in her hand before it was already flying through the air towards the infuriating man's head. I guess I'm angrier than I realized she thought as the man dodged.

"We will rather wait for a legitimate doctor than subject ourselves to anything you have made and if you think I will let you touch my shoelaces you are delusional," she spat, feeling a lot better now that she had gotten it off her chest, but the warm feeling in her chest was crudely interrupted by a hiccup.

"I assure I am professional. I have six hundreds sixty six incurable diseases in my body," the man bragged.

"Dr Shamal," Hisae-sempai said with a much suffering voice and nasty little inflection that suggested she didn't take his claim to the title doctor particularly seriously. "I don't think that suffering from something you can't cure is much of a claim to fame. And just what kind of :hic: maniac invents a disease that gives people measles and hiccup? :hic:"

"Well, I'm not dead despite them being incurable, now am I? And measles and hiccup are what women get from Red Herring. Men would be much worse off," Dr Shamal said with voice that was so casual and reasonable it was rather frightening. Yuriko didn't quite believe in this claim of gender-specific disease, but if it was true then it would be frightening invention. She wasn't even going to ask what it was supposed to do to men.

"And you have even named this. And you :hic: are aware that inventing ne :hic: new diseases is illegal, right?" she asked him pointedly. Dr Shamal beamed at her.

"Of course I do! You lovely ladies arrested me before they put us into quarantine," he answered. Hisae-sempai rose to her feet in a rustle of long skirts and took the man's right ear between her thumb and forefinger and pinched like he was a little, naughty boy.

"So what are you doing here? I'm :hic: taking you back to your cabin where you will remain this time until the police is let into this ship :hic: or help me Kami I will…" Hisea-sempai marched the infuriating man off, the steady flapping of her slippers and her tirade broken by an indignant yelp when the man once again did something perverted.

It really was a pity that man like that had been gifted with such good looks. The first time Yuriko had seen him his roguishly handsome face had made her heart flutter – right until he opened his mouth.

Yuriko leaned back into her pillows and sighed, resisting the urge to scratch herself. It was so very tempting, even as temporary as the relief would be. She took the mineral water bottle from the bedside table instead and unscrewed it, taking three big gulps. The general idea of quarantine was to keep the quarantined in with as little outside contact as possible, a rule a real doctor should have known adhered by, and so they had been hastily supplied water and soft drinks, sandwiches and onigiri before being confined to their cabin. They didn't have a fridge, however, and all the drinks were lukewarm.

"I locked him back into his cabin and put a chair in front of it to keep the door handle up. Good luck we didn't happen upon any unlucky cleaner or cabin boy," Hisae-sempai said as she returned to their cabin and locked the door again. "I think they have vacated the whole section just to be sure." Yuriko nodded; it was quiet enough to be plausible. She handed to bottle to her sempai and made her room beside her.

"Guess what I heard? That man works as a middle school nurse," Yuriko confessed. There was a moment of shocked silence.

"That's it," said Hisae-sempai. "The second the local police gets here I'm having him charged for sexual harassment first and this second. Just on a general principle." That made Yuriko smile and bent down to take a deck of cards from her suitcase next to her bed on the floor. It was going to be a long few weeks even after they were transferred to some facility better suited for holding possibly contagious people than a cruise ship, but at least they had each other for company. She wondered if they would be left out in time for Christmas.


AN: So Dr Shamal managed to actually get into trouble with the law! Though I expect him to worm his way out of this somehow. Poo, poor policewomen, I bet this scenario didn't come up when they decided to sign up.