Looks like this will be the longest chapter so far… and the grossest one. If you don't like that kind of stuff, then maybe you had better skip this chapter….
After the incident with the sand pit, both Kululu and Fuyuki seemed to be getting along a bit better. Kululu no longer tried to ignore the boy if he had something to say, and whenever they had something on their mind related to the island or to their well-being, they usually told the other. There was no longer a wall of lies put up between them; none that the other could easily see.
Fuyuki had no problem with telling Kululu much. There were certain things, of course, that he would omit from conversations, as far as personal secrets went, but that was only because they didn't have to do with the island and thus weren't vital for Kululu to know in order to survive. Additionally, he feared that Kululu, when knowing such, might later use it against him when they were back home. He might say he wouldn't, but you never knew with Kululu. He was such an unpredictable guy; one second he said one thing, and then deliberately did the opposite to eternally disprove one's sense of reality on him. It was really jerky.
And although they both had it in their minds that from now on there would be more communication between the two of them, it was still quite a difficult task (for Kululu especially) to bring themselves to have a conversation with the other, without thinking of how dreadful it was to talk to him the while. After all, it was sort of a deserted island that they were on, and Kululu was the only person that Fuyuki had to talk to.
"So, um, I made a rabbit-trap earlier this afternoon," said Fuyuki, trying to get a conversation going between the two of them.
"I see." Kululu looked up. "Well, it's not afternoon anymore. It's nearly nighttime. You think that rabbit has been caught yet?"
"Let's go see," said Fuyuki.
His stomach made some sort of weird sound, and he couldn't decide whether it was from hunger, or from nausea knowing that he'd have to kill the rabbit if he had even caught one.
He led Kululu to the area where he'd set up the rabbit trap, avoiding overhanging branches when he could and clearing away the underbrush that got constantly in the way of their path. Crouching slightly, he focused his eyes on the small clearing which he had set the trap up in, and as the green faded in and out of view, he pointed ahead.
Fuyuki tried to say something, but no words could come out of his mouth.
Kululu rubbed his chin with his hand. "Mm-hm, I see then. Fuyuki the hunter, eh?"
Fuyuki bit his lip in excitement. He did it! He caught a rabbit!
Oh… wait…. Not so exciting on second thought.
He furrowed his brow and took a step back. "Um, you wanna take it?"
"Hm, nah." Kululu stepped into the clearing and peered up at the rabbit, who was dangling helplessly in the air with its foot in the trap. It looked pretty painful. "It's too high up for me to get. I think you'll have to do this one."
Absentmindedly making a face, Fuyuki went to the rabbit and undid the knot that tied the vine to the overhanging branch. It was a pretty small rabbit, so it wasn't all that heavy. That wasn't to say that it didn't have pretty painful claws, and he knew that for certain, as they dug into the bare skin of his arm.
"Ah! Ow!" Fuyuki cried in pain.
Kululu grinned, enjoying the boy's torment. "Ku-ku. Your fault for not wearing a shirt, so don't go blamin' me for anything."
Fuyuki rubbed his arm, wincing, and decided to hold the rabbit instead with his hands under its four legs, so that it was no longer dangling. This seemed to calm the rabbit down a bit, though still unknowing of its fate. Fuyuki felt awful, thinking of what he had to do.
They reached the beach. Wordlessly, Fuyuki held the rabbit out to Kululu next to him, making no eye contact.
"Ku ku, what? A present, for me?"
He handed him the rabbit.
"Aw, thank you." Kululu put a hand to his cheek and blushed as he took the vine holding the rabbit in his hand. He looked down at it a moment. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
A shudder went through Fuyuki. He looked down at his arms, which he was rubbing together on the spots where the rabbit had scratched with its itty-bitty claws. "Well… um…. I've never really killed an animal before, except for fish, so… do you think… you might… be able to do this one?"
"Kill a rabbit?" Kululu looked at the animal quizzically. "I'm sure it can't be that hard."
Something about how he said that so playfully sent shivers down Fuyuki's spine.
He wouldn't let Fuyuki leave to avoid seeing this. Dragging him by the arm, he led the boy to a large, smooth rock by the shore. With his hand he searched for the least curviest part of it and set the squealing rabbit down.
"Now, do you have a knife or something I might be able to do with this?" he asked Fuyuki.
"Um, I made a sort of javelin yesterday…."
"You did? Ku ku." He gestured with his hand. "Bring it here."
Quickly, so as not to upset the excited frog, Fuyuki dashed off and retrieved the stick. He came back and handed it to Kululu.
"Javelin? Ku ku ku. This is just a pointy stick."
"…Isn't that the same thing?"
Kululu shrugged. "Oh, well. It still might work. Now let me see." He examined the rabbit, turning it over and holding it in his hand. He pinched it lightly on the back, earning another squeal from the thing, and ran his thumb and forefinger down along the soft fur covering its spine. Without turning his head, he glanced up at Fuyuki. "Am I supposed to skin it first, or kill it first?"
"Kill it first!" Fuyuki wailed. "If you don't kill it first, it'll be able to feel everything!"
"Well, okay. If you say so." Kululu lifted up the javelin.
SPLAT!
Fuyuki stood there blankly, then slowly fell to his feet. The blood… it was everywhere!
"Uh-oh, looks like it's still alive. Ku ku ku."
SPLAT!
His mouth began opening in horror, and he quickly covered his eyes.
"…No, not quite."
SPLAT!
He felt his stomach jump up to his throat. He could already taste his breakfast rising.
"Hm, I think maybe one more time ought to—"
"STOP IT! It's dead already, Sergeant Major!" Fuyuki sobbed.
"Oh? It is?" Kululu lifted up the crimson-stained rabbit and inspected it. "Ku ku ku, so it is. Well, I guess third time's the charm after all." His hand went back to the javelin.
"…What are you going to now…?"
"I need to skin it, ku ku ku. You don't want rabbit fur all over your food, do you?"
"But how do you skin an animal?" Stupidly, Fuyuki stood up to watch.
"Let me show you." Kululu set the rabbit down on the rock and went to the beach. He got down on his knees and looked through the sand till he found a proper tool: the upper-half of a clam shell. Though honestly Fuyuki couldn't tell which half it was.
"You're going to use that…? I don't think it looks sharp enough," he noticed.
"You're right."
Kululu brought the clam shell down on the rock, grooved-side up, and began to scrape it down the boulder, making hideous sounds as he did so. Fuyuki covered his ears. It sounded like nails on a chalk board…. Or maybe chalk on a nail board, considering that chalk was made from shells. After about a minute or so, Kululu stopped.
"Ku ku. Does it look sharp enough?" He held it up for Fuyuki to see. The bladed edge glimmered in the light.
"Y-yes…." Fuyuki trembled.
"Good. Now here's how to skin a rabbit."
Kululu took the sharpened end of the shell and traced a circle around each of the rabbit's legs, not cutting very deep into the skin. He put the shell down for a moment to hold it up for Fuyuki to see, who was, needless to say, already pretty grossed out.
"Ku ku. See what I did? Now I'm going to have to break the legs."
He placed his hands on the leg of the rabbit and snapped it, then did the same with the other. Fuyuki covered his ears while he did so. Kululu then pinched the knee joint of the mammal, and with the other hand pinched the skin, as he slowly dragged them apart, separating the two. With the shell he made small punctures in each leg, then dug his fingers into the hollowed skin and ripped it apart at each leg. The skins of the legs came off like stickers, which he dangled in front of Fuyuki.
"Want these? Ku ku."
"NO!" Fuyuki grimaced and turned away, squeezing his eyes shut.
Kululu tossed the leg-skins into the water, delighted at Fuyuki's horror, and continued experimenting with how to skin the rabbit, while Fuyuki was made to watch behind him. Going upward from the legs, he turned the rabbit upside-down in the air, playing around with the skin until it loosened up and fell toward its shoulders in a crumpled heap. It reminded Fuyuki of taking off a wetsuit… if that wetsuit was your skin. It was odd because, fascinatingly, the inside of the rabbit's skin looked a lot cleaner than he would've thought. It was a light tan, about his skin color. Although the rabbit seemed a lot skinnier as its skin was slowly peeled off, it seemed so easy to take off the organ, almost as if it could've been done just as well while it was alive. Fuyuki shuddered at the thought. Were humans that easy to skin, too?
Kululu did the same thing to the arms what he'd done to the legs, and then, making sure that Fuyuki was watching for this, he snapped the skull backward, making an awful crack as the vertebrae of the rabbit broke. He picked up the javelin and jabbed it into the rabbit's loosened neck, cutting off the head and the whole fur which was connected to it, which he threw back into the waves just as he'd done for the leg-skins. Throwing it into the underbrush would attract other animals, who might even start to have a taste for their flesh, as well.
"Ta-da!" In Fuyuki's face Kululu triumphantly held up the skinless, headless, and tailless rabbit. "Ku ku, isn't it beautiful?"
Fuyuki jumped backward. "Get it away from me!"
Kululu let the rabbit dangle for a moment, and then tossed it back onto the rock. "You wanna take out its entrails? Since I already did the hard part, ku ku ku."
He made a face. "Take out its entrails? How do I do that?"
"Oh, it's easy." With the clam shell, Kululu made a slit in the rabbit's stomach and showed it to Fuyuki, who was disgusted. "All you have to do is stick your hand inside, grab whatever you can find, and throw it out, till there's nothing left in there. Ku ku!"
"Ewwww," said Fuyuki. "Uh, I think you can do that. And I'll just be here in the bushes, rocking…."
"Ku ku ku ku ku. Very well, then."
Fuyuki sped away as fast as he could, but even rocking in the bushes as he was, he still couldn't quite block out the sounds of Kululu as he delightedly flung out the stringy intestines of the dead rabbit….
When it seemed like all was done, and when Fuyuki thought it was safe, he finally crept out of the bushes and glanced over Kululu's shoulder. He tried to keep his food down.
"Oh, god… that's not even a rabbit anymore…."
"You won't be saying that once you're eating it, ku ku." Kululu plucked a leaf off a nearby branch and wiped his bloody hands on it. "Speaking of which, you think you're about ready to cook this thing?"
"No…" Fuyuki said, completely honest.
"Good! So am I. You can go look for berries and fruit and such, and I'll get right to work in starting the fire."
"Nnng…." Fuyuki groaned and staggered as he walked off into the woods, while behind him, Kululu gathered tree branches and sticks on the beach for the fire.
Still nauseous from what he'd witnessed, Fuyuki just grabbed whatever he could find that looked mildly like food, which mostly consisted of fruits, coconuts, and the small circle of mushrooms by that one big tree, and gathered them all into a big, round leaf. Once it was full, he headed on back to the beach, placing the items of food at Kululu's feet. Kululu was currently cutting up the rabbit and lancing various parts of it through thin sticks which he had placed at the ground by the fire.
Fuyuki looked up at the sky. It was getting dark already. Time sure flew when you were spilling guts. Or was that the right…. He quickly shook his head. He'd been on this island so long, he was already beginning to lose sense of common phrases.
Suddenly, there was something in his hand. He looked down and saw it was the bit of meat that Kululu had handed to him on a stick. The guy had been right; it didn't look like a rabbit anymore after all. It just looked like… something he was really hungry to eat. Fuyuki dug in, savoring the familiar taste of meat.
"Thanks, Sergeant Major," he said while chewing. He covered his mouth and swallowed. "Uh… sorry. I'm kind of really hungry right now."
"Nah, it's okay." Kululu bit into his own piece of rabbit. "I'll just bug you about it later."
"Okay. …Wait, what?"
"Ku ku ku."
For a while they ate in silence, filling their bellies, while Fuyuki tried to get his mind off of how the food had gotten into their hands in the first place.
Out of nowhere, Kululu glanced down at the stick in his hands, still with a miniscule bit of rabbit meat on it. "Augh."
"What?" asked Fuyuki, glancing up from his food.
"I was just thinking. Of how thankful I am, that this isn't a sweet potato."
He gave him a strange look. "Why?"
"Because if it was, I wouldn't think twice about drowning myself in those waves right now."
Fuyuki tried to think of what he meant by this, but he wasn't sure.
"Plus, I'm sure that if I skinned a sweet potato instead of a rabbit, you would have been a lot less freaked out. Ku ku! And that's no fun."
Fuyuki tossed his finished stick behind him and reached for another, frowning. "I'm sorry, it's just… I've never… done this thing before, you know? It's all kind of weird to me…." He gave a slight shudder. "Especially that rabbit part… but…."
"What, your father never took you on a survival quest when you were a kid?" Kululu questioned him, reaching down into the leaf that had all the food that Fuyuki had gathered.
"Well… no…. Dads don't really do that to their kids here on Earth."
Kululu bit into a mushroom. "Oh, they don't? Ku ku ku. My dad never did either. I was thankful at the time, although now… I might be having second thoughts."
Fuyuki gave him an uneasy smile. "Plus, my dad never really… well…. He wasn't there much."
"Yeah, didn't really seem like it, ku ku." Kululu took a moment to pause. "Was he there at all?"
"He sort of was." Fuyuki finished off a piece of fruit and tossed the core into the trees behind him, his face illuminated by the crackling fire. "I mean, in the really early days, he spent a lot of time with us, but…."
He dropped his sentence there, realizing his voice had just cracked. Kululu said nothing, waiting for him to go on, his silence signifying that it was okay.
"…one day, he just kind of… vanished."
They both were silent. Even the fire stopped buzzing for a moment as the two of them took it in.
"Where is he now? Do you know?" Kululu finally asked.
Fuyuki shook his head slightly, hidden behind his knees which he held with his arms, staring into the fire. "Mom said he was on some sort of search, I think, and I believed her when I was younger…. You know… making up fantasies of where he was going… dreaming of how he would come back to us with open arms and stories to tell…."
By the light of the fire, Kululu noticed something glimmer on the boy's cheeks, and realized it was the reflection against a tear that was falling.
"But eventually, I just kind of… stopped believing those things. I stopped hoping for him to come back."
"So you gave up, huh?" Kululu adjusted his position so that he was now laying down on the ground on his side, his head propped up by his hand, with his elbow resting on the dirt.
Fuyuki gave a slow nod of his head.
"Well. What can I say." He took one of the sticks that used to have rabbit meat on it and began tracing swirls in the dirt. "Dads are all weird. Who knows where he is. Maybe he got kidnapped by some alien race or something."
Fuyuki shrugged, glumly nibbling on the cap of a mushroom. "I used to think that, too. But… I just don't know anymore."
"Eh, I guess I can relate. My dad disappeared when I was younger, too, so I never really knew him all that well."
"…Really?" Fuyuki dropped his knees to the ground, startled. "I didn't know that…." He bit his lower lip. "Geez…. I'm sorry, Sergeant Major."
"Nah, it's fine." Kululu waved his hand dismissively. "Never liked the guy anyway. Once he was gone, I could do as I pleased, ku ku ku!"
Fuyuki forced a nervous laugh. Sometimes he admittedly did feel like Kululu acted a bit like a teenager…. Perhaps now he finally knew why.
"Did your mom know why your dad left?" he asked.
"Ku ku ku, no. She disappeared along with him."
There was an awkward silence after that.
Fuyuki's eyes went off to the side. Kululu turned over onto his back, staring up at the stars.
"Oh. So… um…." Fuyuki sat up. "Guess we've eaten everything…. Wanna put the fire out?"
"Nah," said Kululu, after thinking a bit. "Might as well let it burn out on its own."
He shut his eyes, and though Fuyuki couldn't tell, he assumed as much. Thinking that Kululu was ready to go to sleep, he decided it would best be time to head on to the shelter. The sun had already went down a while ago, and he was getting pretty sleepy himself.
Fuyuki walked over to the shelter and laid down on the tightly-placed leaves inside of it, gazing up at the ceiling of the structure. A nauseous feeling bubbled up inside of him. Must've been the memory of the rabbit. He closed his eyes and turned onto his side, ready to sleep. But what Kululu had said just wouldn't leave his mind. Both his parents were gone for most of the guy's life. That included his father. If he hadn't told him that, he never would have guessed that about Kululu.
Maybe they were more alike than he'd thought.
And that's why I'm a vegetarian.
Eww. I had to look up so many videos of how to skin rabbits to be able to write about it. And then I had lunch afterward, too, which was extra-gross.
As a side-note: So, if this thing gets to 99 reviews, NO MORE REVIEWS AFTER THAT. My sister told me she'd parodize this thing if I got 100 reviews, and last time she parodized something I wrote, it turned out horribly morbid and depressing. She says that this one's going to be Out from Derp Waters. Then again, I doubt this will even get to any more than 40 reviews, so nothing to worry about there. XD
