The phantom market

Ayato was walking back from collecting the month's blood supply from the hospital and was in a good mood because it had been incident-free and he hadn't needed to knock anyone out for once!

The police hadn't even suspected the ice cream truck he drove was a stolen one! Or that he didn't have a license.

Did he look like an ice cream vendor? How legit is an ice cream truck behind a hospital at 11pm?

Who cares, he was back, and the ice cream truck was sent away with an invisible driver to avoid further suspicion.

He deserved a treat for developing his very own master stealth technique.

But he'd already eaten up the whole local takoyaki buffet's supply... he'd deserved a treat for passing math, although Reiji insisted that had been his obligation and to stop wasting the much needed house-repairing money.

It was meant for the unhinged torture chamber door though, who cares! Only Reiji had used the chamber (on himself) lately, why would he need privacy to torture himself?!

So, what treat would be nice..?

As usually happens whenever one thinks of what one wants in this story, a flying poster almost hit Ayato's face, but he caught it first. Hah! Of course his reflexes were the best.

Garden Sale!

We don't need a bunch of stuff at home anymore.

Please come get it at a low, low price.

Extra discount for the haunted items.

Address: blablablablablabla

TOMORROW

And a picture of a winking doge.

Good idea! I'll take Laito shopping, he loves haunted stuff and Reiji hates it. And I hate Reiji. Bet Laito's still butthurt about the giant cockroach Reiji refused to get off the bathtub, so he'll come even if it's daytime.

Ayato started to laugh in an evil fashion until a woman threw cold water at him,

-Shut up! -she shouted and left the window.

Ayato waited a few freezing minutes and scratched a dick and a sign that read "use this to fuck yourself, you need it, cunt!" on her parked car and left.

Next day, Laito was in shopping mood and so happy.

Ayato cringed at the frilly bag made out of panties he'd crafted. Laito was so huggy and touchy today, did he need socializing or whatever? He'd been to a concert only last weekend, he needs to tone it down! What ridiculous Wall Sina Idol Pokeball Master Tour was Kou at?! Laito's so needy... but all right, his majesty himself would make the isolation-ridden pervert happy today, he deserved a treat for being so enthusiastic about his plan.

Laito was talking too much in the otherwise quiet, peaceful car! Why would his royalness care about the idol concert he'd been to? Living with an idol was hard enough, and now a Kou and Co. fan?

-...And I found a website in which people auction panties designed by cute idols, but they never say who designed each... so I got them all!

-Laito, these panties were clearly designed by KOU!

-Ah... you ruin the fantasy, Ayato! I was so excited to have the creativity and lewdness of so many cute girls in one bag for myself!

-You are a pervert.

-Thank you! But...

-This was KOU'S DESIGN, only friggin Kou would do this, don't you see? Female idols are too virginal to design panties anyway!

Laito looked slightly disappointed, but not convinced.

-The great me will ask him, wanna bet?

Laito chuckled and smirked a perverted smile.

-But I want to see you do that in person, and tell him you think the panties are sooo pretty...

-The panties are ugly as fuck, Laito! I will not tell lies!

-Oh, Ayato... I was trying to make it more exciting! We would tell him it was a bet after, no need to act like someone cut the words "I must not tell lies" onto your hand!

-You are strange. -Ayato spotted the garage sale outside the window: perfect! That'll shut him up!- Look, we're here! Ok, grab the hideous panty bag and let's shop!

The garage sale was in one of the supposedly haunted districts of the city, a bit too far on the outskirts for most people's comfort. It was rather strange they hung a pamphlet

near the Bunker, Laito thought. Or maybe they had hired their grandson to do that, as this house must belong to old people... the building looked like a victorian mansion, and a butler was multitasking too many ancient plates and porcelain dolls at once.

Only old people could hire a bulter... or, as it seemed the case here, rich brats could inherit them. There was a thirteen year old bossing the butler around, who said "Yes my Lord" like it was his biggest passion.

The look on the boy's only visible eye made him wonder what had happened to him... he looked at Laito, and Laito smiled with unease; had he just looked at himself? He recognized that expression... someone or something had devoured the joy out of his soul; his loss had been too harsh, yet he pretended all was under control... Laito's stomach went cold, but he wanted to approach and talk to him. Yet once he'd taken a step toward him, the child whispered into the butler's ear, who proceeded to block Laito's way. Time to bail?

-Hello sir, allow me to assist you with your purchases.

Apparently not.

-Ya-hooo! Sir, I gotta say I love how you set up everything! I don't know what to get yet...

-Perhaps a hobby would be a suitable option; staring at people will lead you to get beaten up, sir, with all due respect.

Laito was baffled. The butler grabbed a broom and literally swept Laito out of the young master's sight and into the section of objects that looked like people below age 40 could afford.

In the meantime, Ayato was having a great time looking at antique torture tools, but what had really caught his eyes was that there were signs that said "haunted objects" and "not haunted"; and a third one: "please take it off us". Not a chance. He wasn't stupid to take that black book full of ink and dirt that had a saber tooth through it. It smelled bad. This seemed just like his kind of shopping! He was about to open a white chest with red circles on the sides that read "games" on it. The lock was awesome: a miniature chainsaw! Just his taste. It was locked though. Sucks. He could try to pick the-

BAM!

-Laito! Look where you're going!

Ayato lifted his eyes and saw his brother had been... swepped by the butler like garbage?

The butler smiled professionally,

-Please refrain of shopping within the rich people premises;

it makes us nervous you'll break something we'd never get you out of debt for...

we would like to indebt people who could actually have the hope to be able to repay someday.

Ayato felt insulted. Did he look so poor? Was that the reason he could now get away with an ice cream truck robbery?

-Here are some things people like you would enjoy more. -he continued- Make yourselves at home!

Laito was still baffled and stared at the butler with an open mouth.

He was used to getting kicked out of places, but had the brat just told him to sweep away the poor people?

He prefered to get sacked for being a pervert or stuff he actually was...

The butler broke the saw lock and the chest opened:

A Nintendo 64 with some catridges lay inside.

The brothers looked inside and looked at some game titles in the non-haunted section.

-Hey, Mr. butler, what is meant by "haunted" here?

But as Laito lifted his head to hear the answer, he found himself without a receptor for his question.

-Hey, look, Laito! It's time to push Reiji over the edge! A haunted videogame!

-Oh, you're still upset about having to remove your sneakers out of the fridge, or about the obsessive compulsive window repairing you were forced to do? -Laito laughed

Ayato furrowed his brows. Didn't he remember the bug?

-He didn't help you when you were scared, aren't you gonna get back at him?

-He removed an anthill out of my desk on Wednesday, and even made me tea after and sat down to explain how ants actually worked!

-Why was there an anthill on your desk, Laito?

-I think we should spare him this time, let's get one of the non-haunted ones, since he's so scared of ghosts...

What a softie! All right, but he couldn't frame himself for the haunting, if such a thing was real in this case, that would be annoying.

He needed to distract Laito and make him pick one of the haunted ones. None of the games had a label though... he'd put the golden one on the non-haunted section; it would surely call Laito's naive attention!

But he'd already gotten distracted. He was talking to a kid with an eyepatch on the other side of the poor section of the garden. Well, he'd pick three and would pay for them and assure Laito they weren't haunted.

-Hello, do you live here? -Laito asked the kid

-This is a holiday home. We're only here until tomorrow.

-I see... it's so beautiful! I bet your parents love victorian...

-...

-Oh, sorry... my mother's dead as well.

-...

-Why are you in town?

-We need to get rid of old things... some haunted things are so because tragedy struck around them.

-You mean this sale is symbolically taking the tragic events out of your sight, and out of your mind?

-And out of the way to accomplish my responsibilities.

-Makes sense. I wouldn't want to remember a lot of things, but unfortunately, those are not engraved in an object I can get rid of -Laito laughed- I just hope that gets dissipated away by a silver knife one day.

Something made the younger man widen his eyes. He felt his covered eye throb. This suspicious youth wasn't a normal so-called emo; that hadn't been an expression.

-You state the need to hire an assassin quite lightly.

-No, I wish it was someone special... someone I love should do it. That way, I'll be theirs for eternity.

The young master's head bowed down in sorrow.

Something about this stranger's statements touched something inside him,

perhaps the need to be close to someone enough to entrust his life to them, not just via contract, but via heart and soul as well.

He had someone like that, but did he actually care to, maybe, decide not to take his life away just yet, to wait till it was time if it was for him?

Before turning against him out of selfish desire?

-You can't be really theirs while you're alive? -he looked at Laito, hoping to find an answer to his own question himself- Is there such a person in your life?

-Good questions.

Laito wondered if he'd done enough for anyone to want to take away his sorrow... wether via death, or... via life, like the kid implied? That doesn't make sense. An image of a concert came to him. And a cup of tea. Also a burnt takoyaki tray.

He smiled a little. Why was he thinking of these things right now? He was going to go crazy if he kept talking to this kid, who was too sullen for his age.

-Laito! Come here, they're closing! -Ayato had a small basket full of vintage torture tools, a N64 and 3 catridges.

He snapped out of his dusk-staring induced trance and said goodbye to the house owner.

-Goodbye, gentleman. -he replied

Gentleman? Was this really a kid, or some kind of phantom of the opera that had a victorian house full of servants, busy as a bee hive?

Ayato was getting impatient; he probably bought the haunted games, but well, if Reiji didn't know, he would probably not notice, real haunted stuff was rare, either way...

AN: Ayato was too much fun to write in this chapter :3

As you know, I love Laito so much, he's a special character for me. It fills me both with joy and sorrow when I write him.

Whoever guesses who the kid is gets to make a cameo in the story HOHOHO (you will not get killed, I promise)