Author's Note: Well, first off, I am tickled chartreuse that so many people read (and theoretically enjoyed). Thank you all.
Secondly, I just read up to chapter 80 (scanlation style) and got really mad because I think I unintentionally ripped off Tomoko Hayakawa. WHAT THE CRAP. Well I like what I wrote better because I don't think she even knows where Europe is on a map. At least I know that they don't wear turbans in Mexico (everyone knows that's Canada. Duh.). At any rate, because I have pulled a "boner" (as Batman and the Joker would say), I would like to officially state thatPerfect Girl Evolution (a.k.a. Wallflower) is in no way my intellectual property. This plotline is homage to Ray Bradbury's "The Next in Line" (which I also do not own), not a rip off of a chapter from PGE. Also, I make absolutely no money off this story. I don't even get cyber-hugs. Or virtual high fives. Or theoretical internet dollars. Tragic.
Thirdly, Ranmaru does not even care if you are a girl or not. He will totally hit that if he is In The Mood. He is a sexaholic. It's what they do. Also, he fits into the Jumping the Gap theory.
Fourthly, this chapter is dedicated to the individual who came up with the Jumping the Gap explanation (and hand gesture). Moira, you will probably never read this, or Wallflower, but you rock my socks straight off of my body and into a secluded little convent in the southern part of France.
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Kyohei glared at Ranmaru as they sat in the hotel lobby. Noi and Yuki were sniffling and holding each other.
"So much blood," Noi sobbed.
"Who owns that pink dress?" Yuki whimpered.
Ranmaru slouched in his seat and looked up at the ceiling and began whistling casually.
"You're such a fuckin' pervert," Kyohei spat under his breath.
"You are simply jealous of my survivalist instincts," Ranmaru said, examining his nails. Kyohei clenched his fist and started to get to his feet.
It was fortunately at that moment that Takenaga walked down the stairs behind Sunako, whose face was completely blank, eyes dark and soulless. Noi and Yuki both shivered and whimpered.
"They're cleaning up the room right now," Takenaga told them all. "They moved Sunako to a different room."
They all watched Sunako carefully for a few moments.
"Sunako-chan?" Noi asked, reaching a hand out.
The girl had showered, put on clean black sundress, and seemed to be almost in a comatose state now. Noi's hand touched her wrist and suddenly she blinked.
Her head snapped to give a murderous stare at Kyohei.
"You… wiiiiill… paaaay…" she hissed lowly, and Ranmaru quickly stood and moved three chairs away from Kyohei. Takenaga took a large step away from Sunako and both Noi and Yuki dove under their chairs.
"What the hell?!" Kyohei snapped at them, looking a little desperate. "It's not my damn fault!"
"Dude, don't even look at me," Ranmaru said, scratching his head nervously and facing away from the loathing that slowly radiated off Sunako. "Bad karma by association is not something I need today."
Kyohei narrowed his eyes at the boy and then turned to Yuki.
"Hey, guess who Ranmaru did last night," he began with a casual grin. Takenaga spun a hand out and it connected with the center of Kyohei's forehead. "What the hell?!" Kyohei roared, grabbing his head with both hands.
"Were you just going to let him tell Yuki?" Takenaga demanded to Ranmaru, whose back was still to them.
"On a scale from 'one' to 'Death-by-Sunako', that rates as a two," Ranmaru said simply.
"What?" Yuki asked, looking at them curiously. "Tell me what?"
"Bored now," Sunako said flatly, folding her arms across her chest. She pulled sunglasses from a large pocket on the dress and stuck them resolutely on her face. "Las mommias."
"Wait, no, I want to know what they're talking about," Yuki objected, getting to his feet.
"LAS. MOMM. IAS." Sunako enunciated each syllable slowly and loudly, as if Yuki were not only stupid, but deliberately trying to annoy her. She began to glide across the lobby toward the door.
She walked straight into an ottoman and stumbled over it, falling flat on her face, legs in the air. Ranmaru, who was closest, leaned forward and tentatively poked her.
"Why are you wearing your sunglasses inside?" he asked, picking up one pale wrist to check for a pulse. "There's barely any light in here." It was true. The lights were all out to keep the heat down, and something dark and looming was blocking the windows.
"Grngngngnnnn," Sunako moaned, yanking her hand away and writhing on the floor, fingers outspread and clawing at the tiles. "Beautiful… creatures…"
"Scaaaary," Yuki whimpered.
Gingerly, Ranmaru hauled her up by the wrist and set her on her feet before taking a cautious step back. She began limping for the door slowly, one shoulder raised, the other hanging low.
"Should we follow?" Kyohei asked, tilting his head uncomfortably.
"I… don't want to," Takenaga said slowly. "But I think she's heading to meet the tour guide. So…"
"It's either go with her or stay here all day with nothing to do," Ranmaru finished. All four boys looked to the dark windows, where girls and women of all ages were pressed against the glass, ogling them with open mouths.
"I don't really wanna stay here…" Yuki said.
Noi was already moving for the door, dragging Takenaga by the wrist, a firm and cranky expression on her face.
"Ahhh, it is the lady boys!" Ricardo cried, throwing his arms up in the air delightedly. "And they brought the retard! Wait… sorry, I forgot. The albino!"
"And me," Noi said with a shy smile, her hand fluttering at her throat.
"And you," Ricardo agreed with a nod. He turned to the boys to speak again.
"AND ME," Noi said louder, leaning in to make sure he had heard.
"AND YOU," Ricardo replied loudly, nodding emphatically.
Ranmaru cleared his throat and said, "This is our friend, Noi."
"I am not your friend," Noi said crossly. "I am his girlfriend." She pointed to Takenaga, who was looking the other way, face red.
"That is wonderful," Ricardo said with a nod. "It is good that you found someone as charming as him, especially considering how you look, yes?"
"What?!" Noi sputtered. "I… how… I… How dare you!"
"Ricardo," Sunako said, putting one hand on Ricardo's shoulder. He stopped and turned to look at her. Her black hair hung limply in front of her face, which was lowered toward the ground to hide it from the bright sunlight.
All five of her friends shivered at the sight of her.
"How can I help you Senorita?" Ricardo asked, turning to her brightly.
"Las mommias," she said darkly.
"Ah yes!" He grinned at her. "Calaveras is known for its truly perfectly preserved collection. Would you like to see it first?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Kyohei said, jumping in, holding a hand up. "What is a 'mommias'?"
"And why is it preserved?" Ranmaru pressed.
"Is that why we're here?" Takenaga asked Sunako sharply. "How did you know about this? Why didn't you tell us about it?"
"I don't get it…" Yuki said weakly.
"Just wait, you will see!" Ricardo announced excitedly.
Sunako just gave them a dark and wicked smile.
"Holy." Takenaga's eyes were huge and round.
"Fucking." Kyohei was pale and rigid.
"Shit." Ranmaru looked as if he would throw up.
Yuki just stood there and sobbed helplessly.
Noi had not even entered the room. As soon as she had seen the door in the floor of the church, she had stopped and refused to go any further. No one had pushed her to go down the stairs though, Takenaga briefly kissing her cheek before descending.
Sunako was beaming so brightly that the boys had to hold their hands up to shade their eyes. She was humming softly, sunglasses back in her pocket and swaying down the long subterranean hall.
"What is this?" Takenaga demanded in a horrified whisper. He turned in a circle, looking at the earthen walls, floor, arched ceiling, and stairwell. There was a large oil barrel next to the door that was labeled in stenciled spray-paint: "BARF BARREL."
"These are las mommias," Ricardo said proudly. "The mummies of Calaveras!"
Yuki wailed so loudly that Noi could hear him from the church and she cried out fearfully in response, hiding her eyes from whatever might pop up through the door.
"Oh my God, she brought us to see dead people," Ranmaru moaned, burying his hands in his hair. His eyes were caught by the nearest mummy, whose eyeless sockets were staring back at him. There was a jaunty rotting sombrero on his head, and the skin on his face had shrunk to give him a wide grin.
Kyohei was incapable of speech, eyes flicking back and forth in terror between the walls lined with the mummified remains of the ex-residents of Calaveras. He looked down to the end of the hall, where Sunako was leaning against the wall next to several of the mummies, arms folded over her chest, eyes closed.
"I want to go home," Yuki sobbed, and threw himself on Ranmaru, who caught him but did not move his eyes from the madly grinning mummy.
"Yuki, I took advantage of you last night," he whispered in horror. "The mummy it… compels me… to tell the truth…"
"What are you talking about?" Yuki wailed, wiping tears from his face.
"I… put you in a pink dress and told you you'd been such a bad girl and… Oh god, I can see its brains…" Ranmaru gagged and dropped Yuki to the floor, turning to empty the contents of his stomach into the barrel.
Yuki stopped crying and frowned thoughtfully, deep in concentration.
Kyohei took a step down the hall of corpses, eyes still jumping back and forth across the hall. His body was rigid and his steps were stiff, short, and his body twisted to walk sideways, as if trying to put as much room between himself and the mummies as possible.
"You see," Ricardo was telling Takenaga, who was blinking rapidly, "When our citizens die, their families can either purchase a grave for a large amount or rent one out yearly for a small, reasonable fee. Most people in Calaveras are very poor and cannot afford to buy a whole grave, so their families pay the rent. However, after the family member has been dead for many years, very often their family will simply decide to stop paying the rent, as the needs of the living outweigh the needs of the dead."
"So you dig them up," Takenaga whispered.
"So we dig them up!" Ricardo echoed brightly.
"And put their bodies in here…" Takenaga was holding his own hand so tightly the blood to his fingers was cut off.
"And put their bodies in here!" Ricardo gestured broadly to the tomb. "It is wonderful, no?"
"No," Ranmaru grunted from the barrel. He retched again.
"Would you please to meet my mother?" Ricardo said, gesturing to a woman whose clothes were so rotted off that she was virtually naked, but her skin had withered so much that it looked like a grotesque leather suit. In her arms was a tiny withered brown object. "Also my younger sister, Marianella!"
"Hello, Marianella! Hello Mrs. Ricardo's Mom!" Sunako called gleefully down the hall. Her voice echoed slightly off the walls, and Kyohei, who was still inching his way down the hallway toward her froze for a moment and shuddered, closing his eyes. Carefully he resumed his trek.
"Hello, Albino Girl!" Ricardo called in a high pitched voice out of the side of his mouth, grabbing his mother's arm to wiggle it in mimicry of a wave. "Hola, Senorita!" he squeaked, taking the baby's small hand. It snapped off in his fingers and he laughed embarrassedly. "Oh my goodness. How silly, no?" He chortled and quickly tried to stick the hand back on. When it did not go on, he stuffed it swiftly in the older corpse's mouth and stepped away.
Takenaga watched him sickened.
"Wait a second," Yuki said from the floor with a deep frown. "A pink dress?"
Down the hall, Kyohei was almost to where Sunako was simulating being a mummy against the wall.
"Promise me that when I die you will put me in here," Sunako called to them all. No one answered.
"Nakahara," Kyohei whispered, closing his eyes against the mummies. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"We just got here," Sunako said dismissively.
"It's time to go," he said urgently. "Right now. We need to leave."
"Can you hear them singing?" Sunako asked dreamily. "They are singing to me. Calling me. Fall down, comes the call. Fall up is the reply. Fall up, up, up, into nothingness, into oblivion, into the dark port that is my soul on a dismal grey rainy day that stretches out into…"
"Good lord, no Goth poetry," he moaned angrily, eyes still closed tightly. "Not right now. Not ever."
Sunako narrowed her eyes at him. She stood up and took a step toward him. Her nose began to bleed as she took him by the shoulders and pushed him back up against the wall.
"What…" Kyohei opened his eyes in surprise to look at her, then froze. Slowly his eyes moved to his left. A corpse was grinning an inch from his face. His face stiffened in terror. He looked to the right. Another corpse, whose mouth was opened wide in a silent scream, hands held up in front of its body, fingers arched into the air, ancient fingernails broken, as though it had tried to claw its way out of a coffin.
"No," he whispered. "No. No. No. No."
Sunako gave him a small, red, evil smile. She leaned to the left, picked up a corpse and rested it against Kyohei's chest.
"Look at that, beautiful creature," she said, turning to look down the hallway. She sniffed and the blood zipped back up her nose. "They are leaving. It is time to go. I'm quite hungry. I think I'll go with them."
Kyohei turned his eyes to the door. Ranmaru was leaning heavily between the two other boys, and Ricardo was waving his hands talking about where they would be eating lunch and what they would do after.
"I hope you have a lovely afternoon with your new friends," Sunako said, slipping her sunglasses on to look at Kyohei again with a dazzling smile.
She began to skip and sway down the hall, curtseying to corpses, bowing and waving to others.
"Come back," Kyohei whispered hoarsely, unable to move for the dead bodies around him, watching him, staring at him, touching him, rotting all over him.
At the stairwell she turned and waved to him, then trotted up the stairs. There was silence in the dimly lit room, and then, as the door creaked shut, the light disappeared completely.