A/N: Late as usual, but I figure there isn't much to lose anyway...Besides, some of that time was spent waiting for Dontmezwitme to beta...But still she hasn't replied, so I assumed she went awol and decided to post it anyway...:l So here it is...

Bloodstained Chrysanthemums/沾染着血的菊花

Chapter 5: Girl/第五章: 姑娘

Kiku stood in a vast field of chrysanthemums. The beautiful flowers of different colors stretched out as far as he could see, and above him the moon hung and cast an ambient glow unto the scene. He stood there, delightfully watching his namesakes dance with the wind, petals floating ethereally through the air around him.

It was amazing.

He wandered for a moment, until he found that several feet in front of him stood a figure whose dark, unbound hair flowed with the breeze. In his hands he held one of the chrysanthemums, immaculate white. Kiku could not see the man's face.

The stranger stood there, gazing at the chrysanthemum for a moment, before uncurling his delicate fingers and allowing the flower to fly away on the breeze. He turned to watch it go, and as he did, Kiku saw his face.

It was Yao.

Yao had not noticed him, so Kiku turned to leave. He felt like he was intruding, and had no desire to stay any longer.

But as he spun around, he heard his brother's voice calling scornfully after him, "Traitor."

All in one fluid motion, the moon fell from the sky, shrouding the land in darkness, and the chrysanthemums painted themselves with blood. Kiku's eyes widened, and immediately he twisted back towards Yao. "What…"

Yao was no longer there. In his place was a cliff that cut dangerously close to where Kiku was standing. A scream sliced painfully through the air from the unseen bottom of the canyon. It could only have been Yao.

Kiku turned and ran, crushing the bloodstained chrysanthemums underneath his feet.

"Ah-!"

There was no field. There was no cliff. There was only a large Oriental-themed room and Kiku, sitting up on his borrowed bed, eyes wide.

A dream.

The Japanese sighed, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He hated those nightmares he had been having since the incident with Yao. Sometimes, when he turned, Yao would still be on the edge of the cliff, begging for help. The first few times, Kiku would not help, and Yao would fall and that inhuman scream would wake him up. But then the nightmare kept coming, and eventually he tried taking his brother's outstretched hand. But still he would slip away. The dream left him feeling guilty every time.

He decided not to think about it. There was nothing new about it, and there were definitely more important matters at the moment. He was lucky Yao still let him sleep at his place at all; the episode they had the previous night had made the Chinese rather irritable. They had gone to bed without speaking a word to each other.

After fixing himself up and putting on one of the rather comfortable yukatas Yao had found lying around for him, Kiku padded to the dining room, where he figured his brother would be waiting, along with breakfast. He was starving, after all. Yao had been too annoyed the previous night to bother preparing dinner.

The room was totally empty.

"Strange…" muttered Kiku to himself when he found the kitchen empty as well. His surroundings were quiet except for a few chirping birds outside. The rest of the house was likewise. There was not a single hint of Yao.

Once again, he had disappeared without a trace.

Shaking his head, Kiku decided to prepare his own breakfast. Yao could not have possibly gone very far, and he was famished. However, it eventually occurred to Kiku that Yao did not seem to possess a refrigerator of any sort. The kitchen shelves were empty of food, as well. How it was possible for Yao to survive like this escaped Kiku, but now that he was devoid of any hope of eating a decent breakfast at Yao's place, he decided he might as well set off for the rest of the island. He might be able to find Yao—or even better, the captain.

Devil's Island, in broad daylight, resembled heaven rather than hell. The trees blew pleasantly with the wind, and the waves lapped against the shore with a rhythmic tone. It looked like one of those tropical white-sand beaches on postcards, except few eyes had ever looked over its virgin sands, which made it all the better.

The wreckage from last night had totally vanished. No sign of Kiku's escort remained on the pristine white sand. It was if nothing had ever happened, like Kiku had been living on the island all his life. That would be sort of nice, if it weren't for the fact that he was completely isolated from the rest of mankind and stuck with his annoying older brother, who happened to be the only other known inhabitant of the island aside from him.

Finding nothing of interest on the beach, Kiku proceeded to scour the forest. He had no need to fear getting lost, for Yao's mansion perched on its high cliff could be easily seen from any point in the foliage.

Kiku had wandered around the forest fruitlessly for quite a while when he finally stumbled into a quiet grove composed of tall, thin-branched trees with bizarre fruits dangling off of them. Curiously, Kiku approached one. The fruits were wine red, slightly oval in shape, rough like an oversized lychee, and were speckled ever so slightly with a dusty yellow-green. Kiku was horribly hungry, and he would have loved to take a bite, but he didn't know whether the fruits were safe or not. Gingerly, he reached for the fruit closest to him. Perhaps if he took it back to Yao (if he could even find him), his brother would be able to tell him—

Whoosh.

Kiku stiffened. Slowly, nervously, his eyes wandered to the bark right next to his hand.

An arrow protruded out of the trunk.

"I dunno; I wouldn't pick that fruit if I were you, mister." The voice that greeted his ears was female, sweet and high-pitched though in a sardonic, teasing manner. "You know it's not allowed."

Kiku turned to face his assaulter.

The girl whose delicately carved wooden bow was aimed at his face grinned at him impishly. High above her head, two messily tied buns of her chocolate brown hair sat. She wore a short-skirted cheongsam with shorts underneath, and simple slippers that looked rather inconvenient for the forest. So there were other inhabitants, after all...increasingly curious. "Who are you?" asked Kiku.

"Me?" She frowned. "Mister, are you dense? Where do you live, under a rock? Geez."

He flinched at her wording. What an audacious girl. "I'm very sincerely sorry, but I really don't. I…I'm not from here…" For once, Kiku considered to possibility of the island being populated after all. But if that were the case, why did no one know of the island?

"Not from here?" She laughed. "Nice excuse, sir, but say that again and you'll get another arrow, except this time in your head."

What could he say, though? It wasn't a made-up excuse, and Kiku couldn't exactly pretend he knew what the girl was talking about. Perhaps she was crazy as well, although it seemed incredibly unlikely. "I…I really am sorry."

The girl sneered, clearly unconvinced, though she didn't loose any more arrows. She stomped towards him imposingly, unnerving Kiku even if she was considerably shorter than him. For one uncomfortable moment, the stranger stared right into his eyes. Kiku willed himself not to look away, or she would think he was lying.

"Really?" Her gaze intensified. Kiku only nodded.

At last, the intense scrutiny of her gaze dropped, and turned into guarded confusion. "You're telling the truth…" It was an unusually certain tone for a fact that could not be proven.

Kiku sighed heavily, allowing himself to lean against the tree behind him. She had finally believed him.

The girl spun around and put a hand to her chin, pacing around contemplatively. "Well. First of all," she began, "my name is Zhang Chun-Yan. And since I can sense that you're telling the truth, there's going to be a whole lot of explaining on both of our parts."

The surprise must have been evident on Kiku's face, because the alleged Chun-Yan raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Yes?"

"Zh…Zhang Chun-Yan…?" That was the name Yao had mentioned in his little fantasy tale! Could it have been true…?

"Yeah, Chun-Yan, as in spring swallow. Do you have a problem with my name, mister? By the way, what's yours?"

"Kiku. Honda Kiku…" His eyes were wide as he ventured, "Do you happen…happen to know any Wang Yao?"

At the mention of Kiku's brother, Chun-Yan stiffened visibly. Her eyes narrowed. "Where did you get that name?"

Deciding it was pointless—and possibly risky-to lie, and that there was nothing to lose anyway, Kiku muttered, "He's…He's my brother."

For a very short, almost nonexistent moment, Chun-Yan looked irrevocably shocked. But this emotion was immediately covered up by a mask of steel as the Chinese girl seized Kiku's arm and stared at him straight in the eye. "Mister Kiku," she said in a mockingly polite manner, "You are hereby coming with me."