***I'm happy a lot of people got tricked in the Twins Day thing. Well, Rin and Len's birthday is just around the corner phew... 5 years, huh. They grow up so FAST. T_T ***
Chapter 10: Story Telling
Day 6, 11:45 PM
"I brought you some food~" Kaito entered the cell and turned on the lights to the room. Len, who was still sleeping shielded his eyes and grunted as he sat up. "Sorry, I thought you'd be awake at this time of day." He settled down next to him, he wished he could give him something other than bread, but it can't be helped; it wasn't a first class cruise there, and even if there were it'd be hard to sneak in plates of food in a cell, a simple loaf of bread is easy to sneak in.
"Thanks for the food." Len started munching on his food when he noticed Kaito's eyes were fixed on something. Something that Kaito gave him on Day One, something he thought was some sort of box turns out to be an ordinary leather notebook, with a pen clipped at the side. "My cold is better now, I should be better by tomorrow or the day after. Really, you should have given the towel for me to dry off days before."
"So, you've been making use of that?" Kaito ignored the question, and tried to reach for the notebook; Len blocked him and slid his notebook on his pocket. "I don't even need to read it, I'm pretty sure it has poems of Rin in it saying you miss her, how you want to kill Mayu, things like that, right?"
"No, I don't write poems. I write what I feel like writing because that's all I can do in this damp cell." Sure, he wrote things about Rin in his notebook; it couldn't be helped, he can't get her out of his mind, but they're still not poems. "Anything interesting happened today?"
"I heard there was a thief on the kitchen. Any idea who?" Len stopped munching as he heard that for a second, though he continued eating anyway. "Don't play dumb with me, I saw you twitched."
"There should be nothing wrong with me on stealing a few things." He knew the conversation would go all long and serious so he stopped eating and put his loaf of bread on his lap, saving it for later. He'd wanted to talk about the matter with Kaito six days ago. "To be fair, they stole my freedom."
"Did it occur to you that if you get caught you won't make it shore in one piece?" From the looks of it, Len didn't seem to care about the problem at all. Kaito knew he wasn't the type that would do careless things without any good reason to it, so he must have a plan... What kind of plan is it which involved stealing bread?
"The missing loaf of bread and marmalade isn't the main objective to why I left my cell." He revealed a small notebook; it was rather thin that he kept it the whole time under his shirt. The book was colorful, bound by a red thread; in a way, it looked a tad bit familiar to Kaito somehow. "Do you know what this is?" Len handed him the book and gave him time to speed read through the pages. The second he realized what that book was, his eyes widened in shock.
"You stole Mayu's diary?!" He was so startled by it he couldn't keep his tone low, he had to shout at that. "A normal girl would be angry to hear this, but Mayu's another thing! Another sick psychotic thing!"
"She won't realize it's missing, the latest entry is January 1890, I'll sneak it back up later."
"No, no, no, you're not going to leave this cell until we reach shore, which is still eight days away. I can't guarantee your life if you keep leaving your cell and take big risks like this!" Kaito sighed out of frustration. "Why did you steal this thing in the first place?"
"I knew you'd refuse if I ask for information. Before I die I need to know more about her, it's one of the list of things I want to solve before I die!" The last time Len asked for information to Kaito, Ship of Fools "happened", it's better to look around on his own rather than asking it directly to Kaito himself.
"Well I have my reasons for keeping things away from you, and they're all... Reasonable reasons."
"Then explain this." Len took out his leather notebook. "Let's start with a simple question that's been bothering me for a while. Of all the things you could've given me, why did you give me this empty book? Of all things that could have been better, like a gun, you chose this."
"Entertainment purposes." He answered bluntly.
"You won't even open up to something like this, something that involves me. You expect me to ask someone like you for information about your boss?" Len snatched Mayu's thin diary back from him and put it back where it "temporarily" belonged, in his pocket. "This book is encrypted so it might take me a while to figure this out."
No sooner than later the two began to hear footsteps headed there. The footsteps sounded like heels, and only one person in the entire ship there wore heels. His lovely boss Mayu was headed right for them. Kaito distanced himself from Len, his head raced for alibis explaining what he was doing there, because if the reason isn't strong... He refused to imagine it, really. What was he doing here? "Feeding the prisoner, of course." he would answer casually. Unless she heard the part where he called her a sick psychotic thing, he could leave the cell alive.
His background settled, Kaito asked himself: what was she doing here? The footsteps then stopped followed by the door creaking right open. Mayu showed herself looking "cheerful" as usual; Kaito gave a sigh of relief, she didn't hear a thing. Or maybe, that's what she wanted him to think. There isn't one conversation with Mayu where Kaito doesn't feel like he's in a bomb disabling situation where you have to cut one of the many wires. Pull the wrong wires with Mayu and you're done for.
"Ah, Kaito, you're here!" She greeted warmly and closed the door tightly. It's almost been a week since Len had met Mayu, and he noticed Mayu was never away from that bunny doll of hers, it would always be on her hands, it's like a part of her clothes, since from his point of view the color matches well. "Another" thing he noticed about Mayu was how in the past six days she never visited him on the cell. Kaito told him "heads up", but she never came down to meet him. Was she the type of person who would come down without any reason?
"Just came here to give him bread, I guess I'll leave you two alone, then." Kaito said cheerfully and quickly left the cell, when Mayu took him by his right shoulder, which she gripped tightly, very, very, tightly. Her fingernails was sharp enough to leave mark on his skin. Do all girls have those fingernails that? That wasn't his main concern, he'd seen Mayu's nail polish before, she even mentioned it herself that there was a snake venom inside the cute magenta nail polish. "Do you still need something from me?"
"Yes, I want you to get something from me. I have this colorful book just below my desk, and it's bound by a red thread. Please be a dear and bring it here to the cell." Mayu let go of her grip, satisfied to see Kaito's reaction to that point. Even though it lasted only for a minute, she could see it from his eyes, and his throat too, he gulped upon hearing that. In the end, she just wanted him to admit it. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'll go get it in a minute. Anything else you need?"
"That's enough, take your time though! I just want to spend some quality time with prisoner number 1." Kaito gave a small nod before he left and Mayu turned to Len. She looked down at the wooden bars holding him there, holes, and scratches everywhere. "Really, I'd be more surprised to see you not doing anything. I was sure nothing sharp should be in your cell, how did you do that?"
"I find things here and there." Len refused to answer in complete details; he wanted to be as vague as possible. He was following her strategy, he wanted to be underestimated. In other words: strike when the least expected. "What are you doing here?"
"Hnn... I've been meaning to visit you, but I'm just so busy with paperwork and everything. This is past my usual bed time; I thought it'd be okay since it'd rain tomorrow morning. Nothing like sleeping through the rain, right?" Mayu tried to find a comfortable way on sitting down; she tried sitting cross-legged but her dress was in the way, crouching down wasn't an option that'd be un-lady like of her with such knee-high dress, so she decided to stand instead. "Anyway, can I ask you a favor?"
"What is it?" Len raised an eyebrow, he was curious on two things. One, "what is the favor?" and "why does she need his permission?" He's a prisoner trapped in a cell, he'd do it anyway without her asking!
"Take your pants off." She didn't bother to take the keys to the wooden bars, she entered anyway knowing Len broke the lock. Len stood up as she took a few steps closer. "Or I'll take it off for you!"
"Why?" He knew if he did any self-defense or even try to run away, Mayu would be ticked. Then again, if he does nothing... "What? If you want your diary back, just say it!" Len took her diary from pocket shirt and gave it to her, which she gladly accepted.
"Saying 'take your pants off' sounds more exciting, right?" She added with a grin.
"Exciting, huh..." He was expecting some sort of punishment, something everyone in the ship refused to imagine, but she was just grinning there on the spot. "Aren't you angry with me? That I took your diary?"
"Now that you mention it... I was a little worried, and I'll forgive you for it if you tell me one thing." Wow, Len shouldn't have 'mentioned' it. "I knew you escaped from your cell, I knew it was missing and everything, you were my prime suspect. Now, why did you steal it in the first place?"
"I want to know more about you." In a different time and place with different circumstances and atmosphere, that line would actually sound like some sort of pick up line. How else could he have said it?
"Awww..." She pinched his cheek out of "cuteness" and sighed. "You could've asked, I love telling stories! In fact, let me tell you a story about the time I was touring Asia." Mayu leaned her back on the wall and started her story telling.
"I visited a village, in a country's name I couldn't remember, it happened just last spring, if I'm not mistaken. While I was strolling around, I noticed a... Let's say, "black market", so I entered the place. There, I saw a man carrying a baby, let's pretend my left hand is the man, and this bunny doll is me." She started to move her doll and her left hand around like puppets. "I said to the man, 'what an ugly baby you have! I thought all babies were cute!'. He was fine with it, for some reason. So I asked again, 'Is that your baby?' instead the man ignored me! I was really angry at him so I told a few of my men to arrange an accident for him."
"Moving on, a lot of people were carrying ugly looking babies in the "black market" I was in. I asked another man, 'excuse me sir, am I in the right place? I'm supposed to be in a black market but everywhere I go, I only see babies!' That kind looking man thought I should 'see it for myself', so I followed him down the corridor, and entered the room that said 'operation room'. I figured the building was formerly a hospital. Until this point, can you guess what'll happen next?" She said eagerly and waited for Len to answer.
"You were in the wrong building the whole time?" Len reluctantly guessed. "Why are you telling me this anyway?"
"No, no, it was nothing like that! I was in the right building the whole time, the destination in mind was a drug distributing a company, I wanted to be friends with that organization, you see. As I was saying, that kind looking man with the baby led me to an operation room, and what happened was... Come on, guess!"
"I don't know." Or more like, Len didn't want to know.
"Corpses, corpses everywhere. I've never been bothered with the smell of corpses, so I examined it closer. Men in white, with small taints of red in their jackets, doctors with their scalpels and knife, ah, it's a view I've never seen before. So you see, this is how you do it. They kill; mostly children or toddlers, then they use their bod-"
"Enough, I don't want to hear anymore." Len put his hand over her mouth, and Mayu pouted in response.
"Well, what would you want to hear? I know a lot of things, a lot of stories, I'm in a chatty mood so don't waste this chance!" In a way, Mayu was right. Len shouldn't waste the chance on hearing stories. He just didn't want to hear... Those gruesome stories, that's all. "I'll count to ten and if you can't think of a topic I'll leave~"
"Tell me the story when you and Kaito first met, and how he became a... Member here." Mayu haven't even started counting and Len was ready with an answer. There were too many things he didn't know about Kaito, and especially about Mayu, and even though he didn't have enough time left (eight more days to be exact), he still wanted to know. "He'll never tell me, I know that."
"It's not an interesting story, but if you say so..."
## ## 1885
"Excuse me Mayu; I'd like to submit my list..." Someone knocked on the door to Mayu's "office" room three times. "Are you in?"
"Come in, come in!" Feeling rather annoyed, Mayu opened the door and continued. "What's your name again? Lui, right? Have you ever seen a day where I'm not in this room at this time of day?"
"...Am I in trouble?" He asked, desperately hiding his shaky voice.
The first time he entered the room, seven weeks ago, he smirked and commented about the cute colorful decor, so bright with the puffy chairs, pink silk carpets and paintings. A rack full of dolls was hung up just above the white desk, which would be Mayu's seat, and his. Like many other people there, he underestimated her and he had to learn that the hard way. Lui remembered exactly what her boss said that time, "since this is your first punishment, let's make it memorable so you won't do it again." He shivered, not wanting to go through another punishment with Mayu in mind ever again.
"You're not in trouble, just listen to my story." Lui sat right in front of her and waited patiently, it's not every day her boss would invite him and talk. He was still trying to figure out whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. "What do you think is the easiest way to rule the world?"
"Uh, in a dictatorship kind of way? Declare war to all the countries?" It won't be easy, wars are a waste of money, bullets, and lives; but he had no other idea in mind. What's with the question anyway?
"Wars are too troublesome, come on, I'll give you a clue. A way to make people think day is night, and night is day." Lui sat there dumbfounded, if he couldn't come up with an answer he'd... He'd...
"I don't know."
"That's what everyone said to me today!" She sighed again with annoyance in her voice. It must be that time of the month for her. "Now I'm in a bad mood, I'm going out for a walk." Lui watched as she left the room, still the same question in his head, why would a fifteen year old want to rule the world in the first place?
"And then I left my office, I went to a candy store and bought a few sweets." Mayu yawned and rubbed her eyes. "I don't feel chatty anymore, this is past my bedtime... I'm going to sleep..." She stood up; Len, disappointed with the story (the story hadn't moved anywhere!) grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
"You haven't told me the full story yet!" She frowned; Len acted without thinking, and he let go of her wrist as soon as he got a hold of her. He remembered the story Kaito told him about someone who forgot to "bow". He was suffering enough in the cell as is. "Have pity on me, I'm going to die in eight days."
"If you're so curious, next time Kaito comes, ask him the same question I asked to Lui and he'll answer for sure." Before Mayu left the cell, she stopped and pondered a little bit. "If he refuses to tell the story, tell him he'll be in big trouble."