Whispers in the Dark-Chp2

“Oi! Over here, boys!”

Yugi spotted Tea waving at them at the end of the parlour and waved back, running briskly towards her. The rest followed suit behind him, smiling and waving briefly at her as well before taking their seat. A few people in the parlour noticed them entering and had a hopeful smile on each and every one’s faces as they stole a glance at the five who were clad in their school uniform.

“Order whatever you want, boys. It’s on me,” Tea announced as she did her hair. Fashion personified, Tea Gardner was dressed in the nine with her black midriffs and denim jeans, with matching necklace and earrings and a pair of obviously branded high-heeled white sandals. Everything on her screamed high-classed from head to toe. As personal assistant and lover of Mai Valentine and one of the Immortals, she ruled over Domino Island throughout the ages as second-in-command and had been helping Mai to run the affairs of her people, personally meeting them and dealing with their daily problems and needs. She present them all to Mai to be evaluated and judged before she is given the instruction to do whatever Mai thought was best for the island. She was the messenger, the middle-man, the executioner of deeds and everything in between. No one really knew how old Tea really was, but Yugi did remember Tea was blessed as an Immortal when she was 16, and she was nowhere near the thought of revealing her true age, self-conscious as she was.

“Thanks, Tea,” Yugi beamed as he grabbed the menu to see what was in store. “You’re a saint.”
Yugi had always viewed Tea as his big sister. Solomon and her go way back when Solomon just started to be one of Mai’s many advisors, and Yugi had known her since he was a baby. Being the little miniature boy with body that screams feminine and facial features that were more beautiful than handsome, he was more than just a turn-on for every pure men that set eyes on him. Everyone desired him despite his tri-coloured spikey hair and dark ruby eyes that totally contrasted with his feminine looks. His parents were a tiny branch from the family tree under the late sorceror Gozaburo, and it was the magic that caused it to display the tri-colour hair. Both his parents worked as exorcists and had worked alongside with people from the Ethereal Clan to exorcise evil spirits that terrorized Domino Island, especially Bad Seeds, who were Outer Beings gone bad. When Yugi’s ‘mother’, a hermaphrodite before him, was pregnant with Yugi, a Bad Seed was released by a person who was obsessed with black cults and it wrecked havoc upon the island. Both Yugi’s parents managed to defeat the Bad Seed, but at the cost of their lives. Everyone thought Yugi would die in his ‘mother’s womb, but as the coroner performed the autopsy, Yugi miraculously survived, though premature, and was doted and almost spoiled rotten by Solomon, with Tea as his means of discipline, preventing him from being a spoiled brat.

“Got stuck with the ‘rite to manhood’ speech again, aren’t we?”

“Don’t even remind me!” Tristan groaned as he picked a meat-lover pizza set. “That old man’s been drilling us like it’s the 4th of July.”

Tristan, on the other hand, was an outspoken guy who speaks his mind like Joey does and wouldn’t settle for anything less. Being the jock of the school and head of many sport clubs, he reigned supreme over all those physically weak against them with his strong built and pointed brown hair with a dash of black on the tip. If he sees potential in anyone, he would drill them into perfection with questionable methods even a PE teacher wouldn’t dare recommend, yet in the end became a pioneer in bringing out the best in every athlete in school with their prestigious results in any sport competition held. But despite his brash and rude attitude, he was a softy within. Having fashion designers for parents, he refused to succumb into the world of prissy, sassy and sappy superficial lifestyle and put up a hard exterior to show that he was not someone to be messed with, but in private, he was a sucker for plushies and cute cuddly animals. Back at his home he had a whole collection of cuddly animals that he was unwilling to part with even though he was already 16, and he has two puppies and two kittens at home for pets, suffering his wrath of glomping and nuzzling everyday after school

“Well, technically, you can consider this a sort of 4th of July event, since it is, after all, the day everyone’s been waiting for.”

“I dinna hafta be told twice by someone other than m’parents,” Joey grumbled as he ordered the Hawaiian special pizza set, remembering the words his parents said to him when he was issued a formal letter to attend Solomon’s after-school lecture.

In truth, Joey’s parents weren’t exactly related to him of flesh and blood. He was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler when his real parents died when he was just a toddler. His ‘mom’ was also a hermaphrodite and had gone through the mating ritual with the Whisperers before marrying his father and gave birth to Joey. He recalled having a sister named Serenity—hermaphrodites can give birth to baby girls due to their double chromosome of XX and XY, but the girls are usually born barren due to the curse—but didn’t recall the night his ‘mother’, devastated by the fact that his father had committed suicide due to acute depression, threw his sister and himself into the sea to die, leaving Joey all alone unattended in his crib. When Tea and her secretary Miho made their rounds at Domino Island, he was found almost emaciated and near death. Mr. and Mrs Wheeler, who had always wanted a child but could not due to the Duelist Plague, was more than willing to take custody of Joey, and gave him their surname.

“Speaking of your parents, how are they?” Tea asked.

“Chipper ’s usual,” Joey replied in a mock sarcastic tone, “even tho Dad loves drinkin’ beer more than water and Mom bin ‘n obsessive-compulsive clean-freak perfectionist. At the rate they’re goin’, they’d be lucky they’re still a-livin’.”

“Observant as usual, I see,” Tea giggled, knowing that Joey never really mean it at heart whatever he said. “Just the ol’ Joey I know.”

“God, the seat of my pants hurt just sitting there and listening to all that rubbish. I mean, half of those things we pretty much know anyways through our parents. I don’t see the whole point of re-learning everything again,” Ryou said as he rubbed his butt before ordering his vegetarian pizza set.

Ryou was actually not from Domino Island, but from somewhere in England. His father was a traveling businessman who often loved to search for job opportunities where he can sell his wonderful merchandizes of worship and tribute to the Ethereal Clan. When he noticed that the focal point of most Whisperers were in Domino Island as their border were closer towards the Ethereal Clan and a starting point for all Whisperers, he immediately took his ‘mother’ and migrated there, setting up a stall there and had been there ever since. When his ‘mother’ gave birth to Ryou, he was sure that he had made the right choice to settle down in Domino Island as he had been praying for a blessing from the Ethereal Clan to bless Ryou with the power to conceive. Like Yugi, every inch of his body, from his silver hair to his sparkling brown eyes, to his polite stature and spoken words, to his almost feminine body structure, screamed beautiful, and was the object of everyone’s affection. If it weren’t the tougher men like Joey, Tristan and Malik to fight them off, Yugi and Ryou would’ve lost their virginities long before the mating ritual, as people require hermaphrodites to be virgin, pure and untainted.

“The whole point of re-learning those is to refresh your memories of what is to come,” Tea replied. “You’re all 16 now, at an age where you’re legal to be married without having parents consent. You guys bear the responsibility of the whole world in its quest to repopulate the world, and it’s been a while since we have more than 10 hermaphrodites who have come of age this year, what with the recent birth rate being only 3 hermaphrodites out of the 200 children born 5 years ago. Consider yourself lucky that you’re not hounded and overprotected like those 3 kids. I heard they were so overprotected that the parents won’t even allow them to set half a foot outside the door at all for fear of something happening to them.”

“OK, I guess that’s a consolation, sort of,” Malik said as he chose a 3-layer cheese pizza set.
Malik, as his name portrayed, was also as foreigner like Ryou. His parents were important middle-people between the Ethereal Clan and the human society. In fact, it was his Egyptian ancestor who was one of the representatives of the human society who made the deal with Maximillion Pegasus centuries ago, and was also one of the selected few to receive the gift of conception. His ‘mother’, after doing the ritual, fell in love with his father, who was a local in Domino Island, when he came to the island to clear his mind of his loss of his child who had to be taken by the Whisperers because it was Whisperer-dominant, and stayed in Domino Island as a permanent resident where he gave birth to Malik. Malik inherited his ‘mother’s dark Egyptian skin and purple eyes and his father’s silver blonde hair, and was rather rebellious, especially after he learnt from his parents of the fact that he was a hermaphrodite and a key to the future of human population. He often enjoyed hurting himself to make him remember that he was his own person and not some Golden Boy waiting to save the world. Although he never resolve to cutting himself like self-destructive people do when they’re depressed, he relished any challenge that can cause bodily pain, which includes picking fights and becoming Yugi and Ryou’s bodyguard against hormone-crazed pure men. The last time he hurt himself was going to a tattoo parlour where he picked intricate and detailed symbols from Egyptian sarcophagi and told the tattoo artist to tattoo all of them onto his back on the spot. It earned him a sound scolding and 2 months of grounding, but it was worth the pain.

Tea watched as the boys chattered among themselves and ate their fill. She noticed that these kids have been together since junior high after knowing of each other’s fate. She realized that they have a few things in common: One, they were hermaphrodites; two, they had hermaphrodites as ‘mothers’ who have gone through the mating ritual before marrying their fathers and gave birth to them; three, they were one way or another related to a Whisperer-dominant brother (as all children sired from a Whisperer are either pure male or hermaphrodite); and four, they were of the same age and the same puberty rate, with only a few month difference in between. They, along with the other 10 hermaphrodites, have come to age and prepared for the mating ritual and were some of the many young hormone-bathed teenagers who hate the idea of doing it with someone they didn’t know and bear the burden of the world on their shoulders, although there were a few minorities who were actually thrilled and impatient for this day to come. Every adult knew that it was too much to ask of these teenagers to do the one thing that they were supposed to reserve for the person they love, but to break the deal and the bond between humans and the Ethereal Clan is to ask for death for both themselves and their hermaphrodite children, and if they break the deal, humans will cease to exist and the world would plunge into the darkness of universal imbalance. It was a risk too high to chance.

“So, Tea,” Yugi asked, breaking Tea from her muse. “What is it that you want us to get from you?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Tea replied as she reached down to her handbag. She fished out five dangling dog-tags like those worn by soldiers during the war and gave them one each. The five took them and saw their names engraved on the tags and small teardrop-shaped casing stuck just below their names containing a ruby-coloured substance.

“What are these?” Tristan asked as he studied his dog-tag.

“Those are clearance pass to one of Ms. Valentine’s personal favourite spas, Domino Perfecture Spa and Beauty Saloon, where you all will be prepped and ready for tomorrow night’s ritual,” Tea replied. “You and the rest of your fellow hermaphrodites will be given special permission to be absent from school tomorrow and gather at the spa to be given state-of-the-art first class treatment and then go to Valentino Regalia Hotel, owned by our Ms Mai Valentine, of course, to be given designated rooms and then be approached by the Whisperers.”

“Oh, Tea, you shouldn’t have!” Ryou exclaimed, rather overwhelmed by the sudden red carpet treatment. “We can always prepare ourselves at home and all that. Our parents should know…”

“It’s compulsory for everyone, I’m afraid. It is a big event, and this is a big thing, so we have to prepare you guys as much as possible. It’s the least we can do for making you guys go through it. Everyone else has already taken their tag. I just feel it necessary to give them to you personally.”
“Woah, thanks, Tea! I mean, woah! Domino Perfecture Spa and Beauty Saloon and Valentino Regalia Hotel! This is way beyond awesome!”

“How do we know it’s foolproof?” Malik asked skeptically. “Anyone can just take our stuff and impersonate us. How can they confirm we are the right one?”

“Oh, it’s 100 percent foolproof alright,” Tea said as she pointed at the casing. “See that thing? It contains a sample of your blood where you have to run through a blood-scanning machine and will display detailed information about yourself, including your picture. Every hermaphrodite born is taken of their blood sample when they’re babies and their information updated from time to time, so there is no cheating the system. Even if you have someone do plastic surgery to look like you and let them use the tag, we will be able to know as they have to pass through a body-scanning machine as well to detect whether you are hermaphrodite or pure male. So don’t even think of any bright ideas, especially you three.”

Joey, Tristan and Malik grumbled silently as they pocketed their tags with a grudge. Tea didn’t need to be a genius to know that these three would be the first few who would want to look for a scapegoat.

“Miho and I will be personally supervising the treatment tomorrow, so I expect you boys to be there by 10am sharp,” Tea said, then looked at her watch and continued, “I gotta run now. Got a lot of paperwork to be done and spa services and hotel rooms to be booked. Enjoy your meal! See ya boys tomorrow!”

“See ya!” the five replied simultaneously as they watched Tea walking up to the cashier counter, flashing out her credit card and paying for their meal. It was definitely a privilege to be a woman these days where you can afford almost anything and do almost anything you want with the financial power and status you have, but all that and unable to truly experience a lifetime of not being able to bear the child of the person you love is definitely something you wish to forgo for all the gold in the world, and it was a plight the five could slightly feel for.

“I guess being a hermaphrodite does have its occasional perks,” Ryou said as he took out his tag and studied it again. “If being pampered from head to toe for a day before doing the big thing, it shouldn’t be so bad.”

“I thought you were with us, Ryou,” Malik said as he slapped his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you’re actually starting to like the idea of being screwed by a weirdo!”

“Well, no, but…if it’s for the good of the society, it shouldn’t be as bad as we think it is…”

“Don’t start going softy already!” Tristan exclaimed, almost startling everyone present in the parlour. He lowered his voice and continued, “We’re in it together, don’t you get it? We’ve made a pack to be Whisperer-haters for life! What’s the matter with you?!”

“Don’t be so hard on Ryou,” Yugi, the ever ‘friendship forever’ little munchkin, backed Ryou up. “I’m sure everything is very confusing for him right now, what with the upcoming ritual and the sudden red carpet treatment and all.”

“Yeah, well, you better get it through your straight little skull that we are not going to succumb to this sort of rubbish,” Joey growled. “As soon as those weirdo-s knock us up, we’re gonna pray to the Ethereal Clan that our kid would be Whisperer-dominant so that we don’t have to keep them. And I don’t care if it takes every day or every second to make it clear to them that we are not keeping the kids; I’m gonna do it!”

“You said it, Joey,” Malik said. “I’ll bring some extra prayer stuff from my parents to make it extra effective, and you too, Ryou!”

“O…OK…” Ryou replied, a little reluctant. He knew better than to incur Malik’s wrath.

Yugi just sighed, grinned a little and shook his head, thinking, ‘How the heck did I end up with them?’