Disclaimer: Not mine, Weiss Kreuz is.
Notes: For SkyRat for Christmas. Her request was non-angsty Aya/Yohji.
Yohji Introduction
About…ten steps to my right, directly behind the counter, counting out bills for the old woman buying tulips. Yep, right there. That's him.
Deadly frown, unbelievably pale skin, eyes to break your heart? Very much him.
Shies from contact, friendship, and people in general? Oh, yes.
Main goal in life is to become a hermit? Sigh. Unfortunately, also yes.
Person for whom I've recently developed a puzzling but very intense concern? Ay, there's the rub, as a long-departed playwright once remarked.
The rub, indeed. I don't usually go for, well, anyone who isn't a buxom, sexy, adult woman, which he certainly isn't, but…I just suddenly feel very concerned about how he's doing, what he's thinking, everything about him. Dumb, right? I know.
So, he's definitely not one of my usual buxom female types, and I don't like men in general. I guess I'm not really into men at all, just him. Still, I can't say I'm really all that into the women I go with normally, just the one I actually cared about. I obsess over who I do, and I usually don't concern myself over stupid things like genders. And lately, my mind has been on my antisocial not-interested-in-anyone friend more than is normal, or even healthy.
What can I say? I like pretty, unattainable things. I obsess over said pretty, unattainable things. I then self-destruct when I cannot have the aforementioned pretty, unattainable things. This was once limited to just one woman who I like to say I truly loved, though I don't have much to compare. Unfortunately, my bad habit has now spread to one woman I'm pretty sure I loved, and one ultra-reclusive man I get bafflingly more concerned with every day.
This is a problem.
Especially the hermit bit.
What to do, what to do…
Aya Introduction
Yohji's drifting again.
The only reason I notice this is because Omi and Ken don't drift. Yohji's always drifting. Sometimes I wonder what he's thinking about.
…Until I realize it's probably about whatever club or bimbo he plans to try next. Then I scowl at him.
I scowl a lot.
I do this because it helps me maintain to everyone, myself included, that I don't care about things. Because I have a horrible habit of caring way too much about things that I shouldn't care about.
Weiss, for one. They weren't supposed to be my friends, just teammates and housemates. I guess it's not easy to keep as wide a berth as we all kind of wanted to when we're responsible for each other's lives every day. It's gotten to the point where I actually kind of worry about Omi and Ken, and even that loser Yohji. They're all very unique in their own, strangely likable ways.
Yohji really caught me by surprise. He seemed like he'd be obnoxious, and he is, but you can't help liking him around even while he's being obnoxious.
Wait. I don't like Yohji. I tolerate him. He's not so obnoxious that I have beyond a mild desire to kill him.
All right, I do like Yohji. A little. When he's being kind and helpful and polite and decent. Which is…basically never. Fine, fine. I like Yohji when he's being kind and thoughtful, that better? Sometimes he does nice things for the rest of us, or he tries to keep his personal issues away from us to maintain his sort-of "big brother" role. We all see through him, but somehow the thought of him trying for our sakes manages to get him off my nerves.
All right, fine, I like Yohji more than a little. He watches my back on deadly pause-and-you-die missions nearly every night. I have to trust him, and trust usually leads to some form of bonding, right? Right. Though…I don't have the same feeling with Omi and Ken. I mean, I kind of like them, but I really don't concern myself with what they're daydreaming about while working at the store. Obviously this means something.
All right, so maybe I like Yohji a lot.
…
Holy crap.
An Unordinary Afternoon
It was a regular occurrence, Ken thought, for Yohji to ooze about the flower shop, electing to flirt with Aya instead of do work. It was, Ken continued with his train of thought, a regular occurrence for Omi to ignore the two of them and simply keep working. But, Ken decided, it was certainly not a regular occurrence for Aya not to be threatening Yohji. Instead, Aya was—
"Hey, Aya," Yohji queried, his lips curving into a slightly seductive smile.
Aya's face seemed to be turning slightly towards the red side of the spectrum.
Ken exchanged a glance with Omi. Aya was turning pink instead of quietly threatening Yohji with the fate of sushi? When had the world ended, and why had they not been informed?
Granted, Ken thought, the rest of the afternoon was quite interesting too. At some point Yohji surprised them all and worked for a while. After which, Yohji's flirting grew worse and more obvious, and Aya just kept flushing and trying to ignore him, until—
"Aaaaaya. You've got flower petals all over your face." Yohji brushed a few off with his fingers.
And then, Aya smiled. Not, you know, nicely, Ken grumbled to himself. Aya was smiling kind of scarily. Like a predator.
"I believe, Yohji, so have you." And there was reverse-direction brushing of petals with fingers.
And it was definitely Yohji's turn to turn colors. Aya looked certifiably smug.
Ken wondered that the store was still in business. Then again, Persia probably called in people to keep it going or something.
During the afternoon schoolgirl rush, a group of girls were avidly reading about chakras, and talking in Hushed Whispers and Giggles (Ken was certain girls sometimes talked in Giggles, which was a language he didn't understand but Omi could sometimes decipher) about each of the flower-boy's chakras. (The girls tended to enjoy coming up with new mystical magical things to use on Weiss. Last week had been fortune telling, and the week before that they'd discovered ouija boards.) One of them had grabbed Omi momentarily and was pointing out chakras and enthusiastically debating the color of his aura with her friends. Omi finally pushed her gently away and ran behind the counter, where he kept his head down and typed at the cash register.
The chakra girls ran over to Aya and Yohji, who were at least pretending to work, since otherwise they would be mauled by adoring fans. (Well, thought Ken, they were about to get mauled anyway.) The girls debated for a while, but then subsided into blushing and Giggles. Ken was lost, but he heard something about the last chakra point, two charts, and souls.
And…gonads.
He wasn't aware schoolgirls nowadays used that word so freely. In public. In front of a bunch of guys.
Their words and Giggles eventually connected into a sentence.
Apparently, they had two chakra charts, and one of them claimed the last chakra point was in the gonads. The other claimed it was the seat of the soul.
Naturally, the schoolgirls had concluded that the seat of the soul must be in the gonads.
Ken hid his horrified flush. Why were they talking about gonads in the store? And, oh god, in range of Yohji, who most certainly would find this much too entertaining for anyone's good.
"I must just have a really nice soul then," Yohji muttered with a wink to Aya, who snorted.
Ken weighed the balance of good vs. evil Yohji. On the one hand, Yohji had, in fact, overheard the discussion about the seat of the soul, which meant bad perverted jokes were a-coming. On the other hand, Aya had snorted. As in, showed he was still capable of finding things amusing.
After the weighing, Ken decided to let Yohji go on that one. Anyway, the fangirls were leaving, and that made things better already. Except—
"Hey, Aaaaya, wanna talk about spiritual stuff? I can reveal to you the seat of my soul!"
"...how do you make everything sound dirty?"
Yohji made an innocent face. "I said nothing dirty, Aya! You must just have a dirty mind...not that I mind." He winked again.
Ken covered his face. Who knew that when Aya and Yohji had finally decided to get along, they would get along like this?
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Aya demanded, only half-threatening.
"We-ell…I wouldn't say no if I got hit on by someone like you, babe."
What had he done, oh God? Ken demanded of his (rather sadistic) creator. Would he have to suffer through this kind of behavior forever? Would Aya and Yohji keep making attempts to flirt whilst ignoring their work and Ken and Omi's sanity? Would—
"Would you two STOP DANCING IN CIRCLES and just SCREW EACH OTHER ALREADY?!"
Wait, thought Ken. That's not my voice. That's…
Omi. Who looked quite annoyed at his fellow members as he continued to castigate them, his shrill, irritated voice rising in volume every few words. "I can't WORK with you two making passes at each other all day! I'm TRYING to COUNT our PROFIT, which is really NOT a profit because you two were too distracted to WORK all DAY."
Ken looked around a bit. Aya and Yohji were still staring dreamily at each other, though even they, in the thickness of their skulls, have finally noticed angry Omi. "Guys?" he addressed them. "I think poor Omittchi finally snapped...maybe you two should do as he says." Ken nodded, as if to give them a hint that he is saying something important, even moreso than their mutual flirtation.
Aya and Yohji both gave disturbingly similar sly smiles (Cheshire Cat style) and then slipped silently and quickly out the door.
Omi was still standing despairingly at the cash register, staring at the money in the box. "Omi-kuuuuun...don't be like that," Ken teased, poking him in the arm.
"Ken-kun, I can't take it anymore," he sighed as he grabbed Ken for a comforting hug.
Me neither, Omi, Ken thought to himself.
"Let's hope they'll be better tomorrow," he said aloud. "Maybe they'll get it out of their systems?"
"They're going to be together, now, Ken-kun," Omi grumbled through his shoulder. "That means they're going to flirt and blush and be all icky and mushy and, and…schoolgirly, and then they're going to angst and doubt and get jealous and angst and fight and oh the angst, and it's going to be just like high school all over again!"
Omi, Ken realized, was right.
They were doomed.