The Assassin Who Loved Me
Rokesmith

Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, it's characters, indices etcetera belong to Takehito Koyasu, Kyoko Tsuchiya and Project Weiss. This fanfic was written for fun rather than profit and any resemblances to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The story is inspired by Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me, which is property of Penguin.

Author's Note: This story is dedicated to Vivienne Michel, who showed the way, and Raven and Cat, who pointed out the hazards.

Part One: Youji Kudou

The first time I saw Youji Kudou, I was more interested in his car.

I was working in the reception of an auto shop that specialised in keeping old, mostly foreign, cars running. It was just like any other reception job, but I'd picked up a bit about cars while I was there too. I hadn't done anything that afternoon. It was a slow day and the boss hadn't come out of his office since lunch. At least I had Keiko to keep me company.

The sound of his car interrupted our conversation. Keiko was in the middle of telling me how she was sure her boyfriend was going to ask her to marry him soon, and I was telling her that twenty-three was too young to get married, and that she should have time to have some fun first. We both knew what a classic car sounded like by now, and this sound ticked all the boxes. It was louder than a normal engine, and like a chain of sounds rather than one indistinct rumble. It sounded like a really large kettle boiling.

I'd never seen a car like this one before. Most of the ones that came in were big heavy American or European cars made during the fifties and the sixties that didn't move very fast anymore because they weighed so much. This one was tiny, just a cabin, space for the engine and the wheels sticking out to the sides. I couldn't even see a roof.

The driver looked as good as his car. He was very tall, long blond hair and wearing sunglasses. He walked confidently out of the car into reception, pushed down his sunglasses and met my eyes. I knew that look, a lot of guys had tried it on me, but this one was doing it right, just the right amount of interest and charm. He gave Keiko a less direct, more honestly friendly smile, which she returned as quickly as she could then looked back down at the desk.

He leaned on the desk and looked straight into my eyes over his sunglasses. "Hi."

"Hi." I smiled back at him. "That's a beautiful car."

"You must see a lot of beautiful cars working here," he said.

I shrugged. "Nothing like that."

"It is special." He nodded. "A Lotus Seven Series Two from 1965. My uncle had it shipped all the way from England in kit form and then assembled it himself. He even had some improvements made to the engine that nearly doubled the power. He always loved it, drove it as often as he could. Of course it kept breaking down; he said it was designed by a genius who'd been assisted by madmen."

I giggled. "How'd you get it?"

"My uncle died." He said, then held up his hand before I could speak. "It's alright, everyone says sorry. I always loved the car, so he left it to me. For a while I just wanted to leave it in storage, but that's not what he wanted. So I'm going to enjoy it as much as he did, but I need to make sure everything's working as well as it can."

"Of course," I nodded. "Sasaki-san is in his office, if you'd like to talk to him personally."

"Thank you very much," he said. "I'm very grateful. My name is Youji Kudou."

"I'm Hanako," I told him as I rang up to Sasaki-san's office.

Sasaki-san sounded very enthusiastic about Youji and his car. He asked if it still had its original Ford side-valve engine, a question I had to repeat to Youji. Sasaki-san was even happier to hear that the whole car was still made entirely from Lotus components. Youji gave me a promising smile and went up to talk to my boss himself.

I smiled happily at Keiko. "That was different."

"Different?"

"You need to pay more attention," I told her. "Almost every guy who's come in here has told me all about his car like I'd know exactly what he's talking about just because I'm the receptionist here. A lot of them are really nice, but I keep turning them down because I don't want to spend an entire date listening to a guy talk about his car. I get enough of that at work. He didn't call the car 'she' either."

"At least you know Hideo wouldn't talk about cars," she said.

I sighed. She'd brought this up more than twenty times now. Hideo was a nice enough guy, he was the youngest of the three company accountants, and we both knew he liked me. Every time we bumped into each other he'd smile and tell me how nice I looked, he noticed when I changed my hair or bought a new dress, and he always asked me how my college studies were going. He hadn't asked me out yet, maybe he'd heard the sort of guys I'd dated and didn't think I'd say yes. I didn't think I would either.

"I bet Youji wouldn't talk about cars either," I responded.

Keiko looked a bit upset and went back to her work. I knew she liked the idea of me with Hideo. He sounded a lot like her boyfriend, who was a junior factory manager. I got the feeling that anything Hideo knew about me he had learned from her.

Ten minutes later, Youji came back down and leaned on the desk. "Your boss is nice. I'm very glad I found out about this place."

"How did you find out about us?" I asked.

"A friend of my uncle's told me about it," he said. "Tetsuya Abe. Do you know him?"

I looked over at Keiko, who shook her head. I just shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," Youji continued. "Anyway, he drives a 1960 Mercedes 220 SE, one of the last they ever made, he says, and told me this place would give the Seven all the care and attention it deserves."

"It certainly is a beautiful car," I said.

He smiled. "I'll take you for a drive some time."

"Sure." I handed him my card.

He took it, slipped into his front pocket, and handed over his own.

Then he bent close and whispered in my ear, "It's a shame that a girl called Hanako doesn't have a single petal to show for having such a pretty name."

Before I knew what he was doing, Youji had put his hand into his inside pocket and produced an orchid, just like a magician. He slipped the flower into my hair above my ear, then gave me one last smile and walked back towards his car. I'm glad he didn't look back or he'd have seen me blush.

I managed to wait until he had gotten back into the car and driven away before starting to giggle like a schoolgirl. I looked over at Keiko and saw she was laughing too. I pulled the orchid out of my hair, just to make sure it was real, and asked Keiko the same question she was asking me.

"Who keeps flowers in their coat?"

* * *

Nothing happened for the rest of the day, but after Keiko got to go back home to her boyfriend, I had to stay late. Every month one of us had to stay after work and make sure all the files were in the right order. This time it was my turn and I wanted to do it then so I could go out and have some fun on Friday. It's the kind of paperwork I've been able to do in my sleep since I was eighteen. I've done it so many times it puts me to sleep too, spending hours staring at every little piece of paper and making sure it was in the right place. I'd started at the bottom and gone all the way through the cabinets. It was getting late when I finally got to the end, but as I started to wake up I realised something weird. I went back through the files and checked twice, just to be sure, but it was still there. Or rather, it still wasn't there.

There wasn't a file on Tetsuya Abe.

I thought Youji had got the name wrong, but he'd sounded really sure about the name and the car. I made myself finish checking the other files, but I couldn't forget about the Abe file. Tonight it was my responsibility to make sure all the files were in order and I didn't want to risk a good job for five minutes of checking.

The first thing I did was look on the computer, but there wasn't an Abe file there either. We didn't have any customers with the first name Tetsuya either, or a 1960 Mercedes. Now I was starting to wonder about Youji, why he'd make it all up, but I wanted to do one last check, just to be sure. I think it was just to make sure Youji wasn't crazy.

I knocked on Sasaki-san's door, but there was no answer. It was unlocked, so I just went in. None of us were supposed to go into his office, but I just wanted a quick look into the filing cabinet in his office where he kept a backup copy of all of the files.

All I had to do was open the cabinet to find Tetsuya Abe's file. It wasn't even locked. It was so easy I wasn't sure what to do next. But when I looked inside it, there was just one piece of paper, and all it had on it was Abe's name, address, and a few details about his car. It was so strange, every other file I'd seen had at least one set of receipts in there for having something done to the car, even if it was just giving it a check over. I thought it might have been a mistake or something, but when I looked through the files, I found four more which were just the same, just a name, address and car details. None of them had been in the filing cabinet in the main office.

I didn't know what to do. I could have told Sasaki-san about this, but these were his files and he must have a reason for organising them like this, and I would have to admit I'd been in his office without his permission. I could have waited and asked Keiko, but if Sasaki-san found out she'd known and not told him, her job would be at risk too. Or I could do nothing, put all the files back, hope no one noticed and not tell anyone. I managed to convince myself that this was what was best, after all, this was Sasaki-san's business and it was not my place to question how he organised his files.

So I put the files back as carefully as I could and hoped that Sasaki-san wouldn't notice.

Then I heard footsteps in the office outside and the door started to open. I shoved the tray back into the cabinet and turned towards the door as Sasaki-san walked in.

"What are you doing in here?" He demanded.

"Sasaki-san." I bowed hurriedly, trying not to look frightened even though my heart was racing. "I was just organising the files and I saw your office door was open but there was no light inside so I came in to check if everything was alright. I'm very sorry."

Sasaki-san watched me, and I knew he knew I was lying. I was about to make some more excuses when he looked at the filing cabinet next to me. He strode forward and I had to jump back to get out of his way. The top draw wasn't quite closed, and I nearly burst into tears. He pulled the draw open so hard that it nearly came off the runners. The Tetsuya Abe file was sticking up at an angle. I hadn't had time to put it back properly.

"What did you see?" He asked.

"Nothing, Sasaki-san," I said.

"Tell me the truth!" He shouted.

"Please, Sasaki-san..." I whispered.

I was really frightened now. I tried to get past him, but he blocked my way. I didn't want anything except to be out of that office, so I tried to push past him. He caught my arms and he wasn't a big man but he held them so hard it hurt. I screamed for help and tried to pull free, but he held on tightly. I screamed again and kicked him as hard as I could. He grunted and shoved me backwards, and I fell.

I felt my head hit the desk on the way down. My head felt like it was on fire and then my skull exploded as I hit the floor. I wanted to scream but nothing made sense anymore. The pain only lasted a second, then I was glad to pass out.