Yohji has an affair of sorts, Aya is trying, Omi and Ken are off hunting, Crawford says 'never', and for once, Schuldig agrees... Some references to 'Fading Light'.
Aya Is Trying(Yohji)
Aya is trying to make love. "Yoh... Yohji, let me hold you," he whispers, clinging feverishly to my shoulders, "let me..." He fumbles down between us to open the fly of my jeans, then his head snaps up so quickly I barely have time to turn my face aside to avoid a knock against my jaw. He grabs my chin and turns it back, his lips on mine in a kiss that is almost a bite, possessive and snarling. All or nothing. So very Aya.
He rips off our clothes; I let him. His hands are eager, vehement, his breath comes in harsh little puffs, his teeth – small and sharp – graze where his lips touch, suck, his tongue lapping a soothing trail after the bites, travelling from my face over my neck, my chest, my belly and – ohhh... He is in one of his moods, I can tell.
My fingers remember every square inch of his skin: cool where the air touches it, heated and sweaty where it was hidden under layers of teflon and leather, smooth, soft, and scarred in places. My senses remember his scent, a sharp mixture of steel and leather, mingling with the stench of blood after missions and the aroma of pine needles when he has showered and slips under the bedcovers to me.
To me.
He is trying to make love, and he is rough and clumsy and in a hurry for he feels naked when he does this even when he has not shed any of his gear, his soul bare because he cannot help but wanting, longing, taking even if it is in a frantic rush – Aya chasing after his runaway self, who is trying to reach completion before he gets a hold over his desires again. It is always a struggle between caresses and hitting, kissing and biting, wanting, so much wanting to love, and too much loathing. For himself and the world per se. Sometimes I think that includes me, too.
I'll have my hide to show for it in the morning, but I cannot fight him as I should. I can take it alright, and I don't want him broken more than he already is, and perhaps, one day, he does away with all this and is just himself: Ran whom I love. For I cannot let go of hope, for his sake, for mine, for Omi and for Ken. How could we be without hope?
This is why Aya thinks I'm stupid.
xxx
"Hope!" Schuldig yelped, and he laughed and laughed, wiped tears off his face and damn near choked as he gasped for air, still laughing as though he had completely cracked up.
I could have killed him for that.
"Would you want to know your future?" he asked then, still yapping for air this evening that seems an eternity ago, into the breathing of the sea against a sandy beach. A trunk of bleached driftwood hard against our backs to prop us up, his bright copper hair blowing into my face. I meant to wipe the strands off and my fingers caught in the softness. Much softer than Aya's wiry mane. And he, damn him, snuck his arm around my waist and leaned against me, his head on my shoulder, and why the hell did I let him?
"No," I said, "I don't want to know." And he chuckled, laid back his head and stared up at the darkening sky. It was grey and heavy with rain, the first droplets riding the breeze, hitting our faces, splashing into nothingness on cool, dank skin. He felt warm, familiar. The familiarity of an old adversary, but it was better than nothing that evening on the beach.
"Brad knows the future," Schuldig murmured, an odd half-smile on his thin lips. He can't really smile, all he ever manages is something close to a grimace of disdain, except...
Once I saw him smile, a true, open, relieved smile, with his eyes closing in an expression of utter bliss – when I was inside him and my wire nearly cut his throat. Why did I do that? What made me follow him that night, into his dumpy apartment, with Farfarello breathing his displeasure outside the locked door?
Because I made a deal? Aya's life in return for my favours? I'm pragmatic, not one to keep a promise if it's stupid. Perhaps I gave in because Schuldig threw himself at me? Others do that, and I don't fall into their bed. It scares me to think of the other logical explanation – I never wanted to believe that we are two of a kind. He is crazy, after all, the lot of them are. Schwarz are mad; we are the normal guys.
Right.
So why did I go with him?
He wasn't even a good shag. Too tense, too intense, too cruel, too unhappy. Babbling about Crawford, Farfarello, Nagi, even while we slept with one another. I could not stand it, and he shut up until we were through at least, and then he had a bloodied throat and difficulties speaking, and I swung out of the window into the rain-dark street because Farfarello wanted to murder me for cutting Schuldig's white neck.
Schuldig wanted to end it like that: Crawford in his mind, me in his body, my wire round his throat. He wanted to be finished with his headaches, the darkness, his panic every time someone mentions Rosenkreuz, and the way he can never gather his mind enough to know what is his own and what belongs to others. His mind is adrift, like scattered autumn leaves on a whitewater river.
I refused to do him the favour.
I do not like to remember this.
And there, on the beach, with the chill of night creeping in on the breeze, I asked him whether Crawford had told him his future. He gave me a glance that was terrified and mocking at once, in a way only he can mingle the least matching emotions, and laughed out loud, "Hell, no, but I don't need foresight to know."
He was laughing too much that evening, even for his own mad standards. He gave me the creeps. So we drove home when it began to drizzle because he said he hated the rain, and I had enough.
He is always too intense.
xxx
Rain. To most people it means tears, or abandonment... Asuka died when the cherry blossoms in the park were like pink sugar foam, sprayed rich and thick over spidery black branches. Days so blue and sunny nothing bad could possibly happen, and nothing had happened... nothing at all, for it seemed incongruous that a single shot had lodged a slug of lead in her chest, ruptured her heart in a deluge of blood that gushed over my hands that were holding her, protecting her, wiping away the evidence of what had happened, trying to rewind the film, make it an out-take and re-set the scene...
Days with glassy light, clear and sunny, with small wispy clouds drifting through the endless sky and the breeze washing away the city smog for once. Rare days. Beautiful days. Like those that make me want to do nothing at all but walk around and perhaps slump down on the damp grass of a meadow, with the night's rain still glittering on the soft blades, and breathe in the lightness and the aroma of moist earth and let life be.
We were walking along, arm in arm, admiring the blossoms, laughing – she always laughed about my saucy jokes, and I could not stop looking at her, she was radiant, what a downtrodden word but I cannot find a better one, her eyes shining at me happily and I could read deep down the promise of what we would do later, when we got home and would tumble onto the carpet, already in a tangle of limbs and clothes. She loved me, she was passionate and pretty and hot, and we would try things that made the Kamasutra look positively tame...
When we got home, the answermachine of our telephone was blinking, and we had a message asking us to urgently complete this job we had taken on some time ago.
It seemed untrue that she should die on the night that followed such a day. Bathing my hands in her blood, giving me her last bit of warmth, her last glance, the last breath that hissed from her lungs. She did not die lightly, she struggled, she was in pain, I could tell, yet it was over in a matter of moments, a scrap of eternity burned into my mind. Forever. She is forever dying in my mind on days like this, when the cherry petals are drifting on a blue breeze like snow in summer.
It should have been me.
A lot of people are sad when it rains.
I like the rain.
xxx
Aya slept with me, and he got up early the next morning. I crawled out of our rumpled sheets after him. Making an effort. I don't like his snide remarks about me always being sluggish. I am not when it matters.
I dressed, jeans and tee would do for now; I combed and preened a bit, to no avail it seemed because when I got into the kitchen, Omi ran his gaze over me, sharp blue eyes analysing me as though I were one of his computer programmes, and I knew he had catalogued every mark, every scratch, every bump on my hide. He smiled, but the smile on his soft face was cool and detached, and a tad disapproving.
He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, I winked at him. "Had a good night, chibi?"
Predictably, he blushed furiously – he might be sleeping with Ken noisily enough for all of us to get a piece of their doing, but he does not like things like that being discussed. In what he considers public, with Ken loitering at the kitchen table, a somewhat smug smile on his lips, in his eyes that fondly rest on his partner, and with Aya leaning stiffly against the windowframe, a cup of tea in one hand, the morning paper in the other.
Well, I don't like being discussed in public either. What they do behind my back is their game.
xxx
The day was too sunny for my liking, but I was scheduled to do the deliveries. One of them to an address on the outskirts of the city, in an area where ordering expensive flower arrangements was not common practice. So I was not entirely familiar with the layout of the streets, and had to search around a bit for the address, and even though I was suspicious, we cannot afford to be paranoid like this...
Schuldig was waiting for me when I got out of the delivery van, and I all but threw the arrangement of dahlias at him. "Idiot," I snapped when he sidestepped the pretty missile and waved the money at me.
"C'mon, Bali," he said, his clear eyes laughing and mocking and sizing up my mood, "I'll pay for them alright, so don't get all worked up."
I clambered back into the van. "What is it with you that you're stalking me?"
"Nothing," he shrugged his narrow shoulders and tossed his copper mane, "I needed some company, is all."
Great. He regards me as his toy, his cry-bag, his whatever...
He stepped closer, eyes sharp and with that oddly lost expression that is so him, even through his laughing grimace and his games, even when he kills, damn him for it. And suddenly, I couldn't care less, for Aya had shown me the cold shoulder once again after a night of sex, and there's only so much I can take of the silent treatment. It seems Schuldig knows. He knows too much, anyway, and beyond the headaches that never leave him, and his nasty habit of playing around with people until they fall to bits, he has an odd kind of sensitivity for those he likes. The ones that are tough enough to stay in one piece through his mean little games.
Maybe that's why his team mates dubbed him Mastermind.
And I am still not sure whether I should be flattered or scared that he seems to have included me in the tiny circle of people he likes to play with.
He wants me to spend the night with him, and it's not what it seems, for mostly he will be content talking or smoking, or just sitting still, leaning against me. He is weird.
It Was A Beautiful Morning(Aya)
Yohji had gone out for the night. He had stayed out. That's fine by me, even if I don't know where he had gone, or what had ticked him off this time; he can be so skittish it makes me itch. It was a bit odd that he had taken the delivery van, but sometimes he does that, and I think he uses it as a convenient fucknest. I hate it when he does this.
I did not sleep well, but when I woke from the light shining through the bamboo blinds of my room, it was a beautiful morning, still and cool beneath the bustle of the city, the layers of smog drifting in the breeze. Mornings like this remind me that I am still alive.
I had the morning to myself and spent it in my room, reading, and I just knew I would be working the afternoon shift on my own. When he takes the van out for his escapades, he tends to stay out longer. The day rose sunny and calm, dimming only towards the afternoon when the sky grew overcast and a few drops of rain clicked against our windows. I often wish I could enjoy in peace and quiet the changing moods of the sky and the city, or perhaps that the other three would have a bit more of a sense for this sort of thing.
Jealous! I am not jealous – Omi threw this at me when I ran into him and Ken in the kitchen. I wanted to get my breakfast of rice and tea when he asked me where Yohji was. Now, I am not Kudoh's minder, and we had a spat yesterday afternoon, and he stormed off in what was fairly close to a temper, to do the deliveries.
Not that he ever has tempers. No, he has drunken stupors and sullen lulls thick with cigarette smoke and blue with melancholy, but Kudoh does not do tantrums, he leaves this to me and Ken.
So Omi glared at me as only the chibi can, accusing and sharp, his eyes somehow too old for his soft features, and Ken made a bland face though I could read him clearly enough from the way he sat in his chair, shoulders drawn up, muscles bunched, arms on the table and hands curled to fists as he watched the chibi and me.
I told Omi to leave me alone.
I did not know he could throw hissy fits. I did not know Ken would blame me for that, too, or that Omi would swipe every bit of crockery off the kitchen counter and stomp through the shards on the floor to slam the door behind him hard enough to make the cups on the shelf above the sink rattle. And that Ken would yell at me and bang the chair back against the wall and run after Omi, leaving me in an odd state of bewilderment.
What would I be jealous of? Kudoh's way of slutting around, getting sloshed and banged up to his eyeballs? Or how he lurches home after nights like that and is hardly capable of crawling up the stairs? Sometimes, he doesn't manage, and Omi or Ken scoop him up from the floor in the hallway, to get him tidied up and tucked into bed so he can sleep off his latest high or low or whatever it is.
Or perhaps that he can make them laugh until they are breathless and in tears, or that they let him share in their little secrets and pains and hopes, that they run to him for advice on whatever bugs them, no matter whether he actually can help or not. Or of the warmth he seems to radiate, the glow that he has in those green eyes...
I have none of that, I know it, and I don't want it.
I am fine as I am.
Alone.
(Yohji)
The lights of the city blink in the dusky distance. Schuldig is smoking a joint, I have a regular cigarette. Before us, the black band of the highway, dashes of red rearlights and bright headbeams, rushing past our van like bands of fire, crimson and white. Aya's colours. Our colours.
"Trouble at home?" Schuldig prods while we drive along the highway, away from the city, to our favourite spot. Sandy beach, the murmur of the sea, seagulls in a deepening sky. He sits next to me in the passenger seat, his elbow in the open window, his feet propped up on the dashboard, and tries to enjoy his joint, having to bunch his wildly flapping hair with his free hand or he will get it scorched.
I'm not in the mood of spreading my home-baked hassle before him, and attack is still the best defense. "And you?"
He has nasty black marks – fanned out like fingerprints – just beneath his throat, and a bruise on the cheekbone that is turned away from me, but he laughs and waves me off, flipping me a bird. He has forgotten about his hair for a moment and swears when it does blow right into the cigarette and across his face.
"Don't snicker," he rants but has to grin himself when he wedges the joint between his lips and finally ties his hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. At least he has done away with that silly headscarf this way, and I can see his face more clearly: fineboned, faintly freckled around his nose and cheeks, narrow red eyebrows over sharp clear eyes. His mouth twisted into this perpetual sneer he must have learned from Crawford because it does not seem his own. It does not suit his face.
I groan. "Why the hell am I doing this?"
He leans over, propping his elbow on my shoulder, touching his brow to my neck, then shakes with laughter. "You're stupid, Bali."
I shrug and nearly knock his nose bloody. "Piss off."
And he plops back into his seat, sticks his arm out of the window and lets the almost finished cigarette fly in a shower of orange sparks. In the side-mirror, I catch a flash of light and movement and see a biker swerve, ride out a few wild swings and then pull up at the side, to tug frantically at his helmet that has caught the glowing cigarette tip. Schuldig grins.
"You're sick," I growl, reaching for my own packet of fags.
"See," he lectures, taking them from my breast pocket to light two, one for me, one for himself, "you do know."
"Fuck your riddles." The cigarette tastes of him – mint, coffee, something else which I hope is not the residue of Crawford's kisses – and the van grinds down the sandy sliproad to the beach we know as our own at this time.
He yanks the door open and flits out before I manage to park and break the vehicle properly, and I see him run for the water that rolls in long, lazy grey waves over the sodden sand. I open my door, dangle my feet out and kick off my shoes. He splashes in, clothes and all, and soon all I see is his head bobbing on the heaving sea as he swims with long, forceful strokes.
Later, he will totter up to the stem of driftwood where we tend to sit and smoke and talk, and throw himself down into the sand and shove his soaking hair against my thigh, uncaring whether I like to be salty and wet and sticky, and we will spend most of the evening in silence.
I still cannot figure out why I'm doing this.
He says it's because we only have one another.
He is stupid.
He Was Due Back(Ken)
"He was due back hours ago," Omi yelled at Aya, and the redhead just stood there, black against the vague light that streamed through his bedroom window, and clasped the book in his hands against his stomach as he looked at us with a bland expression.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, and it really sounded like he didn't know. Aya is dense that way, or he wants to be, sometimes it's impossible to tell.
"Tell us where the fuck he's gone," I said, as calmly as I could but I felt... things roiling in my belly, and I felt like I was heating up from the inside 'cos he's so damn thick and he makes Omi fret and fuss, getting him all upset. Omi won't come to my bed when he's like that, he'll be pacing the house all night instead, or rattle away on the keyboard of his computer, surfing the net for some of that awful stuff he and Yohji like looking at.
"How would I know?"
"Man, Aya, don't you two talk?" Omi shouted, and I could see his small hands clench, itching for something to grip, to throw at Aya's head to make him think, to startle him for once out of his obtuse cocoon.
"I am not his minder," redhead retorted, rather waspishly, and Omi blew a fuse, calling him names even as he turned on his heel and stormed from Aya's room, careering into me on the way, but not stopping. He ran to the garage, yanked the keys to my motorcycle off the peg by the backdoor and hopped onto the pillion.
So a ride around the city it was.
Not that I resented it; Aya's ways have their good side too.
Ken Drove Me Around
(Omi)
Ken drove me around, and we went to every single one of the haunts we knew Yohji frequents. Ken did the driving and the asking 'cos with my fake ID that makes me younger than I am they won't let me into most of those places, not even when they have tidied up from the night before but not yet opened for another bout. It was late afternoon, but it felt like an eternity, everything was going so slow...
So Ken had to do the running around. He thought it was for the better, but man, we sleep together, I shoot people for a living, so what should a sleazy club have to shock me now? Ken pointed out that they can't know that, and it wouldn't be wise to tell them. He can be too sweet for his own good, and that's why he has me.
Dusk turned into a rainy evening and a cold night. We did not find Yohji, and by the time dawn came round, grey and damp and heavy with smog, Ken put his foot down and we went back to the Koneko. I gave in more for his sake – he looked bushed from all this driving, on and off, walking and trying to push around in crammed clubs for a glimpse of Yohji.
"He could be anywhere, chibi," Ken said, sounding so very tired, more than he should be, "and perhaps I just overlooked him, those places are full, you know how easy it is to miss someone..." He was shaking when he shoved the bike into the garage and locked up.
Ken always blames himself too quickly. One cannot miss Yohji, really, 'cos usually he has a clump of people surrounding him, and you can hear him chat and laugh, always easy except when he's drunk or high, but then he'll still be laughing and dancing, he's good at that, and the girls like him 'cos even when he's pissed he treats them nicely.
Aya wasn't there when we got back, and Ken offered to take the morning shift, fat chance the way he looked – black bags under his eyes, his lips pale and thin, his face pinched with worry. He's bad at hiding what he thinks, and I felt like falling to bits right then.
What the hell had happened to Yohji?
Where had he gone?
What if he was hurt?
What if-
In Spite Of
(Ken)
In spite of Omi's initial protests, I tried to work the morning shift and then locked up half-way through; there really was no point pretending. Aya was back at lunchtime, ready for his shift. He looked beat, grey-faced against his orange sweater as he ran into us in the kitchen, but instead of being his usual assy self, he sank into a crouch next to Omi and reluctantly put his arm round the chibi. Only for a moment, before standing up again and putting on the kettle. No one said a word, but we knew what each of us was thinking.
What if?
Omi had even yelled at me. His hands were bleeding; he had cuts across his wrists, and I wondered how that could have happened. He wiped his face with the back of one hand, still clutching the paring knife, and left a smear of blood across his cheeks.
I felt so sick, I could not speak. What if?
What if we were all that was left of Weiss?
I made it to the sink at least, the porcelain rim cold against my chest, my hands. My knees hit the cuffed lino floor 'cos right now, I couldn't stand up, and my muscles had turned to mush, and I could not stop retching for the life of me.
Aya just stood there, by the window, arms folded, head down on his chest. Unmoving, his face blank, his eyes vacant.
I had never before seen us falling to pieces.
I Don't Understand(Yohji)
I don't understand them. After spending a cold, wet, uncomfortable night at the beach, I drove a strangely contented Schuldig back to the city, dropped him off at the hole he calls his apartment – one room, in a shabby block near the Koneko – and went to the shop.
Omi flew at me and wouldn't let go.
Ken looked like he was about to faint or to kill me.
And Aya... Aya merely closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
What was this all about?
They would not tell me.
xxx
And then, at the scandalously late time of early afternoon, Aya tried to make love to me. Not banging me, not having a fuck, no, though he tore off our clothes, and he felt hot and anxious, burrowing his head into my hair, his hard, wiry limbs poking and prodding at mine as he draped himself over me and tried to hold back and be tender and considerate.
Only to clasp me close and whisper madly, hardly audible, a rush of gasps and words I could barely understand, and when I finally could make sense of them, they chilled me to the marrow. "Don't ever do this again, can't get it up, gods, Yohji, never again, never go, never leave, never, never, never..."
He couldn't do it. It frustrated him, but oddly enough, he was not too bothered by it. He opted for dragging the blanket over us, him still on top of me, and I could feel his heart race against mine, his breathing in my hair, his hard fingers digging into the flesh of my shoulder.
And when I tried to smooth back his hair and turned to see his face, he kissed me blind and mute, taking away my breath and anything I meant to tell him.
"Never," he gasped, his tone brittle and wild.
Whatever that meant.
I could only nod, and he dropped his face into the crook of my shoulder and stilled.
Sometimes, he can be a right drama queen.
Crawford Was Waiting
(Schuldig)
Crawford was waiting. He stood with folded arms by the window of our latest dump, a house not far from where I had Yohji deliver the flowers. For all his cunning, Brad had no idea where I was when he didn't find me at my bolthole last night. That beach is Yohji's and mine alone, and I was late returning here. Brad had his back to me when I slunk into his room, and I knew he was cross.
So I lit a cigarette and waited.
Until he turned.
I had expected a barrage, some cold put-you-down remark, something to yank the ground from beneath my feet. Or, perhaps, something a bit more physical, like printing another welt onto my skin.
His glasses poked from the breast pocket of his pale blue button-down shirt that had a few kinks in it, as though he had slept sitting up behind his desk. For him, that's a disgusting state of undress. He regarded me for a moment with blank brown eyes, then he pinched the bridge of his nose and let his arms drop. "Don't do this again." His tone flat, quiet, unable to hide the exhaustion behind his cool mask.
Perhaps my mouth was gaping open. Or I was staring too hard – I don't often see him rumpled except when we sleep with one another. He shook his head a little, a brief, unwilling gesture. He looked damn tired, and that made me uneasy. Brad Crawford is not supposed to be tired, and I would have preferred him yelling or hitting.
And heard myself murmur, "Fine, whatever you say."
"Never," is what he said, with a blink that makes him look... shaken.
And I nodded.
Never.
Whatever that meant.
(Yohji)
I felt a bit guilty. Ken was sleeping off a restless night, Aya was out on deliveries, as the only one of us who appears to have gotten some rest, and I still didn't know what got into them. Apart from a hot shower to wash away sand and salt, I needed nothing. Ok, some coffee perhaps, and a fag...
Omi was working the shop with me. Later that day, during our lunch break, the chibi snagged a cigarette from me and we sat in the back of the shop, on one of the workbenches, and smoked in silence.
"Yanno, you really shouldn't-" I started, but he jumped and shot me a chibi-glare, intensely blue and glittering wildly.
"Stop it! I can do what I like! It's none of your fuckin' business!"
Ok, so he was still upset. I reached out to ruffle his hair, and he let me, slumping into himself, into my touch, then against me into my hug. He needs that sometimes, he's only nineteen and has to manage us and school and the shop somehow. Ken's taking care of the other needs he has, and that's fine for when this girl died, Omi was in a mess. We all were.
"Will you tell me something, chibi?" I mused aloud, blowing a cloud of smoke over his blond head.
He snuggled a bit closer and muffled an unwilling "Hai."
"Why did Aya take that solo mission while I was away?" That mission that drove him right into the arms of Schwarz, for Schuldig and his pet to play with him. He's not been the same since, and when Omi rang my cellphone, the number only he knew, I had an inkling something was up. But by then, I was already on my way back to what we call home, for ease of reference, back to the Koneko, back to Aya.
Aya told me he wanted to kill Schwarz 'cos they told him they had me. Schuldig said Aya was sent by Kritiker. Kritiker hands down mission briefs to Omi. Omi hands them to us...
Omi tensed a little against me. "Dunno," he muttered, shifting against my arm that I tightened around his narrow shoulders so he could not slip away. He never liked Aya much, and nothing escapes his sharp eyes – when he realised the pair of us didn't exactly have an easy ride, he did not bother hiding his dislike of Aya anymore. Still, he is a professional, his dealings with Aya are clear-cut, precise, polite... they have a kind of ceasefire, those two.
But he does let Aya lead on site, always Aya, and though it suits both of them, it is the most dangerous, if not the most responsible, part of any mission to go in and blaze a trail for the rest of us. Aya is first in the firing line, with me backing him up, while Omi does the specialist stuff and Ken manages our getaways. We have figured it out nicely.
I tried to talk Aya into letting me help him more, but both he and Omi pounced on me like harpies – don't fix what's not broken, don't upset the team balance, it works too well to mess around with it – and they had me convinced. Well, almost, though I tried to do away with that stupid niggle in the back of my mind.
"You tell me somethin', Yohji?" the chibi murmured, still tense against me.
"Hai, if I understand the question."
He grabbed my hand and unwrapped my arm from his shoulders so he could meet my eyes with a searching, pained glance. "Why did you sleep with Schuldig?"
So we are on a par. He sent Aya on that mission knowing exactly what was up, and I slept with the guy whose taunts played havoc with Omi's girl and whose pet shot her. Somehow I know I won't be able to make up for this, and that Omi blames Aya for my going to Schuldig, too.
What could I say? The truth seemed a good choice for once. "'Cos he was there and begging, and I needed..." Like some slut who can't get a grip on his dick. No, perhaps the truth is not that good after all. Perhaps it's better Omi believes that I was hot and brainless enough to go for a fuck with the enemy. Yeah, I did Schuldig, but that's not what Omi was getting at. He knows I go and talk hours away with the redhead, and how could I explain it? Saying that Schuldig knows me better than I do, that he understands and that I don't have to do all the talking, that he is raw and hurting and shows me all of it, that he does not even attempt to appear different from what he is, nasty and destructive and desperate for calm, that I am only a replacement for Crawford, when – occasionally – they have enough of one another and their antics...
All of this is true, and that I've come to vent with the redhead whatever I'd like to tell Aya.
Because I found that Schuldig understands me too well.
Omi looked wounded, betrayed, lost. "It's his fault," he snapped, tugging away from me. "He's an asshole. He should take better care of you!"
I knew he was not referring to Schuldig. "Hey, chibi, if you wanna yell at someone, yell at me," I told him, but he would have none of it now that he was riled up.
"Ah, you always defend him, and look at you! He hits you!"
"So? I can hit back alright, it's not like I was a woman. It's kinda fair," I tried to make light, and he took really ill to that one.
"Fuck you, Yotan," he hurled at me, his tone sharp, voice rising, the cigarette in his hand describing mad circles as he gesticulates. "I never wanted him in our team, and he never wanted to be here! I thought... well, I kept him 'cos you liked him, but I was fuckin' wrong!"
"Man, Omi-"
"Don't try and placate me!" He even stomped his foot now, his eyes filled up, and crimson flecks appeared on his cheeks. "I know who you were with last night! And I know why, I'm not stupid! I... I can't even blame you!" His eyes threatened to well over, and he scrubbed at them with the back of his hand, a swift, angry gesture. "But I trusted you, and that asshole you fuck killed my sister, and Aya can't get over it that I'm a damn Takatori, as though I coulda picked my bloody family, and you let 'im beat you up and do nothing! You're an idiot!"
Ouch.
This was worse than I thought.
"I hate you, Yohji!" he yelled into the stunned pause, and off he ran, through the backdoor. I heard someone rumble down the stairs – Ken, of course, who yanked Omi's jacket off the peg by the door and ran after him – and only the slamming of the door shook me from my stupor.
What had just happened?
xxx
Schuldig was waiting for me, outside in the rain, his copper hair plastered in soggy strands over his cheeks and about his neck. He had a split lower lip and dangled a set of car keys in front of my nose. "My car's over there," nodding at an old banger, stolen no doubt, that stood askew, half on the curb, driver door gaping open.
"Got a fag?" I asked, because I left mine in the shop on the workbench.
He handed me a fresh packet and his lighter when we slumped into the car seats. I lit up, he turned the ignition key and pulled into the traffic.
In the rear mirror, our eyes met.
Through a thin whisp of blue smoke, he smiled.
xxx
The End