WeissKreuz – Sushi

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Yohji's birthday, and Yohji is down and out, getting pissed. What will Aya do?

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Yesterday was no good. It was no good because I hardly knew what was going on around me… well, I hardly knew who I was.

I had gone out to get high and drunk, and maybe laid, even though that was not one of my priorities last night. Or the night before, and the one before that… I lost count, having spent too much money on booze and girls, ran into Schuldig once or twice and kept him sweet by listening to his endless tirades about his headaches and Schwarz and whatever else jumped into his mind. I think it was my birthday yesterday, but maybe I am wrong, it does not matter anyway.

And no, I am not gonna go bawling and drown in self-pity. I will do what I'm good at – my job, which is killing for money, and my hobbies, which are getting pissed and hooked up with girls I usually leave high 'n dry. It's better for them this way.

And for me. I don't wanna explain things to Aya every time he drags me up the stairs into my bed 'cos I can't make it there myself. Or, if I have to explain, I wanna do so with a clear conscience at least. I don't like lying to him.

I think it's his eyes.

When Aya was Ran, his eyes were a dusky grey-blue, with a dark rim around the iris that lent them brilliance and shine. When the sun shone into those eyes, they became waterclear, translucent like a clean well. In its depths, I could read every reflection of his mind.

When Ran became Aya, he shed simplicity for layers of brilliance – glistening black, glaring violet and wild crimson. The contacts change the colour of his eyes into a silvery shimmer somwhere between grey and pale purple. It is a cold shade, like frosted glass.

I cannot read him anymore.

Where was I… ah, yes, I got bunged up, and now my head is hurting like hell, and I'm having trouble separating myself from my sweat-soaked futon, let alone read the time on the face of my watch… after midday, I missed my shift, the chibi proably couldn't wake me.

He'll grouse 'cos me missing my shift means Ken working with Aya, and that usually calls for trouble. They do not get along too well, those two, even though it was me who brought Aya down that night when we caught him and dragged him along to the Koneko to join our team, like it or not.

It was also me who spent days and nights by his bedside, listening to his unconscious babble and trying to make sense of him.

Not that I'd succeeded much in this, but I'd like to think that perhaps I got a little further than Ken. Aya sleeps with me.

Ken keeps too much anger bottled up inside him to follow Aya on his long hauls of depression and temper, even though he'll have all the patience it needs to handle Omi with his rollercoaster emotions. The chibi will usually be nice 'n composed, even a little cool at times, which worries me, but he has his moments.

Putting Ken on shift with Aya… it's not fair on Omi who's trying hard to keep us all on track and reasonable. What a job. I groan when I manage to get onto my hands and knees at last and decide this would be a good, stable way of making it into the bathroom across the hall…

I have regained enough sense now look down my nose to see what I'm wearing – someone must have stripped off my rags last night 'cos I could swear I wore more than a long white tee and black briefs when I got here. And the tee is clean and smells of starch and roses, instead of pot and sweat. It has Aya's aroma, and the thought makes me faintly nauseous, as every time when I realise he's picked me up and tucked me in. He's always so prim and neat; I don't like him seeing me like this. So why don't I stop? 'Cos I need proof he cares?

I'd rather not go there. I think last night it was Schuldig who delivered me close enough to the Koneko for Aya to collect me. The thought doesn't help my hangover.

I reach up while trying not to move my head that lolls heavily from one side to the other, lean one shoulder against the doorjamb and press the door open.

The reek of old lino, mingling with the dankness that wafts from the open bathroom door down the hallway, rises into my nostrils … and the bitter, smoky aroma of fresh green tea. Still clutching the doorknob, I pause timely enough to take in what awaits me beyond the threshold of my room.

A black laquered tray, painted with a spray of wisteria in gold and purple, the slender branch rising on the left and arching over the top edge of the dark background. The tray is set with a lidded bowl of fine, hard-fired ceramic, its brown surface unglazed and grainy, still showing the grooves where the pottery artist's fingers shaped its belly. A caress frozen in time, fired by heat and patience. To its right sits a small cup, its crackled glaze showing the pale green of early spring. It is filled with tea, its colour barely darker than the vessel.

Between bowl and cup, a pair of plain black bamboo chopsticks to match the tray, wrapped neatly into a green and white silk sheath embroidered in silver threads, tips resting on a tiny bridge of fake rocks made of grey-glazed china. And before them sits a box, made of laquered wood too, its only deoration a pale green stalk of bamboo on the left side of the lid. It smells good, and when I lift the lid, I can see that it is filled with pressed rice, layered with translucent strips of what has to be the most perfect tuna I've ever seen. It would have cost a fortune – the best tuna costs several tens of thousands of yen per kilo at the fishmonger Aya frequents.

The tea and soup are for one, the rice is portioned for two. The box is just warm to my touch, the perfect temperature for such an elaborately simple sushi. The tea is still steaming. The whole arrangement bears, unmistakably, Aya's hand.

From underneath the box peeps the corner of what I first took to be a paper napkin. As I slump back against the doorjamb, I spot a kanji, inked in black onto the paper. My fingers tremble as I pull at the corner a little; the paper slides out – a small card, no larger than a meishi, made of plain, fibrous, expensive rice paper and calligraphed in Aya's precise writing.

Happy birthday.

Dry, no frills, and perfect.

He would have had to spend the morning sitting in front of my door to catch the moment of me crawling out of my messy nest, or the tea would have been cold and the sushi stale.

I just sit there.

I'm still there, legs sprawled out, head down, one hand pressed across my eyes, when firm, quiet steps approach, and a wave of his scent washes over me. Pine needles and roses in an odd combination of bitter and sweet.

Aya.

I can't face him right now.

Fabric rustles as he sinks to his knees. His small, hard hand settles on my shoulder. "Yohji?"

A trace of worry in his tone. It doesn't make me feel any better. His hand slides up over the side of my neck, pauses, hot and dry, over my pulse for a moment before slipping into my hair and combing through greasy tangles. I shake my head; I don't feel presentable enough for him to touch me, but he persists, keeps caressing, massaging my scalp, trying to make me better. "Yohji."

"No."

"Yohji, the tea is getting cold."

He waits; I know he was trying to tell me something with all this… "I don't deserve this. I'm not worth it. I'm dirty and stink, and I don't even know what happened last night. So go away until I scrape my ass off the floor, will you?"

He heaves a sigh of stretched patience. "Yohji, don't be stupid. Look at me." One small hot hand cups my chin and forces my head up, the other hand holds my hair in a tight grip so I can't escape his scrutiny…

"Yoh… oh… I didn't mean to… Yohji…" he whispers, drawing me close. I bury my face against his shoulder 'cos I'm too shaky now to get up, what with all the booze still buzzing around my system, and me growing short of breath from all that stuff I smoked last night, and this damn headache I'm having.

"Yohji," he murmurs, and he sounds shaken as he keeps pressing me close and rocking us softly, back and forth, one hand cupping my neck, the other one stroking my back, slipping under my tee, his touch rough and tender on my dank skin.

I don't want this. I want him, but I don't want myself. I'm not making sense, like Schuldig when he has his moments, and that scares me.

And he…

"I am sorry," he says, his breath in my hair, his lips moving against my temple, "I am so sorry… I did not mean to make you cry."

Boys don't cry.

Not even when they're born on Dolls' Day.

And I'm rather proud that, after some hearbeats, I manage a croaky, "I don't."

He stills. Then draws back slightly, his hands sliding away from me, my skin chilling where a moment ago it was warmed by his closeness. "Good," he replies quietly in this dark, smoky voice that never fails to send shivers down my spine. "Then you can have your tea now."

He rises in one smooth, fluid motion, and I realise he is wearing his dark grey yukata, tied primly at the back with a narrow black-and-grey patterned cotton obi, and his bare feet stick in straw sandals with black cotton strings, a stark contrast to his white skin. One of those small feet begins to lift as Aya makes to turn and walk away…

I cannot bear it, and grab his ankle. "Ayan…"

He pauses, glancing down at me, expression closed, eyes shuttered behind those cursed contacts. "Aa?"

"Please… eat with me?"

"You would have to be quick; Ken is alone in the shop."

"I will speed up. Honest, I will… I can. I'll try."

And suddenly, a tiny smile tugs at his thin lips, as if it had been waiting there, patiently, for its moment of sunshine. He bends to pick up the tray. "Hurry then."

We have a peaceful meal. In my room, on the rumpled futon, me unwashed and smelly, him tidy and naked beneath the yukata. I know that without checking, and it does things to me. But I'm not about to spoil it now, for moments such as this are precious, with him being quiet and contented as much as he can be, and me happy in spite of my hangover.

We share the rice. He feeds me, in spite of my protests, when he thinks I don't eat enough. We share the tea and soup, drinking from the same bowl, the same cup. From outside comes the muffled sound of passing traffic and the muted heat of the early summer afternoon. My room is suffused with the aroma of tea and Aya. It drenches my mind and washes away the stench of last night, along with the taste of our future.

And when I've swallowed the last grain of rice I can manage, I feel his gaze resting on me. I look up and meet his eyes, his smile, faint yet there, and then he reaches out, grabs the collar of my tee and drags me close into a firm, warm kiss.

"You're stupid, Yohji," he says into my mouth, "you confused it. You got pissed, but it wasn't your birthday." And then he kisses me again, on my closed eyes, the tip of my nose, my lips. "Happy birthday," he murmurs, resting his brow against mine when he's done kissing.

And I know I won't be going out tonight.

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The End