Spark by alien21xx
"You've got to be kidding."
A tide of crimson hair rippled as Manx affected another cough to hide the fact that she was laughing. The comic look on the four Weiss members' faces coupled with the ridiculousness of Yohji's reaction to the mission was inimitable. She coughed again, her shoulders quivering ever so slightly, an unconscious betrayal of her amusement.
"It can't be helped," she tried to reason, and finally lost hold of sanity and dissolved into a fit of giggles. Four furious glares locked on to her. A look of shock replaced the disbelieving look in Ken's face. "Are you actually finding this funny?"
Manx held up her hand. "It's in the mission specifications. I can't go against it, and even if you complain to Persia, I don't think there's anything he can do about it either."
Omi's expression was a mixture of puzzlement and incredulity. "But why would Persia give us a mission that would require such a disguise?"
"It's security," the red-haired woman explained patiently. "And it's pretty useless whining about it now, because one of you has to go along with this mission, whether you like it or not."
"I'm not doing this," was Yohji's reflexive reply. Like hell he was going to be caught dead in such a situation!
Ken held up his hands. "Don't look at me! Look, I look nothing like a girl, okay!"
"Heh, who said a drag queen has to look like a real girl?" Yohji interposed. Ken blushed and fell silent. They all looked hopefully at Aya. Usually, the redhead would jump at any mission that promised money. They hoped this case was no different. And Aya was such a great actor anyway.
"No," he intoned in a voice that dared anyone to argue.
"Goddamnit!" Yohji swore. He glared at Manx and the other three boys. "Well, for one thing, I know I'm not gonna do it."
"Don't look at me," Omi said. "I'm not even old enough to get into that place."
"Not me, nope, no way, never!" said Ken.
Aya simply scowled at them all.
Manx held up her hands in an attempt to mollify them. "Actually, the cover profile is already specified. The art festival is strictly for members of the association. Persia-sama managed to get ahold of an identity of one of the society members who has already passed away in the States."
Yohji inclined his head. "And?"
Manx looked as if she wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of the afternoon. "The man was a redhead."
The look on Ken and Omi's faces were of profound relief. Yohji whooped.
"Hah! I knew it!" He nudged Aya out of the redhead's chair. "Come on, Aya boy. We'll be rooting for ya." He collapsed into stitches.
Amethyst slits bore into Yohji's large forest-green eyes. "I'm going to make you eat that."
Yohji was dying. "Yeah... riiight! See ya in the dress, Aya-kun!"
Aya sat in the front seat of the car, adjusting his floor-length floral hippie dress around his narrow hips. The smug look on his face was a complete antithesis to the vastly annoyed look on Yohji's face as he divided his attention between the highway yawning in front of them and the cigarette cocked on his mouth. Soft billows of smoke blew into Aya's face, combing through the silken strands of his overly-conditioned, hot-oiled hair as Yohji exhaled.The older man slanted a glare at the silently triumphant redhead. "Don't look at me like that, goddammit! It's so unnerving!"
Aya's lips twitched. "What's unnerving? The fact that I'm sitting here wearing a dress and watching you while you drive..." The lips turned up minutely. "...or the fact that you have to pose as a drag queen's sex slave?"Yohji grimaced at the blatant reminder of his part in the mission.
"Fuck off Aya."
A wry smile was the rejoinder. "You don't really mean that." There was a glint in his eye that Yohji found better to ignore. Yohji snorted. "Hey, since when did you develop a sense of humor? Are you sure that dress isn't getting to your head, Aya?"
Slender shoulders shrugged through silken fabric. Aya's painted lips were simultaneously disgusting and unnerving. Yohji had no idea the other man could so look like a girl!
"I'm trying not to spoil everything by acting like a prick," Aya explained patiently, ignoring Yohji's indignant sputtering at the implication. "The point is, the mission has to be accomplished and we can't get that done unless we have a convincing cover that'll get us into the high society of homosexuals of the association."
Yohji put up his hand to silence him. "Right, I've heard it. Just don't see why the fuck I have to be any part of this farce."
Aya was genuinely confused. "Manx didn't say? Keiko Tohru seemed to have had a thing for picking up complete male strangers and bedding them without a second thought."
Yohji seriously hoped Aya was not serious about that.
"In any case, Tohru seemed to have had one last fling before he died of AIDS in Hawaii."
He snorted and swerved into the next lane, cutting through the long line of traffic to get to the hotel first. There seemed to be a godawful amount of people coming this way. Yohji idly wondered if any of these people knew that Keiko Tohru was dead and the redhead who was sitting in Yohji's car was an assassin who'd dress in drag for the money he was getting.
"And let me guess. This last fling of his... He was tall, had wavy chestnut hair and infinitely handsome looks." He grinned at the self-compliment.
"He was also called Yohji," Aya murmured absently, staring out the window, at the long line of cars Yohji had bypassed, just like that.
A choked gasp of startlement answered the comment. Yohji had stopped the car before he could inflict serious damage.
"What?!"
Aya simply shrugged. Yohji had a vague sense that the other man was enjoying this whole ploy if only because Yohji detested it.
"They were supposed to have gotten married or something, right before Keiko died."
Yohji decided he was going to be sick. He grabbed the parking ticket from the attendant and swerved the car into the last available space right before another vehicle managed to even get near.
Aya was dusting himself off as he got out of the car. Shit, Keiko Tohru was only one of the most well-known gays in the association. And the worst part was he was openly affectionate with his flings. Yohji was turning green.
"Leave that baggage to the porters, Yohji. We have to go check to see if our room is bugged."
"I'm not an idiot, you know--" he started to say when he caught the wind of Aya's last comment.
"Our room?"
The redhead's face was deadpan. "Were you even listening? Keiko was a gay drag queen with a boyfriend named 'Yohji'. Of course we have to share a stupid room!"
Oh yeah. Yohji was so going to be sick.
end chap.1
