Note: this is chapter 2 of a work-in-progress. Please just tell me if you see anything wrong, like grammar, spelling, facts, etc.

Pairing: Ken/Ran

Dysmorphophobia

Chapter Two: Windows

Ken frowned as he looked around the corner of the neighborhood dry-cleaning shop. He had followed Aya carefully for twenty minutes without being spotted—which, considering his notorious clumsiness, was something to be marveled. It helped, Ken supposed, that he could move quietly, and though his reflexes had been trained for less questionable purposes, they had been refined all the same.

He had found (though he hoped he wasn't jinxing himself with this observation) that though Aya looked around every minute or so, and that he seemed tense and suspicious, Ken's ability to follow far exceeded Aya's ability to keep himself from being followed. It was almost as if Aya couldn't quite see what was going on around him, like he was lost in his thoughts and could only attempt to watch his back. Ken stole a look at his face when Aya turned around next.

Aya was worried.

Ken's plan hit a bump in the road when Aya suddenly walked up to a car parked a block down the path he'd been walking, unlocked it, and climbed in. Ken cursed his luck and risked discovery when he dove towards a cab parked a few cars behind Aya, waving at the driver to let him in.

The man complained and told Ken he was taking a break, but when Ken opened his wallet the man unlocked the door and let him in the front seat.

"Where to, kiddo?" the driver asked with a yawn.

Ken leaned across the dash and pointed at Aya's car, which was heading down the road. "Follow that guy," he whispered, as though Aya could hear him.

The driver stared at him. "You're...you're not serious."

Ken sighed. Manx would have to reimburse him...he cleared his throat and said, "Hey, I'll give you everything I got—just follow that car, and don't lose him...and don't let him know you're following him." He watched the driver hopefully, though the fact that Aya was 'getting away' treaded on his nerves a little.

The driver nodded, weighing his options as a good businessman, before starting his car and following Aya at breakneck speed.

Ken was thrown to the side, unprepared for the sudden acceleration. "What are you doing?!" he shouted. "He's going to see you!"

"Relax," the driver said. "This street leads to a major commercial center, a library, and a college campus. Even if your buddy sees me coming, it's not like he'd think I was following him."

"You mean..."

The driver rolled his eyes. "Everyone uses this road. It's no big deal if a taxi heads down it, even if the taxi right behind a guy who owes you money or whatever."

Despite the driver's reassurance, Ken felt like—no, he knew—that Aya must have realized he was being followed. I'm gonna get my ass kicked, he thought. As soon as I get out of the cab Aya's going to be waiting for me...he'll kill me...but where's he going? A guy with no money wouldn't have any reason to go shopping...and he's probably not a college student, though that would explain why he's broke...and I don't think he'd need to skip work to check out a book...

Ken stared at the road, watching Aya drive without looking back. Maybe he really is a spy...those are all good public places to meet up with people, to look inconspicuous.

He dreaded the idea of Weiss being under the surveillance of an organization lying in the shadows. Weiss was almost safe, after all. Ken trusted Omi and Youji more than he'd trusted anyone in a long time. If Weiss was being watched, the group would break up—Persian may even decide to hunt the three assassins down and kill them to tie up all the loose ends. Even if he could leave Weiss...

...where would I go?

"He stopped," the driver said, motioning to the spot Aya had parked in. The red-haired man was nowhere to be seen, and Ken cursed his luck (and ineptitude) again. Ken paid the driver and left the taxi, searching for his new teammate.

For a moment, he was certain that Aya would spot him before he could find Aya again. Ken searched for red hair, focusing on anything that was brilliant red and just above eye level. Panic set in.

Where the fuck is Aya?!

He wandered around, not sure if he should try the library, commercial center, or college first. A nearby map of the area revealed that the college campus contained a teaching hospital.

Ken stopped breathing.

It was sick, but he knew where Aya was going, where he had to be going. He couldn't put his finger on it, but the hospital made more sense than anything. He wasn't sure if he was just trying to punish himself by choosing the hospital. A part of him wanted to face that fear, the fear of being forced to stay in a room, and lie down in bed, and not see anything that grew or had ever been alive. But...the worst part was...not even wanting to let other people see you. Not wanting to catch a glimpse of your own...

He ran.

The path to the hospital wound around a small fountain; Ken couldn't help but dash around the curve, reminded of long-distance training on his high school track. The pleasant familiarity of the burn in his legs kept his mind from jumping all over the place. He knew he looked crazy. He was used to it.

Surely enough, Ken saw Aya's red hair for a moment before he disappeared into the teaching hospital. Ken didn't know if he'd been seen—no, that wasn't it. He was sure that Aya had seen him and he knew that he didn't care. He wanted to sprint through those cold halls and find Aya and drag him out and tell him to stay away from places where people died, or weren't allowed to die when they needed to. Where doctors made decisions for patients who couldn't see or hear or think. Where the decisions of doctors overrode those of desperate, pleading...

But, this was the present.

Ken tried to slow his breathing as he numbly entered the hospital through the front door. Aya was not too far ahead of him, completely absorbed in his mission, whatever it was, and the whole situation felt to Ken like an out-of-body experience. He wasn't there. He was just dreaming. The hospital was too nice to be real—it was bright and full of light and smiling people. Some of them held flowers or drank tea as they sat in waiting rooms. A wall of happy noise filled the building, and Ken could see several floors filled with caring people and white-clad hospital staff buzzing around, stopping here and there, talking, weighing options. Babies cried. People ate food in the cafeteria. Several middle school girls sat on the floor against a wall, drawing a large get-well card for a friend.

He'd remembered it so differently—but then again, if he just found the burn ward...

Aya.

Ken's attention snapped back to his target. Sounds were resolved, people became distinct, and Ken's senses returned. He ducked behind a pillar and watched Aya take the escalator to the second floor before following suit. Once Aya turned a corner, Ken walked in the opposite direction to sit on a bench and wait. He knew that Aya's destination must have been one of the hospital rooms on that floor, and that the safest course of action would be to give Aya time to take care of his business and leave—that way, when he investigated the rooms he deemed likeliest to have been visited by Aya, he wouldn't have to worry about the secretive man finding him snooping around.

Unfortunately, Ken hated waiting, and it was even worse when he had to sit while doing it. After two minutes on the bench, he popped up and walked further down the hall, stretching his arms out as he did so. He noticed that he'd entered the maternity ward, and after letting a group of expecting fathers in the waiting room stare at his back as he filled a paper cup with water from a cooler to take a drink, he smiled, waved, and threw his cup into a recycling bin as he exited.

A glance at the clock told him it had only been seven minutes. The desire to move, to really move, had become problematic. Ken knew it would be dangerous to leave the floor altogether because of his short attention span; if he left, he would forget which floor he was on, and in which direction Aya had walked—Ah.

Ken hid once again as he saw Aya return to the escalator, accompanied by a nurse. If Aya had been paranoid before, or had any particular reason to be paranoid, it seemed as though he know was not, could not, and probably just didn't care. The nurse spoke to him, but Ken noticed she didn't make any of the usual gestures—there was no hand on his shoulder, no hopeful smile. Aya kept one hand over his mouth and nodded far too often, as though he wasn't nodding in response to any the nurse said in particular, but just the general idea behind her words. She paused when she was finished speaking, and then left Aya to speak with a doctor instead, shuffling file folders to, as Ken assumed, move onto another patient's case.

As emotionally gripping as all this was, the discussion between Aya and the nurse didn't reveal anything important, or even interesting, to Ken. What did Omi expect me to get from this? He worried. Ken realized that he hadn't been aggressive enough—he hadn't followed Aya as closely as he needed to. This is why I'm an assassin and not a Kritiker agent.

The logic behind that thought struck him hard. Why did Omi ask me to tail Aya today? Does Kritiker not care about the identity of its hunters, so long as they can kill a couple of targets? What if Aya turns on us? Will that just be our problem to deal with? Is he stable? Where did he come from?

Although he didn't know much about Omi's and Youji's lives before or outside of Weiss, he knew that both were willing to work with other people, and though Omi had a small temper and Youji could be arrogant, neither tried to live an isolated life. He wanted to think that his teammates, people he'd worked with for several months, were really just normal guys who'd been pushed into a strange situation. He wanted to think that neither would present any sort of threat to himself or The Mission—the big one, the one they were really in Weiss for, the thing that they could die for. He wanted to think that even if they did become dangerous, he would be able to run. He wanted to see them as they tried to be—a bright kid and a, well, gigolo. Or something. Maybe 'playboy' was the right term. Man-whore? Ken wasn't quite sure.

He took another peak at Aya, who had moved from the hall to the escalator where he descended with one hand on the rail, his chin almost tucked to his chest, facing away from Ken. Once Aya had disappeared, Ken made his move, growing fearful of what he may find.

As Ken looked from room to room, he almost ran into a man on a ladder who was working on a broken light fixture suspended over the center of the hall. He took a step back, sized up the situation, and ducked under the ladder in search of anything that could point him towards the room Aya had visited.

"Whoah!" the man on the ladder shouted. Ken tripped and nearly fell to the floor, surprised that the man had noticed him and startled that he'd reacted so loudly and suddenly. He caught his balance, and when he looked up at the man on the ladder, he got a question he'd never really expected.

"Hey, kid! Are you Aya's boyfriend?"

Ken blinked. He was confused for several reasons. He did not know why or how this person knew Aya's name, why this person cared if he was or was not in any type of relationship with Aya, why it was assumed that he was dating Aya, if Aya actually had a boyfriend, and if that boyfriend would visit the hospital and for what purpose.

He tried to pick one question to ask, but the clutter in his brain gave way to one simple, beautiful idea: if he said yes, he would be considered Aya's family, and then he would be allowed to see whatever Aya had seen—maybe he'd even be shown the way to the room.

"Yes," he choked out. Ken laughed to cover his nervousness, hoping that he wasn't being video-taped and that said tape (or DVD) wouldn't be used against him later, either for blackmail or Youji's enjoyment. In an act of self-punishment, he added, "I am definitely Aya's boyfriend. I just have that look, don't I, that tells you I'm Aya's boyfriend?"

The man (a repairman, Ken guessed) looked as though he was torn between forcing himself to laugh at whatever Ken had said to be polite, and asking him, 'What are you talking about...?'. Instead, he climbed down from the ladder and walked towards one of the rooms, stopping at the doorway with his hand covering the name of the person in the room, his body blocking the view of the patient.

"Sweet kid, you know," the repairman told Ken. This idea immediately clashed with what he knew of Aya, but he kept silent so he could receive whatever information he was being given. "She was moved here a while ago...and her brother doesn't let a week go by without coming to see her..."

Brother.

Her brother.

A week...how long has...

Whatever Ken's original objective had been, this one, sneaky, botched little mission had become something else. Once a week, he thought. Sounds...nice. How long did I stare at the wall...how long did I think about nothing...except how much better of I'd be if I'd just died?

"Yeah," Ken agreed, as though he was used to Aya's schedule. I AM his boyfriend after all. "That's Aya for you."

The repairman looked back at Ken over his shoulder, his face twisted slightly in confusion, almost irritation. "You mean Aya's brother, right?" he asked Ken, moving aside to let him into the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Ken read the nameplate next to the door:

FUJIMIYA AYA

The less sensible part of his brain made him suspect for one second that there was some sort of ghost/zombie/psychic conspiracy afoot. If Aya's in here, then who's out...

When Ken saw the girl lying on the bed, he realized that the name of the person he'd met, the guy with unnaturally red hair, the new teammate, the next-door neighbor, fellow florist and murderer of men, was insignificant. She looked pale, and small, and Ken wondered how old she must have been and how old...he...was. The large hospital gown and bed, and the large window in her room, made her seem even smaller. In Ken's eyes, she was in a state of glorified death, kept alive by machines and the will of others. He found himself slowly walking towards her bed, as though he couldn't feel his legs, and he didn't even want to see her closer, or to touch her, but he was pulled to her nonetheless. Ken's fingers ghosted over the edge of her bed as he stared down at something so horrible, and vile, that only he could comprehend it.

He gently set one hand over hers.

"Aya," he said.

Get up, he thought.

She did not comply.

"I'll just leave you kids alone," the repairman said, closing the door to give Ken more privacy. Ken did not move, or acknowledge him in any way. The world had become small again, and he stayed on his feet, staring down at the girl who was dead to the world.

When he had looked at her face, for so long that he did not see her clearly...when her face had just turned to strange shapes that wouldn't stop moving...when he couldn't resolve the light and shadow anymore...Ken removed his hand from hers, and sat in a chair next to her bed. He held his face in his hands for a while, unable to get up or look at the girl once more.

It's even worse for her. She's probably thinking or dreaming, but she can't tell anyone. She can't say it out loud, just to herself. She can't yell at anyone. She can't seem crazy because no matter what's going on in her head, no one else is going to hear it. She might be in pain, but she can't do anything about it. She...has a window that she can't see out of.

He sat up, moving the chair closer to her bed, and after failing to speak for a few minutes, he took her hand again and said, "Aya, I'll try to watch over your brother," as definitively as possible. "I see what he has to spend his money on, now," Ken added, smiling a little, trying to make a joke for the half-dead girl to, through no fault of her own, not enjoy. " I remember hospital stays being pretty expensive, but...I got mine taken care of, all in one go. You know, you're pretty lucky that...your brother comes to see you...though it would be better if you weren't here in the first place, huh?" Ken's gaze shifted to the window, and he asked quietly, "What would you being doing right now if..."

Her fingers uncurled slightly, and Ken noticed that there was something shiny in her hand...

An earring, identical to his, dropped out of her hand.

Ken stared at it. Buried, he thought. He said the other earring was buried.

/

Later that afternoon, Ken returned to a very quiet, very peaceful flower shop, filled only with the sounds of guitar music and shushing. Youji sat in a chair in the middle of the shop, playing something that Ken guessed was a song (though he'd never heard it before) that moved very slowly and, like something out of a children's story, had gathered all the girls on the floor around Youji. They sat on their sweaters and backpacks and, remarkably, just listened while he played. Ken noticed that Youji was smoking. Omi must not be back from school yet.

Youji barely threw Ken a look of acknowledgment as he entered the shop, and in an effort not to disrupt the little bit of peace the shop was enjoying, Ken made his way through the shop with as little noise as--

CRASHBANGCRASHCLINGCLINHCRASHROLL...

Well, there went the new vase display.

"Hey, clumsy," Youji drawled. A few girls laughed at Ken's ready-to-be-delivered lack of self-control, as though it was an act he used to entertain them (it was not). Ken sighed and stooped to start cleaning up the broken ceramics, aided every few seconds by a girl or two who found a piece scattered around the shop floor. Ken tried to politely refuse their help, but they politely told him it wasn't a problem, which led Youji to laugh and ask one of the girls, "Hey, do you know what makes a party, a party?"

They looked around at each other, and Ken gave Youji a puzzled look, wondering if this was going to turn into some sort of joke.

He was NOT going to give anyone piggy-back rides to the ice cream shop again. No sir-ee.

One girl raised her hand. "Good music?" she asked, clearly a compliment for Youji.

"Not necessarily," he answered, "but thank you, young lady."

"Oh! Attractive guys!" Another offered.

"Depends on who you are..." he answered with a little mischief in his voice.

They looked back and forth until a third girl asked, tentatively, with a short wave of her hand towards Ken, "When...something gets broken...?"

Youji took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed to her. "Exactly!" he shouted. The guitar was in his hands again and he started to play a different song, harder and louder. A few of the girls' eyes widened and they clapped and gasped out of surprise for the change of tone. Ken couldn't help but give Youji his best deadpan expression before cleaning up more of the ceramic mess.

If Youji was good at one thing, it was crowd control—specifically, female crowd control. (He was also good at playing the guitar, but that point was lost on Ken.)

Ken continued to clean up the mess, wondering where Aya was, and if he'd been to the store yet. He dumped the last of the vases into the trash can and shouted over the music, "Hey Youji, have you seen Aya?"

The guitar strumming intensified as soon as Ken opened his mouth, and Youji shouted back, over the sound of his own music, "What?"

Ken frowned. Even if Youji was still acting mostly good-humored, he had clearly not forgiven Ken for the night before. "Where. Is. Aya."

It felt strange to use that name for him, but he still didn't know "Aya"'s real name, and there was no way, that Ken knew of at least, that Youji would have known that "Aya" wasn't "Aya".

Youji didn't answer at first, and the music changed again to something faster. He sang over the new song:

"Ken just came back

to the shop

where was he?

No one knows!

He wants to know

where Aya is!

Please tell him

Do you know?"

The girls clapped and cheered for his quick thinking, and Youji smirked at Ken before continuing.

"The good girls

Saw Aya go

Ken is dumb

Ken is slow

Point him out

Tell him now!

Where'd Aya go?

Do you know?"

Youji stopped playing immediately and held one finger up. He started to tilt his hand in one direction and suddenly, every girl in the shop had simultaneously pointed to the storage room.

"Thanks," Ken said, and again as he opened his mouth, the strumming started. "I hate you!" he attempted to shout over the music (in as good-natured and humorous a manner as he possibly could, of course).

"Bye, Ken! Everyone say, 'Bye, Ken!'" Youji shouted back over the group of girls.

"Bye, Ken!"

"Have fun!"

"I hope you find Aya soon!"

"Come in earlier tomorrow!"

Ken stomped off toward the storage room. He found "Aya" in there, as promised, with soundproof headphones over his ears as he checked over items on one of their inventory lists. Ken's pride as an assassin jumped a little as he realized that "Aya" had not turned to face him, nor had he given any sign that he knew he was not alone.

So you get caught off-guard too, huh? He thought. You're kinda...not that tough.

He watched "Aya"'s back as he worked, wondering if "Aya" was concentrating on the inventory or thinking about providing for his sister. Of course, such "provision" was only financial in nature, and if "Aya" managed to survive for some time in Weiss he'd have quite a bit of money for Aya, though he'd also be contractually chained to Weiss, which Aya probably wouldn't like if she ever woke up unless if she didn't value "Aya" as a brother, and if that was the case then Ken wasn't sure that "Aya" should put himself through so much trouble to help Aya, though it was his choice to make, and Ken was pretty certain that Aya would value the effort "Aya" put into keeping her safe just as he had valued the effort that Kase--

"Do you need something?"

Ken jumped backward and raised his raised, thoroughly shocked that "Aya" had noticed him. I wasn't even moving! "I, uh..." he stammered. "I wanted to see what you were doing, and how things went today."

"You usually ask questions to learn that sort of information," "Aya" replied quickly. "Which you did not do." He pulled his headphones down so they hung around his neck and turned to face Ken. In the few seconds of silence that passed, Ken could hear one of the girls in the shop ask Youji to sing a song about her. The music changed again.

"And," "Aya" added, "There's nothing written about it on the back of my shirt, so..."

Pause.

"There was a girl named Mika

And you really wanna meet ha'

'Cause she aced her math test

Suga mamas are the best..."

"Youji, that doesn't make any sense!"

"Well, smart girls can become engineers, and then they can make lots of money...and then guys like me will hang out at their house all day..."

"Ahhh!"

"Really?"

"...yes. Really."

"I think Youji's pulling my leg!"

"Not until you're eighteen, sweetheart."

A look of frustration crossed "Aya"'s face. "Are you going to ask me?" he asked Ken, folding his arms as he tilted his head to the side.

Ken blinked. What the hell were we talking about? "Ask you what?"

"How my day was."

"Oh," Ken replied. He shifted his stance to one foot, and then the other. Why did "Aya" have to look at him so hard? His chest started to tighten, and the feeling of nausea returned. "Well, I figured you weren't going to answer, so...why bother asking?"

"Aya" tilted his head to the other side and took a step forward. He stopped, though, at one step, his intense gaze the only real source of intimidation. "If you didn't think I would reply the whole time, why would you have given that as a question you intended to ask me, when you didn't want to 'bother asking'?"

"Uh..." Shut up! I know "Aya" isn't your real name! Ken thought with childish vindication. He looked away, backing out of the room to get away from "Aya" before he threw up, passed out, or ran to a mirror to try to figure out what "Aya" was seeing.

He was saved by a clamor in the flower shop, followed by a screech of "Youji, you're smoking at work again?!", the sound of a squirt bottle extinguishing Youji's cigarette, the giggles and ruffling skirts of the girls, and the moans of a defeated would-be musician.

"Omi!" Ken shouted. He nearly ran into the door post as he left the storage room, leaving "Aya" to stare at the place where he'd been standing and ask himself, What the hell was that about? Although the music had stopped, the noise was far from finished and "Aya" sighed, placing his headphones back on his ears as he continued the inventory.

Omi dropped his backpack behind the counter and turned to face their could-but-never-would-be customers. He called over the ruckus, "I'm sorry for being late! Does anyone need any help?", holding up his hands to show that he would gladly assist anyone if it would mean they would actually buy flowers.

The girls buzzed around the shop, and when no one asked Omi for anything, he sighed and turned to Ken, who was approaching him far too quickly to be prudent.

Ken opened his mouth to reveal the details of his mission to the group's connection to Kritiker, but Omi whined over him, "I wish there was some good way to ask all these non-customers to leave if they're not going to buy anything..."

"Huh?" Ken asked, as though he'd forgotten about the girls. "Yeah, funny."

"It wasn't supposed to be."

"Oh. Anyway, about 'Aya'," he began, lowering his voice and moving a little closer to Omi, "I found out a few things..."

Omi nodded. "Let's discuss that in a few minutes..." he said, nodding in the direction of the storage room. Ken turned to look--"Aya" was approaching them, quietly watching the girls as they tried to talk Youji up, to ask him to start playing the guitar again. The red-haired man frowned; it seemed as though all the noise and activity made him uncomfortable, though he didn't let it slow him down as he made his way to Omi.

"Can we close soon?" he asked the youngest member of their team.

Omi smiled a sad little smile. "Not for another two hours, but most of them will go home when Youji makes it clear he's not going to play anymore..." He brightened and asked, "How was your day, Aya?"

"Aya" shot Ken a look that would have killed a lesser man. Luckily, his eyes didn't linger for long. "Fine," he replied in a cold, hard voice. He passed the clipboard with the inventory to Omi and frowned at the girls and the noise they were making. Ken watching in silent horror as "Aya" turned toward the crowd and shouted in as low and loud a voice as he could...

"BUY SOMETHING OR GET OUT!"

The shop fell silent.

Omi leaned towards Ken and whispered, "That was perfect."

As Ken watched the girls file out of the shop, some of them shooting dirty looks towards the newest member of the team, he wasn't sure if he agreed. For a guy with a younger sister, probably around the same age as the girls who visited their shop every day, "Aya" was terrible with girls. A glance in "Aya"'s direction told him that "Aya" did not enjoy dealing with crowds.

Welcome to the jungle.

/

Ken told Omi about his trip to the hospital, though he chose to leave out certain details, such as the name of their new teammate's sister and the room in which she was kept. If there was information that could be used to threaten "Aya", or keep him in line, then Ken knew it would be best for "Aya"'s sake if he kept it to himself. There was nothing that Kritiker could use against Ken, and he realized that being without friends and family has its advantages. If Kritiker wanted something to threaten Ken with, they'd have to target the entire neighborhood soccer team—a rather conspicuous move, for a secret organization.

So he kept his mouth shut, pretending he'd forgotten, or hadn't noticed, things like addresses, the name of the hospital, and the physical description of the person "Aya" had visited—the only detail he passed on was that "Aya" had visited a girl.

"I see," Omi said once Ken had caught him up.

He waited for probing questions, but none came. Omi just smiled at him and after a few seconds of holding his breath, and then staring at the wall, and then staring at his shoes, Ken patted Omi on the shoulder and walked away, leaving him to tend to his computer.

Thank God, he thought. Omi was usually such a thorough guy, but that day he'd let Ken go without making him relive what he'd seen. What importance did it really have anyway? Now that Ken thought about it, it would have been too cruel to make him go through that—to make him hand "Aya"'s heart over. Omi wasn't like that. Even when he managed the other team members, encouraging them to do what Kritiker wanted and to not make a mess out of their missions, he did it gently. Everything he really thought and felt about the team was closed off. Omi knew how to lead, and mediate, and just deal with it.

So that left Ken, all by himself, to think about what he'd seen.

/

Let's see if anyone spotted the three unlucky things Ken has done so far.

Would anyone like to Beta this story?