For some the unusual is normal. Things that are different don't normally bother these people but sometimes they wish to understand. Sometimes there's a desire inside them that they can't explain. They want to understand the things that are so unusual for this world, but sometimes they don't want to be understood.
There was a plate waiting on the kitchen counter. It consisted of an omelet, some bacon, and rice. This had been the ruetin that the two had fallen into. Ayame would leave a home cooked meal for Shizuo on the counter and there would be a dinner when he got back from his job. He hadn't really run into the odd girl since she had come to stay with him and even wondered is she was staying there or else where. This had continued for a week but today seemed to be different.
Shizuo was a little surprised to see Ayame leaning over the sink scrubbing a pan. She was in a tank top with her hair tied back, a scar was visible running across her shoulder blades. Shizuo walked over to where she was and leaned over to grab the pan from her. Not only dies she cook and clean up after herself, she kept his usually empty fridge full. He wanted to try and help her in someway. To his annoyance she moved the pan away and glared at him slightly.
"Nuh-huh" she shook her head, "your food will get cold." She tried to look him in the eyes but ended up squinting and looking away as the sun shone in them.
Shizuo was slightly annoyed but shrugged it off and went over to where the plate she left him was, "Thank you for the food." He watched as her shoulders relaxed slightly and began eating silently. She was a surprisingly good cook, you couldn't find anything like it in the restaurants around here.
Ayame blinked trying to see. She had extremely good night vision but when it came to anything more than artificial light she was blind. She scrubbed the pan running her fingers over it until it felt smooth and rinsed it off. She usually avoided being awake when the sun was up but work had been hectic and she had fallen asleep once she had gotten back to Shizuo's place and woke up a few hours earlier.
"You're good with animals right?" Shizuo's voice got the girls attention.
"I think I'm better with animals than I am with people." She closed her eyes and smiled at him before turning her back and ran a towel over the pan.
"Would you mind tagging along with me today we could use your help with some of our jobs." He had told the shop keeper than he would ask.
"You might get unwanted attention because of me though." She felt an odd desire to go with him but at the same time knew it would be a pain in the ass if she did.
"I'm used to that." He watched the girl as she moved away from the counter. The way she was moving was odd she had her arms outstretched and she ran into the chair before carefully sitting on it. "Are you ok?"
"I've got a high light sensitivity. I'm basically blind in the daytime." She fell into her usual smile that pissed him off, "but if you don't mind I don't really have anything else to do so I can tag along."
Shizuo couldn't help but feel bad for asking. If he had known she was blind in the daytime he wouldn't have bothered asking then a thought crossed his mind. He had seen the girl only at night and with as beautiful she was it wouldn't be a stretch, "are you a vampire."
The question caught Ayame off guard and caused her to laugh. "I can see why you would think that but no I'm not. I had a friends that was though." Her mind wondered as she thought of him. Of his screams of pain and the way she couldn't help him, couldn't even help herself. She shook her head and smiled then looked down feeling a little odd, "Can you help me to the room or at least to the hall way?"
Shizuo thought for a moment watching the rare emotions cross over the strange girls face. Usually she just kept the smile that pissed him off on but this time he saw a glimpse of sadness and frustration. He wanted to ask about it but knew he probably shouldn't, if she wanted him to know she would have said instead of kept quiet. At the girls request he walked over to her and picked her up causing her to squeak. He had surprised her but once the girl realized what was going on she put her arms around Shizuo's neck to make herself easier to carry. Shizuo felt a slight warmth in his face his heart rate increasing as little as he carried the girl towards her bedroom. The irritation that was building earlier seemed to instantly vanish.
Ayame blinked a little as she was gently placed into her room. "Thank you." She smiled as he was released and walked over to the night stand. She opened the drawer and pulled out a long black strip of cloth and wrapped it around her head covering her eyes. The cloth was thin enough that she could see through it but thick enough that the light wouldn't reach her eyes. She pulled a baggy long sleeved shirt over her tank top and grabbed her back pack.
"I'm ready whenever you are." She smiled at Shizuo who was still standing by the door way, "don't be concerned I can see with this on."
Shizuo gave Ayame a skeptical look. Blind folds weren't meant to help you see but whatever works he guessed. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away making sure to keep the girl in the corner of his eye. It seemed that she could indeed see with that thing over her eyes.
They stopped by the door to put on their shoes before heading out to meet Tom and Verona. The two didn't feel the need to fill the silence as they walked. Ayame noticed that Shizuo was keeping an eye on her but for some reason it didn't bother like it did when Shinra watched her. The blond man made her usually cold heart feel warm and she wasn't sure what to think of that.
Tom watched in somewhat shock as Shizuo walked down the side walk, a blind folded chick walked next to him. He hadn't expected for the girl to actually come on their job with them, let alone show up looking like that. In their line of business attention wasn't necessarily a good thing. What he found the oddest though, was the way that Shizuo's eyes would drift over to the girl every once in a while. In his history of knowing the man he had never once seen Shizuo take an interest in anyone, let alone a girl. Tom couldn't tell if the girl felt the same way about Shizuo but he wouldn't defiantly be cheering for him.
"Why is girl here? And why is she with Shizuo?" Verona couldn't explain the tightness in her chest or the Irritation that the girl gave her.
"She's staying with Shizuo right now. As for why she's here Dennis requested she come along sometime." Tom was a little afraid of the blond girl at the moment. He wasn't sure what her interest in Shizuo was but this was going to make for a very long day.
"Hey Tom, Verona." Shizuo waved an arm in there air in greeting a lit a cigarette. He glanced over at Ayame and gave her a small nudge with his elbow when she did greet his coworkers. She seemed more awkward around people then so he wasn't sure if she was being rude or just wasn't sure what to do in the situation.
"Hello." She smiled at the two people they had approached and shot a glare at Shizuo. She didn't really want to say hi to the woman who had tried to kill her.
The two greeted her in return. Tom and Shizuo walked next to each leaving Ayame and Verona to fallow. Neither female liked this arrangement but neither of them would complain either.
"So where are we starting today?" Shizuo asked unaware of the tension of the two fallowing him.
"Umm." Tom glanced back at the girls nervously, "Well we don't have a lot to do today. 3 of them have guard dogs and the other one is the owner to a dojo." He looked down at the addresses trying to ignore what was going on behind him.
Shizuo glanced back making sure that Ayame was still doing ok. It seemed that the blind fold really didn't impair her vision as they walked down the side walk, though it was getting a few stares. "Let's leave the dojo for last."
Tom resisted groaning. He hated collecting debts from people with guard dogs, they always made it difficult. Plus having two newbies on the job was really going to make it that much harder to deal with. Tom sighed and listed off the nearest address, it was only a couple blocks away.
"How can you see with that on?" Verona asked breaking the silence.
"How can you see without it." Ayame didn't feel much like playing nice and couldn't help feeling like she did something wrong when Shizuo glance back at her. She knew she should have walked behind him instead of Tom.
"I don't understand your answer." Verona frowned a bit, she did not like this girl.
"I can't see well when there are bright lights." Ayame was saved from having to communicate for a bit as the sound of barking came into ear.
"That's the first place." Tom groaned. There were two big guard dogs standing up by the gates. Their teeth were bared in a silent growl and their ears were pointed forwards.
Ayame slipped in between the two males that where standing infront of her, causing them both to stare at her in shock, and walked up to the larger of the dogs. The dog flattened his ears and began to bark at her. Ayame sat down a little ways infront of the dog, scooter a little closer, and put her hand out for it to smell. The dog proceeded to bite her hand and help on for a while.
Shizuo's arm tensed. What the hell was she doing! He watched in slight bewilderment as the girl didn't react at all to being bit. The dog that had bitten the girl whined and licked the wound it had created. With her uninjured hand she reached in her bag and brought out two pieces of rawhide and offered one to the dogs infront of her. Shizuo was a little shocked when both dogs took the treat.
"I'll wait here if you don't mind." The girl looked back with a smile, it was almost believable with the blindfold on.
"If you had treats why no give to dogs first?" Verona spoke up.
"They wouldn't have taken it." Tom answered for Ayame as she scratched on of the dogs ears.
"They have been trained to only accept food from their master or someone they trusted. Once the more dominate of the two accepted that I could be trusted the other would fallow. It's kind of like humans, you wouldn't eat food someone you didn't trust gave you would you?" Ayame didn't bother looking at the other female as she ran her hands over the dogs head.
"Come on lets get this over with." Shizuo was deep in thought as he took the first steps past the dogs. If what Ayame had said was true then that would mean he trusted her? Well she had given him no reason not to. Shizuo glanced back at the girls wounded hand and crinkled his brow a bit. There was blood on her hand but no wound was visible. He didn't like when things didn't make sense.
The door to the house flung open hitting Shizuo in the face, "what have you done to my dogs!"
Without even realizing Shizuo had lifted the man up and threw him down the stairs so that he landed in between the dogs and the remainder of his team.
"I think the question is what have you done to them." Ayame stood up both dogs at her side growling at the one they called their master. The bastard was stuck in between Shizuo and his once trusted dogs.
Tom was unsure of what to do in this situation, as he too was stuck in the middle of everything, and cleared his throat getting the frightened mans attention. "About that debt you owe."
"Here take it! Just don't kill me!" The man threw whatever was in his pockets and ran back to his door way. Once the man was shut back inside Tom began counting the money in his hand and shook his head. This was almost twice what the debt was.
"How did you do that?" Shizuo looked down the stairs at the girl as she scratched one of the dogs head again.
"Kindness does something to those who have never known it." The smile was on her face but Shizuo thought her could see spots that where darker on the blind fold as if she had been crying. This did not help his mood at all.
To the relief of everyone involved that had been the most difficult job they had to face that day. They did run into some trouble at the dojo though. They men had tried to attack Ayame and Verona but Verona took them out single handedly. It seemed as though she didn't like being shown up by the other female.
"Verona and I can take the money back to the boss." Tom usually delivered it with Shizuo but considering his foul mood it would be good to get away from him for a bit.
"You sure?" He looked over at Tom who nodded.
Verona looked like she was reluctant to fallow but didn't speak up as he was lead away from the two. Shizuo wasn't sure what to do he was so annoyed at everything and couldn't make since of any of it. The girl that stood next to him stumbled and bumped into his arm and in small touch all his anger melted away. This girl could be dangerous in a way that he never would have imaged. He was in so much shock that he didn't even notice the figure in black pull up infront of them.
Celty waved her arm in the front of his face to get his attention. It must be important for her to do that. He watched as she began typing furiously and held out her phone. Before he had a chance to read it he felt a tug on the arm that had been ran into.
"Can you read it allowed. I can see the screen." There was a bit of color to Ayame's cheeks as she spoke and she wasn't sure what to cal the sensation.
"She says the hunters are near. Does Shizuo know what you are?" Shizuo read what Celty wrote and then looked down at the girl next to him.
"He doesn't know and I'm not too keen on changing that. Though I guess if he gets stuck in this mess he deserves to know why." Ayame bit down on her thumb. Hunters where bad. The scary kind of bad.
"Be careful. Shingen say's that they have your file. He'll be sticking around to observe the situation for a while longer." Shizuo was getting very tired of this conversation, "What they hell are you two talking about!"
There was a small pop and Ayame felt a sharp pain in her side. I was too late to explain. The group found themselves suddenly surrounded by people in wolf masks each with a different weapon. This would not end well for anyone.