Let me tell you something about being an assassin. You need a couple of things to be able to survive in this world I'm living in. First, of course, you need skill. Skill to kill, skill to run away as quickly as possible while needed, skill to be still in control even under pressure, and skill to erase your trail. Yeah, you definitely need things like that.
Secondly, you need the ability to read the situation, so you know when to kill and when to just leave your victim and hide before *you* get killed.
The third… Well, you need to have immense sense of loneliness and throw
away whatever emotion you have.
I'm quite proud to say that I have all those skill, and although maybe I'm not an expert in the first two things, I'm quite sure that I can match any expert in existence in the world about the third thing; about the sense of loneliness and being cold and unemotional.
I don't really remember the last time I could still feel my emotions. I
think it was when the doctors told me that Aya-chan was in a coma and they didn't know whether or not she would
wake up. Since then I wore a mask of coldness, hate and resentment towards the
others. I've never put off the mask, for so, so long that now I have no idea
whether or not it still can be pulled off.
It wasn't that much of a problem though. Besides, that made me just like a stereotypical image of an assassin: cold, brutal, hateful, unfeeling, merciless, and unemotional… All the good things of a good assassin, if you know what I mean.
Then, I said goodbye happy and cheerful
life, welcome Crasher and all of the shit that was to follow. I know I am
bitter; you'll be the same way if you were in this world for too long. In those
years with Crasher, I was almost thankful that I had thrown my emotions away.
You know that emotion makes you soft. You'll be feeling too much, caring
too much with another, and *that* somehow will be your weakness; it will be the
one that will eventually kill you at the end. Thank God, if you don't fall in
love and get attached. You know what will happen if you fall in love. Your
enemy will take it as your weak spot, and then
they will kidnap your loved one and use he/she against you.
Or at least that was what the people in Crasher told me. Thankfully, I
haven't experienced any of that. I've told you I took precautions.
Okay, you're right. I experienced that. Yeah twice, that Sakura girl and
Aya-chan, *but* that is beside the point. It happened way after the Crasher.
Okay, so I can't deny that I actually cared, even for just an itsy bitsy
tiny way, for my teammates in Crasher, mostly Knight, but it wasn't so much
that would make me surrender to the enemy if they captured and held Knight
hostage. It wasn't so much that I would cry if
they died. Sad, of course I would be, but I didn't think I'd cry.
Cold, yes I know. Ice doll, ice man, icicle from the coldest part of the
south pole (yes that is worse than the north pole, right?), bastard, jerk, son
of a bitch; name any that you can, I've earned all of them, and do I care?
Truthfully? No. Cold bastard, I know, you don't have to point that out again.
Times goes on, the Crasher eventually broke up and I was left alone hunting the son of the devil, from the deepest part of the hell, called Taketori.
Then came the next chapter of my life. Sayonara Crasher and please come
in, Kritiker and the new assassin group with a strange name. It was a German
name I think, and truth to be told, the translation is actually pretty cool.
White cross, huh? Where are my glorious, stunning armor and my white horse?
It wasn't really a pleasant surprise to meet them. Of all places, I had
to meet them on the top of the Takatori's building in the middle of my kamikaze
act. Honestly, they were a bit… weird group.
I first met with the teenager with brown hair. Well, he seemed pretty harmless… and I attacked him. What could I do? I was trained to always take a suspicion towards the other, *especially* the one who showed up out of nowhere in the middle of my mission.
Good thing, though that I attacked first. What do you expect? You want
me to wait until he used *that* strange weapon of his? No, thank you very much.
After that his group came out to reveal themselves. A beautiful young
woman dressed as if she was in a lack of cloth… well, not that I really mind or
gave any attention, actually. Then a tall longhaired blonde with wire and a
child with bows.
They wanted me… well, actually the woman wanted me to join the group. I
could see the lanky one wasn't too enthusiastic about this, the child was still
unsure and the teenager stared at me like he was unsure of what to do towards
me.
I actually didn't have any intention to join the group. Once with the
Crasher was enough, but the gun that was pointed to my head forced me to do
otherwise. Well, even the great ones have to realize when the time calls to give up.
So the next day I came to *the* place, which was a flower shop. Yeah,
good disguise for an assassins' base huh? (I'm
being sarcastic here)… and then I was introduced to my new group, which were all kids!!
I swear… I mean *those* people… wait, those *boys* were my new teammates?? Oh, geez, what were they compared to Crasher?? They were only children! I doubted that they knew how to kill.
I almost banged my head to the wall. Thank God, I still had my
self-control. Yeah, somehow, that *would* differ me from them. I was a
professional assassin, with tens, if not hundreds, of missions recorded in my
history; 99% of them successfully done, thank you very much.
And they... They were only amateurs. Honest to God, the eldest of them
was only 22 years old! Two of them were even under 20! 17 *and* 18! Oh, what a
shame! I just hoped they could complete the mission properly.
But, contrary to my first impression… they really were all professional
killers. They were professional killers and I was left wondering since when
Omi, the genki kid, started killing. And Ken, that brash teenager… for God's
sake, where the hell did he get his fighting and killing techniques? He had
been a soccer player before Weiß!! Surely he wasn't taught about fighting and
killing in the soccer academy right? Well, at least I knew that Yohji, the
blondie bomb-shell (or so he claimed to be) had been a private detective before
Weiß, so there was some basics of killing he knew.
It was, surprisingly, nice to live with them. To take care of the flower
shop, which became my daily break from the dark world of killing and blood. All
three of them were so nice too, each in their own unique way.
Ah, so here comes the unavoidable truth. Yes, living with them has
unconsciously softened me and now I care too much, feel too much. I can't
abandoned them, or let them get killed for the sake of some fucking missions,
unlike the times in Crasher where everything was okay as long as the mission
perfectly done.
Maybe it is because they are young, younger than those in Crasher? Maybe
because they have something in them that I can't really define. Affection?
Humanity? Loyalty?
Even though each of them has their own effect on me, I am most affected
by the brunette, Ken. I don't know, there is *something* about that boy. Okay,
this is strange. If you compare him with Omi and Yohji, Ken is so… ordinary.
He isn't as genki or as genius as Omi. He, at first, isn't as witty or
as sexually attractive like Yohji. He is so ordinary, I've told ya! While Omi
and Yohji are like under the spotlight, Ken is like in the back, behind the
curtain, with the shadows.
And yet, to me he is the most attractive of the three.
Omi's specialty is in charming other people by using his large blue
eyes, which always leave people surrendering and doing what
he asks them to do. Yohji's weapon in the middle of the day is his (so called)
sexy smile and wink, which will make the girls melt right on the spot and make
guys stare with jealousy.
I'm not impressed though. Seriously, If I want to, I can do Omi's large-pleading-puppy-eyed act,
even though I doubt that it will be as effective as Omi's. And hell, Yohji
should be thankful that I rarely smile! With all my modesty, I must say that if
without smiling I can get *that* much of the fan girls swooning all over me,
what will happen if I smile??
And Ken's weapon is … I mean *are* his innocence, his cheerfulness, his
caring nature, and his clumsiness. Yeah, you heard that right, clumsiness. And
truth to be told, I find all of them so endearing. And I can't match it. His
weapons are all the things that I lack.
What the hell has happened with 'sense of loneliness and being unemotional'
you ask? Well, it is pretty hard, I think. You see, I actually have promised
myself that I would stay the way I was like when I was still in Crasher. I
would be cold, I would be hateful, resenting other people… and I would *never*
let any of the three new teammates to have such an influence on me, and that
was a promise.
But oh, how he shines; from the very top strand of his hair to his toe.
The way he moves, the way he laugh, the way he his eyes sparkling with life.
His innocence, his naivety, his cheerfulness, his compassion, his clumsiness,
his brashness… everything about him I find so attractive, so endearing. To me,
he is the star on the stage, the one under the main spotlight, blinding
everyone, blinding *me* with the glow, with something indescribable that seems to radiate from him.
Oh, sure, talk about being a loser for breaking my own promise. But
really, I can't help it.
Laugh all you want, but I think I am in love with him. Wait. Scratch that. I *know* and I am sure that I am in love with him.
The way he shimmers, the way he shines… it is as if he was born to
radiate, to shine some light down onto people like me. Poetic, huh? It is as if
he is an angel sent from heaven to light up my life and I know you think I'm
losing my mind to say such things like this.
"Oi, Aya, we have finished. Do you want to go home now or you just want to sit there by yourself?"
I look up and see *his* face, Ken's face, looming over mine. Ah, so the
soccer practice has ended huh? He looks down at me, chest heaving, eyes
sparkling, trickles of sweat coursing down his fine, tanned body in a very
delicious way. He grins at me, openly showing his generousness and openness
that is so him. He looks so beautiful there, sweaty, brimming with life as the
afternoon sun shines down on him.
And at the moment, I am not sure which one blinding me more: the smiling boy in front of me, or the red afternoon sun behind him.
It doesn't really matter actually. I stand up as he slings the small bag
with the soccer ball in it across his shoulder. "So, that wasn't really
bad huh? The soccer game I mean?" he chirps, eyeing me questioningly.
"I've told ya that soccer is really exciting!"
He keeps talking as we walk towards the apartment, and I let him do all the talking. He doesn't expect me to talk back and I'm content enough to hear him talking like that.
'This is it?' you ask. Yes, unfortunately, but let me tell you one thing. Now I am proud and glad to announce that I have slowly but surely gained my emotions back.
It's quite fun to be a man with emotions after all. The current life
isn't treating me that badly, especially when I have a certain brunette by my
side to make me blind every time, everyday.
And that really isn't a bad thing.
No, we are not an item yet, but I'll be sure I'll tell him what I feel
and make him mine as soon as the opportunity comes.
And don't worry; I'll be sure to tell you about that one.