Ch.2: Flicker Becomes Flame

"Aya! Will you move those to the other side of the counter?" He looked up at the
voice, and saw the concerned face of the shop owner peering down at him. Amusement and a
clouding of something akin to kindness and sincerity bordered his features, and he did as he
was told. He obviously still had a day job; it had been assigned to him by Manx,
obviously, but it brought thoughts of WeiB into his mind often. It was at a member of
Kritiker's floral shop, also her day job, so there was much that they could talk about. He
did not know much about the Kritiker part of her jobs, but he did know much about her day
job, since she did own the floral shop and he worked in it. She was very kind, very caring,
and even when she had a night job similar to his. Manx no longer came to deliver his
missions; she got them for him, and since he was staying with her above the shop. But that
also meant something else; he had no news from Manx about WeiB, and that worried him. He
did not know if they hated him or still had faith that he would return, but he would be gone
a year...did they know that? No. They would be clinging to a false hope, the hope that he
might actually return. Perhaps it would be better if he didn't go looking for them after
this was over...he had no doubt that it would be the said former: they hated him. He, the
serious one, just when he had actually made him open up a little bit, he ran off to god-
knows-where? Even he knew that was not being a 'friend'.

The tinkle of bells signaled the coming of another customer. He did not look up as
he murmured, "Good day" almost tonelessly, but froze as a familiar voice held him in place.

"Looks like you fit in here, Abyssinian."

He stiffened, straightened, and met the gaze of a red-haired woman better known as
Manx. He nodded to her, and turned back to his work. His heart gave a leap and skipped a
beat. Did she check up on the other members of Wei?? Were they doing well in the shop
without him? Did Sakura still ask to see him? Was Aya-chan living alright? Did Youji
still love him? Did any of them still love him? Were they still taking missions? Was Omi
doing alright in school? Questions bubbled just on the verge of being blurted out, but he
kept his tight-lipped-ness and worked on the arrangement in front of him. Excited, Manx
noted the shaking fingers that arranged the flowers in a beautiful basket, and smiled
slightly. She waved her greeting to Calais, the owner of the shop and another fellow
Kritiker member, and turned back to Aya, still busy-looking, occupied with the arrangement
in front of him.

"Anxious to hear about your team members?"

Aya whirled around against his own accord, and blurted out an ungainly, "YES!"

"That's the first time you've lost control of your mask."

"That doesn't matter anymore. Is Ken still teaching? Youji gone back to the P.I.
business? Omi still doing well in school? Are they alright? Does my sister know about me?
Is Sakura a good friend to her-?"

Manx held up her hands, stopping the flow of chatter that came quickly like rapid
fire from her employee's mouth. "Steady, now. I don't think I've ever heard you say so
much in so little time, nor seen you act like some little child asking their mother for
something. But I will not, repeat, WILL NOT answer your questions. I have a meeting to
attend. Everything is in here." She handed him a disk and turned her heel, but did not
walk out the door. Aya stared at the disk in his hand, and stilled the trembling hand that
held it. "The disk", she continued, "has a small part about everyone's lives right now, as
well as several pictures I took of them when I visited, secretly of course, as well as the
statistics for your next mission. Good day."

He did not answer the goodbye, just mutely stared at the disk in his hand. Only
when Calais laid a hand on his shoulder and jerked her thumb to the back room did he break
out of his trance. A customer arrived, and Calais went to meet him/her, while shooting Aya
a look that purely said "GET GOING". He looked back at the disk, and realized that he could
answer all of his questions with this disk. On a sudden burst of excitement, he dashed to
the back room, and booted up the computer. He had a little bit of training from Calais, and
he when the startup was complete, he popped in the disk and started to read.

There was much on the disk, but the information was satisfying. Ken was still
teaching soccer, Youji was back to his first business, and Omi was in school. He skipped
the mission details, and opened up the other document. It was not short, but not
extensively long. His belief that they hated him dissipated as he read:

To: Persia, or to any others whom this might concern
From: The members of WeiB

For some time now, our teammate Aya/Ran Fujimiya, codenamed Abyssinian, has been missing for
quite some time now. We desire to have him back on our team is spurred by the fact that he
is our leader, and we have not been able to carry out the last few missions as smoothly as
we did before without him. This only proves our next point: we cannot function as well as
we did without him. As a very trivial part of Kritiker, we wish to request a search for
our teammate, to find him and to make sure that he is still alive.

Please note that even if you do not give us permission to conduct such a search or have not
already done so yourself, we will go ahead and proceed with the search. We do not want to
intrude upon his own matters, but if we must do so to find him, we will. He is a vital part
of our team, perhaps the most important, being he is the one that makes all the plans, and
able to bring all of us together. He has always been a very strong part of the team, not
the front lines, perhaps, but the strong backbone that kept us together and willing to
follow his orders. He is one of us, and therefore WeiB is not complete without him.

The next are some words from each of the members of WeiB on a personal basis:

Tsukiyono Omi:

I believe that Ran Fujimiya, also known as the leader of Weib, as a friend and
mentor, as a brother, as a teacher and just a personal enigma to others, had a heart. He
was always very cold and very detached from the rest of us, but all of us were used to
opening up to the pain and sorrow that our job called for. It was not healthy, as the rest
of us had found, to keep it all bottled up inside. We took some of the burden, and he knew
that we were doing it even though he didn't like it, and he never said a word of 'thanks' or
showed any gratitude at all. But perhaps that can be proven that he has helped us, on a
way. We now try harder for everything because we tried so hard to get him to relate to us.
We wanted to help him, and at first he pushed us away, then he grudgingly agreed, then he
started to smile, and all of us were happy until the day he was gone. There was nothing
wrong with him the day before, so we were all very surprised at his disappearance. But
perhaps it was not unexpected; Ran has always had his own personal reasons for everything he
does, and we believe that this is only a temporary detachment. But please let us search
for him. It just doesn't seem quite right around the flower shop without him.

Hidaka Ken:

Ran has always made me mad. He was always so cold and unemotional. That all changed when
his sister was captured and all chaos was turned loose in his life. He fell apart.
Literally. We had to help him, and while we did in our respective ways, we found a man so
emotionally weak under that strong defense barrier that we were shocked. THIS was Ran, the
strong one of the group, the leader, the impassive stone, as I liked to call it? He was so
weak, so incredibly weak, and we all wanted to help him. For once, he accepted the help
with grateful but timid hands. I guess he was afraid that this good thing in life wouldn't
last as well...his sister, for a while, seemed like she wouldn't last, so why should we?
Well, for one, we were assassins, trained to kill, trained to take emotional strain. But
the pressure on him had been too much; now, instead of leaning on him, we had reversed
roles. We were now helping him, being the strong ones, instead of him being the strong. He
never helped with anything, of course, but that was just like him. It wouldn't have been
the same if he hadn't been aloof and silent and pensive all the time. He was the wary one
of the group, and that was exactly what we needed. Without him we were blind. He saw
things that we didn't, the little details of life that escaped our attention as everyday
occurrences. He learned to appreciate life, while we just toyed around with it. We could
live it while we had already died, or we could just end it. Somehow, he never failed to
inspire me that there WERE things in life that were worth living for. He was one of them.
Return him to us, at the very least tell us where he is, because he's part of us, an
unseparable part. We love him, that's all. Please let us search for him, at the least. I
promise we'll leave you alone after this.

Kudou Youji:

Ran Fujimiya probably meant more to me than to anyone else in this world...though I loathe
to tell anyone of this, I guess this is the only way to make you understand: I was his
lover. Hmm, I never thought of myself to fall in love with such a complete cold piece of
stone, but somehow he thawed this heart of mine. It had been ice before, but he warmed it,
melted the icy surface, and I could breathe again and find that I enjoyed every breath of
day, every sight of Omi running through the door from school, every scene where little kids
piled around Ken and demanded he play with them tomorrow. But most of all, I could just sit
and watch him at night, watch him breathe, in and out, that life-giving gesture that was
done so effortlessly, but meant so much. He was still living, and I partly believed it was
because of me that he still lived and breathed; to be with me. Well, his departure was a
complete surprise, but I can't seem to get myself to hate him. That's what comes out of
true love; you can't hate the person you love, no matter what they do to you. And now, I
must say like some kind of romantic, it feels so lonely when I'm in bed and there's no one
beside me to warm me. Now I'm the solitary one. But if you find him, contact me, give me
at least an address. I won't do anything to contact him if he wants to be alone, but I
still love him, no matter what happens, I'll always be there for him, friend or lover. I
still have a heart that he saved for me, and I'm determined to love him to the ends of time.
But of course, it may not be the same kind of love, but if you find him, tell him I love
him, always. Always and forever, his little hopeless romantic.

Please, Persia, file a search for him. He means so much to us that we cannot express in
words what he means to us. To return him would be like returning a missing part of a
beautiful puzzle picture to us; it's not the same without him. We will still be living in
the Koneko No Sume Ie until October 3, a Wednesday. After that, we will not be living at
the shop anymore. Please contact us of any search results before that date.

The members of WeiB

For the first time in a long, long time, he knelt his head on the keyboard and shed
tears. Tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of happiness, he wasn't sure of which, but he
was so relieved that he didn't see Calais walk in. She took one look at him, smiled, and
walked out. But he didn't notice. All he could see was the screen in front of him, the
letter, the words and letters that swam blurrily in front of him, but he didn't care. They
still liked him, they didn't hate him, they still wanted him to come back, after so many
weeks of disappearance, they still wanted him to come back. They were so trustworthy of him
that he almost felt like asking them to hate him, but it wouldn't work. They were his
'family', against his own will, but perhaps it was a good thing that they had opened his
heart and opened his mind out to the world. They themselves weren't as perspective of life
as he was, but they were just as enjoying it. They liked the life they lived during the
day, the sunshine, the people, the flowers, the shop. Even the killing and the missions by
night paled in comparison to their optimism and cheerfulness that lightened the atmosphere.
All the memories crowded in his head brought unseen tears to his eyes, but they fell from
happiness.

Oh, he loved them all so much. They were the adoptive family that he took care of,
against his own conscience, but he learned to love them back, in his own way. At least, he
found, it had paid off. They were still his family, even though he was miles and miles
away, they still had hope. They were such family that he now knew, and he wouldn't let that
slip through his fingers like he had with his first one.

No, he would return to them. He would fulfill that hope that he would return,
because they were family. And they were one and unseparable.

/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \

Author's note:

Treat this as the emotional version of "When You Gonna Learn". Personally, I love
that fic, but that's not the place where I got the idea. Enjoy.

Andrea Weiling