Mission #2: Der erste Auftrag
Children's laughter. Such a sweet sound. It could bring the worries away. How familiar this sound was.
Two boys ran after each other. They were laughing in their chase.
A pretty little girl, their little sister was trying to catch up with the two. But in her attempt she tripped and fell. She scratched her knee and she cried. A sound that could break a heart, no matter how cold it wa. Or so I thought.
I reached out to the girl. I wanted to hug her and comfort her. But my hands were like those of a ghost, it went right through her and caught empty air.
Her two brothers had come back for her. One picked her up and held her in his arms, talking to her softly. The other offered her a lollypop. She took it and smiled sweetly. Her smile warmed my heart. I smiled.
Suddenly the weather changed. The rain was pouring down. Someone screamed. A child's scream. It was so loud and heartbreaking.
Blood, so much blood! I wanted to yell no. The only sound was a deafening scream.
I opened my eyes and closed them again. The sun stood high. Too much light. Must buy new curtains.
I shifted uncomfortably in the sheets. They were soaked with sweat. I pressed my hands against my ears, trying to stop the sound, remnant of the scream. A futile action. After all, how could you stop something that came of some deep and dark part of your own mind? I tried to concentrate on the sound of cars outside. Morning rush hour. All the nice little folks hurrying to their jobs, thinking boring and angry thoughts. They were not distracting me from the sound in my head. Damn. The sound would eventually disappear. It always would. Slowly. Agonizingly slow.
Wednesday. The second day I worked as a flower man. I was starting to enjoy the flowers, no matter how ridiculous this might sound. I enjoyed their scent, their color, their aura. They were innocent, they were pure, they were white.
Weiss. I wondered who named us Weiss. We may be in charge of defending the innocents, but we were all far from being innocent ourselves. Blood stained our hands. Blood of the guilty ones perhaps, but blood nonetheless.
The day went away normally so far. Think idiotic thoughts, checking out the girls, flirt with the girls, take a break, flirt some more with girls, water the plants, flirt, break, flirt, break, flirt and so on.
At 4pm the sound of a music box sounded softly through the shop. We, loyal and good doggies, immediately dropped everything we were doing and went to the basement. Beware, those who would anger Manx!
"Hi baby" I greeted the pretty feline. She looked disapprovingly at me, like a strict mother when her child had done something bad. I gave her a sheepish grin. She shrugged and went right down to business. The word 'chill' apparently did not exist in her vocabulary.
"Mina Kamui. She owns an agency for secretaries." She threw a picture on the small table.
I whistled. Yohji did the same. Hey, I couldn't help myself! My hormones led their own life. Yohji's probably did the same. Besides, the picture was worth a praise or two. The woman WAS a babe. She looked like Aphrodite herself with her long purple hair and shining bright blue eyes.
I waved the picture in front of Manx. I wanted to see more piccies. One with target in a bathing suit preferably.
"Hey, is this everything???? You disappoint me! I thought missions always came with movies."
Manx looked at me with something part anger and annoyance. I grinned. Hey! I asked a perfect fine question. Of course I already knew the answer. My fellow assassins had had this situation more than once. I just wanted to see how she would react.
"All the information you need are in the files. We're not running a movie theater here."
I raised an eyebrow and waited. Nothing. She was going to just evade the question. Hm. Guess she wasn't going to tell me that she didn't have any fancy pictures to show since this mission was composed on a very short notice. Kritikers didn't have time to collect enough pics for a clip. Afraid to undermine the abilities of her watchers, eh?
"Since when is it illegal to own an agency?" I asked, deciding to let it go. I was going to like it here if all our targets looked so damn good. Hell, I'd be in heaven!
Manx just rolled her eyes and continued. "The secretaries only work for major drug lords in the world. Target will be attending this ball tonight. The mission would be to copy her agenda without her notice. Is everyone in?"
She let her eyes do a survey around the room.
Ken shrugged. Being an easygoing guy as he was, he didn't turn down a lot of mission. Omi was practically obliged to tag along. After all he was the only one with the required skill. Aya just did it for the money. I pulled Yohji up and danced the tango with him.
"We are going to party tonight, Yotan!"
"You bet we are, Sky!"
8pm. I disliked Aya a lot. In fact, I was considering to put him on my list of people I hate. He totally ruined my beautiful once in a lifetime chance! I'm furious. Me, Sky, the great womanizer going around acting like a waiter, while Yohji would be having all the fun? No fair! I mean, who made him boss anyway?!
Our great leader just said with his dispassionate voice "Yohji, Sky. Only one of you can infiltrate into the guests and distract the target. The other is needed to act like a waiter."
The simple gesture of flipping a coin. Guess who the lucky guy was? Right.
I could feel blood boiling inside of me. Probably wouldn't have freaked out if I came out as the winner. But still.
"Why don't YOU go do that yourself?!"
"I'll be outside on the look-out" he simply stated.
So here I was. Bringing drinks around for these rich snobs, wearing a waiter apron instead of a shining tuxedo. I wonder if Persia or whoever was replacing him would mind it too much, if I killed Aya. He would probably hate it.
Yohji was already busy flirting with the target. Gee, he sure lost no time over it. Ken was my companion in this misery, although he didn't seem to mind it half as much as I did. If he did, he wasn't showing it. Omi, the lucky kid, only had to wait in some room for us to steal the purse…
Actually, it would be borrow rather than steal. Yohji was leading the target to a small table, our sign to start the performance.
Not only did I get a lousy job, I also got the pretty hate-able part too. I was to ruin this gorgeous lady's lovely orange dress. I, the clumsy waiter, would *accidentally* spill a glass of wine on her dress. She was on the brink of tears when it happened. Everybody knew how wine stains were almost impossible to get out and how lovely the dress was. How cliché.
Yohji, being the perfect gentleman, scolded the clumsy waiter. Made mental note. Get even with him later.
After that, the scolding monsieur just HAD to hold and comfort the poor mademoiselle. And with a long passionate kiss being a great way to do it, Yohji did his duties. Ken in the meanwhile quickly exchanged the purses and brought it to the boy genius.
Why wasn't Ken doing my job and me doing his, you would ask. You would think that Kenken would be the perfect candidate, since he was clumsy enough all on his own. The problem was that our leader Aya there wanted me to be the distraction. He mentioned something about me being too conspicuous. Who? Me? Nah. I blended in the crowd perfectly with my long hair and attitude, while the rest of the waiters were lambs and had short typical Japanese colored brown/ black hair. He figured that the people in charge of the place would be keeping an eye on me and watching my every move. I would have never managed to slip away unnoticed. It did make sense. But I'd rather die than admit that in his face.
There came the manager who organized the ball. He just couldn't lay it off. He just had to go yell at me for being clumsy. I smiled pleasantly at him. He blinked, looking puzzled. He was trying to decide whether I was plain old dumb or really desperate to keep the job. Guess I'd just have to show him how dumb or desperate I was.
His mind was a very open and boring book actually. It was a child's play to tear just a tiny amount of papers out of that book. He wouldn't be causing much trouble now, just be a little dumb. The effect would wear off eventually, in a month or two. Probably. The hell with the headache I'd most likely get the next morning.
By the time I was finished, Ken came back with the purse. He gave a quick glance at the still form of the manager sitting in the chair staring outside.
"What happened to him?" He asked.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. He's just enjoying the pleasant evening and resting." I said, smiling pleasantly.
"Doubt Aya'll like it." Eyebrow raised.
"Of course, Ken. But who'se gonna tell?" I patted on his shoulder. "You just do your job like a good little boy and I'll do mine. Duty calls." I left flashing a grin. Ken was amused, but he still disapproved. Lucky for me, he didn't disapprove it enough to hand me over to Aya.
I really did have a job to finish. Me, the unfortunate one, had to accomplish the other half of my miserable mission. I, accidentally as always, spilled a cup of tomato soup on the target. Good news was that the soup was cold. At least she won't be spending the rest of the evening in ER.
The bad one was that now the dress will definitely be ruined. If the wine stain didn't do the trick already, this certainly would. The babe this time actually burst down in tears. Not very surprising, I suppose. Her small shoulders shook with choking sobs.
I hated to see a woman cry. I liked to see myself as a man who made women smile or blush, not cry. Sometimes, I suspected that there was some international conspiracy against all men. Let's cry, so we could get what we want! That's one of the reasons why I vowed never to give in, even when they cry. Me, tough! At least I try.
More scolding from Yohji, that he would see to it that I will never find a job again in this town, yada yada yada. And of course this all ended with a big comfort from the everly still perfect gentleman Yohji. He wrapped an arm around her protectively and gave me his best-forged angry glare. He strategically turned her so that no one besides me and him could see Ken quickly exchanging the purses again.
Ah gee, it was really a damn miracle that his pants were still on. After all, what kind of better comfort was there than to screw the woman out of her mind?
'Yo-tan. We are STILL on a mission, ya know? She IS the target.'
'Sky, get the fuck out of my mind! NOW!! I KNOW what I'm doing!'
'Yeah right. Just make sure you don't ruin the stupid mission.'
'Yare yare.'
"Hey Omi, can I read the agenda?" It would take another hour to get back to the apartment and I was in the mood of reading. Not that this happened a lot. It actually almost never happened, but I was curious.
Shrug. That could happen, ne?
The fact that I was blessed with such quiet companions did help though. Boredom might have played a role too.
Aya and Ken were both absorbed in their own little worlds. Omi was quietly staring into the sky. Each thinking their own thoughts. A sort of a ritual. I guess.
Yohji somehow mysteriously disappeared, after checking on us really quick. He also murmured something vague about having forgot something at the party. My guesses would be a certain purplehaired woman.
"Sure." Omi flickered on his laptop and within a sec he found the file. Child-Genius. I already took like hours to find the folder My Documents, let alone some file that was located among thousands of other files.
Hmm… Let's see. Diners, parties, meetings, yada yada yada. Nothing special. Just some drug transfers, some elimination's. Nothing that was uncommon for the regular life of a crime boss. Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, New York….. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Hey! This is the personal file section of the babe! I wonder if she kept a secret diary or something. I always say that it's never superfluous to study the thoughts and deepest desires of women. Of course I already studied a lot, reading their minds and all. Still, there was always something more to learn, ne?
Apparently she was a secretary herself. But she only seemed to work for…
I almost dropped the laptop. My eyes widened with surprise. I checked it twice, but there was no mistake. He came to Japan! I practically threw the laptop back to Omi. I would probably have crushed it or done something else to it, if I had it any longer in my hands.
The beating of my heart quickened. The warmth of the circulating blood tinged my skin red. Luckily, darkness concealed me. Nevertheless, Omi seemed to have sensed something amiss.
"Daijobu, Sky?" His big blue eyes looked at me questioning.
"Daijobu, little one."
"Really?"
"Yeah." I patted his head absently. No need to worry the nice folks now.
It wasn't a very uncommon name. It must be some odd coincidence. Just relax and take a deep breath. I did it and it didn't help. Shit.
I remained silent for the rest of the trip. I looked out the highway. Cars were flashing before me, just like memories were. A never ending stream.
Until I finally drifted into sleep at crack of dawn, only one word tossed around and around in my head… Yamoto.
TBC
"Et tu, Brutus! how could you?! I considered you my son. I even gave you a house as gift. Still you gave me a false social security number just like the rest of them."
