Part II
Snowflakes danced outside, fluttering with the wind as though in no hurry to touch down—and indeed, why should they? Snow translated to slush once on the ground. Idly, he stuck one hand out from the window and caught a few. Of course, they melted into nothingness at once. Youji chuckled wryly.
"Figures."
The blast of cold air had started seeping in, and he closed the window. The rest had wanted to lock the windows for good, but he drew the line at that. He appreciated their concern, really, but there was little point in it when he did not feel insecure anyway, after—whatever.
It had been more than three months now, since the day he woke up in Persia's underground hospital, wondering what the hell happened and why he felt like crap. His teammates had been amazed that he remembered nothing of his night at Schwarz's—and then, one and all, refused to even describe how he had looked when they found him returned to Weiß's suite after a long day of searching. He remained on drip for the next month, and by the time he finally got a chance to look at himself in the mirror, all he could see was a paler, somewhat thinner version of himself—which would have been normal after so long out of the sun anyway. What had been so horrific that they refused to let him out of their sight?
Youji sighed and turned back to watching the swirling snowflakes. The problem was that he remembered nothing, while his condition apparently made a deep impression on everyone else—thus all their concern seemed to be going overboard to him at times. Hell, even Persia had been giving only missions that required three or less people nowadays. Sometimes it irked him: what the hell actually happened?
"Youji?" Aya's voice called from the other side of the door. "Are you in there?"
He glanced at the clock; twelve minutes since he shut himself in. These three probably made a note in their diaries: 'check on Youji within fifteen minutes of not seeing him.' "Yeah, what is it?"
"May I come in?"
"Sure." He opened the door, and his friend walked in, two mugs of steaming coffee in hand.
"Red mug's yours; milk added." Aya preferred black himself.
"Thanks." He sat down and took a sip. "So, anything up? Or were you just making sure that I'm still around?"
A look of guilt and obscure pain crossed Aya's face. "Just making sure."
"Come on, did I look that bad?"
Violet eyes scrutinised him through the rising steam. "You still can't remember?"
"Not a single fickin' thing. Nil. Blank."
"Maybe it's better that way," the redhead said slowly, drinking from his own mug. "Your condition was... really bad." He stared down at the coffee. "I had nightmares for three nights running after we took you to the hospital, nightmares about witnessing what they did to you, unable to stop them, just looking on..."
"Shit," he swore. "Don't dwell on that, alright?"
Aya shook his head. "It was horrifying enough to even visualise watching; I can't begin to imagine how it must have been for you. Maybe it's your subconscious suppressing the memory. Self-preservation."
"If so, let it stay that way. I don't think I want to remember." The pained look in those darkened violet eyes haunted him.
"I agree," Aya murmured, sounding somewhat awkward. "If the memories do come back and you start feeling edgy or something, talk, okay? We're here."
"I know. Thanks."
Omi and Ken were waiting for Ran in their mission room. "How's Youji?" the latter asked.
"About the same. Is the mission set for tonight?"
"Yep," Omi replied, spreading a rough layout of their target's residence onto the table. "Ken-kun just finished drawing this. Take a look?"
He leaned closer, taking note of the possible routes Ken had marked out.
They went through the plans repeatedly—more than any of them was used to, although they had been going through this routine since Youji's injuries. With Omi managing high-tech stuff from Koneko, they needed to know all alternatives beforehand to coordinate properly.
Finally, Omi sank into the couch with a tired sigh. "I think we've covered all possible contingencies. What mood was he in when you left, Aya-kun?"
"Relaxed, bordering on exasperation. He may even be annoyed that you are staying behind with him."
"As though he needs watching over, huh?" Omi grinned wryly. "He isn't taking this as seriously as we are, is he?"
"Can't really blame him," Ken reminded them. "After all, he doesn't remember it."
"But... you know what? For all that torture, he's no longer as depressed as he was before." Omi's eyes were thoughtful. "The mood he was in after Neu's death... it was freaky; I had the distinct impression that he was walking on the edge."
"And now he's settled down." Ken agreed. "It is rather remarkable."
"You don't suppose Schwarz had anything to do with it?" Omi sat up suddenly. "Could they have meddled with his mind too?"
The three of them stared at one another. Could the abuse have been even worse than they had imagined?
The last wisps of steam had long faded, and the cooled coffee now sat on his table, looking for all the world like a neglected child. He picked it up, then sighed, and put it down again.
He did not feel like drinking, not alone.
With a start, he realised how far he had changed. Did he not close himself off after killing Neu? In those days, just being in the same room with anyone else—including his comrades—made him uncomfortable. Now... after so long with his three friends-turned-mother-hens, he found himself missing human company again, something he had thought impossible. When and how did it change?
Outside, snow had stopped falling, and all was silent as he let his mind wander back, back to—
That fight in the woods?
He still remembered that day clearly, remembered turning around to meet a pair of angry blue eyes, remembered exchanging blow for blow, half the time not even bothering to dodge—that had hurt like crazy, but he had welcomed the pain, as though accepting punishment in a small way for all he had done. He deserved no better, did he? Accept and lighten the debt. It was, he realised later, the turning point that prevented him from sliding further into the abyss.
Schuldig had not been out to kill that day; that much he knew, but beyond that, he had no more idea than before what prompted the attack. By all appearances, it seemed as though the goal of the fight was to fight.
Why?
He had no idea.
The throngs pressed in against him, both physically and mentally. Bodies writhed around him, some in ecstasy, others getting so high that they were on the threshold of falling—literally—into oblivion.
And he absorbed it all, the rhapsodies, the insanity, the betrayals, the hatreds, the lust... everything that a floor of sinners could feel.
Normally, he preferred to avoid crowds because of the mental shields he had to keep up, but not tonight. He did not want to be able to read his own thoughts, thanks very much. He did not want to hear his mind at all.
He wanted to forget.
And if he had to drown his own mind to achieve a semblance of that, he would.
The disco's music was blasted so loudly that the floor vibrated with the rhythm, yet he could still hear that seemingly never ending tormented scream. Would it haunt him forever?
Weiß was Schwarz's enemy, damn it all.
But he respected them as enemies; he did not want to break him—
Well, they did not break him. Period.
The combined heat from all the twisting, dancing bodies continued to assault him, enveloping him in its sweaty cigarette smoke-laced embrace. Still, the memories refused to be dismissed.
It was a mindreader's particular curse that he could never truly forget. He could try, but all he could hope for was to crush these memories under fresh sensations. Yet, they were as resilient as that young man himself...
Schuldig plunged himself deeper into the stifling crowd.
"Let me go."
"Youji-kun!"
"You're not—"
Ran did not bother adding his voice. Youji's mind was obviously made up.
"I am recovered. Do you want me to recite the doctor's remarks at the last check up?"
"But we can handle it—" Ken began.
"And so can I," the eldest assassin cut him off. "Am I Weiß or not? Are you guys my teammates or nursemaids?"
The point was valid, admittedly. They had been rather overbearing in their protectiveness, and Youji was not without pride or self-respect.
"Well..." Omi sighed at last, when no one else protested. "Fine, just don't—"
"If he wants to take risks, it's his decision," Ran interrupted. They had to let Youji pull his own weight as an equal again.
"Thanks, Aya," Youji muttered as they filed out of the mission room.
The room was painted with blood.
Was that Crawford? No, not that twisted, snarling face, not those blazing eyes filled with an almost maniacal fury—for, truly, there were two madmen here, not one. That could not be his friend, could it?
Strapped down in the centre of the room, he lay motionless—but not still; no one could be still under all this—for he could not move, not even one muscle. Perspiration lined his body, mingling with blood.
Farfarello sniffed delicately, and a slow smile spread over thick scarred lips.
He clenched his jaw, desperate to scream—yet holding back, pressing bleeding lips together over otherwise bared teeth. Eyes closed, every muscle tense, he was on the very brink—but he held on.
And everything was a savage, brutal red...
Schuldig swore as he banished the dreams and sat up. Avoidance was not helping him to get over that scene three months ago. The memory was still there, vivid as always on the forefront of his mind.
And really, when had he ever run away from his problems? Ridiculous.
Perhaps... face it down and he could lay it to rest.
The last thing he needed was to have it haunt him for the rest of his life—especially since he did not intend for it to be a short life.
"We've got to be fast, guys," Omi reminded them as the car zoomed to their target's place, a large warehouse cum office building. "Some drug traffickers that the police are trailing might be meeting with our target."
"Shimatta," Ken muttered. "We can't we wait them out then?"
"Because even Persia isn't sure when they are actually meeting, and this guy is a big one in the drug market. From what I've gathered, he's in the midst of negotiating a deal that Persia is trying to prevent, which means that we've to act as soon as possible."
"So, we dash in, off the guy, get his list of contacts in the field, and haul our asses out of there?" Youji asked, checking his watch. "You're sure about the room the list is kept in?"
"More or less. Pity that it wasn't on computer; would have saved us a lot of trouble. I guess our target subscribes to the philosophy that what one can hide using software, another can hack." Omi shrugged. "Manx's video tapes follow the same principle—you can't download stuff in that format the way you do VCDs—but it's inconvenient when the other side does the same."
"Don't worry, kid. I can handle my end." He flashed a grin at his old friend.
The car pulled up just then. "Let's go," Aya said as he got out from behind the wheels.
Five minutes later, Youji walked out of the lift onto the floor Omi had given him. At this time in the night, there was not a soul about, but he still softened his steps out of habit as he went down the corridors until he reached the room that Omi suspected to contain the wanted document. He picked the lock with practised ease using his wire, and slipped in.
Wait!
There was someone else in the room.
He had heard nothing definite, nor saw anything other than pitch darkness broken by a shut window with curtains drawn over it, yet some instinct—which had saved his life more than once—told him that he was not alone.
"You're looking for this, I believe," a voice said pleasantly into the eerie darkness. With that and a click, light flooded the room.
"Schuldig?" He felt genuinely surprised.
"Glad you remember," the Schwarz member smiled mirthlessly. "You look better than when I last saw you."
"Thank you." His gaze fell on the envelope in the other's hand. Even if that did not contain the document he was after, he would have to get Schuldig out of the way if he wished to search the room properly. "What brought you here?"
"Just curious to see how you're doing now," Schuldig smirked. "You want the list, I believe."
"I believe so too," he agreed. "Although I doubt you're here to hand it over."
"Hence, winner gets it." Schuldig tossed his head back, his eyes cynical. "Shall we start?"
He drew his wire. "Let's."
It was an even fight, much more so than the last encounter he could recall. In fact, the situation approached deadlock: he could not touch his opponent with that unholy speed, and Schuldig was kept at bay by the deadly wires. Warily, they observed each other, alert for any breach of defence.
Suddenly, running steps sounded down the corridor. The next moment, his teammates showed up at the door, heralded by Omi's darts.
"Schwarz!" Ken hissed, activating his claws.
"At your service." The German blinked out of the darts' way.
Meanwhile, Aya had placed himself between Schuldig and Youji. "Are you all right?" was asked softly.
"I'm fine." Despite the tenseness of the situation, he nearly sighed. Protective mother hen.
"Come on," Schuldig was saying at the same time. "We aren't done yet."
"No way," Ken growled, while Aya drew his katana, still keeping himself between the Schwarz member and Youji. "You haven't paid for what you did last time yet."
Schuldig shrugged fluidly with mock regret. "Seems as though we'll have to continue another day, then. Take the list, I've no need for it." He tossed the envelope in Omi's direction, neatly intercepting another dart. "By the way, Kudou, what do you make of the note I left?"
Youji blinked. What note?
But the unpredictable man had jumped out of the window before he could ask.
Half way into his third vodka, his mind begun to turn fuzzy—exactly what he wanted.
Whatever he had hoped to achieve, all he did get was more confusion.
This was the first time he had seen Youji face to face since that morning. As he had commented, the marks of abuse had faded, but, more fundamentally than that, there was a look of alertness and life about him now, which had been lacking during their last encounter. There was a new strength where despair last existed. What caused the change?
And seriously, what did he hope to get across with his parting shot?
Schuldig refilled his glass again, mentally making a note to replenish his alcohol stash. Drinking provided no reply, but it could short circuit his mind.
Which was all he could wish for, anyway.
"'If we shadows have offended,/Think but this, and all is mended,/That you have but slumbered here/While these visions did appear./And this weak and idle theme,/No more but a dream./Gentles, do not reprend./If you pardon, we will mend.'" Youji stopped and looked up at Omi. "This is the message he was talking about?"
"As far as I remember, anyway. Aya tore up the original." Omi managed a half-hearted grin. "Personally, I can't say I blame him—it was a highly-charged moment."
"Spare me the melodrama." He turned his attention back to the message again. What did it actually mean? "Is this some sort of ready made poem?" He found it hard to visualise a foreigner like Schuldig penning rhyming verse in Japanese.
Omi frowned. "Maybe... try asking Aya. You know he reads more than the three of us combined."
He nodded thoughtfully, still tasting the lilting lines on his tongue. "By the way, Omi, I'm going out later."
"Out?" The naturally large blue eyes widened. "Where?"
He paused. The thought had slipped out before he arrived at its reason. Where did he want to go?
An image rose up in his mind. An once cosy office, two tables facing each other, the chairs waiting for their respective occupants to return...
It still hurt, but it was no longer the acute pain of a fresh knife twisting in a bleeding wound. The pain, it seemed to be receding into the distance now... was he healing at last?
"Youji-kun?" Omi's voice sounded apprehensive.
He clicked back into himself with a start. "Huh?"
"Do you mind company?" The younger boy asked worriedly. "I mean..."
He mentally transferred Omi's head onto a plump wobbling hen's body, and grinned despite himself. "I've a hand phone; call if you're worried."
"Okay..." Reluctance was obvious in that dragged reply. "But where are you going?"
The grin faded. "I want to see Asuka." At the place where they had spent their only Christmas together, where they had been young... "To—say goodbye."
Omi nodded, obviously comprehending the private nature of this trip. "Take care, will you?"
"Of course, Omittchi." He had coined that nickname for his friend long ago, condensing the name and 'chibi' into one word.
Omi mock-scowled. "Oi, Youji-kun!"
He laughed, rumpled up the other's hair, and got up from his seat at the kitchen table to get the boiling kettle. "Coffee?"
"Yep, thanks."
It was almost like the old days, before Neu's appearance shattered everything for him. Joking, teasing, but always, with that warm undercurrent of support, which held them up through the long nights...
But before he could truly return his teammates' concern, he must lay his ghosts to rest. And he wanted to be free; Asuka's grip had pinned him for over two years now.
After tonight, he promised himself. After tonight.
"It's Christmas Eve! What in Heaven's name are you here for, Youji?"
"Why are you here yourself?"
"Not as though I've anywhere else to go, that's all. What's your excuse?"
"Same as yours, I suppose... Why not come over to my place and we'll make this a night to remember?"
"Dream on, kiddo. What kind of woman do you think I am?"
"The best, Asuka," he whispered to her three-year-old memory as the car pulled up at their old office building. It had started snowing again. He went up the lift.
"I wish it'd snow. No Christmas atmosphere."
"We can try. Turn off the lights."
"Very funny, hentai."
"Not that, partner. I mean this." He switched off all but the somewhat yellow light at the entrance. Immediately the stark sterile white light was replaced by the single bulb's weaker but warmer golden glow. "More homey now?"
"Hey, that's pretty." She grinned.
"We can improvise well enough." He grinned back. "We can wave a piece of red cloth before the light if you want an imitation of fire."
"Nah, that's going too far. I've only seen people curl up by the fireplace next to some decorated tree in postcards anyway."
"We can set up a tree here next Christmas to decorate. For now, how about carolling?"
"Why not? I've to warn you though, I don't sing none too well."
"And I can't hold a note if my life depends on it. Let's start howling."
The lift reached his floor. Not a soul around—just as it had been three Christmas Eves ago, when two new PI partners spent the night there, neither having a place called home.
He inserted his rusted key into the rusted keyhole and entered, switching on only the warm yellow light, not the fluorescent ones overhead that always seemed to reduce the place to a severe whiteness. "It's snowing, Asuka. Proper white Christmas."
"Look, it's almost midnight now. Sorry that I didn't get you a present; thought I'd spend the evening here alone."
"That's okay. I didn't get you any present either. We have next year."
"And a real Christmas tree."
"And those long strings of light bulbs; multi-coloured ones, I insist."
"Holly. Cones, too."
"Cakes, and coffee."
"With marshmallows."
"One of those log-shaped cakes."
"Pizza."
"Ribbons."
"Candles."
"Bells; those that really jingle."
"Some nice big cushions to curl up in."
"A carpet and blankets."
"Money."
"What an anticlimax."
"Well, it's true."
"Fine, but it's not a fitting subject for tonight."
"I wish it'd snow."
"Same. Listen, there goes the chiming. Let's count."
They did, jostling for space at the office's only window that commanded some view of the city illustrated by thousands of lights. "That's twelve. It's midnight now. Merry Christmas, Asuka."
"Merry Christmas, Youji. We'll exchange presents next year, right?"
"You can bet on it."
He did prepare a present the next year, did so well beforehand—but before Christmas, before even winter came to Tokyo...
A lump rose in his throat as he fished out the small package from his pocket, its once shinny wrapper now faded and worn in the corners. Two years late, but at last he was delivering it. "Merry Christmas, Asuka."
When he placed the package on Asuka's old table, it seemed, for a brief moment, that she was there, accepting the present with a grin. It was the same brash, straightforward young woman whom he had loved in the beginning. Things had come full cycle to their conclusion.
As he let go of the package, a sense of relief, not unlaced with forlornness at all that never was, nearly overwhelmed him. It was over.
"Merry Christmas, Youji."
He sprang around, for one wild moment wondering if, somehow, he had stepped back in time. But no, the face that greeted him was not hers.
Leaning against the doorway, Schuldig's gaze met his own steadily. Maybe it was some trick of lighting, but the ice blue eyes seemed warmer tonight. Mesmerising fathomless blue. What did these eyes convey? Everything? Nothing? What's the difference?
In a flash, the note that Omi wrote out for him just now clicked. "You are the one who removed my memories of that night."
The German smiled lightly, and uncrossed his arms, then crossed them once more. "How did you guess?"
"Intuition."
Schuldig uncrossed his arms again, stuck his hands into his pockets, and entered the dingy office at a pronouncedly leisurely pace. "You'd have made it good as a PI," he said at last. "You have the feel for this kind of jobs."
He shrugged. "No use looking back now." He had learnt to accept that—otherwise all the could-have-been's would have driven him crazy long ago. "Are you waiting for me to ask?"
"Ask why I erased your memories?" Schuldig's lips quirked up in a queer smile. "Rather, I admit. So why aren't you?"
"I'm not sure if I want to know the answer." He strolled over to the back of the office, where an electric kettle, among other odds and ends, was kept. "Want a drink? The tea leaves probably have mould by now, but the tinned stuff should be okay."
"Coffee, then. It's cold out there." The orange-haired young man walked over as well, rubbing his hands for warmth from friction.
Youji turned on the tap, waiting for the rust-filled water to flow out, then filled the kettle and set it to boil. "Hands like these don't seem to have ever known a day of work," he remarked.
The other threw his head back and laughed emptily. "They know work alright. They've done most things that hands can do—when they had to."
"They don't now." He set out two mugs after rinsing off the accumulated dust.
"I refuse to work more than necessary. Exertion is troublesome."
"Yet you took the trouble in my case." He pried open the coffee tin with a spoon handle and scooped out some for each mug. "Sometimes I wonder if my teammates are right."
"About?" Schuldig raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Brainwashing." It was strange to the point of being fantastic, having a conversation of this nature with Weiß's enemy while waiting for coffee to be ready, but it seemed appropriate, too, in a way. High time that they stopped fighting pointlessly and communicate instead.
"I didn't." Schuldig paused. "Do you believe me?"
"Are you asking me to?"
"No."
"Then I'll decide some other time."
"Fine by me."
The kettle boiled. He poured into the mugs and stirred. "Don't expect high quality. We couldn't afford good coffee back then."
"I've drunk worse."
They sipped in silence.
"Why did you fight? That first day," he asked after a long pause. "You had a reason; you were—"
"Angry, I know." Blue eyes glanced at him cynically. "And you, you were on the verge of shutting down completely."
The memory of those days came back to him dully, leaden and unreal. "The fight prevented that."
"Unleashing all that you've been bottling up and directing at yourself, no?" Schuldig supplied. "Did about the same for me. So much so that what Crawford did seemed too much."
"And why did he do—whatever?"
"Anger." The mindreader glanced at him again. "You four caused us a hell lot of trouble, you know. We were hiding from SS—and Weiß's kill attracted attention we could ill afford."
"We seem more efficient when we blunder," he gibed. "When we try to get you, you foil all our plans."
As soon as he had finished speaking, Youji became aware of the uncomfortable atmosphere that suddenly closed in. Just now, they had been simply two people talking about each other's shared old times, but with the invocation of Weiß and Schwarz... it became Them vs. Us.
Schuldig shrugged stiffly, evidently sensing the same change. "We try our best."
He pulled back from the touchy subject. "So, that's the reason for Crawford's anger?"
The mindreader nodded. "He hates it when things get chancy," he said softly. "Laid out orderly, with each step well-planned and well-executed—that's his style. I get thrills from unpredictability; he gets rattled. It's not easy to anger him, but security happens to be one of his red buttons." He walked over to the window, his coffee still in hand. "Sometimes I think he's the most cruel, out of us four," he continued without turning around. "He's got tremendous self-control, and he can hold his emotions in check until more pressing matters have been settled—then the dam opens. Some wise guy once said, 'Beware the fury of a patient man.' [1] Crawford's a perfect example for that."
"And you?"
"I?" Again came that queer, empty laugh. "I'm Schuldig."
"What does it mean?" Schuldig had spoken it as though it was more than a mere name.
"German. Guilty." The orange-haired young man continued to face the window.
"Why would anyone call himself that?" Not that it was any of his business, but he wanted to ask all the same. Was it a show of irony? Defiance? Acceptance? Or what?
"Why would anyone tattoo 'sin' on his arm?" Schuldig shot back, still not turning away from the window.
"When—" He fell silent. If had received half as many injuries as he felt he had, three months ago, Schuldig would have had ample opportunity to see the tattoo. "Oh."
"Crawford's different..." The mindreader murmured, wrenching the conversation out of the vein it had strayed into. "He's, I think, remorseless..."
"Oh?"
Schuldig shook out of the meditative musing with an almost audible start, then flashed the familiar smirk. "I'm convinced that I'll go to Hell; he doesn't believe he'll go anywhere. That's the main difference. And you? Do you believe?"
"Heaven and Hell?" He considered it. "Sometimes." Other times he hoped so fervently for its non-existence that he started believing in that—by now, the queue of people waiting to clear their life debts with him was probably miles long, and he had many more to go. "I'd rather rot. I don't think I want to go to Hell—but there's a difference between that and actually not going."
"Hence, the prosaic way out." Schuldig turned the handle on the windowpane and pushed. The rusted hinges gave in reluctantly, and he leaned out. "The snow stopped," he remarked to nobody, then added, "I wonder if anyone would notice should I pour the coffee down from here."
"Get away from the window, then, before you do," he suggested placidly.
"Oh?"
"If you stay there long enough, you will turn the mug over—and I don't think my coffee's that bad."
There was a hint of real amusement in Schuldig's smile this time. "It's human nature, alright. When you hold a cup with an idea of pouring it, you want to do so."
"When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," he grinned back.
"When you have a knife in your hands, you look for things that may need cutting; when you level a gun at someone, you feel the urge to press the trigger." Lifting his mug, Schuldig finished the rest of the murky brown fluid. "And when you've wound wire around one's neck long enough—"
"You long to yank the wire," he finished for the other wryly. "It is human nature, that. No matter the instinctive revulsion against the deed, some part of you would want to do it. Before, there may be growing tension, edginess, agitation, anticipation—"
"And after it's done, sublime relief." Schuldig finished for him this time. "Mankind... it is really a most remarkably strange creature. Sensibility and the conscious go but skin deep; underneath, we are driven by the most primal feelings that defy rational descriptions."
"In fact, had computers but a fraction of our bugs, we'd have tossed them out long ago." He touched his tattoo lightly through the layers of clothes.
"'When you gonna learn'..." the German young man murmured. "Good question, that."
"What happened that night?"
"Nagi and I fetched you, then turned you over to Crawford. I don't think I've ever seen Crawford as angry as he was that night." Schuldig turned back to look at some spot on the ground, and his hair fell forward softly to obscure his face as he continued. "He effectively bottles up his feelings most of the time, but you, you were an outlet."
"I'm honoured," he smiled wryly.
Schuldig glanced at him, then looked away once more. "I had a choice, and I chose to stay out. You were a bloody wreck by the time I saw you again. The two of us waited until your friends went further out in their search for you, then returned you to your hotel."
"And removed my recollections of that night."
Thin shoulders shrugged. "I sympathised with Crawford's anger, and I want him to get that out of his system—but the extent to which he went was too much for my comfort."
"So, you took the middle path out: you helped him as much as he required, then you turned around and lessened what I went through."
Schuldig stuck his hands into his pockets and began walking to the office door. Youji accompanied him. "What other course was their available? Can't let a teammate down; I'm a member of Schwarz."
"And I'm a member of Weiß."
"I know."
Side by side, they walked out to the lift. "What brought you here tonight?"
"I want to see how you're doing." Schuldig pressed the button for the ground floor. "I couldn't get what had been done out of my mind."
"For all that we're supposed to be enemies?"
"We are." The flat assertion echoed as the aging lift groaned in descent. "But I have a degree of respect for worthy opponents."
He allowed it to sink in. "Thanks." Did he mean it? He rather thought so.
"You're welcome." Schuldig sounded the same way.
Ken was pacing; he had been doing that for the last thirty minutes, and had covered every bit of the room by now. Aya's fidgeting with his book had taken just as long. Omi fiddled with Weiß's electronic equipment, unscrewing and screwing the same parts. On the table next to the couch stood a little timer that was ticking away placidly as the three of them waited.
Suddenly, the ticking stopped, and the timer emitted a long, shrill wail.
Omi jumped up. "Twelve o'clock. That's the latest we're giving Youji-kun. Who's calling?"
"Me." Ken had already grabbed the only phone in the room, and now began dialling rapidly. "Youji? Is everything okay? ... Oh, alright..." Tension dissolved into relaxation in the room. "Fine, see you later." He replaced the phone and grinned with relief at the other two. "He's coming back now."
"Did he say how long he'll take?" Aya closed his book.
"Twenty minutes or more; the snow is making roads slippery—where are you going?"
"To bed. You know he hates being fussed over." With that, Aya left the room. Ken and Omi exchanged a wry grin.
"Having all three of us waiting up for him is a little excessive," Omi remarked. "Is there anything worth watching on TV? I can bring some cocoa here."
Ken switched on the television and began flipping channels. A few minutes later, Omi returned with hot cocoa. "How did Youji-kun sound, Ken-kun?"
"A little muffled—at times like this I bet he wishes for a less showy car with a hood and air-con," Ken grinned. "But to answer less literally, he's all right. Almost back to the old Youji, I'll say."
"That's good." Omi held one hand over his cup, warming his fingers with the rising steam. "I'm glad."
"Yeah, me too."
"Omi! What does dried white rose stand for?"
The shop's residential Victorian flower language expert frowned for a moment. "Something along the lines of 'death preferable to loss of innocence', why?"
"Ouch," Ken grimaced, then chuckled. "Some guy called to ask; seems as though his significant other sent him that, with no attached message."
"Good luck with the reply," the younger boy's voice continued from the storeroom. "Better you than me."
"Thanks for nothing."
Youji half-filled a pail with water, grabbed a piece of rag, and made for the front of the shop. The snatches of conversation were no different from any other on a normal morning, yet, somehow, they seemed unreal... Last night, paying homage to the past and watching the falling snow over mugs of cheap coffee with someone who seemed neither friend nor foe (or perhaps both, which would amount to the same thing), he had felt intensely alive. But here, now... commonplace words, unaffected laughter, everyday mundane routine... Set against the vivid past with snow swirling in the darkness, it was the present that seemed pale and distant.
It was almost a culture shock to step into the sunny shop.
"Ohayo! You—" Omi's eyes widened, "—ji—kun...?"
Ken stared too. "Youji, you're actually going to take on manual labour—without being asked?" The soccer lover flopped into a chair, flinging a hand over his forehead. "Wa...ter... I feel faint..."
"Oh no, you don't," Omi snickered. "Pass the pail, Youji-kun. Ken-kun needs water."
"Oi!"
He wrenched his attention away from the past with some effort. "Enough theatrics, okay? I want something to do."
Ken continued to groan. "That's it! He has fallen—"
"Boys will be boys," a woman's voice drawled as its owner entered the shop. "Can you for once not present me with a page lifted from the asylum? For the sake of novelty, if nothing else."
"Mission, Manx?" Ken exclaimed. "It's Christmas!"
"If that's supposed to hold any significance, it doesn't," Persia's secretary said dryly as she looked around. "Where's Aya?"
"Here." Aya appeared, as per his habit, right on cue. "What's the mission?"
"Schwarz; they've been sighted—" Manx trailed off as the pail slipped from numb fingers and landed with a loud crash. He righted it immediately, although a fair amount had splashed out.
As he bent down to clean up the puddle, he was conscious of the glances his teammates exchanged.
"We refuse," Aya said quietly, in a tone that brooked no argument.
"'We'?" Manx's eyebrows rose.
"That's right," Ken chipped in. Omi nodded his assent, meeting her gaze squarely.
Youji felt Manx's eyes on him, but she said nothing and neither did he.
Finally, Manx sighed. "Fine. Is there any reason that I can offer Persia?"
"Tell him that we aren't ready, that we have yet to recover from our last encounter, that we are mentally unprepared, or psychologically, or whatever." There was little hesitation in Omi's reply.
A half-sad, half-fond smile crossed Manx's face unexpectedly, then she turned to leave. "You can be very forceful when you set your mind to it, Bombay..." came the murmur as the young woman herself walked out. "So, blood would tell."
The four of them stared at one another for one long awkward moment, then Ken shrugged. "Well, that's that. Shall we go back to work?" Individual customers were few during these days, but they had had several large orders to work on, the last of which was to be delivered today, and had yet to be completed.
Towards noon, only Aya and Omi were still working on the last of the arrangements, while Ken and himself began transferring completed ones to the van reserved for big deliveries like this. "Sometimes I wonder why we actually bother," his teammate muttered.
"We never make any profit, do we?" he replied wryly.
"No, I mean, come on, we're assassins! This is—"
"Pointless, I know."
Ken sighed. "Yeah, I'm just... edgy."
Omi had just finished the last arrangement when they entered the shop again. "Okay, we're done!" the younger boy called cheerfully. "Who's delivering?"
"I will," he offered.
"And me," Aya said right after him. They usually required two for large deliveries anyway.
"Alright, you know the address?"
"I have it," Aya replied shortly as they walked out of the shop together.
He said nothing. He had met Aya's eyes just now; it was time, those violet orbs promised, that they had a talk.
"'La vie est vaine./Un peu d'amour,/Un peu de haine,/Et puis bonjour./La vie est brève./Un peu d'espoir,/Un peu de rêve,/Et puis bonsoir.'" [2] Schuldig quoted softly under his breath as he gazed at the scenery outside the window. The snow looked rather nice, actually.
Damn, he was getting sentimental again.
But... it felt comfortable, not casing everything in the harshest cynical light.
"Did you say something, Schuldig?"
"Not in your language, Nagi." He half-turned to see the Japanese kid in the doorway of the computer room. "What do you think of this pretty picture?" He jerked a thumb at the window.
Nagi's face was carefully expressionless as he came over. What was he thinking of? Schuldig wondered.
For a moment, an image flared up in his mind, of a young girl standing in the middle of a large meadow, smiling delightedly at the white flower petals that danced in the wind—then it was gone, shut away completely in the guarded mind of an inscrutably silent young man.
"It's lovely," Nagi said in a tone that would have been equally appropriate had he said 'it's plain' or 'it's ridiculous' instead.
"You miss her."
Nagi's jaw tightened infinitesimally. "Are you going to tell me that love is for children and to grow up?"
"Don't put words into my mouth, kid. I do think that love is for children—but that category won't leave too many people out."
"Including you?"
He did not reply to that. "You know something, Nagi? If one can remain a child, one'd be happy; if one can grow up completely, one'd be content too—but few ever do. Always there would be something holding you back, preventing you from casting the remnants of childhood away completely, from severing the last of the ties... Most people are caught in that torturous nowhere in between, missing the past, which means that they can't bear to forget, but unable to go back—because they've seen too much, known too much."
"Knowledge, once gained, cannot be returned..." the kid murmured, his hand clutching the window grill so tightly that the knuckles were white. "Eden is only for the innocent."
"While we are a bunch of sinners who can't forget," he added, trying to smirk.
"Nagi turned to look at him. "What's the matter, Schuldig? You don't usually wax philosophy like this."
"Something I ate, probably."
"Ha ha." Nagi did not sound amused.
They had been sitting there in silence for a long time now, neither moving a muscle. Snow had begun accumulating on their coats.
Youji dug out his box of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling the sickly intoxicating aroma. Aya was waiting, it seemed. No small talk to glide into—but then, the redhead had never been one for meandering conversation.
"Youji, have you remembered anything of that night?" There was no hesitation once Aya opened his mouth.
"No. What made you think so?"
"You reacted strongly to the mission Manx brought."
"No, my memories didn't come back... and I know why."
"Yes?" Aya's voice was carefully neutral.
Had it been either of his other two teammates, Youji was sure that he would have held back—but Aya, somehow, might understand. He breathed in deeply and took the plunge. "I met Schuldig last night."
After a lapse of at least twenty seconds, Aya spoke. "Go on."
"Oh hell," he muttered, not too sure himself what he was swearing about. "He wanted to talk, I think. He's the one who removed my memories of that time."
"He told you that?"
"I guessed." He looked up at the sky, but of course, there was nothing to see except snow, snow, and more snow. "You know, it was incredible that I could not recall a single thing.. and some things in his note don't lend themselves to other explanations."
"Ah, that note—" The redhead grimaced slightly. "I tore it up as soon as I read through it. Do you know where the passage was taken from?"
"No, where?"
"'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. It's a Shakespearean comedy."
Youji winced at the dry reply. No wonder Aya saw red.
"But enough of that. You two met and then talked?"
He nodded slowly. "I don't think he meant any harm."
"You are sure?"
He wondered about that himself. The lit cigarette burnt up to where he was holding it, and he dropped the coffin nail with an oath. "Aya, do you think I've been brainwashed?"
Aya did not reply for a long while—really, their entire conversation seemed to contain more silent pauses than actual speech—then shrugged. "I can't tell."
"Neither can I."
"Is that why you reacted to the mission?"
"Sort of." He paused, trying to sort things into some semblance of order. "I'm not warming up to Schwarz as a team, I should think; it's just him... I don't know what to think." When Aya made no comment, he continued. "What's their goal? I don't understand them. What do they hope to achieve from what they are doing? If only I know their motivation, I can judge for myself exactly where I stand—but I don't know!"
Suddenly Aya was in front of him, pressing him to sit down by his shoulders—he had started to rise without knowing it—and keeping him there. "Get a grip on, Youji."
He blinked, then the maddening tension seeped out of him. "I'm fine now, Aya. Thanks."
Quietly concerned eyes studied him a moment longer, then their owner nodded, and resumed his seat. "So."
"I won't betray Weiß, Aya."
"No, I don't think you will."
They continued sitting in silence. He lit another cigarette. "When do we have to get back? Flower deliveries don't usually take this long."
"When you feel like it," came the cool reply. "Those two aren't blind."
"In that case, let's stay a while longer." He took a puff. "You know what, Aya? Something just occurred to me: the four of us know one another well enough to depend on the rest for our lives, but for all that, we know practically nothing about one another's past."
"You know I have a sister."
"Only because you yell her name all the time—that, and Takatori-shine." He chuckled. "And you know about Asuka—because I scream her name too, and Neu was around. Beyond that... how were we once like? What opened the door into the underworld? How did each one of us end up where we are: killers with no past or future or even plain daylight?"
"All that is past. What good does it do to dig it up again?" The voice was unemotional; yet, there was an undercurrent of pain...
"I'd like to have known Ran," he said thoughtfully. "You are, I think, of a gentle nature..."
"I was." Aya laid emphasis on the past tense. "Vengeance killed Ran."
"If it did, I doubt you'd have told Sakura-san that name." He watched as the wispy smoke rose, swirling, twisting... "The life you left behind, what was it like?"
"Normal." Amethysts softened momentarily, "and happy—until Takatori destroyed everything." His friend shook his head, as though trying to dispel the memories. "You?"
"Your kind of life is what I envied last time, actually. I was on the streets pretty much as soon as I remembered; used to throw rocks and whatever else that happened to be handy at the kids going to and from school when I was young—because I never had that chance."
"When I was in school, I hated it. The insane competition, the tense atmosphere..." Aya let out a soft sigh. "I guess nothing looks as good close up as it does from afar."
"Guess so, but back then I envied all the same: school, work, marriage, family—it's like a through train: once you board it, your future's assured... I had to fight every step of the way."
"To survive?"
"Not quite that drastic, no." Memories from those days skidded forth incoherently, presenting not so much an image as an atmosphere... Back then, he hated winter—because it was cold, both literally and figuratively. Winter was a season for a family to cuddle by the stove together... but a street kid did not have that luxury. "Getting by isn't too hard after a while—but getting up was. How easy do you think it is to land a job when you've had no formal education, no qualifications, no experience, and no connections? I didn't even have a birth certificate." Of course, that made things much more convenient for Omi when he joined Weiß—there was practically nothing to delete. "Sure, there were easy ways that seemed to lead out—but in fact simply sucked one deeper into the mess of crooks. I was determined to go straight."
And ended up an assassin. Brilliant, Youji.
"I met Asuka by chance about four years back, and we hit it off fairly well, two flat broke kids trying to make it in a big city. Playing detectives was her idea." It had been damned hard to begin with, but they scraped by somehow, and bit by bit, things had seemed to pick up... until that shot—which landed him from heaven to hell. "Kritiker contacted me after she supposedly died; seems as though we've made a name for ourselves for efficiency, or something like that. And so," he fingered his watch, "after trying all my life to rise above the streets, I plunged headlong into its darkest undergrounds."
Silence ensued. He finished the cigarette and grinded the stub under his heel.
Aya stirred finally. "I'm fortunate by comparison, I guess," he said slowly. "But still, none of us can compare ourselves with the normal people out there." His gaze fell softly on an old couple in the distance, strolling together, not even holding hands—yet somehow presenting a much more loving sight than the cloyingly romantic young ones that unfailingly adorn every landscape. "No one to kill, no one after them, safe and well..."
"Yet," he smiled crookedly, "people who see us sitting here would surely say, 'here are two young men without a care in the world'."
"Appearances can be deceiving," Aya murmured. "'Fair is foul, and foul is fair.'" [3]
"A quotation?"
"Yes."
For a while now, the snow had stopped falling. A wind began to blow, and both of them shuddered automatically. Truly, they had been there for too long.
"It's growing late, Aya. Want to go back now?"
"Alright."
As they walked back to the van, Youji thought again about the line Aya had quoted.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
He wondered which category Schuldig fell under.
[1]: From John Dryden's 'Absalom and Achitophel', 1680.
[2]: From 'Peu de chose' by Léon Montenaeken, translated roughly as 'Life is aimless/A little love/A little hate/And then good day/Life is short/A little hope/A little dreaming/And then good night'. Yes, I suck at translations.
[3]: That's from Macbeth by Shakespeare, if you really want to know. Why did I have Aya quote the three weird sisters? ^^;; Your guess is as good as mine.
