Title: The Sweater
Author: Hakki's Dragon
Disclaimer: Don't own weiß and never will so there is no point suing
Rated: PG
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Author warning: I wrote this months ago and after I did I noticed that Ken did not where a sweater but a button down shirt. I guess I could rewrite it but I still would be the same story so I figured that it really wouldn't matter. So if you can over look that then enjoy ^-^ PS I also might write a second part to this… Or I might just leave it a one shot… let me know what you think after you read it.
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It was time to dress for yet another mission. Aya, Yoji, and Omi separated into their respectable rooms and I opened my door. The night was falling outside my bedroom window as I closed the blinds tight. In the privacy of my room, I stripped myself of my everyday wears, and left them not so nicely on the floor.
Hidden deep in my closet, in a locked trunk, was the clothing I wear on missions. I slid on my blue fitted jeans, that were just dark enough to cover the fact that they were stained with blood. It was coming close to the time when I should burn these and buy new ones, but one more mission wouldn't hurt them. Joining the pants was a black v-neck shirt, which was fading from repeated washings. It too would have to be replaced soon. Reaching back into the chest, I push away my shoes and pulled out my orange sweater. This sweater is the oldest piece of clothing I have. I got it when I was 16 years old. It wasn't like a special gift or anything, just something comfortable I needed for the long winter, and my mother picked it up for me. But I swear, this sweater is lucky. Sure, I received some light good natured razzing from my other team mates for wearing it, mostly from Yoji, the fashion king. But it didn't matter, for I decided the day I joined Weiß that this sweater would be what I have on when I die.
I was wearing this sweater the day I got my first after school job. It wasn't much. I was just a delivery boy for Itazawa–kun a, man that owned a grocery shop a couple streets down from my house, but it was money of my own; and growing up with not a lot of money, it meant a lot to me. That was my first bit of luck associated with this sweater, and I never thought much of it then.
About two months later, I got another stroke of luck all due to the sweater. You see, there was this girl, a pretty girl named Jun, that went to my school. She was the type of girl who would purposely hang on me and flirt with me like all normal 16-year-old girls. One fall night, she was at the store I was worked in. She was just there waiting for me to get off work. I knew that; but she pretended by looking around and taking interest in the shop and just talking with me. When it was time to close she insisted that I walk her home. "After all," she told me, "you can't expected a girl to walk in the dark all alone." As we walked, I talked about soccer, which she pretended she was interested in and I listen to her talk about school and her family, her friends; things like that. When we got to the front of the apartment she lived in, we paused for a moment of silence. I remember what happened well. I was just saying, "Good night, see you Monday." When she grabbed the front of my sweater, and pulled me close. Our lips touched for my first kiss. I was shocked at first, but quickly melted into her soft lips. When we parted, she gave a quick "Ja", and ran to her apartment, leaving the sweater bunched up from where she had grabbed.
I was then starting to feel the attachment to this sweater then, but it was nothing more than "WOW, this is the sweater I got my first kiss in." Then, the sweater showed me it powers. I was late to work and had to run. I took every short cut I knew, jumping over fences and anything in my way. I was ready to cross the main street in front of the shop, when I felt my sweater catch on a piece of fence, and I stopped in my tracks to prevent it from ripping. It was at that moment that a truck speed by me, out of control at full speed, out of nowhere, and only stopping when it hit into a building just yards away from me. I knew at that moment that if my sweater hadn't gotten caught, I would have ran right in the path of that truck and died right then. It had saved my life in its own way. And that just boggles my mind.
Times when I hate living, I look at the sweater and think if at that moment that didn't happen, I would be dead. I wouldn't have had all these problems. I wouldn't have had to watch my mother get sick and die. I wouldn't have had to kill my closest friend since childhood. I wouldn't have been framed, and I definitely wouldn't have to become a killer. My life would have been over and done with at the age of 16, and that makes me hate the sweater. Then, sometimes when I come so close to dying, and somehow I live, I look at the sweater and think once again it saved me. It just woven and dyed cotton, but some how I think; and as really stupid as it may seem, it might be the only thing in this life that cares if I live. That's why it never comes untied when I fight. It's protecting me, like my mothers arms wrapped around me. It will always be there, and the blood always washes out, so it is fresh and new every time I put it back on. It was meant for me and I thank it.
I finished dressing and meet the others in the hall. I sometime wonder; even if I never ask, if one of them has something they feel the same way about, maybe that's why they all are alive, because something, as inane as it may seem, is watching over their lives too.
The end. Please review.