Title: Um Céu Roxo
Author: Kouryuu
Rating: PG (this chapter)
Pairing: Ran x Ken/Ken x Ran (whichever works out..)
Status: Series to "Running Away"; part 1 of ?
Summary: see "Running Away"
Archive: Please ask first so I know where it's at; archived at
Contact: lonestarfruit@yahoo.com
--+--
Author's Babbles: If you're new to this fic, please go read RA beforehand. It'll make little sense if you don't.
For the rest of my readers... n.n; I know I promised this baby would be out in March, and.. well. Clearly that didn't happen, and you don't want to hear why (o.O but if you do for some arcane reason, e-mail me and I'll tell you?) but I've felt so incredibly guilty. Basically, writers' block hit, and now it's finally started to taper off. This first chapter is more of a teaser than anything else. I'm working this summer as a full-time medical director (x_x) at a girl scouts camp, so I'll be busy and updates will not be regular by any means. However, I'm hoping that once I get into a pattern I'll be able to write while I'm here, so I wanted to post the first chapter as soon as I could get it out and get you all dragged into the story again. ^_^ As always, any comments, questions, flames, and all that are welcome. I'll be slow with e-mail and FF replies (once a week or so should be doable) but please write to me! ;_; The back woods of PA are lonely.
--+--
"Um Céu Roxo" by Kouryuu
New York City was warily sinking into its usual spring glory. Steely snow clouds were replaced by heavier rain clouds, and the inevitable spring downpours washed away the last traces of salt, ice, grime leaving the City sparkling with a grudging, young glow. The first brave flowers stuck their green noses out in Central Park. Squirrels blinked sleepily down at joggers from bare tree branches, their poofy tails dew-speckled. Everything started to slowly wake up from its winter hibernation, as if shrugging off a heavy fur coat.
Transformation in the spring was normally slow, creeping up and taking everyone by surprise. The final moment of metamorphosis came in a burst that startled the City itself: one morning the City awoke and the sky was simply clear, bright blue. An orchestra of bright flowers competed with neon-green baby grass and budding tree leaves for the spotlight. A cacophony of birds sang Spring's praises, cheerful and new even if it was mostly the same old weathered pigeons and sparrows. Somehow the spring managed to bring out the beauty, the novelty, of even the simplest sights.
Ran was only able to enjoy as much of the spring glory as he could see from the stuffy office building's small window, around the bulky frame of his latest client. The days had seemed to drag on for the past few months, one bleeding into another in an endless procession of clients, politeness, stiff clothing, intermittent gunfire. The days haunted him because everywhere he seemed to find images that dragged his memories back to a single searing kiss.
A poster in the window of a travel agency in Little Italy, telling him to fly to Brazil for only $500 round trip.
An advertisement on television informing him that now was the best time to get a head-start on his sexy summer tan.
A splash of bright chocolate-colored hair in the crowd, making him do a double-take and holding up the stampede for the subway so that he had to catch the next train in.
The newspaper, which told him that the Brazilian soccer team was having trouble because their goalie, a young man named Alessandro, had an injury that proved more serious than previously thought, and the team had to miss matches because they didn't have anyone else that could play the goal well.
It all spun around, dizzying him, making him unfocused. He had been quite thoroughly knocked off of his neat rail, off of the path that he'd been sure Fate had set for him, off of the path that New York itself had helped to mould. Ran hadn't been taken for a spin like this in ages, not since the moment -- seared into his memory, hospital sheets and the steady beat of a machine reading off a pulse that remained asleep and unchanging, round pallid cheeks and twin braids lying still and unnatural -- that had shaped him into the man that he'd grown to be. He had never shed the guise of the murderer since then; assassin, bodyguard, shadowed arm of the law, call it what they will, it was all the same. The same hot spray of blood spilled in cold indifference, the same glazing of eyes that had once been little, had once grown up, had been developed into something that could only hope for a slick death rather than a lingering pain of going on in a life that had no meaning.
Thoughts assuaged him day and night, keeping him from sleep, from waking, from functioning in the same rote practiced manner that he was so skilled at. And he started to slip. It was subtle at first, he would show up on time rather than early for work, or he would be curt enough with a client that Charlie would get a complaint, though Charlie kept this from Ran, just observing and starting to slowly develop a sense that he soon identified as a dull concern. As such things do, these slips began to progress until a bullet got too close. Reflexes couldn't be dulled by things such as complete distraction, not when they kept someone alive as long as they'd kept Ran alive, and though the Kevlar vest would have kept him alive he still had ducked out of the way before taking his own shot. A would-be murderer lay dead, and Ran drove the client to Charlie's safehouse before driving himself to the hospital so that the medical team could spend seven hours digging the bullet fragments out of his shoulder in a manner that wouldn't damage the toned muscle.
He only took a day of leave, as usual. But the next morning his client wasn't where he was supposed to be, and it was an irritated redhead that wandered up to Charlie's office. He was favoring his left shoulder, but only slightly so that someone that didn't know how fluid his usual movements were wouldn't recognize it as an injury.
"My client wasn't at the airport."
Charlie was on the phone, but he looked up at Ran and nodded, unsurprised, motioning him to sit down. Ran just crossed his arms over his chest, one hip tipping forward and an eyebrow creeping up in annoyance. Charlie finished his conversation and hung up the phone with a small sigh.
"My client..?" Ran prompted.
"I sent Stratford to get him. You need a vacation."
"I'm fine. A sore shoulder doesn't mean I can't do my job."
Charlie leaned forward, looking suddenly exhausted by this discussion. He was wearing a particularly putrid off-orange tie with dark brown squiggles on it, and he'd chosen to pair it with a classy pale blue dress shirt with white collar and cuffs. It clashed horribly.
"You can't do your job, Ran. You messed up, and remember that I've worked with you for what, three years now? You never slip up, and frankly I don't care about what problems you may be having. What I care about is that you're going to become a liability. You haven't taken a vacation in three years, and I want you to take one now. Give your shoulder a rest, work out whatever issues you have, and then come back."
Ran was practically seething, his jaw tight and shoulders squared. No one had a right to challenge his ability to do his job, and calling him a liability...
"I don't need a vacation."
Charlie pulled on his reading glasses -- round, with emerald green frames and distinct bifocal lines -- and picked up a sheet of paper from his file, glancing at Ran over the rim of his glasses.
"Yes, you do. And even though you may think that you don't need a vacation, I need you. You're one of the best, if not the best. Losing you to something stupid would cut back my earnings, and I don't appreciate that. So." He set the paper down, leaning back in his seat, hands folded on the desk. "Let me put it a different way. You're taking a vacation, or a leave of absence if you'd prefer to call it that. And since I know you're a cheap bastard, I'll pay for your transport to wherever you care to go. You leave today, and I don't want to see you again for three months."
Ran scowled, hands clenching into fists.
"What, exactly, am I supposed to do with myself for three months?"
The phone on Charlie's desk rang.
"Get laid, for one," Charlie stated casually, then picked up the phone and turned his shoulder away, dismissing the redheaded man.
Ran sat on the edge of his bed, a mug of tea in his hand and the phone resting on his lap like an angular feline. He hated the fact that he was forced to take a break, hated having free time when his thoughts could wander even further and prove dangerous. He could always go to Austria, he had decided stubbornly. He had been to Vienna before and it seemed like a good place to visit in the spring. He could keep himself busy with the museums and palaces, with loud bars and silent side-streets. At least it was a start.
But when he picked up the receiver to dial the airline, he found himself dialing the routing number for Brazil. He caught himself, though, and hung the phone up quickly. Pale features settled into a frown. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn't call Ken. Not now.
Months had passed, months in which he'd found himself looking at the phone and at the small slip of paper on which he'd neatly copied the brunette's phone number from a file swiped from Charlie's office. But every time he'd tried to call, Ran had found himself at a loss. What could he possibly say? Ken was in Brazil, he was in New York. Ran had never been a romantic, would never be one. A long-distance relationship would not only not work, but it'd be harmful in the long run. Besides, Ken was his friend. He shouldn't allow himself to feel anything more than camaraderie for him, not if he wanted to keep in touch with him at all. Not that he was keeping in touch, though he really should, but if he called he'd only start thinking about that kiss again, about the night in the club and the way Ken's lips had set his skin on fire, and Ken was in Brazil, and it'd never work out... And so it went, round and round his head every time he looked at the phone until he got a headache, and so months had been allowed to pass. And now it'd be awkward. What could he say? 'Hi, Ken. My boss is forcing me to take a mandatory vacation. How about I come to visit?' Maybe if he had a reason. If he had a reason, then he could convince himself that it was practical, and if he got to see Ken in the process then it'd be good on all sides. Right?
The idea hit him as if someone pegged a tennis ball at his head, and he blinked a few times. It could work. It was reason enough. And he picked up the phone, calling another airline instead of Lufthansa.
--+--
End Chapter 1
--+--
