Simple Little Pleasures
Chapter 2
By Julie
Disclaimer: I must have the worst cold in the history of colds...
Warning: quasi-spoilers on Omi's past, spoilers on book 3 of Yami no Matsuei
Notes: First of all, I am so, so sorry for not posting earlier!! I had this chappie all done and was planning to upload it on July 4 (Aya's birthday) but due to several summer camps and activities I was away from a computer for four weeks. And on top of that, one of my betas didn't reply to me for weeks, and I didn't have the heart to rush her because I knew she was busy. Just wanted to let you all know that I am NOT one of those authors that don't post for months. Thank you.
Thank you Raven-san and Chiki-chan for being my betas! *bows* Couldn't have done it without you.
The panda mooed.
"Get these damned pay phones off the boat!!" Aya yelled, running around kicking pay phones off the ship.
Omi ran downstairs to the pigpen. "Ken!" he shouted. "The ship's sinking!"
The blond was confronted by a potted plant, which held out a banana toward him. "Not now," he said impatiently. "Ken!"
Ken turned to look at Omi. "Just a minute, I'm watching Looney Toons."
Omi saw something moving up behind the soccer player. "Ken! The Grim Reaper!"
The hooded figure raised his scythe and slashed the TV, causing the Looney Toons to all turn evil and began running out the screen to chase Ken and Omi. They tore up the stairs, but Bugs Bunny was closing in on them--
Suddenly, He was tied to a pole in a basement. A dark basement. A scary basement. He blinked and looked around. And who were all these guys?
A big, bulky man was speaking into a cell phone, looking very pleased with himself. "It'll be 500,000 yen to get the kid back," He said as he smiled politely, "We haven't done anything to him, we haven't even played with him yet...but he is kind of cute."
The voice on the other end responded, not in the indistinct muttering sound of phone talk, but Aya's voice, loud and clear. "No. He's not worth that much."
Then, Aya hung up. The sound echoed emptily around the room...the click was so loud, it might as well have been a bomb dropping.
Shoving the cell phone back in his pocket, the man turned to the shivering little boy tied to the pole.
"Well," he sneered, starting toward Omi as his two buddies did the same with hungry looks in their eyes. "He didn't want you." The leader pressed himself against the boy, biting the pretty white skin of his neck. "A disappointment, but not too much-"
No, Omi mentally screamed as large hands roughly tore apart his clothing. NO--
Omi fell out of his bed.
He pressed a shaking against his forehead, tears flowing freely down his face. The young assassin wiped his cheeks quickly and cursed himself. "How pathetic can you get?! Stop crying! It was a dream...just a dream..."
Untangling himself from the sheets, the boy glanced at the clock. Three AM. Great. Just great.
Omi climbed up to his bed, closed his eyes, and tried to go back to sleep. Of course, since he was a light sleeper and had hit the ground rather hard when he fell, he was now wide awake. Damn.
Sighing and getting up, the 17-year old rubbed his eyes. 'Maybe a snack can help me sleep', he thought as he padded down the hall to the stairs.
Yeah, right.
Shut up.
You're the one talking to yourself.
Omi opened the fridge as a happy blast of cold air greeted him. Finding nothing good, he decided to pour himself a glass of water.
The blue-eyed boy sipped lazily at the liquid, the cold biting his tongue. It felt good...he hated hot nights.
Then he noticed, for the first time, a flash of red hair by the wall. It was Aya sitting on the windowsill, staring off to the side, two fingers resting lightly on his lips. He looked contemplative. And shirtless.
"Hey, Aya."
The gorgeous redhead's eyes slid to rest on Omi, then back again. "Mm."
"Couldn't sleep?"
"Mm."
"Something wrong?"
"Mm."
"There are better places to sit on, you know."
"Mm."
"Doesn't your ass hurt?"
"Mm."
"I drugged a monkey."
"Mm."
Omi chuckled as Aya got up to move to the couch. "Ass starting to hurt? How long have you been sitting there?"
"A long time."
"Yeah." Omi sat down beside Aya. He tentatively rested his head on the redhead's lap, then relaxed as the latter combed his fingers absently through his honey-blond hair. The boy closed his eyes, deeply breathing in the faint rose scene of the swordsman. He started drifting off the sleep as Aya did the same beside him.
Now this was more like it...
Omi woke up the next morning at 6:30. He was disappointed to find that Aya was gone, but that disappointment was soon revoked as he saw the redhead outside sword training. Omi watched Aya for a while. The swordsman's movements were liquid and smooth, the katana a flowing silver ribbon.
Plus, he was still shirtless. His skin shone with a light sheen of sweat.
Omi licked his lips.
The rest of the day was a normal business day, with everything that came with the assassin-owned flower shop: customers, fangirls, flowers, squeals, etc etc.
Finally, it was closing time. It was Omi's turn to sweep the store, Ken and Aya carried certain plants to the sunroom, and Yohji got rid of the girls.
"Sorry, girls!" the blond called. "We're closed now, but there'll be plenty of us sexy bishounen to go around on, uh-" it was Saturday- "Monday! Especially Yohji!" he added with a wink. he raised his broom high in the air and bowed deeply with a flourish. "Till then. Sa-yooo-naaraa!!"
And the girls left. They actually left.
Ken blinked. "DAMN, Yohji."
The green-eyed florist bowed.
"You are SUCH a pimp."
"Thank you, I try..."
Turning around, Yohji caught several flashes of red and socks. "Heeey there, you--AAAAAUUGH!!!" he fell to the ground, a shoe-shaped imprint on his face.
"Weiss, mission." Manx clanked past Yohji in her steel-toed combat boots, heading to the briefing room.
Once Manx and all four members of Weiss were in the dimly lit mission room, the red-clad secretary switched on the briefing screen. Persia's ominous-looking silhouette appeared. "Sup, foo."
Everyone stared.
Persia coughed. "Um, yes, I've been watching too much Cradle 2." he immediately turned serious again. "Weiss, your target today is a man named Kakyouin Takeshi (1)."
Several shots of a gray-streaked brunet man, in his late 40s perhaps, popped up on the screen. He was wearing glasses and a suit and looked rather respectable. "On the surface, Kakyouin is running a very large cruising agency, but it is actually a cover for the center of an organ smuggling ring."
Fuzzy photos appeared of children hung from ceilings with ropes around their necks. Their mouths were sewn shut with thick string, their arms and legs cut off.
"Their mouths were sewn shut to prevent them from screaming, and their appendages removed so they could not run away," Persia continued. "All the children were from poor families. Their parents sold them to the Kakyouin Industries for very small amounts of money. In order to always supply fresh internal organs, lost ones were replaced by artificial means. They were forced to survive."
Persia's face darkened. "Kakyouin can be distinguished by two small scars near his left ear." The screen zoomed in on a black-and-white photo of the target's profile. "White hunters of the night, deny these dark beasts their tomorrows!" The screen flickered off. (2)
Manx placed a thick manila folder on the coffee table. "This contains more information on Kakyouin Takeshi and the Kakyouin Industries, as well as some maps of the headquarters. You're going to need them, as the place is pretty big. The mission is tonight at 12 o' clock AM since Kakyouin does a check on the organs on Saturday nights. Good luck, Weiss." And with that, she left.
Yohji huffed. "She knows perfectly well that I don't believe in luck! Who's she kidding?"
"Uh-huh..." Ken drawled, "I'm sure she knows, considering that she never even wants to talk to you."0
"Yup! She's playing hard to get!" Yohji grinned.
"You're so full of yourself."
"Aw, don't be so mean, Kenken."
"Pimp."
"Jock."
Omi cut in. "So, what do you think of the target?"
Yohji gave a tiny humorless smile. "It's evil. Pure evil. What kind of bastard would trade human lives for money?"
Aya coughed.
"Oh, right. Us."
They sat in silence for a minute.
"Oh, don't start angsting!" Omi moaned. "We're getting rid of evil criminals, he's killing off innocent little kids. It's seven, we have 5 hours to make a plan. Let's go."
He looked through the contents of the folder. "...Kay, it looks like the Kakyouin Industries are made up of four skyscrapers arranged in a square. Oh..." his heart sank. How the hell were they supposed to comb through four towers to look for this one guy? Kakyouin would be long gone before they were even halfway through. Then he read some of the small print, and his spirits lifted.
"Okay, each of the buildings has a secret extension from the basement. That's where the organs are hidden; Kakyouin's bound to be in one of them. I can probably hack through the security system of those rooms, so..." A plan formulated in his mind. It was the simplest of the simple, but it would work. His three teammates looked over his shoulders as Omi began marking on the maps with a red pencil. "Right, here's what you do..."
Four hours later...
The four spiffy assassins, all spiffily clad in their spiffy assassin gear and ready to kill, oh boy, piled into Aya's spiffy car.
Omi handed Aya a crudely drawn map. He pointed to random spots on the paper. "It'll take a little less than an hour to get there, just go straight, turn here, turn here, and park behind this building."
Aya nodded and stepped on the pedal. After a while, they were out of town and on a long, lonely stretch of road, with only the car headlights to light the way.
"Sooo..." Yohji piped up. "Have you noticed it always ends up with Omi thinking up the entire plan?"
"Because he's the smartest," Ken said.
"That's true," the oldest assassin replied, "Kay, so I'm the pimp, you're the jock, and Omi's the genius."
"He's a nerd, not a genius."
"Shut UP, Ken. You're going to make me cry." Omi punched the brunet's shoulder.
"Okay, okay, so what's Aya?"
Aya gave them all a DeathGlare® in the rearview mirror, daring them to give him one of those stupid nicknames.
"Oh, good idea!" Yohji exclaimed. "Aya's the Lone Psycho who Sits in the Corner and Glares at People!"
"Nah, too long."
"What about Goth? I mean, he's all pale and he's wearing black..."
"We're all wearing black, Omi."
"Oh, yeah."
"I'm right here...haven't forgotten, have you?" Aya spoke for the first time.
"Hi, Aya."
"Hi, Aya."
"Hi, Aya."
Omi remembered something. "Hey, Ken, I've been wanting to know for a long time..." he pointed to the bright orange sweater around the soccer player's waist. "Why do you wear that? It apparently has no use."
"And the goggles, man," Yohji added.
"Don't make fun of my sexy goggles!" Ken sniffed. "By the way Omi, WHY do you wear shorts all the time? Don't you have any pants?"
"It's because he thinks he has sexy legs." Yohji, of course.
"Yeah," Omi went along, "My legs are too sexy for pants. See, I should start wearing short shorts to show more of my sexy legs, so that way when I bend over everyone behind me can see half of my ass. Imagine that! I can be a boywhore!"
"That still doesn't explain the shorts."
"That still doesn't explain the goggles."
"That still doesn't explain Yohji's midriff."
"That still doesn't explain Aya's..." Omi paused. "What DOES Aya wear under his coat?"
Everyone turned to look at Aya. He suddenly felt very nervous, getting the insane idea they they were going to try to strip him down. When he was driving, no less.
Yohji remembered. "Aya wears this shirt that shows his sexy arms. Aya's got sexy arms, Omi's got sexy legs, I've got a sexy midriff, Ken's got sexy...........goggles?"
Omi patted Ken on the head. "Don't you feel left out? You should wear more revealing clothes and be sluts like the rest of us. Aya, you drive like maniac."
"Well, I got us here."
"Oh." Ken looked out the window. "We're here."
"No duh."
They got out of the car. "See you later," Ken whispered as they split up to go to the buildings Omi had previously assigned them.
(At Ken's building...)
Ken stopped in front of the double doors and jiggled the handle. Locked, obviously. He withdrew a metal tool from his pocket and inserted it into the slot. Muttering under his breath, the assassin wiggled the lockpick in the way Yohji had taught him, and with a soft click the door swung open. Ken stepped in quickly and flattened himself against the door, half-expecting alarms to go off. Nothing. Omi had disabled them well.
He clicked on a small flashlight and shone it around, locating a metal door with a down arrow beside it. The basement, of course. He opened the unlocked door and started down the stairs.
(At Aya's building...)
Aya swung open the door leading to the basement and walked down the wooden steps. He was heading down a flight of stairs in total darkness, with only a tiny flashlight to aid him. Ooh, scary. Reaching a large metal door with the word "BASEMENT" carved into it, the redheaded assassin picked the lock, then stealthily stepped in and searched around, shining the flashlight over the walls. He located a small metal panel in the wall, about a foot wide and painted white. Behind it was a glowing keypad.
Aya punched in 1-0-3-5-8-8..., after a few seconds, the screen blinked and cleared, then "ACCESS GRANTED" flashed in red letters across the black rectangle. The wall slid partially open and Aya stepped into the hidden room...
(At Omi's building...)
Omi bit his lip and typed in 1-0-3-5-8-8 on the number pad. Since the company was rich and could afford things like those cool lights that go on when you enter the room, the room automatically illuminated upon his arrival.
"Oh, my God," Omi gasped.
He was in a room consisting of three operating tables, shelves upon shelves of organs in jars, and...three children, each no more than 11 years old, who hung from the ceiling.
A scraggly black-haired girl on the left tried to move her mouth.
Omi walked up to her. The others' lips were sewn shut with string, but this one's apparently weren't.
"What?" he whispered.
Kill...me...she mouthed.
The blond felt tears well up in his eyes. She was too young, much too young to be saying something like this...but he saw the hurt and hopelessness in the children's eyes, and knew there was no saving them. A quick, painless death would be a miracle compared to slowly starving to death, undiscovered in a secret room.
"Enjoy heaven," was the last thing they ever head, softly spoken from the lips of the youngest Weiss assassin before he instilled a deadly poisoned dart into each of their throats.
(At Yohji's building...)
Yohji looked around. There was nothing in his room, save three operating tables and empty shelves. Hmm, the organs must've all been shipped to the hospitals. He wondered in the hospitals knew where the organs were coming from, then concluded that they probably didn't care as long as they got the money. No Kakyouin here. He turned to leave...and tripped over a wire.
Immediately, the whole place was in an uproar.
"Shit!" Yohji cursed as alarms flashed a blinding red and began SCREE-SCREEEE-ing.
Aya swore as he heard the yells of guards outside pouring from everywhere. Apparently, if one alarm was tripped, all four buildings were affected. Tearing out of the hidden room as fast as he could, Aya was accosted by at least twenty guards in the hall, all with their guns drawn.
Aya whirled his katana around his body, using it as a shield as he ran out of there, daring any of them to come closer. The bullets wouldn't hurt him too badly; being assassins, they would obviously get shot on the job sometimes and thus all wore bulletproof vests. However, being hit by too many would slow him down. He rolled behind several boxes in the basement as said box was pumped full of holes. Running up the stairs, Aya held down a button on his headset.
"Abyssinian here, did you get Kakyouin?"
"Bombay here, no Kakyouin."
"Balinese here, no Kakyouin."
"Siberian here, no Kakyouin!" Ken panted as he sped up the stairs the same time an army of guards behind shouted curses and tried to kill him. Jesus, what kind of paranoid psycho would hire these many guards?
Four muffled curses were heard on the headset.
Ken rounded a corner and lost the guys behind him. There were a hell lot of guards, but apparently they weren't very smart. He knocked out the two black-suit clad men in front of him and knew he was trapped; they were bound to have blocked all the exits by now...
Yohji rounded up ten guards with his wire and tied them to a pole. He tore like hell up the nearest staircase, thinking, "Dammit, this is all my fault!!"
Kneeing a stray guard in the chest and knocking him out, Yohji yelled into his headset, "Balinese here! Bombay, can you disable the alarms and shut down all the lights in these buildings?!"
"Bombay here," Omi said as he darted several guards with non-lethal sleeping needles. Death of anyone other than the target meant a declination in their pay for the mission. "I don't know where the control panel is, but I'll try!!"
He rushed up the floors, taking quick glances at the maps to confirm his location. After the fifth of flights of stairs, his legs felt as if they were going to shatter into pieces if he took another step. They never used the elevators on missions for obvious reasons.
Omi ducked into a side room as several guards rushed past him.
"Where'd he go?!"
"Probably in Saionji's office. C'mon!"
"Just HOW much are they paying us for this...?"
Omi breathed a sigh of relief as their footsteps clattered away.
Taking in his surroundings, Omi reloaded his crossbow. There was a control panel with numerous buttons and small TV screens all over the place, flashing with black-and-white images. He was in the surveillance room. Jesus, this Kakyouin guy must be paranoid as hell--the dozens of cameras seemed to film every corner of all four buildings.
He ran up to the screens and swore. God, they're in trouble. His teammates were all going to get slaughtered if he didn't do something quick!
"Siberian!" he yelled. "Don't go into that room, there're too many guys in there! Abyssinian, go left, up ahead is a trap--Balinese, knock out that guy and go up the stairs, there's not as many on the fifth floor!
"How do you know all this?" Ken sounded amazed.
"I'm in the camera room."
Omi rubbed his temples. This wasn't going to help--he needed something that could get them out of here. He took another look at the screens and his heart sank. Damn, all the exits are blocked...there's no way out...
Then he remembered something he had read on one of the maps in the mission folder. It was just a tiny line of text, seemingly unimportant...but--
His heart jumped; he grinned and held down the headset button. "Bom--" he started.
Just then, the door burst open.
In ran a middle-aged man in a dark suit, flanked by a bodyguard on each side. He took a step towards Omi, who took a step back. "Who are--why are you here??"
Omi was trapped. There was absolutely no way out. Seeing the men taking glances at his darts and crossbow, the boy knew he was going to be killed for this. He sometimes wondered how he was going to die...so this must be it...how sad.
Then, the blond assassin noticed something. There it was--two tiny white lines next to the left ear of the older-looking guard at the door.
"Kakyouin!" he hissed as he fired a poisoned dart into the man's neck. The target fell to the ground, dead. Omi then shot thin sleeping needle into each of the other men's throats, and they slumped to the ground, mouths agape and eyes glazed. They wouldn't be kept down long, though, he had to hurry.
He then turned to the camera screens and panicked. Ken was almost completely surrounded; Aya had been shot in one arm; Yohji seemed to be doing fine, but he couldn't possibly keep it up. He had to tell them fast--
"Bombay here!" he yelled. "Get to the third floor!! Abyssinian, you're already there, Balinese's on fifth, Siberian on second. Whatever you do, just GET YOUR ASS TO THE THIRD FLOOR!!!"
"But why--"
"JUST DO IT!!"
He himself ran as fast as his legs could carry him down several flights of stairs, until a large gold "3" greeted him from the wall. He caught his breath and rushed to the elevators.
"Bombay here, everyone on third?"
A chorus of affirmatives greeted him.
"Right, now get to the elevators. Next to them, I mean. They're somewhere around the center of the third floor."
"But you know we can't--"
"Next to one of the elevators should be a big glowing keypad. Punch in K-A-K-Y and a hidden fire escape will open. Slide down it and you'll land outside, near the 4-way intersection of the alleys of the buildings. When we're all outside, Abyssinian follow me, Balinese and Siberian run down the opposite alley. Round the buildings and get back to the car. If the escape doesn't open, break a window or something and get outside. Avoid the doors. They're guarding them, but there aren't any guys at the walls. They're not expecting us to be outside."
"What about Kakyouin?"
"I got Kakyouin!" Omi said exasperatedly as he typed in the code. "Please, just hurry! They'll be all over us if we don't move!"
A round opening appeared in the wall and Omi jumped in. It was a smooth, metal-coated slide; the wind rushed against Omi's face and tousled his hair wildly. "Whee," he whispered to himself.
"AAAAAH!!" Omi yelled, then ducked and rolled as he hit the ground. "Ow. Ow. Ow."
He jumped up and was happy to see that Aya and Ken were already there. Ken grinned and gave him a thumbs-up; Aya looked weary and was clutching his left arm.
Omi saw Ken press his headset button and ask, "Balinese? You okay?"
"Whoohooooo!!!!" He was answered by an exhilarated blond who fell out of the fourth hole, hitting the ground hard. "Oowww..."
Omi tore like hell down the alleyway on his left, Aya not far behind, while Ken and Yohji ran down the path on the right.
"Hey! There they are!!"
Bullets struck the intersection and the dark alley down the middle, ricocheting off the walls. But the assassins were already gone. The four Weiss boys jumped into the car, Aya floored the pedal, and they were out of there.
End Chapter 2
*wipes brow* Whew, finally.
(1) Hehe, yes all the Kakyouin stuff is from the godly animanga Yami no Matsuei *falls on knees before the almighty Matsushita-sama* It's SO good!!! My favorite! ^______^
(2) Er...I never really pay attention during the mission briefings so I'm not sure if that's how they go. *shrug*
The next chapter will probably take a while to get done, as I have a throbbing headache and school is starting soon. Messy breakup between Aya and Omi in the next chapter ^.~!
More Thanks:
Garner: Thank you for the compliment on my writing style! ^.^ I feel so happy now! Here's the next chappie, hope you like it.
Koori-chan1: *nods* Yes, there are really too few AyaxOmi fics. Why? *cries* Oh vel.
Felflowne aka Espion: waaah!! I love your OmiKen ficcies!! Yes, everyone loves tickle fights. THANK YOU so much for putting me on Author Alert! I feel so appreciated!! *cries* Your mentalist Weiss fic rocked! And so did Rank!
Misura: Aww, thank you so much. I love cute fics myself, and I just cannot write angst to save my life. Thanks again!
Genuine_sun: Hehe, the hormonal bitch comment made me laugh ^.^ People who type in all caps make me happy. Yes, isn't Yotan's outfit just darling? *snickers*
Birman: Whee, KenxOmi! Yup, Aya is being a bastard. If I had an Omi I would probably...er...pair him up with Aya? Hehe. This is going to end up AyaxOmi though, not KenxOmi.
Kearou: I like your name; it has so many vowels! ^.^.....OMIGOSH I want to use that name for one of the characters in my online manga!!! *pause* Can I....? Here's the next chapter! Thank you for your kind words.
Leanie: *nods sagely* Yes, that makes sense. Aya is not very nice at the moment...wake up!! *slaps him* *runs away* Hehe, Aya-land...
Kasra: My fics are all strange! :) I also like love triangles, but sometimes they make me sad...which is why everyone will be all cute and happy at the end! Haha, I'm such a sucker for fluff...
maladyrancor: Thank you! I tried pretty hard to keep the emotions real, like you said...I love being told that I have talent, although I don't have much for writing. ^^;;
fluffy-kins: Hehe, I didn't update soon...^^; Er, sorry. The fic is going to have lots of KenxOmi, but will definitely end in AyaxOmi. Ken is nicer, true, but... thank you for the compliments!
backlash: Here's more; hope you enjoyed it. :)
TENIPURI: Thanks! Omi/Ken does rock, but sorry, there will be no Aya/Ken in this fic since everyone else writes it...
nah: Thank you! It's not going to be OmiKen at the end, though. But there will be lots of it in between.
8/3/03