Weiß Kreuz belongs not to me and will never belong to me.... Maybe when I someday win a lottery of millions of dollars someday, I will buy them as my own property.... mwahahaha!!! *cough* but I have no money in my pocket even to import some CD audio from Japan... so..... ^__^()

Big THANKS to Moussy the mighty instant beta!!!

Note to readers: I changed my mind and I will not make the second part of 4th Piece [Ken]: Following Your Footsteps.... I think rewriting a part of the series would be pointless.... so I wrote this instead. I hope you all enjoy..... The time setting is right after Ken decided that he wanted to play football.... but since I don't wanna give anymore spoiler, please simply read the ficcie.... ^___^


5th Piece: [Weiß] Many Meetings Part 1



[Hidaka Ken]


"Can I make the phone call?"

The officer nodded, "Five minutes. Not more."

"I know."

The bald man left the small room to give the prisoner a fake sense of privacy. They always listen to any phone calls made by these detainees. After all they were all criminals; and it's always a save play to keep their contacts in check.

Ken watched the door until it closed. He looked back to the handset, it took him a lot of courage to make the simple call. Just say those words and he would be out of the jail. But it was not that easy. He had to find a job as soon as he got out. He didn't want to use the money he got from Weiß. He had to find a job sufficient enough for a simple life, a simple job to give him some spare time to play soccer. And to find such job was impossible when you didn't exist in the government. He needed to recover his legal identity.

Finally he picked up the handset and dialed a number. It was a personal line and there were only four people who knew it. One was a sleeping beauty, one was a canary in a cage, one was an eagle in the wild, and the last one was a tamed beast. The first one was Youji-kun; sleeping for a hundred years like in fairy tale and when he woke up I hope he'd find a princess. The second was me; like a small bird that would die once its set free. The third was Aya, always be a loner in the band. And the last one was our former enemy Naoe Nagi.

The calling tone rang for a couple of times before someone picked it up.

"Ken-kun?" a familiar voice was heard from the other end, "Anything happened?"

Ken smiled a little when he heard that concerned tone. He was always afraid to contact Omi ever since he inherited the 'Persia' title from his uncle – father –, who ever. He kept a distance from the others as how it's always instructed. Persia never made straight contacts with his inferior.
"No, nothing. It's just…." His voice fell.

"What is it?" Omi sounded even more worried. And then he heard a faint voice on the other end. It sounded like Rex.

"Mamoru-sama, they are waiting for you at the meeting hall."

And then Omi was heard again, "Ah, Ken-kun, could you call me later. I have an important meeting now. Ah, wait, you cannot call so freely there. How about sending someone over? Sorry. I really have to go now. I'll contact you later." The phone was hung up.

Sending someone over to me? That means I'm gonna meet that telekinetic.


But nobody came until the next day when an officer came to his cell and told him that there's a visitor for him. Ken got up from his bed. There was not much to do when you're imprisoned. You can only see the sunlight in some free hours before lunch. Other than that you would either doing the daily chores or lying around in bed with nothing to be done.

Ken followed the officer. It surprised him that the officer didn't go to the "guest room" in which the prisoners could meet and talk with their visitors via hand set. That means this guest had some special authority. Could it be that Omi had come by himself? They finally came to an interrogation room.
"Your lawyer is inside," the officer said, "I will leave you here alone."

That's a good idea because they usually didn't do the eavesdropping thing when you're with your lawyer. It's some kind of a code to the people who works in that field. And a lawyer is, however, one of the law people.

Ken opened the door, but his hope failed him and instead of looking at an ash blond man, he was faced with a guy who had dark brown hair and expressionless eyes. He instructed Ken to sit before him. Ken gulped. He somehow felt like he was going to face a real interrogation.

"Bombay said he's sorry that he hung up yesterday. And he said he's sorry that he couldn't come by himself," Nagi opened the conversation, "He told me to come instead. Now just say what you wanted to say to him."

Ken looked at the other man. He couldn't let his voice out. If the person in front of him was Omi, he would have talked about anything, about the way of the people in the jail, about what he thought about everyday, and about how he came to his decision to get out of that prison. But it was Naoe Nagi before him, that cold expressionless person. It was very different. His last time seeing Nagi was in Koua several moths ago and they didn't talk. Surely he could claim that he knew the person quite well. But in many of their past encounters, there were no talks. And Nagi was not his opponent, so they never said anything to each other.

"Spit it out, I have no time to baby-sit people like you."

Ken looked up. He didn't realize he was silent for so long. "Ah, sorry. Could you tell Omi that I need to get out of here? I have made my decision."

The man raised his eyebrows. "Finally, eh? And aside of taking you out from here, is there anything else you'd like him to do?"

"Ah, I need to recover my identity."

"Anything else? Setting up a job or find you a new home?"

n shook his head, "No, thank you. I've already been his burden for so long. I will do the rest with my own hands this time."

There was a hint of surprise in the eyes of the other man as Ken finished talking.

"Is that all?"

"Yes. That's all."

The other man turned to the door and called for the guard. They opened the door and took Ken back to his cell. Just then Ken stopped and turned to Nagi.

"Naoe-kun," he paused a while thinking it was appropriate call him that way, but he continued anyway, "Tell Omi-kun that I have made my decision that I want to play soccer. It's my whole life."

And then he was ushered away.




[Rex]

Takatori Mamoru came out from the conference room and headed straight to his Limo. Rex was following him. It was like a routine as a personal secretary to follow her superior like that.

"Mamoru-sama, you have nothing in your schedule tonight," she said as they both entered the car, "I think you have to go home and get some rest. Your wound has not fully healed yet."

Mamoru turned to face his secretary. "That's what I intend to do tonight. Shall I drop you first by your place?" He leaned forward to tell the driver to head first to Rex's apartment. And then he rested his back to the seat.

Rex watched as her employer closed his eyes to have short nap during the way. She didn't know since when she started doing that, watching Mamoru-sama as he took short breaks on their way to anywhere. She knew that aside of taking care of the Takatori Enterprise he also had to maintain both Kritiker and the new Weiß. Everything seemed to be too much for a once small and fragile boy like him.

She remembered when she was first assigned to him by Saijou-sama. He was very polite and he smiled often. Lately those nice little gestures seemed to wither away from him, especially after his last mission on the field, after the Koua incident. He smiled less, and she often found him gazing away and day-dreaming.

She didn't know which one was the real person inside that body. It could be that the innocent smiles were set to hide away his childhood wounds, or it could be the cold and detached personality. Either way, Rex knew well that there was a real Takatori Mamoru inside the young Persia. She knew well that his day dreaming face was not a mask, and she was somehow glad that she was one of the few persons who had the opportunity to know him that well.

She looked at Mamoru-sama until the car finally arrived at her place.

"Good night, Mamoru-sama," she said as she got out of the car.

Mamoru opened his eyes and gave her a vague smile. "Good night."

The woman watched the car went away until it was gone from her sight and then she went into her apartment.




[Naoe Nagi]

The screen behind the driver's seat slid down. "How long are you going to pretend you're sleeping, Bombay," a cold sneer went out from the driver's lips. The man reached to the front mirror and lowered it so he could see the man at the back seat.

"I am not sleeping, Nagi-kun," the man frowned as he opened his eyes. He leaned forward, "So how was Ken-kun? What did he say?"

"He said that he needed to get his legal identity back."

Omi's eyes went wide. "Recovering his ID? But that means…." His voice lowered. There was a bit of disappointment in his face. Recovering his ID meant that Ken would leave him alone in Kritiker. He wanted that somehow one of his friends would stay and support him from within, and Ken was his last hope. He couldn't ask Youji due to Balinese's condition, and Aya was definitely impossible.

"When are you going to face it that no one is going to stay?" Nagi said, "I think you knew about it when you announced their last mission."

Omi drew out a sigh. "I know. Everybody has their own fight." He looked up again and smiled, "Fine then, I'll take care of his papers. I wonder if he wanted to keep his name or go by any other. No, Hidaka Ken cannot be replaced by any other name. I'll work it out tonight."

Nagi rolled his eyes to face the reflection in the mirror. "I say I will do that for you. You can get some sleep. You have tight schedule tomorrow." He added, "Plus I don't want to see you loitering around the net. Leave all the hacking job to me or I will bombard you with scripts until your whole system is torn apart."

The ash blond chuckled. "I dare you." He always liked it when Nagi threatened to load his computer with viruses. He liked the challenge of preventing them from disturbing the system while at the same time sending out some scripts to the assassin's computer. It was more fun that playing tennis.

"You better not, Mamoru-sama," said Nagi in a stern, cold voice, and Omi knew better than to argue. He had somehow let Nagi father him when he wanted to be back as the innocent child he used to be.

"Fine then," Omi said, "Please take care of Ken-kun."

The chauffeur nodded in agreement. The next moment he looked at the mirror, the man in the back seat was already fast asleep. "Fine then," he muttered, "I will take you straight to your room."




[Hidaka Ken]

Two weeks after he made his phone call he finally walked out the big gate of the state prison. Nagi was the one who picked him up. They drove back to the city and finally arrived at an apartment building.

"This is my place. You can stay here for a while," Nagi said as they arrived at a door on the fifth floor, "There's a spare room for you. I have changed the sheets and everything is in order. Your paper is in the drawer. What you want to do next is all up to you."

"Thank you," Ken muttered, "I'm thinking of going abroad, probably to England or Italy, but before that I want to see Youji first…."

"I'm sorry, but you cannot do that," Nagi said.

The words "I'm sorry" chimed in his head for a while. "Wait, he's not… dead, isn't he?" Ken burst out. He knew, when he last saw Youji a couple of months ago, his life was still hanging on a wire. Nobody knew whether the blond was going to live or not, but he then heard that the man had been improving. No way, he couldn't be dead.

"I wasn't saying that he's dead," muttered Nagi lazily, "I said you cannot see him that's all."

"But why?"

Nagi shrugged, "I'll show you tomorrow. But if you're thinking of anything stupid as in talking to him, you better not."



The next morning they set off again in Nagi's car. Ken kept on bombarding Nagi with endless questions concerning what had happened to Youji but the other one stayed quiet. The soccer fan was guessing that Nagi was going to take him to a hospital to see a crippled Youji, or even worse to a soul asylum and he would see Youji sitting silently and wrapped in a straight jacket. But it didn't happen; Nagi was driving him to a department store instead.

"I thought Youji is somewhere else," Ken voiced as they made their way up on the escalator.

"Like in a straight jacket at the nearest lunatic house?" Nagi jeered, "No, you should have known better than that."

Ken followed the other man impatiently until they finally arrived at the male clothing area. He noticed a figure he knew just too well. But he was very different, instead of being the over confident lady killer Youji supposed to be, the lean man was somehow more shy and more polite. The man was standing at one corner, helping a lady to find a good tie to match a certain shirt. Ken had no doubt that Youji didn't find any trouble doing this. After all he was the only one who was appearance conscious from all four members of Weiß.

"He remembers nothing about his past and he's now married," Nagi explained, "Persia ordered that no Weiß member is allowed to meet him. Of course, you are allowed to ask for his assistance in this shop." And Nagi continued under his breath as Ken walked closer towards that man, "But it's all at your own risk."




[Kudou Youji]

"Thank you, Ma'am. Please come again soon," Youji bowed a little to the lady customer as she went away. He was going to walk back into his position when his view collided with someone. The man was standing not so far from him, eyeing him with the most curios eyes he'd ever seen. He was of average height for Japanese man with short dark brown hair and dark colored eyes.

"Is there anything I can help with, Sir?" he asked towards the man.

The other one startled and seemed to hold every urge he had to speak, but finally he spoke, "Ah, anou, I like this shirt," he pointed to one hanging as an example, "Is there any other color?" His gesture somehow showed that he was lying. Youji knew that well from his instinct, but it didn't bother him.

"As in what color, Sir? Perhaps I can be of help."

"Blue, dark blue."

Youji nodded and then he escorted the man to one corner of his area and showed the whole collection of that design. "I think the blue one really suit you well," he suggested. It was his job as a shopkeeper to sell as much as possible.

The other man only nodded. "I'll take the blue one," he said without any more delay.

Youji looked at him suspiciously. Some part of him felt as if he had seen that man, but he couldn't remember. There was something that bothered his mind as he tried to remember but all he had was a slight throb in his head. He shook the thought off. "What size are you?"

"L"

Youji nodded as he took one from the shelf and put it inside a shopping bag. As he handed the bag to Ken he couldn't hold the impulse of asking something. "You look familiar somehow. Have we met before?"

The other man looked startled. "N-no. I guess not." He shook his head as if he was covering something. The action somehow arisen something in the back of his memories, but he couldn't recall what.

"Is that so? I really think you look familiar."

The man shook his head again. "You must have mistaken me with someone else." But then his face changed as if something dawned at him, "But you might have seen me somewhere. Perhaps in the magazine or something." The man rubbed his nose, again a very familiar gesture, and he continued, "I was in the J-league a few years ago. Soccer."

"Ah, is that so?" Youji nodded though he wasn't fully sure that he saw that man in a magazine. "What's your name? I think I will remember if you tell me."

"Hidaka Ken."

Funny that the name didn't surface anything in his mind. It laid hanging in the air. But somehow it meant nothing to him.

The other man bowed a bit, "I guess I have to pay for this shirt now. Ja ne!" And he left.

Youji watched him until the man met another one, who also had dark brown hair, but had much less emotion written on his face. The cold faced man looked back at him as if he felt that someone was watching him. Youji forced a nod, but it seemed that the other one decided not to reply. He simply grabbed the other by his shoulder and turned away to the cashier.


~~TBC~~

Thank you to anyone who have reviewed this ficcie so far, namely Crimson-Eyed-Angel99, Jacques, Panda-chan, Kearoru, Sunao, Kasra, Fifi, Shadoewhunter, Koji-chan, and Moussy

Note to Shadoewhunter: This is where I start my plan to make Youji undomesticated... but that would be in a separated sequel and not in this After Tomorrow pieces.

Spoiler for next chapie: Ken's gonna meet other members of Weiß.... One by one that is, but he's gonna be the thread that connects them all. Just wait.... and please pray that my brain and my fingers can work together this time.... I recently noticed that my plot changes are usually because my fingers refused to type what's in my head.... ^__^()

Now... anyone care to send me some reviews? I don't mind flames, I need to burn incense sticks to drive away stubborn flies from the kitchen.