[A/N: KA-BAM!]
Unlucky [13]
...
The usual morning rush of school girls passed the flower shop already as they often do, and a serene quiet settled over the area. Like the calm after a hurricane. Yohji pulled up a chair to a table and busied himself with starting on some of the orders placed that day.
/Coast clear?/
Yohji couldn't help the smirk that twisted itself into his lips. /All clear./ He responded after looking around for any signs of Ran or Ken.
Schuldig then let himself in through the front entrance of the shop and casually walked behind Yohji, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "So, how'd you sleep?"
"It's funny you should ask." Yohji turned his head a bit to the side in order to face him. "You were there."
Both men suddenly pulled away from each other when footsteps clearly sounded from above. "Shit," Yohji declared and shot out of his chair, pulling Schuldig out of the room by his arm. Thinking quickly, he slipped them both into the storage room in the back of the kitchen and shut the door.
"I think you're kind of paranoid."
"Sh," Yohji shushed him and moved his ear to the door to see if he can make out what the footsteps are doing.
Schuldig sighed and sat down on some wooden crates in the room. /You know, you could have very well just thrown me in here and stayed out there where you're supposed to be./
Yohji looked over at him and frowned. /You're right. Now Aya's gonna be pissed because I'm not working like I should be./
/Oh, admit it./ Schuldig grinned and held out a hand for Yohji to take. /You just wanted to be stuck in a small, dark room with me, didn't you?/
Yohji took his hand, settling himself on Schuldig's lap so they sit face-to-face. /You really are a mind reader./ He loosely hung his arms around Schuldig's neck.
Not far away, Ran, frustrated and sleep-deprived, was pacing around the flower shop. Now, he was sure he remembered something about Yohji and Omi having the morning shift, but apparently, that was not the case. He scowled and resolved that, even if it's the last thing he does, he'll find them both and exert his best lecture-giving skills on them. Responsibility is responsibility.
Responsibility was also, conveniently, a sure-fire way to keep all other stray thoughts away. Ran decided to start with the upstairs rooms since, in all likeliness, Yohji was probably still in bed.
~
Ken pulled the pillow off his head and set it aside. After hours of self-torture, he came to the conclusion that this was no way to live. Was he a man or a mouse or, according to Yohji, a teenage girl with a crush? He was a man, that's what! By a margin of error, he could even be a mouse, but, by no means, was he a teenage girl with a crush! Then he suddenly remembered Sakura, the teenage girl with a crush that seemingly won Ran over, and he got the sinking feeling that Ran would prefer a teenage girl with a crush over both a man and a mouse.
The pillow was miserably placed over Ken's face yet again.
No, Ken decided and threw the pillow to the other side of the room, this was no way to live! Before he allowed more time for thinking, he pulled himself out of bed and stormed out of his room, almost walking right into Ran. He made a mental note to quit almost walking right into him and then made another mental note to start breathing again.
"Aya.."
'Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility...' Ran had a natural flare for looking completely indifferent, so the situation wasn't as difficult for him to handle as it was for poor, perplexed Ken. "Have you seen Yohji?" He asked, perfectly stoically.
"Uh.. no," Ken finally managed past the clouds of bafflement circling around his head. Ran was acting like nothing happened. Ken briefly thought that maybe he had dreamed the kiss, too, but then realized that this was just a typical Ran reaction.
"I've been looking for him all morning," Ran said and then made his way past Ken and down the hall towards Yohji's room.
"Aya, you can't just pretend I don't exist," Ken called out to him in a moment of impulse.
Ran turned around, almost reluctantly, and glared at him. "And why not?" He asked in his coldest tone.
Ken was a bit taken aback by this; he didn't expect Ran to be that completely heartless. "I hate this! Because no matter how much this inconveniences you, I'm still alive!" He looked to Ran for some sort of response, but when the redhead just stood in front of him, unaffected, Ken shrugged his arms in defeat and proceeded to escape down the stairs.
Ran was half kicking himself and half trying to regain his senses after Ken's emotional outburst. Once he realized he still had legs, he followed Ken down to the kitchen.
~
"You brought flowers?" Nagi delicately pulled himself up into a sitting position on his bed and folded his hands in his lap.
"Mhm, it was the fastest way to get to your room." Omi frowned at how dark the room was. He walked over to the window and placed the flowers on a table there. He then pulled the shutters up, allowing a stream of sunlight into the room.
Nagi squinted his eyes and pulled a hand up to shield them from the sun. "What are you doing?"
Omi turned around and placed his hands on his hips. "They're flowers; they'll die without sunlight."
Nagi sighed in defeat and dropped back down onto his bed. "What is it that you want anyway?"
"Truthfully," Omi said and sat down on the edge of the bed, "I came for answers."
"I thought you might say something like that."
"A lot of things have been happening lately that you wouldn't call normal, and they pretty much all revolve around you."
Nagi frowned and turned so his back was facing Omi, and the shutters on the window suddenly slammed back down.
"I didn't mean it in a bad way!" Omi sighed and placed his hand on Nagi's shoulder. "Like when you saved Aya-kun and Ken-kun. I just want to know why."
Nagi's eyes trailed to the ground and, without turning around, he said, "Because I don't believe anything anymore."
"Everyone needs something to believe in," Omi said, idly.
"I always fought for Schwarz because that's my cause and that's what I thought was right. Then, one time, Schuldig told me that there is never a definite right or wrong and that nothing is ever just black or white."
"I suppose that's true. There is no universal right, just the right that's in your heart."
"But how can you ever know that what you're fighting for is the right thing to fight for?" Nagi turned over onto his back again so he could see Omi's reaction. "When I saw how your teammates risked their lives to help the others, I thought that if they're willing to make such a sacrifice for any one thing, they must be absolutely sure it's right. So, you see, I couldn't just let them die."
Farfarello now slid down to the ground of the hospital hallway, listening to Nagi's confessions. 'No right or wrong,' he thought and hit the back of his head against the wall.
~
"Hey, you hear that?" Schuldig whispered to Yohji and turned his attention to the metal door separating them from the kitchen.
"Aya and Ken," Yohji said as he shifted his weight on Schuldig's lap. "This is getting ridiculous."
"They fight like this often?"
"Yea, all the time. The brunette doesn't know what to do with himself and the redhead thinks the world is going to fall apart all the time. I'm already sick of hearing it."
A smirk slyly made its way onto Schuldig's face. "Hey, I have a really good idea, but I'll need some assistance."
"Oh, do tell."
"Well, it looks to me like poor Ken is putting himself on the line, and all he's getting from the Ice God is the cold shoulder. So, I was thinking, if Ran had a personality like you or I, there would be no problem at all."
"I'm not sure where you're going with this." Yohji raised an eyebrow in a curious sort of confusion.
"If I can get into Ran's head, I can make him do anything I'm doing. Kind of like a puppet. He'll mimic my every move."
Knowing that Ran had followed him down, Ken stopped abruptly in front of the storage room and turned to face him. "What is it, Aya?" He asked, miserably. "Come to tear me up some more?"
Schuldig pulled Yohji up into a standing position and whispered, "Play along." He then entered Ran's mind and completely took over, with so much accuracy that he even coordinated their blinking. He pushed Yohji against the heavy door, holding his hands above his head. On the other side of the door, Ran imitated the action and soon had Ken pinned against him.
"Aya.." Ken gasped in utter and complete shock, but he was soon silenced as Ran pressed his lips roughly against his own, following strict directions from Schuldig.
Yohji was thoroughly enjoying this. He wrapped his arms around Schuldig's neck and pulled his fingers through his hair. Schuldig pulled away from Yohji's lips and begin trailing down his neck. Ran, with no conscious thought of his own, did the same.
"What're you doing?" Ken demanded in between sharp breaths.
Ran, of course, didn't answer and continued cloning Schuldig's every action.
Yohji pulled Schuldig's chin back up and kissed him again, both of them forgetting the game at hand. Schuldig let out a mischievous laugh and bit down on Yohji's lip. Ran copied these actions exactly.
Ken swallowed hard. He didn't know rather to be excited beyond belief or scared beyond reason. "Aya," he managed to gasp out, "this.. it's not like you." He wondered why Ran seemed to ignore everything he was saying. What was this anyway?
Schuldig was too caught up to even acknowledge Ken's faint voice traveling into his head through Ran's ears. Playfully, Yohji bit his lip as a counterattack.
Schuldig laughed. "Yohji..."
And so, everyone froze. Schuldig immediately let go of Ran's mind, and he and Yohji just stared at each other in terror.
Ran and Ken pulled away from each other; Ran did so because it's a rather odd feeling to suddenly regain your consciousness after functioning without it for a while, and Ken pulled away because he suddenly felt a lot like throwing up.
"What... did you say?" He asked, regaining his breath.
"Ken?" Ran felt very disoriented. "What just.."
"Bullshit." Ken rushed past him as anger flared up inside of him. "Who the hell do you think you are?" He called after him as he backed out of the room. "You can't just play with people's hearts like that, Aya!"
"Ken, what are you saying?" Ran took a couple of steps towards him, slowly regaining his senses.
Ken wiped his lips on the cuff of his shirt and spit on the ground. "If you ever so much as touch me again, I swear to God, I'll kill you." He then coldly turned around and made his way back up the stairs and to his room.
Ran stood in the middle of the kitchen in complete shock. What the hell just happened? His lips felt numb, his hair was tousled and his clothes were disheveled. Not to mention the fact that Ken just stormed out of the room, pissed off at him and threatening to kill him, and he hadn't the slightest idea why. What the HELL just happened?
Unlucky [13]
...
The usual morning rush of school girls passed the flower shop already as they often do, and a serene quiet settled over the area. Like the calm after a hurricane. Yohji pulled up a chair to a table and busied himself with starting on some of the orders placed that day.
/Coast clear?/
Yohji couldn't help the smirk that twisted itself into his lips. /All clear./ He responded after looking around for any signs of Ran or Ken.
Schuldig then let himself in through the front entrance of the shop and casually walked behind Yohji, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "So, how'd you sleep?"
"It's funny you should ask." Yohji turned his head a bit to the side in order to face him. "You were there."
Both men suddenly pulled away from each other when footsteps clearly sounded from above. "Shit," Yohji declared and shot out of his chair, pulling Schuldig out of the room by his arm. Thinking quickly, he slipped them both into the storage room in the back of the kitchen and shut the door.
"I think you're kind of paranoid."
"Sh," Yohji shushed him and moved his ear to the door to see if he can make out what the footsteps are doing.
Schuldig sighed and sat down on some wooden crates in the room. /You know, you could have very well just thrown me in here and stayed out there where you're supposed to be./
Yohji looked over at him and frowned. /You're right. Now Aya's gonna be pissed because I'm not working like I should be./
/Oh, admit it./ Schuldig grinned and held out a hand for Yohji to take. /You just wanted to be stuck in a small, dark room with me, didn't you?/
Yohji took his hand, settling himself on Schuldig's lap so they sit face-to-face. /You really are a mind reader./ He loosely hung his arms around Schuldig's neck.
Not far away, Ran, frustrated and sleep-deprived, was pacing around the flower shop. Now, he was sure he remembered something about Yohji and Omi having the morning shift, but apparently, that was not the case. He scowled and resolved that, even if it's the last thing he does, he'll find them both and exert his best lecture-giving skills on them. Responsibility is responsibility.
Responsibility was also, conveniently, a sure-fire way to keep all other stray thoughts away. Ran decided to start with the upstairs rooms since, in all likeliness, Yohji was probably still in bed.
~
Ken pulled the pillow off his head and set it aside. After hours of self-torture, he came to the conclusion that this was no way to live. Was he a man or a mouse or, according to Yohji, a teenage girl with a crush? He was a man, that's what! By a margin of error, he could even be a mouse, but, by no means, was he a teenage girl with a crush! Then he suddenly remembered Sakura, the teenage girl with a crush that seemingly won Ran over, and he got the sinking feeling that Ran would prefer a teenage girl with a crush over both a man and a mouse.
The pillow was miserably placed over Ken's face yet again.
No, Ken decided and threw the pillow to the other side of the room, this was no way to live! Before he allowed more time for thinking, he pulled himself out of bed and stormed out of his room, almost walking right into Ran. He made a mental note to quit almost walking right into him and then made another mental note to start breathing again.
"Aya.."
'Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility...' Ran had a natural flare for looking completely indifferent, so the situation wasn't as difficult for him to handle as it was for poor, perplexed Ken. "Have you seen Yohji?" He asked, perfectly stoically.
"Uh.. no," Ken finally managed past the clouds of bafflement circling around his head. Ran was acting like nothing happened. Ken briefly thought that maybe he had dreamed the kiss, too, but then realized that this was just a typical Ran reaction.
"I've been looking for him all morning," Ran said and then made his way past Ken and down the hall towards Yohji's room.
"Aya, you can't just pretend I don't exist," Ken called out to him in a moment of impulse.
Ran turned around, almost reluctantly, and glared at him. "And why not?" He asked in his coldest tone.
Ken was a bit taken aback by this; he didn't expect Ran to be that completely heartless. "I hate this! Because no matter how much this inconveniences you, I'm still alive!" He looked to Ran for some sort of response, but when the redhead just stood in front of him, unaffected, Ken shrugged his arms in defeat and proceeded to escape down the stairs.
Ran was half kicking himself and half trying to regain his senses after Ken's emotional outburst. Once he realized he still had legs, he followed Ken down to the kitchen.
~
"You brought flowers?" Nagi delicately pulled himself up into a sitting position on his bed and folded his hands in his lap.
"Mhm, it was the fastest way to get to your room." Omi frowned at how dark the room was. He walked over to the window and placed the flowers on a table there. He then pulled the shutters up, allowing a stream of sunlight into the room.
Nagi squinted his eyes and pulled a hand up to shield them from the sun. "What are you doing?"
Omi turned around and placed his hands on his hips. "They're flowers; they'll die without sunlight."
Nagi sighed in defeat and dropped back down onto his bed. "What is it that you want anyway?"
"Truthfully," Omi said and sat down on the edge of the bed, "I came for answers."
"I thought you might say something like that."
"A lot of things have been happening lately that you wouldn't call normal, and they pretty much all revolve around you."
Nagi frowned and turned so his back was facing Omi, and the shutters on the window suddenly slammed back down.
"I didn't mean it in a bad way!" Omi sighed and placed his hand on Nagi's shoulder. "Like when you saved Aya-kun and Ken-kun. I just want to know why."
Nagi's eyes trailed to the ground and, without turning around, he said, "Because I don't believe anything anymore."
"Everyone needs something to believe in," Omi said, idly.
"I always fought for Schwarz because that's my cause and that's what I thought was right. Then, one time, Schuldig told me that there is never a definite right or wrong and that nothing is ever just black or white."
"I suppose that's true. There is no universal right, just the right that's in your heart."
"But how can you ever know that what you're fighting for is the right thing to fight for?" Nagi turned over onto his back again so he could see Omi's reaction. "When I saw how your teammates risked their lives to help the others, I thought that if they're willing to make such a sacrifice for any one thing, they must be absolutely sure it's right. So, you see, I couldn't just let them die."
Farfarello now slid down to the ground of the hospital hallway, listening to Nagi's confessions. 'No right or wrong,' he thought and hit the back of his head against the wall.
~
"Hey, you hear that?" Schuldig whispered to Yohji and turned his attention to the metal door separating them from the kitchen.
"Aya and Ken," Yohji said as he shifted his weight on Schuldig's lap. "This is getting ridiculous."
"They fight like this often?"
"Yea, all the time. The brunette doesn't know what to do with himself and the redhead thinks the world is going to fall apart all the time. I'm already sick of hearing it."
A smirk slyly made its way onto Schuldig's face. "Hey, I have a really good idea, but I'll need some assistance."
"Oh, do tell."
"Well, it looks to me like poor Ken is putting himself on the line, and all he's getting from the Ice God is the cold shoulder. So, I was thinking, if Ran had a personality like you or I, there would be no problem at all."
"I'm not sure where you're going with this." Yohji raised an eyebrow in a curious sort of confusion.
"If I can get into Ran's head, I can make him do anything I'm doing. Kind of like a puppet. He'll mimic my every move."
Knowing that Ran had followed him down, Ken stopped abruptly in front of the storage room and turned to face him. "What is it, Aya?" He asked, miserably. "Come to tear me up some more?"
Schuldig pulled Yohji up into a standing position and whispered, "Play along." He then entered Ran's mind and completely took over, with so much accuracy that he even coordinated their blinking. He pushed Yohji against the heavy door, holding his hands above his head. On the other side of the door, Ran imitated the action and soon had Ken pinned against him.
"Aya.." Ken gasped in utter and complete shock, but he was soon silenced as Ran pressed his lips roughly against his own, following strict directions from Schuldig.
Yohji was thoroughly enjoying this. He wrapped his arms around Schuldig's neck and pulled his fingers through his hair. Schuldig pulled away from Yohji's lips and begin trailing down his neck. Ran, with no conscious thought of his own, did the same.
"What're you doing?" Ken demanded in between sharp breaths.
Ran, of course, didn't answer and continued cloning Schuldig's every action.
Yohji pulled Schuldig's chin back up and kissed him again, both of them forgetting the game at hand. Schuldig let out a mischievous laugh and bit down on Yohji's lip. Ran copied these actions exactly.
Ken swallowed hard. He didn't know rather to be excited beyond belief or scared beyond reason. "Aya," he managed to gasp out, "this.. it's not like you." He wondered why Ran seemed to ignore everything he was saying. What was this anyway?
Schuldig was too caught up to even acknowledge Ken's faint voice traveling into his head through Ran's ears. Playfully, Yohji bit his lip as a counterattack.
Schuldig laughed. "Yohji..."
And so, everyone froze. Schuldig immediately let go of Ran's mind, and he and Yohji just stared at each other in terror.
Ran and Ken pulled away from each other; Ran did so because it's a rather odd feeling to suddenly regain your consciousness after functioning without it for a while, and Ken pulled away because he suddenly felt a lot like throwing up.
"What... did you say?" He asked, regaining his breath.
"Ken?" Ran felt very disoriented. "What just.."
"Bullshit." Ken rushed past him as anger flared up inside of him. "Who the hell do you think you are?" He called after him as he backed out of the room. "You can't just play with people's hearts like that, Aya!"
"Ken, what are you saying?" Ran took a couple of steps towards him, slowly regaining his senses.
Ken wiped his lips on the cuff of his shirt and spit on the ground. "If you ever so much as touch me again, I swear to God, I'll kill you." He then coldly turned around and made his way back up the stairs and to his room.
Ran stood in the middle of the kitchen in complete shock. What the hell just happened? His lips felt numb, his hair was tousled and his clothes were disheveled. Not to mention the fact that Ken just stormed out of the room, pissed off at him and threatening to kill him, and he hadn't the slightest idea why. What the HELL just happened?