Mission, Mission, Mission [16]
...
Ken turned uncomfortably in his bed, biting his lip as if he were concentrating hard on something. Even after an ordeal like that, the dreams persisted.
Ran pushed him down onto the bed and climbed up on top of him, pinning him down helplessly. "Aya.." Ken murmured, not sure what to do with himself.
"No talking," Ran whispered to him and traced his tongue along his ear. He slipped one hand under Ken's shirt and used the other to work at undoing the buttons.
"Really," Ken interrupted him, pulling his chin up to see his expression. "Am I important to you?"
"Of course," Ran answered and moved up to let his lips hover over Ken's. "More important than anything."
Ken's eyes lazily drifted open upon hearing the sudden knock on the door. He pulled himself out of bed and went to see what was disturbing his sleep. Ran frowned at him from the hallway. "Mission," he said and began walking back down the hall.
Ken sighed and followed him to the basement. "Mission, mission, mission," he said to Ran's averted back, knowing that he can still hear him. "I can't even dream about you without Weiss getting in the way."
Before opening the door to the basement, Ran turned to look at Ken. "Weiss isn't getting in the way of us, we're getting in the way of Weiss."
"Typical Aya response," Ken sighed and pushed the door open, walking down the steps leading into the mission room. Ran followed him. The remaining members of Weiss were already situated in the room, and Manx stood by, waiting patiently for everyone to arrive.
"Well, this one definitely requires more finesse than your last one," she said from her position in front of the surprisingly irritable members of Weiss. "Alright, I guess I'll put the tape in." She walked across the room to the TV, fed the VCR an unmarked tape, and played the recording.
Persia appeared on the screen in his usual shadows. "Your next mission involves a chain of corporate offices which, in appearance, manage several large banks in the area." A map appeared on the screen, and several areas lit up, indicating the locations of these offices. "In reality, they embezzle the money to run an underground drug ring."
Ran's attention was focused solely on the screen. The mission was already unfolding itself inside of his head. He had been counting on the fact that Schwarz wouldn't appear to complicate things this time, but he's been slowly learning that Schwarz hardly ever let's them complete a mission without making an appearance.
A picture of a man in his forties appeared on the screen. Persia continued, "Your main target is Katoaka Eizo." The picture zoomed to the left side of the screen, and another photo appeared on the right. This one of a younger man in a very dignified-looking suit. "As well as Katoaka's associate, Sakoda Jiro."
Ken sat on the couch with his elbows perched on his knees and his chin resting on the upturned palms of his hands. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wished that this would be the last mission he'd ever have to suffer through.
"Both of your targets will be at a covert meeting tonight, at the main office of Katoaka Enterprises." Another map appeared on the screen, indicating the location of this place. "Terminate these two men as well as anyone who stands in the way of completing the mission."
Yohji smirked to himself. 'Ah, Persia is getting a little bloodthirsty,' he thought and tuned out the rest of the message on the screen. He's heard the 'hunt the beasts of darkness' line enough to recite it drunk, in his sleep.
~
Nonchalantly, Nagi stepped into his room and looked around at the mess he left there. No sense in living in a pigsty, he thought. Discretely, all the pieces of glass embedded in the carpet, minus the ones Farfarello helped himself to, levitated into the air and deposited themselves neatly into a trashcan.
"I'm jealous. I always had to clean my room the hard way when I was a little kid," Schuldig laughed and stepped into the room. He squinted his eyes at the mid-afternoon sun that shone through the broken window.
/Is Crawford here?/ That's all that concerned Nagi at the moment.
"Nope, rest easy." Schuldig walked casually into the room and settled himself on top of the bed. "He's out doing whatever research or godknowswhat he does before our missions."
"We have an assignment tonight?" Nagi looked up at him in surprise.
"Yea, if you ask me, Brad's kind of paranoid about Weiss now." Schuldig laughed and kept his focus away from Nagi. "With everything that's been going on, he has every right to be. He's probably more determined than ever to get rid of them."
Nagi looked down at the ground, obvious concern flashing across his face.
Noting the silence, Schuldig looked back at him and said, "This is a serious problem for you, isn't it?"
"It should be a problem for you, too!"
"Not anymore."
"What?" Nagi watched him with a frown on his face.
Schuldig smiled wearily. "I have no more connection to Weiss. I don't care what happens to them."
Nagi laughed, disbelieving to a point of amusement. "Yea, right."
"What? You don't think I'm serious?"
"No, I think you're in denial. You're trying to tell me that you'd drop Balinese in order to be loyal to Schwarz? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it."
Schuldig smirked, putting on his egocentric persona. "I thought you knew me better. I don't give in to pathetic emotions like that."
"It's funny, now that I think about it," Nagi replied, looking thoughtful. "You know everyone's mind inside and out, but you don't know your own."
Schuldig laughed and mockingly bowed to Nagi. "Ah, the student has become the teacher. Well done, Nagi-sama."
Nagi glared and telekinetically threw a pillow at Schuldig's head.
~
"What do we do?" Omi stood against the door in Yohji's room.
"What do we do with what?"
"The mission tonight. What if Schwarz is there?"
"You heard Persia." Yohji sat up in his bed. "He said to terminate our targets and anyone who gets in the way."
"Yohji-kun, you can't be serious!" Omi pushed himself away from the door and went to sit on the bed. This was definitely a response he hadn't counted upon.
"Listen, I can't tell you to do the same thing because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did," Yohji said, keeping his expression abnormally serious, "but I'm completely prepared to treat Schwarz as the enemy they are. All of them."
Omi's expression saddened, and a pleading look appeared in his eyes. "Can you really tell me that you didn't get attached to him at all?"
"I definitely can't," Yohji laughed, but it sounded forced. He laid back down on his bed and folded his arms under his head. "That's the problem, babe. Think of what I'd have to give up to be with him. Weiss, among other things."
"If you have a chance to kill him tonight.."
Yohji had the answer before Omi finished his question. "I'll take that chance. Definitely."
"When I went to see Nagi at the hospital yesterday, we talked about this." Omi looked as if he were very deep in thought. "He asked how I can be sure if what I do is right or wrong."
"And?"
"And that means that he doesn't know if what he's doing is right! How can we condemn someone who is being so manipulated that he doesn't even know the value of his actions?"
"Point taken." Yohji smiled sympathetically. "Omi, you and I are in two completely different situations, even though they may seem alike on the surface. Go with your gut feeling on this one. I'll go with mine."
~
Ran sat on the old couch near the back of the shop, clipping the newly delivered flowers. This batch seemed to have more unnecessary roots and leaves than the others, and he didn't hesitate to swiftly rid each stem of these annoyances.
Ken inspected the load of fresh flowers and bags of soil before him and noted that he had three more bags to lug back into the shop. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and lifted the largest one onto his shoulder. He dragged it into the shop, meandering through the crowd of girls gathered there, and dropped it heavily in front of Ran's feet next to the other bags.
"This doesn't look very fair to me," Ken sighed, catching his breath as he collapsed onto the floor by the bag.
Ran watched him sit down in front of his chair on the ground. Without a word, he put the flower aside and stood up. He walked through the crowd of girls and outside to where the delivery truck stood with the last bags of soil. He threw one over each shoulder and walked back to the storage room where Ken sat perched up against the bag he brought in.
Ken followed him in with his eyes, expecting him to say something. Ignoring his gaze, Ran dropped the bags on the ground and casually went to sit back down in his chair. He picked up the flower he was working on earlier and finished clipping it. All the while, Ken was watching him, debating with himself.
"That was nice," Ken finally spoke up.
Ran didn't bother looking back down at him. "It was easier to just give in."
Ken frowned. He wasn't sure how to take that so he decided to drop the whole thing. He thought that maybe he should get back to the customers but soon realized that no real customers come around this time anyway, frightened away by the screaming fan club. "Aya.."
"What?"
"If Schwarz shows up at the mission tonight," Ken said, pausing for a moment before he continued, "would you kill Mastermind?"
Ran looked down at him with a questioning look as if he couldn't see the reason behind the question. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"You know, because of him and Yohji. Don't you think it would be cruel?"
"Don't you think it's cruel that he jeopardized the safety of Weiss?"
Ken looked away from Ran for a moment and pulled on the leaves of a flower next to him. "I was just thinking..."
"Of a way to screw yourself over?"
"Aya, listen to what I'm saying." Ken furrowed his forehead and frowned at him. "If I were Yohji right now, I'd be devastated."
"That's because you have the maturity of a twelve-year-old girl," Ran pointed out.
"God damn it." Ken was getting frustrated. "Why don't you ever take anything I say seriously?"
"It's hard to when everything you ever say is nonsense."
"It's only nonsense to you because you won't listen long enough to know that it does make sense!"
And this went on for quite some time.
~
Meanwhile, Yohji was in his room, being devastated.
~
Omi walked down the stairs with a purpose; he was in mission mode. He escorted the last of the customers out of the shop and quickly locked up, flipping the open/closed sign over on the door. He meandered around the pots of newly-delivered flowers and bags of dirt to where Ran and Ken sat near the storage room, now in complete silence, refusing to speak to each other.
"Aya-kun, Ken-kun," he said, keeping his voice down as they all did when the enigmatic mission was at hand. "We'll need to leave soon."
"Hn," Ran said and pulled himself up out of his chair, leaving behind the scissors he used to clip the flowers with.
Ken stayed by the storage room for a moment, letting himself float in thought. He wondered what this mission would bring and if they all would come back to the flower shop tonight. Out of Weiss, he'd usually be the last one to have morbid thoughts like that, but each time is so close, and each time he finds himself on the way back home, thankful to whatever God there may be that they all managed to survive that.
Omi stood uneasily in front of the door to Yohji's room. Despite what Yohji told him, he knew deep down that this whole situation was tearing him up inside. How could it not be? Omi knocked on the door. "Yohji-kun," he called softly with a certain amount of empathy in his voice. "We'll be going soon."
Omi waited for a response and, soon enough, heard gradual footsteps approaching the other side of the door. Yohji opened it and smiled, almost painstakingly, down at him. That's what Omi always liked about Yohji; he always answered the door, and he always smiled. Ken is usually content with holding short conversations through closed doors because he's too lazy or too comfortable to get up and answer it. Ran, on the other hand, had smiled a grand total of one and a half times throughout the past year; the one half was the result of a dispute between Yohji and Omi about rather that was a smile or a deformed scowl.
"I got it," Yohji said finally. "Thanks."
~
"Hey, are you coming or what?" Schuldig appeared in the doorway of Farfarello's so-called bedroom.
"Or what," Farfarello answered and went back to gluing.
"Why not?" Schuldig couldn't remember the last time Farfarello passed up a chance to slice and dice.
"I'm busy."
"Busy with what?"
"Gluing."
Schuldig was just about to ask what and why, but he wisely decided to leave it at that. "Well," he sighed, backing up out of the doorway, "good luck with that."
"Thanks."
~
Brad stood leaning against the side of his car. He looked very impatient. Nagi sat in the backseat, held down by the seatbelt. Schuldig casually waltzed out of the building and opened the door to the passenger side of Brad's car.
"Well?" Brad demanded.
"He's gluing."
...
Ken turned uncomfortably in his bed, biting his lip as if he were concentrating hard on something. Even after an ordeal like that, the dreams persisted.
Ran pushed him down onto the bed and climbed up on top of him, pinning him down helplessly. "Aya.." Ken murmured, not sure what to do with himself.
"No talking," Ran whispered to him and traced his tongue along his ear. He slipped one hand under Ken's shirt and used the other to work at undoing the buttons.
"Really," Ken interrupted him, pulling his chin up to see his expression. "Am I important to you?"
"Of course," Ran answered and moved up to let his lips hover over Ken's. "More important than anything."
Ken's eyes lazily drifted open upon hearing the sudden knock on the door. He pulled himself out of bed and went to see what was disturbing his sleep. Ran frowned at him from the hallway. "Mission," he said and began walking back down the hall.
Ken sighed and followed him to the basement. "Mission, mission, mission," he said to Ran's averted back, knowing that he can still hear him. "I can't even dream about you without Weiss getting in the way."
Before opening the door to the basement, Ran turned to look at Ken. "Weiss isn't getting in the way of us, we're getting in the way of Weiss."
"Typical Aya response," Ken sighed and pushed the door open, walking down the steps leading into the mission room. Ran followed him. The remaining members of Weiss were already situated in the room, and Manx stood by, waiting patiently for everyone to arrive.
"Well, this one definitely requires more finesse than your last one," she said from her position in front of the surprisingly irritable members of Weiss. "Alright, I guess I'll put the tape in." She walked across the room to the TV, fed the VCR an unmarked tape, and played the recording.
Persia appeared on the screen in his usual shadows. "Your next mission involves a chain of corporate offices which, in appearance, manage several large banks in the area." A map appeared on the screen, and several areas lit up, indicating the locations of these offices. "In reality, they embezzle the money to run an underground drug ring."
Ran's attention was focused solely on the screen. The mission was already unfolding itself inside of his head. He had been counting on the fact that Schwarz wouldn't appear to complicate things this time, but he's been slowly learning that Schwarz hardly ever let's them complete a mission without making an appearance.
A picture of a man in his forties appeared on the screen. Persia continued, "Your main target is Katoaka Eizo." The picture zoomed to the left side of the screen, and another photo appeared on the right. This one of a younger man in a very dignified-looking suit. "As well as Katoaka's associate, Sakoda Jiro."
Ken sat on the couch with his elbows perched on his knees and his chin resting on the upturned palms of his hands. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wished that this would be the last mission he'd ever have to suffer through.
"Both of your targets will be at a covert meeting tonight, at the main office of Katoaka Enterprises." Another map appeared on the screen, indicating the location of this place. "Terminate these two men as well as anyone who stands in the way of completing the mission."
Yohji smirked to himself. 'Ah, Persia is getting a little bloodthirsty,' he thought and tuned out the rest of the message on the screen. He's heard the 'hunt the beasts of darkness' line enough to recite it drunk, in his sleep.
~
Nonchalantly, Nagi stepped into his room and looked around at the mess he left there. No sense in living in a pigsty, he thought. Discretely, all the pieces of glass embedded in the carpet, minus the ones Farfarello helped himself to, levitated into the air and deposited themselves neatly into a trashcan.
"I'm jealous. I always had to clean my room the hard way when I was a little kid," Schuldig laughed and stepped into the room. He squinted his eyes at the mid-afternoon sun that shone through the broken window.
/Is Crawford here?/ That's all that concerned Nagi at the moment.
"Nope, rest easy." Schuldig walked casually into the room and settled himself on top of the bed. "He's out doing whatever research or godknowswhat he does before our missions."
"We have an assignment tonight?" Nagi looked up at him in surprise.
"Yea, if you ask me, Brad's kind of paranoid about Weiss now." Schuldig laughed and kept his focus away from Nagi. "With everything that's been going on, he has every right to be. He's probably more determined than ever to get rid of them."
Nagi looked down at the ground, obvious concern flashing across his face.
Noting the silence, Schuldig looked back at him and said, "This is a serious problem for you, isn't it?"
"It should be a problem for you, too!"
"Not anymore."
"What?" Nagi watched him with a frown on his face.
Schuldig smiled wearily. "I have no more connection to Weiss. I don't care what happens to them."
Nagi laughed, disbelieving to a point of amusement. "Yea, right."
"What? You don't think I'm serious?"
"No, I think you're in denial. You're trying to tell me that you'd drop Balinese in order to be loyal to Schwarz? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it."
Schuldig smirked, putting on his egocentric persona. "I thought you knew me better. I don't give in to pathetic emotions like that."
"It's funny, now that I think about it," Nagi replied, looking thoughtful. "You know everyone's mind inside and out, but you don't know your own."
Schuldig laughed and mockingly bowed to Nagi. "Ah, the student has become the teacher. Well done, Nagi-sama."
Nagi glared and telekinetically threw a pillow at Schuldig's head.
~
"What do we do?" Omi stood against the door in Yohji's room.
"What do we do with what?"
"The mission tonight. What if Schwarz is there?"
"You heard Persia." Yohji sat up in his bed. "He said to terminate our targets and anyone who gets in the way."
"Yohji-kun, you can't be serious!" Omi pushed himself away from the door and went to sit on the bed. This was definitely a response he hadn't counted upon.
"Listen, I can't tell you to do the same thing because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did," Yohji said, keeping his expression abnormally serious, "but I'm completely prepared to treat Schwarz as the enemy they are. All of them."
Omi's expression saddened, and a pleading look appeared in his eyes. "Can you really tell me that you didn't get attached to him at all?"
"I definitely can't," Yohji laughed, but it sounded forced. He laid back down on his bed and folded his arms under his head. "That's the problem, babe. Think of what I'd have to give up to be with him. Weiss, among other things."
"If you have a chance to kill him tonight.."
Yohji had the answer before Omi finished his question. "I'll take that chance. Definitely."
"When I went to see Nagi at the hospital yesterday, we talked about this." Omi looked as if he were very deep in thought. "He asked how I can be sure if what I do is right or wrong."
"And?"
"And that means that he doesn't know if what he's doing is right! How can we condemn someone who is being so manipulated that he doesn't even know the value of his actions?"
"Point taken." Yohji smiled sympathetically. "Omi, you and I are in two completely different situations, even though they may seem alike on the surface. Go with your gut feeling on this one. I'll go with mine."
~
Ran sat on the old couch near the back of the shop, clipping the newly delivered flowers. This batch seemed to have more unnecessary roots and leaves than the others, and he didn't hesitate to swiftly rid each stem of these annoyances.
Ken inspected the load of fresh flowers and bags of soil before him and noted that he had three more bags to lug back into the shop. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and lifted the largest one onto his shoulder. He dragged it into the shop, meandering through the crowd of girls gathered there, and dropped it heavily in front of Ran's feet next to the other bags.
"This doesn't look very fair to me," Ken sighed, catching his breath as he collapsed onto the floor by the bag.
Ran watched him sit down in front of his chair on the ground. Without a word, he put the flower aside and stood up. He walked through the crowd of girls and outside to where the delivery truck stood with the last bags of soil. He threw one over each shoulder and walked back to the storage room where Ken sat perched up against the bag he brought in.
Ken followed him in with his eyes, expecting him to say something. Ignoring his gaze, Ran dropped the bags on the ground and casually went to sit back down in his chair. He picked up the flower he was working on earlier and finished clipping it. All the while, Ken was watching him, debating with himself.
"That was nice," Ken finally spoke up.
Ran didn't bother looking back down at him. "It was easier to just give in."
Ken frowned. He wasn't sure how to take that so he decided to drop the whole thing. He thought that maybe he should get back to the customers but soon realized that no real customers come around this time anyway, frightened away by the screaming fan club. "Aya.."
"What?"
"If Schwarz shows up at the mission tonight," Ken said, pausing for a moment before he continued, "would you kill Mastermind?"
Ran looked down at him with a questioning look as if he couldn't see the reason behind the question. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"You know, because of him and Yohji. Don't you think it would be cruel?"
"Don't you think it's cruel that he jeopardized the safety of Weiss?"
Ken looked away from Ran for a moment and pulled on the leaves of a flower next to him. "I was just thinking..."
"Of a way to screw yourself over?"
"Aya, listen to what I'm saying." Ken furrowed his forehead and frowned at him. "If I were Yohji right now, I'd be devastated."
"That's because you have the maturity of a twelve-year-old girl," Ran pointed out.
"God damn it." Ken was getting frustrated. "Why don't you ever take anything I say seriously?"
"It's hard to when everything you ever say is nonsense."
"It's only nonsense to you because you won't listen long enough to know that it does make sense!"
And this went on for quite some time.
~
Meanwhile, Yohji was in his room, being devastated.
~
Omi walked down the stairs with a purpose; he was in mission mode. He escorted the last of the customers out of the shop and quickly locked up, flipping the open/closed sign over on the door. He meandered around the pots of newly-delivered flowers and bags of dirt to where Ran and Ken sat near the storage room, now in complete silence, refusing to speak to each other.
"Aya-kun, Ken-kun," he said, keeping his voice down as they all did when the enigmatic mission was at hand. "We'll need to leave soon."
"Hn," Ran said and pulled himself up out of his chair, leaving behind the scissors he used to clip the flowers with.
Ken stayed by the storage room for a moment, letting himself float in thought. He wondered what this mission would bring and if they all would come back to the flower shop tonight. Out of Weiss, he'd usually be the last one to have morbid thoughts like that, but each time is so close, and each time he finds himself on the way back home, thankful to whatever God there may be that they all managed to survive that.
Omi stood uneasily in front of the door to Yohji's room. Despite what Yohji told him, he knew deep down that this whole situation was tearing him up inside. How could it not be? Omi knocked on the door. "Yohji-kun," he called softly with a certain amount of empathy in his voice. "We'll be going soon."
Omi waited for a response and, soon enough, heard gradual footsteps approaching the other side of the door. Yohji opened it and smiled, almost painstakingly, down at him. That's what Omi always liked about Yohji; he always answered the door, and he always smiled. Ken is usually content with holding short conversations through closed doors because he's too lazy or too comfortable to get up and answer it. Ran, on the other hand, had smiled a grand total of one and a half times throughout the past year; the one half was the result of a dispute between Yohji and Omi about rather that was a smile or a deformed scowl.
"I got it," Yohji said finally. "Thanks."
~
"Hey, are you coming or what?" Schuldig appeared in the doorway of Farfarello's so-called bedroom.
"Or what," Farfarello answered and went back to gluing.
"Why not?" Schuldig couldn't remember the last time Farfarello passed up a chance to slice and dice.
"I'm busy."
"Busy with what?"
"Gluing."
Schuldig was just about to ask what and why, but he wisely decided to leave it at that. "Well," he sighed, backing up out of the doorway, "good luck with that."
"Thanks."
~
Brad stood leaning against the side of his car. He looked very impatient. Nagi sat in the backseat, held down by the seatbelt. Schuldig casually waltzed out of the building and opened the door to the passenger side of Brad's car.
"Well?" Brad demanded.
"He's gluing."