The drab walls of my cell, the captivity for which I willingly volunteered, ease my thoughts along, as I had hoped they would. I had come here to find out who I am - what I am – and the first step towards becoming human again had been rediscovering football and how it made me feel alive. That is what is keeping me here on this earth, but I need something more than that, I need something that not only keeps me here but wants me here. I used to have that, with Omi.
We were a lovely couple; everyone who knew about us said that, and it's true, we were. We looked good together, we complemented each other's strengths, we were best friends as well as lovers... we were a beautiful team.
I remember how we first became more than just good friends. It wasn't especially romantic or dramatic or anything else that rose-tinted vision tends to apply to these situations: it was just him and me, in the mission room, after we'd come back from a boring reconnaissance survey. Yohji had gone out the minute we'd come back, shouting something about how we shouldn't wait up for him, and then he was gone, the back door bouncing as he kicked it shut behind him in his enthusiasm. We didn't purposefully stay up to greet him at his return, but I have memories of hearing him stumble up the stairs and trip over a towel someone had left on the floor of the bathroom. They're hazy memories, of course, because I was kissing Omi in his room at the time, but we both had to smother giggles as we heard him arguing with Aya about being drunk and smashing Aya's favourite toiletries as he fell onto the side of the bath. Aya would always wake easily if there was noise outside his room, and I swear that he always watched out for Yohji coming home late, because they were always conversing in the small hours, either Aya reprimanding him for his behaviour or just talking normally, about normal things. You could tell that Aya was never really mad at him, though, because his eyebrows would quirk ever so slightly and he'd try to make his voice even deeper than usual in an attempt to sound stern. After he had told Yohji off, he would always help him back to his room if he was drunk, or he would linger at his door, watching him for a little while before turning away to return to his own room. They were so sweet, those two. But it is Omi that I'm trying to think about, Omi who is important.
We were in the mission room, just sitting in companionable silence as we always did after Weiss business; it helped to reset our normality. There was no way we'd ever really be normal, not after everything we'd done, but we could pretend. I think that's why Kritiker made us work at the Koneko: it was a little anchor of reality in lives that otherwise were something straight out of a warped action film.
"Ken," Omi had said, from the chair that was at right angles from where I was sprawled out on the sofa. We'd been quiet for a while now, almost as if we'd been sleeping with our eyes open; it was that kind of relaxing atmosphere.
"Mm?" I replied lazily, comfortable on the mass of cushions that I had fashioned into one big heap of unadulterated luxury under my head.
"What keeps you in Weiss?" he asked, and I think he sat up as he said it, eager to hear the response.
If there was ever a question for contemplating while reclining on a sumptuous leather sofa, that was it. I lay there in silence for a little while, mulling it over in my recumbent state, and he didn't rush me, as he knew what a loaded question it was. In retrospect, I think he had planned to steer the conversation the way he was to do, but at the time I didn't notice. That was Omi all over, trying to be subtle, getting the measure of other people's emotions before he would jump in with something surprising. He was very good at picking up on the little signals that people give off in conversation, and still is, although I don't think he puts his talent to use in his personal life anymore – I am not even sure he has one. But back then, his sweetness drew out a confession from me which I hadn't even been truly aware was there.
"I stay in Weiss because... because I can't imagine anything else anymore," I replied, still lazing horizontally on that sofa. It felt a bit like a sleepover but without the borrowed beer and the tantalisingly scrambled porn on cable channels that hadn't been activated. "I can't imagine wearing a button-down shirt and riding the subway every day, it would be too weird. Too weird after playing top level football and then killing people for a living. I think I'm legally dead, too, which would worry my employers!" I laughed at this, partly because I thought it was funny, and partly because it really wasn't.
"I'm sure Kritiker could sort you out with the necessary documents if you wanted out," Omi said, after a small pause. "If the only reason you can't stop is because you feel you aren't normal anymore."
And that was the thing – I said that that was why I couldn't leave Weiss, and it had been what I said to myself whenever I wondered whether I should; but put like Omi did, it sounded like I was kidding myself, feeding myself reasons that would fall apart if you blew on them to cool them down.
"I'm also probably afraid to leave, too," I said, trying to make it sound insignificant.
"Afraid?" Omi's tone was questioning and concerned. It was at this point that he came and sat next to me on the sofa, picking up my legs and draping them over the top so that he had room to sit comfortably. I loved how he did that so familiarly, and it made me more inclined to talk properly about the subject at hand, although I was also aware that Omi being this close to me meant that there was no way he'd let me not talk about it!
"Well, not really afraid, just... it would be so odd to leave you guys and do something else, you know? I'd wonder what you were doing, what you were up to, but I'd never be able to talk about it with you, because it wouldn't be my life anymore. I guess that that's what I'm afraid of: leaving behind the part of me that no one else could know about. If I started a new life, I'd have to completely bury my old one, and I don't know if I could do that." I really was relaxed, if I was making little speeches like that one. Omi was always a captive audience, letting you completely speak your mind without ever seeming bored with you. That was the essence of Omi Tsukiyono: he cared about other people, so deeply, too deeply. It never really disappeared from his character, either, even when he survived the transition to Mamoru. He just hid it better.
"Ah." He nodded earnestly and then angled himself into the corner of the sofa, so that he was facing me and could watch me speak. Of course, he just wanted to plain old watch me, too. That makes me smile.
"I know what you mean, Ken-kun," he went on, reaching over to me and yanking a cushion out from under my head, flashing me a half-grin, half-smirk as I whined in protest at falling a little lower. "I don't even know anything outside Weiss, and I wouldn't have anything if I left. I'd have to completely build everything back up again, and I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet." The Omi of back then didn't know that he would end up in charge of Weiss, didn't know that he would be the next generation of Kritiker leaders, orchestrating every last movement of his teams. I'm glad he didn't.
"I think," I said slowly, rolling the idea over my tongue as it rippled through my mind, "that if we both wanted to get out, we could do something together, help each other out. If we did that, it might not be so bad."
I could feel him smile then, and so I tilted my head downwards to look at him; watching Omi smile was far more beautiful a sight than gazing unseeing at the ceiling, idly counting the number of smoke stains that Yohji had left there from smoking his cigarettes in here when no one was looking.
"That would be nice, one day," he said, still smiling; but it was a sad little smile, one which betrayed his inner thoughts, one which said that he didn't believe it would ever happen. All that, in one smile. And the smile had been right. We didn't get out, and it didn't happen. But that night it was fun to pretend, fun to pretend that we had some sort of future. A quiet voice in my head added 'together' to the end of that: some sort of future together. And it was then that I began to realise that maybe Omi was hinting at something. The thought made my stomach tighten in a sensation approaching excitement but not quite there.
"You know what else keeps me in Weiss?" I offered, after a strategic pause.
"What else?" Omi said, the smile returning, his lips quirking ever so slightly this time. We were easing into some sort of game, and he was having fun directing the play the way he wanted. I was happy backing him up, keeping the ball out of the net. Something had changed in the atmosphere, and I think we both knew what we were leading up to, but we were holding it back as long as possible. It made the game more exciting...
"Weiss itself." I was mirroring Omi's smile now, but trying to hide it. "I love you guys, and I don't want to leave you all behind, not until I know every single last thing about you. With Yohji, that's going to be too much information, and with Aya, I don't think I'll ever finish..." My smile had morphed into a grin now, a really stupid one that I couldn't get rid of. I think Omi thought it was cute, though, which nullified the stupidity enough to be tolerable.
"And what about me?" He was flirting with me now, peering at me with his big blue eyes that sparkled with mischief and a hint of naughtiness on the backburner.
"I especially want to know - every - last – thing - about you," I half-purred, drawling in silk tones that I didn't know I could produce until that moment. He was doing things to me, Omi was, and he knew it. His controlled smug expression only encouraged me, though, and I think he knew that too. He looked innocent, but psh, he so wasn't, and this was something that I would find out by the end of the night.
He raised one cute little eyebrow, a trick he knew I couldn't do, and parroted "Every last thing?" back at me. I nodded, pretending to be very serious about it, and confirmed "Every last thing."
"All five senses?" he went on, not quite hiding the playful waywardness that lit up his features.
"All five senses." I had a feeling I knew what he was leading up to, and hoped desperately that he'd say it...
"That means, then, that..." He pretended to pause here, a small thinking pout appearing on his lips, intended entirely to tease. "That means that since you've seen me, heard me, hugged me, know what kind of scented shampoo I use... it means you're going to have to taste me..."
And then the mood changed entirely.
"Can I?" I asked quietly, seriously. If this was only a game, then I wanted to know before I did something I'd probably regret.
"Please..." he whispered, looking up at me with those big blue eyes again, although this time they were completely earnest, lacking the mischief that had been there only seconds ago. My eyes met his slowly and the moment spanned out like a magic spell, holding us apart by a thread that one of us would have to break in order to move closer. It was Omi who broke it, leaning forwards and gently pressing his lips to mine in one beautiful instant, warming me through with melted honey. It was so soft, our first kiss, simple and chaste, but seeming to last an eternity, neither of us wanting to break the bewitching contact. When we eventually pulled away, we were both blushing and warm, and we scooched closer to each other on the sofa. I could feel him breathing deeply against me as he smiled at me, and then the spark of mischief returned to his eyes and he said, "You can't taste with just your lips, Ken-kun!" in a manner that would have sounded positively indecent had it been anyone else. The 'kun' only made it worse, the juxtaposition of polite familiarity with what he was asking me for. It stirred something in me, and it was I who took charge of this kiss, now, starting off slow and then hesitantly running my tongue over his lips. He moaned softly and parted them, letting me into the warm confines of his mouth, and then before we knew it we had moved up to his bedroom, after deciding that having Yohji or Aya find us rolling around on the sofa downstairs was not desirable for any of the parties involved; Yohji, especially, we joked, would have just ended up all hot and bothered, and we needed to save him from that!
That was all we did that night, kissing each other heatedly, passionately, but it was exactly what we wanted, and it was beautiful. To be kissing Omi, the person I loved most in the whole world, and for him to be kissing me back! The world was suddenly an exciting and wonderful place, and when we fell asleep curled up next to each other in his bed, snuggled under the duvet, I felt more peaceful than any other time in my life.
We were so beautiful, him and I, on that night.