In the beginnings, I wondered whether assassins were allowed to love. During the precious few days I was with Yuriko, I had thought that killers weren't allowed to have happiness, that I couldn't taint her with the essence of what I really was; and Yohji had spelt it out for me even clearer, when I thought that perhaps I really would go with her to Australia:
"How many have you killed? How many people have you killed? And you can hold her in those arms?"
At the time it had hurt, I had thought that he was just trying to keep me in Weiss to keep the team dynamic going. I had said to him "A player like you wouldn't understand", but now I realise that a player like him would understand, and understand better than the rest of us, even. Yohji loved women, wanted to make them happy and give them all of himself, but how could he, if he was a murderer? We were no longer alive as far as legal records were concerned – imagine putting down 'assassin' as my occupation on my tax return! - and we were no longer alive as far as we ourselves were concerned, either. How could Yohji have a steady relationship with a woman if he had to hide things from her? How could he ride the pain of knowing that he could die any night and leave her behind? How could he live with the knowledge that someone hostile to Weiss might see her with him and target her? It was too much for one person to bear, and so he didn't, instead settling into the "player" lifestyle that we all jabbed at him for. He never really told me much about his time as a PI, but I think that pining for his dead lover, Asuka, had something to do with it all too.
And now Yohji is married, and I suppose that in a way he has got what he wanted – he's settled down with a beautiful woman and remembers nothing of his previous life. He can give all of himself and has nothing to hide. But... how much is there left to give, if part of Yohji Kudou has been forgotten, remaining only in the hearts of three murderers? It pains me to think that, right at the end, when we were battling with Epitaph, he realised how wrong he had been to want to erase everything, to falsely nullify the sorrow he carried with him, but that... but that it happened anyway.
Weiss are the only people who will know the true story of Yohji Kudou. Perhaps it's better like this, for the three of us to continue to carry the sins of others, for us to protect them; or maybe it's just more tragedy that life has thrown at us, laughing while it piles it on. Either way, I suppose it doesn't matter: it doesn't matter to a man who is sitting in a prison cell by his own volition because he can't cope with enjoying killing others any longer. What does sentimentality matter to a mass-murderer? I suppose that that's why I'm here, actually: I'm trying to discover why sentimentality matters. And, once more, that leads me back to Omi.
Omi was the one who showed me that assassins are allowed to love. We couldn't tarnish each other any further than we already were; we had nothing to hide; we understood the risks involved. And so, we loved each other; we discovered our own piece of happiness in a world that by its very nature was dark and tainted and corrupt. It wasn't a normal kind of happiness, I won't kid myself with that, but it was as close as we could ever hope to get, and it was ours.
When Ouka died in his arms, Omi found out the hard way what it was to love someone who wasn't involved in this world of shadows. For a while after that, neither of us were quite the same as we had been: Omi had his sorrow of blaming himself for unwittingly involving her in his hidden life, and I had my thoughts of Yuriko and Kase, unhappiness and betrayal whirling around in my head like a blizzard, harsh and biting and bitter. On the night Omi and I shared our first kiss, the snow began to melt, though, and things were only to warm up as time went on. Omi Tsukiyono was the sunshine on my barren soul, the bright summer to my winter, and I suspect that I was all those things to him, too. I hope I was. Hope I am, maybe, if he still allows himself to think about what we used to be, what we used to have.
However, being an assassin in love carried its own unique set of risks that were quite apart from the normal pitfalls of such an intense emotion. A mission with so many hearts at stake showed us all that.
It all began with Yohji (as so many good stories tend to) and the woman he thought was his dead lover, Asuka. If only she hadn't really been Neu of Schreient, pretending so that she could lure us all into a trap. I don't blame Yohji for trying to cling to a part of his past that he loved with everything he had – I did just the same when I discovered that Kase was still alive, and in doing so nearly got myself killed, and jeopardised the mission too. I suppose it reminds us that we're human, these foolish things we do.
We were all off-guard when we arrived at the laboratory – apart from Aya, who I think suspected something. I was just happy that Yohji had been working for Weiss all along, and that he wasn't going to leave; thoughts of finding the location so easily never crossed my mind. It was a shock, therefore, when Schrient appeared and everything began to go wrong. When I heard Omi scream, when I saw him fall through the floor, that was it for me: it was all I cared about, getting to him and keeping him safe. Before I even registered that the grill was going to fall, sealing us in, I dived to save him, my goal-keeper's reflexes still very much alive. I managed to snatch him out of the way of the hurtling metal screen in time, but now we were both trapped, having to rely on the unseen battle being fought by Yohji and Aya above us; and Yohji was fighting two battles: one with his wire, and one with his mind.
"Ken-kun... I feel strange..." Omi fell into my arms and oh God, at those words, something in me twisted and pulled and it was all I could do to try to hide my hysteria when I called out for Aya and Yohji. Omi was hurt – Omi was hurt – and Schoen had just told us that there were dangerous experimental substances in this laboratory! Omi was already feverish and flushed, my hands were scraped so I couldn't allow myself to touch him properly in case I made him worse by transmitting toxins from my own wounds, and all I wanted to do was cradle him in my arms and neutralise everything with my embrace; somehow make everything better just by willing it to be so.
"Omi... I love you," I whispered, not knowing whether he was too far gone to hear me or not. "Omi, I'm going to get you out of here and take care of you until you're better. I love you so much, Omi..." I felt it was important to keep saying his name, as if repeating it over and over would keep him in the world of consciousness, although... it was more for my own sake, I think; his name was soft on my lips, and talking to him was calming the irregular thundering of my heart, even if he couldn't hear me. But I think he could, because his face shifted, ever so slightly, against my shoulder, and I thought I could feel his lips moving, forming words that he was unable to say out loud. I knew what he was trying to tell me, though: even if he hadn't been so generous with the words since our first night together, I would have known anyway, just from the way he'd glance at me at breakfast, when he thought no one was looking, or just from the way that he would always leave me hastily-scribbled notes to say good morning before he left for school, if it was my lie-in day, or just from... oh, there were so many things that Omi did that let me know that he loved me, and going through each and every one in my mind acted as an anaesthetic, helping to numb the burning pain of my hands and the equally burning pain in my heart at the thought of Omi suffering.
There were sounds of shouting, and whips being cracked, above us, and I remember briefly wondering what was going on, before going back to trying to nurse Omi using the strength of my feelings alone. It wasn't good enough, but I needed to feel as if I was doing something, anything – and then I heard Yohji scream, scream with an anguish that, although telling me he wasn't in danger, ripped through me like a hurricane, lasting only seconds but leaving everything broken and warped in its wake. It was a scream that pressed a single flaring thought into my mind: would I scream like that if Omi died? What would I do, if Omi died? What if he died and I had to carry on with the mission without properly tending to him? What if...? And to my shame, I could feel the beginnings of something I hadn't felt since I had had to kill Kase: the beginnings of tears of my own anguish and frustration welling up behind my eyes, although I didn't let them fall. Yohji was already crying, I knew, and I wanted to tell him that I shared the same fate of having to kill someone you loved, but there was nothing he would have gained from that at that time; it wasn't enough to let someone know that you empathised, because it would do nothing to lessen the pain.
It was Aya who got us out of the pit, understanding, when he met my eyes, that I was going to lose control and break down if I tried to say anything. He scooped Omi up, even more gently than he would normally have done, and then returned to give me a helping hand, as my own were in no condition to be useful. I was so grateful that he didn't say a word. Aya was a man who was conservative with words anyway - not because he was unfriendly or anything like that, but just because saying more than necessary seemed a waste, to him; until he rescued Aya-chan, he was always on his own private mission, even when he was at home at the Koneko, and his drive to give his sister back the life that was taken from her never allowed him much time to be unprofessional, on the outside. But he cared, I know he did. It showed in all the little things he did for us, all the things he did that kept us strong just because he seemed strong, even if he was secretly crying inside. It's what he did this night, too: he was the one who was in control, the one who looked after Omi and me, the one who obviously desperately wanted to comfort Yohji as we all sat on that hill outside the lab and fell apart in our own discrete ways. I could see the pain in his eyes as he watched Yohji tremble and weep, see the pain as Yohji ran off to his car and drove off as the sun was rising, leaving him with his wishes of wanting to make things better for him, even though he would never tell Yohji that directly.
Aya sat down heavily, resting his head on his drawn-up knees for a while as we waited for Kritiker to arrive with a vehicle to take Omi and me to have our wounds treated. I curled up on my side, not quite wanting to sleep, but close to it. I was so tired, and still worried, and little trembles were running through me, dosing my body with even more adrenaline that I did not need right now.
And then Aya lifted his head off his knees and spoke.
"You're in love with Omi, aren't you?" he said, quietly, thoughtfully. Another injection of adrenaline coursed through me as I scrambled for what the right answer to his question might be. What would Aya think, if I replied in the affirmative? Would he think we were jeopardising the team dynamic? Would he believe me if I said no?
After a split-second's decision, I said, very softly, "Yes, I am." It did not matter if he thought we were being unprofessional; honesty with a man who was always looking out for me did.
He was quiet for a while, in the way only Aya could be: he sort of filled in the silences with the promise that whatever he eventually did say was going to be the most worthwhile thing you would ever hear, and he did not disappoint.
"Be happy together," he said in little more than a whisper. I was nearly overwhelmed by what those three little words made me realise all in one instant, all tangled together and yet somehow distinctly separate, too: we had Aya's blessing; Aya was in love with Yohji but believed it was hopeless; Aya was lonelier than he let on; and - the most important for me - that we were allowed to love. Even if it resulted in hearts filled with fear, we were allowed to love.
We were allowed to love, because that's what made us human.