Chapter 16: Drinks and Suffering
"Hey Aya. Look at what the cat dragged in."
Aya didn't even look around. "Don't even mention cats to me right now." He was pissed off at Manx, at Persia, at Kritiker. The mission they had just completed had been an utter farce. If Yohji and Aya hadn't been as good as they were, they might not have been able to pull it off. Kritiker was pulling itself back together after the death of Shuiichi Takatori, but it still had some ragged spots.
The mission had been worse on Yohji. He had been forced to kill the man's wife when she had come home unexpectedly. Yohji knew what he had to do as a member of Weiß, but that didn't mean that he had to enjoy it. Aya snorted. Yohji had to get over his hang-up about killing women. He was an absolute beast to deal with for days after. Spoiling for a fight, more obnoxious than usual—his train of thought was broken by Yohji kicking him under the table.
Aya rubbed his shin and glared death at Yohji. Yohji didn't pay the glare any mind. The playboy's hair was tousled, his eyes half-lidded. He was well on his way to completely glassy-eyed, staggering drunk. Aya tried to count the empty bottles in front of Yohji. He got to five beer bottles and a bottle of sake before he was kicked again. This time Aya snarled as well as glared. "Quit kicking me."
"Ayaaaa, look," Yohji said, pointing to the bar. Aya swung his head around, unaware that he looked like an owl as he stared around the bar. His eyes narrowed when he saw who Yohji was indicating.
"Don't worry about him. He's not bothering us, I'm not going to bother him first." With that Aya nodded firmly and poured himself a cup of sake.
"Aya, that's mine," Yohji whined crossly.
"You don't need any more."
Yohji pouted for a moment and looked around the bar, then spotted Schuldig again. "Aya, we could take him easily. He's by himself." Yohji's half-lidded eyes took on a predatory gleam. "I still owe him from the last go around."
"No." Aya's voice brooked no argument.
"No?" Yohji swung his head back around and stared at his drinking companion blearily. "Whaddya mean, no?" He waved a hand at Schuldig. "Look at him! He still hasn't realized we're here. He's lost in his own little world over there." Yohji's voice dropped to a lethal purr. "It would be so easy, and we'd never have to worry about him ever again."
Aya looked at Yohji over his purloined sake. At times like this, he wondered just how much Yohji liked his work. Ken was volatile at times, so they monitored him, made sure the killing didn't get to be too much for him. Omi looked at it as what needed to be done and was probably the stablest of the four. He had been raised with it too, though.
Yohji, however, had always been the cipher. He was a man with buried passions, not an objective killer like Omi or a crusader like Ken. Yet he had pride in his work, with a streak of white knight more well-hidden than Ken's. But this white knight sometimes smiled thinly at his prey and played with his targets. Maybe Ken wasn't the one they should have been watching all this time.
"We're not wanton killers, Yohji, no matter how much they might deserve it."
"Do you really think Kritiker is going to say anything if we do kill him? They'll probably give us a bonus and their heartfelt gratitude." Yohji snatched back the sake and took a swig straight from the bottle, ignoring Aya's glower.
"I don't doubt it. The answer's still no, Yohji. Leave him to his fate." Aya finished his cup. "I'm getting satisfaction watching the tormentor being tormented. And I didn't have to do a thing."
Yohji stared at Aya with glittering eyes, like a jaguar sizing up an opponent. When he saw Aya wasn't going to budge, he relaxed, slipping easily back behind the mask. "Na, Aya. You're no fun." He turned sly. "Hey, Aya. I know why Omi and Ken hate him. What's your reason? What's he done to you?"
Aya stalled. "What makes you think he's done anything to me?"
"Because you don't 'get satisfaction' out of anything unless it's personal."
"Hn." Aya traced patterns in some spilled sake. "You're right. It is personal. Mastermind told me that he was one of the ones who set my house up to explode. He killed my parents and injured my sister."(1)
"Jesus, Aya. I didn't know. How can you even stand to look at him? Why didn't you try to gut him along with Reiji Takatori?"
Aya stared at the oblivious telepath sitting at the bar. "Because Reiji Takatori was the one behind it all. Mastermind may have been the one to set the bombs, but Takatori was the one that ordered him to do it. He was the one that deserved my hate. That doesn't mean that I like that German fiend much better."
The two men were silent for awhile, drinking and thinking their own thoughts. Yohji finally stood up and stretched. "I'm done. If I drink anymore, I won't be able to give the cab driver directions." He gathered up his coat. Yohji's green eyes narrowed as he watched Schuldig for a moment. "Are you going to be okay, Aya?"
"I'll be fine. Good night."
Yohji hesitated, then shook his head and left. Aya switched to Kirin beer. He wanted to stay a bit longer yet. He made up his mind that he would leave when the telepath did. Mastermind almost outlasted him. Aya was reluctantly impressed by the man's tolerance levels. He even was capable of walking in a straight line, something that Aya knew he wouldn't have been able to do after drinking as much as the German had.
When he ducked out into the night, Aya did the same. He wondered how long it would be before the telepath noticed him, acknowledged him. Mastermind walked the early morning streets, head down, his pace steady but aimless. To Aya's surprise, three thugs jumped out of the shadows and accosted the telepath.
Aya expected Mastermind to slaughter the three, smirking as he did so. But the telepath seemed startled and confused by the turn of events and didn't put up the fight that Aya knew he was capable of. Before he thought it through, Aya found himself fighting off the attackers himself. When Aya had chased off the last one, the two rivals stared each other down. "Weiß," Mastermind said. His smirk was the ghost of the one that Aya remembered.
Mastermind got to his feet, cradling his side. He looked worn and brittle, a man that had ridden the edge so long he didn't know what it felt like to be on solid ground anymore. "Why?" He asked, sounding like he didn't care to hear the answer, asking because it was expected of him.
"Aren't you going to read my mind, telepath?" Aya taunted. He didn't care if the man read the reason or not.
Schuldig mutely turned his head away. For brief moment, Aya felt pity for him. He looked frail, defeated. The emotion disappeared quickly. Aya stared at his enemy for a moment, then said, "Because you haven't suffered enough yet." With that, he left the telepath and went home.
----
Nagi sat up and listened intently in the silence that followed the crash that had woken him up. What was that? The silence told him nothing. He slid out of bed and crept among the shadows out into the hall. A low murmur could be heard coming from the living room. As he got closer, he identified the cause of the noise and relaxed. Schuldig.
He found Schuldig in the living room, the contents of a medicine box strewn across the glass-topped table in front of him. Schuldig had his back to him, but Nagi could see that he was holding his side gingerly. That was a bad sign. Ever since Schuldig had injured them in the fall of Esset's temple, those ribs never had been right. A lot about Schuldig hadn't been right since then.
He could stop the gasp that escaped him when he came around and saw the shape Schuldig was in. Blood dripped down his chin from a split lip and a cut on his cheek. His clothes were torn, disheveled, slashed by a knife and stained with blood. He looked almost as bad as when Reiji Takatori had beaten him with that golf club. Schuldig started when Nagi's shadow fell over him.
Nagi felt a stab of pity and horror at the sight of Schuldig so broken. He looked whipped, finished. "Who did this to you?"
Even Schuldig's laugh sounded broken. "Does it matter? Don't I deserve it? I AM guilty, after all." He wrapped his arms around himself protectively and stared at the floor. "I deserve it. I haven't suffered enough." He laughed again, his laughter sounding almost like sobbing. His head dropped after the outburst and he mumbled, "When will I have suffered enough?"
Nagi didn't know what to say to that, so he settled for tending to Schuldig's injuries instead. Schuldig sat passively and let Nagi fuss over him, not even flinching when Nagi put a couple of sutures into his shoulder to hold a particularly nasty cut closed. He was lost in his own thoughts of his lot and muttering about the suffering he owed. Nagi continued to patch him up, but his jaw got tighter and tighter with every word that Schuldig uttered to himself.
Nagi wasn't even sure if Schuldig even knew he was there. "Farfarello was wrong," he finally burst out. Schuldig started again, then blinked at him vacantly. "We can't be normal, can we, Schu? But he was right, too."
Nagi took courage from Schuldig's sudden silence to struggle with thoughts that had occupied him for weeks now, to try and put them into words. "We can't be normal. But we needed to get away from what Schwarz used to be. Farf is dead. We can't be that Schwarz anymore." He picked up a bandage and began to roll it into a neat bundle. "We had to find what came next, didn't we, Schu? That's what Farf wanted."
He lifted a shoulder and dropped it again, never raising his eyes from the bandage he was rolling. "I don't know about what we deserve. I don't think much about suffering. I know that it exists. I've known more of it than I would like and lived through it. Whether we deserve it isn't relevant. That we can survive it and what we do about it is." He secured the end and dropped it into the box, then pulled out a packet of sleeping pills and handed Schuldig one. "Take it. You need to sleep so you can heal up."
A shadow of Schuldig's trademark smirk surfaced, tinged with ruefulness and admiration. "When did you grow up, Nagi?"
"I've always been mature for my age," Nagi replied seriously.
"Not grown up, though. You've grown while I wasn't looking, chibi." He smiled, the small, crooked, awkward, yet real one that Nagi hardly ever saw. Nagi let him leave for his bedroom as he put away the mess of medical supplies in front of him. Had he grown up? Did that mean that he had been a child?
With further thought, he realized that he might have been mature and self- sufficient, but that hadn't made him an adult. He had started the process of growing into his own skin when he had left Crawford's care. Crawford's care? Nagi smiled a little. He hadn't realized it at the time, but Crawford had taken care of him. Imagine that. He had never pictured Crawford as the paternal type, but he had fulfilled that role for Nagi, and the two hadn't even realized it.
Farf was more right than he had realized. Or maybe he had. The Irishman had moments of uncanny astuteness that always took him by surprise. Whether or not Farfarello had seen the way of things, it was only when he had left that he had seen what Crawford was. He never would be able to tell Crawford that. It would horrify and confuse the pre-cog. Was that why Farf gotten that promise from Schuldig? To allow Nagi to 'leave the nest,' a nest he hadn't even been aware he had been in?
If that was so, where did Schuldig fit in? Why make him promise to go, too? Schuldig. Nagi's small smile disappeared to be replaced by a worried frown. Schuldig was so fragile nowadays. The separation that was clarifying things for Nagi was weakening Schuldig. So why did he have to leave? Schuldig didn't see Crawford as a father figure. He had been an equal, like Nagi was striving to become. He hadn't needed to make his own path, out from under a paternal wing.
Schuldig had made his path at Crawford's side. Schuldig had built Schwarz alongside Crawford. They could never have a Schwarz without Schuldig. He was as integral as Crawford, as Nagi, as Farfarello. Nagi saw now that Farfarello would always be a part of Schwarz, because he had lived and died as Schwarz, and lived on as long as there was a Schwarz member to remember him.
Schwarz, whether they had intended to or not, had become a family. An undemonstrative and rather ruthless family, but the bonds were undeniable, now that Nagi had the distance and growing maturity to see it. Even though they were all separated, whether by distance or death, Nagi still felt like a part of Schwarz. He might be making his own way now, but all children needed to. That didn't mean that they couldn't return to their parents, hopefully on a more equal footing, later.
Farfarello's death hadn't broken Schwarz. It merely had triggered changes that were working on Nagi, day by day. The changes were bigger than just Nagi, though. Nagi could feel it, like a wind against his back. Nagi didn't know what it was, but something about this held the imprint of something bigger, something that smelled suspiciously of fate. If he hadn't know that Crawford had been against it, he would have thought that it was Crawford's handiwork. So what was the reason?
Nagi didn't know, but he could not shake the belief that there was one, a reason for their current path that he couldn't see yet but would be revealed in time. All they could do was wait for it to be revealed.
----
A/N:
(1)In the manga, Assassin and White Shaman, Schuldig was indeed one of the ones that blew up poor Ran's house.
chibi – "kid" in Japanese.
Thanks to Lyra Stormrider-- I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Your thorough explanation on the 'Which Persia is Omi?' matter was very much appreciated. The more detail I can have, the better! Now it makes me wonder about Persia #3. . .
FungiFungusRayne-- no, thank you!
Lonecayt-- glad you see Nagi the same way I do, as someone that wouldn't have a lot of ease in social interactions. Wish I could have said the break was nice, but it's behind me now. For the most part.
Hisoka-- I'm not too fond of the woman myself. . .
Yanagi-sen-- wait no more, here's the next chapter. I think that the Omi/Nagi dynamic is cute, too. Thanks for being so understanding.
TrenchcoatMan-- Thank you. I try to stay canon, but so much of it is open for interpretation.
Nony-- You're a nut. But I love you anyway. 'Run Schu, run,' indeed. You are taking entirely too much pleasure in Schu's distress. So evil. But I guess I'm evil for writing it in the first place; And warning noted.