Robotic City, Poetic Love
Chapter 11: The secret of Aya Fujimiya
Quatre wakes up and shouts, "Toboe!"
"We're looking for him." Trowa says softly. He is still holding Quatre in his arm protectively.
"Can you get up?" Duo asks.
"Yes. I'm sorry. That was embarrassing of me, fainting like that." Quatre apologizes and gets up.
"Don't worry about it. I would have fainted too. Are you going to be standing okay?" Duo asks.
Quatre nods and stands up. He remembers how he is standing in a dark place, and all of a sudden the lights bright up and there are blood all over him; with he metallic smell of blood forcing into his nose.
The memories make Quatre shakes lightly. Someone puts his arms around him. Quatre looks up and sees Trowa. Trowa nods to him, "are you gonna be okay by yourself? I want to go help them look."
"I want to go with you. I want to help." Quatre says.
"Are you sure?" Trowa asks. Quatre nods. They head to the bloody wreckage and Quatre shivers.
"We got some good news. Kind of good, at least, we did a scan of the DNA of the blood and none of the blood here belongs to Toboe and Kiba." Blue says.
"Bad news are, we can't find anything that can tell us where Toboe and Kiba are." Heroo says.
"There is nothing here. The police looked everywhere. We looked everywhere. Not a clue. Not a trace. You think with all these blood they would leave a bloody trail or something." Aya says frustrated.
"There is something, someone is here, hiding." Quatre says.
"There is no one here. We looked everywhere." Aya says.
"If Quatre says there is, there is." Omi says to Aya.
"Quatre is a telepath. He can feels people presents even if we can't see." Heroo says to Aya.
"Well, can you feel where the person is?" Aya says.
Quatre shakes his head.
"Think, you guys, where will Toboe hide?" Aya asks Quatre and Omi.
Omi and Quatre walks around and they both stop at a dark corner. Kiba remembers how Toboe likes to hide in dark corners, too. Quatre and Omi walk closer to the corner to look if there are any hiding places.
Suddenly, the sounds of Omi and Quatre's footsteps change. Everyone can hear the solid, hard food steps sounds change into an echoing sound. There is an empty space underneath them. Aya pulls the two small boy back from the corner.
"Stay with Quatre." Trowa says to Wufei. Wufei nods. Aya picks up an iron bar from the wreckages and nods to Trowa. The two guys walk to the empty space, Trowa jerks the floor covering open while Aya holds up his iron rod.
Omi covers his mouth. Wufei pulls Quatre into his arms and covers Quatre's eyes tight. In the empty space lies a very, very bloody Tsume. Tsume's whole body is covered with bruises, cuts and burns. Aya touches Tsume's neck and feels a pulse.
"He is weak, but he is still alive. I'm calling the ambulance."
"I'll call Blue over." Trowa says.
The ambulance arrives soon and takes Tsume to hospital.
"Let's get to the hospital and wait for Tsume to get up to ask him where Toboe and Kiba are." Aya says. Everyone nods.
"Quatre, why don't you ride with Trowa? I will wait for you at the hospital." Wufei says.
Trowa nods and puts his arm around Quatre. "come on." Trowa says as he leads the Quatre away. Quatre gets on Trowa car.
"I will see you there." Says Wufei as he closes the door for Quatre. Trowa's car drives away.
Wufei walks to Aya's car and gets on the car.
"Did I say you can hitchhike in my car?" Aya says.
"Why not? It's not like anyone is riding with you." Wufei says.
Aya grunts to the car, "just follow that ambulance."
The car starts, Wufei asks, "so, you work for Omi, huh? Must be really nice to work with beautiful flowers all the time."
"I don't do small talk." Aya says.
"You know, for a florist, you are very good at this investigation thing; looking at security camera, checking crime scene. Not a lot of florists can spot a man with eyes of a killer in a crowd, too. I wonder why you are not at least a bit shock to see half dead body lies in blood?"
"Just keep quiet until we get to the hospital, will you?"
"I had a wife once, she is the smartest, strongest and kindest girl I've ever meet in my entire life. I loved her."
"You were married? How old are you?" Aya looks at Wufei, who cant't be older than 18.
"My parents picked her for me. It was an arranged marriage set before we were born. Our families had been friends for generations and they wanted us to tie the two families together. Say, you want to see a picture of her?" Wufei says.
Aya eyes the Chinese boy and asks, "I will have to look at the picture even if I said no, right?"
Wufei laughs and takes out his wallet from his back pocket. Aya grunts. He never understands why anyone puts picture of their love ones in their wallet. It's like sitting on your lover's face every time you sit down.
"Her name is Meirian Cheung. We were married at 14." Wufei says as he shows Aya the picture in his wallet.
"She looks nice." Aya mutters. Just what can you say when a total stranger show you a picture of his wife anyway? You don't even know the guy. You say 'your wife is pretty' he might just kick your behind out of jealousy. (Not that anyone can kick Aya behind.)
"She lookED nice." Wufei corrects.
"Past tense?" Aya asks.
"Meirian died about 2 years ago. She has the incurable heart failure. She suffered in the hospital painfully for a year, before the doctors told me there is nothing they can do one day. Meirian was going to die. That was the saddest day of my life.…" Wufei sighs as he looks at the picture of his dead wife.
"Sorry to hear that." Aya says.
"He said the same thing." Wufei says.
"Who did?" Aya says.
"Oh, you know him. His name is Shark, you go to see him at the bar all the time. I saw you a couple of times when I was with Shark. He shows you the picture of your girlfriends on TV, right? It takes me a while to remember who you are cause there are so many guys going to see Shark everyday. He is really good at finding people like us and put them into Future Tech as spies...stealing industrial secrets and stuff." Wufei says.
"You know Shark?" Aya looks at Wufei.
"After the doctors told me my wife is gonna die, Shark came into the room and said to me 'I heard what the doctor said, sorry to hear that' and then he asked me 'tell me, do you want to see your wife again?' There is nothing I want to hear more than that."
"Shark talked you into working for him?"
"I will do anything to be able to see my wife again, anything. Shark says he has the technology to save my wife. He even shows me how it done. He took me to see his heart doctors who work on massive heart failure patients. The patients all get better."
"What did Shark want in exchange for saving your wife's life?" Aya asks.
"Shark told me he will get me a job at Future Tech, working for Heroo's climate control center. If I can steal the data for the climate control program Heroo created, Shark will cure my wife for me, So I go to Future Tech and start working for Heroo and steal his data." Wufei says.
"We both work for Shark, so what? That doesn't make us friend." Aya says.
"No, I don't work for Shark; not anymore, at least. I can't do it, I can't sleep at night."
Aya grunts at the Wufei's statement. The florist looks at Wufei and says harshly, "If you're trying to say that you're a better person than me, then just drop it. I beat myself up just as much as you do."
Wufei shakes his head and says, "Oh, I am not the one who beat myself up every night, no. My wife is the one who does the beating up. I have this dream every night, I give Shark all the data he needed, and then he cured my wife for me. I was so happy, I waited next to Meirian's bed and she opened her eyes to look at me. I was going to hug her when she beat me up."
"Lovely dream." Aya mutters.
"That's not all. My wife was screaming too. She was going 'I hate you! I hate you! Why would you be so stupid! Why would you do something like that? How Can I Live With Myself? I HATE YOU!!!' when she pounded the living hell out of me." Wufei says.
Aya's face is still emotionless.
"I don't mind doing anything for my wife, I love her. But Meirian will hate me if I try to steal because of her. Even if she forgives me, I doubt she can live with a body that is paid for with stealing. So one day, I just go and tell Shark that I can't do it anymore." Wufei says.
"Well, you got a choice." Aya says.
"Yes, I choose to let my wife dies in my arms, but it's better than her waking up and living in hate and guilt. I saw your girlfriend on TV too. She is a very lovely girl. I will not want her to wake up and have to face the fact that her boyfriend becomes a criminal." Wufei says.
"Just shut the hell up, boy. You don't know what you are talking about." Aya says angrily.
"How are you going to explain to your girlfriend what you did? Or are you not planning on telling her? You're stupid if you think you can lie to your girlfriend for the rest of your life!" Wufei scorns at Aya.
"She is not my girlfriend." Aya says angrily.
"She is not your girlfriend?" Wufei asks Aya.
Aya says madly, "Her name is Ayami, she is my Sister. Shark got my SISTER. My parents are always drunk. They are never home cause they love to go and gamble all their money away. I took care of my sister ever since we were kids. I think it as my duty to protect her."
"That's nice of you." Wufei replies sincerely.
"When I find out my sister has the incurable heart failure, I feel like it's the end of the world. I look everywhere for a doctor but I can't find anyone. One day, when I go to the hospital to see my sister, her bed is empty. My parents sold her to Shark." Aya grunts madly.
"SOLD her?" Wufei shouts, not believing any parents will do that to their kids.
"Don't be so loud." Aya says annoyed.
"Sorry, I don't mean to scream like that to you." Wufei says.
"I don't mind, I just don't want my car to hear you. It's an old piece of junk. The receiver isn't working at all." Aya says when the car stops.
"Do you want to change your destination to Solo?" The car asks.
"No, just follow the ambulance." Aya grunts even more irritated.
"Sorry." Wufei mutters.
Aya grumbles aggravated, "stupid car."
"you want to go to Studio Bar?" the car asks.
"……." Aya looks at this car. Suddenly, he laughs. Wufei can't help but laughs too.
"Follow the ambulance, will you?" Aya says to his car.
"Right away." The car starts again.
"So, your parents sold your sister? Is that legal?" Wufei says.
"No, but the Shark is rich; he can make everything legal. My sister is in a coma. The Shark brides some doctors to say that my sister is not going to wake up again so she can be treated as dead body. The Shark buys my sister and uses her as test subject." Aya sighs madly.
"That's horrible, I can't believe any parents will sell their kid." Wufei says.
"My parents love to gamble and they own Shark a lot of money, so they have to give Shark my sister's body. Not that my parents care about my sister anyway. They think my sisters and I are the biggest mistake they made in their entire life." Says Aya as he holds his fist tight. Wufei can tell Aya is really mad now.
"I try to get my sister back, but I get beaten half to death…that's why I am not afraid to see dead body. I was one." Aya laughs as he says lightly.
"That's not funny if you're trying to make a joke." Wufei says.
"You're the one who is wondering why a florist like me isn't not afraid of dead body. I'm merely answering your question. Anyway, the Shark tells me he will cut my sister opens if I don't steal Omi's research data for him. She is just a research subject to him afterall. I have no choice." Aya says.
"Where is your sister now?" Wufei asks.
"The Shark is hiding her. I tried to find her for a long time now, but I still don't have any lead as to where my sister is." Aya says.
"Wow, and I thought I have it bad. Compare to you my life is like a walk in the path." Wufei says.
"Gee, thanks."
"I was feeling so depressed that my wife dies in my arms, but you, your sister is still alive out there somewhere and the world most powerful criminal is holding her hostage."
"So you see, you have a choice, I don't. If I don't do this for Shark, I will never see my sister again. No one will help me, not even the police and the governor. The Shark is too powerful. No one can help me even if they want to." Aya sighs.
"I'm sorry I scorn at you before I realize the situation you are in." Wufei says.
"Don't worry about it. Don't think about it too much either. You can't help me. I don't want to trouble anyone." Aya says.
Wufei is quiet.
TBC…