Chapter Four: "Mind over matter."

Author: Hot Soup11

Blinking wearily, Aya rolled to his side and through blurred vision registered the time from his steadily ticking clock.

4:29

He had never been able to sleep particularly well since he started working for Kritiker, and his internal alarm clock never failed to rouse him early in the mornings. The redhead rubbed at his eyes and pushed his sheets off himself. After stepping out of his bed, he immediately turned around and made the bed, straightening the sheets and smoothing the comforter down.

The assassin changed from his night clothes to workout clothes, grabbing his katana and heading to the roof of the Koneko. With the apartments they lived in so small, Aya found the roof the only suitable space available to run his forms. He walked down the hall, passing Ken's apartment and finally reaching the stairway that led to the roof. Aya ignored the bitterly cold temperature, telling himself he'd be warm soon anyway from the physical exertion. Mind over matter, he thought in an almost chiding manner.

Before his maternal grandfather died, he began teaching Aya martial arts; intending on passing down the family tradition to the only male available at the time. His mother had come from a family boasting only two girls as his grandmother died shortly after giving birth to his aunt. Something of a sexist in concerns to martial arts, he decided against teaching either of his daughters, waiting until one of them bore him a grandson. He was a strict instructor, Aya recalled, and a bitter man… but the skills he learned under his grandfather's tutelage were invaluable… including the lesson of 'mind over matter.'

The assassin went through his regular routine of stretches, both dynamic and static, still slightly caught in a reverie of memories.

Shortly after Takatori killed his parents and put Aya-chan in a coma, he was sent to live with his mother's sister. But… misfortune seemed to follow him even there: his aunt and uncle died in a car crash.

Aya looped his sword through his pants and unsheathed it slowly in a sideways arc, beginning the first of many exercises.

By the time of his aunt and uncle's funeral, he was positively disgusted with the world and frustrated that he could do nothing. However, after about a week of moping around an empty house, someone broke into his deceased relatives' home, more than likely assuming no one would be around.

Slash, step forward into a front stance, slash middle, front kick…

He remembered the sloppy movements he made in panic and fear as the thief's shaky hand held a switchblade pointed in the teenager's direction. It was his first kill, and what led Kritiker to take notice of him. He ran away from the house and the dead body inside it, carrying nothing but the katana his grandfather passed down to him. Kritiker caught up with him days later and then covered up the whole incident. He went through training, joined the Crashers, and after that, Weiss.

By now he was sweating and definitely didn't mind the wind blowing threw his loose clothes. Leaning against the wall near the stairwell, Aya slid down into a sitting position, his sheathed katana propped up by his shoulder. Judging by the first light of dawn slowly seeping over the skyline of the city, he figured the time was around six o'clock.

There was once a time in Aya's life when he slept in, only getting up to reach over for the current book he was reading. His sister would bounce in carting a stuffed animal and curl up next to him, expecting him to read aloud.

He reminisced far too much for his own liking, but… memories never ceased to rekindle his reasoning for becoming an assassin.

The redhead left the rooftop and showered immediately after returning to his apartment.

"Morning Aya-kun!" Omi greeted as Aya entered the shop. "I was just leaving for school, but Ken should be down to help set up in a few minutes. Is Yohji going to be able to help me when I come home?"

Aya paused briefly before responding, "Yohji won't be of much use during rush hours, so Ken and I will have to help you this afternoon while Yohji and I take this morning." If I'm the one in charge of Yohji's activities, he'll have to conform to my schedule…

"Mm, that'll work. See you this afternoon!"

Aya nodded in Omi's direction and the blond teenager went out to the garage for his scooter. Aya grabbed his apron and the store keys, tying the apron around his waist as he walked over to the front door to unlock it. He slid open the metal shutter and sunlight illuminated the small flower shop. He then propped the door open and set up the red- and white-striped canopy in the front of the shop by arranging the cloth supported by two metal poles. As he was about to head in to put some potted arrangements outside, a yawning Ken walked outside to join him.

"Hey, Aya," greeted the brunette. "Do you want me to start bringing out stuff from the back or set up inside?"

"Set up out here, but you need to help Omi in the afternoon, so once you're done out here, you're free to go."

"I can't work this afternoon, I've got soccer coaching to do!"

"It can't be helped," Aya replied, pushing past Ken to get into the shop. "With Yohji in his current condition, he's useless during rush hours."

"So he takes my shift even though I've got to be somewhere?" he complained as he followed Aya in.

"Ken," Aya began, unlocking the register and briefly checking through the money stored in it, "I have a mission assigned to me. I need to watch over Balinese and I don't need you making it any more difficult than it already is."

An annoyed expression etched on his face, Ken muttered, "Geez, thanks Yotan," but picked up a potted plant and headed outside anyway.

Aya closed up the register after making sure the balance was correct, and decided it was about time Yohji came down to help. "Momoe-san," Aya acknowledged when he passed the elderly woman sitting in her chair to go to the apartments upstairs.

"Good morning, Aya-kun," Momoe replied.

Trekking up to the second level of the building, the assassin rapped firmly on the door to Yohji's living quarters.

The norm for Yohji was cursing the rising sun as he stumbled in from a particularly late night out; today, however, he considered himself lucky to witness such a thing; he was just that damn bored.

The medication administered to him upon leaving the hospital knocked him out very shortly after he took it, and with all the stress of not knowing how he was going to slip out of that situation relatively unscathed, he crashed for a solid ten hours—which was much more sleep than he usually got. Yohji felt refreshed and itched for something to keep himself busy. Early morning television was out of the question, nothing worth watching was on; the blond, while enjoying a decent read every now and then, had no habit of keeping books lying around; and he kept his apartment clean enough, so there weren't any chores waiting for him to finish. It was too early for a smoke… and Yohji didn't really feel like one right now anyway.

I suppose I could go down and work… but where's the fun in that? Yohji reasoned with himself.

With nothing to do, he found himself staring at the massive orange blob slowly coming into view.

The pain medication was doing its job well as the blond man felt hardly any discomfort in his hands, but he didn't like moving them extensively. Lying in bed before he decided he wasn't able to sleep any longer, Yohji experimented by wiggling his fingers ever so slightly, but felt the awkward stretch of the skin of his hands tug at the stitches and at the same time the confinement of his movements because of the castes.

By the time the sun had stopped moving, Yohji had yet to think of something to occupy his time with, so he went about readying himself for the day. He showered, scrubbing away all the grime the nurses and their sponge bathes didn't quite get at (although, there had been a particularly adventurous, busty nurse that came in once, he didn't mind her company in the slightest) and finally ridding himself of the hospital smell that followed him home. After changing, he decided to make breakfast, only to find one box of cereal as his choice. Yohji never kept much breakfast foods around as he generally wasn't awake for the meal. As he was pouring the cereal into a paper bowl, he heard someone knock at his front door.

The blond walked over to the door and unlocked it to reveal Aya, stoic as ever. "Morning Ayan, what can I do for ya?" Yohji greeted as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.

"You'll start taking the morning shifts with me, be downstairs in fifteen minutes," the redhead stated, leaving no room for argument; which, of course, Aya had expected. Yohji didn't take the flower shop job seriously; rather, it was secondary to assassination and life outside of work. Aya supposed that with his lack of a personal life, the flower business became important to him, not something to skive off on. The shop was a distraction.

Flowers, why would they pick flowers for assassins to sell? There were times when he hoped the scented vegetation covered the odor of the blood and gore smeared across their clothing when they trudged back in late-night from missions. It made him paranoid to think of customers coming in and becoming suspicious of the four males that worked there.

"Okay," Yohji responded, watching his teammate mulling over some subject he knew not about.

There was an awkward pause as Aya remembered where he was and what purpose he had for going there, and then the redhead realized he would not be dragging Yohji downstairs to the shop kicking and screaming.

Yohji could read the confusion in Aya's body language well enough, but couldn't begin to guess why the swordsman was confused.

"See you in the shop, then," the younger assassin muttered before walking down the hallway to the stairs.

Shaking his head to clear it of the strange encounter with his even stranger coworker, the blond turned back to his breakfast only to find his cereal had gone stale quite some time ago.

Despite having been ready (and bored of meandering around his apartment, no less) Yohji showed up twenty minutes later… he couldn't have Aya thinking he'd bend to his word exactly.

"You are five minutes late," came the predictable statement from the redhead as soon as Yohji made his appearance downstairs.

Yohji smirked and shrugged, settling a level gaze at Aya over the top of his sunglasses. "I was a little longer than I had expected, it happens."

"Don't let it happen again." Aya glared at the playboy, but dropped the subject in favor of watering a fern.

Yohji's injury prevented him from doing most work, so throughout the day he ran the floor, helping customers and suggesting purchases; Aya tended to the plants and carrying out the larger plants to customers' cars; and Momoe took over the cash register, but had to leave for a lunch date with a woman she frequently played go and shogi with around noon.

"Ne, Aya, do we get a lunch break any time soon?" Yohji asked after escorting Momoe out the door.

"Ken usually gets both of us some take-out about now," he replied.

"Since I'm useless otherwise, why don't I go out and find some food?"

Aya's initial reaction was to say what Yohji suggested was a good idea, until he reminded himself of his current mission. "Let's… go together," the redhead decided somewhat hesitantly. "We'll close up for now."

Yohji nearly rolled his eyes. Closing up for lunch that much of a pain, Aya? Or is it being around me that's got you so troubled? Biting back the sarcastic remark, he followed the redhead out the door.

The pair found themselves at a noodle cart a block down for the Koneko, each buying a bowl to bring back to the flower shop. They sat behind the counter, making use of the two stools located there.

Yohji had a difficult time with his utensils, but in no time figured out a way that was efficient enough. While eating, he noticed Aya picking through his yakisoba, fishing out the carrots and placing them all on one side of the dish. Seems Aya's a picky eater… who'd have thought? The wire-wielder pretended to wipe his mouth with his napkin to hide his grin while he watched Aya so focused on riding his meal of the orange vegetable. He also noticed how while concentrating, red brows were drawn together, not necessarily in a frown, but more of single-minded intent, and how the left side of Aya's mouth quirked downward, but not the right.

He always made those kinds of odd observations about people… probably just the dregs of his investigation days, when reading people was part of the career. He turned back to his udon without a second thought.

When Omi came home, he always brought the rush of young girls with him. As much as he didn't mind the attention from females, his hand wounds were starting to bother him, and Ken came down to relieve him anyway.

Upon returning to his apartment, he popped a few painkillers and flipped on the television.

Aya was unsure whether or not Yohji would try to sneak out to go clubbing or bar-hopping, even injured as he was, so he decided to forgo sleeping that night and have a stake out inside Yohji's apartment.

Which was why he currently sat on one of Yohji's bar stools right in front of his front door with a determined look and arms crossed.

When he told Yohji he would be staying up all night to make sure he didn't leave, Aya could have sworn he saw the blond trying to hold back laughter, but didn't take much note of it.

Aya stopped reading for a moment to glance at his watch.

2:36 AM. Kudoh was asleep three hours ago... looks like he's not leaving tonight.

He wasn't all that tired, but the redhead figured a nap might be nice. He'd be up in two hours anyway.