Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. All rights with their original owners/creators. Shame though.
Warning: NC-15/M. ANGST.
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Cheers
Aabunai
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He had hoped to leave quietly. Ken was away with Omi, and Yohji, careless of the late hour, had gone to sort out a few things regarding the closing down of the flower shop, saying farewell to a few good customers no doubt. Aya shook off the thought. It did not matter, now that everything was over.
Over, swept away in a wave of fire and then by the tide that had drowned Eszet and Schwarz and them. They all had gone under, to be reborn as something different.
Well, that was the theory at least. Reality hit home soon enough, while they were still trying to recover from wounds of the body and mind. Kritiker, or what was left of it, logged their demands: they were too much trouble to the organisation; Kritiker wanted only Omi, and the young man accepted the offer. So he confronted his former team mates with the decision to disband Weiss, close the Koneko and set them free.
Free.
The word tasted stale.
Aya listened into the stillness of the house. His room, makeshift home for a few years, was empty, white and silent. Gone the altar in the corner, the futon, the tatami mats. The collection of haiku bound in fine silk and the few clothes he owned were neatly folded into a holdall, along with the passport to his new life.
He had told no one.
Especially not Yohji.
In spite of himself, a dragging ache settled in his chest, and he tried to rub it away angrily with one hand as he shouldered the bag. His plane was due later that night, allowing him a few hours to prepare his leaving. Methodically, he had cleared his room, stuffed everything obsolete into the incinerator, packed, washed black dye into his flamboyant hair and replaced the purple contact lenses with brown ones. A pair of black mirrored shades served to hide most of his face, making him more comfortable. In blue jeans and a grey sweater, he felt safe from prying eyes – no one would turn to stare at an ordinary looking young man, and customs would be content with his credentials as a kendo teacher and his katana safely stowed away at the bottom of the bag.
Yohji was still not back.
Aya pressed his lips together in a sharp line and yanked the bag up, slipping the strap over his shoulder even as he reached for the door knob.
That much for promises – Yohji could not let off flirting and sleeping around.
They were just too different.
He clicked the door open and softly stepped into the hall. Every sound had an echo now that the Koneko was stripped bare to the walls. Aya wanted to run, and forced himself to take long, measured strides instead, down the softly creaking steps of the battered wooden staircase, towards the kitchen he had to pass on his way to the backdoor. Not looking behind once, fleeing memories and sensations and the blackness of a hollow past, for he longed to breathe deeply the smell of the city that surely now would have a different flavour.
For he could leave as he pleased.
To seek what?
Freedom, he mused lazily, seemed such a downtrodden concept.
There was no reason to hurt inside now.
He nearly dropped the bag when he stepped into the kitchen for there by the counter with the kettle about to boil, stood Yohji, with his back to Aya. In a sloppy black t-shirt and washed-out jeans, arms braced on the worktop, head hung low, hips slanting as he shifted his weight to cross his legs at the ankles. The gesture so much like him that it brought a twitch to Aya's face.
Aya bit his lip. He had no reason to smile.
His eyes had no reason to burn.
The careless apparel though did not fit Yohji's usual meticulously preened self. When had he returned?
The kettle boiled and clicked off. Yohji began to move, filling up one of the two last mugs they had kept after Omi and Ken moved out. He stirred, removed the teabag and finally faced Aya. "Have something hot before you go," Yohji said, holding out the mug to Aya. His arm was steady, muscles sleek and firm under pale golden skin, but Aya saw the fine rings spreading on the transparent green surface of the tea. Yohji's hands, those long, hard, murderous fingers that could be so wonderfully tender, clever and lustful, were shaking with fine tremors.
"You weren't supposed to be here now," was all Aya could say, needlessly shifting the bag on his shoulder.
Yohji replaced the mug on the counter and regarded Aya with a raw glance. "Neither were you, I gather." He fumbled for cigarettes, failed to find any – he was trying to quit smoking. The lack of his usual soothers made him grumpy and strung-up, but he had stopped wheezing when going up a few flights of stairs, and he smelled better.
Yohji without the stink of tobacco, blood and booze smelled of coffee, earth and spice. Sweet and strong. The warmth of life.
Aya shook his head. "That's right, I meant to be gone."
"Without a word? You would have snuck out on me like this?" Yohji's tone wavered somewhere between incredulous and bitter, while he still tried to find something to occupy his hands, until he absentmindedly hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his denims.
"I didn't want a scene," Aya retorted, a little sharper than intended.
Yohji blinked and reached for the collar of his sweater and tugged it looser than it already was. "I won't make one, Ran. Just tell me where you're headed? I'll drive. Would you... well, do you have some time? I won't cling, yanno..." His voice faded somewhat, and he cleared his throat and chanced a carefully guarded gaze at Aya. "Just let me give you a lift. It'll be more comfortable than the damn train."
He was back to swearing.
"Fine then. One whine, and I'm out," Aya snapped. Yohji merely nodded and turned on his heel to stalk off towards the garage.
xxx
They drove in silence. Yohji had broken his tobacco-free stretch and was wolfing through his second packet within an hour, making Aya wonder whether one day he would simply die of nicotine poisoning before some lung cancer could eat him alive, and whether it was safe to travel with him pressing the accelerator into the floor panel of the car. The highway was not too busy, and Yohji skilfully weaved through the traffic, red rear lights flitting past in crimson streaks...
Aya gasped and closed his eyes. He hated red.
The smell and the sound of the sea roused him from his doze before Yohji could touch him. He had pulled up by a small diner, conveniently located at a beauty spot close to a slip road off the highway. From the concrete ramp on which the car stood by the side of the glorified fast food shack, they could see the waves rolling in, washing over the sandy beach in luminescent caress, and retreat leaving behind quickly absorbed darkness.
Of course, Yohji had to stink out this moment as well with his cigarettes.
Oddly silent, Yohji climbed out of the car and wandered off, returning a little later with two paper bags and two steaming plastic cups, one containing tea, the other one the vile stuff that should have been coffee according to the board pinned to the outside of the shack. This time, Aya did not refuse. His paper bag contained a plastic box with fast food sushi; Yohji dug into a greasy burger in between lungfuls of smoke and gulps of coffee.
He could be so disgusting, Aya thought, the dragging sensation in his chest bothering him now. Perhaps he should find a good doctor and undergo a medical as soon as he arrived at his destination, if only to exclude anything serious sneaking up on him. He ignored the niggle at the back of his mind that was trying to tell him something else.
Aya picked at the sushi rolls. They were stale, too damp, too sour, but still better than the stuff Yohji regarded as edible. The train would have taken longer; accepting Yohji's offer had given him some time, and he tried not to think. Only to be jarred out of his attempt by Yohji who flopped back onto his seat and leaned back, lifting his arms to cross them behind his head. His face was blank as he stared up into the starless gloom of the city sky. "Whatcha gonna do, Ran?"
"Ran is no more," Aya said, with a twang of impatience, "just get that into your damn head, Yotan. I am leaving because I have a new contract."
"Oh?" Yohji shifted and Aya could feel his gaze again. "What kind of contract?"
"Nothing grand," Aya replied reluctantly, plucking apart the last one of the sushi rolls. "Or dangerous. Low grade protection and security work." The lie came easily to his lips, but before he could add more untruths, Yohji leaned across, cupped the back of Aya's head and silenced him with a kiss.
Tender. Demanding. Loving.
The taste of fast food and cheap coffee, mingling with cigarettes, simple vices for such a complicated mind.
The taste of Yohji.
At this moment, Aya hated him.
Yohji had him still locked into this wonderful, hateful kiss when the roar of a wildly revving engine approached fast, along with the yell of techno music and male voices. Yohji let go, and Aya scooted back into his seat. Headlights fingered over them, and then the other car shrieked to a halt so close that it almost knocked their rear lights. "Get us going, Yohji," Aya said.
"Haaaah, d'ya see that!" someone shouted, accompanied by crude noises loud enough to be heard over the racket that rattled the stereo. "Two friggin' faggots makin' out!"
"They made me go blind," someone else whined, and howling laughter followed. "Uh, and now they've gone all shy! Hey! You!"
"Yohji, get the engine going!" Aya urged, half-turning to assess the situation. Three young hunks playing at being men, high on something, the stench of cheap booze wafting across, the stereo blocking out almost all other sounds. He had not time for this nonsense, he needed to catch his plane, and then he would be done with all of this.
"Hey, sucker, come here, suck mine – candyboy, yeah, you! Blondie!" Another salve of whoops and hooting. Yohji's hands trembled with the effort to stay calm when he was seething, and the engine sprang to life.
"But where are you going, lovely maiden?" one of the boys hollered, to howls of laughter and a chorus of catcalls, "I haven't had your ass yet!" Their engine was still running, and they pulled up when Yohji made to turn to gain the slip road. He was about to reverse, cursing through his teeth, when a dry crack whipped through the noise. Aya's eyes went wide, Yohji felt his throat go dry as he heard the air hiss out of one rear tyre.
"You got a goddamn gun, Ayan?" he gasped, manoeuvring furiously to avoid grinding into the soft sand by the roadside. He reversed a bit, and using the moment the young men needed to react and follow, pressed down on the gas and raced towards the other car. He rammed the front corner, shoving the vehicle out of his way and off the road, metal screeching over metal as bodywork scraped along, amid yells of frustration and pain by the rattled occupants.
"I have no gun," Aya informed him, one hand clawed into the dashboard, the other one digging through his holdall for the katana.
Yohji released another stream of expletives and scrubbed the back of his hand over his face, his glance flicking to the rear mirror. The youths had managed to scrape themselves together too quickly, but their car was stuck in the sand. "Aya," Yohji began to say, but Aya already grabbed him and dragged him down before the second shot whacked through their rear window in a shower of glass. The next bullet flattened another rear tyre. Yohji kept his hands on the steering wheel and tried to drive on, but another tyre went, and the car began to slither uncontrollably on the sandy road.
"Shit," Aya said softly.
Then the last tyre popped with a loud sigh, and the car veered, began to spin slowly, and hit the sand, sinking in to the axles, the angry shriek of the over-revved engine subsiding into a muffled growl as Yohji released the accelerator.
He saw the gleam of the katana, shimmering cold and soothing in the faint light, mirrored in Aya's eyes as the blade hissed from its sheath.
"Aya, they're only kids. Idiots, high and foolin' around." Yohji tapped his pocket, making sure the coil of wire was in its usual place. "Let me try and sort it out."
"Stop that," Aya commanded quietly, "and stay put." He reached for the handle of the door. Over the techno beat from the other vehicle, they could hear angry voices now, closing in fast. Aya needed room to wield his sword, he had to get out and seek cover behind the car to wait for a suitable moment.
It was not a problem - they had done this countless times before.
Before, when there had been missions, dossiers, and few qualms.
Because they could always tell themselves that they were the hidden arm of justice.
"This isn't a mission, Ayan." Yohji flashed him a reassuring smile and slipped out of the car quicker than Aya could reach out to hold him back. Spreading his arms, Yohji wandered into the beams of the headlights, heading for the three young men who were stalking towards him. He was talking; they slowed down, exchanging glances and grins, their expressions wavering between aggressive and silly; then the tallest of the three made another step, lifting the gun with both hands to keep the thing steady; Yohji retreated, turning up his hands, his knees bending and Aya knew he would drop flat to the ground the next second-
The impact of the projectile made Yohji stumble and stagger before he crumpled, his arms pressed against his stomach as he collapsed and rolled onto his side. Aya heard someone yell – himself? – and forgot the plane, the gun, those three young idiots that were now frozen to the spot as he dashed towards Yohji.
Who suddenly lay still and small on a rapidly spreading patch of damp, sticky sand. As if in trance, Aya reached out to feel his pulse at his neck.
It was fading fast.
xxx
