Disclaimer: still, still the same…..Weiß don´t belong to me, neither does Schwarz (sadly), ….no profit made,…just for fun,…so don´t sue…Please review!
Author ramblings: Oooh, reviews, reviews, reviews!! I´m eternally grateful for everyone who´s reviewing! And that not ´cause I got addicted to that stuff, no sir! ´`_´` It´s ´cause it means that somebody´s actually reading this. So great, great thanks to everyone who´s and has been reviewing. (Somewhere I heard that before, but where? ´`.´`*)
Anou,… big special thanks for giving me ideas to Blackwind and Blume-chan. (God! Blume-chan don´t tell me such things! Now I don´t get these pictures out of my head anymore! I´ll have to put it somewhere in the story. ...´`.´` I´m gonna blame the whole dog-thingie to you, just that ya know´`_´` . . . . . wanna job as a muse?´`_´`*) So, hope you all have fun reading!
What he certainly hadn´t planned
Chapter 6
"So, And now let´s play soccer!"
It was about one and half an hour later that it was a proved fact: Brad Crawford and soccer don´t mix very well. Actually they don´t mix at all.
Ken has chased them all on a staying power training at first, making them run several round around the whole field. At first Crawford didn´t mind this part. It would have been serving him to replace his endurance training while staying with Weiß or so he thought.
Unfortunately it also seemed that he and Ken were the only ones who noticed that the lawn was wet. While Crawford was using his talent to prevent himself from slipping Ken hadn´t really noticed it. As former pro he was used on different playing circumstances.
So, coming like it had to be, already the first kid landed on his backside. And of course it started wailing immediately. Ken and some other kids had rushed to comfort it. It took them just ten minutes for this task After that little incident they resumed training. And then the next kid slipped.
Tough Crawford used his talent to cheat himself through the game without making too big mistakes it didn´t help him to increase his patience. Crawford had lost his patience somewhere after the first few minutes and the time the third child landed on it´s back front. Weren´t those kid´s supposed to know how to play soccer?!
So they had spent the most of the time with chasing after the ball, apparently not really minding which goal they were shooting at. Crawford had started in the meantime to count the minutes he´d still have to stay, down.
Finally Siberian announced that they would do another last exercise and then end their practise. Crawford had the feeling as if a great burden was finally lifted from his shoulders. Until he heard what they were to do.
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They were about to close the shop when Aya heard the faint motor sound of a bike. Yohji looked up from where he was serving the last group of customers "Look´s like Kenken got his bike back." -Ken had had to take it to repair a couple of days ago.
Aya didn´t even bother to look up from where he was sweeping the floor. "Aa."
The lanky blonde just grinned at this typical Aya-ish answer and waved his good-bye´s at the leaving girls, drawing giggles and hushed whisper from them. Aya glanced at him giving him a dark glare. He didn´t like it that Yohji was flirting with their customers. It was worse enough that the blonde was not quite what you´d call a workaholic, but his flirting was drawing even more of those giggling school girls into their shop. Annoying school girls which weren´t paying anything, but always managed to stand so in their way that they had some cheap excuse for touching them. When there was something that Aya couldn´t stand than being groped by strangers.
Normally he was just putting up with them. But today had been a lot more worse than usual. The fact that just he and Yohji were in the shop didn´t help much. Omi had been occupied with working for school and trying to hack into the coded data they had achieved the night before and Ken was with Brad at soccer training.
From the outside he could hear the sound of somebody running in their direction.
Finally looking up he had just time to see a dark shadow flashing by through the window before Brad jolted trough the still open door. The door frame of the Koneko sumu ie was a little bit higher than the pavement and Brad wasn´t minding where he was going as long as it was fast.So it came like it had to come.
Brad´s foot got hooked on it, turning his mad dash into a low-level flight. Promptly the dark-haired teen crashed into Aya, sending them both onto the floor.
Aya blushed as he found himself half-sitting, half-lying on the floor with a lap full of a slightly dazed Brad. Who was having one of his hands accidentally on some rather very private parts of Aya.
"Whoo-hoo!" Yohji cheered from his place on the cash register. "Now I know how to thaw an icicle! Good job Brad!" It obviously hadn´t taken him long to recover from Brad´s stormy entrance.
Brad didn´t notice Yohji´s teasing nor the fact that he had one hand on a rather disturbing spot. He gave Aya a frantic look, scrambled up, threw a look over his shoulder and hurried past Yohji upstairs.
At least that was what he was trying to do. Yohji stretched an arm out and caught him on his way off. Brad´s force nearly jerked him from his feet. Behind them Aya got up.
"Not so fast, kid!! You´re gonna hurt yourself like that! Why are you running as if the devil himself´s after you?"
*****
Crawford followed a happily smiling Hidaka Ken, holding his aching head. Just why had this vision to hit him just that moment?!
The outcome of it had been a huge headache coming from both- the large bump on his head where the ball had left a rather painful impression and a vision from what he hadn´t actually seen anything. Soccer and clairvoyance definitely weren´t compatible.
Then his mind registered something else. They weren´t going the way they had come. Ken choose this moment to turn to him, still grinning like crazy.
"Say Brad, have you ever been riding on a bike?"
*****
Aya noticed that Brad was shivering now. "Where´s Ken?"
"Do you have something against headache?"
"Huh? Yeah, sure. In the kitchen, I think. But wh- Hey!"
Brad had jerked his arm loose and vanished with lightning speed in the appointed direction.
Shortly later Ken entered the shop. Yohji immediately turned to him. Ken didn´t notice. Instead he asked "Aya, Yohji, has one of one seen Brad? I just turned around and he was gone."
Yohji eyed him inquiring. "Kenken what the hell were you doing to the poor boy? He just now flew in, ran Aya down and vanished direction kitchen." Ken looked even more confused than before. "Oh, really?"
Neither of them noticed the way Aya was starring after the exited boy.
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"- that were the news of the day and now-"
Crawford switched the TV with a disgusted growl of standby and threw himself onto the bed. Although he had immediately taken a triple dose of painkillers as soon as they had returned, his headache had just grown more worse. He´d barely been able to concentrate on the news in the television and that not just because he had to sit direct in front of it too see the displayed pictures.
Right now he had the feeling that his head was splitting in two. Crawford had to put up his whole share of will-power not to start trashing around and scream in pain. He´d rather die before he´d risk to show somebody this act of weakness. That just wasn´t in his nature.
While he was convulsing with pain Crawford wondered what the heck was about with him. True he had used his talent pretty much in the last few days, but long not enough to touch his limits. Far not enough to justify this hell of a headache.
He doubted that even Schuldig had ever had so much pain inflicted by his very own gift. By now Crawford had started to whimper slightly, biting his lips not to do more. In some part of his mind he registered the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. He must have bitten his lip.
`Just what the hell have they done to me?!` The pain resembled nothing Crawford had ever experienced. The headache was enough to make a normal person going insane. And out of some strange reason Crawford knew that it had something to do with whoever was after Schwarz.
A new wave of pain washed over his head making him gasp. And then, then it ended, slowly ebbing away into a void of simple, empty weariness. Crawford finally gave in and fell asleep.
`What happened to me?!`
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Aya was on his way to his room when he noticed the faint sound coming out the direction of Brad´s room. The readhead hesitated for a short moment and went then to the boy´s door. The sound was coming from inside. Aya rose his eyebrows in curiosity.
Brad hadn´t come out of his room since he and Ken returned. Now it was late at night and there was still no sign of him. Wasn´t he hungry at all? The door was open.
Aya let himself in, carefully avoiding to make any noise. He was greeted by a eerily illuminated sigh of a sleeping Brad, the still running television being the only source of light. Aya switched the light on and turned the TV swiftly really off. `Must have fallen asleep.`
From what Ken had told them the soccer training hadn´t been that bad. More likely rather fun. So why had the boy been so ragged up? Aya couldn´t imagine any good reasons.
Stepping closer to the bed he noticed how oddly similar this whole situation was with the one he was in by his visits in the hospital Aya-chan had been laying in. Again he was standing in a empty room, the still occupant of the bed being the only one else. Again only he was awake. But this visits existed only in the past now.
Following a involuntary urge Aya reached out and softly brushed one stray strand of hair out of the black-haired youths face. `So much like Aya…` Brad stirred lightly on the touch. Then he swatted Aya´s hand away and turned around, murmured something incoherent what sounded like the American version of ´lemme sleep´.
Looking at the still sleeping boy in front of him, surrounded by the twisted blanket, his face now half-hidden under one of his arms, Aya allowed a small smile to creep over his face. After all nobody was there to see him. ´Look´s like I was wrong. You´re not like her at all.` He carefully wrapped Brad in the free parts of the sheet and left the room.
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The first thing Crawford noticed in the morning was that he wasn´t alone in the bed. Again. A warm body was snuggled next to him. Slowly he was starting to suspect that Weiß were doing that on purpose. Determined not to let whoever it was this time disturb his sleep, Crawford simply kicked him as strong as he could.
A low growl was the only response. ´Aya…?` Crawford couln´t come up with anybody else out of Weiß growling like that. ´Are they taking turns, or what?! Well, not with me!´
He kicked again, this time stronger. Again a growl. `Alright, that was it. You asked for it!` And with that Crawford turned, ready to tell Fujimiya or whoever that was beside him what he was thinking about this situation.
"Listen, you -!"
And froze. Crawford found himself face to face, or should I say face to muzzle?, with a big, black dog.
Amber-brown eyes were looking into brown canine ones as a snout opened to display a set of surprisingly white fangs. Crawford sweatdropped.
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They were all sitting in the kitchen and eating breakfast as Brad entered the kitchen.
Omi had wanted to go and wake him up when the food was ready, but Aya had stopped him. This had surprised everyone else enough to leave the subject be. So it was coming that they were in the middle of eating when the black haired teen with the strangely remarkable resemblance to the Schwarz leader finally showed up.
Surprisingly he was only wearing some shorts and a shirt, the same like the day before. Brad stopped in the middle of the door, allowed his look to wander over all assembled people, examining their faces in a way that made Omi feel like he was searching for something and jerked then his thump in a swift movement behind him.
Somehow he wasn´t looking pleasant at all. Omi battled the urge to gulp as Brad finally spoke.
"What. Is. This?"
The teen stepped further into the room. Now they were able to see that Brad wasn´t the only one who had entered the kitchen. Following on his heels were a big pitch-black dog who looked like a crossing between a wolf, a German shepherd dog (Alsatian) and a Collie.
Everyone except for Brad looked at the dog whose tongue was lolling out of it´s muzzle by now.
Then four pairs of eyes turned to look on Yohji.
Yohji sweatdropped, holding his hand up in a defensive gesture. "Hey, guy´s…You don´t think that I?" The stare deepened. "……"
Finally it was Omi who spoke first. "Yohji-kun, do you know what this dog is making here?"
"Eh? This dog?" The dog had trotted to Yohji now, rubbing it´s head against his arm. Aya nodded. Yohji sweatdropped even more. "…I take it that you won´t believe me if I say that I haven´t seen it ever before?"
A black and a red eyebrow rose in unison. Omi and Ken shook their heads. Yohji grinned nervously.
"Alright, alright! Her owner had to travel due to her work for a few days…"
"And you said that you´d take of him while she wasn´t there? But Yohji-kun…"
"Since when is it there anyway?"
"I found him sleeping on my bed when I woke up. Somebody must´ve let the door open." Brad helped out. Aya looked everywhere but in his direction.
Ken grinned as he heard that. "Really? Yohji, what did you do? Smuggle him in after everyone else was asleep?"
Yohji nodded." I didn´t want to upset the rest of you. And I couln´t say no since I´ve stayed the last nights at her home." ´And I didn´t want Aya to kill me for this one.´ Tough he was clever enough not to say that aloud.
He gave them his best pleading look. "You aren´t mad at me, are you?"
Omi smiled warmly. "No, not at all. But you should´ve warned us." Ken nodded approvingly. "Omi´s right. You should have told us." The tall blond grinned sheepishly. Brad sighed and shook his head slowly in defeat. Aya just continued glaring at the notorious playboy.
Yohji presented them with a bright smile. "Alright then. Brad, since you have enough time to why don´t you take care of her? It´s a female and her name´s Teddy."
Aya rose his eyebrow again. "Teddy?" Yohji shrugged. "Don´t look at me. I didn´t name her." Brad was meanwhile desperately searching for an acceptable reason not to do it.
"Don´t even try it. It´s useless. Teddy likes you!" Ken laughed. It was true. The dog had been wandering from Yohji to Brad and back, trying to get some caressings. It was obvious that the dog wasn´t willing to leave them any soon.
Brad sighed. Maybe he would be able to get something out of this story. "Okay. I´ll do it."
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Nagi sighed. It was now nearly a week since he had gotten separated from the other members of Schwarz. According to the in case planning's he´d searched himself a safe place to stay and was now waiting for the others to pick him up.
The brown-haired teen had been hacking trough the net for a while, easily unmasking the fake mail from Crawford and keeping himself far away from the appointed place. He just hoped that the others also noticed the fake.
Nagi had spent most of his time with looking for any signs of the others and spying on their invasive pursuer. With parted results. He had easily located Schuldig. The German had actually followed the fake order and had went to Germany. But to their foes dismay he had noticed the whole thing in time and was now playing cat and mouse with their enemies.
Farfarello was also easily found. He was somewhere in the city, changing his location too often to keep track. Although Nagi hadn´t found any more conspicuous signs of him, he was sure that the Irishman was safe and alive. Safe and alive…
That was the problem. As much as Nagi had searched, he hadn´t been able to find any signs of Crawford. The American han´t shown up since their last action concerning Estet, neither alive nor dead.
Nagi wasn´t sure if that was a good sign. If Schwarz had really lost their cold calculating leader they would have real problems. Crawford had been the one who had always kept everything going. He´d also made sure that none of their minor messes up were triggering something less pleasant than a minimal beating. Never much more than some black bruises, more symbolic warnings than punishments.
Nagi frowned at the computer screen in front of him. If they´d lost the stiff asshole, Schwarz would never be the same. That was for certain. The prodigy sighed. Worrying back and forth about what all could have gone wrong or have happened wasn´t bringing him anywhere.
But it wasn´t exactly as if he´d have something better to do. `God I´m bored!` Nagi sighed again and looked at the different sound files, there were more than hundred, on the screen in front of him. `Well, why not share my suffering.´
For a professional like him it hadn´t been too heavy to get the invaders phone number.
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pee-pee-pee-click
"Hello? Tannin speaking."
"….."
"Who´s there?"
"Eeee.Ttttt." //AN: Have you ever seen the movie E.T. from Spielberg? Imagine that voice.//
"Huh?!"
"E.T., Phone home."
"…click"
"Who was it?"
"E.T."
"What?… What did he want?"
"Phone home. Stop it! That´s NOT funny!!"
"But it is. Was it the real one? You know, small, long neck, wrinkled skin, big eyes and a pocket light in his finger?"
"Where the heck should I know?! I can´t look through a phone if you haven´t noticed yet! Oooh, I´ll kill that brat!!"
"What brat?"
"That Schwarz brat. He´s found my number and is terrorizing me now!"
"With phone calls?"
"Have you ever been called at four twenty a.m. from Mrs. Doubtfire?! Yesterday it was Agent K. from the MIB. Telling me that I was about to become a new member of them. At two in the night!!"
"… Stop laughing!! THAT's NOT FREAKING FUNNY!!!"
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Nagi grinned to himself. It had been sheer luck that he had stumbled over this old Hollywood sound files. And he hadn´t even tried a tenth of them by now.
His grin widened. Maybe waiting for the others wouldn´t be that boring after all.
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"Hey! Brad! Wait for me!" Crawford groaned. He´d taken this whole dog-sitting task just because he´d hoped to get out of Weiß fangs for some time.
Taking Teddy out for a walk seemed the perfect excuse for vanishing a little and do some researching about his team. At least he´d thought so. But the Weiß members seemed to always miraculously meet him on his way as soon as Crawford was out of seeing range of the shop, or were having accidental just the exactly same way to go as he went. Sometimes they also just openly went with him.
Crawford doubted that any of this was really accidental. At least he´d had enough time to get himself some contact lenses without them noticing. It´d been pretty strenuous for him to cover is lacking eyesight all the time.
He stopped and waited for the young blonde – Omi, to reach them. "Phew. You´re having quite a speed." Tsukiyono grinned while he was trying to catch his breath. He´d had to run to catch up to them. "Why didn´t you say-?" he stopped in mid-sentence when he noticed the cold look Crawford was regarding him with. "Let me guess. It just happens that you have the same way. Or has somebody here ordered some flowers?"
The last question had a mocking undertone in it. They were standing in front of an old western-style graveyard, surrounded by thick walls. "You guys should be able to really do better in shadowing me than that." Omi squirmed a little. "No it´s not like that. We´re not shadowing you."
Crawford quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure. It´s just accidentally that I´ve never left the apartment alone since I woke up about a week before." He sighed. "You can tell that somebody else, Omi, not me."
A pair of slightly guilty bright blue eyes turned to met cold amber-brown. "Sigh, alright. You´re right. We have followed you." Crawford snorted. Followed was a understatement. But Tsukiyono seemed to tell the truth. A hint of honest concern was in that genki voice as he continued "But we were concerned that you might get lost if you´re wandering around alone."
Omi looked at the slightly baffled Crawford with a pleading look. "You angry?" Crawford was more surprised than he was wiling to admit. He hadn´t thought about this possibility. ´They were concerned about me?´ He shook his head, sending his bangs flying. "No, it´s alright. You could have told me right out, though." Omi gave him a sheepish grin. "So, mind if I tag along?"
Crawford shrugged. "You´re already there, aren´t you." ´And I don´t think that it´d hurt.´ Actually Crawford was pretty sure that the sandy-blonde would leave him alone if he asked him to. But right now he wasn´t minding the company.
They followed the graveyard wall in silence for a time, everybody following his own thoughts. Just as they passed the open gates Teddy suddenly stiffed. Then the dog let out a low throaty growl. Crawford noticed the bad sign but was inches too slow to prevent the dangling disaster.
With a bark the dog started to sprint right between the rows of gravestones, yanking the leash out of his hands. The boys cursed and dashed after the vanishing dog. "K´so! What was that?!" "A squirrel." Crawford replied. He´d been able to catch a glimpse of the distinct furry tail of one before.
They followed the big dog deep down into the graveyard, wenting between rows and rows of the differentest gravestones. Omi was obviously not liking this place. His look often searched over the graves and his movements had gotten nervous. Actually the thought of all the bodies rotting in coffins surrounding them was giving Omi the creeps. He wasn´t liking those western style graveyards at all.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of calling and searching Teddy decided to give up her resultless hunt and returned to the both teens. Crawford quickly picked her leash up again and moved to go. He´d already went some meters when he noticed that Tsukiyono wasn´t following.
"Omi…?" He turned around and found the blonde staring at a tall family grave. As all family graves it was about twice as big as the normal ones and seemed to be just recently made. Curious about what was fascinating the other that much Crawford stepped up to the grave until he was standing directly next to Omi.
The grave seemed to be normal. Allowing his eyes to wander Crawford looked at the large gravestone. It was entirely made out of black marble, simple, with only a white cross edged into it. Under the cross was just one word chiseled into it. Also in withe letters it read "SCHWARZ".
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End chapter 6 – doggy in the shop
Picaro: This is the end of the sixth chapter. Hope you liked it! ´`.´`
rrpshh Having ideas how to continue this? Funny ones? rrpshh
Any coments? rrppsh-ratsh Just drop a note! ´`_´`
I´m r-r-rash Hey, what the hell is this sound?! /starts looking around and sees her cat sitting in a pile of former organised papers. The papers are now in quite a disorder with many little holes in them./ Aaaah! Shredder! I wanted to read them! /a little cat with black spot on his nose and a piece of paper in his mouth is looking is innocent as a cat could be/ E-heh, the next chapter is coming soon. Please stay tuned! rrrasshp /Cat continues it´s playing/
Waaahh!! Help! ´`_´`**