(Yohji)
I am having a coffee and a smoke in the kitchen where Omi and Ken natter away about some new boyband and a concert they want to go to. Omi bought two tickets but it clashes with a soccer game Ken wants to watch on the telly, and they debate taping the game. The kettle is on again, hissig softly. The tap has been dripping for days now, it needs sorting out but Ken keeps finding excuses, and I will end up fixing it. The faint hum of the chiller in the shop vibrates through the quiet hallway. It feels odd to sit at the table, stare at a saucy magazine and let myself drift with those sounds of our current excuse for a home, our fake existence that has become so oddly real.
What if I could have my true life back? My life with Asuka.
What if I had the power to return Aya to his old life? Maybe he would be happier than he is now.
I thought about it many a time since I ran into Schuldig while doing our deliveries. He just slipped into the passenger seat of the van when I wasn't looking, and refused to go away. He does that sometimes, and spends a lot of time talking at me. Jittery, jumpy, rushing at me like a train. I am used to it now, and mostly he makes sense in his own chilling way.
But why did he have to ask me this? I tried to forget it, but his amused voice, his glittering eyes, the slightly pained expression on his freckled face kept churning in my mind. He tends to seek me out when he has nothing else to do, no one to mess about, nothing to break, and Crawford is not in the mood for antics. Schuldig then tends to come up with this sort of thingonce in a blue moon, only to leave me stewing...
Yeah, so I could not get it out of my mind. What if losing Aya were the price for our return to a normal life?
It makes me ashamed, hurt and confused because I think my answer might be the wrong one. In that other world, he and I would never have been a pair. And I feel as though I am betraying Asuka for loving again. For loving him. Yet perhaps, there is no point in crying for the past, for what happened cannot be undone.
But what if...
I could make him love me?
We could change our future.
We could live a real life.
We could make dreams come true.
Schuldig laughed at me when he heard, but oddly enough, he did not prod. I wonder whether he still has dreams, too...
xxx
The End