Kon'nichi Wa!
Another chapter of Koneko Wars is here for those devoted enough to have waited this obscenely long. Again, not particularly long, but it is an update, so you can't complain too much. Well, I suppose you can, and I'm sure some of you will, but I really am trying. There's just this "life" stuff, you see, and it's amazingly busy at the moment and I haven't had time or inspiration, and...oh nevermind, just read and enjoy!
The Koneko Wars
Chapter 13: Show on the Road
By: Whisper
"So. This is it, huh?" A boy rested with his back against the storefront window of the Koneko, occasionally glancing over his shoulder and into the shop. "Kind of a crap cover, don't you think?"
"I think it's wonderful," the girl beside him smiled. Her eyes had gone wide and dreamy and he knew he should never have brought her along. Almost every time they had been assigned to scout out Weiß or Schwarz, she would sit and stare and get absolutely nothing done. Did she even know they were the enemy? Still...it was kinda cute.
"You are aware that you're staring at six grown men in multicolor aprons, ja?" He knew she knew, but it never hurt to ask. Maybe she would get the point.
"The other two are our age," she protested, her lips curling into a pout.
"Birgit, have you been paying any attention to the mission at all? Did you read the files Ludger gave you? Those two sleep in the same room. In the same bed." She was still looking at him with her classic wind-between-my-ears expression. "Naked."
"Oh." Her shoulders drooped and her head dropped, azure hair obscuring her disappointment. The ones she wanted were always taken (usually by other men) and Stefan took so much delight in pointing it out every single time. One of these days, she would kill him. Then he'd learn. "Right," she said, shaking off her disappointment and filing away her anger for later use. "What's the assignment for today?"
"Today we pick one to take with us." Stefan grinned. This was his favorite part of the job; the part where they grabbed the enemy and dragged them, kicking and screaming back to headquarters. There the other three members of the team would interrogate the captive and hopefully, before the day was out Stefan would get to practice with the torture kit.
"I want to take that one." Birgit pointed to Ken and sighed. Stefan followed the line of her pale, soft, beautifully manicured (dammit he was not going to get sidetracked today) finger and saw Ken Hidaka. Quickly the young man's mind searched for data and, when he recalled the advise of his mentors, he frowned.
"Too closely tied with the others," Stefan sighed, his eyes searching the shop for a more suitable target. A bright orange blur caught his eye. "That one. The telepath."
"Schuldich," Birgit supplied, glad she could help. "He'll be hard to capture. We'll need to dampen his range, possibly deaden it completely."
Stefan smiled. This was the Birgit he lov...knew; all business, sharp as a razorblade, and not giggling over boys that weren't him. "Lenka says he's strong, possibly the strongest telepath Estet had. She never exaggerates."
"Understood." Birgit's eyes unfocused as she let her mind wander over the crowd inside the shop. Gushing schoolgirls. Angsting Ken. Pining Yohji. Angsting Ran. Horny Omi. Irate Nagi. Irate Farfello. Bored Schuldich. Exasperated Crawford. Damn, nothing useful. "Empathy sucks," she sighed, standing from her slouch against the window. "There's nothing in there we can work with right now. His mind's wandering, there's nothing solid for me to clamp onto."
Greetings little girl. Might I ask why you're prying in my mind? Birgit started, falling toward the ground with a yelp. Strong arms caught her before her face made contact with the pavement. She looked up and smiled. Aw how adorable young love is. The girl snarled at the voice in her head, wondering how Schuldich had caught her. You're sloppy, little one. You left a trace line back to you. Go and tell the rest of Sturm that they'll not be taking anyone anywhere. If you try, I'll kill your little love there. The blur of orange hair turned about and Schuldich locked eyes with her. To her horror, she found she could not look away. Remember, touch one hand on me or mine and you'll be sorry you were ever spawned. A small wave, merely a flittering of his fingers in the air, and Schuldich's attentions were gone, back to the floral arrangement in front of him.
"Caught?" Stefan asked a blushing Birgit. At some point in time he would realize that he was still holding the girl and he would turn away, mortified, but for the moment his mind was focused on the mission.
"Caught." she confirmed, exasperated. She'd never expected the telepath to prod into her mind so easily. Her defenses were getting weak-- she was getting weak. "Let me go."
"Huh? Oh." Stefan turned away, blushing and dropped Birgit to the ground, though not intentionally and therefore not with any manner of grace or consideration for Birgit's body, which connected with the pavement in a spectacularly bruising fashion. "Sorry."
"The shop is closed!" Schuldich's voice cut into the gigglestorm that was late afternoons in the flower shop. A large sigh of disappointment caused flowers to waft in their vases, but the girls obediently left. None of them were too partial to the tall German-- he never flirted with them like Yohji did, or greeted them with Omi's enthusiasm, and he wasn't as mysterious as the American. In fact, he was usually downright nasty to them, the bastard.
When the grate had finally lowered, Ran turned to frown at Schuldich. "That's one hour of paying customers lost, Schuldich. Explain."
"Sturm sent two little spies this afternoon. Did you notice the two that were staring in the window?" The others shook their heads, not that Schuldich expected anything less. The members of Weiß seemed to be under the misconception that this flower shop rendered them invisible to the enemy eye. The only way a large, busy flower shop with girls screaming "bishounen!" around it would be invisible were if the enemy had glaucoma or was deaf. Schuldich was fairly certain Sturm was neither.
"Get the shop cleaned up and report to the mission room in twenty minutes," Crawford ordered, securing the front gate. "If Sturm has found our location then measures will need to be taken.
$$$$$$$$
Yohji. Of all the people to be stuck in a room with, he was stuck with Yohji. Ran paced back and forth in front of his twin sized bed, one of the two in this small, cramped, Yohji-filled room. Kritiker had relocated the teams to a new apartment complex on the other side of town shortly after they'd reported the Sturm encounter. Schuldich and Ken had claimed a room together as soon as they'd arrived and it would've taken explosives to separate Omi and Nagi. Of course, those two had an excuse beyond the carnal; they needed to be together to plan mission strategy. Crawford and Farfello were sharing a room, neither of them wanting to room with "idiots." That left Ran rooming with Yohji, the one person he really didn't want to see right now, particularly after he'd gotten a full report on yesterday's events from Farfello.
"Stop pacing before you wear a track in the carpeting." Yohji grumbled from his dead sprawl across his bed.
"I'm thinking," Ran shot back, knowing full well that his anger was evident in his voice.
"You can think and be still at the same time. And stop being a jealous bastard, it doesn't suit you." Yohji would have liked to rub his little "victory" in Ran's face (much like the redhead had done to him) but he like to think of himself as a classy individual, one above such base joys.
"You shouldn't have touched him." Ran snarled, stopping his circuit at Yohji's feet. The desire to break the tall man's kneecaps was almost overwhelming.
Yohji couldn't help but smile, annoying Ran all the more. He'd be damned if pissing off Ran wasn't one of the most enjoyable pastimes in the world. "Don't worry, he touched me to. Asked for it, in fact." He closed his eyes, savoring the memory. "And then he did this thing with his nails," a shiver, "delicious." Yohji tumbled off the bed before Ran's hurtling body could pin him down. Everyone in the complex had probably heard the redhead's scream of rage, though.
$$$$$$$$
"You think Ran and Yohji are going to kill eachother?" Ken asked from his spot on the floor, legs spread out around a bevy of Chinese food cartons.
"Probably." Schuldich replied from next to Ken, similarly situated.
"Think we should go stop them? Sturm probably heard Ran all the way from their hideout, which could be next door for all we know." Ken poked at a piece of barbequed pork with his chopstick. "This relocation was the stupidest thing Kritiker's ever made us do. Including the flower shop."
"Now now Ken, let's not be dramatic." Schuldich brandished his chopsticks in admonishment. "The flower shop idea is most definitely the most idiotic thing you've ever been forced to do. It's never actually worked as a cover. Schwarz found you and Sturm found you- at no point in your entire career as an assassin has that flower shop served to protect you." He chuckled and let his chopsticks slide from his hand and into a container of steamed dumplings. "But I have to admit you guys do look cute in those little aprons."
Ken threw a chopstick and Schuldich moved his head a moment before it impacted with his eye. The soccer player sighed and stood. "I'm going to go talk to them."
"And tell them what, exactly? That they should act nice to one another during their moments of intense jealousy and bitter rivalry? That you're very disappointed in them and they're acting like bad little boys and aren't getting any desert."
"I don't know, but if things continue like this they're going to mess up on duty and get themselves killed. I can't live with that." Ken winced as a carton of sweet and sour shrimp was knocked over as he stood. That was gonna stain.
$$$$$$$$
Ken thought about knocking on the door, but doubted (what with all the crashing and shouting inside) that either of the room's occupants would disengage from their current activity to open the door for him. Luckily, the door was unlocked. "That's safe," Ken grumbled, walking in to find the room a complete mess and Ran standing over Yohji's prone form, a chair raised high in the air, one leg of which was aimed directly for Yohji's heart.
"Die you succubus!" Ran tensed his arms and began driving the chair downward only to find that it wouldn't move. Slowly, he turned to find Ken holding onto the chair, frowning at both of them.
"I think we need to have a talk." Ken pulled the chair out of Ran's grip and set it down then helped Yohji to stand. "Sit," he ordered and his two suitors complied, moving to sit at the ends of their beds. "Okay, so you're both really great..."
$$$$$$$$
Schuldich started at the sound of a knock on the door. As he lazily rose from the forest of fast food cartons he reached with his telepathy. The mental barrier he came up against had Crawford's name all over it. "Ja, ja I'm coming." He opened the door and put on his best "what the fuck do you want" smile.
"Schuldich, despite the fact that you've already stuffed yourself like a rejected prom date, I'd like to request your company to dinner."
"Why Brad, I do believe that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Schuldich tried to keep from blushing, but failed miserably. Brad was wearing one of his white suits with a blood red tie- stunning. And though Schuldich had nearly stuffed himself to maximum capacity, he couldn't find it in himself to make his usual snide comment and turn the American away. Brad looked so wonderful, and his voice was so sincere and deep and beautiful...
"Schuldich, get changed. I'll wait outside." Brad walked out the door, closing it quietly. Schuldich quickly changed into a matching white suit, no tie and sauntered out for his "date."
AN: So...what did you think? Did you like Birgit and Stefan? I do, but I'm biased so my opinion really doesn't count for much. Next chapter there will be much discussion between certain romantically-challenged individuals. Until then, keep your fingers crossed that my computer doesn't crash on me.