Changing the tense of this chapter from present to past! Sorry for the inconsistency! DX

=Chapter 2: Old Enemies=

Yahiro kissed Kanon lightly along the collarbone. Her shirt was unbuttoned, his hair was in disarray, the rest of their clothes were strewn across the floor, and their bodies were sprawled across his bed.

"Yahiro, stop." Kanon moaned into his ear. "I'm still so mad at you." She nibbled at his earlobe.

"And why is that?" He slid his hand under the back of her shirt towards the clasp of her bra.

"Because you were with some 'pretty blonde lady' according to Ayase," she said kissing his neck. "I am so jealous."

"Don't be," He unclasped her bra with a snap. "I told you, that was just a client."

"I know, but when are we going to tell everyone that we're together?"

"We're not together," he chortled as he tried to slide her blouse off completely. "We're just playing around, right?"

Kanon grabbed his hand and hissed, "What do you mean we're just playing around?"

Startled, Yahiro explained, "I don't want to be in a relationship right now. I'm too busy to keep a real girlfriend. You're busy too, right? So why don't we just keep things casual?"

Kanon grabbed her coat. "Casual? We've been sneaking around for months and you still want to keep things casual!" She slipped on her black heels and covered up her undone top with her navy blue pea coat. "You're an idiot."

Yahiro just sat in bed as Kanon tearfully ran out the room. With a loud slam, she shut the door leaving an unsettling hush behind. He stretched out and yawned, reaching for a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. He lit one up and took a long drag.

"Tch. Women."

"One iced mocha with whipped cream please~! How about you, sprout?" Tsugumi cheerfully asked her self-conscious companion. She observed that he kept furrowing his eyebrows and adjusting his blue tie as he scanned the menu. He's looks a bit nervous.

"Give me a second, will you? There's so much sugary crap on this menu! Come on. French vanilla coffee? Jasmine milk tea with honey? All this frilly nonsense is disgusting." Daryl frowned as he looked for something decent to order. He took a quick glance at his unexpected date who just so happened to be wearing a frilly brown dress. Shit, was she offended?

Why is he staring at my chest? Tsugumi thought as she crossed her arms along the ruffles on her dress. "Hurry up!"

Damn, she was offended after all. Geez, I'm not going to apologize for something like that! I mean her dress IS frilly! It's not disgusting or anything, but I just made a remark that's all! Not related to her dress! That she actually looks pretty in. Daryl shook his head rapidly. Shit, Daryl. Pull yourself together! Be cool. Be cool. Be cool.

He shoved the menu against the waiter's gut. "Just give me a goddamned espresso! You can make something as simple as that in this poor excuse for a coffee shop, right?"

The winded waiter left with a nod and quick bow. Tsugumi raised an eyebrow at Daryl. "I know you hate sweet things, but you didn't have to treat the poor guy like that! He didn't even do anything to you!"

Daryl glared at her. This runt makes me so mad! "You think I care?"

"You should really try being nicer to other people." Tsugumi pouted and looked out the window. She gave out a long exasperated sigh. What's up with this guy? She glanced back across the table and found a sulking Daryl. His head hung low and his eyes seemed consumed in recalling a faraway memory.

"Anyway, tell me. How did you survive the collapse of GHQ?"

"Someone saved me," he replied with a faint quiver in his voice. "I escaped using a one-man submersible pod." He moved the salt and pepper shakers around like chess pieces. "You know, the person who helped me get out of there told me the same thing. That if I get another chance, should be more nicer to people. 'Deep down, you're a good kid', he said." He used the pepper shaker to knock the salt shaker over. "Ha. What a joke, right?"

Tsugumi watched with sorrow as Daryl tried to fake a laugh. She couldn't help it. She had to do something to make him feel better.

"Hey, sorry if I made you remember something sad." She tried to comfort him by gently touching his hand, but at this innocent gesture, Daryl jerked back hastily and stared at her with eyes full of terror as if an even more disturbing memory haunted him.

Why? Why are your hands are so cold! Just like—

In his mind, he could feel a similar pair of cold hands and hear a small voice yelling, 'Mama! Wake up! Mama!' He could see the raindrops trickling down the window that August morning fifteen years ago when he found his mother dead.

It all happened so fast. His mother, Maria Steiner, was a engineer for Sephirah Genomics. She suffered from severe depression and agoraphobia, a fear of open places. Thus, she worked from home and lived a recluse life, barely leaving her bedroom. Even so, when little Daryl woke her up every morning she would open her wide amethyst eyes, smile gently and say, "Good morning, my darling Daryl." They would have breakfast in bed together before he left for school. She couldn't do the things a normal mother could do, like taking him to the movies or picking him up from school, but that was okay because she loved him more than anyone.

Most of the time, Daryl would come home to find her mother working on her computer. She would turn to him, take off her glasses and welcome him home with a kiss on his forehead. They would have supper on the small table in her room. Sometimes, Major General Yan would join them on the odd occasion when he would come home from Japan. If he was there, they would have a quiet meal. When mother and son dined alone, it would be a lively affair with Daryl telling his mother stories from school and Maria laughing and thoroughly enjoying her son's company. Before going off to bed in his own room, he would watch Maria brush her long platinum blonde hair. When she glanced at him through the mirror and he would feel very happy. They have the same eyes.

Rarely would he come home to find the entrance to her bedroom locked. Sometimes he would press an ear against the antique wood door and hear nothing but silence. Mama is sick again. He would have dinner by himself even if his father was home, but no matter what, everything would always be okay in the morning. The door would be unlocked and it would be as if nothing happened.

Then there would be those times when he could hear his mother screaming inside her bedroom. Things would crash and smash. He would hear sheets and curtains being torn apart. The most difficult to bear, however, were the sob-laden shrieks of madness beyond the sealed doorway.

During these incidents, the servants would call for Charlotte and Charles Gespenst, Maria's sister and brother-in-law. Aunt Charlotte was a psychiatrist and only she had the keys to his mother's room. Daryl would listen from the hallway as Uncle Charles restrained his mother. A metronome would begin ticking slowly as Aunt Charlotte spoke softly, "Follow the pen's movement. That's good, Maria. Now you can feel your eyelids slowly getting heavy…" He listened until his aunt and uncle came out of the room with an ornate pen and an old metronome. Aunt Charlotte would carry him and say, "Everything will be okay in the morning." It always worked that way, but there was one time when it didn't.

On Daryl's tenth birthday, he took a day off from school. He woke his mother up. Her eyes were puffy and her face was streaked with dried tears from yesterday's episode. Nevertheless, they spent the day reading storybooks and playing in her room. That evening, they dressed up: little Daryl in a white suit and Maria in a pale gold gown. They had a formal supper with a beautiful strawberry shortcake for dessert. He blew out the candles and said, "I love you, Mama," with the widest grin on his face.

"I love you too, my darling," she sweetly replied running her warm fingers through his blonde hair.

After dinner, Daryl stayed up later than usual still hyperactive from the day's events. He sat near the window of his bedroom playing with his toy robots when he spotted a familiar car cruising down the driveway towards their mansion. He closed the light thinking that his father would surely beat him for staying up too late. He was surprised to find that it was not his father but Uncle Charles who silently entered the house. He sneaked out of his room and into the hallway where he saw his mother open her bedroom door to greet his uncle with a kiss on the lips.

The pitter-patter of rain awoke him the next day. He took a quick bath and dressed himself up for school before skipping across the hallway into his mother's room. He hopped onto the soft canopy bed next to her. "Good morning, Mama!" She didn't move. Her face looked pale but lovely and serene. Her lips were ashen but pursed into a tranquil smile.

"Mama?" He touched her cheek. It felt cold. He took her hand. They were icy and motionless. "Mama! Wake up! Mama!" She wouldn't. He shook her shoulders as hard as he could.

MAMAAAA!

"Hey, what's going on!" Tsugumi shook his shoulders as he stared blankly at her. "Daryl, what's wrong!"

"Why? Why are your hands so cold?" he said, slowly returning to reality.

"It's freezing in here! The air conditioning is cranked up pretty high." She gave his shoulders a playful squeeze. "That's it? You're worried about me getting cold? I'm fine, really." she tried to give him a reassuring smile.

"Is that so?" He took a deep breath, and tried to control the sudden surge of nightmares. He removed his cashmere gloves and offered them to her. "Here, wear these for a while."

Tsugumi graciously took the gloves and put them on. They were too large for her hands but they were so soft. Ooh… These things must cost a fortune! The textile quality is top-notch! They felt comfortable as she placed them on her neck. They still have his warmth on them. She brushed his snow white gloves on her cheeks and detected a faint musky lavender scent. Is this Daryl's scent? It smells rather melancholic yet sweet but still oh so masculine.

"Are you done smothering your face with my gloves?" With his chin perched on a bare hand, Daryl watched her with amusement. Wow she's been caressing her face for a good 30 seconds now. This strange behaviour went on long enough to distract him out of his trance and calm down his emotions.

"Oh, I'm sorry! They just felt so wonderful!" She rubbed and pinched her face to disguise the flush forming right on her cheeks.

"I never really thought of that. I just thought they made me look good." He professed with a smirk and a fabulous hair flip.

"You don't say." She impishly grimaced just before their orders arrived. The same waiter Daryl indirectly punched in the gut put Tsugumi's iced mocha in front of her and Daryl's tiny cup of espresso across the table, avoiding his regard.

"Thanks." Daryl shyly whispered, looking away. The waiter smiled and left with another bow. Tsugumi smiled too noting the effort he put into saying one simple word of kindness. She took the cherry sitting on top of the whipped cream of her drink and offered it to him.

"What's this? You're giving me more yucky food?"

Tsugumi knitted her eyebrows together, and forced the cherry closer to his face. "It's a reward for being nice. Just shut up and take it!"

Surprised, Daryl shut his eyes. He remembered the day they met during the school festival, when she made him carry a stack of boxes. Due to his position at GHQ, no one has ever dared to make him lift a finger, much less do manual labour. It infuriated him that a little runt would even attempt to push him around like that, but Tsugumi didn't care. It didn't matter to her who he was when she asked him for help and it didn't matter how much he complained along the way, she still gave him a candied apple. It was the first time in years that someone ever gave him a reward. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even get a nod of approval from his father. The last person to treat him with kindness was his mother, but that was before she left him in the most selfish way possible.

"Say 'Aaah~' "

"Uuuh," he opened his mouth slightly. With one quick motion, Tsugumi popped the cherry into his mouth. "Now, bite it!" He did so obligingly as she plucked the stem right off the fruit. "How does it taste?"

Daryl opened his eyes to find a blushing Tsugumi. Embarrassed at this gross yet delightful display of affection, he scowled and focused on chewing the cherry. "I hate sweet things."

"If you say so…" she chuckled then took a sip of her drink. "Anyhow, what have you been up to since you escaped? Where did you go?"

Daryl swallowed the cherry. "Yuck!" He stuck out his tongue in revulsion. "Well, I figured I would be the highest-ranking GHQ officer left alive and that I would be persecuted, so I secretly boarded a plane back home to America. I've been running around the world ever since. I lived in Rio, Paris, Dubai, Bangkok, and then Manila where I got the news that the UN accepted my petition for pardon as a war criminal under the defence that I was only following orders from the GHQ big wigs. With my name cleared, I returned to Japan."

"Why?"

"Why the hell not?" He refused to admit that he came back to look for her. Over my dead body! "You're asking too many questions, runt!"

"Well, then why don't you ask me a question?" Tsugumi teasingly cocked her head to one side. It must have been difficult running away all those years. She felt bad for him. He must have been lonely.

"Uhm. How have you been?" he timidly asked as he took a sip of hot espresso.

"I've been good. I finished high school at Tennozu Daiichi with my friends. Remember that place? That's where we met."

"How could I forget? You choked me with a large lollipop."

"It was a candied apple! It was delicious, didn't you think so?"

Daryl shrugged. He recalled licking the tasty confection but couldn't finish it. He removed the snack from its thin bamboo stick and chucked it in the trash, but secretly, he still keeps the stick in a box of mementos under his bed.

"Whatever. After high school, I studied to become a teacher and now I'll be taking my Teacher's Licensure Exam next month on the twenty-third."

"Really? That's on my birthday, you know."

"Oh wow! Maybe after the exams we can have a small party!"

Daryl's face became sullen once more, "I don't know. I haven't celebrated my birthday in a long time."

"That's okay! It's never too late to start again!" Tsugumi squealed.

Daryl was stunned to hear this. Would she really do that for me? He kept silent. He wasn't sure what to say.

"Okay. Nevermind. It's a silly idea anyway," she pouted.

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know that I want to know more about you," she was surprised at her own brazenness "and I can tell that you're lonely."

What? He studied her deep blue eyes but he could see nothing but honesty.

"You can't trust me. I tried to kill you once."

"You saved me once."

"I'm your enemy."

"Not anymore." Tsugumi looked into those purple eyes glazed with fear and doubt. "The Apocalypse is over. You and I… No. Everyone. We can all be on the same side now," she held out a gloved hand. "We can be friends."

Daryl wanted to take her hand but he hesitated. Are we really no longer enemies? Back then, I tried to kill her because I wanted to choose how I felt. When I think of her, I lose control. I lose myself. Who would I be if I wasn't Kill 'em All Daryl? I did all I could to fight away what I felt for her. I didn't understand it. To this day, I still feel like I'm fighting. Can we really be friends?

He shook her hand and took a chance.

"Yay!" Tsugumi chirped in delight.

"But don't you dare give me another reward! If I eat any more sugary garbage, I think I might just throw up." He reluctantly let go and pretended to fix his hair again.

"Okay no more sugary garbage," she said feeling extraordinarily ecstatic at this unexpected development.

He is such a mess, but still so damn irresistible!

"One hundred!" Ayase exclaimed as she put the last cookie in the large tin. Thank goodness we didn't push through with making two hundred of each kind! She took a small box of extra cookies and wheeled into the space across from where Shu sat running a finger along lines of Braille. "Here are a few extra cookies. Thanks for your hardwork!"

"I should be thanking you! I didn't really do anything to help." Shu gratefully smiled taking the warm box and picking up one piece. "I love the smell of freshly baked cookies." He took a bite of chocochip. "These are seriously delicious, Ayase! Haruka would love this. Hopefully, one whiff will make her forget that I came home so late at night." He smiled anxiously while imagining his childlike stepmother's moping face.

"You're right! I didn't realize how late it is!" she remarked while wiping smidgens of flour off the table. "I wonder where Tsugumi is?"

Shu closed his book and took another piece, "She probably got stuck playing at the arcade." She ran his thumb across the surface. "You know how competitive she can get."

"But I can't help but worry," she crumbled the paper towel and threw it towards the bin. She missed it completely. "Tsugumi's been working too hard." She rolled out and over to the kitchen corner to pick it up. "With her exams coming up, she's been going a little crazy."

"How so?" Shu asked facing Ayase.

"Well, if she makes another little Fyuneru, this house will be filled with them!" She tossed the paper towel in.

Shu laughed and replied, "Yeah, I keep bumping into them. Not a safe place for the visually impaired!" He carefully closed the lid of the box. "Do you think there's something else on her mind?"

"She gave Fyuneru a wife and kids," she moved next to him. "I think she wishes she could be with that person."

"Who?"

"It's a secret!"

Shu smiled in her direction. "I'm glad you're here."

Ayase blushed profusely, "H-h-here?"

"Yes. It's good to know you guys are keeping each other company."

"Ohhh that. No big deal." Disappointed, she manoeuvred over to the refrigerator and places the cooled box of cookies inside. Just then, Fyuneru, Fyunerin and their three little Fyu-kids buzzed and zipped towards the front door. Beeps and whistles greeted a beaming Tsugumi.

"Hi Shu! Ayanee! I'm hooome~!" Tsugumi practically danced into the kitchen. "Oh guys, you won't believe who I ran into!"

Ayase closed the refrigerator door. "Nice gloves."

"What?" Tsugumi looked at her hands. "Oh no! I totally forgot!" She rushed back out the front door.

"What just happened?" Shu asked.

Ayase answered, "I have no idea."

Tsugumi strode towards the ledge of their apartment building. I hope he hasn't gone too far! She gripped the railing and peered over the edge scanning the street below. She spotted a familiar head of blonde hair. He was talking energetically to an elegantly dressed woman. The lady opened up her arms as Daryl plunged in for a tight embrace.

=End of Chapter 2: Old Enemies=

Gasp! I'm as shocked as you are! No! My bby Daryl! You're miiine! Huhuhu…

And I know, I know. Yahiro is such a douchebag. But who'd be surprised? After all, he came up with the naziriffic idea of ranking people based on their voids! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my interpretation of Daryl's background. A monster sob story, ne? But wait, there's more to it than you think!

Thank you so much for the positive reviews! I'm laying out this story for another 3 to 5 chapters which will give me a chance to spice things up with some intrigue and action. Also, you'll be learning more about the "elegantly dressed woman", an original character I'll be presenting in more detail next chapter!

I've got a lot of free time before school starts so expect new chapters every Tuesdays and/or Fridays! Hohohohoho~!

Love Always,

Kinky Robot