Author's Note: Yay! Someone has congratulated my triumphant return! Thanks, Martin III!

And I'll try to better weed out my typos. Usually, I'm just like, "whateva, biyatch, gotta post dis fic" and I just do it. I'll go back and fix them later, probably after this is up.

Also, I'm very sorry about the shortness of this chapter. -bows.- I wrote it hurriedly, then forgot I had finished it. Gomen ne.

Anywho... -dances.- Think I'm done with this note now. Time to move on with the plot! Mwahaha.

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Look Away

An Akira Yuki/Aoi Umenokouji fanfiction by Strike To Incinerate.

Chapter o3 - If I Fall Down

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"Old loves they die hard

Old lies they die harder

I wish I had an angel

For one moment of love

I wish I had your angel

Your Virgin Mary undone

Im in love with my lust

Burning angel wings to dust

I wish I had your angel tonight"

Wish I Had an Angel - Nightwish

--

If there was one thing Akira Yuki had never had trouble with, it was... well, finding trouble. It was one of his many talents, among being an international hakkyoko-ken champion, binge drinking, and angering his childhood friend to tears and screaming. It wasn't that 'trouble found him', either, like people who wanted to blame fate. It wasn't that he 'went looking for trouble'. He just happened to leave a bad situation and step into a worse one, both of which were usually his fault in some way.

Leaving Aoi's house like she told him to didn't seem like a bad idea. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea, to him; she was screaming and crying and telling him to go, and she had her own problems to deal with. It seemed like a great idea; maybe not being a flaming idiot and trying to help her out would've been a better one, but hey, work with what you've got. However, Akira hadn't visited the Umenokouji house in ten years. Ten years tended to wash away his memory of how to get home. He'd been drunk on the way over, and the only landmark that had registered then was, 'bar'.

He had gone from 'argument' to 'lost in Kyoto'. One bad situation to a worse one, both of which were his fault.

He couldn't remember the last time he had been to Kyoto, outside of the last time he'd seen Aoi's home. He didn't like Kyoto for the same reason Aoi didn't like her mother; too traditional, too stuck on everything being beautiful, too stuck up. Kyoto was the only place that still had an okiya; he remembered that part, because six year old Aoi had cried rivers about her mother wanting to send her to live there, to become a geisha, rather than learn Aiki-Jujutsu from her father.

Akira chuckled. That was sort of a nice memory. Six year old Aoi had run over to him as soon as he and his mother had arrived, hide behind him, and begged him not to let her mother send her away. Of course, he knew that her father wouldn't let her mother do that, but he had given in to her childish need for protection, and said he wouldn't let her. That, of course, had made Mihara-san angry with him, but his own mother had laughed.

He felt a slight ache in his chest.

Why couldn't things be like that anymore?

'Because we both grew up. I'm a drunk, and Aoi never fell in love with anyone else.'

Part of him was a little flattered, the more he thought about it. He'd never peg any woman for falling for him. He was a pretty boring guy up until now. All he did was train in the mountains, run his father's dojo, and go to the occassional tournament. His entire life was hakkyoko-ken.

It didn't excuse the drinking, but his life was a little more interesting now.

'I guess she was right,' he thought. 'Drinking isn't a good release.'

But it wasn't like he had anything else. Martial arts really was his life, as lame as it sounded. Well, it was lame. He'd stopped dating when he'd left college, he didn't really have any friends, he didn't have any family now...

'I guess I had Aoi.'

Worn out, and with a heavy sigh, he slumped down on a park bench. Walking had helped to calm him down, and as the day cooled into evening, it had cleared his head. Now, when he counted on his hand the number of important things he had in his life, there were only two. The rest of them had been crossed off.

He had Aoi Umenokouji, and the Yuki Budokan his grandfather had founded.

And he was sure that if things kept going this way, he would have to cross those off, too.

He frowned, looking up at the sky above the city as the oranges, purples and reds of the sunset mixed like watercolors. It would be dark very soon... and he wasn't sure how safe Kyoto was at night. He knew he'd be okay, but he'd rather not be outside, or have to defend himself. He still had his credit card, he could find a hotel... he had promised Aoi he'd call her, and he should probably start acting like he cared...

"It's not safe at all, you know," a raspy masculine voice said, and he felt someone else sit on the bench.

He looked to his right. There sat a young man, probably Aoi's age, in a long black trenchcoat and pants, with what appeared to be steel-toed boots. His face was pallid, almost a very pale shade of baby blue, with scattered scars and metal piercings, and cat-like eyes.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Goh Hinogami. During the last World Martial Arts Tournament, Kagemaru had told him that Goh was not just a third degree black belt in Judo; he was also an assassin for an underground cartel called 'J6', and that he was a likely target. At first, Akira hadn't believed it, because it sounded kind of ridiculous... but then he'd seen the J6 tattoo on Goh's arm, and the way he brutally kicked his downed opponents, and gave cruel threats, and it didn't seem that off. Kagemaru had no reason to lie about that, either. He was a pretty nice guy.

Goh shrugged, wearing a malicious grin, showing teeth. "I've got a friend in the neighborhood... thought I'd drop in and say hello," he replied. "What are you doing here, Yuki?"

Yuki opened his mouth to reply, 'Ditto, actually,' and then he remembered Aoi. If Goh was after himself and a few other World Tournament participants, as Kagemaru had warned him... he could be after her, too. "I moved here a couple of weeks ago," he lied. "I was just exploring the area."

"That so?" Goh said, his grin never fading. "I was afraid that you were going to say we might have the same friend... what a weird coincidence that would be, ne?" he laughed, but it was a harsh, cold chuckle.

Akira could feel his hands balling into fists, but he kept them down. It would do any good to start a fight with Goh if the assassin wasn't really looking for one... he could just go back to Aoi's house and warn her.

If he could remember the way back.

'Why the hell don't I have a cell phone?' he thought, annoyed at himself.

He had gone from 'argument' to 'lost in Kyoto' to 'sitting on a park bench with a killer'.

Not quite how he had thought his day would go.

"I don't suppose you could tell me how to get to the Umenokouji residence?" he asked plainly, but still wearing that smirk. "You're friends with her, aren't you?" he sneered.

Akira didn't restrain himself any longer. He threw the punch.

It never connected.

He felt Goh's hand on his wrist, turning it and pulling him forward, going with the momentum... pulling him over his ankle...

'God damned judo...' Akira thought, pulling his wrist free and rolling out of the grapple before he was slammed into the ground. He stood up, and kept his eyes on Goh, who laughed.

"Oh man... that was really stupid!" he spat. "This is my lucky night, huh? I'll kill you first, and then swing by her house and finish that up. Then I can have tomorrow off," he said, cracking his knuckles into his palms, one at a time.

Akira moved into his stance. "Trust me, I'm going to fuck you up for even thinking about touching her. You'll be spending tomorrow in the hospital, if you even make it there," he replied through gritted teeth.

"Touch her? I was just gonna kill her..." he said, raising his fists. "But now that you mention it..."

Akira didn't want to hear the rest of that sentence. He dashed forward, unleashing a palm thrust, and then a knee on the unprepared assassin. He stumbled back, and Akira felt slightly better.

"Come on... is that all you've got?" Goh taunting, wiping his bleeding lip. "Or do I have to keep talking?"

Akira moved forward again, and Goh tried to catch his ankle in a trip, but he just moved to the side, lifted his knee, and then turned, a punch slamming into the assassin's ribs.

Goh didn't seem to mind it this time. He wrapped his arm around Akira's, stepped in, and tossed the other man over his shoulder.

Akira coughed, and saw the steel toed boot coming down to stomp on his chest. He rolled away from it, then his foot shot out, tripping the assassin, and giving him time to stand back up.

"Tch... it's been a long time since I've actually had to try," Goh said, frog hopping up, then rolling a shoulder back. "Just gonna make it more satisfying when I kill you, then her."

"You're doing a job lousy job," Akira shot back. "I'm not even breaking a sweat."

Goh reached into his back pocket and his hand returned clutching something shiny, sharp and pointy. A pocket knife.

"Really? That's it?" Akira scoffed, unafraid of it. He wasn't, but his own safety wasn't the biggest concern right now... he had to get rid of Goh, and get back to Aoi before he did, which seemed impossible.

"Smaller knife is easier to use, ya know?" he replied, his lips turning up in that grin once more.

Akira was going to wipe it off his face.

--

It was after ten p.m. when Aoi, sitting on the living room couch watching reality television, heard a knock at the door. At first, she was curious; who would be coming to visit this late at night, she wondered. When the knocking became louder and more insistent, she decided that she had better go check it out.

She opened the door to see Akira standing there, his dark hair badly mussed, scrapes on his arms and face, dirt and grass stains littering his clothing. The anger she'd had before slowly melted into concern, but she couldn't let him off that easily. Maybe he'd just fallen into a ditch. That happened to drunks all the time.

Putting on a small frown, and folding her arms over her chest, one hip out to the side, she asked, "What are you doing back here? I thought you wanted to leave."

His dark eyes seemed to lit up, and his lips broke into a smile, the first one she had seen in a long time. She didn't know why he was smiling, or what he had to smile about, so she was confused... especially when he pulled her in for a tight hug.

She didn't fight him off. She knew what hugs like this meant. It meant that things were very possibly going to be okay between them. Her arms unfolded and she looped them around his shoulders. She wasn't mad anymore.

Akira was just happy that she was safe, and he had an itching suspicion that his relief wasn't so normal...

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"And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me
For all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me

If I fall
If I fall (down)"

Ghost of You - My Chemical Romance

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Yeah, you can tell where I got lazy. I'm trying to hurry up and get to the good part. xD

That last sentence was kind of lame. I was trying to steer it away from cliches, and sort of failed. Maybe I'll change it.

Reviews, please! I appreciate them a lot! :