Breakdown

Chapter 19: Playboy

Yohji pitied the Chibi when the blond arrived home from school and found himself sharing a shift with Ran, a far more silent and quietly hostile Ran at that. His heart especially went out to the boy when Omi, in his concern, was silly enough to ask Ran where he had been all night. The look the redhead had given him then had certainly cowed him. For the rest of the shift Omi had done his best to stay out of Ran's way, occupying himself by tending to the fan girls—which was wise, but considering the blond boy was Weiss' equivalent of a happy puppy, it hurt Yohji to see the boy walking around with his tail between his legs…which also prompted naughty thoughts that Yohji decided would be best to push aside until the boy was no longer jailbait. So after reprimanding his libido a few times, Yohji went back to feeling sorry for the little blond hacker as he watched him and the goings on of the shop from the storeroom.

Unlike Ran when he had decided to oversee a shift, Yohji didn't stand right out in the open, but decided to observe discreetly from the shadows—or another room as it were. The reason, apart from not wanting to be made to do extra work, was that Ran would undoubtedly kill anyone who tried to supervise his shift. A quick mental equation made it easy to come to the conclusion that a covert observation of the moody redhead was the way to go; because essentially, an angry Ran, plus a long sharp blade, equaled a very unhappy, if not dead, Yohji. The little animated playboy summing up the values in his head gave Yohji the thumbs up for secrecy.

And what the blond learned from watching Ran on shift was that the redhead had obviously risen a few more points on the tight-ass meter since their chat in his bedroom. The fan girls also seemed to catch on to the fact that Ran was more frosty than usual because most of the flock had chosen to hover around the slightly more docile, yet still cheery, Omi. Yohji had to give the girls credit for that one; they were smarter than he thought. Or maybe it was just survival instinct kicking in. But whatever that case, all who frequented the shop seemed to sense the drop in temperature around the redhead. Yohji half expected to see a glistening trail of ice form behind Ran as he walked around the shop.

"What are you doing in here, Kudou?" Ran appeared in the doorway of the storeroom, standing back-lit and looking oh so ominous with his tight lips, folded arms and intense glare. Yohji nearly leapt out of his skin when he saw him. Suddenly he'd been too busy thinking about Ran to actually keep an eye on him.

"Aya," he laughed nervously as he got up from his crouched position behind bags of potting soil, dusting off his pants. "I was just uh…" he glanced around quickly, looking for inspiration for a lie, "…taking inventory?"

Ran's eyes narrowed even more. "In the dark, Kudou? With no pen and paper?"

"Um," the playboy scratched the back of his head, "I thought I would do a mental sweep um…first."

Ran growled softly, clearly not impressed with the lie. He grabbed a nearby broom and thrust it into the blonde's hands. "You want to be on shift? Then why don't you actually sweep?" He was about to leave after grabbing a pair of trimmers, but then stopped short and instead gave Yohji a shove. "Do you think I'm stupid, Kudou? I know what you're doing in here and I don't need a babysitter!"

Yohji rubbed his chest, frowning. "Aya, that's not what—"

"I'm your fucking leader! You don't think I can take care of myself?"

"Aya, calm down," Yohji said quietly, glancing nervously out of the storeroom, not wanting the redhead to attract the attention of the fan girls, or Omi for that matter. "I know you can take care of yourself. I was just—"

"Spying," Ran hissed.

"Worried," Yohji corrected him, still not raising his voice. They both didn't need to be hot under the collar. "Are you sure you're alright, Aya?"

"Didn't you hear me this morning, Kudou?" Ran snapped. "I'm fine. I don't need you to baby me and I don't want you to check up on me. I'm not hurt and I want to be left alone. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because I don't think that's what you really want, Aya," said Yohji, staring him in the eye, "I think you're tired of being alone. And I think you're pissed off today because you let someone get close to you yesterday and it scared the hell out of you because you realized you liked it."

Ran's mouth gaped slightly before the angry scowl returned in full force. "You don't know what you're talking about, Kudou."

"Don't I?" Yohji watched him silently for a moment before he grinned slightly. "You know it's fine if you like men, Aya. You don't have to be ashamed about that. None of us are going to judge you, and we already know that I swing both ways. So what's the big deal?"

"This…this isn't about that," Ran growled softly in embarrassment, forced to lower his gaze to try and hide a blush, not that Yohji had any trouble seeing the sudden colour on his normally pale cheeks.

The blond grinned. "So what's your type then, Aya? Was he short and burly? Lanky? your typical tall dark and handsome? What?" Yohji was both teasing and fishing. If Ran liked guys, he was curious whether or not he'd have a shot with him. And he figured he'd have at least a 75 chance of wooing Ran when the redhead flushed a little more at the last option. Yohji was at least tall and handsome, and maybe he could dye his hair to create the full package.

"Ah…so our Ice Queen likes his dark studs," he continued to smirk, "Somehow I just knew they'd be the type to get you all hot and heavy, Aya." Ran's eyes shot up to his and Yohji didn't think he'd ever seen such an intense shade of red before, even on a rose.

"Kudou," the redhead whispered dangerously, even though his face showed nothing but shock. Yohji figured it was just because his muscles had finally been worn out by all the scowling and had gone on strike, so he began backing away for his life, knowing that he was about to eat fist…or foot, or both.

"Guys?" There was a soft knock on the storeroom door, followed by Omi's quiet voice. "Manx is here. We have a mission."

Yohji sighed loudly, never before feeling so relieved to hear those words. "Okay Chibi," he hurried past Ran, knowing the redhead wouldn't lash out at him with Omi present, though he was treated to a death glare to end all death glares as he made his retreat.

This obviously was not over and Yohji knew that thanks to him, the climate of the Koneko would be sub-zero for quite some time. All he could hope was that the mission would be enough to take Ran's mind off of killing him for at least a few days, enough time to get his affairs in order and say good-bye to a few friends…maybe even get in one last good lay.

Sometimes it was so very dangerous being Yohji Kudou.