For the second time this morning, Akihito pushed open the door to his apartment. The first time he had been shaking after that encounter with Fei in the bathroom. This time he was still shivering from Asami's scent…
There was no talking and laughing anymore. The athletic figure of Mikhail was leaning against the window sill, dressed in his pro-gay & anti-fascist t-shirt and a matching pair of pink hammer-and-sickle briefs. He was quiet and intense, staring down into the street. Takato was gathering up the breakfast things. The other Russians were gone.
Akihito's head whipped around. His bed was dishevelled, but empty. Fei was gone too.
"Bad form?" Takato asked him in a low voice, "you're all red in the face from those few stairs…"
Once again it flitted through his head that his friend could be really blind, and what the hell he was doing in a profession that had so much to do with people.
Mikhail turned round, alert in a way Akihito hadn't experienced him yet. Somehow he didn't look at all ridiculous, although the front of his briefs was a little stiff from last night's … activities.
"Been conspiring with that shady professor of your's?" he addressed Akihito dangerously. Nothing about him suggested the unintentionally comic drunk of yesterday evening.
Akihito felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. He narrowed his eyes.
"You're just the right one to talk."
The Russian fixed him in an intense laser beam of light blue. Now where had he seen that? That really scary gaze…
"You won't get him. Not over my dead body."
…but directed toward something completely different, something deeply disturbing…
"I know that man is after him", Mikhail was proclaiming icily, "he can pretend to care all he likes … I will kill him if need be …"
….fanatic ice blue eyes in a hard blazing face, grey blonde hair that might well have been wavy and full in his youth …
"and I know you're his accomplice. I've seen you" - Akihito jerked, he couldn't help himself - "and I've seen how you look at … you hate him…"
The Russian closed in on him. He was really powerful … Akihito wondered if that was Fei he was smelling on him … Takato wouldn't be strong enough to help him …
… and now he knew! the congress in St. Petersburg … Mikhail looked like the man he had seen Alexej with! That terrible, scary Eastern European with the most horrifying lecture of all ... Alexej at his elbow, supplying the stats to bolster a thesis that led into the darkest ages … he himself thinking he should be targeting this criminal and not the relatively harmless, pompous Italian he was assigned to …
"Mikhail", he gasped, "Mikhail, stop! I have to ask you something…"
A terrible sense of urgency overcame him. In the paper, he hadn't taken any notice of it at the time … the picture of the group gathered for the congress tonight…
Summoning all his strength he pushed the Russian away.
"Tak! The paper I brought earlier. Have you done something with it?"
"Sure, yeah", Takato responded, bewildered, "put it in the paper recycling bin, of course…"
Akihito was already rummaging wildly, digging like a dog, sending papers and wrappings flying.
"Aaaah…"
He tore open the paper. Yes, the group photo. There! His heart skipped a beat when he recognized Asami. He couldn't help straying to the caption below … Prof. Ryuichi Asami from the University of Tokyo … oh he was so handsome … but he was looking for someone else! And yes. There in the last row … Mikhail was staring at him intently … yes, the same intensity, the same fanatic look, it had to be -
"Who's that?"
The Russian's face closed like a trap. He grabbed the paper and seemed to be reading the caption below the picture.
"Why do you want to know?" His expression was dark and deadly.
"Mikhail, I saw that man on a congress last year. And if he is who I fear he might be…"
"This is my uncle." Mikhail said in a steely voice. "Professor Yuri Arbatov, MD, Psychiatry of Genetic Deviation."
"Mikhail!" Akihito's voice cracked. "Please tell me Fei hasn't gone with Alexej!"
Whatever the Russian had expected, it wasn't this. He looked up sharply.
Akihito's gaze wandered from him to Takato.
"He has, hasn't he?"
Takato nodded.
"We thought it the best idea … Alexej had to put on his own pants, nobody else's would have fit …. Misha gave Fei his, they have about the same size ... and Pjotr's just gone to their flat for something of Misha's. Whatever is the matter, Aki?"
"That congress in St. Petersburg … it was really, really nasty. The front was humanity, what makes up human life, ethics, morality, genetics …. but what it really was about, was ferreting out unfit life forms."
"That's nothing new to me", Mikhail muttered darkly, "believe me, I've got reason to know", he shrugged involuntarily, and the two Japanese wondered if his back still hurt, "my uncle is … but what has it got to do with … Fei?"
He faltered at uttering this name, colouring, averting his eyes. Akihito felt a rush of sympathy. The same intensity … the uncle directing it towards a horrifying cause, the nephew … to love.
"Mikhail … your uncle had an assistant."
Both the Russian and Takato froze, as if already guessing what was coming.
"This morning, I remembered … but I didn't know it was with your uncle I had seen him with. "
Mikhail's eyes grew wide in shock and horror.
"Alexej."
- to be continued -