FicWad

As always, thanks for reading. Next update should be soon. I'm sorry it took so long, I was out of town for the last couple of weeks and didn't have access to the internet at my father's house. Hope you enjoy.......and also on a vaguely frightening note, we've broken one hundred pages. Amazing, na?

The sun seeps through my eyelids in a red haze, pulling me steadily out of sleep. I spare one eye, opening the other to glare at the clock.
Only eight.
I yawn and shift in the bed, trying to roll over. I frown blindly at the weight on my chest. Weird, ‘Chelle usually keeps to her own side of the bed.
I trail my hand up the warm smooth back, circling my fingers up in slow lithe movements. She shudders in her sleep. I imagine her soft unguarded smile as I stroke her hair, reveling in the soft feel of it feathered over my chest. She shifts as I touch her, moving her head so it rests almost in my arm, her legs tangled up with mine.
I let my eyes drift open, taking in the soft morning sun coiled in long thick strands of brilliantly red hair.
Oh.
I bite my lip, wincing a little at the pain that shoots up through my cheeks.
Her body thrown in rapid contortions, clothes caught in an unnatural wind and framed by smoke and fire.
Unbelievable.
I grind my teeth harder into my lip, suppressing a choking sob. I don’t want to wake him.
I can’t believe I-
I run my hand over his face, the soft white skin a warm animal embrace, lifting against my hand in a soft rhythm.
I almost smile. He looks so serene, sprawled over me, his hair a dark pool massed around his shoulders.
In the light, he looks chipped out of marble, like some silent and impossible statue of a god.
It’s strange that he’s still sleeping. Usually I wake up naked, shivering with the blankets thrown off the bed, or sometimes, and rarely, with him sitting beside me, reading and curling his hands in my hair.
Not that there’s much left for him to do that anymore.
He’s so beautiful. Asleep, there is so much written in his face that will fade when he awakens. A sort of peace is spread over him, lit in his skin, a fragile youthfulness wrapped into his features that will disappear when he can once again control his expressions, when he is aware of what he feels.
Even smiling, he always looks veiled, as if something still is obscured.
I’m waiting for him to reveal himself.
Sighing, I resign myself to waiting and listen to the soft increments of his trailing breath.
His face hostile, recoiling.
“Don’t touch me.”
A bitter incomprehensible silence settles into his eyes.
“Why, Yohji?”
My hand stills on his back.
Why? I want to pretend I can’t imagine what he’s asking.
Why I left? Why I took her, why he is so easily pushed away?
It’s simple to think it’s this that bothers him, but I don’t know what else it could be.
Why have I never done anything but hurt him and throw it in his face?
Something strikes me lying there.
“It just won’t end!”
My own words fly back at me. I know how I can make it, make this all end.
In this moment, nothing feels the same, it feels lighter, tainted, a cloying presence around me, a quiet irritation.
My temples throb with tears.
If I could let him go, I wouldn’t hurt him.
I feel like I’m choking, the silence in the room feels unbearable. Why do we tear at each other like this?
Aya believes that the intensity of any emotion must be balanced by the manifestation of its opposite, to release the pressure of its persistence, its undeniable viciousness. Emotions are something that change, that rend and deface, carving us with their scars and stains, leaving us ragged, worn with their expression.
He moves again in his sleep.
Michelle’s twisted face flashes before my eyes.
All my love it seems, is warped together, extended from his single source and stretched backwards. Sometimes, it feels like even my love for Asuka was somehow an extension of this awe, overwhelmed by his strange beauty. Why I ask so many empty questions.
Suddenly panicked, I lift him off of me, settling him against the cool sheets. Peeling myself away from the pillow, the sweat soaked blankets under me, I rise. I pull a robe over me, turning and bending down to brush my lips over his eyes before leaving the room silently.
_______________

I wonder how long its been since anyone bothered to open the shop. Walking in, the place is heavy with dust, no plants are in sight. Scattered on the tables are some tools, bags of soil. There is strangely, nothing alive here.
It’s a jarring feeling, a strange abrupt realization that we might not be coming back here. That for some reason I might never again lean against the counter surrounded by annoying schoolgirls, or drag Aya back into the greenhouse, or just stand and watch while he shapes arrangements.
He denies it when I tell him he has a gift for it.
I pace around the deserted shop, staring vacantly at the empty pots, the bare shelves. Finally, I’m staring at the store room door. Pushing it open, I step inside. Light shoots from between the blinds, making it clear that its just as barren in here. I shiver in the cool morning air, walking over to sit on the table, staring through the open door. From here, I can see the cars glittering in the sunlight.
Shaking, I imagine the place colorful, filled with blooms and chattering customers. Aya’s back receding in a smooth singular movement, his shoulders hunched in rage, his hands clenched and covered by flowing hair. The door slamming behind him, the car screeching out all viewed in my periphery. Ken and Sena’s worried faces framing the scene.
I want to purge the last few weeks from myself. Forget everything.
I try to throw my memory farther back, try to latch on something worth remembering.
Aya’s back arched and slick with sweat, his still short hair sticking out, wild and tangled on itself. He chokes out incoherent phrases as we finish, slamming into this table, shaking dust down over both of us. And then, he turns around, smiling slightly, long errant eartails plastered to his neck. Abruptly, a blur of bare embarrassed skin, flushed as he tries to duck behind me. Omi staring horrified as he apologizes profusely, the arrangement he was carrying a mess of dirt and stems on the floor. And me, laughing hysterically as Aya’s embarrassment fades into a glare and Omi stammers.
As soon as Omi ran out, Aya pulled his clothes on and rammed his elbow into my ribs, scowling at me as if I had planned it.
Waiting for him outside the hospital for the first time, the white walls tall and glaring in the sun. His shock as he came outside, his face contorted in a mute pain. And then, yelling at me to leave. I crushed him into me, holding him close to shut his mouth, then dragged him protesting to the nearest park where I spent the day convincing him to let go a little. We bought ice cream and ran around, two wild children in a transiently innocent world. I tumbled him into the grass and tickled him, and surprised that Aya, of all people, was ticklish, I refused to let up. Smeared with chocolate, he looked like he couldn’t decide whether to hit me or let me continue. Instead of either, he dug his fingers into my sides, pushing me off him with hysterics on both sides. I get the feeling Aya isn’t as serious as he pretends.
He thanked me quietly afterwards, murmuring it over his tea the next morning, a hint of a smile still on his face.
I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel the itchy track of tears on my face, that salty uncomfortable residue it gets as it dries.
The door opens. I don’t look up, I can’t imagine who else it would be. He pads over, his steps are slow, careful. I can see his feet even with my head bent, centered right under me. They’re covered in black slippers. Mine are bare, and I suddenly realize in the way you always realize inane pointless things when you’re upset, probably filthy.
He stands silently in front of me, waiting for me to look up at him.
I glance up at him, taking in the scared, hesitant look in his eyes.
Aya can never deal with anything externally, for him it must be a mental process, a question of introspection and of great confusion. Since he doesn’t know how to help, how to comfort anyone conscious, he watches, standing in an air of helplessness. Like now.
His eyes bore into me like raw open wounds.
“Are you….Is everything….What’s wrong?”
His voice is choked out. I’m sure he’s thinking about last night. The self accusation, the blame marked out in his eyes, is almost palpable.
“I’m just thinking.”
“Oh.”
He stares at me, clearly unsure how to respond any further.
Invariably, I have to comfort him when I’m upset.
“It’s just….You know how you can never get rid of some images? How they come back unwanted again and again marked into your mind and you want them to resolve themselves, or change or just fade.”
I sigh
“Sometimes, the only thing I want in this world is to forget.”
Something unreadable flashes across his eyes. He says nothing.
“Don’t you ever want to forget, Aya?”
I know what he’s going to say, I just can’t take this silence of his.
“Yes.”
He whispers it. Shocked, I lift my eyes fully to him. Not the answer I expected.
“Really?”
I sound incredulous. It’s probably insulting. I like to convince myself that I understand him, that I know what goes on in his head. In truth, he fascinates me simply because I can’t read him, I can’t estimate him fully.
“ It’d be easier if I was nothing.”
That’s a strange response. Nothing?
“What do you mean?”
“Without your forming experiences you’re left like a child. It’s be easier not to have been shaped by anything, to lose every trace of emotion that has changed you or made you what you are.”
He pauses.
“But its not that simple.”
I look down at our feet. Nothing is. To listen to Aya, everything is one convolution mounted on another in an unending spiral of accumulated fears and taints. Our memories make us, reinforce the person we are. There is no relief.
His voice is so flat, so calm saying all of this. So goddamned assured, like it’s easy. Like less then two years ago he wasn’t screaming in his sleep and haunting hospitals. Like he doesn’t still go rigid at the slightest mention of the word ‘sister’. Like he won’t fly into a rage if something reminds him, for just one moment, that he survived the revenge that he ruined his life for, when you bring to his eyes the fear, the unbelievable confusion, that he had another choice. That, if not for his blind, consuming sense of hatred, of well-defined anger, of acute self-loathing, he could have lived normally, an idea he despises in the way he speaks, and moves, and kills. He fights for, at least in name, that which he’s never wanted to be only so he can save himself from it.
I wonder when I started thinking of Aya as the more stable one.
I wonder what I would develop into without him.
His voice is careful, I wonder is he knows how much words like these have affected me. How they tear at every fiber of my soul, as if it’s devouring itself.
I don’t know what to say, so I nod, letting him step closer and wrap his arms around me.
Surreally, it seems as if I’m watching the two of us from some corner, disassociated and completely absorbed in the moment. My shoulders start shaking again and I have to suppress a faint feeling of apprehension as I start crying again. He rubs my back in slow circles, pulling away after a minute to wipe the tears from my cheeks. I notice oddly that his chest is bare, shining in the morning heat.
He’s so beautiful.
His eyes are surging with a doubt, a tangible concern. I smile slightly. It’s sick, no matter how badly I want to, or should, or how much he hurts me or I hurt him or someone else, I’ll never be able to leave him as long as I can read the love in his eyes.
I know it sounds asinine, typical, but as much as it can hurt to love him, to hurt him, it’s that much more painful to be separated.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s substitute again.”
His voice rings in my mind, asynchronous with his calm still features before me.
A substitute. A substitute is a husk, uninteresting, a substitute is projected onto. If anything, I substitute everything I can for his sake.
It’s disgusting to realize the extent of my fear, how after so long, I’m still terrified of him leaving.
And to avoid that, I give him every possible reason to do that through attempted departures, half-assed and insincere evasions.
I lift my hand to the back of his head and pull his head down, drawing him between my legs to keep him close.
After a moment’s surprise, he wraps his arms around me, holding me close as our mouths open, our lips collide and shift together and for one moment, one singular moment, everything is absolved and we are alone in a strange haze, apart from morning, transcended into some strange fragile silence.
Someone clears their throat in the shop and it shatters. Aya pulls away, turning to look at Rex who is standing awkwardly by the counter.
Automatically, his voice goes cold as he slips into Abyssinian.
“Yes?”
He still stands in front of me, hiding everything but my legs.
“There is an update on the mission.”
He nods, staring at her, clearly waiting for something.
“And…yes, the flower shop is going to be transferred in the way you requested.”
“What?”
My own voice breaks out. Aya looks at me over his shoulder, a numb cold look on his face. His eyes are raw.
Rex answers me.
“Weiss no longer needs the Koneko.”
“What?”
“We’re moving you closer to Koua for the time being.”
“And after?”
She shrugs
“We’ll deal with it then.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
Wonderful.
Glaring at Rex, I let Aya drag us down to the mission room, collapsing against the couch to listen to whatever new shit is going to be added to this mess.
_________________________

Taking my customary place against the wall, I watch Yohji from the corner of my eye. He’s smirking, a cold look on his face.
If he’s upset, it’s understandable. He’s the only one who didn’t know we were moving.
What he doesn’t know is why, really why.
Mamoru’s office, really a coldly, insincerely elegant room done in Western furniture. Him leaning over the long oak desk, his hair falling in his eyes. He looked slickly mature, too old to be Omi. This man before me was pure Takatori, sickening, tainted.
I wanted to stab him, slice him open and free him from this resigned corruption, this assured blackening of his soul.
Strange that I can still believe that he is more tainted than I am.
I hated him. He looked up at me with trusting eyes, a cold facsimile of Omi’s open honest gaze.
He gave me a list of his concerns, his problems, his preoccupations. I know he will turn on us, I just hope I still have room to move when he does.
Just like with Shuiichi, we are only a tool for his own aims. As long those are parallel to my interests, he can have Weiss.
“I need you to pull back, let things progress. I’m afraid your position may have been compromised.”
“Alright.”
He knew the conditions.
“And also, I will have to ask you to step back, let Sena investigate on his own.”
“You’re using him.”
We both know it, but I better than he. It’s the same way Shuiichi used me to bring down Takatori, he counted on my rage, my pain and my grief to pave the way, to provide the impetus for the final act.
And now Sena is primed to do the same. His own agony is just aligned the closest for now. All of us have been used this way.
“And don’t interfere with anything that the others do. However they may infiltrate Koua, let it happen.”
I wonder if he’s given any orders I don’t know about.
“If I do that then-”
“Yes. The Koneko will be left as a safe house and security for your sister.”
He attempts a kind smile. Instead, it contorts his face, a sort of stiff insincere grimace.
I nod and leave, feeling a small flare of hope amidst the confusion. I know that he sees the narrowness of my own desires, his sight just doesn’t matter to me anymore.
As the tape ends, I pull myself out my reveries, ignoring Yohji’s teasing and Ken’s objections. Neither interest me.
I think Aya-chan will be happy here.
I restrain a smile as I remember how she would play in our mother’s garden, coming in covered with dirt and leaves. Our father would laugh seeing her while my mother would rush out to assess the damage. I remember one winter she dragged me outside to dig through the snow to see what flowers survived.
Her favorites were roses. My mother had a big bush of yellow ones right by the house. She’d always yell at Aya-chan for picking them and Aya would just smile and put them in a vase.
I still have one of them pressed into a book.
I haven’t looked at it since she woke up, the symbolism no longer fits.
For a moment I consider pulling Rex aside and asking for her location, for a phone number or address or anything.
Her body sheathed in white and stretched out on the horrible altar.
I won’t.
I wonder sometimes if she caught a glimpse of us as she woke up. Sakura said she woke up in Manx’s car, after they dragged her out.
It’s just possible she caught a glimpse of us dragging ourselves out of the water, saw me clinging to Yohji and dripping wet. Saw me scream with rage and lift my sword only to be held back, Yohji‘s fingers digging into my arms, his voice a worried hiss in my ear. Forced to stare at the still vacant water.
My hands clench and I look up just in time to see Sena walk out, followed shortly after by Ken.
Yohji is staring at me from the couch, a quizzical expression on his face.
His hair, the new exhaustion in his eyes, is a shock all over again after the memories.
I can tell he’s debating whether or not to ask me about the move.
“I knew a few days before you got back.”
May as well make it easier.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to upset you…..not when you’re already-”
“What? A mess?”
He runs his hands up through his hair, a habit that doesn’t fit anymore but that he hasn’t yet lost.
“It doesn’t matter. Come on.”
With a shallow forced smile on his face, he gets up and begins to leave the room, pausing to wait for me at the door.
I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.
____________________

He doesn’t look at things while we pack, blindly shoving them into boxes, while I carefully organize the books and my other personal effects, taking them in numerous trips down to either of our cars.
By pointing him towards the closet, I’m able to prevent him from packing anything breakable in that frustrated careless manner. He’s just trying to get it over with I think.
I think it’s good. We can get away from here, away from all the things this place signifies, all the fights and violence and ends this room has been privy to.
Grabbing one of the last boxes, he smiles at me and leaves the room.
“I’ll see you there.”
Once Yohji’s gone, I circle the now empty room, running my hands over the walls.
It looks so stark, so small without all the clutter, the stacks of books and clothes, my katana perched in the corner.
Aya will be living in one of these rooms.
I’d like to think she’ll move into this one. Maybe, if she did, she could somehow feel all I care for her, all that she’s meant to me in these past years.
I remember her always smiling face, a sunny warm look constant in her dark eyes.
Reaching into the box, I pull out a slim volume. The white cover is decorated with a band of daisies around the title “Floral Symbolism”. From the center I pull the dried rose, the edges of its crisp petals curling, now darkened to almost an orange. The bottom edge is a pale yellow, a faint color that darkens in columns. Silently, I set it by the window, letting it be bathed in light.
I pause another moment as I lift the last box, staring at the smear of yellow on the windowsill as I close the door behind me.
____________________

Yohji is waiting outside when I pull up to the new building, a cigarette dangling from his lips. I grimace, I hate the smell of the damned things.
“You’re not smoking that inside.”
He shrugs.
“Yeah, that’s what Sena said. I’ve resigned myself to smoking out here.”
He walks over to my car, popping the trunk open and taking out a box.
“Come on, I’ve got all the things out of my car. We just have to pick a room.”
“Well, haven’t Ken and Sena picked?”
“Nah, I made ‘em wait.”
I roll my eyes, following him up a flight of stairs to the new apartment. It takes up the entire floor, a wide open space decorated in pale blues. The living room furniture has already been set up. I peer into the bright room as we pass it. The windows are massive.
Following Yohji into the hall, I almost trip over our stack of boxes, glaring at him as I do.
We glance at the four available bedrooms, finally settling on the master suite, despite Ken’s bitching.
“You two can’t take the biggest room.”
Yohji grins
“Why not? There are two of us, we need more space.”
Infallible logic, that.
Quickly we shove the boxes into the corner of the room and then explore it.
Bigger then the old one, and instead of bare white, painted in a pale purple. The floors are hardwood, stretching into the bathroom.
It doesn’t have a balcony like the old apartment, but all in all, it’s not bad.
Once satisfied with the room, we venture back out into the hall to wait for the movers Rex hired to move in our furniture. Yohji smirks as we walk out into the living room.
“What?”
“No one moved into the room next to us.”
I roll my eyes. Trust Yohji to focus on that.
The movers troop past us, first taking Ken’s things into the room opposite ours, and then Sena’s, followed by the kitchen table, and finally our furniture.
While we wait, we settle onto the couch, flicking the t.v. on to a random channel. It looks like some bad American movie. I settle my head onto Yohji’s shoulder, mildly relieved at the reprieve from conversation.
Yohji doesn’t need to know about Aya-chan. It’ll be better-safer-if it’s just me.
___________________

Once the room is finally set up, looking cleaner then our old one ever did, Yohji throws himself on the bed.
“Hey, Aya, want to break in the new room?”
I roll my eyes, but sit down beside him anyways.
“Idiot.”
“Your idiot.”
Reaching behind me, he pulls the band out of my hair, absently unbraiding it. Once he’s finished he smiles
“You should leave it like that.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He grins, we’ve had this conversation before. It’s almost become a ritual; automatic, thoughtless.
“It gets in the way.”
Suddenly, I’m being kissed, his lips pressed against me roughly, wildly. After a few moments he pulls back, leaving me slightly-and apparently visibly-shaken.
“No it doesn’t.”
“Hn.”
I turn my head away from him, looking out the window. You can actually see Koua from here.
He pokes me in the ribs.
“You want to go out somewhere tonight?”
He sounds anxious. I don’t know why.
“Why?”
“Well, we never really had a chance to do anything….you know after…”
He doesn’t say it but I can tell what he means. I stop the memory of him slamming me into the storeroom wall with that sad look on his face before it fully forms.
“And anyways, I wanted to make that special, mark our resolving it, you know.”
He pauses.
“And this way we can celebrate the move and just being back here and together and everything and Aya would you just answer because I’m rambling.”
That draws a small smile out of me.
“Yes. That sounds nice.”
His face lights up a little.
“Alright. Is seven okay?”
I nod.
“Where are we going?”
He grins
“I want it to be a surprise. Dress nice.”
Before I have a chance to answer he disappears into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind him.
_______________

“Damn it Aya, keep your eyes closed!”
This ‘surprise’ business is quickly becoming annoying,
“Why? Not like I’ll recognize the place.”
He doesn’t respond, turning his eyes back to the road, driving furiously. I lean back into the seat and close my eyes, letting it go.
“Don’t you want to forget Aya?”
His voices screams at me from behind my eyelids.
The signs are easy enough. Yohji’s always favored distraction above confrontation.
I push all thoughts out of my mind as we drive forward, focusing instead on restraining myself from leaning over and grabbing the wheel.
Yohji prides himself on being a fantastic driver, one that is undoubtedly going fifteen miles over the speed limit and has no idea how to drive a stick shift.
So of course we took my car.
I wince as the gears groan, shuddering at the mental image of Yohji jerking on the stick, taking it too fast from gear to gear.
God, I hope this place isn’t much farther.
After what seems like an eternity (in fact, I mildly surprised my teeth aren’t filed down completely from grinding them each time he tried to turn), we stop.
“Can I open them now?”
“Go ahead.”
Looking around, we seem to be parked in front of a nice, upscale, but unremarkable restaurant. The pale pink stone of the building rises in a gleaming edifice, framing the sign, which I don’t bother to read.
The dining room is a level up. You can watch people eating through massive plate glass windows. Lovely entertainment.
I’m hoping we’re seated closer inside.
“So why did I have to close my eyes?”
Yohji shrugs.
“Why not?”
He smirks and grabs my hand, pulling me after him into the place.
I hardly pay attention as we’re seated, luckily enough in the center of the dining room, far from the window, and menus are shoved at us.
Yohji shifts uncomfortably in his chair.
“Well?”
“Hn?”
“Don’t you like it?”
I shrug. It’s a restaurant. It seems to meet health code.
“It’s fine.”
He stares at the menu, flipping through the pages anxiously.
“What kind of wine do you want?”
“Whatever you want.”
I never understand why he asks me about the alcohol, when I’ll maybe choke down half a glass before demanding that the waiter bring me water instead, while Yohji expertly polishes off a bottle, then considers another vintage.
“How does a pinot noir sound?”
Like a name for ostensibly overpriced wine. I shrug.
“If that’s what you want.”
In truth, I can hardly differentiate white wine from red and since I don’t drink it, why bother?
The waiter stumbles over to the table, a fairly oblivious looking man with strangely thick glasses perched precariously on his nose.
Yohji gives him the drink order, glancing at me again before ordering some appetizer. For all the attention I’m paying, he could have just ordered the fried toes of an unborn child served with olive oil and roma tomatoes on a bed of lettuce.
Regardless, it doesn’t particularly interest me. I’m waiting for him to actually say something.
Instead, he smiles blithely across the table, his eyes unreadable.
I nod, respond vaguely, and after paying the check we leave and drive away without me having any idea of what either of us said.
____________________

A cold breeze hits my back, followed shortly by a quiet closing of the door.
Aya’s awake no doubt.
Cracking an eye open I glance at the clock. Eh, I can drag this out for at least another half hour before I absolutely have to get up.
Proving once again to be too lazy to reach down and cover myself, I curl up into a ball instead.
The way the window is positioned in the new room, the sun doesn’t hit the bed. Which means I can get up without shielding my eyes, as well as that without even the slight warmth that it used to provide, I’m freezing my ass off.
Aya suggests that if I’m so cold in the morning that I just stop sleeping naked.
My inevitable response is that I figure one of these days, I’ll wake up before he’s fully dressed and the nudity will come in handy.
Resigning myself to the fact that I’m not going to be falling back asleep like this, I pull myself up. Reluctantly, I place both feet on the floor and drag myself over to the shower, reveling in the stream of hot water hitting my back.
Stepping out, the faint post-sleep exhaustion hits me.
Coffee. Yes. Need coffee.
Granted, it could prove to be interesting if I had to deal with children without caffeine flooding my system to provide my brain with functioning powers that are not restricted to glaring and random muttered bursts of profanity.
Yawning, I pull whatever clothes are willing to come off their hanger without resistance from the closet and yank them on. Looking in the mirror quickly to run a brush through my hair, I’m fairly certain I wore these Friday too.
Of course, any inclination to change in quickly smothered by my pre-caffeine apathy.
Fully-and resignedly- clothed, I make my way into the kitchen, getting momentarily lost in the living room when I turn wrong at the end of the hall.
We’ve been here two days. Fuck off.
Finally stumbling into the kitchen, I find Aya sitting alone at the table, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book spread on the table in front of him.
I nod, rushing over to the coffee maker, pouring a cup and downing it quickly, ignoring from years of experienced carelessness the incredible scalding of my tongue from the overheated liquid.
Beautiful.
Sinking into the chair next to Aya, I peer over his shoulder, trying to figure out what he’s reading.
“It’s Flowers for Algernon.”
I swear to god his lips didn’t move when he said that. I’m a bit slow in the mornings.
“What’s it about?”
Folding a page over to mark his place he looks up at me, a faint smile on his face.
“It’s about the mental and emotional progression of a retarded man whose intelligence is accelerated by an experimental surgical procedure.”
Aya reads the strangest fucking things.
“What happens?”
Interesting though.
“As he progresses mentally, he uncovers a lot of repressed memories, and through that process changes from an innocent, naïve….well child really who acted only to please others, into a self-aware, and arrogant genius who is held back by stunted emotional maturity.”
He pauses, running a finger over the books cover. I follow it. The cover is a pale blue, the title printed in an orange scrawl. Beneath the title is a picture of a small white mouse.
“Anyways, he quickly surpasses the doctors who came up with the procedure, eventually finding the flaw in their hypothesis that indicates his eventual mental disintegration. With that realization, he runs off, leaving that entire cycle, desperate to try and find a way to preserve his newfound genius, this new person he feels that he has become, or at least live the time he has left. Finally………..finally it all falls away and he’s left no better than he was before, worse even because they commit him to an institution for retarded adults, whereas before he had a job and at least some autonomy he could lay claim to. In the end, he’s left to live only knowing what he has lost, but is unable to understand it.”
Aya’s voice grows quieter throughout the summation. For my part, I don’t know what to say, sitting there stunned.
To have something stripped from you and have to live without knowing it, without truly feeling it, only the fact that you once had it…….Suddenly, I don’t want to go numb.
Either forget entirely or let it plague you as it likes. That agony, that doubt seems like too much.
He whispers quietly.
“I can’t even imagine.”
Besides strange, he errs to the side of morbidity.
I lean over, settling my arm around his shoulders, pulling him close enough that he can rest his head on my chest.
Regretfully, sorrowfully, I let Michelle’s face slide through my memory, followed by Asuka’s smile.
Would it be better to simply remember their names and nothing more? To know that I had once felt for them an indescribable urgent passion and now feel for them little more than I do for the person I passed in the street this morning?
Instead of terrible grating guilt, I can imagine a detachment, a confused doubtful lack of feeling, of connection to anything.
And what is worse, emptiness or pain? Or are they cyclical?
I hold Aya close until he insists we leave for Koua, gracing me with a curiously grateful look and pressing his lips into mine.
_______________________

“What do you have against art teachers anyways?”
She glares, clearly resisting the urge to massage her temples.
“I just don’t think it’s suited to an academic environment. It’s a distraction, Kudou-sensei.”
So far, what is so amusing is how she’s able to maintain one inflection in her voice constantly.
I let my eyes drift over to where Aya has been sucked into conversation with some teacher I haven’t met yet. Interestingly enough, he’s actually tolerating the woman’s cheerful enthusiasm for whatever she’s ranting about.
I make a mental note to meet this woman, Aya usually can’t abide cheer. He finds it insipid. Hence the intense revilement of the girls that flocked to the Koneko.
“It’s appreciation of the beautiful, Tsujii-sensei, a skill that serves well to illuminate the details of the written word or the nuances of historical culture-” I slip another glance at Aya “-or-”
I pause.
“What is it that you teach Tsujii-sensei?”
“Biology.”
Ah. A science type. No wonder she’s so damned uptight.
“Well, then you should be able to understand the value of art most of all.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Why?”
“In science you must be able to comprehend the relation of the smallest component to the whole, correct?”
She says nothing, a frustrated look entering her eye.
“If you don’t believe me, maybe you should experience it yourself.”
“I can’t draw.”
Inexplicably, I feel like laughing at her.
“You don’t have to. How would you like to model for my class this afternoon?”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all, I think my students would benefit from such a fascinating subject.”
I may be laying it on a bit thick even for me, but it seems to work. She shrugs.
“Why not? It will give me a chance to see your incompetence in action.”
What a royal bitch. Smug, unflinchingly condescending and self-reproachful in the same breath. How fun.
I see Aya walk out of the lounge.
“Alright, then, Tsujii-sensei. I look forward to it.”
Not bothering to hear her response, I turn and leave, vaguely dreading the afternoon class.
Fucking Kritiker, I’m tired of getting information from people. Now computers, those are the things to get data from. Never fucking lie.
“He really thinks he’s tricking me.”
Simple black and white, text on a blinking screen.
I push it quickly out of my head and into the hall, unable to repress the nagging feeling of dread as I do.
__________________

“So who’s the chick?”
He smirks as he falls into step beside me.
“Asami-sensei. She teaches literature.”
“Like her?”
I roll my eyes, faintly recoiling at the thought.
“I respect her. She’s an excellent teacher and devoted to her work.”
Vaguely, I remember that’s what Yohji said about that Dirne bitch and file the observation away for later.
“Ah…” He draws out an exaggerated sigh, “So no plans in that direction then?”
Glancing about to make sure the hallways was empty, I elbow him in the ribs, hard enough to make him cough and bend over, clutching at his side.
“Fuck, Aya. What was that for?”
I shrug, walking ahead of him.
“You are such a fucking prick.”
“I know.”
He catches up to me, muttering vaguely as he rubs at his side.
“That hurt, damn it. What the hell is your problem?”
His voice is hard, cold, a strange tight sound vibrating with anger.
Confused, I just keep walking. May as well, class is due to start in ten minutes and my room is only ten feet away.
Suddenly his hand is gripping my shoulder, his fingers digging hard into my skin. Wordlessly, he spins me around. His face is cold, a tense angry look in his eyes.
“Why the fuck did you do that?”
His voice is flat.
I don’t understand the anger in his eyes, the mad shaking of his arms, the rigid set of his mouth. He knew there was nothing malicious in that, just a game, a game we’ve always played. I didn’t even hit him that hard.
Something in his eyes seems to have snapped.
“Yohji-”
He just stares at me, his hands clenching tighter on my arms.
“Yohji, what’s wrong?”
A weak half assed attempt at a response. I can’t think of anything else to say.
His eyes narrow.
“I am just so sick of……damn it, why are things always the same?”
So we don’t have to wonder out loud, so we don’t have to risk anything. By creating thousands of meaningless rituals we’ve made for ourselves a reprieve from communication, a void of interaction to mask the shit we wallow in so readily.
I respond honestly, my shoulders starting to ache under his hands.
“I don’t know.”
It’s half a truth. I don’t know why we don’t break out of it when we both realize what we’re doing, when we’re both aware that it’s no longer a relief.
His lips are crushing, teeth and tongue pressing onto my mouth still gripping speech. He scrapes along my lips, tearing the flesh with rapid pressure. Blood slicks the play of our skin, I lean back and hit the wall, his arms sliding down to run down my spine, settling in a firm, almost painful grip on my ass. I kiss him back, releasing my confusion in the fury of this wordless desperation, this reminder that we are here, both of us, and neither will let the other forget.
I let him pull away after what feels like exhausted hours. My throat is raw, sore from everything we did not say, and are glad not to.
He smiles as he turns to leave, a soft near-apologetic look in his eye. As I watch him walk away, I feel a tap on my shoulder and whip around glaring to see Sena standing at the door of the classroom, a shocked look on his face.
Fuck.
Silently, I guide him into the classroom
“What are the two of you doing?”
I think I am mostly successful at keeping the smile off my face. He acts as if we didn’t all spend the last couple of days in the shadow of Ken’s irrational anger.
Because Sena, effectively compromised his position and got a team mate killed in the pursuit of his own vendetta.
And here is where Yohji would joke that even I never managed that.
Because I, if it’s not glaringly clear, am psychotic.
Hilarious.
Instead of repeating this personalized equivalent of asinine bar humor to Sena, I stare at him.
Brilliant.
Is it really that fucking impossible for me to pay attention?
“And, Aya, just….why?”
If I’m being lectured by the member of Weiss who is currently thinking incoherently, illogically, and is being extensively manipulated by people he trusts and admires, it would appear so.
My hands involuntarily clench.
Sena is continuing over me, beyond the range of my hearing at this moment, in a soft rational voice. Like he’s calmly attempting to rationalize what he saw.
“What were you thinking? You could have been compromised, just like that, both of you! And then where would we be?”
I’m fairly certain we’ve all already been compromised. One thing Persia forgot that Omi wouldn’t have: Esset will keep track of the people that destroyed Weinrow. They know who they are, and what they look like.
Frankly, I’m shocked Yohji wasn’t recognized as a member of the team that brought down their Elders. I suppose we don’t really have a way to know if he was or not.
“And we all need you here, here Aya, at our backs………not distracted.”
He spits the last word out like its filthy.
“Can’t we count on you for that?”
Guilt rises hot and sharp and immediate in my chest. I haven’t been familiar with this variety of feeling in a long time.
I feel sick, nodding to avoid opening my mouth and spilling the bile rising up my throat. “Distracted”. That doesn’t even fucking cover it.
I’m not even technically on the mission anymore, following Sena around for the sake of Takatori Mamoru’s schemes, once more mitigating the good of Weiss for what I want for my sister, and through it all, I’m hardly paying attention.
No. Instead of taking half a moment to find out any details of Aya’s life, whether she’d want the Koneko or to return to Tokyo anyways, I hand her a security straight from the open mouths of my teammates.
To save myself, I’ve destroyed any chance I’ve had of a reunion, that one pale glistening hope that kept me awake through all the nightmares, somehow cleaner, less self aware through all the nights spent dowsed in blood.
What the hell has it gotten me?
Sick, that I can be so easily skirted into that most horrifying and empty variety of tragedy: the man who is ruined by his pride.
It’s worse to realize the origin of this curse as something avoidable, something in-born.
I can’t blame Takatori’s headlights, or Aya’s innocence, or Yohji’s misery for any of it.
Just myself, alone and cold in the reaches of my agony as its proven increasingly worse through self-awareness.
Without revenge, I have time to think of something besides scenarios, words, plans. Always plans that wound up fruitlessly and angrily rejected due to their impossibility or inanity, or fuck, reasoning that I can’t even understand, much less justify.
Like just a few minutes ago.
I feel my response to Sena rather than hear it, an automatic outpouring of words, of blithe and inevitably vacant reassurance.
It is dually empty because I am doing to him exactly what I hated most when done to me. I am doing, without even the honest benefit of disclosure that he employed, exactly what Botan did to me. Except without patience, or any other motivation besides my own goddamned selfishness.
After spending so long blacking my hands for others, you’d somehow think it’d be easier to realize your curse is of your own making.
Of your own preference.
Swallowing another resurgence of vomit, I force myself to turn to the board, start outlining the day’s lesson, and greet the rapidly arriving students with my back.
And all amidst this toxic air.
_______________________

What the hell is wrong with me?
The warm smell of paints and turpentine is reassuring in the empty art room.
For one brief second with my fingers digging into his arms, something inexplicable passed through his eyes. Almost fear, but something stranger, nameless.
A few weeks ago I could have just laughed that off or forced a scowl before grabbing his wrist and pulling him close to me.
A few weeks ago, joking still came naturally.
I jerk up at a light knock on the door, expecting it to be somehow him.
I’m not sure if that’s excitement or apprehension twisting in my chest.
Instead, Tsujii-sensei pokes her head through the door.
Oh right. That stupidity.
“I’m sorry, am I a bit early?”
I shrug
“It’s fine. Please, sit down.”
I gesture her over to a stool in the center of the room.
“Just sit still, I won’t have you- or them- doing any complicated poses today. I don’t think either of you are ready.”
She smirks at that and sits down, folding her hands in her lap and saying nothing. Her indifference is so plain, I find myself staring at her, trying to find what she is looking at, if not me.
I follow the rough trail of her gaze out the window, settling on a group of trees in the distance.
After what feels like an eternity, the students file in, rushing over to stools, tables piles with pencils and drawing pads. Quite a few of them look confused, shooting strange looks over at Tsujii. A short dark haired girl lifts her hand in the air.
“Kudou-sensei, why is Tsujii-sensei here?”
I grin.
“We will be drawing her today.”
Looking no less confused, the student sits down.
Well, time to give this teaching thing a shot, eh? I probably can’t blow through it like I did Friday…..pretending it took an hour for the students to tell me their names.
Teaching art can’t be that hard, right? Just throw some charcoal at them and tell them to draw.
It’s freedom of expression.
That, and I have no clue of how to teach technique.
Look. Shadows. Draw them. Use perspective. Don’t color outside the damned lines, draw them.
That’ll hardly take up an hour.
In the end, I just bluff.
“Alright, so today we’ll be drawing Tsujii-sensei, who was kind enough to act as a model today.”
They stare up at me blankly.
“So, just pick up some charcoal and go for it. Don’t worry if it looks wrong, that’s not important. Just try and draw what you see.”
After a few moments most of them start to draw, randomly stabbing lines across the paper. I wonder how many of their classes give them this much freedom to move. Wandering through the aisles of students, I notice most of them are drawing something akin to stick figures.
Cool.
Tsujii-sensei beckons me over, whispering with a faint scowl on her face
“You should be more responsible, Kudou-sensei.”
“Hm?”
Responsible? Well, fuck.
“How are they supposed to learn this way?”
I laugh, as if they’d even be allowed to really use artistic skills where most of them will end up. Politics and business don’t seem to lend themselves to creativity so much as ruthlessness.
“Not to worry. You beauty is a good subject to teach.”
Her shock is very entertaining. She shifts on the stool, her face slowly flushing red with embarrassment. Finally, she jumps up, exasperated, admonishing.
“Kudou-sensei!”
“Hey now, models aren’t supposed to move.”
Scowling, she lowers herself back onto the stool, refusing to look at me. I resume wandering around the class, glancing over students shoulders and making random sounds of praise when it seems necessary or applicable.
Every so often, I can catch her staring at me.
I wonder how much she’d even know.
Suddenly, the thought of the mission seems stale, strange. Wrong somehow.
I wonder if she’d let me draw her, these student attempts are just……..horrible. I think I could capture her right.
Involuntarily, I pause.
Draw her?
Maybe I could question her while doing it.
My vision clouds over as I stare out the window, receding into a haze of merging colors.
Aya’s hand pressed into my shoulder.
“Did you draw these?”
Sheaves of rough paper, the best kind, thick and smooth and white with fraying edges from bad storage. On the top pages are sketches, the lines thick and dark. There’s a sort of confidence in their execution.
A vase of flowers shoots up, a spray of lilies done in smearing charcoal, a delicate hand marked out in thin lines, a faintly smiling face carved out in shadows.
I shrug, wondering how he found them.
“Yes.”
His smile mirrors the one on the page.
“I like them.”
He spreads them out over the bed and watches them for a long time. He’s never let me draw him like these kids are drawing Tsujii. He can’t sit still for it. He keeps wanting to get up and look and watch me drag the stick over the paper.
The thought brings a smile to my face as the class ends, the students rushing out in a quick exodus.
Tsujii’s voice rings through the empty room.
“Do you have another class?”
“One. Why?”
I turn around, she’s still balanced on the stool, grinning back at me.
“I almost enjoyed that.”
“Almost? Sorry to disappoint. We can try again if you like.”
She inclines her head.
“That would be nice. How long?”
“They should be in in an hour, if you can.”
She stands up, moving over towards the door in long smooth steps.
“I can.”
I catch myself staring after her as the door closes, my hands flying up to knot in my hair.
Shit.
________________________

When the door closes, I turn away from the chalkboard.
“Aya-kun.”
I sigh, letting the chalk drop back into its tray. Sena gets up from his desk and walks over to me, a strange look on his face.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have-”
“No. You’re right, we have to be more careful. All of us.”
I send him a pointed look. As if we can pretend neither of us know what he’s going to do, what I have done and am already immersed in again.
You only need one motive, the rest falls together instantly.
One name, one face, one sound ripped out from our hearts. And then, nothing.
My voice comes again, slowly, somehow unwavering, confident.
“I will do what I have to do. I trust that you will do the same.”
I am such a hypocrite.
He nods. He has no idea that I’m supposed to track him for the rest of this; half the reason I’m ‘inactive’ for the official mission.
Really, I’m supposed to do everything.
His face lights up slowly. I don’t understand how he can maintain such a youthful look with what he’s looking for.
He’ll find exactly what he dreads, I could almost promise that.
He pauses at the door.
“Aya?”
“Hm?”
His voice sounds strange, nervous.
“I know its not any of my business, but what were you thinking?”
Nothing at all Sena. It’s a good skill to learn.
“I don’t know. It won’t happen again.”
I reassure him so he can go and throw us straight into the danger we must be in, the risks that will expose us to the source of all this.
He nods, turning into the hall.
I know he has another class now. I can wait to follow him.
Rushing from the room, I walk blindly through halls, doors, up stairs, past bodies, until I am on the roof. Catching myself against the railing I stop to breathe.
Have I always been such a fool?
I don’t even have that naiveté of Sena’s to redeem me. My revenge was always characterized by rage, and bitterness. All I can measure in him is confusion, and a strange sort of hope I do not understand.
The door opens behind me, slamming as it closes.
“Hello, Fujimiya-sensei.”
Asami-sensei steps over to the railing, leaning next to me. Her eyes are focused on the campus below, littered with students between classes.
So many easy smiles. It’s strange to remember why we’re here.
“You know, I like coming up here too sometimes.”
She gestures down towards a cluster of students talking and laughing together.
“This must be how students really are, or should be anyways. It’s weird, I just remembered something.”
I envy how simple she is, with what lightness she can carry herself.
“From your high school days?”
She smiles, her face lighting up
“No. When I first came here as a new teacher. When I first came out to this area. It’s so far from the city you know? To me it seems so different. I had so many plans for my students, ‘we can do this, and cover that, do it this way’ and so on. But really, when I started, all I ended up doing was injecting them with the school’s doctrine. And then that incident occurred……since then, all the staff have changed.”
“Yes.”
Many of them seem to have woken up from something.
It’s strange, it’s been so long since I’ve had someone to just speak to, so free and easy without any expectation…….it’s peaceful, a welcome release.
“Actually, I was hoping you would become the head teacher of the first grade, Fujimiya-sensei”
“What? Me?”
Why me? I think I’ve spent more time ignoring the students than teaching them.
What time I had though, at the beginning when the preoccupations with the mission were less, was, well, it was indescribable.
“That time, the only person who ran out to protect Izumi-kun was you. I was thinking that what this academy needs is someone with your passion. But I doubt the headmaster would see things the way I do.”
I helped a team mate. It’s not the same as what she’s thinking. A pang of doubt shoots through me. Damned Weiss, it stains everything.
I pause, my thoughts stopping in a pointless rush.
The headmaster. She’s the one person we haven’t been able to monitor.
It is certain that she is involved at the height of this hell. If Germany can count for any good, it is our assurance of that.
“Asami-sensei, have you ever met the Headmistress?”
“Hm? No. Not really. To tell you the truth I have never seen her. I wouldn’t be able to try and convince someone I don’t know.”
Staring at her, I wonder if she’s telling the truth. Of all the teachers I’ve met at Koua, Asami’s the only one I’ve felt able to trust.
I wonder if she’s just a good front. Like Dirne.
I cut the thought off before it goes too far.
“It’s not just you Asami-sensei.”
“She’s just a really busy woman, and she’s almost never here at the Academy. At least, that’s what I heard from Tsujii-sensei.”
Tsujii. If Tsujii is tied in with the Headmistress that could mean she’s involved.
Asami glances at her watch, a shocked look coming over her face.
“Oh, wow, I have a class! We’ll have to finish this conversation later Fujimiya-sensei.”
I nod and she runs back into the building.
She seems too honest to be a part of this. But its not hard to fool someone, is it? Especially if you know who you’re fooling.
I’m still certain we have no real cover, that they already expect us, or know we’re here.
Beyond that, we cannot tell what they know.
A sharp pang hits me in the throat. Yohji.
I wonder if he’s found anything out about Tsujii.
I hope she hasn’t figured anything out about him.
Something below catches my eye. Sena walks out in the company of an older man.
I can’t quite hear what they’re saying, so I turn, rushing through the building silently until I’m poised outside, hiding myself behind a pillar as Sena rises from their bench and hurries away.
Letting him walk far enough ahead that he can’t see me, I follow his path through campus, pausing for a moment to talk with a student.
It might be better just to plant myself with him. Make myself seen, known. Let him see what is going on, like Botan did for me.
I have to pause on that name, taking a deep breath of air before I take another step.
Mamoru made it clear he is not to know. That we are to allow him to proceed as if we were blind.
I am just here to ensure he strikes far enough for us to enter.
At long last he stops at a hospital on the edge of town, a tall white building dotted with small dirty looking windows. I can’t see a single light from them.
In tandem, we walk up halls, through medicinal doors, standing in antiseptic elevators.
Finally he pauses outside a room and enters.
I glance in the open door.
It’s that girl of Todo’s. All huddled up and begging for death.
Sickening. That Fuhrer of hers, I do not pity him, nor her for her devotion.
I only hope she’ll get her wish, and that it won’t come at much more of a price than it has already.
I balance myself around the corner. I don’t need to hear. I don’t want to hear this girl begging.
Leaning back, the sickly clean smell of the hall infiltrates my nostrils, spiraling me back, stranger, younger.
I have waited in hospitals as one waits for food. Desperately, unable to leave before one has received one’s prize.
Her face pale, still, arms flooded with medical liquid, promising medicines, therapies that proved nothing, achieved nothing but my immersion in the night.
I’m glad that she’ll never see me.
Having watched her peace so long, I couldn’t bear any other expression of hers.
The last picture Birman gave me showed her tan, a lean slender figure in loose jeans, a white top flowing back in the wind, her hair shining in the sun and running free over her shoulders.
Caught off guard, her eyes sparkled with surprise, her smile twisted up in a quick smile.
It’s hard to imagine what she could possibly think. Do years asleep change you as much as those awake? Dreams change, dreams can cause great or terrible actions, can serve as the very basis for a mind.
By that logic, wouldn’t she be changed just that much more for it?
Folding my arms over my stomach I let myself sink down, out of sight, and into the vivid matter of my darkness.
_______________________

Tsujii lingers after the students file out, relieved to be done with the last class of the day. Silent, she walks through the aisles, fingering the edges of the sketches done of her.
Mildly curious, I follow her, smirking slightly at her plain disgust or outright confusion.
“I say, you can’t be a very good teacher Kudou-sensei.”
“Now why would you say that?”
She throws her hands up exasperated.
“Well look at these! This one’s a stick figure, and that one is irreparably smudged, I can’t make any shape out at all, and that one-- well that one I can’t even describe.”
She points at the one she means.
It’s a collection of smears and circles, strange bulbous limbs and quick abrupt angles.
This Tsujii is three hundred pounds, and seems to be missing a nose.
Laughing I shrug
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it a fair likeness.”
“But aren’t you supposed to teach them how to draw?”
“Not quite. Not everyone has talent, or inclination which in a way is more important than talent. What I mean to do is give them a chance and a reason to appreciate art and the beauty of the world around them. It’s a different way of thinking than that needed to digest facts or analyze trends or words or math, but nonetheless, it’s an important one. It lets you see the latent details, the hidden aspects of everything.”
Tsujii doesn’t say anything, instead staring back down at the scattered pages.
“May I draw you, Tsujii-sensei?”
She seems a little taken aback.
“Why?”
“These do not, I agree, effectively capture you. I’d like to see if I can.”
She shrugs.
“Alright.”
“Thank you. Please take the same pose as before.”
She sits, the light breaks over the crown of her head.
Taking up charcoals, I draw her silently for a long time, arcing my hands around her smooth neck, her narrow waist, her thick luxurious hair.
I’m wondering what I can ask her to get me out of here.
“So, I heard about your bravery.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks genuinely confused.
“During the last riots, you were trying to persuade the students to stop right?”
She shrugs
“Everybody thinks it was a joke.”
A murderous violent manhunt is a joke? For a moment I look forward to cutting the life from such people.
“Well, I don’t think I could have done it.”
“I’m not worthy of such admiration, really. Asami-sensei deserves the praise, she went out and confronted them.”
“You mean, you just stayed in the announcement room?”
Strange. I wonder why exactly she would do that.
“I’m really just a coward. Why do you ask?”
Shit. I don’t know. Because I’m a member of an assassin group determined to end whatever is behind this school, and oh yes, you are in some manner a suspect.
I don’t give her a real answer.
“Really? Your eyes!”
“What?”
I can’t make them out really. There’s something there I want to capture, some brightness.
“Could you take off your glasses for a moment?”
She pulls them off carefully, resting the frames in her lap.
Revealed, unobscured, they are long fine almonds, catlike eyes gleaming a pale purple in the sun.
The resemblance strikes me before I can try to ignore it.
“Those eyes……..they are so similar”
“To whose?”
I smile slowly, recalling the deep heavy weight of Aya’s eyes earlier in the hall, and earlier still, in what seems to be every moment I can recall. There, a haunting impetus and reproach, a glacial rise swept with strange passions.
“A beautiful acquaintance of mine.”
Hardly an acquaintance.
“A girlfriend?”
I can’t hold back the wide grin at that. I can picture him spitting at that, his clenched angry face at such a presumption. Aya has his pride.
“Not exactly.”
She gets a curious look in her eye, so similar to everyone’s.
Memories of Asuka’s wide gray eyes sweep over me, followed by a parade of other men, women, one night hits and victims, all people now faded past me, all culminating in the soft brown hue of Michelle‘s eyes upon awaking.
They say your victims will meet you at the mouth of the Acheron.
I’ll wait for hell to prove me that.
“I did have to say a painful goodbye to her.”
To everyone. It is the one thing I have learned to do well enough to repeat again and again.
“Really…….”
She tries sympathy, instead coming out incredulous. It’s almost funny.
“Tsujii-sensei, you look better without glasses.”
I want nothing more than to draw her away from this subject, this grief she can’t touch and would not understand.
Perversely, I almost want her to.
“Because my eyes are like that beautiful woman’s?”
Of course she hits at it again. I stare fixedly at her to ignore the rest clamoring behind my eyes.
I spill out empty words, blank phrases intended to captivate. I may as well be dictating an order for an arrangement in the shop.