FicWad

Everything is clearer at 8,000 feet. Or seems like it should be.
The sea swirls thousands of feet below the wings of the plane. Leaning against the window, I watch the shadow of the airplane as it’s swallowed and spat out again by the waves.
The window is cold on my cheek, damp with the fog of my breath.
Damned Ken decided we had to have the little air conditioner knobs opened to full blast, shooting an endless stream of glacial air right into my face.
And Ken ken, of course, is curled up against the armrest, snoring away, his hair ruffled by the cold jets of air blowing over his neck.
How peaceful. I’m fighting the urge to drop his tray table on him.
Turning from the window, I rub my hand against my cheek, trying to force some warmth back into the skin.
According to the pilot we’ll be landing in Moscow in three hours. Then, its just another two to Berlin, followed by an hour and a half drive to our hotel in the little Stadt where Weinrow is located. Fun.
It’s been forty-five minutes since we boarded and already I’ve run out of things to distract me.
What’s left?
I could harass the stewardess again.
She glares at me from the cabin as I lift my hand to hit the button.
It’s an icy look just daring me to see what happens if I disturb her again to ask about the weather in Russia or try and get an explanation of the benefits of Coke over Pepsi, the latter of which this airline doesn‘t happen to carry.
I let my hand drop, curling it up nicely out of sight in my lap.
She continues to glare at me as the plane rushes forward, the shadow soaring over the white waves. From this altitude, it seems as if the world is a long pale swath of light, a thin mire of fog wrapped around everything. It seems like anything could come out of it, anything at all. Up here, time doesn’t truly exist to stop anything.
Makes me think of some old creation myths I heard once. Of the world being a dark empty sea cradling an egg, and in that egg was the gods who would eventually come out and give it color.
I forget how they did that.
Looking down, it seems like the plane may as well be tumbled around by those waves; those furiously chaotic white arcs of water cast about in all directions. Staring into them, one may as well be alone, stranded somehow from everything.
If I look really hard, I can still see the gray outline of Honshu in the distance, and the dark clouds of smog rolling out from Tokyo Bay.
I wonder if Aya’s found the note yet.
The thought creeps up on me, shocking me with an anxious expectant feel.
I fiddle with my seatbelt, when’s this damn thing going to land?
I really don’t want to think about this.
It’s too cold, and I’m exhausted and there’s nothing to do for three hours except think about this, or sleep.
And damned if my hands aren’t shaking with adrenaline left over from a night spent without it. I’m running on about twelve hours worth of caffeine and a headache.
I stayed up waiting for him to barge in, ripping the door open and dragging me back to the apartment. I even stood out for a few hours under the motel’s awning; chain smoking under the flickering neon lights spelling out “Airport Motel” (real imaginative name there) and leaning against the cheap plastocene railing that blocked off the entrance, just waiting for him to make his appearance, dark eyed and with a cold sorrowful look on his face as he tries to scowl at me.
That look is as close to an apology as I’ve gotten from him.
He never came though, which hit me in a wave of cold shock at five this morning, when Ken handed me my ticket and threw me in the cab with him to the airport.
Maybe he fell asleep before he could find the note. Maybe he just didn’t bother to go home last night.
Maybe he just thought it wasn’t worth it to come looking for me.
I shouldn’t have expected it, not after what I said. I wouldn’t come after me either.
I guess I’m just so tired of watching him leave I had to do it myself. Pull away before I could watch him recede again, fading away from me.
They say you should rip these things off like a band-aid. Quickly, to minimize the pain and the amount of skin ripped off with it.
I feel as if all I accomplished was tearing a chunk out of my arm, sitting here forced to swallow my own ploy.
“I need time to think things over.”
So think Kudou.
I just wish he was here so I could make him believe that I’m sorry.
Fuck. Unconsciously my hand flies up to my head, looking for hair to bury itself in. It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?
I don’t understand why the hair bothered him so much.
Could he somehow read my intent in the way I shrugged off his question?
I only want to move forward, forget all this accumulated guilt festering in my mind, tainting everything I do with its recollection.
I’m not sure if he’d understand that. He stopped believing in moving forward as far as I can see, everything traces itself back to his all consuming crimes, his self-imposed damnation.
I’m not any better now. So much for saving anyone. Digging my fingers into my temples I suppress a sigh. I’m sick of this damned mission already.
All we’re going to do is clear a place for some new bastards to slide themselves in. Everything seems to perpetuate itself no matter how many people we kill, or how much of ourselves we sacrifice to that.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, na?
I choke back a sick laugh as the thought suddenly presents itself: I meant exactly what I said to him.
I’ve never seen anyone who wanted escape so badly and refused it. Aya seems to cling to the idea of an end, somehow. As far as I can tell he lets all of them pass him by, every mistake he could make, every blow he could forget to block, every time Rex brings him news about his sister.
Every time he hesitates, stunned like a deer in headlights, his eyes broken open with a dense and strangely childish confusion that spills down his pale face, causing his posture to loosen, his eyes to go wide. His mouth to gape open with mute curiosity.
And then he tenses, snapping his gaze back into its cold iron focus, its icy veneer settling purple over his face that transforms back, hardening into a grim line as he looks away, bringing his sword down harder than before, forcing his answer out with a harsher voice.
He believes in every chance he gets for an instant, a split second of amazed hope before it shatters.
He never lets anything change, or maybe he’s just too familiar with having things wrenched away from him.
He’s let it clarify itself from him in miserable philosophies, abstractions and principles to shape his guilt around.
I plunge blindly, headlong, into every chance thrown at me, no matter how impossible.
Neu’s thin quiet smile flashes over my vision, my hands clench, knotting themselves in the loose folds of my jeans.
And I accused him of never changing. It’s not enough to go blindly forward, life still drags you on as it wants, relentlessly, laughing at the dirt and blood clinging to you from the places it pulls you through. It doesn’t matter if it’s too much, if the pain or misery or joy is unbearable, overwhelming. It will not stop to let you rest. It will not release you, smiling back gleefully to see you bear its scars.
Its damned near laughable, the ways I can tie my guilt to everyone and everything but myself.
Whether or not I admit it, I know the truth. it’s the truth Aya knows and accepts with every core of his being.
Hope is empty. We are cursed beyond redemption.
I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe anything.
Everything I do is to distract myself from that inevitable realization. There’s no point in reflecting on all my stupid addictions, my feeble attempts to free myself through debasement.
It’s a wonder Aya wanted me at all, I don’t even have my dignity, avoiding life by such clumsy means.
Aya…..he is only capable of an impulsive cruelty, seeming to prefer to turn whatever sadistic urges he has on our targets, or himself.
Watching him walk away from a kill, he really does seem untouchable. Spotless, except for the red smears on his katana, his face molded into a perfect mask of fury, regret seeping in at the eyes, ruining the picture.
Aya is perfect only because he’s so broken. I don’t know if he’d be so beautiful if he’d been able to retain his innocence, as he’d put it.
I think there’s still a lingering naivety about him, in his very determination to accept guilt, to torture himself with poetic and tragic threads of damnation.
His innocence is present in the honesty with which he convinces himself of all this, and replays every haunting moment, lying them all out in front of his feet as he walks.
Maybe he thinks someone so ruined by the sight of his parents’ bodies, his home and childhood incinerating; forced suddenly to protect, to endure, deserves no quarter for innocence.
Despite what he might call himself, or I have; I cringe at the memory of his wavering eyes yesterday, face lit up miserable and dejected in the storage room, the sun streaming in thin lines from the window to spread over his face, despite any of that shit, he remains somehow pure, somehow unaffected by this. Maybe its because of the way he’s forced himself to endure it. Maybe its because of the unspeakable pride which he holds onto.
I can’t even begin to know how to interpret it, to what power of Aya’s will to ascribe it.
It is indescribable, the way in which he is pure, the lethal sorrow that surrounds him. It is his very sin, the fact that he’s so drenched in blood that keeps him innocent in my eyes. Maybe its that innocence that curses him, that still arrogant innocence rendered from blood.
I close my eyes. I can’t believe what I accused him of, called him. Unfeeling. Cold. No matter how he hides everything else, his care for his sister is tangible, a caveat on every thought he has, or at least so it appears.
Now, thinking back at every anguished and misidentified scream of his during missions, the impenetrable glare, the constant insistence on solitude, that no one comes close enough to make him feel, I can watch the rage dissipating into a bitterness that cuts to the bone, leaving him always raw, always torn open.
I doubt he’s even considered healing himself.
He would say there’s nothing romantic in what he is, in his mind that appears so controlled.
I’ve seen him slip in dreams, shaking and moaning in his sleep, reliving some pain I’m not a part of. When he wakes me with his thrashing about I sit up and watch him, wondering at a pain I don’t dare to interrupt.
Helpless, that’s how he leaves me.
Now is the cue for me to admit how much he terrifies me. That I’m afraid to watch him tear himself apart if he stays and afraid to let him leave me.
That would involve admitting that I’m afraid of seeing myself reflected in him. Admitting that my nightmares, my own personal agonies, were not quite a temporary thing.
I jerk back to complete consciousness as the plane hits some turbulence, smirking as Ken sleeps through his head lifting up and slamming back into the armrest.
Leaning back, I try and focus on the sound of the engines, a low rumbling noise that dissolves into hissing as we cut through the air.
“I love you……Masafumi”
Her low hissing voice, released in a single statement, her mouth going slack as I pulled tighter, trying to stop them from coming.
Her body flailing over mine, clawing at the wire, beating into me. And then…..a heavy immobile weight, limp and sagging down on me.
I laid her out on the ground, oblivious to the fight still going on around me, the shouts of triumph, of pain and rage as Weiss and what was left of Schreient tore into each other. Brushing the tips of my fingers up her cheek, I lifted her visor off of her, taking in her still empty eyes, already glazing over with death, her body stiffening.
Pulling my hand over them, I shut her eyes, my voice coming out in a rough whisper as I knelt over her.
“Goodnight……Asuka.”
I couldn’t bring myself to form the other name.
I said the goodbye I’d never hoped for.
It didn’t save me anything having said it.
“I hate you.” Another hissing voice, strange, dripping with contempt from a bowed head. I pull tighter and it collapses.
Welcome to Weiss, Aya.
You didn’t just force yourself here, I gave you the final shove in this direction, cementing your fate with my clumsy hands.
“You’re so pathetic, not at all like-”
The hiss regains its feminine lilt. I close my eyes against it, pretending my eyes are enough of a barrier against the thought.
“..my Masafumi.”
The stewardess is tapping my shoulder before I realize my hand has hit the button, pounding into it again and again to produce a ringing noise loud and repetitive enough to wake Ken up and, it seems, worry the stewardess.
“Sir, are you alright? What can I get you? Do you need water? Sir? Sir?”
Ken gestures for her to lean over and he whispers to her, giving her some explanation that has her retreating to the cabin again, staring at me curiously.
He frowns at me and puts his head back down, leaving me alone again.
Sick of thinking I fumble inside my jacket for the book Aya gave me. Finding the copy of Shakespeare, I run my hand reverently down its spine, reluctant to open it.
Flipping through the soft, worn pages I come across the beginning of Macbeth, figuring I may as well learn the context for that speech I’d read earlier in the two and a half hours left between us and our waiting plane to Germany.
I pause before the first line, smiling at the sudden lines that decorate the page, words and phrases Aya circled in blue ink, his indecipherable notes sprawling over the corners, giving a life to the margin with his thin, wiry writing.
It’ll be alright when I get back. I can explain, I’m sure. This is just another rupture that we’ll have to heal.
A faint spark of hope rises in my chest, sticking in a lump in my throat, for the first time in days.
This would be alright.
Smiling at the recalled image of Aya sprawled out sleeping, everything open, his face smooth and young and peaceful in the grip of an unconscious smile, I lower myself back into my seat, setting the book open on my lap, and let myself drift off, his face a welcome relief in my mind.
________________________


I clench my eyes against the finger poking me, swatting aimlessly towards it.
“Go ‘way”
My voice is muffled, thick and drowsy. The finger continues to dig between my ribs in a repetitive bruising motion.
“God, Yohji, just get up. You’re fucking insane if you think I’m dragging your sleeping ass up to the room.”
Room? Slowly I open my eyes, wincing a little in the bright sunlight. Ken is grinning at me from the driver’s seat of our rented Volkswagen.
“Come on, you can sleep once we check in.”
Looking around blearily, the hotel seems to be a rambling rustic looking brick building lined with crowded shops and narrow cobblestone streets. Grumbling underneath my breath I pull myself out of the car, staring up at an almost viciously blue sky.
Who thought Germany would be so damned sunny?
I glance down at my watch. By some strange machination of time its only 8:00 am.
Fucking time zones.
All around me the street is littered with annoyingly cheerful looking people, many with Styrofoam-insulated cups of coffee.
Suppressing the urge to knock into one of them and hopefully burn them with coffee hot enough to require a cup like that, I slump over to the trunk and pull out my bags.
On Ken’s direction we walk across the street into the sprawling hotel, shove credit cards at the woman behind the desk, obtain keys and trudge upstairs, hauling our heavy bags.
Bursting into the room, I rip off my jacket and collapse on the bed, taking in with delight the soft mattress and lack of glacial air conditioners positioned over my head.
Ken shrugs his bag off and sets a key down on my nightstand.
“Hey, I’m gonna go out and find something to eat, alright Yohji? And I’m going to wake you up around noon so we can go over mission info, so don’t bitch or act surprised when I do.”
The door clicks shut as Ken goes, leaving me surrounded by blissful, wonderful silence.
Absently, I pull my clothes off and sink beneath the covers, feeling exhaustion spread over me quickly.
For once, I am too tired to dream.
______________________

“Yohji, where’s your mission packet?”
Ken looks incredibly annoyed, hell that look on his face might even give Aya a run for his money.
I shrug, speaking through a mouthful of the pizza Ken brought back to the room.
“Check my bag.”
Ken nods and unzips it, snorting at the sight of nearly every garment I own shoved into the suitcase.
“You know Yohji, they sell clothing here in Germany too.”
I shrug again, not really in the mood for mindless chatter, and focus on eating, smirking slightly at Ken cursing as he tosses all my clothes out onto the floor.
“Did you even pack the thing?”
Yes, as it turns out, I did. It’s just at the very bottom, down below all my clothes and toothbrush and razor, which Ken almost manages to cut himself on.
Finding it, Ken shoves my clothes back into the bag, ignoring my glare.
“All right, now we can get to work.”
“Yes, mien Fuhrer.”
“Cute, Yohji. So do you have any ideas for how you’re going to go about even meeting this woman?”
I shake my head, ignoring any serious contemplation of the question in favor of snagging another piece of pizza.
“Alright,” Ken sighs, asking with an almost insultingly unsurprised voice, “Did you even read the packet?”
“I looked at the picture.”
“Of course you did.”
He frowns at me as he tears it open.
“To my credit, I thought we weren’t coming out here for another week. I thought I had plenty of time to prepare.”
“Then why did you tell me we had to come here sooner?”
Brilliant Kudou.
“I thought we could…..use time to get more…familiar with the territory.”
Ken rolls his eyes. He knows just as well as I do why we left this morning.
“Alright, so what’s in it?”
Ken dumps the packet out on the bed, revealing a full biography of this woman, more pictures, and a list of places she frequents.
For once, Kritiker’s done the grunt work for us.
“I think we should work on this first Yohji. If we’re lucky, we’ll get what we need through her and faster than I could posing as a student.”
He’s probably right, I pick up the bio, to which is paper clipped another photo of her, again in a business suit and unsmiling. Without her smile she looks older, cold, with something severe about her bearing. She holds herself almost ridiculously upright. Can’t imagine she’d be too flexible after standing like that all day.
Michelle Dirne, 23 years old, brown hair, brown eyes. Looks a little too young to be a headmaster. Her biography outlines only the most key events of her life.
There is almost no information until she’s fourteen, when her parents sent her to the newly opened Weinrow High School as a boarding student.
Apparently she hasn’t spoken to them since, nor do they appear to have any interest in contacting her.
The rest details a long list of academic accomplishments. High marks, science awards, member of an unspecified honors class.
All in all pretty cut and dry. She’s only been headmaster for a little more than a year, before which she was an administrative officer at the school. Apparently, she’s never left this area since she arrived here nine years ago.
A little strange, but again, easily explainable. I bet Weinrow pays well, especially if they really are connected to Esset.
Having exhausted the relatively unhelpful biography, I pick up the list of places.
“I could start with these.”
Ken nods
“That’s probably a good idea. If she doesn’t associate you with the school then she’s probably less likely to think something of your questions.”
I glance down them, most of them are again pretty normal. A gym, an apartment complex where she must live, a few coffeehouses, some restaurants, some botanical gardens in the next town over.
There are tally marks by each entry to indicate how frequently she goes there.
After the apartment complex, she seems to favor a specific coffeehouse, named something in unpronounceable German, that I would guess is close to the school.
Alright, guess that’s where I’m headed tomorrow, and while I’m too particularly pleased at the idea of skulking around waiting to run into this woman, at least it’ll take my mind off things.
I circle the place I figure I should try first.
“I’m going to start there, tomorrow, and then rotate through the rest of them until I meet her.”
Ken nods,
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“So are we done for now?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna look through some of my stuff and then unpack.”
Piling the life story of Michelle Dirne on the nightstand, I feel around the floor for my jacket, grinning and pulling the book out when I find it bunched up on the side of the bed.
Settling back into the pillows, I open it, again, to the first page of Macbeth, and start on some more interesting reading.
_______________

After four days of fruitless observation, I have come to the conclusion that our Ms. Dirne has either started producing caffeine glandularly or has switched to Nescafe.
We only have another three days until Ken starts his cover, and I’d hoped we’d be off the ground with this before then. Hell, at least Kritiker’s paying for all the coffee.
Sighing, I throw myself down on the bed. It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. Which of course, only extends our time here.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Leaning back, I try to throw off some of the feeling of apprehension I’ve had all day, a sort of inexplicable churning in my stomach.
Maybe it’s the built up tension from blanking my mind all day to avoid thinking of anything in particular. Maybe, and better, it’s just the food.
I look at the clock, only three-thirty.
I should probably go out and get some dinner, maybe hit one of the restaurants on the list.
After spending all day surrounded by stranger’s incomprehensible conversation and downing lackluster café food, that’s less than appetizing.
Way I figure it, tracking this bitch down should be as easy tomorrow as it would be tonight. And by that logic, there’s no pressing reason for me to leave this hotel room for the next sixteen or seventeen hours at the least.
I glance at the door, I wonder when Ken will get back. Maybe I can convince him to go get me some take out or something.
I am sick beyond sick of pastries. And German food. And talk. And people. Damned people in small towns like this think they have to talk to everybody all of the time.
It doesn’t matter if they’ve never seen you before in their life, by simple virtue of the fact that you are trapped in the same middle of nowhere as they are you are automatically friends. I’ve never been so glad not to know a language. A few seconds of dumbfounded, uncomprehending stares and they leave me alone. Back to my thoughts.
I pull myself off the bed and pull the blinds closed, then going over to the laptop Ken brought to slide a c.d. in, blasting an incoherent stream of honestly terrible techno once it finally loads. Music facilitates mindlessness. Just focus on the lyrics and go blank with them. If I pretend not to see the German scrawled all over the little ‘do not disturb’ sign, I can almost pretend I’m back in Tokyo, except for the lack of a screeching continuum of traffic.
Bad club music kind of reminds me of home. I used to sing it in the shop all the time, just to mess with Aya. He’d get the most disgusted look on his face hearing it, wrinkling his nose up like he’d just inhaled one of my cigarettes by mistake.
I remember one time, I actually convinced him to try one. He held it kind of hesitantly between his thumb and forefinger, staring at it as if he wasn’t quite sure what the hell you were supposed to do with one of these things. After I lit it for him, he glanced around, furtive like, to make sure no one was watching us, then lifted it up to take in a long puff, swallowing heaps of smoke as he did.
Almost immediately, he started coughing, hacking wildly while he glared at me for even suggesting he try such a foul thing. Then he threw the stick at me and ran to the bathroom, turning a slight green as he puked into the toilet, apparently feeling that stomach acid was a preferable taste to tobacco. And he says I have no taste.
His hair, especially his eartails, smelled like smoke for the rest of the day, even though he washed it as soon as I stopped laughing.
Ah, Aya.
The loose smile drops off my face at the thought of him. My eyes close to try and block it off.
Aya.
I promised I would call after a few days. But even with hours upon hours stuck staking out coffee shops with nothing else to do really but compose an apology or even an explanation of some kind; I have no idea what I could say, what could possibly make this right.
It’s better when I can do this right in front of him. Aya’s never really been one to believe words. Words are easy to make sound sincere, its your eyes you can’t hide.
Aya told me once it’s the only sort of honesty he trusts, because you can’t hide it and you can’t control it. I have no idea what my eyes say ever, but I like to think Aya can see how much I really love him when he looks into them.
I never would have believed he reciprocated the feeling until I saw it in his eyes, the violet swelling and swirling around in a dark blaze, wide eyed with confusion.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, his eyes sparkling back at me so rich and colorful with love and desire and genuine care.
The other day I could still see it, even suffocated under all the ice and hurt and shock, all the rage at my words. I wonder if he could see the hell in my eyes.
I feel clearer now, lighter. I haven’t dreamt of Asuka since we got off the plane in Moscow.
It’s like my life has been interrupted, giving me a respite from myself, from the same mire of thoughts that run eternally through my head, boiling over as they accumulate. There’s no aching sense of familiarity here and since everything is strange, there’s very little to remind me of anything.
At night I just see the shock on his face as I throw him into the wall. The childish confusion as he takes in my insults and the ire as he understands them. The petulant vitriol on his voice.
“Go to hell, Yohji.”
My eternal preoccupation, and his it would seem.
And we’re supposed to be so pure.
I’m sorry Aya. I don’t know how to make you believe me.
And then his back receding, stiffly, his fists shaking as he leaves the shop and drives off, wheels screeching off into the Tokyo afternoon to god only knows where.
Sena’s called every night to speak to Ken and make sure nothing terrible has happened to us like our cover being blown (which considering we‘ve done nothing is unlikely) or you know, running out of toothpaste. Real drastic stuff like that. According to him, Aya got the note, barging back into the apartment only an hour after Ken and I left. He hasn’t said more than the absolute essentials to anyone since.
I’m like a fucking child. I can never just accept the fact that bringing up this particular thought is going to bring me pain, or upset someone else. No, I have to set my hand straight on the burner, find out for myself, that without any question, it was a bad idea.
You know, they say insanity is trying the same thing twice and expecting a different result each time.
I wish I knew what he was thinking. I’ve never quite been able to figure that out.
At the very least, I wish I could be there to let him yell at me or ignore me or storm off again. Whatever would let him burn this off, make him feel better.
Thinking back over what I said to him, it makes me sick. Without a thought, I managed to pick at every one of his doubts, every single accusation that he throws at himself and not only that, but by saying all of that, making it clear that he doesn’t hide his feelings as well as he’d like to think he does.
What’s the worst about it, is that I may have ripped apart every shred of trust he ever had in me, essentially showing him how wrong he was to have trusted me; how stupid it was to let someone so goddamned insensitive, so fucking and unequivocally self-centered behind your barriers.
God, I hope he doesn’t think that.
I don’t know what I’d do if he stopped trusting me. I doubt that’s something I could win back. At all. Ever.
Aya’s not fool enough to let himself be hurt twice, or take that sort of betrayal lightly.
I’m not going to pretend I can, or have the right to, understand him.
I slap myself across the forehead. Stupid!
I am such an ass. Aya does so much, endures so much that I could never hope to bear if it was me, and all without asking for help, without showing any weakness.
I just fuck up, one mistake after another, again and again until I’ve alienated everyone, fucking everyone over with my all-important grief.
I’m so goddamned pathetic.
I almost hate Aya, it would have been easier if I could have let myself slide deeper into bars and cunts and all manners of oblivion. If I didn’t care what happened to him, what he would think, if I let myself go like that.
He’s the only face worth remembering, the only beautiful thing coming through all the numbness and pain and flat regret that comes to me from every faint reminder, every woman with her haircut, every soft tinkling laugh, every time I glance at my watch or see a strand of wire, of flashing metal, of a spider web, cloth, whatever.
Sometimes I almost swear I hallucinate. I wonder if I get some sort of masochistic satisfaction out of letting it recur so constantly.
I let his face float into my mind, smiling softly with a rare smile, his eyes glowing. I really don’t want anything I have to worry about.
I don’t know why I put off the inevitable. I know I’m never going to come up with the right thing to say, the single verbal panacea for all of our problems.
Nothing I say is going to change his mind about any of this. All I can really hope to do is not upset him further, if he even listens to me.
But if what Sena says is right, and Aya’s withdrawing into himself again….
I’ve got to at least try to apologize.
And if he needs to hurt me when we get back to make things square in his eyes, then I’ll smile while he does it, and let it be the penance it should be.
Aya won’t hold back.
But if violence could purge any of our sins we’d be cleaner than Catholic schoolgirls, and truly Weiss.
Weiss is a misnomer, the most horribly unfit name. It is our guilt, our crimes, our innate darkness that allowed us to become Weiss at all.
I fumble around in my jacket for my pack of cigs, I’m going to need the nicotine after this, I’m sure.
As I dig again for my phone, the apprehension builds in my chest, making my search frantic as caffeine fueled adrenaline floods my system.
My heart pounds forcing my blood out quickly, into a loud roar in my ears, circling around the drums like the sound of the ocean in a shell as I step out onto our little balcony.
Ken will bitch later if I smoke in the room. I don’t know what’s crawled up his ass lately. I’m not really in the mood to deal with him.
The sun is still blinding when I get outside. I shove my sunglasses over the bridge of my nose, blocking out the worst of the light.
Pacing, I stick a cigarette between my lips, tonguing the end of the filter as I hunt for my lighter. There is nothing I can find in this jacket.
Having finally lit the damned thing, I take a long drag, closing my eyes as smoke floods my lungs, sending wave after wave of warm relaxation through my nerves.
Gripping it in my mouth I dial Aya’s number, my heart going into nervous convulsions with each registering beep of the phone.
It rings.
And rings.
Damn. What time is it at home anyways?
Frowning, I glance down at my watch. Only four here, so it can’t be later than ten or eleven in Tokyo. Can’t remember what the exact difference is.
At any rate, he should still be up.
I don’t want to be worried right now.
My heart leaps around my chest in a frenetic dance as I press the phone to my ear, as if the pressure is somehow going to make him answer.
The ringing stops, going to voicemail.
At the sound of the dead, automated voice I hang up. If I left a message, Aya probably wouldn’t even listen to it until after I got back anyways.
I can still here the shitty music I put on through the door.
Eh, Ken’ll be back in a couple hours, let him deal with it.
I don’t want to go inside. I’ve seen too much of walls.
Sinking down the brick wall, I spread my legs out in front of me. The sun is warm on my face, a slight breeze ruffles my hair, and the only sound in the air is the faint techno from the room and birds calling to each other.
You can’t get this in Tokyo, or really anywhere I’ve ever been.
Even at Villa Weiss, which is supposed to be a retreat of sorts, there’s always someone around you, some noise, whether its Ken watching T.V. or screaming at a soccer ball, or the phone ringing to announce the end of our vacation, or Omi trying to get us all together to talk or eat.
The kid always acted as if we were a real family instead of a random group of men thrown together for the utility of their skills.
Omi stripped of his innocence is not Omi.
“Call me Mamoru. That’s who I have to be now.”
That man’s cold blue eyes were nothing like Omi’s.
“Someday, I hope you’ll understand why I made this decision.”
Omi wanted to help everyone. You’ve just made things even worse then they were before, Persia.
He told us he couldn’t ignore his blood any longer. But what about the blood he shed with us?
Isn’t that somehow binding?
I think it should be a stronger bond because at some point in some way we can say no. We can refuse it.
Fuck you Takatori Mamoru. Fuck you and your shiny car, and your millions of dollars and political contacts and beautiful secretary you’ve trained to be perfectly devoted.
Fuck you and the way you made Aya doubt himself. Fuck you for the ways you say you would keep us safe.
Is this safe? We are assured a quick capture and re-induction to Weiss or some other team if we ever try to leave. Gone are the days we could have any sort of ethics, when we could refuse a mission.
We were better off before with Omi at our backs, before he drowned in the blank coldness of your stare.
And unlike Aya’s stare, this look is truly cold, truly devoid of anything at all.
Fuck you, Mamoru. Fuck you for betraying Aya again, for proving to him yet again that anyone you care about will hurt you in some way, whether they intend to or not.
Not that I’ve proved to be any better than you in that case.
I look at my watch. Five minutes have passed.
I stare at the phone, willing it to ring, that somehow Aya has his phone on, and hear him, and has decided to speak to me.
Or he could have watched it ring, remembered how pissed he probably is at me for upsetting him on top of everything I said, and the same old argument that I had “no right to make him care” and returned to whatever he’s reading at the moment.
It’s too late for that.
But with my limited focal powers, I grasp the phone tighter in my hand and visualize it ringing.
And visualize.
And it’s going to ring……now.
Now.
……….Now?
It’s not going to ring.
Shoving the phone back into a pocket, I lean my head back against the wall, and proceed to smoke every single cigarette left in my coat pockets.
____________________

It rings, the blandly obnoxious generic ringer shooting right through my psyche. I pry my eyes open, hand flying up to rub my sore neck.
Fuck, brick is not the best sleeping surface.
Blind, I dig through the coat, hunting for the small black plastic device making the horrible noise. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!
Ha, got you, you little bastard.
I press the damnable thing up to my ear, clicking the ‘answer’ button.
“….’ello?”
My voice comes out slurred.
“Yohji.”
The voice on the other end is quiet, a low whisper cutting across the night.
“Fuck Aya, what time is it?”
“Eight.”
“In the morning?”
I look around, the street is empty, and dark except for a few streetlights glimmering in the distance.
“Here.”
Oh. Great. I do some quick math in my head. That means it’s about one a.m. here.
Fucking Ken. Thanks for waking me up man. I roll my head around, trying to shift my neck back to its normal positioning. The bones crack in a mildly disturbing fashion as I rub at it.
That’s going to be sore tomorrow. Fantastic.
I can hear him breathing softly into the receiver. In the background, I can hear the faint sounds of traffic. True to form, he probably drove off somewhere private before calling me.
Granted, I should probably be shocked enough that he called in the first place.
I close my eyes again, sinking into the soft hazy feel of my barely awakened consciousness.
It’s so good to hear his voice. He sounds a little tired, his deep voice coming out raspy from apparent lack of use. I flinch remembering what Sena said on the phone.
“Were you sleeping?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
My voice comes out, husky and tired sounding, almost cracked. My throat is dry, burning and sore. No doubt from all the cigarettes.
Both of us are silent, each listening to the other’s breathing, waiting for them to say something, anything.
“How’s the reconnaissance going?”
His voice, when it starts again, is a bit of a shock.
“Alright. Ken doesn’t actually start at Weinrow until Monday.”
We’re both just dancing around the inevitable. I wonder who will break from the small talk and say something first.
He remains silent.
“How are things at the shop, Aya?”
I wonder if he can tell how forced that was. In my mind, my voice sounds hollow, fake, the question seems imbued with all the sincerity of a pathology.
His voice, if possible, becomes quieter. That doesn’t manage, however, to hide the impatient edge to his voice, the anxious strain on everything he says, as if its gritted through his teeth.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t done a shift since you left.”
Unbelievable, Aya’s missing days in the shop?
That can’t say anything good about what’s going through his head.
Sighing, I figure I may as well start. I wish I knew what to say to him, just an idea of what could possibly help the situation.
“So…..you found the note.”
I don’t even bother to ask. I know he did.
I am strangely awake, waiting for his response.
“I did.”
The phone goes silent again. I can’t even hear his breath.
Hesitant, I feel my mouth fall open a few times, trying to say something. Nothing comes. The tension, even across hundred upon hundreds of miles, is more than tangible.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
I can hear his eyes narrowing in his voice.
I want to say something, I may as well go with the truth.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I pause, waiting for my brain to supply something, anything, unsure of how he’ll respond to the only thing I have floating around in my skull.
“I’m sorry.”
The words come out softly, hesitantly, dropped carefully like two small glass figures I’m afraid will shatter on his ears.
It’s not as if Aya is noted for his forgiveness. I mean, he held a grudge against a man who I doubt wasn’t even aware of his existence for years, making him the focus of his thoughts, the impetus and reasoning behind every action until he finally obtained his revenge.
His face rushes into my mind in a flood of bright color, his eyes sad and coiled tight with something I could never name, or hope to, his mouth curved in a slight smile as he rubs my back, letting me cry in his lap even as he stiffens at the sound of the sobs, at the names repeated over and over, of the same hopeless apologies that would never reach the ears they were intended for.
“It’s alright Yohji.”
The words ring out in my mind, making the memory real, vivid. My face tilted up and tingling wet with tears as I look at him, my last refuge always.
I remember thinking then that I would be completely lost if he turned away from me again. The most hateful sight in the world is Aya’s back receding, falling away, his shoulders squared in forced, stubborn determination.
Over the phone, I can hear nothing but his breath catching slowly as he exhales, the only sign that he hasn’t hung up.
I wonder what he’s thinking. My mind flashes back to the storeroom, my fingers digging into his arms as I register the increasing whiteness of my knuckles, my teeth gritting together with unfocused rage as I slam him into the wall, fascinated with the movement almost as if I’m watching it from across the room as my body enacts its own will.
His eyes unfocused and swirling with confusion, his pale skin blanched, a curiously childlike look spread over it. As if he can’t understand that he’s being hurt, why someone is doing this to him.
The words hissed out of his mouth too quickly. Her name, her image, is like a punch in the stomach, leaving me breathless and horrified.
My fingers clench around the phone as I wait for him to respond. All I hear is the faint whistle of his breath again and again in a slow steady rhythm.
Silence like this feels as if it stretches on forever, almost as if you could forget to speak in its interim.
“Aya?”
Not yet however, the word drops from me unexpected.
“I’m still here.”
Nice to know.
“Well,…what are you thinking?”
He sighs, it’s a long exhaustive sound over the phone. I can almost feel him hesitate, see the halting motion of his lips.
“How nothing ever changes.”
Funny, that sounds familiar. I roll my head to the side, my ear faintly numb from having the phone pressed against it for so long.
“What do you mean?”
It’s almost funny how I never know what to say. In a few hours, after we’ve hung up, I’ll compose everything I should have said, now having all his responses.
For now, I can sound as shaken as I feel.
Aya’s voice has a desperate tinge to it, a disgusted feel to the words it forms.
“We always do this. I hurt you and you hurt me and someone apologizes and then, magically and without discussion everything is ‘alright’ again. The only difference I see here is that even if all goes to form, we won‘t be able to fall into bed afterwards.”
He pauses
“I’m tired of us tiptoeing around each other, not saying what we’re really thinking. We never resolve anything.”
He says it so simply.
“So then, what are you thinking?”
I wonder if I really sound that exasperated.
“Ignoring things won’t make them dissipate Yohji.”
He stops again, when he resumes talking his voice is heavier, thick with some unidentifiable emotion. Or maybe I’m afraid to identify it.
“Those things you said to me, how long had they been building Yohji?”
I close my eyes against the thought, an involuntary, near instinctual reaction.
“God, Aya, I don’t know. Awhile.”
I pause, taking my lip between my teeth.
“A long time.”
I can almost imagine him wincing. I sound resigned to it, a thought which is vaguely disgusting and I’m not sure why.
“What do you want me to say Aya? That I didn’t mean it?”
I sound incredulous. I wonder if this is what self-righteousness looks like.
“Nothing, I don’t want you to say anything.”
His voice is tight, careful not to betray anything. I wonder what he’s so afraid of.
I hear my voice before I realize that I’ve said anything.
“You know Aya, I don’t fucking understand you. You say you don’t want to ignore things anymore and then you just go and-”
“Maybe I just realize that you saying anything I wanted you to would be meaningless.”
He sounds like he’s being choked with something.
“You already said what you had to say to me.”
Fuck.
“Christ, Aya,” I never knew I could sound so desperate, ”I was upset. I don’t know why, you’re probably right and its because we never resolve anything. What’s the point of bringing up unpleasantness if you’re just going to die in a couple nights, na?”
I stop to listen, only resuming speech when I am sure I can hear him breathing.
“It’s just, you know, I watch you leave all the time, you’re always going ahead of me. Whether its storming out, or diving into a mission, or you’re just wrapped up in guilt and complexes and regret, and it’s like I’m completely shut out, completely cut out of your mind at moments like that. I’m afraid…..”
I trail off. It sounds so damned contrived.
“You’re afraid of what Yohji?”
His voice is impatient. I wonder what his face looks like.
Still, its hard to say anything.
“I’m afraid, one way or another that you’re going to disappear on me one day and I’ll be left alone again.”
A shot of downtown Tokyo flashes through my head in a grotesque display of neon and bared skin greased up with sweat and liquor.
“I don’t want to go back to that. It‘s just another blind alley.”
I have no idea if he understands what I mean.
At that moment I want nothing more than to force him to look at me and see what he really means to me. Pluck out his eyes and put them in my head so he can find out exactly what it is I think of him.
I imagine that I can tell in his breathing that he believes me, that its constant hitching indicates something other than misery.
I almost laugh when I realize my breath matches his. I inhale deeply to calm myself, my free hand rising to my temple to relive the building pressure.
“Aya, I know you probably can’t believe or trust anything I’m saying, all things considered, but-” My breath releases uncontrolled in a long shaky exhalation,” but I’m incredibly sorry. I never should have said any of that to you, or not like that or over something so stupid.”
I pause
“If you want I can explain the hair even.”
When I’m met with silence, I continue, letting my voice get louder.
“I just wanted to move forward. I know its ridiculous to think cutting your hair can change anything, but I wanted to mark it somehow. I thought-”
I swallow hard, steeling myself against memories
“I thought maybe if I could look in the mirror and see someone different, someone else who hadn’t watched her die” I can’t say her name, even so. Goes to show you how well my theory turned out. “ and who hadn’t done all the things I have, wasted all the time and all the life I have and had nothing left to salvage, that if I could just see someone who wasn’t that, I could believe in it and just move forward and give up my guilt so I could be with you and just you without anything to taint that.”
Saying it, the idea is absurd. Asinine. I’m not sure I would believe me either.
“Do you really think it’s that easy Yohji?”
His voice is darkly curious.
“No.”
My voice spills out, honesty escaping me without myself realizing the truth.
No. The last few days are proof enough of that.
“I just had to try.”
I sound insane, babbling on like a confused child.
“It’s too late.”
I close my eyes and imagine he is doing the same, repeating slowly
“Too fucking late.”
A morbid, clinging feeling settles over me, making me feel as if my skin is too tight, sealing me in so I can’t breathe and the blood collected all in my head, ready to burst or bubble over.
“There is nothing to change or erase what we are Yohji.” I can almost hear his teeth clench, a low grating noise in my ear, “Nothing can serve as a separation. Not really, any attempt only becomes another regret, another thing to rise up again and again and contaminate everything around you as you try to ignore it.”
For once, this makes sense. For once, Aya saying this doesn’t sound depressing, or surrendered. His voice is hard, ringing clear and low and honest into my ear.
“We endure it, and continue because it is the only way we are left to endure it, and that is our penance.”
For an avowed atheist, Aya really seems to identify with a lot of religious concepts, right down to the phrasing.
Oddly, I wonder if he was raised religious.
“The guilt itself, and the shouldering of more guilt is how the guilt is relieved and expressed, and it never ends.”
Its striking how a person can be so strong and so resigned all at once.
For some reason, the idea bothers me.
All things pass, right?
Why shouldn’t guilt and grief and pain end as well as happiness?
We sit in silence as I refuse to respond, feeling my body stiffen with his words. The weight of his convictions settles over me in a miserable weight, a terrible crushing mass forced into me.
He breathes softly on the other end.
I let myself tense with the remembered words, let the guilt rise up in my chest in a wave of shuddering coldness that threatens to surge out of my mouth in one choking depraved bout of laughter.
I let myself rise with it, numbing the exhaustion, creating a new itch to run and run far away where I’ll never see anything or anyone again.
I never want to glimpse another human face.
I wonder how obvious it will be tomorrow in the way I move.
“Yohji……I love you.”
His voice is a whisper. At least I’m forgiven for something.
Like guilt, like Weiss itself, this is another thing we can’t escape, either of us.
“I love you.”
A small smile jerks up the corners of my lips.
“I love you so much.”
I’ve just got to see him. It will all make sense then. Everything will be better then.
We can lift our weights together.
I think I like change.
__________________

The place is crowded again today. I push the door of the coffee shop open, cringing at the sound of the little bell.
Keeping my sunglasses on, I glance around the shop as I move toward the counter, scanning the small café for Dirne.
As usual, nothing. Not even a woman in a suit.
Rolling my sore neck, I lean over the counter as I order.
Finally pulling out enough to pay for the coffee, I set the money down on the smooth wood and wait for the receipt so I can stuff it in my pocket.
Receiving the little piece of paper, I move down towards the other end, where they actually give you the coffee. Still rubbing at my neck, I hardly look up as the door chimes in a new customer. It’s a skinny woman wearing sweatpants and a tank top, her hair pulled back, she’s followed in by a tall guy in jeans and a sweatshirt. Doesn’t anyone else feel the heat out there?
I’m not getting the sweat-stuff.
Eh, probably out for a morning jog or some such shit.
I’m glaring impatiently at the cashier when I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry but do you have a pen? Mine’s dead.”
She illustrates this by tapping the dead pen on her checkbook.
“Yeah, sure.”
I dig through my pockets, idly wondering if I have any aspirin on me.
Pulling it out, I hand it to her.
“Thanks.”
She turns away to scribble out a check, handing it to the cashier with a smooth gesture.
She smiles as she hands the pen back to me.
It’s her, it’s fucking her.
And I wouldn’t have noticed if she’d decided to pay cash.
Internally cursing, I force myself to smile back at her, adopting the same lazy smirk that works so well in the flower shop.
“I’m Yohji.”
“Michelle.”
“So, Michelle, you want to share a table?”






Author's Note: fun, and possibly helpful facts. 1. if you didn't know, Honshu is the island of Japan where Tokyo is, unless the internet lies to me. 2. 'Stadt' is german for 'town'. 3. this is just helpful for placing the phone conversation I think: Germany is seven hours behind Japan. 4. (and my favorite) Dirne is german for whore. thanks for reading. as always, reviews are much appreciated. really, i just want to gauge if anyone's actually reading this.