Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Are You Steady Now? ❯ Tripped and Fell ( Chapter 5 )

“Are You Steady Now?”

Part 5: Tripped and Fell

By: Omni-sama

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Ratings, disclaimers, etc. found in first chapter

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The sound of the rain pouring outside echoed throughout the concrete parking garage until it was a hollow roar. Ryou shuddered as a chill ran through him, and it was only then that he realized just how soaked he and Ran had gotten on their short walk to the car from the alley. Ran's hair was an even darker shade of red, like the darkest of red wines, and it clung to his face, neck, and shoulders. Water droplets trickled down from the clinging hair to make their way over collarbone and down his chest, though they were often caught at the pendant that stuck to his wet skin. Or, as if taunting Ryou, a few drops would make their way down to one of the scars he knew far too well. The scars were barely even visible on the pale skin made even paler from the wet cold. It wasn't fair, he mentally mourned, to see the man he's desired for so long standing there exposed and wet and a liar that he couldn't trust.

 

“I can explain,” Ran said softly after what seemed like a small eternity. In his fury, Ryou failed to see the pained look in those violet eyes.

 

“I bet you can. The only problem is, how can I believe anything you say?”

 

“I never lied to you!”

 

“Bullshit! That's all you've done since I met you!”

 

It felt like he had just woken up again. He had that same strange feeling like one who is lost in the woods without a compass. Or waking up to find you've gone blind and there's no one around to help you. Everything was suddenly alien to him again, because so much that he thought was real turned out to be an illusion. If Ran knew him, that meant Takatori knew him. He was the friend that Takatori had been talking about, not just some man that looked sort of like him. Lies. Everything had been a lie. His foundations were being destroyed.

 

“Everything I told you was the truth. I just…left some things out.”

 

“You said I was dead!” He wanted to grab Ran by the shoulders and shake him. Or punch him. Repeatedly and very, very hard.

 

“No, I said my lover was dead. And as long as you're Itou Ryou, the man who was my lover in the past is dead.”

 

Ryou was still angry, but those words worked like a bucket of cold water. It was in that moment that he finally noticed the pain in Ran's eyes, and the way the man was trembling just slightly. He didn't know for sure, but he'd bet that the trembling wasn't entirely due to being cold and wet. They stood there glaring at each other for a while, neither entirely sure what to say next while at the same time having far too much to say. Eventually it was Ryou that broke both their staring contest and the silence. “What's his—my…name? My real name?” Not wanting to look at Ran any longer, he stared blankly at the keys still resting on the ground.

 

“Yohji. Kudou Yohji.” Ran's voice held a hint of warmth and affection in it, and Ryou found himself getting jealous. It was an absurd thing, really—to be jealous of himself. Especially when he was supposed to be angry with Ran and not want him anymore.

 

“Yohji…” He tested his own name out on his tongue and found it tasted much better than Ryou. Yohji just felt…right. He was Yohji.

 

“Will you please let me explain?”

 

He grit his teeth and refused to look back up at Ran, but he allowed himself to nod. “Fine.”

 

“Good. But not here.” Ran bent down into his line of sight for a second in order to retrieve the keys. “Come with me.” Looking up, he watched as Ran pulled the canvas top up over the car, securing it in place. When he was finished, Ran slid into the driver's seat and waited. After closing his eyes and heaving a resigned sigh, Yohji walked around to the passenger's side and got in.

 

“Where are we going?” he asked as Ran started the Seven up and shifted in order to back out of the spot. “We're not going to a hotel, are we?”

 

“No,” Ran shook his head slightly as he shifted again, his knuckles brushing Yohji's thigh for a split second as he maneuvered the gearshift. “I'm taking you to my place.”

 

“What?” Yohji glared at him, feeling very tempted to get out of the car that second, despite the fact it was in motion.

 

“Calm down, I won't try anything on you.” But then a very subtle smirk formed on Ran's lips, and he spared a quick leer Yohji's way. “Unless you want me to.”

 

His glare intensified before he turned with a huff to scowl out the windshield, crossing his arms over his chest. What angered him even more was how his mind decided to replay the events at the restaurant for him, in all their detailed Technicolor glory. He shifted a little in his seat, hoping that Ran would think it was because he still felt angry and uncomfortable, and not notice how his body was betraying him. In order to cool himself down, he started focusing on all the reasons he should be angry with Ran. The list kept getting longer, and he started working out ways he was going to voice his contempt, forming monologues in his head. By the time he focused on the outside world again, he was shocked to see that they were on the outskirts of Tokyo and pulling up to a dark brown, rectangular two-story house. Its garage looked like it took up about half of the first floor, and had two doors to show that it was obviously built to house two cars. With a press of a button, Ran had the door on the left slowly start rolling up on its own.

 

Once they were inside the garage, Yohji was surprised to see another car sitting in the other half of it. “Holy shit, you own a Porsche, too?”

 

“Actually, the Porsche is mine. This one is yours.” With that, Ran cut the engine and opened his door. “Come on, we need to change into some dry clothes.”

 

Yohji stared after him for a moment before quickly scrambling out of the Seven to follow him. Ran was heading towards a door at the back of the garage, but Yohji stopped several feet from it in order to turn back and look at the Super Seven as if Ran's words had finally sunk in. “That's mine?...”

 

“Yeah.” Ran unlocked the door and opened it up, pausing to press a button beside it in order to make the garage door automatically close. Before turning to follow Ran into the house, Yohji took one last long look at the Seven, his Seven. No wonder he liked it so much.

 

Inside the house, Yohji was amazed at how much space the place seemed to have. The first floor was practically one large room with an open ceiling that provided a clear view of the long stretch of balcony that was the upstairs hallway. The second floor rooms were located over the garage. After slipping off his shoes at the doorway, he stepped in far enough to look back and see the doors on the second floor. Yohji counted four of them. Looking back down at the level he was on, he took in the open kitchen, small dining table, and spacious living room. There were two doors off of the living room other than the door that led outside and the door that led to the garage. The living room itself was furnished with a simple black leather couch and matching recliner, dark wood coffee table, and an entertainment center. All in all, nothing about the place struck him as the kind of thing a man who was going to college and taking odd jobs on the side could afford. Then again, now that he had some idea of who Ran was, he suspected he knew what kind of jobs he was taking.

 

“Nice place,” he said at last, turning to face Ran as the man hung his keys on a hook in the kitchen. “Big.”

 

“Yes well,” shrugged Ran as he brushed his wet bangs out of his face and started heading towards one of the two mystery doors. “Since my money's not going towards my little sister's hospital bills anymore, I've got far more than I need. Even college doesn't really put much of a dent in things. So, I thought I'd at least live in something more comfortable than an apartment. This way I've got room for our cars, and I was able to convert one bedroom into a gym and another into an office, while I keep the master for myself. Sometimes I feel like it's all far too big for me, but for the most part I like it here.”

 

The door he was heading to turned out to lead to a small room barely the size of a walk-in closet that just held the washer and dryer. Yohji stared at the appliances with a touch of envy. He and Asuka, like many people he knew, didn't have a dryer. Asuka said she used to have one, but it wasn't worth the extra energy cost. Not to mention most dryers didn't do much in the way of drying, anyway. It was much easier to just hang your clothes outside. But by the looks of things, Ran's dryer wasn't like most dryers.

 

“Give me your shirt.” Yohji's awe over the dryer was suddenly interrupted with those words, and he turned his attention to Ran.

 

“Excuse me?” he asked, blinking blankly as if he hadn't just heard the command.

 

“I said give me your shirt. I'll wash and dry it. Your pants, too. But you can wait to give me those until you change, if you'd rather.” As he waited for Yohji to comply, Ran pulled his own ruined shirt off, though he glared at it before crumpling it into a ball instead of tossing it in the wash. It was, after all, far too damaged to ever wear again.

 

Yohji couldn't help it when his eyes took the opportunity to wander over Ran's naked torso. Licking his suddenly dry lips, he tore his gaze away and glared towards the dryer he had previously been ogling. “I think I'll wait to give both to you after I've changed.”

 

He could feel Ran staring at him, and there was an awkward silence for a minute before an “If you'd like” was offered from the redhead. The next thing he knew, he was following Ran up the stairs and towards one of the doors.

 

“I don't know how well I'll fit your stuff,” he said to Ran's back as they walked, “I mean your shoulders are a little broader than mine, and I'm a little taller than you…”

 

“Don't worry. It should be fine.” Yohji could swear he heard amusement in Ran's voice, but without seeing the man's face he couldn't tell for sure. They came to the door that was the farthest down the hall from the stairs, but when they walked in Yohji saw that it wasn't the master bedroom. It was the office Ran had mentioned earlier, most of the wall space covered in bookshelves and a desk sitting near the window. “Those books there are yours,” said Ran as he motioned towards a section of shelves while walking towards the closet door. When the door was opened, Yohji was too busy staring at the books with mild shock to notice the closet's contents at first. “All of this is yours, too.” Those words drew his attention back to Ran and the closet he was standing in front of. Moving closer, he saw quite a few clothes on hangers, and boxes resting on the floor beneath and on the shelves above.

 

“You kept my stuff?” He stepped past Ran to get a better look, hesitantly reaching out to finger the sleeve of a green silk shirt.

 

“Of course. Takatori wanted to throw it out, but I insisted that you'd want it back someday.”

 

The mention of Takatori snapped Yohji out of his momentary daze and reminded him of all his anger from earlier. Ran seemed to sense the sudden shift, and quickly retreated to the exit, pausing only for a moment to tell Yohji to bring his wet clothes down to him when he was finished. Left alone with his thoughts and his things, he started looking through the clothes that were hanging up and trying to remember a time when he ever wore them. Some of them were rather interesting, to say the least, but there were a few things that he found to be rather tasteful. After a little exploring, he discovered that the boxes beneath the hanging clothes held even more clothing. They contained more simple things like T-shirts, undershirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, underwear, and even some socks. He grabbed a pair of jeans that were hanging up, a hunter green shirt from one of the boxes, and a pair of boxer-briefs. It seemed that he was more of a brief man in his past, and the boxer-briefs were the only things he could find that were more to his current tastes.

 

The underwear and shirt fit perfectly, but the pants were much tighter than he was expecting. It was a chore just to get them fastened, and then there were the very noticeable underwear lines. Frowning, he looked back at the other choices and tried to see if there was anything else he could wear. Before he could settle on another pair to try, there was a knock at the door. “Are you decent?” Ran asked from the other side.

 

“I suppose. If you could call these pants that.”

 

Opening the door, Ran peeked in with a look of confusion on his face. “What do you—oh.” The confusion quickly gave way to amusement and he walked the rest of the way into the room with a smile doing its best to form on his lips despite his obvious attempt to suppress it. Yohji couldn't help but take note of what Ran was wearing and how simple but good it looked on him. It was just a dark gray A-shirt, which was stretched tightly across his toned chest, and a pair of drawstring black pants that seemed to be too long for him. The extra length bunched at the bottom, however, could also have been due to the fact that the pants hung rather low on his hips. It was all Yohji could do to not stare openly at Ran. “You aren't supposed to wear underwear with those. They're too tight for that.”

 

“So I've noticed.” Yohji glared half-heartedly at Ran before shifting a little, trying to prevent the boxer-briefs from making their way into a wedgie.

 

Letting out a little chuckle, Ran turned towards the closet and did a quick search before pulling out a different pair of jeans that were a shade darker. “Here. These are your comfortable pair. The ones you're wearing were more for showing off or trying to impress.”

 

Yohji took the other pair of jeans and stared at them in his hand for a moment, before looking back up at Ran with realization dawning in his eyes. “You loved me. A lot. You still do.”

 

Ran swallowed and looked away for a second, but then forced himself to square his shoulders and look Yohji in the eye. “Yes.”

 

“The cigarettes, the pendant, the car, keeping all my stuff like this, remembering details about my clothes… But I just don't get it. If you love me that much, why did you lie to me? Why didn't you tell me who I was or who you were? Jesus, Ran… I could have ended up marrying Asuka, and you'd have just stood there being nothing more than my best friend. Why? I don't see any reason you'd have to keep me in the dark about what we once had. It seems like that would only end up hurting you.”

 

Instead of answering him, Ran looked back at the closet, tilting his head back to look up at the boxes on the shelf above where the clothes hung. He pointed to one of them, which was labeled “photos”. “Bring that down with you when you finish changing.” That was all he said. Silently he turned and scooped up the pile of Yohji's wet clothes before heading back out the door.

 

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When Yohji came downstairs carrying the box and wearing the far more comfortable jeans, Ran was closing the laundry room door. The redhead waved him towards the seating area while he himself moved towards the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?”

 

“Water, please.” Setting the box down on the coffee table, Yohji took a seat on the couch and almost moaned at how comfortable it was. He ran his hands over the smooth leather and let himself relax back into the plush cushioning. When a bottle of water was set on the table in front of him, he jerked up almost guiltily. “Um… Nice couch,” he offered lamely, reaching for the water and unable to look up at the man whose couch he'd just been fondling.

 

“Thanks.” Even though he wasn't looking, he could hear the smirk very plainly in Ran's voice.

 

He found himself staring blankly at the box while he uncapped his bottle and took a slow drink. It was Ran's move now, after all. He was supposed to tell Yohji about why he lied, and something in that box was evidently the key. As if reading his mind, Ran bent down and opened the box, shuffling through its contents and even removing some to set on the table beside it in order to make his search easier. Yohji noticed that the box contained more than just photographs. Pieces of paper with sketches on them were placed on the table along with photos and folders and books. Wondering why those books wouldn't be put on the bookshelves with the others, he picked one up and flipped through it. It was a sketchbook, its pages filled with random drawings. Some pages would be nothing but hands, others would be torsos, but there were some that had faces. He spotted a few that he recognized as Ran, but the other subjects, most of which were female, he didn't recognize. Soft clicking sounds brought his attention back to Ran and his search, only to find that a framed picture now stood beside the box, facing him to reveal the image of a smiling woman with short dark hair.

 

His first thought was that this was the only picture he'd seen so far that was framed. Then he wondered if there were any other framed pictures, like ones of him and Ran or even just of Ran. Ignoring the framed photo, he reached for the box and pulled it closer, shifting through its contents. He came across several loose photos, and he would pause for a moment to study them. There was one of him, Ran, and two other young men standing on some type of walkway or balcony overlooking a beach. Another one, probably from around the same time, of the four of them laid out next to a surfboard and dangerously close to the waterline. Another one showed them still on the beach, Ran standing in the foreground and holding a yellow ball. Yohji's hair was a little longer in those photos, while Ran's was much shorter. He also noticed that Ran didn't always look that happy, while he always had a smile or at least a smirk. A few pictures later, and Yohji stopped short as he looked at himself as he was when he woke up. Or, at least the hair was the same. It must have been taken not too long before his accident. It was a shot of the four of them again, but they all looked so different from the older pictures. Ran's hair appeared to be pulled back in some way, and Yohji's hair was extremely short and bleached lighter. Suddenly he was shocked to realize that one of the two other young men was Takatori. Looking back at the older pictures, he realized that Takatori was also the young kid with sandy blond hair who was always smiling or laughing. The image of the cheery blond boy was such a change from the man he knew now, and the young man that was in the more recent photo.

 

What he found the most odd in all of the pictures, however, was that there wasn't any sign that he and Ran were together. In fact, they would rarely even stand next to each other. Frowning, he set all the pictures he'd been looking at aside and continued to look through the box. He reached the bottom and still was unable to find another framed picture.

 

“What are you looking for?”

 

“Huh?” Looking away from the box, he blinked at Ran where he'd taken a seat in the recliner.

 

“You seem like you're looking for something. What are you looking for?”

 

“Oh.” Yohji looked back at the box, still frowning a little, and then picked up the framed image. “Why is this the only one framed? Were others removed from their frames or something?”

 

“No, that's the only one you had framed. Most of those aren't even your photos. They belonged to Takatori, but he didn't want them anymore. I thought you might want to see them someday…”

 

“Oh. And the drawings?” He set the frame down again in order to pick up another sketchbook.

 

“Yours.”

 

“So I can draw?” Flipping through the pages, he glanced up at Ran and saw that he was smiling that warm smile of his that always made Yohji's belly flip-flop.

 

“You can do more than draw. You're very artistic. Even taught an art class.”

 

“Really? Me? Teach? So, is that what I used to do?” The question had come out quicker than he could think. It wasn't until he saw that smile quickly disappear that he remembered the conclusions he'd already reached about his past and what he used to do. Lowering his eyes, he closed the book and set it back into the box. “Never mind.”

 

“Ryou…”

 

He cringed at that name, and looked up at Ran with a sad little half smile. “I thought you said my name was Yohji.”

 

Ran's eyes widened a little and he nodded just slightly. “I did. I just didn't think that you'd suddenly start wanting to go by that…”

 

“Why wouldn't I want to go by my name? I like it better than `Ryou,' anyway. Please, just call me Yohji, ok?”

 

“Ok.” Ran still seemed a bit shocked, and it made Yohji feel uncomfortable. Seeking a way to break the weird tension, he picked the frame back up and actually took a good look at the woman it displayed.

 

“So who is this, and why is it that she's the only one who deserves a frame? Is she like my sister or something? Hey actually… She looks kind of like Asuka, but with shorter hair and a beauty mark…”

 

“She is Asuka. The only one who really ever was Asuka...” There was a strange bitterness to Ran's voice, but Yohji was more alarmed by the words.

 

“What? You mean this is Asuka?” It was true that she looked similar, but there was also a great deal of differences. He couldn't believe this was the same woman he was in a mock marriage with. Then again, thinking on the photos he'd just gone through, it seemed it was very possible for someone to change dramatically over time…

 

“She's not the Asuka you're living with. That woman's name isn't even Asuka, it's Rika.”

 

Yohji nearly dropped the frame as the feeling of being kicked in the gut shook his body for a second. “What?” he gasped.

 

“Her name is Itou Rika. Takatori had her name changed before you woke up…specifically for you.”

 

“What? Why for me?” Another part of his reality cracked and chipped away, and he felt a little dizzy.

 

“Because of her,” Ran explained with a nod of his head towards the framed image.

 

“Her?” Yohji looked back down at the smiling woman, confused. “Who is she?”

 

“Before you worked for the organization I work for and that Takatori now runs, you were a private investigator. She was your business partner, but evidently she meant a great deal more to you than just that. I'm not entirely clear on all the details of your relationship, because you never actually explained it all to me. I just know that you loved her. You loved her very, very much. Enough to let her ghost haunt you years after her death.”

 

“Death?” Staring at the woman, he tried to make sense of everything getting thrown at him, but it was just coming all at once and was too confusing. What made it worse was that as he stared at the picture, knowing now that she was supposed to mean something to him, he only felt a faint warmth. It was nothing compared to the heat he felt whenever he first saw Ran, which only managed to get hotter over time.

 

“She died during one of your assignments. I think you would have been able to fully get over her eventually if it hadn't been for a woman that showed up years later claiming to be her. It's…all very complicated, and far too long a story to get into now. The point is that no matter how much I loved you and no matter how much I would have wanted to, I could never have all of your heart. She held far too much of it. You would superimpose her onto women from time to time, confusing them with her.”

 

“I cheated on you?”

 

There was only silence from Ran, so he looked up at him, only to find sad violet eyes avoiding his gaze. “I don't know if you could call it `cheating,' really. We never had an official relationship. At first, you wanted one. Hell, you practically begged me for it. But at that time I was far too distracted with other things. My sister had been kidnapped, for one thing. By the time all of that was settled, however, things had changed with you. The one claiming to be Asuka had broken you, in a sense. You…were never quite the same after that. And even though we were still together, more or less, you never tried to make what we had anything more than just friends that fuck. So, you couldn't call it cheating…”

 

“Is that why you didn't want me to remember? Because you thought if I remembered, then I'd remember her and you'd have to compete with her ghost all over again? You thought it would be easier to seduce me once I'm a blank slate, is that it?” Slowly his anger and hurt from earlier started to creep back up on him. Ran was supposed to be explaining why it was that he had kept Yohji in the dark, and so far all he had been told was that he wasn't exactly the most committed of lovers.

 

For a moment, Ran looked surprised and hurt, making Yohji instantly start to regret his words a little. But then Ran's eyes shifted until he was glaring at Yohji. “First of all, it wasn't my fucking idea to keep you ignorant. Secondly, I loved you, despite all your goddamn flaws. When you weren't chasing a ghost, I got to see a side of you that was nothing short of incredible. We went well together, and I believed that you could eventually put all the shit from your past behind you so that we could finally be truly together. And you know what else? If you hadn't gone into that goddamn bar that night, we wouldn't even be here having this conversation. You'd be home curled up beside your fake wife living out your fake life, and I wouldn't be anywhere in it. I wouldn't be trying to seduce you. I wouldn't even be your fucking friend, Yohji.”

 

“What? What do you mean?” Alarmed by the anger that was barely masking the hurt in Ran's voice, Yohji shrunk back a little and watched as the man stood up and stepped closer.

 

Grabbing the frame from his hands, Ran held it up so that it was eyelevel with Yohji. “You want to know who first came up with the idea for you to forget, Yohji? It was you. You want to know why? Because of her. Because of all the goddamn pain you let yourself feel due to this woman right here.” Yohji looked at the image, but then turned his attention back up to Ran's face, staring into those dark eyes and trying to read them. “You fought me, Yohji. You literally fucking fought against me, because you wanted to forget and you thought you had found a way.”

 

“So… I…?”

 

Ran's eyes blinked, and it was suddenly like he had snapped out of a trance. He stared down at Yohji for a moment before shaking his head and walking back to the chair, setting the frame down on the table along the way. “No. No, you came to your senses before you did anything stupid. It was either a falling building or Takatori that took your memory away.” Falling back into the chair as if exhausted, Ran combed his fingers back through his still slightly damp hair.

 

“Huh?”

 

With a sigh, Ran leveled his eyes back on Yohji. “The building was falling down around us. Ken, Takatori, and myself were on a different level, looking down at you. There was no way for us to get down, and if I had gotten down, there was no way to get out from down there. You had my sword, which I'd tossed to you so that you could defend yourself.” Ran paused and his eyes focused on something far away, a soft smile slowly shaping his lips. “You smiled up at us. At me. You said you'd find me, wherever I was. Jokingly used the excuse of having to return my sword. I told you I'd be waiting. Then…” The smile pulled more at one corner of his mouth, but the smile-smirk looked a little sad in Yohji's opinion. “Then you said you were Weiß.”

 

“Weiß? What's that?” His words caused Ran to abruptly return to the present, and he seemed momentarily disoriented.

 

“Oh. That was the name of our team in the organization. It meant a lot for you to say it in that moment. I think you were trying to tell us that you…” Ran trailed off and shook his head.

 

“What? Tell you what?”

 

“It's not my place to tell you what you might have been thinking at the moment when you said that. I'm not you, after all. I can only offer assumptions, which have the potential of being heavily biased due to my own feelings and wishful thinking.” Frowning, Ran grabbed his own bottle of water, which was sitting on the coffee table, and took a drink.

 

“You think it meant that I accepted who I was and where I was in my life, don't you? That maybe I was trying to tell you that I was finally ready to let things go and that I didn't want to forget, after all…” Yohji took a drink from his water as well, his eyes never leaving Ran. The redhead nodded a little in response, but the violet eyes were once again refusing to meet his own. “So, then what happened?”

 

“Then the building caved in. The three of us were able to escape, but you were trapped. The others left, pretty much giving up on you, but I stayed. After the fires died down, I went back in, dug through the rubble, and pulled you out. You were alive, but just barely, so I got you to a hospital under the employ of the organization we worked for.” Ran paused to take another drink from his water before continuing. “They got you stabilized, but you were in a coma.”

 

Yohji remembered Ran talking earlier that night about how his sister had been in a coma. He frowned down at his water as he thought about how that must have been for Ran, to see another person he cared for end up in that state. Then something occurred to him, and he looked back up at Ran in confusion. “If you brought me to the hospital, then why do I still have your sword? Why didn't you take it back?”

 

Ran stared at him in disbelief for a moment before he slowly set his bottle down on his thigh. “You still have my sword? I would have thought Takatori would have gotten rid of it as soon as I left…”

 

“He tried. I remember the day that he tried. It was after I had woken up, and it must have been the first time he found out I had the sword. I can't remember everything he said, but he was doing his damnedest to convince me that I had no need to keep a dirty and probably damaged sword. But there was another man there that I hadn't seen before. I think he might have been a doctor or something; I don't know. He had a monocle and sort of grayish hair.” Face scrunching up as he tried to remember clearly, Yohji let out a soft laugh. “I remember thinking he was odd because he seemed far too young to have such gray hair, and monocles are just…weird. Anyway, he convinced Takatori that I should keep the sword. He said it was probably something important, and that if I ever get my memories back I might want or need it. He was way more insistent with Takatori about why I should keep it than Takatori was with me about why I should get rid of it.”

 

It was then that he noticed the expression on Ran's face. He looked stunned for a moment, and then slowly he smirked, shook his head, and chuckled softly. “I never thought I would owe Crawford any favors… Goddamn.”

 

“Who?”

 

Ran opened his mouth to answer, but closed it before any words could come out. He looked down, staring off into nothing as he appeared to be considering something. Finally he looked back up at Yohji, saying, “There's a lot of things that happened that you don't remember, and it's getting really late. I'll answer whatever pressing questions you have, but I think we should hold off on the longer stories for another time.”

 

Yohji looked down at his watch, shocked to see that it was nearing three in the morning. “Fair enough. Just a couple more questions, then.” After a nod from Ran, he asked “How do you think Takatori might have been behind the memory loss?”

 

Letting out a sigh, Ran tilted his head back to rest against the back of the chair. “I'm going to give you an abridged version of things, so just accept it for now and remember any questions you might have because of it so I can answer them later.” He lifted his head to look back at Yohji and hesitated for a few more seconds before he spoke again. “There is a man that used to be our enemy but now works for the same organization. As strange and unbelievable as it will sound, he has telepathic powers. He can do whatever he wants to your mind, easily. It's very likely that Takatori had him go in and make sure you had amnesia. If, however, Takatori didn't use him, he could have figured out another way, including drugs.”

 

Yohji stared at him for a few seconds, then scratched at the back of his head as he attempted to once again sort everything out. “Filing away questions for the supposed telepath for later. Focusing on Takatori now. Why would he do that? Why go through so much trouble to make sure that I had amnesia? And why change the nurse's name from Rika to Asuka, especially if he would know for sure that I wouldn't be able to remember who the fuck Asuka is?”

 

“He knew you wanted to forget. As far as he knew, you hadn't changed your mind about that. Most likely he saw it as a chance for you to start over and live a life you'd be happier in. As for why he set it up so that there would be an Asuka waiting for you, despite your inability to remember the real Asuka… Well, it was probably in case part of you did remember her. She seemed to be very deeply ingrained into your heart and mind.” The bitterness was sneaking into Ran's voice again, and he looked down at his water bottle as if attempting to distract himself from such thoughts.

 

“Two questions, and then that's it for the night. Promise.” Even though he had so many more questions, Yohji could finally feel just how worn out he was. It wasn't a sleepiness, it was a tiredness that pulled at him and started to hurt behind his eyes.

 

“Alright,” Ran nodded, agreeing to answer two more. Yohji could see the tiredness on Ran's face, as well. He hoped the questions and answers would go quickly so they could both get some much-needed rest.

 

“Why would he go through all the trouble to try to make me happy, while knowing that it would hurt you?”

 

It didn't seem like Ran had an answer for that, as his eyes slowly went from looking at Yohji to once again staring down into space. After a while he shrugged, and his eyes reflected hurt and sadness even while his face just looked impassive and tired. “I don't know the answer to that one. There was a time when he was my friend. He cared a great deal about me and about how I thought of him. We were like brothers, in a sense. It was like that with all four of us. Well… You and I were something besides brothers. But the four of us had been a family at one time.”

 

In that moment, Yohji hated Takatori. He hated him for all the lies, yes, but he hated him more for hurting Ran during it all, especially when it was evident that the redhead had really cared for him once. “Ok. Second question,” he said, trying to change the topic and pull Ran out of the gloom he appeared to be slipping into. “It's one I asked already but that you didn't answer. Why do I still have your sword, if you were the one who brought me to the hospital?”

 

The subject change worked like a charm, and instantly Ran was looking back up at him, that familiar warm smile on his lips and an affectionate gleam in his eyes. “Because you said you were going to return it to me. I couldn't just take it. You were supposed to find me and bring it back to me. You promised.”

 

It felt as though something had wrapped a large, strong hand around Yohji's heart and was pulling him by it towards Ran, but he didn't move. He sat there staring at Ran, desperately wanting to kiss him or at the very least hold him. But, he had to remind himself that he still wasn't entirely sure he could even trust the man. They stared at each other for a while, but then Ran broke the moment as he rose to his feet.

 

“I need to put the clothes in the dryer,” he explained as he set his bottle on the table and headed towards the small laundry room. “Your blazer said dry clean only, so I just have it hanging up in here with your tie. I'll get it dry cleaned tomorrow, if that's alright?”

 

Yohji just sat there silently watching Ran's back, his mind swimming in confusion and his chest aching a little. Somehow he found himself walking towards the redhead, though he wasn't entirely sure how he got there. Just as Ran pressed the knob down to start the dryer, Yohji came to a stop only inches behind him. As if watching someone else control his body, Yohji saw his arms move out so that his hands rested on the top of the dryer, effectively trapping Ran. He saw Ran's body go tense, but he couldn't help himself when he leaned in slightly closer so that his chest was barely touching Ran's back.

 

“Sorry, but I have one last question.” He wasn't sure, but he could have sworn he felt Ran shudder slightly. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that Yohji's mouth was so close to the man's ear…

 

“What's that?”

 

“Is the only reason you want to be with me because of who I used to be? Are you just clinging to that person in any way you can?”

 

Ran let out a huff of air that was something like a laugh. It was short, soft, and lacked any sign of humor. “Are you asking me which you I like better? Is that it? Or if I love the you that you used to be more than the you that you've become?”

 

His eyes staring almost sadly at the back of Ran's head, Yohji replied, “Something like that, yes. I know it's insane to be jealous of yourself, but I can't help it.”

 

A few seconds passed with Ran not moving or making a sound, but then he turned his head a little, just barely peeking at Yohji through his hair. “Why would you be jealous anyway? I'd have thought you'd hate me after what I did.”

 

“I should. I tried.” Letting out a sigh, Yohji leaned forward to rest his forehead on Ran's left shoulder. “Something about what you've told me tonight makes no sense, you know… If I'm supposed to love that woman so much, then how come when I look at the photo I just get a faint warm fuzzy feeling, but when I saw you for the first time I was struck so hard by an intense heat that it left me momentarily stunned? And why is it that I haven't had a single dream of her, but I kept dreaming about you?” Ran leaned back into him, and Yohji felt his hands slip from the dryer so he could wrap his arms around the redhead. Thinking about the dreams, however, caused another thought to come to him. “Wait a minute… How come I call you Aya in the dreams?... Did you lie to me about your name, too? Are you not really Ran?”

 

“Ran's my real name. Aya is the name of my sister. The story of how I ended up using her name as my own for a while is something to save for another time.” Then Ran let out an amused hum and turned his head so that his lips were brushing against the side of Yohji's face as he spoke. “It's actually sort of your fault.”

 

Yohji decided he really liked the feel of Ran's lips on his skin like that. He also really liked the way Ran fit into his arms. “Oh? So, would you rather I call you Aya or Ran?” Letting his hands do as they pleased, his left hand slowly slipped down to dip his fingers into the waistband of Ran's pants while his right hand crept up Ran's stomach, pushing under his shirt.

 

“I've discovered that I really like hearing you call me by my real name.” Ran's voice had gotten softer, breathier, and his body was holding as still as it could as if he thought one wrong move would cause Yohji to stop holding him. “You never did that before… You also know more about me now than you ever did. I told you so much about my past tonight, while we were at the restaurant. No one else knows nearly as much about me as you do now. Not even Aya-chan.”

 

He could feel his heart beating faster at Ran's words. For a second he wondered over how he could still be this crazy about the man after finding out the huge deception he'd helped to maintain. It was only a second spared to the thought, really. After all, it was far too difficult to think about much of anything when he had Ran in his arms like this. The lips on the side of his face started moving against his skin even though Ran wasn't speaking. They traveled to his ear and he heard himself moan as the lips nibbled at his lobe. “Fuck” he whispered out as the lips continued to tease his sensitive ear before venturing down his neck. His arms tightened around Ran, pressing the man closer to him as he rocked his own hips forward a little. Ran's breath caught for a second when he undoubtedly felt Yohji's developing erection pressing against his ass. Instead of going right back to kissing at Yohji's neck, Ran released a few ragged breaths against his skin while he rocked his own hips so that he could feel the hardness pressing at him again. Once again moving unconsciously, Yohji quickly turned Ran around in his arms so that their chests were pressed together and he could easily reach the mouth he so very much wanted to kiss. Before he knew it, he had Ran pinned against the dryer while they kissed and practically clawed at each other.

 

His hands found their way to Ran's ass, which they took a firm grip of in order to help Ran up so that he could sit on the dryer. Moving between Ran's spread legs, Yohji kissed him harder and rocked more insistently against the matching bulge in Ran's sweatpants. “Yohji…” moaned Ran as Yohji moved away from the redhead's lips in order to kiss down his neck. Something in the way Ran said his name caused him to pause and realize that his questions earlier about which him Ran liked more were not answered. The pause was all his brain needed to quickly pull itself back in control, though his hormones wouldn't give up without a fight. In its desperate attempt to gain control over the hormones, his mind replayed all the events he experienced tonight in fast-forward, reminding him of all the things he needs to step back and think about before getting involved any further with Ran. It was almost as effective as someone dumping ice down his pants, and he found himself reluctantly pulling away from Ran.

 

“Wait,” he sighed as he pulled Ran's hands off of his ass and held them away by the wrists. “We need to slow down. No matter how much I'm drawn to you, I have a lot to think about right now. It would be a mistake to do something with you now, while I'm not even sure what the fuck is going on with my life.” Seeing that Ran was opening his mouth as if to object, Yohji pressed quickly on. “Ran, I just found out that the reality I had known for a year has been a lie. I need some time to think about it and let everything sink in.”

 

He watched as Ran closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. “You're right,” agreed Ran as he opened his eyes slowly. “I'm sorry.”

 

“Don't be. I think I kind of started it.” And he wouldn't mind continuing it, part of his mind added with a leer. The rest of his mind promptly told that part to shut up. Releasing Ran's wrists, Yohji took a few steps back and ran his fingers back through his hair in a nervous gesture. “I should probably go…”

 

“No,” objected Ran as he stood from his seat on the dryer. “It's too late. Just stay here. You can use my room, and I'll take the couch.”

 

All at once Yohji was assaulted with conflicting reactions to the suggestion. Part of him was excited about the chance to stay and spend more time near Ran, the only person he currently felt he could remotely trust. Another part of him, however, argued that it would be a bad idea, and that he should get as far away from Ran as he could in order to help him think straight. Ran was giving him an expectant look, waiting for him to either accept or decline. He quickly came to a mental agreement that he'd stay the night, but then go get himself a hotel room the next day, providing plenty of distance for thinking. “I don't want to impose, though. I can take the couch.”

 

Ran shook his head and started heading for the stairs. “I'm not going to let a guest sleep on the couch. You'll take the bed. I'm just going to go grab a pillow and blanket.”

 

Knowing any further objections would be useless, Yohji followed Ran up the stairs. “I'll go change into something more comfortable to sleep in,” he said as he continued past the first door at the top of the stairs, where Ran had stopped.

 

Once back inside the office, Yohji took a deep, steadying breath. He just had to get through tonight, he told himself, and then he could take the time to sit down and think all of this shit out. Although he started walking towards the closet, he ended up detouring to the desk, where he sat down heavily in the comfortable swivel chair and rested his head on the solid oak surface of the desk. Another good reason for holding off on anything with Ran tonight was his fatigue. At the moment, all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep for a few days. Letting out a yawn, he lifted his head in his slow but steady effort to stand up again and get changed. His attention was caught by two framed images on the desk, however, and he remained sitting for a little longer.

 

One frame contained a photograph of the four of them, and judging by the shortness of his hair in it, it was another fairly recent one. He and Ran were standing beside each other, but again there was nothing to give away what sort of relationship they might have had. That confused Yohji, for he thought that there would certainly be at least one photo that would hint at how they felt about each other. Then again, he hadn't looked through all of the photos in the box yet. Perhaps there were plenty that illustrated their feelings.

 

Turning his attention to the other framed image, he found that it was a shot only of him, but his hair was longer and darker, which would imply that it was older. He was sitting at what looked to be a booth at a bar or restaurant, his arms draped along the top of the seat and a glass of what he assumed was scotch was being held by the fingers of his left hand. He was dressed sharply in dark colored clothing that fit his slim body perfectly, and a cigarette was hanging from his slightly smirking lips. It was a strange sensation to look at the photo of a man who looked so confident and sexy, and to know that it was him. The man in the photo seemed like a completely different person from who Yohji had become. Yohji couldn't even begin to imagine how to look and act like that. It seemed so out of character for him, but at the same time it fit the man in the picture perfectly.

 

Jealousy pecked at him again. Why wouldn't Ran wish that Yohji was more like this man in the photo? What about the current Yohji could possibly be as appealing as the seductive person he evidently used to be? Since his amnesia, he had become plain, boring Itou Ryou. Just a salaryman with the same routine every day and no interesting life stories to share. It hurt to think that the only reason Ran probably even spent time with him was just because he looked the same as the man who used to have this body. Maybe it was wrong of him to take on the name Yohji again, considering he was nothing like the man who was given that name at birth.

 

He supposed that Ran was right—as long as he was the man he had become as Itou Ryou, the man he was as Kudou Yohji was dead.

 

 

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To be continued…

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Notes:

About dryers in Japan… They suck. Seriously. And most people will usually hang their clothes out to dry (you'll see lots of cases of blankets, clothes, futons, etc being hung out of apartment windows, too). The reason dryers over there usually suck is because the power output is weaker. Also, power's more expensive. So, even if someone owned a dryer, they'd probably not use it too often. Ran has a fancy expensive dryer. It probably runs on gas, since the only dryer I came across over there that did a decent job of drying things was gas-powered. So now you know why Yohji was drooling over it all envious-like.