Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chains ❯ Gift Me ( Chapter 75 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Miko No Hoshi 
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.06.2011 | Updated On: 04.17.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 244 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.06.2011 | Updated On: 04.17.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 244 | Status: Work In Progress
Notes: Well, the author is fed up with society and is escaping into the woods to play Thoreau for a few days, so here’s an update to tide you all over. And, even better news, Manfred is back! (Good timing, ne, Junshin?). Thank you all for taking time to review!
Chapter Seventy-Five: Gift Me
No one had said a word, but all of them knew what to do. Yohji locked the front doors and brought down the shutters, Omi secured the side entrance and closed down the till, and Ken tidied up quickly. They met at the work table in the back, and Yohji wondered precisely how they had developed an instinct for meetings.
He produced the folder; Omi took it and handed it over to Ken, the only one not yet privy to its information. Immediately the brunette took a seat, and they all followed. Omi didn’t wait for Ken, jumping into the middle of it.
“What do you think?” he questioned, looking Yohji straight in the eyes. Or, he would have been if the blonde hadn’t had the protection of his shades.
“Big players,” he answered. It was an understatement. Takatori Reiji was more than a big fish, he was a mother fucking shark. “Question is, how much affects us now?”
Omi nodded, “Remember Manx.”
Yeah, Yohji had thought of that the night before, remembering how the woman had reacted to hearing Aya’s name, the way she had snapped that weird photograph. She knew who he was.
“So Kritiker’s involved?”
“I think so, but I didn’t find anything.”
“They’ll let him in then?”
Omi nodded. Well, that was one relief, but if Kritiker wanted to keep Aya close…it wasn’t exactly encouraging.
“Who ran the tests?” Omi asked. It was obvious he had a theory and was testing it against Yohji’s own. The older man didn’t mind.
“Takatori, or rather, his son. Masafumi. Two science degrees, and over a dozen lawsuits—and those are the ones his dad couldn’t cover.”
Again, Omi nodded.
“What was the point?” Ken asked suddenly, head still bent over the papers.
No one answered.
“Okay,” the soccer player accepted the unknown, “So what’s it got to do with Aya?”
“Obviously he’s a test subject. It’s too much of a coincidence, and Takatori’s son was working for the company even before the merger officially happened. He’s almost forty, so it’s completely possible he administered the tests on Aya mother, or had someone else do it,” Omi explained. “I don’t know what he was doing, but almost all of the altered children died. Most were disfigured; all of them looked strange. There have to be some internal or mental alterations.”
“The autopsy,” Yohji put in, snagging that document from the folder. “It said something about the brain.”
“Yes,” Omi took it. “They noted something odd, but never went into detail. I wonder…Aya-kun’s progress, his ability to pick things up, could it be some kind of…enhancement, a genetic alteration, some kind of ‘super-human’ plan or something?”
“Huh,” Yohji grunted, noncommittal.
Something felt off in the theory; it just didn’t jive. And if Aya was the best result, why would Takatori let him out of his sight?
“Why’d they use the boss’s son in the first place?”
“Blackmail?” Omi theorized, not seeming set on the idea. It didn’t feel right, either.
“Did the guy know?” Ken asked. “Aya’s dad, did he know?”
“He had to,” Yohji guessed.
“I don’t know…if we believe Aya, he tried to stop the tests once he figured it out. He wouldn’t have let it go if he knew fifteen years before hand.”
“So he just accepted that he and his wife had a red-haired, purple-eyed baby?” Yohji scoffed. It didn’t work out. They were missing something.
“Does Aya know?”
“No,” Yohji and Omi said at the same time. Yohji dipped his head, giving the boy permission to take the lead.
“He probably would have said something. He’s definitely angry at Takatori, and this would be more ammunition. He says the reason his parents were killed was because his father was going to the press; he didn’t say anything about himself.”
“So is he involved still or not?”
They spent a few minutes tossing around theories and getting nowhere quickly.
“So what do we do?” Ken asked.
“We watch Kritiker, and keep Aya in Weiss,” Omi decided.
~*~
Trying to shove the entire discussion to the back of his mind where it could roll around undisturbed and maybe let something fall into place, Yohji headed to the greenhouse. He disarmed the system and stepped inside to find Aya leaning slightly over one of the long tables. The boy glanced up, then quickly back down. Shaking his head, Yohji walked over to check out whatever it was that Aya was working on.
It turned out to be a notebook, an old, battered thing with half the pages town out, something else he had unearthed from the greenhouse. On one page, Aya was listing the names of plants, number of the tray, and the date he had planted it. That kind of organization had no appeal to Yohji; he preferred to keep things outlined in his head and might manage a post-it note on a good day, but it was intriguing to see another side to Aya.
Finishing the last row, the boy clipped the pen to the side and set it all away, standing quietly beside Yohji and obviously waiting for him to speak.
“Want to eat before we go? I thought I might—”
He stopped, sure he had heard some sound. Being with Aya had made him quick to listen to tiny noises, suspecting them of being inadvertent responses. But besides a slight tensing of his shoulders, Aya hadn’t moved.
Just as he was ready to speak again, something fell in the back corner.
Yohji moved without thinking. Putting himself between Aya and the source of the noise, Yohji grabbed at the ring of his watch, eyes trained on the far left corner of the greenhouse.
For a few breaths, nothing happened, then something moved low to the ground.
Yohji released the catch, gathering a small spool of wire in his right hand.
Then Aya was in front of him again.
“Damn it, Aya—”
“Don’t hurt her!”
He let go of the wire, scared to even have it in his hand when Aya was in range, and it silently retracted as he stepped back, staring.
On his knees, Aya hunched over something on the floor, his arms wrapped around it and head lowered.
“Please,” Aya whispered, carrying only because of the lingering quiet of the place. The boy took a deep breath, then, a little more sure. “It’s my fault.”
Sitting up into a kneel with a determined look on his face, Aya gathered the thing into his lap. It was large and…furry.
“Oh, gods, it’s a freaking cat,” Yohji laughed. “Shit, Aya, I thought it was a guy or something.”
Aya did not look comforted. The animal, as if connected to the redhead, twisted in his arms to hiss at Yohji.
“Don’t hurt her,” Aya said again. “I…I let her in here…it’s my fault.”
Oh, shit, Aya thought Yohji was gonna kill the cat or something, or hurt him instead.
“Not a lot of confidence in me there,” Yohji huffed, running a hand through his loose hair. Aya cringed when he stepped closer, but Yohji ignored it to crouch down beside him. Lifting a hand, he went to pet the cat; Aya flinched, and the cat hissed, a loud, fierce sound that made Yohji jerk back his hand.
“Not gonna hurt you,” he told it. It stared back at him, an eerie, one-eyed stare that reminded him of Berserker. Trying to get away from this bizarre resemblance, he sought more pleasant aspects of the animal, only to realize the thing wasn’t all that pleasant. It was a grizzly kind of thin, with long, ragged hair that hung over little more than bones despite the creature’s large frame. Its head was gigantic, but sort of lopsided with one of its ears missing the end.
Aya had not picked a pretty pet.
Yohji had to laugh a little over the situation, at Aya worried over keeping a cat while Yohji worried over keeping Aya. The latter was undoubtedly more high maintenance.
“Hey,” he raised the hand again, going this time for Aya’s hair. The boy tensed but held still, and after a second’s check, Yohji ran his fingers lightly through Aya’s bangs. “Not gonna hurt you either.”
“I’m sorry,” Aya said, not looking at him. With one trembling hand he smoothed the fur on the cat’s back.
“It’s fine.” As far as acts of defiance, a pet didn’t seem worth this kind of drama. Hell, it was nice to see Aya taking a little initiative with something, even if it was an ugly-ass cat.
He decided not to tell Aya this.
“You’ve been taking care of him?”
Aya kept petting the cat, who relaxed onto his lap and began to purr softly, turning a little and giving Yohji the view of its broken tail.
“Aya, you’ve been taking care of him?”
“Her.”
“Her,” Yohji corrected, not able to stop smiling. Genetic engineering could go to hell; he was much happier worrying about making Aya happy, even if it meant keeping the ugly cat. “What’s the lady’s name?”
Nothing. Aya was still nervous, and obviously not going to go out a limb with conversation.
“Come on. I’m not mad, you know. And I wasn’t gonna hurt it—her. Hey,” he prodded Aya’s arm a little and settled down more fully on the rough floor, “You know you can keep it.”
Aya finally looked up at him, adorably confused, “Really?”
~*~
“Hey!” Ken yelled as he shoved open the greenhouse door. “You guys gonna want in on a pizza or—what the hell is that thing?”
“A cat,” Yohji replied. Smart ass. Ken flipped him off; Yohji just grinned around his cigarette.
“That is one hell of an ugly cat.”
“It’s Aya’s pet.”
Since when did Aya have a pet? Not one to stress over the details, Ken shrugged that off and went closer to investigate the weird thing rubbing about Aya’s ankles as he stood next to Yohji. It was big and thin and looked like it might be missing some parts.
“It’s a girl,” Yohji told him.
“You’re letting him keep it?” Yohji had never been one for pets. When Omi brought home a puppy, he had thrown a regular fit, even resisted the big-eye thing. Once it peed on the rug, it was gone.
“It’s a girl,” the blonde repeated. He bent over to pet it, but the cat had other ideas. Pausing mid-rub of Aya’s leg, it turned and hissed at him, making Ken laugh. Yohji glared, but he didn’t look too upset. “Wouldn’t you help a lady in distress?”
“Whatever. But seriously, that’s the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen.” He looked up at Aya who, for once, was looking in his direction, a wary expression on his face, “Don’t cha want something cute? We could get a kitten maybe, or one of those little—”
“I want Manfred.”
Ken stopped and blinked. He had never heard the boy so sure of anything.
~*~
Yohji hefted the large bag of cat food off his shoulder with a grunt that was more for show than anything else. Aya was hovering close beside him, hands outstretched like he might help if the blonde really needed it, and Yohji was not about to explain to him that a twenty-pound bag was no sweat.
As he straightened, he watched Aya watch the bag in his other hand, a collection of cat necessities designed to make the greenhouse into a nice home for their stray: bowl, blanket, and, most importantly, a brush that Yohji hoped would make the thing look a little better.
Wondering if Aya would take the initiative, Yohji held out the bag. The redhead hesitated, eyes flicking to the bag, to Yohji’s face, and back again.
“Here, take it,” Yohji directed, holding it a little further from himself.
Aya looked again, like it might be some kind of trick. Yohji sighed; one step forward and two back. Ever since the discovery of the cat, Aya had been quiet, very quiet, like he expected Yohji to seek retribution at any moment. He’d also been shying away from any contact and visibly not-cringing when the taller man reached for him, or anything near him, or vaguely looked like he might reach for something. He was, in short, driving Yohji crazy.
Sitting the bag on the greenhouse floor, he took a step back, lifting an eyebrow in inquiry.
Aya instantly bristled at the blunt acknowledgement of his uncertainty, glaring at Yohji. The blonde glared back over the edge of his sunglasses and gestured at the bag with his hand. With a small huff, Aya snatched up the bag, standing with it in his hand as they continued to stare at each other.
Suddenly, Yohji wondered if that was the way Aya had been forced to feed the cat, offering it bits of food then backing away. Unable to stop it, he found himself imagining Aya with a pair of scraggly, black cat ears, glaring with his purple eyes while a long tail swished angrily behind him.
“Gods, Aya,” he laughed, taking the boy unawares as he stared in confusion at the sudden change of mood, “Come here. Come on, bring that bowl so we can get Manfred some water.”
~tbc~
Notes from Evil Hentai Slug: *watches the author try to fit a tent into her backpack* Leave a review…please. I’ve got to have some way to get her to come back home and play with the pretty boys.
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Chapter Seventy-Five: Gift Me
No one had said a word, but all of them knew what to do. Yohji locked the front doors and brought down the shutters, Omi secured the side entrance and closed down the till, and Ken tidied up quickly. They met at the work table in the back, and Yohji wondered precisely how they had developed an instinct for meetings.
He produced the folder; Omi took it and handed it over to Ken, the only one not yet privy to its information. Immediately the brunette took a seat, and they all followed. Omi didn’t wait for Ken, jumping into the middle of it.
“What do you think?” he questioned, looking Yohji straight in the eyes. Or, he would have been if the blonde hadn’t had the protection of his shades.
“Big players,” he answered. It was an understatement. Takatori Reiji was more than a big fish, he was a mother fucking shark. “Question is, how much affects us now?”
Omi nodded, “Remember Manx.”
Yeah, Yohji had thought of that the night before, remembering how the woman had reacted to hearing Aya’s name, the way she had snapped that weird photograph. She knew who he was.
“So Kritiker’s involved?”
“I think so, but I didn’t find anything.”
“They’ll let him in then?”
Omi nodded. Well, that was one relief, but if Kritiker wanted to keep Aya close…it wasn’t exactly encouraging.
“Who ran the tests?” Omi asked. It was obvious he had a theory and was testing it against Yohji’s own. The older man didn’t mind.
“Takatori, or rather, his son. Masafumi. Two science degrees, and over a dozen lawsuits—and those are the ones his dad couldn’t cover.”
Again, Omi nodded.
“What was the point?” Ken asked suddenly, head still bent over the papers.
No one answered.
“Okay,” the soccer player accepted the unknown, “So what’s it got to do with Aya?”
“Obviously he’s a test subject. It’s too much of a coincidence, and Takatori’s son was working for the company even before the merger officially happened. He’s almost forty, so it’s completely possible he administered the tests on Aya mother, or had someone else do it,” Omi explained. “I don’t know what he was doing, but almost all of the altered children died. Most were disfigured; all of them looked strange. There have to be some internal or mental alterations.”
“The autopsy,” Yohji put in, snagging that document from the folder. “It said something about the brain.”
“Yes,” Omi took it. “They noted something odd, but never went into detail. I wonder…Aya-kun’s progress, his ability to pick things up, could it be some kind of…enhancement, a genetic alteration, some kind of ‘super-human’ plan or something?”
“Huh,” Yohji grunted, noncommittal.
Something felt off in the theory; it just didn’t jive. And if Aya was the best result, why would Takatori let him out of his sight?
“Why’d they use the boss’s son in the first place?”
“Blackmail?” Omi theorized, not seeming set on the idea. It didn’t feel right, either.
“Did the guy know?” Ken asked. “Aya’s dad, did he know?”
“He had to,” Yohji guessed.
“I don’t know…if we believe Aya, he tried to stop the tests once he figured it out. He wouldn’t have let it go if he knew fifteen years before hand.”
“So he just accepted that he and his wife had a red-haired, purple-eyed baby?” Yohji scoffed. It didn’t work out. They were missing something.
“Does Aya know?”
“No,” Yohji and Omi said at the same time. Yohji dipped his head, giving the boy permission to take the lead.
“He probably would have said something. He’s definitely angry at Takatori, and this would be more ammunition. He says the reason his parents were killed was because his father was going to the press; he didn’t say anything about himself.”
“So is he involved still or not?”
They spent a few minutes tossing around theories and getting nowhere quickly.
“So what do we do?” Ken asked.
“We watch Kritiker, and keep Aya in Weiss,” Omi decided.
~*~
Trying to shove the entire discussion to the back of his mind where it could roll around undisturbed and maybe let something fall into place, Yohji headed to the greenhouse. He disarmed the system and stepped inside to find Aya leaning slightly over one of the long tables. The boy glanced up, then quickly back down. Shaking his head, Yohji walked over to check out whatever it was that Aya was working on.
It turned out to be a notebook, an old, battered thing with half the pages town out, something else he had unearthed from the greenhouse. On one page, Aya was listing the names of plants, number of the tray, and the date he had planted it. That kind of organization had no appeal to Yohji; he preferred to keep things outlined in his head and might manage a post-it note on a good day, but it was intriguing to see another side to Aya.
Finishing the last row, the boy clipped the pen to the side and set it all away, standing quietly beside Yohji and obviously waiting for him to speak.
“Want to eat before we go? I thought I might—”
He stopped, sure he had heard some sound. Being with Aya had made him quick to listen to tiny noises, suspecting them of being inadvertent responses. But besides a slight tensing of his shoulders, Aya hadn’t moved.
Just as he was ready to speak again, something fell in the back corner.
Yohji moved without thinking. Putting himself between Aya and the source of the noise, Yohji grabbed at the ring of his watch, eyes trained on the far left corner of the greenhouse.
For a few breaths, nothing happened, then something moved low to the ground.
Yohji released the catch, gathering a small spool of wire in his right hand.
Then Aya was in front of him again.
“Damn it, Aya—”
“Don’t hurt her!”
He let go of the wire, scared to even have it in his hand when Aya was in range, and it silently retracted as he stepped back, staring.
On his knees, Aya hunched over something on the floor, his arms wrapped around it and head lowered.
“Please,” Aya whispered, carrying only because of the lingering quiet of the place. The boy took a deep breath, then, a little more sure. “It’s my fault.”
Sitting up into a kneel with a determined look on his face, Aya gathered the thing into his lap. It was large and…furry.
“Oh, gods, it’s a freaking cat,” Yohji laughed. “Shit, Aya, I thought it was a guy or something.”
Aya did not look comforted. The animal, as if connected to the redhead, twisted in his arms to hiss at Yohji.
“Don’t hurt her,” Aya said again. “I…I let her in here…it’s my fault.”
Oh, shit, Aya thought Yohji was gonna kill the cat or something, or hurt him instead.
“Not a lot of confidence in me there,” Yohji huffed, running a hand through his loose hair. Aya cringed when he stepped closer, but Yohji ignored it to crouch down beside him. Lifting a hand, he went to pet the cat; Aya flinched, and the cat hissed, a loud, fierce sound that made Yohji jerk back his hand.
“Not gonna hurt you,” he told it. It stared back at him, an eerie, one-eyed stare that reminded him of Berserker. Trying to get away from this bizarre resemblance, he sought more pleasant aspects of the animal, only to realize the thing wasn’t all that pleasant. It was a grizzly kind of thin, with long, ragged hair that hung over little more than bones despite the creature’s large frame. Its head was gigantic, but sort of lopsided with one of its ears missing the end.
Aya had not picked a pretty pet.
Yohji had to laugh a little over the situation, at Aya worried over keeping a cat while Yohji worried over keeping Aya. The latter was undoubtedly more high maintenance.
“Hey,” he raised the hand again, going this time for Aya’s hair. The boy tensed but held still, and after a second’s check, Yohji ran his fingers lightly through Aya’s bangs. “Not gonna hurt you either.”
“I’m sorry,” Aya said, not looking at him. With one trembling hand he smoothed the fur on the cat’s back.
“It’s fine.” As far as acts of defiance, a pet didn’t seem worth this kind of drama. Hell, it was nice to see Aya taking a little initiative with something, even if it was an ugly-ass cat.
He decided not to tell Aya this.
“You’ve been taking care of him?”
Aya kept petting the cat, who relaxed onto his lap and began to purr softly, turning a little and giving Yohji the view of its broken tail.
“Aya, you’ve been taking care of him?”
“Her.”
“Her,” Yohji corrected, not able to stop smiling. Genetic engineering could go to hell; he was much happier worrying about making Aya happy, even if it meant keeping the ugly cat. “What’s the lady’s name?”
Nothing. Aya was still nervous, and obviously not going to go out a limb with conversation.
“Come on. I’m not mad, you know. And I wasn’t gonna hurt it—her. Hey,” he prodded Aya’s arm a little and settled down more fully on the rough floor, “You know you can keep it.”
Aya finally looked up at him, adorably confused, “Really?”
~*~
“Hey!” Ken yelled as he shoved open the greenhouse door. “You guys gonna want in on a pizza or—what the hell is that thing?”
“A cat,” Yohji replied. Smart ass. Ken flipped him off; Yohji just grinned around his cigarette.
“That is one hell of an ugly cat.”
“It’s Aya’s pet.”
Since when did Aya have a pet? Not one to stress over the details, Ken shrugged that off and went closer to investigate the weird thing rubbing about Aya’s ankles as he stood next to Yohji. It was big and thin and looked like it might be missing some parts.
“It’s a girl,” Yohji told him.
“You’re letting him keep it?” Yohji had never been one for pets. When Omi brought home a puppy, he had thrown a regular fit, even resisted the big-eye thing. Once it peed on the rug, it was gone.
“It’s a girl,” the blonde repeated. He bent over to pet it, but the cat had other ideas. Pausing mid-rub of Aya’s leg, it turned and hissed at him, making Ken laugh. Yohji glared, but he didn’t look too upset. “Wouldn’t you help a lady in distress?”
“Whatever. But seriously, that’s the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen.” He looked up at Aya who, for once, was looking in his direction, a wary expression on his face, “Don’t cha want something cute? We could get a kitten maybe, or one of those little—”
“I want Manfred.”
Ken stopped and blinked. He had never heard the boy so sure of anything.
~*~
Yohji hefted the large bag of cat food off his shoulder with a grunt that was more for show than anything else. Aya was hovering close beside him, hands outstretched like he might help if the blonde really needed it, and Yohji was not about to explain to him that a twenty-pound bag was no sweat.
As he straightened, he watched Aya watch the bag in his other hand, a collection of cat necessities designed to make the greenhouse into a nice home for their stray: bowl, blanket, and, most importantly, a brush that Yohji hoped would make the thing look a little better.
Wondering if Aya would take the initiative, Yohji held out the bag. The redhead hesitated, eyes flicking to the bag, to Yohji’s face, and back again.
“Here, take it,” Yohji directed, holding it a little further from himself.
Aya looked again, like it might be some kind of trick. Yohji sighed; one step forward and two back. Ever since the discovery of the cat, Aya had been quiet, very quiet, like he expected Yohji to seek retribution at any moment. He’d also been shying away from any contact and visibly not-cringing when the taller man reached for him, or anything near him, or vaguely looked like he might reach for something. He was, in short, driving Yohji crazy.
Sitting the bag on the greenhouse floor, he took a step back, lifting an eyebrow in inquiry.
Aya instantly bristled at the blunt acknowledgement of his uncertainty, glaring at Yohji. The blonde glared back over the edge of his sunglasses and gestured at the bag with his hand. With a small huff, Aya snatched up the bag, standing with it in his hand as they continued to stare at each other.
Suddenly, Yohji wondered if that was the way Aya had been forced to feed the cat, offering it bits of food then backing away. Unable to stop it, he found himself imagining Aya with a pair of scraggly, black cat ears, glaring with his purple eyes while a long tail swished angrily behind him.
“Gods, Aya,” he laughed, taking the boy unawares as he stared in confusion at the sudden change of mood, “Come here. Come on, bring that bowl so we can get Manfred some water.”
~tbc~
Notes from Evil Hentai Slug: *watches the author try to fit a tent into her backpack* Leave a review…please. I’ve got to have some way to get her to come back home and play with the pretty boys.
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