Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chains ❯ Confound Me ( Chapter 78 )
[ 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: 05.05.2011 | Updated On: 05.06.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 240 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.05.2011 | Updated On: 05.06.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 240 | Status: Work In Progress
Notes: Testing time at school, and the author being an expert in literature has been assigned the illustrious role of hall monitor! Which means lots of writing time…uh, I mean, lots of close and strict supervision of the halls.
Chapter Seventy-Eight: Confound Me
Yohji sat alone in bed, the tepid gray of early morning creeping in the window. Smoke rose from the end of his cigarette, adding to the dim haze that seemed to fill the room.
Lifting his free hand, he raked it through his tangled hair, soon giving up on smoothing it into order. He needed to get up and find a brush, but he didn’t want to. To get up meant to officially start the day; it was too damn early and too damn depressing.
The night had been disturbing. Aya had suffered from his first real nightmares, or at least from the worst so far. There had been no quiet comfort as the boy woke up screaming again and again, apologizing to his master, alternating trying to escape from and cowering under Yohji’s hands. He had been on the floor more than once, and Yohji had lifted him, nearly hysterical, back into the bed, doing anything in his power to make it better.
Eventually Aya got awake enough to recognize him, launching into apologies while Yohji tried to assure him it was okay when it clearly wasn’t. They would lay back down together, but Yohji soon realized Aya was trying not to sleep. Exhausted from the day, he lost the battle more than once, but by three o’clock he was staying awake which kept Yohji awake, putting him in a pissy mood.
Around four-thirty, Yohji said…something stupid. Aya apologized and left; about to search for him, Yohji heard the shower start and was relieved he didn’t have to stage a hunt just yet. So he was smoking.
Today was Aya’s psych evaluation. On top of his disturbing past that would be questioned, he had recently freaked out over the doctor’s visit, suffered all night, and thought Yohji was mad at him: it wasn’t likely to be a rousing success.
Lost in thought, Yohji didn’t notice Aya until the boy pushed open the door and entered the room. He wore only a white towel around his waist, looking so thin even with the weight he had gained. He visibly shied away under Yohji’s gaze, and the blonde was careful to advert it, looking out the window so Aya could change without him staring. The boy would never ask for it, but he needed the consideration.
Only after Aya had chosen his clothes and dressed (a rather lengthy process with everything pondered over and put on with precision) did Yohji try to talk to him. Patting the bed, he motioned for Aya to sit near him. The redhead did, positioning himself near the edge of the bed and ducking his head. Yohji caught only a glimpse of shadowed eyes.
“Think you can sleep a little now?” he questioned quietly. It was too early for loud noises, even without a hangover.
No, Aya shook his head. Yohji didn’t press the issue; he knew enough about nightmares to understand. He couldn’t even be properly angry for his own lack of sleep, sure he would repay the favor if they shared a room long enough.
“Tell me what you dreamed about?” he asked.
No, Aya shook his head again. Yohji lit another cigarette, letting the silence hang for a minute.
“About him? Your old master?”
Yes, Aya nodded.
“About what he did to you?”
Aya hesitated, his right hand twitched but was still. Finally, he nodded.
“What did he do, Aya? What did he do to you?”
No, he shook his head. And again.
“Mitsuda’s gonna ask you that. He’s not gonna stop asking just because you say no,” he tried to explain.
Aya nodded, but Yohji was watching his hands. He had taken the bandages off the day before, hoping to make the healing cuts less obvious, but now short nails were raking over that same damn spot. Quickly stubbing out his smoke, Yohji leaned forward and caught Aya’s hand.
Aya looked up, their eyes meeting, both tired and a little desperate.
“You can’t do that today. Understand?”
It took a minute, but Aya nodded, “I…I’ll do what you say.”
~*~
Yohji knew Aya was nervous, but he didn’t quite realize how upset the boy was until he had to pull off on the side of the road for Aya to throw up the little breakfast he had managed to eat. Afterwards they sat awkwardly together as Yohji restarted the Seven and pulled back onto the road.
Yohji wasn’t sure what to say. The familiar reassurance that everything was okay waited on his lips, but it wasn’t appropriate, because things were probably not okay, not to Aya anyway. After a bad day and worse night, he had dark circles under his eyes which looked so tired. He was unsure, and had grown increasingly nervous as the day wore on. Now, embarrassed after being sick, he refused to even look in Yohji’s direction, staring out the window.
~*~
The room was cold, and Aya ran his hands up and down his arms, marveling at the softness of his orange sweater. He had worn it the day before, but Yohji had been kind enough to wash it so he could have it again. The familiarity made him feel a little safer as he sat alone in Mitsuda’s office.
He supposed it was an office; Yohji said so. It looked more like a living room, terribly modern yet unable to achieve minimalism. The stark, glass-topped desk was cluttered with papers and pens, the black couch and chair decorated with green throw pillows, and the tall, angular shelves filled with knickknacks that undoubtedly gathered dust.
It didn’t make any sense to Aya, but then, none of it did. What did they want?
Mitsuda was a mystery, yet to appear and generally unimportant in Aya’s opinion. Kritiker, though, wanted to evaluate him, and he needed to prove himself worthy because…because Yohji wanted him to. No, that wasn’t right. It was to find Aya-chan…but Yohji…
It confused him more than he liked to admit.
Forcing his attention away, Aya searched for something else to think about. There were no windows, and he didn’t dare move from where the secretary had seated him. He would do what Yohji said. He wouldn’t scratch his wrist or pull his hair, if he could avoid it. He would sit there, listen to Mitsuda, and answer the questions. Aya dreaded that. He didn’t want to talk, because he always said something wrong. Only Yohji listened to—
No. He couldn’t think about how Yohji reacted. This was different. This Mitsuda wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t make so many allowances. Aya had to be on his guard. He had to answer, but no one said anything about telling the truth. He would find the answer Mitsuda wanted.
Aya was good at that.
~*~
Mitsuda Yayoda was a power-hungry ass.
Yohji had known him all of two minutes, but he would gladly pronounce this a fact. What was Kritiker thinking, hiring a moron like that to evaluate mental health? He hadn’t previously suspected the organization of nepotism but there had to be favors exchanged somewhere. Mitsuda couldn’t have gotten anywhere by his own merits.
The words he had traded had not been pleasant, but it was more than that. The very look of him turned Yohji off. He looked scrawny, though he really wasn’t. Tall and rather thin, Mitsuda wore what he undoubtedly thought was professional attire; his brown pants and loose, pale yellow dress shirt doing nothing to make him look intelligent, just boring and ill-coordinated, like he was trying too hard. His shined shoes seconded this opinion.
And there was something about his face, Yohji decided. According to his name and accent, Mitsuda was Japanese, but there was a foreign influence somewhere. He was rather pale (maybe just from staying out of the sun) with fine, straight hair that was lighter than Yohji’s own. It was long and pulled back into a ponytail at his neck, making his ears look too large and his nose, already birdlike with its length, appear even longer.
Yohji wasn’t sure if he really needed his silver glasses, or if he just thought they made him look smarter. They didn’t.
And he was in charge of Aya’s evaluation; Yohji would have liked to evaluate him in a dark alley.
Pausing in his pacing of the hallway, Yohji took a breath and told himself to calm down. Mitsuda hadn’t done anything more than take a snooty tone with him, and over the last three days he really ought to have gotten used to that. Manx, Yumane, bitch-nurse…everyone was up his ass about Aya.
Wishing for a cigarette, Yohji made a few decisions. He would go outside and smoke. He wouldn’t kill Mitsuda, yet. The two went hand in hand, and he smiled a little as he realized he could always get the psychiatrist later.
~*~
Pathetic.
This was Mitsuda Yayoda’s first thought when he walked into his office. Having worked for Kritiker for nearly a year, he had done his share of team evaluations. This, however, was his first for the assassination team, Weiss. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the frail-looking boy half huddled in a gaudy orange sweater. The kid couldn’t be much over eighteen, and he certainly didn’t look like any kind of prodigy. He looked strange.
Closing the door, Yayoda walked over and took a seat behind his sleek desk. He laid down the folder he was carrying and took a minute to look through the background notes he had been provided. This kid was a trauma case; a lot of them were, sad people with terrible pasts—old news. Yayoda didn’t care about helping them. They didn’t deserve it; if they had wanted to work through their pain, they wouldn’t have chosen to get revenge through Kritiker.
This one, though, had it worse than usual, it seemed. There were very few specifics in his file, but it seemed as he had spent some time as a slave of some sort. Besides that, his family was of some import to the current moving of the organization. Kritiker wanted information. That was clear. It didn’t matter how “fit” this Fujimiya was; they wanted him to talk.
Yayoda smiled, a tight, cruel turn to his lips.
~*~
“Your name is Fujimiya?” Mitsuda questioned, leaning back a little in his chair and lacing his hands together as his gray eyes came to meet Aya’s.
Aya struggled to keep his head up; he didn’t have to worry about this man. He didn’t have a reason to hurt him, and Yohji was just outside. It would be fine. All he had to do was answer the questions.
“Yes.”
“Hm,” the blonde replied vaguely as his long fingers flipped through a thin folder of papers. “Do you consider yourself fit to join Weiss?”
“Yes,” Aya answered. He could do this, all he had to do was pay attention.
“You do realize Weiss is one of the best teams with one of the highest success rates in the organization?”
No, he hadn’t.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t think you’re presence will hurt that?”
Would it? Would he put Yohji in danger by being there? Wait—what did Mitsuda want to hear? He had to focus.
“No.”
“My, you certainly don’t lack confidence, do you?”
The next few minutes were spent with Aya tersely answering yes or no questions, then, in a sudden turn of the conversation, Mitsuda ask him where he was born.
“Tokyo,” he answered, slightly hesitant. What did that have to do with anything?
“Hm. Did you have a good family life?”
Careful, Aya warned himself. Find the right answer. Think normal.
“Yes.”
“Really? Father supported you? Mother cared for you?”
“Yes,” he replied, hoping the lie didn’t show. Aya hadn’t thought about it in a long time, and he didn’t want to think of it now. He had to focus on Aya-chan, not what happened when they were little.
“Hm,” Mitsuda replied, as if he doubted the answer. “It was perfect, then?”
“Yes—no,” he corrected quickly, catching on to the trap. “Nothing’s perfect.”
Looking satisfied, Mitsuda leaned forward.
“Why wasn’t it perfect? What was wrong with your childhood?”
Aya was at a loss, wanting to drag up some little occurrence but unable to get his memory to cooperate. It was still a fuzzy thing, willful seeking often interrupted by flashbacks which made him reluctant to think about the past. He didn’t know what to say.
“Was your mother a kind woman?”
An image then, that he hadn’t wanted. His mother standing by the kitchen counter, delicate hands forming perfect triangles of rice. Turning, holding out the tray to him and Aya-chan, smiling.
“Yes.”
“Did she love you?”
Lie. That was his first thought. The smiling image vanished, replaced by the woman who yelled and cried, who—no, lie.
“Yes.”
Mitsuda pulled his chair closer to the desk, leaning further over it, closer to Aya. The boy fought the urge to back up in his chair; he caught his hand just as it went for his hair and lowered it deliberately.
“Hm…your father. Was he kind?”
His father, standing behind his large desk, keeping his eyes on Aya-chan, away from Aya, always away. No. He couldn’t do that, no.
“Yes.”
“Hm. Did he love you?”
So clear. His father’s rough grip on his arm, half-dragging him up the steps of the shrine, demanding that he be quiet and not embarrass them further.
His father offering excuses to his guests, not looking at Aya as he explained away his awful coloring. These things happen. They’d done tests, but—
He had to stop. Aa lifted a hand, dropped it. No. No.
“He…he was a good man.”
Mitsuda looked as if he’d just hit a goldmine, and Aya couldn’t figure out what he’d said wrong. He felt overwhelmed, fighting back memories that rushed him all at once. He had to make it stop. He had to do what Yohji said.
~*~
Aya’s face was perfectly emotionless, but Yohji could see the turmoil in his eyes. It made him want to wring Mitsuda’s neck, not in the figurative sense, either.
The other blonde smiled at him, a self-satisfied expression making his bird-face look exceptionally cruel. If he had said a word, Yohji would have hit him, but, good fortune or not, he walked away, leaving the assassin to deal with Aya.
“Okay?” he questioned, knowing the answer but hoping to gage Aya’s response. What were they looking at here? Some quiet time? A yelling match? A complete breakdown?
Life with Aya was complicated, and just to throw Yohji off again, Aya didn’t nod. He didn’t do anything, just stared at the older man with that scary, blank look that didn’t touch his eyes.
“Aya?” Yohji asked, stepping closer and touching the boy lightly on the shoulder. Aya tilted his head to accommodate the closeness, but made no answer. “Are you okay?”
There was a moment of silence, then Aya took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He nodded once, then lowered his head.
“Is that a yes?”
“I…home…please.”
R 20;Yeah,” he replied to the whispered request, “Sure.”
~tbc~
Evil Hentai Slug: *sitting by the author as she guards the deserted middle school halls* Review, reader. Tell her to forget the children and write the lemons!
ShonenAiSorcerer: *sternly* I’m not writing lemons when I’m supposed to be watching the children. *turns to grab a pen; a lemon falls out of her pocket*
Evil Hentai Slug: Sure…whatever you say…
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Chapter Seventy-Eight: Confound Me
Yohji sat alone in bed, the tepid gray of early morning creeping in the window. Smoke rose from the end of his cigarette, adding to the dim haze that seemed to fill the room.
Lifting his free hand, he raked it through his tangled hair, soon giving up on smoothing it into order. He needed to get up and find a brush, but he didn’t want to. To get up meant to officially start the day; it was too damn early and too damn depressing.
The night had been disturbing. Aya had suffered from his first real nightmares, or at least from the worst so far. There had been no quiet comfort as the boy woke up screaming again and again, apologizing to his master, alternating trying to escape from and cowering under Yohji’s hands. He had been on the floor more than once, and Yohji had lifted him, nearly hysterical, back into the bed, doing anything in his power to make it better.
Eventually Aya got awake enough to recognize him, launching into apologies while Yohji tried to assure him it was okay when it clearly wasn’t. They would lay back down together, but Yohji soon realized Aya was trying not to sleep. Exhausted from the day, he lost the battle more than once, but by three o’clock he was staying awake which kept Yohji awake, putting him in a pissy mood.
Around four-thirty, Yohji said…something stupid. Aya apologized and left; about to search for him, Yohji heard the shower start and was relieved he didn’t have to stage a hunt just yet. So he was smoking.
Today was Aya’s psych evaluation. On top of his disturbing past that would be questioned, he had recently freaked out over the doctor’s visit, suffered all night, and thought Yohji was mad at him: it wasn’t likely to be a rousing success.
Lost in thought, Yohji didn’t notice Aya until the boy pushed open the door and entered the room. He wore only a white towel around his waist, looking so thin even with the weight he had gained. He visibly shied away under Yohji’s gaze, and the blonde was careful to advert it, looking out the window so Aya could change without him staring. The boy would never ask for it, but he needed the consideration.
Only after Aya had chosen his clothes and dressed (a rather lengthy process with everything pondered over and put on with precision) did Yohji try to talk to him. Patting the bed, he motioned for Aya to sit near him. The redhead did, positioning himself near the edge of the bed and ducking his head. Yohji caught only a glimpse of shadowed eyes.
“Think you can sleep a little now?” he questioned quietly. It was too early for loud noises, even without a hangover.
No, Aya shook his head. Yohji didn’t press the issue; he knew enough about nightmares to understand. He couldn’t even be properly angry for his own lack of sleep, sure he would repay the favor if they shared a room long enough.
“Tell me what you dreamed about?” he asked.
No, Aya shook his head again. Yohji lit another cigarette, letting the silence hang for a minute.
“About him? Your old master?”
Yes, Aya nodded.
“About what he did to you?”
Aya hesitated, his right hand twitched but was still. Finally, he nodded.
“What did he do, Aya? What did he do to you?”
No, he shook his head. And again.
“Mitsuda’s gonna ask you that. He’s not gonna stop asking just because you say no,” he tried to explain.
Aya nodded, but Yohji was watching his hands. He had taken the bandages off the day before, hoping to make the healing cuts less obvious, but now short nails were raking over that same damn spot. Quickly stubbing out his smoke, Yohji leaned forward and caught Aya’s hand.
Aya looked up, their eyes meeting, both tired and a little desperate.
“You can’t do that today. Understand?”
It took a minute, but Aya nodded, “I…I’ll do what you say.”
~*~
Yohji knew Aya was nervous, but he didn’t quite realize how upset the boy was until he had to pull off on the side of the road for Aya to throw up the little breakfast he had managed to eat. Afterwards they sat awkwardly together as Yohji restarted the Seven and pulled back onto the road.
Yohji wasn’t sure what to say. The familiar reassurance that everything was okay waited on his lips, but it wasn’t appropriate, because things were probably not okay, not to Aya anyway. After a bad day and worse night, he had dark circles under his eyes which looked so tired. He was unsure, and had grown increasingly nervous as the day wore on. Now, embarrassed after being sick, he refused to even look in Yohji’s direction, staring out the window.
~*~
The room was cold, and Aya ran his hands up and down his arms, marveling at the softness of his orange sweater. He had worn it the day before, but Yohji had been kind enough to wash it so he could have it again. The familiarity made him feel a little safer as he sat alone in Mitsuda’s office.
He supposed it was an office; Yohji said so. It looked more like a living room, terribly modern yet unable to achieve minimalism. The stark, glass-topped desk was cluttered with papers and pens, the black couch and chair decorated with green throw pillows, and the tall, angular shelves filled with knickknacks that undoubtedly gathered dust.
It didn’t make any sense to Aya, but then, none of it did. What did they want?
Mitsuda was a mystery, yet to appear and generally unimportant in Aya’s opinion. Kritiker, though, wanted to evaluate him, and he needed to prove himself worthy because…because Yohji wanted him to. No, that wasn’t right. It was to find Aya-chan…but Yohji…
It confused him more than he liked to admit.
Forcing his attention away, Aya searched for something else to think about. There were no windows, and he didn’t dare move from where the secretary had seated him. He would do what Yohji said. He wouldn’t scratch his wrist or pull his hair, if he could avoid it. He would sit there, listen to Mitsuda, and answer the questions. Aya dreaded that. He didn’t want to talk, because he always said something wrong. Only Yohji listened to—
No. He couldn’t think about how Yohji reacted. This was different. This Mitsuda wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t make so many allowances. Aya had to be on his guard. He had to answer, but no one said anything about telling the truth. He would find the answer Mitsuda wanted.
Aya was good at that.
~*~
Mitsuda Yayoda was a power-hungry ass.
Yohji had known him all of two minutes, but he would gladly pronounce this a fact. What was Kritiker thinking, hiring a moron like that to evaluate mental health? He hadn’t previously suspected the organization of nepotism but there had to be favors exchanged somewhere. Mitsuda couldn’t have gotten anywhere by his own merits.
The words he had traded had not been pleasant, but it was more than that. The very look of him turned Yohji off. He looked scrawny, though he really wasn’t. Tall and rather thin, Mitsuda wore what he undoubtedly thought was professional attire; his brown pants and loose, pale yellow dress shirt doing nothing to make him look intelligent, just boring and ill-coordinated, like he was trying too hard. His shined shoes seconded this opinion.
And there was something about his face, Yohji decided. According to his name and accent, Mitsuda was Japanese, but there was a foreign influence somewhere. He was rather pale (maybe just from staying out of the sun) with fine, straight hair that was lighter than Yohji’s own. It was long and pulled back into a ponytail at his neck, making his ears look too large and his nose, already birdlike with its length, appear even longer.
Yohji wasn’t sure if he really needed his silver glasses, or if he just thought they made him look smarter. They didn’t.
And he was in charge of Aya’s evaluation; Yohji would have liked to evaluate him in a dark alley.
Pausing in his pacing of the hallway, Yohji took a breath and told himself to calm down. Mitsuda hadn’t done anything more than take a snooty tone with him, and over the last three days he really ought to have gotten used to that. Manx, Yumane, bitch-nurse…everyone was up his ass about Aya.
Wishing for a cigarette, Yohji made a few decisions. He would go outside and smoke. He wouldn’t kill Mitsuda, yet. The two went hand in hand, and he smiled a little as he realized he could always get the psychiatrist later.
~*~
Pathetic.
This was Mitsuda Yayoda’s first thought when he walked into his office. Having worked for Kritiker for nearly a year, he had done his share of team evaluations. This, however, was his first for the assassination team, Weiss. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the frail-looking boy half huddled in a gaudy orange sweater. The kid couldn’t be much over eighteen, and he certainly didn’t look like any kind of prodigy. He looked strange.
Closing the door, Yayoda walked over and took a seat behind his sleek desk. He laid down the folder he was carrying and took a minute to look through the background notes he had been provided. This kid was a trauma case; a lot of them were, sad people with terrible pasts—old news. Yayoda didn’t care about helping them. They didn’t deserve it; if they had wanted to work through their pain, they wouldn’t have chosen to get revenge through Kritiker.
This one, though, had it worse than usual, it seemed. There were very few specifics in his file, but it seemed as he had spent some time as a slave of some sort. Besides that, his family was of some import to the current moving of the organization. Kritiker wanted information. That was clear. It didn’t matter how “fit” this Fujimiya was; they wanted him to talk.
Yayoda smiled, a tight, cruel turn to his lips.
~*~
“Your name is Fujimiya?” Mitsuda questioned, leaning back a little in his chair and lacing his hands together as his gray eyes came to meet Aya’s.
Aya struggled to keep his head up; he didn’t have to worry about this man. He didn’t have a reason to hurt him, and Yohji was just outside. It would be fine. All he had to do was answer the questions.
“Yes.”
“Hm,” the blonde replied vaguely as his long fingers flipped through a thin folder of papers. “Do you consider yourself fit to join Weiss?”
“Yes,” Aya answered. He could do this, all he had to do was pay attention.
“You do realize Weiss is one of the best teams with one of the highest success rates in the organization?”
No, he hadn’t.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t think you’re presence will hurt that?”
Would it? Would he put Yohji in danger by being there? Wait—what did Mitsuda want to hear? He had to focus.
“No.”
“My, you certainly don’t lack confidence, do you?”
The next few minutes were spent with Aya tersely answering yes or no questions, then, in a sudden turn of the conversation, Mitsuda ask him where he was born.
“Tokyo,” he answered, slightly hesitant. What did that have to do with anything?
“Hm. Did you have a good family life?”
Careful, Aya warned himself. Find the right answer. Think normal.
“Yes.”
“Really? Father supported you? Mother cared for you?”
“Yes,” he replied, hoping the lie didn’t show. Aya hadn’t thought about it in a long time, and he didn’t want to think of it now. He had to focus on Aya-chan, not what happened when they were little.
“Hm,” Mitsuda replied, as if he doubted the answer. “It was perfect, then?”
“Yes—no,” he corrected quickly, catching on to the trap. “Nothing’s perfect.”
Looking satisfied, Mitsuda leaned forward.
“Why wasn’t it perfect? What was wrong with your childhood?”
Aya was at a loss, wanting to drag up some little occurrence but unable to get his memory to cooperate. It was still a fuzzy thing, willful seeking often interrupted by flashbacks which made him reluctant to think about the past. He didn’t know what to say.
“Was your mother a kind woman?”
An image then, that he hadn’t wanted. His mother standing by the kitchen counter, delicate hands forming perfect triangles of rice. Turning, holding out the tray to him and Aya-chan, smiling.
“Yes.”
“Did she love you?”
Lie. That was his first thought. The smiling image vanished, replaced by the woman who yelled and cried, who—no, lie.
“Yes.”
Mitsuda pulled his chair closer to the desk, leaning further over it, closer to Aya. The boy fought the urge to back up in his chair; he caught his hand just as it went for his hair and lowered it deliberately.
“Hm…your father. Was he kind?”
His father, standing behind his large desk, keeping his eyes on Aya-chan, away from Aya, always away. No. He couldn’t do that, no.
“Yes.”
“Hm. Did he love you?”
So clear. His father’s rough grip on his arm, half-dragging him up the steps of the shrine, demanding that he be quiet and not embarrass them further.
His father offering excuses to his guests, not looking at Aya as he explained away his awful coloring. These things happen. They’d done tests, but—
He had to stop. Aa lifted a hand, dropped it. No. No.
“He…he was a good man.”
Mitsuda looked as if he’d just hit a goldmine, and Aya couldn’t figure out what he’d said wrong. He felt overwhelmed, fighting back memories that rushed him all at once. He had to make it stop. He had to do what Yohji said.
~*~
Aya’s face was perfectly emotionless, but Yohji could see the turmoil in his eyes. It made him want to wring Mitsuda’s neck, not in the figurative sense, either.
The other blonde smiled at him, a self-satisfied expression making his bird-face look exceptionally cruel. If he had said a word, Yohji would have hit him, but, good fortune or not, he walked away, leaving the assassin to deal with Aya.
“Okay?” he questioned, knowing the answer but hoping to gage Aya’s response. What were they looking at here? Some quiet time? A yelling match? A complete breakdown?
Life with Aya was complicated, and just to throw Yohji off again, Aya didn’t nod. He didn’t do anything, just stared at the older man with that scary, blank look that didn’t touch his eyes.
“Aya?” Yohji asked, stepping closer and touching the boy lightly on the shoulder. Aya tilted his head to accommodate the closeness, but made no answer. “Are you okay?”
There was a moment of silence, then Aya took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He nodded once, then lowered his head.
“Is that a yes?”
“I…home…please.”
R 20;Yeah,” he replied to the whispered request, “Sure.”
~tbc~
Evil Hentai Slug: *sitting by the author as she guards the deserted middle school halls* Review, reader. Tell her to forget the children and write the lemons!
ShonenAiSorcerer: *sternly* I’m not writing lemons when I’m supposed to be watching the children. *turns to grab a pen; a lemon falls out of her pocket*
Evil Hentai Slug: Sure…whatever you say…
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