Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 21 ( Chapter 21 )

21

Shades of feelings my heart denies
bathing in shadows hidden in the eyes of lies - my glowing future…

I hadn't really paid attention when we were driving here, but now I realized I sort of recognized the area. It was a couple of hours away from our old apartment, at least the way I drive. Probably further than that if you obeyed the traffic laws.

The people on the streets ignored me. God, but it was easy turning their memories so they forgot me as soon as they saw me. The tall, red-haired foreigner dressed like a raver and smoking an imported cigarette passed by unseen, just as I planned it.

Across the street, I spied a small bar sign. It seemed oddly familiar. Narrow stairs led below street level, and I found myself crossing the street to check it out. Déjà vu followed me every step. But it wasn't the sort of place I'd normally frequent: there was no dance music pouring up the steps, no sense of party chemicals in the minds within, only man's oldest friends, alcohol and tobacco.

Inside the door I paused, suddenly paranoid and feeling very exposed. Damn Crawford! I reminded myself that there was no reason to believe he was on top of his visions at this time, no reason to think his extreme caution had been justified. No, I thought that the pursuit, should it ever come, would be brief and easy to avoid. Danger just didn't lurk around every corner: that was how normals might live, but not me. I was the devil himself, I recalled with a smirk, and so should have nothing to fear in the world of man.

On steadier legs I descended the last few steps into the club proper. This was a men-only kind of place, though not specifically queer. That's right, I had been here before! Followed a couple of businessmen in search of cheap liquor and solitude. This was a place people came to be forgotten, or invisible. Ironic that I would flee the isolation of the apartment only to hurry here, to be alone among many.

I surveyed the crowd. Older men, mostly, intent on their booze and their forgetting, or petty gambling. A few younger fellows slouched at the bar, leaning over their drinks with the intensity of the smashed. One of these looked up as though hearing his name called, and glanced around.

I gasped. ::It's him! It's that guy…::

He looked right at me, and his surprise hit me like a bullet. ::You! You're…(a ghost?) alive!::

I wove my way through the clutter of tables. On my way, I intercepted a waiter with a tray of drinks. I touched his mind, making him forget where he was going as I appropriated two of the glasses and strolled over to the bar. "Well, stranger," I murmured. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Likewise," he replied, looking at me as though I might vanish.

"Buy you a drink?" I asked, offering him a glass.

He gave me a quirky little smile. "What is it?"

"Something alcoholic, I suspect." I turned toward him, glass half raised in a toast. "Here's to breathing," I quipped, remembering the relief I had felt when seeing him alive on the beach.

He laughed, a soft, smoky sound, and said, "I'll drink to that." He touched his glass to mine, and we drank. Mine turned out to be something with whiskey; I still wasn't sure what I'd given him.

We sipped our drinks in friendly silence; he finished his first and lit up a cigarette, then gestured for the barman. I noticed that Kudou had quite a collection of empty glasses in front of him. I wondered how long he'd been sitting there, and what had brought him back here this night. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to ask.

Kudou ordered scotch on the rocks, I ordered Chivas neat. He watched me take out my smokes and light one, following the movement of my hands.

"What should I call you?" he asked, regarding me mildly.

"Schuldig," I answered, a little uncomfortable that I had nothing better to offer him. It was my chosen name, true, but right now it seemed little better than a codename or cheap alias. Then it occurred to me that this man probably didn't speak German, so it really didn't matter.

"Kudou Yohji," he introduced himself. "But I think you knew that."

I smiled and bowed my head a little. "Pleasure to meet you outside of work, then, Yohji."

Sleepy jade eyes studied my face. "You have a nice smile."

"Flirt." I tossed back the Chivas with flair, knowing I looked good when I did that.

Yohji laughed and called for another round. "No, I mean it. You really have a nice smile. It's better than that nasty smirk you always used to wear. It suits you."

"Thanks," I murmured, a little self-conscious. I loved flirting, did it instinctively with every man I met, but I wasn't used to being the recipient of it.

"So, what brings you here, Schwarz?" he asked playfully, trying to sound menacing but having a little trouble with the German word. The alcohol slurred his speech, though not in a bad way; his soft Japanese accent made him sound like he was purring.

"Same thing that brought you here, Weiß," I bantered back, remembering our first brief meeting in that same bar. "Cheap drinks."

"Damn right!" he agreed and called for more, though my last was still untouched. Looking at me critically if a bit woozily, he asked, "You still in the same line of work?" As though realizing that I wouldn't answer unless he gave me a reason to, he gestured widely with his glass and offered, "Me, I'm retired. Nothing left to do." He started coughing, doubling over a little on the barstool and covering his mouth with his arm.

"You all right?" I asked, more concerned than I'd expected to be.

"Damn sea water," he grumbled. "Just got over a nasty infection from swallowing it. Shouldn't be drinking, actually, but I trust my own judgment more than doctors sometimes." Amazingly, he took a drag on his cigarette with no untoward effects. Then again, long-time smokers could do such things; I should know. "How about you? You guys okay?"

"Yeah," I answered without thinking. "We made it." I realized then that he didn't know I'd seen him that day, on the sand; he didn't know that I knew his team had survived. Somehow I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him, either. Not right now. "And you?"

Yohji snorted bitterly. "We're alive. Not much more than that. Gone our own ways now. Everything is gone."

From his surface thoughts I could see that they had all survived, but he felt they were as thoroughly lost to him as if they had not. Anguish poured off this man over the breakup of his team, his family, the young men who had become his world. My heart ached for him. His left hand clenched into a fist on the bar. I placed my hand over his and looked into his eyes. They were misted with grief and anger, and drunkenness. I opened my mouth to speak, but there was nothing I could say.

"I really shouldn't tell you any more," he mumbled, starting to get up.

"It's all right," I said. "I probably shouldn't be talking to you at all."

He gave me a curious look. "See you around, then?"

I smiled and stood. "Of course you will. I like this place."

Yohji staggered a little; I steadied him, amazed at the weight of the man. He seemed so reedy, I hadn't expected him to be this solid.

With a sheepish smile he asked, "Did you drive?"

I chuckled and shook my head. "Sorry, I walked."

"Figures. I meet a hot redhead and he doesn't even have a car."

I helped him to the door, discovering in the process that my steps weren't that steady, either. The stairway to street level proved quite problematic. Hanging onto each other and the iron railing, we managed to haul ourselves up and into the night. As one, we started laughing at the absurdity of it all: Schwarz and Weiß, staggering drunk through the midnight streets of a Tokyo suburb.

"Hey," Yohji said, arm thrown over my shoulders, "there's a park not far from here. We could hang out and talk some more. I don't think I could make it home."

"I thought you didn't want to talk to me anymore," I reminded him. "You know, mortal enemies?"

This brought a fresh fit of laughter, and we stood there, doubled over with mirth. "Oh, yeah, right," Yohji said, "can you fight, Schwarz?"

"Not at the moment!"

"Me neither. Maybe if we sober up some, we can pick up where we left off," he offered amiably.

"Where's that park?" I asked, hoping for a place to sit the hell down and let the world stop spinning. I hadn't had much booze since before the tower, and tonight's little excursion had nearly done me in. Then again, I decided to blame the unidentified first drinks of the night for all our current suffering.

Yohji steered a course vaguely down the side of the street, wandering into the road from time to time. I kept pulling him back onto the sidewalk whenever he meandered too far. "Damn, Kudou, how much did you have before I showed up?" I scolded, not comfortable with the caretaker role at that juncture.

"Almost enough," he replied, voice distant.

We made it to the park, and I was relieved to find that we had it all to ourselves. I was doubly relieved to find a bench. Slumping onto it in tandem, we caught our breath for a moment, then regarded each other curiously.

"So, Schuldig," Yohji said.

"Yeah?"

"What now?"

I considered the question. An occasional firefly drifted past. Above us, the night sky glowed with ancient promise. Time seemed to be waiting for my reply. "I don't know," I murmured. "We're kind of on our own, now. Nowhere to go back to."

"That little kid all right?"

"You mean Nagi?" I asked, surprised. Then I remembered that, to those who didn't actually know him, Nagi looked much younger than his fifteen years. He'd been mistaken for a twelve-year-old many times, and in fact, that had usually worked to our favor. "Yeah, well he'll be all right, anyway."

"So what was that he was hitting Omi with?" Yohji asked, shrugging off his drunkenness with the ease of the habitual drinker.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I didn't know that I liked the idea of Kritiker having that information.

He must have seen that in my expression, for he raised a hand and shook his head. "Never mind, dumb question. If I were you, I wouldn't want me knowing either. Better question: we staying here all night?"

I chuckled. "Until you asked, I really hadn't thought about it," I told him. Though I didn't have a watch, I knew it was late. Very late, and most likely there wouldn't be anyone awake at the apartment to let me back in. Unless Brad stayed up. Frankly, the thought of him waiting up for me in his current condition scared the hell out of me. "I don't really have anywhere else to be."

"Me neither." He leaned back and sighed. "Man, I hate how things can change so fast, you know? We were good, the best. And now we're nothing."

"What happened, Yohji?" I asked, not sure he'd answer me, either. Questions about our teams and former organizations seemed rather personal. Still, I had to let him know I was concerned, and this was the only way I could think to do it.

Moving with the slow certainty of drunken concentration, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit one, exhaled a plume of acrid smoke, then said, "Weiß is disbanded. I don't know if they're replacing us with other operatives, and I don't care. I get the feeling it doesn't matter if I tell you a damn thing, either. Does it."

Only slightly less impaired than he, I followed his lead and lit up a smoke, dimly noticing that it was my last. I shook my head. "No, it doesn't." I decided to take the plunge. "We're kind of between jobs ourselves. Actually, forcibly retired is more accurate."

"Funny, I'd have thought you guys staged a walkout," Yohji murmured, jade eyes sharper than they should have been.

"Yeah, well, same result, really. Can't go back, even if we wanted to." Something about the situation felt so right, so decent, it didn't bother me in the least that I was sharing some very dangerous information with a former enemy. Tonight, we were just two wounded men, trying to patch our lives back together. To hell with everything else.

He chuckled a little, which led to a coughing fit. When that subsided, Yohji asked, "So was the pay any good?"

I snorted. "Not really, but the perks were nice."

"I can't believe you guys worked for Takatori. Was he just a cover, or what?"

"Does it matter?" I really didn't want to think about that time in my life, especially when I was drunk enough to get morbid and depressive.

"Sorry, force of habit. You know, I used to be a detective."

"I didn't know that. Were you any good?"

He shook his head. "I kind of sucked, actually. Well, I was good at the actual work, but I sucked at finding the jobs, how about that. Not a useful combination when you like to eat real food regularly, if you know what I mean."

The conversation died off into an amiable silence. We watched the clouds move across the stars, we listened to the sounds of the night. Yohji excused himself and went behind a tree to piss. I momentarily wondered what the hell I was doing there.

Yohji returned to the bench and sat a little closer than before, his body radiating warmth. "So, are you staying around here?"

"Was that a line?" I challenged with a laugh. "Kudou Yohji, did you just lay a line on me?"

"No, Schuldig, if I was going to lay a line on you it'd be something more like: Do you come here often?" he replied, laughing with me.

"Okay, okay. You know I'm within walking distance of the bar," I reminded him. "How about you?"

"Likewise. It's a fair walk, but not a bad one. Tough when I'm in bad shape, like tonight, but that's why this park is here."

"This park is here just so you can stagger your drunken ass on in and sober up on the bench?"

"Damn right," he replied, eyes dancing. "It's all just for me, baby."

I laughed again, and realized that I liked his attitude and his banter. A lot. "I have the feeling that you and I have a lot in common, Kudou Yohji," I murmured, regarding him with half-closed eyes.

"You think so, do you?" He leaned a little closer, teasingly close, and just smiled.

"Yeah. A lot." My lips tingled, anticipating a kiss that didn't come. Instead, he stretched catlike and leaned back against the bench, looking quite pleased with himself. I swallowed down my frustration; I had fantasized about kissing this man for months now, ever since one of our encounters in combat. I forget exactly when, but I had started thinking about him becoming something other than an enemy, and my imagination had taken off with the idea. Now, so close, and he was calling the shots. Just like Brad. I reached for my cigarettes. "Damn it." I'd forgotten the pack was empty.

Yohji pulled two cigarettes from his own pack, lit them, then offered me one.

I reached for it, but he smirked and pulled it back. "Not like that," he stated. As my hand dropped to my side, he leaned forward again and slid the filter between my lips. "Like this."

We smoked in silence, me watching him watching me. The tension was exhilarating.

"Do you want to come back to my place?"

I caught my breath. He studied my face expectantly. But, like Cinderella, my time was nearly up, and so was the sun: the horizon glowed with the first hint of dawn. I couldn't hide the bitter disappointment that I felt; I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see it reflected in his.

Cool fingertips brushed my cheek. "Rain check, then?" he whispered, more understanding than I had dared to hope.

I nodded. I heard him rummaging in his pockets, then the scratching sound of hasty writing. "Here," he said, pressing a matchbook into my hand. "I know it's a little trite, but it's all I had to write on."

I smiled and looked into his eyes. "Thanks, Kudou."

"I have the feeling you'll find me again," he said with a smile.

"I have the feeling you're right."