Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 28 ( Chapter 28 )

28

the wind in my hair makes me so aware how good it is to live tonight
and I haven't felt so alive in years

I walked quickly, not caring where I ended up, or if I even found a destination. Anger propelled me, pushing out from the apartment where Brad and Nagi were probably cursing my name in their sleep. If the fighting or overall hostility woke Far, he was probably mad at me too, by now. Blame me, I'm the guilty one. Ah, hell.

Something in my pocket poked me. I grumbled as I reached down to identify the offending item. My hand came back with a matchbook, the corner creased into a sharp point. For a moment I couldn't think of how it had come to be in my pocket, then I remembered: Yohji had given it to me. He had written something on it and given it to me, and I had stuffed it in my pocket and forgotten about it. Weird how all thoughts of him could vanish upon my return to the apartment, just like all thoughts of Crawford had vanished at the bar. I sighed and read the hasty writing. It was an address.

For a moment I thought about it. Then I shook my head and scolded myself. It was late, nearly midnight. If he was home, and awake, he probably wasn't alone. I stuffed the matchbook back in my pocket and continued walking, my feet knowing where to go but not telling me just yet. Then I looked up, and across the street hung that shabby sign advertising a little dive of a bar. I felt myself smile. Not damn likely, but the booze was still cheap.

I strode in like I owned the place. No one saw me, no one noticed a damn thing. My shields may not keep my thoughts from leaking out, but they sure as hell kept me invisible. I made a beeline for the bar.

He wasn't there. Not that I'd expected or even hoped, but that didn't stop the little grind of disappointment. I flagged the bartender and ordered a double shot of Chivas, neat. Before I could get too drunk to remember, I tossed some money on the bar and settled down to drink the night away.

A chill ran down my spine as I realized that I was not alone. I dropped from the barstool and whipped around to face…Yohji!

"Whoa! Hey, didn't mean to startle you," Kudou drawled, much calmer than he should have been under the circumstances. He held his hands up in a placating gesture, and his eyes laughed at me. "I saw you come in here, thought I'd say hello. You busy?"

I eased myself back onto the barstool, trying to look casual about it. "No, I'm not busy. Just needed a drink or twenty, if that makes sense." I picked up my glass and toasted with it, then downed half.

Yohji regarded me with those cool jade eyes, then said, "You know, sometimes when I'm having a night like that, I go driving. The wind helps blow all the fog away. You want to try it?"

I thought about it. Did I want to go with this man to god-knows-where in the middle of the night? Hell yes. I sure the fuck couldn't go back to the apartment. And, at the moment, I wasn't really certain I wanted to go back at all. The team bond and occasional affection didn't seem enough to balance the massive egos involved, or the violence that bubbled just below the surface. In that, I was just as much to blame as Crawford. Everything touched by Rosenkreuz came out tainted. Everything.

"I'd love to." I finished my drink and followed him out the door.

He sauntered over to a low-slung green monstrosity of a convertible, gazing at it as if it were his girlfriend. I felt myself blink. Somehow I had imagined a Lamborghini or maybe a Ferrari. Something sleek and feral, like the sweet little Italian import I used to have. Sex on wheels.

This car looked, well, British.

"You can hop the door if you like, but I'm not coming around to open it for you," Yohji told me as he slid in behind the wheel and donned his tinted shades.

It amazed me that such a tall guy could fit into a car like this. It didn't seem possible. I got in and settled into a surprisingly comfortable leather bucket seat, off-white and smelling vaguely of old perfume.

"Never been in a Caterham Seven before, have you?" he asked as he turned the key in the ignition.

"No, actually, I haven't," I admitted, listening to a rather satisfying roar from the engine. This might not be half bad, I thought, strapping myself in.

"Some people like to buy these as kit cars," he told me, "but this baby I bought whole, just like you see her." He started rattling off a list of specs, and I tuned him out a little. I like cars, but my interest only goes to the comfort of the interior, the quality of the sound, and the ability to go very very fast. Everything else is for mechanics.

"So," he called over the wind as we pulled onto a main road, "you want to see what she can do?"

I smirked. "Show me, Weiß."

"Hang on to your ass, Schwarz." He pulled onto the freeway and floored it.

The seat molded itself around my back, holding me still as we raced into the night. Damn, this was almost as good as sex! I looked at Yohji, his hands firm upon the wheel, his face serene as he concentrated on piloting the little green road rocket. From his surface thoughts I picked up that this was quite possibly one of the fastest cars on the whole damn island. Right then, I was inclined to believe him.

I shook my hair free from my shirt collar; it trailed out behind me like a comet. The wind, made cold by our speed, stung my eyes to watering and stole my breath away. It felt like flying. To my left, the scenery blurred past, neon and chrome giving way to street lights and houses. From all around came the soft cacophony of nighttime thoughts, but none stayed in range long enough to catch my attention. It was like spinning the dial on an old radio: an oddly soothing mosaic of life, with none loud enough to offend.

Yohji drove up to a hilly area overlooking the city. Around us, traffic thinned to nothing. So did the mental babble, or nearly to nothing, anyway. Raising his voice a little Yohji said to me, "I like to come up here to get away from everything. It's pretty secluded."

"Thanks, man," I murmured, barely audible over the engine.

Yohji pulled off the road and eased the car along a little path, then coasted to a stop near a stand of trees. He cut the engine, tilted his seat back, and reached for his cigarettes. When one was lit and firmly planted in his mouth, he relaxed in his seat, looked up at the sky and said, "So, talk."

Talk? Hell, I hadn't had a confidante since Karl. Suddenly I wasn't sure I knew what to do with one anymore. I groped for a cigarette and my lighter, savored the first drag, watched the smoke float away on the breeze. Now that I was really here, I had no idea what to say.

Yohji watched me out of the corner of his eye, then said, "You sure seem like a guy who needs a good listener. It's okay, Schuldig. I'm unemployed, remember? Besides, I don't have anyone to talk to either. Not anymore."

I sighed. Above us, the stars glowed as steady as forever. I gave a bitter little laugh and told him, "I guess I just don't know where to start, that's all."

"Okay, so let me start. What are you running from?"

Damn! Hopefully he hadn't noticed my reaction. I'd gasped a little before covering it with the cigarette. "Who said I was running?"

Yohji regarded me with sharp, intelligent eyes, peering over his driving glasses before reaching up to take them off. "You act like a guy who's fighting with his wife," he said casually. "I've seen enough of them to know. Someone at home is making your life hell right now, and all you want is to get away from it. Come on, you were ready to buy the whole damn bar."

I laughed. "You're still a detective, aren't you. I guess it's not the sort of thing you can just stop doing, is it?"

"So tell me I'm wrong."

I swallowed hard. "You're not wrong, no. Not a wife, though. Obviously."

Yohji looked into my eyes and said, "And here I was, all that time thinking you were a cold-hearted bastard." He reached down behind his seat, brought up a couple cans of coffee and handed me one. "So who's got you so miserable?"

Mentally I flipped a coin. It landed on edge. I hoped I wasn't making a huge mistake, but if I didn't talk to someone, I was going to go crazy. And I was about out of options on who that someone might be. I took a deep breath and said, "Crawford. The man is driving me insane. He's calm and cool one minute, then duct taping the windows shut the next."

"Duct tape? Hentai!" he said with a grin.

That caught me by surprise, and I laughed a little. "I wish!" I teased. "No, but really, he says our lives are in danger, that we're kind of on a hit list." I wasn't sure just how much I wanted to tell him, but the basics probably wouldn't hurt. "We've been living incognito since the tower, hiding out, moving from place to place. Crawford says that it's going to get worse, and soon. That the goon squad is on its way, so to speak. Thing is…"

"You think he's wrong."

I nodded, relieved that I didn't have to say it. "Yeah, I do. We've all been through enough to drive anyone over the edge, and Brad's been having mood swings and shit." My hand moved to my cheek, where he'd struck me. Tears stung my eyes.

"That's his name? Brad?"

"Yeah, Brad Crawford. He was our team leader. Is our leader," I amended quickly.

"Oh, right. He's American, isn't he? I thought I'd heard that somewhere. So Crawford is his family name." Yohji took a pull on his cigarette, then a swig of coffee. "So, Schuldig: is that your given name or your family name? I'd hate to be too familiar, you know."

I looked down, not sure how the hell to answer. "It's okay," I muttered, "I said you could call me that."

He glanced over, then nodded slowly. "Oh, it's your alias. That's cool. Back in the day, they called me Balinese. But you already knew that," he added with a wink. "Sorry about the interruption. You were telling me how your leader is driving you to drink. I know how that can go."

"Do you?"

"Long story," he murmured, staring at the glowing tip of his cigarette. "You said Crawford gets mood swings. So does Aya. Some days…" He broke off, shaking his head. "He can be such a princess, sometimes."

I snorted a laugh and said, "Well, in my case, I'd be the princess. Brad's more like the dark wizard or something. He's got us living under stricter rules than ever, telling me that the least little slip will invite disaster."

"Will it?"

I sighed and closed my eyes. "Who knows? I can't see the future."

"What can you do?" he asked, voice low.

Slowly I opened my eyes, turning my head to look at him. "Beg pardon?"

"Look, the kid throws things around without touching them. You've hinted that Crawford knows what's going to happen before it does, and from what I've seen of him fighting, it's true." Yohji watched me closely as he repeated, "So what can you do?"

Instinctively I reached out to his mind, to see if this was a trap. So help me, if it was, Kudou would die right there in the driver's seat. But I found no duplicity, only a sincere curiosity and a desire to help a friend. Me. Already he considered me a friend. And he wanted to help.

"Hey, what the hell is that?" Yohji whispered. "What are you doing to me?" He glared at me a moment, a little frightened, but then he relaxed and leaned back in his seat again, smiling to himself. "Okay, I get it. That's what your edge was. How you kept us guessing. You read minds, don't you?"

It wasn't possible, there's no way he could have felt me in his head! I sat there, in the middle of the night, in the off-white leather bucket seat of a green English roadster, gaping like an idiot. My cigarette had burned down low enough to scorch my fingers, so I started to flick it away when I remembered what Brad had said about that. With a scowl I flung the cigarette butt as far as I could, then turned my attention back to Yohji.

He sat there, satisfied in his deductions but not arrogant about it.

Time to put up or shut up. "I'm impressed," I said, bowing a little. "Three for three. Did the others figure us out too, or just you?"

"Don't know. Don't care, really," he stated with a shrug. "I guess I just can't resist a good mystery."

Something about this comment, about his whole manner, made me realize just how absurd my situation really was. Situation? Hell, my whole life was absurd, a nasty little comedy written by a chimp who thought he was doing Shakespeare. I snorted, then snickered, before escalating into full-throated laughter. My eyes teared up and my breath caught in my chest, but I couldn't stop. Knowing that by this time Brad would have slapped me to end the hysteria only made it worse, as Yohji merely watched me like this was the high point of his week.

And suddenly I didn't feel like an Esset operative, a psionic assassin, a member of Schwarz, or anything at all other than a person: a genuine, laughing-his-head-off human being. Clean nighttime air flooded me, washing away years of accumulated grime. Slowly the laughter trailed off, leaving behind a fresh, new feeling that was better than being high. I took a deep breath, let it out slow and even. I followed that with a few swallows of canned coffee.

Beside me, Yohji only said, "Feel better now?"

I nodded, not yet trusting my voice. We sat their in a pleasant silence, watching the moon sink lower in the sky. When the two cans of coffee I'd polished off demanded it, I excused myself, not quite thrilled at the prospect of pissing in the woods like a wild animal but having no other option. Unlike the park, this place wasn't designed with humans in mind. The air seemed cooler under the trees, and that combined with the humble act I was in the middle of brought my mind back into sharp focus. Did I really intend to tell this virtual stranger all my problems? Worse than a stranger, even. We had been enemies, once.

Or had we? It occurred to me that the only time Weiß had seemed directly interested in any of my team had been when Farfarello had been rampaging around torturing the pious. They'd been sent after him, but the team itself never seemed to be their target. Interesting.

I returned to the car, reluctant to sit down again just yet. I braced my hands on the door and stretched my back, sighing as everything seemed to fall into place. Looking up at Yohji, I decided to trust my gut for once in my life, and my gut said this guy was all right. "Man, it is so good to have someone to just talk to, to vent to, you know?" I told him with a smile. "You were so right when you said I needed that. I did. I do. It's damn near impossible to talk like that with Brad, or the other two. I mean, Nagi just doesn't get it. And besides, he's pissed off at me anyway now. And Far isn't always coherent."

"Far, as in Farfarello? That would be Jei, right?" Yohji asked, sounding like a detective again.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't call him that to his face. He gets really sensitive about his past, treats it like a whole different person. Damn, if you're not the most observant bastard I've ever met, you're well in the top two! You're having way too much fun with this," I scolded.

Yohji grinned around his cigarette and shrugged. "What can I say? Can't help it, really. I've been into crime all my life. I mean I read crime dramas and mysteries a lot," he corrected smoothly. "It's my passion. Well, not really, but it is a hobby." He handed me another coffee. "That's why I became a detective. I like solving mysteries. My mind won't let it go, it'll just keep working at it until I have it figured out." He regarded me curiously and asked, "Is it like that with your mind reading, Schuldig? I mean, does it stay on all the time, or can you turn it off?"

I decided it couldn't hurt to explain it to him a little, and it might help me figure out why it wasn't working right lately. "It's like tuning in to different radio stations, and turning the volume up or down," I told him. "Basically that's it. Things can affect it, like if I was sick or exhausted, I might have either extreme: too loud, or no sound at all. I got hit in the head when the tower broke apart. Still having some problems from that, but it'll mend. It always does, right?"

Yohji looked away, his jaw set in a tense line. Before I could ask, he murmured, "I almost drowned. Still have nightmares about it. You and I were fighting, and I had my wire out when we fell. I got tangled up in it. It snagged on a chunk of debris, and I couldn't get at the release catch." He took a long drag on his cigarette, the hand holding it uncannily steady. "Last thing I saw before I blacked out was Aya swimming toward me, or falling, I wasn't sure. He had that long coat on, like me. Part of me thought he was already dead."

"God, Yohji," I whispered, easing back down into the car seat. I wasn't sure why, but I felt the need to be closer to him. I understood recurring nightmares, and the horrors that bring them on. I knew too well that sometimes fear of death is more terrible than the release of death itself.

Still looking away from me he went on. "Aya was floating down toward me, coat flowing around him like wings, black wings." He blinked rapidly as if holding back tears. "There was this greenish glow everywhere. Then I passed out."

Yohji was so dismayed, his thoughts intruded on my weak shields. I saw his panic, the wire tying him to a seven-ton anchor that had settled maddeningly close to the surface. I saw the glow, and a black angel with a sword, and…a woman? I felt myself scowl even as Yohji said, "You're doing it again, aren't you?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to pry. Your thoughts were really loud just then."

"Thoughts can be loud? Even though I can't do what you do, I can still make you hear me?" he asked, glancing my way. His eyes looked haunted and a little bloodshot.

"You don't have to be a telepath to shout at one, no," I told him, trying to smile a little.

"Hn." He sucked at his cigarette.

I wasn't sure what to say now. When I'd seen them on the beach, I hadn't even thought about what they must have gone through. Now I recalled the smallest one crawling to the others, back twisted and legs unmoving. Again I saw Yohji lying in the sand, wire trailing from around his neck and the swordsman unconscious at his feet.

"Hey," I prompted, wanting to get him talking again. Anything would be better than this eerie silence.

"Yeah?"

"You're alive, man. Don't forget that. No matter how close it was, you made it." I gave him a small smile.

Yohji nodded distantly. "I know." He took a deep breath, then looked back at me. "I know, Schuldig. It's been a hard couple of months, though. Guess I'm still kind of in shock from it all."

"I hear that," I murmured, sipping some coffee.

"Hey, Schuldig? Do you know how we survived that?" he asked. "Because we sure as hell couldn't figure it out. By all rights, we should be dead."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Brad had said the same thing. I felt suddenly small and exposed, there on the hilltop with no cover from the heavens. It was as if we had defied God, cheated Fate, and were all waiting for some inevitable retribution. Voice low, I replied, "No, I don't know. But I believe it was Nagi. He didn't want us to die, so he found a way to get us all to shore, alive. He couldn't tell who was who, so he had to pull everyone. Good thing the old guy was already cold." This last came out as a whisper. It only just occurred to me how bad things would have been if that had not been the case. Washing up on shore with a dead Elder was bad enough, but if he had still been alive…

"So basically the same thing that made a crater of Masafumi's house," Yohji stated, working it out as he went, "could be used to pull us out of the water and land us on the beach? Damn. Is it just because I don't know anything about this kind of stuff, or is that kid, like, super powerful? Like something out of a halfway decent manga?"

I groped for a cigarette, then discovered the pack was, again, empty. Damn it! I had to start rationing the damn things, or remember to only leave the apartment with a full pack!

Yohji had just lit another one for himself. Seeing my distress, he said, "Here, take this," and handed it to me, then replaced it before throwing the fading remnants of the last one overboard.

Again I found the taste harsh and acrid, but addicts can't be too choosy. Besides, it was buying me time to come up with an answer.

To fill the silence, Yohji observed, "Then again, I guess we all could be characters from manga, couldn't we? I mean, our lives have certainly been bizarre enough, no one would believe it was really true."

I chuckled. "Good point. They do say truth is stranger than fiction, right?"

"Yeah, but we're strange to the point of being surreal!"

"To being surreal, then," I toasted, raising my can of coffee.

"To being surreal," he echoed, taking a long drink.

"But, yeah," I told him, "you could say Nagi's that powerful. To be honest, the kid's never been charted. They couldn't measure him."

"`They'? Which `they'?" Yohji asked, curious again.

"Rosenkreuz. Esset's own answer to a special school for psi talented kids," I muttered.

"I take it they didn't have an ethical bald man in a wheelchair running the show," Yohji said with a straight face.

"No," I laughed, shaking my head and grinning, "they did not. If there were such a place really, I wish they had found us first. As far as I know, the only psi-training facility in the world is Rosenkreuz, in the heart of der Vaterland. Or the bowels, more likely. But Nagi kind of baffled them. They couldn't measure his ability." He looked a little confused, so I added, "In other words, they never found a limit to what he can do."

Yohji chewed on that for a couple of minutes, drinking coffee and smoking. Then, like I had done earlier, he excused himself and made for the trees. I wondered if he was pondering our conversation while he peed.

When he returned to the car, he looked thoughtful, so I figured I'd been right about the pondering. "So, do you guys know what he can do? You probably know more about him than they did, right? You guys seem pretty tight."

"We are," I said softly, feeling that we were entering dangerous territory. "But frankly, we don't know any more about his limits than they did. They gave him to Brad with a list of restrictions, things to keep his power constrained. They said he could lose control of it and hurt us if we didn't follow their orders about him."

"You mean he's like one of those creepy weird animals from a back-alley pet store," he teased, "the kind that can't get wet or eat after midnight, or all hell breaks loose?"

I frowned a little, not familiar with his reference. Then I touched his thoughts and it made sense enough to startle a laugh out of me. "Actually, that's pretty damn close," I told him. "The hell of it is, he can't just be a kid. They've got him convinced that any strong emotion will send him into a power surge, that he'd end up killing us. He's been living like a prisoner, or like a monk, ever since Brad brought him to Germany. He's a kid, for Christ's sake! A kid who can't eat candy."

"I'm not sure I follow," Yohji admitted, giving me a quizzical look.

"To keep Nagi safe, we had to keep him calm, keep him away from certain things. Things like sugar, caffeine, fast food, loud music, television, exciting movies --"

"No way!" Yohji exclaimed.

"Oh, it gets worse," I said, helpless anger rising in me. "He's a fucking teenager who's not even allowed to masturbate, for fear he'll blow up the damn building." I glared at him, daring him to laugh.

But Yohji didn't laugh. His face became somber and he lowered his eyes. "It's like they want to control him from a distance, keep him in line on their terms. Like they didn't really trust Crawford to do it right. Or maybe they wanted an agent of their own within your team. Someone who believed he owed them his life."

I blinked, the anger draining away as fast as it had risen. I hadn't really looked at it like that before. The idea chilled me. "God. They would, too. Just to prove they could."

We sat there in silence for a while, watching smoke curl from our cigarettes; then he said, "What are you going to do for him?"

"I want to prove to him and to Crawford that those restrictions were a pack of lies," I stated, my voice strong and sure. "I want that kid to have a normal life. Or as normal as it gets, anyway, considering that our lives are pretty much manga fodder. We've already broken away from Esset. I won't make that kid live under their bullshit rules."

Yohji nodded thoughtfully. "You did say he was pissed at you. Let me guess, you rushed him. You pushed the issue when he wasn't ready. If he believed what they said, which you told me he did, then those restrictions are the only safety net he has, and you probably just tried to yank it out from under him." He glanced at me, then added, "Don't get mad at me, Schuldig. I know an impulsive hot-head when I see one, and that kid's situation gets your temper up."

Forcing down the surge of anger, I chewed on his observations for a while. He was right: I had rushed things. Nagi had said as much. "Damn."

"That's probably why Crawford hit you tonight, isn't it." He didn't look at me when he said this, leaving me some degree of privacy.

I sighed and tossed another spent cigarette over the door.

Now he looked at me, mild humor in his jade eyes. "I told you I was a detective."

"I thought you said you were a crappy one," I grumbled.

"I'm hurt," he lied. "Feel better now?"

I chuckled. "Right, so you got me. Yeah, I feel better, Weiß. Nothing like having your painful secrets guessed by a near stranger."

"Look, it's obvious how much you care about that kid," Yohji said, voice gentle. "You and Crawford both. From what you've told me, you're both ready to do whatever it takes to keep that kid alive and well, even if he's miserable. Even if he's in a cage. But on some level, you know that's wrong, and it's tearing you up. You've got this idea that he's either a prisoner or totally free, you can't find a middle ground for it."

"How can there be middle ground?" I asked, voice a little harsh. "Either we keep him on all the restrictions, or we show him they're not necessary."

"Schuldig, have you stopped to consider that, just maybe, you can take them off one at a time? Let the kid get used to the idea." He gave me an intense look and said, "Did you know, a lot of hostages and war prisoners get agoraphobia when they do get to go home? They're so used to living in captivity that the sudden rush of freedom scares the hell out of them. And, if strong emotions bring on these power surges, I don't think you should go scaring the hell out of him. Do you?"

My eyes squeezed shut. I didn't want to admit he was probably right, but I couldn't deny it, either. "So basically we should leave things as they are, and maybe start small, is that it?"

"Definitely. Pick one thing that he won't fight too much." He cocked his head then, frowning seriously. "Or pick one that's most likely to be broken by accident, if you have to go into hiding for real. Something you have the least control over. Get him used to the change slowly, if you have the time, or keep him distracted if you don't."

I looked at him, quite impressed with his reasoning. "Damn, Yohji, that was good. Thanks. I was trying to pick one that would make him happy if it went away. Get him some real music in his life, for starters. Sweets and caffeine upset his stomach, anyway, and I'm not about to get into sex with him. Which one would you work on first?"

He thought about this, gazing up at the sky. Following his gaze, I saw a faint streak of green flash by as a piece of stardust fell through the atmosphere. "Wish I may," he whispered, then turned his attention back to me. "Well, if you're hiding out, I'd think that bland food would be a luxury. I mean, you'll have to eat what you can safely get, right? You might not have time to cook for yourselves." Yohji paused to sip some coffee, then went on. "You'll need to address the sex issue sometime, you know. It'll happen in his sleep if he's not doing anything awake. We're just built like that. If he's scared of it, it'll be that much worse."

I sighed. "Yeah, I kind of figured we'd have to talk about that. I'm not looking forward to it."

"Make Crawford do it." He looked at me, totally serious.

I nearly choked on my coffee.

"No, really!" he said. "You talk like you're kind of his parent figures, right? Well, if one can't do it, the other has to. So make Crawford have `the talk' with Nagi. If nothing else, it should keep you entertained, na?"

The thought of that conversation made me laugh out loud, an inelegant, startled guffaw of a laugh. "You're crazy! I can't tell Crawford to do a damn thing!"

"If he loves the kid as much as you do," Yohji stated confidently, "he'll talk to him about it."

"Damn, there you go being a detective again. Is it that obvious?"

"To me, yeah. It is now, anyway. You wouldn't be here talking with me if you didn't give a damn about your teammates, Schuldig. You'd just leave them." He regarded me with a steady gaze.

Something he'd said before came back to me, and I asked him, "What about you? What about Weiß, Yohji?"

He scowled and said, "I told you. Weiß disbanded."

"But it hurts you, doesn't it?" I ventured, trying to play detective on him for once. "You wish it hadn't happened like that. You still care, too, Yohji." Suddenly I understood, and in a quiet voice I added, "I just have a little more at stake, that's all."

He looked at me, his quick anger fading as quickly into sadness. He swallowed, then said, "Yeah, it hurts. But we can't go back. It can't ever be the same. Ken would be right there with me, but Omi… And Aya…" His voice trailed off.

I found myself reaching out to touch his shoulder, to offer what sympathy I could. I understood his pain. Schwarz would never be the same either. We had all changed that day. It was as if the sea had taken a little bit from each of us in exchange for her mercy, leaving us a little less connected, a little less human.

He raised his head to meet my gaze, and I fell into his thoughts, pulled in by his turbulence. In that unexpected moment, I felt him recognize that I did understand, that I, too, was lost in this post-ritual world. Though he tried to deny it, Weiß had become his family, and the distance that had grown between the four of them was eating at his soul. Just like the tension within Schwarz was eating at mine.

In a gentle but firm voice he said, "Get out of my head, Schuldig." His lips curved in a slight smile.

I realized that we were sort of leaning toward each other, closer than I'd thought. And he wasn't moving away.

I shifted a little closer.

His lips parted slightly; I could feel his breath upon my mouth.

We met over the stick shift, his lips pressing against mine, my tongue touching his. Yohji reached up to cup the back of my head, breathing into me, mind resonating to my own, the thrill of contact overwhelming. He was like me, he knew me - oh God he knew me!