Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Crazy Sunday Mornings ❯ Go On, Surprise Me (or, Yohji the Mirror Fiend, or You've Lost That Creepy Feeling) ( Chapter 13 )

Assassins are people that are hard to surprise. First, it's a job requirement to not easily be surprised and second, they've seen more surprising things in the course of their jobs than say, your spiffy card trick. And this specific group of Assassins, our dear boys, is harder to flap, because it does get kind of hard to flip over things that do not compare to the things your archrivals regularly do (say, levitate stuff and even yourself into a wall and the odd mantra from a guy with an eye patch that sounds suspiciously like the prayer “Our Father” recited over and over to a really sharp-looking dagger-knife-thingy). The fashion sense of some of their enemies alone numbs them to whatever oddity they might encounter for the rest of the long, tiring night.

 

When a mirror moves like a pool of water without caring to explain itself, which it has no right to do, that merits some attention from our Hunters of the Night. Taking into consideration that individuals belonging to their rival group defy physics on a regular basis, a rippling mirror garners a raised eyebrow at the most. But when, on that rippling mirror, your teammate's reflection acts on it's own accord without any respect to the man who owns that reflection, stare at you as if it's eating you alive and liking it, well, that's something an Assassin can consider as surprising. In fact, Aya, the most unflappable of the four, decided to show his surprise clearly by flourishing a slightly disturbed wide-eyed look, with the mouth agape but only for a moment. Indeed his surprise can already be called shock.

 

Yohji, for his part, stood there in eerie silence. His left hand hangs limp at his side, rosy liquid flowing in rivulets from in between flesh and shards of glass, forming blotched rosette patterns on the hardwood floor below. Aya had to shout the blonde's name thrice before Yohji turned to look at him like a hanged marionette; his upper body crudely turning to Aya's direction while the rest of him remained stiff. It is as if suddenly all the life had been sucked from Yohji leaving only the shell of his body whose volition was left to strings being pulled by an old rheumatic and slightly deaf puppeteer. For once, all was quiet inside Aya's head as he saw Yohji's eyes staring emptily back to him. The redhead opened and closed his mouth, considering a myriad of questions in his mind. In the end, he gave up and went for the most recurring and obvious question.

 

“What the fuck is going on?”

 

* * *

 

Saturday morning came and was significantly surprised to see an impossibly quiet Yohji and a normally grumpy Aya opening the store together. When Ken and Omi arrived at the shop a little later they were equally surprised to see the shop already opened and more surprised to see Yohji so early in the morning on a Saturday. The day has started out to be full of surprises, mainly for people and anthropomorphic beings other than the blond and redhead pair.

 

This, for Ken, was at least a cheery little thing. It confirms his theory that yes, Yohji and Aya has decided to reconcile their differences (which are basically everything) and try to get along, sharing working shifts and bear hugs along the way. Not that Ken is odd to think this way, just that between (a) establishing friendship and (b) possible homosexuality, he's more comfortable with (a) as reason for the sudden Yohji-Aya togetherness that they've been seeing. And not that because he thinks there's anything wrong with homosexuality, just that if he thinks either of the two were gay, and looking for a stable relationship, then neither of the two would choose the other because they'd drive each other stark raving homicidal in less than an hour of togetherness. Which must explain Aya's uncharacteristic mutterings and Yohji's uncharacteristic quietness. But then again, the two had been together since yesterday's bear hug, so that got Ken into thinking that maybe the two could indeed weather out a long period of time together and then maybe they could actually make a romantic relationship work between them. Then he remembered Yohji's sexual appetites and Aya's strictly enforced sexual diet, and dropped the relationship idea. Any moment know, Ken knew, something unexpected would happen.

 

For Omi, on the other hand, this is just plain weird. If he thought about the deal he and Yohji struck over a mission folder and somehow connected it with what's happening, he didn't show it to anyone. And if he noticed Yohji's bandaged left hand, he didn't let on*. Instead, he ventured on a question.

 

“Ah, hey guys, I thought I had the shift with Aya today?”

 

The two- Aya grumpily working out the counter and Yohji mindlessly flipping the `open' sign on the door- turned to look at him, then returned to what they were doing. Omi gave a long-suffering sigh and turned to Ken. Ken, just finishing with his rather wordy train of thought, smiled and went back to the kitchen, presumably to get a breakfast started. Omi, having personally tasted Ken's gastronomical endeavors, shrugged, gave a cheery “oh well if you want to work Yohji don't let me stop you” and wisely followed Ken, taking the fire extinguisher on the way.

 

Various traffic noises filtered through the shop, muffled conversations between pedestrians fell on largely deaf ears. Silence, just finishing it's cigarette break, fell back in place. Aya had stopped muttering vicious, biting `when-I-get-my-hands-on' words, but you can be sure he's continued it inside his head. And you can also be sure that the voice in his head is laughing its anthropomorphic head off.

 

Yohji, however, is getting paranoid. Things were too quiet. If anyone had pointed out to him that he was being uncharacteristically quiet himself, well he would have went into a “me? No shit…” kind of surprise.

 

He just knew that that something is just there, lurking, waiting. But every time his gaze falls on Aya, the lurking feeling disappears, and he is pretty sure that the voice rising to be heard from his unconscious falls into an eerie hush itself. This would have been nice, really peachy keen, he thought, if it keeps on then all he has to do is stare at Aya every single day of his life and the creepy thingummies will go away forever. Well, maybe not go away, but definitely keep away from him by, say, 10 meters. How will he go about that, he doesn't know, but he surely will, by all that's Holy he surely will. ONLY, when that creepy feeling's gone and he's pretty sure that no reflection of himself would suddenly come to it's own life and some haunting voice starts a very disturbing talk with him, ANOTHER feeling replaces it. That is what's primarily making him paranoid. This feeling takes over his being seconds into his gaze towards the redhead, whatever either of them would be doing at present time. Something about Aya's natural grace and ethereal look, that unearthly cast and magnetic aura… that creamy white neck, exposed, with strands of blood red hair falling over it…that oh so breakable skin, the dancing blue veins just underneath it… pulsating with rich dark… Yohji shook his head fiercely. Where the hell did that come from? He stops sweeping the floor and decide to water the plants instead, the ones outside, to clear his head, get away from Aya and reluctantly check if he's still straight.

 

Before Aya could ask where the other man was going, the door already closed, leaving the redhead on his own and his embittered grumbling.

 

“I knew this was a bad idea.”

 

Incidentally, both of them had the very same thought at the very same time. If only both of them knew that the reason Momoe-san's tabby cat was poised and ready to spit fire and raise it's heckles `till it touches the sky, and why the wind blew rather erratically and their wind chime seem to tinkle ominously ** was because right now a disembodied voice laughed richly at how well and easy he could bend them to his will, and it wasn't Yohji's conscience or Aya's other voice. No, it was something entirely other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Probably because “mirror-punching” was a common form of Yohji-is-depressed-so-don't-muck-about syndrome. This has evoked a considerable debate, which ends with the three just leaving the guy alone, and voting not to take out any form of breakable glass from the blonde's room because what the blonde does is very well his own business, the stupid jerk, even if he does uses his hands for their jobs and continuing with such destructive behavior would result to decreased optimal output and extra furniture expense (you can just guess that that was Aya's opinion). Besides, Ken reminds them, each of them had a quirk of their own when they go about their “angst sessions”, and don't Aya force him to say what the redhead does on such occasions. Yohji, for his part, atones for this by buying quality mirrors that costs a certain expense, largely because he is vain and would like to see his person on the very best reflection there is.

 

**How a tinkle could sound ominous, I leave it up to your vast imagination.

 

 

 

I really am sorry for giving such a late update, but our computer's broken down (it still is, I'm using our school's computer facilities, and it is very uncomfortable for me to go about devising stories with more than 30 other people in the same room, with two others immediately by my side and can easily look and read from my monitor) and school's back again, and I had a case of a block, wherein I didn't know where to go from there. But I do have a ready ending, it's what I worked out the first time this story came to mind. My problem now is how to get there. Hmmm.

 

I still am not writing a shounen-ai, although they are the couple of choice for me, but the story seem to insist on being one. God thank Ken for being a great character to fiddle around with.

 

Thank you for the new reviews, it gladdens my heart(s), Jennifer_K and KD thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm sorry if I've been leaving you alone hanging onto that cliffhanger, so here's a flat chapter for you guys to rest on. I know it's not the best thing to give you (because the best thing to give you are prompt chapters leading to a proper, stupendous ending), but this is all I've got right now.

 

KD, I'm sorry about that other fic of mine you read, “Discord in the House of Assassins”, I swear I didn't know I put it down as `completed' , honest mistake. I just can't revise it right now because our computer is having existentialist problems and pondering whether it has a free will or not, decides it has, and then decides to go on a strike. This fic is the only one I have saved on a diskette. Big downer, that. (plus, I've been looking out for those illegally jumping tenses and POV's of mine, although to no avail, I just suck at it. But at least I'm on the lookout…)

 

`Till the next spurt of inspiration.