Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Discord in the House of Assassins ❯ Out Damned Spot! Out ( Chapter 7 )

Out, damned spot! Out (title taken from Macbeth)

 

Laundry…

 

Laundry was the thing to keep Aya's mind clear. Well, actually it was supposed to be katas, but he couldn't move that fluidly no thanks to injuries sustained, so he decided to do his laundry instead. Watching the cyclical ride of his clothes' lives helped dull his mind to a state akin to that of TV stations signing off. And though it was odd to do laundry at one in the morning, Aya didn't care. It was that, or lie awake in his bed thinking about things better left unsaid… okay, hint, the guy sleeping off peacefully (we assume that he is sleeping) at the room just next to his (clue: Y_ _ _ I ). Occasionally, he'd mouth the words that made a big impact on him while staring blankly at the washing machine before him.

 

“It ain't love.”

 

Now the thing with Aya is he can't be brain dead for more than five minutes. Even when watching mind-numbing television, there is still some brain activity largely in part of “Edouard”, or Aya's other voice. So herein the very voice slithers in, insinuating.

 

You like him don'cha?

 

Aya gave out a derisive snort as if on auto-pilot, because the scorn didn't quite get to his blank eyes. For once in its disembodied, non-existent life, Edouard thought better of taunting Aya. His voice was barely above a whisper's sound, but Edouard can hear loud and clear inside Aya's mind.

 

“It's not that I want to like him, it's I have to like him… need to… he's a… teammate. You have to like a teammate or else…”

 

Au contraire, mon amie, you don't have to like him personally… professionally yes but personally… it's to your discretion.

 

“Hn. You think you're so clever, don't you?”

 

Well, I do try my best… The voice replied, sounding as smug as the proverbial cat that ate the canary.

 

“Then try this one for size. If I like him, then you have to like him too, because we're one and the same, even if we'd rather not be. How about that Mr. Johannes Factotum?*”

 

The voice inside his head no longer made any sound at all, to the grump satisfaction of Aya. Returning to his previous interest, which is to watch the clothes spin inside the washing machine and later in the dryer, Aya knew it was going to be a long day ahead of him.

 

* * *

 

The person assumed sleeping peacefully in the next room is actually not sleeping peacefully at all. Rather, the person is staring up at the ceiling, waiting for his eyes to turn white as he tries to fight off the disturbing thoughts in his head, and Aya would have rejoiced if he knew that Yohji was miserable and hating every moment of it.

 

It wasn't that the V-man was up and about bugging him, no, in fact the V-man wasn't supposed to be up and about on a Wednesday, sleeping sated somewhere in Yohji's unconscious. And if it was indeed the V-man who was annoying Yohji to no end and depriving him of golden sleep, then Yohji wouldn't be as miserable as he is now. What annoys him all the more is that it's not anyone else that's keeping him up, but his ludicrous thoughts. Thoughts, admittedly, concerning someone else, but that to Yohji is beyond the point. No one asked him to think about that someone else. And he'd bet his balls that no one would ever even force him to think about that certain someone else.

 

So why was he spending a restless night staring up at the ceiling and thinking about that certain someone else?

 

To which Yohji throws his pillow at nothing in particular and snarls in frustration.

 

* * *

Morning came into the unnamed flower shop in a disclosed building somewhere in Tokyo, Japan, with a slight surprise on its non-existent face as it watched Aya, fearless leader of an elite Assassin team, go about the laundry of everyone in the building in a soul-less systematic way, indiscriminately tossing in the whites with other whites of mixed ownership, and the colored in likewise fashion.

 

And this is also how morning greeted the younger two members of Weiss, with surprise at Aya's unusual morning labor. They stood dumbfounded in the hallway as Aya went hither with bundles of clothes bunched under both his arms, and thither with clean folded laundry in the boys' respective laundry baskets. A tentative Ken stepped up and raised a finger in question, halting Aya's bustling about for a moment.

 

“Uh, Aya?”

 

“Hn.”

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Laundry.”

 

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that… I meant, why are you doing it so early in the morning? And aren't those our laundry?”

 

A timeless moment passed** as Ken and Aya stared at each other, the former more in apprehension and the latter in deep thought, while Omi watched the strange tableau with large confused eyes. Finally, Aya gave a nonchalant shrug.

 

“I'm being a teammate.”

 

After which, he sauntered on with his basketful of laundry, leaving an Omi shaking his head not knowing what to do with something he doesn't even know, and a Ken making a circular motion with a finger beside his temple, telling his companion about loony bins and fruit baskets.

 

*Mr. Know it all or Jack of all trades in Victorian slang…

** How can a timeless moment pass? Erm… I suck at timelines.

 

 

A/N: Yes. I'm back. I slipped into some unknown student hell space warp unwittingly and I have the scars to prove it (mutter mutter I didn't know there'd be math in political science! mutter mutter) It was so hellish it sapped the creative juices out of me and so the long wait. Sorry, it isn't much of an excuse but it's the truth. Er, moimoi-chan, yeah, sorry about this, about the wait and how this is rather a dry chapter to follow it up… next time it may be better (not making any promises). Thanks for sticking around.