Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Feeling Like a Fool ❯ Flashback: The Praying Mantis Case and a Brick Wall ( Chapter 2 )

Special Warning: This chapter contains references to abnormal human behavior that might cause certain readers discomfort, especially if they are eating while reading it. All due caution is advised.

 

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Title: Feeling Like a Fool [chapter 2 of 6]

 

Book 2 of the Realizations Arc

 

Author: Enigma (also known as “E-sama the Llama”)

 

Series: Weiss Kreuz

 

Rating: NC-17

 

Pairing for Lemon: Aya x Ken

 

Warnings: Yaoi, angst, violence, bloodshed, coarse language, past abuse, sexual triangle (Yohji/Ken/Aya), rough sex, detailed lemon. AU-OOC.

 

Disclaimer: “Weiss Kreuz” is the property of Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiss. All original characters, including Hanagawa Reiko, Kenji-kun, “Christie”, the unnamed drug dealer, etc. © Enigma, 2007. This unauthorized work of unpaid fanfiction is intended for entertainment only.

 

//internal thoughts//

 

 

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{{flashback begins}}

 

Ten nights ago, on a sweltering June evening when only two of the Weiss assassins could respond to an urgent call to arms, Siberian and Abyssinian found themselves alone while waiting for their newest target to arrive for her date with death.

 

A female criminal worthy of Weiss was unusual but not unheard of.

 

The surprisingly youthful, forty-ish woman that Aya and Ken found themselves awaiting had made a grotesque name for herself recently and had thereby been code-named the Praying Mantis. In other words, she was a sexual cannibal.

 

Any man who fell for her charm and good looks tended to be found dead, naked, and small portions of his flesh turned into carpaccio in a high-end love hotel shortly thereafter. The unfortunate victim's wallet would be long gone as were any items worth pawning, but minor thievery never seemed to be the primary objective.

 

Her “love them, then kill and eat them” behavior wouldn't have made her important enough to apprehend abruptly except that she'd recently set her sights on several members of the national government's legislative branch. The resulting carnage had left certain areas of Japan in political turmoil as well as leaving dutiful wives wondering why their husbands had chosen to cheat on them with her in the first place. Hence, her limited reign of terror had to come to an end as soon as humanly possible.

 

Bored from too much sitting and waiting with not enough physical activity thrown into the mix, Ken had found a spot on a low roofline where he could keep watch and do a few pushups while he did so. Aya was lost in the shadows below, but thanks to their headsets, whichever assassin spotted the lady in question first could alert the other.

 

While maintaining a slow rhythm of up and down motion, Ken toggled on his headset and complained, “Tell me again why it's just the two of us out here, Ay---uh, I mean, Abyssinian. I'm bored to death, ya know.”

 

Scowling in his concealing alcove, Aya activated his own microphone and growled, “Siberian, you already know that Bombay is sick and that Balinese won't touch cases like this if he can possibly help it. So cut the chatter.” The click that ended this transmission was unmistakably the field leader's way of saying for him to sit tight and be quiet.

 

“But, Aya---“ The bored teen started to complain, but he knew that wasn't very professional, so instead, he simply answered, “Roger that.”

 

Throwing himself into the exercise more fully, Ken tried not to remember the way that Yohji's face had clouded over when the photo of the target had been revealed. Odds were good that he was out at a bar that very moment drinking himself into oblivion.

 

Their prey had once found her way into the playboy's arms and Yohji just couldn't bring himself to have to face the death of yet another person that he'd had intimate contact with. Luckily, that incident had preceded the woman's recent mental decline which had led to the bizarre new behavior, so he'd been in no danger of being eaten, but still. It was enough to make him reject the assignment outright.

 

As for Omi, well, he'd made the mistake of actually eating some of the brownies one of the fangirls had brought by the Koneko.

 

The girl truly wasn't much of a cook and had substituted a few ingredients that she shouldn't have. Hence the “disease” wasn't fatal by any means, but the poor little blond had certainly looked like death warmed over after he emerged from the bathroom late in the afternoon. That much vomiting and diarrhea taught him never to trust the fangirls again, though, and that was a lesson well worth learning.

 

//Idiots who can't cook should stay the hell out of the kitchen!//

 

Ken's vehement assertion to himself was underscored by an unintentional increase in the intensity of his pushups. He wasn't even bothering to keep count and by the time the speaker of his headset buzzed in his ear again, he'd worked up quite a sweat.

 

“Siberian. Target approaching.” Abyssinian's icy mission voice whispered in his ear.

 

Springing into a crouch so he could see the street from his vantage point on high, Ken looked around even as he toggled his own mouthpiece and asked, “Where? I see three---no make that four---cars from up here.”

 

“The silver sedan with the Nagano prefecture emblem on the side; it was stolen from her last victim. She's pulling right up to the decoy address she was given.” The unmistakable tension in his tones spoke of violence about to be unleashed, but when the rear passenger side door opened, Abyssinian urgently added, “Siberian, stand down! That is *not* our target!”

 

In response to the information about the car, Ken had indeed positioned himself for a flying leap to cut off their target's only means of escape, but he froze in place as an elderly lady emerged from the vehicle, not an attractive 40-something.

 

Before the unknown woman could even step away from the car, a man emerged from the driver's side door carrying a large, cube-shaped box which appeared to have substantial weight to it. The man wore the classic black suit of hired muscle and that most ludicrous of accessories, sunglasses on a night that was indeed quite dark.

 

Both Weiss assassins remained in place supposedly out of sight as the man hurried to the other side of the car and then offered a hand to the lady as she stepped awkwardly onto the sidewalk. The pure white though slightly threadbare traditional silk kimono that she wore hobbled her aged feet yet that didn't seem to be what was slowing her down.

 

To Ken's surprise, the lady stumbled slightly then turned an ashen yet elegant face to the man who had kept her from falling.

 

“Thank you so much, Kenji-kun,” the lady murmured before turning her gaze onto the façade of the building that Weiss was to have used to meet their Praying Mantis.

 

“Please, Hanagawa-sama,” the man urged in a manner that was both reverential and pleading, “Let me take you to a hospital. This can wait!” He kept a grasp on her delicate form as if afraid that she might fall yet again.

 

Patting the man on the sleeve tenderly, the lady smiled once more then said, “No, Kenji-kun, I fear it cannot. We have an urgent appointment to keep and I intend to do so.”

 

Bowing his head, the man answered simply, “Yes, ma'am.” Then, after glancing from side to side, he added, “But I will not return to the car. Whatever business you have with these men you are here to meet can be completed with me present.”

 

“No, Kenji-kun,” the lady began, but then stopped, turned towards Aya's supposedly secure hiding spot and smiled. It was a sad, eternal smile as she called out, “Young man? Are you here to meet with a woman dressed in green?”

 

The color of the attire of Weiss's target had been one of the many details prearranged by Persia's operatives who had set things in motion for the anticipated execution. The same could be said for the rendezvous address and so much more. The unsung heroes in Kritiker's behind-the-scenes groups rarely got the credit they deserved for arranging these matters.

 

On the rooftop high above, chocolate brown eyes widened in horror as Aya slipped from the shadows and into plain view without hesitation. “Aya!!” Ken screamed without the aid of the headset which he briefly forgot was in place.

 

“Hold, Siberian!” Abyssinian shouted in reply. It was a mild rebuke for neglecting protocol as well as a warning from the swordsman who was doing a better job of concealing the fact that adrenaline singing in his veins. A gloved hand shot upwards as if to stop the agitated teen from doing what predictably came next.

 

Somehow, Aya completely forgot to yell at Ken later for leaping from his elevated position all the same.

 

After casting a frozen purple glare at his comrade who landed safely on the unforgiving pavement with feline agility, Abyssinian then turned to the lady and bowed slightly as he replied simply, “Yes.”

 

A million questions hung in the air between the four people gathered there, yet it was the dowager who took control of the conversation.

 

With a slight bow of her gray-haired head, the woman began, “I am Hanagawa Reiko, I presume you were coming here to, ahem, `meet' my daughter, Miya.” Her sad smile deepened even as her complexion paled even further. Gesturing to the man she had brought with her who remained steadfastly clutching her arm, she said, “Kenji-kun, kindly give that package to these fine young men. Perhaps it will suffice.”

 

“Yes, ma'am,” the man in black nodded and began to pass the obviously heavy package to Aya.

 

“Watch it, Abyssinian! It might be a trick!” Siberian's panicked warning was summarily ignored. His position between the two newcomers and their car put him at an odd angle and he could only gauge the conversation by Aya's expressions, guarded though they always were.

 

With a rustle of maroon leather, Abyssinian accepted the package with a small bow of his own even as the lady resumed speaking, “I fear I haven't much time to apologize for all that my unwell daughter has done in my absence. Many years ago, my now deceased husband and I chose the more open-minded literary world of Europe over that of my homeland for reasons which now seem frivolous at best and selfish at worst. My tyrannical mother-in-law would never dream of her precious grandchild growing up in such a place and thus, poor Miya-chan left my side for far too long.”

 

An agonizing cough interrupted her speech before she continued, “For many years, I refused to listen to warnings from friends that my beloved daughter had begun to decline mentally. She seemed fine the few times I had the pleasure of her company in Vienna, but of course, our business was in terrible shape and perhaps I was too distracted to see it myself.”

 

None of the three men dared to interrupt as she shook her head slowly, clearly trying to avoid another bout of that horrendous coughing, and then continued, saying, “Sadly, her mental state became irretrievably damaged before anything could be done to help her. As her mother, I can not condemn her to live out her life alone with only the poor care that our family can now afford.”

 

After stifling another deep cough, she sighed and asserted, “But it is never too late to put right that which has gone wrong. Please deliver the contents of that package to the appropriate authorities.”

 

With another bow, deeper than any which preceded it, she then turned to her apparent manservant and said quietly, “Take me to the cemetery, Kenji-kun. I wish to visit the graves of my ancestors to atone there as well.”

 

“No!” Refusing to budge, the stalwart manservant argued, “You need to go to a hospital, Hanagawa-sama!”

 

As the lady and the much younger man argued ever so briefly, Aya turned toward Ken, offered him a meaningful glance and then commanded, “Let's go, Siberian.”

 

“Huh?” Ken exclaimed, utterly baffled.

 

Aya did indeed have the package and somehow seemed satisfied with it, but this still didn't add up.

 

Slipping past the lady who then summarily collapsed into the arms of the man who was still trying to convince her to seek medical aid, Ken grabbed Aya's sleeve and pleaded, “What the hell is going on here?!”

 

The swordsman shot Ken a look that said he was lucky that his hand hadn't been removed at the wrist. Turning them both so they had their backs to the unfolding tragedy behind them, he added, “We're leaving. Now.”

 

Abyssinian's command wasn't nearly as cold as before and the undercurrent of compassion in it was unusual to say the least. Without waiting for his comrade to catch on, he began to stride purposefully away from the others.

 

Hurrying to keep up since Aya's nondescript coupe was his ride home if for no other reason, Ken remained baffled and said so, “But weren't we supposed to kill that Praying Mantis lady tonight?”

 

Aya's solemn nod would ordinarily have been the only explanation he'd have gotten, but to Ken's surprise, he then said quietly, “That task wasn't ours to complete tonight, Ken.”

 

The sounds of distraught confusion echoed behind them as Hanagawa Reiko collapsed, leaving the man she only referred to as “Kenji-kun” to be forced to make a terrible decision.

 

Torn by a sudden desire to aid the anguished manservant who was clearly losing control of the situation, Ken rushed to keep up with Aya and asked again, “Why don't we have to actually *do* something here? Why are we just *leaving*?!”

 

Stopping so suddenly that Ken almost bumped into him, Aya froze momentarily and then asked in a voice like death, “Have you ever held a disembodied human head in your hand, Siberian? Do you know what it would feel like to hold one even if it was in a box?” From the corner of one eye, a frightening sliver of lavender glared at him briefly. Then the gaze softened slightly as he resumed walking away from what he correctly assumed was the life or death struggle unfolding behind them.

 

“You… you mean, that's….?!” Ken could no longer speak clearly as he pointed to the previously innocuous box. Swallowing hard after Aya nodded his acknowledgement, he then asked incredulously, “You mean the *mother* killed her own kid? Really?”

 

“It certainly seems to be the case,” Aya sighed even as the pair vanished into the shadows as Weiss always does when things go right.

 

What didn't vanish, however, was the latent adrenaline rush and need for release that both young men felt after their battle readiness was utterly and completely denied.

 

Initially, Ken had believed himself to be the only victim of what seemed like a criminally inappropriate state of arousal. Yet as they carefully placed the bizarre evidence into the trunk of Aya's car, he caught a glimpse of the telltale signs that his twenty year old teammate was also in desperate need. Skintight leather pants leave precious little to the imagination when a profound state of sexual excitement is involved.

 

Hanging back and wondering what to do about this unwelcome knowledge, Ken stood guard, glancing this way and that. Aya still succeeded in blindsiding him all the same.

 

How Aya got Ken off balance enough to pin him against a brick wall was something the former goaltender never really figured out, but he did. In the darkness granted them by the heavy shadows that lurk in almost all urban alleyways, Aya proceeded to ravage Ken's mouth with rough kisses that were nothing short of desperate.

 

There was no skill in the forceful wetness that passed for kissing between them, but there was an undefined passion from both young men that certainly didn't fit the description of “love” that Ken carried in his heart.

 

Suddenly, Aya clamped gloved hands onto both sides of Ken's face and almost suffocated him with even more of the inexperienced kisses that he seemed more than frantic to share. Far more desperate was the grinding sensation of Aya's groin against Ken's own. Their similar heights made the contact almost full-length and it was exquisite torture to say the least.

 

Even though his head never stopped reeling long enough to truly gather his wits, Ken found a way to break the dysfunctional kissing long enough to ask, “What is it, Aya? You want to---“ The rest of the offer that he was trying to make was lost when the swordsman drew back far enough to stab him with a pleading, needy gaze that rendered Ken utterly speechless.

 

Taking this sudden silence as an invitation, Aya proceeded to tear open Ken's jeans, then clawed at his white, cotton underwear even as Ken himself hurriedly disposed of the useless orange sweatshirt that he always wore around his waist. As soon as Ken's pants were barely to his knees, Aya ripped open his own leather pants, turned his partner to face away from him, and then had some of the roughest, most ill-prepared sex that Ken had endured in recent memory.

 

It was agony to have the bricks bite into his face as Aya rammed into his ass utterly dry save for a negligible amount of precum, but Ken didn't fight back or even say for him to stop. They both required this primal interaction on some animalistic level that neither wanted to accept. When Ken's cum painted the side of the building, Aya's release flooded his body at nearly the same moment.

 

There had been no niceties like lube or even Aya's hand to help Ken achieve completion, but in the post-coital moment, there was the only sweetness that the entire event held. Aya had slumped forward, pressing Ken even harder into the bricks while his head came to rest on Ken's shoulder, a scarlet eartail lightly caressing Ken's neck. The two of them lingered there for a moment breathing hard yet saying nothing.

 

Ken expected perhaps a kiss to the sweaty back of his neck or even a word of apology for the pain, but neither was forthcoming. Instead, there was an infinitely soft, gasping moan as if Aya was trying to fight back tears, and then only silence.

 

Even though the incident had the harshness of an act of rape, Ken held nothing against Aya for the pain that it had caused him.

 

On some level, he felt that he understood at least a little of his sorrowful need. Moreover, the sheer desperation in the act had been painfully clear to him. The level of inexperience the redhead was showing was also something that spoke terribly regrettable volumes.

 

By the time Aya had withdrawn with a callous roughness that caught him off guard, Ken was left utterly confused and with a mess that his sweatshirt would bear the brunt of when it was used like a towel. The reddish color of the blood-tinged cum that tainted the shirt after cleansing himself was something he refused to acknowledge.

 

Once he'd pulled his pants back up and awkwardly made his way to the car where Aya had already been for a few minutes, Ken slid painfully into the seat on the passenger side. While ignoring the stinging of slight abrasions on his cheek, he just listened as Aya barked at Omi via the radio that they needed an immediate rendezvous with Persia's CSI-types to deliver the box of evidence that presumably included Hanagawa Miya's head.

 

Omi, who sounded like he wasn't over his gastroenterological crisis yet, groaned but began to set it up even as the familiar wail of an ambulance and police sirens filled the air coming closer with every passing moment.

 

“We need an address, Bombay,” Abyssinian growled urgently.

 

With a sad sigh, Ken cast a disbelieving glance at his field commander.

 

//Sex makes most people lighten up a little. Guess it doesn't work on him.//

 

Before Ken could say something to Aya about being a little more kind to a kid who'd spent the evening puking his guts out, he saw something in Aya's eyes that made him stop. The normally frigid purple chips that passed for irises had been replaced by exhausted purple ones that held none of the bitterness they usually held. Instead there was an ineffable weariness as if Aya was only barely hanging on emotionally.

 

//Then again…. Who knows?//

 

Ken let it go, Omi found them the address that they needed, and eventually the night ended without additional explanation or apology.

 

As with the first time that he'd had sex with Yohji after a mission, Ken decided not to ask questions. Now that this dangerous precedent had been set twice over, the sky was the limit for the elder members of Weiss as far as Ken's body was concerned.

 

The next morning's paper carried a story about the death of the leader of a long defunct international publishing house who had died in an unusual part of town. All that the public would ever be told was that no criminal activity was involved since her alleged grandson had been at her side when it happened. The news story, of course, had been cleansed prior to release by Persia's personnel and that was the anticlimactic end of the Praying Mantis case.

 

{{end flashback}}

 

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To be continued…