Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Ghost Story ❯ Ghost Story Part 3 ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Title: Ghost Story

Author: Genuinelie(s)

Pairings: Aya/Yohji (hopefully!); possibly other

Rating: Right now, PG, PG-13 for language

Status: Ongoing

Summary: Yohji's housemates decide he needs help with a problem he doesn't want discovered, but that's pretty hard when you're being watched so carefully. But is someone watching the watchers?

xXxXx

"Ready?" Aya finished the rest of his flavored ice, mostly because he knew it would make his sister happy. The treat had brought back a strong sense of nostalgia - a good thing he knew for Aya-chan, but it had made him feel lost more than anything else. His sister had been reminding him constantly that he still liked many of the things he had before the tragedy, and it lifted the comforting haze that usually surrounded his current awareness.

...was it the sensation of waking from a dream?

"Yes." Aya-chan smiled at him and took his cup and then his hand, throwing away their trash and leading him down the street.

The sensation of realizing you were asleep the whole time you thought you were awake?

The noise of the festival crowd faded as they walked back into the more sparse, everyday bustle of the city.

"Ran...do you, want me to start calling you Aya? Because, if that's...if that's what you want, I understand." Aya-chan's voice broke the companionable silence filled with the noise of cars passing, people talking, road construction.

Aya's cheeks cleared of the flush they'd gained as he and his sister walked home from the festival. He forced himself to turn his head and meet her gaze, keeping his features blank. If Aya-chan noticed, there was no sign. Her eyes were clear and hard, a sure sign she'd set her mind to something.

He kept his pace steady, his voice even. "What would make you say that?"

"The others. Yohji, Omi, Ken - they all call you Aya. If that's....when they say it, it sounds completely different from when they call me Aya." She nodded as if to reassure herself. "Like two different people. There's no confusion in my head."

Brother and sister stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to face each other.

"So if it makes you uncomfortable when I..." There it was, the moisture in the corner of Aya-chan's eyes. "You can be Aya Fujimiya too. I just...I just want you to be happy. I don't want to cause you..."

"No." Aya bit out the word. By the expression on his sister's face, he'd failed to keep what he was feeling out of his voice. "No, Aya."

Aya-chan bit her lip, and gave him a beaming smile that could rival Yohji's most insincere. "Okay, then!"

She skipped ahead a few steps, and missed seeing her brother clench his fists, hang his head, stuff his hand into his pockets and straighten before trailing after her.

xXxXx

"Waaah!" Omi was reaching for darts he didn't have on him as a hand came out of the shadows of the stairwell and clamped down on his bicep. He stopped himself from throwing a kick just in time. "Ken! That's dangerous! What do you think you're doing?"

Ken stumbled up into the kitchen, a huge grin on his face. "Omi, you're never gonna believe this."

"You found buried treasure in the mission room?" That was about the only interesting thing Omi could think of Ken finding down there.

Ken was no longer listening. He was scouting out the room for what Omi could only assume to be invisible ninjas. Their kitchen apparently secure, he disappeared into the storeroom, reappeared, disappeared into the living area, then finally returned.

"Okay!" He announced, as if that sort of paranoia didn't warrant a cocktail of drugs. "Yohji has a personal page."

Omi's eyebrows drew down into a straight line. "What."

"Yeah! No. He really does." Ken looked at Omi, obviously waiting for a reaction. "Come on! Like...like an online dating site!"

"Umhm." Omi tried to keep the blush under wraps. "And..."

"Come on! It's Yohji! Mr.-gods-have-to-wait-in-line-to-do-me." Ken jabbed him with an elbow, already snorting with laughter. "He's never gonna live this down!"

Oh, boy. If Yohji found out there was a dating site up...and more importantly, that Omi was the perpetrator....

"Ken. Ken! How do you know, hm?" Omi let a little bit of suggestion creep into his voice.

"What?! I wasn't looking, that's for sure! Man!" Ken looked horrified. Then...embarrassed.

Omi raised an eyebrow.

"Okay! Okay!" Ken's eyes were wide. He held up his hands.

Okay, Omi informed his other eyebrow, Now it's your turn to play good cop.

"Okay!" Ken stammered again. "So I stole one of his dates. Which! I was also gonna rub his face into, the guy wasn't eve...I mean..."

"You were mocking me because a boy hit on me!" Omi shrieked.

"Not because it was a boy!" Ken yelled back. "Geez!" He ran a hand through his brown hair. "You're taking all the fun out of this."

"Yeah! Because if you really did steal one of Yohji's dates, do you really think it's a good idea to let him know that? Hm?"

Ken chewed on his lip. "But...he has a personal ad on the internet..."

Omi just looked at him.

Ken threw his hands up in the air. "You know, I bet Aya would have even laughed!" He stomped out.

Omi relaxed in the empty room, letting out a small puff of air. Yohji is gonna killme

Because he did not have an ounce of faith in Ken's ability to keep his mouth shut.

Oh, boy.

xXxXx

"Whew!" Yohji entered the kitchen and stretched, fully aware of his own abs flexing. He hadn't bothered to put on a shirt, though in retrospect, he should have. Aya-chan and Aya walked through the door on cue. "Nothing like a nap to ease the aches and pains of working a long shift like that!"

"Thank you!" Omi chirped on cue. The kid was doing something that smelled good over the stove. Yohji's stomach growled.

Yohji's eyes passed over the Fujimiyas. Aya-chan looked...worried? Happy? Yohji couldn't quite read the girl's expression. Aya looked...

Like hell. Which wasn't new, either before or lately. And also, really, really...

Yohji swallowed around a sudden constricting of his throat and thought of Neu. It effectively killed all...

...Fuck it, Kudoh, just admit it. It kills your desire. Which you feel. For someone who is one, probably straight, and two, probably feels homicidal toward you on the best of days.

He shifted his eyes back to Omi. Food. Food was tasty, distracting, necessary and not Aya. "So that smells great, kiddo! You didn't hafta cook me dinner like that, but I won't say no!"

Omi grinned. "That's good. Because I did cook dinner. For all of us."

Yohji's eyebrows raised. That was a lot easier than he thought it would be! He threw himself into a chair and stretched out his legs, propping his hands behind his head for balance and because hope sprung eternal.

By the door, Aya-chan turned to her brother. "I think I'm going to go freshen up a bit...but thank you for taking me out! I had a really good time, Ran!"

Ran. It still took Yohji a moment to remember she wasn't wrong, that was actually the man's name.

A weird expression passed over Aya's own features. It was barely there, a slight contraction near the eyebrows, a slight grimace, but it was gone before Yohji could properly interpret it. Aya-chan leaned forward and hugged him then, though, and Aya's face relaxed into a near-smile. He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged his sister back.

It was also weird for Yohji to see Aya have willing physical contact, with anyone.

...and still, it gave him just the smallest shred of hope...

He was doomed.

Yohji watched Aya watch his sister go upstairs. He then watched as one by one, the muscles of Aya's pale face hardened, lips tightened, eyes darkened beneath the fall of crimson bangs.

On anyone else...Yohji knew the man well enough to know, on anyone else, that emotion would have been tears.

Yohji opened his mouth to ask just what the hell had happened.

Aya silenced him with a glare. Omi, too - Yohji followed the swordsman's gaze over to the stove, and saw the youngest Weiss with his mouth open as well.

Aya stalked out of the room and up the stairs.

"Yohji."

Omi's voice made him realize he'd half-risen out of his chair to follow the other man.

"Maybe give them a moment?" The other's voice was tentative.

Yohji sat back down with a thunk. He ran a hand through his hair and gave the teen a smile. "What? Sure, kiddo. So what's that you're cooking, anyway? Have I told you lately how you're my favorite blonde-haired assassin?"

xXxXx

The moon was full, and it illuminated the roof of the koneko and apartments like a streetlamp, enabling Yohji to see Aya's coloring on the figure perched on the edge of the roof. The man was sitting with his knees bent in front of him, arms wrapped around his shins.

Yohji shut the door to the roof silently behind him. He'd eaten the delicious stirfry that Omi had set in front of him, and waited long enough to take in a cigarette before deciding to find Aya.

What do you hope to get out of this, Kudoh? Yohji watched Aya's still figure. He was as unmoving as a gargoyle. Other than shoved over the roof for your trouble?

But Yohji had begun realizing, he was completely unable to do anything but watch Aya, care for Aya, want to make Aya happy and stop the man's suffering. It was an unforgiving ache in his chest every time he was around the swordsman.

Oh, he wanted things from Aya. He wanted Aya's body, dreamt of it, wanted to taste his lips, wanted to both give and take pleasure from him.

But not having those things did not stop him feeling from that feeling, like a scrape of a fingernail through his stomach, every time he saw the man in pain.

And you're a masochistic, deluded sonovabitch, Kudoh. Like Aya would ever let him give him anything, even if Yohji told him truthfully he didn't require anything in return. Wanted it, oh, yes, but not required.

His brain supplied the name for what he was feeling, with Neu's face and the feeling of wire beneath his fingertips.

"Fuck."

The figure on the ledge turned its face toward Yohji immediately, a brief message of surprise on Aya's features before they sank into annoyance. "Do you know why I come up here, Kudoh?"

Yohji's eyebrows raised. "No?" He ventured. He took a step toward the other man. He hadn't expected words so soon.

"To be alone. Go away." Aya turned back to watching the rooftop across the alleyway.

That was expected.

Yohji steeled his jaw and walked toward him. He sat down with a foot of space between them and heard Aya sigh, softly.

Yohji took note of the glint of a katana resting by Aya's right hand and rephrased what he was going to say in his head. "I think Ken picked someone up today."

Aya didn't turn. His features had darkened into a scowl, in profile against the moonlit sky. "You came up to the roof to tell me that."

Yohji smiled. It wasn't 'get the hell away or you'll be a dead Yohji Kudoh' so he was doing well. "It was a boy."

A slight twitch of the eyebrows.

"I found it pretty hilarious, considering all the grief he gave Omi." Yohji continued.

"Did you tell Omi yet?" Aya's eyes flicked sideways.

Yohji grinned. "All in due time."

"Hn." Aya straightened his legs out and propped a hand against the roof, as if he were about to get up.

Yohji lost his smile. "Wait."

Aya looked at him. There were dark circles under his eyes, stress lines at the corners. The violet picked up the moonlight and made the other man's eyes seem like clear crystal to Yohji.

"You've looked like hell lately. Ran."

The swordsman looked as shocked as if Yohji had punched him. Which for Aya, constituted a slight parting of the lips, a widening of the eyes and not much else. It was gone in a moment, though.

It had been a gamble on Yohji's part. He had caught something awkward between Aya and his sister earlier, and he'd have bet his left pinky it had something to do with the hesitation before Aya-chan had spoken the man's real name. Details like that couldn't be discarded; it was what made private detectives successful.

Aya met Yohji's eyes. He couldn't be sure, but it was almost as if the redhead was considering something.

"You should talk." Aya's stare intensified. "Are you taking solo missions, Yohji?"

Yohji gave Aya a thorough look. Thought that was gonna be my question. "No. We're all told about them, you know that." He parroted Omi's answer to his own question that he'd asked about Aya himself. "Why the hell...?"

Aya broke eye contact. "I hear you going out in the hallway."

"What does this have to do with you looking like hell?" Yohji's eyes narrowed.

Aya frowned. "Shouldn't all of us? We're assassins, Kudoh."

Yohji glared at the side of Aya's head, where his incomprehensible brain was held. "So I go out at night. I'm a whore, Aya, I thought you'd be the first to say that."

Aya frowned harder. Yohji couldn't tell if it was because he knew he was lying, or because he thought he wasn't.

"What happened today to make you look so upset?" Yohji pushed, suddenly uncomfortable. "Something with..." Oh, he was too chickenshit to actually say it. With your sister.

"She asked if she should call me Aya." Aya said shortly. His right hand closed down on the sword hilt but he stayed where he was.

Oh.

Fuck.

Yohji wanted badly to pull the other man to him. The hand on the katana was cautionary, however. For Aya, that had to have been a sucker punch to the gut, to have his sister offer him up her own name, the one he used to kill with. Yohji imagined that it threw the other man straight against the barbed rules structuring Aya's existence. With Aya-chan, he had some tie to his past self, to an "other" self he rarely let any of Weiss see. An 'other' self anchored by his true name, that he had never voluntarily shared with Weiss. As an assassin, he had worn his sister's name like a mask, and Yohji always guessed it was just one more wall Aya put up between himself and his pain.

A corner of Yohji's mouth drew up in self-depreciating, unfunny humor. Is it possible to have a split personality fetish? Count yourself in, Kudoh. You know how to pick 'em.

Yohji floundered for the right thing to say. "That was generous of her."

The corners of Aya's lips twitched, the barest expression of agony.

"It doesn't mean anything, Aya - Ran. Ran." Yohji repeated the name. It still felt awkward. "She's just getting adjusted." Like all of them.

Aya had his head tilted, like he was actually listening. Without warning, he pushed to his feet. He was halfway to the door when he stopped. "She shouldn't have to." He disappeared down the stairwell.

Yohji rubbed a hand across his face and through his hair, before slapping it on the ground. He tried to remind himself that ten minutes was like a fucking conversational marathon for the other assassin.

xXxXx

"Thanks for studying with me." Aya-chan smiled at Omi, when he looked up from his computer at the sound of her voice. She was sitting on his bed with her legs crossed. He was at his desk, a proper four feet at least away from her. By Omi's calculations, distance minimized the chance of sudden-death-by-brother.

Omi smiled at the girl, his eyes crinkling. "Same to you! This homework is boring, but company makes it better." He turned back to the glow of his screen, which contained mission specifications from Kritiker and not homework at all. He wondered if it would be a relief to only have worries about school and friends and depressed older brothers like Aya-chan, or if he would be bored out of his mind.

He tried not to wonder what it said about him, that he secretly thought it would be the latter.

"You're not working on homework, are you." Omi heard the frown in her voice before he saw it. He bit his lip guiltily and turned.

She regarded him evenly, with her head tilted. Not judging, from what he saw.

I can see why Aya dotes on her so much. The thought made his cheeks warm.

He cleared his throat hastily. "No, I'm not." It sounded defensive. "I got it all done last night."

She sighed. "I wish I was as good at schoolwork as you. It must be easy for you."

Omi gave her a rueful smile, and didn't contest it. "But you're lucky that's all you have to worry about."

Aya-chan's eyes widened. "But it's not." Her chin set. Omi had the sinking feeling he'd said something awful. "Omi-kun, I still don't have my parents! I know you don't either, I guess I feel connected with you in some way because of that, but..." She worried at her lip for a moment. "I worry about all of you!" The words burst out of her mouth. "Every time you go! And Ran, he won't talk about it!" Her hands clenched onto his bedcovers. "And here you are. You say you're working on homework, but Omi-kun, I can see the screen! You're protecting me too, but I already know!"

Omi felt sick. He had been protecting her. All of them tried to; none of them wanted to face Ran if they even attempted to include or inform her of how much of their lives were taken up by planning and carrying out missions.

...and you just called Aya 'Ran.' Omi realized with a start. Just like that. Is it because you've been hanging out with Aya-chan? What would Ran do if you called him that to his face? The older man hadn't addressed it with them, not once. But he couldn't help remembering Ran's face when he'd walked through the door earlier that day with his sister, and Aya-chan had called him Ran. That shouldn't have been abnormal, but her brother had looked ill. He wondered again what had happened. He wasn't about to ask.

"Yes, I do try to protect you." Omi admitted finally, chin setting stubbornly. He felt himself blush but managed not to look away from Aya-chan's face.

She blushed right back at him, with a squaring of her own chin that mirrored his own. "I've been through a lot. I don't need protecting, at least not from knowing! I know what all of you do."

Omi sighed, and averted his gaze. He watched his thumbs battle each other on his lap. He usually could find the perfect words, but somehow, with Aya's sister...

"You try to protect everyone though, don't you?" Omi jerked his head up to watch Aya-chan watching him with an expression devoid of the anger she'd shown a moment before. "Not just me, but my brother, Yohji-kun and Ken-kun too?"

"They're my family." Omi finally agreed. He was embarrassed that it meant that he felt the same way about Aya-chan now, but he wasn't sure why he should be. If he had helped Aya rescue her, didn't that mean she was included in some way in his life now too?

Aya-chan nodded. Omi turned uncomfortably back to his computer screen.

Aya-chan's voice broke the silence a few minutes later. "Is that why you're still trying to set Yohji-kun up?"

"What?" Omi blinked owlishly at the change in subject.

"Is my brother so..." The note of sadness in her voice made him turn immediately. She was looking at her hands. "It's obvious Yohji-kun is in love with him, isn't it? Are you so afraid Ran would hurt him? Is he that...?" Omi watched her swallow. Her voice was small, and it was if she was only talking to herself. "...different?"

"Aya-chan! No!" Omi wished he was one hundred percent sure he wasn't lying. But however loyal a teammate Ran had been, was, the idea of him exhibiting any sort of tenderness with...

...he does really care about his sister though, you've seen it, Omi reminded himself. The idea of the older man willing to be with anybody in that way though was just...

"I mean..." Omi worried his bottom lip again.

"He said Yohji-kun was a good friend."

Omi's eyebrows shot up.

Aya-chan looked up to catch it. She gave him a very, very sad smile.

"It's not just Ran, Aya-chan!" Omi protested defensively. "If you had a team you had to make sure could work together, no matter what, and their lives depended on it, would you want them to...to...to date?" He could barely say it out loud.

"Isn't their happiness more important than that?" Aya-chan shot back.

"No!" Omi snapped, then immediately regretted it.

"You're just like him! Like you think he is! You keep trying to protect everyone, but sometimes people just need to live!" Aya-chan snapped her books shut and jumped up from the bed. "I'm so sick of all of you!" She was through the door before Omi had a chance to apologize.

Omi groaned, and wondered how many minutes of life he had left before Ran appeared with his katana.

Was she right, though? Was he just like Ran, trying always to do the right thing, rather than trusting his emotions? Was Aya-chan right? Did Ran have enough left to give to Yohji? Yohji himself must not think so, or he wouldn't be so afraid of confronting Ran, would he?

I would be, Omi decided. Especially with how similar to him Aya-chan seems to be.

Omi swallowed and decided to forget he'd ever thought that thought.

Before going back to planning the mission they'd been given for the following night, he locked his door against the red-headed assassin he lived with.

xXxXx

TBC.

xXxXx