Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Ghost Story ❯ Ghost Story Part 5 ( Chapter 5 )

[ 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

"What just happened? What'd I miss? Yohji just left, he looked...not good guys, he really didn't look good, but crap..." Ken came into the Koneko and froze midstep.

Aya-chan, the closest to him, was actually glaring at Omi. Omi making anyone look at him like that, let alone Aya's sweet little sister, was enough to send off jarring alarms that were all screaming for him to get the hell out of there before the place blew up.

Omi wasn't even looking at her. He was looking at Aya, and boy, did Omi look pissed off.

Aya - oh fuck, Aya was looking at him.

Too late, no escape, no last meal, no last words, Ken had the sinking realization he was about to turn into the scapegoat of whatever the hell had just transpired in the shop.

He took a step backwards, and brought both hands up defensively, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. It caused the soccer ball to drop and go bouncing across the floor, hitting Aya-chan in the back of her legs before rolling on to Aya. Aya-chan jumped and her face was guilty when she caught sight of Ken.

"Ken." To his surprise, it was Aya that spoke first. He'd actually stopped the soccer ball with his foot. "Go after Yohji. Now."

"What? Why me? Why not-" Ken protested. He didn't even know where the other man would go, and this wasn't his mess. He didn't want to be anywhere near the blond, not when he was looking like...

"I can't help him." Aya's voice was tightly angry. "Omi and I are going to talk. We have a mission tomorrow, we need Yohji back."

Omi's voice was shrill and sudden. "You only care about him coming back because we have a mission?"

"Ken." Aya snapped. His eyes burned into Ken.

And suddenly, Ken looked closer.

That wasn't just anger there. If it was, it wasn't a type Ken had seen before, not on Aya's face.

Oh, Christ. What the hell had happened, to cause Aya to be worried... "Look. he's already gone, but I'll look, got it? Don't do anything stupid. I don't know what just happened here, and I really don't think I want to, but...but...Christ." Ken turned and surveyed them all again. "Christ," he swore again, and went back outside.

Aya was worried he wouldn't be back for the mission...tomorrow night. Ken realized suddenly.

Had the man been worried Yohji was gone...for good?

Ken kicked the wall in frustration, breaking a brick in half. The sun was starting to set, casting the alleyway in partial shadow, orange light streaking up the side of the building and down the sidewalk like flames.

He was gonna deserve one hell of an explanation when he got back.

Hopefully with Yohji's sorry, melodramatic ass in tow.

Ken swallowed past the sudden nervous lump in his throat.

xXxXx

Inside the Koneko, Ran kicked the soccer ball at Omi's head. The youngest assassin ducked deftly, and the ball crashed through the kitchen window.

"Ran!" Aya-chan choked. She ran backwards at the sudden movement and the sudden noise, and cowered into the wall.

"Aya!" Omi had shouted at the same time. There was real fear in his voice.

"Aya-chan, why don't you go upstairs?" Ran said, voice low. He looked at her, expression dangerous, though he obviously tried to make it soft for her.

He didn't succeed.

"No." Tears were starting to leak from the corner of her eyes. She turned a worried expression to Omi.

Was this what Omi had been trying to protect her from? Had her brother become a monster?

Omi looked back at her, expression grim. "It's okay, Aya-chan. We probably need to talk. I should tell him -"

"This involves me!" Aya-chan burst out. "I'm staying. Ran, you can't blame Omi, it was both of us -"

It was obvious what her brother and Yohji had been talking about. That line, what Yohji had said to him - it was so obviously a confession. Aya-chan had never heard Yohji speak like that, not to anyone. She had never heard him sound upset, or so worried. And Ran, Ran hadn't said anything to him! Nothing at all. Like he didn't even care how upset Yohji was.

But she'd hoped that maybe he'd been about to. She had hoped that maybe her brother cared about him too, and just didn't know how to say it. But then Omi had...

Oh, she was so mad at all of them! And Yohji...

She felt completely lost. Aya-chan had never seen someone look so...so...

She turned her eyes back to her brother.

Yes, she had. She realized. She had seen someone look as...as unhappy as Yohji did. Her brother frequently looked like that. She just didn't recognize it, because his face was so familiar, and she'd only been seeing what she wanted to. She had been trying so hard to pretend that nothing had changed so much that it couldn't be fixed...

Was this what Omi had been trying to protect her from? Omi and Ken, though, they didn't look like that. So she couldn't blame it on what the four men did, not entirely, could she? Because Omi and Ken, they were usually so happy, so normal...

And each of them had told her, time and time and time again, that they killed people who hurt other people, no one else. They were heroes. She believed that, she really did, because they were good people. She believed that too, with all her heart.

She was crying harder now, despite herself.

Yohji had always just tried so hard, she realized suddenly. He just always appeared so carefree, so pleasant, teasing and joking and flirting. He was always so kind to her. He was mostly kind to everyone, except when he was teasing their other housemates and her brother. But had he really been so miserable all this time? She didn't notice how unhappy he was, not until Omi had brought it to her attention the other day in the shop, before the two of them started trying to set Yohji up with boys and get him to forget his crush on her brother. Because that definitely was the problem, after what she'd heard him say when she and Omi had come into the shop a few minutes earlier.

Why were her brother and Yohji different? She knew how much Ran had suffered while she'd been asleep, and she almost blamed herself for it, because she knew it was partially her fault, even though he said it wasn't. Because he'd taken her name...like he wished he'd been her. She wished she'd been awake to help him. She wished he would let her help him now, even though she didn't know what she could possibly do to help.

She hated this. Older people were supposed to be comforting. They were supposed to know what to do. They were supposed to be the ones you got answers from, the ones who took care of you. Her parents had always known what to do, always. Ran himself had always just been supportive. It had been the same before the accident, and after, when she'd woken up from her coma, and she just hadn't seen...

"Aya-chan, I'm sorry!" Ran took a step toward her, then another. "I'm sorry. It's okay."

"Yeah," Omi echoed, forcing a smile at her despite looking like he was about to cry himself. "Don't worry."

She glared at him, then at her brother. "Leave me alone!" She gasped. Aya-chan threw her books down on the floor and fled upstairs, to her room. She slammed the door behind her and locked it, then threw herself down on her bed and cried.

xXxXx

In the shop, Aya turned back to Omi, rage seeping onto his face in the absence of his sister. "What did she mean, her fault too? What have you done?"

Omi held up his hands, flinching. He took a step backward, so the counter was between him and Aya.

This is a nightmare. Aya was going to kill him, Omi was almost certain of it, and he didn't even think that anything so bad had happened. Not to make Aya this angry. There wasn't even anyone home to stop him. Ken would come back and find that Aya had chopped him up and planted bits of him into the potting soil, like that serial killer he'd seen on the news the other night -

The one they'd killed, Omi reminded himself, and the thought wasn't really all that comforting. He didn't have his darts on him, and was pretty sure Aya would beat him in a fight, anyway.

"Aya, this doesn't really have anything to do with you, so please don't be angry. But Aya-chan and I have been trying to set Yohji up. With...with guys...that's what she meant."

"With guys?" Aya echoed. "Yohji?" It tripped him up just enough to knock the ire from his face for a moment, before the swordsman refocused on Omi. "Why do you think I would care..."

"I don't! Aya, that's the whole problem!" Omi scrambled to hold on to Aya's attention, because the confusion seemed to make him less angry. "What he said -"

"Isn't your business." Aya growled.

"But it is! Aya, if it's going to..." Omi took in a deep breath and blew it out again, attempting to keep himself from crying. "Yohji's been falling apart."

"I know." The violet eyes were narrowed, but his tone was quieter.

Omi stumbled on that. "Y-you know? But-" Omi took another deep breath. "Do you know it's because of you?"

There was a long pause. Omi and Aya stared each other down.

"That's also not my problem. He'll get over it." Aya finally snapped. "Omi. Even if that is true, why do you think it's your business?"

"Because it's affecting the team, Aya, and that is my business!" Omi put his hands on his hips. "Aya-chan and I think Yohji..." His lip started trembling. "It just been really bad since Neu. We hoped if we set him up with someone..."

"The boy. The one who came to the shop looking for him and hit on you."

Omi nodded, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

"Yohji told me Ken met a boy in the shop. Was that also you?"

Omi nodded. "Please don't be mad, Aya, it just wasn't any of your business. We were just trying to help Yohji."

"So you and my sister..." Aya frowned. "Have been working together..."

"Please don't tell Yohji! He doesn't know, and now...now..."

"You should have stayed out of this." The anger was back in Aya's voice. "We needed to talk, Omi. Whatever is going on with Yohji..." Omi watched as Aya let out a long breath. "He said something to me..."

A breeze was coming in through the broken window. A shard of glass trembled and fell into the sink. Omi watched warily as Aya turned his face toward it, unblinking. After a moment, Aya turned back to Omi, visibly more collected, although still frowning heavily. "If it is because of me, Omi...that seems unlikely. If it is true, we should not have been interrupted. You should have stayed out of it."

"Ken will find him," Omi said, his voice small.

"Hn." Aya was frowning at the window again, as if it was alone the source of all trouble. Omi was glad the glare wasn't aimed at him any longer.

"I'll pay for it," Omi offered hesitantly.

Aya ignored him.

Omi took the chance to bolt for the stairs.

"Omi."

Omi stopped immediately, gut sinking.

"Don't bother my sister. But...keep an eye on her. Please. I'll be up later to talk to her. Right now..."

Omi nodded. "Yes, Aya."

He paused, making sure that was all Aya had left to say. When silence prevailed, he ran upstairs.

xXxXx

"Whoa, man, what happened to the window?" Ken let out a low whistle, creeping into the shop. The lights were off despite the sun having gone down well over an hour prior. Ken flipped them on but stayed by the doorway, poised to make a run for it if he had to.

Aya was nailing boards across the pane, kneeling on the counter. "Your soccer ball is outside," Aya replied, as if that were an answer.

Which, Ken realized ruefully, It kinda was. Except he doubted that it was because they were having a good ol' time kicking it around the shop while he was out looking for their missing teammate.

"I don't wanna know," Ken muttered, eyeing his basketcase of a teammate calmly patching up the damage.

He went outside and found his soccerball a few minutes later behind the dumpster, luckily undamaged.

Aya was off the counter when he came back inside, brushing off the counter, and then his clothes. He retrieved a dustpan from under the sink and began to sweep up shards of glass from the floor.

"I found Yohji," Ken mentioned hesitantly.

Aya's hands stilled. The fall of his red bangs covered his eyes. It made Ken edgy. Aya was acting like it - all of it - was his fault.

Ken had, up until this point, been sure that if Aya did ever crack up for good, it would be the start of the apocalypse. He took in a quiet breath. "He was still in the garage. He went out for a bit, Aya. Said he'd be back later though, okay?"

That hadn't been all of it. Yohji had also found himself a big old flask of whiskey, and Ken wasn't entirely sure he had meant to go anywhere at all. But after Yohji had given him that shark-smile and told him to go fuck off, he hadn't been about to stay and comfort the man, either.

Aya gave a short nod, making his eartails bob, and still didn't look at Ken.

Ken let out a breath. "Uh. Okay, then." He backed toward the stairs. "I don't wanna know," he muttered. "Ever." He turned and grabbed a beer from the fridge, then retreated to the mission room.

xXxXx

"Go away." His sister's voice wobbled, as if she'd been sobbing.

Aya drew his hand back, and stared miserably at the closed door of his sister's room. He looked down and saw Omi looking up at him. The younger assassin looked like he'd been crying, and despite his anger at Omi, it made the sliver of guilt come back. It had sounded like Omi hadn't done anything truly wrong, even though Aya would have liked very much to have blamed everything on his youngest teammate.

It was easier to blame Omi than himself.

Omi pushed himself to his feet. "Aya, I-"

Aya gave him a short nod. "It's okay, Omi." He said.

Omi looked contrite. "I heard Ken come back -"

"Yohji is okay. Ken said he was in the garage," Aya explained tersely.

Omi's voice came out as a whisper. "I really didn't do anything to Aya-chan, Aya. Please, please believe me...!"

Aya winced, and looked away from Omi. "I know. Go away."

"She's just had a lot to deal with, Aya!"

"I know, Omi, leave us alone!" Aya knocked on the door again, still looking away from Omi.

Omi hesitated, then started down the hallway. Aya glanced after him to see Omi throw a concerned glance over his shoulder, then disappear onto the stairwell. It looked like he was headed up to the roof.

Aya stored that away for later.

He knocked again on the door. "Aya-chan! Open up!"

The door swung open and his fist fell through thin air. His sister's eyes were bloodshot.

"Aya-chan. I'm sorry." He whispered it to his sister.

She stared back at him, looking him up and down.

"I'm sorry," Aya repeated.

Aya-chan threw herself forward, into his arms. Startled, she had to hug him for a moment before he realized to move his own arms from his sides, and hug her back.

xXxXx

Omi had made a mess of everything.

He hugged his bare knees to his chest, still wearing the short overalls he'd worn to school earlier that day. A cool breeze swept over the roof, and looking up at the sky, he noticed that it brought clouds sneaking over the city with it. It would rain before the night was over - how appropriate.

Aya-chan was mad at him. He wasn't even certain he deserved that. He only didn't tell her about the missions because other people didn't want him to. Kritiker wanted him to limit the information shared with her, and so did Aya-Ran.

I guess you'd better start calling him Ran, He noted dully. That was what Aya-chan was used to, because that was her brother's real name, and he wanted to do everything he could to make her happy again. He was positive Ran did, too.

He supposed that she also had to be mad at him because of what he'd revealed about his opinion about her brother. It didn't quite make sense to him, because she had to know Ran better than any of them, right?

But she'd seemed so...lost. She had asked him if her brother was so different. Like maybe once, he was a person that would have liked another boy back. Another boy like Yohji.

He felt like an idiot, and a jerk. It hadn't really occurred to Omi that Aya...Ran, that Ran could have undergone a complete personality change since joining Weiss.

Because Omi hadn't. Omi couldn't remember when he was very little, of course, but he had always been who he was.

And you've always been in something like Weiss. He'd always been an assassin, or an assassin-in-training. Unlike the rest of them.

Omi hugged himself harder, and rested his chin on his knees.

He hoped Ken found Yohji, and brought him back. He hoped he hadn't caused anything irreparable. Because he'd never, ever expected Ran to tell him that he would have actually talked to Yohji about his problems.

He supposed that made him a worse person than any of them, for expecting so little of his friends.

There was a sudden noise behind him. "Omi-kun?"

He whirled, just as the door fell back into place with a snick. Aya-chan stood across the roof from him, her clothes and hair blowing a little in the wind. She walked toward him and sat down by his side before he had a chance to recover from his surprise or to get up.

"A-Aya-chan?" Omi swallowed heavily. "H-how?"

"Ran told me he saw you come up here," she explained. She looked seriously at him, her brown eyes meeting his.

Omi looked away. "Why would he tell you that?" He didn't want her there. He wanted to be by himself.

"Maybe because he's worried about you, Omi-kun." Her hand rested lightly on his arm.

He looked back at her, surprised. He hadn't thought Ran would care at all about him. He had made Yohji run away, and Ran so mad that he'd kicked Ken's soccer ball at him, and he'd made Aya-chan not speak to him for a whole day, and then cry. Although, the crying might have been Ran's fault as much as his, really.

She gave him a very small smile. "He's not so bad. He just doesn't know how to show he cares."

Omi's lower lip trembled. "Maybe I'm the bad one then!" He looked over the building, to the roof of the neighboring business. Nothing interesting happened on it, but it was better than looking at Aya-chan's concerned face. He didn't deserve it.

"Oh, Omi-kun." Aya-chan's voice was quiet. "If that was true, you wouldn't have cared about Yohji at all, would you? And you wouldn't care that you made Ran mad at you. I think you care so much about everyone that you don't want them to get hurt at all. You're afraid that if you leave it up to them, they'll hurt each other." She sighed audibly. Omi looked back at her. She had followed his gaze to the other roof. The moonlight was hazy through the gathering clouds, but it illuminated the lines of her profile perfectly. "That's just like my brother," she said softly. "He's so afraid. He's so afraid that I'll get hurt again. But I have so much..." her voice wavered. "I understand how he feels, but Omi-kun, I have so many things I haven't done! And I feel sometimes like I won't get to do anything other people get to do, because he's so protective of me!"

She turned and met his eyes again. Omi looked back at her earnestly. "Sometimes I have to get hurt, Omi-kun. That's what people do. People make mistakes, so they can grow from them! I really believe that. Otherwise...otherwise it's just like I'm still in a coma." Tears manifested suddenly on her cheeks. "Like maybe I shouldn't have woken up at all, so he wouldn't have to worry so much."

"Oh, Aya-chan!" Omi gasped. He threw his arms around her, because there wasn't anything at all he could think of to say to that. "Aya-chan, he was..."

Omi swallowed. He didn't want to say anything to make her think any worse of him, or of her brother, but what she'd said was so terrible... "Aya-chan, he's becoming better because of you. Because you woke up."

Aya-chan looked up at his face, her own tear-streaked. After a moment, she nodded. "He's said that, too," she said softly. She pressed closer against him.

She looked up. Omi looked back at her.

Suddenly, her lips were on his. Omi gasped into her mouth. She pressed more firmly, one of her hands on his neck.

He kissed her back. They kept their eyes open, watching each other.

When they broke apart, Omi was blushing furiously, and so was she.

Aya-chan placed her hands in front of her on her knees. "Omi-kun, I'm sorry! Please be okay with that!" She wasn't quite meeting his eyes.

"Ran's gonna kill me!" Omi cried.

Aya-chan looked up, and smiled suddenly. "Is that all?"

"Is that all?!" Omi gasped. He had already almost been killed by her brother once that day, this was all but ordering his gravestone. "Aya-chan, this is awful, I know you think your brother is a good person, and, and I guess he is, but he's going to take his katana and..."

"Omi-kun...Ran said it was okay."

"What?" Omi gasped. He couldn't have heard her right. She might as well have said, 'Aliens just landed on the other roof, look and see.' He would have believed that more than Ran being okay with Aya-chan kissing anyone, let alone Omi.

"Omi...he was so mad earlier because he thought we were already dating. Did you know that? He said he was relieved to know that it was just because we were plotting to set poor Yohji-kun up with someone. And..." Her face was turning redder, and even though there were still tears on the ends of her lashes, she was smiling bashfully. "Oh, please don't be mad at me."

"I-I'm not mad at you, Aya-chan..."

"Good!" Aya-chan moved closer to him, and put a hand on his knee. "And I told him that I did like you, Omi-kun. I-I like you! I've liked you for a really long time. But I didn't think...I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't have kissed you like that..."

"W-what did he say?" Omi swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

"He said okay."

"That's it?" Omi gasped.

Aya-chan nodded, then added, "And that you were on the roof."

Omi sat back down - he had been crouching, half-preparing to flee the entire country - and stared at her, stunned.

"Omi-kun?" Omi looked at her. Aya-chan was frowning, a little crease of worry appearing between her eyebrows.

Omi gave her a small smile. "I guess I don't really know Ran all that well, Aya-chan. I'm sorry."

She gave him a small, worried smile. "It seems he's a little different from...from Aya."

He nodded. "But...they're still the same person."

She nodded back at him.

They were quiet. Omi cleared his throat after a few minutes had passed. "Aya-chan?"

Aya-chan looked at him. She'd caught her bottom lip in her teeth, she looked worried and adorable.

Omi cleared his throat again. "I think I like you, too." He glanced at her sideways. "I mean, I definitely like you! But, I like you, as, as more than a friend..."

A small smile blossomed on her face.

Omi sat up straighter, encouraged. He took a deep breath, and hoped she'd told the truth about Ran. "Would-would it be okay to try that kiss again?"

Her expression immediately lightened. "I was hoping you'd ask."

xXxXx

Finished talking with his sister, Aya watched Aya-chan make her way to the door to the roof. He forced himself to give her a small smile.

Yohji was right, he reassured himself. You trust Omi. He'll look after her, when you can't.

She disappeared up the stairwell. He leaned back against the wall and hit the back of his head against it.

Aya still wasn't happy about it, but all he could ask was that she told him about her life. If it was really something she wanted, if she really felt that way about Omi already, there was absolutely nothing he could do. If he forbade it - and he wanted to - she would just go behind his back. He would lose her trust.

Be happy she asked you first. Be happy they weren't already sneaking behind your back.

Aya went back downstairs. The shards of glass were cleaned up and the dustpan was put away under the sink, but the window in the kitchen was, of course, still shattered, the boards still nailed across it from where he'd kicked the soccer ball at Omi's head.

The lights were still on because he'd left them on for Yohji. There was still no sign of him.

Aya stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and stared at the door.

He couldn't believe they'd been setting Yohji up on blind dates without the man knowing about it. As if Yohji, of all people, needed help getting laid.

And it was because they'd wanted to distract Yohji. That was what it had sounded like.

Distract Yohji...

"Ever since we almost lost everything..." Yohji's voice had been so desperate. His face had been so desperate. He had been so...certain, that what he was saying was falling on deaf ears. He had left without letting Aya even respond.

And what would you have said? If only Omi had not interrupted them, Aya would have been able to handle Yohji. The look on Yohji's face as he left, it was one he had seen before. Right before he'd killed Neu.

It would have alarmed him more the first time he'd seen it, if he had cared about anything, back then, but revenge.

He wasn't happy to see it again.

...Omi and his sister. They both thought he was incapable of returning Yohji's...

Yohji had been comparing him to Neu. To Asuka.

Aya realized his breathing had turned shallow. He went to the table and sat down in a chair, hands spread before him. He stared at the callouses on his palms.

The door opened suddenly, and a whiff of alcohol preceded Yohji's stumbling entrance.

It was the first time in months, Aya realized, that Yohji had come home trashed.

It was the only time Aya hadn't attempted to hide himself.

He wished suddenly that he had. He didn't want to talk to Yohji. He didn't want Yohji to confront him about anything he wasn't ready to deal with, and he was positive that would be anything Yohji had to say to him.

Yohji's features twisted when he caught sight of Aya. Aya stared back, keeping his features as neutral as possible.

You misheard him, he decided suddenly.

"Oi! Ayan. Ran-Ayan. Baby. My ghost keeping you company? She's a bitch, isn't she?" He grinned at Aya. "Don't look like that. She's only after me, yanno. You probably scared her off, too much competition for ol' Yohji."

"Kudoh." Aya swallowed. Yohji had a wet stain and a lipstick smear across the white undershirt he wore beneath his jacket, and his sunglasses were ever so slightly crooked. "What the hell-"

"Not in the mood, Ayan, not in the mood. Hey, do you have any ghosts, or is it just me?" Yohji crossed the room and leaned for a moment on the back of a chair, sunglasses blacking out his eyes. "Maybe Ran haunts you, huh?" He snickered. He straightened, and swayed. A finger found the waistline of his jeans and pulled it down, revealing the tanned, toned ridge where abdomen met leg. Yohji seemed completely unaware; Aya, despite being sickened by how drunk the man was, found his eyes drawn to his skin.

"You need to go to bed." Aya stated, and pushed back his chair.

"I'll go if you come," Yohji said. Then laughed uproariously. "Hey! That's like a pun. I like it."

Aya took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He took a step toward Yohji, prepared to take him upstairs in a fireman's carry if necessary.

Yohji promptly vomited on him, and keeled over on the floor, out cold.

xXxXx

The pale skin beneath Aya's uncommonly pretty violet eyes was marred with dark circles. It was beyond piquing Yohji's curiosity at this point. He was nearly downright obsessed with finding out the cause.

The problem was that these days, he was feeling pretty shitty himself. Especially with the gawdawful hangover he'd woken up with around noontime.

And today, you know the damned fucking cause, Kudoh. Aya had been glaring at him all through shift, but had yet to actually say anything. It's because you spilled your guts to him, and he's trying not to kill you for it.

He took one last drag on his cigarette, and stubbed it out in the sink next to the three other butts by the drain. They'd been partly to calm his nerves, and partially to get a rise out of Aya. He was determined to return their dynamic to normal, at the very least. He would annoy the shit out of him until Aya was back to harassing him to stub out his cigarettes and do his chores. Those small interactions, however awful they usual were, at least meant Aya was still paying some attention to him. It meant they were still teammates.

But Aya hadn't even wanted to say even a "put it out, Kudoh" to him. He seemed content to just sit there and will Yohji's brains to fry up.

Omi was a different story. The kid had his hands on his hips and his mouth open. He looked like an angry chicken.

Yohji let out a sigh. He needed to deflect that lecture, and fast. "Boys," he began, "I'm not sure how to break this to you, but the Koneko is haunted."

"This is a mission meeting, Kudoh." Aya finally stated angrily.

Yohji waved a hand in his general direction. "I just thought everyone should know, Aya. I want to bring in an exorcist..."

A snort of laughter that sounded more pained than amused actually came from Aya himself. Omi, Ken and Yohji all turned amazed eyes toward him.

"No...Aya, I don't think he's joking." Omi sounded incredibly nervous, for some reason. His eyes shifted up to meet Yohji's. "I heard something in the hall the other night, and Yohji was the only one up. He said that he'd been in the shower, so he couldn't..."

"Oh, chibi. Sorry." Yohji smiled apologetically at the younger assassin. He glanced at Aya, whose face was twisted into a weird cross of pain and amusement, although the expression, like all the man's expressions, was barely there. Yohji decided to ignore him. He was done spying on the kids for him. "That was me. I was checking in on you and Aya-chan."

"You were spying on us?!" Omi squeaked.

Ken let out a snort of laughter.

Yohji glanced back at Aya. The man acknowledged him enough to give him a small nod. "Aya had asked me to."

Omi's eyes shifted nervously sideways. He and Aya stared at each other evenly for a moment.

Ken laughed again. "Oh man, Aya, you thought that Omi was after -"

"We're dating, Ken-kun." Omi stated flatly.

Ken choked.

Yohji's eyebrows shot up to his forehead. It aggravated his headache, he suppressed a wince. He looked sideways. Aya hadn't reacted. He wondered briefly if that had something to do with the broken window he'd discovered upon waking up.

"So. That's completely different, Omi-kun. But, the Koneko's still haunted, so is everyone okay with -" Yohji started again.

"What makes you think the Koneko is haunted, Yohji-kun?" Omi's voice was completely skeptical now. He glared at Yohji.

Great. So Ken was the only one not pissed at him now. "Because I come back late at night, chibi, and I've felt eyes on me. I've heard breathing! Lights have been on when they should have been off. And anyway, I know who it is, so..."

Ken was eyeing him like he'd decided Yohji was officially gone.

Aya was avoiding his eyes.

Omi was staring hard.

At Aya.

Silence reigned.

Omi was the first to break it with a slight cough. "Aya-kun, I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous."

Aya's head snapped up, eyes wide and trained on Omi. Yohji watched, fascinated.

"I've heard noises too," Aya replied.

"I'm sure you have!" Omi looked positively exasperated. "Aya-kun, you aren't the only one who's been spying. Aya-chan told me that she gets up at night when she can't sleep. She said she's seen you-"

Aya looked appalled. Nevertheless, his voice barked, "Stop."

"No, Aya! He wants to bring in an exorcist. To the Koneko. This is ridiculous. Kritiker will think we've gone nuts and then we'll all be in trouble!" Omi was frowning heavily.

Ken was watching them all with wide eyes.

Yohji turned away from Ken and Omi and stared hard at Aya.

"Aya," Omi warned, "If you don't tell him I'm going to."

"You threw up on me last night." Aya stated flatly, finally meeting his eyes. "I dragged your ass into bed and cleaned up after you."

"You -" Yohji spluttered for a moment. He wracked his brain for some memory to back that up, but whatever he'd done last night was completely gone. "Uh, thanks. Sorry. But that still doesn't explain shit about what Omi's talking about."

"I've been watching you, Yohji. Not ghosts. You go out, I make sure you come back, I go to bed. You're a teammate. Someone needs to do it and I'm the only one who's up when you go out." Aya's mouth was a thin tight line. "This is pointless. We have a mission to go to. Omi, explain what we have to do so we don't miss our targets."

Yohji closed his eyes for a moment, when he opened them again Aya was staring at Omi, Omi was doing his best to explain what they had to do that night to assassinate people, and Ken was alternating a gaze of dawning awareness between himself and Aya.

"Oh, shit." Ken said. "Omi, you were..."

"Say one word, Ken-kun, and I will tell Yohji-kun about your new friend." Omi continued his explanation of the mission without pause.

Yohji sat down with a thunk on the couch, and tuned Omi out.

Aya. Aya had been the ghost all along.

Now why did that seem fucking appropriate?

xXxXx

The nighttime air smelled great, Yohji realized. Someone had cut their grass recently, in the residences beside the warehouse they were staking out.

Their targets hadn't shown up yet. They were waiting for a van, so it wasn't likely they'd sneak up on them, either.

In the silence, Yohji couldn't turn off the endless stream of sentences replaying in his head. The acid from his thoughts was trickling down his brainstem and percolating in his stomach.

It alarmed him how close to insanity he'd sounded, now that he looked back on it.

Aya had been haunting the Koneko at night. Not Neu. Not Asuka. Not some other pissed off dead soul.

Yohji had been leaving the man well enough alone, he'd thought, except on those days that Aya looked shitty enough to actually do something unfortunate about it. And now he found out that Aya had been watching him? That was creepy as hell, and really unfair. Had the man followed him to the coffee house too? Did he watch Yohji on dates? He would have relished knowing that Aya was obsessing about him before, except he couldn't get Aya's look of absolute rage out of his mind after he'd confessed his feelings by a slip of his fickle tongue.

The targets still weren't present. He flicked the comm switch, Ken gave him a look backwards from where he was posted by the corner of the building. "How long, Aya? How long have you been spying on me? And what the hell gives you the right?"

There was a pause, then Aya's flat monotone crackled back. "I told you the other night I noticed you looked like hell. It's our job to make sure this team stays intact. That's it, Yohji."

"Bullshit." Yohji swore. Ken was making shushing motions, but Yohji pressed on. He hadn't heard any van, so Ken was just being a jackass. "That's bullshit, Aya."

"Yohji." Omi's voice, hushed and alarmed, cut him off. "Not now!"

"You keep telling us your life is none of our business, Aya, and then you go and spy on me? No, not just me, on Omi, too, and your sister. What, are you spying on Ken's dates, too?"

Ken spluttered a quiet, "You know...?"

Omi inserted another desperate plea for them to shut up.

"You let me think the place was haunted! You had to have heard me talking to absolutely nothing. Were you having a laugh, Aya, huh? Because it wasn't fucking funny to me, yanno." Yohji sneered into the microphone. "Pretending to be a ghost all that time. Do you know who I thought of, all those nights? Why I was going out in the first goddamned place?"

"...maybe I wasn't pretending, Yohji." The feed abruptly clicked off.

"Fuck." Yohji swore.

"Yohji, he took off his microphone," Omi's voice was bordering shrill. "Are you happy?"

Suddenly, Yohji was thrown backwards into the wall, his head hitting the concrete building painfully. Dazed, he looked down to notice Ken had an arm across his windpipe.

"Aya needs your mess like he needs a hole in the head, Yohji." Ken's features were tight. "Get it together. You'll get over this. He won't."

Yohji smiled, baring his teeth. Funny. I need Aya like a hole in the head. One or the other, I'll be all set. "Since when did you decide to join the party, Ken-ken?"

"Didn't you even wonder why you got stood up the other day? Why Jun never showed? That was that guy in the shop, the one you thought was my friend. Omi told me you had...had a thing for Aya, and I thought he was off his rocker, because why the hell would you have a personal ad up on the internet otherwise? Huh? Answer me that. Don't go bullshitting around with Aya, he doesn't need it." Ken shoved him into the wall again and let go, backing off a couple steps.

Yohji scrambled after the string of Ken's thoughts. He took a step toward Ken, prepared to shake some sense into him. Yohji Kudoh, with a personal ad? Like hell. "What the-"

"Uh." Omi's voice coughed over the earpieces. "Actually, Ken-kun...that was me. I put that ad up there. We were just trying to help Yohji! Yohji, don't be mad, please, I'll explain after the mission!"

Yohji narrowed his eyes at Ken, because Omi wasn't present. "You'd fucking better, chibi."

Ken glared back at him. "That makes no sense. But whatever. I still mean it, Yohji, you better watch yourself if you're just dicking around."

"I think you'd better mind your own fucking business, Ken-ken. Aya can damned well take care of himself."

"Guys!" Omi suddenly hissed. "They're here. Please, please focus! And remember, codenames!"

Yohji rolled his eyes and prepared a length of wire as the van rolled past them, into the open doorway of the warehouse. He and Ken snuck in after it as the door lowered, just in time to see Aya's shadow jump down from a support beam and Omi signal to them from the control room. He'd taken out the targets that had been stationed there when Weiss had arrived.

Yohji almost felt sorry for their victims. He needed to take his anger out on someone, and Kritiker-approved targets were a hell of a lot better than teammates.

xXxXx