Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Glowing ❯ Catatonics ( Chapter 5 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: hermit risin 
A reunion of sorts.
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Hentai / Drama | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 09.12.2008 | Pages: 6 | Words: 6.8K | Visits: 215 | Status: Work In Progress
A reunion of sorts.
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Hentai / Drama | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 09.12.2008 | Pages: 6 | Words: 6.8K | Visits: 215 | Status: Work In Progress
call came in the middle of the night.
“Hello?”
I don’t care how annoyed I sound, it’s too damned late to be calling.
“Aya?”
Ken sounds as tired as I feel, his typically cheerful voice a hollow drone in my ear.
“Hn.”
“We would have called last night, but, well things were too much, you know?”
My heart stops beating, suddenly awake, I sit up in the bed, my hand flying unconsciously to grip Yohji’s pillow to me.
“It’s over.”
“Are both of you alright?”
The question is immediate, instinctual.
“Mostly. Yohji dislocated a shoulder, but we think it’s alright now.”
“Did he-”
“Yes.”
I know better than to press Ken for anything deeper, anything that would allow me to better assess how he is.
As much as I hate to admit it, I just need to know he’s coming back to me. My intact, beautiful aggravating Yohji.
My fingers dig almost painfully into the pillow, I feel like a sentimental fool.
I won’t watch him lose himself again. I don’t know…..I never knew how to.
Blonde hair spread over my lap, shaking softly as he sobs into me, a faint dampness on my thighs. His hands clutching around my knees, hobbling me, leaving me paralyzed under his grief. Trapped with him. His muffled and incomprehensible apologies, conjuring up her brutal face, her shattered throat leaking spinal fluid as he laid her down, reflected in my blade as I swung at Hell, keeping his hunched body locked in my periphery.
“Aya……Aya? Are you still there?”
I shake myself out of it, abruptly exhausted again.
Yohji once told me we share the same retroactive tendencies, that’s why we continue on as we do, fucking up continuously because mired in retrospection, we can’t handle what’s in front of us. No reality handled until its essentially thrown at us, and then not really comprehended except amidst the aftermath.
It came out slurred, an easy loosing of verbiage from his drunken mouth, wreathed in profanities and lost vowels.
“Aya?”
“Can I talk to him?”
Ken sighs. He’s not telling me something.
“That-that’s probably not a good idea right now.”
“What do you mean?”
My voice hisses out in a strange mixture of contempt and suspicion. Yohji thinks I can’t measure the tangible manifestations of my emotions. I can. I just don’t care enough to mask them unless I feel its necessary. More often than he knows.
“He’s passed out still.”
“A concussion?”
As much as I tried, as tired as I am I can’t block the frantic worry form my voice.
“No. He started drinking as soon as we got back last night.”
A sigh of relief escapes me. That, at least, is familiar. Yohji always distracts himself after a mission by whatever means are available.
“And look, Aya……”
Ken sounds remarkably hesitant.
“I know this isn’t something you’re going to want to hear, but…..”
“But what?”
“Don’t expect too much from Yohji. Last night……you didn’t see him last night Aya……..he was really torn up. He wouldn’t say a word to me, just sat out on the balcony and drank until he fell asleep.”
I feel as if someone gouged the earth out from under me, leaving me sick and balanced in the untenable air.
There’s nothing to say.
“I don’t know what you could do………just….give him time when we get back. I think if anyone can help him its you. He really needs someone right now.”
I’m the last person anyone should depend upon for their emotional equilibrium.
“We’re flying back tomorrow. Don’t wait for us at the Koneko, we’re going to be launching straight into the mission there.”
“Rex contacted you.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. You’ll see him then.”
Ken’s voice continues on in a shrill reassuring manner. I hang up, wondering idly how long it’ll take him to realize I’m no longer listening.
Two days. My hand shoots blindly, with practice, out towards the night stand, grabbing a stray piece of paper.
“I love you. Don’t think this changed that.”
That one line of text should be faded by my eyes, worn through by constant readings as I force myself to maintain some level of hope.
“I just wanted to move forward.”
His voice sounded so hopeful, so anticipatory. That night, with the phone pressed to my ear, I believed, really believed, that somehow we could attain some measure of happiness, some freedom in this mire of wasted fury, of futile cruelty, guilt, actions.
For one of the first times since my parents died I let my mind shift from guilt, I let my steps go light and my breathe ease without constant tension, constant fervent emotion.
As soon as he began to retreat, to seek some irrational solace in that woman, I began to pay for that weakness. At least its cemented now, thrown back in my face and undeniable: nothing is to be depended on, not vengeance, not hope. It all devastates. If you must count on something, count on the ramifications of your own weakness.
I know its nothing more than my own ideas, my own overarching precepts that torture me. A different man could remain unscathed by this.
I’ve taken to wearing his shirts all the time. By now, they no longer smell of him, but that doesn’t change the feeling of his lingering presence between the threads.
A less selfish man, a more humble man could give up on guilt even. Guilt hinges on a precept of significance, of a meaning latent in your actions.
Rubbing my temples, I try to drive the thoughts from my head, and throw myself back down on the bed. I pull Yohji’s pillow against my chest, cradling it where no one can see. Now, again, it is the symbol of his use, of his touch that draws me.
An innateness that I force, that I perpetuate.
Clamping my eyes against my mind, I begin to drift off, holding the pillow close.
____________________
Apart from the social obligations, teaching is the only rewarding pursuit I’ve had a chance to take part of. It feels as if I’m influencing the world in the way it should be, by reason, by comprehension.
History has always fascinated me on its own terms, watching the patterns of the world, of the inevitable psychology of man, unfold through art, through genius and great acts is something beautiful, something in itself untainted even as it is measured, often made possible by, wars, atrocities, politics in all its gruesome forms and formalities. Repressions, massacres, Inquisitions, the terrible weight of our collective past is what makes the rare moments of human clarity, makes art and literature and honest thought all the more precious, more desperately needed.
This, in my mind, is the definition of a necessary evil. One of Persia’s names for us.
I hope that in relating one iota of the thought expressed by man, of the awe which it commands, of the staggering potential of our minds for beauty, that I can make up that much of my part in the atrocities and horror of the world.
So enrapt in thoughts, I walk into the teacher’s lounge, crowded as always at noon with a veritable horde of muttering teachers drowning themselves in coffee and empty talk.
I wonder how they can live like this, without meaning or force of action. Most of them seem to feel nothing, to be devoted to nothing.
I don’t understand it.
As I make my way towards the window, Tsujii Miyumi sees me, following me over.
Instantly she strikes up conversation, something I don’t quite bother to follow.
Of all the teachers here at Koua, she is among the most tolerable, other than Asami-sensei, even proving herself admirable during S-class’ search for Kyo.
Not that it, in the end, did any good.
At least she doesn’t seem so apathetic, so empty. While she doesn’t have the zeal and love for teaching that Asami does, she still possesses some force of feeling. Her eyes don’t look flat or dead like so many others here. In some muted way, I can respect her.
Is this what normality does to you?
I almost feel glad for my lot, my curse in life.
I tune in and out to what she says, a low buzz of complaints on some new teacher or other. It doesn’t interest me, this gossiping about some irritating person or other.
“I can’t really handle those types-”
She is interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.
My heart jumps, my eyes staring at him relentlessly. He carries his old easy smile on his face, but his eyes are lowered so I can’t read them.
I wonder if he knows how badly I want to reach over and jerk his chin up, just so I can glimpse what he is feeling.
“Hey! Uhm, what’s your name?”
Eloquent as always. Despite the last two weeks of fruitless arguing over the phone, I want to grin, just seeing him.
“Please call me Tsujii.”
He’s not trying to be overtly charming. It makes me glad, hope rising traitorously in my chest. A pang of self-reproach hits me, but I can’t be bothered to stop myself from staring, from repressing the last few times we’ve spoken. His voice is riveting, intrinsically beautiful.
“No, no. Your first name.”
She just turns away. He laughs.
“Oh well. I hope we can get along Tsujii-sensei”
And then, he lifts his eyes to me.
“And you are…?”
His words remind me of the mission, stopping me from simply throwing myself at him.
It’s almost disturbing how much I’ve let my self-restraint go in regards to him.
His eyes are sad, empty, reminding me of the first weeks after Neu.
Still, they glitter with something akin to happiness, to the joy I’d see in them when we were alone, free to hope in the space of our room. Implausible, really. Absently, I wonder if I’m imagining this entirely.
Not bothering to guard my face, I smile back at him, an almost unfamiliar sensation after these weeks of separation.
It’s so strange to see him.
“I’m Fujimiya. Nice to meet you.”
His eyes soften.
“I’m Kudou Yohji.”
We never had such a smooth meeting.
“Nice to meet you too, Aya-sensei.”
His voice catches on my name. My smile fades a little as I try not to chastise him for the slip.
It doesn’t matter.
I glance ay the clock on the wall. I have an hour and a half until my next class.
Catching his eye, I walk out into the hall. He joins me only a moment later.
Silently, I lead him down the stairs and finally into my classroom, locking the door behind us.
“How long?”
His voice is soft, uncertain now that we’re alone, that there’s no buffer between us. No reason to hide anything.
“An hour and a half.”
“About the same.”
Neither of us want to move towards the other, instead we stare at each other. His eyes now carry an edge of uncertainty.
There’s only so much time.
“Yohji?”
It’s as much as saying nothing. He looks at me, still silent, the smile replaced with a lost look, as if he was trying to figure out what to say, if anything. I cross the room to stand in front of him, resting my hand on a nearby desk.
His eyes flicker away from mine and back again.
I lift my hand up and touch his cheek, taking in the soft smooth feel of it, the golden hue strange, luminescent under my pale fingers splayed across it.
Even with minimal contact he overwhelms me.
I just. Fuck. I just don’t know where we are anymore.
I want to punch the both of us.
It was supposed to be better now, his return was supposed to signify some renewal between us, a new understanding.
Staring into his eyes, there is a greater sorrow, a deeper sharper bitterness than I have ever seen there.
It is striking.
He doesn’t move, hardly breathing it seems.
I pull his head closer, staring into his eyes the entire time. It seems neither of us blink, as I press our lips together and lift my other arm to wrap around his shoulder.
He sighs into it, a long shuddering release of breath as he relaxes. His arms curl around me, one hand snaking into my hair as his opens his mouth, darting his tongue into mine.
Almost frantically, he deepens the kiss, pushing me backwards until I’m pressed into the wall.
There is nothing that has ever felt so natural as this.
Passionately, strangely caught up in this frenzy of motion, to feel, to touch, to affirm our presence here as real, immediate, important; I drop one hand to pull at the buttons on his shirt. He leans back, a small soft smile on his face, his eyes gleaming, liquid with something I can’t define, but which forces me to smile back at him, all doubts somehow cleared, everything forgotten.
“It’s so good to see you, love.”
His voice is low, almost raspy. The words come out forceful, as if to prove it to both of us.
All I can do is smile, stripping his shirt off him and loosening my tie. I let him unbutton the shirt I‘m wearing. It’s his anyways.
It still hangs on my elbows as he lowers his head again, pressing his lips against my neck, grazing his teeth lightly over the sensitized skin.
“H-hey. No marks.”
Glancing up at me he pouts.
“No fun.”
I force a glare at him.
“No. Marks.”
Last thing we need is to be more associated than necessary, or to look unprofessional.
Instead, I feel his tongue swirl down the side of my neck, sucking lightly, momentarily in varied places, moving on before any bruise can form, and dipping down between my clavicles.
His hands brush down my chest, pausing to pull at my nipples. My breath catches in my throat. I bite my lip. These walls aren’t soundproof.
When his fingers hit the waistband of my pants, he hesitates, staring down at the belt as if it was something foreign, some unknown obstacle to bypass.
Flickering a look up at me, I’m sure he can measure my confusion. He runs his hands slowly, almost forlornly around my waist, holding me against the wall.
Abruptly, my mind is flooded with his voice coming at me through the dark, a harsh, calm whisper.
“And I am so tired of everything being overwhelming, everything passionate, everything desperately immediate like it’s the last thing we’ll ever feel.”
He traces my skin lightly, not looking up.
“This is simple.”
I become painfully aware of how cold the wall is through the thin fabric of the shirt. And again, I refuse to let myself try and answer the same damned question I’ve been avoiding so diligently.
What was it like with her? What did she mean to him?
The desire from a moment before feels heavy, stale on my tongue. I swallow to prevent myself from vomiting.
I am overwhelmed, that word again, that sensation I can never seem to stop short of, with the thought that I am once again left to be a substitute.
My voice bites back at me, almost mocking in my head.
“You can’t drown what you are in another person.”
Am I just a void for him to drown in?
If I remember, I can’t give anyone anything, selfish as I am.
My chest tightens as I remember the way the storeroom door knots, the feel of his breath on my cheeks as he yelled.
All my imperfections, so crippled together into some attempt or imitation of life.
The smile drops from my face-any attempt at that expression on my part is mercurial anyways-resting uneasy in the pit of my stomach.
“You say you don’t deserve this, but I’m not even strong enough to bear the consequences of my actions, to stand this anymore. I’ve got to save both of us.”
I’m tired of these damning voices in my mind.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want to protect you.”
He just wants to make dying easier.
He stares into my navel, brushing his fingers down my back.
“You seem more serene than before Aya.”
The urgency of before is gone. Now we’ve both had time to remember where we were.
“Yohji.”
It spills out soft, over my lips.
And then, the inevitable and yet futile question.
“Are you alright?”
Idly, I wonder what he’s thinking.
He glances up at me, his eyes shattered.
Shaken, I press further.
“Is it-”
“Don’t say it.”
His eyes gleam desperately.
“Please.”
I lift his hands off me, and he stands back, leaving me against the wall. His eyes are great raw wounds boring into me. Perversely, I want to press at them, see what I can make seep from those inestimable sores, glimpse what festers under that green shield.
“Did you love her?”
His face crumples, contorting into a barren sorrow. He whispers.
“I thought so.”
A cold crushing metallic pain choking my breath. My lungs collapse as the memory of breathing leaves my body in one horrible rush.
I shift uncomfortably against the wall, letting his shirt hang off me still.
That could mean anything.
The fabric is a rare protection against realization.
He exhales slowly.
“Aya, what do you want me to say?”
Moving forward he lifts his hand to my cheek, brushing his warm fingers against it. I twist my head away, staring out the window at the top of a tree, its branches hosting a set of birds.
How pastoral.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s substitute again.”
My own words echo, desperate, ridiculous, in my ears.
“Please don’t leave me.”I just want him to hold me again and smile.
I don’t know how to free him of anything, I can only let him have my honesty. He never seems to want to accept it, it upsets him.
Just let him be honest.
“Aya.”
I force my gaze back to him. His eyes are sad, ripped open with emotion, shattered hope. My eyes are reflected in his. I can’t read them at all.
“Yohji-- I love you”
I hate making confessions of any sort. Usually, they have to be wrenched from me, even when I want to admit them, maybe more so because of that.
I don’t think Yohji’s in a state to wrench anything from anyone, to press for anything.
His face blanks out in a sort of mute horror, as if something else is more vivid than now, something forces itself across his eyes.
Almost instantly they snap back, focusing on me intensely.
“I’m scared.”He lets out a long shuddering breath.
“I don’t know if I can do it again.”
Pull himself together, I think. He doesn’t know if he can rebuild himself.
I don’t care.
If I have to I’ll hold him together.
The strength of that sudden conviction scares me, as well.
Unsure of his response, I reach out towards him, pulling him into my arms. He relaxes, going limp against my shoulder.
“What’s the point to this?”
I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what he means.
“I’m so tired, Aya. Why can’t we save ourselves from anything?”
I tense a little. I hate watching him like this. I let him lean against me, unsure of how to move, how to say.
I can’t help anyone.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, you know I don’t, I can’t. It just won’t end……..you know?”
His eyes flick up at me through the babble, rimmed raw with tears.
“I want us to be saved, but I’ll just hurt you again and everyone. I contaminate everything Aya. Why?”
He pauses.
“Why can’t I hold onto anything?”
Speechless, I hold him close, wrapping him in my arms. It feels strange to comfort someone.
“Please don’t leave me.”
He pulls the words from my mind, speaking them back to me in a strange gift, almost.
Staring into his eyes I speak in a low voice.
“I swear.”
Jerking his chin up, I press our lips together, another strange moment. It should be him so urgent, so furiously passionate.
Instead, he mounts his urgency to match mine, his wet cheeks pressing against my face.
Lowering a free hand, I work unskillfully at his belt, fumbling exasperated at it until he leans back, guiding me with one hand, a soft gratitude in his eyes.
He shucks his clothes off gracefully, unashamed of this one thing at least.
A careful look on his face, the look of a man drawn out of lethargy, of a revived catatonic; he pulls my pants off, lifting them over my feet and dropping them to the floor. Rising again, he looks almost worshipful. I am too relieved to mock my own waxing poetic.
He threads his fingers in my hair and pulls our bodies close together, balanced strange on the wall.
Our bare skin meets with an amazing heat, rising low in my stomach and flushing tense down my thighs as I press against him, anxious for more warmth, more feeling.
Its as if our skin melts together in a strange rough glow.
My blood rushes in my ears as he lowers his head for another kiss, a slow consuming fire met in our mouths. His hands run down my back, shaking with some unreadable emotion.
Its an indescribable sensation, the glowing smoothness of skin on skin, of the strange glide of bodies together in an infuriating intoxication.
Concupiscent, I reach down to stroke him, reveling at the preternaturally soft skin, the warm velvet heat that meets my hand like a glove. I run my thumb up across the soft mound of the head, darting it over the wet hot slit leaking pre-cum.
So immersed in warmth, I let myself smile into his lips, an irrefutable joy coming over me through the transcendent feel of him against me.
His hand trails down from my hair to snake along my spine, causing me to arch and let out a soft irrepressible moan. His fingers play slick down my spine, trailing beneath the shirt already wet and cool with sweat.
I gasp as he lowers the other one to my cock, running it slowly down the shaft to rub between my legs. My eyes roll back into my head at the quickening sensation, the pressing jolt of his fingers as they trail up to my ass, hesitating on the measure of skin above my thigh.
“Do you have any-”
He sounds oddly embarrassed. Impulsively, unwilling to move away from the heat of his body on mine, to lose that all encompassing contact, I lift his hand to my mouth, sucking on the fingers as he rains soft bewildering touches over my back.
Finally, he pulls them out, immediately darting them back between my legs.
As the first one sunk in, I closed my eyes, letting them sink down as I suppressed a moan.
“Aya, open your eyes.”
As I do, he smiles, pressing another one in and swirling them both around.
He grins wildly, cavalierly as he touches my prostate for the first time, causing me to buck my hips sharply, gasping out with a hard cry.
Abrupt. He’s smiling so hard he looks insane.
Even so caught up in his hands I can’t ignore the edge of misery riding up around the joy, the love in his eyes that makes me almost believe in my own depravity. That I’m writing it into his gaze.
All thoughts drain from me as he pulls his fingers out. I go limp, my legs tingling.
His hand rises to cup the back of my head, drawing me in for a deep, seemingly infinite kiss. His lips merge with mine, seemingly inseparable- for one moment in sex you can really believe that you will never be apart, that eternity means something- and he tilts me back against the wall, lifting my legs to wrap around him.
I feel inexplicably bared, even covered by his body.
Pulling away for a moment, he licks the palm of his hand, wrapping it around himself.
I clutch against his shoulders and he smiles, equally unwilling to let go, to return to the horrifyingly endless sorrow of our own personal reality.
We can dwell on our hells later, our accusations.
He catches me in a kiss again as he pushes inside, a slow sharp feeling of being filled, being consumed.
My body shakes with its own anxiety. Every nerve feels on fire as he penetrates slowly, riding my core with a strange sense of self immolation.
Finally he begins to move. We are silent, witnessing his thrusts with heavy breath, slow heaves of air into each other.
His hands dig into my hips, pulling me impossibly close. It is unbearable, inescapable, this relentless slow reunion of sorts.
Opening my eyes, I pull our mouths apart, arching my neck back.
His head lowers onto my shoulder, a soft golden mass tickling my throat.
His grip tightens finally, his whole body tensing as he gives in with abandon, fucking me fast, slamming into me. I feel like I’ll never stand again, nor do I want to.
Heat pools in my groin, rushing up my spine to catch my breath as I come, groaning softly into the wall, spurting a stream of slick whiteness between us, bleaching the distance.
He tenses completely with it, letting out an ecstatic sob on my shoulder, shuddering in waves of release.
To me, it feels like a purgation, a cleansing of everything said, everything torn apart by the last few weeks.
After he pulls out, I sink down the wall, collapsing on the floor in a panting, sweaty heap. Yohji kneels down, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close.
I still feel fused. Our sweaty skin sticks and slides together.
And now, in the aftermath, I can only repeat myself.
“I love you.”
He smiles, his eyes promising everything.
_____________________
Yohji lingers in the classroom until the last possible moment, not talking about anything important, not about us, or Germany, or Koua. Just talk, caught up in the reassurance of the other’s mere presence.
I hardly pay attention, still amazed at his simply being here.
Maybe it will all be alright after all.
The small reprieve from everything ends all too soon with the rush of voices in the hall outside.
“I should go.”
He smiles reluctantly.
“I’ll see you at home.”
He nods, leaving the room quickly. His smile drops as soon as he passes out of the door. I can see as he turns, walking away and leaving it open.
Almost instantly, my class floods into the room, settling quickly into their seats.
Immediately, I launch into the lecture, sketching vague maps of military movement on the board.
World War II was host to the greatest of atrocities. It is nothing compared to what I fear could be unleashed if Esset gained the control it so desperately wants.
Unlike the Germans, there is no real ignorance to hamper them, no international exposure that could condemn them or give way to criticism, to intervention.
Only us working in the dark.
I wonder if the world would be easier if the Axis was debilitated in this way, quieter, without room for the brutalities allowed in the aftermath.
The way we do things, there is no compromise.
Without compromise, there would not have been a second world war.
My thoughts are interrupted by the high pitched voice of one of the students. Turning around, I listen to the skinny girl, Kimiko.
“Fujimiya-sensei? When do you think this kind of fighting will end?”
When it ends, men like us will disappear. I’ve always liked to think that such release from our collective occupation with fighting and power could lend itself to a purer individual freedom. I almost feel sometimes, my capacity to do anything, that nothing real, nothing immediate or vital is there to stop me.
Then my mind floods with images, with the weight of my previous actions.
Unbound, what could I do?
“I bet it will end. If it won’t, we have to end it. Isn’t that right, Fujimiya-sensei?”
Sena’s voice breaks my thoughts open.
“Do you think its possible Izumi?”
“If that’s the only possible way, right?”
I smile at him. Force will only respond to force of another kind.
“I agree.”
I let the lesson fade into its own ending.
For now, nothing else has ended. The mysteries of this school are still waiting to reveal themselves.
Everything will start here, somehow.
_____________________
Sighing, I shove the now graded papers into my desk. So many of the students here are so normal, spilling out the given opinion on any historical event. Even so, I can see hints of my own words in them, or if not, a reaction to my own inevitably biased presentation of things.
It’s refreshing.
Absently I glance up at the clock, it’s seven.
No doubt Yohji is wondering why I’m not home yet. He stopped by earlier, when the day ended to ask if I wanted to get something to eat before we went back to the apartment.
“I’ve got work to do.”
He looked bewildered.
“Work?”
“Grading.”He laughed, a light airy sound.
“See, that’s why I picked being an art teacher.”
“Oh? Not your overwhelming talent?”
Despite what he thinks, Yohji can really capture something on paper, in a sort of wild aesthetically perfect form to rival the real.
“Na. Just laziness……So how long will it take you?”
I shrugged
“A couple of hours.”
He grinned as he turned to leave.
“Your fault, should have picked something easier.”
“I like it.”
He faked a look of shock.
“No! Anyways, I’ll see you later. Want me to pick something up for you?”
“I’ll forage.”
He shrugs, waving slightly as he left.
I shake myself out of it, smiling surreptitiously at the clock. Grabbing my jacket, I walk out of the classroom, locking the door behind me. As I make my way down the hall, I mentally recount what food we have.
Eh, I’ll settle for the leftover take-out, assuming no one’s had it yet.
I pause in front of Asami’s door. Strange, the light is on.
Knocking, I push it open.
She looks up from her desk, a surprised smile on her face.
“Oh! Fujimiya-sensei!”
“I just noticed your light was on, you’re not usually here this late.”
“I got caught up in some lesson plans. Are you usually here this late?”
“Sometimes. It’s easier to grade things here, its quieter.”
She nods.
“That makes sense, I guess. I live alone so my apartments isn’t much louder than this anyways.”
Lucky. It’s absolutely impossible to do anything back at the apartment. Sena always wants to discuss something, try to figure out something.
There are too many distractions.
Asami’s voice interrupts the internal complaining
“Do you live alone, Fujimiya-sensei?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you were married……..or anything.”
“I’m not.”
She blushes a little. I think I’d have to be blind not to notice the way she looks at me. Yohji always accused me of being oblivious to that sort of thing. I’m not, I just prefer to ignore it. Like with Sakura. It made things easier to pretend I couldn’t see her fighting back those feelings in her eyes.
“Family?”
“Not quite.”
I pause, trying to figure out what to say.
“A few friends. We all get a nicer apartment that way.”
In a sense that’s true. Granted, Kritiker owns it, but none of us could afford more than a single room in some shitty building alone.
“I bet it’s nice having people around like that.”
“Not really.”
I almost envy her privacy.
“Makes it harder to just think or read, or do anything without being interrupted.”
One of Yohji’s favorite ways to annoy me is to lean over my shoulder while I’m reading and make thickheaded comments on everything from the character’s names to the font.
Idiot.
I almost missed that while he was gone, I kept expecting to feel his breath on my neck, hear his facetious mockery in my ears.
“Still, it must be nice.”
I shrug, turning to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then, Fujimiya-sensei.”
Her voice chirps cheerfully after me.
“Goodnight, Asami-sensei.”
I carefully close the door behind me, then make my way out to the car.
Finally, the building rises ahead of me and I pull in, noting the lights in the windows.
___________________
“You must really enjoy that teaching stuff, Aya.”
I shrug, leaning back on the bed to watch Yohji unpack. So far, we haven’t mentioned this afternoon. Or Europe.
In fact, I’m not sure we’ve really said anything.
He just throws his clothes into the hamper, not bothering to even sort through them.
“Did you wash anything while you were gone.”
He looks over his shoulder to smirk at me.
“Nope. Ken wouldn’t do them for me.”
“Idiot.”
He grins widely.
“Of course.”
He kicks the empty bag aside. I assume Kritiker already took care of the mission gear, since I don’t see it.
His watch rests prominently on the dresser, covered with a sock. I glare at the white cloth, willing it back into a drawer.
Well, the mess is back.
He throws himself back onto the bed, bouncing for a few moments before rolling over on his side.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
He pulls me down into a kiss.
“How have you been?”
Despite the grin on his face, his voice is somber.
How have I been?
I spent weeks hearing Yohji defend that Esset bitch, only to hear him reason that he doesn’t want to hurt me. That he wants to protect me.
My temples throb, tears rimming my eyes.
As soon as he finds someone else, he’ll just be gone again.
Damn it! Why does he think it’s that fucking easy?
You can’t save yourself from anything.
I can feel myself shaking, Yohji sits up and pulls me against him.
“Don’t touch me.”
“What?”
He looks stunned.
“Aya what’s-”
“Just stop!”
Anger rises hateful in my chest.
His hands drop from me and he shifts backwards.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, you know I don’t, I can’t. It just won’t end”
His words come back to me from earlier, tinged frantic and strange.
I’m not going to coddle him again, let him deny that he did anything. It’ll only cripple him.
Who the hell am I kidding? It hurts too much to know that I can’t help him.
He’s just staring at me, waiting for me to explain my sudden anger.
I’m shaking with it, my fists clenched.
He was right, it won’t end.
At least it’s no longer confusing, just achingly familiar, a cramped reversion to the same rage I felt when he took up with Neu, the same reproach I felt when I watched his face crumple only a few weeks ago, as I walked out of the storeroom.
It all seems more vivid than right now.
“Why Yohji?”
He looks confused.
“Why?”
I lift my hand to my head, tangling it in my hair. I can feel my mouth open and snap shut, heavy with the instinct to respond, to react.
I don’t know what to say.
Why bother? Why come back? Why after her did you want me? Why is it that you of all people accuse me of leaving?
Why are we both so damned scared?
I don’t say anything, going numb. My anger fades into confusion, staring at him.
Reaching out I take his hand and press it up to my lips. Embarrassed, I can feel the tears streaming down my face.
He sighs and shifts forward again, hesitantly putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Aya? Is everything alright?”
I almost want to laugh. He’s as bad at comforting people as I am. Instead, I just let him wrap his arms around me.
“I’m sorry.”
The words fall from my mouth unwanted, unexpected. I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. I press myself into his neck, taking in the warm rich scent of him.
He hugs me tighter.
“I’m sorry.”
He only repeats me again, it sounds as if he’s examining the words.
After what seems like an eternity, we pull apart.
A slight weary smile is on his face.
“We never learn do we?”
I glance at his arm, searching for the stain that undoubtedly inspired his remark. It’s covered by his shirt, but I can still see it clearly.
I shake my head.
Never learn not to leave, not to promise, not to hope. The only things we should have taught each other by now.
He glances over at the clock.
“Come on, it’s late. Let’s get some sleep.”
He rises from the bed and strips his clothes off, smiling apologetically.
“I’m still a little jet-lagged.”
Silently, I pull of my own clothes and unbraid my hair, sinking slowly onto my own side of the bed.
It feels unfamiliar somehow.
He slips in beside me a moment later, imbuing the bed with its proper scent, its right feeling and dynamic.
I fall asleep smiling surreptitiously, resting my head on his chest.
“Hello?”
I don’t care how annoyed I sound, it’s too damned late to be calling.
“Aya?”
Ken sounds as tired as I feel, his typically cheerful voice a hollow drone in my ear.
“Hn.”
“We would have called last night, but, well things were too much, you know?”
My heart stops beating, suddenly awake, I sit up in the bed, my hand flying unconsciously to grip Yohji’s pillow to me.
“It’s over.”
“Are both of you alright?”
The question is immediate, instinctual.
“Mostly. Yohji dislocated a shoulder, but we think it’s alright now.”
“Did he-”
“Yes.”
I know better than to press Ken for anything deeper, anything that would allow me to better assess how he is.
As much as I hate to admit it, I just need to know he’s coming back to me. My intact, beautiful aggravating Yohji.
My fingers dig almost painfully into the pillow, I feel like a sentimental fool.
I won’t watch him lose himself again. I don’t know…..I never knew how to.
Blonde hair spread over my lap, shaking softly as he sobs into me, a faint dampness on my thighs. His hands clutching around my knees, hobbling me, leaving me paralyzed under his grief. Trapped with him. His muffled and incomprehensible apologies, conjuring up her brutal face, her shattered throat leaking spinal fluid as he laid her down, reflected in my blade as I swung at Hell, keeping his hunched body locked in my periphery.
“Aya……Aya? Are you still there?”
I shake myself out of it, abruptly exhausted again.
Yohji once told me we share the same retroactive tendencies, that’s why we continue on as we do, fucking up continuously because mired in retrospection, we can’t handle what’s in front of us. No reality handled until its essentially thrown at us, and then not really comprehended except amidst the aftermath.
It came out slurred, an easy loosing of verbiage from his drunken mouth, wreathed in profanities and lost vowels.
“Aya?”
“Can I talk to him?”
Ken sighs. He’s not telling me something.
“That-that’s probably not a good idea right now.”
“What do you mean?”
My voice hisses out in a strange mixture of contempt and suspicion. Yohji thinks I can’t measure the tangible manifestations of my emotions. I can. I just don’t care enough to mask them unless I feel its necessary. More often than he knows.
“He’s passed out still.”
“A concussion?”
As much as I tried, as tired as I am I can’t block the frantic worry form my voice.
“No. He started drinking as soon as we got back last night.”
A sigh of relief escapes me. That, at least, is familiar. Yohji always distracts himself after a mission by whatever means are available.
“And look, Aya……”
Ken sounds remarkably hesitant.
“I know this isn’t something you’re going to want to hear, but…..”
“But what?”
“Don’t expect too much from Yohji. Last night……you didn’t see him last night Aya……..he was really torn up. He wouldn’t say a word to me, just sat out on the balcony and drank until he fell asleep.”
I feel as if someone gouged the earth out from under me, leaving me sick and balanced in the untenable air.
There’s nothing to say.
“I don’t know what you could do………just….give him time when we get back. I think if anyone can help him its you. He really needs someone right now.”
I’m the last person anyone should depend upon for their emotional equilibrium.
“We’re flying back tomorrow. Don’t wait for us at the Koneko, we’re going to be launching straight into the mission there.”
“Rex contacted you.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. You’ll see him then.”
Ken’s voice continues on in a shrill reassuring manner. I hang up, wondering idly how long it’ll take him to realize I’m no longer listening.
Two days. My hand shoots blindly, with practice, out towards the night stand, grabbing a stray piece of paper.
“I love you. Don’t think this changed that.”
That one line of text should be faded by my eyes, worn through by constant readings as I force myself to maintain some level of hope.
“I just wanted to move forward.”
His voice sounded so hopeful, so anticipatory. That night, with the phone pressed to my ear, I believed, really believed, that somehow we could attain some measure of happiness, some freedom in this mire of wasted fury, of futile cruelty, guilt, actions.
For one of the first times since my parents died I let my mind shift from guilt, I let my steps go light and my breathe ease without constant tension, constant fervent emotion.
As soon as he began to retreat, to seek some irrational solace in that woman, I began to pay for that weakness. At least its cemented now, thrown back in my face and undeniable: nothing is to be depended on, not vengeance, not hope. It all devastates. If you must count on something, count on the ramifications of your own weakness.
I know its nothing more than my own ideas, my own overarching precepts that torture me. A different man could remain unscathed by this.
I’ve taken to wearing his shirts all the time. By now, they no longer smell of him, but that doesn’t change the feeling of his lingering presence between the threads.
A less selfish man, a more humble man could give up on guilt even. Guilt hinges on a precept of significance, of a meaning latent in your actions.
Rubbing my temples, I try to drive the thoughts from my head, and throw myself back down on the bed. I pull Yohji’s pillow against my chest, cradling it where no one can see. Now, again, it is the symbol of his use, of his touch that draws me.
An innateness that I force, that I perpetuate.
Clamping my eyes against my mind, I begin to drift off, holding the pillow close.
____________________
Apart from the social obligations, teaching is the only rewarding pursuit I’ve had a chance to take part of. It feels as if I’m influencing the world in the way it should be, by reason, by comprehension.
History has always fascinated me on its own terms, watching the patterns of the world, of the inevitable psychology of man, unfold through art, through genius and great acts is something beautiful, something in itself untainted even as it is measured, often made possible by, wars, atrocities, politics in all its gruesome forms and formalities. Repressions, massacres, Inquisitions, the terrible weight of our collective past is what makes the rare moments of human clarity, makes art and literature and honest thought all the more precious, more desperately needed.
This, in my mind, is the definition of a necessary evil. One of Persia’s names for us.
I hope that in relating one iota of the thought expressed by man, of the awe which it commands, of the staggering potential of our minds for beauty, that I can make up that much of my part in the atrocities and horror of the world.
So enrapt in thoughts, I walk into the teacher’s lounge, crowded as always at noon with a veritable horde of muttering teachers drowning themselves in coffee and empty talk.
I wonder how they can live like this, without meaning or force of action. Most of them seem to feel nothing, to be devoted to nothing.
I don’t understand it.
As I make my way towards the window, Tsujii Miyumi sees me, following me over.
Instantly she strikes up conversation, something I don’t quite bother to follow.
Of all the teachers here at Koua, she is among the most tolerable, other than Asami-sensei, even proving herself admirable during S-class’ search for Kyo.
Not that it, in the end, did any good.
At least she doesn’t seem so apathetic, so empty. While she doesn’t have the zeal and love for teaching that Asami does, she still possesses some force of feeling. Her eyes don’t look flat or dead like so many others here. In some muted way, I can respect her.
Is this what normality does to you?
I almost feel glad for my lot, my curse in life.
I tune in and out to what she says, a low buzz of complaints on some new teacher or other. It doesn’t interest me, this gossiping about some irritating person or other.
“I can’t really handle those types-”
She is interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.
My heart jumps, my eyes staring at him relentlessly. He carries his old easy smile on his face, but his eyes are lowered so I can’t read them.
I wonder if he knows how badly I want to reach over and jerk his chin up, just so I can glimpse what he is feeling.
“Hey! Uhm, what’s your name?”
Eloquent as always. Despite the last two weeks of fruitless arguing over the phone, I want to grin, just seeing him.
“Please call me Tsujii.”
He’s not trying to be overtly charming. It makes me glad, hope rising traitorously in my chest. A pang of self-reproach hits me, but I can’t be bothered to stop myself from staring, from repressing the last few times we’ve spoken. His voice is riveting, intrinsically beautiful.
“No, no. Your first name.”
She just turns away. He laughs.
“Oh well. I hope we can get along Tsujii-sensei”
And then, he lifts his eyes to me.
“And you are…?”
His words remind me of the mission, stopping me from simply throwing myself at him.
It’s almost disturbing how much I’ve let my self-restraint go in regards to him.
His eyes are sad, empty, reminding me of the first weeks after Neu.
Still, they glitter with something akin to happiness, to the joy I’d see in them when we were alone, free to hope in the space of our room. Implausible, really. Absently, I wonder if I’m imagining this entirely.
Not bothering to guard my face, I smile back at him, an almost unfamiliar sensation after these weeks of separation.
It’s so strange to see him.
“I’m Fujimiya. Nice to meet you.”
His eyes soften.
“I’m Kudou Yohji.”
We never had such a smooth meeting.
“Nice to meet you too, Aya-sensei.”
His voice catches on my name. My smile fades a little as I try not to chastise him for the slip.
It doesn’t matter.
I glance ay the clock on the wall. I have an hour and a half until my next class.
Catching his eye, I walk out into the hall. He joins me only a moment later.
Silently, I lead him down the stairs and finally into my classroom, locking the door behind us.
“How long?”
His voice is soft, uncertain now that we’re alone, that there’s no buffer between us. No reason to hide anything.
“An hour and a half.”
“About the same.”
Neither of us want to move towards the other, instead we stare at each other. His eyes now carry an edge of uncertainty.
There’s only so much time.
“Yohji?”
It’s as much as saying nothing. He looks at me, still silent, the smile replaced with a lost look, as if he was trying to figure out what to say, if anything. I cross the room to stand in front of him, resting my hand on a nearby desk.
His eyes flicker away from mine and back again.
I lift my hand up and touch his cheek, taking in the soft smooth feel of it, the golden hue strange, luminescent under my pale fingers splayed across it.
Even with minimal contact he overwhelms me.
I just. Fuck. I just don’t know where we are anymore.
I want to punch the both of us.
It was supposed to be better now, his return was supposed to signify some renewal between us, a new understanding.
Staring into his eyes, there is a greater sorrow, a deeper sharper bitterness than I have ever seen there.
It is striking.
He doesn’t move, hardly breathing it seems.
I pull his head closer, staring into his eyes the entire time. It seems neither of us blink, as I press our lips together and lift my other arm to wrap around his shoulder.
He sighs into it, a long shuddering release of breath as he relaxes. His arms curl around me, one hand snaking into my hair as his opens his mouth, darting his tongue into mine.
Almost frantically, he deepens the kiss, pushing me backwards until I’m pressed into the wall.
There is nothing that has ever felt so natural as this.
Passionately, strangely caught up in this frenzy of motion, to feel, to touch, to affirm our presence here as real, immediate, important; I drop one hand to pull at the buttons on his shirt. He leans back, a small soft smile on his face, his eyes gleaming, liquid with something I can’t define, but which forces me to smile back at him, all doubts somehow cleared, everything forgotten.
“It’s so good to see you, love.”
His voice is low, almost raspy. The words come out forceful, as if to prove it to both of us.
All I can do is smile, stripping his shirt off him and loosening my tie. I let him unbutton the shirt I‘m wearing. It’s his anyways.
It still hangs on my elbows as he lowers his head again, pressing his lips against my neck, grazing his teeth lightly over the sensitized skin.
“H-hey. No marks.”
Glancing up at me he pouts.
“No fun.”
I force a glare at him.
“No. Marks.”
Last thing we need is to be more associated than necessary, or to look unprofessional.
Instead, I feel his tongue swirl down the side of my neck, sucking lightly, momentarily in varied places, moving on before any bruise can form, and dipping down between my clavicles.
His hands brush down my chest, pausing to pull at my nipples. My breath catches in my throat. I bite my lip. These walls aren’t soundproof.
When his fingers hit the waistband of my pants, he hesitates, staring down at the belt as if it was something foreign, some unknown obstacle to bypass.
Flickering a look up at me, I’m sure he can measure my confusion. He runs his hands slowly, almost forlornly around my waist, holding me against the wall.
Abruptly, my mind is flooded with his voice coming at me through the dark, a harsh, calm whisper.
“And I am so tired of everything being overwhelming, everything passionate, everything desperately immediate like it’s the last thing we’ll ever feel.”
He traces my skin lightly, not looking up.
“This is simple.”
I become painfully aware of how cold the wall is through the thin fabric of the shirt. And again, I refuse to let myself try and answer the same damned question I’ve been avoiding so diligently.
What was it like with her? What did she mean to him?
The desire from a moment before feels heavy, stale on my tongue. I swallow to prevent myself from vomiting.
I am overwhelmed, that word again, that sensation I can never seem to stop short of, with the thought that I am once again left to be a substitute.
My voice bites back at me, almost mocking in my head.
“You can’t drown what you are in another person.”
Am I just a void for him to drown in?
If I remember, I can’t give anyone anything, selfish as I am.
My chest tightens as I remember the way the storeroom door knots, the feel of his breath on my cheeks as he yelled.
All my imperfections, so crippled together into some attempt or imitation of life.
The smile drops from my face-any attempt at that expression on my part is mercurial anyways-resting uneasy in the pit of my stomach.
“You say you don’t deserve this, but I’m not even strong enough to bear the consequences of my actions, to stand this anymore. I’ve got to save both of us.”
I’m tired of these damning voices in my mind.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want to protect you.”
He just wants to make dying easier.
He stares into my navel, brushing his fingers down my back.
“You seem more serene than before Aya.”
The urgency of before is gone. Now we’ve both had time to remember where we were.
“Yohji.”
It spills out soft, over my lips.
And then, the inevitable and yet futile question.
“Are you alright?”
Idly, I wonder what he’s thinking.
He glances up at me, his eyes shattered.
Shaken, I press further.
“Is it-”
“Don’t say it.”
His eyes gleam desperately.
“Please.”
I lift his hands off me, and he stands back, leaving me against the wall. His eyes are great raw wounds boring into me. Perversely, I want to press at them, see what I can make seep from those inestimable sores, glimpse what festers under that green shield.
“Did you love her?”
His face crumples, contorting into a barren sorrow. He whispers.
“I thought so.”
A cold crushing metallic pain choking my breath. My lungs collapse as the memory of breathing leaves my body in one horrible rush.
I shift uncomfortably against the wall, letting his shirt hang off me still.
That could mean anything.
The fabric is a rare protection against realization.
He exhales slowly.
“Aya, what do you want me to say?”
Moving forward he lifts his hand to my cheek, brushing his warm fingers against it. I twist my head away, staring out the window at the top of a tree, its branches hosting a set of birds.
How pastoral.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s substitute again.”
My own words echo, desperate, ridiculous, in my ears.
“Please don’t leave me.”I just want him to hold me again and smile.
I don’t know how to free him of anything, I can only let him have my honesty. He never seems to want to accept it, it upsets him.
Just let him be honest.
“Aya.”
I force my gaze back to him. His eyes are sad, ripped open with emotion, shattered hope. My eyes are reflected in his. I can’t read them at all.
“Yohji-- I love you”
I hate making confessions of any sort. Usually, they have to be wrenched from me, even when I want to admit them, maybe more so because of that.
I don’t think Yohji’s in a state to wrench anything from anyone, to press for anything.
His face blanks out in a sort of mute horror, as if something else is more vivid than now, something forces itself across his eyes.
Almost instantly they snap back, focusing on me intensely.
“I’m scared.”He lets out a long shuddering breath.
“I don’t know if I can do it again.”
Pull himself together, I think. He doesn’t know if he can rebuild himself.
I don’t care.
If I have to I’ll hold him together.
The strength of that sudden conviction scares me, as well.
Unsure of his response, I reach out towards him, pulling him into my arms. He relaxes, going limp against my shoulder.
“What’s the point to this?”
I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what he means.
“I’m so tired, Aya. Why can’t we save ourselves from anything?”
I tense a little. I hate watching him like this. I let him lean against me, unsure of how to move, how to say.
I can’t help anyone.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, you know I don’t, I can’t. It just won’t end……..you know?”
His eyes flick up at me through the babble, rimmed raw with tears.
“I want us to be saved, but I’ll just hurt you again and everyone. I contaminate everything Aya. Why?”
He pauses.
“Why can’t I hold onto anything?”
Speechless, I hold him close, wrapping him in my arms. It feels strange to comfort someone.
“Please don’t leave me.”
He pulls the words from my mind, speaking them back to me in a strange gift, almost.
Staring into his eyes I speak in a low voice.
“I swear.”
Jerking his chin up, I press our lips together, another strange moment. It should be him so urgent, so furiously passionate.
Instead, he mounts his urgency to match mine, his wet cheeks pressing against my face.
Lowering a free hand, I work unskillfully at his belt, fumbling exasperated at it until he leans back, guiding me with one hand, a soft gratitude in his eyes.
He shucks his clothes off gracefully, unashamed of this one thing at least.
A careful look on his face, the look of a man drawn out of lethargy, of a revived catatonic; he pulls my pants off, lifting them over my feet and dropping them to the floor. Rising again, he looks almost worshipful. I am too relieved to mock my own waxing poetic.
He threads his fingers in my hair and pulls our bodies close together, balanced strange on the wall.
Our bare skin meets with an amazing heat, rising low in my stomach and flushing tense down my thighs as I press against him, anxious for more warmth, more feeling.
Its as if our skin melts together in a strange rough glow.
My blood rushes in my ears as he lowers his head for another kiss, a slow consuming fire met in our mouths. His hands run down my back, shaking with some unreadable emotion.
Its an indescribable sensation, the glowing smoothness of skin on skin, of the strange glide of bodies together in an infuriating intoxication.
Concupiscent, I reach down to stroke him, reveling at the preternaturally soft skin, the warm velvet heat that meets my hand like a glove. I run my thumb up across the soft mound of the head, darting it over the wet hot slit leaking pre-cum.
So immersed in warmth, I let myself smile into his lips, an irrefutable joy coming over me through the transcendent feel of him against me.
His hand trails down from my hair to snake along my spine, causing me to arch and let out a soft irrepressible moan. His fingers play slick down my spine, trailing beneath the shirt already wet and cool with sweat.
I gasp as he lowers the other one to my cock, running it slowly down the shaft to rub between my legs. My eyes roll back into my head at the quickening sensation, the pressing jolt of his fingers as they trail up to my ass, hesitating on the measure of skin above my thigh.
“Do you have any-”
He sounds oddly embarrassed. Impulsively, unwilling to move away from the heat of his body on mine, to lose that all encompassing contact, I lift his hand to my mouth, sucking on the fingers as he rains soft bewildering touches over my back.
Finally, he pulls them out, immediately darting them back between my legs.
As the first one sunk in, I closed my eyes, letting them sink down as I suppressed a moan.
“Aya, open your eyes.”
As I do, he smiles, pressing another one in and swirling them both around.
He grins wildly, cavalierly as he touches my prostate for the first time, causing me to buck my hips sharply, gasping out with a hard cry.
Abrupt. He’s smiling so hard he looks insane.
Even so caught up in his hands I can’t ignore the edge of misery riding up around the joy, the love in his eyes that makes me almost believe in my own depravity. That I’m writing it into his gaze.
All thoughts drain from me as he pulls his fingers out. I go limp, my legs tingling.
His hand rises to cup the back of my head, drawing me in for a deep, seemingly infinite kiss. His lips merge with mine, seemingly inseparable- for one moment in sex you can really believe that you will never be apart, that eternity means something- and he tilts me back against the wall, lifting my legs to wrap around him.
I feel inexplicably bared, even covered by his body.
Pulling away for a moment, he licks the palm of his hand, wrapping it around himself.
I clutch against his shoulders and he smiles, equally unwilling to let go, to return to the horrifyingly endless sorrow of our own personal reality.
We can dwell on our hells later, our accusations.
He catches me in a kiss again as he pushes inside, a slow sharp feeling of being filled, being consumed.
My body shakes with its own anxiety. Every nerve feels on fire as he penetrates slowly, riding my core with a strange sense of self immolation.
Finally he begins to move. We are silent, witnessing his thrusts with heavy breath, slow heaves of air into each other.
His hands dig into my hips, pulling me impossibly close. It is unbearable, inescapable, this relentless slow reunion of sorts.
Opening my eyes, I pull our mouths apart, arching my neck back.
His head lowers onto my shoulder, a soft golden mass tickling my throat.
His grip tightens finally, his whole body tensing as he gives in with abandon, fucking me fast, slamming into me. I feel like I’ll never stand again, nor do I want to.
Heat pools in my groin, rushing up my spine to catch my breath as I come, groaning softly into the wall, spurting a stream of slick whiteness between us, bleaching the distance.
He tenses completely with it, letting out an ecstatic sob on my shoulder, shuddering in waves of release.
To me, it feels like a purgation, a cleansing of everything said, everything torn apart by the last few weeks.
After he pulls out, I sink down the wall, collapsing on the floor in a panting, sweaty heap. Yohji kneels down, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close.
I still feel fused. Our sweaty skin sticks and slides together.
And now, in the aftermath, I can only repeat myself.
“I love you.”
He smiles, his eyes promising everything.
_____________________
Yohji lingers in the classroom until the last possible moment, not talking about anything important, not about us, or Germany, or Koua. Just talk, caught up in the reassurance of the other’s mere presence.
I hardly pay attention, still amazed at his simply being here.
Maybe it will all be alright after all.
The small reprieve from everything ends all too soon with the rush of voices in the hall outside.
“I should go.”
He smiles reluctantly.
“I’ll see you at home.”
He nods, leaving the room quickly. His smile drops as soon as he passes out of the door. I can see as he turns, walking away and leaving it open.
Almost instantly, my class floods into the room, settling quickly into their seats.
Immediately, I launch into the lecture, sketching vague maps of military movement on the board.
World War II was host to the greatest of atrocities. It is nothing compared to what I fear could be unleashed if Esset gained the control it so desperately wants.
Unlike the Germans, there is no real ignorance to hamper them, no international exposure that could condemn them or give way to criticism, to intervention.
Only us working in the dark.
I wonder if the world would be easier if the Axis was debilitated in this way, quieter, without room for the brutalities allowed in the aftermath.
The way we do things, there is no compromise.
Without compromise, there would not have been a second world war.
My thoughts are interrupted by the high pitched voice of one of the students. Turning around, I listen to the skinny girl, Kimiko.
“Fujimiya-sensei? When do you think this kind of fighting will end?”
When it ends, men like us will disappear. I’ve always liked to think that such release from our collective occupation with fighting and power could lend itself to a purer individual freedom. I almost feel sometimes, my capacity to do anything, that nothing real, nothing immediate or vital is there to stop me.
Then my mind floods with images, with the weight of my previous actions.
Unbound, what could I do?
“I bet it will end. If it won’t, we have to end it. Isn’t that right, Fujimiya-sensei?”
Sena’s voice breaks my thoughts open.
“Do you think its possible Izumi?”
“If that’s the only possible way, right?”
I smile at him. Force will only respond to force of another kind.
“I agree.”
I let the lesson fade into its own ending.
For now, nothing else has ended. The mysteries of this school are still waiting to reveal themselves.
Everything will start here, somehow.
_____________________
Sighing, I shove the now graded papers into my desk. So many of the students here are so normal, spilling out the given opinion on any historical event. Even so, I can see hints of my own words in them, or if not, a reaction to my own inevitably biased presentation of things.
It’s refreshing.
Absently I glance up at the clock, it’s seven.
No doubt Yohji is wondering why I’m not home yet. He stopped by earlier, when the day ended to ask if I wanted to get something to eat before we went back to the apartment.
“I’ve got work to do.”
He looked bewildered.
“Work?”
“Grading.”He laughed, a light airy sound.
“See, that’s why I picked being an art teacher.”
“Oh? Not your overwhelming talent?”
Despite what he thinks, Yohji can really capture something on paper, in a sort of wild aesthetically perfect form to rival the real.
“Na. Just laziness……So how long will it take you?”
I shrugged
“A couple of hours.”
He grinned as he turned to leave.
“Your fault, should have picked something easier.”
“I like it.”
He faked a look of shock.
“No! Anyways, I’ll see you later. Want me to pick something up for you?”
“I’ll forage.”
He shrugs, waving slightly as he left.
I shake myself out of it, smiling surreptitiously at the clock. Grabbing my jacket, I walk out of the classroom, locking the door behind me. As I make my way down the hall, I mentally recount what food we have.
Eh, I’ll settle for the leftover take-out, assuming no one’s had it yet.
I pause in front of Asami’s door. Strange, the light is on.
Knocking, I push it open.
She looks up from her desk, a surprised smile on her face.
“Oh! Fujimiya-sensei!”
“I just noticed your light was on, you’re not usually here this late.”
“I got caught up in some lesson plans. Are you usually here this late?”
“Sometimes. It’s easier to grade things here, its quieter.”
She nods.
“That makes sense, I guess. I live alone so my apartments isn’t much louder than this anyways.”
Lucky. It’s absolutely impossible to do anything back at the apartment. Sena always wants to discuss something, try to figure out something.
There are too many distractions.
Asami’s voice interrupts the internal complaining
“Do you live alone, Fujimiya-sensei?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you were married……..or anything.”
“I’m not.”
She blushes a little. I think I’d have to be blind not to notice the way she looks at me. Yohji always accused me of being oblivious to that sort of thing. I’m not, I just prefer to ignore it. Like with Sakura. It made things easier to pretend I couldn’t see her fighting back those feelings in her eyes.
“Family?”
“Not quite.”
I pause, trying to figure out what to say.
“A few friends. We all get a nicer apartment that way.”
In a sense that’s true. Granted, Kritiker owns it, but none of us could afford more than a single room in some shitty building alone.
“I bet it’s nice having people around like that.”
“Not really.”
I almost envy her privacy.
“Makes it harder to just think or read, or do anything without being interrupted.”
One of Yohji’s favorite ways to annoy me is to lean over my shoulder while I’m reading and make thickheaded comments on everything from the character’s names to the font.
Idiot.
I almost missed that while he was gone, I kept expecting to feel his breath on my neck, hear his facetious mockery in my ears.
“Still, it must be nice.”
I shrug, turning to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then, Fujimiya-sensei.”
Her voice chirps cheerfully after me.
“Goodnight, Asami-sensei.”
I carefully close the door behind me, then make my way out to the car.
Finally, the building rises ahead of me and I pull in, noting the lights in the windows.
___________________
“You must really enjoy that teaching stuff, Aya.”
I shrug, leaning back on the bed to watch Yohji unpack. So far, we haven’t mentioned this afternoon. Or Europe.
In fact, I’m not sure we’ve really said anything.
He just throws his clothes into the hamper, not bothering to even sort through them.
“Did you wash anything while you were gone.”
He looks over his shoulder to smirk at me.
“Nope. Ken wouldn’t do them for me.”
“Idiot.”
He grins widely.
“Of course.”
He kicks the empty bag aside. I assume Kritiker already took care of the mission gear, since I don’t see it.
His watch rests prominently on the dresser, covered with a sock. I glare at the white cloth, willing it back into a drawer.
Well, the mess is back.
He throws himself back onto the bed, bouncing for a few moments before rolling over on his side.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
He pulls me down into a kiss.
“How have you been?”
Despite the grin on his face, his voice is somber.
How have I been?
I spent weeks hearing Yohji defend that Esset bitch, only to hear him reason that he doesn’t want to hurt me. That he wants to protect me.
My temples throb, tears rimming my eyes.
As soon as he finds someone else, he’ll just be gone again.
Damn it! Why does he think it’s that fucking easy?
You can’t save yourself from anything.
I can feel myself shaking, Yohji sits up and pulls me against him.
“Don’t touch me.”
“What?”
He looks stunned.
“Aya what’s-”
“Just stop!”
Anger rises hateful in my chest.
His hands drop from me and he shifts backwards.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, you know I don’t, I can’t. It just won’t end”
His words come back to me from earlier, tinged frantic and strange.
I’m not going to coddle him again, let him deny that he did anything. It’ll only cripple him.
Who the hell am I kidding? It hurts too much to know that I can’t help him.
He’s just staring at me, waiting for me to explain my sudden anger.
I’m shaking with it, my fists clenched.
He was right, it won’t end.
At least it’s no longer confusing, just achingly familiar, a cramped reversion to the same rage I felt when he took up with Neu, the same reproach I felt when I watched his face crumple only a few weeks ago, as I walked out of the storeroom.
It all seems more vivid than right now.
“Why Yohji?”
He looks confused.
“Why?”
I lift my hand to my head, tangling it in my hair. I can feel my mouth open and snap shut, heavy with the instinct to respond, to react.
I don’t know what to say.
Why bother? Why come back? Why after her did you want me? Why is it that you of all people accuse me of leaving?
Why are we both so damned scared?
I don’t say anything, going numb. My anger fades into confusion, staring at him.
Reaching out I take his hand and press it up to my lips. Embarrassed, I can feel the tears streaming down my face.
He sighs and shifts forward again, hesitantly putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Aya? Is everything alright?”
I almost want to laugh. He’s as bad at comforting people as I am. Instead, I just let him wrap his arms around me.
“I’m sorry.”
The words fall from my mouth unwanted, unexpected. I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. I press myself into his neck, taking in the warm rich scent of him.
He hugs me tighter.
“I’m sorry.”
He only repeats me again, it sounds as if he’s examining the words.
After what seems like an eternity, we pull apart.
A slight weary smile is on his face.
“We never learn do we?”
I glance at his arm, searching for the stain that undoubtedly inspired his remark. It’s covered by his shirt, but I can still see it clearly.
I shake my head.
Never learn not to leave, not to promise, not to hope. The only things we should have taught each other by now.
He glances over at the clock.
“Come on, it’s late. Let’s get some sleep.”
He rises from the bed and strips his clothes off, smiling apologetically.
“I’m still a little jet-lagged.”
Silently, I pull of my own clothes and unbraid my hair, sinking slowly onto my own side of the bed.
It feels unfamiliar somehow.
He slips in beside me a moment later, imbuing the bed with its proper scent, its right feeling and dynamic.
I fall asleep smiling surreptitiously, resting my head on his chest.