Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Notes from a nonexistent Event ❯ Notes from a nonexistent event ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Penelope-Z 
Schuldig is not exactly who he seems to be. But he doesn't know that either. (some violence and non-con)
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Hentai / Drama | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 01.09.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 2.1K | Status: Completed
Schuldig is not exactly who he seems to be. But he doesn't know that either. (some violence and non-con)
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Hentai / Drama | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 01.09.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 2.1K | Status: Completed
The idea for this short story derives from two sources: The film Memento , and the poem The Terrorist, He's Watching by Wislawa Szymborska.
Notes from a nonexistent event
An impossibly blue sky, the color of paraffin, blankets Tokyo, erasing memories of yesterday and landscapes where it rained. The bomb in the flower shop is set to explode at ten thirty-five.
Strolling to the opposite side of the street and out of danger, Schuldig leans against a car hood to inspect his handiwork, lips pursed in the customary expression of amusement and disdain. The stage is set for the final act of this farce that aspired to become a tragedy. The young and handsome protagonists are in character as always, battling with stage props, stumbling over the well-rehearsed lines of their role, last performance for an audience of one.
Fujimiya is watering the roses, Hidaka has got himself tangled in a web of golden foil and ribbons. Tsukiyono is drowning, only his panicked eyes and waving arms visible, the rest of him submerged under pigtailed and bespectacled, over-hormonal and acne-ridden waves of schoolgirl adoration.
Ten thirty-two now. Where's Kudoh?
The headlines on tomorrow's tabloids will grow larger and thicker, outrage and dismay at the meaningless slaughter spilling over the paper margins. Poor innocent schoolgirls, poor innocent flowerboys.
As time ticks slowly towards the inevitable event, the view glimpsed through the open doors seems to twist and change before Schuldig's eyes. The present moment becomes undone, splitting at the seams and the future cascades across the Koneko, hammering down the windows into glass shards, whispering fire over the Bonsai rows, strewing bloodied rags and smouldering ashes over the neatly polished floor. Flesh turns into meat, the coins in the cash register are mingled with human fingers.
That's what Crawford sees every day, trapped in a world that walks a step behind his visions, locked in a perpetual preterite tense, tasting the week's decay on a Monday morning. He told Schuldig about it once, how he slowly got used to talk to future corpses, to shake skeletal hands, to stare into empty eye sockets and smile, watching skulls grimace back. Schuldig doesn't know when and why he had that talk with Crawford, but it must have happened, he remembers.
Hidaka just broke another flowerpot. Tsukiyono yelps; the wandering hands of his fan club must have strayed too far. What a sorry bunch they are; their death, like their life, fails to hold his attention long enough.
Ten thirty-three now. Where's Kudoh?
In the back room, arranging a short-lived bouquet of orchids, or at the back yard, having a smoke? Perhaps he was lucky enough to have taken the day off, and is bringing breakfast in bed now, for some curvaceous socialite. Schuldig will know soon enough, when they bring them out, arranging leftovers on the sidewalk for police identification.
Sunshine soaks the streets, sweat soaks the back of his collar. Schuldig seeks the shade of his car, turning the key in the ignition. Flicking the cigarette butt out of the window after a last drag, he winces at the sudden stab of pain cursing across his hand like electricity. The glove is pulled off; he flexes every finger carefully, and staring in surprise at the blue and black bruises smeared across the swollen skin, he tries to understand.
*
Earlier:
The body on the bed is a soft spoon of flesh, warm against his back. Tendrils of hair tickle Schuldig's ear and neck, the skin is silky to the touch and the heartbeat is strong, but these things are of no consequence.
There's a mission today, after all. Crawford is hovering outside Schuldig's room, impeccable at such ungodly hour, pushing glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose, something hard and impatient about his mouth.
"Fine, fine, I'm up, I'm on my way" Schuldig grumbles and Crawford is snickering while Nagi regards him with wide, still eyes. But there's a mission today, and these things are of no consequence. Like the anonymous sleeper in his room, whose unimportant name Schuldig can't quite recall at the moment.
Early mornings are quiet, because nobody owns them. The half-hearted beginnings of the day belong only to the empty streets, streaked with the occasional red headlights of a passing car. People prolong their stay in bed, to count the losses of the lost day and gather enough grim determination to lose another one.
But the flowershop is located at the other side of Tokyo, and by the time Schuldig is half-way there, traffic has thickened and crowds trudge up and down the sidewalks, sluggish like driven cattle, laying claim to the day. Fast car moving faster, loud music is tuned up louder, an instinctive move to keep the other minds at bay. Coasting amidst flocks of sheep, one is in danger of forgetting that one's a wolf.
This damn country, this damn city. Everything narrow and limited and helpless; crowded neon signs shout their electric messages, crowded buildings race futilely towards the sky-line. Millions of souls piled up on top of each other in this human soup, struggling for a breath of air, a seat in the metro, a space to define themselves. They live with their elbows glued to their sides, they sleep with the neighbour's breath moist at the back of their neck. Behind the flat anonymity of the faces, the minds are screaming.
It used to be different, once upon a time. In Potsdam, at the outskirts of Berlin, the houses are built of red stone, square and solid with shuttered windows. The roads are vast and quiet, stretching out into infinity. Schuldig used to walk for hours in the late afternoon, with nothing ahead of him and nothing behind. Not a whisper of thought around, as if he was the only living being between the empty earth and the empty sky. Sometimes the absence of other minds was startling, sometimes the broken connections hurt, like the phantom pain of an amputated limp, but Schuldig still misses the sky-wide solitude of Potsdam.
Pity he's never been there.
*
Earlier:
Running out of the nightclub as if his life depends on it, Yohji has one hand ready over the trigger of his wire, splashing through dark puddles and cursing as he hears the shuffle of footsteps behind him gaining speed. Rain terrorises the city, water gurgles out of the gutters and races along the sidewalks in muddy streams.
A blunt hit at the back of his head, and in a suck of vertigo the ground seems to rock and heave beneath his feet. He loses his footing and falls, down into the dirt, with the regret of knowing that he could and should have put up a better fight, but somehow, he didn't.
When he opens his eyes to throbbing headache and unfamiliar surroundings, the only one he sees is Schuldig. Wet from the storm, with bright, curious eyes and razorblade grin, he is so visible the rest of the world blends into background colors.
Yohji, still dazed, takes a swing and misses, the skin on his knuckles breaking as his fist cracks against the wall at the side of Schuldig's head. The second punch connects with flesh, and there's a moment of almost farcical confusion as they both lose their balance and topple back on the bed, Yohji sliding off and hitting the floor with a thud.
He starts to crawl, on his hands and knees, towards the distant luminous square of the door and hopeless hope of escape, but a hand locks around his ankle, dragging him like a rag across the floor. Schuldig's weight is on him, pinning him down, the moist pressure of his mouth sliding lower. The buttons of Yohji's wet and clammy shirt pop and skitter across the floor.
"Shit, stop, you're hurting me, you're hur--" His tongue mangles the words and has to clench his teeth to stop his jaw from shaking.
"You're real pretty, did you know that?" Schuldig says, smoothing a broad palm over Yohji's quivering stomach. "Of course you know that. But girl-pretty. Soft and sweet."
And something in Yohji's mind breaks.
A dam has burst, the river banks are swelling and spilling out, everything is washing away, emptying and now he struggles harder, but the colours and sounds of the world have become distant, even the physical pain is remote. Memories escape like goldfish, silvery and coppery half-formed shapes, slipping from his grasp as he tries to hold onto them. Someone, something to keep, Asuka at least. But she's dead, and how could he ever keep hold of her, his little dead and embalmed siren, singing over seas of forgotten desires.
"Don't play coy with me. Isn't this what you wanted? I'll give you what you want."
No, Yohji wants to say. Not like this, not from you, you bastard, not from you of all people. Once upon a time he might have gathered enough power to say it, but the Weiss years have softened his will, just as they have hardened his body. He got used to playing Cowboys and Indians, with the consequences of his actions dealt by others, no need for remorse and excuses, no time for justifications and self-flagellations.
And surrender is beautiful almost, with a strange and soothing finality. The choked sound at the back of his throat surprises him - crying? - laughter? - sometimes they're both so similar.
A dark-haired man leans against the doorframe, watching him.
"Schuldig, what is he doing here, what ridiculous plan have you devised, and how quickly can you come up with an explanation before I shoot you both?"
"I simply bumped into him. Call it impulse buying," someone says. A stranger, lying next to Yohji, touching his cheek, a stranger who is now lifting Yohji's palm up, pulling it to rest flat under the stranger's left shoulder.
"Relax, I didn't bring him for my personal amusement only. He has his other uses. Haven't you seen the future already?"
It's impossible not to turn into the hand and rub his cheek against the cold palm. Impossible to imagine that the heart he feels pulsing under his fingertips can be someone else's. This rhythm is too familiar, this rhythm is the only one he knows, it has to be his own.
"Schuldig, what have you done?"
Him again. What does he want, at this ungodly hour? He fingercombs his hair, which feels oddly short and curly. Something doesn't fit. The knuckles of his fist ache, and there's blood streaking his thighs, but these things are of no consequence. Because he has a mission today, after all.
"Schuldig?"
That's his name. That's Brad calling out for him in the demanding tone of the usual team-leader bullshit.
"Here I am," Yohji says, sitting up on the bed.
Crawford looks amused.
*
Later:
It was far too easy to plant the bomb. Tsukiyono smiled up from the counter when he waltzed in through the front door, Hidaka greeted him with a pat on the back, as if they trusted him, as if he was a friend.
But this was all to be expected. He is powerful, can control minds and all that. He is Schuldig, and that's what he does.
Ten thirty-five. A tense moment, leather gloved hands clenching the steering wheel in sudden urgency. Come on. Come on.
Nothing. Infinite seconds of silence tick away. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the bomb explodes. The windows of the flower shop shatter, sending shards of glass whizzing through the startled morning air, like a sudden burst of applause.
And then curtain.
Notes from a nonexistent event
An impossibly blue sky, the color of paraffin, blankets Tokyo, erasing memories of yesterday and landscapes where it rained. The bomb in the flower shop is set to explode at ten thirty-five.
Strolling to the opposite side of the street and out of danger, Schuldig leans against a car hood to inspect his handiwork, lips pursed in the customary expression of amusement and disdain. The stage is set for the final act of this farce that aspired to become a tragedy. The young and handsome protagonists are in character as always, battling with stage props, stumbling over the well-rehearsed lines of their role, last performance for an audience of one.
Fujimiya is watering the roses, Hidaka has got himself tangled in a web of golden foil and ribbons. Tsukiyono is drowning, only his panicked eyes and waving arms visible, the rest of him submerged under pigtailed and bespectacled, over-hormonal and acne-ridden waves of schoolgirl adoration.
Ten thirty-two now. Where's Kudoh?
The headlines on tomorrow's tabloids will grow larger and thicker, outrage and dismay at the meaningless slaughter spilling over the paper margins. Poor innocent schoolgirls, poor innocent flowerboys.
As time ticks slowly towards the inevitable event, the view glimpsed through the open doors seems to twist and change before Schuldig's eyes. The present moment becomes undone, splitting at the seams and the future cascades across the Koneko, hammering down the windows into glass shards, whispering fire over the Bonsai rows, strewing bloodied rags and smouldering ashes over the neatly polished floor. Flesh turns into meat, the coins in the cash register are mingled with human fingers.
That's what Crawford sees every day, trapped in a world that walks a step behind his visions, locked in a perpetual preterite tense, tasting the week's decay on a Monday morning. He told Schuldig about it once, how he slowly got used to talk to future corpses, to shake skeletal hands, to stare into empty eye sockets and smile, watching skulls grimace back. Schuldig doesn't know when and why he had that talk with Crawford, but it must have happened, he remembers.
Hidaka just broke another flowerpot. Tsukiyono yelps; the wandering hands of his fan club must have strayed too far. What a sorry bunch they are; their death, like their life, fails to hold his attention long enough.
Ten thirty-three now. Where's Kudoh?
In the back room, arranging a short-lived bouquet of orchids, or at the back yard, having a smoke? Perhaps he was lucky enough to have taken the day off, and is bringing breakfast in bed now, for some curvaceous socialite. Schuldig will know soon enough, when they bring them out, arranging leftovers on the sidewalk for police identification.
Sunshine soaks the streets, sweat soaks the back of his collar. Schuldig seeks the shade of his car, turning the key in the ignition. Flicking the cigarette butt out of the window after a last drag, he winces at the sudden stab of pain cursing across his hand like electricity. The glove is pulled off; he flexes every finger carefully, and staring in surprise at the blue and black bruises smeared across the swollen skin, he tries to understand.
*
Earlier:
The body on the bed is a soft spoon of flesh, warm against his back. Tendrils of hair tickle Schuldig's ear and neck, the skin is silky to the touch and the heartbeat is strong, but these things are of no consequence.
There's a mission today, after all. Crawford is hovering outside Schuldig's room, impeccable at such ungodly hour, pushing glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose, something hard and impatient about his mouth.
"Fine, fine, I'm up, I'm on my way" Schuldig grumbles and Crawford is snickering while Nagi regards him with wide, still eyes. But there's a mission today, and these things are of no consequence. Like the anonymous sleeper in his room, whose unimportant name Schuldig can't quite recall at the moment.
Early mornings are quiet, because nobody owns them. The half-hearted beginnings of the day belong only to the empty streets, streaked with the occasional red headlights of a passing car. People prolong their stay in bed, to count the losses of the lost day and gather enough grim determination to lose another one.
But the flowershop is located at the other side of Tokyo, and by the time Schuldig is half-way there, traffic has thickened and crowds trudge up and down the sidewalks, sluggish like driven cattle, laying claim to the day. Fast car moving faster, loud music is tuned up louder, an instinctive move to keep the other minds at bay. Coasting amidst flocks of sheep, one is in danger of forgetting that one's a wolf.
This damn country, this damn city. Everything narrow and limited and helpless; crowded neon signs shout their electric messages, crowded buildings race futilely towards the sky-line. Millions of souls piled up on top of each other in this human soup, struggling for a breath of air, a seat in the metro, a space to define themselves. They live with their elbows glued to their sides, they sleep with the neighbour's breath moist at the back of their neck. Behind the flat anonymity of the faces, the minds are screaming.
It used to be different, once upon a time. In Potsdam, at the outskirts of Berlin, the houses are built of red stone, square and solid with shuttered windows. The roads are vast and quiet, stretching out into infinity. Schuldig used to walk for hours in the late afternoon, with nothing ahead of him and nothing behind. Not a whisper of thought around, as if he was the only living being between the empty earth and the empty sky. Sometimes the absence of other minds was startling, sometimes the broken connections hurt, like the phantom pain of an amputated limp, but Schuldig still misses the sky-wide solitude of Potsdam.
Pity he's never been there.
*
Earlier:
Running out of the nightclub as if his life depends on it, Yohji has one hand ready over the trigger of his wire, splashing through dark puddles and cursing as he hears the shuffle of footsteps behind him gaining speed. Rain terrorises the city, water gurgles out of the gutters and races along the sidewalks in muddy streams.
A blunt hit at the back of his head, and in a suck of vertigo the ground seems to rock and heave beneath his feet. He loses his footing and falls, down into the dirt, with the regret of knowing that he could and should have put up a better fight, but somehow, he didn't.
When he opens his eyes to throbbing headache and unfamiliar surroundings, the only one he sees is Schuldig. Wet from the storm, with bright, curious eyes and razorblade grin, he is so visible the rest of the world blends into background colors.
Yohji, still dazed, takes a swing and misses, the skin on his knuckles breaking as his fist cracks against the wall at the side of Schuldig's head. The second punch connects with flesh, and there's a moment of almost farcical confusion as they both lose their balance and topple back on the bed, Yohji sliding off and hitting the floor with a thud.
He starts to crawl, on his hands and knees, towards the distant luminous square of the door and hopeless hope of escape, but a hand locks around his ankle, dragging him like a rag across the floor. Schuldig's weight is on him, pinning him down, the moist pressure of his mouth sliding lower. The buttons of Yohji's wet and clammy shirt pop and skitter across the floor.
"Shit, stop, you're hurting me, you're hur--" His tongue mangles the words and has to clench his teeth to stop his jaw from shaking.
"You're real pretty, did you know that?" Schuldig says, smoothing a broad palm over Yohji's quivering stomach. "Of course you know that. But girl-pretty. Soft and sweet."
And something in Yohji's mind breaks.
A dam has burst, the river banks are swelling and spilling out, everything is washing away, emptying and now he struggles harder, but the colours and sounds of the world have become distant, even the physical pain is remote. Memories escape like goldfish, silvery and coppery half-formed shapes, slipping from his grasp as he tries to hold onto them. Someone, something to keep, Asuka at least. But she's dead, and how could he ever keep hold of her, his little dead and embalmed siren, singing over seas of forgotten desires.
"Don't play coy with me. Isn't this what you wanted? I'll give you what you want."
No, Yohji wants to say. Not like this, not from you, you bastard, not from you of all people. Once upon a time he might have gathered enough power to say it, but the Weiss years have softened his will, just as they have hardened his body. He got used to playing Cowboys and Indians, with the consequences of his actions dealt by others, no need for remorse and excuses, no time for justifications and self-flagellations.
And surrender is beautiful almost, with a strange and soothing finality. The choked sound at the back of his throat surprises him - crying? - laughter? - sometimes they're both so similar.
A dark-haired man leans against the doorframe, watching him.
"Schuldig, what is he doing here, what ridiculous plan have you devised, and how quickly can you come up with an explanation before I shoot you both?"
"I simply bumped into him. Call it impulse buying," someone says. A stranger, lying next to Yohji, touching his cheek, a stranger who is now lifting Yohji's palm up, pulling it to rest flat under the stranger's left shoulder.
"Relax, I didn't bring him for my personal amusement only. He has his other uses. Haven't you seen the future already?"
It's impossible not to turn into the hand and rub his cheek against the cold palm. Impossible to imagine that the heart he feels pulsing under his fingertips can be someone else's. This rhythm is too familiar, this rhythm is the only one he knows, it has to be his own.
"Schuldig, what have you done?"
Him again. What does he want, at this ungodly hour? He fingercombs his hair, which feels oddly short and curly. Something doesn't fit. The knuckles of his fist ache, and there's blood streaking his thighs, but these things are of no consequence. Because he has a mission today, after all.
"Schuldig?"
That's his name. That's Brad calling out for him in the demanding tone of the usual team-leader bullshit.
"Here I am," Yohji says, sitting up on the bed.
Crawford looks amused.
*
Later:
It was far too easy to plant the bomb. Tsukiyono smiled up from the counter when he waltzed in through the front door, Hidaka greeted him with a pat on the back, as if they trusted him, as if he was a friend.
But this was all to be expected. He is powerful, can control minds and all that. He is Schuldig, and that's what he does.
Ten thirty-five. A tense moment, leather gloved hands clenching the steering wheel in sudden urgency. Come on. Come on.
Nothing. Infinite seconds of silence tick away. Finally, almost as an afterthought, the bomb explodes. The windows of the flower shop shatter, sending shards of glass whizzing through the startled morning air, like a sudden burst of applause.
And then curtain.