Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Our Games ❯ four ( Chapter 4 )

Our Games
Chapter Four

Laying on his own bed, Yohji smoked as he flipped through his latest acquisition. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, alternating between traditional verse and freer forms, dark, but not as ‘teenage angst’ as he expected. Aya wasn’t the next Shakespeare, but he was fairly good.

But Yohji didn’t really care what was in the book. The point was that he had it.

He had trapped Aya. The redhead would either have to come after him, leading to a confrontation and, gasp, actual conversation, or he would have to let Yohji keep it, thereby setting a precedent and leaving the older man thoroughly in charge of the situation.

Yes, he was winning.

Because Aya would not talk willingly.

~*~

Aya was ignoring him. Though they had shared a six hour shift in the shop, the redhead hadn’t uttered a single word in his direction. Funny thing was, it wasn’t that different.

Yohji gave him half an hour’s reprieve. Then, after going to his own room to retrieve his latest trophy, he went to see Aya.

The door was locked, and he knocked once before pulling a length of thick wire from his back pocket. In a house of assassins, locks were a formality, and in less than a minute he had let himself into the dim room. It was already getting dark outside, and the redhead hadn’t bothered with the light before going to lay down on his bed. Perhaps ignoring Yohji had tired him out.

He sat there, now, glaring at the intruder.

Yohji smiled and came close; Aya didn’t flinch back when he leaned in further to turn on the bedside lamp.

“Here,” he held out the black notebook. Aya didn’t reach to take it, so he opened the nightstand drawer and replaced it before taking a seat. With Aya in the middle of a bed, there were still six inches between them with Yohji sitting on the edge as he turned to talk.

“So you write poetry?”

A glare in response. Surprise.

“What else do you do, Aya?”

“Get out.”

He smiled sweetly, “Answer my question.”

“Out.”

“Have any friends?”

Still glaring.

“Ma, Aya,” he stretched, laced his hands behind his head, and flopped backwards in a well-aimed sprawl that put his head and shoulders across Aya’s outstretched legs. “Let’s be friends.”

“Get off!” Not waiting for him to comply, Aya shoved him, hard, while extracting his knees, crossing his legs, and edging himself up against the headboard. He watched Yohji warily.

The blonde rolled over, propping his head up on his hand and just looking at the other for a few uncomfortable minutes.

“You’re always so rough,” he finally said. “You should try being…gentle.”

The last word was accompanied by the light brush of his free hand across Aya’s jean-clan calf, an action that got his hand slapped like he was a kid trying to steal cookies from the forbidden jar.

“Fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”

~*~

He came back to his own room with Aya’s cell phone and a bruised shoulder. Aya had kicked him off the bed, literally.

He rubbed at it absently as he sat down. He needed a cigarette. Playing with Aya stressed him out, and when the redhead failed to play along there was none of the racing high of physical contact. Not that Yohji wanted to get his ass kicked, but he wasn’t going to last very long if all he got were bruises and no excitement.

At least he had the phone.

Lighting up, Yohji held the cigarette between his teeth, pushed his glasses up on his head, and began to push buttons.

The background of the phone was boring black. Despite its high-tech ability to record videos, there were none stored, and only two pictures. Opening these, Yohji found one to be of an orchid in the greenhouse and the other of a small, calico kitten. He had no idea of how to decipher either of these. Aya had probably grown the flower. As for the kitten, he was beaten there. It looked rather tiny, and it was sitting on something cream-colored…ah, that was Aya’s bedspread. So it had been in his room. Why? And where was it now?

Knocking the ashes off his smoke and putting it back in his mouth, Yohji moved on to the phone numbers. Many were expected, the Weiss numbers, three team members, Manx, and the emergency number that might as well have been Manx. There was a listing labeled just Yuushi, but the area code revealed it to be another Kritiker line. Only three other numbers were there. One was the cheap restaurant down the street that had the sashimi Aya liked; another was Momoe-san. And the last was “Magic Bus.” The area code was local; it had to be the hospital where the mysterious real-Aya was laying comatose.

Setting his cigarette in the ashtray, Yohji embraced his inner detective and pressed call.

“Hello?”

“Magic Bus Hospital, floor seven, Mitsuhara Hanako speaking. Who may I ask is calling?”

The specific floor number startled him, but Yohji instantly identified it as a Kritiker protocol and did the only thing he could think of.

“Fujimiya-san calling, I–”

“Ah, Fujimiya-san!” The voice was instantly warm with recognition. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you; you sound different. You’re not ill are you?”

“No,” he said, keeping his voice low and his answer brief, playing Aya.

“That’s good to hear! Did you need a status report on Aya-san?”

He stood suddenly in his excitement, leaping at the chance to find out more about Aya’s namesake, the girl in the picture that occupied the drawer.

“Yes,” he nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see it.

“One moment please.”

Hold muzak filtered through the line; Yohji paced, snagging his cigarette on his second pass of the nightstand but barely managing to take a drag before the woman was back on the line.

“Alright, Ran-san, I have the report. Can I get your code, please?”

Shit. Shitshitshit. Aya’s code. It was one of those long numbers that Yohji should have memorized. He took a long breath and prayed he hadn’t drank his brain into stupidity. Fujimiya, code name Abyssinian, code flower rose, code number…

“8-1042-672-5517- 24-92, Abyssinian.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry that I don’t have better news, Ran-san. Her condition’s still deteriorating. She’s still breathing on her own, but Kiga-sensei believes she may have to go on the ventilator within the week. He wants to speak with you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Please take care, Ran-san.”

The request seemed genuine and Yohji sat with the dead line for a few minutes trying to process the information. Old habits washed over him, picking out the facts he had gleaned from the conversation. Real-Aya was at Magic Bus. Aya knew the phone-answering nurse on a somewhat friendly level (a part of Yohji wanted to know if he had slept with her, but it didn’t seem remotely plausible). Aya called often, apparently to get status reports on his sister. She was getting worse.

His cigarette crackled as the flame caught the filter, and he hurried to put it out. Snapping the phone closed, he placed it on the nightstand.

Yohji wanted strong black coffee and cheap chocolate doughnuts. Those had been his food of choice on many late nights, resting on his desk in the cluttered little office, half-hidden under piles of paper that Asuka would eventually organize. He wanted her too. It didn’t feel desperate like it had for so long; he didn’t want to curl up and cry, but there was a keen sense of incompleteness. Aya was a mystery, and when Yohji went after a mystery, he wanted his coffee, his doughnuts, and his partner.

Trying to shove away old memories of overflowing ash trays and gentle hands that brushed back his tangled hair while their owner told him he really should brush his teeth, Yohji leaned over to rummaged under the bed without looking. The bottle he unearthed was long and slender and only a third full of clear liquid.

It would do.

~tbc~

The plot bunny leads us further along…to where, I have no idea…but review and we’ll follow.