Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Painting You Gold ❯ 03 Shifting ( Chapter 3 )

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Disclaimer: I don't own Schu and his friends; that's for Tsuchiya-sensei and Koyappi/Project Weiß/TV Tokyo to work out. Or not.

Warning: This fic in its entirety involves explicitly implicit yaoi (shounen ai) in conjunction with character death, feelings, nonconsensual sex, original characters, shota, soap operatic/supernatural-type twists, spoilers, unpardoned French, Weiß, and yakuza. Squick factor is probably obvious here. ;)

Post-it: As always, thanks for your time.

/…/ = communicative thoughts and the like
[…] = memories, stuff remembered, and the like

Painting You Gold

By Koyuki Aode

3 ~ Shifting

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Our potential charge ended up being a business CEO holed up in a huge office building somewhere in the next city.

It had only been four days since Nagi's birthday when we were off to see Mr. Etoki Shinzui, but suffering a train ride full of anonymous glances and inadvertent puppy faces (mostly Nagi's) pushed me to take action in Crawford's regard.

So, I found myself pleading on behalf of love and affection - bearing nothing short of a blind flight plan - as we emerged from the depths of the underground into the city. What was there to do? Crawford had countered, indicating that two murderers, much less a child twelve years his junior and himself, had no business getting into a serious relationship.

My ass.

/-Look, I'm just saying that you could… Give him more to go on. If you really do like him, that is./ I could hardly keep from rolling my eyes as I searched for more cheesy lines in my memory and prepared for rebuttal.

Crawford quirked an eyebrow as he walked. /Do I like him or not? And how is this important to you?/

The way he'd meant the question to sound irritated me. /Maybe Nagi's the one who deserves to know it./

/He already does./

/Yeah, the sex thing. Am I the only one who realizes the sex thing is NOT going to work?! Just because you-/

"Schuldich," Crawford said sharply, stopping for a moment and turning to me, "Don't have an aneurysm - We have other issues to deal with." His hand flew up to his temple then, and he rubbed it lightly.

Farf and Nagi both stopped with Crawford, each adding something to the sudden eruption of verbal communication. The former wondered aloud what we were talking about, while the latter asked Crawford if he was all right; to which Crawford gave a grunt and gestured for us all to continue walking.

Unwillingly, I smirked. I could've sworn that someone was tugging at my mouth with a fishhook. /You've thought about this before./

Crawford squinted at me, looking as if we were at a poker game and my face had slipped. He rushed to end the discussion as we approached the building. /-We can talk about this later, if there is anything else to talk about. Right now, I frankly don't care, and Nagi has the emotional capacity of a fish./

Crawford gave the door an extra shove and, though his gaze suspicious, kept his mind and mouth closed.

I couldn't help but whistle when I pushed through the door. My sunglasses slipped down my nose and I pushed the frames back up into my hair. Everything gleamed. Golden lights were dimmed to ease the atmosphere; present also was a pleasant tinkling of music. And the air was barely scented with the trace of an amiable gas - most likely to improve the stamina of the employees. Compared to Takatori's generous box, this was a marble showcase. Naturally, Shinzui was compensating for something.

"I bet you anything. He's gay," Farf muttered, driving his heel into the plush carpeted floor.

"He's got the taste for it," I agreed, staring at several paintings. "Poor bastard. He's only engaged to that girl for the merger." Well, "poor" wasn't the best word to use for a man on the verge of controlling the majority of electronic media in Japan. I looked to Crawford for more commentary and noticed his silence was lacking a sort of... essence. A small blue-eyed one that should've been gravitating around his general area. "Is it the lights or are we missing someone?" I said.

"Kid's gone," Farf muttered.

That's the trouble with quiet people. You never know if they're really there or if they've wandered off. "We should keep a bell on him."

Crawford looked up from his precious paperwork, his gaze stopping at twin elevators. "Stay here and wait for him," he directed me under his breath, "We'll be on the seventh floor." He gestured to Farf, who shrugged and followed him.

I rubbed my hands together to ease a random itch and dropped myself into a voluminous chair. This had thrown me off. Normally, Crawford would have asked me to accompany him, instead of Farf - especially at an initial meeting. It was a tactical approach, quite useful if you considered what nastiness lurked behind every dishonest man who'd employed us.

I felt my hand close in on the small box inside my jacket; I already had my lighter going in the other.

Though I shook my head at how pathetic I was (to have developed the habit of smoking every time I was seriously deliberating - my only flaw), I slipped a cigarette between my lips and lit up with ease. My lighter hadn't settled back into its cloth shelter before I heard the familiar staccato of gunshots.

Back on my feet, I noticed that no one else seemed to have heard the sounds; it was nothing short of casual and would not affect the office - apparently assured (by memory) by Shinzui himself.

A guy who wasn't afraid to open his neighboring alley up to executions. What winning personality could this one have?

I let my gun sit cold, but still made for the door since Nagi hadn't yet emerged. A subtle rain had begun outside, which I managed to avoid, for just as I reached the edge of the door's canopy I caught sight of Nagi's white uniform and the irritated gun-wielding guard who urged him along. The rain picked up as they neared the door, but it wasn't enough to obscure the splatters of blood on Nagi's shirt.

The realization that the guard wasn't there to harm Nagi took a moment to settle. I waved my cig at them. /You hurt?/ I scanned Nagi's body for injuries.

/No./ Nagi answered quickly. I exhaled a small amount of relief; if he was injured Crawford would have a violent fit on me.

The guard glanced at my white clothes and back to Nagi. "This one's with you?" he asked with a sharp gesture of his weapon. After I nodded, he lowered the gun and continued, "Next time, bring a leash. I had to knock Ishida off because of him. Not that I mind. But that's one less acquaintance of Shinzui's, and two bodies to clean up today."

"Yeah." I nodded again and placed a hand on Nagi's back as I led him back inside and directed him to the elevators. /Whose blood?/

Nagi pushed my hand away and quickened his stride, ignoring even the quite misplaced decor of the building as he pushed inward. /Forget it./

/Why?/

The elevator doors slid open a moment before we reached them. As I entered behind Nagi, I slipped my hand in over the inner button panel and pressed the buttons for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh floors.

"What the hell?!" Nagi burst out just as the doors slid closed.

I eased out a smoky sigh and took my place next to him. "Giving us time."

Nagi huffed, but refused to respond.

Now, I'm a patient man when it really matters (and it has mattered a few precious times in my life), but after enduring the before and after jolts and watching the doors open, pause, and close for the first three floors, the sight of Nagi pouting was starting to grate on my nerves.

"All right," I said as I lifted my cig in Nagi's direction, "I'm going to give you a chance - then I'm just going to get the answer myself; because, and I realize requires no repetition, not talking to me isn't going to keep the matter hidden. Out. With. It."

My curiosity aside, I'd done away with the habit of reading minds at every turn once I learned to control my telepathy; living with my teammates and learning what I did of them had instilled a respect for certain privacies that proved to benefit my sanity.

Nagi looked at me with a solemn tint in his eyes. "Fine." His arms uncrossed and his hands relaxed at his sides.

"Good," I acknowledged his decision happily. "And stop pouting, it's disturbing."

"I thought pouting made people look cute." He blinked, attempting to straighten his lips.

"It does - that's what's so disturbing." I offered a quick smile as I tipped some ash onto the floor, making sure to spread it over as large an area as possible. "Now, what happened?"

The car shook and stopped again, and opened to the fifth floor. /I couldn't kill him./

I waited for Nagi to continue, but he grew more disturbed as he remembered the event. /The guy, Ishida?/ I tried. He jerked his head forward. /Why did you feel had to?/

After taking a shaky breath, he explained. /I watched him kill this other guy. And Ishida must've heard me as I left or something, but-/ The doors closed and the car quaked before moving again. "He was on me so fast, and had the gun... I should've snapped him in two, broken his neck... squeezed his heart or something... But- I couldn't."

"The guard stopped you?"

/No./ Nagi watched the doors distantly, squeezing his hands tightly. /I just couldn't. Watching the first guy die did something to me... and then, I couldn't even snap one of the guy's bones./

"Hm." I puffed my cheeks out as I leaned against the wall. Crawford's memories were more potent than I thought. But the look on Nagi's face as he hung his head was a product of the emotions I'd bestowed on him - and Crawford wouldn't appreciate Nagi turning into a crybaby. Even worse, Schwarz wouldn't be able to function properly if Nagi'd developed-

"Schu," Nagi's voice whispered, "What's wrong with me?"

"Conscience," I said. The elevator did its business again, opening for the sixth floor. /Ironically, Crawford's given you a conscience./

Angry eyes met me when I turned to face him. /You didn't say anything about this./

/I didn't think it would happen./ Which has the half-truth. I had the slight notion that it might happen, and had obviously been rooting for the emotional imprinting. It was the only reason I'd begun with Crawford's earlier memories.

Nagi struggled with a hybrid reaction. "Impossible." He shook his head as the doors slipped closed, and we soared like turtles to the seventh floor. "I'm worthless if I can't even hurt a stranger..." His gaze turned from anger to sorrow, but he maintained his tone. "Why? Answer me this time."

"Because you both need it."

"Why would you even care?" He shrugged as if he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Why did you start this whole thing?" his voice shifted with rising curiosity. "You never even recognized my birthday before."

Well, I certainly wasn't doing it just to see them both happy; but I would enjoy seeing the charade end.

"Hey." My silence had allowed Nagi to mull over another issue: "Are we going to tell Crawford?"

"Not yet." I assured him, "You're still acting pretty normal for you. Just don't wander off while you're busy being your quiet self."

"Mm," Nagi nodded pensively, absorbing my statement with the greatest consideration. Then, as his gaze fell back to the floor, he spoke again: "Schu."

"What?" I yawned my response; all of this being friendly and accommodating had begun to tire me.

"I've been wondering- It's sort of been bothering me. I can't stop thinking about it, actually..."

"Nagi," I grabbed his shoulder. He stopped and looked up. "Am I going to have to tape your mouth shut?"

"No!" Nagi pouted again, then remembered himself. He eased his back onto the elevator wall, turning to face me completely. "It's just that-" his head dipped with hesitance, "-That one memory of his friend's funeral."

After slipping my cig back between my lips, I crossed my arms. "Casey's funeral?-"

"Yeah."

"-What of it?"

"When Brad caught him. I keep thinking that...Maybe... It might have been possible that..." After hearing my grimace, Nagi saw what his babbling was doing to me and stopped. "Okay, I'll just say it. Was that when they fell in love?"

"Love?" I echoed. It was too early for him to understand. But he'd already figured it out.

"I just assumed that if Crawford was so close to him... And the feeling I get from the memory - and other memories! Like when Brad tried to teach him how to box, and the one at the beach. And how they spent so much time together... They didn't love each other?" He stopped finally, seeking confirmation in my face. He looked like a child who'd just learned that Santa Clause might not be real.

To keep myself from stumbling over my words, I shook my head and chuckled. "Well Prodigy, you're right. They did. Not officially - not like that, but Crawford did have that sort of feeling."

"So that moment - was that when they fell in love?" Nagi repeated eagerly.

"No," I said, pulling the cig from my lips and toying with its doomed embers. "They couldn't have fallen in love then, because Brad would have been branded a pedophile and Crawford would still be going to therapy right now. You've got to bear in mind that Brad was still a teenager and Crawford would have been too young to comprehend it then. But-" Nagi had opened his mouth to say something, "-And this is a very important but, if they had both made it and were still alive today sans Estet, they probably would have ended up together. At least for a while."

Nagi waited patiently after I finished, gnawing on his lower lip.

Finally, I shrugged and let him have his answer. "They didn't fall in love then. Though, you know, it's difficult to find someone whose presence and absence can change you that way."

Nagi nodded. It was then that I felt proud of him. Though he'd lost himself to a conscience, he'd managed to identify the love in the memories without my identifying them. And, judging from the way his disposition seemed to warm, he just might have identified his own version of the feeling.

"How did Brad die?"

The car danced its final dance and the doors opened at the very moment I opened my mouth to respond. /I'll tell you about it later./

tbc

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