Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections ❯ Chapter 2: Flesh ( Chapter 2 )

Author's Notes:

Thank you to the kind reviewers. I hope you continue to find "Reflections" to be worth your time. It was my intent to simply post without excuses or preamble, but I find that I can't. There are some things that I refuse to spell out - such as future pairings, since I feel that knowing will detract from the story - but there are some things that simply have to be made plain.

Firstly, yes, this is going to wind up being AU. I've been a fan of WK for a while, and have followed as much of the canon story as I can: from "An Assassin and White Shaman, to Kapitel, to the drama cds, to Gluhen, to Side B. There isn't wiggle room for a story such as mine to fit in there without disrupting what Takehito Koyasu has envisioned. It's my humble opinion that the spiral into madness begins with the final straw represented by "Verbrechen und Strafe," and so I've decided to hijack the timeline just before those events. (And yes, frankly, it saves me from the whole mobile flower shop in Kyoto nonsense. Even though I do love some of the arc set during that period, there are too many things that annoy me).

Which brings me to my second grievance. I have a difficult time making the ages as given in the anime series work. A generous and long-suffering friend provided the following: at the beginning of the season one anime, Kapitel, the ages run : 16, 18, 20, 21; and in the manga: 16, 18, 20, 24. I've chosen to use the manga. "Reflections" will fall at least a year after Aya joined Weiss, or about three years after his parents' murder, making Aya 21 or 22 by this time. In the manga when Aya first joins, Yohji tells him that he's been with the group for 2 years. If we assume that Yohji had some time in his prior profession before Asuka's death, and before that he would have had to have been old enough for a private investigator's license in the first place, Yohji by now is maybe as much as 25. The same kind of logic also applies to Ken. I think he would have had to have been 18 to be drafted for professional soccer. His career ended at least a year before Aya joined up, so about 2-2 1/2 years ago. That means Kenken is pushing 21, depending on how long he got to play before Kase and his dirty tricks caught up to him. Omi was 16 at the start of the Kapitel, so call him 17 now.

Well, that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. It may not be anime canon, but I *needed* a better explanation.

And lastly, the use of Japanese. There isn't much. To be truthful, English is my second language as it is. I see no reason to court making a fool of myself when I'm telling a story in English by inserting words in Japanese. Take it as a given that that's what the characters speak and think in, and move on. There will be a few terms that work best when left alone, but other than that, I intend to avoid the fannish custom of butchering a language that I have little familiarity with.

I hope that you will enjoy "Reflections." If you have an urge to contact me directly, please feel free to email.

L.A. Mason

Reflections: Flesh

Chapter Two

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by L.A. Mason.

Standard disclaimer applies: No copyright infringement intended. No profit being made or sought.

Ken lay on his back staring at the ceiling, feeling more than a little sick to his stomach. It wasn't the unaccustomed shimmy of the waterbed either; rather, his brain was running in tight little circles playing back the sounds of Aya in the echoing bathroom with the American, and conjuring worse later, in a strange hotel room. Part of him wondered if Aya had enjoyed it, and part of him was just plain sick at the idea of what their partner was willing to do in the name of the mission. He groaned and dragged himself out of bed, giving up at the pretense of trying to sleep. Even if the man wasn't conscious to answer questions, Ken just knew that he'd get more rest if he camped out in a chair in the den. Surrendering to the idea, he stripped a blanket from the bed, wound it toga-like around his body and flung the ends up over his shoulder.

As he neared the bottom of the half flight of stairs feeding into the public spaces of the big house, something made the hairs stand up on the nape of his neck. It wasn't just that he didn't like being in a strange place instead of at home where they belonged; other things were wrong, too. Dimmed light spilled from the living room as he padded past, instinctively slipping from sometimes over-exuberant, often klutzy, sports-crazy adolescence into his guise of the hunter, Siberian. The girls who liked to hang around the flower shop, or to watch when he coached the neighborhood kids in soccer, would have found it hard to reconcile his focused hunger with his usual cheer. The only one spookier was Omi, who managed to still look like his normal sweet self even when he was cutting someone's throat. In a way, the kid's innocence was even more unnerving.

Ken's eyes took in the half-familiar, shadowed shape of the living room's fireplace, and the three-sided grouping of couch and chairs that faced the angle between the massive TV and the floor to ceiling sliding glass doors that were blank with darkness. Beyond that glass lay a garden that in daylight was bland and westernized, like pretty much the entire rest of the house. Personally, he would have been happier with something more traditional, all tatami and shoji, and Ken suspected that the same held true for his teammates, only this was what Kritiker had offered, and one didn't argue with Kritiker. But the one good thing about the house was that it was wired to the gills with first rate electronics, including some security devices that Omi had admitted that even he would have trouble getting past. It was good to know that there was stuff that the kid couldn't circumvent; there were damned few people better than him. And, better still to know that the technology was protecting them, for a change.

There was no sign of whatever it was that had him spooked, and the soccer player bit back a groan as he prowled the room. Manx's people held the perimeter of the house's grounds. It would be stupid to go out there… so why was he thinking about it? Better to just follow his original impulse, and bunk down by Aya. Having tangible proof that the elusive man really was back would help calm his nerves.

His nerves were probably ninety percent of his problem, anyway.

Things had broken down pretty quickly earlier, after discovering what Birman considered to be within the normal parameters of an assignment. That Aya had presumably gone along with it, didn't help. Not at all.

Over the top of Omi's head, the remaining two Weiss had exchanged horrified looks: Do you think he--? Yeah, for the sake of the mission… Ew. And Aya would have, too, no matter how much he hated the physical. He shunned giving and taking as weaknesses, never quite grasping that hating contact was a kind of vulnerability, too.

The smaller blond boy had caught their expressions, and growled as he slapped at his laptop, again pausing the playback. He jabbed each of them in the ribs, hitting the spots still sore from his earlier assault, but that violence was a pale copy of the glare that he leveled first at Manx, then at Birman. "This isn't in the transcript, is it?" he snapped accusingly. "Did Aya go see the bastard?"

The dark haired woman shrugged, the movement elegantly rolling her shoulders inside her tight jacket. If she wore a holster, it had to be nestled at the small of her back, because there was absolutely no tell-tale bulge under her arm. "I would assume so." She answered calmly. "Abyssinian gave the actual auction a green light the next evening, and it went off flawlessly. He stayed the hell away from Benson, but the American didn't make much of an effort to approach him, either."

"Birman." Manx's clipped tones cut across whatever it was that fought to get past Omi's lips. "Was Benson the only out-of-the-ordinary contact?"

"Yes, Ma'am." The automatic courtesy of the response confirmed one long-held suspicion; Manx did outrank Birman. "When Abyssinian failed to check in, and we couldn't contact him, Benson was at the top of our list. But he had left for the States three days before our last contact with Abyssinian, and he hasn't left his company's home-base in Houston, Texas, since. Given where Aya was recovered, I don't see how there could be a connection."

The three assassins all noted that the handler had slipped up and called their teammate by name. It was probably the most human - or at least the most uncalculated - thing that the harsh woman had done during their acquaintanceship. Manx was no more warm or cuddly, really, but at least with her they occasionally caught flashes of a deep, proprietary pride, and affection. Especially where Omi was concerned. They all knew that the red-haired woman and the elusive Persia had practically raised their youngest teammate, and he hadn't turned out too badly, all things being equal.

And it was the boy who rubbed a hand backwards through his hair and sighed. "So, this is a dead end?"

Birman nodded shortly. "The auction is basically more of the same. As a part of his cover, Abyssinian bid on - and lost on - a couple of pieces. He was never overly aggressive. Benson appeared to have lost interest in him, and was focused exclusively on the artwork that he wanted. We didn't observe anything else untoward."

"Either night?" Omi persisted.

"Either night."

"Well… that's that, then." mumbled Yohji. He hung his head backwards over the rim of the couch, staring thoughtfully at the coffered beams of the ceiling overhead. "Maybe it really was just random bad luck? Aya was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and got snatched?"

"Oh, come on!" Ken surged to his feet, nearly tripping in the tangle of cables. Omi grabbed for his precious laptop, giving his clumsiness a reproachful sigh. Oblivious, the brunet paced angrily to the far side of the room and whirled. "If it was some random asshole, we would have found a pile of random body parts, and Aya would have been at home cleaning that damned sword of his. NO basic stalker would ever have been able to get the jump on our Aya."

Yohji grinned at the possessive phrase, but found that he had to agree. He'd come perilously close to the pile of body parts state, himself, the few times he had startled their newest member. And, it was damned hard to do, too. Aya not only had the proverbial eyes in the back of his head, he seemed to have them everywhere else, as well. "Okay, kiddo. You've made your point. But if we rule out everything connected to the auction, we don't have much left."

"Um, how about Schwartz? Is there anything to connect them to Tanagawa?" asked Omi diffidently. He had checked, and re-checked everything he could find about the other team in the early days, when Aya had first come up missing, but that was before they had had a location to work with.

Manx shook her head slowly. "No. Intel turned up nothing related to Tanagawa. As far as we can tell, there is no link between Abyssinian, Weiss, or even Kritiker, and that place. The Hot Body was just a second-rate brothel run by a couple of local entrepreneurs. It wasn't big enough, or successful enough to have been worth anyone's time to gobble up. If they hadn't been stupid or unlucky enough to pick up a run-away that mattered, we probably still wouldn't have heard of them."

And that had been pretty much all she had been willing to say. They had argued some more - and Ken flushed to remember that he had been the one doing most of the shouting, his volatile temper hopelessly frayed by that point - until Manx had gotten disgusted and told them all to get lost in no uncertain terms. By then, Omi's bright blue eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion, and Yohji had given up paying attention to the prohibition against smoking and was running through his pack of cigarettes like water through a sieve, turning the air hazy blue with smoke. Birman had waved away the fumes and the yelling with increasing annoyance until she was finally fed up enough to stalk out. And that had been that.

Except that Ken couldn't sleep, no matter that he was dead dog tired.

He scanned the silent premises one last time, retreating in a silent, crab-wise walk that made it so that he didn't have to turn his back on the open expanse of the living room until he was safely into the corridor leading toward the improvised sickroom. The door opened with a barely heard sigh of hinges and displaced air, allowing the compact athlete to slip inside.

The other times they had stayed at this house, the den had been a favorite room for all of them, but for Aya especially. Maybe, that was why they had opted to set him up in there? It was a smaller, and more intimate and, well… `homey' space than the rest of the sprawling structure. There were only a few examples of the expensive, institutional-abstract paintings, and those were small ones. Most of the wall space was occupied by book cases that were filled with a pretty haphazard jumble of books that looked as if they had actually been read. Unfortunately, the small sofa and a recliner had had to be removed to made space for the bed and some other hospital-type equipment, like the IV stand that hovered by Aya's shoulder, and the loss kind of spoiled the feel of the room.

Someone, probably Omi since the teen had been the last one to check up on their partner, had left the halogen desk lamp on low, twisting the articulated arm around so that it shone on a patch of beige wall behind. In the diffuse light, the man occupying the bed at the room's center looked more wan and ghost-like than usual, even his dark wine-red hair dimmed to a sorry maroon. But it did nothing to hide the impressive array of yellows and purples spreading from beneath his bandages, the colors too vivid against the stark white of the gauze. Hesitantly, Ken approached. He reached out and tentatively brushed back a strand of the hair that clung limply to the older man's temple, noting sadly that someone had given him a brutally efficient haircut, trimming his bangs to an even length and sheering off the long strands that normally hung down along the lines of his throat. It was too bad; one of the most intriguing things about Aya was his hair, and not just its color, either. There was something about the way the haphazard strands had fallen across his forehead, and the way he left portions long enough to caress his collar bones, while the rest barely covered the nape of his neck, that was damned sexy for such an oblivious type. Well, there was no figuring the swordsman out, that was for sure.

Automatically trying to shake the unsettling thought from his brain, Ken checked on the IV bag that hung on its stand next to the bed. The fluid level was such that there would be no need to change the pack until well into the next morning, something that Omi would probably take care of. He might be the most junior in age, but the petit blond had proven remarkably adept at the medical end of things. He could stitch up a wound without turning pale over the blood and gore, and had a knack for things like finding a vein with a needle. A slight movement dragged Ken's attention back to the bed's occupant and off of his musings on Omi and his skills.

Aya's eyes were open, shadow-soft blue-violet in the dim light, fixed thoughtfully on the regular grid of beams and space that made up the ceiling. Ken drew in breath to speak, to demand if he was all right, but before he could, the blank eyes again drifted shut of their own accord. There was no change to the man's even breathing, leaving his bewildered teammate to wonder if Aya had even been truly awake. He supposed he must have muttered the thought out loud, because the heap of blankets in the den's only comfortable chair stirred and mumbled "Probably not…"

"Omi? Is that you?" Ken guessed, figuring that the team's self-appointed medic wouldn't have wanted to leave his patient alone.

"Mmph." The pile squirmed around until a sleep-tousled head, followed by a slender arm clad in a ratty red sweatshirt popped out. The kid stretched and yawned, looking endearingly young, more like twelve than the seventeen he actually was. "So… you couldn't sleep… either." At the brunet's baffled grunt, Omi gestured vaguely at another lump cocooned snuggly in blankets on the floor in the lee of Aya's bed. There was just enough wavy, dark honey-blond hair sticking out for Ken to identify it as the remaining Weiss hunter. He felt like going over and kicking Yohji for sneaking downstairs without him.

Omi unwound himself from the chair and scrubbed the palms of both hands up his face. Muffled by them, he said, "Aya-kun hasn't really woken up, but I don't think it'll be too much longer."

"Oh." Relieved, Ken sat down on the floor next to him, leaning casually against the boy's leg. "That's good, right? I mean, he has to wake up."

Amused, Omi leaned down and rumpled his hair affectionately. There was no condescension in the gesture, or in his words. "Yes, it's good. I was worried he would stay in a coma because of his head. But, I've been thinking, and I think I've got a way we can find out what happened without waiting for him to wake up."

The older boy blinked, caught off-guard by the mid-stream change of topic. He was used to Omi thinking a couple jumps ahead of him; often the now-unconscious redhead was the only one to follow the sudden twists and turns; but damned if it wasn't disconcerting. "Um," he said cautiously, "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"That brothel, the Hot Body. That's the key."

Okay, he definitely hadn't followed Omi this time.

The other pile of blankets stirred, and Yohji sat up, blearily eyeing the two of them. Ken half-expected some snide remark about getting woken up, and tensed to snap back that the older man had at least gotten some sleep, while he had had none, but to his surprise, Yohji failed to whine. Instead, he was staring speculatively at the little blond.

"Figured you'd have some idea how it all hooks together. So spill, Omittchi."

The kid rolled his eyes at the nickname, but forbore making any comments that would provoke the man farther. It wasn't like there weren't other people who called him that. And it beat the annoying `Omi-chan' that Yohji had started out with. Especially when it was applied to notes left at his school's office. Seeing the spark of humor growing in Yohji's expressive green eyes, he hastily spoke up, "I think it's something like this: Even if Benson had nothing to do with Aya-kun disappearing, Aya was bothered by what happened --"

"Why?"

"Yohji, can you see the words `casual,' `sex,' and `Aya' getting anywhere close to each other, let alone into the same sentence?" chided Omi in exasperation. Cross-legged on the floor, the older man shrugged and conceded the point. "Let's take this one step at a time, logically. February 12th, Aya-kun leaves on vacation. Yes, we're all aware of just what kind of a vacation the man takes, but that's beside the point. He checks into a nice hotel, and apparently starts right in on prepping for Birman-san's assignment. Two days later, he goes to the art viewing, and runs into Benson, who recognizes him for who he used to be. That's pretty freaky. The man blackmails him into having sex. Aya-kun comes back the next night, for the auction, and completes his mission. The hotel shows him as checking out the following day. With me so far?" Having extracted nods from the other two, Omi continued, "Okay, now this is Mr. Sociability we're talking about, here. I figure that he's still pretty pissed at Benson, and probably at Birman-san, too, for turning down his request to hunt that American jerk. He wants -- he needs to take it out on something. But he won't do like you, Ken-kun, or like Yohji, and just go get into some pointless brawl in a bar--"

"Hey!" the two exclaimed in unison. They exchanged rueful glances, and Yohji grinned. "Well, maybe KenKen does that…" Ken stuck out his tongue and swatted at him with a cushion stolen from Omi's chair. The younger blond sniffed and slowly shook his head.

"You know, it's scary being the responsible one, here. But anyway, back to Aya-kun. He needs to take his anger out on something, but it has to be an appropriate target to work for him. I figure that he was looking for a suitable fight, and tangled with someone who has some kind of a connection to that whorehouse. Does this sound reasonable to you guys?"

Yohji flopped backwards onto his blankets and fished for a cigarette. Out of deference to the den's temporary designation as a hospital room, he refrained from lighting up, but he still chewed thoughtfully on its filter as he stared at the ceiling. "Okay… I can see Aya going looking for trouble. Yeah, that's the kind of thing he would do. But shit, in Tanagawa? Some little hick town that's gotten swallowed up by Tokyo's urban sprawl? See, the thing is, there's nothing there. Just some factories, some cheap apartments, lots of people going to work every day and slaving away. I think he went looking somewhere else, and ran into something else, or someone, and that Tanagawa's just where they dumped him."

"Maybe." said Omi reasonably. "But that's all a blank. The only connection we're sure of is the whorehouse. Because that's where he was found. And that's going to be our way to find out what really happened, and whether it represents a current threat."

Ken picked at the binding on the edge of his blanket, worrying at a loose thread until it began to unravel. He commented slowly, "Ooo-kay, I guess I see what you're getting at. Even though they didn't treat his injuries, really, somebody did keep him halfway clean and fed. That person might know how he got to the brothel, and let us connect to the next dot." What Omi said was true. There was no way Aya would have still been alive if he hadn't had at least minimal care. So, somewhere, there was someone who had known about his presence. But there was still one thing about the scenario that bothered him, and he speared each of his friends with a hard stare. "Tell me one thing, though, why keep him? Why not just kill him and dump his body in the bay?"

That killed the conversation, to say the least. Yohji picked up his ever-present sunglasses from the floor beside his bedding and popped them on, effectively putting out a `do not disturb' sign with those blank lenses as he lay on the floor. Omi, on the other hand, mumbled, "I need some more sleep; it's already dawn," and retreated into the security of his warm nest, drawing a fold of blanket back up over his head with shaking fingers. Ken glanced up at the last member of their quartet, and found that Aya, too, was unavailable. And that was a real shame, because if anyone knew the answers to some of their questions, it was the unconscious man. Frustrated, Ken tugged a hand through his snarled hair, and lay down to see if he could catch a little sleep, too.

***********

If it weren't for the fact that the sunlight streaming in through a crack in the blinds was coming from a much, much steeper angle, Ken thought groggily, he'd think he was back in the same conversation that he had fallen asleep during, because Yohji and Omi were arguing over the exact same ground that they had covered early that morning.

Well, maybe not the exact same. They seemed to have moved on from the `what' to the `who.'

Omi had gotten a sheet of paper from somewhere, and was waving it at the older man, like a bull-fighter with a red cape. Yohji was just as determinedly avoiding looking at whatever it was. More papers and a litter of dishes stood on the desk. When the scent of fresh brewed coffee wafting along on the currents of air disturbed by all that waving made Ken's stomach growl loudly, both combatants looked expectantly down at him. He groaned and resisted the urge to stuff his head back under the covers.

"See? Ken-kun is so awake." Omi chirped. Ken threw the cushion he had appropriated at his annoying teammate. As it bounced back, he snagged it back out of the air one-handed and whapped Yohji with it as well, sending the taller man backwards into his snarl of blankets. The pillow followed, landing on his face.

"Hey?! What did I do?" Yohji demanded. His muffled voice was aggrieved.

"You're breathing." Ken snarled. He turned to glare at the giggling boy who stood over them. "And don't you start, either. What's a guy got to do to get some sleep around here?"

"Um, stay in his own room?" Omi offered, just as Yohji suggested, "Join Aya."

"Yohji-kun!" The mingled shock and outrage from the two Weiss made him blink.

"Maa, Omittchi, Kenken, I didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't wish anyone to get hurt like he did. I just meant that you might as well curl up in the bed next to him. I've never seen anyone get so protective over our Aya as you do."

Ken's jaw dropped in surprise as Omi squeaked an inarticulate protest. Yohji shook his head despairingly and untangled himself from his bedroll. "Jesus, lighten up, Ken. You need the coffee more than I do. Here."

"Ah, thanks." Dazed, Ken took the proffered mug and gulped down most of its scalding contents. Somewhere along the way, his stomach had forgotten to be hungry, and had gone into free-fall instead. Did he really get that protective, so that even Yohji - Mr. Self-Centered - had noticed? No, that wasn't entirely fair; Yohji did care about all of them, and deeply. He just tended to be so flippant about it that they forgot. But the real issue was Aya, and how he would react to Ken's obsession if he woke up. When he wakes up, Ken corrected fiercely, because Aya just had to come back to them.

The brunet glanced up in time to catch Omi's wide, anxious eyes fixed on him. As usual, the kid was being way too perceptive. Witness the faint blush that stained his fair skin as the teen promptly glanced aside and cleared his throat. "Well. To get back to what we were discussing--"

Yohji growled and shoved his sunglasses into his rumpled hair, perching them up out of the way. "And I said, `no, you're not going to,' right? Or is your hearing going selective on me?"

Baffled, Ken noted how Omi's blue gaze promptly grew stormy, and the way the boy's lips thinned with determination. Obviously, he must have been more out of it than he thought, because he had the distinct feeling that he had missed quite a lot after all. Ken interrupted the pair, "So… What exactly are we discussing here?"

Omi cut him a sharp glance, but addressed Yohji as well. "You aren't going to talk me out of this. I'm going to go look up some of the street rats and see if I can find someone who was at the Hot Body in Tanagawa."

"Aren't they all still in jail? I mean, the cops hauled everybody in during that raid."

"Nah," Youji shook his head. "With all the publicity this has gotten, the younger kids, the runaways without rap sheets, they would either have been turned straight over to family, or, if there was no family, to Child Protective Services. The older whores might have got stuck in the bansho for a day or two, till they could get a hearing and pay off their fines, or get set up for bail, but they should be back out on the street, too. The only ones the cops would have cared enough to keep are the owners, and maybe some of the heavy muscle, if they thought they were involved in `recruiting.' "

"But how do we find these people if the cops don't have them?" Ken protested. Omi shot him a fierce look.

"Leave that to me." he promised. "I might not have been able to get into the investigation files on Aya, but simple arrest records are a piece of cake. And once I've got those, I go undercover and find them."

Uh, oh. Well that explained the obstinate expressions gracing the faces of the two Weiss blonds. Ken had an immediate urge to take Yohji's suggestion and join Aya - less for Aya's protection than for his own, however; as hiding behind the unconscious man might be the only safe place in the house. Getting caught between a pair of ticked off assassins didn't seem like a smart move. On the other hand, the squabbling couldn't be good for Aya's rest, which meant that it was time for them to take it elsewhere.

"I," Ken announced, "Am going to take a shower and get some hot food. Not necessarily in that order, either. When I get back, I would appreciate it if the two of you either had this all worked out, or were gone. Okay?" He didn't bother to wait and see if they would agree.

***********

That did it. He was going to kill Yohji first, then that brat, Omi. Slowly. Ken's lips drew back, baring his teeth in a snarl that would have done his namesake, the Siberian tiger, proud. Or at least what he preferred to think of as his namesake. The whole kitty thing had lost its appeal a long time ago.

Unfortunately, he didn't do threat anywhere near as well as Aya did. Either that, or the others had been around him for waaaay too long. "Will you just shut up, already!" he finally shouted in exasperation. The two hunters paused, surprised, and stared at him. Ken shoved his fingers deep into his hair and resisted the temptation to tear it out by the roots. He didn't even have the strength to count to ten; the need to wring their necks was overwhelming.

"Ne, Ken-kun, I didn't mean to cause trouble…?" Omi offered hesitantly. "I really did think it would help to have one of us go see the children who had run away. It being me seemed like a good idea; I thought they would be less suspicious of someone their own age."

Yohji coughed. "And I didn't mean to run down Omi's abilities. I mean, the kid is good, right? It's just… after what happened to Aya, I don't want to see anyone else get taken down."

The pair was looking at him, with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Ken gave in to the urge and tugged sharply at his own hair, muttering, "Ow… You two give me a headache. The problem is, guys, you're both right. Omi, you would be best for getting close to the street kids, but Yohji is right, too. Any opponent who could take Aya out is nothing to sneeze at."

The boy had the good sense to blanch at that thought. Aya wasn't invincible, but he was damned good, and as far beyond the skill level of the average street punk as the moon. Glowering, Ken let the thought sink in for a moment before snapping, "That's why you're both going. Omittchi takes point, and Yohji, you back him up from a safe distance. No harm, no foul, you both come back in one piece, and I get you the fuck out of Aya's room! Understand?"

The chastened boy hung his head, shuffling his feet a little. Yohji recognized the futility of arguing and closed his mouth around another unlit cigarette. "Can we stay if we keep it down to a dull roar? I mean, there's not much of a chance that the kid and I will score now, during the day, and it would be kind of nice to keep an eye on Sleeping Beauty while we wait…?"

It was tempting to just say `no,' and shove the idiot out the door, but something in the sheepish delivery made the athlete hesitate, which was weird, because if he was on top of his game, Ken would never have given it a second thought. When he caught the worried glance the former detective shot at the still slumbering form of their teammate, pity cut him to the heart; Yohji was just as worried as Ken was. Being close by, even if the other person didn't notice, still helped to ease some of that distress.

"Fuck…" Ken sighed. "Yeah, whatever. Just, please, no more arguing? No shouting? No… whatever the hell it is you guys do?"

A smile tugged at the corners of Omi's mouth, and the kid put up a hand to try to stifle a giggle. Humor danced in his bright blue eyes. "I'm going to go get us some snacks." he announced.

Yohji nodded. "Good idea. How about I pick us some music? You like Anggun, don't you?" The blond kid gave him a grin and a thumb's up as a woman's sensual voice poured from the stereo's speakers. The blend of French and Indonesian lyrics, and the pop beat made Ken think of Yohji and his night clubs, and he winced reflexively, but the taller man kept the volume turned down. And the singer really did have a great voice. In spite of himself, Ken felt some of the tension draining from his body, and he slowly slid down to sit by the foot of their teammate's bed. Without a word, Yohji flopped down flat on his back beside him.

They sat together companionably for several minutes, just listening and enjoying, until the soccer player gathered himself together with a mental shake. "Ne, Yotan… Do you think Benson really had nothing to do with what happened to Aya?"

"Aa. The American already screwed him over pretty good."

"But… If he… `screwed over' Aya, why would he stop?" Ken asked slowly, dividing his attention between Yohji and the rattle of the door knob as Omi entered, juggling an armload of juice containers and bags.

"Mmph, yeah, good question--" the teen managed as he bumped the door closed. "I didn't understand that, either." Ken scrambled to his feet in time to halt an avalanche of pre-packaged foodstuffs, allowing Omi to dump much of the load into his outstretched hands. With the only places to sit being the over-stuffed chair the kid had slept in, a swivel chair at the desk, and Aya's bed, Ken shrugged and dumped the goodies in an open spot on the floor and sat down himself. Omi joined him, reaching under his elbow to snag a small pouch of dried wasabe peas. The brunet mock-growled and made as if he was going to snatch them back. Yohji simply rolled his eyes and helped himself to pocky instead. Which figured, seeing as he liked to treat them the same way that he did his precious cigarettes, leaving it dangling from between his lips. Ken resisted the temptation to slap the stick out of the older man's mouth.

"I told you, Benson got off on it. He just wanted to stick it to Aya because he could."

The bag of peas popped, its contents scattering across the carpet. Ken shook his head, muttering "…waste…" but Omi apparently didn't hear him. The blond's fair skin flamed with embarrassment, as he choked out, "Yohji! Why does everything you say have to sound like sex?!"

"Because," he retorted, "In Benson's case sex and winning was the same thing. He gets off on the competitiveness, on beating the other guy. Much though I hate to say it, Birman was right: letting Benson think Aya was somebody's boy-toy was the perfect cover. After that, our redhead was a nobody, and not worthy of any more attention, so he dropped off Benson's radar." Yohji rolled over onto his stomach, elbow planted on the floor, jaw planted in his palm. The idea that it looked as if the three of them were at a slumber party crossed Ken's mind, and he decided that he'd better stay the hell away from that image; it was just too disturbing. Although, it was almost worth it for what it would do to Aya's face if he were ever to find out. Of course the flip side to that was what Aya would do to them, but that was the risk of simply breathing around the up-tight man.

Ignorant of sleep-over thoughts, the oldest of the three Weiss continued, warming up to his topic. "The way I see it is like this: Benson beat Aya-kun, and through Aya, put one over on whoever Aya's benefactor was. And, he had the added pleasure of also putting one over on an old business rival by screwing his son. The whole thing - the need to win, the sex, whatever - was a safety valve for him, and took the edge off his competitiveness against the other bidders safely. By the time the auction started, Benson had other fish to fry, and could have cared less about our boy. Q.E.D. Benson is not our kidnapper. He's got no reason to be."

Ken was impressed in spite of himself, and, to judge by the way Omi's tawny eyebrows skated up to hide behind his hair, so was their resident genius. "Wow… I think you're right." His wondering tone would have been insulting, if Yohji had been the sort to care. But the playboy just smirked, and appropriated the last chocolate pocky from the package.

"Yeah, I'm great, aren't I?"

Conversation turned to other things, like the logistics of searching out the meager street life of Tanagawa that evening. Now that he was going along as Omi's backup, Yohji was much more agreeable and their plans fell into place fairly quickly. The cover story was to be simple: the petit blond was just another new runaway who had drifted into Tanagawa and was angling for a little easy cash. He was thin enough that with some scruffy clothes he would look like any other unfortunate who had found street life to be hard, making it believable that he would consider turning tricks as a way to survive. With the Hot Body having been on the news, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him to be curious, and to ask a few questions. The only difficulty lay in gauging how long it would take for him to connect to anyone who had actually been in the brothel, and who knew about Aya. Ken had been on similar information gathering assignments, and knew that if luck ran against them, it could take days. Or nights, to be more precise.

He almost offered to go in Omi's place, and wondered at his reluctance to voice the suggestion. It was a good thing that neither of the others thought about it, and asked, because Ken wouldn't have known what to say.

At long last, Yohji threw his latest, half-eaten pocky at the trashcan and dragged himself to his feet. He stretched, audibly popping his vertebrae, and yawned. "Well, kids… I can't say it hasn't been fun, but this old man needs some shut-eye if we're going to be up all night."

"Yeah." agreeing, Omi nodded wearily. "Especially since we need to swing by home for me to pick up some clothes to wear. All I've got with me is my mission gear, and some basics like clean underwear and tee-shirts."

The brunet bit his tongue before he blurted out something inappropriate along the lines of `nothing too sexy; you're there for information, not to get picked up.' Instead, he gave the other boy a hand shoveling the debris from their snacking into the trash. Yohji didn't bother to help, he just leaned lazily against the doorframe and watched.

"Actually," Omi added, "What I'd really like is a long, hot shower. But I'm probably already too clean for the cover."

The lanky man snorted and fished in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. "You could always go outside and roll around in that sorry excuse for a flower bed. I mean, tulips? In nice rows? I'll bet its gonna look even worse once spring really gets going." Omi rolled his eyes but said nothing as he strolled past his partner and out the door. Yohji pushed off and followed, expanding on the theme of what the garden was likely to be in warmer weather, and what kinds of improvements the kid could make to it. Ken just shook his head and resigned himself to spending the rest of the day bored silly, watching over Aya, while they got to go out and actually do something.

It wasn't that he minded staying behind. The others hadn't been too far off the mark when they had teased him about his protective streak. He was feeling hyper-protective of their injured teammate. Not that he really understood why. It wasn't as if Aya needed - or wanted - the care. But there was something about his having been lost to them for so long, and the shape that he was in now that he was found that really got under Ken's skin. It might partly be the idea that they hadn't been there when Aya needed them, that they had left him alone, hurt, in hostile hands.

It might also be that he was losing his friggin' mind.

Spurred into restlessness by the merry-o-round of his thoughts, Ken seized the bedding abandoned by his friends and made up a proper bed on the floor, almost a futon's worth of comfort. But once he had it done, he couldn't bring himself to lie down and follow their example with a nap of his own. Instead, he paced the confines of the room, bouncing from wall, to desk, to bookcase, to Aya.

Aya.

One of the most beautiful creatures Ken could remember seeing, and he was equipped with an equally nasty attitude. It was insane to want to keep him from harm, since Aya was the source of most of the damage that got done. Which was no surprise to anyone who had the misfortune to encounter the assassin and his lethal sword.

Except… this time, the deadly redhead was the one who had gotten taken down.

Ken rolled the swivel chair over close by the bed, spun it about, and sat down so that he could rest his forearms on its back. But his thoughts ran together, and his chin wearily sank down to rest on his crossed wrists.

A suppressed hiss of pain, and the stealthy rustle of cloth jerked the athlete back awake in time to catch a very wobbly form as it tried to get to its feet. In a way, it was a good thing Ken had been mostly asleep; otherwise he would have fumbled his grip and dropped Aya like a rock. As it was, though, he was more than a little confused when he didn't encounter any serious resistance. Aya fell back as though his bones had turned to over-cooked vegetables, and there was no hope of salvaging the meal. Ken couldn't resist muttering, "Idiot."

"Thank you." The whisper was a dry rasp, but there was no mistaking a faint, wry humor.

Ken jerked as if he had been struck. Aya… smiling? And more than that, his entire form was lit with a warmth and sweetness that was nothing like the taciturn man that Ken thought that he knew. It made him seem like an entirely different person, even more so than the weird haircut had. Aya's head tilted slightly to the side, considering, as the lovely violet eyes widened with an innocence that was normally absent in their teammate. Not that Aya was jaded, or anything, but it was as if the capacity to simply be in the moment, without the awareness of his life and sins had been lost to him. Seeing Ken's confusion, Aya's smile grew broader, more profound, and he spoke, his husky, low voice curling affectionately between them. "You seem distressed. I hope that it is not on my account."

"Ah… yeah, you've been-I mean, no! Of course not!" The memory of his earlier concern over what the redhead might do to him if he found out that Ken had been, well, fussing flooded back. Floundering, he blushed to the roots of his sun-browned hair.

Unaccountably, Aya laughed.

And not the short, mocking chuckle that an opponent could occasionally pry out of him, either. But a happy, careless sound that was as warm and unplanned as setting foot outside to discover that the sun was shining, when all that had been expected was rain. Ken picked his jaw up off the figurative floor and closed his mouth. Astonished didn't begin to cover it; he was bewildered, and stunned, and completely, absolutely confused. "A- Aya…?" he whispered, then with greater strength, "Are you feeling okay? I mean I could go call Nariakira-sensei to come back and have another look at you. Or, maybe not, I mean I know you don't like doctors, much…" The gush of words ran down when he realized that Aya's sweet smile had turned to a mischievous grin. It didn't seem to be bothering the man that Ken was babbling, or that he had suggested a doctor, or… anything. Normally, the Aya that he was used to would have either growled at him, or given him one of those glares that could peel paint. Not only had he done neither, but he seemed genuinely amused.

"Oh, my God…" Ken whispered. "You're not Aya."