Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ The Rain Doesn't Grieve ❯ 27 ( Chapter 27 )

27

 

jibun o urandemo itami wa kie wa shinai

 

Yohji ~ Bleeding

 

“Why don't you borrow my room for the night?” I suggested as Schuldig yawned and set his once-more empty coffee cup on the table. “There's a show I want to watch anyway, you might as well have the bed. I'm not going to be using it.”

 

“You sure?” he asked through another jaw-cracking yawn.

 

I couldn't help but smile. He reminded me of a little kid who didn't want the day to end just yet. “Positive. Man, I've never seen anyone suck down two cups of strong coffee and then pass out like this. Go on, you know where it is.” I picked up his clothes from their place on the floor and dropped them across his arms. “Here, take this in with you. I don't want to trip over it.”

 

As “Hoshi no Suna” began to play for a third time, I switched off the stereo. I must have hit the wrong button and set it to repeat instead of random shuffle, though why it would start in the middle of the third disc I could not explain. Instead, I turned my attention away from music and toward the television. There wasn't really anything I wanted to watch, but Schuldig didn't know that, and I needed the time to think. Besides, if I kept the volume low, all the shows seemed about the same anyway.

 

Slowly, thoughtfully, I gathered up the remains of our snacks and my water pipe and headed for the kitchen. Washing dishes had always appealed to me in an almost Zen way. There was simplicity in the act, combined with something deeply profound. The power of water combined with human will could do so many different things. It could soothe pain, turn hot smoke into breathable medicine, wash away dirt and sin.

 

But it couldn't wash away memory. The weight of my life descended on me like a cross. So many botched chances, so many wrong turns…

 

“Is it so bad, Yohji?” Asuka asked from her perch atop the kitchen counter. “Would it have been better for the sea to wash everything away?”

 

“I don't know, Asuka. Sometimes I wonder.” Making another likely mistake, I poured myself a glass of wine and headed back to the living room, glass in one hand, bottle in the other.

 

Could a man like me even hope for a fresh start, a possibility with another man caught in the same dilemma? Did Schuldig regret? Did he ever yearn for oblivion, too?

 

When I'd cleaned the wounds in his hands, I'd seen the old scars across his wrists.

 

Suddenly it felt as though I were bleeding deep inside, where I couldn't put enough pressure to make it stop. Comprehension hit me with merciless force: I wasn't trying to save Schuldig.

 

I was waiting for him to save me.

 

“Baka,” I growled at myself, washing the word down with wine. Life didn't work that way. People had no more power to save each other than they had to stop time, though they never seemed able to resist trying. I certainly couldn't resist, at any rate. Never could, likely never would. No, I had spent my life so far trying to save people from their own folly and the designs of the wicked, and every damn time I had failed.

 

Some failures were more bitter than others.

 

What did I want from Schuldig, a chance to set things right for once in my life? That wouldn't be fair, to either of us. Besides, how the hell could I change one moment of his destiny? If he planned to stay with his Brad Crawford, he would remain a pawn to the very system he claimed to defy. But if I tried to interfere, not only would he hate me for it, but I could truly offer him nothing better. He couldn't live free, no matter how desperately he sought that illusion. He would need an organization like Kritiker to keep him safe, and that safety would come at a high cost.

 

I couldn't bring myself to be that selfish.

 

“Yohji…” Asuka's voice was warm and kind, as though she were speaking to a small sad child. She stood over me as I stared unseeing at the television. Her hands were cool as they caressed my face. “You're asking yourself the wrong questions. You're so used to being Weiß, have you forgotten how to just be a human being? Reach out to him, but do it as Yohji, not some ideal you don't even believe in anymore.”

 

 

Ran ~ Scorched

 

“You fool! Do you realize what you've done?” Dry, roiling heat pummeled my back as I put all my weight into holding the madman against the wall. Sweat dripped down my temple, evaporated in a burn of salt.

 

Ken struggled against me, his expression manic. “But, Aya! Look! We did the job, right? We got what we came for!”

 

“Evidence, you bastard! We came here to collect evidence, not blow the damn building up!” As if emphasizing my words, another dull explosion echoed through the night. The ruined air burned my nostrils as I sucked in another breath and screamed it back into my partner's face. “You went over the line, Ken!”

 

“It worked, didn't it?” Though his words were calmer, his eyes still gleamed with a kind of lust I had never thought to see there. I could almost see imps and demons cavorting among the reflected flames.

 

“It's over.” I pulled him away from the wall and shoved him toward the car.

 

Ken allowed me to herd him away from the botched assignment, though he turned and skipped backward so as not to lose sight of the fire.

 

Inside my car, the smell of burning death clung to us both. I turned on the vent and cranked it up to high.

 

Beside me, Ken grinned that unholy grin and said, “It's good working with you again, Aya. I miss the other guys, but this was a good mission.” He glanced down at his hands and frowned. “I wish I could have gotten in a little closer, but at least we shut them down.”

 

I hit the brakes, hard. The car slewed to a stop, throwing both of us forward against our seatbelts. “You idiot! All we did - no, all you did was kill off the underlings! The people running this racket, did you really think they'd be at a warehouse in the middle of the night? The mission briefing even said as much!” I turned and glared at Ken.

 

He blinked as though waking up from a bad dream. “I got the evidence,” he murmured, taking the small baggie out of his pocket.

 

“Evidence linking half a dozen dead smugglers to a nonexistent building.” I leaned back, staring through the moon roof. The tinted glass seemed to hide our crime from the eyes of God…but I knew what we had done. “We can't work like this. You're not Weiß, you're a loose cannon, Hidaka.”

 

“Gomen nasai,” Ken whispered. “I didn't mean to. I just…” He looked at me, his eyes once more sane though deeply shadowed. “I wanted them gone.”

 

“We don't always get what we want in this life.” Maybe the next one would be better…

 

 

Ken ~ Berserk

 

Flames glimmered in the side mirror as Aya gunned the engine and turned for home. I could almost still feel the heat upon my skin.

 

What had gone wrong? What happened back there? I wanted to ask him why he was so angry with me, so disgusted with himself, but I couldn't make the words come.

 

All I knew was, bad people had died tonight because of us, their chemical pyre rising like a tower in the still air.

 

Inside, I felt calm. Too calm, somehow, but I couldn't figure out why that was a bad thing.

 

There was blood on my claws, but only a little bit. I vaguely remembered the guard shooting at us, and then…

 

My lips stretched into a grin at the memory.

 

Not really thinking about it, I tugged off my left glove, cupped my hand between my legs, and squeezed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A/N:

jibun o urandemo itami wa kie wa shinai

 

Even if you despise yourself, the pain will not vanish

“Hoshi no Suna (Stardust)” - Gackt Crescent

 

Yohji ~ Bleeding

Memory is an amazing thing. It holds our life, our past, doling out bits of information according to its own designs. We can search it for something needed, we can curse it for withholding such, but it most shows its power over us when it blindsides us with events better left forgotten.

 

Ran ~ Scorched

Burned in fact and in spirit, Aya confronts not only Ken but his own desire to remain in the vigilante business. With just the two of them, there is no one else to share the burden, for Aya sees himself more as Ken's keeper than his partner. What once had meaning is now reduced to murder. What's an honorable warrior to do?

 

Ken ~ Berserk

The word “berserk” hearkens back to Viking days, when it was believed that by wearing the skin of a bear a man could become as strong and fierce as a bear. Ken is on a road he never anticipated, with consequences he is only dimly aware of. The lure of the forbidden, the killing rush: folklore also warns that, once a beast tastes blood, there is no turning back - especially if that beast was once a human being.