Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ This is Not My Life ❯ Empty Spaces ( Chapter 14 )

“What are we gonna use to fill there empty spaces?”

-Omi-

It's been a few days, and we haven't even gotten a lousy phone call. I can tell that even Ken's starting to doubt they're coming back. He's still putting up a cheerful front of course. He's desperately trying to be upbeat for my sake. But I've heard him cussing out Aya and Yohji when he thinks I'm out of earshot. He's pretty pissed at them. If they actually come back (big emphasis on the if,) there'll be a rather amusing showdown I expect. One that will make Aya and Ken's introduction look like a damned tea party. I really hope I get to see it.

Ken should really give up on his whole “cheer Omi up” mission. I'm not as easily manipulated as those little kids he coaches. And I'm not worth the effort either. One day he's going to realize it's a lost case and move on with his life. I want that day to come sooner rather than later. Like ripping off a band aide. There's nothing worse than false hope.

In the meantime he's smothering me.

I think if I have to spend another nanosecond with this new, artificially optimistic, hell-bent to create some sense of false normalcy, version of Ken, I'll go nuts. Literally. I can feel my sanity cracking around the edges.

So I've been trying to escape the apartment as much as possible. It's a risky endeavor, because Ken usually goes looking for me and if he finds me he's even worse than before.

But I'm fairly confident that today I'm safe. I'm hiding in plain sight, in a place I only ever go to if I'm searching for Ken. The soccer field is where he goes when he wants to be alone, not where he'd go looking for anyone else.

I'm just lying here in a deserted field, starring at an overcast sky. Ideal brooding conditions if I ever saw any.

I'm trying not to dwell on Aya and Yohji, but their abandonment is a dark shadow endlessly creeping around the edges of my consciousness. I have to constantly keep my mind occupied with other things or the despair will come seeping in. Quite frankly, it's exhausting. I know I'm at the end of my mental rope. Pretty soon I'll run out of energy to distract myself and succumb to the depression. I hope Ken is gone by then. I don't want him to see me like that.

I've run out of good distractions, and at the moment I'm just concentrating on the sky.

For all the times I've looked at it, I've never really put a lot of thought into it. It's big, it's blue, and it's there whether I dwell on it or not. It's not like my regular schedule afforded me a lot of time to think about that sort of thing. School and missions kept my mind occupied with more pressing thoughts. Like wondering if I was still going to be alive to hand in the book report I didn't exactly have time to do. And so goes the story of my life.

But getting back to the point. I'm lying here, on this grass Ken loves so much (although I find it itchy and with about all the charm of Astroturf,) and staring at the not-particularly-picturesque sky. Except it strikes me that I don't feel like I'm looking at the sky at all. If anything, I feel like I'm gazing, not at the great vacuum of space, but at a formidable lake.

It's easy to imagine the sky is nothing more than a sheet of glass, precariously holding back billions of gallons of water. Perhaps Armageddon will simply be the day the glass breaks and it all comes crashing down. I was never very keen on drowning.

I shift my attention from the sky itself to its islands of shifting grey clouds. Perhaps they are the land masses where the important matters of the universe are carried out. Maybe everything that happens down here is nothing more than pond scum. That would certainly make a lot of sense. All those self-aggrandizing criminals we've had to take out…nothing more than sludge swirling about the bottom of a lake.

The thought brings a slight smile to my predominately cynical nature. I imagine myself a frog, looking up at the surface from the murky bottom. A little bit afraid of the light.

You know, I don't think it was an accident I was raised an assassin and not a philosopher. I don't think I've really got the knack for metaphysical pondering.

A bird swims by, but my consciousness is fading. I guess I used up my afternoon's allotment of mental expenditure. I don't fight it.

I'm awakened from a rather bizarre and somewhat disturbing dream which featured Aya and Yohji as happy-go-lucky cloud people, by the suffocating sensation of a face full of fur and claws. I don't hesitate to pull the foreign object off, only to discover that someone has deposited a squirming kitten on my face. Not funny, I think, as I trace a scratch down my left cheek where blood is beginning to emerge. Very, very not funny. A look at the kitten reveals that it's not especially amused either. It only takes another moment before Ken's looming presence also registers. Great, just great. I roll over so I don't have to face him.

“Go away.” I mutter.

“You go away,” he replies, in a significantly less cheerful voice than I've recently grown accustomed to, “this is my field.”

I sit up and give him a questioning look. Something has changed since the last time I saw him.

“What made you look for me here?” I ask in genuine curiosity.

“I wasn't looking for you,” he replies with a shrug, “I came here because I was depressed.”

Ah. So my earlier assessment had been accurate. Ken comes here when he wants to be alone. I suppose I ought to leave him to it then.

I move to get up, but he grabs my arm.

“I didn't say I didn't want to find you,” he clarifies, “I'd just given up looking.”

“Stay,” he adds quietly.

I nod and sit back down. I don't really mind spending time with him if he's not going to try force-feeding me happy pills. Though seeing Ken sullen is almost as weird as seeing him artificially upbeat.

An awkward silence descends,

I hold up the wriggling ball of grey fluff that Ken had previously dropped on my face. “What's the deal with this?” I ask. It's more for the sake of starting a conversation than anything else.

“Oh,” he says, rubbing the back of his head in an almost embarrassed fashion, “I dunno, someone abandoned it in the alley behind the shop the other day. It looked so sad…and you looked so sad…. I thought maybe you'd do a better job of cheering each other up…. Since I'm obviously failing miserably at that.”

The awkward silence returns. I feel terrible. How do you respond to something like that?

I stare at the cat and it mews pitifully. He's right, it's pretty hard to look at it and simultaneously feel sorry for yourself. I find myself reaching down to pet it without even making a conscious effort. The darn thing is like a magnet.

I look up and smile at Ken, to show him that he finally got through to me a little. But he's not looking at me. He's staring off despondently in a way I've never seen before. It actually gives me the creeps.

“Ken kun?” I ask, gingerly touching his shoulder.

He shrugs again, but still doesn't look at me. Something is seriously wrong here.

“Would it be better if it were one of them?” he quietly interjects.

“Huh?” I ask, completely dumbfounded.

“I'm not happy they left,” he continues, seeming to ignore my voiced confusion, “but at the end of the day, I'm glad you're the one still here. I always felt I got along with you the best. When I'm alone with Yohji we end up getting on each other's nerves. And talking to Aya is like trying to have a conversation with a chair. But I've always felt completely at ease around you.”

My mouth drops open, but he's not looking at me.

He…he can't be serious?

“All this time I thought I knew you, but suddenly it seems like we're complete strangers. It hurts to have been wrong about that. I just wanted to say I'm sorry it's me you're stuck with instead of someone more interesting or stable like Yohji and Aya. That's all.”

He moves to get up, and now it's my turn to grab his arm.

“No,” is all I manage to choke out. Geeze now I'm the one having trouble making eye contact. What are we, school kids? Oh wait. I guess that's one category I still qualify for. Go figure.

He's staring at me expectantly now. Crap, I guess just saying `no' doesn't quite cut it, does it? But what do I say?

No Ken, I like having you around too. I'm just doing damage control so it won't suck so much when you jump on the let's-ditch-Omi-train too.

Yeah, that will go over well.

But I can't lie to him either. He'd see right through me and it'd only piss him off.

Shit.

I stall by petting the cat. It needs a name. It's only been around for twenty some minutes, but I'm already getting tired of just calling it `the cat.' I guess I've officially accepted Ken's peace offering.

Like a homework-swamped assassin really needs an extra responsibility.

I sigh and answer Ken's questioning look in a round-about way.

“If we keep this,” I point to the kitten, “you have to help me take care of it.”

Ken nods, frowning. “Of course I'll help. I picked it up. I'll take all the care of it if you want.”

“No, I just want help,” I clarify, “but cats live about fourteen years. Sometimes longer, that's a long time to have to help.”

I look Ken in the eyes and finally catch a glimmer of understanding.

“You…didn't expect me to still be around in fourteen years…did you?” he asks in a quiet, bordering on hurt voice.

“No,” I admit, “I didn't.”

“Well this cat is going to live to be nineteen. At least,” the confidence is edging back into Ken's voice as he picks up the kitten, “but maybe we should get two cats. Just in case.”