Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ To destroy the one you love ❯ Apparent Symptoms ( Chapter 20 )
To Destroy the One You Love
Chapter 20: Apparent Symptoms
Pairing: Yohji/Aya/Yohji; Schuldig/Yohji (one sided)
Rated: Pg13-ish (For swearing mostly)
Warnings: Strongly implied yaoi, non-con, and a swearing >_>;
Legal stuff: Well... I think it's obvious but I'll state it anyway. I don’t own them! Please don't sue me? I'm poor... seriously...>_>;;
Author notes: This chapter was written by Nix (MM and FF sn: pinkwhirlwind) -give credit where credit is due, ne?
Thanks to: (see below)
~*~
Yohji stood there, the ruined vase at his feet, soup cooling, disgrace burning against his thigh. Tangled, dirty blond hair hung around his face, like his soul could hang in tatters around him as well, and he was nothing more than a wraith, a tortured nothing of what he had been.
An image of the past flashed for him, the day before, when Aya had arranged roses, slender fingers pushing, prodding, rearranging, and sunlight had done the same to his hair, layering the lightest hint of gold in the flames and Yohji wanted to hold that image in his thoughts forever. The very slight lift of Aya's chin and the narrowing of violet eyes, which only narrowed more as Yohji had smiled at him that day. That day had been so full of hope. He would get the ring from Aya-chan soon. He'd been nothing, if not flamboyant and bold.
That's why it was his fault. Through his jeans, he pressed at the shame marked into his flesh, pushed twisted, until he felt wet through the thick cloth, and he knew then, knew it deeply as he stared at the closed door, he was going to chose in that moment if he were going to live, or not.
So crystal clear. Aya saw no value in him when he looked, just some disgusting and ruined condom thrown off and left behind. It wasn't as if he hadn't been thrown away before Schuldig made him a condom in the first place. He'd failed Asuka and he'd failed his mother. His breath went thin and his head went lighter than it was. It was his fault that Aya-chan had been kidnapped in the first place. If Schuldig hadn't wanted him, he never would have taken her, and Aya wouldn't have had to make a choice.
Yohji clawed at the throbbing ruin of his skin under the jeans, shoving the now red stained cloth into the wound, stirring it, destroying what had been carved into his flesh.
He wanted to go back to that one day before, before everything went to hell. Not that he didn't understand why Aya would trade him for Aya-chan. He would have given himself to Schuldig, even knowing what would happen, to save Aya-chan. Her laughter came back to him then, from the day they'd been in the park, and how clean he'd felt just being with her, expounding on the nature of love and telling her things that her big brother probably would have cut out his heart for. But friends talk, about all kinds of things, and it's not always fit for a children's book.
That was one thing that Aya didn't get, that Aya-chan was a real person. And a friend. Yohji wiped at a tear as it tried to slip along the line of his lips and smeared himself with blood, tainted foul smelling blood. His friend, and that little thought he held to so tightly. In all his life, even before he fucked things over so badly by letting Asuka get killed, he'd never had a friend like Aya-chan. Even with Asuka there had been some sexual tension, some thought of maybe it was more. Not with Aya-chan. Maybe because now he knew his stupid fucking heart enough to know that he wanted a different Fujimiya and really, that was the only attention he'd wanted, that way. Aya-chan hadn't liked him because of anything sexual, or anything he could do for her.
And it was gone, her liking him. Ran's words came back, sharper than Ran had actually said them, "What did he do to you?"
He could drown in the memory of Schuldig's touch and voice and smell, like he was covered over with ruin and he'd never wash it away. He could feel his mental floor tip, and death felt warm and safe, away from all that had happened, the failure, the coming disgust he knew Aya would show. All of them. Omi would feel so bad, and cry and tell him how sorry they were and how they would have come sooner if they'd known, how they'd never let it happen again. Ken would just have a rage, and Yohji didn't think he could stand a rage in Ken.
It was all his own fault anyway. Both arms crossed over his chest, shaking fingers laying against his neck. It was his own fault. He'd made that choice to save Aya-chan. Yes. He would have. He was a worthless shit and she was everything.
"You promise," she asked.
The memory was so vivid, so realistic to him, that he was once again laying on the grass in the park, looking up at the sky, one knee bent, a pink stuffed cat sprawled out on his belly.
"Do you promise me," she had asked again.
In the memory that seemed so real it scared him, made him worry that he was really losing his mind, what little of it he had, he turned to her and smiled. "I promise Aya-chan. No matter what happens, no matter what we do in life or how badly things go, no matter what, I will always be your friend and I will always want to hear from you. I promise," he'd said, and he'd meant it. There was nothing she could do or that would happen to her that would make him not want her around.
"Not even if I make Ran so angry that he swallows his tongue or if I get my nose pierced through the middle or I drop out of school and take up writing erotica novels?" She asked with that terrible seriousness that a young woman could get, as if the whole world balanced precariously on the answer to this one question.
Yohji had rolled over then and hit her with the stuff cat she'd bought for him. "Stupid. Not even if you make Aya, er, Ran swallow his tongue, though that I'd like to see. Not even if you pierce your nose through the middle and if you drop out of school, you can live with me and be my roommate, but I keep odd hours and I'm not sharing my cigarettes, I'll always be your friend, Aya-chan. Always."
She had laid down next to him, her eyes so full of love and trust and friendship and good things that it made Yohji believe in the goodness of the world then too, and she grabbed his stuffed cat and hit him back with it, then crossed her eyes before she dropped back into being serious. "I'll always be your friend, no matter what. No matter what you do and what hours you keep, even if you swallow my brother's tongue and if you're broke, I'll let you live with me, but I'm not sharing my hair gel."
"Good, because that stuff's too weak for my hair."
"Oh that's right! You need a manly gel!" She laughed. He laughed. The sun had been so warm. Later that day he'd posed for a photo for her, sitting on the back of a park bench and now, it seemed like the only light he could ever get near again.
His phone was in his coat pocket, hanging on the back of his door and he couldn't breath as very shaky hands got it out. It was the light of that day that he grabbed hold of, even if he couldn't breath and his leg screamed at him, pain down it and up, and if he wanted his whole skin to just fall off so that nothing that was close to Schuldig would have to be near him, he had that one moment of light from his memories.
In truth, he couldn't say what day it was, school day or free day, and if her number had not been programmed into his phone, he wouldn't have been able to dial it. As the phone rang, a steady rhythm, ring, ring, ring, his heart began to beat too, with it. That simple ordinary sound pulled him towards the light and the ordinary.
When it picked up on the other side, there was just silence, the sound of her breath, of her words that hadn't picked their path yet, and he jumped in, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Yohji-kun? Oh my god!" A chair fell over and he could feel her holding the phone with both hands, "Yohji-kun is it really you?"
"Yes," he said, voice wavering and not sure if the answer were even yes anymore. Maybe Yohji was dead, it was just his body waiting to catch up. "Do you remember that day in the park, the day you bought me the alley cat?"
"I remember," she said, that same seriousness in her tone again, maybe as her memory of that day came back too. "Yohji-kun, where are you? I'll come get you."
He breathed then, a slow solid breath, the first one he'd taken maybe in so long he didn't remember when. "I'm at the flower shop. Aya-chan, you'll really come get me? I need ice cream and there's no one better than you to get it with," he said, his voice trying to rise out of the tears, into some sense of cocky debonair.
"I'm coming. I'll be there in twenty minutes, Yohji-kun. You'll be there when I get there. You promise me?"
"I promise, Aya-chan. I'll be here," and then, he knew, he wasn't going to die. He'd made a promise to his friend. "Twenty minutes? You're safe, right? No one hurt you? Nothing bad happened to you?"
"I'm safe," and she wanted to ask a million questions, so many things, but she knew Yohji very well and knew how well he didn't like questions even on good days. "Twenty minutes, Yohji-kun. I promise I'll be there and I promise I'm your friend."
"Thank you," he said, as he sank down the wall to lean against his bedroom door, head on the old painted wood, tears running down his face. "Thank you," he repeated, but he'd already pressed the end key, and the call was gone, so he could sit there and repeat again, and again, "Thank you."
******
Aya-chan did have a million questions. One game she'd learn to play with Yohji was called 'Ask the right question'. As they'd become friends, before the friendship had become more important to her than finding out what her brother was really up to, 'ask the right question' had become a very strategic game. It was like one of those scenes in a movie where the adventurer had to step on only the right tiles or she falls through the floor into the gapping chasm of no more answers. The last thing in the world she wanted right now was to fall into the gapping chasm of no answers.
Yohji was alive.
She picked up her books and walked out of class. There would be explaining later, but that was what later was for.
Yohji was crying.
She was sure of it. She needed to be so careful right then, her little cell phone in her hand and neat slacks, hair pulled back, perfect college girl image; she needed to be so very careful. Not because her brother or any of his friends would ever harm her, no matter what they were up to, but because she was pretty sure there was something worse under those tiles if she stepped on the wrong one.
There were some things that were very certain, such as her brother was not an accountant and while she might have been unsure about it the first couple months she was awake, she was very sure that most florists did not buy very nice cars. It was also a certainty that they were not living on Omi's college loans. She knew what college loans were like. She had friends, who weren't her brother now.
It was also a fact that her beloved Ran had put on 40 pounds more muscle than she'd ever expected his scholarly little self to do. Before Yohji had gone missing, and she realized, there had been something in her subconscious that had always said 'missing', not dead, but maybe that had just been something to do with the way a human refuses to give up those they love, but even before his missing state, he'd been able to jump over a mail box from a standing start. She'd seen him do it, and climb a tree to save her neighbor's cat. Not that climbing a tree was so very odd. It was the acrobatic grace that he did it with that made her wonder. For a while after that, she'd thought maybe they were secretly male dancers.
That just didn't quite account for the deep pensive state her brother and Yohji could both fall into. That had been her first clue that maybe they were in love with each other. Their moods seem to be so interrelated. It nagged at the back of her mind though that something was seriously missing, seriously wrong, and she didn't know what it was. She did know that she had meant her promise to Yohji. She was his friend and she would come and get him.
Her mind still wanted to just stop and spin though. It was like you put in a quarter at one of those vending machines and instead of plastic little samurai, and her mind supplied the image of her brother with a katana drawn in an endless advice, you got your best friend back from the dead. Yohji was alive.
She ran then, down the stairs of the main hall of her university and towards the street where all the cabs trawled for fares. She didn't care what machine the gods had spit him out of or where he'd been or what had happened, she just wanted him back, to hug him and hold him close and tell him she loved him and had missed him and that he had to get a new job because those damn roses could be very violent, obviously.
It was the longest fifteen minutes of her life. She straightened her hair and she fussed with her shirt and she wiped away all of her lipstick. It was going to be the most high stakes tile jumping stretch of her life. Something had hurt Yohji. Badly.
Yohji had been crying.
Her mind went in circles and nothing she did could calm her heart down. Her brother might really be able to play the part of a samurai, but she wasn't much good at the nun from the mountains with wild martial arts skills and great internal lakes of calm. It hadn't worked when Yohji tried to tell her to pretend that before her test and it wasn't working now either.
Her signature looked like spilled rice as she signed the credit card charge for the taxi, and then, suddenly as she closed the taxi door, calm hit her. Her face was relaxed, her bag on her shoulder and nothing at all wrong as she opened the door to the Koneko three hours before she was supposed to be out of school. She met her brother's look, and smiled.
Omi choked on his tea, and as his eyes went wide, so wide she had no way to really describe them because she'd never seen anything like that that wasn't animated. Yes. There were tiles to be careful of. "Oh Omi-kun! How are you? Ni-san! Ken-kun! Are you getting a cold? You look pale."
The head of a rose fell from where Ran trimmed them -hit the counter, rolled, hit the floor and Aya smiled bigger. "I didn't catch you by surprise, did I?"
"You should be in school," Ran said.
And there was a kind of confidence for having the high ground. It was the same feeling as when she'd barged into their 'secret meeting' below the flower shop. She knew she was in the right. Maybe there was something of her brother's daring in her, she moved towards the stairs, hooking her bag over her shoulder. Another rose rained over the edge of the counter as her brother oddly got that same eyes-too-large-for-his-head look.
"Oh don't bother about me," she said, so cheerfully, "I've just come to see Yohji."
"We were going to tell you," Ken blurted, as Omi and Ran seemed to have been bound up by their own wisdom in being caught out. "He was at a little family clinic, in a coma. I don't know if he wants to see anyone."
Ran choked. Omi smiled, the smile faltered, he smiled bigger. "A small, very small, just one old woman family clinic," Omi said, through a very large smile that matched his eyes.
Several steps up, Aya chan leaned against the railing, and felt for the first time that she was across the tiles and that really, whatever they were hiding didn't really matter. Yohji was back. He was alive. Her brother was alive and he was still her stupid too stuffy brother and she loved him. She took a slow deep breath. "Oh don't worry. I understand that flower piracy is very dangerous. Ni-san, you should get some tea. I think you're getting the same cold Ken-kun has."
"We don't steal flowers!" Ken protested, but swallowed what else he might have said as Omi knocked a solid vase over onto the soccer player's foot.
"See Ken-kun? At least this time I didn't break it," Yohji said, smug, almost an echo of his former cocky self.
Aya-chan looked back up the stairs to find Yohji there, just coming down, dressed in black slacks and a long sleeved blue shirt, his hair washed and still wet in a pony tail. "Yohji-kun! I'm so glad you're back!"
She threw her arms around him, while he was still too far up the stairs for anyone to see more than his legs, but Aya chan saw him, and felt him cringe as she wrapped him in her arms. And any questions she had really went far away. "I am so glad you're back," she said, not so loud that it would broadcast to the others, but she didn't care if they heard. Maybe, secretly, a part of her was still angry at her brother from the wake, or something, and she didn't know, but she wanted him to worry, wanted him to feel that spark of jealousy. There really wasn't enough time to think it all through, and the first task was to get Yohji somewhere safe so she could really talk to him. "And you're taking me out to ice cream! Yohji-kun, you are the sweetest!"
She slipped her hand into his, holding his more than he held hers, and yet, feeling his need to hold, while not looking like he was. Something really really bad had happened, way beyond anything any rose could ever do.
"Ice cream, yes, that's my goal in life," he said, and he was smiling when they left the stairs, hand in hand. "I live for taking pretty girls out to ice cream."
Ran twitched, quite visibly. Another rose head jumped from the stem and arched across the counter towards Aya-chan and Yohji.
"Aya-kun, please put down the clippers," Omi said politely. "Yohji-kun, are you sure you feel like going out for ice cream?"
"Of course, he does! I'm so glad he's back. It was such a lovely surprise for you to give me too! We'll see you in a little while," she said, moving towards the door, Yohji following along as if she were his tether.
The clippers ended point down in the counter, but at least no more roses met unprofitable ends. The bell rang as the door closed.
"Are we just going to let them leave? Yohji isn't right in the head right now, you know?" Ken said.
"Maybe, maybe this will help him." Omi said, "Ran? Ran, where are you going?"
There wasn't any answer from the older Fujimiya, and Omi wondered just want they were going to do about that. "Don't worry, Ken-kun. Don't worry." Omi would take care of that for both of them.
*****
For the longest time they just walked, hand in hand, past the shop where they bought ice cream, past the park. It was a slow walk and his hand was cool, almost sweaty sometimes, and she worried for him.
When she'd woken up, and her parents had been dead, her brother someone she hadn't known anymore, she'd felt so lost, as if she were just some left over problem that her brother had had to carry for so long. As she thought about that, she didn't find anything useful for helping Yohji, anything that seemed like a good thing to say.
He still held her hand, and she was afraid if she pulled it back, she'd lose him again.
"I'm hungry," she said, softly, as they passed a small restaurant claiming to sell American food, authentic burgers and fries.
"Do you want to get something to eat," he asked, looking up then, looking at her for the first time since they'd left the Koneko. "I can buy you something. Do you want a burger?"
"Sure, and we can share some fries and you can get a burger with bacon on it," she said, smiling kindly.
He looked back down at their hands and when he tried to pull back a little, she held on. "Okay. A burger for me too. Aya-chan, I don't know if I can go in there," he said, meaning the little restaurant.
"I wouldn't leave you standing here. I'd be too afraid to lose you again."
"Would that really be so bad? If I just disappeared?"
"Yes," she snapped, moving into his personal space and looking up into his eyes. "Yes, it would be very bad. I missed you so much. I love you."
"What if, what if I'm not the same anymore, what if I'm broken now?"
"What if I pierce my nose through the middle? Yohji, come sit down with me in the back, there and," she almost said, 'tell me what's wrong', but at the last moment, she hesitated over that tile and said, "eat with me."
"Okay," he said, trusting her when he couldn't trust himself. His stomach trusted her more than him too as it growled when they sat down. "I can't chose anything for myself right now," he said, and he didn't know why that should be true. It shouldn't be true. Always he'd made his own choices, good, bad, really bad -he'd chosen his own path and stood by it, but he couldn't right now, not even so much as choosing if he wanted a burger or a cheeseburger.
"It's okay, Yohji-kun," she said, still holding his hand across the table. It wasn't okay for her. It really wasn't. Yohji had been her ground when she started putting her life together again, his flippant rebellion and devotion to all things lovely, that had been the solid foundation she had built her sense of security on. "You're here and you're alive and that's all that matters right now."
"Okay," he said.
She felt him flinch when the waiter came to their table. She ordered for them, firm and business-like in the hope that the waiter would go away quickly and leave them alone in their back corner booth.
When they were alone again, she proved she was a Fujimiya, at least the practical part, "Are you hurt, Yohji? Physically?" There was no judgment in her voice, no pity, she might as well have been asking him if he wanted ketchup.
"Yes," he said, proving that he too might have Fujimiya somewhere in his history, for the brevity part.
She licked suddenly dry lips. Hurt meant more than a few busted ribs or something. The floral industry was very hard on Yohji and she'd seen him hurt before, so for that simple 'yes,' she knew it was more than she really wanted to know about or have to be the one dealing with it. "I passed my physics exam last week. And I lit a candle at the little shrine I set up for you in my apartment."
"Just a little one?" Yohji asked, and the smile was crooked, just a slight lift to half of his mouth, and it was the first genuine smile she'd seen out of him that day.
"Very small. I'm just a little college girl," she said, teasingly, "but I lit a candle for you every day, and prayed. I should have prayed more."
"Not your fault," he said, shifting as if something had suddenly pained him. "Maybe those prayers are why I'm here. I'm glad it was me, not Aya-chan."
"Yohji-kun, no matter what, I would want you here and me here, and for us to fight to be here. You and Ran are my family and I love you both so much. Yohji, I gave him the ring at your wake. I made them have a wake. Please don't be mad at me."
"I'm not mad," Yohji said, closing his eyes for a moment. Aya knew. Aya had the ring. Yohji's stomach threatened to throw back up the soup he hadn't even eaten. "Do you really think it was the right thing to do?"
"I love my brother, and I don't know him as well as I used to when he was Ran. And I don't care if you did call him Aya first, it's still stupid to call him by my name but whatever, so, Yohji, I love Ran too. He was hurting a lot after you were gone. I gave him the ring so he wouldn't be so alone, not just for you, but so he wouldn't feel so lost because he needed to know you love him. He just seemed to feel so guilty because he hadn't saved you."
"I bet," Yohji said, more bitter than Aya had expected, but his smile came back and his eyes opened again. "A little guilt can be good for a person."
Aya wasn't sure what she'd said, and she knew she wasn't decently trained as a therapist. She hadn't even told her protective brother that she wanted to study for that profession yet. "I know he would have saved you if he could have. He loves you. I just know he does."
"It must have been really fucking hard on him," Yohji said, but if Aya-chan said it, it was probably true. The light he'd been holding onto got bigger each moment as they sat there, talking. Ran had been racked with guilt. Yohji sat up a little straighter and attempted a french fry, and when that went well, he found himself actually hungry. "I'm sorry if it was hard on you though. I would never want to cause you pain, Aya-chan."
"Was it something you chose to do?" She said, again with the totally nonjudgmental tone, a smile as she bathed a fry in ketchup.
"No. I wanted to come home. I am home, right? I'm really here?"
"You are home, Yohji-kun. You are really here." She said. "Where are you going?"
"Bathroom," he said.
As he stood, a hand on the table to steady himself, she saw the way the his slacks clung to his left thigh.
"You'll be here when I come back, right?"
"Always, Yohji-kun. What happened to your leg? Is it bleeding?"
"Bleeding?" he asked.
And she saw it coming, saw the tilt to his head, and the way one knee started to bend.
"Don't!" he said as she moved towards him, "I'm okay! I'm fine!"
But he wasn't and he fell too quickly, not the way they do it in movies, not graceful, not clean, just a dropping of a man to the floor like his soul wasn't quite all there.
"Yohji-kun!" So quickly she was on her knees beside him, her phone out and the emergency number half dialed... when it clicked. Why he wasn't getting medical attention, why his self-esteem was so tattered, why he couldn't make choices, and what the last thing she'd talked to him about before he'd disappeared. He'd been going to tell her brother that he loved him, to come out to him.
She ended the call and dialed the shelter instead. "Maggie, hi, Maggie, this is Aya. I have a friend that needs some help. Can you get Shika to come down to the clinic? I need some help getting my friend there. It's important not to let anyone know. I think there may be gang activity."
"Aya-san what are you getting us into?" Maggie asked, her accent American and southern.
"What we always get into. We're going to help someone who's been battered."
***
TBC
***
Moimoi-chan - Yeah but, honestly, I need the harassing or I'll never get the story done. It's all of you guys that keep me motivated enough to keep writing... or bother Nix into writing a chapter for me. Though, I didn't actually "bother" her this time, she asked me if she could write this chapter and... who am I do say no? Buwahhahah XD
Blythe - Oooh! I'm really glad you're enjoying the story :D!! My heart hurts for Yohji to and... umm... I think both redheads need to be beaten at the same time. Though, honestly, they each have their fucked up motive for doing what they do so... I find it hard to really blame them and feel 100% in my conviction lol.
Zelda-13 - I agree, it's always nice to know at least ONE person will read and review your work. So yeah, when you put them up I'll try hard to find time to read and review them. ^_^
Rosemarykiss - Yay for reading the update XD!! Glad you got your fix :D
Uber bishy yotan - I'll write more but in the meantime... I'll let Nix entertain you lol. She's a much better writer than I am and if you get the chance, you should check out her stuff. It's all fairly yummy XD
One winged enjeru - You almost cried for Yotan? Awwww well... it starts to ge better from here on out. Grant, it's also gonna have a twist or two later but in the meantime... the healing begins! As for Aya... umm... I'm not sure if is or not... guess I'll have to find out as I write it lol ;).