Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Watch Me As I Fade Away ❯ Stranger and Stranger! ( Chapter 6 )

"Ken san?"

"Ken san?"

Huh? Oh. Yohji's talking to me. "What?"

"Are you alright Ken san? You sort of spaced out for a minute there."

No kidding! I think that last bit of info just sent my brain on overload. How can Yohji be a Takatori?! It doesn't make any sense at all. What am I thinking?! Of course it doesn't make sense. The fact that I'm sitting in a throw-back version of Japan and talking to a Yohji who looks more like Ruroni Kenshin than Yohji Kudoh…oooh boy…..I definitely need to stop expecting things to make sense. And what to do about this? Oh man oh man….Nothing. That's what I'll do. Yohji definitely does not need to hear about my take on things Takatori. Besides, no technology means no bombs, guns or cars. He's obviously still a jerk, but maybe this Takatori's not quite as bad as the one where I'm from? Hmmm….

"Ken san?!"

I feel Yohji poking my arm. Oops, I guess I did it again.

"Oh! Sorry Yohji, I was just thinking. An awful lot has happened to me the past few hours, and I got distracted. But I'm fine."

"Are you hungry?" Yohji pulls a plate seemingly out of nowhere and offers it to me. "I brought this with the tea. I didn't know what you might eat though! You probably have all sorts of weird foreign food now! Do you know mochi? It was the best thing I could find in the kitchen."

I have a hard time not laughing at the worried expression on his face. He sounds just like Omi! Hehe…

"Don't worry, Japan still has mochi! And I like it a lot, thanks." I take one of the little pink cakes off the plate.

"Oh, and something else," I suddenly remember, "please don't call me Ken san, it sounds strange hearing you say something so formal to me."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I call you Ken kun instead?"

"That seems odd coming from you as well. Just call me Ken."

"Or," I add on a whim, "you could use my nickname. The Yohji I know always called me KenKen."

"KenKen?" Yohji echoes.

"Yeah, he always called me that to annoy me."

"But I don't want to annoy you." Replies Yohji, puzzled.

"Well, you see, it doesn't actually annoy me. I'd just pretend it did, you know, to seem cool."

"Being annoyed is cool?" Hm, Yohji's not getting this.

"No, no, no. It's not that. It's the nickname that's not cool. It sounds sort of young, doesn't it? So I'd pretend I didn't like it so I wouldn't come off as young. Get it?"

Yohji frowns.

"And Yohji knew that I was just pretending to get annoyed. Otherwise he wouldn't have kept calling me that. But he was pretending to try and annoy me to keep up his image. Cause Yohji acts like he's cooler than everyone. See?"

"Is he?"

"Is he what?"

"Cooler than everyone?"

"Well, I'd never admit it to that Yohji, but yeah. More or less."

"Oh." Yohji rubs the back of his head. "How confusing."

"Just call me KenKen and don't worry about it."

"Um, okay." Yohji picks up a green mochi and thoughtfully takes a bite of it. "Do I have one?" he suddenly asks.

"Have what?"

"A nickname. I always wanted one, but no one here likes me enough to have given me one."

"Oh. Yeah, you do. Sometimes we call you Yotan."

"Yotan?" Yohji seems to be trying out the sound of it. He then looks up at me and smiles. "Yotan. I think I like that. Would you mind calling me that, then?"

I smile back. "Sure thing, Yotan."

For a few minutes we sit and eat in silence. Yohji goes back to playing with my wallet. He's now become particularly fascinated with the 1000 yen bill I had in there. He keeps holding it up and looking at the watermark.

"It's so pretty! I can't believe this is actually money. I wouldn't want to spend it!"

I can't hold back the laughter this time.

"What's so funny?" He asks.

"It's just strange hearing you say that!" I explain, "My Yohji wouldn't think twice about spending a whole stack of those. He really likes to buy stuff."

"A whole stack?!" Yohji's eyes grow wide. "But that's so much money! I wouldn't even be able to spend one of these. A thousand yen. Wow!"

I shrug. "It's not that much, really. It's barely enough to get you four cups of coffee."

His eyes grow even wider now. "Oh, Coffee! I've heard of that. I've always wanted to try coffee! It's too rare though. I'd never be able to afford some."

"Oh. Where I'm from we have it every single morning. It's pretty good, but hardly anything spectacular. Although, you do love it there. You usually have four or five cups every day."

"I knew I'd like it." Yohji mutters dreamily, before looking back at me again. "I want to know more. Tell me more about your Yohji, please."

Hm, how to describe Yohji to Yohji? This should be interesting….

"Well, lets see….For starters, your hair is shorter there. It's only down to about your shoulders. When you pull your hair back, some of it always falls around your face. And you almost always have sunglasses on, too. If you're not wearing them, then you put them on your head."

"What are sunglasses?"

"Um, they're like regular glasses-you do have eyeglasses here, right?-only the glass is darker."

"Oh. Uncle wears eyeglasses. But how do you see if the glass is dark?"

"You know, I've asked Yohji that many times myself." I chuckle. "He doesn't wear them to be practical, they're part of his image."

"His image of being annoying?" Yohji asks, still confused.

Haha, when I get back I'm gonna have a lot of fun telling Yohji about this version of himself….. "No, his image of looking cool."

"That doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't, but it seems to work for him. He gets more girls then anyone I've ever met."

"I think you're making that up to make me feel better." Yohji says with a frown.

"I'm not! It's the honest-to-god truth. Yohji can get any girl he wants in my world." Or any guy as well, apparently I add in my head, remembering the eerie conversation I had with Kase a few hours ago.

"I'm afraid I just can't believe that." Yohji says, shaking his head. "But go on anyway, I still want to know more."

"Well, lets see, you have a tattoo on your arm…."

"Really?! What's it of?"

"Um…I've never gotten too good a look at it. It's some sort of symbol….like a sword? No a cross. It's an upside-down cross, I think…with, erm…wings around it. I think. And it says something in English. It's some sort of question."

"You don't know what it says?" He asks hopefully.

"No, I'm afraid not. He told me once, but I can't remember. My English is pretty lousy."

"Stranger and stranger!" Yohji mutters to himself. "I've got a question on my arm that no one can read! How mysterious!"

"Well, some people can read it, just not me. I'm very slow at learning languages."

"Ah. Well, I still think it's neat." Yohji says, smiling, "Maybe someday I'll get a tattoo too."

"I don't think you should, actually." I answer, a bit more solemnly. "I'm fairly certain that Yohji only got it because of the bad thing in his past. He gets this sad, glazed over expression whenever he looks at it."

"Oh." Yohji strokes his arm thoughtfully. "Well, maybe I'll get mine because of a good thing. Meeting you has been a good thing. It's so nice to have someone to talk to! Then when I looked at my arm, I wouldn't feel lonely."

Oh, Dude, I did not just hear that. Yohji getting a tattoo to remind him of me?! The weird-o-meter is now broken. I think I'm blushing.

"Um…er…ack! Right. Anyway….." Smooth Ken, real smooth. "Your best friend is this guy named Omi. The two of you always hang out and play pranks on me."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Yohji looks guilty and he didn't even do anything!

"No, no. It's okay." I laugh, "I don't really mind. I'm an easy target, anyway."

"Oh. Alright then. Tell me about Omi now!"

"Okay. Omi is really nice. I don't get it, all sorts of bad things have happened to him, yet he's always cheerful. And he can cheer everyone else up too. He's practically your sidekick. You two do stuff together all the time."

"He sounds great." Yohji sighs. "I wish I could meet him."

Oh! I'm so stupid! Why didn't I remember this sooner, when I was trying to convince him to believe me?! I pull my wallet off the table and dig through the back of it.

"I just remembered! I have a picture of us! Hang on a sec, and I can show you what he looks like."

Ah, there it is! It's a little banged up, but it's got all four of us in it. I like this picture a lot. It's not all posed, and Aya is actually looking something other than bored. That happens to be because I'd just thrown my soccer ball at Omi, who in turn ducked, causing it to smack Yohji in the head. Aya is smirking in approval, heh heh. I think it captures us rather well, actually.

"There, that's Omi, right next to you." I explain, handing the photo to him.

The change in Yohji's face is immediate. He goes completely rigid.

"There must be some mistake." He says. "The person in this picture cannot possibly be my friend."

I'm confused. "Why not? What's wrong, Yotan?"

"That's my brother, Marmoru."

He sets the picture down on the table and looks up at me coldly.

"I hate him."