Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ When It Rains, It Pours ❯ Never, Have I Ever [Aya] ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I dun own these people! @-x My muses are just so darned promiscuous…

"Never, Have I Ever"
By Koyuki Aode
~...~ = thoughts


Ken is doing it again.

Brazen fingers fly over the buttons as he puts the receiver against his ear. "Hey.. Youji?"

He's... watching me.

"Yeah, it *is* a good thing I caught you before you turned it off... Well, now you have something to do. You won't believe..."

As he speaks with our teammate, his chestnut eyes follow my mopping, without much discretion. I'm not sure if he does it unknowingly, or with some conscious motive, but he's been doing it a lot lately. It can get pretty creepy.

At least he's not blushing this time.

Looking slightly disgruntled, Ken's mouth twitches, and he listens to the "old man" before turning to me. "Ok, hold on." Chocolate strands shift as he lifts his head for eye contact. "Aya, he's wondering why you weren't watching Omi."

I pause in mopping and stare back.

"Well?"

A breath escapes my lungs as I stifle a snort. "Why would I have watched him? He can take care of himself..."

"He says Omi can take care of himself..." Again, Ken tilts his head and listens. Then he looks up. "Yeah..." Chestnut orbs breach mine, as he relays Kudou's words to me. I know what he's going to say and I follow the sentence with my thoughts. "Most of the time."

After more listening, Ken nods and hands me the phone, taking the mop from my grip. "Wants to talk to ya." I take the receiver as he turns to continue mopping, questioning him silently.

A peek of chestnut looks back at me. "Go ahead, I'll listen in from here."

The receiver feels warm against my ear, and I inhale his clean scent before speaking. "Nani?"

"Oi! The kid finally hits trans-emotional puberty, and you don't even watch him?!" Youji's fast voice tumbled through the receiver. "Do you have any *idea*--"

"He's fine."

"He's angsty. Yeah, I'm the old one, and hell, that means I know more, but not everything. You knew about this. You should've watched."

"I listened. That was enough."

"You weren't listening enough. It takes more than your ears to help a friend."

"He was drunk. What else was I supposed to do?"

Friend? Is that why he had spoken to me that night? My thoughts clouded to the conversation.

*

Omi had had only about two and a half small cupfuls - having snuck into our reserve - before I heard the crash from the kitchen. I had taken to sitting in my room in silence for the entire day, which encompassed some very lazily passed free time as Youji and Ken had flower duty. The sudden interruption was a loud one. The book that had found a home in my hands was ripped from my grasp by the invisible force of surprise, and I jumped up, unconsciously reaching for my weapon.

Finding a bat to my liking, I picked it up and slipped out of my room. "Omi," I called out warily, seeing nothing but undisturbed rooms in the apartment.

"A.. Aya-kun..." Omi was crawling sluggishly from the kitchen, the essence of sake weighing heavily in the air. When he saw me approach, he looked up sheepishly, a pitiful look in his glazed cerulean stare. Already, I could see his cheeks turning red, and he looked like he was having trouble focusing on me.

My head snapped down at him and I glared as best as I could. "What the hell were you doing?" It was obvious, but also illegal. Also, we were scheduled to go on a mission later, and there he was, compromising it all.

"Gomen. I just thought... I thought..." He bent his head down, closing his eyes as if bracing for a wave of pain. After a minute passed, I knew he wouldn't look up again, so I bent to help him.

"Come on, I'll help you to your room."

Omi nodded, breathing lightly and quickly. "I'm sorry," I heard him stifle a groan, and his voice sank to a weak whisper. "I don't think I'm taking this too well." The last few words ended in a squeak. His eyes were still closed, and his face scrunched.

I rolled my eyes and picked him up.

His head hit my shoulder as I carried him, and his eyes opened again, focusing on nothing. He felt absurdly warm for the little he drank, and his partial-wheezing was harsh against my ear, and it was easy to tell after his first time drinking... Omi is allergic to sake.

...

"Baka." He lay in his pristine bed, almost dead drunk and trying his best to hold a conversation with me as his head lolled this way and that. I watched him from my position by the door, preparing to turn the light off to ease his eyes. His hair sparkled in the pale shine, like a bundle of spindled gold, being blown about by stuttering breath.

"I've just been stressed out... really. That's all. With this school break, and time to myself. We weren't even assigned a mission until yesterday. It's so hard, not being busy..."

"That doesn't mean you have to drink. You're underage, and now you've found out you're allergic. This isn't really helping you. And we have a mission today--"

"--I know." He cut me off.

I flicked the lights off, leaning against the door to watch the glow of Tokyo evening radiate from his sheets. A silence came between us, but he controlled it completely, shifting his gaze in the dark to see me. "You've never spoken to me this much before, Aya-kun."

Four sentences? I've never said more than four sentences to him?

"I wasn't sure if you would care about me drinking. I was hoping you would, in case I got out of hand. I guess I never got a chance to get out of hand..."

"Why?"

"Time is a good thing to have, isn't it? I thought I'd never get a break between school, missions, and the flower shop, but Ken and Youji have been pretty lenient for me. And now that I have the time - too much time - it's killing me."

This caused me to lick my lips. I knew exactly what he meant. Right after my parents died, and my sister was knocked into her coma, I wanted revenge... but my life had been so empty afterwards. I knew what I wanted, and that was the only thing I could do afterward - focus on what I wanted. Moments alone, harboring anger and sadness, was all that consumed my time. Before I had been hired to kill, I had too much time on my hands.

He took my silence as an acceptance and continued. "It's not the loneliness, really, so much as the thinking. I can't help thinking. It struck me today..."

"What?"

"Everyone in my family is dead, except for me. And I'm not even part of that family."

"Omi, you--"

"--I can't erase it, and I don't blame you, Aya-kun. But it's so... It disturbs me. People I would know, if I could remember them, and probably had some good memories with. For a portion of my life, they *were* my family. It's twisted that most of them wanted to hurt me, yes, but... I can't help feeling attached anyway."

He was excluding Ouka and Persia from his thoughts, with good reason.

"It's something I can't help poring over with my mind. Just a hindering feeling of some sort of pathetic survival."

"Hn." I nodded my agreement.

"You really need to talk more, Aya-kun." His slurring tongue was slowing down. "I'll - no - we'll understand. It's not that hard, really." He stared up at the cieling, cerulean orbs eerily catching the moonlight. "People are so similar to each other, it's frightening. Sure, we're all different in our own ways, and we have different reactions to the same things but... we're still human. And as human beings, the collective, there are certain things we all do feel. Well, most of us, anyway. There are people like Schwarz who exist."

His voice turned at the name and he shifted in bed. His tongue was nearing a complete stop. "I wish you would talk more, sometimes. Some noise wouldn't be so bad around here..." He trailed off into a barely audible whisper.

He turned away from me and sighed loudly. "G'night.. Aya-kun. Tell 'em I'm sorry... for the mess and for the mission... All of the info is on the computer desk."

Before I left, the sparkle of a few wet streaks along his cheeks caught my eye. The reflected moonlight shimmered at me, urging me to go on.

*

I had been his confidante that night. He had chosen to wait until I was the one with a day off. He wanted to be my confidante.

"Okay, guy, hold on. I think I've found him... Oh SHIT!" I cringe as his tires screech to a stop. "Schwarz?! Three of them!"

"Schwarz?!"

Ken issues a grunt of warning to catch my attention. He's standing in front of me, gripping the mop tightly and questioning me with flecks of danger in his eyes. "Aya, what's going on?"

Youji's voice undulates between anger and worry as he curses. "F***ing idiot kid, I swear I'll beat him myself once we get back." The car engine stops and he continues ranting. "Depression, drinking... chasing after Schwarz bastards! Our lifestyle doesn't exactly *support* tha--"

Ken grabbed the phone from me. "Youji, what's going on?!" I watched as his face twisted darkly. "Where are you? Uh huh. Yeah..." Again, his chestnut gaze fell upon me. "Go ahead, they probably won't give a-- What are they doing? No-yeah-you go, we'll be there." He hung up. "Aya--"

"--Tsunami Cafe."

He blinks at me, mouth prepared to give the news. "How'd you know that?"

I feel like a complete idiot, finally noticing the advertisement Omi has tacked to the wall. That's where we've been ordering lunch from for the past month.

A sight of crimson dripping from pale hands permeated my thoughts, and I snap back to Ken's urging eyes. "Aya, we've got to hurry."

Damn. It's all been set, for so long.

"Let's go."