Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Living Shinigami ❯ Photographs ( Chapter 9 )

“Living Shinigami”

Chapter Nine

Photographs

Wufei was telling Tsuzuki the story of Duo and Heero’s first meeting when Hisoka re-entered the living room. The young appearing man yelped as he found himself suddenly in a headlock.

“I knew he’d take after you,” Tsuzuki said in mock anger. “He didn’t even wait until he was seventeen to shoot his partner.”

“I didn’t actually shoot you, baka,” the blond said, tickling his husband until he was released. “Just threatened.”

“He held a gun to my head and accused me of being a vampire,” Duo’s father said matter-of-factly. “Watari would have been digging bullets from my brain.”

“And you would have been complaining the entire time,” Hisoka concluded. “Go make some tea. At least that we won’t be poisoned from.”

Wufei blinked. “I take it Duo didn’t get his cooking skills from his father.”

“Thank Enma, no,” Hisoka said with a shock of the head. “I started teaching Hijiri to cook when he was four.”

“Thank Nataku. Once we realized that Quatre couldn’t cook and how bland Heero’s cooking was, Duo ended up cooking a third of our meals during the war,” Wufei said, smiling. He didn’t notice how the shinigami’s eyes flickered in response to the name.

-

In the world of the living, the other three former pilots stood in front of the apartment belonging to one Duo Maxwell, Preventor agent Night. In fact, they’d been standing there for a while. When the suggestion to search for clues in said apartment had been made, they’d forgotten one key detail.

None of them had a key.

“So, do either of you know how to pick a lock without destroying it?” Quatre asked casually. “All of my methods involve acid or explosions, and I’d rather not get Duo or his landlord mad at me.”

“Wufei was the only one Duo was teaching,” Trowa said with a frown, arms crossed over his chest. He glared at the lock.

Click.

Millardo had to laugh at the faces of the three younger men were making as he opened the door, spray bottle in hand. “Or you could have just knocked.”

“Millardo, what are you doing here?” Quatre asked warmly, walking past the jaded prince as he stepped aside to let them in. “I thought you lived on the other side of town now.”

“I do,” Millardo said. When the last had entered, he shut the door. “I’m just here to water his plants and take care of Byakko-chibi.”

Byakko-chibi was Duo’s tabby, a fat, lazy, and, according to Wufei, possessed by Satan cat. It had ridden on the braided man’s shoulder into the office one day. They had promptly learned that Une was violently allergic to cats. The sneezing and red-eyed woman chased pilot and feline out of headquarters with a sword quickly borrowed from Wufei.

“Did you clean as well?” Heero asked, looking around the main room of the apartment. During the war, Duo’s half of the room would look like a hurricane had skipped through it within a day of his arrival anywhere. The living room he stood in was neat, not to the Stepford level, but it was neat.

“Na, it was like this when I got here,” the man said. “Duo’s usually pretty neat. Made living with him for two years a lot easier.”

“Heero,” Quatre whispered, shock and awe in his voice. The blond and his partner stood near the far wall, where several framed photos sat on a small rectangular table. The faces of strangers looked out at them, smiling, some alone, some with others, some with a child who was undoubtedly Duo.

“They must have been in the packages he didn’t open in the lobby,” Trowa said, laying an arm over Quatre’s shoulder. He tapped the glass over a photograph of Duo playing with the hair of a blond man in a lab coat with glasses. “Watari?”

“Looks like,” Heero said. Blue eyes scanned over the table. “Still no parents.”

“I think we found whom we can blame for his hair,” Quatre said, picking up a silver frame styled after a Chinese dragon. The picture was of a man and a baby. The baby’s eyes were wide, laughing, and violet. The man’s black hair pooled around him as he sat, and the millionaire thought that it would still lie on the ground if he stood. The man wore old-fashioned clothes, and a battered sword lay on the ground in front of them.

“Name’s Kurikara,” Millardo informed them, glancing over their shoulders. Not quite sure on the relation. The four of you got here before he could tell me.”

“He seems to know a lot of people,” Heero commented, blue eyes scanning over the many faces represented. He nodded toward one picture in particular that looked over a richly decorated ballroom filled with people in elaborate costumes. “Wealthy people.”

“Why did he ever leave this life?” Quatre asked, a little sad as he caught sight of three year-old Duo grinning while he held tightly onto a bag of goldfish. The toddler Preventor was dressed in a black yukata printed with white outlines of butterflies. The hand that was not occupied with the fish held tightly to the larger hand of a similarly clad man. Unfortunately, the top of the photo cut off pretty much everything above his waist. “Do you think that was his father?”

“It’s possible,” Trowa said, taking a careful look at the ring the man wore, comparing it with several other photos where a hand would be resting on Duo’s shoulder, holding a second crayon, or lifting him up. “He’s in quite a few.”

“If that’s his father, then these must be of his mother,” Quatre said, pointing to a series of smaller hands found in the edges of photos. “The rings match. The photographer seemed very careful not to put them clearly into the frame.”

“I asked Duo about that, actually,” Millardo said. “Something about pictures of them being highly regulated. So are some of him, actually. Have you ever noticed that every picture you print with him in it takes longer to process, and that some suddenly delete themselves altogether?”

Yes, they had noticed that particular detail, just like they’d noticed that video cameras never worked well in the self-proclaimed Shinigami’s presence. It made proving that Duo was behind pranks hell.