Chapter 3

"Tadaima!" Omi called, slamming the front door behind him. Hiro leaned around the corner from the kitchen and waved to his lover in the entranceway.

"Okaeri nasai," he called back, smiling. In jeans and a sweater, with a backpack slung over his right shoulder, Omi could have been any typical college student coming home from classes. The last of the cuts had healed, his shoulder was fine - and with no more missions, there had been no new injuries to take their places. The permanent shadows under his eyes from all the sleep lost to missions had faded, and the darkness that had so often been present in his sweet blue gaze was a rare sight now.

Omi smiled back at him, the expression lighting up his face. "Whatever you're making, it smells good," he commented, kicking off his shoes and dropping his backpack in the hall. He rolled his shoulder to stretch out the sore muscles, grimacing. "I swear, carrying fertilizer and potted plants around all day was easier than hauling the tonne of books they want us to carry!"

Hiro grinned back at him, ducking back into the kitchen to stir the pot on the stove. "I'm making ramen," he said as Omi joined him, sniffing appreciatively. "It's not much, but I figured I should do something to celebrate the end of your midterms. How'd it go?"

"Pretty good," Omi replied, sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He laid his head in his arms, resting after a long day of exams. After a few weeks of sulking around the house being miserable, Hiroshi had forced his lover to do something to get his mind off the deaths of the children. Omi had signed up at a local university, taking a full course load and then some to help distract himself. "Next time I decide to take extra courses, remind me how I feel right now, please," he added wryly, turning to peer up at Hiro with one weary blue eye. "I knew my sensei in high school went easy on me because I was an 'orphan' and working to support myself, but I didn't realize just HOW easy I had it! These exams are killer!"

Hiro chuckled, and turned off the stove. "It's ready," he said, pouring the broth and noodles into two bowls. He set one before Omi with a pair of chopsticks and a mug of tea, and settled into his own place at the table.

Omi sat up and reached for his chopsticks, then hesitated. His gaze was focused on something over Hiro's shoulder, and he turned to see what had caught his lover's attention. The TV had been on while he cooked, providing background noise - the six o'clock news had just come on.

The lead story was a series of grisly video shots of five or six bloated bodies that had washed up in Tokyo harbour earlier that day, and the reporter was saying that police suspected the involvement of a local Yakuza group in the murders. Omi's eyes had gone dark, and his hand shook.

"Turn it off, please?" he asked quietly, and Hiro jumped up to comply. He turned back to see Omi staring down into his ramen, hands clenched tightly in his lap.

"Are you okay?" he asked, resting a hand on his lover's shoulder. Omi nodded, taking a shaky breath.

"Yeah," he muttered, sighing. "It's just... hard. As soon as I see something like that, I automatically start planning the mission, because that sort of stuff ALWAYS went to Weiss. Then I remember that... that there's nothing I can do to help anymore."

Hiro settled back into his chair, regarding the younger man across the table. "You know, maybe Manx was right, about you guys needing some time off," he commented hesitantly. "Watching the news shouldn't produce that sort of reaction, Omi. I think all four of you were coming close to getting burned out."

Omi smiled thinly. "I know," he replied, picking up his chopsticks again. "It was hard to see at the time, but we were all on edge. Everyone seems much happier now that we've settled into somewhat normal lives. Birman may even have been right - I know I'll eventually end up back in Kritiker, but I'm beginning to think none of the others will."

Hiro paused in the act of bringing some noodles to his mouth. "You will?" he asked, surprised. He got a tight feeling in the pit of his stomach - he'd thought the days of his having to worry about Omi coming home injured or worse were over. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face, because Omi smiled reassuringly.

"I doubt I'd be assigned to a field team, Hiro," he soothed his lover. "I'll probably end up back where I started, before Weiss was formed - doing preliminary research for other teams. Hacking, tracking computer trails, that sort of thing." He shrugged. "Why did you THINK I was taking the criminal psych and forensics courses, anyway?"

"I figured it was just stuff you'd become interested in through Weiss," Hiro replied, feeling the knot of tension ease a little inside him. What Omi was describing was a desk job, not something that would put him in the line of fire.

The rest of the meal passed in relative quiet, both of them happy just to be together. They didn't get to spend much time together these days, between Omi's studies and the tour Bad Luck had just completed. Finally Omi leaned back, smiling, his bowl empty.

"I brought the mail in with me," he commented, standing and stretching. "I'll go get it." He trotted off to the hall, returning momentarily with a stack of mail. He flipped through the envelopes rapidly. "Phone bill... internet bill... have I mentioned how much I HATE dial-up?" he added, rolling his eyes.

"Only ten times so far today," Hiroshi teased him in return. As addicted to the Internet as Omi was, the transition from the T1 connection he'd had at the Koneko to the 56K modem he had at their apartment had been difficult.

"Ooh, a letter from Aya-kun!" Omi squealed, dropping the rest of the mail to the table and hastily opening the letter. Hiro picked up the pile and started opening them one by one. Omi scanned his letter quickly, grinning at some parts and looking wistful at others. It was a surprisingly long letter, considering the sender - almost two whole pages.

"How is he?" Hiro asked idly as Omi reached the end and returned to the first page to read it more carefully. Ken and Youji had kept in touch; they had ended up moving in together just a few blocks away from Omi and Hiroshi, and the four of them sometimes met for dinner. The two men had, of all things, wound up opening their own little flower shop - "Stick with what you know," as Youji had put it with a wry grin. But Aya had followed his sister out to Kyoto, where he was attending classes of his own, and they didn't hear from him very often.

Omi smiled. "They're doing well," he said, his voice soft with affection. "Aya-kun says spending time with Aya-chan has been good for him, and he's really enjoying his classes. He's planning to visit in a couple of weeks - we'll have to go out to dinner with him or something. He says he misses Weiss, though - he's got the same problem as the rest of us, he can't stand watching the news." Omi chuckled. "For someone who had to be dragged back to Weiss kicking and screaming after Takatori's death, he's certainly gotten hooked."

"He did?" Hiroshi exclaimed, surprised. "I can't imagine that. How come?"

Omi shrugged. "Aya-kun originally joined Weiss for the sole purpose of getting revenge for his family's death," he replied idly. "There were a few missions where he totally abandoned the objective and the target because he caught a glimpse of Takatori and wound up chasing HIM instead - he was totally obsessed. Once Takatori was dead he didn't see any reason to continue in Weiss - all he wanted was to be left alone with his sister. But then Schwartz kidnapped Aya-chan for the summoning ceremony, and that was that."

Hiro grimaced. "I still can't believe they were actually trying to summon a demon," he muttered under his breath. As many times as he'd heard the story of Esstet's takeover attempt, it just didn't seem real. Demon summoning was something that happened in bad sci-fi movies, not in real life.

"Hey, this one's for you," Omi said, setting aside Aya's letter and flipping through the mail again. He nudged a plain white envelope addressed to "Nakano Hiroshi, Bad Luck" across the table. "Looks like fanmail!"

Hiro rolled his eyes. "The fangirls are the one part of being a musician I could really have done WITHOUT," he growled, but he opened the envelope and drew out the single sheet of heavy paper within.

He glanced at it, and for a moment his eyes didn't make sense of what he was seeing. Typed letters had been cut out of a magazine and pasted sloppily on the page like something out of a murder mystery, spelling out the words, "BAD LUCK ENDS, OR YOU DO!"

"Holy shit," he whispered, eyes wide. Omi glanced up and saw how pale he was.

"Hiro? What's wrong?"

Wordlessly Hiroshi slid the paper across the table to him. Omi took one look and his face went grim, that dark look sliding into his eyes again. He picked up the paper by its edges, examining it.

"Looks like all the letters were cut out of the same magazine," he said, his voice clinical and detached. Hiro watched him with fascination - he didn't often get to see Omi at 'work'.

"How do you know?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Because the typeface is all the same," Omi replied, "and the glossiness of the paper. It MIGHT be from several different issues of the same magazine, or the writer might have gone to the trouble of finding several magazines that had the same typeface and paper type, but I doubt it." He laid the paper down carefully on the envelope, and stood to go to the cupboards. He rummaged around, finally coming up with a plastic sandwich bag.

"Whoever it is, is an amateur," he commented, sliding the letter and envelope into the bag and sealing it. "I wouldn't worry about it too much - people who make vague threats like that tend to just be attention seekers, not a real threat. Give it to the police to dust for fingerprints, but they probably won't find anything after it's been through the mail and you've handled it like that. Unless you get more of them, it's not a big deal."

Hiro shook his head. "You look so innocent, it's easy to forget you know more about this sort of stuff than most policemen," he replied, picking up the baggie and twisting it to see the letter.

Omi smiled, the darkness fading from his eyes. "Not really," he demurred, sitting down again. "I got most of that from the Internet and spy movies. Stalkers really don't fall into Weiss' realm of operations, unless maybe if they're serial killers or something."

The phone rang, and Hiro leaned over in his chair to grab it off its cradle. "Nakano and Tsukiyono residence," he said. "Hiroshi speaking."

"Yo, Hiro!" Shuuichi bubbled on the other end, sounding more agitated than usual. "You'll never BELIEVE what I just got in the mail!"

Hiro glanced at the baggie still on his table. "A threat made of cut-up magazine letters?" he guessed, smiling a little.

Shuuichi audibly deflated. "How'd you know?" he asked, disappointed that he hadn't stumped his friend.

"Because I got one too, baka," Hiro replied with a snort. "Probably Fujisaki did as well."

"Yuki says we should just take it to the police and ignore it," Shuuichi confided. "He says he gets stuff like this all the time, that it doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, that's what we figured," Hiro answered. "We can give them to K tomorrow morning, I suppose - he'll know what to do with them. I'm sure Ryuichi got all kinds of death threats."

He could practically hear the stars light up in his friend's eyes. "We're famous enough to be getting death threats now!" Shuuichi exclaimed. "Do you know how COOL that is, Hiro?"

In the background he thought he heard Yuki mutter, "Baka", and Hiro chuckled. "Sure, Shuuichi," he replied. "Look, we'll talk about it in the morning, okay? I'll see you tomorrow at NG."

"Okay. Bye, Hiro!"

Hiro hung up the phone still chuckling. "Shuuichi is a nut," he commented to his boyfriend, who grinned back at him.

"Mochiron," Omi answered. "That's why you love him. He wouldn't be half as much fun if he were normal."

K had taken one look at the three letters the next morning, and said much the same thing Omi and Yuki had. "No big deal," he'd told them, shrugging. "The police will tell you the same thing. Though I'm surprised whoever it is bothered to send each of you one, rather than just mailing Bad Luck care of NG." He paused to think about it, then shook his head. "Probably they just knew that NG security would have disposed of it."

That seemed to be the end of it, and by a week later Hiroshi had nearly forgotten about the entire incident. He and Omi were hosting a party to celebrate NG's decision to produce a second Bad Luck album, due to the wild popularity of the first one. They were just setting out the take-out food they'd ordered - Chinese, pizza, and ramen - when the front door buzzer rang.

"I've got it!" Omi chirped, and jumped over the coffee table to reach the wall unit. "Hello?" he said, pressing the button.

"It's us!" Shuuichi replied.

"Come on up!" Omi told him, hitting the second button that would release the security door. After a few seconds he let go, returning to help Hiro with the last of the food.

The exuberant knock on the door coincided almost exactly with the ring of the buzzer, and Omi and Hiro traded amused looks. "I'll get the door, you get the buzzer," Hiro said, striding towards the door. Omi giggled and nodded.

Shuuichi was just winding up for another knock when Hiro pulled the door open. Shuuichi barely recovered in time to keep from punching his best friend in the face, and gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry," he said, and Hiro grinned at him.

"C'mon in, guys," he said, moving to let them past. "You've been here before, you know your way around. Make yourselves at home." Shuuichi bounded past him, heading straight for the food almost before he'd kicked his shoes off. Yuki entered with a little more decorum, giving Hiro a semi-friendly nod - his version of an enthusiastic greeting.

"That was Sakano, K and Fujisaki," Omi told them, turning from the wall unit. "They ran into each other downstairs. You might as well hold the door, Hiro - they'll be right up."

Hiro obediently held the door, peering down the hall to the elevators. Between Bad Luck's success and the money saved up from Weiss, he and Omi had been able to afford a decent condominium, rather than renting an apartment from month to month. They were on the fifteenth floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows all across one end of the living room giving a spectacular view of the Tokyo skyline. They'd gotten a two-bedroom unit, and used the second bedroom as a computer room for Omi while the 'den' became a soundproof practice room for Hiro. The building was well maintained, and the gym and pool on the ground floor were more than worth the dues they paid, even if they didn't have a lot of time to use the facilities.

The elevator doors opened with a discreet 'ding', and the three men they were waiting for exited. For once K actually had his suit jacket ON, and it covered the ever-present shoulder holster completely. Hiro wasn't sure if that would make Omi less nervous because he couldn't see it, ore MORE nervous because he couldn't keep track of it as easily.

Sakano seemed typically upset about something, fretting and twisting the hem of his own suit jacket until it was a mass of wrinkles. "What's up?" Hiro asked him, grinning.

"This was sticking out of the top of your mailbox downstairs," K said, pulling a slim envelope from his inside pocket. It was plain white, with no postmark or stamp, and had only the words 'Bad Luck' written on the front in blocky katakana.

Hiro felt a chill. "Another one?" he asked, taking the envelope gingerly from K as the three men entered the apartment.

"What's wrong, Hiro?" Omi asked, sensing his lover's distress. He came to stand by his boyfriend, eyes widening when he saw the envelope. "Don't touch it!" he cautioned as Hiro started to tear it open. "The police weren't able to get any clear fingerprints from the last one because you'd already handled it, but there WERE fingerprints."

"Right," Hiro nodded. By this time Shuuichi and Yuki had joined them, Shuuichi practically bouncing up and down with his impatience to know what was going on. "What do we do with it, then?"

"What is it, Hiro?" Shuuichi demanded. Hiro held up the envelope so he could see it, and his eyes widened. "Ooh, we got another one? Cool! Does that mean we're twice as popular?"

"Baka," Yuki smacked him on the head. "That was hand-delivered - you said it was in the mailbox?" he asked K.

"On top of it," the American replied.

"It wasn't there when we came through. That means whoever it was must have come in just after we went up but before you came in." He frowned. "Do you have any tweezers or something we can use to open it without damaging any evidence?" he asked Hiro.

"I do!" Omi exclaimed, and scampered off towards the computer room. He returned moments later with two pairs of different sized tweezers. "I use them for setting jumpers and connecting small wires," he told the group as he took the envelope and opened it gingerly.

Using the larger tweezers, he pulled the single sheet of heavy paper out. He unfolded it, and they all crowded around to see.

"It's typed this time," Omi noted, tilting the paper a bit. "Still no watermark, but that looks like an inkjet printer. The police should be able to tell what make and model, at least, though I'm not sure if that will help."

"I know you're all there," Hiro read aloud, the chill in his gut growing with each word. "I'm watching you. Call NG and tell them that Bad Luck is breaking up, or one of you will die."

As one they all turned to look at the large plate-glass window, automatically searching for some sign of an observer. "If we pick up the phone, how do they know we're calling NG and not the police?" Fujisaki wondered aloud.

"Easy enough," Omi replied absently, eyes still intently scanning the skyline after everyone else had turned away again. "They obviously know where we live, and they've been watching long enough to know that we were all going to be here tonight. They could pose as building maintenance or a window washer, and plant a listening device somewhere in or near the apartment..." he broke off when Hiro nudged him with his elbow, and blushed as he realized everyone was staring at him. "Err... I read a lot of mystery novels," he offered as an explanation.

K gave him a sharp look, but didn't comment. "So, whoever it is, they're probably watching and listening right now, is that it?" he asked instead. Omi nodded. "Wonderful. How are they planning to kill one of us?"

"Assuming it's not an empty threat, a sniper through the window would be simplest," Omi replied grimly, eyeing the building across from them.

"We're not actually planning to listen to this freak, are we?" Shuuichi demanded, incensed.

"Of course not," Hiroshi replied. "But I think maybe we'd all better go into the main bedroom - the window there face a different direction and is much smaller, and we can call the police from there..."

"LOOK OUT!" Omi snapped abruptly, flinging himself at Shuuichi. They hit the ground in a tumble, Shuuichi protesting loudly. There was a cracking noise and a tiny hole appeared in the window, webbed around with cracks that spread rapidly. There was another hole in the wall just about where Shuuichi's head had been, and everyone stared at it in disbelief. "Get DOWN," Omi insisted, tugging on Hiro's ankle. K was already down beside Omi and Shuuichi, taking cover behind the couch with his gun drawn and ready, peering around the corner.

Belatedly Hiro started to drop to his knees, reaching out to grab Fujisaki's arm to take him down as well. Another cracking noise sounded, and fire blossomed in his shoulder. "Ah, shit!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his left shoulder and feeling blood making his palm sticky. "I'm hit!"

"One at a time, into the bedroom - stay as low as you can and move FAST," Omi ordered them, his face set and cold. He gave Hiro's shoulder a cursory examination. "Flesh wound," he declared after a moment. "It grazed your shoulder as you dropped - you moved at just the right moment. Keep pressure on it, you'll be fine." He reached out and shoved at Sakano, pushing him out of the scant cover of the sofa. "Get moving," he insisted. "That's a high-powered sniper rifle, it'll blow through this couch like paper." As if to emphasise his point, another crack sounded and a hole was torn through the stuffing of the couch. K muffled an exclamation as it struck his thigh, using the hand that wasn't holding the gun to clamp down on the wound. Sakano scrambled for the bedroom, whimpering.

"Fujisaki - GO!" Omi said, but his hand flew out to grab the boy's shoulder and hold him still. His instincts were good - another bullet whined through the air just beyond the couch, as the listening sniper expected the keyboardist to emerge. Instantly Omi shoved the boy's shoulder, and Fujisaki made it to the bedroom without injury.

Omi gestured at Hiro and Shuuichi, and indicated the door to the computer room with a silent nod. It was almost directly across from the couch, which meant they wouldn't be visible to the sniper until the last moment before they reached the door. 'Close the door behind you,' Omi mouthed to Hiro, who nodded. "Hiro - GO!" he said aloud, and Hiro scrambled for the computer room, Shuuichi at his side. As Omi had anticipated, the sniper had been aiming at the side of the couch, expecting his target to emerge there - he didn't manage to shift his aim quickly enough, and the bullet bit into the wood of the door Hiroshi slammed behind them.

He tugged his best friend under the computer desk, not trusting the flimsy door to stop the bullets. "Now what?" Shuuichi hissed, eyes wide. "And how the hell does Omi KNOW all this stuff?"

"He's a genius, he watches a lot of movies, and he's taking a double minor in criminal psychology and forensics on top of his computer degree, Shuuichi," Hiro reminded him, hoping the explanation would suffice.

"Hiro, call the police," Omi called to them, his voice now coming from the direction of the kitchen. "Our landline's been cut. Yuki and K are in the music room. The sniper was shooting from the third apartment on the right, sixteenth floor of the building across from us - he'll bolt as soon as he realizes we've called the police, but they can check for clues.

Hiro dug into his pocket for his cell phone, trying to ignore the burning pain in his shoulder. He flipped the antenna up and punched the emergency number. "This is Nakano Hiroshi," he told the man who answered the line. "I've got a sniper firing into my apartment - we're all under cover now, but we've got two shot, one is a flesh wound and the other one looks serious." He reeled the address off quickly, and added in what Omi had told him about the location of their attacker.

"A sniper?" the man repeated incredulously. "This had better not be a joke..."

"YES," Hiro gritted through clenched teeth. "A sniper. I'm a member of the band Bad Luck - we've been getting death threats, and apparently they weren't bluffing."

"The ambulance is on its way, sir - the police will check the apartment the sniper was in first," the officer replied, something in Hiro's voice apparently convincing him. "Stay under cover - the gunman may not have left yet."

It seemed to take hours for the paramedics to arrive, every minute of which Hiro cursed whoever it was that was attacking them. He wanted to know if K was all right, but the soundproofing in the music room meant that Yuki and K wouldn't be able to hear them with the door shut.

Finally there was a pounding on the front door. "Medics!" came the hurried shout.

"Guys, stay under cover," Omi instructed them all, and Hiro heard him moving around. Thankfully, it was possible to reach the front door from the kitchen without going through the living room. "Show me your ID," Omi demanded of the medics at the door.

"Are you kidding me?" one of them replied. "I thought you had wounded!"

"We do, and I'm making sure we won't have any more," Omi replied coldly. "We just had someone shooting at us - and it's been more than long enough since they fired the last shot for them to have made it over here and be pretending to be the paramedics. Slide your ID under the door."

Hiro had never heard his lover sound so cold and unmoveable before, and he shivered. "Damn, Omi's kicking ASS," Shuuichi whispered, sounding like he was in awe. After a long moment, the sound of the front door opening reached Hiro.

"The police checked the building, there's no sign of the sniper," Omi told them a moment later as he opened the door to the computer room. His eyes flicked over Hiro and Shuuichi, assessing them for further damage. "You can come out now - but get into the kitchen as quickly as possible, just in case. I made the paramedics wait in there." The too-familiar darkness was present in his blue eyes, and the skin around his lips was white as he pressed them tightly together. Hiro could see the strain this was putting on him.

He stood shakily and headed for the kitchen, watching Omi move on to tell Sakano and Fujisaki it was clear. K was already there, the paramedics doing a hasty bandage job to stop the bleeding long enough to get him to a hospital. One of them took a moment to examine Hiro's shoulder.

"Flesh wound," he echoed Omi's earlier assessment. "Doesn't even need stitches - you got lucky. I'll just put some antiseptic on it and bandage it - change the bandage once a day and put more antiseptic on for the next week."

Omi entered the small room with Fujisaki and Sakano in tow, making it crowded. "How's K?" he asked, still sounding detached from the situation.

"Christ, that kid is cold," Hiro heard one of the medics mumble under his breath, giving Omi a sideways look. Omi didn't miss the comment, but other than a flicker of his eyes he showed no reaction.

"He'll be fine - it missed the artery, but it didn't go all the way through," another medic answered. "The couch must have slowed it down enough that it didn't have the force to punch through. We just need to get him to the hospital and get the bullet out."

"Good," Omi nodded, and turned to Hiroshi. The darkness in his eyes faded a bit as he gazed at his lover, replaced by fear and worry. He reached out to touch the dressing on Hiro's shoulder, and Hiro forced himself not to wince. "Are YOU okay?" he asked softly.

Hiro pulled him into a tight hug. "Thanks to you," he whispered in reply. "You saved all our lives, Omi."

"Remind me never to argue with you anytime you feel like tackling me," Shuuichi added shakily, clinging to Yuki. The taciturn author didn't even make a token protest, stroking the vocalist's hair soothingly. The taller man was watching Omi closely, his face suspicious, but he said nothing.

"Hopefully it will never come up again, Shuuichi," Omi replied wearily. Hiro could feel the subtle shaking that was starting in his lover's limbs, and he guided him to a chair as the medics carried K out on a gurney. Two uniformed police officers and a man in a suit came through the door as the medics left.

The suit flashed a badge, his dark eyes rapidly assessing the situation, much as Omi had done just moments before. "My name is Detective Kurosaki," he said, his voice rough as though he'd spent a lifetime smoking. "And I'd like to ask you all a few questions..."

|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Epilogue|

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