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Chapter 4 I must have stood staring at him blankly for a good minute or two before I finally came up with something to say. "What the hell?" Okay, so it wasn't a particularly intelligent thing to say. But I'd never really been noted for my intelligence, and at least it let me quit just gaping like a fish out of water. Omi sighed, then carefully gathered the lax body against him, fighting to get to his feet. I moved to help him and he gave me a surprised look, but let me support some of Nagi's weight. Most of it, actually - not that there was much to support. The kid was skin and bones, and weighed about as much as a feather. He was even paler than Ran, and there was just something about him that screamed 'sickness', even beyond the fact that he was hanging unconscious between us. Omi directed me with a jerk of his head down the hallway, and together we maneuvered Nagi down the hall and into the bedroom. Once past the door, I was gaping again. Given the run-down state of the apartment and general feeling of edge-of-poverty the whole place had, it probably should have occurred to me to wonder what had happened to all the money Omi was making with those hits. Now I didn't have to ask - most of it was sprawled out before me. The bedroom looked like it had been lifted from a high-tech hospital and accidentally set down here. Beeping monitors were everywhere, a complicated-looking IV stand was by the bed-head, and the bed itself was right out of a futuristic novel. We gently lifted the senseless boy back into the bed, where he'd clearly been until just recently, judging by the rumpled sheets and the frantically flashing monitors. Omi re-hooked several electrodes to various places on Nagi's body, and expertly slid the IV needle into his arm. He worked quickly and efficiently, as though he'd done all this many times before, and could do it now in his sleep. "He won't wake up for an hour or more," he informed me in hushed tones, as I stood back and stared at him working. Omi bit his lip in a familiar worried gesture, and smoothed the sweaty bangs back off the boy's head. "He KNOWS he shouldn't be using his powers like that - but he's so protective of me." The ex-Weiss member sighed, then turned and gestured for us to leave the room. Once back in the living room, I found myself perching awkwardly on the edge of the couch, watching as Omi sat on the floor and expertly disassembled, cleaned, and oiled the sniper rifle he'd used in the hit. It was an eerie experience, something I never thought I'd be seeing. Omi had always disliked guns. "Well?" He asked me, watching me as he worked. As with the medical equipment, his fingers obviously knew what they were doing without any direction from his eyes. "Ask anything you want. It's pointless trying to hide now." "How long have you been with him?" It was the first question that came to mind. Immediately other, possibly more important questions crowded in - 'why are you killing people?' for one - but I decided to wait and see what his answer would be. He sighed, and his rapid movements over the gun barrel slowed. He looked almost hesitant. "About... four years, now." That was NOT the answer I'd been expecting. I was beginning to feel like 'fish-out-of-water' was going to be a permanent look for me. "HUH?" I returned intelligently. He blushed slightly. "It's not what you think! We met on the internet, long before Schwartz and Weiss ever knew of each others existence, much less faced off in battle. We hit it off, and talked a lot in chats... you know how Youji was always accusing me of spending all my nights online looking at porn?" I nodded dumbly. "Well, he was wrong. I spent most of them online talking to Nagi. He..." Now he looked wistful. "He was the first person who'd really understood me. The more we talked, the more it felt like I'd known him forever. We were both hackers, both felt 'different' from most of the people around us. I could talk to him about anything, anything at all - my past, my fears for the future, even my fears in the present." He sighed, and was silent for a long moment, the soft rag in his hands slowly burnishing the metal of the gun. "When we met on the battlefield for the first time - it was very weird. We'd sent each other pictures, though we'd never met, so we recognized each other right away. I remember just sort of staring at him, and thinking, 'Now what are we supposed to do?'" He sighed again, and abruptly put the pieces of the gun down, drawing his knees to his chest and clasping his arms around them, burying his face in his arms. His voice, when he continued speaking, was muffled, but still intelligible. "Oddly enough, it just made us even closer. Now we could REALLY share everything... I could talk to him about how much I hated being an assassin sometimes, and he could tell me how awful it was to have his powers, and to be under Schwartz's control. We agreed that what happened between our groups was separate from our friendship, and that we wouldn't let it change anything." He glanced up again, presumably to see how I was taking all of this. I wish I had an answer for him - I wasn't sure how I was taking this. Mostly, I just felt numb, trying to soak it all up. "After we destroyed the Esstet base, Nagi was the only one of Schwartz left alive. For the first time in a long time, we weren't on opposite sides anymore. When we each realized the other was still alive, we agreed to meet and talk face to face. Things just sort of..." he gestured vaguely with his hands, blushing again. It looked cute on him, and reminded me of the old Omi. "Went from there. We've been together ever since." I regarded him solemnly, thoughts churning at a rapid pace in my head. "Do you love him?" Was the next question out of my mouth, and I grimaced at my usual tactlessness. Omi blushed harder, but met my eyes. "Hai. With all my heart. I'd die for him." He glanced down at the gun spread in pieces around him, and added with a touch of bitterness, "More to the point, I guess, I'd kill for him." "So, he's making you do these assassinations?" It seemed like the logical conclusion to me, but his head jerked up and his eyes widened like I'd asked if the ocean was fluorescent red. "Oh, no! No, it's not his fault at all! Ken-kun, he..." He sighed again. It was getting to be a regular occurrence from him, and I found I didn't like it much. I wanted his cheerful, outgoing personality back. "He tries to protect me from it, really. That's why he over-reacted so badly when he saw you. He knows that it's killing me to do this, and he hates himself for being the reason I'm forced to it." "Why..." I never got the chance to ask the all-important question, because Youji's voice at the door interrupted me. "Ken! Omi! You both still alive in there?" I glanced at Omi, but he was staring at the threadbare carpet as if the answer to the mysteries of the universe were woven into it. "I take it you want me to get the door for them?" He nodded, his voice choked. "Onegai? I... I'm not ready to face them just yet..." I stood and made for the door, pausing to lay a comforting hand on the top of his head as I passed him. He gave me a watery smile, and I returned it, before continuing to the hallway. "I'm coming!" I called out to the other two, and started wrestling with the locks. Some of them were very stiff, and I wondered how Omi managed them in his weakened condition. Finally they were all off, and I swung the door open. Youji and Ran were on the other side of the door as expected, both wearing serious, wary expressions. I gestured them inside, much as Omi had done to me earlier. "Go easy on him, guys," I murmured, leaning in so only they could hear me. "He's had a really rough time of it. I'm still not to the bottom of it, but..." I shrugged. "He's already beating himself up for what he's doing, believe me, he doesn't need us adding to it." They both glided into the living room, only to stop and stare in amazement around them. Following their gaze, I took in the room for the first time. I'd been too busy sizing up Omi's mood earlier to really pay attention. Expensive-looking weapons and state-of-the-art computer technology littered the place, and everything else looked like it had come from the Salvation Army reject pile. Omi was hunched over in the middle of the floor, big blue eyes peering up at us through a fringe of unkempt bangs. Surprisingly, it was Ran who went to him first. The tall red-head knelt before the shivering boy, and held his shoulders gently. "Omi," he said in that mellifluous voice of his. "You do not need to be afraid of us. We are your friends, we always have been, and we always will be. No matter what. Do you understand?" "Yeah, kiddo," Youji put in from behind me, his voice soft as well. "Whatever might have happened in the past, we're here for you now, okay?" He moved forward and copied Ran's pose beside Omi, resting his hands over Ran's. I joined them on the other side, completing the group. Omi sniffled once, then started crying helplessly again, the way he'd been crying on my shoulder before Nagi interrupted us. Wordlessly we embraced him, offering back all the support and love he'd given us over our years of working together. Slowly the hurting tears turned to healing ones, as he cried himself out in our arms. Finally he was reduced to sniffles and the occasional artless tear, and we drew away a little. Somehow I wasn't surprised to find that he was the type of person who could cry for hours and end up with just red-rimmed eyes and a sniffle or two. Not like me - I got all red-faced and blotchy and basically looked like I'd picked up a killer case of hives. I said as much, and he gave a shaky laugh and hugged me again. "Minna-kun..." he looked at each of us in turn, holding our gaze with his tear-filled blue one. "Arigatou. I hadn't realized just how much I'd really MISSED you all!" "We've missed you too, Omittchi," Youji replied gently. "And obviously we didn't realize how much, or we would have noticed earlier that we hadn't heard from you in a long time. If you tried to get in contact with me, then I'm sorry. Changed all my addresses and phone numbers, and never even thought about it. If it weren't that Manx was my superior, she'd never have found me again, either!" "And I apologize as well," Ran added, his slender hand slowly rubbing Omi's shoulder. Apparently Omi was having as much trouble adjusting to the touch-feely Ran as I was, because he was staring at the red-head with equal parts bemusement and wonder. It didn't stop him from leaning into the comforting touch, though. "Manx had difficulty finding me, I can only imagine what you might have gone through. We have all been lax in maintaining our ties, and we should not have been. For all that it was a difficult time in our lives, we four are still the only ones who can understand one another." Omi looked embarrassed, and I knew what he was thinking. "Not... quite..." he admitted haltingly. Ducking his head, he proceeded to explain to them the same things he'd said to me, telling them about his odd relationship with Nagi and how it had come to them living together. He was just winding down when a shuffling noise at the door made us all look up, and there was the topic of conversation himself, staring back at us from the doorway. Omi jumped to his feet and ran over to his - lover, I suppose, though I wasn't a hundred percent certain - and steadied him over to one of the chairs, scolding him all the way. "Nagi! You shouldn't be up. You're wasting your strength!" "I heard voices," the younger boy said, peering at us all uncertainly through a dark fringe of long lashes. His voice was as frail as his body, shaking and breathy though he'd barely traveled ten steps. "I remember you," he continued, gazing at each of us in turn. "You are Weiss. Omi's friends. You will not hurt him?" The last was more a plea than a question, and I could see that Youji and Ran were as touched by it as I was. "Not planning on it," Youji replied flippantly, but there was a thread of warmth in his voice that lent his words a seriousness they might otherwise have lacked. Ran and I both nodded in support. "We were sent, as Omi's friends," Ran stressed that part, "To find out why he was acting in this manner. It was so unlike him, that Kritiker would have been concerned even if he had not been killing innocents." Omi flushed darkly and looked like he might start crying again, but Nagi grabbed his hand and held on tight, stroking the back with his thumb. Again, it was a startlingly tender gesture, and I realized that I was only beginning to see the depth of the relationship between these two. Lovers or not, they were closer than brothers, closer than twins even. It approached what I had always thought soul mates would act like, in fact. "It is not his fault," Nagi said, his voice firming a little with conviction. Omi started to protest, but Nagi hushed him with a gesture and a piercing glance. "Omi does these things for me, to try to help me. I keep trying to tell him that I would rather die than see him lose his innocence," and he looked profoundly unhappy, enough so that I think we all believed him, "but he insists he would prefer losing that to losing me." Omi knelt beside him, leaning his head onto the younger boy's knees. "I need you," he whispered softly, and I got the distinct feeling he'd briefly forgotten we were even in the room. "I can't live without you. You know that. You're worth anything to me." Youji cleared his throat, and both boys jumped like they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. They blushed simultaneously, and I couldn't help but think how cute they both looked. "As touching as that is, kiddies," he drawled, and the blushes increased. I had to chuckle. "It doesn't really explain much. Why, exactly, does Omi have to run around killing people for your sake?" We ALL jumped with the phone rang, the shrill sound echoing through the room. I swear, someone up there had something against us getting this question answered. Omi had turned nearly as pale as Nagi, and they were both staring at the phone as though its ringing were a death knell. The three of us turned to one another, confused, but apparently Ran and Youji had no more clue than I did. "J-just a second," Omi stuttered, and stood slowly to pace over to the phone. He picked it up off the cradle in mid-ring, bringing it slowly to his ear as though the last thing on earth he wanted to do was answer it. "Hai?" There was a long pause, as the three of us strained to hear something from the speaker. Nothing but garbled noise made it to us, though, and we had to settle for trying to figure out what was going on from the little Omi was saying. Nagi had gone rigid in his seat, staring fixedly at Omi, fists clenched in his lap. Omi turned even paler, though I hadn't thought it was possible. "I can't!" He gasped, clutching at the receiver like a lifeline. "I can't do that! Please, you can't ask me to..." he was cut off harshly, and his knuckles grew steadily whiter against the bright red plastic of the phone. "Hai," He finally said listlessly, all life gone from his voice. "Wakatta. By the end of the week." Hanging up the phone, he stared at it for a moment, then slowly slid down the wall he'd been leaning against to bury his face in his knees. A single sob escaped him, his shoulders shaking with the effort of suppressing more. "Omi..." Nagi and I spoke with a single voice, united in our concern for our friend. He looked up at us both with haunted, tearful eyes. "It's an-nother m-mission," he finally hiccupped, and he looked as though they - whoever they were - had asked him to shoot his best friend. Before we could ask, he swallowed and continued, voice breaking, "I h-have to k-kill M-m-manx!" | |
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