Moving On
by Aimless
Chapter 1
He caught me staring at him again. It seems I can’t help myself these days.
He’s my only link to a past that was filled with violence and death. There were also good memories of love and companionship but they are getting harder and harder to recall. It seems everyone has moved on but me. Aya smiles slightly nodding to the flower arrangement I’ve been neglecting. Somehow I cannot bring myself to smile back. It feels so artificial. I also can’t help the stab of jealousy that coils in my gut when Chloe walks in. He stands behind Aya and wraps his arms around him. Aya looks over his shoulder and the blond whispers in his ear. They both laugh and I want to puke.
I watch Chloe lean closer. The shop is empty except for the three of us and I hate the fact that I’m being treated to this peep show. I’ve never known Aya to be so free with his emotions. It’s almost as if being here is good for him. Away from Japan and all the memories. I wonder if he even thinks about Yohji any more. I wonder if he even cares.
Omi… excuse me, Mamoru told us that the blond was now happily married and expecting his first child. Yohji a dad… that’s a real kick in the ass. Yet I know he’ll be a good father. Yes it seems everyone has moved on. Yet I can’t. I miss Omi, I miss what we had. Though I now realize that I loved him with all my heart yet he only gave me a small piece of himself in return. I even found out that he’s with Nagi now. It seems that he’s forgotten all about me. The man Omi became is now running a vast empire and is the head of the organization we once worked for. I still can’t get over the fact that the teen that once claimed to have feelings for me is now sleeping with a former member of Schwarz.
Chloe lightly nips Aya’s neck and his hands wander up his chest. There’s no way in hell I’m going to watch this. They’re acting as if I’m not even in the room.
That’s me… fucking invisible.
They might as well store me in a closet and let me out for missions. Ok so maybe I’m being a little harsh. Michel and I get along. He treats me like an older brother. Free… well Free is still a mystery to me. He’s nice enough when he speaks at all and I trust him with my life. I guess I trust Chloe as well. I can’t help that I want what he has. But I don’t blame Aya for not looking my direction. I mean come on Chloe is like a rose. Elegant and graceful and yes even beautiful. I’m like the weedy flower that grows beside the road. Impossible to kill but not much to look at. I can’t stand being cooped up any more. They both look up as I throw the pruners onto the table and stalk outside. I get a vague sort of satisfaction as the door slams hard enough to rattle the glass.
It’s pouring outside… fucking perfect.
The rain is cold and within minutes I’m soaked to the skin. Have I mentioned I don’t care for England at all? Rain, fog and more rain. I have a hard time with the language so I am, at times treated like an idiot. As if shouting at me would make me understand the language any better. I’m learning to speak English not deaf.
Damn weather… I look around for a place to take shelter. I really don’t want company.
If I go into the house Michel or Yuki will no doubt seek me out and really I need to be alone right now. I see the fogged glass of the greenhouse. At least it’ll be warm in there and I probably won’t be bothered.
I step inside and the warm moist air envelopes me like a hug. I close the door behind me and look at the benches with their rows of plants. It’s a veritable jungle in here and Aya’s Orchids take prominence along the back where it’s the warmest. I head there and stare at the delicate blooms. Most of them are varieties of the Cattleya orchid. And I finger the pink petals of the one nearest to me. Seems like Aya can’t let go either.
I know these remind him of the man he left behind. My damp clothes stick uncomfortably to my skin so I strip off my shirt and drape it along the end of the bench. This is mostly Aya’s domain. He truly enjoys nurturing these plants and the neat orderly rows and dirt free floor show his meticulous care. Suddenly tired I slump onto a stack of bagged sand for the propagation table. I rake my wet hair out of my eyes and realize I missed my last haircut appointment. Perhaps I’ll let it grow out… then I would look ridiculous. Aya’s hair has grown out again and is now long enough to braid. He has also quit dying it that awful burgundy and it is now back to its original crimson. I want to reach out and touch it like I’ve seen Chloe do so many times.
Damn it why couldn’t he like me that way? But I have to wonder if what I’m feeling is real.
Is this why I’m so fixated on Aya now? He’s familiar and the only family I have left.
When I first met him I thought Aya was a sanctimonious prick. I could not wait to plant my fist in his face. Since then I learned appearances can be deceiving. Aya cared about us all and helped keep us together during the bad times. He was the rock that we all clung to. But that had all fallen apart soon enough.
We started bickering among ourselves. That damned RV… I hated it. We had no permanent home anymore. Omi, well let’s just say he decided that duty was more important that I was. I swear to this day he was trying to push me away. Then one day he was gone and I had no one to keep the nightmares at bay anymore. Aya still had Yohji though it was getting harder for him to get through to the blond. It was hard for us to watch him come in night after night drunk and smelling of cheap perfume. By that time we had been set up in a new place and still carried out missions but without anything else to occupy our time. All I had was the kill, the mission. I gloried in the feel of my claws sinking into flesh. The fear, I could see in their eyes, it scares me to think of it now, but I got off on that fear. The smell of blood coppery and sharp filled my senses and colored my vision. I started to enjoy killing. I should have been horrified but I wasn’t. They were evil right? They deserved to die.
Yohji and I were fucking messes. I was sure he was using more than alcohol to mute the pain and I could not wait for the next mission. No wonder Omi could not get away from me fast enough. Yohji moved out of Aya’s room and they barely spoke to each other. Then we were split up. Yohji and I were sent to Germany and Aya to Koua academy. We were sent two new members but I did not even get the chance to know them before they were gone. I think I could have hated Persia… excuse me, Omi for inducting two more sacrificial lambs to the slaughter.
It was that mission the totally unhinged Yohji and I both. Those were kids I had to kill and it made no fucking difference. A target was a target. Yohji was to seduce one of the instructors since she was a suspected target. With him it was all or nothing. He got too attached to her and was devastated when he had to kill her. That night after I had taped his ribs and drugged him near senseless I had to listen to him crying and calling out Asuka’s name. On more than one occasion I had to go retrieve him from whatever place he’d ended up for the night. More often than not drunk or stoned off of his ass. One time the woman he had been with lay unconscious on the bed with finger marks around her throat. I had called the paramedics after I’d gotten the idiot out of there. I later found out she had been too drunk to remember who she had been with when questioned at the hospital. I was happy for Yohji now, I really was. He was free of this and of us. Mamoru said he was truly content and settled into his new life.
I lean back slightly and gasp as a sharp pain tears through my side. Damn scar tissue aches like a bitch when it rains. I finger the scar on my side. There is an identical one on my back. Another constant reminder of the redhead in the house. It’s a scar from Aya’s katana. I still remember the fierce burning pain as it penetrated my body. The sorrowful look in his eyes as he ran me through. All to kill that abomination that had been created in the lab beneath the school.
I jokingly told them I only needed one kidney. It was almost the truth. I nearly died in the helicopter on the way to the hospital. I spent a long time recovering. Aya had stayed till I was well enough to leave and then he too was gone. Saying goodbye to him at the airport was one of the hardest things I had ever done. I guess that day at the gazebo when Aya so graciously punched me in the gut, after I begged him to leave with me, was when I realized that my feelings for him might be more that platonic. Something I was not ready to admit even to myself.
I was far from healed mentally and could still feel the berserker lurking inside. I needed a place where I would be a danger to no one as I sorted out my life. Weiss was no more and I had become a liability. It would have been well within Kritiker’s right to put me down like a rabid dog. I suppose I should be grateful to Omi that he only stuck me in prison. He even sent a shrink to talk to me. One on his payroll of course. Once I got over my sullen resentment the therapist really did help. I talked to him three times a week for nearly a year. It was during that time that I learned to control the demons that lived inside of me. I learned not to fear them and that they were a part of me. I learned to find joy in the world again… at least for a little while.
After I got out Omi… pardon me, Mamoru thought I would do better leaving Japan all together. He arranged for me to join Krypton brand. Once an assassin always an assassin I guess. To be truthful I didn’t mind too much. It was one of the only things I was good at after all. I could hardly go back to soccer and had never even finished school. So what the hell else was I to have done? Imagine by utter shock when shortly after I joined Aya showed up looking worse for wear and nursing a gut injury.
We even have almost matching scars now. A case of mistaken identity and a kid with a knife had almost ended his life. So here we now were. Still assassins… same job just a different address. It had not taken Aya long to make himself right at home and Chloe shortly after staked his claim. I guess Aya has a thing for blonds.
God I have to shake myself out of this cycle of self-pity. Perhaps I should ask to talk to someone like I did when I was in prison. I close my eyes and drop my aching head into my hands. Then I hear the door open. I am SO not in the mood for company.
“Whoever you are just go away and leave me the hell alone.” I do not even acknowledge their presence as I hear them walk up behind me.
I feel hands on my shoulders. I can’t help it but to tense up even further. My breath freezes in my lungs as those hands start to massage the knots away. It’s been so long since anyone’s touched me that I want to lean back and purr. If it was a perfect world it would be Aya behind me. Those long slender fingers kneading my neck certainly could be his. My heart in my throat I open my eyes and look up. I see that last person I would ever have expected to see smiling down at me.
Chloe… his hands have stilled on my neck and his thumbs rest along my jaw. Lightly caressing the skin below my ear. Shocked I have no idea why he is here or what to say as a stare up at him.