I’m sorry if my writing style is going weird and all that, but I’ve been watching too much anime as of late (EEE! Thank you Tri^_^!!!! *GLOMPS*), and after all the fan sub reading, I start to find myself thinking is bizarre, halting sentences! *grabs hair and pulls* No Brain! That’s not right! Use ADJECTIVES! *beats self over head with shoe* Bwah! Okay, I’m sort of better now. Just warning you, if my style seems to go a little stiff and formal sounding every here and there, blame the anime, not my special little self ^_^. Oh yeah, hey you bums! Go to my front page and sign up for the damned mailing list already, and then you don’t have to check back like every day, or whatever it is you do, silly beans! MAILING LIST ON MAIN PAGE! MWAH! *goes off to buy more chocolate* Chocolate fuels the powers of my mind! … That and not sleeping anymore.

It was so stupid. One of the most important people in his life had apparently tried to trade him in to the enemy in return for his comatose sister’s life, and instead of dredging up resentment and hurt, all he could do was worry for Aya, because he’d been informed in the same group of fateful sentences that Aya had been cast adrift as retaliation for said betrayal.

He’d thought it through so many ways, but the sheer magnitude of freedom had managed to quell any bitterness he found cause for. It wasn’t so important what Aya had tried to do, because he hadn’t succeeded. Almost any transgression was forgivable here in the sane, painful lights of a hospital. Not the best of places to wake, but still infinitely better than the hell he might have wound up in.

It was chilling, the thoughts of what Aya must be experiencing out there on his own, caught up in all those twisted, dangerous thoughts he packed so tightly within his own mind. Youji was never sure just what he should consider Aya capable of: murder, suicide, massacre, unknown expressions of enraged insanity. All avenues of thought were worrisome.

After an hour or two had passed, sleepless and worried, Youji struck upon another of his fabled, ingenious plans. Why not break himself free of this whitewashed prison and go find Aya without any help. Brilliant, if he did say so himself. All he had to do was devise a method of keeping the IV dripping lovely drugs into his arm, because truth be told, that felt utterly fantastic as well. He understood in a dim sort of way, that what he was doing might be considered rather stupid by some, and he should attempt to keep the night nurses out of the know for as long as he could. That ultimately meant leaving the IV behind.

His clothes were gone, he discovered after a reeling, almost fun exploration of the room. No shoes, no coat, no nothing, just the ghastly hospital pajamas on his back and the funny shuffley slippers they’d left by the bed. His wallet was on the table, and he held onto that with the arm still dribbling a bit of blood from the hole the needle had left in his arm. He hadn’t managed to pull it out quite straight.

A quick glance down the dimmed hallways revealed the coast as clear. This was all he could manage, a fast break down the hallway. He’d looked out the window, struggling with the heavy material of the curtains. Several stories up, at least. His eyes had refused to hazard a guess with his depth perception playing games as it was. Too far to jump and survive contact with the ground, that was for certain.

The steady click of footsteps followed him down the hall, but through some mixture of natural reflexes and pure, blinding luck, Youji managed to make it into a stairwell before the nurse came swishing down the hallway. Through the same luck, he managed to only stumble down a few stairs instead of the whole flight. Back to the misfortunate side of things; he’d made enough noise that the footsteps paused, and the silence turned to listening. Youji held his breath, arm muscles trembling with pain and exertion as he held himself poised on the bring of a fall. The weak shoulder ached abominably as he released his death grip and slowly made his way down the stairs once she’d resumed her rounds.

Outside. He’d made it. Now he just had to make it somewhere safe. Somewhere warm, or he’d freeze to death soon. The air burned through the outer layers of fog around his head, sharpening the world enough for him to act casual as he shuffled up just in time to catch a bus . It didn’t matter where it was going, anywhere but where he was.

“Hey, buddy, you okay?”

Youji looked up to meet the driver’s eyes, a nail-biting, keg hurling, brawny figure of a woman. She smiled and for a moment was radiant. Youji smiled back for a moment before he realized he was acting doped up again. “Yeah. Gotta get home. Stupid assholes didn’t come to pick me up when they were supposed to. Got tired of waiting.” He fumbled out some bills. “Can’t see so well right now, what’ve I got?”

Smooth fingers sorted the bills for him, taking one away and motioning him towards the back.

“Stick near the front and I’ll try and help you out.” The doors swung shut and the bus pulled forward with a soothing squeak of releasing breaks and reluctant tires.

This wasn’t too hard, he decided. It was like driving drunk, like going to school high on drugs, another thing he’d excelled at in his day. Just act confidant and sort of pissed off. It came off as cocky and a little vulnerable, Asuka had told him. Youji closed his eyes, the world rocking sickeningly with the motion of the vehicle as he tried to forget certain important things again, forcing everything down into darkness where it should be.

“Where’s your stop?” Giving a quick glance over her shoulder to let Youji know the words were directed at him, the driver made a turn, eyes carefully monitoring the passengers to the back as well, always ready for trouble at this time of night.

“Which way are we going?” Youji removed the fingers he was attempting to grind into his eyes, realizing belatedly he’d just given a wrong answer.

“Do I need to take you back to the hospital? If your friends didn’t come for you, surely you can stay another day. If money is an issue, I’m sure you could talk the hospital into just giving you a bed to rest in until someone arrives armed with a coat and some clothes for -”

“Thank you, but I’m fine. Are you going to the west side?” Too much concern meant he’d overdone it. It was so hard not to, shivering in the barely heated bus, his toes curled up nubs of ice inside the loose, cheap slippers. His mind just wouldn’t work, the words barely coming from his mouth as he shaped them in his head. For a moment, in his distress, he forgot what he was even out and about for. For Aya, to keep him from making an idiot of himself, to apologize for his involvement in any way shape or form with his sister’s apprehension. It was all alright, as long as he could just keep going.

“Yeah.” She gruffly allowed after a moment.

“Is there a stop anywhere near the upper shopping districts?” Trying to plot out his next course of action. He couldn’t go home, Omi and Ken would be furious and he couldn’t take any more anger than he had to. Fate’s apartment was somewhere on the west side, but his brain couldn’t call up the location. It was too fresh, too useful. Heaven forbid he actually have an opportunity to accomplish something with minimum difficulty.

“Right in the center, by the old market.”

Right by One-Eye’s shop. Perhaps today was his day to get a shotgun shell right between the eyes. One-Eye should be just about out of patience with them all. He’d do it anyway. He had to find Aya, had to bring him back. If Youji didn’t harbor any feelings of ill will, how could his teammates who’d been done the lesser or two evils dare disagree.

“Can you tell me when we’re approaching that stop?”

“It’ll be about fifteen minutes, okay?”

“Take your time, I don’t have anywhere to go but home.” He feigned casualness, a composed sprawl across the seat as if he were merely relaxing instead of attempting to control shivers of both chill and pain. His hand pulsed like a heart, dangling heavy and plaster-coated from his wrist, still throbbing from the clunking it had taken on his way down the stairs, skin hot and swollen beneath the plaster. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened to render his right hand so useless. Nothing, just a blank spot in his brain where he could imagine whatever he wanted based on three hastily spoken sentences from Omi’s innocent mouth. Damn, he wanted some of those drugs dripping back into his arm. Morphine or something, he didn’t care.

“Hey, Blondie, your stop is here.” He was dozing off just as the announcement was made. “You going to make it home all right on your own?” A hint of unexpected, matronly concern creasing her features.

“Yeah. Thank you, though.” He gripped the handrail by the door tighter than he needed too, trying to make up for his shaky shoulder by sheer strength in his forearm. Each step brought him closer to a coat, and shoes and clothes, and relative safety. He reminded himself of these things as he made his way down the stairs, managing not to trip as he descended from the bus onto the jutting curb of the sidewalk.

“Tell your friends off, all right? Leaving a poor guy like you to ride home by himself.” She winked at him and drove off, leaving Youji strangely sad, wishing he’d at least gotten her name and thanked her for being a human being. He looked around, looked up helplessly. It was all so different after dark, and he couldn’t pick out landmarks, so he wandered. And it started to rain.

“Gods damn it!” Flicking messy, dripping ringlets out of his eyes. If it had to drop liquid from the sky, why couldn’t it be frozen all ready? He wouldn’t have noticed the building if it hadn’t been the only one in the row with the light off. One-Eye was blind, what did he need a light for?

His hand felt numb from banging on the wooden side door before he got a response.

The predicted shotgun poked around the door. “What do you want now?”

“One Eye, it’s me again, from Weiss.” To hell with it, he knew who they were, no more ‘friend of the four young men’, ‘patron from earlier this week’. The owed One Eye. The door opened a little wider, the wrinkled face showing was crossed with bruises, flecks of dried blood beneath his nose, down the side of his cheek as if he’d lain bleeding for a while and hadn’t gotten around to whipping it away yet. “What happened to you?”

“Ko-Ishi.” He hobbled to the side, letting Youji step past him back into the almost too hot rooms of his home, shutting them into the darkness. “Don’t turn a light on, they’re watching from the front, the buildling across the street. I don’t turn the lights on; you don’t turn the lights on. Got it?”

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing my old bones can’t take now.” A barely toothy grin over his shoulder in Youji’s approximate direction.

“You don’t happen to have a blanket or anything, do you? I escaped from a hospital.” He rubbed one hand across the matted, damp hair at the back of his head, pulling at the clinging, icy fabric of his hospital pajamas. The slippers on his feet were little more than fabric mush adding a layer or so of meager protection between the ground and his water-pruned, ice block feet. Youji shuffled from one foot to another, desperately tired again, having had too much of an adventure for such a long, unending day.

One-Eye returned, dark gray fabric folded in his hands, proffered before him.

“Thank you.” His teeth had started chattering at some point. One-Eye had thought further ahead than he had, handing him a blanket and a towel, both clean and positively drenched in the scent of fabric softener. Comforting, like home. He peeled the now semi-translucent material off of his torso, kicked the wet pants off, wrapped the towel around himself for a few moments, just sopping up extra moisture. He couldn’t ever recall being so cold in his entire life. Where was Aya to warm him up?

“Do you have wet clothes you need me to take care of?” One Eye came back from the kitchen with a mug in his hands, the steam rising most invitingly from the surface of the liquid within.

“They’re hospital clothes, I’m just going to throw them out. If you’d be so kind as to show me a trash-can.” Remembering at the last minute that he was invading this man’s privacy and the least he could do was toss out a little extra courtesy.

“Just leave them on the floor, I’ll take care of it. It’s safer for the both of us if you don’t go stumbling around in the dark. The carpet can always use a little water, eh?”

Youji toweled off his hair and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders wearing only clammy boxers, feeling nervous and more than a tad vulnerable. The rain had sobered him up a bit, but things still weren’t quite functional within his brain. This was a dangerous time to be wandering around with enemies on all sides.

“So.” One-Eye gave him a few moments to collect his thoughts and try to warm up. “I can’t help but think you’re here for a reason. My sparkling sense of intuition, I tell you.” Youji caught a glimpse of the crooked grin in the lights of a rare, passing vehicle.

“I need your help. I know you’ve been stepping more and more out of the bounds of common sense to help us, and I know we’ve been imposing upon you recently, and I apologize, but I really, really need your help right now.” The words jumbled out in a rush, no real way to make them sound less selfish and demanding.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific than that before I agree.”

“One of my friends is gone, I have to track him down. Right now. I can’t go back home for help, for reason I won’t bore you with right now, and you’re the only other person I could think of.”

“Are you on drugs, first of all?” One-Eye stepped closer, one hand reaching out to brush across Youji’s face until it came to rest palm against Youji’s forehead.

“What?”

“You said you broke out of a hospital? Did they give you anything? Can you give me a drug name?”

Youji shook his head reflexively, the dry skin of One-Eye’s hand smooth and inhuman against his own. “No. I wasn’t thinking very clearly when I first decided this would all be a great idea.”

“It’s not too late to change your mind. I could call a cab for you, and you could return home, or go back to the hospital until you are feeling better.”

“I have to find him.”

“All right.” One-Eye sighed. “Follow me as best you can, try not to knock anything down.” He left the living room, and Youji shuffled, barefoot, after him as quickly as he could manage.

He had a computer, something Youji hadn’t really thought much about. “Power on.” Spoken in a clear, over-enunciated voice. The light on the monitor blinked on, followed by the hum of a computer powering up. “Voice recognition.” One-Eye grinned, careworn face lit by the blue light of the monitor. The computer talked back, apparently, reading off a list of options the old man could chose from.

“How did this disappearance come about? Did he leave on his own, or did someone assist him in an unwilling disappearance?”

“There was a misunderstanding, and he left on his own.”

“In that case I can look up activity records. You don’t happen to have a bank-account code or a frequently used credit card number, do you?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

“All right, what name would he possibly be using then?”

Here was the first step of trust, really. One-Eye had saved Omi, might even know his real name by now. He knew their phone number, and because of that could most likely find where they lived, but he still didn’t really know who they were. “He might be going under the name of Fujimiya, Aya. Or Fujimiya, Ran.” The last option thrown out on a spark of instinct.

“All right, I’ll look into it. Why don’t you go find the kitchen and get something to drink, and maybe eat. I’ve got coffee going, if you want something hot, though it’s been around for a few hours. I can’t guarantee it won’t taste awful.”

“Thank you.” Youji ran a careful hand along the wall until he reached the familiar space of the living room again, heading for a doorway he could barely see. It certainly leant to the paranoia, this lightless stalking around a strange house. There was a sharp pang of panic trying to eat into the base of his spine, telling him over and over that there were frightening, dead things lurking around every pitch-black corner, waiting to rush at him and do whatever it was frightening, dead things did.

He propped the fridge open once he’d found it, hoping no one outside would notice the pale strip of light allowing him to navigate the unfamiliar room. He manage to find the coffee-maker, still hot, stale coffee and all. It was bitter and vile as could be, but it was warm, and it was chock full of caffeine. He needed both of those qualities. Youji couldn’t quite bring himself to sample the contents of the fridge. That would be a little too rude.

He left the refrigerator door open, figuring the food could stand a little bit of damage, just long enough for him to get what he wanted and get out of the building. Cast into a new light, it was easy to see from the living room that some sort of physical altercation had recently taken place.

“What happened here? What happened to your face?” Youji returned to watch over One-Eyes shoulder as the machine rattled off lists of words in response to a search.

“I told you. Ko-Ishi. Now hush, I’m listening for something.” A hand waved dangerously close to Youji’s face as One-Eye replied in an inflectionless tone. He didn’t sound too broken up about whatever had happened, so Youji let it drop. A few minutes slid by as the computer attempted to drone Youji into a partially-drug-induced slumber.

“Why are you helping me?” Scrubbing a hand across bleary eyes in an attempt to enforce some quality awake time.

One-Eye reached out and tapped a key on the keypad before him after stroking explorative fingers across brail encrusted buttons. “You don’t realize it, because you’re the center of happenings.” One-Eye turned in his chair, addressing Youji’s general direction. “There’s a war going on. This challenging of Ko-Ishi’s authority has set everyone on their ears. Ko-Ishi has been behind the scenes for longer than I have, and that’s saying a lot right there. He’s the fat cat weaving his web of lies, and he’s got a tentacle in every pie.** He’s part of almost every organization and every money-making gimmick known to this city. When you four stepped up and challenged that, willing or no, it started up a lot of things that you might not have noticed. Right now, either you’re with Ko-Ishi, or you’re against him. I made my decision. You’re the alternative. If anyone can bring him down…” One-Eye turned away, shrugging. “Go lie down on the couch, I can actually hear you swaying back and forth. You were stupid to leave a hospital in your present condition.” Waving a hand in dismissal again.

The couch was a little too comfortable, and he was dozing off before he knew it, unable to keep focused on the waking world around him. It wasn’t until a heavy pounding shook One-Eye’s side-door that he found a reason to sit up, eyes wide, hands groping for non-existent weapons.

One-Eye marched past him, a breeze in the darkness. The door was thrown loudly open, the standard death threats issued before the rise and fall of the old man’s voice lowered, secretive and chummy. Youji waited, wondering if a new development in his case had arrived.

“Youji, you idiot!” A figure burst into the room, chaotic noise in the dim lighting conditions. Youji was tired of the darkness already, it made his eyes throb.

“Ken?”

“Why the fuck did you leave the hospital? You almost died, and you’re not supposed to be up and about for some time. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you WANT to die?” Hands gripped Youji’s shoulder’s shaking him, jolting his tired head.

“Hey, stop that.” Batting away the disturbingly tight grip. “If I’m so sick, why are you trying to rattle my head off of my body?” Youji rubbed at his eyes, feeling a little sick and a lot confused. What was he doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be at home, doing… something? Something or another?

“Are you okay?” Omi crowded onto the couch, latching onto Youji’s free side, wide eyes glinting with apprehension. “I never should have told you, that was so stupid of me!”

“What?” Another moment of disorientation. Where was Aya? Youji had obviously done something stupid again, so where was his favorite critic to come and critique all his biggest faults?

“About Aya, what I told you.” Omi looked down, mouth twitching with some unknown emotion, a mixture of too many things.

Things snapped into place again, the last clouds of sleep freeing recent memories. “Did you find him yet?” Directed towards One-Eye.

“Yes. That’s why I called your friends in. I figured you’d head out straight away, and the thought of you running around on your own like that was a tad disconcerting.”

“Yeah. Stupid boy gets himself killed just like that, walk right into Ko-Ishi and fall and crack his head open with no real work for anyone else.” Fate chortled from the stairway, obviously conjuring up mocking scenarios of Youji’s recapture for her own amusement.

“I’m not that useless.” Youji stood, trying to keep the corner of his mouth from quirking up. “So, let’s get going. The sooner we find Aya, the sooner things can be resolved, and the sooner I can lie down and go back to sleep.” Different ideas swirled across the patterns of ingrained thought, predictions of things to come, and self-advice on what to do to cope with things he still didn’t quite understand. He’d prefer to hear more about his alleged betrayal from the mouth of the accused himself before making any real judgments.

“Why does it matter what the bastard is up to?” Ken all but leapt to his feet, facing Youji, invading his personal space as only an irate friend truly could. “He tried to sell you out! We all saw him do it! It’s not like there was some mistake made!” Ken grabbed the front of Youji’s shirt again, eyes mere dark slits.

“I don’t remember anything like that. I don’t remember anything. I’m going to talk to Aya, and fuck you all if you’re going to hinder me.” Youji turned away, ignoring any reactions from his friends that might alter his resolve.

“I brought clothes for you.” It was Omi who broke the silence, hand shooting up, plastic bag in tow. “And it looks like you could really use those right now. Aren’t you cold?”

The only thing cold was the pit of his stomach, an ice that crept further and further up his torso, numbing his heart. Dramatic, definitely dramatic. Maybe he could use that someday. Now if only he could make it sound less like a line from a apathetic romance novel. It wouldn’t be so silly if it weren’t true. He took the bag all the same, pulling on nondescript clothing he knew must be his own, not paying the least bit of attention. The shoes and socks were more useful as things went, thawing out his still-freezing outermost digits. It wouldn’t do to lose his toes to frost bite, would it?

He dressed in front of them, celerity more of a concern than modesty. They lived together in a house, there remained very little he wouldn’t mind being seen that hadn‘t already been viewed by impartial eyes before. There were more important things a foot.

“Let’s go.” Fate called as Youji shuffled into his boots, leaning against the couch to keep from tipping over. His head still spun, but he found he could force the dizziness back into the foreground if he concentrated hard enough. “You only one with sense. We need crazy redhead back now. Ko-Ishi is still alive and kicking many asses!” A series of thumps and the closing of a door as impatience got the better of her and she went outside to wait.

“Goddamned bi-”

“Ken…” A warning note in Omi’s tone. Obviously this had been going on for a while. “She’s right, as angry as it makes us both. Aya made an egregious decision, but we still need him. If Youji can see past that, then so can we.”

“There’s nothing to see past! I can’t remember a fucking thing!” Youji shrugged on his jacket and turned to One-Eye. “Thank you. We’re ready to go, so where are we headed?”

“Come see the computer, I can show you exactly how to get there.” One-Eye turned, trusting Youji to have figured out the layout to his living quarters.

*****************

**Ten points to anyone who can pin down that reference ^_^ (see above, matching set of asterisks)

I had to stop there, because this was getting a little long for my chapter fragments. I like to keep those short and fairly steady, so I can get through entire written works. Oi! More stuff will happen soon! Yay and shit! Again, I apologize if my writing seems off here and there, but too much anime really will rot your brain! *Happy all the same* Eee eee! Oi! E-mail me at [email protected] or [email protected] ! It would make me so gleefully happy!!!! ^___^