Yohji’s words seem to have paralysed my ability to think straight. I keep imagining Aya-chan in the hands of Takatori Saijou and cannot stop shaking and shuddering as my imagination conjures up horrific images of torture and death. Voices enquire as to whether I’m all right when it should be perfectly obvious that I’m anything but. Eventually I manage to finish the sentence I had started.
“I can’t leave her there to be used against us,” I tell them. “I… I’ll have to go back to Japan.”
Yohji grabs my arm and pulls me back into my seat and I take a swing at him, wanting him to let me go. Right now!
“Aya! For crying out loud! Will you listen?” He virtually pins me to the chair by my shoulders and stares down at me. “You know the Koneko’s phone number don’t you?”
His question doesn’t seem to make any sense to me and I struggle to free myself from his grasp. I’d forgotten how strong he is and I’m getting nowhere fast. This will end with one of us punching the other. But he has my arms pinned, preventing me from hitting him, and makes no move to hit me. He tries again.
“Phone her, Aya. Invite her here or agree to meet her for a holiday somewhere,” he says slowly and carefully. Finally his words start making sense and I realise that it’s a good idea. Except…
I nod at Yohji and, recognising the fact that I’m thinking again rather than simply reacting, his grip relaxes and he sits back down.
“Suggest a visit then,” he says.
He makes it sound so simple but I’ve spent the past four years avoiding all contact with my sister. Well, apart from one rather stupid phone call before I left Japan for New York. It was a big mistake as she immediately realised it was me and that I wasn’t dead after all. How am I supposed to tell her what I’ve become? How am I to face her?
“She thinks I’m dead,” I whisper.
“I seriously doubt that,” Yohji says quietly. “You were too close. She would know if you were dead or not.”
He doesn’t understand. How can I suddenly step back into her life after all these years? How can I possibly tell her the truth?
“Perhaps if she moved out of Tokyo…” I don’t realise that I’ve voiced that thought aloud as I’m so lost in the terror of seeing her and trying to explain.
“That’s not going to be enough to keep Saijou off her tail and you know it,” Yohji says, his tone firm.
I want to hit him, scream at him that my sister cannot be dragged into our sordid little world. But, if I’m honest with myself, I’m the one who tainted her with my desire for revenge. I’m the one to blame. “I’ll phone her,” I say. “I don’t know how she’ll react but I will phone her.”
It’s not as if I have any choice in the matter after all. I’ve always fought to keep her safe and I can’t stop now. I stare round the table at faces that register everything from shock to careful neutrality and sigh, knowing I’ve made an exhibition of myself.
“I think it’s time we took a break,” KR says. “Aya, you are welcome to use the phone in the study. There is lunch prepared for the rest of you in the dining room.”
Everyone starts to move except for me. I seem to be unable to function enough to stand up, my mind clogged up with ‘what ifs’ and ‘how do I talk to hers’ until I’m ready to scream in frustration.
Yohji places a calming hand on my shoulder. “You want me to come with you?” he asks and it’s as if a gentle breeze has wafted through my head, blowing away the uncertainties. I glance up at him.
“She’s going to say no,” I say. “Why would she say anything else?”
“Because she’s your sister and she probably worries about you as much as you worry about her.”
“I phoned her once, just before I went on that ill-fated trip to New York. She knew who I was, Yohji, but I couldn’t walk back into her life being what I am.”
“That’s her decision to make, not yours. Come on, let’s make that phone call before she goes to bed.”
He stretches out a hand and lifts me to my feet, smiling encouragingly all the while. I finally give up and let him lead me into the hallway. Then he stops and I realise that he doesn’t actually know where the study is. Letting him keep my hand in his, I take the lead and we enter the study. I drop his hand and cross to the desk and pick up the phone. I take a deep breath and punch in the number very quickly before I can change my mind again.
There is an endless space of time in which the phone rings and rings and then I hear it picked up. Her voice is surprised and sounds a little tired.
“Koneko flower shop, how may I help you?”
“Aya?”
“Onichan? Are you actually going to speak to me this time?” She sounds hurt, angry and I sigh.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I’m sorry I hung up like that. I didn’t know what to say. Aya, is it possible for you to shut the shop for a while?”
She is silent for another endless moment. Then she asks, “Why would I want to do that?”
I stare at Yohji who smiles encouragingly at me. A deep breath and I take the plunge. “I was hoping that you might want to spend some time with me, here, in England.”
“I see,” she says slowly. “Why, Ran, why leave it all this time?”
“So much has happened,” I say with a sigh. “I…I’ve done… things I’m not proud of.”
Her voice becomes brisk. “I’ll check on flight times and call you back. What’s your number?”
I give her the number of my mobile as well as the phone in the study. I really can’t afford to miss her call.
“I’ll call you back in about half an hour,” she says, “so those numbers had better be right!” The phone clicks in my ear and goes dead.
“She’s going to check on flight times,” I tell Yohji numbly.
“Well that’s good, isn’t it?” he asks.
“It is until I have to sit her down and explain that I’m a paid assassin,” I say bitterly. “How do you think she’s going to react to that?”
“If she loves you, she’ll understand,” Yohji says soothingly, “especially when she knows why you did it all.”
“I never thought it through,” I whisper. “I was so full of rage and hurt at what was done to us that I never stopped to consider what would happen when she woke up. When she did… well, you know what happened.”
Yohji nods, not needing to say a word. He knows only too well what happened. We holed up to lick our wounds after the Ani Museum fiasco and Manx sent me a message telling me my sister had woken up and was running the Koneko with Sakura of all people. I had frozen, unable to go forwards or backwards and had almost wished she’d stayed asleep. Asleep at least I could see her, awake, no. I could not taint her in that way, could not enter her innocent life as the thing that I’d become.
Yohji had helped so much, had prevented me from going completely insane and slowly I began to become the man I now am. Then, of course, things went wrong again, Yohji and Ken took serious wounds for me and I started to push Yohji away, terrified of losing him, the words ‘the sin of survival’ droning through my head in Schuldig’s nasal twang.
Add Saijou’s machinations to the mix and here I am, staring up at Yohji, riddled with the old doubts and terrors. What I’ve done to him, what I’m about to do to my sister - Schuldig must be laughing his ugly head off somewhere.
The phone rings and I almost jump out of my skin before snatching at the receiver. I lift it to my ear, my heart pounding.
“Ranichan?”
“Yes, Aya.”
“There’s a flight out of Narita at 10am, bound for Heathrow. I intend to be aboard it. Will you meet me at the airport?”
“What time does it arrive?”
“4pm English time. Terminal 3.”
“I’ll be there, I promise. Aya, how are you getting to Narita?”
“On the airport bus, of course. I can catch it at the end of the street.”
It seems as safe a way for her to travel as any other so I keep my doubts to myself. There’s no way I can involve Yuushi and the rest of Crashers any further, especially if they’ve gone underground. “Okay. Aya, be careful. I’ll see you at Heathrow.”
There is a moment’s silence before she asks. “Why do I need to be careful, Ran?”
“Because there is still at least one Takatori that wants us dead,” I tell her.
“And that’s why you want me out of Japan.” It’s not a question.
“Yes,” I tell her. The phone is slammed down in my ear and I’m left wondering if she’s actually going to get on the plane at all.
* * * * * * *
As I listen to Aya’s side of the conversation with his sister, I realise that he’s as clumsy with words when speaking to her as he is with the rest of us. It makes me smile. Aya wouldn’t be Aya without that tactless brusqueness.
He winces and replaces the phone, frowning direly. “I think I might have upset her.”
Repressing the urge to tell him that I’m hardly surprised if he has, I smile encouragingly at him. “At least now she might be a little on her guard.”
“If she gets on the damned plane at all.”
That’s my Aya, always the pessimist. I decide that changing the subject at this point can only be a good thing. “So, do you want some lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Oh no. I’m not going down that fucking road with him. “Well, much as it pains me to say it, I am fucking hungry and, as I have absolutely no idea where the dining room is in this mausoleum of a house, I’m going to need your help getting there!”
He sighs gustily but does climb to his feet. “Come on then,” he growls.
We leave the study and go back to traversing the halls and corridors of the huge place until I’m certain that I’ll never be able to find my way around it alone. Along the way Aya comes to a sudden halt and turns to gaze at me.
“I… thank you, Yohji. Just… thank you. Will you come with me tomorrow? To the airport?”
“Of course,” I tell him. I know it has to be hard for him, seeing his sister after all this time and then having to explain what he’s been doing all these years.
His hand slips into mine again and I suddenly feel like I could take on the whole fucking world for his sake. I smile at him and pull on the hand, bringing him closer. Then I take him in my arms and kiss him. He returns the kiss and I might say hang lunch and stay lip-locked for a while until a politely cleared throat makes us both pull away.
“Sorry to intrude,” Chloe says with admirable sangfroid, “but KR wants to know if you want your sister to stay here or at the shop, Aya.”
Surprisingly, he keeps hold of my hand as he turns to look at Chloe. “Here might be better,” he says after a moment’s thought. “If we take her to the shop and she’s been followed it will lead them directly to us.”
“If she’s followed they’re going to find us anyway,” Chloe retorts. “The main thing we need to do is be ready for them.”
I decide then and there that I really like Chloe. He goes straight to the heart of the matter without all the fucking soul-searching that Aya’s so good at. I was given a hint of this when he took me shopping, now I’m certain of it. I grin at him and he smiles back and actually winks at me.
“If they are watching her and someone does follow her here,” I say, “she might as well stay at the shop. She can have my room.”
I’ve set him a challenge and I know it. I want our relationship to return to what it once was but I have no idea what he might want. Now, he’ll have to make a decision. Everything I now own is in Chloe’s car so it’s up to him which bedroom I put it in.
Inevitably he glares at me for having put him on the spot in front of Chloe but there is a softness in his eyes that he can’t quite disguise despite the frosty look.
“We can decide all that later,” he says testily.
“As long as you’ve got it decided by four tomorrow afternoon,” I say sweetly and get a sharp elbow in the ribs for my temerity.
Chloe chuckles and turns to walk back to the dining room. Aya and I follow him and we’ve taken at least five steps before I realise that his hand is still folded in mine. I smile and squeeze it gently. The pressure is returned after a second’s hesitation and I feel my heart lighten. Maybe there is hope for us after all.
~~~~~~~
When we get back to the shop, later that afternoon, I’m bone tired. For this two things are responsible, the revelations of the morning have finally sunk in and Michel hasn’t shut up for more than five minutes the whole fucking way.
He’s a nice kid and all but I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that he can possibly be an active member of Side B. Even Omi at his most chatty and cheerful had nothing on this little powerhouse so when we reach the shop all I want is a cup of coffee and my bed.
Aya pulls up with the other car and I grimace at him, not quite sure how Chloe and I got lumbered with Michel on the way home. Luckily Free took the brunt of his ceaseless chatter. If he hadn’t I’d have strangled the little bastard by now.
He shoots me a nasty little smirk before climbing out of the car and giving me a hug. “I’ve decided where you’re going to sleep,” he says slyly.
I hold him tighter, hardly daring to breath. “Oh, where?”
“You’d better put your stuff in my room. I’ll clear some drawers and cupboard space for you.”
I lift his chin, bend down and kiss him to Yuki’s obvious embarrassment. “My stuff can stay in the car till morning,” I tell him. “Come on, Aya, let’s go to bed.”