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Weiss Kreuz copyright Koyasu Takehito and other related enterprises. This fanfic was
written for entertainment purposes only.
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NOTE: This fanfic takes off from a similarly fictitous (and gratuitous ^^;;) happy
Weiss Kreuz ending. Hah hah. Aya-chan is reunited with her beloved Niichan, and the
rest of the boys are endeavoring to live normal if not innocent lives.
**Silliness/daftness/OOC warning >_> Oh, and a huge KenxAya-chan bias.
ROUGH DRAFT: 2/7/2001
It was early morning when the call came through.
I made an absentminded move to detach myself from the sofa and a riveting book on 'Castration or Euthanasia?' to answer the phone, but Youji had already shimmered his way towards it with a muttered "Answer it and die, asshole." I slumped back in self-righteous obedience. I was in no mood to exchange sexually-loaded 'ohayous' with any of his floozies.
"Hellooooo...?" I heard Youji ask in his best bedside manner. I shook my head and went back to the wonders of dismembering a person using a nailcutter. No wonder most maniacs are technophobes. Why trust an electric nail gun when you can use a nailcutter?
"Kenken, it's for you," Youji grunted.
I grunted back non-commitally.
"It's Aya," he grunted again.
I added a few eloquent hand gestures to make my point.
"Aya-chan," Yohji yelled in the same way that he would yell 'catch!' and duly threw the receiver at me. "She's calling from Kyoto."
I was suddenly on the phone with all the verve of a suicidal ass with a nailcutter come down from heaven.
"Hello," I said, trying to keep my voice even. I think I did pretty well, though Youji told me I kept squealing between pauses.
"Hello, my boy," said my girl in her usual sweet lovely cheerful adorable sublime drop-dead sexy--Omi came in the door just then. I gave him a little wave. He stopped in the hallway and stared at me. "How are you doing?"
"Fine," I rattled. "Very happy. Fine. Oh. Oh. Very happy. Happy."
"I'm happy you're happy," she returned kindly. "I'm still at my aunt's house. We won't be coming back till Wednesday."
"But it's Wednesday," I protested.
"Next Wednesday."
"It's Wednesday."
"Okay," she said slowly. "Why don't you come down here then?"
"Next Wednesday?"
She laughed. I laughed. "No, Ken-san. Now."
"Now?"
"Yes."
I tried to think about it. I really did. But you know how it is when one sets a mousetrap and puts his finger in instead of the cheese.
"Your brother's with you," I pointed out.
"Yes."
"And so are your aunt and uncle."
"Yes."
"Your only living relatives."
". . . Yes."
"So," I said brightly.
"Are you afraid of them, Ken-san?"
Omi had come up to stand in front of me. Still staring, he shook his head slowly.
"No."
"That's settled then!" She laughed again. "If Youji-san and Omi-kun would like to come..."
"Yes," Youji called out.
"Yes," I repeated.
"Wonderful!" she exclaimed with such obvious delight I decided to refrain from kicking the couch towards Youji's face. "It's not that I'm not happy here. It's really nice to be with my aunt and uncle again after everything that has happened...But..."
I nodded seriously. Omi grunted.
She sighed. "There's something I'd like to ask you to do for me."
I nodded again.
"But I'll tell you about it when you get here," she said with some briskness. And then, "I'm really glad you're coming, Ken-kun. Oniichan tells me you deserve a vacation."
I was struck with enough horror to regain voice if not dignity. "Your brother suggested this?"
"Oh no!" she said reassuringly. "He doesn't know a single _thing_ about this."
I clutched the receiver more tightly. "But--"
But she was there first. "I'll see you tomorrow morning then, dear. Bye bye!"
I put the phone down slowly on the flower vase and heard it slide to the bottom with a satisfying thunk. "Bye bye."
Omi gave me a look smoldering with pity. "My, my, Ken-kun," he clucked. "That's really quite a fall you've taken."
"The splat is disgusting, though," Youji muttered.
"Right-o," Omi sighed. "But what's this about Aya--Ran-kun--having Aya--Aya-chan--drag you up to Kyoto?"
Youji raised his eyebrow. "Did you do something, Kenken?" he said, endeavoring to look scandalized.
"She told me I'll do it when I get there," I snapped.
Youji and Omi looked at each other.
In the meantime I was thinking 'I'd better bring that nailcutter.'
At this point, I don't think I can safely recount the reasons how and why I took a 'fall,' as Omi so metaphorically put it. It's a bloody process in more ways than one. Spilled guts are not a very pretty sight, especially when you have to describe it in the most agonized (and agonizing) prose. So I'll spare you that.
Aya--Ran damn it, I reminded myself--was his usual taciturn self. He didn't say anything to us except for a couple of dubious grunts which I took to be his way of saying "Hello and die." I grunted back. He growled for a couple of seconds, held the last beat, and ended with a staccato tsk. I showed him my nailcutter and he nodded reluctantly. The marvels of non-verbal communication, I thought. We're such a good team.
Aya--Aya, Aya, Aya--welcomed me with--her usual welcome. I hope I was properly grateful, if quite dazed. Behind me, Youji and Omi gave a collective grunt and pushed me towards the receiving room where the Only Living Relatives were waiting. To my relief, they were quite sane, and they didn't make a single grunt. Not that I didn't believe in the benificent influence of their niece, but evil had a way of working its way under the skin in first place. That's why light only came after darkness. And interacting with Ran sometimes felt like interacting with a long black tunnel.
We chatted a bit with the Only Living Relatives, and I found out that Ran had invented an involved piece of fiction in place of the real gory details of our lives. I was a high-school teacher, Youji was a cook and Omi was in seventh grade. Ran himself was an up-and-coming financier with an interest in gardening. Of course. After around half an hour, everyone stood up and headed to the veranda for tea. I made to follow them (and maybe ingratiate myself to the relatives, excluding the brother) when Aya nudged me aside while muttering about 'something' she wanted me to do, damnit.
"What?" I responded with aplomb.
"There's something I want you to do," she repeated, her pretty face flushed.
I smiled at her. "Okay."
"Ask me what."
"What?"
She took my arm and led me towards the dining room. It was in the Western style: many chairs, many tables, and walls you can't see because they were usually thought of as vertical floors which, since they couldn't be stepped on, had to be tortured in other more profound ways. In this case, the abuse took the form of two large paintings hung on the wall directly in front of the dining table. I stared up at the one which Aya was pointing at. I'm not really an art connoisseur; the only things which I collect with unvarying consistency are soccer balls, but there was something about this painting which instantly made me think of the sick and the twisted. It wasn't really because the subject of the painting is a naked man waving a lace handkerchief at a dove; it was something more along the lines of What The Hell Is That, Really?! The colors were bad, and the lines seemed to waver at some points and then stand out ferociously in places where they really shouldn't, speaking in strictly aesthetic terms.
She looked up at me somewhat anxiously. "What do you think of it?"
"Um, it's--it's--" I cleared my throat. "It's--"
Aya nodded. "Bad." She sighed. "My uncle painted this."
I was sincerely sympathetic. "Did he?"
"I really shouldn't be saying this," she continued miserably. "I mean, he's my relative and all but... Did you notice something about Oniichan?"
"Something?"
"Different."
She looked and sounded so hopeful the lie was on my lips before I could even think it. "Oh dear, yes. He's smiling and talking in comprehensible Japanese and you can finally approach him without carrying a stun gun." But I didn't say it, of course. I had a sudden irrational fear that once the words were out of my mouth, I'd combust spontaneously. "No," I said slowly.
"Yes, there is!" she burst out. "He's--well, he's jumpy."
I blinked at her. "Jumpy?"
"Like he's on the way to a nervous breakdown or something."
Before I could correct this outrageous misconception, she pointed at the second painting. "And how about that?"
It was also another painting of a naked man, only the outlines of the figure were less vulgarly pronounced, and the dimensions were certainly more--proportional. But all in all... I frowned. "Is it a duplicate of the other one?"
Aya shot me a disgruntled look which more or less screamed 'barbarian cur!' "No," she said as if she were talking to a child. "This painting is _good_. Done by a real artist." She gave an expectant pause.
I still didn't catch on. "Okay. Who's the artist?"
She stared at me harder.
I was horrified, to put it mildly. "Oh."
"Yes," she nodded solemnly. "Oniichan."
I blinked again and again. Ran painting men without even a decent loincloth on? Youji will announce he's a priest in disguise next. Aya twitched beside me. I waited in mingled dread and revolted (revolting) fascination.
"He's been painting continuously for the past three weeks that we've been here. I was so shocked... I mean I never knew he had such talent and passion for art. I'm really happy for him, but Uncle--"
It turned out that Uncle also had considerable passion for art, if lacking any sort of talent whatsoever. He's also been painting continuously--and unfortunately--for the past three years. Upon their arrival, he'd gifted them with his masterpiece aptly titled "Venus Castrated." Because their aunt asked and because their uncle seemed to sincerely believe that a naked man holding a lace handkerchief and and with earrings made of candy sticks helps the soul, Ran didn't set it on fire or fling it off the nearest cliff. But the strain was beginning to show, and Aya figured it was only a matter of time before he snapped totally. Not nice, no. Only Living Relatives, yes?
I stared at her dumbly.
Aya's mouth firmed. "So I've decided that there's only one alternative left. Ask me what, my boy."
"What?"
"You will steal the Venus."
"What?"
"Tonight."
"When you say steal, do you mean STEAL?"
She nodded. "That's right. It's really quite easy, Ken-san."
Anyone would think she was proposing that we buy candy, I thought desperately.
"I--"
"I'll do it myself, but Oniichan tells me you've the experience."
"What?"
"He said you're a chronic kleptomaniac and that you like stealing soccer balls," Aya elaborated in a suspiciously dulcet voice.
I gave her a quick glance and she returned it with a shining innocent one of her own. Or maybe not so innocent. I wondered then how much she knew. The poor little love was as crafty as an Aya when she chose. Flustered, I protested (about the wrong things, of course). "I don't steal soccer balls all the time. And, besides, lifting sporting equipment is not the same as lifting your uncle's painting. What will your aunt say?"
"Oh, she's already agreed to the plan," Aya answered with an insouciant wave of her hand.
"You told _her_?!"
"Yes."
"Really, Aya."
"She's afraid of Oniichan. And she's at her wit's end about the Venus. No one likes to eat in the dining room anymore. And it's the prettiest room in the entire house."
I endeavored to look reasonable. "But Aya--"
"Besides, the timing is great. I mean if you steal the painting now. There's been a spate of robbery in the neighborhood. Just the other day, a couple of Rembrandts were stolen," she said thoughtfully. "So Uncle wouldn't really mind if you took the painting. He'd think it's a tribute to his greatness."
"I can't do it," I countered, trying to sound firm and resolute and all that, but I honestly sounded like a wimp.
She watched me for a few moments and then shook her head sadly. "That's too bad because my aunt promised me--"
I groped for a nearby chair. "What did she promise?"
Aya gave me a mysterious glance from beneath her lashes. "You know."
I choked.
"Think," she exclaimed sorrowfully. "No more sneaking out of the back door. No more encrypted phone calls. No more dress-up and pretending you're Sakura..."
I think I ran screaming out of the room but my memory tends to fail me when it comes to these things.
"Well," Youji said, "I don't think you've any choice, my man. Steal the painting."
"I can't!"
Omi looked at me quizzically. "Why not?"
"It's wrong," I muttered.
Youji snorted. "So help me, Ken. You're a mass murderer. What's wrong to you?"
Omi nodded.
"I want to be an honest man!" I protested.
"So you are," said Youji soothingly. "But sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself for more noble ideals."
"Like what?"
He crossed his hands over his chest. "Like love," was the sublime answer.
I grunted.
"And you wouldn't want Ran turning to the dark side, would you?"
"Youji-kun," interjected Omi, "he _is_ the dark side."
"Hmph."
I made one last token protest as to the lack of proper equipment to conduct an efficient burglary. Omi dismissed it with an impatient wave of the hand. You only need to break the window, Ken-kun. The noise? Cover the window with paper. And the painting? The bread knife should do. Oh, Ran is bound to notice. So? He won't prosecute.
We set the robbery at one in the morning. Youji and Omi sailed into my room on the dot with evil little happy grins and towing a small portable grate. I grinned back at them, my hackles rising. I didn't bother to ask where they pilfered the grate. I couldn't bear it.
"The window?" I queried.
"Check," Youji said crisply.
"Um..."
"Check."
"And we'll have a nice fire going when you return, Ken-kun," Omi said cheerfully as Youji pushed me out of the door. "Dispose of the evidence, right?"
I left them cackling by the grate. And these were men who broke into the Diet Building without turning a hair. I figured it was the stupidity of the entire thing and their overblown taste for the ridiculous which got to them.
Grumbling, I made my way down the stairs. From the way I sailed like a debonair swain across the hallway and into the receiving room, one would think I hadn't a care in the world. I knew better, of course. I had never felt quite so nervous in my entire life, not even when... Well, anyway, I reached the dining room without any incident, except for that momentous event wherein I stupidly stepped on the cat's tail. The cat gave a token yowl which was arrested by mine own hysterical shrieks; it let me jabber on for a few seconds before it buried its head on its paws in disgust. I carried on, dignity partially but still intact.
It was, like my beloved said, as easy as falling headlong from the top of the Tokyo Tower. The bread knife was very sharp; it only took around three quick cuts and the canvas was in my hands. I breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to my room.
How Youji and Omi had managed to spark a blaze worthy of a garbage incinerator within five minutes, I shall never know. I wasn't exactly in the mood to find out. I crumpled the canvas in my hands and got ready to aim when Youji put in mildly:
"Kenken, don't you think it would be better if you cut it first into small pieces?"
"The smoke," Omi said knowingly.
"Oh."
"I think I saw a pair of garden shears somewhere," Youji muttered and went out of the room. He nearly bumped into Aya who was on her way in. They smiled at each other smugly as if saying 'hah! look who we've got now!' and then Aya came over to me.
"Is that it, Ken-san?"
"Just about."
"Where's Youji-san heading off to?"
"Shears," Omi answered.
Aya grinned. "I see. I think I'll help, if you don't mind."
I gestured mindlessly. Her grin widened further. Youji came back after a bit with three pairs of cutting equipment--again I didn't ask from where--and we settled down to more perfidy. With the three of us working diligently on what I was beginning to realize _was_ something hideous, we made a lot of progress in a short time. Fifteen minutes later, I was quite taken in by the spirit of the moment, and was sufficiently drunk with success to take Aya's hand with a gumption which set Youji beaming like a proud father. In fact, we were all smiling. Except for Omi, who was scrutinizing a piece of the canvas rather thoughtfully.
"Anou, Aya-san, what did you say your uncle's name was?"
"Fujimiya Taro. Why, Omi-kun?"
Omi cleared his throat. "It's just that this piece here says Fujimiya Ran."
The smile froze on our faces. "No, it doesn't," I retorted.
"Yes, it does." Omi leaned towards me. "See for yourself."
I stared at the offending print with an impending sense of doom. "No, it doesn't."
There was a long heavy pause.
"Yes, it does," Aya said in a voice which writers would call 'strangled.' "Ken-san, what have you done?!" Those last few words were definitely a 'screech.'
I stood up hurriedly. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll go check."
"Do," Youji grunted.
I sped back to the dining room, fearing the worst and hoping for nothing else.
Aya would probably never forgive me, and Ran would hang me on a door knob by dawn. At least I tried, I told myself consolingly.
I was really not in the mood for another shock, but got one nonetheless when I suddenly collided with a figure hustling about from the opposite direction.
We knocked foreheads for a terrified couple of seconds before one of us had the good sense to back away and drag the other into the hall where a dim
night light was burning.
My culprit and I gazed at each other for a long horrified moment.
"Hi--Hidaka-san?" Fujimiya Taro croaked. I stared at him still. He was pale and flustered, and he was holding something under one arm. I took a step towards him and when he backed away convulsively, that something fell to the floor and unrolled itself into a canvas. His canvas, to be exact.
He flushed. "I really can explain," he said in a quavering voice. "I know how it must look--stealing from my own house..."
I nodded speechlessly.
"You see, it's this painting." He sighed and looked at me pleadingly. "Are you an artist?"
"Er, no."
He coughed. "But I think you can understand what this picture means to me. I've been working on this for years. Years, Hidaka-san! I've watched it grow and develop, like a child. In fact, it _is_ my child. I love it. I determined never to let it leave my sight." His brow furrowed. "But then I finally found Ran and Aya after a long time of searching and in a mad moment, I gave the painting to them because it was the only way I can think of showing them how much they mean to me and my wife, and honoring my brother's memory... But--but--"
I nodded again.
"I can't let them take it away from me!" he wailed miserably. "I tried, but I really can't bear it. Only I don't have the heart to ask for it back, seeing how Ran especially seems to have developed so much fondness for it... So," he drew himself up defiantly, "I decided to steal it. I didn't think its loss would be anything special so to speak because there were a lot of art robberies in the neighborhood--"
"Yes, I know," I said politely.
"So you won't say anything? Please?"
I had no choice but to nod yet again. The alternative was to do cartwheels.
He beamed at me and began to shuffle towards the stairs. "Believe me, you won't regret this, Hidaka-san. No, you won't." One last wink and then he was gone.
I was still staring after him when Aya, Omi and Youji came up to me, running.
"What happened?" Youji demanded. "You took so long we decided to see if you've given us the slip."
"Ken-san--" Aya began, her violet eyes narrowed, hands already reaching for my throat.
I rattled out the events of the last few minutes before she could say another word (or throttle me). She was disposed to interrupt during the first few garbled sentences but by the end of the narrative, she was goggling along with the rest of them.
"Wow," said Omi.
At that point, the situation had already begun to sink in and I was beginning to feel vindicated. "See?" I said with a dramatic flourish. "Didn't I tell you things will turn out fine? Mrs. Fujimiya wanted the painting expunged and so it was expunged. Hah. What say you, love?"
Aya's face had taken on a disgruntled expression again. "And what will _Oniichan_say when he finds out that _his_ painting was also expunged?"
I frowned. "There is that."
"As I was saying, Ken-san--"
"Wait a moment, Aya-san," Omi interrupted, smiling. "I think I have a way out of this. If Ken-kun were to be found lying stunned on the floor, say with a bump in the head or two, the window broken _and _both pictures removed, surely Ran-kun has no choice but to believe that the thieves really had gotten into the house and stolen the precious paintings."
"But can anyone actually, well, stun Ken-san?" asked my love to her everlasting credit. "I don't think my brother doubts his abilities all that much."
"Oh, it's really quite easy, Aya-chan," Youji reassured her. "And Ran will believe, if the hit is executed in such a manner as to be thoroughly credible," he finished pedantically.
"And my aunt, of course, will suspect nothing amiss." Aya gave me a considering glance. "Plus she might well be thankful to Ken-san for defending family property with such admirable heroism. So... yes, I think it's a great plan. Isn't it, dear?"
"Oh wonderful," I agreed. "Except for one thing."
"Yes?"
"I allude to the fact that I am not lying and will not lie stunned."
Youji grinned. "We can certainly rectify that. I don't have any of our usual things with me, but maybe that stick over there will do, Omi-kun."
"Oh, you mean the broom, Youji-kun."
"Just the stick."
"The flower pot is surely better."
"Too much noise."
"In that you are correct."
"You would hardly feel the broom stick, Ken-san," Aya said soothingly.
"I am not going to feel it."
Youji shook his head. "Refusing to play ball, Kenken? Think of the consequences, my friend."
"It's just a little tap," said Aya.
I drew myself up to my full height and looked at them with, I hope, teeming disdain. "In the space of one evening, I had been mercilessly bullied, cajoled and blackmailed into doing things which any honest," I emphasized the word, "man would not even consider in his subconscious. I refuse to be your plaything any longer."
"Hypocrite."
I grunted. "Say what you must. _I_ am going to bed."
"Is that your last word on the subject, Ken-san?" Aya asked calmly.
"Absolutely," I said, turning on my heel smartly, and it was, because something hit me on the the back of my head with a loud thwack and I fell down face first without so much as a by-your-leave.
I woke up in my room the next morning with a splitting headache and probably a permanently caved in skull.
Aya beamed at me from beside the bed. "Oh, good morning, Ken-san. You've been sleeping for quite some time."
"No doubt," I muttered and winced as even my eyes began to throb. "Gods, what did you hit me with?"
She looked embarrassed. "I just grabbed the first thing I saw. I think it was the flower pot." Aya took my hand. "I'm really really sorry, darling."
I sighed and leaned back on the pillows, slightly mollified. "Well, at least tell me what my spectacular robbery resulted to then."
"Oniichan grunted a bit, but I think he suspects nothing amiss. And, of course, Uncle Taro isn't saying anything at all, though Aunt Sayako has been singing your praises since sunrise. All in all, I think it went quite well."
"You're a lunatic."
She patted my hand. "Be brave, Ken-san."
There was a knock on the door, and then Ran poked his head in. Aya smiled at him but didn't withdraw her hands from mine. I tried valiantly not to squirm.
"Aya," said Ran to his sister without any change of expression at all. "Aunt wants to talk to you for a bit."
Aya nodded cheerfully, patted my hand again and fluttered her way out of the door without saying another word. Ran strode over to the foot of my bed and stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest.
My threshold for pain had unfortunately been diminished by the events of last night. I decided I'd better go on the offensive while I reasonably can (that is, before I hit my head on the bed post and render myself unconscious). "Well?" I barked.
"Well what?"
"What's with the look?"
"So?"
My left eyelid began to twitch. Painfully. "Fine."
"What?"
"Get out."
"Okay," he grunted.
I grunted in return, scarcely able to believe what I was hearing. He gave me one last abrupt nod and then turned away. At the door, he looked back at me.
"Next time," he said indifferently, "tell Aya to use the broom stick. You have the most hideous scream."
I think maybe I should use that nailcutter now.
Owari
NOTE: The nailcutter is my deranged imagination speaking. I think I'll make a very messy serial killer >_>