Alternatives

Meetings


\"What do you want?\" Aya glared at Yohji, not in the least pleased to see him here. Why couldn’t he just go away and live a life away from killing?

\"Do you mind if I sit down?\"

\"I can’t stop you.\"

\"Thank you……Aya.\"

Aya tensed, his eyes widening. Somehow Yohji had remembered the name he still happily went by; the name Yohji had given him. He tried for subterfuge. \"Pardon?\"

\"I have something of yours, I believe.\" Yohji’s tone was pleasant enough but the deep green eyes were hard and watchful. \"And I ought to warn you now that I’m not leaving here until you fill in some of the gaps for me.\"

Aya sighed and pulled himself into a sitting position. Once upright he indicated the chart at the foot of the bed. \"You will observe that my name is on the chart.\"

\"People can lie about names. I believe someone lied to me about mine a few months ago and I’m pretty damned sure that you’re lying to me now. \"

Aya said nothing, contenting himself with a glare and folding his arms across his chest.

\"Okay, let me tell you what I know. You used to have red hair with eartails and you carried a katana. You used it to kill a middle-aged man on a rooftop somewhere. You had, or have, a sister. Does any of that make sense to you?\"

\"No.\"

Yohji stood up abruptly and started pacing the room. \"Stop fucking lying to me! I need to know the truth. I need to know who I am and what I am. And like I said, I’m not leaving here until I get some answers. Let’s start with names. Real names not identities. I believe my name may well be Yohji and yours is definitely not Suzuki Ran.\"

The constant pacing was getting to him along with all that Yohji had remembered or worked out for himself. Finally he snapped. \"For fuck’s sake sit down, Yohji!\"

Yohji turned and stared at him. \"So, it _is_ my name.\"

Aya closed his eyes in defeat and nodded. \"Yes. You are Kudoh Yohji.\" He wondered if the name would give rise to more memories returning but all Yohji did was sit down again and frown.

\"Kudoh Yohji? It doesn’t really mean anymore than Ito Ryo does. Well, it seems a bit more familiar but…….This is driving me nuts!\"

Aya shivered slightly. That was precisely what he was trying to avoid. \"My name really is Ran although I also go by the name Aya.\"

\"Suzuki Ran?\"

\"No. But that isn’t important. Why are you trying so hard to remember, Yohji?\"

\"Because I feel like I’m not a real person anymore. I apparently have no friends, no family, no ties. Nobody cares what I do or where I am. It’s like I’m dead.\"

Aya shivered. Officially, they were all dead but that wasn’t something he wanted to tell the man by his bed. He frowned suddenly at something that Yohji had said. \"Who lied to you a few months ago?\"

\"Some kid came to visit me in the hospital after whatever happened to me. He gave me the Ito identity, documents, bank accounts and so on. At first I was happy, thinking that was really who I was. Then I started noticing the amount of money in the accounts, the credit limits on the cards and wondering why I was worth so much. I figured that I wasn’t Ito Ryo at all and that some mysterious benefactor was going to a lot of trouble for a nobody.\"

\"What did this kid look like?\"

\"Brown hair with bangs over one eye, dark eyes, around nineteen or twenty. Do you know him?\"

Aya sighed and nodded reluctantly. \"His name is Naoe Nagi. He now works for the same man as I do.\"

Yohji frowned. \"His name doesn’t mean a thing either. Did I work for this man too?\"

\"For a short while.\"

Yohji stared intently at him, eyes narrowed. \"You’re answering all my questions but you’re still telling me nothing. Why?\"

\"Because I believe you to be happier now than you were before your memory loss.\"

\"Why should you care about my happiness?\"

Aya turned away, unable to answer that question without giving far too much away. \"We were friends.\" It was all he could manage to say, all he wanted to give of himself right now.

Yohji leaned forward. \"In one of those flashbacks I saw your hair against a pillow and I don’t think you were sleeping!\"

Aya winced slightly. Damn you, Yohji, why did you have to remember that? \"Please, Yohji, stop this. It’ll do you no good to remember.\"

\"What the hell was I, Aya, that you feel the need to protect me from it?\"

\"Confused, going slowly insane, terribly unhappy. Do you want all that back?\"

\"Was it you that was making me that way?\" Yohji’s lips quirked into a slight smile as he asked that question.

\"Perhaps, in part.\"

\"I imagine you could drive anyone insane. So, what exactly did we do for this mysterious man?\"

Aya just stared at him in consternation. \"Yohji…..please, stop doing this to me. All I’m prepared to say is that it was the sort of work that is best forgotten.\" Along with your ghosts.

\"I see.\" Yohji was silent for a while, sat back in the chair and staring out into the room. Aya was pretty certain that he wasn’t seeing anything physical. His belief was well founded when Yohji asked his next question. \"Were we…..lovers?\"

\"Sometimes.\" There was no point in denying it now that Yohji had remembered him in a bed.

Yohji nodded, apparently glad to have one question answered. Then he got a suspicious look in his eyes and cocked his head to one side as he stared at Aya.

\"Why was I so confused and unhappy if I had you for a lover?\"

* * * * * *

Ken’s trip to London was uneventful and he saw no reason not to check straight into a hotel and get over his jet lag. If Yohji was here, the hunt could wait for the few hours it took him to get some sleep.

When he awoke he wondered how exactly he was going to go about this. London was a big city and there was nothing to say that Yohji had stayed in the capital. He could be in any of the other large cities in Britain or he could be hidden away in the heart of the country. Or he could be in a totally different country.

A shower and rather large breakfast later, he was feeling better. He remembered all the places that Yohji had said he would like to see in England and there was a chance that, if he was here and had visited them, someone would remember. Feeling a little less lost, Ken set off for the Tate Gallery, once high on Yohji’s to do list.

Nobody on the bag search or ticket desk recognised the photo he produced so he entered the gallery hoping that one of the more observant security guards might have seen Yohji. It was a long shot, he knew, and normally he wouldn’t be interested in the art. One picture, however, caught his attention. The redheaded woman in the boat had a look of sadness bordering on despair on her beautiful face. He recognised the look, he had seen it on his team-mates faces often enough. Especially on Yohji’s face once the mask had finally cracked. Why the hell couldn’t he be allowed to stay lost? He took a look at the plaque to find the picture was called ‘The Lady of Shallot’ and was by J W Waterhouse. Deciding he might even buy a print of it, Ken moved on.

A nasal voice in his head bought him up short. /He’s not here, Kenken. You’re in the wrong country./ Schuldig! What the hell was he doing here?

/What am I doing here? Why, looking at the paintings of course. I was wondering what a philistine like yourself was doing here. Now it makes sense./ He stepped out from around a corner and smirked at Ken, although the expression didn’t have its usual malice.

\"I thought you and Crawford were dead.\"

\"Sorry to disappoint you, Hidaka, but I survived. In fact if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have to look for Kudoh. He’d be dead.\"

\"You were the one who got him out of there?\"

Schuldig nodded, the smirk slipping considerably. \"I couldn’t find Crawford so I grabbed him instead. Strange how a pre-cog didn’t see his own death.\" He sighed slightly. \"Or perhaps he did.\"

\"Are you saying he wanted to die?\"

\"You’re brighter than I thought. We were all tired, weren’t we? We’d all lost the will to continue. Well, apart from the little Takatori maybe.\"

Ken grimaced, pain and hurt still coursing through him at mention of Omi. Then he remembered the important part of what Schuldig had told him. \"You say Yohji’s not in England at all?\"

Schuldig sighed dramatically. \"Pay attention, Hidaka. That’s precisely what I said. I don’t know where he is, however, before you ask.\"

\"Damn!\"

\"So tell me, why is the little one so keen to find him?\"

\"So that he doesn’t bump into people like you!\"

Schuldig nodded. \"Makes sense. He’s likely to greet me like a long lost buddy, if he recognises me at all that is. You do know he lost his memory?\" The hard green eyes rested on him and Ken felt uncomfortable under their cold regard.

\"Well, nice meeting you and all that shit, but I’ve gotta go.\" Ken turned away, searching for an exit sign. He would have to contact Omi, no, damnit, Mamoru, and let him know that England was clear. A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him back.

\"No, wait…\"

\"What do you want?\"

Schuldig frowned in confusion. \"I’m not entirely sure,\" he drawled, but there was an underlying hint of something else, something desperate. \"A friend, perhaps.\" He laughed without mirth. \"But I guess I picked the wrong person, right?\"

Ken stared at his one time enemy. Something about the expression on Schuldig’s face gave him pause, reminded him of the girl in the painting. Ken wondered if that lost look was mirrored in his own eyes. Weiss, Schwarz, they’d all seen far too much for comfort. \"Do you want to go for a beer?\" Now why the hell had he asked that?

Shuldig’s green eyes widened in surprise. \"A beer would be good.\"

\"You can be surprised then?\" Ken felt himself grin at the scored point.

\"So it would seem.\" Schuldig shrugged indifferently.

They left the gallery together, after Ken bought his print. Schuldig raised an eyebrow at his choice but said nothing until they were outside the imposing building and heading for the nearest pub. \"An odd choice. I had you marked down as more of a Turner or Stubbs lover. More testosterone involved.\"

Ken shrugged. \"It was the expression on her face. It struck a chord somehow.\"

\"Ah.\" Luckily, Schuldig said no more until they were seated with a pint of beer apiece.

\"How do you know Yohji isn’t in Britain?\" Ken asked, more to break the silence between them than any real desire to know.

Schuldig leaned back in his seat. \"Each mind has its own signature, its own taste if you like. Normally I’m too busy trying to blank the noise out to get the taste or signature of individual minds.\" He sighed slightly. \"But, over the past few years, I’ve got to know the unique signatures in the minds of Weiss. I actively search them out, which is why I knew you were at the Tate.\"

\"Why would you want to search for our signatures?\" Ken was confused. They were on opposing sides, enemies. Why would Schuldig seek them out?

\"Until today so as to avoid you. As you just thought, we were enemies. Possibly still are.\" He shrugged. \"I just don’t know anymore.\"

Ken was fascinated, despite his misgivings about the man in front of him. \"So, what are our minds like?\"

\"I don’t know how much sense this will make but I’ll try and describe it in terms of taste. Your friend Kudoh has a mind like rich, dark cherries or blueberries. The little Takatori is an odd mix of honey and hard nut brittle. Yours is spicy, cinnamon or nutmeg, perhaps.\"

\"And Aya’s?\"

\"Oh yes, Fujimiya. Don’t let the exterior fool you. His mind is like vanilla flavoured coffee. Strong and yet sweet.\"

Ken thought about this for a moment or two. The flavours Schuldig had described did make a kind of sense. \"Okay, so what about Schwarz? What were their minds like?\"

Schuldig smirked slightly. \"Crawford’s was like pure ice, no flavour, just cold. Nagi is like a good curry or Cajun cuisine, hot but with other flavours coming through the heat. Very complex. I don’t delve too deeply into Farfarello’s mind. Best I can do for him is chilli, all heat.\"

Ken nodded. Again they seemed like good similes to him. But what did he know? He took a long swallow of his beer before glancing across at Schuldig again. Little details about his appearance began to impinge on Ken’s mind, the tiny lines of fatigue around the cold, green eyes, the lank appearance of the usually silky hair, the slump of the shoulders. He realised abruptly that the man opposite was at the end of his tether. No wonder he seemed to need a friend so desperately. \"Why me?\"
\"Because you’re honest and perhaps less inclined to take my head off than Fujimiya.\"

Had Ken asked that out loud or had the telepath pulled it from his thoughts? He frowned across the table.

\"You spoke aloud but I was following your thought processes.\"

\"You believe you’re in danger don’t you?\" It was a quantum leap compared to Ken’s normal thinking and he wondered if he had offended Schuldig. It came as quite a surprise when the German merely nodded his agreement.

\"Very good, Kenken.\" His old, sarcastic tones were back but his eyes were wary.

Ken glanced around quickly. Nobody was sitting too close to them so he lowered his voice. \"Destroying Epitaph wasn’t enough, was it?\"

\"It was a huge step in the right direction. It slowed Rosenkreuz’s recruitment down considerably. But they’re like a malignant cancer, cut out one tumour and another grows elsewhere.\"

\"But don’t you work for them?\" This conversation had to be one of the most confusing that Ken had ever experienced in his whole life.

Schuldig shook his head emphatically before leaning forward to speak close to Ken’s ear. \"We fought the Essett elders in order to free ourselves, attacking you in the process in case you sought to steal that freedom from us. We had no idea of what we had set in motion. Crawford and I were trained by Rosenkreuz, yes, but we had no idea that they were the power behind Essett. We believed it was the other way around, to our cost. They silenced us, Hidaka! Crawford couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear when we were anywhere near them. We had trained Nagi so we sent him to Takatori Mamoru. He, at least, is free of their taint.\"

Ken winced at mention of Nagi’s name. The boy that had supplanted him in Omi’s affections. No. He had to remember that there was no Omi anymore.

He turned his thoughts to what Schuldig had just told him. No wonder Kritiker was so desperate to find Yohji. Without his memory he could be a danger to both himself and others.

Schuldig seemed to have been following his thoughts again as he smiled suddenly. \"The one good thing is that Kudoh’s memory is slowly returning.\"

Ken stared at him blankly. \"Good thing? He was a mess.\"

\"He’d be even more of a mess if Rosenkreuz got hold of him.\" Schuldig finished his beer and peered at Ken over the rim of his still raised glass. \"Luckily, he found the right kitten.\"

That had to mean Aya, Ken realised. So Yohji was in New York. Something else he could report back, though he wasn’t sure how angry Mamoru would be about it. \"How do you know all this?\"

Schuldig sighed quietly. \"If I don’t make a conscious effort to block them out, I can hear the thoughts of the whole damned world, all at once. Cacophony. I would go insane if I listened. With such a curse, you think distance is important?\" He gazed at the frosted glass window for a moment before turning back to look Ken steadily in the eye. \"I want to make a deal.\"

* * * * * * *

Mamoru sat staring at the phone, almost trying to will it to ring. All the agents that had reported back so far had no news of Yohji. It was as if the man had vanished off the face of the earth. He sighed softly and glanced at the photograph on his desk. They were his family. He couldn’t abandon any one of them, even if Nagi was convinced that he was a control freak.

The phone shrilled, startling him even though he had waited for it to ring. He snatched the receiver up, knocking the photograph flat in his haste. \"Persia here.\"

He listened to the voice on the other end for some considerable time, his face showing no emotion at all, although the news he was getting was making his heart thump and his head spin. Finally he frowned.

\"Thank you, Ken. Stay where you are for the time being. I need to think about the offer of a deal and will get back to you on that. Goodnight.\" He slammed down the receiver and calmed himself just enough to prevent the phone from being tossed through the window.

Damn it all to hell! Could it even get any worse? Yohji was with Aya and regaining his memory and now the man he still held responsible for his cousin’s death was offering to cut a deal. The phone rang again.

\"Persia!\" Again he listened.

\"What?… How long?…. Have the hospitals been checked?… I see….Yes, thank you.\"

Nagi entered the office just in time to float the hurtling telephone back to its place on the desk. \"Bad news?\"

\"Ken has been told that Yohji is with Aya in New York only that’s impossible because Aya has vanished!\"

\"How did Ken find out about New York?\"

\"Schuldig told him.\" Mamoru knew his voice was hard when he said the telepath’s name, but he had reason for his hatred.

\"If Schu says they’re in New York, that’s where they are.\" Nagi’s voice was both reasonable and full of conviction. Mamoru glanced at him, his eyes hard.

\"But that would mean that Aya-kun was hiding from me. Why would he do that?\" To protect Yohji, of course. Although that didn’t explain his still being checked in at the hotel.

\"Why don’t you want Kudoh with his memory intact?\"

Nagi’s quiet question made him snap out of his short reverie. \"Why? Simply because he was going insane with it all. He even attacked Aya-kun.\"

\"I know, I was there. And yet it was Fujimiya that you least wanted him to find. Was it because they were close or because you thought they might try to kill each other again?\"

Mamoru sighed and raised a hand to his throbbing head. \"Both probably.\" He gazed thoughtfully at Nagi.

\"You worked with Schuldig, know the man. I…I have good reason to neither like nor trust him, but his help would be invaluable. He wants to make a deal with me. Can I trust him?\"

Nagi looked faintly surprised but answered very readily. \"If he is offering to make a deal, you can trust it. He doesn’t make them lightly.\"

\"I wouldn’t be able to face him. There is too much bitterness there, Nagi-kun. I would need you to liaise with him. Or better still, find some way for him to be of use away from Japan.\" He could feel his shoulders tensing as the memories flooded back. Suddenly invisible hands were there, easing the muscles. He smiled at his lover. \"Thank you, Nagi-kun.\"

\"Distance is no object for Schu. You wouldn’t have to meet if you didn’t want to.\" Nagi’s eyes were worried.

\"He’s desperate, isn’t he?\" Mamoru suddenly realised that Schuldig had no-one and nothing anymore except some very powerful enemies. \"If I refuse him it could mean his death.\"
\"You say that as if it were the desirable option.\"

\"Perhaps it is.\"

The invisible hands ceased their ministrations and Nagi was staring at him as if he were a stranger. \"Then what makes you any better than him?\"

Mamoru sighed. \"You’re right, Nagi-kun. I cannot descend to petty vengeance when there is so much at stake. I could not do so anyway.\" He looked deep into the other’s eyes. \"I want you to make me a promise. I want you to do all you can to prevent me becoming corrupted by all this power.\" The rare smile that lit up Nagi’s face was breathtaking to him.

\"I promise.\"

The very real arms around his neck and the kiss pressed against his mouth was even more breathtaking and Mamoru finally relaxed just a little.