Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Hello, Goodnight ❯ Chickens and Coffee ( Chapter 4 )

When consciousness finally returns, I find myself sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the Koneko. Suspicious looking smears on my clothes make me suspect that not every pedestrian bothered to walk around my comatose form. Nothing says `good morning' quite like burning concrete and tread marks on your chest.

Really nice of Aya to save my ass and drag me all the way home--only to decide that the extra three feet through the door was too much trouble.

I drag my sorry ass inside and am met with the smell of breakfast. This, I'd like to say, is quite unusual. Being a house of four guys, feeding tends to be a fend-for-oneself event. The fending often takes the form of barely edible prepackaged sludge. Aya is a good cook, but he rarely feels like cooking for all four of us, and figures cooking only for himself isn't worth the trouble.

Miracle upon miracles, there's Aya in the kitchen, frying pan in hand. Perhaps he has decided to make it up to me for leaving me to the mercy of stranger's feet all night. Who knows, stranger things have happened. I can't actually think of anything stranger, but I'm sure there must be. His question of “Breakfast?” is met with a very hasty nod. I would kill for some of Aya's cooking right now.

…That thought is interrupted by the banging of a plate in front of me while Aya ceremoniously drops two raw eggs onto it. I continue to gape silently as the raw eggs are joined by a bowl of uncooked oatmeal. He had the consideration to add the water, mind you, just not to cook it. Hey, is that an ice cube floating in there…?

I might just have to kill someone after all. Aya's retirement plans aren't looking too promising right now.

Before I can even begin to give Aya a piece of my mind, he cuts me off with a glare to rival that one he shot me when he found out Yumi knew about Weiβ. It makes my skin crawl. His message in clear; not only daren't I complain, but I'm going to have to actually eat what he gave me if I want to go on living in this household intact. Did I say earlier that `love hurts'? What I really meant was love is a cruel, sadistic bastard. If I ever meet cupid, he's going to find that arrow of his shoved up a place where the sun don't shine.

Raw oatmeal isn't all that bad actually. I mean, when the consistency of what you're shoveling into your mouth reminds you of kitty litter, you find yourself quite appreciative to be tasting oats. The eggs are a little more difficult to swallow. Now, I'm not a stranger to raw eggs, I'm afraid. I don't believe there is a hangover cure I haven't tried, and this is one of the ones that worked enough to get repeat performances. The key here though, is last time I had to swallow one it was spiked with 140-proof liquor, and quite frankly I could have been downing motor oil and wouldn't have tasted the difference. Being painfully sober this morning, I taste (and unfortunately feel) the difference in all its slimy glory. I think I'll be scratching that cure off my future repertoire. I'd rather have the headache.

Plate empty, I make my escape. My plan now is to take a shower (I'm still covered in blood and footprints,) and then lock myself in my room and watch porn until Aya is back to his normal self. His normal self being quasi-bitchy, and not, I'm-going-to-hunt-you-down-and-make-your-life-Hell-on-Earth-bitchy. It's a good plan I think. It might be improved with a little booze, but going out to get some increases my risk of running into Aya. Avoiding Aya-contact is essential to my plan.

The shower is heaven. Seriously, out of all the aspects of being an assassin, one of the biggest impacts it has on your life is that you never take the shower for granted again. There is nothing like the feeling of being clean, even if it does seem to only be a brief illusion. My revelry is cut short though, by the sting of icy water. I adjust the knob, but suddenly there is nothing but freezing liquid. I'm further interrupted by a very brief knock on the door and Ken popping his head in uninvited. “Hey Yohji,” he says cheerfully, “Aya told me to tell you that he's running the dishwasher and the washing machine so there won't be any hot water for a while. You might want to take your shower later, `kay?” I almost jump out of the shower and strangle him. I really do. “I'm already IN the fucking shower, moron!” I yell back, my tone promising death to anyone who says anything stupid to me ever again. “Oh yeah, I guess you are,” he replies idiotically. “Well good luck with that.” Fortunately for his own sake, Ken is gone from the bathroom before I'm dry enough to make good on my desire to throttle him. Looks like he'll get to live to see another soccer match.

Shower finished, and clad in a towel, I head to my room. My room is my sanctuary. No matter how bad things go, I can retreat to my room, and wrapped in luxurious cotton and surrounded by entertainment, completely escape. Today I'm gonna put on my oldest and crappiest outfit—read: `most comfortable'—the one that never ever leaves my room. Then I'll find the most mindless programming imaginable, and retreat completely into Yohji-land. I'm not coming out until I've forgotten that Aya even exists. Maybe I'll wait until I've forgotten that Weiβ exists too, you can't be too safe.

I'm kinda distracted by my fantasy of how the day will play out, so I'm jiggling the doorknob of my room a good deal longer than should be necessary for me to realize that it isn't opening. It…isn't opening…?

…HOW is my door not opening? I never ever lock it from the outside. Ever! I don't often lock it from the inside either. Today was going to be one of those rare days where I did, but….

I can't get in.

Aya.

Aya has a master key to every room in the apartment.

Aya is going to die.

But I can't kill him naked.

Interesting idea, that, but no. Not with naive younger assassins on the premises.

Experimenting proves that Aya's door is not locked (not very bright Aya, you'll regret that overlook.) Since I need to get dressed specifically to inflict homicide, I decide that my best course of action is to borrow my clothes from the intended victim. That way if my plan fails as miserably as everything else I've attempted these past few days, I'll in the very least manage to piss him off by getting blood on his favorite sweater.

Clad in Aya's shag carpet that he calls a `sweater' and a pair of his jeans (he irons them, fer goddsake,) I make my way down to the basement in hopes of salvaging the part of my plan which involved watching TV until my brain ceases to function. My watch tells me there should be some nice mindless soap operas on, which suits me just fine.

Unfortunately, I come to discover that the basement is not vacant, and I was not the only member of this household to formulate the fabulous plan of using the big screened mission TV for gratuitous entertainment.

Wait, scratch the word `entertainment.'

Entertainment is a broad term, I am rather generous with its application (as I begrudgingly allow Ken to apply it to his soccer crap and Aya to the History channel.)

However, I do draw the line with what's marring the fabulously expensive plasma screen I am currently coveting.

Eggs are rolling down a conveyor belt in front of rows upon rows of jam-packed cages of mangy looking chickens.

“Um, Omi,” I decide my best chance at winning some viewing time is through a plea to reason, “aren't you supposed to be in school right now?”

“School,” Omi morosely comments, “what's the point, it just reinforces the cruel standards of society that leads to slavery of sentient beings that we deem beneath us. I will no longer be an enabler in their evil massacres.”

“Um, alright…” I start to slowly back away. I don't think that Omi is going to be receptive to reason this less-than-fine morning.

His hand tightens around my wrist. “Where do you think you're going?”

“I was just going to get some coffee….”

“Rainforests are being clear-cut to grow most commercial coffee leaving many tropical birds on the brink of extinction. Not to mention the pesticides used to grow it are….”

I sigh in defeat. It doesn't look like Omi's going to give me a break anytime soon.

I flop down on the couch and start fantasizing about different ways that I can make Aya suffer without damaging his fabulous physique (which I prefer to keep intact, for my own less-than-pure intentions.) Siccing Omi on him seems like a good place to start.