Monday 1.14 - Suspect activities

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji continued to lean against the brick wall as he watched Ran put hasty distance between them.

"I need some time to think."

Leave it to Ran to answer him without giving him an actual answer. They'd been talking in circles. Again. Where was he in such a hurry to get to, anyway? The man had had a slightly suspicious air about him just now.

After a few moments of indecisive waffling, Yohji made a potentially regrettable decision.

With less effort than it should have taken, he slid back into old habits and a mind frame that had been largely neglected since joining Weiss. For a few minutes at least, he would forget about being an assassin, and pretend he still had a P.I. badge in his wallet. If Ran didn't want to be followed, he shouldn't have been acting so shifty. He was totally asking for it, Yohji reasoned.

The term 'stalker' never would have occurred to him.

Ran was a remarkably easy target to trail, anyway. Yohji could keep a considerable amount of distance with little fear of losing sight, not with that hair or the exaggerated trench coat to mark him. Despite the lack of challenge, he felt like he was really in his element. If only missions were this gratifying....

The satisfaction of detective work was tinged with melancholy, though. This was very different from the hours he'd spent with Asuka, taking turns practicing their tracking skills.

Eh, Yohji. You really suck at this, you know? When are you going to stop acting like you learned all your skills from a cheap spy comic book? Here let me show you....

...If you make me follow you through the red light district one more time, you're going to find yourself down a partner, buddy....

...Hey, that guy over there looks suspicious. Let me cover for you....


The looming frame of the Magic Bus Hospital jarred Yohji out of his reminiscence.

The hospital? Why on earth would Ran be going into the hospital? Aya Chan is back at the shop, he has no reason at all to....

"If he has another secret sibling stashed away, I swear I'm gonna kill him," Yohji muttered under his breath.

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[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

Inside the hospital, Ran walked inside the front doors and the double-doors leading to the patients' ward almost automatically. He hadn't planned on coming to this place; but now that he was there it almost felt like home.

A home better left behind.

He hadn't been back since the final paperwork had been processed. He supposed another patient would have been moved inside the room he'd spent so many hours in, waiting, reflecting and planning.

This was a foolish, strangely nostalgic instinct on his part, he recognized. But where else was better to go? He had told Yohji he'd needed time to think. This was the place he'd always found that...peace was not the right word for it, not here. But his suffering here had also been a source of his strength. There was someone to fight for. Her lifeless hand had given him a goal beyond revenge.

The room, surprisingly, was empty. Sheets folded severely, curtains pulled open.

A scene he'd both imagined and tried not to imagine every time he came.

He stepped inside and pressed one hand, palm down, on the covers.

Perhaps some part of him had been afraid that she would still be waiting here.

But there was no complacent beeping. No name strip on the door. No IVs. No chair pulled up to her bedside, waiting for him to occupy it.

And Aya-chan was at home.

At home. No. At the apartments. At the Koneko.

With people who would protect her.

He stared at it, absorbed its emptiness.

Omi's insistence that he would always be Aya to him surfaced, along with his other teammates' inability to reaffirm his identity.

He was both of them. Aya, and Ran. Here he had always been Ran.

Perhaps this was the life he'd wanted to bury.

If he wasn't Ran, it would seem like more of a dream. His life as Aya was every bit as horrific, but Aya was stronger than Ran had been.

Observing this room affirmed that they were the same reality.

And Weiss knows about it now.

And denied it as strongly as he ever did.

He straightened, lifting his hand off the empty bed, then turned on his heel.

Never again.

*****

"Ran! Ran Fujimiya!"

Ran had one foot on the pavement when the hand landed on his shoulder. He caught the door and held it as the woman followed him out.

The nurse in front of him was a familiar face, old and just a little wrinkled and very kind.

"Ran, dear, I thought that was you. You don't have a reason to be here anymore, do you? Has anything happened? Is your Aya all right?" The woman kept her hand on his shoulder, softly gripping the fabric on his coat.

"Nurse Aoki." The nurse who had watched him grow by his sister's bedside smiled at his recognition. He smiled, and it was genuine. "No, everything's fine. She's...doing well."

"That's wonderful news. I hope you don't have a reason to be here again, Ran, dear."

"Thank you." He repeated.

She examined his face for a moment more, then pulled him forward into a matronly hug. Ran leaned into it, then extracted himself as gently as possible.

"Take care, Nurse Aoki." He turned and started down the street towards the apartments before she could continue questioning him.

"You too, Ran, take care!" She called after him. "I don't want to see you haunting this place anymore!"

He sped up his pace. The night air was cool on his neck as it moved through his hair.

Ran, dear.

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

He had done a terrible thing.

Not because following Ran inside the hospital had been an unreasonable risk, one he certainly wouldn’t have taken to follow anyone else, not without a mission requiring him to do so. No, he realized, as he was trapped lurking until Ran left and gave him the freedom to retreat undetected, he had just violated Ran on a much deeper level than he had ever intended. Ran would probably never talk to him again if he knew.

Stupid, Yohji chastised himself, no wonder you’re on bad terms with Omi. You’re a walking train wreck. Whenever there’s a bad decision to make, you’re right on board.

Despite his guilt over intruding, Yohji couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Ran was different.

He wasn’t Aya. He wasn’t ‘Ran’ either. He was….

Hesitant? Visibly younger? Definitely emanating an air of vulnerability Yohji had never seen before. Standing alone in an empty hospital room, Ran had never seemed so completely lost.

He was relieved when Ran didn’t linger long. Yohji wanted to escape and minimize the damage.

His reprieve was foiled, however, by a motherly ambush. Yohji was barely able to hang back in time to avoid walking straight into Ran and the Nurse’s line of sight.

"Ran! Ran Fujimiya!"

Hearing his name spoken by the nurse was a bigger shock than the sight of him allowing the smothering hug.

Ran.

He had never been ‘Aya’ at the hospital.

All this time, Yohji had thought that he knew Aya as well as anyone else was allowed to. He’d actually humored the notion that he knew him better, being aware of their secret indenturement. When Aya Chan woke up, and ‘Ran’ emerged, Yohji thought the whole world was witnessing the rebirth of someone long repressed and dormant.

But Ran had never really been gone. He just hadn’t been allowed to see.

Nurse Aoki’s interrogation felt like an eternity. Yohji needed to get away. Half an hour ago he’d been desperate for some sort of company. Now he was desperate to be alone.

He was the one who needed some ‘time to think.’

He hung around for a few minutes after Ran’s departure, taking note that the other man seemed destined for the Koneko again. Yohji took off in the opposite direction. He recalled that Omi had wanted to have some sort of meeting tonight, so he shouldn’t be gone long. But a cup off coffee would do him good.