The Black Cross

Ran hadn't bothered to nag anyone that morning, instead focusing on keeping occupied and the zen of creating flower arrangements in the slow minutes.

He was working on a blue, purple and red arrangement when Yohji came down.

He gave Yohji a slight nod, pretending to forget the conversation that morning. And that was all.

He was adept at pretending things were other than they were.

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So far Yohji was feeling fairly successful at pretending that nothing had happened. If only he could keep the stray glances at Ran in check, he would be acting completely normal.

...actually....

Staring at Ran was completely normal. If he stopped to analyze it, on any given day, chances were good that Yohji spent more time looking at Ran than the flowers. The last thing he wanted was to make things weird by acting strangely, so Yohji guiltlessly continued to stare.

Ran's arrangement was tastefully sparse, more ikebana than bouquet. It was the type of arrangement that Yohji could never quite get to look right. He'd been increasingly trying to emulate Ran's traditional style, without great success. Today he wasn't going to bother. He was in an odd mood and would let that dictate his creativity for the afternoon.

Loud handfuls of hot pink and orange gerber daisies inspired his first arrangement. Classic wouldn't have been the proper description. busy, maybe. Ran would doubtlessly find it a monstrosity, but it would appeal to one of the school girls. Yohji was fairly pleased.

He paused while carrying it to the display case to sneak a closer look at Ran. It might have been Yohji's imagination, but the other man seemed to be using the clippers with a higher degree of deliberation than usual. Snap. A vestige of green severed with almost deadly force. Ran was probably imaging the stems were Yohji's fingers.

He hastily shoved the attention grabbing concoction onto a shelf and retreated to turn on the radio. He needed more distractions.

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Ken watched the two of them in the shop for a few minutes, blearily watching them go through the motions of a normal day.They weren't trying to kill each other. Yohji was being annoying. Ran was ignoring him. Just another normal day at the Koneko.

So last night had been a horrible horrible nightmare, just like all the others. The foul taste in his mouth was merely the beer from the bottle he'd thrown. Everything was going to be fine. Just fine. But he was never eating saurkraut and pineapple pizza again, that was for sure.

He walked into the shop proper, relief coloring the paleness of his face, a wan smile not quite covering the bags under his eyes. He was freshly showered; his clothes neat and clean...enough. But despite this he still looked like hell.

"Sorry I overslept. Didn't sleep well." Ken gave them both a wave.
"Need any deliveries made?"

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Ran raised an eyebrow at Ken, but didn't comment.

He avoided looking at Yohji, but he couldn't help but stare at the eyesore Yohji stuffed into the display case.

At least with that there, the shop might not be as busy. Not a good thing on usual days, but that day he decided to let it slide.

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Ken's appearance was sobering. It reminded Yohji that there was a much more serious problem beyond possibly having botched things with Ran.

His own words came back to him. I didn't want to be the one to say this, but Ken needs to see a doctor.

Did he? Had Yohji just gotten carried away from his own personal involvement in Ken's breakdown? Ken seemed fine today.

He waited for Ran to answer Ken's question, since he had been in the shop longer and had a better sense of what needed to be done. When he failed to do so, Yohji shrugged.

"I don't think so, it's been quiet today."

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Ken nodded and rubbed the back of his head. He turned and got an eyeful of Yohji's masterpiece and cringed.

"Gah! Yohji, what is that? An anti-customer charm?" He walked closer to the display case and peered through the glass like it was a wild animal behind the glass instead of a bunch of flowers.

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Yohji chose to take Ken's behavior at face value. At least for the time being.

Everything is Fine.

He followed Ken to the case and joined in examining his own bouquet. Hm. Maybe that last minute addition of the green chrysanthemums had been a bit excessive. Not that he would ever admit the shortcoming.

"Your palate is obviously just too low brow to ever appreciate my fine artistic mastery, that's all." Yohji said, stroking his chin as if he were some sort of critic. "I'm sure Ran agrees, eh?"

He turned to Ran but couldn't mask the smirk induced by his own bullshitting.

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Ran's lip twitched upward despite himself before he got it under control. He gave it a look that stated very plainly what he thought of Yohji's "mastery," then put the final touch on his own.

With both Ken and Yohji together, it was harder for him to deny what had happened. The subtle tension Yohji displayed showed that he wasn't the only one. Ken, for his part, might as well have forgotten completely, save for the dark circles beneath his eyes.

Shake it off, Fujimiya.

Ken needs a doctor, Yohji had said. But maybe the soccer player had just been under stress yesterday. Ran was willing to believe it, until Ken proved otherwise. For now, he took solace in the routine, as it was at face value.

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Yohji pouted. "when I'm famous I'm going to make sure I put in my memoirs how unsupportive you two were."

He sulkily trudged back to the table and went about starting a new arrangement, this time consisting of only green chrysanthemums.

The intermittent glances at Ran were now amplified by looks towards Ken too. Yohji hadn't felt such a sense of attention deficit since being in school. Despite this, he found himself at a loss of words to combat the tension, as thus was unusually quiet.

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Ran started a new arrangement, a sparse variety of red roses and fern. It was almost time for school to get out, and the dread he felt at that thought was tempered by the fact it meant Aya-chan would be home soon as well.

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Ken spent the new few minutes dithering about the store, watering the few things that needed watering, checking foliage, and finally grabbing a broom to give the floor a good sweep before the after-school crowd started to show. It was peaceful and quiet.

It was peaceful. And quiet. And..a little unsettling.

"So Yohji," Ken began casually as he made lazy swipes across the floor. "Sorry for ditching you in the kitchen yesterday. Where'd you end up wandering off to?"

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An absent-minded smile dropped off Yohji's face at Ken's question.

Last night was very stressful. It's not unreasonable that someone would forget a small detail like me telling them I went to a cafe. Not after everything else that happened....

...But so many other things about Ken in the past 24 hours was unreasonable.

"Uh, Ken," Yohji searched his face for some sign that he was aware of the lapse in memory, "you...already asked me that."

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Ken frowned, but didn't pause in his sweeping.

He took a shower after leaving Omi's room. He went to bed.

"I did? When?"

...He went to bed and had a nightmare. He woke up. In his bed. He showered, dressed, and came to work.

He had a nightmare. That's all it was. Yohji was mistaken.

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"Oh...man, it must have been like 4:30 or 5 in the morning by then," Yohji chewed on his lip as he thought about it. Ridiculously late, no one could be expected to remember a conversation at that hour. He was just being paranoid. "Guess I can't blame you for blanking that out, all I told you was I went to a cafe. Can you believe they let me hang around for an hour after they were supposed to close? I should have just gone to bed."

Yohji looked down at his arrangement and sighed. It was starting to look mangled.

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Ran listened in to the conversation but kept silent, not finding anything of consequence in it. He was watching Yohji surreptitiously until what he was doing to the flowers hurt him too much to let it be. He walked over without looking at either of them and saved the arrangement from Yohji's sadistic vision, taking it back to his station. He removed two colors and adjusted the stem heights before deciding it wasn't any more salvagable.

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Ken stopped sweeping.

His grip on the handle tightened so quickly that his skin squeaked a little. Ken stood where he was, staring down at the little pile of dust he'd collected on the floor. His face was losing what little color it still had.

When he spoke, it was softly, as zen and calm as Ran's hands rearrainging a rose petal to his liking.

"You're right Yohji. I don't remember that at all."

And he went back to sweeping.

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Yohji was too distracted by the outrage of having his artistic endeavor snatched away to notice the subtle changes in Ken's mannerism. He was busy glaring exaggeratedly at Ran's ministrations.

"You have no tolerance for creative license," he muttered.

Ken's answer afforded a sideways glance. "You should try to get more sleep, Kenken."

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pichi.livejournal.com

After several hours of research and preparation that took him nearly to sunrise, Omi had only needed a couple of moments to decide with a mission that night, it was better to be rested than to go to school when he didn't even have the homework finished-- especially with no telling just how many of his teammates he'd have along. He'd settled into his bed and fallen asleep almost immediately.

When he woke, the school day was nearly over, and Omi stared at the clock, realizing, quite sheepishly, that the mission was now in roughly four and a half hours and he was the only one who knew about it.

THAT, Tsukiyono, was taking irresponsibility way too far. In a word, shit.

Omi's normally polite mind found quite a few other choice words as he threw himself into a presentable condition and raced down the stairs, then barged into the shop.

He blinked wide-eyed and suddenly felt rather embarrassed. He really should have composed himself before barrelling into public, shouldn't he?

"Ah... Hi everyone!" He flashed the most cheerful and disarming smile he could muster, and headed straight for the pull-down door to close shop, making a jump for the handle-- and falling a good foot short. In exasperation, he looked left and right for the hook to pull it down, but didn't see it.

"Yohji-kun, get that for me would you?!" Oh, to be tall.

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Yohji blinked in surprise as Omi tore through the shop and tried to close down without a word of explanation. That was weird.

You know, he'd been saying that was weird an awful lot lately....

The kid seemed in a remarkably better mood than the last time Yohji'd seen him though, and the Yohji-kun was a welcome return to some kind of normalcy.

He sauntered over to the door, not willing to hurry unless specifically told to do so.

"I hope this doesn't mean you were for warned of a school girl tsunami, because I for one vote we let them in."

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Ran mentally rolled his eyes at Yohji and barely stopped himself by calling Kudoh on his under-age policy.

It had gradually become more uncomfortable for him to work alongside the other man. Mentioning anything in regards to dating or anything else to him was now solidly on his taboo list.

He'd been serious.

He doesn't want...

He was watching Omi at the same time. He'd looked like he'd slept (or not slept) in the clothes he had on.

And Sato wonders why I don't think my sister is safer here than anywhere else.

It leant the color of frustration to his mood, highlighted by predominant concern. It was like Omi to be tired for school, but this seemed more important than asking one of them for a note.

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Ken could feel his face warming up when Omi bounced into the shop. He leaned against the broom handle and pulled up a puzzled half smile.

"Hey, what's going on," he asked, brushing an errant strand of hair out of his eyes. Hopefully it wasn't anything too bad, like Sato coming for another surprise visit.

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pichi.livejournal.com

Omi frowned at Yohji. "It's not like that, Yohji-kun. You know I wouldn't treat our customers like that."

He glanced around, then turned so that he could face all three of them at once and mouthed a single word:

Mission.

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Yohji had to repress himself from rolling his eyes. Omi was just too damn serious sometimes. As if Yohji really wanted to watch Ran being assaulted by grabby little girls.

"I was joking," he muttered.

Omi's next statement erased his indignation though, with a jab of dread. Sato moved fast.

"well, shit."

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Sato hadn't told him that morning. But he had hinted at it.

Ran set his work aside. "What is it?" He prompted. "When?"

Missions meant money. Irritation from both lack of sleep and information was tempered by the prospect of work. His frustration from being kept in Weiss had dulled since that morning, with no new incident to incite it again.

Though it will be hard to keep this from Aya...

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A mission.

Ken was glad he was standing still. Otherwise, he might have fumbled over his own feet. The thought of going on a mission again at long last-

Wait. That made it sound as if he actually *wanted* to do it.

Think taking out your frustrations with blood will make it all better, Hidaka?

No. That wasn’t it at all. Killing was a vile business, and it hurt every time he had to do it. But he was good at it, and if his team needed him he would give nothing less than one hundred percent.

He’d show them he could still be trusted to hold up his end of things. He could pull it together.

A glaze of steely determination settled over his features. “We should talk elsewhere,” he commented, jerking his head in the direction of the mission room.

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Yohji watched Aya and Ken's reactions to Omi's announcement with interest. They were both completely calm and seemingly unfazed by the news. As they should be, right? This was nothing new.

Why then did the thought of starting missions again give him such a bad feeling?

It's just because you don't like that Sato guy Yohji reassured himself, you resent him interfering.

"Well, I'm not saying you're not cute and all, Omi," Yohji tried to ease his tension with another joke, "but I really think I preferred getting that line from Manx."

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Omi nodded his agreement to Ken and subtly gestured them to the back door leading to the mission room stairs, where he intended to address Aya's questions with a more thorough explanation. Yohji's remark, however, made him freeze on the spot.

Manx.

Omi stared blankly for two seconds as though afraid to make another move or sound. He missed her, too. So much that he'd pushed her memory as far from his mind as possible, as though this were always how it had been done, because he did not want to face the possibility that he'd never see her again. But there was her name, loud and clear and painful, shaking away the tunnel vision from time pressure and reminding him that he Should Not Be Doing This. It was Manx's job to announce new missions. Only not. Apparently, it was his job now.

He shook his head once and headed for the back door with a smile far too forced for anyone to believe.

"Yohji-kun will have to get his fix of mini-skirts and red heels elsewhere; I'm not wearing them."

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Although stiff, Omi's response eased his nerves and drew a more natural smile out of Yohji.

"Don't worry about it Omittchi," against his better judgement, Yohji winked at Ran, "I hold the opinion that mini-skirts look much sexier on redheads."

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Ran gave Yohji a glare that he sincerely wished could hurt him.

Just another conquest. He told himself, in response to the images of that morning. He shoved past Yohji a little harder than necessary and followed Omi to the door.

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Ran's glare actually gave Yohji a chill. His brief feeling of normalcy disintegrated and the uneasy vibe he'd received from Omi's announcement returned with a vengeance.

Two days ago he would have made the exact same comment, and Ran would have only rolled his eyes at him. So much for acting like nothing had happened.

Ran's elbow jammed into him in an ominously un-accidental fashion, and Yohji frowned. The day seemed to be taking a very sharp turn for the worse.

He hoped the sinking feeling in his stomach wasn't a premonition.

Yohji tried to shake it off as he tailed Ran and Omi to the mission room.

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