The Black Cross

When Ken woke up and took his shower that morning, he wasn't entirely sure how he should approach the day. On the one hand, there was a lump of anger coated in concern about how easily Schwartz was toying with them, or how close they came to being dismantled for good. But after careful thought on the whole matter, he realized he'd grown weary of feeling nothing but negative emotion. He had to find something to be positive about, or he'd have an emotional crash.

So baby steps. Ken dried off and threw on a pair of jeans and a comfortable t-shirt while he made a mental list of things to be glad about. He was alive (that was a start). So were the people he cared about. He carefully touched the healing wound on his head. It wasn't too bad, but he took a couple painkillers anyway. Yohji made it home safely and hopefully in one piece. He might get to spend some time with Omi that *wasn't* panicked or fretful.

Ken inhaled, and his stomach growled at the scent of...oatmeal? He remembered that he hadn't eaten in a *really* long time, and hustled down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Oh, morning!" He greeted Aya with a smile, surprised that she hadn't left already. He cast mildly hopeful eyes at the pot on the stove. "Did you sleep alright?"

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Omi groaned when he heard the distant sound of his alarm clock going off pulling him out of his peaceful sleep. He really didn't want to wake up just yet. But he knew he had to. He rolled over onto his side still letting his alarm clock make that annoying noise knowing he'd be forced to get up and turn it off soon.

Omi usually kept it across the room on his desk mainly because on mornings like this when all he wanted to do was pull the blankets over his head and go back to sleep it forced him to get out of bed.

Taking a deep breath Omi dragged himself out of bed and turned his alarm off. He spotted the pile of home work he still had sitting on his desk and groaned. He would have to find time to do it in school today. Omi headed to the bathroom to take his morning shower knowing that usually woke him up.

Taking a quick shower he packed up his home work and other stuff he needed for school and headed down stairs not really noticing the smell of food, or much of anything else as he went into the kitchen putting his bag on the floor by a chair.

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She'd been staring blankly into her juice... sounds of people coming down the stairs followed by Ken's voice pulled Aya out of her daze. She looked up and gave him a smile. "Sleep was alright for me!" It was a lie. But her entire life seemed to be a building of lies... "What about you?" She caught his longing gaze towards the oatmeal just as Omi appeared from the stairs. "The oatmeal is almost done. I'd just give it another few minutes."

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[Enter from Thursday 1.3]

Yohji wasn’t surprised to find everyone but Ran already present in the kitchen. The smells and sounds of breakfast activity had preceded him into the room. Walking in, he could almost pretend it was just a normal day and nothing had happened.

There was a stressful undercurrent of tension running through the room though. Yohji cranked up the wattage of his grin like a shield.

Oh boy, here goes.

He’d been desperate to see these people just the evening before. It shouldn’t feel so awkward now to be getting his desire.

A lot had happened.

“Mornin’!” Yohji announced cheerfully. He flung himself in a vacant chair, and sprawled backward. “Awfully sweet of you guys to cook me breakfast.” The assumption was deliberate.

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"I got a good nights sleep," he began, grinning when the subtle permission for breakfast was given. Before he could continue, Omi made his way in, looking like he needed another few hours of sleep. He was shortly followed by a swaggering, upbeat Yohji.

Ken was torn between hugging the man, throttling him, or a weird combination of both. But he reminded himself of his resolve. With a relaxing breath, Ken got to his feet with a dry smirk and headed to the fridge.

"Only if you like fried egg," he responded. "I'll make some if you all have time." He pointed at Yohji. "*You* don't eat until you tell us what happened."

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Damn, they weren't even going to humor him for a few minutes.

"I have all the time in the world," he rocked his chair back on two legs before letting it slowly drop back into place. He was strangely fidgety all of the sudden. "But I might pass out from malnourishment before I get a chance to tell you anything."

He tried to throw Ken a pouty kicked puppy dog sort of look, but knew he couldn't pull it off. Omi was the only one of them that had any talent for that.

"Anyway, it's a pretty boring story. I mostly just spent hours tied up on a bed."

He looked around the room, hoping that coffee might magically appear in front of him.

"I'll tell you what though, Mastermind has positively dreadful taste in bedroom decor." In truth Yohji hadn't really had the presence of mind to pay much attention to his surroundings in the Schwarz household. "Totally tacky."

His fingers tapped nervously on the edge of the table, as he stared purposefully at the fridge.

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Before Omi could even utter a good morning Yohji had come into the kitchen. He looked at Ken then to Yohji as he spoke.

"I don't suppose you know exactly where they are?" Omi asked, though he doubted it really mattered if they knew or not. They wouldn't be able to do much, but it would still be nice to know.

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Yohji looked thoughtful. He'd spent quite a bit of time trying to piece together what he'd managed to grasp as Nagi had walked him home. He should have immediately written everything down when he'd gotten back. He'd been too tired, and then distracted....

A brief smile faintly quirked the edge of his lips as he remembered the distracting bit.

"We got out at Shibuya," he said pondering, "it was about 5 stops away. But I don't know what station we got on, or even which line." He closed his eyes and tried to mentally backtrack. "Prodigy tried to keep me from seeing where we were going, but he did a sort of half-assed job. I might be able to figure something out if I tried to actually retrace my steps." Just thinking about it was exhausting.

He wasn't sure he wanted to remember, though. Not knowing how to find Schwarz conveniently removed a very dangerous temptation.

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Aya's head hurt. This wasn't the type of conversation to be having so early in the morning... she stood up from her chair silently during the conversation to absentmindedly stir the oatmeal and make a pot of coffee.

"Oatmeal is ready," she said cheerfully, trying to break the thick atmosphere. "How about we talk about this after everyone's eaten?" And after she left for school maybe... Aya wasn't sure she could take much more of the conversation. She almost wished she were in the dark again.

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The smell of coffee and food filled the stairway, giving Ran warning that someone - Omi or Aya-chan, there hadn't been time for Yohji to cook, and Ken cooking was a joke - was already in the kitchen. He smoothed out his limping gait by the time he reached the last step in case it was his sister.

By that point, he'd heard Yohji and Aya-chan talking, but he was surprised to find their younger teammates present as well. Ken was actually looking like he intended to find ingredients in the fridge. Omi looked sleepy. Aya looked cheerful with a lining of uncomfortable. Yohji looked like he was up to something, smirking faintly.

The coffee didn't appear ready yet, and he wasn't sure who had claim to the pot on the stove. He avoided looking at Yohji and sought out Aya-chan's eyes for some guidance.

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"Morning!" Cheerful attitudes tend to set in and mold themselves if you think hard enough about them... There was still plenty of time before school, and Aya wanted to act as normal and ignorant as possible... maybe if she pretended enough, everything would go away.

... Or not.

"Coffee's not ready yet. But Oatmeal is, if you'd like some of that."

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Yohji made eye contact with Ran as he walked into the room. He was very sorely tempted to address him with some sort of painfully saccharine spur-of-the-moment nickname, but decided it was more important to remain on speaking terms.

He settled for winking at him, grin back in place.

"I'll take some of that oatmeal Ayyyaaa-chaaan," he announced in a sing-song voice.

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"Eggs too, if you want any." Ken added as he began cracking eggs into a bowl. He relented his earlier statement. There was something very off about Yohji, and the feeling that there was a lot being left out hung heavily in the air.

For now, he would stay positive and productive. He could manage that much at least, couldn't he? He copied Aya's cheery demeanor, giving her a close-lipped smile as he stood by her and heated the pan.

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Omi was lost in thought about what Yohji had said. There were quite a few places Prodigy could have brought Yohji from. He was making a mental note to look into it later when he had his computer handy when Aya-chan suggested they talk about something else.

He smiled at her. "I'll take some oatmeal." He said looking up. He noticed Ran had entered the kitchen as well. When exactly he had gotten here Omi couldn't tell, it was then Omi decided today was going to be one of those rare occasions where he actually had a cup of coffee.

"I'll have some coffee too when it's done, please."

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Ran's eyebrows went up at the scene of Ken cooking. Though admittedly, his perception of Ken not meshing with culinary skill was mostly based on assumptions.

There were a lot of forced smiles going on in the room. He doubted that anyone but the people wearing them bought it. Which was why he never bothered pretending to feel anything - his teammates and sister were not dumb. Flat was a lot harder to read than fake.

He gave a short nod at his sister. Omi looked up at him, he moved past him to claim a seat at the table, to the side of Yohji, though he still didn't look his way. He wasn't feeling especially hungry, he was still exhausted and there were too many people in the kitchen for him to bother grabbing a cup from the cupboard just yet.

No one seemed especially dismayed or obviously uncomfortable or weirded out, which meant Yohji had said nothing and his teammates still didn't know where they'd gone the night before. Ran categorized that as un-Yohji-like, which also fell into the category of 'something wrong'.

Yohji, aside from still being more sedate than usual, seemed fine when Ran glanced sideways, however.

Which might mean Yohji was being considerate.

Which messed with his definition of what Yohji was after.

He stared fixedly at the table, mulling it over.

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Aya's smile dropped at Ran's flatness. It almost seemed to cast a shadow over everyone else's forced cheerfulness. Reminding them all that the situation was still in the shits. And she really didn't need the reminding.

She fixed up five bowls of oatmeal and set them in front of each person, along with a bag of brown sugar in the middle of the table and four cups. The coffee would be done soon, and there was no point making everyone get up to get their own cups.

"I'd like some eggs please, Ken-Kun." She said, sitting down and burying her face behind her juice.

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"Yes, eggs would be excellent," Yohji nodded happily, "perfect antidote for blood loss...." he blanched slightly, suddenly remembering that Ken was partially responsible for that very condition. That was tactless. Shit.

He coughed and kept talking, hoping that no one would notice. "Schwarz is a fucking mess, you know...." Oops. He was usually more careful with his language in front of Aya-chan. He was seriously striking out this morning. "Mastermind is out of control, and there’s something wrong with Oracle. And...not to be a kill joy or anything, but I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm alive right now is because they're planning something. With us."

He sighed, resigned to finally getting that business out of the way. He hoped their questions wouldn't dig too deep.

"So I shouldn't even have to say it, but you guys be careful, alright?"

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Omi nodded to Yohji. "That really does go without saying. I'll want to talk to you Yohji-kun, after I get home from school. I want to know everything you can remember while Schwartz had you, and how you got back." Omi said standing up to get himself a cup of coffee.

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Ken was carefully poking at the frying eggs, giving them far more attention then they were warranted. Yohji's mention of blood loss made him wince, making him scrape the spatula against the bottom of the pan.

Whoops. Ken frowned and began flipping and stabbing at them, turning them into a scrambled dish before sliding it on a plate and putting them in front of Aya. They probably weren't too bad, at least he hoped.

The more Yohji spoke, the brighter a little lightbulb glowed over Ken's head.

"I knew something had to be wrong. Why else would that freak have a *kitten* of all things? Maybe Mastermind had a meltdown and fried all their brains or something..." He mused as he started another set of eggs for Yohji

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"I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds that freakishly strange," Yohji muttered turning to Ken. "You saw it? That goddamned kitten? The psychos went ape-shit over that thing." He shoveled a big spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth but continued to talk around it. "One second they were playing prison wardens, the next the place had turned into some kind of happy-go-lucky animal shelter. It was like I stopped existing. Bizarre."

“I mean, it was rather obvious that they considered me pretty inconsequential even before that. It was some sort of fucking game to them,” he added.

He stuck his cup out expectantly, hoping Omi would take the hint.

"There was a melt-down though," he added more seriously. "But it didn't have anything to do with the kitten."

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Ran gave Aya a slight smile of thanks at the breakfast, though he had no intention of eating it. He did take one of the mugs she'd set down, and was about to get up when talk of the kidnapping resurfaced.

Ran had opened his mouth to point out that "being careful" was the opposite of what Ken had done when he'd followed Schwarz when the mention of kittens was unceremoniously dropped into a conversation. Followed by a hint of detail from Yohji. Ran was caught between wanting to know more about Schwarz operations, and a necessary lecture.

Reprimand won out. He could extract details from Yohji later. "That was irresponsible to try and find Schwarz on your own." He stated to Ken, his first words since entering the kitchen. "They could have kidnapped you and you could have endangered Yohji."

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"That was irresponsible to try and find Schwarz on your own."

Ran's words caused Ken to put the plate with Yohji's eggs down a bit harder than he intended.

~positivepositivekeepitlightpositivepositive~

"I know it was dangerous," he said slowly. "That's why I called the two of you, to make a plan or something."

He turned his back and added a couple more eggs to the hot pan.

"If I knew you'd found him already..." Ken let the sentence trail, because he wasn't quite sure if his first impulse would have been to let the encounter slide into nothing. He just frowned a bit at his food.

"I thought I was doing the right thing and it was a golden opportunity. But I called at least." He tacked on defensively.

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Yohji's eyes went a little wide. This was going in a very bad direction, very quickly. He coughed again and planted both his palms on the table.

"Hey now," he interrupted. "Let's all focus on what's important here. That being how much you all missed me and how ecstatic you're all to see me. Right?"

He was not happy with either the way Ran was being deliberately confrontational nor the way he'd been stubbornly pretending that Yohji wasn't in the room. That trumped any agreement he might have felt for Ken being unnecessarily stupid. He wasn't about to judge that anyway, Yohji had no idea how he might have reacted given the situation. He had certainly spent a good part of the day in irrational panic mode.

"Thanks, Ken," he added forcefully, picking up a fork and stabbing his eggs.

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Ran developed a glare after Yohji's interjection, mainly for taking Ken's side, but refused to look at him. "If Schwarz was already in your sights, you could have been killed at any point. You left the house intending to find them," Ran accused Ken. "You need to think before you do something like that again. Not one of us can take Schwarz on our own."

The last part was for Aya's benefit. His team was not setting a good example, or reinforcing his warnings about Schwarz.

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