“I don’t care how beautiful he is. He’s scary, I tell you. And who does he think he’s fooling? Japanese do not have red hair! I can’t believe security let him on the plane.”
“At least he’s reading. That American with the shiny glasses makes my skin crawl every time he looks up.”
“He’s not as bad as the one with the scars!”
“I feel sorry for that boy, traveling with those two.”
“Have you seen the way the American and the redhead look at each other? I can’t believe we haven’t blown up.”
“I don’t want to be a flight attendant anymore. I want a nice quiet job where I don’t have to deal with strange people. The one with the scars stole all the sporks from my cart.” (1)
***
Wow. Those little umbrellas bartenders stuck in exotic drinks actually opened and closed. Yohji wondered why anyone would bother making them functional. What a horrible job, sitting by some assembly line making sure every tiny umbrella opened and closed…
“You’re supposed to drink it, Kudou, not admire the accessories.”
“I’ll get to it.”
“If you get sober,” the telepath reminded as Yohji had asked him to, “you’ll start thinking.”
“Maybe I’m ready.”
“It’s not,” Schuldig said, running the back of his hand up Yohji’s thigh, “what you were made for, Yohji.”
“I’m not sleeping with you. I’m not dancing with you, I’m not going swimming, and I’m not singing karaoke. I do not want to go surfing or skydiving or para-sailing. I do not want to see sharks, whales, the war memorial or a hula dance. I just want to play with this stupid umbrella.”
“Still moping over Abyssinian? You missed your chance, Kudou. He was drunk and he had years of naughty thoughts break out all at once, and you were there. You should have just fucked him in your car. Bet you he never drinks again.”
“Because of you.” Yohji thought about taking a swing at the other man, but it hadn’t worked the last six times he’d tried it. No matter how drunk the German got, Schuldig never let his guard down.
“So if you don’t want to play with me, go find another partner. That hot blonde is an uptight accountant looking for a vacation fling. You could make her dreams come true. Just pretend you don’t speak English–well, you don’t, actually, you only think you do. You won’t even have to talk.”
“Why bother? I’ll just end up right here in a day or two.” At the bar he got his drinks faster. He wasn’t giving up his seat. Even if there were four empty ones.
“But what a day or two, Yotan!”
“No.”
“Verfluchter Idiot,” the German muttered, and caught the bartender instead of hitting on the blonde himself. Yohji refused to enjoy the sea breeze ruffling his hair as well as the grass roof, and wondered why it mattered to Schuldig if he danced or drank or anything else. He didn’t know why he was in Hawaii, or how he’d gotten there without a passport or any ID at all, but at least ‘how’ was something that could be explained with the German’s freaky powers. The why, though–added to his behavior since, it was like Schuldig was concerned about him.
The telepath tossed his own fully functional mini-umbrella on the bar and drained his drink in three gulps. As he set it down, Yohji admitted he was getting a little concerned himself. Schuldig’s hand was shaky, and he wasn’t that drunk.
‘Not that drunk’ being relative. They had both been drinking constantly for–well, since yesterday, or maybe the day before. Though they had passed out–ahem–rested in a couple beach chairs for an unspecified while. But still. The German was wearing his sunglasses on his eyes, the first time Yohji had ever seen that. And his hand should not have been shaking.
“Didn’t know you cared,” Schuldig smirked as he pulled out another of those damn pixie sticks. “Yohji-chan.”
“I’m stranded in a foreign country with no ID and no money, and you’re my only way home.” Since officially-dead Japanese citizens could not get help from the Japanese embassy.
“Lie a little harder.” Schu smirked wider. “You actually care. Why? I’ve killed your friends, I singlehandedly screwed up the best thing that ever happened to you, and I scared Aya-chan. Why do you care if I’m getting the DTs?”
“You don’t get the DTs until you quit drinking, Schu. Have you seen a doctor?”
“Have you seen a psychiatrist?” The German took one of Yohji’s cigarettes and lit it. “Why don’t you hate me?”
Yohji didn’t answer, he didn’t know. He ought to hate the bastard, that was certain. Ken did, Omi did, Aya certainly did. Any of them would have killed the telepath by now, surely when he was asleep it was possible. But Yohji hadn’t tried. He’d take any chance to pound the man into the sand if he could just land a blow, but he wouldn’t attack him in his sleep, and he didn’t even want to kill him.
Kudou, he thought, you are an idiot. Even Aya underestimated his ability to be incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid. How the hell had he made friends with this sadistic bastard of a German telepath?
Schu started, Yohji grinned. “I’m shocked too.”
“We’re not friends, Balinese.”
“Fine by me.” Yohji lit his own cigarette and waved for another drink. “You’re probably even crueler to your friends. Is that why you’re here with me, instead of Crawford?”
The German actually winced. Okay, now Yohji was really getting worried, Schu never showed pain. It was possibly the most irritating thing about the smirking bastard.
That and the way he made everyone around him miserable just for something to smirk about.
“What happened, Schu?”
“Balinese, we are not friends.”
“Tell me anyway. What else do you have to do?” Yohji didn’t know why he kept asking, maybe just because he was bored. And drunk. And so was Schu, so he actually told.
“Ouch.” Yohji shook his head when Schu was done. “That was cold.”
“That’s Bradley fucking Crawford.” The telepath set down his third drink since starting the short story. “Cold as Abyssinian and even more bitchy.”
“Why didn’t you see it coming?”
“I can’t read Brad’s–“ Schuldig clapped a hand over his mouth, Yohji dropped his cigarette in his lap and jumped up, cursing. Schuldig had spoken without thinking?
“Nice dance, Kudou.”
“Why can’t you read Crawford’s mind?”
Schuldig sighed and drank another drink. Yohji sipped his and reminded himself they weren’t racing. He wasn’t trying that again.
“He can block me. No one else can block me completely.”
Yohji giggled, then chortled, then laughed till he fell off his stool. Schuldig glared at him.
“That is not funny!”
“I told you, get out of my head.” Yohji waved a finger at the flame-haired German. “It is too funny. You fell for the only person who can keep you guessing! And you said I torture myself!” Yohji leaned close. “So. How’s it feel to be normal after all?”
“I am not–!”
“You can’t read his mind, I can’t read Aya’s. He doesn’t know how you feel, Aya doesn’t get how I feel. Sounds pretty damn normal to me.”
“Kudou, there is nothing normal about your obsession with that redheaded icicle.”
“Don’t put Aya down, Schu, or you will be drinking alone. I bet you hate that.”
“Aa,” Schuldig admitted. “Peaceful,” he said after another drink.
“Nani?”
“It’s peaceful, being ‘normal’ around Crawford.” He nodded at the bartender, and lowered his voice. “He’s thinking we’d damn well better tip big, we’re using up all his cocktail umbrellas. The guy at the end has decided to find another bar, the damn faggots are taking over this one. The two discussing politics are avoiding their wives, who hate each other, and the blonde is wondering if we’re really a couple, we only half look it. If she can choose who is less gay, she’ll hit on one of us. The brunette in the corner is thinking I have a cute ass. The waitress is wishing I’d quit staring at her, I give her the creeps. You’re thinking this doesn’t sound like much fun, and you’re right.”
“You can’t shut it off?”
“Sure. If I want to let you flatten me, or let some damn screw-up with a knife and a lot of testosterone take me out. If I need to be careful, I have to listen.”
Yohji was an assassin. He knew all about having to be careful. “But at home? You can just shut it down when you’re home, right?”
“With Farf in the house?”
Yohji snorted. “I can’t imagine living with him. How do you stand it?”
“He’s not so bad usually. Interesting take on things. But when he’s off–I have to know. Or I’m going to bleed.” Schuldig shuddered. “Tokyo though–I hate Tokyo. A sidewalk in Tokyo is like walking through the electronics department in one of those warehouse stores. With every radio and TV set on a different station, all on top volume.”
Yohji cringed. “I can see why you like high places.”
“Brad, though.” Schuldig took an ice cube from his empty glass, and pushed it in patterns on the bar. “If Crawford is there, it’s like I’ve got earplugs. It’s all still there, but it’s not…painful.”
Yohji flicked an ice cube of his own, zooming it across the pattern. “I can see why you’d like that.”
“What about you?”
“Aya–makes it easy,” Yohji said. “I don’t have to worry about it, I just do what Aya says. He won’t let me screw up too bad.”
“Do you need that much help?”
Yohji gave the German a long look over his sunglasses, but he seemed to mean it. Odd, seeing how he was always saying what an idiot Yohji was. He sighed, and answered. “I…know what I ought to do, usually. I just don’t do it. When Aya tells me, I do it.” Yohji took the pineapple slice from his latest drink and stuck an umbrella in it. Then he opened the umbrella. “And he’s got this–this compass. When I don’t know what to do, Aya does.”
Schuldig fished coconut shavings out of his drink, and hung them from the edges of the little umbrella. “Brad–he’s always there. He stops me bouncing off walls, he hauls me out of gutters, he finds where the hell I lost my clothes.” He set a piece of ice on edge near the pineapple slice, so it looked like a shark fin. “Somehow it usually happens when I’m wearing my favorite jacket.”
“Why can’t he read your future?”
“Says who?”
“Come on.” Yohji waved around them, then laid a tied-cherry-stem man on their little pineapple beach. “Would he have let you run off to Hawaii if he’d seen it coming? The only reason he hasn’t come after you is he doesn’t know where you are.”
“You’re delusional.” Schuldig slipped a matchbook-cover blanket under the little man.
“Don’t tell me Schwarz lets you just quit. With Weiss–“ Stop. Don’t blab about–Schuldig was staring at him.
“Seriously? Kritiker will kill anyone who tries to walk away? You’re supposed to be the good guys!”
Che. Too late now. “Well, like they said in that American movie,” he didn’t remember which one, and he didn’t care, “the only way out of this outfit is feet-first.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Schuldig said, downing another drink that was made to be sipped. “I won’t let anyone kill you, I hate drinking alone.”
“Maybe I don’t care.” Schu was right, the damn things were too wimpy to drink slowly. Yohji gulped, then made a little sailboat out of a fruit wedge and part of another umbrella. “What the hell? I’m bored with dancing and drinking, and I can’t manage to want anyone but Aya. And he has to hate me. Even if he forgave me for all the rest, he’ll never forgive me for leaving the country with you. And why should he be stuck with me anyway? He shouldn’t have to haul me out of gutters and find my clothes.”
“That was me,” Schuldig muttered, creating a surfboard out of a kiwi slice. “I lose my clothes. You just get lost.”
“Right.” Yohji tied another cherry-stem-man, and put him on the surfboard. Schu slid the shark-fin at the surfer. Yohji gave the surfer one of the little plastic swords, to defend himself.
“So now you want to just give up?”
“Why not? Lung cancer, alcohol poisoning, my own damn side. It’s all the same. Dead is dead. I’m supposed to be dead.”
“What abou–“ Schuldig stopped, his hand hovered above their little diorama. Yohji frowned at the German.
“Schu?”
“It’s–gone. ” Schuldig shoved his sunglasses up, stared at Yohji with the beginnings of panic. “Yohji, I can’t hear you.”
***
(1) a spork is a combination fork and spoon, usually plastic. You’ve seen them at Taco Bell. Maybe.