Summary: Sometimes, friendship drives a person to "desperate" measures, as Yohji discovers when he decides to make soup for an ailing Aya. But, any mission that you walk away from is a good thing -- right?
Author's Notes: Another little ficlet response to a writing challenge. The challenge: "Yohji" and "Vitamins".
This was my first response to the above challenge. I was never satisfied with it as a challenge reply, so I ended up writing a second response to Yohji / vitamins. Even so, I think this is a fun story, although I feel it isn't terribly creative. Plus, it's pretty short, which is always a good thing.
Warnings: Language
Legal Stuff: As always, this story is intended to express one fan's genuine appreciation of Weiss Kreuz and its characters. It is just for fun and not for profit. If you have any rights in the anime described here and find the posting of this fanfiction offensive or harmful, please contact me, and I will be happy to remove it.
An Apple a Day
"Holy freaking crap, that's HOT!" Yohji exclaimed.
He jerked his scalded hand away from the pot lid he had been trying to remove. The lid tumbled from the pot and fell to the floor with an echoing clang, forcing Yohji to do a quick sidestep to keep it from landing on his bare foot. It rolled a short distance across the floor, until it came to a stop, leaning against one of the table's legs.
Yohji stuck his burned fingers in his mouth and glared at the traitorous kitchen implement. Maybe it would melt under the weight of his withering stare, if he put enough feeling into it.
No dice. The lid remained where it was, and Yohji could have sworn it was giving him a falsely innocent stare. Well, if pot lids had eyes and could stare, that is. Yohji sucked on his fingers and felt more than a little foolish for the random, ridiculous thought.
Luckily, he didn't have to feel foolish for very long. A low, almost malignant hissing sound distracted him from the hellish pot lid. He turned around and felt his stomach do a little flip-flop when he saw the liquid in the pot boiling over.
Yohji cursed under his breath as he lunged toward the stove. He was an assassin, with razor-sharp reflexes honed through years of hard experience. And, yet, it seemed as if he was moving in slow motion. Or, maybe things really did happen just that darn fast. Whatever the case, Yohji watched in horror as the liquid continued to boil, bubbling over the sides of the pot to land on the burner beneath -- where it promptly caught on fire.
Yohji paused in his forward charge for a moment to stare, dumfounded, at the stove. Liquid shouldn't burn like that. Should it?
It was an absent-minded sort of thought. The kind that wanders into your head without knocking and leaves you wondering exactly where it came from.
Yohji didn't have the liberty of wondering for very long. He stared at the fire for a heartbeat or two before shoving the thought from his mind. Whether or not liquid should burn didn't matter a whole heck of a lot when there were flames licking up the side of the pot -- flames that would be heading up the wall in short order, if he didn't do something about it.
He sidestepped half a step toward the table, snatching up a dishtowel he had tossed there earlier. Dishtowel in hand, he completed his lunge toward the stove, flailing at the fire as soon as he was within range.
It had only been two steps -- maybe three -- but, all the same, Yohji felt like it had taken him forever and a day to cross the small expanse of kitchen between him and the stove. He knew it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but, even so, a panic-tinged feeling of dread clawed at him, telling him he wouldn't get there in time. He was going to burn down the whole damn shop and have to explain it to Kritiker. Even worse, he was going to have to explain it to Aya. Yohji shuddered at that thought and redoubled his fire extinguishing efforts. There was no way he was going to be stuck trying to come up with an explanation that would satisfy Aya. He didn't even think he could. That settled it. Whatever it took to get this fire out, he was there, ready and willing. Even if it meant sacrificing his body, he would save the Koneko and his own neck. Well, maybe not his body. Perhaps a singed shirt sleeve. Or, a burned finger. Surely, that would be enough of a sacrifice. Wouldn't it?
"Shitshitshitshitshit!" Yohji hissed under his breath as he beat out the fire.
Within seconds, he had everything under control. The fire was out, and he opened a window in the hopes the smoke would dissipate before it set off the fire alarm. The last thing he needed was a bunch of firemen stomping around their house. They had weapons stored all over the damn place, after all.
Yohji waved his dishtowel through the smoke, as if attempting to coax it into floating out the open window. He couldn't help chuckling under his breath as he pictured a group of firemen standing around staring at Ken's weapons stash -- bugnuks and an assortment of throwing stars that he hardly ever used. Or, even worse, stumbling into the secret compartment at the back of Aya's closet. That would make their eyes bug out, and then some, considering Aya was something of a weapons connoisseur. Yohji figured Aya had at least one of every martial arts weapon known to man stored in there. And, he could use all of them, too. For his part, Yohji hadn't even figured out what a lot of them were, but he had told Aya, more than once, to find a better hiding place. The closet? Come on! That was so "done" it was almost cliché. Yohji wasn't sure why, but he had always been a little disappointed in Aya over the whole hide-the-weapons-in-the-closet thing. It just seemed beneath him.
"Whatever," Yohji muttered, shaking his head to dispel the errant thoughts.
It didn't matter whether or not Aya chose to store his secret stash of weapons in a place that was so completely lame and predictable. What did matter was that the fire was out, the smoke was gone, and the fire alarm hadn't gone off. Yohji considered that a lucky break.
He leaned over to peer into the pot, frowning when he realized the soup he had been making was ruined. It was the third batch he had mangled in as many hours, and that fell into the category of "Things that were Frustrating as Hell". Why couldn't he make this stuff? It was just soup. Soup was simple. Wasn't it?
This was all Aya's fault, Yohji thought, as he glared at the soup-like substance burned into the bottom of the pot. He was a lover and an assassin, not a damn short order cook. He had no business even being in here, in the first place. He never would have tried to make soup if Aya wasn't sick.
Yohji felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn't like Aya got sick on purpose, or that he enjoyed being sick. Still, he was sure Aya could have prevented it, somehow. Like, maybe he should have taken more vitamins or something.
Yohji felt his resolve strengthen as that idea took shape in his mind. Someone had to take the blame for this gosh-awful mess, and it damn sure wasn't going to be him. Not only that, but Yohji needed to be mad at someone. Ken and Omi were gone for the week, in California at some huge anime convention. So, that just left Aya.
That settled it, then. He would march right into the living room and make it known, in no uncertain terms, that Aya was going to have to make his own damn soup. Who cared if Aya was sick? Of course, Aya hadn't asked Yohji to make food for him. But, that was beside the point. Yohji squared his shoulders and, with a determined nod, threw the singed dishtowel back down on the table as he moved past it and out the door connecting the kitchen and living room.
He made it ten steps into the living room before his resolve melted away, leaving him with an overriding feeling of guilt. He had had every intention of giving Aya a piece of his mind, but ten steps was all it took for that idea to flee his brain. Because ten steps brought him to their battered, slouching sofa, and he looked over its back and saw Aya.
One glance at the younger man was enough to make Yohji forget all his grand plans. Aya looked … pathetic. Yohji cringed as the word flitted into his brain, but, once it was there, he couldn't dismiss it. It was the perfect description, even if it did make him feel like a traitor for thinking it.
Aya was asleep -- curled up on his side, his face buried in the sofa's back cushions. With his knees pulled up toward his chest and his hands cradled between his body and the back of the couch, it looked as if Aya had done his best to make himself as small as possible, like he had tried to curl back in on himself. No one would ever accuse Aya of having a "healthy-looking, sun-kissed glow", but, now, his normally pale skin was downright pallid. Yohji could see a slight sheen of sweat on Aya's face, and the hair around his temples and forehead was streaked with darker patches of red, where the sweat had soaked through. Even so, Aya shivered and curled in a bit more, closer to the sofa, as if seeking warmth from the battered piece of furniture.
Yohji sighed in defeat. There was a blanket draped across the back of the couch, and he pulled it off, placing it over Aya, who groaned a little in response and snuggled into the new warmth. Yohji watched for a second or two, waiting to make sure Aya was settled before returning to the kitchen.
It worried him, seeing Aya like this. Aya didn't get sick very often, which was a lucky thing. Usually, feeling even the least little bit under the weather caused Aya to be more pissy and withdrawn than usual, although such a thing almost strained the imagination. The thing was, this time, Aya hadn't been pissy. Or withdrawn. He hadn't been … anything. It was as if he couldn't summon up the energy to be irritable. And, he had gone to the trouble of seeking out Yohji's company, which, Yohji suspected, was why he had been sleeping on the sofa, in the first place. For Aya, that was downright clingy, and Yohji had to admit it unnerved him more than a little.
Yohji paused on the kitchen's threshold. The room was a mess -- a stack of dirty pots piled in the sink, burned-on patches of food on the stove, a yellow-green stain on the back wall where he had splashed part of one of his previous batches of soup, various ingredients scattered across the table, not to mention everything he had tracked on the floor around the stove. It was going to take hours to clean this up, and Yohji couldn't help thinking it might be lucky that Aya was feeling too sick to bitch. If Aya had been feeling anywhere near "normal", he would have taken one look at this room and blown a gasket. Yohji was sure of that. He laughed under his breath and ran his fingers through his hair -- two gestures that belied his nervousness and worry -- as he imagined the horrified expression Aya would have upon seeing this room.
None of that mattered now, though. Aya wasn't in any condition to be mad or horrified, which was what had brought Yohji into the kitchen, in the first place. Yohji sighed and crossed the room, stopping near the stove to dig through the lower cabinet and pull out yet another large pot. He set the pot on the stove, at the same time grabbing the soiled one. He peered inside it, giving the burned-on substance at the bottom a dubious look, before adding it to the growing pile in the sink.
Back to the drawing board, it seemed. Yohji stepped over to the refrigerator, leaning on the open door as he stared at its contents. Just as he started to remove yet another bunch of celery, a thought occurred to him. He glanced at his watch, wondering what the time difference was between Tokyo and Long Beach, California.
Yohji considered for another second or two, before crossing the room to the phone and punching in the contact number Omi had given him. If he woke Omi and Ken up, then so be it. Yohji figured this counted as an emergency. Maybe a minor emergency, but that still counted. Didn't it?
He muttered to himself and used his fingers to tap out an impatient-sounding, staccato rhythm against the wall as he listened to the tinny sound of the phone ringing on the other end of the line. After ten or twenty rings, Yohji was rewarded with the sound of Omi's sleepy voice.
"H'lo?" Omi asked, answering the phone in English.
Yohji paused for a moment, shocked and a bit dumfounded at hearing the unfamiliar language coming at him out of the phone.
"Hello?!" Omi repeated, his tone sounding more than a bit irritated over being awakened by what seemed to be nothing more than a heavy breather on an obscene phone call.
"Omi, it's me," Yohji said, pulling himself together.
He spoke in Japanese, but, for a second or two, he wondered if he should have used English, since that was the language Omi had used. Yohji shrugged the thought off, telling himself he was being silly. They were Japanese, after all.
"Yohji," Omi replied, switching to Japanese, although he still sounded about half-asleep.
"So, how's things?" Yohji asked.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Just as he started thinking Omi had fallen asleep on him, he heard the younger man sigh -- a sound that managed to convey Omi's irritation, even across an ocean and several time zones.
"What do you want?" Omi asked. He paused for a heartbeat or two, before continuing, "It's two in the morning here."
"Oh," Yohji muttered, "Sorry about that. I … I didn't realize the time difference."
There was another pause.
"Is something wrong? Did something happen?" Omi asked, his voice taking on a note of concern now that his brain had started to come awake.
"Uh no. I mean, yeah. I mean, not really," Yohji stammered, feeling more and more like an idiot.
"Well, which is it?" Omi asked, his tone of voice indicating, in no uncertain terms, Yohji had better come up with the "right" answer, and he had better do it quickly.
"Nothing happened," Yohji replied. "Nothing life-threatening, anyhow. It's just … Aya's sick, and …"
"How sick?" Omi asked, cutting Yohji off before he finished.
"Sick enough that he's not being bitchy," Yohji replied.
"Oh," Omi said.
"Anyhow, I wanted to make that soup for him. You know -- the chicken soup that he likes. The one you make," Yohji continued.
"I don't make that soup. Ken does," Omi said.
"Ken?!" Yohji asked, his tone incredulous.
He could have sworn he heard Omi roll his eyes before replying, "Yeah, Ken. He's not a total moron in the kitchen like some people."
Yohji cringed at the emphasis Omi placed on the words "some people". It left little doubt Omi meant him, and that hurt. It hurt even more because it was true, Yohji had to admit, turning around to glance at the disaster zone that used to be their kitchen.
After a couple of seconds, he said, "All right. Fine. Let me talk to Ken, then. Maybe he can tell me where I went wrong."
"Can't," Omi replied. "He's not here. There's some kind of Karaoke party downstairs. He's still down there."
"Oh," Yohji said, "What am I supposed to do about the soup, then?"
Omi gave him another irritated sigh, as if to indicate he didn't care what Yohji did, so long as it involved hanging up the phone and letting him go back to sleep. But, instead of hanging up, Omi offered this advice:
"Just go get some soup at that diner down the street. He likes it, too. But, get the kind with rice. Not noodles. He doesn't like noodles."
Yohji pulled the handset away from his ear and stared at it, wondering if he had heard Omi correctly. After all, there was an ocean and a few time zones in between them. And, Omi wasn't quite all the way awake. The whole thing was just too surreal. For one thing, he felt like a first-class moron for not thinking of the whole diner thing from the beginning. Why had he been in here trashing their kitchen and putting his own life in jeopardy by trying to cook? For another, it was too damn weird, hearing Omi tell him not to get noodles in Aya's soup. It was almost like two parents discussing what their three-year-old would or wouldn't eat. And, that was uncomfortably bizarre -- on so many levels.
Besides, he already knew, better than anyone, what Aya liked to eat. It wasn't like Omi had to tell him not to get noodles in Aya's soup. As if he would ever do such an idiotic thing.
Yohji shook his head in an effort to dispel that last thought. Where the holy heck had that come from, anyhow? It wasn't like he cared what Aya did or didn't like to eat. In fact, he didn't care. He didn't care at all. And, yet, there was that little voice in his head, whispering at him that, of course, he would never get the soup with the noodles.
Yohji hated that damn voice.
"Hey, you still there? Yohji?"
Yohji realized he had been staring at the phone for a few seconds, lost in his own nightmarish thoughts. Slowly, feeling almost like he was stuck in a dream, he put the handset back to his ear.
"Um, yeah," Yohji mumbled. There was a short pause before he added, "Okay, then. Thanks, kiddo."
Yohji hung up, imagining Omi on the other end of the line, all the way across the ocean in the United States, staring at a now-silent handset and cursing him out for being awakened at two in the morning for something as stupid as chicken soup. Yohji laughed a little, under his breath. He knew he should feel guilty over disturbing Omi for something so ridiculous. And, he knew he should feel guilty over not figuring out the soup thing, in the first place -- especially considering the mess he had made of their kitchen. But, Yohji didn't feel guilty. He couldn't help it. The whole situation struck him as funny. Funny on a sublimely ridiculous level, but funny, nonetheless.
He glanced at his watch, realizing he had to hurry. If he left now, he had just enough time to make it to the diner before they closed.
"Holy shit, It lives," Yohji said, upon entering the living room.
Aya was awake, sitting up on the sofa and staring off into space with a vacant, blank expression that was so unlike him, it tore at Yohji's heart. At the sound of Yohji's voice, he seemed to shake himself out of his trance, turning to glare at his teammate. It didn't have its usual "punch", but Yohji figured a glare was a good sign. At the very least, it had to mean Aya felt marginally better.
Yohji came around to sit on the sofa next to Aya, placing a mug of hot soup on the coffee table in front of him. He sank back into the cushions, resting his feet on the table and stretching his arms toward the ceiling with an exaggerated groan of exhaustion.
Aya gave the steaming mug a suspicious-looking glare.
"It's soup," Yohji prompted. "For you. I made it myself."
Aya glared at the cup for another couple of seconds, before picking it up. He cradled it in the palms of his hands for a moment, as if attempting to leech some of its warmth into his body. Then, he took a tentative sip.
The quiet of the room folded around the two of them, broken only by the sounds of Aya snuffling and, occasionally, slurping at his soup. Yohji, satisfied that he had managed to feed his ailing friend, turned his attention toward rooting around in the sofa cushions in search of their remote control.
Just as he found it and clicked the television on, he heard Aya's voice -- rumbly and hoarse, but with a slightly teasing tone that seemed to curve around his words.
"Made it yourself, huh? I thought I smelled smoke earlier."
"You suck," Yohji replied, giving Aya an eyes-narrowed, sarcastic smirk.
Aya didn't reply. He only laughed under his breath and took another sip of the soup.
end