Yohji woke with his cigarette cold and expired and the other half of the bed empty. He didn't remember falling asleep. He hadn't even been tired. It was the middle of the day for fuck's sake. Maybe it was a leap to blame Schuldig and his mind whammy, but not a huge one.

Jesus. It wasn't like Yohji'd been planning to tie him to the bed (which Schuldig had done to him) or or take him home to meet his mom (which Yohji sincerely hoped Schuldig would never do to him). The entire extent of his plans had been: maybe some food would be good.

Some food would still be good. And maybe it was better that Schuldig had taken off. The knowledge that he'd handed Omi over to his brother's less-than-tender mercies kept slipping out of Yohji's brain, and he didn't think it had anything to do with Schuldig's manipulation. He just didn't want to remember.

He picked up the phone and dialed the flower shop. Aya answered, voice low and cracked with weariness. Yohji wasn't sure he'd slept since the night of the party.

"You busy?" Yohji asked him.

"What do you want?" Aya snapped.

"Lunch. You up for it?"

"Some of us have work to do." Aya hung up.

Well. So much for that. Things would settle down. Aya would go back to being his normal cranky bastard self instead of his current sleep-deprived super-elite cranky bastardness. Everyone would get used to Omi's sunny-faced fratricide, and Ken would stop playing soccer in his room at three in the morning. It would all be good.

And Yohji would still be fucking around with the enemy.

He lit his cigarette again and stood in front of the window, pushing the drapes wide. He wondered idly if the glass was mirrored on the outside. If not, the offices across the way were going to get a nice view. His clothes still lay scattered on the floor.

He shouldn't be doing it. Shouldn't be doing Schuldig. The others wouldn't like it. Aya really wouldn't like it. Manx would flip her lid. Yohji was finding it seriously difficult to care.

Maybe if Schuldig hadn't come over right after the party and been his normal irritating self. Maybe if Yohji had felt any sense of shock or betrayal over what Schuldig had done. Maybe then things would be different. But like Schuldig had said, it was just work. In a way, that made it easier to take, since Yohji was pretty sure Schuldig would fuck around with his friends just for fun.

So what exactly had changed? Nothing. Yohji had never deluded himself that Schuldig was a nice guy, or even a decent human being. The only reason he could see to stop sleeping with him now was so that, if the others found out, he could say, Yeah, but I stopped as soon as I knew.

Maybe that was a good enough reason.

The cigarette went bitter and died as it burned down to the filter. Yohji stubbed it out and put his clothes on.

Back outside, he took a seat at the counter of the first noodle shop he passed. Someone sat down right next to him, though the seats at the
counter were nearly all empty.

Schuldig had once give him a physical description of Farfarello. It was the sort of description that stuck with you. Yohji wondered what the odds were on there being two white-haired, scarred, one-eyed men wandering around Tokyo.

"You know who I am," Farfarello said. It was a statement.

"Yeah."

"He told me about your tattoo. Have you sinned?" He said it like a casual inquiry.

"All the fucking time."

"And have you learned?"

"Not a goddamned thing."

Farfarello smiled, and it made Yohji wanted to take a few giant steps backward. "I see why he hasn't killed you yet," Farfarello said.

"Yeah? Wanna share?"

Farfarello looked like he was considering it, but after a moment he shook his head. "No."

Farfarello got up and walked out.

"Ready to order?" asked the guy behind the counter.

"Ah--no, never mind."

Given a choice between food and prying into Schuldig's personal life, Yohji knew which option he was going for. He slipped out the door just in time to see Farfarello round the corner at the end of the block. He followed.

There was nobody easier to tail on planet Earth, Yohji was convinced. Between the hair and the clothes and the total lack of any attempt at stealth, Yohji was still sticking with him an hour later. Farfarello had stopped to buy groceries, and to feed some birds in a park. Yohji had been just close enough to hear him pouring poison into their little birdie ears about St. Francis of Assisi.

It had been a pretty well reasoned argument for a complete whackjob. Yohji had listened from behind a bush and caught himself thinking that Farfarello had some valid points. By the time Yohji trailed him back to the building all four of them lived in, he was half convinced that Farfarello was saner than Schuldig, not that it would take much.

Farfarello went inside, and Yohji approached the entryway. He was tempted to pump the doorman for more information, and he was willing to bet the guy would be more willing to talk about the white-haired wonder than about Crawford.

The door opened again, and Farfarello stuck his head out. "Are you coming in?" he asked Yohji.

Oh.

Yohji did. Anything else would've felt too much like running away.

The elevator ride up was silent. Farfarello unlocked the apartment door and walked straight in, leaving Yohji to follow. Farfarello wandered into another room, ignoring him completely, but the man on the couch sat up straighter and set his newspaper aside.

He was tall, dark-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a suit and a smirk, both of which sat comfortably on him. He stood.

"Yohji Kudoh," the man said. "Come in. I've been waiting."

"Uh," Yohji said. "I just--" Want to leave now, thanks. "Farfarello invited me in. Uh. You know my name."

"Yes, I do."

"Right, good," Yohji muttered. He looked around, seeking some sort of landmark or familiar point. He felt completely at sea.

He stood on a spotless cream-colored carpet and surveyed a surprisingly normal landscape of modern furniture, scattered magazines, and shoes in several different sizes. Also, the giant black dildo Yohji'd bought Schuldig perched on top of the entertainment center like some looming bird of prey.

The man followed Yohji's gaze. "He thinks I don't know it's up there. I wish he'd just keep it in his room. I'd like my handkerchief back at some point, by the way. I get them custom made."

Yohji's brain took about five seconds to sort that out; the C embroidered on the handkerchief Schuldig had given him in the movie theater, Schuldig's repeated references to the leader of their little team. So, this was Crawford. Yohji had expected someone who smiled less. The smile was unnerving him.

"Nagi," Crawford called. "Come meet our guest."

A boy around Omi's age poked his head out of a door that opened off the hall past the living room. He was smaller than Omi and looked somehow more delicate. Also, definitely more ill tempered. His mouth was drawn into a tight line.

"Why?" he said.

The smirk grew a size larger. "It's Schuldig's boyfriend."

Nagi stepped entirely out of of his room and looked Yohji up and down. He ended with an expression of mild distaste. "What's he doing here?" he asked Crawford.

"I'm not anyone's fucking boyfriend," Yohji said, possibly more loudly than the situation called for.

"But you are fucking," Nagi said. "I have the surveillance video to prove it."

Yohji gaped for about five seconds and then shut his mouth with a snap. "What is this? Some blackmail shit?"

"It's not about you," Crawford said. "Think of it as sibling rivalry."

Nagi glared and slammed back into his room.

"He's young," Crawford said, not quite apologetic. "And loathes any suggestion of a relationship between him and Schuldig, blood or otherwise."

"Can I have a drink?" Yohji said weakly.

Vague memories were stirring in the back of his mind; human chess, a helicopter, Aya's freaked out scream and sword toss. This had been the guy with Takatori. His bodyguard. Of course.

Something told him this would be a good time to run, but Crawford was handing him a scotch. Yohji wondered if he should worry about drugs, but seriously, why would they bother. He knocked it back and felt calmer for it if not much happier.

"Nice place you got here," he said.

"Job perks. Mr. Takatori likes to have us nearby."

"Aren't you supposed to be, like, a little discreet about this shit?"

"Why?"

Crawford could pack a lot into one word, including Yohji's essential inconsequence and impotence compared to Crawford's team. The word 'impotence,' in particular, hung in the air.

"Yeah, okay," Yohji mumbled.

The windows behind Crawford showed a sample swatch of downtown Tokyo, sunny and bright with oases of green amid steel and hurrying footsteps. Crawford looked, in that second, like he owned it all.

Yohji shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest. "Can Schuldig come out and play?" he said.

Crawford didn't say I can see why he hasn't killed you yet, but there was an echo of something like the same sentiment in his posture and voice when he spoke.

"He's here. I don't know if he'll let you in. Second door on the right." He nodded towards the hall.

Yohji knocked on the appropriate door.

"Fuck off," Schuldig said.

Yohji kicked the door. "Let me in," he hissed. No one could blame him for sounding a little desperate, especially not when Farfarello came to stand in the mouth of the hallway, sharpening a kitchen knife.

There was a brief silence, and then the door snapped open. Schuldig stood on the other side of it, looking a bit wild. He grabbed the front of Yohji's shirt and dragged him inside.

The inside of the room briefly made Yohji forget about everything else. There was a desk with a computer on it. Apart from that, there were stars. The ground felt like a floor under his feet, but all he saw when he looked down was vertigo-inducing darkness shot with points of light.

Schuldig shook him. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"What the fuck is this?"

They stared at each other. After a moment Schuldig sighed and let him go. "It's just a hologram. Psychic assassins don't faze you, but you can't cope with a little starfield? It's like a screensaver grown up. What the fuck are you doing here? Are you nuts?"

Yohji crossed his arms over his chest and backed up until he had a wall to lean against. Or something that felt like a wall. "What, none of your other boyfriends ever came to visit?"

"You're-- Who have you been talking to? Crawford? Have you seriously been out there," he waved a hand wildly towards the living room, "talking to Brad fucking Crawford? Seriously?"

"You sound like it's a miracle I lived through it."

"It is!"

Yohji frowned at him. He actually sounded worried. "I tailed Farfarello here. He stopped by to ask me about sin and stuff. I didn't just--decide to drop by."

"Good to know you're not completely mentally deficient. Now leave."

"I just got here. You could at least offer me a drink."

"If I do, will you leave?"

"No. I already had one anyway."

"You'd better hope it wasn't poisoned."

Yohji shrugged.

"Fuck. There's having a death wish and then there's just plain stupidity."

"Didn't know you cared."

"I don't."

The words came out so loud, both in the room and inside Yohji's head, that he flinched. If he hadn't already been jammed smack up against the wall, he would've stepped back.

Schuldig stepped back instead. He ran his hands over his face and back through his hair. Bits of it stuck to his face, charged with static. "So you followed Farf, and he invited you in."

"I didn't think he knew I was there."

"He's not stupid."

"Yeah, I got that."

Schuldig turned away, kicked the chair in front of the desk, and then flipped it around to straddle it. He leaned his arms on the back and stared at Yohji. "You're not as scared as you should be."

"Gosh, so sorry. What are you doing in here anyway? Plotting to overthrow civilization as we know it?"

"No, that's Crawford's deal. I was just--" Schuldig gestured towards the computer screen.

"Porn? You're looking at internet porn?"

"Fuck off. It was something to do."

"Clubbing's something to do. Getting drunk is something to do. Looking at internet porn alone in the dark is something sad losers do."

"Don't even try to tell me you never look at porn."

Yohji shrugged, peering at the screen. "Everyone's a sad loser sometimes. That's not very good porn."

"Depends what you like."

"If you like girls being tied up and hosed down with water, I'm sure it's very good porn."

"Don't mock my tastes, Kudoh. I'm fucking you, remember."

"You don't want to tie me up and hose me down, do you?"

"Tie you up and gag you maybe."

"You can't gag my brain."

"I totally could."

"Yeah? So do it."

Schuldig frowned at him. "You're not supposed to invite me to screw with your head, Yohji."

"Dare you."

"Yohji--"

"Chicken." It was stupid, yeah, but he once he started arguing with Schuldig it was hard to stop. And then Schuldig stopped him.

Yohji looked around the room with wide eyes and not a thought in his head. There was no panic at the sudden silence in his mind, no fear, no worry. Nothing. He touched his own mouth, but there were no words to come out.

With his mind empty, his eyes focused more fully on the stars around him. There were whole twisting galaxies, binary systems, streaming comets. Like looking at the universe all at once, pouring it right onto his brain. He slid slowly down the wall, still staring.

Schuldig came to sit beside him, and when Yohji turned to him, his face was just as fascinating as the stars. He raised a hand to touch his hair and cheek. Seeing this much felt almost like being blind.

And then it was all gone, and his head was chock full of everything from self-doubt to grocery lists again. He leaned back against the wall, aware of Schuldig's shoulder and thigh pressing against his. Even with all his words back, he couldn't seem to find the right ones.

"You could wake me up before you leave next time," he said, finally. "I'm not gonna be an asshole about it or anything."

There was a long silence and an exploding star over to their right.

Schuldig glanced over at him, frowning just a little. "Yeah, whatever," he said. "Sure. What the fuck." He looked away again fast.

"And don't kill me in my sleep."

"No promises."

Yohji just smiled a little and shook his head. "Fine. Be that way."