The conference room was too small, too hot, and too full of boring people. Schuldig tuned them all out and tuned in to Radio Yohji.

Yohji was, at this moment, flirting with the desk attendant at the hotel from last night in an attempt to get Schuldig's credit card receipt.

It wouldn't help him much, even if he managed it. The billing address was an empty office, and no one from Schwarz had ever so much as seen the place. Yohji would check it out, leave disappointed, and his hunt would hit a dead end. That was no fun.

Schuldig nudged the girl's mind a little.

"Oh," she said. She looked as if someone had come up behind her and pinched her ass.

Yohji leaned forward. "Oh?"

"I just remembered," she said. She was frowning to herself. "I... He asked me to give you..."

"My watch back?" Yohji asked hopefully.

"A...message." Her face cleared. "Yes, that was it. A message. He asked me to tell you that you might find this address helpful." She wrote rapidly on a sticky note and handed it over to him.

He smiled at her and produced a rose to match the one he'd given her when he arrived. "Thank you." It was probably the best he was going to get. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this."

One more smile, and he was on his way. Not that all his smiles had done him any good. She was impervious. Or maybe being seen with one's gay lover took the punch out of any subsequent flirtation.

He looked at the address and started the car, pulling out into traffic.

Gay lover. Jesus. Not lover, absolutely not. Annoying gay-- Actually, he could just stop with "annoying." At least he knew that was accurate. Maybe Schuldig wasn't even gay. Maybe he was bi. Maybe he'd just sleep with anything. Several creative spam subject lines regarding barnyard animals leapt into Yohji's mind, and he winced.

What kind of a fucked up name was Guilty, anyway? That was another reason he'd wanted the credit card receipt, though the name on it would almost certainly be false. That way, when he saw Schuldig again, he could greet him with his fake name and watch him be...totally unsurprised, probably.

Schuldig didn't seem like the type to show surprise, even when he felt it. Which probably wasn't often.

Yohji took two more lefts and pulled up outside a large, grey office building. He went in and took the elevator up to the fifth floor.

"Hi," Yohji said to the young name behind the desk. "I'm hoping you can help me. I was sent here by a guy--about this tall, bright orange hair, always wears this tacky yellow bandana?"

The young man smiled politely. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't recall anyone by that descrip--"

Just wait two seconds, Schuldig thought at Crawford. He planted a thought in the mind of the man Yohji was talking to. Wherever that man had his first kiss, that's where Yohji would be sent next. Schuldig hoped vaguely that it would be in Tokyo, or at least in Japan.

He didn't have time to come up with anything better. Crawford was fuming.

What? Jesus, calm down. Does his jowliness want a slushie or something? I'm not a goddamned errand boy. Send Nagi.

Also not a goddamned errand boy, Nagi sent calmly over their link.

No, Mr. Takatori does not want a "slushie." Crawford's thoughts were tinged with impatience. Schuldig, if you could keep your mind on the job?

"--tion." The young man frowned. "Oh, wait. His name is Schuldig?"

"Yes," Yohji said. "That's right."

"He said you should go to...um. To the American School. He said you'll find something under the bleachers."

"He did, did he?"

"What?" The man frowned. "I'm sorry. Can I help you, sir?"

"I was just on my way out, thanks."

Yohji turned and left.

The American School was halfway across town. He set out through midday traffic.

Too fucking weird. The guy didn't recognize the description, but he suddenly came up with Schuldig's name? And remembered, out of nowhere, where Yohji was meant to go next on this wild goose chase?

Yohji's brain sorted through the possible meanings, but putting two and two together was only getting him negative three. Something was wrong. He started to wonder if he was being led into a trap.

He flashed briefly back to the night Schuldig had tied him to the bed, trapped and helpless, and his cock stiffened slightly inside too-tight jeans. No, he told it. Bad timing.

He tied his jacket around his waist before he got out of the car. Walking around a high school with a hard-on was not a good idea unless you wanted people to think you were a pervert.

He stopped at the front desk to get a visitor's badge and made up an apparently convincing story about wanting to check out the school for his brother's son. Finding the gym was equally easy.

The bleachers were decked out in crepe paper and team spirit banners. The space behind them was littered with empty paper cups, soda cans, candy wrappers, and odd socks. Among the detritus stood a girl; blonde, pretty, overly lip-glossed, wearing a cheerleading outfit.

"Hi, Mr. Kudoh!" she said. "He told me to wait for you here."

"I see. What's your name, honey?"

"Alice Holden. I have something for you."

"From him?"

She nodded and walked up to him. "A kiss."

"You know," Schuldig said. "Flying kids, pirates, Indians, Captain Hook?"

"Peter Pan," Farfarello answered from the back seat of the car.

"Yeah, right. What was the thing he thought was a kiss?"

She held out her hand, and on her palm sat a silver thimble. As he watched, it caught the light, shimmered briefly, and disappeared.

The girl started to scream.

Fifteen minutes later, Yohji sat in the principal's office. It looked much like the principal's office at his old school and was making his stomach churn in the same familiar way. They'd already called the police. He had to get out of here.

"If you tell us what you did," the principal was saying, "it will help us help her. And perhaps we can speak to the police on your behalf."

"I told you! I never touched her!" But he could hear the girl crying in the other room. He wasn't surprised no one was buying his story.

"Just drop me off here," Schuldig said.

"Going to molest high school girls?" Nagi asked.

"Don't be jealous, Nagi-chan. Someday you'll be old enough for me to molest you, too."

He got a telekinetic smack in the back of the head for that one, but it was worth it.

Crawford pulled the car over silently, and Schuldig got out. He could feel the panic in Yohji's mind from here. He walked inside, whistling.

When Schuldig walked in, everything stopped. The principal stopped talking. The girl stopped crying. The two teachers fluttering around her with tissues and sympathy stopped moving altogether. They stood frozen in place, like statues.

Yohji looked up at Schuldig, grateful despite himself.

"Fun day?" Schuldig asked.

"It sucked, thanks for asking." What the hell are you? he thought, but didn't say.

Schuldig rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You must've figured it out by now. What do you want me to do, hire a skywriter?"

"You can read my mind," Yohji said slowly. He looked around the room. "You're controlling them."

"Took you long enough. Want to get out of here?"

"Hell, yes."

They were only out in the hall when Yohji heard voices from behind them again. He glanced back, expecting pursuit, or at the very least a whole lot of yelling and confusion.

"Nothing happened," Schuldig said. "Little Alice had a stomach ache. They'll send her to the nurse. You were never here."

"You can mess with their heads that easily?"

Schuldig snapped his fingers. "Easy as that."

He stopped and put his hands on Yohji's hips, shoving Yohji hard against the wall. "You know what else I can do?"

Then he was on his knees, unfastening Yohji's pants.

"Schuldig! What the hell!" But Yohji was too slow to fend him off, and he had Yohji's pants open, Yohji's slowly hardening cock in his hand--and no one was paying them any attention.

A crowd of students passed. Two teachers chatted outside a classroom opposite where Yohji leaned against the wall. The janitor leaned against his broom and waited for people to get back to class so he could start sweeping again. None of them seemed to notice that Schuldig was now licking broad strokes up Yohji's cock.

"Oh, Jesus," Yohji said weakly, and closed his eyes.

"Better keep quiet." Yohji could feel Schuldig's smirk pressed against his thigh. "If my attention wanders, they'll hear you before they see you."

Yohji clamped his jaw shut and knocked his head back against the wall as Schuldig's lips slid slowly up the hard length of his cock. It was so slow, tongue teasing and licking the around the head, up the underside, the barest scrape of teeth that made his hips jerk forward and almost made him yell.

Schuldig pinned his hips to the wall with a cruel pressure and sucked him steadily. He felt heat and suction and small puffs of hot air where Schuldig's breath hit his skin. He gasped as Schuldig took him still deeper, and opened his eyes.

A group of students stood by their open lockers, not four feet from them. Yohji turned his head away.

Schuldig did something amazing with his tongue, and Yohji had to bite the heel of his hand to keep quiet. There were people fucking everywhere, and Schuldig was too good at this, and Yohji didn't want to--not here--but Schuldig swallowed around him, and he came so hard he felt weak from it.

He slid down the wall to sit on the floor. The polished concrete was cool under his hands. He took a few seconds to simply breathe before he risked looking at Schuldig.

"Bit of an exhibitionist, Yohji?"

"A, no. And B, no one could see anyway, so that's a stupid question."

Schuldig laughed and zipped up his pants, making Yohji fumble to get his own closed. A few streaks of white on the floor told him he was not the only one who'd gotten something out of this. Thank God, because he wasn't about to blow anyone in a school hallway, invisibility or no invisibility.

He wondered, suddenly, if he was losing his mind. It would explain a lot.

Schuldig smacked shoulder, not lightly, and hauled him to his feet. "You're not going crazy." He grinned, showing far too many teeth. "You're going sane in a crazy world."

Yohji looked at him for a few seconds. "There's something wrong with you."

"Is not. I told you, I've got a signed certificate and everything."

"Which you wouldn't need if you weren't fucking bat-shit insane--" He stopped himself and glanced around at the students who still filled the hallway. All of them were now staring at him. "Can we leave now?"

But when he looked back, Schuldig was already gone.

Yohji walked calmly out to his car, got in, and drove calmly home.

He stopped in the kitchen for a beer. Aya was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Do you think telepathy is really possible?" Yohji asked him, not really expecting an answer.

Aya looked at him like he was insane.

Yohji nodded in resignation and started up the stairs. Two steps up, Aya's voice stopped him.

"I think it's not much more unlikely than our cover story," Aya said.

Yohji turned around and stared at him. "Aya, did you just make a joke?"

Aya shrugged, almost smiling. "Telepathy and assassins posing as florists? It sounds like something my si--" He stopped, and his smile vanished. "Like something a teenage girl would watch." He stood quickly, not looking at Yohji as he left the room. "We have a mission tonight," he called over his shoulder. "Make sure you're ready."

Yohji watched him go, leaned against the wall, drank his beer. Sane in a crazy world. Yeah, that sounded about right.