Cameo in this part by Hajime Yamashita from Fingertip's Love, who also does not belong to me.

Schuldig stopped calling.

It took Yohji a while to notice. There were missions, clubs, take-out with his teammates to keep him occupied, and one morning he woke up and realized that it had been over a month since Schuldig had called or showed up out of nowhere to bother him. Or do anything else to him.

Yohji had found his Rolex outside the shop a while back, glass face shattered and hands bent, but he'd figured it for petty revenge, not a permanent dismissal.

To be fair, he hadn't called Schuldig either. Well, of course he hadn't. For obvious reasons. And it wasn't like they were going out. And Schuldig was an annoying son of a bitch.

Yohji reached for his cell phone and dialed.

A mechanical voice informed him that the number was no longer in service. He supposed that meant Schuldig was either no longer in Japan, or he'd changed his number for some reason--or just to avoid him? What the fuck? Schuldig was the fucking stalker, not him. If that bastard was still in the country, he was in serious trouble.

Yohji tried the phonebook first, just in case, but there was no Schuldig (unsurprising; how was that even a name?) and no Brad Crawford.

He still had a few contacts in the local police force, though he called them less and less often. Manx's intel was way beyond what they could offer most of the time, but this he could not ask Manx about. He picked up the phone again.

"Detective Yamashita, please. This is Yohji Kudoh."

After a few seconds of some kind of soulless pop music, Yamashita's voice came on the line. "What do you want, Kudoh?"

"Nice to hear your voice, too! Gosh, it's been a long time."

"Do you want me to shoot you?"

Actually, it was kind of nice to hear his voice. His permanent irritation with everyone and everything was reassuringly familiar.

"Yeah, that's why I called. Does Friday work for you?"

"Anytime, anywhere."

"You're a good guy, Yamashita. Really. It's not everyone who'd make an offer like that." Schuldig had, he remembered. And then fucking disappeared. Not that Yohji particularly wanted to be shot in the head or anything, but that wasn't the point.

"What do you want, Kudoh?"

"I want an address and phone number for a guy named Bradley Crawford. Or...Schuldig."

"No first name?"

"No other name at all, as far as I could find out. First and last, that's it. Like Madonna. But not as hot." That was kind of a lie. Madonna wasn't looking so good these days.

There was a pause as Yamashita presumably wrote things down.

"Fine. I'll get back to you."

The connection was broken before Yohji could say goodbye or anything else, but he got an email a few hours later with an address and phone number for one Bradley Crawford.

The address was in the heart of the Akasaka financial district, which seemed like an odd place for an assassin to live. On the other hand, they'd probably be able to afford it. And no one would bother to hire them to kill poor people, so it was probably a short commute.

Schuldig knew his car, so he took the subway.

The building, when he found it, was all glass and steel, ultra modern in and out. Even the doorman was slickly dressed in a grey suit that matched the stainless steel pillar he stood next to.

Yohji flashed him a smile and an out-of-date P.I. license that didn't look too dissimilar to a police I.D. from a distance.

"I'd like to avoid troubling any of your residents," he said. It was always a good way to start out. "I'm looking for a man, a foreigner. Red hair, blue eyes, obnoxious as hell. Seen him?"

"But--he is one of our residents. He is Mr. Crawford's...permanent guest."

"I see." He could also see that the poor guy was dying to know if Schuldig would be hauled off to jail any time soon, though when it was concern or hope was harder to tell. "Just a background check," he said. "We need to make sure things are in order."

He walked away before the man could come up with any awkward questions. He had some shopping to do.

Everyone except Crawford looked up when the doorbell rang.

"Who the hell is that?" Nagi asked.

Schwarz didn't get many visitors. Schuldig reached out and prodded their visitor's mind sharply.

"Delivery guy," he said. "Get the door, kid."

"You get the door."

"You--"

"I'll get the door," Farfarello said. He stood, stretched, and tucked his knife away.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, sit down." Schuldig got up and pushed past him. "You're dripping blood. Again."

He yanked the door open and had a long, white box thrust into his hands.

"Sign here please, sir."

He signed there please, sir. "What the hell is this?"

"Flowers, sir." The delivery man put on a smile that was clearly forced. "Have a nice day now."

Schuldig poked at his mind a little harder, but as far as Delivery Guy knew, it was just flowers. He kicked the door closed.

The box weighed more than flowers should. He refrained from shaking it and glanced at Crawford.

"Hey, is this going to blow up if I open it?"

Crawford shook his head, watching him with barely concealed amusement. He'd even put his book down.

Schuldig suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Bomb or no, he was careful as he eased the lid off.

Inside, among a dozen red, long-stemmed roses, lay the object that accounted for the box's weight: a black dildo, excessively detailed, easily as long as his forearm. Veins stood out from the surface of it. When he poked it with a finger, it gave slightly.

Crawford, that bastard, was snickering into his hand.

"Been waiting for that all day, haven't you?"

"You have no idea," Crawford said.

"What is it?" Nagi said, from just behind him.

Schuldig tried to slap the lid on, but it was too late.

Nagi raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen one that..."

Big, presumably, though Nagi never finished his sentence. Schuldig had seen one that big, but he couldn't guess who would send him one.

Schuldig glanced at Farfarello, but even the looney seemed hypnotized by the foot-long weapon of ass destruction nestled among the roses.

"Is there a card?" Farfarello asked.

Schuldig hadn't thought to look, but there was. It was addressed to him, which didn't seem to surprise anyone. He opened it.

Dear Schuldig,

You should take your death threats more seriously. What if I'd changed my mind?

-Y

"Who's Y?" asked Farfarello, who had somehow crept close enough to read over his shoulder.

"None of your fucking business."

"Yohji Kudoh," Nagi said. "Schuldig's boyfriend sent him flowers."

"Not just flowers." Farfarello picked up the dildo, turning it this way and that so the sunlight from the window glinted off of it. "Do you think this is meant as a suggestion?"

Schuldig snatched it back. Not that he wanted it, but nothing good could come of letting Farfarello keep it.

"It's art," Schuldig said firmly. He planted it on the chrome and glass coffee table, where it stood, quivering slightly. "A conversation piece."

"No," Crawford said.

"Aw, c'mon, Brad. You don't think it's pretty?"

Crawford didn't answer, but Schuldig was pretty sure the thing would be long gone by morning.

"You made me change your cell number," Nagi said. "How did he find you?"

"How should I know?"

"Why would he want to find you?"

Schuldig threw a pillow at him. It didn't connect, of course, but it was the thought that counted.

Farfarello took the flowers gently from him. "I'll put these in some water."

Schuldig would have objected, but the pillow he'd thrown at Nagi came back at him and smacked him in the head. It took a few minutes to get Nagi to stomp off to his room in a huff, and by the time Schuldig followed Farfarello into the kitchen, the roses had already met their fate. Their decapitated heads bobbed cheerfully in a sink full of water.

It was just as well. He'd never gotten flowers before and hadn't been quite sure what to do with them. Keeping them in a vase in his room was obviously not an option, but just throwing them away seemed tacky somehow.

"Nice," Schuldig said.

"You should call him," Farfarello said. "I like his sense of humor."

"You would."

"Was the sexual aid meant to indicate that you'd fucked him over, or that he planned to fuck you over, do you think?"

"I'd like you better if you were stupid instead of just fucking nuts."

Farfarello flashed him a grin. "I'd probably like you better if I were stupid, too."

"You murdered my roses."

"Should I murder your boyfriend as well?"

Schuldig considered it for a moment. "Nice of you to offer, but no. I can do it myself."

He could. He should. For some reason, he wasn't one hundred percent certain he would.