Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The authors claim no ownership of the characters within, nor received any compensation for this work.
It had been four weeks.
Four weeks since that night in the alley when the Ronins had forgotten the caution that once ruled their lives. In fairness, they'd never really faced a "normal" enemy, so a crazed man with a gun wasn't their usual choice in opponent. But caution wasn't something they'd forget ever again.
A handful of guards who'd been missed, men who'd gone looking for their employer's killers, surprised them in the alley. And not being incompetent, they took immediate advantage of the two groups arguing. The first shot had taken Cye high in the back, shoving him against the red haired man he'd been staring at. The second caught that same man, causing him and the Ronin to crumple together in a bloody heap. And then all hell broke loose.
The normally placid Kento had gone berserk, subarmored in a flash, hurling himself at the one who'd shot Cye. Ryo and Rowan were right behind him, catching the ones closest, beating them into the ground with only slightly less savagery. They deliberately ignored the strangers, turning a blind eye and ear to the screams and flesh tearing sounds behind them.
Sage had raced forward, Halo manifesting fully as he moved, not caring that anyone could see him. He untangled Cye from the other man as best he could, despite their clasped hands that for some reason refused to be parted, and threw himself into the green heart of his armor's healing power. Sage was almost too late, feeling the blue-green pulse in his arms stop.
The others felt it at the same moment, ripping them out of their enraged state. A surge of power slammed into Halo, lending strength to drag their friend back. A nightmarish struggle followed that drained Halo nearly dry, leaving Sage too exhausted to even comment when the glaring, lanky blond in the dark trenchcoat wrestled his companion away. There wasn't much time to argue as Cye started to stir at the same moment.
Four weeks since that night, when Cye had awoken and Sage found that his armor hadn't had the power to finish the job. Four weeks since Cye's weakened lungs had allowed pneumonia to set in and he'd refused to be taken to a doctor. There would be no way to explain the angry scarring on his back and chest, he'd argued, not without the police being dragged in, and for some reason Cye was utterly adamant about them not being involved. He'd hang on until Sage's armor regained enough power to finish the healing.
Cye hadn't been lucid for much of the time following, spending most of it delirious and fevered, begging them again and again to bring "him" back. Once it was over, once he could breathe again and the scars were melted away, Cye had refused to tell them who "he" was. Instead he sank into a deep, apathetic depression.
And it was that depression Cye was wallowing in still when he heard the knock on his bedroom door. Not that it was unusual, since the boys had been pestering him non-stop since that night. In his more rational moments Cye did understand why -- it had been a horrible experience and he hadn't really been acting like himself – but he just couldn't seem to care.
"Go away," he said crossly. "I don't want anything and I'm fine. Leave me be." There, he thought, hitching the covers up around himself and clutching the stuffed dolphin tighter, never mind that it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Maybe they'll go away.
"You are certainly not fine. You're worrying the guys sick and it's gone on long enough."
He had just enough time to register the crisp tones of Mia's voice before she yanked the covers out of his hands and off the bed. "Mia!" He scrabbled for the sheets franticly, for some reason horribly embarrassed to be caught in the nude.
"You are going to get out of that bed," she ordered tartly, "And get in the shower. Then you will get completely dressed in real clothes and come downstairs. I expect to see you in the kitchen in no more than thirty minutes."
Sputtering, he snatched the covers out of her hands, covering his lap, "What are you doing?!"
"Giving you a taste of your own medicine. If any of the guys had been acting this way you'd have done this a week ago. Now march or else."
"Or else what?" He said suspiciously. Overly careful concern, pampering, silent fretting, those he knew how to deal with. This was something else entirely.
"Or else this," she said, holding up a slip of paper long enough for him to read the phone number written on it. "Get out of that bed or I will make the call. And I really don't think you want her to see you in this state."
Muttering to himself, Cye dredged up his last traces of dignity and headed for the bathroom, slamming his bedroom door behind him. Of all the dirty, rotten, underhanded tricks... Dodging his friends was one thing, his mother was an entirely different matter.
~*~*~*~
Thirty minutes later on the dot Cye walked in the kitchen rather defiantly, wearing a faded, worn t-shirt and the oldest pair of cutoffs he could find. At his usual place there was a bowl of soup and a mug of hot tea, just the thing for someone who hadn't eaten much recently. Mia was sitting in her chair, waiting patiently with her own mug. He sat down and started eating, not that he wanted it but her threat still hung in the air.
After a few minutes, she finally spoke. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Where are the guys?" he asked. No, he didn't want to talk about it.
"Out running errands for me," she replied. They aren't here, don't go looking for rescue.
"Oh."
The silence stretched on as Cye ate quietly. The truth was, he did want to talk and badly. He just couldn't figure out a way to bring it up to the guys without feeling even more guilty. Maybe... Maybe she could help. "Does it ever bother you," he asked abruptly, toying with his spoon, "To be on the outside? Does it bother Ryo?"
"Sometimes," she replied, knowing exactly what he meant. "And other times I'm glad for it. I have a part of him that he doesn't share, a part that's meant just for me no matter how close the five of you are."
"What if..." he whispered, not looking up. "What if I thought I found it, that thing just for me? Hallucinated it anyway."
"Why do you think it wasn't real?"
He blinked, finally looking up. "But... but it was only a minute, I was dreaming. I couldn't know him. Sage..." His voice dropped again. "Sage said I died, for just a minute. Those things happen, right? There was never a house, never a beach, never... It was just a dream."
She looked at him steadily over the rim of her mug, took a sip and then set it down with a click. "If it was just a dream why are you so upset?"
"Because it's empty!" He burst out, tears finally welling up. "It's lonely and empty and cold, even with the guys. It's like someone ripped out a part of my..." His eyes widened then as the words trailed off. "Like there's a hole inside," he whispered, staring at her. "Like there's something missing that wasn't there before..."
"And what's that mean, Cye?" Mia asked, leaning forward and taking his hand. "What do you think that is?"
His hand was shaking in hers, and he had to force to words out past the lump in his throat. "I can't know something's missing if it was never there. There's an empty space where a bond is supposed to be, as real as the ones with the guys..." He looked up at her then, brightening with a dawning hope. "It happened," he whispered. "Somehow it really happened..."
As quickly as hope flared, it sputtered out again. "But he's gone," Cye said miserably. "His friends took him away and I don't know where to find him... Ouch!" He looked up, glaring and rubbing the knuckles she'd rapped sharply with her spoon.
"Don't be absurd. If five boys, one teacher and a child can beat an otherworldly demon empire, we can manage to find one man somewhere in Japan. Now, start at the beginning and tell me everything. We can work from there." She reached for the notepad and pen he usually used for grocery lists and waited.
Cye finally smiled then, really smiled, and began to haltingly relay the entire story, beginning with a red silk shirt and a loose thread.
~*~*~*~
"Th' toughest thing is not havin' a name," Rowan said, leaning back in his chair. "If he's suppos'ta be dead that ain't gonna help."
"This is assuming that he should be found," Sage pointed out. "I know what you told us, Cye, but the man is an assassin and a criminal."
"He is not!" Cye exclaimed hotly. "Well, maybe the assassin part but he's not evil. I know it."
"But are you sure?" Sage continued, ignoring the outburst. "Strange things can happen in these cases. You could very well have dreamed it."
Cye closed his eyes and counted to ten, then paused and did it again just to be sure. Rowan and Ryo had been supportive after he'd repeated the story. Kento was suspicious, but in the end trusted Cye's judgment. Sage was the only one dragging his heels and it had gone past annoying.
"Really, Koi," Sage continued, "You don't have any real way of knowing what happened. There was a room full of dead people and you said he admitted to being a hired killer. You did almost die," he pointed out, still irritatingly reasonable in tone.
"I am not a bloody fish," Cye snapped. Ordinarily he didn't mind the nickname. At the moment, it hit his last nerve. That Sage, that any of them, thought he'd really hallucinated it when he hurt that much... "I know what we did, what we felt. If you don't believe me you can bleeding well look for yourself!" He yanked down the barriers he'd forgotten he'd placed, laying the memories bare for them to see.
He wasn't prepared for the eager rush from all four, pressing deep and close into the vaults of his mind. The links between them bloomed and strengthened again, reminding Cye of just how far he'd drifted and the joy of having them there again. And he realized, with no small amount of buried guilt, that it wasn't enough. The blackness where his Ran had been was still as dark and deep and hurting.
They sifted through everything Cye offered carefully, his memories, perceptions, everything that gave a clue to who the man he'd fallen in love with was. And just as carefully avoided the raw spot inside once it was identified, not wanting to cause any more pain.
"I'm sorry, Cye," Sage murmured before wrapping the auburn-haired boy in his arms. "We almost lost you and you wouldn't open back up once you were well." Kento settled in on the other side, leaning his head on Cye's shoulders. Ryo and Rowan sat on the floor by his feet, resting against his legs, and they stayed that way for a few moments, just warm and close.
"Ahem," came Mia's amused voice from the door. "If you guys are finished bonding we've got a lot of work to do."
~*~*~*~
"The trick is still finding him," Mia said, keys clicking as she typed. "Now that you've all had a look, what can you tell me?"
Kento frowned a bit, thinking. "He's got a little sister in the hospital," he said. "And that's why he does that stuff, right? He'd want to be close by, to visit and all that. I know I would."
"So... we need to look near hospitals with facilities for coma patients." Sage said thoughtfully. "It's too bad that you don't have a clearer memory of those invoices. Still, we should limit the search in the beginning to those of the highest quality. She is what's keeping him at that profession, I assume."
Cye shrugged, "It wasn't exactly important at the time. The death certificate was somewhat distracting. Well, that and him dropping things right after."
"Hospitals close ta' florists," Rowan said, sprawled across the couch. "Somethin' abaht 'the world knows me as ah simple flowah man.'"
"Hey!" Ryo chimed in. "He said his name was Aya, right? Even before you got to know him. So that'd be the name he uses in public?"
"Well, yes," Cye said, not really sure where this was going.
His friend just rolled his eyes, "Dude, how many red-haired, purple-eyed, guy florists with a girl's name can there be? It's a big island but it's not that big."
"You're right," Cye said, finally brightening a bit. "There can't be that many."
"Well," Mia broke in as her printer finally stopped. "The public databases don't say much about employees but even with keeping the number of hospitals down it's quite a list."
"I don't care," Cye declared, "I'll visit every one if I have to."
"And we'll help!” came Kento's enthusiastic response.
"No, Cye said quietly. Looking at his friends he hastened to explain. "He doesn't know you and it seems an awfully nervous business. If he found out that all these strange people were looking for him, it might drive him deeper. Or really get you guys in trouble." He frowned then, thinking. "And I don't really know much about his friends. He never talked about them while we were... where ever we were."
"An' we're just s'poseta sit back an' let you get inta trouble?" Rowan asked sharply. Cye could see that none of them were all that pleased about the idea.
"We have to do it this way," Cye said firmly. "You guys can help with some calls and things, maybe asking them to recommend someone to arrange roses or something, but I don't want whoever he works for know any more about the lot of you than they already do. I'm not changing my mind."
"Whatever you say," Kento said with a sigh, knowing that it never really did them any good to try and argue. Though it was almost worth it to see the bright smile Cye gave them as they agreed.
"Now then," Cye said, passing out the pages that Mia had printed. "We need to get directions and what order would be best to check things and all that. Let's get started."
[ on to chapter 19 ]