Listen.
Voices.
Echoes in the distance,
hall with spiders’ webs of shadow,
splattered in blood.
Red on black.

“I didn’t think you were one to be out late, cowboy.” He slung himself into a chair with the appearance of having little concern. But his eyes made the lie – intense, considering, deeply studying me.

“Appearances aren’t everything. Assumptions are worthless.”

Especially with me.

The blonde ducked his head, perhaps in a gesture of acquiescence. Then he shrugged eloquently, brushing the matter effectively aside.

“So, what’s your story?” His idle question, asked with such patience and mild interest, maintained an undercurrent of curiosity. So much a cat – with the intellect, the grace, the nocturnal gleam of the eye.

“Story?” I repeated, arching my eyebrow. “It might depend upon yours.” Cynical, cryptic. Devices.

He gave a dry chuckle, though I did not understand the jest. “Eye for an eye,” he muttered.

“Tooth for a tooth.”

He turned emerald eyes back upon me, into my steady gaze. He chuckled again. “You’re a real piece of work, ya know that?”

I do not believe he has quite decided what to think of me. I’ve been here a few weeks – I discovered almost immediately his habits. He was the only one of the three to often be out late, to keep late company with women, to smoke. I wouldn’t presume to judge him by it – considering myself, I really have neither the space nor the right to judge.

I never made a concentrated effort to keep the fact that I sometimes stayed out late a secret. Had I wanted, I could have gone to certain lengths to keep the fact hidden, but I saw little point in attempting to do so. This was the first night he had encountered me up, sitting at the table in the kitchen, drinking –

“What is that, tea?” he asked, peering at the cup sitting before me.

“Aa.” I took a sip.

He wrinkled his nose. “You’re a strange one, has anyone ever told you that?”

I shrugged, lifting my eyes from the swirling depths of the tea to meet his. He frowned slightly at my piercing gaze.

“Ch’, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend ya’,” he said.

I wasn’t offended.

He seemed put off by my silence. I didn’t like idle talk, idle questions. It didn’t necessarily bother me. I just never saw there to be any point.

Perhaps it was time for me to be leaving.

“Oi, did I scare ya’ off?” he asked dryly when I rose. I moved to the sink, rinsing the small, delicate cup with pale hands and setting it upside down to dry.

“I’m tired,” I replied, monotonic.

I heard the rustle of him rising behind me as I stepped over the threshold.

“Tired, eh?” he repeated. “Someone else got some tonight.”

God. How trite. I briefly wondered why it was that he seemed so wrapped up in women. Trying to forget something, surely. I pushed the thoughts down, not very much wanting to think on anything for the rest of the night. I tossed a response over my shoulder.

“I got something.”

His dry chuckle echoed down the hall, around me, past me. Through me.

Feel.
Deep colors.
Swirling in my divided vision,
dreams of the cynical and cryptic dance,
ages upon ages.
Blood upon flesh.

“Ran-kun!”

The voice startled me out of the haze and shadow of thoughts. I was surprised to the point that I allowed the rose in my hand to slip. The thorn pierced deeply, and a bead of blood burst forth, welling from the stream beneath. I looked detachedly at the perfectly round formation. Tainted, pure, a paradox if ever there existed one. There was even a fleeting pain to accompany it, but I did not feel it. Pain was diminutive: easy to ignore, just as easy to embrace.

“Careful!” Soft, young fingers took hold of the rose. One hand rested on the stem, mindful of the thorns. Another touched my hand.

My fascination shattered. I lifted my eyes into the depths of a cerulean ocean. He peered anxiously at my hand.

“Daijoubu ka?” he asked. He tilted his head to one side ever so slightly. Soft bangs fell forward. Blue eyes looked back to mine.

Am I alright...? It’s a single bead of blood. Of course I’m alright.

I pulled my hand away, leaving the rose clutched lonely in his fingers.

I don’t like people touching me.

The words were on my lips, but they paused in my throat, refusing to be said. He blinked at me, at my silence.

“Aa,” I finally responded. “... Daijoubu.”

He smiled, a sweet gesture that curved his lips softly. Glancing back at the rose, brushing his fingers lightly, momentarily, over the velvet crimson, he lay it on the windowsill nearby. The sun poured forth through the pane of glass, and the vibrant colors drank of it deeply.

“Ano... How is everything, Ran-kun?” the boy asked finally, looking at me thoughtfully. “You’ve been here for a couple of weeks now. Have you settled in alright?”

His concern was foreign to me. In the shadows of my mind colors flew, ever-present. Crimson, carmine, velvety red – perpetually present. And accompanying these there often came darkness – deep blue, purest black. I depended on these colors for nothing more than comfort. In a world that was ever changing, the visions in my mind were my solace.

Yet now I saw the briefest flashes of... white.

He mistook my preoccupied frown.

“Something wrong?” he asked, brow furrowing.

Drawn out of my reverie, I shook my head. “No,” I confirmed. “Rather... Everything has been going quite well,” I assured him. I discovered, for some reason, that I did not want him to think his concern went unappreciated. Strange… It never mattered in the past.

But everything changed. Time had a way of encouraging that irrepressible fact.

“You seem as if you’re not used to everything going well,” he said, favoring me with another small smile. I was taken slightly aback, and looked at him surreptitiously, speculatively. There was the glimmer of amusement, of teasing, in his eye, as well as an underlying current of understanding, as he believed his words to be the truth.

Which I would not deny. It was all but blatant truth, really. I wasn’t used to things going my way. However... perhaps I need amend that. I didn’t have a ‘way’. I always let things simply pass. But it was never easy, is the proper way to say it. There was no small number of times that being what I am incited my fleeing from a place. And there was always the loneliness... A perpetual existence had it’s definite advantages, but on those lonely nights, whether I was physically alone or not, there sometimes emerged some nameless, incessant ache...

“Perhaps I am not,” I finally acknowledged, my voice quiet.

He cocked his head slightly, looking at me intently. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but the small bell attached to the door gave it’s silvery wail, announcing a customer. The other two were in the backroom, and so it was left to us to work the main portion of the shop. Offering a last smile, Omi turned to the customers – teenage girls, of course – with a wide grin, welcomed them, and our exchange was all but forgotten.

I turned back to the rack, my fingers closing around the plastic watering can that sat half-full on one of the shelves. My eyes fell back on the rose.

So vibrant and alive, the personification of... beauty. Of living, pulsing blood, deep and wrought with vitality. Of the sun’s emission of splendor as it traveled on it’s ever-present path beneath and beyond the horizon. Of the most precious ruby that would remain in perpetual existence, intensity forever rivaling the dimming effect of time.

Even I would wither and die in a future someday unknown. But this, this rose and the emotions, the purest, crimson energy that it represented, would perpetuate.

Whispers.
Soundless energy.
Echoing in the ballroom,
the music of the endless dance,
the waltz of wings upon blood, blood upon flesh.
Black on red.

Luminous, gorgeous eyes. Cerulean, azure, the absolute essence of the seas, which paled in comparison to such splendor. Absorbing and reflecting the lucid moonlight even through the thin parchment, through time.

Flaxen, golden-straw hair. Spun with the gold of fields of wheat, embracing as much sunlight, capturing it to reside therein. Molten, liquid copper.

Skin – so pale, lovely, would that I might touch it.

My hand, a trembling thing of translucent proportions, uncertain, as I gently laid my fingers upon the cream flesh.

Disappointment, a black, vile thing, closing with a vice grip about my mind, heart, at the rough, papery sensation elicited. Fingers drawn back. Sigh escaping chilled lips.

An echo, a resounding announcement. A knock upon my door.

The image was shattered, the strange, halcyon calm swept away. I blinked, pulling myself from deep, transparent reveries. I banished the image, from my hand, from my mind, and it was once more hidden in shadows and darkness.

Rising without sound, I opened the door.

Lucent, clear blue eyes peered up at me.

“Ran-kun!” he exclaimed. “I hope I didn’t wake you...” He trailed off. It’s not late, but I retired to my room early, which was not a strange occasion. I doubted that he really believed I was asleep – I’m sure he just wanted to be polite. That’s nice, and all too often rare, in my albeit jaded experience.

“Iie,” I responded, shaking my head.

He smiled. “Okay. Just something quick.” He lifted one hand, and I noticed that there was a manila folder, thinly filled, held in his fingers. “Things have been slow, you’ve only been on one mission with us, and that was more of a pseudo-mission. I know when you first came Manx talked to you about a lot of stuff, but because you’re joining was of rather short notice, and something – I don’t know what – was going on with Persia so that he was absent for a while, there were a few details you didn’t get yet.

“We all have an image-flower, and, more importantly, a code name.” He thrust the folder at me, and I silently accepted. Omi continued.

“In there are a few of the basic things that Manx talked to you about, as well as a copy of your Weiss records – stuff like your birthday and blood-type – which they want you to go over to make sure they have it right in case they ever need it. Also, your image-flower and code name are included on there.”

Glancing down, I flipped open the folder with one hand. There, on the top of the stack of papers, was the information sheet. A brief perusal revealed the two items in question to me.

“Abyssinian,” I mused, arching one eyebrow.

“Hai,” Omi said, “Manx told me to make sure you looked at that right away. And your flower is the rose,” he supplied, ever-helpful.

The rose. How... appropriate. An antithesis, and yet, at the same time, fitting.

I nodded, closing the folder. “Doumo,” I told him. “I’ll be sure to check this over.”

“’Kay,” he said, “there’s no hurry, Manx just wants it whenever you get a chance. At least before the next mission, and, considering how slow things are right now, maybe we’ll be lucky and that will be a while yet.” His eyes sparkled. “Ken’s making me clean up the kitchen tonight, ‘cause he thinks it’s my turn even though I really don’t think it is, so I better go finish. Goodnight, Ran-kun!”

With a last smile he turned and began to walk back down the hallway.

I gazed after him, sure that my eyes reflected my musings. His slender form lost color with distance, fading to a silhouette.

“Omi.”

He paused, but I was sure that he heard me, in spite of the low volume of my voice. He turned, tilting his head slightly to one side. Brilliant eyes gazed back at me, inquiring.

“What’s your image-flower?”

I do not know why I asked the question.

“Freesia.”

When I said nothing else, he turned, with a brief, perplexed look coloring his countenance, and soon disappeared from sight.

Freesia...

For some nameless reason, I knew that I would remember that.