Aya needs to get laid.

Just look at the guy. He's nothing but a mass of tense nerves and restricted libido. It practically radiates off him along with his death glares and unfettered rage. You can *feel* the ice and heat in waves when you get near him.

I'd love to set him up with some girl, get him away from the damn shop for at least one night, but he'd end up being silent the whole night and probably hurt her feelings and glare at her the whole evening. If he even went at all.

The most likely scenario was that he'd stand her up and not give a damn.

I need to get him to open up. I need to get him to realize that there's more to the world than devoting your heart and soul to revenge and not living your life and experiencing things before it's too late.

I've been there.

Done that.

I know what a rough ride it is. I don't want him to go through that.

Why?

I can't tell you why. I can't give you a reason. I can't spell it out for you in black and white. I can't write a book about it. I can't look it up in a dictionary.

I just know how I feel.

I just know it's important to me.

Maybe this is my last mission. Some good deed that I'm supposed to do to redeem myself before I finally say that's enough and leave this godforsaken life behind. Maybe I just don't want him to feel the pain I've felt. Maybe I think that he still has a chance to change before he's as jaded as I am, before he falls apart and waits for the end.

Before every day stops holding something new, before every flavor turns bland, before every sound turns dull, before every sight turns dark. Before everything stops holding any semblance of happiness and joy.

Before he becomes like me.

We're all on a one-way path to hell. They don't book round trip flights.

I've loved. I've fought. I've won and lost at both.

Okay, I'm not being selfless here. I'm not fooling anyone. I could give a damn about anyone right now, and even less than a damn about myself. But if I don't care, why am I doing this? Why am I thinking this?

Maybe I want him, too. Okay, maybe I do. Maybe I want to stare him in the eye, and not have him glare at me. Maybe I want to take him out one night and share a drink, and come home and talk about things. Maybe I want to hold him close, kiss him, and pretend we're something we'll never be.

I can't deal with women anymore. My mask is cracking. I talk to them kindly, protect them when necessary, and shower them with attention.

But I can't take them to bed.

I can't undress them, run my fingers over soft bodies and lose myself in liquid eyes and vanilla perfume. It feels wrong. It feels terrible. And I can't deal with myself afterward.

Two years I've spent in that habit. Meaningless sex. Even that is dull and empty now. I can't even derive the simple pleasures of satiated libido from nightly encounters with women in my bed. I get emptier with each climax, emptier with each meaningless act.

You want to know. Why him? Why Aya?

I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know what it is about his cold demeanor and fiery will that make me want him to be the one that I can cling to. I could find dozens of men or women that would jump at the chance to be in my bed.

But that's not what I want.

I want something more. I want something I can't have. I want something I don't deserve. I want something I won't let myself go after, because of who and what I am, and what I've done with my life.

Maybe some other time, some other place, I could have loved him.

I can't love anymore. I have nothing left in me to love with. I have no heart, no soul, no will left. I'm a shell, filling myself with cigarette smoke and empty dreams.

Isn't one loss enough?

Isn't one life, resigned to hate and revenge and emptiness enough?

Isn't one person crumbling in despair, losing all hope, losing all love, enough?

I'm beyond help. He isn't.

He's got life in him. He cares. He's got that spark that I've lost. A driving force that keeps him going. I'm only going because my heart's still beating and my lungs are drawing in air.

And well... because of him.

Because what will happen to him, if I'm not here? Does anyone else bother with him? Does anyone else bother to look beneath whatever he shows the world and really try and figure out what's going on inside?

For the first time in two years, I feel that spark.

He made me feel that. Feel alive. Feel like there might be something for me here, something that I need to do, need to feel, need to have before I finish my suicide trip and go to sleep for the last time.

He's beautiful.

Inside and out.

And I find myself wanting to know him. Not him, the way he is now, no. I want to know the Aya before all of this happened. The Aya that wasn't hell-bent on revenge and murder.

The Aya that I see inside there, trapped between walls of hate and despair.

The Aya that I'm hanging onto life for.

The Aya that I desperately want to be able to love.

Yohji needs to get laid.

Or go do something else that will get him the hell away from me. Before I rip that cigarette out of his smug mouth and shove it somewhere else.

That bastard knows I hate it when he smokes in here. If he wants to pollute his own lungs, fine. But not all the rest of us in the flower shop, and the flowers. One more indignant puff in my direction and I'm going to yell at him to take it outside. Or better yet, throw him outside.

Why must he be such a damned pain in the ass?!

We're working on closing up. Yohji likes to 'supervise.' Basically, he likes to lean against the wall and smoke while the rest of us close up. Today, it's only Yohji and me. Tomorrow, Ken joins the shift. Today, I could smack Yohji upside his idiotic head and no one else would care.

I'm holding in my temper, but only barely.

Why the hell do I put up with him?

Because I know what he's been through. And if he wants to be a moron, fine, I'll let him. They all think I have no heart; that I'm nothing but cold. Actually, I prefer it that way. That way, no one expects anything from me. No one expects my sympathy. No one expects me to care. It's much easier, and I can concentrate on the important things.

Yohji infuriates me more than any other human being on the planet. He acts like he doesn't care, either, most of the time. But I know he does. We can sense our own kind.

That thought makes me freeze.

If I can see through him, can he see through me? I fight so hard to keep myself in check, to hide everything away. And it makes me furious that there's a chance he can see through me like glass.

He fights hard, too. He fights to keep his little playboy front. Careless and arrogant, smug and self-assured. I glare at him. If I look at him any other way, it will ruin my cover. It will ruin my image. He'll get the wrong perception. And I can't have that.

He keeps pushing me, and I hate being pushed. He thinks I mope too much. Well, I think he goes out too much, but you don't see me getting on his ass about that. His business is his business. Mine is mine. The next time he asks me, it's going to result in a black eye. And he'll be on the receiving end.

He wants me to get into some meaningless relationship, like all of his. What's the point? Does he want me to turn into an oversexed arrogant bastard, like him?

All right, ALL RIGHT. I know I'm being too harsh. It's his way of wanting to help, as much as it makes me angry. But I don't need his help. I don't need anyone's help. Can't anyone see that I'm fine on my own? Why does everyone have to butt into MY life and tell me that I'm not whatever they think I should be?

Why should he give a damn if I'm happy or not? Happiness isn't in my job description. It's not in any of ours. None of us deserve to be happy, not with who we are, and what we do. We work so others can be happy, without having their lives taken from them needlessly. We fight for what we love, what we want to protect.

Or at least, I think we do.

What does Yohji love? What does he want to protect? Women? That's too vague, general, and cliché. Sure, he protects women, but that's not his entire driving force. He's lazy and cops out of jobs whenever he doesn't feel like it, or when there's nothing in it for him. Justice and right mean nothing to him. Nothing at all.

I'm not sure whether that outlook is smart, or idiotic. Yohji's a lot smarter than we all give him credit for. Even myself, because he acts like such a damned idiot all the time. But he's smart. He had to be, to be what he was before joining Weiß. Yeah, he used to be smart, now he's a smartass. How fitting.

Why the hell won't he leave me alone? Why should he give a damn about me? I'm not a girl. I'm not even worth his time. He's like an annoying older brother, always poking into everyone else's business and teasing his siblings mercilessly. Well, I don't have an older brother, and I don't want one. He can keep his brotherly hands to himself next time he feels like touching me. Or else I'll elbow him in his brotherly stomach.

You would think he would learn. You would think he would take a hint. You would think he would back off.

But he doesn't.

It's so frustrating, I'd like to scream. But he'd ask me what's wrong and pester the hell out of me until I told him, or hit him. Maybe if I broke something this time, instead of bruising, he'd get the hint.

I don't want his help. I don't need his help. I don't need his compassion. I don't need his pity. I don't need anything he might feel like giving to me. I don't WANT any of it. I don't NEED any of it. I NEED to be left alone without him pestering the living hell out of me for just one day.

Why can't I deal with him? I don't get it. I've dealt with annoying people before. Ken and Omi, who can be annoying when they feel like it. I rarely get the urge to smash their faces in. But Yohji, as soon as those lips are moving, and even when they aren't, half the time, I want to just... scream in frustration and kick his ass hard enough to make him STOP.

I've never seen him do so much for anyone else, so undauntedly. He's asked me to go out for a drink. I ignored him. He grabbed my shoulder, and I elbowed his stomach. He wanted to set me up with a former girlfriend. I ignored him. He grabbed my shoulder, and I whipped around and punched him in the face.

I don't like to be touched. He knows it. He touches me anyway.

He ends up with a bruised rib, black eye, or knee to the gut.

And he keeps doing it.

I wonder when I'll go too far, and he'll hit me back.

I guess I've got it coming, for as cruel as I am to him. I just don't want him near me. Don't want him to touch me. Don't want ANYONE to touch me, him least of all. Him, with that soft, friendly touch that I don't want to deal with. I don't want a friend. I don't want him to care.

I want him to leave me alone.

I don't like how his intervention makes me feel. The ice melts. I start to want to care. I can't have that. I need to stay the way I am, if I want to be strong. Emotions make you weak. Caring makes you weak. Wanting makes you weak.

I'm not weak. I won't be weak. I have too much relying on me for that.

Strong. I have to be strong. Strong for everyone. I can't fall. I can't fail. Everything will come crumbling down if I'm weak.

I have to stop thinking like this. I'm getting weak just thinking about it. My knees shake, and thank God I'm behind the counter and he can't see me trembling. I don't want his pity. I don't want his concern.

I will not fall. I will not break. I will not be weak. I will hit him again if he touches me. I will not smile. I will not like it. I will not want him to do it again.

I will treat him the same as I have been. I will fight it all. I will not see him in a new light. I will not see him as a friend. He's Yohji.

The only person that's been able to crack my mask in two years.

I hate him for it.