Chapter 2
I'm dead, he decided.
He had to be despite the fact that he had never actually died before to have first hand experience of it, but he was quite certain he was dead. That would have been proper justice, too. A sword-wielding assassin not dying in some glorious, bloody battle, out to avenge some horrible wrong, but dying on a street, stabbed in the side by a child with a switch blade. Assassins weren't meant to have glorious deaths, after all. Poetic justice.
Slowly, his eyes opened and he squinted against the brilliant light surrounding him. Whiteness and beautiful golden light. Definitely, he was definitely dead. Except, he had never expected, after all the sins on his soul, that he would have gone to heaven. He had always given money to the nuns who ran the orphanage, but that surely could not make up for all of his crimes, even if they were done to stop the dark hunters of the world, those who deserved to die.
He lay still, expecting something to happen. For the light to fade, perhaps, and to be encased in eternal darkness and damnanation. That would be justified, right? A taste of heaven before being thrown into the darkest depths of hell?
"Sir!" A woman's voice. "You're awake! Finally!"
He blinked. Then blinked again.
The light did, indeed, fade but he was not thrown into eternal darkness; it was a passing cloud obscuring some of the sun's rays. And the woman was real and he was alive.
That's when it hit him. Intense, agonizing pain in his side. It was too unbearable to be anything but real. He had suffered many injuries in his profession, some worse than this, but he had assumed no one would have stopped to help him and that he would bleed to death against that mailbox. So. He was still alive. He did not know whether to be disappointed at that fact, or relieved.
A doctor arrived quickly and the nurse hovered about worriedly as the doctor made certain that he was all right and was not going to keel over again any time soon. Aya remained still and endured the prodding. Finally, the doctor looked at him carefully. "When they found you, you didn't have any ID on you at all."
Of course not. They never carried anything that could identify them. That would be stupid. "My name is Fujimiya Aya." Even if they looked, there would be no records on him so it was a safe enough name to use. If anything they would think it a false name if they managed to trace it back to his sister. As it was, there were few enough records of her so he rather doubted they'd be able to do that, either. Evidence of her stay at the hospital had been destroyed and unless they talked to the staff at the hospital - a hospital they would not even know about because of the lack of records - they would not know of her. Her employment at the flower shop was also not on any permanant records anywhere, either.
Aya judged the extent of his wound and forced himself to sit up despite the doctor's protests. When he tried to get out of the hospital bed the doctor did stop him. Aya glared. The doctor glared back, surprisingly unphased by his patented Evil Aya Glare that seemed to work on almost everyone else.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"Leaving." He hated hospitals. As he recalled, Omi had always thought that it was amusing that getting stabbed or shot or otherwise injured did not bother Aya as much as getting pricked by a needle. Aya was also venomously against the color white, which also happened to be the most typical color of hospital rooms. Perhaps it was that he associated white with his sister's prolonged stay in the hospital, or the white interior of the coffins his parents were buried in. Whatever it was, he certainly didn't want to stay.
"You are not fully recovered! I will not allow you to leave this hospital until I deem you fit to do so."
Aya pushed his feet out of the bed. He needed to find his clothes. Hopefully they weren't too bloodstained.
The nurse was suddenly in his field of vision. "No, please! You have to stay still or you'll tear the - " She froze as icy eyes locked onto her.
"Asuka." His voice was dark. He wasn't looking at her name tag.
Her eyes widened as she stared at him, seeing the recognition in his eyes but not knowing where he could possibly know her from. "How do you know me?"
There was a long pause in which is eyes seemed to want to drill holes into her head and see right into her innermost thoughts. Finally, "You don't remember." Then he shook his head. "No, of course you don't." If she had survived the blast, as she obviously had, it was natural to assume she lost those memories. Esset had probably deleted all of her previous memories before Esset - well, all memories except those having to do with fighting and killing that is. From a detective to an assassin to a nurse and each time losing her previous history for the next. She had lived three seperate lives and had no idea of the first two. He wasn't sure whether to envy or pity her.
"You remember me from before?" Asuka trembled slightly, excited and frightened both. "What was I? Who was I? It's been - it's been years and for a long time I tried desperately to remember but I couldn't. All I remember is someone screaming 'Asuka'."
Aya studied her for a moment. "I remember you, but I did not really know you well. It's not my place to remind you of those times." When he tried to stand, he found her hands firmly on his shoulders, exerting just enough pressure so that he could not deattach her without hurting her. "I'll need my clothes."
"Fujimiya-san, I'm afraid you are not going anywhere for the time being." The doctor again. "While we were stitching you up we discovered many unusual injuries. You've been shot before. Several times, actually. And there are slash marks over your body from knife wounds, perhaps, or a sword. Some scars indicated that perhaps you have been shot through with a dart or arrow of some sort." He eyed him warily. "Could you explain these injuries?"
Of course, they would comment on old wounds, wouldn't they? Yes, that was another realize he seriously disliked hospitals and their nosy staff. "Some people have dangerous lines of work, doctor."
"This isn't the first time you've cheated death, either."
Aya raised his eyebrows at him. "If I've cheated death, I never meant to. Perhaps death cheated me."
The doctor most likely would have persued the subject, but suddenly a head peered around the door and smiled at Asuka. "The lady at the front desk said that you would be -"
"Youji!" The name escaped his lips before he could stop it. He immediately cursed himself for the slip. It must have been whatever drugs they had given him for the pain that had fogged his judgement.
The light haired man stared at him and moved fully into the room, frowning at him faintly. "'Youji'?"
Asuka, looking alarmed, glanced between the two of them. "You knew him as well? We - he choose the name Takashi."
The doctor stood in silence, vaguely confused, but interested in the proceedings.
"Youji." He looked at Aya and moved closer towards him. "That was my name." His brow creased as he tried to reach into his damaged memory and tried draw out forgotten things. "I knew you, I know I did."
Aya had spotted his clothing on the table across the room. He went to them now without much resistence from the nurse or the doctor. It hurt to move, but he could ignore the pain for the most part. He dressed as quickly as he could, feeling Youji's eyes on him the entire time. When he turned to go, Youji was blocking his exit.
"There was something I had to give back to you."
He took a shaky breath, turning his face away from him to hid his expression as much as possible. "I got it back." He attempted to walk around him, but Youji caught his arm and jerked him to a halt; the movement pulled at Aya's side, the pain forcing him to stand still and focus on breathing and not passing out.
"Who am I?"
Aya glared up at him darkly as soon as the dizziness had passed. "I am not here to bring back your memories. I meant little enough to you; it should be no different now." The sharp bitterness in his tone shocked Youji - or, rather, Takashi, since that was the name Asuka said he had choosen to use now. He was able to pulled out of his grasp.
He had loved him. But it didn't matter because Youji had never loved him. He had been unhappy then and would be again. That much was certain.
"Aya!"
He had reached the hospital room's doorway and spun at the sound of his name, clutching his side as pain shot through it at his sudden movement. There was pain of a different sort in his eyes as he looked at him. "You'd be better to forget me. It never suited you, you know. You have a chance at life; don't associate with the damned."
He didn't wait for a reply. Youj - Takashi wouldn't follow. He had Asuka now, what need did he have for Aya?