A Friend to Evil; Fujimiya Aya; G

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Title: 
A Friend To Evil
Author: daegaer
Fandom: Weiß Kreuz
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt:
142. It is bitter to lose a friend to evil before one loses him to death. -- Mary Renault.
Summary: Aya discovers she no longer knows her brother Ran.

Many thanks to louiselux for beta-ing!






Onii-chan! Onii-chan, please buy me an apple!

A sigh.

You just had dinner! Anyway, it's my pocket-money. I'm going to buy some chocolate. For me!

Onii-chan! You're so mean!

Another sigh, this time resigned and bearing the weight of the eight-year-old world.

All right, all right. Please give me one of those apples too. Thanks!

Thanks, onii-chan! . . . can I have some of the chocolate as well?


*


Aya was a hard-working girl, all her teachers said so. A lot of people in her class really slacked off, but she knew what she wanted and how to get it. A couple of girls thought she was some sort of sicko for always volunteering to be the first to dissect things in biology class, but you needed to know how bodies were put together to be a good nurse. At least Ran pretended to be interested, though he'd wrinkle his nose up if anything too interesting was produced for inspection.

"Ugh! Get rid of it!" He backed off quickly from the cow's heart she took from a plastic bag and held out. "How did you even get that?"

"Kimura-sensei didn't mind me taking it out of the rubbish after class," Aya said. She was sure that would have been true, but it would have been rude to hold Kimura-sensei up to ask permission. "Look, onii-chan, it's really strong muscle –"

"Gah." Ran grabbed it and held it above her head, grinning like a kid as she jumped to reach for it. "You're a weird girl, Aya."

"And you have blood on your hands," she said demurely.

"Look who's talking." He dumped it in the bin and held scarlet hands out threateningly. "C'mere, little sister."

Boys thought they could out-gross everyone. Aya merely smiled and let him put red sticky palms on her cheeks before saying, "Buy me lunch! I want rare steak." She laughed at his disappointment. "I'll pay you back when I get a job."

"When you're a nurse I'm going to visit you every day in the hospital," Ran said, carefully putting a spot of blood right on the tip of her nose. "You're going to owe me for a lot of lunches."

"OK. If you don't mind hospital canteen food," she said.

"I'll get used to it."


*


Onii-chan! Look! Those earrings! Buy me those earrings!

Hesitation.

I don't know. They're a bit grown-up, aren't they?

Indignation at the silliness of boys.

I'm sixteen, onii-chan! If I look older with them, maybe I'll find a boyfriend!

OK, I'm definitely not buying them. Hey – don't look at me like that. All right, all right. I suppose you're only sixteen once.

Excited clapping.

Thank you, onii-chan! Let's go, I'm hungry.

You're always hungry! Quick, it's raining. What do you want for your birthday dinner?

The sound of rain and laughter. Running footsteps receding.

Sushi! And gyoza! And French cuisine!


*


All of her plans died in a blaze of light and force, and the sound of an oncoming car.

Ran got used to hospital food.


*


When Aya woke up, it was to a life in which her parents had been dead for two years. One in which a girl who looked very like her told her stories of Ran that were hard to believe. One in which an elderly lady made her countless cups of tea and snacks she didn't want but was too polite to refuse. One in which a red-haired woman who claimed to have been Ran's colleague said she would look after her. One in which she had no family, no funds, no entrance qualifications for college. It was one in which she had to accept the help she was given, and so she worked in a florist's.

The work was tiring, which was to be expected for someone who'd been sick so long. It was tiring even when she felt stronger; she had never had to consider how heavy plants might be when bought in bulk and moved from van to store-room to shop. But it was work, and she had a tiny flat over the shop, and as time went on she had friends. They'd been Ran's friends, Sakura and Manx and Momoe, but now they were hers, and what they could tell her of him helped her to keep going. Sakura told her Ran was some sort of superhero. Manx told her he was good at what he did. Momoe told her he was a good boy. Aya tried to make sense of it all, to link what they said with her brother who drove their parents mad with vacillations about his college choices, who worried about her, and who had the nicest smile any boy could have. He wasn't smiling in any of the photos her new friends showed her.


*


Onii-chan! What are you doing?

A distant look in the boyish face, as if things unseen by ordinary people are clearly in view. A hand resting lightly on the sword hilt, ready to spring into action like a swordsman from a boy's story.

Someone has to deal with these monsters. The police are useless. I'm merely a tool for justice.

No. That was wrong. Ran had never talked like a TV superhero, no matter what Sakura said. He helped out round the house, and muttered rude words when he did his English homework, and slotted the names of girls in his class into pop-songs. None of that could explain the things she'd been told.


*


A memory.

Why are you crying?

Hurried wiping of eyes. She wasn't a little kid, she shouldn't need her big brother now.

It's nothing!

I know high school seems scary, Aya, but –

Quickly, the words falling over each other.

Some older boys came in and laughed at me and another girl in the toilets! They said horrible things!

Some confused minutes when the culprits are pointed out, ending with one boy fleeing, one lying dazed on the ground and Ran, skinned knuckles and split lip, being hauled off by teachers, still yelling that no one messes with his little sister, no one.


Aya closed her eyes. She did not want to be the reason for the things Ran had done.


*


"Sakura-chan," Aya said, "Are you sure my brother killed people? Really?"

"Only bad people," Sakura said earnestly. "Really bad people, like the doctor who cut me up, and people who wanted to hurt others."

"Why?" Aya said. "What made him act like that?"

"Because he's a good person," Sakura said. "Only a good person would put himself through so much."

Aya managed to smile. It was another interminable hour before Sakura left.

"Momoe-san," she said, when the shop had been shut up for the day, "What made my brother kill people?"

Momoe pretended she didn't hear. Aya stepped in front of her.

"Why, Momoe-san?"

"He was very unhappy about your family, dear," Momoe said. "What young person wouldn't be?"

"I was in hospital for two years," Aya said. "How could he afford that? The pay's not much here." She blushed. She didn't want to be thought ungrateful for her home and her work.

Momoe looked up, the forgetful little old lady gone. "You're right, he needed the money. Life-support's not cheap, dear." She sighed and patted Aya's hand. "Don't blame him, Aya-chan. He was desperate."

"He killed people because of me," Aya said, desolate.

"Yes," Momoe said. "But he's still a good boy."

"That's what Sakura says," Aya snapped. "But she's in love with him – what's your excuse?"

"I'm going home now," Momoe said evenly. "Don't forget to lock up securely."

Aya curled up in shame when she was alone. The thought of Ran as a murderer because of her was intolerable, the embarrassment of having shouted at an old woman an extra layer of misery. When she thought she could speak without crying, she rang the number Manx had given her.

"Can I speak to you?" she said. "About my brother?"

"Alright," Manx said. "I'll bring you some dinner. We shouldn't talk about him over the phone."

She arrived so quickly that Aya knew Momoe had to have been speaking with her. She laid out the food Manx had brought and ate it at Manx's insistence.

"There's no point in talking business over dinner," Manx said, smiling. "It's not sensible to let anything put you off your food."

Finally the food was gone and the kitchen tidied.

"Thank you," Aya said politely. "That was delicious. How many people has my brother killed?"

Manx looked at her over the edge of her coffee cup. "I can let you see an edited version of the files, if you like. He was extremely effective."

"So he'd be sent to kill villains, and he'd do that," Aya said, just to get used to saying it.

"Of course," Manx said. She shrugged. "There'd be a certain amount of collateral damage, of course, if guards or the like got in the way. Or if tempers ran high, though that was more usually another agent rather than your brother. In return, all your hospital bills were paid."

Aya nodded. Momoe had been talking to her.

"So he spent the money he got for doing that on me," she said slowly. It was horrible, but she could see Momoe's point. Ran must have been desperate, and wouldn't have known what to do. It was a terrible thing to have chosen but perhaps it was forgivable, or understandable at least.

"Don't blame yourself," Manx said quickly. "It wasn't like he was left living in penury so he could support you. He had enough money to buy and maintain a Porsche, we weren't stingy in his pay." She laughed a little. "One of the others bought a sports car as well – such a young man thing to do! The others were more circumspect with their motorbike and moped." She poured Aya another cup of coffee. "He earned enough to live well, Aya, don't worry that he beggared himself for you."

Aya sat back, horrified and silent. If Ran had done something terrible because he was young and scared, and needed to look after her, that she could almost understand. For him to have done more, to have killed more people just so he could have a sports car -- She stared at the table, willing herself not to hear Manx still trying to reassure her than Ran had killed enough people to ensure himself a comfortable lifestyle.

When Manx was gone, she lay curled up in her bed in the room that had been Ran's. It had been modestly bare when she moved in; now she wondered what he'd kept there, and how many people he'd killed to pay for his belongings, how many deaths would have paid for a weekend's entertainment. She'd lost everything, she thought. She'd lost everything two years ago. It was cruel of Ran's friends to have pretended she still had her brother, when all she had were memories of someone who was not yet a murderer.


*


Onii-chan? What do you want to be when you grow up?

An astronaut! A train driver! A fireman!

No! What do you really want to be? You can't act like a little kid any more.

I can't? Well . . . I don't know. I'm not like you, you've always said you wanted to be a nurse. I want – I don't know. I'll figure it out.

But you'll be a good person, Onii-chan, won't you?

I'll be a bank robber! But I'll give the loot to charity.

No! Promise me. Promise me you'll be a good person, Onii-chan.

Don't cry – Aya, don't cry. I'll be a good person, I promise. I'll get a sensible job, and wear a tie every day.

And you'll never kill anyone?

Kill anyone? You're a weird girl, little sister. Of course I won't.

And you'll look after me.

Always.

The dream faded. Aya lay, cold and unsleeping, staring into the dark.

Comments

[bleedtoblue.livejournal.com]

What a thing to come to terms with, and very nicely done.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

From the outside, Ran's not a good guy, not at all.