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Translated by aabunai.
Ever-sunny Yohji (Weiß Kreuz)
Villa Weiss. Downtime. Weiss have messed up. Omi blames himself. Bad research.
Rubbish. Sometimes, missions simply go wrong. Sometimes, everything goes wrong, and there’s no telling why. Sometimes, one just loses.
But because of him, Weiss are down for now. Weeks until he will be ready to work again. Everything is delayed.
Aya goes outside, where everything is green, and the sun is shining as if there were no darkness.
Yohji lies in the grass, limbs sprawling, eyes closed behind his sunshades.
“What are you doing there?”
“Lying in the sun.”
“What for?”
The head moves. “Hard to explain.” A glance over the rim of the shades. “Lie down.”
He stands there, hesitating. Then sits down, next to Yohji, on the grass.
“Lie.”
‘Nonsense,’ he thinks, and lies down.
The sun is high in the sky, and he has to close his eyes. There is a light breeze, and the leaves on the trees whisper. Somewhere caws a bird.
“And?”
A nervy sigh. “That’s all.”
„Hn.“
It smells of drying grass and forest. A bumblebee hums past. The sun shines warmly on his face and hot on his black tee. As if life were easy.
Time melts, and for a moment, that is all.
_______
Sometimes (Weiß Kreuz)
Sometimes, when he sat in the twilight of his room and watched the darkening sky through his open window, and the red glow of his cigarette tip was a faint reflection of the last rays of the sun, he thought about Time.
Watching how wisps of time grew denser, into moments; how the falling of the sun and the darkening of the sky and the chill of the air announced, inevitably, the night, one could sense then that man had nothing to counter the power that was Time.
Against time, everything became meaningless. Every heroic deed, every mistake, every sin, every life became meaningless against the mass of Time that had passed and would be passing. Death became meaningless.
Smoke rose from the tip of his cigarette and dissolved. A life formed, whirled and disappeared without trace in Time.
It was a sad thought, but it calmed him.
When you despaired and gave up, Time would drive you on, mercilessly. Even if you were not desperate, Time would drive you, but if you had not lived through it - how everything slipped away and everything carried on, regardless of whether you decided on anything or wanted anything - then you did not notice. Then it was not strange that Time passed because you never had the feeling that Time stood still.
He had gone through this.
Time had stopped and only months later it had begun to pass again. Or it had been there and he had only months later begun to notice it again. But his life carried on, however strange that appeared to him. He had neither decided in favour of anything nor against anything, he had been a spectator that did not want to watch.
It happened. When the pain grew too much, Time stopped. As if it were offended at the significance that one assigned to one’s own destiny, or as if even Time had nothing to counter the power that was Pain.
But mostly he did not think about Time or Pain. Mostly, they were just there, like Dawn and the lengthening shadows and the darkening sky. They were there, but they were only a backdrop, and not even an interesting one.
Mostly, when he sat in his room by the window and countered the new night with the glow of his cigarette, not sure whether he meant to drive Night back or welcome her, he thought of Asuka.
______
Night-Red (Weiß Kreuz)
…and if this was supposed to be all, he thought while cutting off the end of the stalk and placing the rose to the right. Adding it to the other one that was already there. And if this was all, perhaps it was not sufficient. Perhaps it should rather be less.
The light shone brightly through the windows, and he was alone in the shop. Again the blade sliced through a stalk, and again a rose joined the others.
Yes, red roses… love… Surely, this is right, he thought, a thornless plant could not have been chosen for this.
Another cut, and again a rose was shorter.
But they are quite resilient. Perhaps this is good.
They had arrived the two days ago, petals unfurling fully yesterday. If the ends were cut, they would still last. They only had to be kept cold over night.
They are not poisonous, he thought. Perhaps they should be, but they are not. Just false, somehow. So full and beautiful, and inside, maybe, already sits a bug, and only the outermost petals live. That could be it.
He laid the rose onto the small pile to the others. To the left sat the larger pile. He picked up one of the roses and contemplated it, contemplated the flower. It was of a very dark red.
Like blood at night, he thought and cut the stalk shorter. Red as love, blood, and pain, but it is all the same. That is all, but perhaps it should be less.
The thorns are already gone when they are sold. Is that not too simple? But if the thorns are too much, then maybe it is good that they are gone. He thought about it, then scowled at the harmless stalks. But now the roses are false, he mused. With thorns they were more real, the warning should not have been taken away.
Another cut, and the pile to the right grew.
Perhaps roses should not be sold. No gain in it. Without thorns, it is meaningless. Roses are blood and thorns, he thought, and without they are only blood that gets eaten from the inside by a bug.
The steel glinted in the bright sun. When it was bright like that, a small blade could glint exactly like a large one in night-light.
All this beauty, the admired elegance of the finely curved petals, all the ease, life - only a bloody front. Nothing but deceit and hope, and what remains is a smooth, meaningless stalk. And then that is simply all, when it is less. Then yes, rather more, and the thorns and the bloody beauty, he thought, and as far as I’m concerned, the bugs, too.
He blinked, looked at the stem in his hand and the flower that lay severed on the blue-green stalk ends.
Yes, without flower it is just a stalk without thorns, he mused and cut it in many small pieces that fell next to the night-red flower onto the table. And a stalk without thorns is nothing. A stalk just has to hold something, and then it is nothing any longer. With thorns it might still be something, but without it is just a dead green stump.
The flower lay there, now entirely without stem and thorns and somehow defenceless. Perhaps a bug sat inside, one could never know. Perhaps the lightly veined dark red petals were just beautiful on the outside. Maybe he should check.
But if I cut the flower up, it will no longer be beautiful, he thought. Neither from the outside, nor inside. And then the bug will perhaps be dead and not even there, any life would be left.
He took another flower from the stack on the left, leaving the blossom where it lay, careful not to nudge it with the green-brown stalk of the other rose. It looked beautiful and somehow unprotected. Perhaps he should set it into a bowl with water and let it float there instead of simply throwing it away.
Perhaps it would sink, he thought. If the beetle were too heavy, the flower might not float, and the beetle drowns.
He kept cutting; the blade glinted next to night-red blossoms.
Perhaps it is simply too much, he now thought, and was close to simply dropping the knife, leave the roses and the bright shop windows alone, to simply walk, walk, for hours, preferably for an entire lifetime.
Perhaps it is too much and not too little. Perhaps the blossoms should not be so red and the stalks not as smooth and dead. Perhaps there should be thorns, as a warning and for defence, and then the blossoms would still be white or at the most pale pink. Then, perhaps, it would be enough. Without night-red blood and knife, maybe everything would be beautiful and simple.
Not so false.
…if that was all, he thought.
The left pile had vanished, and he stood there for another moment before he gathered up the right one and put the trimmed roses into the jug with fresh water.
It looked pretty, the dark red in the bright sunlight. Among all the blossoms, it was not blood at all, just rose blooms, finely curved and with an almost velvety soft shimmer on the tender petals.
If that was all, perhaps it was good.
One more day the roses would last, and then the petals could be plucked off to be sold like that. Then they would be even more false, so completely without green and without the hint of thorns, only the tender blood-red petals.
He returned to the workbench and pushed the blue-green stumps together to throw them away. Then he rinsed the knife. The water glittered on the blade, and when he turned it over, a tiny red petal clung like blood on the blank steel. The knife dropped.
Perhaps it really is too much, all that, he thought as he fished the small knife from the sink and laid it next to the small, unprotected blossom. Perhaps it is too much, and it won’t take long anymore and everything is gone. And if that was all, then it cannot take long anymore, because there simply won’t be much left. Even now, there is hardly anything left. The thorns have already gone for so long, and the flowers are barely visible anymore.
Somehow, everything has shrunk to a smooth, dead stalk that does not hold anything any longer.
He stood there for a moment, in the bright sunlight that fell through the shiny shop windows, and looked with a blank face down at the small blade next to the beautiful small flower.
Really, they are not there anymore, he thought. The blossoms actually cannot be seen any longer. In fact, there are only the red nights and the bright blades, and when you look for more, it becomes clear that this is all. And it is not enough, and way too much. The thorns might have gone but they are still there and pierce the tender, finely veined petals, and everything is false and sick, the bright light too, and the harmless colourful flowers, and every laughter and every saved blossom.
He stood there and looked, unmoving, at the blood-red blossom and the blade, and then he shook his head. He picked up the flower that lay so unprotected and fragile next to the blank steel, filled a small glass bowl with water, and set the flower into it. It floated, and a droplet of water that had splashed onto the petals, glittered in the bright light. It was very beautiful, and he looked at the blossom and the clear water for a long time.
No, it could not simply be thrown away, he thought. It would wilt soon enough, and then it would still be too late, but until then it was still a lie and bloody beauty and more than a dead stalk and less than steely thorns. And if that was all, then nothing could be done either. Then it was like that. And false and beautiful it was then, and it could not be made better, or worse.
…if that was all.
_______
Love (Wild Adapter)
A ragged cloud swims like an alien thing in the glaring blue sky, cut into unequal parts by the white trails of a few airplanes.
Tokitoh closes his eyes and lets his chair tip against the bannister of the balcony. Too damn hot. He had thought that out here, there would at least be some wind, but even that seemed to have died in this heat.
The scraping of the sliding door, Kubota's steps. A shadow on his face. Lazily, he opens his eyes. Kubo-chan stands by his side, leaning against the bannister, and holds an ice cream before his nose.
"I love you," says Tokitoh between a couple of bites.
Kubota laughs.
.