Chapter 8: If you don't, don't

Siberian and I parted outside St. Mark's square as soon as we got off of the vaporeta, a bit worried that someone or another might see us. The last thing he said to me was that he would find me again. It made me smile, really smile, that he would promise something like that to a person like me, but I guess that was what I liked about him so much. Then again, as soon as he disappeared into the crowd, I took out my orange prescription bottle and swallowed down six pills. I don't even remember what the pills exactly did to me, but I knew that they numbed me and clamed my nerves, and without them my hands shook like I had had electric jolts running through them.

A nice Venice breeze blew down into the large square, ruffling the pigeons that were prowling around the stones of granite, and chilled me to the bone. I had dried off a little but not enough – and my shoes squelched with every step I took. The only thing really warming me was the memory of that passionate kissing session I had only just had with Siberian. Alone, it could curl my toes to think of all that heat pumping through my blood and around my body. He was so strong and yet incredibly gentle. To think that an assassin could be so gentle… well, I won't go into that, because who would think that I could be so starved for physical contact, ne?

That memory drifted through my mind as I walked through the square, holding my arms as they began to feel fuzzily numb and weightless again. When I was almost to the alley that took me to the hotel, I stopped, feeling someone watching me. I turned around just in time to be grabbed by the arm by Schuldich, who proceeded to pull my along, into, and up the stairs of our hotel. His grip was so tight it hurt, but I didn't say a word to protest and I didn't look in his face: in truth I was ashamed of myself. I knew that he would tell Crawford if he didn't talk to me first, and I was glad Crawford didn't know yet – he hit harder.

Schuldich threw me onto my bed when he opened the door, then slammed it as hard as he could and looked at me. I didn't move; I sat straight up and bent my head down to stare at my wet shoes. In the corner of my mind, I thought he would take out a golf club or something because I had been found fraternizing with the enemy… our enemy… my enemy.

He took a while just staring at me, then his hand flew out and I cringed, expecting it to hit my face… but it didn't. Instead, Schuldich reached into my coat and pulled out my pill bottle. I was shocked, but I knew better than to grab for it, I just stared at him, waiting to be reprimanded like a normal teenage boy would… but we weren't exactly your average family. The only emotion I saw on his face was disappointment… in me.

We didn't talk for a long time; Schuldich stared at the pills and I stared at my wet shoes, feeling the wetness on my pants seeping into my bed sheets. The only real sound came from my German superior turning the pills over and over in his hand. I know I've written before about how Schuldich is the only mother I've ever had – this only proves my point more.

When his voice finally interrupted the quite it was unsteady and forced, almost as if it hurt. "Nagi, where did you get these?"

"Some pharmacy."

I wanted to be as blunt as I could because Schuldich would find out anyways, and beating about the bush wouldn't help. I couldn't tell a lie very convincingly either, especially when I was put under pressure. He sighed heavily, as if he were carrying a large load of rocks. I regretted carrying the pills with me – it was just a bad habit.

"I'm not giving these back to you," he said at long last, raising his eyes to look at me. "But I'm not going to tell Crawford either. If you have any more, I suggest you get rid of them, because if I find any more, I'll make you take all of them at once."

It was a good enough deal, even though I couldn't get rid of them – they were my comfort, but Schuldich wasn't in my head, so I just nodded. I didn't want him to find out about my stash, not because taking all of the pills at once would nearly kill me, but because I know he would blame himself for my problem. He used to be a crack whore and was hooked on heroine, ecstasy, and cocaine. Crawford was the only thing that saved his life, really, and Schu even used to sneak a lane every now and then. Then he just stopped. I'm not sure why, but he did; just cold turkey. I knew as he looked at my pills that he was remembering missing so many meetings and missions because he was out getting high, and remembering what a bad example he had set for me – I had only been twelve then. For some reason, that feeling of letting him down felt heavy on my heart and shoulders, but another thought had popped into my mind. He had seen me with Siberian, hadn't he? Why wasn't he mad about that?

As he turned to leave, I called out, "Schuldich… you saw me on Verano, didn't you?"

He stopped at the door and looked back over his shoulder, still holding the pills. "Chibi, … if he doesn't get in the way of our missions, I don't care. Crawford will, but I don't. Make sure I don't find out about it again… that none of us do."

The door closed when he left, and I was alone. Alone in my room, thinking about what had just happened. I felt terrible about the pills, and even worse about Schuldich, but then again, he didn't care about Siberian. It was like a blessing almost; a revelation. But a sinking feeling still sat in my stomach – I never meant to bother Schuldich so much.

I would've dwelled on it a bit more but my cell phone beeped; I had almost forgotten I had brought it. Really, what was the point of me having it? No one really cared to call me except Crawford, and I didn't want to get his calls most of the time because it would just be him yelling at me. Besides all that, I flipped open my silver phone and looked at the screen, finding my way to my new text message. It was from some odd number and said, Did I get you in trouble?

Even if I could've helped it, I didn't; I knew it was from Siberian and it made me smile. Honestly, truly smile. Jolting my thumbs around the number pad of my cell phone, I typed back Iie.

A few minutes passed until another message came up. Good. I want to see you again.

So many things where swirling around my head. What if it was Crawford that caught me next time, what is Schuldich found my other stash, but I swallowed another pill that I found under my pillow, and typed. Where

Doge's palace? Omi is dragging us there tomorrow

I remembered my German superior mentioning something to Crawford about going there tomorrow as well. If our teams ran into each other again, there was no telling what would happen, but I swallowed again. We were both going to be there anyways… and I had already been missing him by the time I got his second message. There was something I felt around Siberian that I had never felt around anyone else before, or for anyone else. I could only assume it was love, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions before I was absolutely sure.

Hai

It appeared to be the end of the messages until another one popped up on my screen. Give me a kiss it said.

Despite that it was a simple message, I blushed. With bashful fingers I typed in chu goodbye and sent the message, afterwards turning off my cell phone. Many may think that it's weird to get worked up over some text message, but I could only think of the source. Siberian…

For years I have been trying to convince everyone around me that I wasn't a child, that I could handle responsibility and so on… but Siberian made me feel so juvenile and new… even innocent. A far cry from innocent I may as well be, but Siberian erased every killing hanging in my mind, all the blood from my hands. Both of us were murderers, assassins, killers, so I couldn't understand why I still felt innocent around him. I felt that a new piece inside myself was only just surfacing, and I hardly knew it. Confusing, but life mostly is, especially my own.

I really almost couldn't sleep that night, even with all the sleep pills I was taking to prevent jet lag. Memories of the whole summer I had been spending with Siberian were floating soundly through my mind and I could help smiling into my pillow when I imagined seeing him again. What was going to be difficult was being with him and remaining unseen by both Schwarz and Weiss, and keeping them away from one another. They would kill each other… well, that wasn't anything new, but the way I wanted to live, breathe, and speak Siberian was. So something had to change… I was so tired of the fighting.

In truth, I was tired of everything; of the assassin teams, of being a killer, being different, being alone, of my dependency on pills, the cigarette smoke, the coughing that had begun late at night, of myself… of everything about myself. It was stupid, I know, but that night I just lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling so low and worthless. I knew Siberian liked me, and I loved him, even if I wouldn't say it yet, but I feel that he didn't know me… that I was really a huge secret to him, like I was a lie to him. Which was, once again, very idiotic, I know now… but I was still so unhappy back then.

To cut a long story short, I woke up the next morning with long deep cuts in my forearms and wrists. It wasn't unnatural for me, but it was scary. There was a dry puddle of blood on the floor and all over my sheets and pajamas. Honestly, what would you do if you woke up covered in blood? What's worse was that they scarred, but that wasn't what was concerning me. What was concerning me was how I woke up. I saw the blood from my still-open wounds, and then I looked up to see Farfarello staring down at me.

I sat up and wrapped the sheets around my wrists and stared back at him, but his emotion was so hard to read. Usually he liked pissing me off, only did occasional favors for me, but now… he just stared at me like he had never known me before. At first I thought he was such a hypocrite because he cut himself all the time and had poked out his own eye… but then I hung my head over to cover up my eyes… he hurt himself because he couldn't feel pain… and I hurt myself because I could.

"Nagi," he said. I could hardly believe it was him talking by the way he said it; it was so quiet. "Why are you doing this?"

Not answering, I thought, looking at the white sheets stained red. My arms had begun to sting, and ache.

Suddenly, Farfarello just walked out, closing the door behind him. I thought he was gone for good and got up, walking into the bathroom and beginning to wash the crusty blood off of my skin. I really hadn't meant to do it, it just happened when I was depressed. What my mind thought happened, no matter how much I didn't want it to. Suddenly I thought of Siberian and what he would've done if he had found me and not Farfarello… he would've held me, pulled me close, and tell me that it was alright, that he wouldn't let anything get me anymore… not in Schwarz.

The door to my bathroom flew open and in the mirror I saw Schuldich looking back at me. My mind screamed, but I couldn't. Schuldich grabbed me and threw me onto the ground, his face all screwed up in a weird expression. Since I fell on the ground on my back, the wind was knocked out of me, and I gasped as Schuldich grabbed me by the arm, hard. He was screaming, shrieking, in German. I didn't know what he was saying, but his eyes were locked on my face, large and bitter. He had lost it. I had made him lose it.

His hands tightened around my forearms, and I began gasping with pain as the blood clots burst and new blood began spilling out. It stung so badly, and the blood began dripping down my skin in crimson ribbons, falling to the ground as he held me up by the forearms. I knew Farfarello was in the room somewhere else, because I could here him yelling Schuldich's name, but Schu wasn't listening. The spit from the way he was yelling hit my face as he began shaking me harder and harder. I let out a shriek as the pain in my arms became unbearable, like his hands were made up of little knives all pressing into my skin at once. All that filled my head was his screaming as I looked desperately for something to stop the pain. Finally I let out another scream and dropped to my knees, tears beginning to fall from my eyes. He didn't stop until I sobbed out, "I-I didn't mean to, anata! Schuldich, I promise I didn't!"

My arms were released and I fell back onto the ground, where I immediately curled up into a protective ball; I had done it every time Crawford had punished me. I couldn't see anything; my arms were pressed to my body and my hands covering my face as I continued to sob and bleed.

"Farfarello," Schuldich said very shakily. "Get out. And not a word to Brad."

Farfarello acted surprised. "But Schuldich-"

"OUT."

Without another word, the Irishman left, closing the door soundly behind him. The sound of his clothes shifting gave Schuldich away, I heard him kneeling down next to me, and I shrunk away, fearing what he would do to me now. It was so much easier to hide things from him when we were back in Japan. I felt a gentle hand on my hair but I still smelled blood… then I thought that maybe he wouldn't hurt me as much anymore.

"Nagi," His voice was still shaking, maybe it was him that was shaking… something sounded wet as I tried to quiet my tears to hear him. "Chibi, you're scaring me. You're scaring my so badly. Please, tell me what I can do to help."

To think that I was scaring him was almost laughable, but I couldn't laugh. He sounded serious and my wrists hurt so badly… just so badly… I couldn't bring myself to look him in the face when I said; "I don't want to be in Schwarz anymore… I-I just don't want to fight anymore… It's doing things to me… Schuldich, I just want to be normal."

Something wet hit my head and I heard him whisper, "Chibi, I wish I could let you… but we can't. If you left, you'd be killed… we can't be normal."

I let out another big sob and curled up tighter. "I just want to be loved, Schu… and I don't want to have to fight him anymore…" It had been so calming, so peaceful with Siberian the day before on the little island, in the alley, in his arms. I just wanted that again, and always, and I knew I couldn't have it and that something was going to happen to just rip us apart… what if it was my fault?

"Oh god Chibi," Schuldich choked out. He was crying. I looked up into his face and saw a tear running down his cheek. Those eyes had always been so fun loving, so seductive, so playfully manipulative, but now they were broken, and staring down at me with some amount of guilt trying to be suppressed. "I wish you could know how much I love you. You're one of the most important people in my life, I feel that it's my job to watch over you. Nagi, just… you are who I was."

Shock must've been printed all over my face. How could Schuldich have once been like me?

"I fell in love when I was fifteen, Chibi. I was addicted to more drugs than you are, and I felt so horrible… I am so worried about you because what I went through, I don't want that to happen to you."

"Who did you fall in love with?"

A very faint smile came over Schuldich's face as he wiped his eyes and touched my cheek. "Brad Crawford."

Finally, I had found some footing with Schuldich. Our "relationship" had been such a mystery to me for as long as I could've remembered at that point, and it had finally been settled. He bandaged my wrists and helped me clean the blood out and I didn't say anything more about the drugs in my bag of the cigarettes in my jacket, and we had become closer somehow… Though I often wonder just what he had been yelling at me… just out of curiosity. Then we joined Farfarello and Crawford, and I was wearing long sleeves again, and pretending the way I always did that everything was fine. Only now, I knew that Schuldich was pretending too, for my sake.