Accidentally in Love

"This is where I beg you to shoot me and tell me that it's all just a bad dream, because shit like this doesn't ever happen in real life."

*

Omi made it to the park in almost record time, pushing the speed limit without ever quite going over it. He realized as he pulled into a free parking spot that neither of them had discussed where they would meet at the park.

Well, hopefully he knows that I have to use my bike, and will be waiting somewhere around here, he mused, and pushed the kickstand down. He chucked his keys into his back-pack, and stretched.

He took a few steps towards the fountain area, and then looked around. He didn't see anyone he recognized, so he kept going. Breathing deeply, he inhaled the scent of fall, and grinned. It was a gorgeous day, even as cool as it was.

"Wei-er... Tsukiyono!" A familiar voice carried from the seats next to the fountain Omi was heading for, and he turned towards it, recognizing the telekinetic by his face alone.

He certainly wouldn't have recognized the other boy otherwise. Nagi had discarded the drab grey school uniform he'd always been seen in previously - even at school he wore the uniform, and Omi had never seen him in street clothes. Instead of a uniform or a suit, Nagi had donned a close-fitting black tee shirt with 'Coin Operated Boy' scrawled across the front. When he stood to greet the blonde assassin, Omi realized that the other boy's pants were tighter than should be legal.

Funny, he's always seemed shorter than me, Omi wondered unable to wrench his eyes away from the psychic in front of him. There was no way the other boy could be short, not with those legs. Instead of the customary white dress shoes Nagi invariably wore with his uniforms, there were chunky black sneakers with red markings on them. There were black bracelets dangling from his wrists, and what had from a distance looked like a collar, upon closer inspection Omi realized it was just a black cord wrapped around his throat a few times.

His mouth dry, Omi swallowed a few times and tried to rearrange his features into something less dumbfounded. He felt curiously underdressed, despite the fact he wasn't wearing anything different than his normal clothing. He'd traded the shorts in for a pair of loose jeans, and the tee-shirt was plain and blue under his navy sports jacket.

"I think I can not kill you for while, even if it's just for my grade," Nagi said amiably. Omi felt a slight pressure against his entire body, holding him back and reminding him that if the truce was broken, the other boy was anything but incapable of taking care of himself.

"Demon brat," Omi said, his tone reaching past testy and into snarky. Nagi's lips twisted into a pout that was entirely too comfortable on his face.

"Hidoi," he said, seating himself again. "Flower boy."

Omi sat next to him, leaving a comfortable distance between their bodies. It was still too close to be really comfortable, but it was better than standing, or sitting on the ground. He pulled his cell phone out, and turned it on, making sure he hadn't missed any calls or messages. Stuffing it back into his pocket, he brought out the folder with the script in it next.

"I've never done anything like this before. Kritiker encouraged me to take more physical clubs than singing and acting."

Nagi looked agreeable. "I never went to school before Schwarz, and when I did start going, I was there to learn and nothing else. Crawford would have handed me my ass on a plate if I'd tried to stay after school for any clubs or anything."

Omi looked thoughtful. "You won't get into trouble for the play, then will you?"

Nagi shook his head. "No. He saw that I'd be busy with school for the next few months, and told me that as long as my grades in the rest of my classes stayed up, I can do whatever I want in my spare time. I told him I wanted to take up archery, and he laughed at me."

Omi mulled this over in a few moments of silence. "Archery?" he asked finally, his script laying forgotten in his lap.

Nagi mumbled something and kicked at the ground. Omi blinked furiously for a moment. "Pardon?"

He was rewarded with a dirty look. "I said, I liked it when you used yours," he repeated at a level that was only slightly more understandable.

"My...?" Omi asked, his tone turning it into a leading question. "My crossbow? My compound bow?"

"What the hell is the difference?" Nagi kicked at the ground again, digging a small hole in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

Omi stared at him, and whipped a notebook and a pen out of his backpack. Flipping to a clean page, he was stopped by Nagi who was suddenly very interested in what he was flipping past.

"Wait, what was that? Was that a picture? You draw?!" The notebook was ripped from his hands by a force undefeatable, and Omi relinquished his hold for fear that it would rip.

It was suddenly his turn to become nervous, and he looked up at the fountain to avoid seeing Nagi flipping through what he referred to as his sketch book. After a few minutes of silence, he chanced a peek, and saw Nagi staring down at one page in particular, his expression closed.

Leaning over to see what he was looking at, Omi felt his embarrassment rise. Nagi had found a picture of himself, floating in the air amongst thousands of things flying around him. It was one of Omi's better works in his own opinion, because he'd managed to capture the utter loneliness he so often saw reflected out of the younger boy. He was a breed apart, and set above and beyond the rest of the mere mortals surrounding him.

The next few pages, Omi looked at with him, as they were of Schwarz. Schuldig appeared on the next page, holding a kitten up around it's middle and laughing at it, an open, easy expression on his face. Farfarello was posed with his blades, preparing for a battle. Nagi again, looking hard and fierce, his hands outstretched in the position he most often took right before Omi found himself intimately connected with a wall.

Weiss followed Schwarz, Ken playing soccer with the children, and Sakura and Ran sitting on a bench, watching the sunset. Yohji smoking with a sardonic grin on his face.

As the pages moved on, the pictures turned from humans to the things around them. The same fountain they were sitting in front of now, from a different angle. The Koneko no Sumu Ie store front.

"These are really good," Nagi commented at last, and Omi breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't commented on the pictures of Schwarz. "Now, the difference between compact bows and crossed...?" His voice started imperious, and trailed off to uncertainty as he realized he didn't remember the names.

"Compound," Omi supplied. "And cross bow." He flipped past the pictures they'd already looked at, and sketched out his compound bow. "See, the pulley system at the ends of the bow take the weight off the arm, and make it easier to draw. Most people think of longbows when they think of archery," and here he sketched one out. "They're huge and mostly unweildy, but good for competition. I think the archery club at school uses them."

"You don't know?" Nagi sounded surprised. The tone he used insinuated that Omi would have joined the club at school.

"I don't need to learn how to use a bow," Omi said laughingly. "And I don't need to practice it, either. I go every weekend to the range to keep up, just in case, and of course..." He trailed off, not needing to say that where anyone would be able to overhear him. Returning his attention to the pictures, Omi continued his explanation. "This is a recurve bow," he said. "It's a lot like a longbow, except the edges curve out that way, see?" He pointed to the picture he'd just hastily sketched. Nagi looked engrossed in it, and Omi felt knowledgeable. "Recurves are good because they give the same amount of force as a long bow without being as unweildly; they can be shorter. The downside is that they're noisier, too, and strain the materials they're made out of. Crossbows, too. I use a recurve cross bow rather than a compound because it's easier to draw, and faster with less hand shock. Compound crossbows are stiffer, but quieter, and drawing them doesn't put as much strain into it as recurves do."

Nagi's attention was waning, and Omi felt his face heating up. "I'm sorry," he said. "Bows have been my life for almost ten years, I get a little long-winded about them."

Nagi grinned at him, an open and happy expression. "It's alright," he said. "It's interesting. I still want to take it up. Maybe I will, despite what Crawford says."

"Does he rule your life?" Omi asked, then immediately regretted it as being too nosy.

"Does Ran rule yours?" Nagi asked back. Omi snorted. "There's your answer. We're our own people; we look to Crawford to give us direction."
Omi looked down at his notes, realizing that they'd been there a good while and had got nothing done. "My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand... To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

Nagi looked completely baffled by the unexpected outburst. "What?"

Omi grinned at him. "It's from the play, silly. It's my favourite line. Romeo has met Juliet, and he's telling her that he'd like to kiss her hand, but he's afraid that his lips are too unworthy of touching someone like her."

That brought the conversation around to the reason they'd actually met in the park, and Nagi flipped open his folder, looking through the pages for the lines.

"Act one, scene five. It's the party at the Capulet's," Omi said helpfully, having already marked the page in his own folder. Nagi skimmed the lines, and finally found what he was looking for.

"You have this memorized already?" He asked, scanning the words.

"I've had it memorized since I had to read it for freshman english," Omi said. "I told you it's been my favourite line forever." There was a buzzing noise from the vicinity of his trousers, and Omi jumped in surprise, and wiggled until he'd rescued the phone from his pocket. "Shit," he said. "An emergency? What- Shit!"

"What is it?" Nagi peered down at the phone. There was some sort of charm dangling from it, but he couldn't quite make it out with Omi jerking the phone around as he typed a response.

"Manx came by. We've got to go out tonight." He looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. I can't ignore it, we've all got to go."

Nagi nodded. "I understand. If Schuldig were to call me away right now, I wouldn't have any choice but to leave, no matter what we were doing. This is a similar situation for you."

Omi stood, packing away his notebooks, and chucking the phone back into his bag so it wouldn't be lost on the drive back to the shop. "Write me about when you can meet me again, and we'll work more on it later."

"One more thing," Nagi said, halting him. "This line... what's it mean?" He pointed to the page.

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."
"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged."
"Then have my lips the sin that they have took."
"SIn from they lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again."

Omi coughed. "They're... kissing," he said, uncomfortably. Nagi's pale face tinged red. On a moment of whim, Omi leaned down and brushed his lips against Nagi's. It was a brief, chaste moment of contact, and he was away before the other boy could do more than blink.

"You kiss by the book," Nagi said, reading the next line. "By the book indeed!"

*

Omi hurried towards the parking lot and his motorcycle, cheeks flaming and thoughts swirling in dizzying circles. He was so intent upon his own mind that he didn't register the movement until it was too late, and the attacker was upon him. Instinct let him roll a little when he was knocked to the ground, and as the knife flashed into the spot he was just occupying, he realized it could have just saved his life. Kicking out, he got a good look at his aggressor, and realized that it was Farfarello himself.

A sharp burn started in his midriff and made it's way up and down in both directions. "A little lost kitten?" Farfarello practically purred. Omi kicked at him again but the madman was upon him too quickly, and he found himself pinned. His clothes felt wet, and a brief glance downward told him that the Irishman had stabbed him again. "Got to teach the little lost kitty not to touch what isn't his."

Well and truly pinned, Omi could do nothing but glare up at the berserker angrily. He looked as though he were contemplating stabbing again, but then cocked his head, listening to a voice no one else could hear. He leapt to his feet, and sneered down at Omi, who refused to move until the madman had left.

"Fate is with you today, boy. You will not be so lucky next time." He stalked back into the rapidly encroaching darkness. Omi struggled to sit up, and had almost made it to his feet when a soft voice surprised him.

/You owe me one, kid. Next time, I'm going to let him carve you up like a turkey. I only stopped him this time because Nagi'll be pissed if Farfarello ruins his grade by killing you off too soon./

The mental touch withdrew, and Omi shuddered. A pleasant evening spent with a classmate had been officially ended with the reintroduction of Schwarz into his life.

Climbing unsteadily onto his bike, Omi zipped his jacket up around the wound, hoping fervently that it wouldn't bleed through before he could get back to his own apartment.

*

He made it to his apartment without passing out, though he wasn't sure how. He didn't think that the wounds had pierced anything vital, but he could feel the blood dripping down into the waist-band of his pants as he rode home. He parked haphazardly and took the stairs as quickly as he could manage. Once he was safely ensconced in his apartment, he stripped off the soiled shirt and went into the bathroom, depositing the clothes in the laundry hamper as he went.

Seating himself on the edge of the tub, he placed the first aid kit on the toilet, and began cleaning the blood off the wound. It wasn't deep, as he'd thought, but it still hurt like hell. He pressed an antiseptic patch against the two wounds, and bandaged them into place. He stood and stretched a little, before deciding that he'd be able to go with them on the mission. He changed quickly, ensured that his things were in working order, and then followed the rest of his team mates into Yohji's car to be driven to the scene of their hit.

His job was to delete the information contained in the computer, as it usually was, and he'd gone off on his own as soon as he was able to carry out his duties. He'd just set up his own computer to download the sensitive information for Kritiker's files when a cool voice rang out into the silence behind him.

"I can't let you do that."

Omi turned and saw Nagi, dressed once again in the customary school uniform. "Try and stop me," he retorted, setting the machine to do it's work anyway. The next thing he knew he was across the room, stars dancing in front of his eyes. The grip on his body lessened, and he sank to the floor, Ken's panicked voice in his ear.

"We've got Schwarz, guys, heads up! I just saw that creepy telepath!"

Omi remained where he was, waiting for his head to clear. His side throbbed painfully, and he knew that the wounds had torn open again. Pressing his hand against them to staunch the blood flow, he struggled to his feet.

A moment later, Nagi was kneeling beside him. "This Romeo and Juliet thing is going to be very bad for business," he said. "I can't do any damage to you until the end of the year."

Omi blinked up at him, wondering why there was two of him. Maybe he'd lost more blood than he'd thought. "It's... a comforting thought. There's one less person to ... worry about."

Nagi frowned. "I just saw you not an hour ago. What the hell happened- you're bleeding?"

"Profusely," Omi said dryly, and struggled to his feet. "If I give you a copy of this information later will you let me delete it from the mainframe of this computer?"

"Why are you bleeding? We've only been apart an hour! What did you do?" Nagi's voice took on a sharp edge that Omi had rarely heard. The last time he'd heard it, in fact, Nagi was begging the Schreient girl not to fight them.

"Farfarello left a message that I should keep my hands to myself in the future," Omi said, pulling his laptop away and destroying the hard drive of the computer he'd just ganked the info from.

As though called, the white-haired teen himself appeared in the doorway just as Omi was closing the laptop. "Well well well," he said smugly. He didn't get anything else out, because before he could even draw a breath for it, Nagi had thrust him into the wall with his gift.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Crawford told you that I need him alive and whole for school! I can't kill him, and you can't either!" Omi left the two behind, wondering what the prescient and telepath would think of their two younger members fighting over him.

/We think you're a waste of human life, kid. Big news. Oh, also, you might not want to go that way. Ran hasn't gotten all the guards out of the way yet./

What? Omi had barely enough time to register the presence of another, larger man, before there was a gun thrust into his face.

"Look what we have here," he said. "A rat. I hate vermin."

Dizzily, Omi peered up at him, unable to form a coherent enough thought to even remove himself from harms way.

"All vermin should be exterminated," the guard finished, drawing the hammer back on his gun with a small click. The trigger made a small click of it's own as it was squeezed, but that noise was drowned out by the roar of the bullet spinning through the barrel.

Omi wasn't even aware of hitting the wall behind him with a small thud. His eyes closed, blood pouring out of the wounds in his stomach as he slid to the floor.

Nagi pressed the dead guard backwards and out of his way, kneeling beside Omi's lifeless body and gathering him close.

*

This is slightly shorter than the original chapter, but mostly because I had to completely re-write the beginning. In the crappy original, Nagi showed up at the shop, and Omi drove them both to the park, therefore this chapter could be taken up with the driving before the mission. In this version, Omi left for the park on his own, and I had a hard time filling the space. The next chapter is already in the works, and will be up as soon as I finish it. This chapter is dedicated to those of you who've been with this stupid thing from the beginning, which, according to ffnet, was three years ago. T_T I'm sorry! I don't mean to be so horrible about finishing them. I really don't.

Anywho, wikipedia is my friend; the majority of the information Omi passed on about the bows is from wikipedia searches (longbow, compound bow, recurve bow, crossbow, recurve crossbow)

Romeo and Juliet lines originally by Will Shakespeare; ganked from this site: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html