They were doing it again.

Aya could hear the muffled giggles coming from the hordes of girls crowding the shop and he knew they were directed at him. It wasn't until he heard a distinctly male chuckle that could only have come from Ken and the word "sweater" spoken in Omi's voice that he realized what the problem was.

That damned orange sweater.

It was worse than just the sweater, though. Just the very presence of the sweater – and the fact that he'd worn it for so long without noticing! – pointed to an inescapable conclusion. His last dose of good taste was obviously wearing off. Had worn off. Had worn off quite some time ago. Aya's lips thinned. A new victim would have to be found to sacrifice his or her good taste to Aya.

The search began. It continued. It was fruitless. Aya was finally forced to conclude that his last hope was his fellow teammates. It was sad, and he would be punished forever – or as long as he was in Weiß – by the sight of his teammates' lack of taste, but the alternative was worse.

It was at this point that Aya's plans ran into another snag.

Weiß completed their last mission and disbanded.

Aya cursed a few times, and then simply came to the conclusion that he'd just have to track them down one by one. He'd start with Omi; the boy had always had a crush on him.

Tracking Omi down wasn't difficult. The boy left tracks all over cyberspace. Aya pinned down his physical location and simply knocked on the door. "Omi."

"A-Aya? What are you doing here?" The boy looked confused, which was forgivable. Aya leaned in closer.

"I…" He looked down, allowing a faint blush to color his cheeks. "I need you, Omi."

"Aya, what's wrong?" Omi looked concerned now. Aya seized the boy's moment of vulnerability, leaned in, and kissed the boy on the lips. If he was going to steal every ounce of good taste possessed by a person, it would at least be a pleasurable experience for the poor bastard.

Omi started to respond, and then pulled away. It was too soon. He hadn't gotten everything he needed. He shifted his features into a mask of slight hurt. "Omi?"

"Aya, I… I…" Confusion once again masked the boy's face. Aya leaned in again, and kissed him more deeply.

Omi pulled back yet again. "I can't do this, Aya. Not now."

"Aa." Aya nodded, and left, moving so swiftly as to appear to vanish. It was a useful trick; kept those around him on their toes.

Running over the rooftops – because shady almost-villains are required to run across rooftops underneath a full moon, it's in their job description – he contemplated the abduction of his next target.

Ken.

The ex-soccer player was nearly as easy to find as Omi had been; Aya simply checked into all the youth soccer teams in the Tokyo area until he found 'Hidaka, Ken' registered as assistant coach. Ken, of course, would be slightly more difficult to get close to than Omi. This required a plan.

A bloody simplistic plan, at that. Aya simply showed up after practice the next afternoon and waited for Ken to notice him. The requisite "what are you doing here" exchange was followed by a trip to a nearby bar, where Aya proceeded to pretend to try to drink his younger ex-teammate under the table. It worked admirably, and once they got back to Ken's apartment, the ex-soccer player was in no shape to deny Aya what he wanted.

As an afterthought, he covered Ken's passed-out form with a blanket and left some aspirin on the table.

The third challenge would be the most difficult yet. The third and last portion of his mission was centered around Yohji.

Yohji, the penultimate playboy.

Yohji, the woman-chaser.

Yohji, with enough of a sense of style for all four of them, and then some.

In retrospect, that should have been his first warning.

"Aya." Yohji nodded in response to his curt greeting. "Is something wrong?"

He was the only one who'd asked that particular question. Aya shook his head in response. "Not exactly, but we need to talk."

He had not managed to come up with any sort of scheme to obtain Yohji's willing acquiescence to the act permitting the stolen good taste. In the end, he resigned himself to dealing with simple brute force. After all, wasn't there a reason Yohji used a distance weapon, and Aya a katana? He was fairly certain he could take the other man in this most unfair of fights.

He closed the door of Yohji's apartment and stood in front of it. Just over Yohji's left shoulder, he could see the orange sweater in the mirror. He half-shuddered at the sight.

"So what's going on, Ay-mmph!" Aya pinned Yohji to the wall and invaded the other man's mouth. Yohji didn't resist after the first half-second of stunned shock. In fact, he seemed to be as or more eager than Aya himself. It was one and the same to Aya. He opened his senses and drank in Yohji's sense of good taste.

Everything ground to a screeching halt.

Glitter. Sunglasses. Midriff tops. Leather pants so tight that Yohji shouldn't have been able to move. Heeled boots. Mascara.

Aya broke away frantically, gasping for air. "No more! It's too much! Get away from me!" He had never so grateful in his life that he'd forgotten to bolt a door as he wrenched it open and fled Yohji's apartment. "Don't come near me!"

"Aya! Aya, come back!"

Aya cursed himself. He should have known that Yohji's sense of dress was incredibly and flamingly campy. How in nine hells he'd managed to miss it… In order to rid himself of any taste in clothes that was not feminine in origin, he was forced to seek work in a construction crew. Hopefully, the auras of the other men would cleanse his newly acquired sense of "style".

All went well, and when Weiß reassembled, Aya was back in the black, the reassuring safety zone.

As he went up the spiral stairs, he overheard a snatch of conversation.

"Hey, Omi, you look different. New shirt?"

"Yeah, Ken. You like it?"

"Yeah, it's cute."

"You know, Ken, I always thought kelly green was a good color for you."

"Thanks, Omi!"

Unseen by anyone, Aya smirked.