Disclaimer: Before anyone comes after me with legal documents and raving arguments about how I butcher the characters and the language, I denounce any claims to the Weiss story, plotline, and cast. This is purely speculative and written for the author’s own twisted purposes (or entertainment, ja? XD)

Warnings and Miscellany: I’m not even sure if there’s much to warn about. Maybe a bit of brooding and angst... There’s definitely a lot of descriptive writing (so sue me... although I highly discourage that) and a hell of a lot of innuendos. As for any pairings, I really don’t think there are any in this fic, but somewhere in there there’s quite a bit of subtle Farf+Ken suggestions... Whatever, I don’t know. It all depends on how you read the interaction between the two I guess.

Author’s Notes 1: This isn’t my first fanfic, but my muses now demand a completely different approach to my style. Selfish little buggers. I’m hoping that I don’t overdo the angst. :cringe: By the way, if the characterization disagrees with you, then too bad and don’t complain... Or at least don’t whine at me. I’m writing Ken in this manner to try and get away from those stereotypical fanons.

Everyone’s a Bitter Cynic

by kasugai gummie

A dry biting wind sliced through the previously crowded streets, pricking mercilessly at tender flesh and unprotected skin.

It was cold, the youth noted belatedly.

Hunching even more into his dark non-descript coat, he edged closer to the line of closed shops.

Night after night he’d venture out into the deserted streets of Tokyo, and like always, he was welcomed by their silence, always pressed in the false security of shadows. 1

He found himself on another desolate road and stopped just under a flickering streetlight. Lifting his face to the opaque sky, he merely waited. The streetlight flickered a weak protest above, and as it was already past midnight, it died with the faintest sigh. Almost absently, the boy watched with morbid fascination as the sickly glow of moonlight took over and washed the grey streets in a stark cold light.

Briefly he considered going back.

His decision was an unspoken shake of the head, a soft snort that seemed more like a whisper of air.

Strange, he mused, how one month could change so much. Glancing carelessly around, he took a halfhearted surveillance of his surroundings. A bitter smirk tugged at his mouth. His now routine night-walks always seemed to end up here...

“Back again, kitten?”

Ken didn’t bother to face the speaker.

“Aa.” The recently acquired indifference was suffocating in its intensity.

A dry chuckle issued from behind. “Won’t the kitten’s keepers be wondering where their pet has gone?”

“They haven’t cared so far. Why would they start now?” 2

Silence followed and Ken almost smirked in triumph as he heard the other speaker step out from the shadows. He looked off to the side, dark eyes strangely luminous as they watched the shadows separate.

“You’re not on the roof tonight,” the other man commented, stepping up to the other side of the lamppost.

“No I’m not.”

“Why? Are you trying to avoid God?”

The florist snorted. “Not everything is about God, Farfarello.”

A single gold-eye glinted.

“Let’s walk.”

Ken quirked his mouth upward and obliged the seemingly nonchalant offer. The night fell into strange habit as they wandered side-by-side in silence, both taking what necessary solace in each other’s presence. 3

It was the brunette who decided to voice his thoughts first that night.

“Are you bitter?”

Faint surprise flitted across the scarred face. It was a strange topic to discuss, even to a Schwarz Berserker heavily dosed with medication. “Mm? Should I be?” 4

The member of Weiss grinned humorlessly. “I don’t know. Your obsession with inflicting pain on God seems like bitterness to me.”

Farfarello stayed quiet, watching his companion as they strolled the colorless pavement. Finally, “What about you?”

“... You’re good at evading.”

“So are you.”

Ken almost smiled. “Touché.”

The pale man shrugged, still waiting for an answer.

“I already know I’m bitter,” Ken announced shortly into the chilled air.

“Your keepers won’t be happy when they finally realize what happened to their sunshine kitten.”

The Weiss assassin frowned.

“Don’t call me that,” he grimaced, lowering his head while his mind turned to dark retrospect.

Sunshine kitten. A mocking name when uttered from Farfarello’s mouth; a name that entailed innocence, naivety, and happiness.

Maybe he was once all that. Maybe he really was once a “sunshine kitten.”

... Not any more.

After the rather disastrous mission in Osaka, one that could be fittingly dubbed as a mission-gone-horribly-wrong, reality finally decided to shatter Ken’s already tenuous hold on life’s moralities. 5

Being an assassin wasn’t exactly the best way to stay happy, and it really was abnormal that the brunette had stubbornly held onto hope for so long. It was to that mission that Ken could credit his twisted maturation of character and change in worldly perception. Perhaps it was after realizing that the world simply didn’t care if he smiled enough for half of Japan that his inner cynic had taken over.

What used to be a better part of him was now no more than a mask; his smiles, his naivety, his optimistic cheer. But it was an artfully crafted mask. Unless you were to watch how the smiles didn’t completely reach his eyes, or how he didn’t quite look at life with the same enthusiasm, you could swear that he was unchanged. It was amazing actually, how he managed to convince himself for so long that there was any redemption possible for the human race. 6

The pale-skinned Irishmen glanced at the shorter boy from the corner of his eye and frowned almost imperceptibly. While the Weiss kitten was immersed in his own musings, Farfarello also took the time to mull over a few details.

A month. 30 days since the little lost kitten intruded onto his sanctuary of deserted streets. Something about a mission gone wrong and the long, over-due revelation of how really selfish mankind was.

It was almost laughable, the fact that it took a good 19 years for the boy to realize just how corrupt the world and its inhabitants were.

Everyone is bitter. Everybody is selfish.

“But God is the most selfish of all,” Farfarello stated to himself.

Large steely blue eyes blinked with belated registration. “Hm? What was that?”

Shaking his head with wry amusement, the foreigner murmured a dismissive “Nothing” before stopping abruptly. “You should be going back to your keepers, kitten,” he commented, staring at the almost empty sky.

“Aa.”

Ken refused to budge.

Another period of drawn out silence.

Pale lips twitched faintly into the ghost of a smile at the still present obstinacy. “Remember that first question you asked? Why I didn’t kill you on the spot?”

Large eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Farfarello was offering an answer? Sure he offered advice once in a while, but during the period of their acquaintance, Ken always had to contend with Berserker’s affinity for evasion. 7

Farfarello continued on, choosing to ignore his companion’s sudden fish-like quality.

“At first it was to spite God, to mock him as his two opposing chess pieces came onto neutral territory.” He chuckled manically.

Ken suppressed an exasperated sigh. “Instead of ripping each other to confetti you mean? Isn’t God hurt either way?”

Farfarello looked speculative for a moment, then opted to continue instead. “But I’ve realized something.”

“...?”

“We’re much alike, you and I.” 8

A slender dark eyebrow raised, as if to convey a ‘did-you-take-your-medication-today?’ gesture.

Staring at the brunette with that unnerving gaze, the Irishman elaborated. “Life is a bitch. Reality is a bitch. Humanity is a bitch.”

Pause. “But you learn to live with it.”

He cocked his head to one side and traced a slender finger over a scar unconsciously. “By the way, don’t give me any ideas next time,” he admonished with an almost sinister leer. He leaned in towards the shorter boy. “I might just take up you suggestions and put them to use.” 9

Ken blinked.

He walked home alone the rest of the night.

Fin

Completed 8/20/03

1 I’m not quite clear on where Weiss is based. Is it Kyoto? Kansai? Anybody willing to correct me?

2 Okay... too many possible explanations as to why everything is like it is. The way this is going, it’s like it’s friggin demanding a sequel... or prequel? :thwaps self:

3 I’ve only one explanation for this: My muses were on crack.

4 Ha! THERE’S my reason as to why Farf isn’t a raving lunatic right now.

5 :sigh: Wordy, wordy, but I do tend to ramble. The mission in Osaka (that happened one month ago, according to the fic’s time table) is supposedly what happened to twist Ken’s general countenance.

6 I really didn’t want to elaborate on the mission or dwell too much on its side effects... although I kind of did, didn’t I? :hangs head: If reception to the fic is okay, I might save it for some other time, ne?

7 I feel guilty calling Farf “Berserker” in this fic. Especially after I’ve toned down Farfie’s manic God impulses. Shoot me now.

8 My version of a not-so subtle answer to Ken-kun’s bitterness issue.

9 The idea of being bloody strips of fleshy confetti would appeal to Farfie very much, ne? :cough:

Author’s Notes 2: Well, now the bloody thing’s done, I suppose that most readers are like “What the hell was that?!” :sweatdrop: Alright. I KNOW I need more practice. The transitions were poorly thought out, there was hardly any character development, and the plot was sketchy at best, but then again, I wasn’t really going for all that; I was aiming for a change in how Ken is usually characterized and written... and the almost sane Farf was just an accidental item. Woot.