Weiss. Assassins, that is. Weiss, white hunters of the dark beasts. Persia always did have a sense of humor. And he always thought I was too fucking young and too fucking slow to understand it. Maybe he never knew, but he never cared.
So I kept laughing and smiling, and he hired the best to train me. A little boy locked in a little room with big scary assassins. And they taught me.
They taught me how to fight in hand-to-hand combat, how to crush a man's windpipe, how to break bones in a fraction of a second, how to paralyze, how to kill.
They taught me how to hold a sword, how to fence, how to use my small size and speed to my advantage, how to kill.
They taught me how to hold a gun, how to aim, how to fire, how to kill.
They honed my eyes until I could hit targets no wider then my hand from a hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet away. With my eyes closed.
They taught me how to use a myriad of weaponry: wire, swords, knives, staffs, bows and arrows, needles, and smiles. And I learned. Learned so well and so fast, and I'd get a fucking pat on the head at the end of each day, and a "good job, kid."
They always called me "kid."
"KID?!" I wanted to scream at them. I wasn't a kid. I stopped being a kid a long time ago. Kids were children. Children didn't kill.
But I did.
Sometimes with my eyes closed.
And after they'd pat me on the head, their eyes would soften a little. They'd leave their hands in my hair, lingering there a while. Then they'd smile at me, and I'd smile back at them and they'd cover my mouth with their smile and my body with their hands, and they'd take me any way they wanted me. On the floor, on a chair, over a bench, against a wall, and I never cried, not even once. And when they were done, they'd leave me covered in sweat and semen and I'd smile and they never looked back at me.
And they still called me "kid."
Persia never stopped them.
Some days he'd join them.
And I'd smile even wider, and no one cared.
Five years old, and I was a killer.
Five years old, and I was a slut.
Five years old, and I still remember.
And one day, someone new came to teach me. He was twenty or so, maybe, with short brown hair and bright blue eyes. I knew he was new, partly because I'd never seen him before, but mostly because he blinked at me and asked me where he could find "Omi," the man he was supposed to train.
I smiled and told him I was Omi, and he looked startled for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"That's a good one, kid. For a minute there, I almost believed you. Now..." he paused and grinned, "where can I find the real Omi?"
I thought to myself, 'he calls me 'kid' too' but I didn't say anything. Only looked at him and kept smiling.
His smile faded a little, and he just looked back at me, waiting for his answer.
Why would I answer again? I told him who I was, and he didn't believe me.
And after a while, he broke the silence with, "You're Omi? But... you can't be more then six or seven years old!"
I nodded once. He was a very odd assassin if my age could surprise him so easily.
He squatted down to look me in the eyes, and I kept my smile on my face.
"You a killer, kid?"
I nodded again.
He shook his head, and we went into the room and he started to teach me. I didn't know why they hired him. He didn't teach me anything I didn't already know. In fact, I was his superior in quite a few areas. When we finished the session, he just looked at me, curiosity and wonder and another emotion I didn't recognize written plainly over his face.
"Kid, how long have you been doing this?"
I didn't know. So I told him I'd been "doing this" for as long as I could remember.
He reached out one hand and rustled my hair, and his fingers lingered there in a manner I'd become used to. I tilted my head back and smiled prettily, and reached up and pulled his face to mine and kissed him like I was supposed to do.
He stumbled back, stunned, and fell on his ass.
My smile never faltered.
"Kid..." his voice was hoarse, "How long have you been doing this?"
As long as I could remember.
And after a while, he got up and reached for me, and he took me slow. I couldn't remember a time it didn't hurt, but somehow he made the pain feel good. I wanted to thank him for that, when we finished. I would have, too, if Persia hadn't walked in and told me to kill him.
So I cleaned off my knife, washing away the blood, and thanked his cooling corpse even as rigor mortis set in. And I smiled, too.
Persia stopped training me and started sending me out on missions. At first they were single targets, hit and run, and I preformed my duties flawlessly. But for some reason, at the end of each kill, I found myself thinking back to the young assassin with the bright blue eyes who made the pain feel so good and whose blood stained my hands a pretty shade of pink.
Soon I had other missions to complete. More then one target, more complex infiltrations, and every time I came home to Persia, there would be someone there to bend me over in my room and fill my mouth with cum and fuck me until they passed out. Assassins, sometimes. My trainers, my teachers, but most often Persia. And I still thought of the young friendly man with the blue eyes who never hurt me.
And when the orders came in for me to go undercover as a prostitute, I wondered why everyone acted as though it was a big deal. I'd been whoring myself to them for a lifetime. Why would other total strangers be any different? So I smiled at them, and they relaxed, and they patted me on my head, fingers lingering there.
I dressed myself up in tight, revealing clothing, and I darkened my face with makeup, and I paraded on the street corners, and every five minutes men who smelled of cheap cologne and cheap money would come to me and make me offers. Hundreds of dollars for an hour, they'd smile. And I'd smile back.
Persia never paid me.
They'd find a nice hotel, or sometimes a sleazy one, and their hands would toy with my hair, and they took me on a bed.
My trainers never used a bed.
And when we were done with our sins, I'd crawl out of the bed and into the shower, and the men would toss their money on the bed and leave and I'd never see them again. I'd come out of the bathroom, my hair dripping, and I'd be alone in the room. No one but myself and their money.
My money.
And the next night I'd parade on the streets and I'd smile, and the night after that and the night after that, and after that and after that and after that, until finally my target approached me, and I smiled and we went to a nice hotel and I cleaned my knife of his blood. I walked out of the room with nothing, not even his wallet, because I hadn't earned it. He hadn't touched my hair, hadn't even undressed me. His blood had splattered all over my clothing, but I wore black and no one could see it. Bloody and smiling, I skipped down the street and went back to Persia, the money I'd earned over that past month safely tucked into an inside pocket in my shirt.
Persia welcomed me home, and a few of my trainers were there as well. They ran their fingers through my hair and celebrated (in their own way) my success. They were so proud of me, they said. I didn't care. In two days it would be my birthday (according to Persia) and I planned on buying something for myself with my money. My money. Not Persia's. Not anyone else's. Mine. I could buy what I wanted and not owe them anything. That made me smile even wider.
I was going to be eight years old, and I had enough money to buy myself whatever I wanted. You'd smile too.
So I bought myself a computer, a really cool one. Persia saw it, of course, but said nothing. A few days later, he hired a couple of hackers to teach me. One of them had short brown hair and pretty blue eyes, and his hands lingered in my hair whenever I showed him what a good boy I was and how fast I could learn. In the span of three months (technically, as I still had my missions to complete) I knew everything he did, and more. I could make my computer dance and sing and do the hokey pokey, and the hacker with the blue eyes had been teaching me other things, too. Things he thought I didn't know.
But really, I did.
Persia found him in me, bent over the swively chair in the computer room, and he laughed. "Kill him," he told me, and I did. I didn't have any of my weapons on me, so I had to use my hands, and he struggled so much as I tightened my small fingers around his throat. His hands shot up and yanked at my hair, and that almost made me want to laugh. But I didn't.
I smiled.
And when he was limp and blue, Persia took up where he'd left off, and I stared blankly at my computer screen and watched his reflection silently while he panted and groaned. When he left I went to take a shower, and when I came out, the man with the blue eyes and blue face was gone, and in his place was a fifty dollar bill. I took it, tucked it into the pockets of my jeans, and finished off a program he and I had been working on.
Then I went down stairs and had a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and went to bed. I missed the feel of someone's fingers in my hair, and I dreamed of blue eyes.
So I got older, and Persia and my trainers came to me more often. When I wasn't on a mission, I was getting my brains screwed out against a wall, or I was tied up and someone (I could never see through the blindfold) would push their member past my smiling lips and fuck my mouth. And when I wasn't on a mission and no one was in the house, sometimes I'd amuse myself by crashing some corporate companies mainframe or transferring money from banks around the world into my account. By the time I was ten, I was a millionaire.
Years passed in a blur, and one day I woke up and went downstairs and found Persia waiting for me at the kitchen table. He was never up before me, so I waited for him to explain himself as I made a cup of hot chocolate for myself. He said nothing, but when I was at the counter, he stood and walked over to me and reached for my hair and fucked me hard.
I pulled my pants up from around my ankles and zippered them and took my hot chocolate and put some whipped cream on it. When I sat down at the table sipping my drink, Persia cleared his throat. So I looked up at him, and on his face was the strangest expression I'd ever seen. It kind of reminded me of the two men with short brown hair and bright blue eyes right when Persia had said, "Kill him." Disbelief, maybe?
Then the look was gone in a moment, and he said softly, "Omi, I've formed an assassin group... Weiss, the white hunters. You will join them."
And I nodded and smiled, finishing my hot chocolate. Then I got up and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I asked Persia if he wanted one, and he just stared blankly at me, so I shrugged and smiled again and ate my sandwich in the same spot he'd screwed me ten minutes prior.
Later that day I went to my room and packed up my computer and my clothes (all of them, even the slutty ones), and as I finished carefully wrapping my weapons and disassembling my guns, I realized that there was nothing else I had to take with me. Clothes, weaponry, and a computer. After ten years of living in this house, all I had to show for it was a bruised and sultry body, a suitcase of clothing, a couple of trunks of weapons, and my fucking computer.
That made me want to laugh.
I didn't.
I smiled.
So I piled my stuff into the back of one of a rented car, and I looked at Persia and my other teachers, and they looked at me. I smiled and they looked away, and blinking, I shrugged. I had nothing to say to them. I don't think I ever had anything to say to any of them.
Climbing into the backseat of the car, the driver looked in his mirror and back at me and said, "Where to, kid?" His blue eyes were appraising.
I didn't answer him. I wanted to strangle him.
He called me "kid."
So I smiled and leaned forward and breathed on his neck, and the short brown hair there stood on end. He shivered, and our eyes met in the mirror.
"Anywhere," I answered.
He nodded, mutely, and drove to the docks, a few blocks away.
Together we got out of the car. His fingers tangled in my hair, and his mouth covered mine, and a half an hour later I thanked his cooling body politely before disposing of it in the blue waters. So bright, they reminded me of two other men who had such pretty eyes.
Alone I hopped back into the driver's seat and sped along the roads which finally led me to a flower shop. A sweet, old woman welcomed me. I smiled at her and carried my suitcase and trunks up to the top floor. Choosing the smallest room, I unpacked swiftly. Then I went back outside, brought my computer in and hooked it up in the basement.
I drove the car a few blocks away, abandoned it after cleaning my fingerprints from it, and walked back to the flower shop.
Weiss.
I was the first member.
The others arrived eventually. Aya, Ken, and finally Youji.
Aya was cold when I met him first, and distant. I smiled at him, and pretended not to notice his eyes boring into me whenever he thought I couldn't see him. He never touched me though. At least, not in the beginning.
Ken was bright and sweet. His eyes were bright blue and his hair was brown and short. He reminded me of other places and other people. His hands touched my hair often, but he never did more then that. At least, not in the beginning.
Youji was sensual and flirted with everyone outrageously. When he first met me, he didn't believe I was a killer. I could see it in his eyes. I wanted to tell him I'd been stealing lives and kisses since I was five (with my eyes closed, sometimes), but I couldn't of course. So I smiled at him, and pretended not to hear him when he called me, "kid." He didn't make any other noises. At least, not in the beginning.
Some days, I smiled at Aya, and he would hesitantly reach out to me and kiss me gently. His eyes never left mine. At least, not in the beginning.
Some days, I smiled at Ken, and his hands would tangle in my hair and his mouth would cover mine, even as his fingers lingered and leafed through my blonde tresses. His hands never touched me elsewhere. At least, not in the beginning.
Some days, I smiled at Youji, and he'd laugh and call me kid, and when he led me to his bedroom, he never stopped smiling. At least, not in the beginning.
After a while, Aya could no longer look me in the eyes. But that didn't stop him from using my body.
After a while, Ken could no longer keep his hands off my body. He touched me as he pleased, hands in my hair, smile on my mouth, himself in my body.
After a while, Youji took the games in his bedroom far enough, so I showed him I knew his game better then he did himself, and he stopped laughing.
All their eyes darkened when they looked at me, but they didn't stop.
I never stopped smiling.
And when I showed them I could kill, more ruthlessly and efficiently then they themselves could, they started talking to me. They started wanting to know more about me. Where I came from, how I could do what I could do. And I smiled sweetly at them and told them that if they didn't care about who I was when they were screwing me, why did it matter who I was when I was killing strangers?
I used more words then that, and I sounded a lot nicer then that, but it's basically what I said.
So they blinked at me and stopped asking and kept using. They never gave me money, but at least they liked beds.
Most of the time. Youji was the exception. He liked doing it whenever and wherever, and he was surprised to know that I could do it wherever and whenever. On the floor, against the wall, over a bench. He loved my versatility.
They all kept their relationships with me secret from one another. It was probably funny, but I didn't feel like laughing.
So I smiled.
I think somewhere, deep down, they did know that they all used me, that they all fucked me. I just don't think they could ever admit it to themselves. After all, I was fifteen years old. So young! they thought. But I've been a slut since I was five, and a killer. It was nothing new to me.
Still, sometimes I remember men with blue eyes and brown hair, and I'd look at Ken and wonder if he'd join them some day. I couldn't do that to him, though. He was Weiss. I needed someone else.
I dressed myself in my whore's clothes, and I went out on the streets one Saturday night, and I met a man with red hair like fire. He offered me no money, and I asked for none. At one point, while we lay next to each other in the bed, his hands surprisingly absent from my hair, I thought to myself, "I want a cigarette."
A moment later, he reached for his pack of Newports and handed me one.
I was silent as I looked at him, then took it. He lit it, and I inhaled deeply. I spoke to him. It was the first time I'd ever spoken to someone who'd fucked me, but then it was the first time someone who fucked me didn't let their hands linger in my hair.
"My name's Omi."
"My name's Schuldrich."
"I'm a killer, and a slut."
"I'm German."
The corners of my mouth twitched.
He handed me another cigarette, and I lit it with the one I was still smoking. I handed it to him and he inhaled as I had. Then he leaned forward and kissed me even deeper. He pulled back, and I released a lung full of smoke.
I looked up at the ceiling and thought, "You can hear my thoughts."
His hands roamed over my body, and he breathed softly against my skin, "yes."
We didn't need any other words. That night was the first I'd spent in someone's arms who understood me. I think it was the same for him.
It was also the first time I'd stayed until morning.
I met him again, and I visited his home often. He lived with three other men in a lovely, tasteful, very large house. Nagi Naoe, a Japanese boy with brown hair and bright blue eyes. I marked him from the first moment I saw him, and Schudrich understood. He made no comment when the slim body ended up in the blue bay a day later. Brad Crawford, an American. He looked at me through hard eyes, and something whispered in my mind, "he's a precog." It took me a moment to realize it had been Schudrich. So Crawford too knew of my plans for Nagi. He didn't seem to mind at all. The light glinted off his glasses as he ran a finger across my cheek. Last, Farfarello, the Irish lad with white hair and golden eye. He fascinated me. Schudrich understood that, too.
I bought him a copy of Dante's Inferno a day later and spent every other night in the padded cell with him, reading it to him like a fairytale. He enjoyed it, I think. He gave me one of his knives, and I could see Crawford's surprise when I proudly displayed it to him. A day later, I brought Farfarello one of my knives. And I told him the story that went with it. He grinned at me, and I kissed him on his mouth.
He bit down hard, and I tasted blood. That was nothing new. I liked it.
Schudrich came in and pulled me away a few moments later, and screwed me silly in the kitchen. I understood him as well as he understood me, and afterwards I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and offered him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He accepted me, and traded me a cigarette for it. We shared the whipped cream.
I think what I liked most about being in the same house as the three of them was that they knew I was technically an enemy, as I knew they were as well. Did it matter? Not in the least.
Because they understood me as well as I understood myself, and I knew them in the same way.
Still, I always went back to Aya, Ken, and Youji.
Aya didn't comment when I looked him in his eyes and he avoided mine.
Ken didn't comment when I changed my shampoo, but he bought me my old one.
Youji didn't comment when I shared his cigarettes.
Farfarello didn't comment when I cut myself and shared my blood with him.
Crawford didn't comment when I slipped out of his bed into Schudrich's.
And Schudrich didn't comment when I smiled.
A killer and a slut. A killer who bled. A slut who smoked. A killer who washed his hair. A slut who looked others in the eyes. A killer who changed beds often. A slut who smiled.
Me.
Them.
Was it me, or was it them?
And I snuggled closed to Schuldrich as he murmured into my hair, which now smelled of strawberry instead of green apple. "Both, love."
So I smiled.
I was sixteen years old.
Later that night we fucked in the kitchen again, went through four packs of his cigarettes, and depleted Crawford's supply of whipped cream. His fingers lingered in my hair for the first time.
"Nice shampoo," he commented, and I sipped my hot chocolate.
Life went on. It always did. I never expected to go with it, though. When I was five, I thought I'd be dead by seven. When I was eight, I thought I'd be dead by eleven. When I was twelve, I thought I'd be dead by fifteen. Here I was, sixteen, and I was still smiling.
Then I looked in the mirror.
I smiled.
And I realized two things.
People are funny. They see the smile. I see the teeth.
That, and I don't need to worry about dying.
I'm already dead.
Schulrich came over to me, wrapped his arms around my waste, and smiled in the mirror, too. "Want to read the last of Dante's Inferno to Farfie? Afterwards, I'm sure Brad wouldn't mind some company. And when you're done, we can visit your florist friends, share a cup of hot chocolate, and a cigarette or two. Hm?"
And the dead boy in the mirror with the bright blue eyes and the sharp teeth nodded his assent even as I gave mine.