Parasyte -the maxim-
Symbiosis
Chapter 1: Fear

One thing that Kayoko Kenzaki never expected was to openly welcome death as it approached her.

The school bell rang loudly, making her jump in her seat as it shook her from her thoughts. She took a deep breath, sighing as she pressed her hand against her racing heart in an attempt to calm herself down.

"Kayoko!" called Akiho, the most rambunctious of her friends. She waved at Kayoko from the doorway, where a group of three girls stood, waiting for her. "C'mon, let's go! You said we could hang out today!"

She smiled sadly. She hadn't been able to spend time with her friends since her parents died, almost two months ago now. Standing, she picked up her bag and approached Akiho, Satomi, and Yuko, who stood at the front door of the classroom, waiting for her.

"I can't stay out long," she said quietly, trying to seem cheerful. "Hiroshi's still pretty worried about me being out so late. He doesn't want what happened to mom and dad to happen to me."

Akiho and Yuko both cooed at her boyfriend's fierce protectiveness, but Satomi looked at Kayoko with what seemed like suspicion. Ever since Kayoko moved in with Hiroshi, her older boyfriend of almost a year now, after the deaths of her parents, she hadn't been making much time for the rest of her friends. Her excuse was always that Hiroshi was worried about her, but Satomi thought otherwise.

She was too jumpy nowadays. She was always looking down, never making eye contact unless she was spoken to first. She even got scared when Shinichi, her childhood friend, put his hand on her shoulder. Something was very wrong with Kayoko, and Satomi couldn't figure out for the life of her what it was.

But for now, it was no matter.

Kayoko was here, with her friends. She was away from Hiroshi, even if it was just for a little while. Whatever was wrong didn't matter right now.

The dark apartment was somewhat terrifying, especially since Kayoko knew what awaited her inside. It was six, much later than the time she normally came back. Even if she had texted him beforehand, he would still be angry.

"I'm… I'm home," she called nervously, peering into the apartment hallway.

A voice came from the living room, where the only light was on. "About time. You're late, Kayoko." She flinched, hearing the apathy in Hiroshi's voice. She slowly crept into the living room, seeing the gruesome news about the mincemeat murders on the television. Hiroshi turned to look at her, a blank expression on his face, although his angered eyes contradicted his façade of calmness. "Tell me why you're so late."

She could feel dread creep down her spine as she shook. She wished she could be braver, but there was no way that she could even look at him without feeling some sort of fear. "I… I was late because I was with my friends. We went to Shibuya," she replied, not bothering to argue.

"Are these the friends I met at your parents' funeral?" Kayoko nodded, fear lacing her heart. "I thought I told you that you don't need them."

Swallowing nervously, she summoned enough courage to look him in the eye. "But I missed them. I haven't spent any time with them since the funeral…" His glare made her trail off.

"What did I say about talking back?!"

Kayoko felt the stinging pain in her cheek as she whimpered softly, her hair whipping into her eyes. Tears pricked her eyes as she fell to the floor, her body steeling itself for the pain that she knew was coming. She bit back her sobs as she closed her eyes and prayed for it to be over.

The parasite didn't know where it was.

It knew one thing, and one thing only – it had to find a living host. It had to find something with a brain that it could take over. It had to find something that it could survive in.

A soft sobbing sound reached its receptors. It perked, somehow knowing that the sound was being made by a living being. It could follow that sound. From its pod, the parasite crawled, slipping through the night air until it found something, slipping into the human's warm flesh, burrowing through its skull.

It knew that it would live.

Its consciousness began to blossom upon this realization, spurring itself into the fullest of sentient beings. It stood, looking down at itself, at its new body. Its hands were callused and rough, its knuckles missing skin as they bled through the poorly done bandages. It was a male in its late adolescent stages. That was the first bit of information that the parasite absorbed.

Information from the being's mind came flooding in. All of its knowledge, all of its memories… everything but the knowledge of emotion. The parasite registered that there were emotions, but could not register how they felt. But it – he – became aware of one very important thing.

By human standards, the male he was inhabiting was a disgusting being.

Human males treasured their significant others and treated them with respect. There was the idea that all life was precious, that men should protect the women. But this male, Hiroshi Yamanaka, did not. He did not respect his significant other. Instead, he treated her like she was worth nothing.

The parasite felt himself frowning. He moved slowly from the room he was in, nearly tripping as he adjusted to walking. He looked through the living space. He heard the sobbing he had followed, and decided to follow it once more. His face, the face he had inherited from his host, began to split. His blades were sharp enough to kill, despite the fact that he had only just matured. He had to sustain himself somehow. He was a human, and he knew that humans were his food source.

He walked into a room that smelled like oil and smoke. It smelled like human food. On the floor, her body curled into a ball, was the girl he had seen in his host's memories. She was shaking and crying. Her skin was red with what looked like blood, which dripped down and spread over the floor.

Upon hearing his footsteps, she slowly looked up. Her eyes met his. His blades pushed themselves forwards, poised threateningly near her body. One stopped near her neck, prepared to slice her thin skin open.

She smiled as she looked up. The parasite was taken aback.

According to his host's memories, humans feared death. She should have screamed.

But instead, she sat up so she could face him, that smile still on her face. His blade followed her almost curiously. She looked content, peaceful, despite the tears running down her face. "Go ahead," she muttered. "You're going to kill me, right? That's okay. Just, please, make it painless. I'm tired of hurting…"

He remembered that his host had beat her that night. His host had beaten this girl until she bled.

"Did you kill Hiroshi?"

She had cried and cried, begging for him to stop.

"… I'm glad, then…"

The parasite wondered just what this girl was. She was human, but she had made peace with the possibility of death. She had accepted that she was weak.

Making a decision, he retracted his blades. His head reformed itself, but his face was different. He did not want to wear the face of the man who had hurt her. It would only scare her more. Instead, he chose a softer face, mimicking the one he had seen in his host's memories, but he could not place where.

Her eyes widened as he knelt before her. "Where does… it hurt…" he slowly managed, his words clunky as he spoke. His speaking was broken, but she understood. She slowly, shakily, pointed to her side, where there was blood leaking through her shirt, spreading through the fabric.

"Hiroshi… did this," she whispered. "He stabbed me with a screwdriver… He managed to avoid anything vital, though… He just wanted me to suffer… Not die."

The parasite stood, walking to the living room. He understood that there was information to be found on something called a "computer." He recognized the small, thin, black rectangle that sat on a small block of wood. Opening it, he searched "stop bleeding."

There was more information than the parasite knew what to do with. His eyes scanned it, absorbing all of the words. He slowly stood after digesting as much of the words as he could and returned to the food room.

He found a white cloth in one of the drawers. It was soft in his hands. He knelt near the girl again and pushed down on her side with the cloth. She winced, but didn't move. He moved her hand to the cloth, pushing her hand down on her wound. She seemed to understand as she held her hand there, the white cloth dyed red. He stood walking to the counter, where he pulled a small box from another drawer.

Inside, there was white, web-like cloth. It was called "gauze" according to his information. There was also thin, brown cloth with a sticky side. He picked up both and returned to the girl. He gently pulled the bloody cloth away from her, instead pressing the gauze down onto her wound, then holding it down with a few strips of the brown cloth. He was well aware of her eyes on him.

"Why are you helping me?" she asked softly.

He looked up at her. "Because I want to know… why you do not fear death." His answer was a bit more put together than his previous sentences. Perhaps it was because he was beginning to understand the information he had inherited.

The girl smiled a little. "You're nicer than Hiroshi. I'm sure you could have killed me if you wanted, but you didn't. Thank you… for saving my life." She looked up at him, her warm eyes filled with the life that his were not.

Somehow, he noted it was good that he kept that light from dying.

Kayoko still didn't know what had taken over Hiroshi's body. She just knew that it was some sort of alien bug that infected and devoured his brain. It learned fast. Every day, it became more and more intelligent. It wasn't a violent being, just a curious one. After that night, it hadn't brought out its blades even once.

Within two days, it had mastered human speech. Within a week, it'd learned how to hide itself as a human being. Within a month, it had become as human as she was.

"Kayoko," it called one day as it watched a news report on the television. "These mincemeat murders on TV. Do you think that they're caused by others of my kind?" It turned to look at her, its blank eyes trained on her figure.

She'd been exposed to what the parasite could do early on. After its blades nearly ended her life, she was sure that there were others. She was sure that those things were what caused the murders that took up all of the daily news, sure that those things were what had killed her parents.

She hesitated to tell him. There was no telling what it would do if it knew that there were more. But she nodded. "Yes. I'm sure there are others," she replied, turning back to the stove.

It hummed. "You knew?" She nodded again. "Then…" it appeared right in front of her face, distracting her as she cooked, "… why haven't you called the cops on me? Aren't you scared you'll end up next?" it asked, staring at her.

She stared into its blank eyes, unflinchingly. "If I'm still alive, then I'm not afraid. Honestly, if you haven't killed me, I doubt you've killed anyone else. I'm more afraid for others than I am for myself," she admitted, looking back down to the raw meat she was cutting through, her knife in her right hand.

The parasite had a huge appetite. It claimed that because it was a superior being – at least physically – that it needed extra food. She accepted that as an easy solution, and always made sure to make him extra food whenever she could. Yet it always preferred near-raw meat, even after it tried many human foods.

"Does that mean you don't care if you die?"

It always had a lot of questions. Some were easy, like "what is that" in reference to the television. Others were more difficult. One time, it had asked her why she got so much enjoyment out of listening to music as she cooked. Another time, it asked her why she woke up screaming several nights.

But to Kayoko, this question was easy.

"No. I don't." She sighed as she marinated the steak. "The way I see it, you saved my life the night that you killed Hiroshi. I'm in your debt. If you ever felt the need to kill me, you probably could. And I accepted that when I decided to stay here. It doesn't mean I'm scared, it's just that I've come to terms with it."

The parasite's gaze fixed itself on her, even as she turned away, starting up the table grill.

"You're a strange one," he finally said, returning its gaze to the television. "Most humans fear dying, don't they? Isn't that why they go to such lengths to extend their lives?"

She just laughed dryly. "Yeah, well, if you wanted someone who would beg for their lives, you found the wrong human."

The look of defeat and tiredness didn't look quite right on Kayoko's face as he studied her. The parasite decided that she needed to be happy or alive, needed to have the look he'd first seen that night. It wasn't because he preferred it or anything like that.

It was simply what he deemed to be right.

Hello, my name is Chiyuki, and welcome to "Symbiosis." I'm sure a canon/OC fanfiction for this series is a strange thing to see, but please give it a try. I truly love this piece.

There will be points in time that I feel I've taken Hideo and some of the parasites (Migi in particular) out of character, but I tried to balance it out by showing their thought process behind those actions. I know that most of the time, it may not work for everyone, but I hope you can forgive me. I've also altered the canon of parasites a bit, changing some of their lore to better fit what I'm attempting to do with this story. The ending will be slightly AU, as well. Please forgive me if you dislike anything I've done with the canon.

This piece will take place before and during episodes 8-10, not focusing on Shinichi, but the birth of Hideo Shimada and his life blending in as a human. I added Kayoko to represent the best of humanity, simply in order to balance out Shimada and his personality in the episodes.

Please enjoy, and leave a review to tell me what you think. Thank you.

-Chiyuki