It felt so strange, entering this apartment. Ban hesitated on the doorstep, savoring the feeling for a moment. It was a cheap, small place, just a single room with a tiny hallway and little kitchen attached, but since a week back it was the place he shared with his friends, Kudou Yamato and Himiko. And it was more than that. It felt like home.
Home. Friends. To think that such simple words could make his heart beat faster with joy, but at the same time make him so wary. He didn't dare trust that it would last, didn't dare open his heart completely to such happiness, because happiness wasn't meant for him, after all. His life this far had taught him that much. Sooner or later Yamato and Himiko would probably turn against him, see him for the cursed human being he was, and he didn't dare to let that come as a surprise. He didn't dare to put himself completely at ease.
Still, it was home, and that felt good. He smiled a little as Himiko pushed her way past him in the doorway, darting into the kitchen, before he finally got inside himself. He took his shoes off, went over to the room and sat down on one of the bed couches, leaning his head back to stare at a crack in the ceiling. Yamato came in right behind him and patted him on the shoulder as he walked past, settling on the opposite couch.
"Well done, Ban," he said, smiling. "I knew you had what it takes to be a Snatcher."
Ban grunted. "Of course," he said. He wasn't used to praise, and had no idea how to respond to it, but it was true that the job - his first job together with the siblings - had gone very well. A quick break-in into an office building, snatch a folder of important documents for a business rival, and then out before anyone noticed. Actually, a couple of guards had noticed something, but Ban had easily distracted them with his Evil Eye. "It wasn't..."
"Ban?" Himiko interrupted from the kitchen. "I'm going to make a cup of tea, you want some too?"
"Yeah, sure," Ban replied after only a slight hesitation.
"Aniki?"
"Mmm, one for me too."
Ban went silent. They were just too friendly, both of them. He didn't deserve it; they knew nothing. Yamato didn't break the silence, except by pulling out a cigarette from a pocket somewhere and lighting it with a snap of his lighter. A minute later Himiko appeared balancing three big cups of steaming hot tea, with sugar and milk for herself, just milk for her brother, and black for Ban - obviously she had already figured out how he wanted it. Ban watched her put the cups down on the small, square table, and then she sat down next to him.
"Hey, Ban," she said, smiling excitedly. "That's a fantastic talent you have! Giving people dreams like that..." She gestured towards her eyes. " It's so cool! I've never seen anything like it!"
Of course she hadn't. It wasn't as if there were many people walking around with Evil Eyes. "It's not a talent," Ban said coldly, and took a sip of the hot tea.
"Of course it is!" Himiko just grinned at him. "What else would it be?"
"The Evil Eye." He smirked. "It's a curse."
Was that his own imagination, or did Yamato tense when he said that? Dammit, he should have just shut up. They had no business knowing things like that. How could he hope to be accepted if he blurted out that he was cursed to right and left? He frowned weakly. Maybe they did deserve to know now, before he became any more dependent on them. He half expected both of them to turn on him right now, just like others had. But Yamato and Himiko had already seen him use the Evil Eye, not on them, but to their benefit - shouldn't they, if anyone, be able to accept? He froze, waiting for damnation.
But there was no coldness in Yamato's eyes, and Himiko's face showed simple confusion and curiosity.
"You're kidding me, Ban!" she said, still smiling. "There're no such things as curses. I'm too old to be fooled by stories like that."
Ban almost breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, that was the other reaction he could expect - disbelief. A lot of people in this world didn't believe in curses. This was supposed to be a modern, enlightened society, after all.
Yamato didn't say a word, but when Ban glanced at him, the older man met his eyes warmly. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something in that wordless gaze told him that Himiko's brother knew a lot more than she did. And still he seemed understanding, not even surprised. As if he already knew, or suspected, that Ban bore a curse, but didn't mind.
He slowly relaxed. It felt unusual, all this trust, and he didn't want to rely on it, but Yamato was actually his friend, someone who wouldn't turn against him over something like this. Strange. And Himiko... He turned back to her and shrugged.
"But it is a curse," he said. "It's not something I chose, or something I learned to do. I can show people hell with these eyes." He unconsciously slid his purple sunglasses back up his nose, covering the subject of the conversation. "You wouldn't want to see it."
Himiko tilted her head and looked at him. "But that doesn't mean it's a curse! It's a gift!" She interrupted herself and took a long sip of tea, before she continued. "You said back there that you could show people dreams. Doesn't that include good dreams as well as nightmares?"
Ban nodded slowly. That was true. But the Evil Eye was basically evil, or so he had always considered it. It was a tool for trickery, for toying with his opponent until the Snake Bite could take hold. It was the eyes of a snake, hypnotizing its victim. And it was part of the curse he had to bear. "That doesn't make it any less evil," he said.
"Uh-huh." Himiko nodded. "But it's a tool, isn't it? It's the same as the Poison Perfumes, it can be used for good or bad, but mostly it's just useful." She giggled a bit. "And we're Snatchers, we're not exactly 'good guys'. A little evil like that can definitely come in handy."
Ban sighed soundlessly before he went back to his teacup, drinking deeply. She didn't understand, but she probably didn't want to. Or else it was just he who didn't want to explain. He was too amazed over how easily she accepted it - him - to try to mess it up any more.
"Don't worry about it, Ban," Yamato said suddenly. "You're part of the team now. We appreciate your abilities, curse or not." He smiled. "So just don't worry about that."
Ban shook his head. He felt like he wanted to thank them, but didn't know how. "I'm not worried," he denied instead with a tilted smirk. "What would I be worried about?"
Himiko drank the last of her tea, put the cup away on the table, then folded her legs in front of her on the couch. "I'd still say it's a talent," she concluded. "A unique talent. Which makes me curious - how did you get it? Are you born with it?"
"More or less." It was all that old hag's fault.
"So when did you start using it? When you were a baby?"
Ban flinched, but it was an innocent question, asked by an innocent, tanned girl with messy black hair sitting next to him on a couch - and by now, he was starting to feel too relaxed for his own good. Maybe that's why he answered.
"The first time?" he mumbled. "I must have been four or so... Caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Literally." He was surprised how clearly he remembered that day - he was usually good at remembering important stuff, but this memory was old. Old, but razor sharp. He had been a bit hungry and feeling unusually daring. While his mother had been busy on the phone in another room - she always talked on the phone forever - he had brought a chair and reached up to the package of chocolate chip cookies hidden on a high shelf in the kitchen. But his mother had finished her conversation unusually fast, and there he stood on the kitchen floor, forbidden cookies in hand.
"My mother was scolding me, and I... Heh. I felt like I wanted to sink through the floor." The shame was still there; more painful with the knowledge of what this single act had cost him. He had indeed wanted to sink through the floor, and then he had raised his eyes, tear-filled, to meet his mother's. To this day, he still wished he hadn't.
Himiko smiled sympathetically. "I did stuff like that too when I was little."
"But did you really sink through the floor?" Ban asked. "I did." He hadn't meant to, he hadn't even quite understood what he had done, but his wish had been so strong that right after he met her eyes, his mother had seen it happen. He hadn't known how to control it at all, so he had just watched with wide eyes how his mother had gone from surprise to confusion to fear to anger, and then back to a different kind of fear, mixed with anger, and a little bit of disgust. Then the minute had been over, and he had stood there, and things had never been the same again.
Himiko laughed. "You made her see you sink through the floor? I suppose that would make any mother freak out!" Seeing Ban's serious face, she stopped. "What happened?"
Ban shrugged. "She didn't like me very much after that." Now that was the understatement of the year. It shouldn't hurt so much after all this time - he was no longer a stupid child, after all. He forced a smile. "But that was a long time ago."
Himiko nodded. "At least you had a mother," she said. "I never knew mine."
"Not much of a loss." At least not comparatively.
"Hmmm... But you can make people see anything with that 'Evil Eye'? Even nice things?" She waited for him to nod before she added, "Could you show me something?"
He frowned. "Why?"
"Why not? I'm just curious how it feels like. Something nice - something I've never seen before. Maybe some place far away... Or maybe..."
Ban thought about it for a while. "I suppose," he said at last.
Himiko gave a happy squeak. "Thanks!" She started to throw her arms around him, but stopped when she felt him tense and pull away. A friend, yes, but he wasn't ready to be quite that close.
"Yamato, you want to come along?" He might as well ask. "I could put you both in the same dream."
Yamato shook his head. "No, thanks. Just go with her."
Ban did that. Letting his own all too blue eyes meet Himiko's, he could see her shudder as he opened the Evil Eye, but then she smiled at what he showed her. And laughed, happily. Controlling the vision from the outside, Ban couldn't help but smile himself. He had never used it like this before, to make a friend happy. Maybe the Evil Eye wasn't altogether evil after all. Maybe sometimes, a curse could be turned into a blessing.
And maybe, sometimes, even Midou Ban could allow himself to be happy.