Title: Under the Big Top
Fandom: Gungrave
Rating: PG-13 (for language and Bunji's violent thoughts)
Summary: Bunji briefly reflects on life while on bodyguard duty at the Circus.

The Circus was in town. Considering that Harry's efforts to exert his influence occasionally seeped into the general public, it was surprising that they showed up. But they were a bunch of kooks, Bunji thought. And money usually wins out in the end, anyway. The gunman had no idea that skipping over Billion City wasn't an option. Harry wanted his orphans to see the Circus and by hook or crook they were.

There were so many things that Harry had missed out on as a child and he didn't want his kids to miss them for the world. Bunji understood the feeling because he had missed out on the same experiences. Possibly more.

So here he was, under the big top, dragged into bodyguard duty for a bunch of runts. A bunch of loud, obnoxious, happy runts at that. Everywhere he looked, there were only kids with either smiles or astonished looks on their faces.

"Huh?" He felt wetness prickling his eyes. He reached into his pocket for his soft pack of cigs.

Right when he was about to light it up he felt a tug on his sleeve. Bunji looked down, irritated.

"What is it, kid?"

"You can't smoke in here, you big silly!" A little brunette girl with curls said. She pointed to a sign, proving that she wasn't talking out her ass. Only a little kid, raised with a lot of love would talk to someone like that. They expected to find only good in everyone. She hadn't been trained into expecting indifference to downright malice in others.

Bunji put the cancer stick back in the pack. "What's your name, kid?"

"Anne," she said. She was a bit surprised that the gruff man put away the cigarette and didn't break the rules. Maybe she could make a new friend. "What's yours?"

"Well, it isn't 'Big Silly.'" Bunji said, thinking that his clipped words would end the conversation.

"C'mon, what's your name, mister?"

"Mister?" Bunji thought. He didn't care for that much but at least the girl was trying to be respectful. If he told her maybe she would go somewhere and leave him the hell alone.

"It's Bunji, alright?"

"Alright," she said with a big grin and not moving an inch.

The gunman had to fight to suppress yelling at the little girl. "Why don't you go sit back down? You're missing ten grown a-, I mean ten clowns squeezing into a little car." He made a gesture with his hands exaggerating how little the car was.

"What!? Really!?" Anne ran back to her seat.

Bunji shook his head and looked at the clowns maneuvering in the car and wasn't all that impressed. Years ago, when he and his little brother, Jyuji were out on the streets, they had squeezed into all types of places.

As the minutes wore on, Bunji thought that the circus was getting to him because he felt a headache coming on and his eyes started to water again. He pinched his nose, his hand bumping into his ever-present sunglasses in the process.

He felt another tug on the sleeve of his leather jacket and was surprised to see the little brat by his side again. Certainly he couldn't be as interesting as the circus?

"You okay, Mr. Bunji?"

"Yeah. It's just that this elephant shit really gets up your nose." He didn't realize he forgot to edit himself. Bunji's internal monologues and dialogues with others were usually so crude that it was a fluke that he cleaned his language up for the girl the first time.

The little girl gasped and then started to laugh. She rubbed her index finger over the one on the opposing hand, doing the "shame-shame" motion Ms. Sherry sometimes used (even on Grandpa Harry).

"It does stink at first but then you get use to it," Anne said.

Bunji scoffed. She made it sound like she'd been to the circus dozens of times and he knew that wasn't the case.

"You hungry, br- I mean, Anne?" Maybe with food in her mouth she wouldn't talk.

"Yeah! Can I have a hot dog? Ms. Sherry said I didn't need to worry about making a mess, though I should try not to, but it would be okay if something got on my clothes because they're machine washable." She said 'machine washable' like it was something magical.

Bunji took a look at the girl's purple dress. It was well made but he could see that it was made from the same material of a T-shirt or polo shirt. It wasn't like when he was in the orphanage and those assholes would put the girls in super frilly dresses and stupid lacy socks when the government would come in for site checks. He remembered how badly a girl was beaten for spilling a bit of grape juice on her dress after one of the observed dinners were over. And for all that girl's suffering one of the awful women said, "We can put a bow over it and no one would know." That day Bunji wanted to bludgeon those cows with a hammer. He had thought it would be poetic if someone did that and put a bow on their dead bodies. "No one would know, right?"

Anne continued to prattle on and her high-pitched voice brought him back to the present. Bunji cut her off. "I guess you're saying you want a hot dog with everything on it."

"Yes, please."

He walked over to the colorful concession stand with its loud primary colors and ordered two hot dogs with all the toppings. He made sure to ask her if she had any allergies beforehand. Little kids seem to be allergic to the strangest shit. He remembered one boy barfing after eating popcorn and it wasn't even buttered.

When Bunji handed the overloaded hot dog to the girl, she was so happy and practically skipped to her seat. She said 'Thank you' like he'd given her a million dollars and he thought that her smile would make his heart... do something. It had been a while since he felt anything other than angry, betrayed, disappointed, apathetic. The list could go on and on and one would be hard pressed to find anything heartwarming.

Bunji took a bite out of his over priced yet delicious hot dog and switched his attention from what was going on in the center ring to the children's reactions. The kids could have it so much worse but fortunately it was Harry watching over them. Bunji's boss wanted these children to have the best possible care and he spared no expense.

If there were more days like this instead of nights filled with death that he often dealt out, maybe it would be easier for him to get some sleep and look at himself in the mirror without the screen of dark plastic between him and his reflection.

THE END