Before Twilight

/ After Dark (Counterpart)

A GetBackers Fanfiction

Read After Dark:

.net/s/6297234/1/After_Dark

Summary:

Ban decided to challenge a tad of his wildest curiosity after a whole day of tiring work by giving his cute best friend a whole new adventure through the night. The counterpart of Ginji's After Dark. Same story, Ban's POV.

Warning:

Raw sex and profanities.

Disclaimer:

GetBackers and all of the characters in it are all courtesy of the makers. The pairing here is unofficial, and based on writer's imaginations only.

I must have had a longish sleep, for, when I woke, the stars were shining down on my face.

—Albert Camus

Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, for the self-deluding need to simulate it?

—Milan Kundera

Dealing with clients is much like being a rock star performing a concert in a PRESTIGIOUS HALL.

First, you have to realize that you are the center of their favors; Second, you have to be responsible in response to their fervors; Third, you have to be able to see through their covers, and sometimes idiotic opinions on how you should alter yourself—first, second, and third points are for you as a rock star on the stage: the whole new, sometimes overconfident your own best self. With the three points in hand, you should now be able to conclude: play right. When I say right, I mean it really right—as in, you should be able to overcome unexpectable things, and must not suffer embarrassments from silly mistakes.

Fourth and five points happen "backstage". In my own terms, they are like preparations you should make every now and then. Now, talk about that rock star again, during and after the concert. Fourth, set the stage lights right; Fifth, burn their hearts throughout the night, so that when they come home, they have you in their hearts. Fourth and fifth points are talking about how you should elaborate the finishing touches of the assignments which goal is to please the client, in hope that they will come back to see you again for another assignments. That includes giving remarkable after-services—the thing should fairly be easy: it's like wrapping a present for a friend—pick right mementos, papers, ribbons, cards, and you are done.

Don't forget to claim the money afterward.

OUR RECENT CASE WAS ASSIGNED BY A YOUNG PROGRAMMER WHO—REALIZING THAT HIS INITIAL coding for an online-bookstore had been stolen and refined mercilessly by someone who was his close friend until the accident happened—wanted his codes back. His fate after the broken friendship was tough: he was still an ordinary bully-prone college student living in a flat close to Shinjuku's outskirts, while his friend was almost a billionaire who—along with the end of his days as an undesirable school nerd—now could easily snatch any woman he wants. Frog turned into a prince. Cliché. The case reminded me of the infamous feuds regarding the famous Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg v. Eduardo Saverin v. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. The rules of thumb are quite simple: nobody likes being robbed, and nobody likes being accused as a robber.

Thick-glasses, a shabby blue shirt with a mismatched tie, a pair of wrinkled black corduroy pants he'd seemed to had thrifted somwhere, and a worn-out, weary-looking pair of patent leather shoes, the man looked even more—pitying, the only correct term I'd found in my head the moment I'd seen him walked into the Honky Tonk. That was his best effort to look nice, I assumed, and the way I instantly judged him as a man unsavory for women had made me turned my head several times to affirm to myself that I was not the only evil crook in this room.

I'd seen Ginji frowned a bit, but his eyes were kind, and since I'd known him the way a monkey familiar with its tail, I knew that he was a bit taken aback by the man's appearance, too. Even Paul, who'd followed my client with his eyes since the first time he entered the café was preparing a complimentary cup of coffee for the thin man. I approached the man with a kind tap on his shoulder and told him that I was the dakkanya he was looking for. He seemed pleased, but his brightened eyes were hard to notice because of the dark circles underneath them, his unpleasant body odor, and his mob of greasy, combed-back hair—it was as if he had not taken a bath for twenty consecutive days in a month.

He wasn't good with his words so he'd only told me and Ginji to "retrieve the original codes and collect the files that contain the data of the tweaks his programmer ex-friend had done". He said that he would infuse the entire money in his savings account to our account, but we still had to understand that although he didn't own much money, he'd greatly appreciate our help.

Talking about money. I hate irresponsible amounts assigned by several clients, now and then, but the angelic partner of mine had successfully convinced me in the end to approve the mission he'd assigned us. "Ban-chan, look at that man," he grabbed my arm and led me to a spot near the counter, pretending as if we were about to approach Paul for another cups of coffee, "I think he really, really needs our help. Nobody likes being robbed, Ban-chan. Think of you in his side—"

"No way I'll be that kind of man." I halted. Being compared to such a shabby man without an eye for style sounded much like an insult for me.

"Yeah, you'll never be him. I'm talking about doing something good for him," Ginji looked almost immaculate with those cartoonic eyes of his. That way I could easily add a halo on his head and he'd be as well one of the angels in Guido Reni's paintings.

"Shit, Ginji, the work doesn't even worth dying for."

"I guess you'd rather be a cold-hearted man forever," Ginji shrugged, made a wide grin on his face, then headed toward the man, who was sinking his nose behind a thick book whose cover was familiar, "I'll help him, Ban-chan. I'm really fine with that. I can manage."

Sometimes whenever he started acting that way—although he was surely genuine, and naturally nice-hearted, perhaps even a better leader than me considering the VOLTS he'd led back when he was the Raitei in Mugenjou—I started feeling damned somewhere in my heart. Perhaps that was his ace card to push my buttons. Perhaps that was his kindness that had made him looked very different from me—the way people could easily notify "the asshole" Ban Midou and "the flower-child" Ginji Amano by only looking from miles afar. Perhaps that was the way he'd evoked the sympathy that was already somewhere inside my head—and with a push like that I'd easily radiate.

I was still stupefied when Paul mumbled with his face half-hidden behind his favorite On The Road by Kerouac. He'd read the book for like five times already, and this time was probably his sixth, "Talking about money, kid," he coolly puffed a cloud of white smoke elegantly, "your tabs here has passed seven hundred thousand Yens." As if to remind me that he'd been merciful toward those unpaid meals all along, or a hidden message for me to help the programmer man; for Paul, too, had been merciful toward my seemingly-constant shortages of money that that caused me unable to pay for any of the meal listed in the tabs.

"Shit," I spoke under my breath, and a smile was playing on Paul's lips, almost vague, but it was clear enough behind the vintage pocket book, "alright, alright—hey, Ginji, I'll go with you, man."

Ginji, who was sitting beside the man as if to cheer him up a bit, quickly raised up and gave me a wide, approving grin, "I know you, Ban-chan, deep down there, you're an angel."

"Fuck it," I couldn't help but to return his smile with a half-smile. After all, there was something about him that remained as intriguing as city lights I could never stop admiring every night whenever I cruised the streets after dark, alone in my car.

THE MISSION TURNED OUT AS A VERY TIRING ONE. THAT FRIEND OF HIS, WHO WAS LEGALLY A billionaire already, had moved into a mansion—more like a fortress—with tons of guards in their black leather suits guarding almost every corner of the entrance. Cameras were everywhere, too, as well as infrareds. When I threw a stone to test the effect of the infrared rays after an intersection with an object, the effect was horrid. A hole opened up in the ceiling and from it, came down a giant revolver heighted half an adult's torso. I bet they would create more pretty holes for someone to breath through— adorned by blood and scattered bones.

When we finally reached the young boss, he bore the look that resembled a fictional character—his nosebridge was unbelieveably wide and his lips huge; that way alone those two facial features could easily take over his entire face. It wasn't difficult to take down his guards, but that was merely the amount that had tired us by the end of the mission. At the peak of the mission's heat, I threatened him that I would eventually break his neck with my Snake Bite, so the scared young man finally surrendered, therefore handing us the files as well soft copies of the tweaks he'd done to the program. He said that he would soon credit his friend so that he could share the profits with him, too. I asked him for a legal document in which his promise would be written concretely, with forty-eight hours of time limit. If he failed, I'd return to crack his neck in two the way I'd crack a Pocky stick.

We reached Honky Tonk at eleven at night and the interior was already dark, only several blue, and pale green lights emanated from the streets that had kept the silent café dimly illuminated.

I ran upstairs to an empty room Paul'd prepared for me and Ginji to spend the night. The interior resembled an emptied store room—only with two big windows from which I could overlook the indigo, crescent-moon-and-stars-adorned night sky. The right window had a holed segment in its rightmost corner, so the cold night air went easily in, chilling my still-sweaty body. No futons, no blankets—the positive thing about the room beside the windows were probably that the floor was made of wood, not linoleum tiles.

"Really, Ginji, that mission was a total fuck-up, and the payment we're about to get the next day is even a bigger fucker," I sat in the dimly-lit corner of the room, from which I could see the silverish moonlight imprinted two diagonal colums that pointed toward the room's other end, "this lame room doesn't even do much justice either." I took out a book from my backpack—a collection of Dylan Thomas' poems, and started reading it with my eyes' remaining strength. That was the best way to get myself into sleep.

Ginji chuckled. "Ban-chan, but, we've done something good. Isn't it a greater pleasure than receiving the cash?" he said that with another immaculate smile. His brown eyes exuded kindness that had made my tensed muscles released a bit.

I clacked my tongue. "Yeah, keep it up and you'll surely go to heaven," I replied, sarcastically.

"Going to heaven will be nice," Ginji's voice was light as a feather. When I turned at him, he was smiling with his eyes filtered out the window, gazing at the stars as if he was about to note every single constellation he could spot.

"There's no heaven. Unless you're someone as absurd as Alighieri, you shouldn't believe in such lie."

"Ban-chan, heaven is not a lie," still with a smile on his face, he faced me. His bright eyes pierced deep into me, but it was not a pressuring glance, instead of another buoyant one, "it's a place for good people to go when they die."

"I tell you what," I paused a while, taking my time to notice that warm smile of his again before I went back to my reading, "in the word of Salvador Dalí, you're a cheese."

"Don't make me a low-fat one, then."

"Fuck you, Ginji."

He let out another chuckle.

FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

I woke up with Ginji's clear eyes imprinted on my face. He looked a bit shocked when I spotted him that way. It was clear that he'd gone red-faced right at that moment, but the dimly-lit room had unabled me to see his blushed face clearly. I didn't mind, though, I'd caught him several times looking at me that way—that peculiar, longing stare that could easily carry everyone away in their thoughts.

"Hey, you still awake? Aren't you tired, man?" I lolled closer to his side, and all of a sudden when my skin accidentally brushed his, I could feel the goosebumps, as if my skin had suddenly caused him chilled out almost to the death.

"Don't feel like it," he answered, looking away.

I slid my body up and leaned against the wall. The book slipped from the top of my thighs. I noticed Ginji one more time. His healthy-looking skin looked almost a perfect shade of yelowish pale blue under the moonlight. He'd never smoked, and that was probably the reason of the healthy glow.

"Really? Perhaps we should just go out and find something to eat. A sushi bar, perhaps, I think I'm hungry, Ginji, aren't you?"

"It's fifteen minutes to twelve. Ban-chan, I don't think I'm hungry. I think I'm just too tired I can hardly sleep."

I made a light chuckle and combed my messed-up hair with one hand before I finally turned to meet his eyes again, "That's like… the biggest bullshit of the day, Ginji."

Silence.

"Hey, you know why rock stars are hot, Ban?"

"Huh?" I shot back in confusion—"Why the hell are we suddenly talking about rock stars? Don't you think being a getbacker is not cool enough?"

"Not that. I read somewhere that when someone has experienced at least a same-gender sex in his life, his sexual appeals will eventually increase. Perhaps, since most of them are bisexuals they have that crazy air about them, don't you think, Ban-chan?"

I clacked my tongue and laughed. I bet he was lacking of sleep, so his brain had already tripped somewhere, probably the time he talked to me it was still floating somewhere, lost in the thin mystical air engulfing the Nishi Shinjuku. He was beautiful, though, and it was undeniable that even with those slightly-hollow eyes, that skin of his had signaled me a private temptation to caress it the way I'd never done that to him before. So I put down the book, and ran my right hand tracing the base of his long, long neck. There was a small mole near his right collarbone.

"They think that's an adventure, Ginji, that reflects in their music, too. When rock musicians stop evolving, or had their artistic sides, say, or their senses of adventure stiffled badly by evil execs, they'll be losers.

"Don't you want an adventure, Ginji? I know you've been crazy about me all along," I smiled, with my hand still on his neck. His immaculate eyes had gotten me another time, and when he licked his lip a bit to comfort their dryness, as well as a small crack from which had radiated a small river of dried blood near the rightmost corner of his lower lip, all of a sudden I'd seen two pinkish rows of lush young flesh. I locked his eyes and slowly moved the hand up, caressing the well-maintained cropped blond-dyed hair of his, "I may be an asshole, but I'm not an insensitive jerk—not when it comes to you."

I pulled his head closer until I could leave a trace on those two alluring rows of rosy flesh.

THE TASTE OF HIS LIPS WAS A TAD SALTY, A TAD SWEET, IT WAS AS IF I WAS SIPPING A GLASS of warm coffee with melted chunks of dark chocolate in it. My hands wrapped his torso perfectly, and occasionally I'd let those hands of mine tracing his spine, and the flesh on its either side—smooth as a baby's skin. There was something silk-like about the texture of the skin with those small pores that had intoxicated me even more, as if he was pulling me closer without a word. It was until he started biting my lower tongue I'd realized that Ginji, too, was in a state of real comfort, almost a trance. Sensed from the way his hands pressed neatly on my back as if my skin possessed some kind of lock that disabled their movements I was sure that he was still a tad afraid, or hesitant about the rapturous flesh-to-flesh contact.

From those small pores exuded soft, almost dewy beads of warm sweat, and I'd felt the temperature of his body rising as if he was under a bright summer sun instead of a secluded small room. He was clinging, almost hopelessly, to my body, and he'd had his legs wrapped my waist like an octopus' legs. I'd felt the signal of his approval, so through his parted lips I slowly inserted my tongue to taste the inner rooms of his mouth—once again, the taste was a bit sweet. I now realized that he'd just devoured the Honey and Lemon Strepsils candies again. He clinged to me even tighter, as if his body could no longer bear the gravity, leaving that thin figure of his floted directly into my arms, with my body as the strong stone wall he could lean against without guilt.

I pecked his neck several times, and that rosy skin of his had evoked a greater temptation for me to leave even noticeable traces on it—so I bit tip of his throat, hard, until he groaned and pushed him back with his almost-limb hands. When I stopped the bites and asked him whether he was alright, I'd seen the flesh of his face had been reddened unnaturally, and in his eyes the mixtures of confusion, restlessness, submission, and… lust. He nodded, almost hopelessly, as I pierced deep into those brown jewels. I didn't feel guilty, but I didn't want to cause him any kind of discomfort. He was still to naïve and too afraid for such thing, that I could easily tell.

"Go on, Ban-chan," his lips parted and those words slipped almost too smoothly like a trail left by a ghost.

I put my hands on his tensed shoulders and hesistantly asked, "Were they hurt? My bites, I mean, if they hurt you, I don't want to go on."

Ginji answered that with a silent, amateurish kiss. His body was still trembling, but I knew that deep down inside all he wanted was to carry on with this artwork of sin. I realized that he'd gathered out most of his remaining guts to trace my lips that way, so I pulled him closer and wrapped my arms around his torso once again. When I did that, his still-gloved hands ran rampant, messing my hair while mine still savoring the silkiness of his young skin. I moved my hands up and down, beneath that sweat-soaked thin white T-shirt of his.

My head went down and licked the tip of his collarbones, and his reddened nipples. When my tongue landed on the wound one of the programmer's guards had given him earlier on the chest, I made a slow, small circular movements with my tongue as if to relieve it. Something was punching a spot between my thighs as I did so. That was his organ.

"Have you done this before?" he asked me, in his rushing breaths. His body was hot, almost burning, and I could tell that his soul had returned to its throne in the now-hopeless figure of his.

"No," I bit on a random spot on his chest then sucked it a bit, leaving a small red mark with a bluish core on that white skin.

"Impossible. But you're…uhh—" he was about to shot back, but he stopped the time I licked his stomach. His was a firm, well-trained stomach, with no excessive flesh. Through this one spot of his the image of his entire figure flashed in my mind like a blitz from a camera: that thin, but strong figure of his; those small, yet well-developed masses of muscles underneath the warm flesh—"you're…nnh… experienced." The comfort he'd experienced in my touches alone were so explosive for him he started twisting his body randomly, still in my embrace. He'd thrown both of his arms back to support his weight for a while, that was until he realized that he almost had no strength left and started wrapping them firmly around my waist.

His inept fingers started unbuttoning the top of my pants, rescuing my tensed organ.

"Probably because I want you—" I led him up. His warm, sweaty body was still in my embrace. I helped him sliding down my pants so that he could easily feel me, "Ginji, I want you… too fucking much." Those words slipped from my mouth uncontrollably. I didn't even know the exact reason I said that. Perhaps that was to flatter him and raise his mood—but whatever—at least he was happy, and in that way only I'd be fine.

"I want you too fucking much," realizing that he was already beyond pleased, I unleashed more words to please him even more. It was more like an attempt to shot him into a higher layer of euphoria, until he, once again, exploded in that uncontrollable trance like a body burned in flame. When our thighs stroked against each others, I realized that I was now the one to free those beautiful, muscular legs from the tacky cargo pants. When I'd finished done that, I put his right leg between my thighs, slowly clutching it while feeling his racing pulses through the arterial veins from his wrist that was in my right hand.

I led him to the floor one more time, and I could tell another time that he was ready to receive him the way a shot of Absinthe catches fire.

I SAT HIM UP ON MY THIGHS, THAT WAY I COULD EASILY RAM INTO HIS BACK AND CONTROL HIS MOVEMENTS.

"Nnnh…can't…hold…this…anymore," he moaned as I rammed faster and faster. He was moving uncontrollably as if he'd lost control of his own spirit.

The body of his was a world seen through a thick glass of a giant aquarium with no water: when you get close to him you can easily feel and overlook that spirit of his, although you cannot hear whatever that is possibly raging in there.

"Hold on, Ginji," I said, pressing myself on his warm back. The skin of his exuded the lush tone of dark pink. His body was so limp I was afraid that he'd passed out any moment, "you're fucking beautiful—I'm crazy about you." So I unloaded those praises to lift his spirit up, extending the time of his joy so that I could hit my climax. He thought that I didn't see his concealed smile—in fact, I pretended as if I didn't—but I knew that those words had worked.

When we both collapsed to the floor, my tired body had finally found its way to the proper rest somewhere in the realm of consciousness where souls float above the vacant seas of understanding and humanly bonds.

The night's sleep was short but deep—just like what I've always wanted.

I dreamed about a passage in Dylan Thomas's "When Once The Twilight Locks No Longer":

When once the twilight screws were turned,

And mother milk was stiff as sand,

I sent my own ambassador to light;

By trick of chance he fell asleep

And conjured up a carcass shape

To rob me of my fluids in my heart.

THE END

Author's Note:

Made while listening to Suga Shikao's "Sofa".

Harder than I thought! Countless researches about Ban's characters had been done to keep the story from flowing off the character's natural rhythm.

The Ban in this fanfiction, however, is my mental image regarding him: stylish, self-conscious, and a very smart voracious reader of philosophical and poetry books.

PPS: Thank you so much for Yaoishoujo. You really are a good help!

Finally, I'd like to thank all of the readers of this story—signed or anonymous—your comments and critics mean a lot!