Kazuki blanched as he slid off the seat and felt the earth move beneath him. Ban had smoothly paid for both their drinks, even before Kazuki could work himself up to protest. His vision swam in a more or less unsteady path ahead of him, as he ignored the dull pounding in his head and the sour taste in his mouth.

His hand gripped the steel back of the chair as his feet wobbled uncertainly beneath him.

This was definitely Ban's fault for making him get out of the bar. Why did he have to turn up, just as he was beginning to get completely sloshed? Reality checks had to be one of the most irritating facets of life. Just as he began to swim around happily in his pool of alcohol, something would always come up to bite him in the ass.

He had a sudden urge to eat fish. Salmon sashimi was good.

Where was the nearest –

"Kazuki."

He blinked and looked up, only to find Ban's face millimetres away from him.

"Ahhh!"

Kazuki was dimly aware that his heart rate had probably increased threefold, and that his breathing sounded harsh. Okay. Breathe in. Breathe out. He did NOT scream like a girl. In fact, it was a perfectly manly grunt of surprise. He was just…taken aback for a moment, that's all. And all the patrons were staring, probably because they were concerned about him, and obviously not because they were amused. Wait – was that a smirk?

"You scream like a girl." Ban commented casually.

Shit.

"No, I do not." He wondered briefly why it had sounded wittier when he said it in his head.

"As if."

Kazuki ignored the last little comment and led the way out of the bar, narrowly avoiding collision with a table.

The outside of the bar was not much better than the inside. Ban took Kazuki's elbow and led him into the side alleyway beside the bar. It was clear that Kazuki was not accustomed to strong drink, judging from the unsteady gait of the other.

It was a shame that he had business to attend to, or he would have drank the night away with him. Kazuki was especially beautiful when he was drunk.

He liked the way Kazuki looked, when his face was slightly flushed from drinking too much. It was also entertaining, to watch him stumble around in a clumsy but adorable imitation of his usual graceful walk. It was also a relief to him that he didn't have to pretend as though he wasn't watching his every movement, because an intoxicated Kazuki cared about the glass in front of him and to hell with everything else.

He hoped that the other was sober enough though, for what he was about to say was important.

"There is a…problem with the latest mission that Ginji and I have undertaken."

Kazuki rested his head against the cool stone of the alley wall. Taking in a few deep breaths, he calmed the pounding ache inside his head by sheer force of will. Blinking away the sudden resentment that rose in him, he crushed the remnants of hope that Ban had seen him as someone else other than a business contact.

Damn you.

"Yes?" he said coolly.

Ban was taken aback by the sudden change in attitude, but it didn't stop him from finishing his story.

"We accepted a job by a businessman, to help him to find his teenage daughter that ran away from home. It seemed like an easy job to us, and once we had found the places that she frequented, it wasn't hard to find other places of similar nature that she would turn to instead."

"So what went wrong?"

"We finally tracked her down to a club last night. It was near midnight, and the bartender told us that she had left only ten minutes before. Later, we found her dead body dumped in an alley near there, but that's not the worst thing."

Kazuki closed his eyes and rested his back against the wall, feeling extremely queasy. He clenched his teeth, feeling the contents of his stomach bubble and surge heavily inside it.

"There's worse…?"

"Unfortunately so. She was missing a lot of blood. However, very little of it was spilt on the floor, which makes me suspect that the bulk of the blood had been…disposed of, in some other fashion."

"You're talking about a vampire." Kazuki stated blandly.

"Yes."

Ban's expression was completely serious.

"So you're looking to me for…?"

"Sources of information. The father is distraught and is willing to pay extremely well, for us to find out who did this, as soon as possible. Ginji and I have agreed, and we will split the reward with you…uh, Kazuki?"

Kazuki groaned as his stomach did a sudden lurch, and before he knew it, he was on his knees, throwing up everything that he had consumed in the past five hours. The sour taste of alcohol remained in his mouth, even as he threw up hard enough for the vomit to splatter wetly against the floor. Feeling nauseated at the stench of his vomit, he threw up heavily again.

"Hey, don't get that all over my shoes!" Ban yelped.

That was the last thing Kazuki heard before he blacked out completely.


A/N: Thank you for reviewing! It definitely gave me motivation to keep on writing. To everyone, especially Animegoil, I'm really sorry to let you down, but I'm afraid this chapter (and most probably subsequent chapters) will be very cliched actually. I originally wrote this fic for fun, so it's not as dark as my other fics, and it will probably be rather - erm - fangirly. I'm sorry if it doesn't live up to prior expectations.