The Taste Of Ink
MysticShadowWanderer
Disclaimer: If you don't like it, close your mind. You're letting flies in.
Chapter Three: Not enough to feed the hungry
Glancing around my apartment, I check one last time to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, unlikely as that is. I don't really have a flair for dramatics, my victims usually take care of that part, so preparing to kill someone is a fairly simple ordeal for me. Dress all in dark colors, fasten katana securely to waist, grab car keys, and you've got instant Battousai. It's too easy, like some kind of screwed up TV-meal, but the ones that clog your arteries and eventually kill you; of course, when it's me, the death isn't eventual, but that's beside the point. Anyone could do it, really. Not that I'd advise that, but still.
I've been doing this for years, disturbing as that may seem. It's not the type of thing you dabble in, obviously. Once you start, you don't just set down your weapons one day and tell your boss that you're quitting. Unfortunately, life just doesn't work that way, as much as everyone wishes it would. I can't describe how many lives I've seen wasted, including my own, by getting trapped in a job.
The basic layout of a human life goes a little something like this: You're born. You spend all too few years as a carefree, innocent child, then you become a teenager. Suddenly, you become the servant of your hormones and your parents decide to run your life. You spend several hellish years busting your ass to get good grades and get into a decent college. In college, you spend four more years, give or take a few, putting yourself through more pain to get top grades there. After you graduate, you put your degree to work and get a good, high paying job. You're a slave to that job until you retire, at which time you're too goddamn old to partake in the world's many splendors. Beautiful. Just fucking lovely.
I heard somewhere that if you started working for McDonald's (would you like fries with that heaping plate of stupidity?) at the age of sixteen and work every other weekend until you're twenty, and you put all of your earnings into a bank account, that when you retire, you'll have a million dollars. It's hard to comprehend how that could ever work out right, but I suppose that it's possible in theory. Most things are. It's funny how the world works, isn't it?
The point of all of this? Human beings spend their lives planning their future, or having it planned for them. They fail to factor in inevitable failures, disappointments, unforseen opportunities, mistakes, and other small things such as, say... death. Things like that.
The vast majority of the world needs a good smash on the back of the head with a baseball bat. At least that's my less-than-humble opinion. Maybe after they stop seeing stars, they'll realize what incredible dumbasses they've been and continue to be. Society is only getting worse, as I see it.
I sigh as I put my key in the ignition of the new Lamborghini Diablo that I just recently bought myself. At least there's something good about the way I live. I don't hoard all my money until I die. Then again, I have no reason to. I can afford to buy expensive things, such as three hundred thousand dollar cars, and still have plenty to live off of until I get my next payment. After all, assassins don't exactly have to pay taxes.
This routine is getting monotonous. Work, drive, kill, get paid. It's no way to live life, no mistake. But with no friends besides the voices on television, which I don't watch all that often, it's not as if I have anything else to do. It's too dangerous to have friends when you're an assassin. Any ties you have can be used against you, severed to leave you devastated, though I have to wonder what I'd do in a situation like that. I can't picture myself shedding tears for a fallen comrade, I'm too practical for that. Everyone dies, it's inevitable. And it's not as if the thought of death is frightening to me. Quite the contrary, sometimes I felt the urge to kill myself out of sheer curiosity, just to find out what happens when your life is extinguished. The only thing that stops me is my hatred of suicide. Weakness is something I refuse to tolerate.
I know this city as well as anywhere I've ever lived, so I don't pay much attention to the road in front of me. I was going to be murdering a man who is the head of a corporation that is supposedly corrupt, as if my organization isn't. Our only purpose is to murder people, for Christsakes, how much more corrupt can you get?
It isn't for me to decide. So far in life, I've been along for the ride. There isn't much incentive for me to put effort into anything, so I just go with what I'm handed and do what's needed to get the job done, it's as simple as that. No extraordinary effort, but everything is completed satisfactorily. What a fucking boring life.
"For God's sake, please don't kill me!"
I let out a chuckle at the pleading words of the man who's kneeling before me. It's pathetic, really, but I'm used to it by now. See what I mean when I say the victims take care of the dramatics? It's like a bloody stage production, but one that's so fucked up that no one would want to see it.
Sometimes, when I used to associate with people, they would ask me how a certain movie or book ended. I would always reply with "Everyone dies," even though in only one book I've read does everyone actually meet their demise (that being Arthur C. Clarke's 'Childhood's End'). My life is like those movies and books now. The only difference is that, in my life, everyone does die. It's ironic, in a way, but I generally just see it as rather amusing.
"You'll go to Hell if you kill me." This one isn't doing a very good job of begging/threatening his way out of this. I laugh outright as he trembles.
"One: I don't believe in God. Two: I don't believe in Hell. Three: You're a worthless, sniveling, waste of human flesh. Now, give me a reason that I shouldn't kill you."
He says nothing.
"I'll take that to mean 'Yes, go ahead and kill me, for I've realized my own uselessness and I'd like to stop being a hindrance to the world.'"
It's too bad, really. I would have liked to hear his reasoning. My katana does a swift, neat job of splitting his head in two, just as it looks as if he might be about to say something. Oh well. We can't all be winners, now can we? I frown down at my clothing; I've gotten blood on myself again. It's not that I mind the blood, but it's a bitch to get out of fabric, and somehow my clothes never feel quite as clean the next time I wear them. I suppose it's just another sacrifice that I have to make to my job. I always get blood on my clothes.
Later on in the night, maybe it's about one in the morning, and I'm lying in bed, staring at the ceiling through the darkness. I really do need a hobby or something, at least for when I can't sleep like this. Maybe it's for the best. I probably could use the time to think things out.
Do I really want to be an assassin anymore? Is it still worth it? I came into this with all kinds of fanciful ideals of how I was going to make a difference, change the world, which I quickly learned was complete bullshit. This feeling, it's not guilt, at least I don't think so. I think... I think it's boredom.
So if I'm bored, what can I do about it? I'm not the type to sit around putting together model cars, or painting pictures, or some kind of crap like that, so there isn't much that I can think of. Perhaps I'll just drink myself into oblivion every night. While tempting, that doesn't seem the best of plans.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I decide to go work on the Kamiya case again. At the very least, I can look through all those photographs again, if just to get ideas. It's been a long time since I've been inspired. Looks like I've just found my hobby. Sick, isn't it?
Just as I sit down at the kitchen table, with several packets worth of documentation ready to be spread out in front of me, my phone rings. Because it's so early in the morning, I forget to be surprised that someone is trying to contact me on my home phone, and simply answer.
"Hello? Mr. Himura?"
"Yes, this is he." Who the hell else would be picking up the phone at my own apartment? "May I ask who's calling at," I glace at the clock. "One twenty-eight in the morning?"
"This is Kamiya Kaoru," she sounds sleepy. "I'm so sorry for waking you."
I sigh quietly; what the fuck can she possibly want? "No, it's no problem, I wasn't asleep."
"Oh." There's a long pause. "You got the information?"
"Yes." This is becoming very tedious.
"What do you think?"
"It's very... interesting."
"You know... I didn't kill them."
...what?
A/N: Damn, I should be getting more sleep. It's 11.24 pm. Why am I so stupid?? Ah well... when I don't sleep, I don't have to dream, and I get to listen to the Rubber Room on WEBN and hear the kickass new rock. Plus I write weird fanfiction. So it's all good. I think I have a plan for this story, I really do... By the way, in case you haven't figured it out "The Taste of Ink" is a song by The Used, and the chapter titles are all single lines from the song. If you think about it, the titles really do have relevance to each chapter. Just... think like a crazy person, and it makes more sense. In fact, the whole frelling story makes more sense if you're psycho... that explains a lot about myself...
OH! And Bando-chan, you needs to be calling me. I miss you! :whines: My IQ drops a little bit more every day I don't get to talk to you (Just look at my grammar Oo;) :dances!: I got Sugarcult's new CD! You want I should burn it for you?