"Rock the Boat"
Disclaimer : Not mine. As much as I want, I cannot even begin to fathom the kind of acid trip that Ayamine and Aoki are on right now in the manga. Hehe.
A/N : When your computer motherboard literally sounds an alarm that resembles that of an ambulance, you know it wants you to put it out of its misery. I just wish it didn't have to annoy me to death as well. (sighs)
This chapter was supposed to be the conclusion of the story, but I found out it works better split in half. So, this fic is now in three parts. Will post the last chapter when I get my PC and DSL back up.
Thanks to all who read and reviewed. Glad you're finding it passably entertaining to read as it is for me to write. You guys are the best! Hope you like this chapter.
Enjoy:D
Part Two : Ship of Fools
(One hour, four ruined jackets, and four wrinkly dress shirts later…)
Whoever coined the phrase 'waiting is the hardest part' was obviously referring to these guys.
Ban, Ginji, Shido, Kazuki, and Emishi all spent the past hour of being adrift at sea turning what had become some sort of sea water jacuzzi back into the barely habitable boat cabin it used to be. The activity turned out to be a welcome respite as swabbing the deck with their jackets and shirts, wringing them out, then repeating the process over and over gave everyone an excuse not to talk to each other. Everyone, that is, except Emishi, who tried to foist his comedy routine on the unamused, unreceptive audience; and Ginji, who continued to ask 'worst case scenario' questions such as if it was okay to drink your own pee if there wasn't any water around.
(Theoretically, yes, Kazuki explained. But then again, there was a very good reason why the body pissed it out in the first place, so… no.)
With the boat relatively dried off, the boys went back to their regularly scheduled programming of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. The minutes passed. Shido intermittently tried whistling for any passing bird or sea mammal, to no response. Kazuki, grateful for the fact he could remain fully clothed, gave into his obsessive-compulsive tendencies and started hanging out his crew mates' jackets and shirts over the bow's railings to dry. Just because they were stranded didn't mean their quarters should look like some typhoon-ravaged teenage boy's room, the fastidious neat-freak reckoned.
Failing to convince anyone to duet with him, Emishi was now yodelling a godawful, tone-deaf rendition of "Endless Love" (1) - foolhardily taking on the Lionel Richie and Diana Ross parts all by his lonesome.
"My love… there's only you in my life… the only thing that's right…"
While Emishi proceeded to skewer everybody's eardrums, Ginji sat forlornly with his chin cradled in his palm, making sad puppy-dog eyes at his aloof partner who stood tapping his foot agitatedly next to the steering.
"Two hearts… two hearts that beat as one… our lives had just begun…"
Ban's pride prevented him from answering Ginji's contrite gaze. And the bloody joker's sappy bullshit was nauseating, to say the least. He crushed the soggy pack of cigarettes in his pants pocket. "Goddammit! I need a smoke right now!" He threw a bratty tantrum above the off-key trilling.
"… you will always beeee… my… endless… looooove…"
WHU-PAK!
The one lousy applause Emishi received came courtesy of Shido's shoe smacking on top of his auburn head.
"Thank you!" Kazuki called out from the bow.
"You're welcome!" Shido yelled his reply while the whimpering whip-cracker nursed his aching noggin. "Death by karaoke is not the way I want to go."
Ban continued to fuss restlessly from the combined effects of the tight space, the nicotine withdrawals and his annoyance at Ginji's imbecility.
"Ban-chan, why don't you sit down?" the blond ventured meekly.
He turned his head away like a spoiled child and sniffed. "Monkey trainer, tell him I don't want to sit down if it means sitting next to him."
"Oh, so now I'm your spokesman? Forget it, scumbag." The Beastmaster shifted and joined his former Raitei on the opposite bench. "There. Now sit down! Your fidgeting is driving us nuts!"
Reluctantly, Ban stepped forward. But before taking his place beside Emishi, he flicked a questioning sideward glance at him.
"What? I don't have cooties, you know," Emishi remarked.
"Eh. I wouldn't be too sure if I were you," Ban smirked and settled down. "You're stuck so much on ape man here you probably have flea transference or something."
Shido jabbed the dirty finger in front of the Get Backer's face.
-o-
(One hour later…)
squeaksqueak…
taptaptaptaptaptaptap…
shuffleshuffleshuffle…
tinkletinkle…
scritchscritchscritchscritch…
Ah… A five-man orchestra performing 'Ode to Boredom in B Major'.
Ginji seemed on the verge of tears as he squirmed and fussed with the fabric of his trousers. "Man, I can't take it anymore!" he declared. "I'm taking my pants off!"
"Huh?"
With that, Ginji stood up, fumbled with his zipper a bit and dropped trou - revealing red boxer shorts with pink hearts to the astonished stares of his friends.
"Whoo! This feels so much better!" He sighed blissfully with relief as he stretched out and let the cool sea breeze swirl around his bare legs.
Emishi gazed enviously at his former Thunder Emperor's placid, dreamy expression. After a few decisive seconds, he, too, shot up. "Thank God! I thought I was the only one!" He quickly made short work of his pants and let them slide around his ankles. Kicking them off happily, Emishi did a little celebratory jig (and no, his boxers did not match his glasses).
"Whoa. Dying of dehydration already, are we?" Ban scoffed at the half-naked buffoons before him.
Kazuki tapped a finger to his chin. "You know, they're right. Sea water and petrol residue on clothes can irritate your skin and cause lesions. It's best to take them off and dry them first."
"Oh please. Why don't you cut the survivalist crap and just say it." Ban haughtily propped his feet up on the boat's edge. "All you want is an excuse to see us strip in front of you, huh?"
"Pardon?" The annaiya went livid.
Ban twisted his head and flashed him a plastic demonic grin.
"Hey, Ginji-han, I like your shorts," Emishi raved at the Valentine's Day explosion covering the blond. Considering that hot pink sunglasses were the joker's idea of the epitome of cool, his admiration was hardly surprising. "Where'd you get them?"
"Oh, these?" Ginji smiled sunnily. "They were a birthday gift from Hevn-san and Natsumi-chan. They gave me a set of seven, one for each day of the week and in different colours, too."
Emishi's mouth opened into a jealous 'o'. "Wah! You lucky dog, you!" He wink-winked and nudge-nudged. "You know what they're trying to tell you, don't you?"
Ginji puckered his lips childishly and cocked his head to the side. "Uh… That I need more underwear?"
"No, dum-dum. Those two want to get into your pants."
"Emishi-san…" Kazuki groaned.
"Huh?" Ginji's eyes grew wide. Letting that ticklish, intriguing deduction sink in, he shook his head. "Nah… I don't think so. I mean, why would Natsumi-chan and Hevn-san want to do that? My pants are way too big to fit either of them…"
The joker fainted in his seat.
Ban, on the other hand, was slightly miffed at the implication that no one wanted to get into his pants. "Pfftt… Hevn gave me ten cartons of smokes for Christmas last year. You mean to say that she's trying to tell me to drop dead from lung cancer?"
"The way you treat her boobs like giant pet guinea pigs, I'd say… yes," Shido snorted. Spastically, he bounced his knees and subtly raked the tips of his fingers on top of his thighs.
Emishi regarded his teammate and friend with curious concern. "Oi, Shido-kun. It's just us blokes here. You don't have to be shy…"
"Shut up! I'm fine," he insisted, never once detaching his narrow, steely glare from Ban's electric blue orbs.
"Heh. We'll see about that." The Jagan wielder nonchalantly adjusted his feet on the boat's railings, allowing the wind to channel into the cuffs of his pants.
Kazuki's perceptive dark eyes flitted from one stubborn-ass dakkanya to the other. "Oh, for God's sake!" he exclaimed with an imploring look to the heavens, realising they were on yet another one of their preposterous, unspoken contests - this time to see who could keep his pants on the longest. Well, they'd better not come complaining to me about their festering blisters and sores later, he thought.
Ban prepared himself for battle with his whole arsenal locked and loaded, even though admittedly, his own legs felt like they were being scrubbed by a cheese grater.
"The joker is right, zoo boy. There's nothing to be shy about. We're all mature adults here - "
Er… Somehow, that was highly debatable.
" - not unless, of course, you've got something to hide."
"Something to hide?" Shido emitted a low warning growl. Retractable claws involuntarily jutted through his fingers and dug deeper into flesh.
"'Cause I understand your reluctance totally, knowing you're probably just wearing a buck-skin loincloth, or a leaf-vine G-string, or a hollow gourd or something," Ban mused tauntingly.
The Beastmaster's teeth grinding was as loud as cracking nuts.
"Actually, I heard you tree-dwellers like to go au naturel…"
To the stunned gapes of his ex-Volts mates, Shido launched off his seat and impetuously pulled down his trousers. "Now are you satisfied, you bastard?" The sudden flash from the plain white of his shorts was practically blinding in the moonlit darkness.
"Psych!" Ban gloated and triumphantly pumped his arm in the air. "Ding! Ding! Ding! And we have a winner!"
Shido took a step, hulked over his rival and poked a finger in his face. "If you ever, EVER, suggest that we Mariudo don't use underwear again, I'm gonna kill you."
"Whatever, Tarzan."
Kazuki creased his forehead and squinted at his comrade with slight disappointment. "I can't believe you fell for that."
Shido could finally sit down with ease. Of the two brunette retrieval agents, he was, by far, the more comfortable one. "Tch! Who cares? The reptile can keep his itchy pants on if he likes," he snarled. "Who knows? It might even slough off a few layers of that thick skin."
"Well, you know what they say," Ban pontificated. "Real men wear pants."
-o-
(An hour-and-a-half; and a trouser-less, rash-afflicted Ban; later…)
If what a certain snake man had postulated about real men wearing pants was true, then that adage was probably referring to Kazuki, who, ironically, was now the only one left wearing the pants on this ship of fools.
"Hey, Kazuki! Don't you have any hydrocortisone cream or something around here?" Ban wailed as he scratched himself every which way.
"And why do you think I'd have that on me?" Kazuki dubiously replied, finding it highly unamusing how Ban called him by name only when he needed something. "First, powder, and now itch ointment. What am I, a drug store?"
Meanwhile, Shido had spent the past hour scanning the horizon with his sharp eyes and ears for any signs of animals or vehicles. "Shhhh! Quiet! I think I hear a speedboat!" He craned his neck, trying to isolate the source of the sound and then pointed. "Over there. About four kilometres north-west, in the direction of the port."
"Really?" Emishi shot up excitedly. He hollered into the night. "Help! Help! Mayday!"
"Pipe down, dummy! They can't hear you from this distance," Shido scolded.
Ban's sapphire eyes illuminated. "Light! Light! We need to send a distress signal!" He shouted frantically, roughly dragging the awkwardly twisted snoozing form of his partner off the bench.
"Ginji! Get up!"
"Wha-? Is it breakfast already?" The blond yawned, groggily trying to find his feet and his way.
"Don't you ever think of anything else but food?" Ban forced Ginji up the front of the boat.
"Sure I do," he drawled while climbing up the gentle incline of the bow. "Like girls…" Pause. Smile. "… with food."
Ginji reached the nose of the craft and glanced at Ban for further instruction. "Now stand and fire up a plasma ball with your hand," the brunette commanded.
He automatically obeyed. Yet, as he summoned his energy, Ginji questioned, "Wait, Ban-chan. I thought you weren't speaking to me."
"I'm not. I'm ordering you. Totally different thing."
"Oh. In that case…" The blond cheerfully produced a brilliant green globe of pure energy that encapsulated his fist.
"Now, hold it up," Ban directed impatiently.
"You mean like the Venus de Milo?"
"No, dumbass! Like the Statue of Liberty!" Ban grabbed Ginji's arm and raised it.
Venus de Milo or Statue of Liberty? Ginji pouted. Why did these sculptures have to be so darn confusing? Suddenly, he let his arm slip and shuddered. "Uh, Ban-chan? What if the guy in the boat is, urp! Akabane-san?"
His best friend jerked his wrist back up. "Then we kill him and steal his boat. Dork! You really think Jackal moonlights as a lifeguard and goes around rescuing people?"
"Well, he is a doctor, right?" Ginji nervously reasoned. Ghastly visions of Akabane Kuroudo dressed in red swim trunks as he ran slo-mo on a beach a'la 'Baywatch' fried his mind. BLECH! he retched.
"Okay, now what?"
"We send an S.O.S." The Jagan master's tone faltered somewhat, not quite sure exactly how to do that.
Kazuki began rubbing his throbbing temples. "I don't think Ginji-san can flick his electricity on and off like a light switch, you know," he said a matter-of-fact. "Besides, no one uses Morse Code nowadays, do they?"
"Funny that didn't occur to you before you decided to rent a boat with no communication devices, genius," Ban snarked. He took his jacket off the railing and spread it out between his hands. "So we improvise."
Getting behind Ginji and positioning him within his arms, Ban created a makeshift shutter for the light with the black coat. "It's 'dot, dot, dot; dash, dash, dash; dot, dot, dot;' right?"
"Yeah," Kazuki answered indifferently.
The retrieval agent-turned-semaphore man animatedly waved his arms up and down in front of the glowing orb; first in rapid succession, then with one-second interludes, and then in rapid succession again.
The snuggled-up Get Backers standing on the tip of the bow reminded Emishi of a grossly bastardised re-enactment of a famous scene from a certain mawkish, highly over-rated Academy Award-winning boat movie.
Yes, that one.
"Near… far… wherever you are…(2)" the joker warbled as Ban and Ginji continued to go through the motions of dots and dashes.
Despite the boat being relatively still, Shido was turning green from seasickness. "Emishi! You sing one more note of that song and I'll sink your butt!"
"Hey! That last one looked like a 'dash, dot, dot'," Kazuki pointed out.
"Did not!" Ban shouted. Aesclepius or no Aesclepius, his arms now felt like limp strands of sea kelp.
"Did so!"
"Not!"
"Did!"
"What does 'dash, dot, dot' mean?" Ginji interrupted the rapidly de-evolutionizing quality of the conversation.
"It stands for 'D'," Kazuki replied.
"S-O-D," Shido spelled out with a snort. "Nice job, freak. You called our rescuer a sod. We're definitely gonna be saved for sure."
"Guys, you're going about it the wrong way," Emishi helpfully opined. " We should signal 'Free booze and babes here!' Bet that'll get them coming."
Shido cupped a hand to his ear. After a minute, he announced. "Forget it. The speedboat's gone."
"Awww…" Everybody sighed a collective grumble.
Hehe. Dropping his hand, Shido smiled to himself. Actually, it had been a while since he heard signs of a whirring motor. He mischievously held back that bit of information just so he could watch Ban go on making an ass of himself.
-o-
(Another hour later…)
As it was already way past midnight, the boys decided to take turns sleeping on the flat, passably spacious bow. While Kazuki took first shift, the Get Backers began fettering fishing lines and hooks around the boat railings.
"Geez, we've only been castaway for five hours and you're starving to death already?" Shido reflected out loud.
"Look, the last thing I had that remotely resembled food was a measly packet of biscuits on the plane this morning," Ban said grouchily as he searched around for bait material. "My blood sugar's turning into salt, dammit!"
"And even though I had dinner with Yukihiko-chan, some sashimi would be nice, too," Ginji added buoyantly.
The brunette tweaked his partner's ear. "What? Miroku treated you to a freaking buffet?"
"Ow! Ow! Sorry, Ban-chan. But he had ice cream! Ice cream, Ban-chan! And I waited for you, but you weren't around…"
"That's because your new best friend tried to make sashimi out of me, you idiot!"
Ginji grimaced. "To be fair, I think it was Natsuhiko who did that."
"Tch! You befriend one, you befriend them all…" Ban made one last pull on Ginji's ear then smacked his head away. He continued lowly, "… and vice versa."
The Jagan master wondered briefly how he would've fared if he had faced the Mirokus. Quickly changing the subject, Ban espied a pile of wet socks in the corner. "Okay, who's got the smelliest feet?"
Shido felt snake eyes bore into him. "Why the hell are you looking at me?" he growled ferociously.
Snickering, Ban picked up a sock and ripped it to shreds, which he then attached to the fishing hooks as lures. "Heh. This is the closest thing to rotting meat we have." He suddenly stopped his task and a smirk that spelled big trouble curled up his lips. "Yo, chimp. Speaking of meat…"
Oh God… Shido lamented to himself. Just how long was he expected to last without seriously attempting to murder this bastard?
"… shouldn't you be a vegetarian or something?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"It's simple, really," Ban ho-hummed. "Seeing as you have no qualms about being an omnivore, don't you have a moral crisis of conscience every time you eat one of your friends? You know, like Cow-san, Ms. Piggie, Chicken-chan, Salmon-kun, Tuna-sempai…"
The Beastmaster's jaw plunked down to the floor. "I don't believe this," he muttered incredulously. He turned to Emishi for support.
The whip expert sheepishly shrugged. "Ehhh… I kinda wondered about that myself."
"It's not the same -" he stammered.
"Oh, so you mean as long as someone else butchers your friends, it's all right to eat them?" Again, emphasis on 'friends'.
"Ye- No… I mean…"
"And on a related note, don't you feel the least bit of guilt watching your poor pals martyr themselves for your sake whenever you're in trouble?" Ban pondered wickedly and then imitated a tinny, mouse-like squeak. "We stupid creatures gladly walk in the shadow of the valley of death when our almighty Beastmaster calls for our help. Aggghhhhh! Forgive us, Monkey-sama, for we have but one life to give to save your ass…"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You don't understand anything!" Shido stood up and stomped around, roaring so loud that Kazuki bolted up violently from his slumber. He plucked Ban off his seat by the hair.
"What on earth is going on?" Kazuki drowsily demanded.
Chibi-Ginji squished himself between the snarling, frothing-at-the-mouth, rabid pitbulls. "Ehehehe… Ban-chan accused Shido of eating his friends."
Kazuki slapped his forehead. "Good grief. You woke me up for that?" The annaiya sighed and went back to sleep.
Meanwhile, Emishi scrutinised the ridiculous hubbub in front of him and got a bright idea. "Say, since we're revealing stuff about ourselves anyway, why don't we play 'Truth or Dare'?" he suggested.
"Shut up!"
-o-
(Twenty-five minutes later…)
"Guuuuys …" Emishi wheedled.
"NO!"
-o-
(One hour and… Aw, heck. Who knew, really? None of these goofs wore watches after all)
"Truth."
Kazuki's usually soft chocolate-brown eyes narrowed and challenged Ban to hit him with his best shot. Damn it. He figured 'truth' was the lesser of two evils. For in choosing the alternative, who knew what that hentai snake would dare him to do?
"You better not be lying, itomaki." Ban rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Fuuchouin Kazuki, are you a -"
"No."
The Jagan master's eyes grew as large as day-glo frisbees. "The hell? I haven't even asked the question yet!" He went berserk.
"No need. I knew what you were going to ask," Kazuki sniffed.
"Oh, so you read minds now?"
"With one as filthy as yours, it's easy."
Ban gnashed his teeth, determined not to let the yarn ball get the upper hand. "Well, how do you know I wasn't going to ask if you were an undercover police agent or something?"
"Because you already know the answer to that question, and many others." Kazuki crossed his legs and arms and sat as regally as one could possibly sit in that cramped space. "And I'd still answer 'no'."
"What if I posed the question in the negative?" Ban persisted, wagging a finger in the poised man's face. "Then 'no' would've meant 'yes'."
"Excuse me, there is no way you could phrase 'Are you a blank?' in the negative that is answerable by a simple 'yes' or 'no'." Kazuki argued impatiently.
"Oh yeah? I bet I could structure a sentence in a way so that you would say 'yes' when you mean 'no' and 'no' when you mean 'yes'."
"When will you get it in your crazy brain that when I say 'no' I mean 'no'!" The thread master shouted.
Ginji and Shido went slack-jawed with befuddlement at this semantics debate. Who knew a question of 'yes' or 'no' could get so complicated?
"Give it a rest, will you?" Kazuki abruptly ended the discussion by turning to the Beastmaster. "Now, my turn. Shido-san, 'Truth or Dare'?"
He frowned and adjusted his bandanna, wanting badly to pull it over his eyes in embarrassment. "Shit. 'Truth', I guess."
His fellow Volts King smiled. There was no point in asking him about his relationship with Madoka. After all, Kazuki knew everything about their state of affairs - whether Shido told him or not. Not that there was much to know; but of course, he knew. So, he asked about the second-most-pondered-upon-mystery surrounding Shido.
"I've always wondered why you don't have any… eyebrows."
Ban threw his hands up in the air. "Gee, Thread Spool, you just wasted your chance on such a boring, lame-ass question," he dissented impishly. "What you should've asked was how long his schlo-"
WHACK!
(And that was, arguably, the third-most-pondered-upon-mystery)
"Your turn is over, you sonofabitch!" Shido hissed, detaching his knuckles from Ban's nearly broken nose. Calming down after that immensely gratifying strike, his fingers self-consciously grazed his kerchief-covered non-brow.
"I don't know. For as long as I can remember, I never had them. Guess they never grew."
"What a shocker, you genetic freak," Ban exclaimed nasally as he pinched his painful schnozz. "And I thought you gorillas were supposed to be covered in fur all over."
It took every ounce of Shido's willpower to remain plastered to his fibreglass bench. "You better be grateful I don't give a damn about your personal life or else I'd have you writing your autobiography in blood," he stated emphatically.
Softening his tone, Shido knocked Ginji playfully on the shoulder. "Hey, kid. 'Truth or Dare'?"
Since everyone was picking 'truth', he didn't think it would hurt to do the same. "Truth." Ginji smiled.
An uncharacteristically naughty glint sparkled in the Beastmaster's stern gray eyes. "Be honest, now. What did you think of Kazuki when you first met him?"
Kazuki shot his friend a dirty look, evidently knowing where this line of inquiry was leading to.
"Eh, Kazu-chan?" Ginji touched a finger to his lips as he tried to remember the old days. "I knew he was a great fighter and the highly respected leader of Fuuga. I also recall not wanting to fight him -even though he was kicking my butt and his strings hurt a lot…"
"- And why is that?" Ban prodded, choking back a laugh.
"Come on. Enough. Can't you see he answered the question already?" Kazuki futilely wrangled. Shido threw out an outstretched hand to silence him.
"Because…" Even in the darkness, the gang could feel and see the radiant aura emanating from Ginji's crimson cheeks. "… because, I thought he was a girl. Actually, I thought she… er… he… uh, was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen in Mugenjou."
"Wah! I bet instead of wanting to fight, you wanted to ask her... ahem... him out instead, ne?" Ban teased.
"Ugh!" Kazuki gasped as he shook his head woefully and buried his face in his hand. To have his Thunder Emperor say this about him; he wanted to die right there and then. Or at least chop off his wondrous locks. He suddenly imagined how he would look with a crew cut.
"And when you introduced me to Jubei-san, I thought he was your boyfriend or something 'cause he was so protective. I was kinda jealous hehehe…" Ginji's pure, unabashed honesty came gushing out. "Boy, did I feel foolish when he mentioned you were the Prince of Battle Terror. Oops."
The former Raitei gently tried to catch his ex-lieutenant's concealed eyes. "I'm sorry, Kazu-chan, for once thinking that way about you."
Kazuki peeked over the tips of his dextrous fingers. Pulling them down with a hopeless sigh, he smiled weakly. "It's all right. Nothing to apologise for, Ginji-san." He then transferred his ire towards the snickering dark-haired recovery agents. "As for you two, it's nice to see you bonding at my expense."
Shido and Ban simultaneously stopped laughing. Briefly exchanging mortified stares, they realised what had just happened. "Hmph!" they dueted, thumbing their noses at each other.
"Me! Me! Me! My turn!" Ginji hopped in his seat, the moon reflecting in the shiny brown pools of his large eyes. "Ban-chan! 'Truth or Dare'?"
"Truth," he mumbled, unconcerned the doofus would pose him a profound, soul-searching, mind-blowing question. Besides, Ginji already knew everything he needed to know about him - without actually knowing. He just did, as though they were each other's subconscious.
Answering Ginji's questions was just like admitting the truth to himself. So, he wondered just what it was the dork had to know.
Kazuki and Shido held their breaths in anticipation of Ginji causing a dent in the enigmatic snake man's hard, scaly shell. But typically, Ginji's question was as uncomplicated and simple as he was.
"Ban-chan, are you still mad at me?"
Ban tilted his head quizzically and let the anxious blond stew for a couple of seconds longer.
"Because if you want, I can try to dive down and get back the arms. And the Aphrodite, too," Ginji pleaded. "I… I just don't want you to be mad anymore."
Inside, Ban was smiling a mile-wide, thousand-kilowatt smile. He rapped on his best friend's forehead. "Moron! That's seventy, a hundred metres below. You want to be crushed like a tinned sardine?"
"So, you're not angry?" Ginji beamed, matching the hidden smile watt-for-watt.
"Nah." He waved and simpered casually. "Dammit, you could've waited before you ditched the stuff, you know. Didn't you see I was about to toss the clown's ass overboard? That's 150 pounds of dead weight right there…"
"Yay! Ban-chan's not angry! Ban-chan's not angry!" Ginji turned chibi, did a flying leap, whipped out his paper fans and jitterbugged on top of Ban's head (Really, someone should've asked where the heck Ginji kept hiding those fans, especially he being in those teeny, tiny tare boxers).
"The hair, twerp! The hair!" Ban howled, trying to untangle the runt from his spikes.
Shido and Kazuki couldn't help but offer small smiles. At least, things were now (slightly) back to normal.
Awakened by the carousing, Emishi yawned loudly from his sleeping perch. "That was a nice nap." Sitting up and stretching out, the hapless, left-out comedian asked,
"So. Did I miss anything?"
-o-
"Sngork! Sngork! Ahhh… Natsumi-chan… Yes, I'd love to taste your… muffins." Ginji snored and drooled blissfully in his sleep as he lay sprawled comfortably on the bow. "Sngooorrrrkkk…"
"Muffins," Emishi chuckled, trying to figure out how to work that into his comedy skit.
Kazuki tapped Ban on the shoulder. "Has Ginji-san always been like this?" He scrunched his pert nose curiously. "I don't ever recall him talking in his sleep in Mugenjou."
"Aa. I'm pretty sure even his wet dreams are of food," Ban quipped. He stood pensively on the stern with hands on hips. The dark lashes of the emerging sun's eye awashed the sky in a melancholic bluish-gray haze, like diluted India ink spilled on canvas. Ban stared off in the near distance, in the approximate location where the arms were now sunk.
"Ginji has a point," the Jagan master acknowledged. "I don't see why we can't at least try to get at those arms. We're stuck here for God knows how long, so what have we got to lose?"
"Um, your life, perhaps?" Kazuki deadpanned. He, too, began surveying the calmly undulating waves. "And just how do you intend to retrieve those arms without scuba diving equipment, pray tell?"
Ban and Shido traded furtive sideways glances. "Hey, I didn't say anything," the doubtful Beastmaster muttered.
"- And I'm not asking," Ban huffed.
The string-style expert finally got up to speed. "When will you two ever have a normal, civilised discussion that doesn't have to end in World War Three?" He tsk-tsked exasperatedly.
"Fine. Let me translate. You, Mido-kun, want Shido-san to use his Beast Mimicry to dive down and recover the items; while you, Shido-san, are struggling with your pride on whether or not you should name him a price. Am I correct?"
The two dakkanya threw the perceptive informant sheepish pouts. "Wrong, Thread Spool. Even if I believed monkey boy here could skin-dive that deep - which I don't - he'd be the last person the Get Backers would ask a favour from," Ban fumed defensively.
"- And even if I wanted to dive - which I easily could - why the hell should I care?" Shido refuted.
" - And I don't see why any of us has to dive when Shido-kun can just call for a sea creature to go down and get the arms for us," Emishi suggested. He winked at his partner.
Silence.
"Hmmm…" Shido nodded.
An all too temporary moment of quiet, punctuated by Ginji's snoring, blessed the accursed boat.
Ban finally, torturously, relented. "I suppose that could work," he muffle-mumbled.
"Say again? I couldn't hear you," the Beastmaster smirked, a hand funnelled to his ear.
"I said that could work, jackass!" Ban barked into Shido's self-satisfied face. "Hypothetically speaking, what shit might this cost us?"
Shido ruffled his wild shock of jet-black hair. "Eh, I'm thinking 72,500 yen per arm is fair, don't you agree?"
"WHAT? You want me to pay 125 grand for you to whistle?"
"Oi. Don't forget, because of you guys we lost our half-million payoff," Emishi reminded.
"And you still owe me for the lift," Kazuki interjected. "This isn't a bad deal."
The gloating grin on Shido's face persisted. "Come on, sea-urchin head. Twenty-five percent is reasonable considering Miss Hevn's intermediary fee is twenty-eight…"
"This is highway rob - !" Ban screeched to a stop and did a double take.
"Wait a minute… Did you say 'twenty-eight percent'?" One-by-one, veins began popping out of his forehead, making it look like a Tokyo subway map.
"Yeah. Why? Isn't that her standard asking - "
"The tramp gave you a TWO-PERCENT DISCOUNT! Fuck! Why that - " Every possible slang for the word 'prostitute' came sludging out of Ban's mouth as he desperately searched the cabin for something to Snake Bite. He eventually found one, tearing it into pieces.
"Hey! That's my shirt!" Emishi cried.
The three former Volts members held on tight as they witnessed the one-man tornado attempt to deep-six the boat.
"Lighten up. With your dumb luck with money, that two-percent is probably a hazard insurance of some sort," Kazuki deduced, his hands firmly grappled to the rails.
"So, what'll it be, Mido?" the Beastmaster reiterated.
Ban chucked what was left of Emishi's dress shirt into the ocean and exhaled deeply. "Yeah. Okay. Whatever." He couldn't believe the Get Backers' luck had run so bad that they were starting to lose non-existent money as well.
Shido clapped his hands once. "All right, then. We'll start at daybreak."
-o-
(to be continued)
-o-
(1), (2) - "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, and "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. Lyrics are the property of their respective authors, artists, and labels. All lyrics provided are for entertainment purposes and personal use only.
Yeccch. I can't believe I included these lyrics in my fic. Must remind self: This is a parody, this is a parody, this is a parody… :D