Akabane no akanbou.
It was one of those nights. The air was heavy with a strange coolness, threatening that rain might come before the night was over. People walking about Tokyo drew their light jackets closer together and scurried across florescent-lit intersections, hoping to make it to their bars, jobs, or apartments before the rain would begin to fall and soak them thoroughly.
The threat of imminent rain didn't make Akabane walk any faster than his usual leisurely swish. He didn't mind getting wet; he liked the rain. He'd always been a bit confused as to why people were obsessive about getting a hot shower every night, yet they would scurry home like frightened cockroaches at the mere thought that they might become rain-soaked.
He was being followed, but it didn't bother him. There were plenty of people who had a big enough grudge against him to send assassins out, but he wasn't in the mood to deal with one at the moment. So, in his usual manner, he just didn't. Let them follow him around until they made their move, then he would kill them. No skin off his blades either way.
Walking past a night club, a girl with a shaved head save for a red lock on the front put down her cigarette and whistled at him. That, he also chose to ignore. Despite his appearance and his penchant for dark prose, he didn't particularly relish hanging out with Goths. He didn't like being measured by the size of the heel on his boots.
"What's the matter?" she called after him. Speaking of boots, hers looked like they could be used to crush the skulls of small animals or children. Completely not practical for the type of work Akabane did, which meant they were of absolutely no interest to him. "You too good to talk to me?"
He didn't justify her by giving her a verbal answer, but his internal monologue said 'yes, yes I am. Thank you for noticing.' Instead, he dug around in his pocket for a moment before managing to produce the last cigarette left in the familiar green packaging. Realizing he didn't have a lighter on hand, he wished his precious Ginji-kun were about to light it with a streak of lightning.
He turned a corner into an alleyway, preferring it because it was a good shortcut back to the little apartment he kept for himself. Most people wouldn't have dared walk the back alleys of Tokyo at night, but then again, Akabane was not most people. This he prided himself in.
He managed to get his cigarette lit with a book of matches he had picked up at a convenience store, only after his gloves were the only thing that prevented him from nearly singeing his fingers. Lighting matches was one of the only things he was genuinely clumsy at, it seemed. He pulled off his glove, studying the hole in it. Annoying, as if Ginji-kun hadn't already ruined enough pairs. They weren't cheap to buy, after all, he mused to himself, the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
The next thing he was honestly conscious of was the fact that he was lying flat on his belly in his bed at home, still fully dressed for reasons beyond his comprehension. He usually slept… in his "birthday suit" as the euphemism went. He must have wandered himself home without thinking about it. It was like one of those sensations where you've done something so many times that it becomes ritual, and you don't remember doing it even though you obviously did.
Had he really become that accustomed to coming back to this shabby one-room studio apartment? Perhaps the best thing to do would be to look into moving, then. He hated to stay in one place for too long. The longer he stayed put, the greater chance there was that some government agency would put two and two together and he's spend the rest of his life behind the bars of a prison cell. That was definitely not fun.
It was only after he woke up enough to gain full control of his senses that he noticed the smell. It was like someone had gone through his apartment and doused every single flat surface in Lemon Pledge furniture polish. Gagging, he stumbled over to the single window of the apartment and forced it open to allow fresh air in.
'Did I get wasted and do some drunken furniture polishing?' he wondered to himself, then decided to check the few bottles of wine he kept around in case the chance for a romantic moment with a conquest should happen. No, they were still there, and he couldn't genuinely remember going to a bar on his way home. On top of that, he had no idea why he would decide to clean house in a drunken haze.
When the smell didn't go away, he started seeking out its source. After a good half hour of frustration, he finally realized that it was his clothes that smelled as though someone had given him a bath in furniture polish. Maybe he'd encountered Peta protestors who had mistaken his coat for leather? He had no clue why they're throw furniture polish on him, but if they had, they were likely dead. Huh. Did it count as animal cruelty to kill Peta protestors? Or was it charity? He thought he'd likely remember something like that, though.
The only late-night, coin-operated laundry was a good two blocks away, but he certainly wasn't going to spend the night with clothing that smelled like furniture polish. Gathering up what other few clothes he had to wash into a stripped laundry bag and counting out the appropriate coins into his pocket, he meandered outside.
The sky had apparently cleared up while he was asleep, the threat of rain overwhelmed by heat so oppressive that it made him almost want to turn back around and wash his clothes himself in his sink. Too bad most bathhouses wouldn't be open that late at night or early in the morning, depending on how you wanted to take it. A wash would feel good right then, and hopefully get the stink of lemon out of his pores.
Settling down in the garish green plastic chairs under the harsh glare of lights intended to keep the criminal element from doing things other than laundry late at night, he realized he'd forgotten to bring something to read while waiting. He supposed his things would be okay if he left them just long enough to walk to a convenience store and grab a magazine, but they rarely offered anything interesting enough for him to want to read it.
He would have checked his voicemail, but his cell phone's batteries had apparently died. "Curioser and curiouser," he mumbled to himself. He'd just charged them that morning…
The door opened with a familiar tinkle of bells, warning the fat man who sat in back supposedly working security that another patron had entered. Akabane knew him, but not by name. He was a petty thief of no particular consequence, just a lowly Snatcher that Akabane was familiar with through vague association.
The man grinned, revealing the severe loss of teeth normally associated with villains of melodramas. "Imagine that I'd find you here, just doing your laundry, when you've caused such a commotion these last few days, Aka-chan."
Akabane cringed. Aka-chan, you see, translates into "baby," and Akabane was not fond of being referred to in such a casual way in the same category as something that exists to poop and drool. The nameless man should be grateful he wasn't worth Akabane's effort.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he answered coldly.
"Well after you stopped showing up for your jobs, we all assumed you were dead. Hell, there was even a betting pool out on who was the one that finally snuffed out the infamous doctor-"
"Please don't use my name in such a public place," Akabane snapped, cutting him off and rising threateningly to his full height. "What are you talking about? I haven't missed any jobs."
"Really? Underworld rumor says you haven't shown up for a single one of your assignments in over a week."
Akabane raised an eyebrow slightly. "Rumors are called that for a reason. You shouldn't be so quick to believe them."
The nameless thug gave Akabane a slightly indignant look before collecting his personal things out of a dryer. "If you don't believe me, it's not my problem," he shrugged, taking his things and quickly departing.
Idiots, Akabane thought as he settled back down into the plastic chair. Sometimes he was torn between whether he loved or hated his job.
Returning home two hours later, he plugged his cellular phone into the wall to recharge. Almost instantly, it lit up in a bright green glow. He yawned and stretched, still feeling slightly miffed at the fact that such a stupid rumor about him shirking his contracts would be making its way around the underworld.
The phone beeped once. I have a voice mail, Akabane thought. The phone beeped again, indicating two voice mails. Then the phone beeped a third time, and continued to beep… again and again and again.
Forty-two voice messages when the phone finally stopped protesting. How the heck had he received forty-two messages in just the space of a few hours? Half of them must be prank calls or wrong numbers, that had to be the explanation.
The first three calls were from Lady Poison. "Dr. Jackal, where the hell are you? I know you're normally 'stylishly late' but this is getting ridiculous."
"Jackal, we're only going to wait for ten more minutes."
"Jackal, we left without you. You can find your own damn ride if you want to try to catch up with us, but I'd like to get paid sometime this century."
The next message was actually a wrong number, then Lady Poison again. For some reason, she sounded actually… concerned. "Dr. Jackal, are you okay? It's not like you not to show up." She was right. She'd once had to do a job with him where he'd thrown up over the side of her motorcycle because he hadn't let a little something like the stomach flu keep him down. She'd asked him to never, ever again work with her while he was that sick. Mostly because he'd given her his virus in the process, and she'd spent a week in bed with vomiting and chills.
Many of the rest of the messages ran in the same vein. Inquiries as to where he was. Angry demands from clients that he answer the phone. Swearing, threatening to have him assassinated. How boring. He almost laughed at the message left by a friend that merely curiously asked. "You're not answering your phone. Are you dead?"
However, the fact that a week or so had just disappeared out of his life was no laughing matter. It was something to be deeply looked into, and the people responsible horribly punished at the end of ceramic blades.
'There's just one problem with that, Akabane-kun,' his inner monologue commented. 'You don't even know where to begin looking for answers.'
"Yes I do," he answered himself out loud, startling the crow that was sitting outside his window. The alley where his last conscious memory was located, and the nightclub he'd passed before turning down the alley. The vague presence he remembered following him that hadn't concerned him at the time… all of those were places to start. Not very good places, it was true, but it was better than nothing.
Despite the late hour, Akabane knew he wouldn't sleep if he didn't get immediately onto solving the mystery. He slipped the curtains shut and shuttled out of the clothes he'd awakened in, throwing them into his now-empty laundry bag. It was only when he'd stripped himself that he noticed a new scratch on his body.
It was long and thin, just below his navel but offset to the left a few inches. At first glance it looked shallow, but when he poked at it, he could see that it had been carefully stitched up at some point. No, not just cautiously… meticulously stitched up. The stitching was as tiny and fine as any surgeon's that he'd ever seen, made with a near-invisible thread.
Things were getting stranger by the minute. A week he couldn't remember, stitches he couldn't remember getting. He'd think he'd at least remember receiving a cut to his abdomen so severe it required stitching, especially since his natural ability to recover from wounds quickly usually rendered stitches unnecessary.
It then dawned on him that he needed to throw up badly.
Himiko, aka Lady Poison, was none too happy to receive a phone call at two in the morning. Grunting, she rolled over and snatched up the small blue cellular she kept by her bedside. "Hello?" she snorted into the phone.
"Lady Poison?" a familiar voice asked. THAT woke her up. She sat up so quickly she smacked her head on her night stand, letting out a cry of urgent pain.
"OW! Dr. Jackal? I thought you were dead!?"
"So I hear," he replied dryly. "How long have I been dead?"
Lady Poison blinked. "Eh?"
"I should phrase that better. How long have I been missing?
She checked her calendar. "I don't know. You were supposed to work with us nine days ago. What do you mean by asking 'how long have I been missing?"
"The honest and simple truth of the matter, Lady Poison, since I don't feel like coming up with an explanation is that a good week or so of my life is missing, and I plan to have a severe talk with the person responsible for it being… gone."
"Jackal? You okay?"
He was holding his stomach, trying to keep down the bile that threatened to rise up in his throat. He didn't need a flu on top of what ever else had happened to him. "I am fine. Thank you for the information. I am going to go play 'seek' now, as the people who are responsible have no hope of hiding."
"Wait, I'll go with you."
"That isn't necessary," he answered shortly. The last thing he needed was her following him around when he was in a bad mood. He genuinely… tolerated her. It would be a pity if he cut her pretty head off just because he wasn't feeling up to par. Sweet Ban-chan would never forgive him for that one.
"What makes you think you won't get knocked out for another week if you go alone?" she asked.
"What makes you think you won't get knocked out if you go with me?" he answered.
Himiko sighed on the other end of the line. "Fine, you're stubborn. I'm going back to bed." With that, she hung up, and Akabane slipped his phone into the pocket of his freshly cleaned jacket.
It was time to go get the answers to some questions.
Author: I was dared to write this. For reasons I do not understand, I can not resist a good dare. I really should look into taking some assertiveness classes.
---
