Mea Culpa

Disclaimer: I don't own Get Backers.

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Final Chapter

Drowsiness shows no sign of claiming Ban that evening. It's nearly 4 in the fucking morning and he's lapsed into a mental caterwauling that involves mashing his eyes shut and flipping them on again and repeating the process. A faint shade of orange is beginning to show itself to announce the arrival of morning. He's tactically placed himself on the driver seat, as he always does, and has his head in a less than 180 degrees angle facing the windshield. He didn't plan on keeping his vigil until this late. The walk he just had that afternoon very nearly got him paralyzed and dehydrated. He had almost crawled his way inside Honky Tonk, stammering with what his ossified lips allowed the word 'water'. It looked as though he had forgotten about what he just wordlessly made clear that morning, that he wanted to be alone. His mind was too fuzzed over to think and his body too pared down. It made Ban think, his mental soundness quite in shambles, that the exhaustion promised nothing below a 9 hour respite. Apparently, he was wrong. Here he is, wide awake at 3 or something AM, awake for the better part of this day. His weariness lingers about him, hinting to stay longer within his body until something happens. What that something is, Ban isn't sure.

He can hear Ginji's snores beside him as Ginji slumps like a log on the shotgun seat. He can see the rise and fall of the other lad's chest that somewhat makes him think of the torrential waves of a high-tided beach. He can only guess how Ginji sleeps in that position, which is sure to give anyone cramps, and he can only wonder why every morning Ginji will remark how beautifully he slept the preceding night. Every so often, nocturnal birds will come twittering somewhere near, trespassing the silence and causing Ginji to frown in his sleep. But no amount of noise, huggermugger or hell can entirely jerk him awake, which only adds to Ban's wonderment for this person. Looking at Ginji, Ban learns that he envies him on this point; being partly narcoleptic. A pallid moonlight volleys through the window's glass and it produces a glimmer of reflection on the surface of Ban's eyes. But the stars…they seem to have died en masse that night, leaving him with nothing to count but hallucinatory sheep and the hours that scroll away.

He has been lying still on that seat, one minute after another edging past him. He begins to suspect that if he stays in that position for another minute more, it will just drill a hole on the seat cover. Knowing that he won't get the sleep he wants in the near foreseeable future, Ban heaves the car's door open and pulls himself out. He slops himself on a bench nearby and decides to indulge on his smoking maintenance. Chain-smoking is the only thing that can save him now, he thinks. He lights up a cigarette, its tiny ruby end glowing in semi-pitch darkness and its smoke pervading the air in unseen spumes. The moving air softly slams on his face and he goddamn wants to ask it where it's been all afternoon. He wagers he wouldn't be half the wreck that he was earlier if the stupid air bothered to show up. But no, it took its vacation someplace else and let him go to ashes and now he feels like shit and can't get a shut-eye. He has gone through all lengths to retrieve an object and almost too often he ends up just a few knocks away from death's door; now, sitting stiffly and awake, he wonders why he can't for the life of him retrieve his former sleeping habits or why, oh why, he can't help himself. He's been up too long, too unhealthily. Even his hair may have been growing longer for all the time his wakefulness consumes.

He muses when this near-fatal insomnia is going to end, cursing to himself and thinking back to when he might've contracted said sleeping disorder.

But his thoughts only spin their way back to his encounter with Kazuki. And when this awareness hits, it comes to him with the translucent moonbeams which he, until then, cherishes in his solitude. His head has been filled, nourished with Kazuki-related thoughts all along. Even when all other senses depart from him, Kazuki's words have stuck to him like dry paint. He wants to tear Kazuki from his mind altogether, wants him erased and invisible, or anything short of death that will put poor Ban out of his misery.

Why don't you ask yourself first whether or not it's you who suspect yourself? Those words just send his brain scampering from one Kazuki-aspect to another, filling up all available spaces inside his skull.Did Kazuki just question his straight-arrow sexuality? But…Was he really following him? And if he was, for what purpose, pray tell? In this state, those questions sound just as fucked up as the chicken-and-egg problem to Ban. A very vicious circle.

That same moment, he feels his temperature plummet swiftly upwards into all time high. He feels his blood boil out of anger, confusion and weirdly, of chagrin. He holds his hand in an upraised fist in the very motion of knocking his head with it. But before he can get around to touching his forehead, he realizes that a headache isn't something he wants to happen to him now. He wants sleep, nice and long.

'Ah, confound it. To hell with that cross-dresser,' is all he can think of to say.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Ban has splattered half of his torso on the table, tries to get his body up again in what otherwise looks like a success. Just checking out how he feels augurs pretty badly this day; if worse comes to worst, he may even decline taking a trip with Ginji again. More than anything, his body seems singularly fragile today, side-winding tired, like he just lost a ton of blood and sweat in a pugilistic match or some other. The truth is, he didn't get 40 winks or less last night, a by-product of letting half his mind roam elsewhere rather than concentrating himself on falling asleep. It left him pathetically sleepless at the very least and morning found him already almost dead. A purplish recess visibly hangs under each eye on his face; they can have replaced his purple sunglasses without so much as a reaction from the crowd; should the occasion arise, the latter will think that it's just Mido Ban sporting his go-to-hell purple shades. It's quite a spectacle to see him like this, suffering to the end of his wits without a single shadow of a solution as to how to end it. It's as if his ghost just went out of him.

'Ban-chan, I slept beautifully last night. Did you, Ban-chan?'

'Baka janai? Can't you see I didn't sleep one blink!' Ban says in a woozed-out voice that cues anyone in to how bad he is currently feeling.

'I don't know. I was asleep the whole time.'

'Thanks for mentioning it. Your snores were too loud they kept me awake more successfully than any goddamn brand of coffee has.' Which isn't exactly true as he usually sleeps soundly even if Ginji's snores buzz on till afternoon the next day. If anything, Ban should be feeling indebted to Ginji now because without those eardrum-sucking snores, the deafening silence of the night will stand in to torture him for the greater part of the evening. It also answers the question why he prefers to sleep in a place where birds are sure to croon late in the day; that way, the quiet which he dreads to hear in solitude is overrun by a more alive sound.

'Ban-chan, I'm so sorry. I didn't think—'

'Never mind. Let's eat; looks like I can murder a whole pizza.'

Ban and Ginji are in the process of licking the last remnants of the meal when Ginji stops dead. One of his hand grips the edge of the table in such a way that he seems firm not to let go of it. His face squinches up harder and harder until it assumes an almost indistinguishable form. The healthy rosy color of his cheeks has left his face and seems to have been replaced by a bluish one. A mouthful of air is trapped behind his lips which makes it look like he's in a breath-holding contest.

'Ginji, are you alright?'

'Ban-chan, my stomach is…' Ginji says through gritted teeth. He has his other arm around his belly as if to support his weight with it. 'I need to go to the toilet.'

'What did you eat again, Ginji?'

'Nothing. Just this pizza. It must be spoilt…'

'And before that?'

'I've had a pitcher of milk but that's all—'

'Ginji, I told you you're lactose intolerant. How can you forget?'

'I didn't forget. I thought it only lasts a day.'

'Lasts a day?' Ban feels himself weaken. 'Since when did you decide when your lactose intolerance ends? Now take a look at what that shitty stomach does to your face.' By the term 'shitty stomach' he means it literally and figuratively.

I…Excuse me, Ban-chan.' Ginji scuttles off to the end of the room, squawking about bad stomach and slamming the door of the CR with a force that might've shaken the roofs off the building had the screws were short of one turn. Ban hears himself sigh at his friend's suffering.

'Oh brother.'

At the same instant, the wind chime's sound shoots through the air. Unlike any other time before, Ban bothers himself to look at the newly-entered customer. Prosaically enough, there, upon the doorway, is Kazuki Fuchoin in his immaculately white outfit, drawing all attention to him without so much as a light 'hi'. Natsumi's warm and wholeheartedly-meant greeting is heard together with its entailment that goes along the lines of, 'you're early, Kazuki-san.' Something seems to have slid on Ban then, like a cold stone, something nearly palpably solid moving inside him. He surveys Kazuki's appearance; he's still the full-blown transvestite Ban knew from the not-so-long-ago. More importantly, however, there's his smile.

'Good morning, everyone.' Kazuki says. He offers the smile to anyone present, even to Ban who gives his damnedest not to respond as much as a raised eyebrow to it.

Why is he looking at me as though he hasn't heard of me before? Ban catches himself asking the question and bouncing his eyes at Kazuki a number of times.

Kazuki moves forward to Ban's table. He has done this in the past, which Ban never for once found uncomfortable. All this time Ban contains his glance at him, keeping it loyally on Kazuki Fuchoin as if he wants to prevent him from making an escape, which he's doubtful to do by the way. He culls the seat across Ban.

'Good morning, Ban.' Kazuki says in his standard manner of greeting; tilting his head a little to the left and raising his right hand in an obscure salute. 'Where's Ginji?'

'CR. Bad stomach.' Ban says with so much as a glare he can execute in his weary state.

'Oh,' It takes Kazuki about 5 seconds to snuck a concerned glance at the CR and to return it to Ban. 'Were you able to spend your afternoon well yesterday?'

'Obviously with that kind of weather nothing would've seemed to end well.'

'Yeah, I suppose so. You yourself don't seem so well, are you sick?' If Kazuki was taking pleasure in Ban's sickness, he doesn't let on. As usual, he's composed.

Ban wants to say 'sick' is quite putting it lightly. He feels like crap and he isn't just putting on a clean-up act just to turn Kazuki away. He feels like a corpse that's been exhumed from its dilapidating coffin and is forced to take habitation in the living world. He feels what one feels when he's farthest from feeling okay or getting well.

'I didn't sleep last night. I was awake the whole time. I'm not sure why.' He has taken on the habit of making his sentences end in periods, as though what he says were final and incontestable and shouldn't be reacted with as much as a single 'oh'.

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Don't be.' Ban says. He doesn't know why he's still preserving this stupid, almost monosyllabic conversation. He can think of many other things to do, things that can't be called pointless like this chit-chat with Kazuki Fuchoin. He surmises that if he slips off outside and uses his Evil Eye on the first 3 persons he bumps into, he would be doing more justice to this day. He stares back at Kazuki; even he isn't sure if his gaze is transparent or blank or meaningful. He just stares at him, at his honest-to-god off-shoulder top which hundred replicas Ban thinks Kazuki keeps inside a giant closet devotedly hanging on individual hangers. He's not sure why right at this very moment he's keeping a tab on each and every movement Kazuki makes and making inferences out of them, which are to say minimal as no one ever manages big movements while gluing his ass on a fast-food type chair.

It takes all these thoughts to make Ban realize that he's entered a staring game with Kazuki, who for his part has been all along returning Ban's look. Ban is a stranger to that glance, to the warmth it exudes particularly and the gentle expression that goes as a side package to it. He questions the glance of its authenticity while all the while warning himself of Kazuki's slyness (which is a stranger to him as well); he knows that this look with which Kazuki equips himself is no testament to his true character. A portion of Kazuki's face is under the shaft of sunlight that flounces through the windowpane beside their table. As a consequence, his eyes give off more shine than they normally do. He doesn't make a stir; he seems rather full on maintaining the invisible cord that binds both their looks to each other.

What the hell is this? Ban's already-harassed mind seems to scream. He narrows his eyes as if doing so would release what his insides are dying to haul out. He's prone to assume that kind of expression in tenser times, matters of life and death for instance. Looking at Kazuki this way, it's like they have secrets moving between them. Like that one thing that excludes them from the rest of their environment. Mutuality, is that what they call it? Ban begins to think but the pondering session starts and to his dismay, ends there. The cord breaks and the game ends.

It's Kazuki who withdraws his gaze first, meaning, it's he who loses it. At least to Ban, that's how it looks like. Kazuki flexes his knees up and turns his side to Ban. An unspoken threat seems to issue out of him, which for some reason makes Ban flinch. And that rarely happens.

'It looks like I've outstayed my welcome. I'm leaving, Ban-san.' He tells Ban and to everyone, 'Goodbye. Tell Ginji I stopped by.'

He saunters to the exit, without hurrying and without delay. He extracts the usual gloomy reaction form the others who have begun to mutter 'so soon?' and gives them a parting smile. Ban is still mired in his seat and in his personal silence when he hears Kazuki's footsteps fall on the wooden flooring of the café, the sound of which continues to diminish to inaudibility. He hears the creak of the door after that, and the wind chime that declares Kazuki's departure from the place. At which instant, he places a palm on his forehead. All weariness leaves him in exchange for a psychological weight that now makes itself so ineluctably known to Mido Ban. His head feels like it's going to explode any minute soon if he doesn't do something or to be more specific, if he lingers longer inside Honky Tonk.

He stands up, places his hands inside his pockets and spins his way to the exit without a word. He does this out of no small act of will, but of something urgent sizzling inside him. He retraces the paths he took yesterday because he knows that where they lead to is where he'll find Kazuki. Sleep deprivation and grogginess are the least of his worries now, all his reason recognizes is that urgent something which he must attend to at any rate. The weather and the crazy-assed temperature that it formerly had have abated to a bearable degree and more people have been pulled out from their hibernation. The city now teems with the dense population of whole Tokyo which somewhat makes Ban long for yesterday's fewer presences. He doubles up his speed, gearing himself up for the long track ahead of him and not caring if his respiration snaps or stops dead for that matter. The need to catch up magnifies exponentially in Ban and he goes on sprinting as though making it on time means the world's safety or more. When he reaches the destined spot, in this un-peopled haven where the sun emits no more than moderate heat and where the wind seems to bless the atmosphere with a warped kind of peace, he learns why Kazuki would love to be in such a place.

'You're looking for someone, Ban?'

Sure enough, Kazuki is behind him. He doesn't know why, but less than an hour ago he had more cause to hate Kazuki than to like him. Now, he isn't exactly sure what to call it. Perhaps, there's what they call discovery; when part of the thick line that lay between them waves away and reveals everything behind it.

'I'm here to…explain.' Ban says. It takes his last steady breath to let that out and when it does go out, it's straightforward, no strings attached and just honest. 'I was following you yesterday. I don't know why. It just occurred to me last night that I really was. I thought about what you said to me and I thought that maybe they weren't as crazy as I thought they sounded. Right then it just clicked and…you were right. I'm sorry.'

'It's okay. Just take a breath--'

'I thought about why I'd do something like that. I didn't want to admit it first but it just wouldn't stop drilling on my brains. It started way back on the hot spring incident. I…' Ban falters. He has humiliated himself to the last drop, he thinks. If he stops at mid-sentence now and leave Kazuki to make up for the rest, it will only go to show that hop-scotching his way from the café to here is to no purpose. Which is stupid of course and inconsistent with Ban's principles since what he does always has its purpose. 'I don't know how you'll react to this but I…'

'You didn't think it was a woman. You knew it was me and still you went and barged in. I wouldn't have doubted Ginji, knowing him. But you; I was aware that you knew more.' Kazuki finishes it for him.

At this moment Ban lets his hands fall on his side. It may be a vague signal of capitulation or an even vaguer sign of denial for all Kazuki knows.

'It's true.' Ban says. 'Everything you say is true.' He sounds annoyed at saying it but the force of surrender in his voice seems to override any other symptom of pride. In his desperation, he hoists up the white flag, no less.

Is Mido Ban really pleading guilty to the crime?

'Forgiven. Hahahaha! It's perfectly alright; stop making it sound as though it's the moral equivalent of massacre or something.' Kazuki smiles and he's using that ordinary banal smile anyone can receive from him. 'Don't worry, I won't say anything about it. Let's just act as though it never happened, okay?'

Something quickens inside Ban. He knows better than to let his temper run away with his good sense; that's what he learned after years of fighting. But this time something just toed off the line, he's mighty sure of it. He feels anger rise from the pit of his stomach and up to his chest. It hacks inside him like it's going to rip his skin apart so it may get its hands on Kazuki. He can't just ignore that kind of remark the way he would a face in an over-exposed photograph that's so indecipherable nobody bothers to find out who it is. How can Kazuki be so insensitive? Pretend that it didn't happen? What is this to him, an ant's bite? Didn't Ban just tear his heart open to Kazuki? Didn't he just embarrass himself to such measure that's far below him? This is infra dig! He didn't expect this much callousness from Kazuki especially right after having his feelings exposed in the most romantic way he can imagine. No, he didn't expect that Kazuki's gentle and deathlessly understanding façade only extends up to friendship concerns.

'I'm not asking for your forgiveness. I want your acceptance.' Ban says before he can stop himself. He's quite good in the looking-cool department, he knows it damn well himself; but today, loath as he is to admit it, he fares no better than Shido when faced with Madoka or Ginji with Natsumi. He imagines the cold sneer Kazuki will admit it with and trembles not only at the thought, but for himself.

'Acceptance?' Kazuki says with the large interrogation point puttering out of his lips. It betrays nothing but his ignorance to the predicament that will take control over him and his fate any minute now.

You are so alone now. You need someone. You need me but don't know it yet. You will, soon after you look at me and learn that you're only helping your suffering by not minding it. The words flit through Ban's head, intertwining themselves with the veins in his brain, moving alive, and about to engulf him in their enormity. He wants to howl them out, however stupid he may wind up seeming, to make Kazuki understand. For no noble cause, perhaps. Those are the first thing his mind comes to touch upon Kazuki's one-word query. Acceptance. He needs that to get inside his world and the need falls in him full force, causing him to wince and his stomach to flop inside him. He's sure it's not hunger that does that this time. He thinks of Kazuki's childhood love, Jubei, who is arrantly pulled out of view to seek recovery in far-off places. No doubt Kazuki loves him no end. And no doubt Kazuki is on the verge of losing his soundness too, missing him like hell. But no doubt, he can be swayed. Can't he?

'Acceptance. Be with me. It's too much to ask, I know. I'll give you the time you need.' Ban calms himself all of a sudden. He realizes that making it sound as though what he feels transcends physical attraction is no trouble to him. He has said what he wants to say and having done so slows down his heart's palpitation and lends him a feeling of peace. Being aware of this, Ban fishes out a cigarette from his pocket and starts puffing. To him, it's always been something he has to hang on to no matter what, smoking.

'You know about me and Jubei. I can't just cut him off like that.'

A Kazuki sans Jubei just about reminds Ban of something very easy to hurt, like a newly hatched chick or some other. He pictures himself with Kazuki, how it would be like to have him around every time. He, Ginji and Kazuki, together. He pictures his hope evolving from a mere far-flung fantasy to reality itself. And the picture it produces in his head seems so complete, so beautiful.

'I said I'll give you time. No matter how long you need. Jubei isn't here. You don't know when he's going to be back. You can wait for him and I can wait for you. I can even take his place; just say yes. Kazuki, I…I think I may be falling in love with you.' Saying this, despite feeling like something got stuck in his windpipe, Ban sees himself turn into a gentle person he's not familiar with.

'Have you ever thought that I may not be the one for you?' Kazuki asks.

'No. I only started thinking about us the other night. It all came so fast. But no, it never yet occurred to me because I know it's you.' Ban says. He doesn't mean to sound so demanding. He really doesn't. It just comes out of him as though those words were the only ones his vocabulary is made of.

Kazuki shakes his head. 'This is unasked for. Ban, I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry.' He says, his voice ringing like something that has fallen from a great height.

As Ban looks at him, he realizes that Kazuki is nothing like the newly-hatched chick he has imagined. At this moment, the resemblance ends. Kazuki can very well survive with neither of them, Ban nor Jubei. He has demonstrated that already well known fact in the past; he can do it again.

The odds, here they are saying hello to Ban at last. Destiny and time have come to conspire against him now. Everything that's about to happen lines up to happen before his very eyes. The understanding that he thought was building up between them chars away and disappears and all there is now is this one-sided affection that is so blatant it doesn't need further emphasis. He can just walk away from Kazuki now, with the road that could've led them to one another becoming longer and longer, he can just double up and cry in his car, and the other won't give him a word of comfort. Ban's sure that kind of thing isn't illogically possible, knowing merciless Kazuki; he'll just keep his fence around him, turning deaf ears and blind eyes. The rejection, it has all been clear from the beginning; his heading is hissing the word out in capital letters. He's afraid, something he can't stand to be. Fear, is it real in Ban's world? Why, here it is, encumbering him, crushing him beneath its weight. All the fight is scooped out of him. What was he thinking opening his heart up to Kazuki? Kazuki, of all fucking people; he can't recognize love even if it stared him on the face. That's his one moral failure; failing to sharpen his senses to scent affection and suchlike. It's stupid, not to mention reckless.

'Is that a 'no'?' Ban says, collecting all courage to say it. His heart begins to skitter behind his rib cage, he can feel it almost effortlessly. Right now, the word 'no' scores 9.8 out of 10 on his horror scale. If he hears Kazuki say it, surely, it'd be the one strong wave that turns over anything it sweeps on. Even Ban who's supposed to have defeated the Thunder Emperor. He can't take it, he won't.

'And what if it is?' Kazuki says, his face waxing unfazed.

'Whether it's a 'no' or a 'yes' doesn't matter. I'm not giving up on anything.' Ban hastens to say. He is clinging to the last shred of what he thinks is right, being true to himself and to the person he cares for.

'Huh, you're a hard nut, Mido Ban.' Kazuki smiles.

'Nuttier than a fruitcake, you mean. It's you why I'm being like this, in case you've forgotten.'

'Hahahaha! It's funny the way you say it.' Kazuki says. Hearing Kazuki laugh seems to have lifted up a heavy scrim of fog from Ban's chest. At times, he can't take this laugh; now, he's probably even welcoming it. It has slackened the tension, no doubt, which can mean anything, anything at all.

'I didn't want to sound funny. I was just...I just hate the way this is going.'

'Yeah, me too. Would you like to grab a coffee some place?' Kazuki asks.

'If it would settle anything between us, I'll take it.'

'We'll take it from there. There's no hurry.' Kazuki says and moves ahead.

'What do you mean? Are you…?' Ban stills himself, wide eyed.

'I'm thinking about what you just said.' Kazuki takes a breath. 'You said you're not giving up on anything, didn't you? I liked it.'

Liked it? This is taking a comic turn, Ban thinks. He didn't say it for Kazuki to like, but to acknowledge and nothing more.

'You were right, you know. Jubei's away. I can't do anything about it.' Kazuki continues, working up his face into something that just thawed and softened.

The moment's suddenly blanched in silence, the kind that seems to stretch to eternity and doesn't register no matter how rankling it gets. It seems like Kazuki is waiting for Ban to say something or to make anxious movements, anything that'll buoy up what he feels towards Kazuki's acceptance. Ban keeps his cool on the surface, a habit which he knows he didn't tote from someone like Kuroudo and his maniacal, icy behavior. Being restrained, it's his innate expertise too, isn't it? He acknowledges the compressed exultation of his heart, smiling calmly and sincerely.

'Oh. That's really nice, I mean for you to finally consider.' Ban says after what seems like forever. It comes like that, without crazy, puerile enthusiasm; it is understated, felt and true most importantly. It's like he's just been injected with a quick sedative that comes in the form of Kazuki's words, kind words. 'You won't regret it, I promise.'

'Just that you shouldn't do anything rash or I might change my mind.'

'I don't know, I'm a man.' Ban smiles. And the smile turns into laugh and into happiness. He moves forward Kazuki and stretches out his hand for the other to take. Kazuki takes it and he too smiles and laughs. Ban isn't sure if this makes Kazuki happy. But with what he feels, he is sure he wants to make Kazuki happy, whatever it may cost him at the present and in the future. And to make Kazuki love him. Yes, he has pictured that many times before, times when he wanted Kazuki to think of him too, to picture the forms he makes with his cigarette's smoke; that pathetic twilight zone that had no hope of coming true so long as Ban buried his feelings so deeply he couldn't know them anymore. He doesn't need that now, for the wall has come down. This is a lot better than sitting inside Honky Tonk, growing pedantically anxious of his hunger, darn broke and mourning for it with Ginji. Ban thinks. Yes, it only takes Kazuki to get over those.

They paddle away from the place, fully aware that something is changed inside and between them.

END

A/N: Well, it does look like a one-shot fic to me. Same basic deal; it's just gotten too long, I have to cut it down to chapters. Anyway, one line is obviously from Shakespeare (As you Like it) so don't sue me, okay? If you think this fic is a complete debacle, it's fine. I swear.