In all honesty, I was going to update once I had chapter four done as well, so I could give my readers two updates after such a long time instead of only one. But how many people have decided to give up, thinking that I have too, anyway? Why waste time waiting for something that just won't come to me? I am so pathetic sometimes. Anyway, I do not own GetBackers; and without further ado to anyone that remains, enjoy Snake Charmer chapter three.
Shido found himself trapped in a nightmare filled with screams. Not his screams—but Ban's.
"Get them off me…I'm begging you, get them off me! Shido, please! Please get them off me!"
"I said, wake up!"
Shido quickly awoke thanks to a slap in the face. He still felt disoriented and confused from his nightmare, and the violent wake up call had not helped any. As he sat there half-asleep, he received another slap in the face.
"Get a hold of yourself! You've been thrashing around for fifteen minutes already."
Shido looked up to the source of the voice and gathered his wits again, shaking his head and rubbing his sore cheek. He was surprised to see the infamous Lady Poison hovering over him, distaste fitted to her expression. More surprising yet that he was not at the street corner he had fallen asleep at last night. Instead, he rested on a futon in the middle of an old, however seemingly well-kept warehouse. Not far from the futon was a long table decorated with various bottles and vials. There were crates piled all over, reaching almost to the ceiling. Three lay overturned in some far corner of the place, two acting as chairs and one in the middle supporting an evidently untouched tea set.
"What the hell am I doing here?" Shido asked finally, regarding the tea set with dulled curiosity.
"Shut up." Himiko followed his gaze to the tea set a moment before turning on her heel towards the long table. "You were lying out on the street like some hobo. I wasn't about to leave you out there." She spoke tensely and fiddled with all the bottles on the table. Shido looked at her incredulously.
"You're saying you forgive me, then?"
Himiko threw him a glare. "No, I don't. But you don't deserve all the blame…I'll concede to my part."
"I'd have hurt him without your help."
"Look, I lashed out at him in my own way, understand?" Himiko shot back. "I wanted to hurt him too...I just let you do the dirty work. I played a part."
'Fine; you're allowed to hate yourself. It's not my problem…' Shido thought with a self-righteous look that trailed from Himiko to the tea set. He didn't plan on continuing the conversation, knowing he would fail if he tried. Himiko's stubbornness wouldn't allow him to press further. So he changed the subject.
"Kazuki was here. So you saw him again?"
Himiko's eyes snapped from her bottles to Shido in a mixture of incredulity and fury. Her expression weakened as her eyes then moved back to the tea set, finally settling once more on the bottles with a pained glimmer.
"No. He…he hasn't come back since the battle." She picked up one bottle, filled halfway with some clear liquid and swirled it around for a moment. "I should release those snakes…my new perfume isn't exactly developing the way I wanted. And it costs extra to keep them in here."
"Are you expecting him sometime soon?" Shido asked. Himiko stiffened and decided not to answer. Once again, she was being frustratingly distant and turning the subject to the direction of her liking. This was the very reason why he had cut his first visit with her as short as possible.
Unfortunately, it wasn't short enough.
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Ban and Ginji managed to pay the towing fee, through a few hours of hard labor running errands for Natsumi. Ginji couldn't understand why, but Ban was still upset about something even after they'd paid off the fee. It wasn't that he was griping and muttering; that sort of thing would have been perfectly normal after all those errands, and Ginji could have likely handled it without much trouble. But the gloomy silence hanging around Ban was intimidating enough to negate all of Ginji's efforts to cheer him up. He couldn't even get Ban to talk, so after a while he stopped trying.
But he couldn't stop thinking about it. He watched Ban drowning all his concerns in cigarette smoke and soon became fixated on the tinge of paleness that had washed over Ban's features. It was as if he was dwelling on something very frightening…although Ginji didn't know of anything that would really frighten Ban. Nothing he knew of could make Ban fall into such a silence…
He decided to try talking to him again. Just one more try couldn't hurt.
"Um…Ban-chan?" This time, Ban seemed to wake up, and he looked at Ginji. The paleness disappeared from his face in flash and his characteristic nonchalance returned, overshadowing any worries he may have had before. It was almost as if he'd never been so out of it in the first place.
"What?"
Ginji smiled, not bothering to wonder how Ban returned to normal so quickly. "You looked like you were lost in thought for a while, there," he said. "I'd just wondered if something was bothering you."
Ban inwardly cringed for a moment. Worrying Ginji often led to a lot of heart-wrenching questioning, which Ban hated. He gave Ginji the most reassuring smile he could and said, "Not to worry, Ginji. I was just a little lost in thought. Nothing serious." 'Now, to get Ginji off the topic for good,' thought Ban. 'Food always does the trick.' "Hey, how 'bout we get something to eat? I'm starved."
True to Ban's expectations, Ginji let the matter go completely and jumped up and down, excited about the prospect of food.
After that, Ban's thoughts ventured only vaguely into that strange evil chill he'd felt earlier. Food seemed to wipe it from his mind, too. Stomachs full, the two decided to head home, all concerns set aside for now.
Unnoticed at a distance, Himiko carefully watched the comfortable smile on Ban's face with disapproval. She saw how it never faded. Once again she found herself thinking of the happy days when her brother was still alive. Such memories plagued her every time she saw Ban.
She'd come down to Shinjuku, abandoning all transport work in order to develop a new perfume. She hadn't hoped to see Ban, though she figured it inevitable. He lived in Shinjuku, after all.
But when those memories cropped up, Ban's presence was infuriating.
"Ban Midou…I swear I will kill you one day…"
"It's nice to see such a fire in you, Ms. Himiko." Himiko turned around sharply and came face to face with another man that she had not hoped to see. The murderous doctor smiled at her in his usual chilling way. What Himiko hated the most about that smile was the fact that he seemed to be silently telling her that he knew something she didn't.
"What do you want, Jackal?" Himiko stayed at a distance from him, eyeing him cautiously. To her annoyance, he seemed to notice the look in her eyes, because that secretive smile grew.
"Nothing for you to be so angry about, my dear," he replied smoothly. "I'll be on my way soon. I had simply stopped to admire that passionate fury in your eyes. It seems your hatred for our dear Ban Midou still stands strong."
Himiko scoffed at his remark, a disdainful smirk crossing her lips. "Aren't you a flatterer? Well, my 'passionate fury' isn't any business of yours. If you don't want anything of me, then just get away from me."
"Why, my dear Ms. Himiko, you've offended me," Akabane said to her, chuckling and far from offended. "Very well—if I am to need a purpose to be in your presence, then I give you this: an outlet for your anger, if you would like it."
The moment he finished his sentence, Himiko was ready with a scathing retort, regardless of what he'd just said. Then it sunk into her brain exactly what he'd just said. She instantly became curious.
"What do you mean…?"
Knowing she was hooked, the Jackal did not bother to hide his look of triumph as he took a few steps closer to her. "If you care to look, you may just find a way to…weaken him. For one who hates Ban Midou as much as you, the thought of his suffering is almost too sweet…right?"
Himiko was dropping her guard more with every second, and at this point she hardly noticed. "I…don't know what you're talking about…how could I make him suffer?"
"As I said, you'll have to look," Akabane replied with a final grin. He turned, done with the conversation now that Himiko was fully intrigued. He walked away, calling a last suggestion over his shoulder, "And do remember, Ms. Himiko, there is a very simple method to use when taming a snake."
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Himiko hissed loudly, ironically earning several responding hisses from the snakes around her. Shido, as lost in his memories as she was in hers, acknowledged the sudden sound only briefly.
She'd dropped a vial, and it had broken all over her table. She'd cut her finger. Thinking of the memories in the past seemed to make her even angrier in the present, costing her some of her usual alertness.
Exasperated, she roughly pushed the rest of the vials aside and spun around, heading for the door.
"Watch the place for me, will you?" she said to Shido, quickly and harshly.
Annoyed by her mood, Shido gave her a narrow-eyed look and grunted, "What for?"
"I need to go for a walk."
If Shido had an argument, she didn't hear it. She stormed outside, plodding along furiously until she felt like stopping. The cold morning air seeped into her body, little by little, and she found herself slumping down into the same street corner she'd found Shido lying at.
'God…what's the matter with me?' Himiko clutched uselessly at her temples, trying to get rid of both her guilt and the oncoming migraine. 'How could I have been so drawn in? I just complicated everything! I'm such a fool…'
"Ah, Ms. Himiko…such a state you are in. It seems you are enjoying the consequences of your mistake as well…is the guilt not quite a treat?"
Himiko's head jerked upwards. Just three feet in front of her was the cause of all her misery. She stood up, her hands curling furiously into fists. The Jackal did not even step back; his smile only grew.
"You! This is your fault!"
The devious man chuckled. "Why, Ms. Himiko, how am I to blame for your own faults? I was not the one that made your dear Kazuki leave you, now was I?"
He continued his devilish chuckling as the pain flashed across Himiko's face. She made a feeble attempt at gathering up her fury, but the heat was lost from her voice as she said, "You should have stayed away from me."
"I made a very harmless suggestion, Ms. Himiko," Akabane replied. "But it seems that you and Shido-kun are far too easily influenced."
Himiko was taken aback. She glanced briefly towards the warehouse. 'Shido? He got to you, too?' She glanced back once more, but Akabane had disappeared.
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Akabane's casual suggestion hadn't quite sunk in yet, and Himiko was still hopelessly wrapped up in its meaning. She examined each word so meticulously as she walked that she did not focus on where she was walking.
She collided with a tall, very masculine figure not long after she crossed the street. She somehow held onto all of her fragile supplies—the numerous jars and vials she would use in developing her new perfume. Her own balance, however, could not be caught in time, and she and the stranger fell backwards, cursing up a storm.
It was a comical sight to anyone that happened to pass by.
Once they were both done swearing and rubbing all the appropriate sore spots, each decided to get a look at just who they had crashed into. The reaction was instantaneous.
"Hey, it's you!"
Himiko searched for a name while Shido just stared at her. "You're that…that Beast Man…guy…or something, right?"
"It's Shido," Shido grunted. "And it's Beast Master.What're you doing here? You don't live here…"
"For the time being, I do," Himiko replied defensively, holding up her bag of supplies as indication. "Experimenting." She lowered the bag. "And I could ask you the same question. You don't really live around this area, either."
Shido smirked. "Hey, I'm the Beast Master. You could say I'm out hunting."
Himiko was puzzled. She wasn't sure if he was serious or not. "Hunting? For what?"
Shido shoved his hands in his pockets, and as Himiko continued to watch him, noticing his smirk take on a more sinister look. Though she had never really gotten familiar with Shido at all, something told her this was not exactly in his nature.
His answer sent a shiver down her spine. It was just as cold as his smirk. "Snakes."
Her eyes widened. She looked quickly behind her, though she knew that Ban had long been out of sight.
Several things clicked together in her mind during the seconds she turned her head to face Shido again. She remembered that Shido seemed to have a grudge against Ban, not unlike herself. As she remembered in some small detail what Shido was capable of, everything that Akabane had told her seemed to come together. Her body gave a jolt and she drew in a breath once it all hit her completely. Then she produced a smirk that matched Shido's.
"You…hate Ban as much as I do…don't you?" she asked him. Shido's smirk faded into curiosity for a moment.
"Yeah…so, what are you saying?"
Himiko scoffed at him, as though the answer was obvious. "I'm saying I want to help you make him suffer." She frowned and stepped closer as she added, "I won't take 'no' for an answer, here."
Shido accepted.
Ban, a great distance away from all this, shuddered.
There was that chill again…
P.S.: An apology to those who said would beta for me, on anything. I've forgotten who you are due to my ridiculous waiting. I won't cause you any more trouble. From now on I'm just going to go back and edit things myself, for the sake of everyone's sanity.