·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳
ೄྀ⊹୧: 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓱 𝓫𝓸𝔂←
«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»
✑ y/n pov
-
Shorter stretched his arms behind his head. "I'm sick of riding in this truck."
I nodded. "Likewise."
"My ass is as hard as a rock," he continued.
"Too much information."
"True, Shorter. We've been in the truck for almost a week," Eiji agreed.
"I'm hungry. I want some food," Shorter complained.
I groaned. "Shut up before I make you eat dirt."
"Who's there?!" Ash suddenly exclaimed into the darkness. A man with a torch began walking towards us.
"You tell me," he said. "Who are you guys?" Max ran over to him.
"Can you tell us how to get to Los Angeles?"
"What? You're in Los Angeles."
"We are?" Both Ash and Max exclaimed. I turned around to see that we were on a cliff, and below was the brightly lit Los Angeles. I walked closer to admire it some more. I couldn't see the stars in the sky, but every lit room amazed me just as much as the stars did.
"This is incredible," I said.
Shorter yelled, "What a view!"
"Wow, it's beautiful!" Eiji exclaimed.
♡⋆♡ 𝓮𝓷𝓭 ♡⋆♡
Max drove us through the lively city of Los Angeles and I was stuck with a hooligan (Shorter), Eiji, and Ibe. Shorter was trying to get the attention of a tan girl with an afro, but she didn't glance at him even once. Eiji was posing while Ibe was taking photos of him.
Suddenly, the flash of a camera flicked into the corner of my eyes. Once I looked at the source, I saw Ibe with his camera up, smiling nervously.
"I accidentally turned on the flash, sorry," he said.
I shrugged. "Let me see the picture." Ibe came closer and handed the camera to me. It was a candid shot of me just sitting with my legs crossed staring into space.
"It's not bad." I handed the camera back and decided to start scrolling through my phone. I seemed to do it instinctively whenever I was bored.
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
Max pulled over and immediately got out of the truck, starting to puke on the floor. Unable to stand the sight and sound of people vomiting, I turned around and covered my ears. The voices of Shorter and Ash were muffled, but once I heard quite the high-pitched voice, I uncovered my ears and turned around.
A little redhead boy on a tree swing was looking over at us.
"Daddy!" He yelled, running towards Max.
"Micheal!" Max exclaimed. The both of them held their arms out, but before they could hug, the voice of a stern woman said to Max, "Don't touch him!" My eyes drifter over to the woman. She was blonde with long hair, and pointed a rifle at Max.
"I heard from George that you ran away. Are you trying to kidnap him before you lose in court?"
"No, that's not it..."
"Shut up!" She fired her gun but didn't hit Max.
"Damn," Shorter said.
Ash said, "No wonder he felt sick."
Ibe began to walk towards the woman.
"Hi, Jessica."
"Shunichi?" 'Goddamn, does Ibe know everyone?' Jessica lowered her gun.
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
She had invited us all inside, and there was plenty of food laid out on the table.
"You better thank Shunichi," she said to Max. "Or you would've been dead meat by now." She pointed the knife that she had used to cut the apples in his face.
"She helped me with an article once," Ibe explained. Jessica looked at Eiji and Ash. "You boys look pretty hot. Want to become a model for our magazine?"
"Model?" Eiji asked.
"Don't listen to her," Max told him. "She'll make you open your legs and show your butthole."
"Butt..."
"You made a living out of taking shots of girls' cooches," Jessica defended herself. "What's wrong with me doing the same?"
"Not in front of Micheal!" Micheal was sitting in between Ash and I.
"What could be worse than this?" Micheal said.
"Maybe opening your legs and showing your butthole," I muttered, and Ash snickered. Thankfully, nobody else seemed to hear me.
"I'm sorry. Micheal, have some more fries," Jessica told him.
"I'm going to bed. Good night."
"Good night, my darling."
"Good night, daddy." Micheal kissed Max on the cheek.
"Good night."
"Will you be here for a while?" Max visibly struggled to respond.
"Um, well...I have to go back as soon as I'm done here." Micheal was disheartened by his father's response.
"Good night, everyone," he said, turning to go to his room. Only Ibe responded, and since Ash was in my peripheral, I saw him smirking mischievously.
"Old lady," he called out to Jessica. She didn't answer.
"Hey, old lady."
"You mean me?" She said, side eyeing him.
"Who else? Could you pass the mustard, old lady?" She picked up the bottle of mustard and slammed it down in front of him.
"You've got balls," She said. "Blaming me for my son? Sorry, but I'm not going to listen to a punk like you." She turned and walked to the hallway.
"And who's got balls now?" Ash muttered, practically drowning his food in mustard.
"Would you like a side of food with your mustard?" I furrowed my eyebrows and glared at the food on his plate. He only looked askance at me.
"I'm really sorry," Max bowed his head and Ash stood up.
"All parents are garbage. Kids can't choose their parents, you know. They can't ask for a different pair no matter how bad they are." He headed into the hallway as well.
"Listen very carefully," Ibe said.
"Yeah."
We were back in the truck and it was night yet again. I was sat in between Ash and Max again after almost freezing my ass off. Max had taken us to Jessica's house because it was Micheal's birthday.
"You could've just told us it was your son's birthday," Ash said.
"Yeah, thanks for letting me stop by. '102, 42 Westwood' was it?" We pulled up to an expensive looking home.
"This is it."
We all started to get out of the house and looked at it through the steel gate entrance.
"What a big house," Eiji said. Shorter began to walk up to the gate and pushed it, and it was unexpectedly and suspiciously open.
"How careless of them," Max said. "What is it?"
I turned around to see Ash clearly not trusting how the gate was open.
"It's just...it doesn't feel right."
I nodded, "What kind of person wouldn't lock the gate leading to their extravagant hou-" A feminine scream cut my words off as we all turned to look in the direction of the house, where the sudden noise had come from.
Disregarding the fact that the open gate 'didn't feel right', Ash stared to run towards the scream and Shorter followed behind. Shortly after they had ran over, the sounds of gunshots could be heard. Curious, Max headed over, and I went with him too, finding Shorter, Ash and a unconscious girl in the grass.
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
Max had laid the 'girl' (who was actually a boy) in a bedroom inside of the house, and we all stood around the bed while the maid explained what had happened before we arrived.
"I was making dinner when those men came barging in and took Young Master."
"So they were after this boy?" Max asked.
"Who is he?" Ash seemed skeptical.
"Yau-Si is Master's...He is Professor Alexis Dawson's son."
"You sure 'Alexis Dawson' is the father of 'Yau-si'?" I asked. Everyone else seemed as surprised as I was, but the groaning of the now awakening boy immediately caught our attention.
"Young Master!" The old lady exclaimed.
"He looks like Eiji," I commented and Shorter agreed.
"You think?"
The boy began to sit up.
"You are...?" He asked.
"We came here looking for Abraham Dawson," Max explained.
"That's my father's younger brother. Though, I've never met him before."
Ash's face seemed to have relaxed, even if it was the slightest. "Your dad isn't Asian, is he? Guessing from his name."
"I was adopted. My father didn't have any children so he adopted me."
"Does he need another daughter? Cause..." Max hit me on the arm.
"So, where's the professor?" Ash asked, walking to the other side of the room.
"Father has been missing for six months now."
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
As I looked at the paintings in the hallway, I saw Ash standing in a doorway and peeked over his shoulder to see a trashed office, books off of the shelves and scattered on the floor.
"Whatcha doing?" Ash, who hadn't noticed my presence, turned around and grabbed my wrist extremely tightly, making me yelp loudly.
"That was uncalled for," I muttered.
"Not my fault that your footsteps are silent."
"It's a curse and a blessing. So what are you doing?"
Before Ash could answer, everyone else found their way into the room.
"What was that yell about?" Shorter asked.
"Your friend is a woman-beater."
"No I'm not," Ash answered.
I shook my head. "That's what they all say."
"Nevermind that," Ash said. "Something's not right."
"Where do you think your dad might be?" Max asked Yau-si.
"Um, can I ask what is going on? Who are you?"
"Us?" Max said. "Well, we're..." Ash cut him off.
"Can I look in this computer?"
"Sure, but you need a password."
"I'll figure it out." I leaned over to see what Ash was going to do and asked,
"You can do that?" He shrugged his shoulders in response, smirking.
The old lady from before entered the room and stood at the doorway.
"Dinner is ready if you are hungry," she said to Yau-si, who responded by turning around and saying 'In a minute' before following after the maid and leaving Max, Ash, Eiji, Ibe, Shorter and I. Shorter stood beside me and Ash beckoned him to come closer, which meant that I had to step back.
"Can you search him up?" Ash asked Shorter.
"Something wrong?" Shorter responded.
"I don't know. Just that...he's too quiet."
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
I'd insisted on staying in the room with Ash despite him showing annoyance at my persistence, and I sat on an armchair near him with my legs to my chest, watching what he was doing silently.
The sound of the old door opening made us both flinch and Ash and I quickly turned, only to see Yau-si bearing a tray with two cups in his slender hands.
"I'm sorry did I surprise you two?"
"I don't like being approached from behind. I grew up in a tough neighborhood," Ash told him. Unfortunately, I had to learn that the hard way. I looked at my slightly bruised wrist and looked back up at the Young Master, who was approaching us both.
"Have some jasmine tea," he said. "It's relaxing." He placed both of the teacups on the desk that Ash was sitting at.
"Both you and Y/N are silent walkers."
"What do you mean?"
"I meant what I said."
"We Chinese are brought up to move quietly."
"Isn't your dad white? How would you know?" I let my thoughts be spoken and I masked my suspicion as genuine curiosity.
"He...looked into the Chinese culture so that I'd feel more at home."
"That makes sense," I lied, 'cause no the fuck it didn't.
"Shorter doesn't move quietly," Ash added.
Yau-si decided to change the topic, saying, "You got in?"
"I have a cracking software," he threw the USB into the air and caught it. "Passwords mean nothing if you boot it with this."
"That's incredible. So, did you find anything?"
"I'm decrypting and encrypted drive right now. I wish I had a faster GPU."
"Can I watch?"
"Hey," I interrupted. "One spectator is enough." Ash looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Sure you can. It's your home."
Eiji started walking in, toom watching what Ash was doing on the computer.
"Did it work?"
"Just watch," Ash said to him. White text with a black background was going on the screen and even though I had no clue what it meant, I assumed that it was a good thing.
"See?"
"That's...cool, I think?" I said.
"It's amazing!" Eiji seemed excited, and they both high-fived.
While watching, I could see a strange look on Yau-si's face, different to the expression he had since we'd been here. It could've been my imagination coming up with more reason to be suspicious of him, but either way, I kept notice of it so that I could tell Ash later.
"Go get the others," he told Eiji, who nodded before leaving the room once again.
Unfortunately, it seemed like what I'd noticed would have to wait, since Yau-si showed no sign of leaving at all as he stared at the screen from over Ash's shoulder.
"What's 'Banana Fish'?" He commented on a file that Ash was looking for.
"That's what we want to know."
Eiji returned to the room with everyone else, and as they stood around him, I stood directly behind, propping my chin up on his head.
"Did you find something?" Max asked.
"It's not..." Almost everybody in the room cocked their head at Ash's strange words before he continued. "We were wrong. Banana Fish, it's not a person. This is the analysis table of Banana Fish. It's mainly psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide. Banana Fish is the name of the drug itself."
"A drug?" Eiji asked.
"The key is probably this 'inert alkaloid'. There's no data about it. What is it, and what effects does it have?"
"So this is what broke Griff down," Max commented.
Ibe put a finger on his chin. "So it's a drug, huh. And an unidentified one, too."
"Wait," Eiji looked at me in realization. "Y/N, aren't you good at scientific stuff like that?" Ash turned around to look at me, making me take my chin off of his head.
"Uh, I can't promise anything."
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
I had forced Ash to move to the side so that we could share the desk chair that he was sitting at and tapped his shoulder. He looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I leaned into his face, unsure if Yau-si was in the room, and whispered,
"I really don't trust Yau-si. The look he gave you when you and Eiji was talking. It was so weird. I don't know what kind of look it was, but it was totally different to how he has been acting." He nodded.
"Did you drink that jasmine tea he gave us?" He asked.
"Hell no. I just knocked it over on purpose."
Ash looked at the desk where the empty teacups were tipped over.
"I didn't even notice."
"Hey, off-topic, but you know in those pictures of us as kids?"
"Yeah."
"Would you call me crazy if I suggested that we knew each other?" I felt around for the photos in my jacket pocket, taking them out.
"Let me see again."
"I found another one in your old house. You're at a baseball game."
"Well, yeah it looks like us."
"Probably because it is us. If we both just had lookalikes, that would be one hell of a fucking coincidence."
"After we're done with this, let's talk some more," Ash said, putting a finger over my lips. He continued doing what he was doing before.
It seemed like his efforts to find out more about Banana Fish weren't going well, as he leaned closed to the computer with his eyebrows furrowed.
"I've looked through everything and there aren't any more hidden files." He leaned back in the chair, slightly shaking it. "How about you?" He asked Max, who had his eyes scanning a blue nook on an armchair behind us.
"I don't understand the test data, but it dates back to over a decade ago. Including Griff's case. A bunch of soldiers died back to back around that time in the army. There are even dissection logs of them. This could mean a totally different thing," He responded.
"The possibility of military involvement?" Ash asked.
"You noticed, too?"
"Obviously, I'm the one that hacked it. But now, I'm on equal footing with Dino."
"No, you stay out of this mess. This could be a nationwide conspiracy."
"What could be better?"
"Wake up!" Max began to walk towards us. "It's not about personal vengeance anymore."
"What, got cold feet?"
"This isn't a joking matter. You know better."
"Yeah, I know this is way out of my league. But I have to put an end to this. For Skip and for Griff. And for me, to become free. Or else, I'd never..."
"No."
"What?"
"Why risk your life? You'll just die in vain. Can't you see? If you insist on continuing, I'll have to hold you down."
"Yeah? Try to stop me." Ash stood up from the chair.
"You said in prison that you'll kill me for abandoning Griff. Go ahead, but I'm not going down without a fight."
"Shorter's back," Eiji called to the three of us.
"Don't tell the others about this. You too, Y/N."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"Ash? What's going on?" Eiji appeared in the doorframe.
"It's nothing," Ash answered shutting down the computer.
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
I scrolled through my social medias on my phone while Ash talked with Shorter in private, seeing my friends' texts and random people commenting on my Instagram again. The last time I'd checked it was at Ash's old home, and once I saw the notification, I noticed that it was the same person who commented the address of my old workplace.
You: Do you want a medal or a Big Mac?
Winnie830 replied: What are you doing at 102, 42 Westwood?
I didn't have the slightest idea who the fuck 'Winnie830' could be, but it was definite that they're a weirdo. I decided to check the rest of my texts, and once was from an old friend.
yesterday - francis the #1 : 'ur bk in us? lets chill tg'
1 hr ago - francis the #1 : 'if not thats alr'
I started typing back.
now - you: 'pretty busy atm mayb when im free?'
now - francis the #1 : 'icic dw abt it'
I put my phone down to see Ash approaching me with the same smirk as usual.
"Have you eaten anything since we got here?" He asked me.
"No, and I will refuse to."
"Why's that?" I followed Ash to sit down next to him.
"I don't trust it and I don't want to accept their hospitality so that I don't owe them anything."
"Chill. I've got your back. The maid's cooking is pretty good you know."
"I'd rather drink puke."
"Don't be like that. Just eat something. You'll be fine."
"And what happens when we're all drugged and I wake up dead?"
"How can you wake up dead?" He laughed. "I don't trust this guy but you're taking it a bit far. Trust me when I say nothing will happen to you."
"What if they have access to Banana Fish and then one of us consumes it and turns into a maniac..." I started ranting about all of the possibilities that could come out of eating the food.
"Relax, nobody is going to get Banana Fish. You're overreacting." Ash's tone seemed to be firmer as he became more serious.
"I don't know...can't I just get some food from somewhere else?"
"Where?"
"I don't know! I'll take anything other than the food here."
"I'll be right back."
I waited for Ash and saw him coming back with a bowl in hand. There was pasta and two forks inside of it. He sat next to me again.
"I watched her make it earlier. It's fine, eat."
"What's the need for two forks."
"I'm hungry too."
We shared the bowl of pasta with each other, somehow managing to talk and laugh about everything and nothing at the same time.
"Oh, wait! Something weird is going on on my Instagram!"
"What?!"
"Some guy called Winnie310–" I paused my sentence to start wheezing uncontrollably, holding onto Ash's shoulder while he hunched over, holding his stomach. It seemed like anything we said would make us go into a laughing fit.
"He commented on one of my Instagram post say- saying my old work at McDonald's in New York!" I accidentally snorted thinking about how random the comment was, which made the both of us start laughing our asses off again until Max, Ibe and Eiji walked over to us with concerned faces.
"Are you guys okay?"
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
After getting over out laughing fits, Ash remember that he had something to do, and I watched him input places on Google Maps, yawning.
"Did you reach the publisher?" Max asked Ibe.
"They'll talk to the Japanese consulate and immigrations office for us. I'd completely forgotten about our visas."
"Do you think Eiji will understand."
"It gives me a headache thinking about it. I'm scared he might run away again..."
"I'll talk to him," Ash said. "I'll tell him to his face that he'll get in the way."
"You can't," Ibe said.
"How can you say that?" MAx stood up from the chair.
"Wake up, this isn't a game," Ash stood up with balled fists. "From here on out, the less burden the better."
"You little punk, how can you say that?! Stop–"
"Max!" Ibe held him back from approaching Ash.
Shortly after Ash went upstairs, he came back down.
"Your turn," he said.
"Thanks, Ash," Ibe told Ash as he disappeared into a hallway.
━♡♥♡→ 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮𝓼𝓴𝓲𝓹
Ash and I were in the kitchen, drinking some alcohol that we'd found. His face was slightly blushed and he quickly drank a glass, wiping his mouth after. The sudden voice of Max startled us both/
"It must've been hard for you to have to be cold to Eiji." We turned around and looked at Max. "You're heading back to New York, huh?" He asked, taking the bottle of alcohol and pouring himself a glass, finishing the bottle before I could even have another glass. "That's why you want Eiji to leave, huh?"
"It's just too dangerous," Ash explained.
"You'll be killed if you go back."
"He has a chance of being killed anywhere," I said as I raised an eyebrow.
"She's right. It's the same here. His men will find us. New York might be Dino's home ground, but it's mine too."
"You're still going to confront him?" Max asked.
"I can't stand hiding from him anymore." Ash began to leave the room, and I couldn't help but follow him like some kind of dog.
"I give up. I'm going with you. You're Griff's little brother. I feel some kind of destiny. I'm going to have the head of the New York Tribune keep the data. You have no say in this. This is my way of doing things. I'll get to the bottom of this." Ash sighed.
♡⋆♡ 𝓮𝓷𝓭 ♡⋆♡
every time i watch another episode of banana fish for this ff i remember how sad it is
honestly the first time I watched it i cried
i forgot to update even tho i started this chapte on the 7th of april oopsie
sorry tho