A Perfect Day for Banana Fish

By Uozumi

 

Author’s Notes:  I searched for inspiration for a BF fic all weekend, and today, after reading a short story; I got it just a few minutes ago (even though it's been hours since I read it . . . )  It's J.D. Salinger's title (sort of), not mine.  Also, I'm not sure when Ash went to see Cain, all I know is that he went alone, so, from what knowledge I could scrounge up, I pieced this together.  I'm sorry if events are a little off, or if it seems a little askew, but I think that it will work out.  You'll see.  I own nothing.

 

----

The reflection of a wearied young man glowed against the chilly windowpane as the curtains swished closed, his dark eyes closing.  He didn't like it, not at all.  He hated being the weak one, the protected one, the one who couldn't shoot a gun, or defend his own life properly.  He hated that he was nineteen, yet all would take him for sixteen, that the only time he really was out of his confined home was when he was grocery shopping, putting out the garbage, or some other menial task.  The worst part of all, however, was that he knew that it was all true, and it all needed to be done.  He had no power against it, it was his own upbringing and culture that made him what he was, someone who couldn't shoot a gun properly, someone who had to be protected, even if it was by someone two years younger, but seemed to be two years older.

 

Bones and Kong had gone to be hours ago, but the young man, Okumura Eiji, couldn't sleep.  He couldn't close his eyes, or even sit down; all he could do was pace and wait.  Sighing, he forced himself to sit on the sofa, and pulled out a small book.  Mrs. Mulland, the woman across the hall and two doors to the left, had given it to him, pitying him for his confined life, calling him a "poor Chinese house boy."  The book was Nine Short Stories by J.D. Salinger, and Eiji still hadn't touched it since she pushed it on him two days ago.  She had already forced Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and The Scarlet Pimpernel on him, and he doubted that Nine Short Stories would be the last.

 

Sitting on his right leg, Eiji pulled up his left, situating himself in the chair so he could keep the door in sight, but stay comfortable.  Opening the book, he skipped over the title, copyright, another title, and a blank page, finally finding the first story . . . .

 

Eiji dropped the book, then nervously picked it back up again. Finding the page he had last seen, he sat so both feet were on the floor, his arms on his thighs as he studied the English before him, amazed at what he saw.

 

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”

 

'Banana Fish . . . ?'  Eiji stared, transfixed at the word as though it would jump out and form the small capsule of hell that it was.  Yet, this story had been written in the late forties, and Banana Fish the drug hadn't been around then, so . . . .

 

Frowning, the nineteen-year-old sat cross-legged on the sofa cushion, propped the book open, and began to read.  Perhaps, the creator of Banana Fish the drug got the inspiration for the name from whatever was in this story.

 

Ash Lynx walked up the street that led to the apartment, exhausted.  He had just come back from telling Cain to keep out of the business between him and Arthur, and even if it had gone well, he still felt drained.  He hated the path he had chosen, but he knew that the only way to achieve what he wanted was to cut a bloody path through all those who stood against him.  Sometimes he wondered that if he continued down this course if it would destroy him, or possibly leave him in the dark, everyone turning away.  He didn't care if "Dad" left, or his gang wrote him off, or if Cain suddenly turned on him, or Eiji . . . .

 

Ash frowned, running a hand through his dirt-blonde hair.  Whenever it came to the idea of Eiji turning away or hating him, there was a small pang that went through him, zapping him of whatever energy he had left.  He could say that if Eiji ended up hating him for Ash forcing him to go back to Japan, that he wouldn't care, but he would.  Ash knew that he didn't want Eiji to hate him, but if hate was what got Eiji into a safe place, then hate it would be, as undesirable that it sounded.

 

Pausing before the door, his key in hand, Ash noted the dim beam of light under the bottom crack.  How many times did Eiji wait up for him?  Sure, the older boy wrote it off as just wanting to finish this chapter of this book, but was it that?  Ash pursed his lips, then shook his head.  He didn't need to be wondering if Eiji waited up for him, or just had to finish a chapter of some book he mysteriously obtained.  All Ash needed to worry about was what was his next step in the game, and what he wanted to do with Eiji when that next step came.

 

Swinging the door open, Ash blinked.  Typically, Eiji would have put the book down, handing off some lame excuse about how he had been reading - and "oh look at what time it is, I wasn't paying attention" - but those dark eyes were reading intently in the small book he had that night.

 

"What's so interesting?"

 

Eiji jumped, the book almost tumbling from his hands.  Looking up, he tried to mask his surprise, "Oh, just a book," he wrote it off.

 

Ash smirked, "Really?"

 

For some reason, the little random things about Eiji were something he liked to poke at, to uncover.  He'd just ask a question, and the Japanese boy would answer.  Eiji was so open and sometimes, although he wouldn't want to admit, Ash found that he could be "open" too (at least when it was just the two of them.)

 

Eiji nodded, failing at trying to pretend that this story had held him better than the others.  The story had been a slight insight into the concept of the name for the drug.  In the story, a man who had to have had some mental disorder after the war (World War II, not Vietnam) spoke of these things called bananafish to this little girl at the shore.  His wife, at the time, was being warned by her mother that the man might do something like he did to her grandmother (but it was never exactly clarified as to what that was), then, after leaving the little girl, the man went back into the hotel, watched his wife sleep, and then . . . .

 

It all made perfect sense in that weird sort of way.

 

"I won't ask then," Ash smiled to himself, something Eiji noted happened every now and then.  When Ibé-san had told him what their project was, Eiji had an image that a gang member would be tough, resilient, static, but Ash wasn't that.  He was tough and resilient, you could say, but that little smile, the sense of brotherhood between himself and his gang . . . .

 

Eiji had never expected that.  What he had really been expecting was someone like Arthur.

 

"Do you really want to know?"

 

Ash blinked, glancing at his "Chinese house boy" as he poured a glass of water to try to relieve his impending headache, "Know what?"

 

"What I was reading," Eiji clarified.

 

"If you want to tell me."

 

It was just the sort of cryptic answer Eiji knew he was going to receive.

 

"You're going to tell me anyway, right?"

 

"How - How'd you know?"

 

"Easy," Ash took a drink, then gave him that amused smile, "your face is like an open book.  I already know that whatever it was, you've been thinking about it hard, and are wondering whether or not you want to tell me, and you're leaning towards telling me."

 

Eiji stared a minute, then nodded, "Yeah."

 

"So what is it?"

 

"Well, in this book," Eiji held up Nine Short Stories so Ash could see the cover, "there's a story called ‘A Perfect D –‘"

 

"‘- ay for Bananafish,’" Ash finished with him.

 

"How did you . . . ?"

 

"I read it a while back, actually before I knew about the drug," Ash commented quickly as though it wasn't really something he had expected, yet had all the same.

 

"I - I see," Eiji lowered his eyes.  He felt stupid.  He should have known better than to bring it up, he should have been paying attention to put it up when Ash came in . . . .

 

"You're going to say that you're sorry now, right?"

 

Eiji stared.  Was he really that transparent?  Was it really that easy to read him?  Ash was so complex, but was he, Okumura Eiji, really that simple?

 

"You're forgiven," Ash responded to the silence, then set down his empty glass.  "I'm going to sleep now, stay up if you want."

 

Eiji went to shrug, but nodded, yawning in reply.  It was two in the morning, and even if only thirty minutes ago he could barely stop moving, now he could barely move.

 

THE END