Utsukushi - Banana Fish

Chapter 3

2 weeks later

Life was...okay, to say the least. Obviously it was better than what it had been. I hadn't been found, which was the only major plus, but i also became a little more comfortable around Ash's gang.

They're a lot friendlier when they don't have guns pointed at your head. In reality, they're just a bunch of kids. I was the only girl among them, which felt weird to all of us at first.

They're slowly taking me in as one of them. I get why they don't fully trust me though. They've all grown up in tough places, so trusting doesn't come easy, especially someone who came in randomly. I've lived and understood the struggle too. Hell, i still am.

I don't really trust the lot of them either. Just because Ash's is their boss doesn't mean he has them fully locked down. Betrayal comes often on the streets.

I try to talk with some of them every now and then to get to know them. I've spoken with Skip the most, who seems to be Ash's number 2, despite how small and young he may seem.

Alex, who also seemed relatively close to Ash, liked to talk to me often as well.

I didn't care if everyone liked me or not though. It'd be nice if there was mutual trust, but the progress with that is a bit slow.

I think they think of me as dangerous, being how closely tied I am to Golzine. Ash is too, but I had more of a bounty on my head that says "shoot to kill." If they were caught with me, God knows what'd happen.

But all we had was to hope for the best.

Today, some of us hung out at a spot Ash owns. It was a small sub-level place that had a bar and pool tables. They called it their Lounge.

I sat at the bar with Ash, just talking. We caught up on some stuff since we haven't been able to really talk for more than a year. We would see each other a few minutes at most, so there was little time to just make casual conversation.

We use to talk to each other all the time before though since we really didn't have anybody else. To anyone else, Ash seemed like some cold-blooded kid, but if you're able to know him and talk to him, he seemed just like a normal teenager.

"I have a friend of mine coming. His name's Shorter. I met him in Reform School."

"Hey, Ash," a tall, tanned skinned boy with purple hair and sunglasses came over. I'd never seen him before.

"Speaking of, that's him." Ash said.

Shorter came over and took a seat beside us. "Who's your pretty friend here."

"Rose." I rolled my eyes at his comment.

He just laughed it off. "Nice to meet ya. I'm Shorter."

"You kinda look like him." Ash comments, taking a drink of his soda.

"Meaning?" I ask.

"I dunno. Shorter's Chinese. Maybe that's it. You're half Chinese, right?"

"Yeah, but,"

"You're Chinese? No wonder you're so pretty." He tried to flirt, but he laughed again knowing it was a failed attempt.

Ash laughed a little, but then he sat up in his seat. "Shorter, there's something we need to talk about though."

Shorter immediately got serious. "What is it?"

"Arthur."