Compass - Banana Fish x Reader

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: Rest Stop

"Shorter, I'm gonna puke! For the love of god, stop swerving!"

My guts felt like the interior of an active washing machine as we drove along, and I hung out the back of the truck, expecting what little I had in my stomach to come back up.

"My bad! We're stopping soon, anyway!" I heard Shorter call from the cab, and I groaned, pulling myself back in and slumping against the metal.
"You look like a bad eighties pop star." Ash snickered flatly, nodding to my fly away hair. Narrowing my eyes, I flipped him the bird, making sure to give it a lot of feeling.

"And you look like an inflamed dick. Your point?" It had been five days since we had started living in the truck, and I was about to go insane, especially when it came to Ash. I had asked him about the willow tree I had seen in my dream, minus certain details, but he had refused to explain anything else.

I remembered the man who had caught me. He hadn't been wiped from my slate, but everything else had been. The willow tree wasn't even there anymore, and it just made me more frustrated. If he could give me just one hint, one scrap of information, I'd be grateful. But no, he had to be ash, the inflamed dick.

"At least we're taking a break soon. I'm not sure I can deal with much more of you two bickering." Ibe sighed, stretching his legs out and wincing.
"Yeah, it was cute at first, but now I'm ready to ring your necks." Max added, flinching down as both Ash and I shot him our own glares.

Soon after, the truck came to a rather jarring stop, and I was the first one to climb out, beginning to shake out my limbs.
"Finally! Air that doesn't taste like man sweat!" It had honestly been disgusting in there, but I couldn't really talk. I felt like a sticky mess.

"Eiji found this cute little diner off the main road on my phone maps, so I thought we could get some food and have a rest." Shorter announced as he hopped out of the driver's side, rolling his shoulders back. Food did sound enticing, seeing as we had been living off truck-stop trash since we had gotten on the road, but at the same time, my appetite was almost non-existent.

"I might just get a drink to go when you guys are done. Gonna walk around for a bit so my legs don't drop off." Not waiting for an answer, I started off towards the other end of the car park. My eyes were peeled, and every movement made me tense. Had they followed us? Did they know where we were going?

I knew it wasn't all due to Ash, and how he shot Papa up back in New York. Banana Fish had something to do with it, whatever it was. Was it a codename? A place? A person? There were so many possibilities, and little to no information. If there was, nobody was telling me.

"You need to eat. You're already weak as it is." Flinching, I turned to face Ash, who had followed me on my aimless walk. The others had already gone inside, it seemed, so we were alone.
"I doubt I could stomach anything. Not after what happened..." It still flashed in my mind. The blood, the death.

"That's why I said you should stay behind. We may have been cut from the same cloth, but we're two different things. You can't handle this. You're gonna slow us down." He sounded so sure of himself, and even though I knew he was likely right, it pissed me off.

"Says the son of a bitch who wanted to marry me when he was like eleven..." I muttered back in a soured tone, casting my gaze to the sketchy looking bathroom block. Ash was quiet for a while, surprised at my recollection, but he quickly bit back.

"Exactly. I was eleven. Remember anything else?" I decided to let him brush over that for now, but I planned on giving him shit for it later.
"I remember you were crap at climbing trees. I also remember a name. Froggy..." Turning back to him, I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes. "I want you to tell me who Froggy is. At least give me that much."

Tight lipped and cold, Ash just stared back at me for the longest while, the ends of his blond hair, now sheening with grease, twitching in the light breeze.
"I'm not telling you anything. You need to remember it for yourself. Especially that. Small doses, otherwise you'll break."

To me, that just sounded like an excuse, but I was already so completely done with him after being trapped in a vehicle with him for so long. Throwing my arms up in the air in defeat, I started back towards the truck, hoping he'd just go inside the cafe and leave me be.

"Whatever. I'm taking a nap. Don't bother me." I was tired, but there was no way I could have possibly gotten to sleep. I was too on edge, and I knew that I would just get woken up by everyone when they finished anyway.

Much to my dismay, he followed me back, keeping me from closing the cab door once I had climbed in.
"The last time we spoke, before you changed..." Ash started, emerald eyes burning into my (E/C). "...do you remember what you said to me?"

What I said..? Before I changed..?

It felt like there was an answer stuck to the roof of my mouth, but no matter how hard I tried to pry it off and spit it out, I just couldn't. Searching his eyes, I could tell it was something important, but with only fractions of memories to work with, I was hopeless.

"Y'know, you said you'd look after me...but you're not helping me now, Ash. I get that whatever I can't remember is heavy, obviously, but do you really believe keeping it from me is protecting me? It's doing damage." Knees to my chest, I stared down at the dusty dashboard, waiting for him to either answer me or leave.

"I'll take that as a no, then." The truck tilted a little as Ash leaned against the doorframe, his shadow casting over my form. "Listen, you can think whatever you want. It's not gonna change the fact that, for the most part, I am keeping my promise. You don't want to remember everything in one hit, (Y/N). It'll kill you."

Kill me? I'm not that weak...It can't be that bad...

I don't know why I reached out and grabbed his arm when he turned to leave, but I felt like I had more to say. The problem was, however, that I wasn't sure what it was. It was on the very tip of my tongue, but seemingly unreachable.

He stared down at me with those permanently stern eyes of his, but for a moment, just a split second, I saw something warm. Something he hadn't quite lost yet.
"Was...what I said important..?" I wanted to know, but I could already tell he wasn't going to give me a straight answer.

There was almost an audible rip as he pulled his arm away, but it was gentle, like he didn't really want to.
"Nah, not really..." His shoes scraped the ground as he started off towards the diner, hands finding their way into his jean pockets. "Shorter'll probably bring you back some food."

The way he had said that last part had sounded a little bitter to me, but I tried not to think anything of it. For once, I wasn't completely agitated with him, but only because of my most recent memory that had resurfaced.

He was hurting more than I was, and somewhere deep down I knew that he truly was just trying to save me from that level of pain, but I still wanted to know. What exactly had I gone through? What had we gone through? How could it have been worse than what I had already uncovered in that folder?

Curling back in on myself, I closed my eyes and tried to think back. When had my memories warped and faded? I could recall fractions of my childhood, and everything seemed normal, but pieces were missing. Those lost fragments must have contained Ash.

There was no way I was going to be able to actually get some sleep. Too much was going through my mind, and it was too bright. I missed my apartment, and I missed my old, oblivious life. Even Arthur, to a degree. Even though I now knew what he was capable of, and what he was caught up in, I still cared. We had been friends, after all. Maybe almost more than that.

Now, there was no way to go back go that. A tangled web had been woven, and I was caught in the middle of it. I was now a killer, and there was no other choice but to follow Ash and Shorter and try to find out what the hell this Banana Fish really was.

I have a feeling that it won't be the memories that kill me...

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***My brain flat-lined near the end there, my bad xD

Next Time: Las(t) Angeles***