I Need You to Love Me

Rachael was shaken awake as she rode lying in the reclined passenger seat of the Get Backers’ car. She kept her eyes closed, feeling warm for the first time in days and forgetting the Yakuza entirely as she listened to the soft hum of the engine, still not knowing where she was. All she knew was that she was warm, and felt safe.

“So they were keeping her for, you know, entertainment?” Ginji asked in hushed outrage, keeping his voice barely above a whisper as he leaned in between the two front seats to talk to his friend. “Looks like it.” He answered bitterly.

“How long was she there for?”

“I don’t know. Probably not long though, she was fighting him pretty hard when I took the door down, and was still pleading not to be touched. Most of the girls these guys keep are completely submissive after the first few days, after being beaten and abused until they give up their free will and just do what they’re told. She was refusing to do what she was told, that’s why she was screaming and being beaten.”

“So what, a week?”

“Ginji, if she was with them for a week, and still acting like that, she’d be dead right now. No, with the way she was acting, a day at the most.”

She didn’t realize she whimpered as their conversation reminded her about what happened that night until Ban’s hand was on her shoulder. Her eyes shot open and she pressed herself against the door, trying to keep him from touching her. “Calm down, it’s okay. I was just going to wake you up, you sounded like you were having a nightmare.” He explained, quickly withdrawing his hand and going back to driving. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was listening to you two.” She admitted quietly, shaking in the front seat and pulling the sheet tighter around herself both for warmth and to keep herself covered.

“I’m sorry about what happened back there, but you don’t have to worry about us. We couldn’t hurt you.” Ginji smiled kindly. She nodded, relaxing a little but refusing to move closer to the two men she was currently trapped in the car with. “Hey, listen, we were gonna take you to a hospital so you could get checked out and be safe, but if you think you’re feeling okay then I can take you home if you want.” Ban explained. “Okay, uhm, I don’t… really know how to get to my apartment building from here.” She sighed

“No, well what’s it look like?” Ginji asked. “It’s… uhm… gray, and big.” She answered awkwardly. “Narrows it down, what street is it on?” he asked. “I don’t know, I’ve only lived in Shinjuku for four days.” She answered honestly. “Okay, then what’s around it?” Ginji asked. “Not really a lot, a big, unfinished looking building isn’t far from it. It’s not really an apartment, just a building to live in really. But I’ll be okay, really.” She answered, remembering a place that she had seen that morning while begging for food, that she could stay in that night.

“That big, unfinished looking building?” Ginji asked almost worriedly as they drove through the city. “Yeah, why?” she questioned. “That’s the Limitless Fortress, if you don’t know what that is, then you don’t really live in one of these buildings. Where do you live?” Ban asked, pulling over and shutting the car off. “I, uhm… I,” she struggled as tears formed in her eyes once more. She didn’t want him to be angry with her for lying, because then he would break his promise about hurting her. And she didn’t want to admit that she was homeless either. She didn’t know what else to do so she cried again. Crying was her release; it was what she did when there was no other answer. When she was angry, hurt, sad, frustrated, or even happy, she would cry.

“You don’t have an apartment, do you?” Ginji asked softly. “N-no. I’m sorry for lying, please don’t b-be mad at me!” she pleaded through her tears. “We aren’t mad at you, Rachael.” Ban sighed, resting his hand on her shoulder, but just barely touching her.

For the first time since they met she didn’t flinch away, so he cautiously relaxed his arm until his had was actually resting on her shoulder. “So where were you staying last?” Ginji asked cheerfully. “In the park under a bridge.” She answered. “I know what bridge you’re talking about, and that’s really not a good place for you to be. Come on, I think I know somewhere safe you can stay.” Ban smiled and drove another three blocks to a small café.

Before going in, Ban and Ginji both have her some of the few extra clothes they had and left her to change out of the small, sheer, torn nightie and into some real clothes. Even if they were a bit too big for her.

As soon as she walked into the café Ban led her to a booth that had two mugs of fresh coffee on it. “The pizza will be done in a minute or two, so just get comfy and relax a while.” The owner smiled. She nodded weakly and sat awkwardly across from Ban.

“Ginji decided to go ahead and drop off the gem we recovered on that job, while I stayed here with you.” He said, explaining the absence of his blonde friend.

“Oh.” Was all she said in reply.

“So what brought you here to Shinjuku?”

“A stupid dream, promising stupid things.”

“What things?”

“Answers.”

“Answers to what?

“To life I guess, I don’t know. My life had no real direction, and was only questions. Where do I go, what do I do, who am I meant to be, who am I meant to meet, what should I focus on, who are my parents, where are my parents… just so many different questions. When that dream said answers, I had to run with it. I didn’t have anything else to hold on to. I was homeless then too, so I figured I could at least be homeless with hope, right?”

Ban nodded and sipped his coffee as Paul, the café owner, set down a large pizza that smelled and looked like the best pizza ever created. Her stomach immediately voiced its need for the food, and her cheeks turned a very light pink. “Hungry?” Paul chuckled. “The last thing I ate, was the really nasty, stale peanuts that the flight attendant gave me on my way over here. So my last real meal was… Jesus, six days ago!” she gasped at the realization at how long she really had been starving for. “Wow, well then let me know if there’s anything else you need. And don’t worry, all of this is on me.” He smiled and walked away after receiving her very sincere thank you.

“Thank you, too.” She added to Ban as they ate the pizza in silence. For once he was pacing himself, wanting to make sure she had enough to eat. “For?” he asked blankly through a mouthful of food.

“Saving me, helping me, protecting me… you know other than the men that took me to that house, you’re the first person really to speak to me since I moved here.”

“Uhm… you’re welcome.” He nodded awkwardly.

“I’m sorry for accusing you of having the same intentions as them too. You didn’t deserve that; you had just fought one of them off of me. And in the car all you were trying to do was help me, but I automatically assumed you were trying to hurt me. I really am sorry.”

“You don’t have to be. I understand why you reacted that way. I’m pretty sure I’d have done the same thing if I were you.”

She smiled and even laughed a little as they ate, relaxing quite a lot around him.

“So, cello and violin huh?” he asked, starting up a less likely to trigger bad emotions conversation.

“Yeah. They wanted me to learn piano, but there’s a certain romance to the two stringed instruments that the piano just doesn’t have. That doesn’t mean piano isn’t a beautiful instrument, there’s no such thing as a bad musical instrument; everything has a romance and beauty to it that is unmatched by anything else. It’s just up to the musician to decide what one calls to them, and the cello and violin’s voices are what called me.”

“Only someone who truly appreciates the art form would talk about it like that. You have to really love the music to be so soulfully connected.”

“I do love music, music, art, poetry, drama, all of it. It’s a way to look into someone’s soul, and see past their thickest walls. When an artist creates something, they can’t hide anything. It always comes out somehow.”

“So what did you create?”

“Headaches, and forced therapy. They thought I was crazy, and disturbed, so they hired a psychiatrist for me.” She laughed.

“Why?”

“Because my ‘creations’ were disturbing to them. Crying violin, pain-ridden cello improvisations… my music was always full of frustration, anger, hate, and future suicide or murder to them. They never saw the real meaning behind what I did. There was always a silver lining to the songs. Through suffering, came happiness. From pain, came peace. Out of tragedy, came love. After everything dark, came something that brought me hope. But they couldn’t see past the bad things, because their yin has no yang.” She laughed again as she spoke, feeling thousands of times better than she had felt only hours ago.

He laughed also, and moved to sit beside her as Ginji came over to their table with a friend of his. “Hey there Rachael, this is my friend Emishi. Emishi, this is Rachael.” He introduced proudly. “Wow, she’s even more beautiful in person!” he beamed, extending his hand to her but she instinctively moved closer to Ban to get away from him, without even thinking about it. He sighed and put his arm around her, “Friends of Ginji’s usually don’t hurt people.” He explained with a half smile.

He honestly didn’t mind having her turn to him for protection; in fact he kind of liked it. He liked being the one she instinctively looked to for safety, but he wasn't sure why that was. He didn’t like what happened to her, or the fact she needed him to protect her, but he did like the idea of being her protector.

“Yeah, Ginji told me a little about you… I’m sorry about what happened.” Emishi frowned; adjusting his pink framed glasses. “I-it’s okay.” She smiled weakly. She wasn’t used to having someone care about her; she definitely wasn’t used to having strangers care about her. “Well enough about the bad stuff, what do you like to do for fun?” he asked cheerfully. “I, uhm, I haven’t really been doing much lately.” She stuttered awkwardly. “She’s a cellist, and violinist.” Ban answered. “Really? You play both instruments? I heard they were both really hard to learn.” He smiled eagerly. “They can be, but all instruments can be hard though. I’ll admit the cello was harder to play than my violin though. Thicker strings, and the body was just awkward to hold for me.” She laughed. “So did you bring your instruments with you when you moved here?” Ginji asked hopefully. “No, I never owned a cello, and I sold my violin to get the plane ticket to come here.” She sighed, only half regretting her decision.

The group nodded and sat in content silence while Ban still kept his arm comfortably draped around her shoulders. She yawned suddenly and he smirked at her, earning a glare in response. “Tired?” he asked innocently. “Considering my life lately,” she muttered while leaning away from him and pushing his arm off of her. Although he didn’t mean to, that grin he gave her resembled the one the man who cuffed her wore. “Come on, I already checked with the chief, he said you could stay in the room he has upstairs.” He pushed as he stood up. She hesitated to take his hand and follow him away from the others, but the part of her that desperately wanted to trust him was louder and stronger than the part of her that wanted to be smart and keep him from having her alone in a bedroom.

“It’s not much, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the last few places you’ve been.” He announced. She just nodded and sat at the foot of the bed, silently arguing with herself while he watched her to make sure she didn’t need anything. “Hey, uhm… Ban?” she asked sheepishly.

“What’s up?”

“Will… I mean, would you… mind maybe, staying with me?”

He looked a little shocked at first, but seeing how small and fragile she looked, he couldn’t refuse her. It was obvious she needed him, and he didn’t have a problem with being needed. With a nod he kicked off his shoes and got in the bed beside her. “Thank you.” She whispered. “Anytime.” He nodded, wrapping his arms around her as she snuggled closer to him.

Hours later he woke to her stirring in her sleep. He didn’t want to wake her, knowing that she needed to rest, so he waited for a short while to turn on the small lamp beside the bed. She started to whimper, so he reached over and switched on the light to see a few tears running down her face as well.

“Rachael, Rachael wake up, it’s okay. You’re having a dream, it’s just a nightmare.” He said quickly, gently shaking her to wake her up, but to no avail. “Rachael!” he said a bit louder, shaking her with a little more force but backing away as soon as she took that waking gasp and sat up. “It’s okay, it was just a dream.” He explained gently. “B-Ban,” she whimpered while crawling over to him and wrapping her arms tightly around him. “It’s okay.” He repeated.

“Don’t let them get me, please don’t let them hurt me.” She sobbed.

“I won’t, they won’t get anywhere near you.”

“Promise.”

“I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. You’re safe here, they won’t hurt you. I’ll protect you.”

She whimpered again and buried her face deeper into his shoulder, and he held her even closer if it was possible. They stayed like that for a long time until he was sure she had fallen asleep. Then he lay them both back down, but left the light on, not wanting the sudden change in light to wake her. It was hardy two minutes before he was asleep as well.