Categories > Anime/Manga > Gungrave
Secrets [English Title]
1 ReviewsIt's ironic how Lee gloats over knowing how obsessed Bunji is with him, but his overly detailed knowledge reveals how just how obsessed Lee is with Bunji.
Bunji sat in the driver's seat with the car in idle as Harry and Shere strolled into the clinic hand in hand. His eyes shifted to Lee sitting in the passenger seat. Lee hadn't said one word the entire trip.
"Man, this is a mess," said Bunji.
"In an hour or two it won't be," Lee answered in a bored tone.
"So this place is private, huh?"
"By day, it's an animal hospital."
Bunji snickered.
"So when they getting married?" he asked.
Lee sighed before replying, "This time, next year,"
"So why all this shit?"
"Because her father is Bear Walken,"
Bunji's head swiveled towards Lee.
So, the boss man was going at it with Bear Walken's daughter. When Bunji first met Harry McDowell, he suspected the man was either completely stupid or an absolute genius. The needle on the gauge now favored the latter.
"If you ask me, he is out of his fucking mind," said Bunji said.
"Don't use profanity around me, Kugashira," Lee replied coldly.
"Sorry."
Bunji adjusted his jacket and mentally kicked himself for forgetting he was in the car with Lee and not Aniki.
As Lee rubbed his eyes to stave off the boredom of waiting, Bunji stretched, adjusted his crotch and sat back to get more comfortable.
"So where is Brandon tonight?" Lee asked.
"Somewhere," Bunji replied vaguely.
He knew very well that Brandon was having tea at the Asagi residence, but Lee was on Brandon's list of people Bunji was not allowed to share confidential info with.
"It's Wednesday, so he is probably playing bridge with his friend, Maria, tonight," said Lee.
Bunji looked quickly at Lee and wondered aloud, "Is there any fucking thing in this town you don't know about?"
"Not a thing," said Lee, "and I already told you, I don't want to hear you swearing."
Bunji tensed up at the thought that Lee might know everything. He hoped to hell it wasn't true. There were certain details in his private life... It made him sick to think that Lee might have found out that.
His eyes shifted to the man sitting beside him, in his long black leather coat and perfectly straight, black hair and golden skin. No, don't look at that, he thought. His gaze finally came to rest on Lee's right hand and the wedding band the man wore on his ring finger.
"You got a wife, right?" asked Bunji.
"Yes, I do." Lee replied.
"I think I seen her before," Bunji said, as he recalled a petite, boisterous blonde with a marvelous laugh, large breasts, and very thick thighs. At the time he was told she was a dancer, and one look at her legs proved it. "You got kids?"
"I made a deal with devil, Kugashira." Lee said as he pulled out his wallet. "The devil's name is Georgia Poundmax. I get a wife and move up as an executive, and she gets a baby every few years."
Lee produced a small photo and Bunji turned on the overhead light to take a look.
Bunji grinned at the adorable child smiling back at him in the photo.
"You ask me, you're gonna have some trouble when she gets to be that one's age." Bunji nodded his head at the clinic in reference to Shere.
"Yes," Lee smiled, "If her mother is any indication, she will, no doubt, grow to star in some of the finer amateur college ladies-gone-loco straight-to-video films."
"Man," laughed Bunji as he handed back the photo, "a blonde Balken, now there is something you don't see everyday."
"She is certainly unique." Lee said.
"She's got your eyes," said Bunji. "How old is she?"
"She is five," said Lee as he hugged himself to stay warm, "Her brother is due next month."
"Boy and a girl are good to have, I guess," said Bunji.
"I wouldn't know. I don't live with them," Lee said in a careless tone.
Bunji said nothing in reply for he suspected Lee didn't care for female companionship any more than he did; but in Millenion a man didn't rise up the ladder if he didn't have a family. Ambitious men like Lee made the kind of choice that Randy had. You marry a nice woman, start a family, and keep your real sexual preferences under wraps.
Bunji wasn't interested in climbing the corporate ladder, but he did care what some people thought of him. He wanted their respect and fear. And he wanted to be the one they came to, when an impossible job needed doing.
The way Bunji saw things, no one ever came to a queer except to get laid. There was no way he was going to come out of the closet, but he didn't like the thought of marriage either. Some guys never got married, even a breeder like Aniki made no plans for it, so why should he?
Lee's photo of his kid reminded him of his own past when as a young man, still a little naïve and unsure of himself, he'd gone through the motions of being more than just a loner. He reached into his pocket and jerked out a wallet-sized picture and held it up for Lee to look at.
Lee studied it a moment, "Oh my, does he live with grandparents?"
"Nah," Bunji replied. "He's got a good mom and dad taking care of him in Algiers."
"He looks happy. All kids are, I suppose," said Lee as he handed the image back to Bunji who looked at it with pride before he returned it to his billfold.
"At the orphanage I was brought up in," Bunji said, "I was, like sixteen, and this friend of mine, his sister was fourteen. Things just happened...Yeah. Anyhow, she got taken in by these real nice people after I knocked her up."
"Is he with her now?" Lee asked.
"Nah," Bunji said regretfully, "When he was about a year old, she got shot helping her brother rob a liquor store. This couple raised him."
"Did they give you the photo?" Lee asked.
"Yeah, they did," Bunji said. "About three years ago when he turned twelve."
"Ah yes, they contacted you because they wanted to legally adopt him and wished to ask your permission," Lee said.
"If you ask me, I thought that was real honorable--" Bunji stopped short and looked fiercely at Lee.
"I told you, Kugashira," Lee chuckled smugly. "There's nothing I don't know."
"Yeah...well I know some shit, too,"
"I doubt it," Lee laughed scornfully.
"I may not have Bob whispering secrets in my ear, but I hear things and figure out stuff on my own."
"And just what have you figured out, Bunji?"
"I know for a fact you ain't killed one person in your entire life. Not even when you were running with Lightning."
Lee stared ahead and did not look at Bunji. Bunji waited for the retort.
"That's not true."
"Bullshit," snapped Bunji. "When you were in Lightning, you never whacked anybody. Now your brother was a different story..."
"My brother is no longer with us," Lee smirked.
"You can drop the act. I also know you didn't do your brother either--the boss man did."
"You and Brandon share quite a bit of info, do you?"
"You get by on rep alone." Bunji said smugly. "Guys like you coast on fumes and hope by the time they get to where they are going, they won't need to drive anymore."
"You think you got me all figured out, don't you, Kugashira," said Lee.
"That's right. I got your number."
Lee laughed now, a sinister-sweet chuckle which made most men's skin crawl, but not Bunji's.
"I don't think so," said Lee, shaking his head, "because if you did have my number, Kugashira, you wouldn't have to cruise West Avenue on your nights off," he finished with a triumphant note.
Bunji glared over his glasses at Lee who turned to watch him.
"You shouldn't mess with me, Bunji. Let me tell you a little story about some of the poor, unfortunate young men from Balken who come to Billion looking for something...a career, maybe, these wanna-be models, actors, singers...Life is cruel, and most of them eventually end up on West Avenue."
Lee watched Bunji as he spoke.
"And that's where you come in, driving through slow, looking for a familiar body, a familiar face...To most people, we all look alike, but not you, Kugashira, because you are looking for just the right one..."
Bunji turned his head to stare out the windshield listening stony-faced to the recitation.
"When you find him," Lee continued, "he walks up to your car and asks you if you want a date. If he asks you in Balken, it excites you so much, you take your foot off the brake and put the car in park. You like the ones just new to the city, because they're hungry enough to act nice and pretend they don't mind your smell."
Bunji glared again at Lee, who continued his story with blissful contempt.
"He gets in and you drive to an alley for a suck or a jerk. But sometimes though, after a good payday, you call up Old Wanda's on the Southside and get yourself a real nice Balken. Your exact specifications over the phone are clear: North Balken--make sure his eyes are real North Balken. I want him thin, some muscle, and very tall. Not too pale, completely shaven, armpits, chest, legs and pubes and the hair on his head must be long, black, and tied back. Oh, and he isn't allowed to talk unless I say so. Yes, I believe those are your orders every time, aren't they?" Lee asked.
Bunji felt his face get hot as he hoped to God, that Lee was done with talking. The sweeper stared at the clinic willing Harry to come out, but the boss man didn't show and Lee started talking again in his silken voice.
"Sometimes they send you one with short hair because something went wrong, maybe they couldn't find a long-haired one the right height. Hey, they're just doing their best, but it always bothers you so much, you have to send him back," Lee continued, enjoying seeing Kugashira's pride twisting in the wind, "but, finally, you hit the jackpot, and found one you really like, and now, you ask only for him. Number 22. You've been seeing Number 22 for the last six months, about two Fridays a month. He's tall, pale, sinewy and strong. His hair's long and he keeps it in the ponytail. He wears traditional Balken pantsuits and when he stays the night at that hole-in-the-wall you call a house, he answers to the name Lee and calls you Kugashira-sensei."
Bunji removed his glasses and watched Lee's face as the man continued his narrative.
"When you fuck him, which is quite often during his overnight visits, you make him scream your name as you tell him how much you knew he wanted it..."
Bunji put his glasses back on and lit a cigarette.
"You ask me," Bunji said, his voice steady and undaunted, "Georgia Poundmax is the one who made a deal with the devil."
"Relax, Kugashira." Lee said, "We all have a type. I just happen to be yours."
"Yeah," Bunji flicked his cigarette out the cracked window. "My karma sucks."
Gynocrat 2005
This fic was written for a Japan theme challenge: Lee & Bunji, Confrontation In Car. It's an oldie, about 6 or 7 months old, so the Japanese version is no longer up not that it matters here anyway. Now I thought I'd be a shoe in because my ego says I own Bunji and Lee as a pairing-yet I misread the actual connation of 'Confrontation' thanks to my online translator. It's supposed to be sexual, with Lee dominating. I just can't do that-as a Western woman with more exposure to Gay culture than the average Japanese girl-I pretty much think the Height Rule is retarded. For me it's about the man, he who is a top or a bottom, and since this is Yaoi for women and not pure slash PC gayness for women, Bunji is my man! Also, 'confrontation' to me, in English, means a fight. Silly Gaijin! I didn't see this as being sexual beyond the words spoken in the car. Again, sorry to diehard Yaoi-Fans for playing the Harry-Shere angle; I love that pairing, heaven help me. I got second placement the winners were listed for a spell at the Trigun Novels Station in order of votes. I was beaten out by Aquatime of course! a brilliant writer in her own right-who stuck to the rules as they say!
"Man, this is a mess," said Bunji.
"In an hour or two it won't be," Lee answered in a bored tone.
"So this place is private, huh?"
"By day, it's an animal hospital."
Bunji snickered.
"So when they getting married?" he asked.
Lee sighed before replying, "This time, next year,"
"So why all this shit?"
"Because her father is Bear Walken,"
Bunji's head swiveled towards Lee.
So, the boss man was going at it with Bear Walken's daughter. When Bunji first met Harry McDowell, he suspected the man was either completely stupid or an absolute genius. The needle on the gauge now favored the latter.
"If you ask me, he is out of his fucking mind," said Bunji said.
"Don't use profanity around me, Kugashira," Lee replied coldly.
"Sorry."
Bunji adjusted his jacket and mentally kicked himself for forgetting he was in the car with Lee and not Aniki.
As Lee rubbed his eyes to stave off the boredom of waiting, Bunji stretched, adjusted his crotch and sat back to get more comfortable.
"So where is Brandon tonight?" Lee asked.
"Somewhere," Bunji replied vaguely.
He knew very well that Brandon was having tea at the Asagi residence, but Lee was on Brandon's list of people Bunji was not allowed to share confidential info with.
"It's Wednesday, so he is probably playing bridge with his friend, Maria, tonight," said Lee.
Bunji looked quickly at Lee and wondered aloud, "Is there any fucking thing in this town you don't know about?"
"Not a thing," said Lee, "and I already told you, I don't want to hear you swearing."
Bunji tensed up at the thought that Lee might know everything. He hoped to hell it wasn't true. There were certain details in his private life... It made him sick to think that Lee might have found out that.
His eyes shifted to the man sitting beside him, in his long black leather coat and perfectly straight, black hair and golden skin. No, don't look at that, he thought. His gaze finally came to rest on Lee's right hand and the wedding band the man wore on his ring finger.
"You got a wife, right?" asked Bunji.
"Yes, I do." Lee replied.
"I think I seen her before," Bunji said, as he recalled a petite, boisterous blonde with a marvelous laugh, large breasts, and very thick thighs. At the time he was told she was a dancer, and one look at her legs proved it. "You got kids?"
"I made a deal with devil, Kugashira." Lee said as he pulled out his wallet. "The devil's name is Georgia Poundmax. I get a wife and move up as an executive, and she gets a baby every few years."
Lee produced a small photo and Bunji turned on the overhead light to take a look.
Bunji grinned at the adorable child smiling back at him in the photo.
"You ask me, you're gonna have some trouble when she gets to be that one's age." Bunji nodded his head at the clinic in reference to Shere.
"Yes," Lee smiled, "If her mother is any indication, she will, no doubt, grow to star in some of the finer amateur college ladies-gone-loco straight-to-video films."
"Man," laughed Bunji as he handed back the photo, "a blonde Balken, now there is something you don't see everyday."
"She is certainly unique." Lee said.
"She's got your eyes," said Bunji. "How old is she?"
"She is five," said Lee as he hugged himself to stay warm, "Her brother is due next month."
"Boy and a girl are good to have, I guess," said Bunji.
"I wouldn't know. I don't live with them," Lee said in a careless tone.
Bunji said nothing in reply for he suspected Lee didn't care for female companionship any more than he did; but in Millenion a man didn't rise up the ladder if he didn't have a family. Ambitious men like Lee made the kind of choice that Randy had. You marry a nice woman, start a family, and keep your real sexual preferences under wraps.
Bunji wasn't interested in climbing the corporate ladder, but he did care what some people thought of him. He wanted their respect and fear. And he wanted to be the one they came to, when an impossible job needed doing.
The way Bunji saw things, no one ever came to a queer except to get laid. There was no way he was going to come out of the closet, but he didn't like the thought of marriage either. Some guys never got married, even a breeder like Aniki made no plans for it, so why should he?
Lee's photo of his kid reminded him of his own past when as a young man, still a little naïve and unsure of himself, he'd gone through the motions of being more than just a loner. He reached into his pocket and jerked out a wallet-sized picture and held it up for Lee to look at.
Lee studied it a moment, "Oh my, does he live with grandparents?"
"Nah," Bunji replied. "He's got a good mom and dad taking care of him in Algiers."
"He looks happy. All kids are, I suppose," said Lee as he handed the image back to Bunji who looked at it with pride before he returned it to his billfold.
"At the orphanage I was brought up in," Bunji said, "I was, like sixteen, and this friend of mine, his sister was fourteen. Things just happened...Yeah. Anyhow, she got taken in by these real nice people after I knocked her up."
"Is he with her now?" Lee asked.
"Nah," Bunji said regretfully, "When he was about a year old, she got shot helping her brother rob a liquor store. This couple raised him."
"Did they give you the photo?" Lee asked.
"Yeah, they did," Bunji said. "About three years ago when he turned twelve."
"Ah yes, they contacted you because they wanted to legally adopt him and wished to ask your permission," Lee said.
"If you ask me, I thought that was real honorable--" Bunji stopped short and looked fiercely at Lee.
"I told you, Kugashira," Lee chuckled smugly. "There's nothing I don't know."
"Yeah...well I know some shit, too,"
"I doubt it," Lee laughed scornfully.
"I may not have Bob whispering secrets in my ear, but I hear things and figure out stuff on my own."
"And just what have you figured out, Bunji?"
"I know for a fact you ain't killed one person in your entire life. Not even when you were running with Lightning."
Lee stared ahead and did not look at Bunji. Bunji waited for the retort.
"That's not true."
"Bullshit," snapped Bunji. "When you were in Lightning, you never whacked anybody. Now your brother was a different story..."
"My brother is no longer with us," Lee smirked.
"You can drop the act. I also know you didn't do your brother either--the boss man did."
"You and Brandon share quite a bit of info, do you?"
"You get by on rep alone." Bunji said smugly. "Guys like you coast on fumes and hope by the time they get to where they are going, they won't need to drive anymore."
"You think you got me all figured out, don't you, Kugashira," said Lee.
"That's right. I got your number."
Lee laughed now, a sinister-sweet chuckle which made most men's skin crawl, but not Bunji's.
"I don't think so," said Lee, shaking his head, "because if you did have my number, Kugashira, you wouldn't have to cruise West Avenue on your nights off," he finished with a triumphant note.
Bunji glared over his glasses at Lee who turned to watch him.
"You shouldn't mess with me, Bunji. Let me tell you a little story about some of the poor, unfortunate young men from Balken who come to Billion looking for something...a career, maybe, these wanna-be models, actors, singers...Life is cruel, and most of them eventually end up on West Avenue."
Lee watched Bunji as he spoke.
"And that's where you come in, driving through slow, looking for a familiar body, a familiar face...To most people, we all look alike, but not you, Kugashira, because you are looking for just the right one..."
Bunji turned his head to stare out the windshield listening stony-faced to the recitation.
"When you find him," Lee continued, "he walks up to your car and asks you if you want a date. If he asks you in Balken, it excites you so much, you take your foot off the brake and put the car in park. You like the ones just new to the city, because they're hungry enough to act nice and pretend they don't mind your smell."
Bunji glared again at Lee, who continued his story with blissful contempt.
"He gets in and you drive to an alley for a suck or a jerk. But sometimes though, after a good payday, you call up Old Wanda's on the Southside and get yourself a real nice Balken. Your exact specifications over the phone are clear: North Balken--make sure his eyes are real North Balken. I want him thin, some muscle, and very tall. Not too pale, completely shaven, armpits, chest, legs and pubes and the hair on his head must be long, black, and tied back. Oh, and he isn't allowed to talk unless I say so. Yes, I believe those are your orders every time, aren't they?" Lee asked.
Bunji felt his face get hot as he hoped to God, that Lee was done with talking. The sweeper stared at the clinic willing Harry to come out, but the boss man didn't show and Lee started talking again in his silken voice.
"Sometimes they send you one with short hair because something went wrong, maybe they couldn't find a long-haired one the right height. Hey, they're just doing their best, but it always bothers you so much, you have to send him back," Lee continued, enjoying seeing Kugashira's pride twisting in the wind, "but, finally, you hit the jackpot, and found one you really like, and now, you ask only for him. Number 22. You've been seeing Number 22 for the last six months, about two Fridays a month. He's tall, pale, sinewy and strong. His hair's long and he keeps it in the ponytail. He wears traditional Balken pantsuits and when he stays the night at that hole-in-the-wall you call a house, he answers to the name Lee and calls you Kugashira-sensei."
Bunji removed his glasses and watched Lee's face as the man continued his narrative.
"When you fuck him, which is quite often during his overnight visits, you make him scream your name as you tell him how much you knew he wanted it..."
Bunji put his glasses back on and lit a cigarette.
"You ask me," Bunji said, his voice steady and undaunted, "Georgia Poundmax is the one who made a deal with the devil."
"Relax, Kugashira." Lee said, "We all have a type. I just happen to be yours."
"Yeah," Bunji flicked his cigarette out the cracked window. "My karma sucks."
Gynocrat 2005
This fic was written for a Japan theme challenge: Lee & Bunji, Confrontation In Car. It's an oldie, about 6 or 7 months old, so the Japanese version is no longer up not that it matters here anyway. Now I thought I'd be a shoe in because my ego says I own Bunji and Lee as a pairing-yet I misread the actual connation of 'Confrontation' thanks to my online translator. It's supposed to be sexual, with Lee dominating. I just can't do that-as a Western woman with more exposure to Gay culture than the average Japanese girl-I pretty much think the Height Rule is retarded. For me it's about the man, he who is a top or a bottom, and since this is Yaoi for women and not pure slash PC gayness for women, Bunji is my man! Also, 'confrontation' to me, in English, means a fight. Silly Gaijin! I didn't see this as being sexual beyond the words spoken in the car. Again, sorry to diehard Yaoi-Fans for playing the Harry-Shere angle; I love that pairing, heaven help me. I got second placement the winners were listed for a spell at the Trigun Novels Station in order of votes. I was beaten out by Aquatime of course! a brilliant writer in her own right-who stuck to the rules as they say!
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