Chapter 1 - You've Bewitched Me!

Ban spotted the orange envelope stuck under the windshield wiper of Miss Ladybug before he even exited the door of the Honky Tonk.

"What the hell could that be? …A parking ticket, no doubt." He thought irately as he came closer to his vehicle. "...But since when are parking tickets orange?" he second guessed himself, and plucked it up from its spot and ripped open the seal.

"Huh? A card?" he spoke aloud once he had pulled the contents out, nearly losing his soggy tipped cigarette from between his teeth.

"What'cha got there, Ban?" Ginji said cheerfully as he met up with him at the side of their car.

"Beats me." Ban mumbled, looking over the card. The front had a picture of a jack-o-lantern with a witch's hat on. On the inside it read 'You've bewitched me!' with 'From your secret admirer.' scrawled childishly underneath.

"Ptch! What kind of crap is this?"

"What kind of crap is what?"

"This card. It's signed 'From your secret admirer'." He scoffed.

"So? What's so weird about that?"

"Ginji, you moron. Secret admirers are for Valentine's Day, not Halloween. Only a moron would send something as a secret admirer on Halloween. You moron."

Ginji frowned, not being very pleased with having been called a moron several times in a row, although he knew it was just because Ban was embarrassed. "I thought secret admirers could send notes any time they wanted to. There's no law against it."

Ban ignored him as he went on about the stupidity of the card. "And look at this. 'You've bewitched me'. Oh haha, very funny. If I didn't know better I'd think this card was from Juubei."

"Aw, come on Ban. Why are you always so irritable? I'd be happy if I had a secret admirer that left me a card somewhere."

"Well, then, you take it." Ban said, shoving the card back into the crumpled envelope and tossing it over to Ginji.

"But it's not for me, it's for you." Ginji insisted as he began to get a bit irritated himself, and he pushed the card back over to Ban.

"But I don't want it. You said you did. So take it." Ban said like he was talking to a special needs child as he pushed it back across to Ginji.

"I didn't say I wanted it, I said it would be nice if someone did it for me. Why can't you just be grateful that someone likes you?" Ginji nearly shouted as he sent the card flying back over to Ban.

"What are those two jerks doing now?" Paul said, spotting the commotion outside of the window from the corner of his eye. "They're going to scare away my paying customers if they keep that up."

Natsumi went up to the window and peered out, noticing that the sudden game of ping-pong was over a familiar, yet abused, piece of orange paper.

"Oh no! I'll be right back Chief!" Natsumi exclaimed, excusing herself to stop the ruckus.

"You're the one that insisted I be grateful for it! So give it back!" Ban ground out, with the argument having had turned around in the other direction.

"There's no way someone like you should be allowed to have this in his possession!"

"But it's mine, so give it back!"

"Ban! Ginji! What do you two think you're doing?"

*Riiiii~iiip!*

"You moron! Now look at what you've done!"

"Stop calling me a moron! You're the moron if you can't even recognize the handwriting of the signature!" Ginji cried out before slamming the pieces of orange envelope down onto the hood of the car and taking off down the street.

Natsumi watched as Ginji flew past her, tears of frustration already welling up at the corners of his eyes. She turned back to Ban, whose jaw was unhinged as he stared after Ginji's back turning the corner.

"Ban!" Natsumi said sternly, marching up to him and kicking his shin. "How can you be so thick all the time?"

He was already too stunned by Ginji to react to her kick. He quickly turned back and gathered the shreds of card lying on the car, sifting through them to find the signature again. After a few more moments his cigarette finally fell out of his mouth.



Ban sat at the bar of the Honky Tonk once again as Paul gave him a disapproving look over his newspaper.

"I had helped him pick out that card almost two weeks ago." Natsumi explained to him as he held an icepack to the welt that had developed on his forehead after repeatedly banging it on the sidewalk. "He wanted to confess to you for the longest time, but didn't know how. It was my idea to give you a card. He was really excited to see how you would react." She went on, causing Ban to wilt more with each word.

"Well how was I supposed to know? It's not as if he's ever given me any hints that he…liked me."

Paul gave a loud cough, and Ban shot him a glacial glare. Paul only cocked his eyebrow and disappeared behind his newspaper again.

"Something you'd like to share with the class, Paul?" Ban spat out irritably.

"I didn't say a word."

"Yeah, well I know what you're thinking!"

"Oh really? And what is that?"

"You're thinking that I'm a total idiot who can't see anything around me and that I don't deserve Ginji even if he did ever forgive me! And I have a bad personality!" Ban shouted accusingly at Paul.

"As a matter of fact," Paul said, coming back out from his newspaper. "That wasn't what I was thinking, but I'm glad to see that you've realized that on your own."

"Oh?" Ban said, as he developed a violent eye spasm.

"Actually I was wondering why you were sitting here feeling sorry for yourself when you should be out looking for Ginji."

The stool clattered to the ground as Ban stood up, realizing that Paul was right. "Dumbass!" Ban cursed at himself, running from the café without another word.

Paul and Natsumi watched as he ran down the street in the direction Ginji had gone. 30 seconds later they saw him running back, cursing passionately, as he jumped into Miss ladybug to speed away.

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