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As far as Saturday mornings went, this one didn't start wildly out of the ordinary. Jin yawned, part of his face still mashed into his pillow, and reached blindly for his phone. His hand landed upon it with habitual accuracy and he skimmed back sleep-heavy lids to check the display. No new messages. It was 10:43.
He couldn't quite muster up the energy to be disgusted that it wasn't even noon yet, but after a moment Jin did rouse enough to notice the warm-bodied sprawl crowding his back. That wasn't too strange either, and okay, it figured he must have had a good evening. Had there been a party? He was still too groggy to remember. He didn't feel hungover and his mouth didn't taste like something died in it, though, which was a bonus.
The body sharing his bed shifted, spooning him, and Jin started putting effort into remembering because he really wasn't the Forgetful One-Night Stand kind of asshole. After his last class of the week there'd been band practice with the guys, like usual, and then delivery for dinner when he and Pi realized they had nothing to eat at their shared apartment, not even instant noodles. Ryo had ditched them for a hot date or so he claimed, but Shirota stayed to watch DVDs until the trains stopped running and he ended up crashing on their fantastically ugly but otherwise comfortable couch.
All in all, a quiet night in, which really didn't explain the unfamiliar presence in Jin's bed. His Saturday morning just got weird.
He did not flail, exactly, but there might have been some uncoordinated arm-waving as he half-rolled and half-sat up, miraculously managing to not fall out of bed completely. "Wha—?"
Once he regained his bearings, Jin made a few observations about his companion: first, that the person was fully-clothed and on top of the bed, not in it, and second, the person in question was male. One of those things made him feel slightly better about the whole situation, and the other—well, he wasn't certain about that one. Sure, Jin would admit to an occasional alcohol-haze of kissing here, a feel there, but he'd already established this morning that no drinking had been involved and that still didn't explain anything.
"Um," Jin summarized his feelings eloquently.
The guy was skinny, but not scrawny, and not too short or too tall. The hair that feathered over his cheek shone with copper highlights. He was still curled on his side, apparently unscathed by Jin's not-flailing earlier, and his pose was so relaxed that Jin thought he remained asleep until his eyes fluttered open with unhurried calm. He regarded Jin with an aloof stare.
"About time you woke up, Master."
"What?" Jin's voice reached a pitch he was not proud of—after he finished choking, that was. He pinched himself hard. Nope, still awake. Raking a hand through his morning bedhead, he ran through last night's events a second time to make doubly sure that hallucinogens had not been involved.
Meanwhile, the stranger stretched out his lean frame with such comfortable assurance it was as if he belonged there. But from what Jin could remember, he most certainly, absolutely, definitely did not.
"Look," Jin began in his best Stern Voice, with Pointed Finger for good measure. "I don't know what kinky shit you're trying to get into here, but—but for one, breaking and entering, and attempted, uh..."
A pair of very fine eyebrows arched delicately while Jin floundered. "You're the one who called me."
"I did not!" His hand twitched for his cell to double-check, but Jin thought he would know if he had a weird habit of making booty calls in his sleep. And he still didn't know who this guy was!
"Sure you did." A wrinkle of annoyance threaded through his expression before smoothing out. Propping his head up, he caught Jin's gaze and recited something slowly, like explaining to a small child, except the language was unidentifiable.
Well, no, not totally unidentifiable. The strange, austere words sounded vaguely familiar. If Jin thought back far enough...
"That was a week ago!" he blurted, then gave a wet-dog shake of his head. Part of him wanted to cover his ears and close his eyes, too. "No. You're not—you can't be—" It wasn't flat denial that climbed spider-like into his voice, adding that faint, cracked tremble.
The demon rolled his eyes and made a waving motion with his hand to indicate he'd heard it all before. "One soul for one demon. At your service."
#
The band had just gone onstage at a local bar that had live music nights a couple days of the week. Not their first show there, so the crowd was peppered with friends and other university students who cheered when they introduced themselves.
"Hey, we're Dropkick Friend. Tired of us yet, assholes?" A good-natured rumble rolled in and retreated like a wave. "Yeah, we're sick of you, too."
The lights went down and Shirota started with a brisk, ready-and-willing drum beat that was eagerly joined by Yamapi on guitar and Ryo on bass. Jin laced his fingers together across the mic, letting his gaze sweep over the mingling hazy shapes of the crowd.
A pair of eyes stood out when they shouldn't have, not with the stage lights poured on him, but he saw them nonetheless. They caught him with snakelike charm, glittering above a Cheshire smile, and Jin almost missed his cue. He sought more glimpses of those eyes throughout the song.
Jin found her later, or maybe she let him find her, all smoky eyes and half-curved lips. She introduced herself as Madoka, written with the character for "crimson." She didn't give her family name but Jin didn't think much of it. Something about her was displaced. It wasn't her hair or clothes, or her mellow, liquid voice, but somehow she popped from the background, and when Jin got close enough it was like he stepped into her bubble, separated from the rest of the world by a fragile, translucent wall.
Madoka was a little strange, a little bit "out there," but not in a back-away-slowly sense. She didn't talk crazy, exactly, and didn't sound like a religious nut when she remarked upon spirituality in music. With a frank, admiring stare, she told Jin that she'd been impressed by his soul in the performance. Part of him thought that was silly, but the other part thought she could say whatever silly things she wanted. As the night wore on, and the more he drank, the less strange her words seemed.
"What do you say, hm? Wanna make a little trade tonight?" Madoka was a small, slight girl, only coming up to his chin. "That beautiful soul of yours for..." She let the sentence dangle as her fingers teased down his chest.
Jin breathed in her scent, something darkly promising, and was game to agree.
Madoka claimed not to be a fellow student, but she didn't live far. Her studio apartment was like the rest of her—a touch eccentric with tapestries hanging on the walls and a curtain of beads filling the doorway to the bathroom. Jin wasn't surprised to see her light incense, and a smoky-sweet aroma began to pervade the room. Already swimming in a loose haze, he felt his blood pound in his ears as she beckoned him closer.
"You ready, baby?" she murmured against his mouth, straddling his lap on the floor. He wasn't entirely sure how they got there, but decided he had no problem with it and skimmed his hands up her sides under the clingy fabric of her tee. Madoka arched into him, lips moving to form breathy, indistinct words. Not the usual jumble of noises, but something else altogether that was neither Japanese nor English.
That still didn't strike Jin as too strange until he slid her shirt over her head and she had to pause to switch the knife to her other hand.
"Oh, shit!"
On second thought, he skipped "strange" and went right on ahead to "alarmed."
Eyes startled wide, Jin fought the cloudy feeling in his head to grab her wrist and hold it far, far away. It was no stainless steel pocket knife Madoka held, though the size was similar. The whole thing was made of carved antique white material, roughly shaped but decidedly sharp along the edges.
Madoka laughed—not a psychotic, shaking laugh, but rather an amused chuckle. "Sorry. Scared you, did I?"
"Uh, a bit." Gratefully not finding himself with an armful of Banshee-Shrieking Crazy, Jin started to relax. Marginally. He continued to eyeball the dagger, hoping it was a horrifyingly realistic stage prop. "What's that for?"
"You."
Yeah, and there went the panic again. "You know, I don't think—"
"Calm down." Madoka rolled her eyes. "I'm not planning to kill you. See?" She shrugged and let the weapon drop with a hollow clatter. "You could throw me off easily, right?"
Jin contemplated doing just that, but she really was tiny, sitting there and not fighting at all. His fingers easily circled the wrist of her now-empty hand.
"I'm not going to hurt you." She leaned forward, not minding when he pulled his face away, her big, dark eyes centimeters from his. "There's something I want to do, but I need your help. It won't hurt, I promise."
"I... still don't get..." He blinked, interrupting the insistence of her stare, but the alarm was fading, sinking into velvety-warm calm. She placed her free hand against the side of his face, cradling his cheek, and crooned something in that foreign language. "What?"
"Your soul, lovely. That's all I need for the summoning."
"What?" Jin repeated, and summoned up a brittle laugh himself. He meant to push her off, gently, but when his palm made contact with her skin it merely stayed there, splayed above the lace-covered swells of her breasts.
Madoka offered him a crescent moon smile, layering her hand atop his. "Come on, humor me. It's a simple trade, see?" She nudged his hand lower, brushing her mouth against his once, twice, until he responded.
So she was strange. Eccentric. Into weird, but harmless fun. It wasn't like he'd never gotten into some weird shit before. Humor her... right. He could do that. But Jin wasn't sure if he was shivering from her touch or her siren song voice that encouraged and guided every move. Spellbound, his mind supplied helpfully through a fog that, perhaps, he didn't mind getting lost in for a little while.
Afterward, Jin had only started to find his way again when Madoka knelt on the floor, unashamedly bare with her skin gleaming in the dim lamplight, and tugged back a swath of rug. Despite the protest of his sated drowsiness, Jin pushed himself up, curious at first, but felt his mouth go dry at what lay on the floorboards underneath.
Deep, jagged grooves were carved into the floor, digging out the arc of a wide circle and intersecting lines. Thick-looking white paint or paste streaked over the scratches and formed Roman letters—Latin, Jin realized with a cold, creeping feeling, that was probably it.
He willed away the quaver from his voice when he spoke up, "Your landlord will give you hell for that."
Madoka shot him an amused look and pushed the tumble of her black hair over her shoulder. "I doubt it."
Jin wondered if he could get away with, well, getting away before things got any weirder.
"Here," Madoka said briskly with a knowing look in her eye. "This won't take long."
And he felt like he owed it to her now. Damn it.
So Jin stayed, telling himself it was like sitting through a grade school play; you went along with it and it was cute how the kids tried. Except the symbols carved into the floor were more creepy than cute, and the bone knife that Madoka held again was just this side of terrifying. Madoka herself was wildly beautiful... or maybe beautifully wild, with her smoky, shadowed eyes and reddened lips and heated skin.
He considered bolting again when she pinned him with her gaze and held him there. "Repeat what I say."
Left with no choice, Jin did his best to imitate her pronunciation. He echoed her short, bold phrases, his voice weakening and fumbling once or twice while hers grew loud and powerful. Less of a singing note and more of a thunder crack. And still, he couldn't look away.
Madoka suddenly grabbed his wrist and held the edge of her knife to his palm. The last syllable was a stricken whisper that slipped from his tongue, and with a deft flick a line of red opened up to pool in his hand. It looked like it should have hurt more than it did, and the blood dripped from the creases between his fingers. Then she was pressing the wound to the floor and Jin felt the grooves fill wetly beneath his hand. Madoka was staring intently below and he found he could finally jerk away but he didn't dare speak for a long, silent moment. Not until she shifted, and then the words flew in defensive haste.
"Okay, that's it, I'm done. Thanks, I think, but I've had enough for one night and, uh, no offense, but you know..." He grabbed his clothes and hurriedly dressed, unaware of the mess his bleeding hand was making until it was too late and he couldn't bring himself to care.
Madoka glanced up at him, and he held his breath, but it was a dull look carried by a disappointed twist of her mouth. Her eyes closed as though tired. "Yes," she said simply. "We're done."
That should have been the end of it.
#
"Uh-huh," was all Yamapi had to say, smothering a yawn. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, looking as sleepy as Jin would have if he hadn't woken up with demonic Hellspawn in his bed. Shirota, the lucky bastard, had already left by the time they got up.
Jin pried loose the middle couch cushion and chucked it at his friend. It made a satisfying whumph when it hit his face. "That's it? I accidentally trade my soul for some skanky demon and all you say is 'uh-huh, that's nice, Jin, have fun with that!'" He was awake enough to catch the cushion as Yamapi hurled it his way.
"Way to put words in my mouth, dude."
"'Skanky?'" the demon echoed with narrow insult. Jin wondered if they had any crosses. He also wondered if he should find a church. That gave him an idea.
"Let's hire an exorcist!"
"We'll need to buy pea soup," Yamapi put in, although how that would help was up for debate. More thoughtfully, he added, "Can you spin your head around?"
"I imagine that would be fatal," the demon said dryly. He even looked the slightest bit physically pained, but that probably had more to do with the conversation in general.
"I don't know what to tell you," Yamapi addressed Jin with a shrug. "You stuck it in the crazy and now you have a demon." He started a slow clap and managed to mostly dodge the cushion again, stumbling to his feet and weaving towards the kitchenette. "Maybe you'll feel more positive after coffee."
The demon sat up a little straighter. "Pour me a cup, too."
That finally made Yamapi pause and blink. "...Sure, why not."
"Pi!" Jin whined, trying to convey through telepathic waves, don't abandon me to the soul-hungry demon! but either Yamapi was ignoring him or he had faulty reception to BFF distress signals.
"You had no idea what you were getting into," the demon spoke up after a strained pause. Jin thought he detected a hint of apology there and seized upon it.
"So can we call the whole thing off?"
"Sorry, no take-backs." A small, amused smile played upon his lips. At least someone was happy about this arrangement.
Jin scowled and tucked himself sullenly into his designated corner of the couch. "This is completely unfair, and not even because of the fucking fine print or whatever. This is my soul we're talking about! I kind of need that."
"Funny," Yamapi said from behind where he leaned both arms on the back of the furniture. "Because I always thought youmph—"
Jin had slouched down and lifted his leg to plant a sock-clad foot on the side of Yamapi's face, making his friend recoil with a disgusted shriek.
The demon ignored the interruption with obvious effort. "It's not unfair. What do you think I'm here for?"
"Is that a trick question?" Seeing the tic of annoyance on the demon's face, Jin groped for an answer. "Uh, to drag me kicking and screaming to Hell?"
"Oh, that's for later. When the ground opens under your feet and dozens of clawed hands pull you down in the fiery bowels of the underworld—no, you dumbass," the demon sighed, halting Jin from scrambling over the arm of the couch. "This isn't a B-movie. I already told you upfront: your soul for me. I'm here so it's a done deal. I'm yours to command."
"Can I order you to forget the deal and we all go home—or stay home, since I live here—happy?"
"No."
Jin hadn't really thought that would work, it would just figure there would be Cosmic Rules against loopholes, but it was worth a try.
#
He was determined to not be curious. Bad enough that the demon—Kame—was sticking around to live with them.
"Don't you have someplace else you can be?" Jin asked. "You can't stay here. I'm serious, you're not living with me. Not even if you help pay rent. Why don't you just stay in, uh, Hell?"
"Can't," Kame said with what appeared to be slowly mounting irritation, but he hadn't lit anything on fire or made anyone bleed yet and Jin's knee-jerk panic reaction was beginning to abate. "You brought me here. I'm not leaving until your soul is good and mine."
Jin wanted to insist, loudly, that it wasn't his fault, but the part about his soul as a commodity sort of punched through his defense. Nothing like knowing you were a doomed man to follow you like your own personal raincloud everywhere you went. And the first place he went was back to Madoka.
It seemed logical—she got him into this mess, so she could get him out, right? He remembered where she lived, though after the nightmare that occurred last week he swore to never return. Nightmares, however, were a problem when you didn't wake up.
Jin didn't know how long he stood there and pounded on Madoka's door. What began as a reasonable knock soon escalated into heavy-duty battering and a few cries of, "Open up, you bitch, it worked and I hope you're fucking happy because now I have this little problem and it's all your fault so open the fucking door!"
One of the neighbors must have complained because next thing he knew, a harried-looking man came panting up the stairs and tried to placate him. Jin refused to be placated until he heard that Madoka was gone.
"Takara-san left, oh... about a week ago. There were too many complaints about her so I didn't renew her lease. Maybe now we'll have some peace and quiet." This last was directed pointedly at Jin, who didn't care because Madoka had just up and left and now what was he supposed to do?
He stayed out as long as he could. Visited Ryo and played video games and let him mouth off about Jin's apparent lack of social life while trying to see who could mow down the most pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto. But Ryo was a smart little bastard and soon caught on to Jin's reluctance to go home. Ryo was also merciless, and stronger than he appeared, forcibly kicking Jin out when he refused to explain why.
Jin spent a few minutes standing below Ryo's window and railing at him for being a horrible friend (incidentally, this was similar to the way they named their band) until one of the neighbors emptied a washbasin in his direction. He managed to avoid a thorough soaking, but one pant leg ended up spattered around the cuff and he trudged a left-footed damp imprint part of the way home.
"M'back," he mumbled halfheartedly as the door swung closed behind him. He kicked his shoes off in the genkan like a petulant child, then noticed Yamapi's were missing. "Hello?" Jin called warily into the apartment.
No response.
Kame had still been folded on the couch with his fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee when Jin left, but there was no sign of him now. The middle cushion had been returned to its proper place in Jin's absence, and when he examined the kitchenette the mugs were clean on the drying rack. Somehow he doubted that was Pi's doing.
Stealthily at first—and then less so when he became annoyed with the idea of sneaking around his own home—Jin checked the other rooms. The bathroom was vacant, and his bedroom was just as he'd left it. No demon lolling around this time. He peeked into Yamapi's room just to make sure, but the place was well and truly empty.
"Fine, then," Jin said aloud to the unoccupied, lonesome apartment. Disappointed with how that came out, he added with more enthusiasm and a grin for his own benefit, "Great!"
He flopped onto the awful couch, dug his phone out of his pocket, and proceeded to text Ryo to inform him, again, that he was a lousy douchebag and they were voting him out of the band as soon as he consulted Shirota and Pi. Never mind that last time Jin tried voting Ryo out of the band, Ryo used a combination of threats and bribes to vote Jin out instead. They even tried performing without him, but it turned out Yamapi couldn't sing very well when Jin was in the crowd flinging Yamapi's own underwear onto the stage whereupon Ryo actually slipped on it in a glorious show of karma.
Jin's phone vibrated with Ryo's reply: a photo of his middle finger.
He was eagerly composing a new message when the front door opened. His back was to the entrance, and Jin raised his voice to announce, "Ryo's a dick. We're voting him out of the band."
"Does my vote even count?" Jin almost lost his grip on his phone when he flailed and twisted around. Kame stood in the genkan, calmly toeing his shoes off and flipping them to face the door. "Thought not," he said in a mild tone when Jin only gaped at him.
"Where—" But Jin shut his mouth when he saw the plastic bags hanging from one curled hand. They rustled when they were set on the small square of free countertop, and without any hint of discomfort Kame began unloading them. "You," Jin tried again when his mouth started working. "You bought groceries? Why?"
"You needed them."
"How?"
"Here's the receipt, you owe your friend however much everything cost." Kame pushed things around in the cupboards to organize everything, stilling in his routine for only a moment to shoot a cagey glance backwards. "Is something wrong?"
"You bought groceries," Jin repeated as if that explained all that was wrong in the world. "Are you really a demon?"
Kame paused again, shoulders sagging then lifting once more as he planted his hands on his hips, one of them fisted around a wadded plastic bag. "You want proof now?"
"No. Uh." But he was too distracted to contemplate what kind of terrifying proof Kame might demonstrate. "It's just that, you. This. I mean, did I purchase a demon or a mail-order bride?"
Belatedly, Jin realized that insulting Kame was not a wise move and he might get a demonic demonstration after all, but before he could backpedal there was a slightly damp dishtowel being lobbed at his face. He snatched it away, nose wrinkled at the smell of detergent.
"Excuse me for being a little civilized. I forgot this was a bachelor pad." Kame rolled his eyes and flicked long, copper bangs away from his face. He made such an ordinary picture that Jin found himself wanting, just for a moment, for the demon and soul thing to be a hoax and Kame really was just some guy Jin met at a party and wound up bringing home.
"You're a demon though, aren't you." Ludicrous as it was. Maybe disappointing, too.
Kame didn't insist, or try to joke. He simply agreed. "I am."
#
"So this demon of yours," Shirota said carefully, testing out the words to make sure he was getting them right," cooks and cleans and is staying at your apartment. Like a live-in maid."
"Seriously, shut up." Jin had been trying to end the conversation for a while now. He was beginning to think strangulation would be required.
"I think you two are full of shit," Ryo said, not for the first time since the start of the tale.
Yamapi snorted. "You're just jealous because you don't have one."
"Full. Of. Shit."
"He's real handy. I'm telling you, it's not a bad deal—"
"For you, maybe!" Jin interjected, rising out of his chair to put an end to the talk once and for all, but was completely ignored. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He threw himself across the table and went for Pi's throat. Ryo continued to insult them both for being ten kinds of idiot while Shirota assured nearby customers that there was nothing to worry about, they did this all the time.
Yamapi's hands stopped trying to pull Jin's hair and started doing some bizarre combination of flapping and pointing. Taking his eyes away from his friend's red face, Jin risked a look over his shoulder. He promptly let Yamapi go.
"What are you doing here?"
Kame gave him a funny look, like Jin was the strange one. "I was invited."
"I didn't—"
"I did. Yo," Yamapi greeted, hastily snagging an extra chair. His eagerness might have had something to do with putting Kame in between himself and Jin. "This is our resident demon."
Kame puffed out a little sigh and Jin thought he heard him mutter under his breath, but he took the offered seat, surrendering to the scrutiny of others. Ryo wasted no time with the derision.
"This is what you're trying to pass off as your pet demon?" He ducked as Jin tried to cuff him across the head, and while Kame's expression didn't change the rest of him tensed and seemed to coil inward.
"Ryo!" Jin hissed through his teeth with that weird squirmy-insides feeling, like he was embarrassed on Kame's behalf. Never mind that he'd been the first to joke about the domestic perks, but that had just been between him and Kame. That was different.
"I want proof," Ryo stated point-blank.
Kame sent Jin a meaningful look, like he expected Jin to have something to say to that. Jin had nothing, and was momentarily saved from doing whatever Kame wanted him to do by the barista calling, "Akanishi!"
Grateful for the escape, he all but ran to the counter where the barista—a cute girl with a pair of glasses perched on her nose—pressed a lid onto his cup. "Here you go," she said, smiling and peering up at him through black frames. "I love your band, by the way. When's your next gig?"
Jin couldn't help but flash a grin at the mention of "his" band, and he resisted sending a smug look over his shoulder to see if the others heard. "We got a performance lined up this Saturday at Theatre 7. See you there?"
"You bet." She really had the nerdy cute look going for her. Jin lingered at the pick-up counter, noting the way her fingers twisted coyly in her necklace, light catching on a pendant on the silver chain...
The girl yelped when he dropped his cup, hot coffee spattering, and the scalding spill on his hand jerked him back to reality. "Shit! Hot!"
"I'm sorry," she said, hurriedly mopping up the mess. "I'll make you another."
"No! I mean, that's fine, whatever..." Jin backed away, eyes riveted to the pentagram that she'd been toying with and reimagining the star-shaped lines carved into Madoka's floor.
Back at the table, the guys made no attempt to disguise their cackling.
"Smooth," Shirota complimented him.
"She's not that hot," Ryo sneered.
Yamapi was laughing so hard his face was red again, and even Kame wore a smirk at Jin's expense.
"She had a thing," he grumbled to a circle of befuddlement. "I mean a star-penta-whachamacallit. Voodoo or whatever. No offense?" He glanced at Kame, who was a combination of amused and vaguely insulted.
"You don't have anything to worry about from her. She's not a witch." Everyone at the table stared at Kame, some more obviously than others. He shrugged, but only looked at Jin when he explained, "From what you said, Madoka was most likely a witch. She wanted to summon a demon and offer your soul instead of her own."
Shockingly, Ryo had nothing disparaging to say to that. Jin wondered what on earth Kame did while his back was turned to convert the most contrary person he knew into a believer. Or maybe he was better off not knowing.
It was Shirota who jerked a thumb at Jin asked, "So why are you with this guy instead of her?"
Another shrug, but this one was more nonplussed. Kame kept his hands folded in his lap as he mumbled, "Just worked out that way, I guess."
"Duh," Jin said, reaching out to tap his knuckles against Kame's skull. "Whose soul is on the table here? My soul, my demon. Obviously."
Kame rubbed the spot where Jin had rapped, eyes gone wide and wondering but Jin wouldn't have pegged him for stupid. What had him so puzzled?
"That means he's staying with us!" Yamapi cheered.
"Would you cut that out?" Jin growled, trying to kick him under the table. Silently, he tried to shake the feeling of expectation that settled on him whenever Kame caught his gaze.
#
Jin's breath hitched, and he found himself lying awake in the darkness of his room, confused for a moment and feeling the abrupt loss of a very good dream—only to discover that the dream came along with him. His fingers twitched upon the curve of a skull and there was a soft, wet mouth sucking a patch of skin just inside his hip, waistband of his shorts tugged low.
Kame's warm, heavy weight was blanketed across his legs, licking and nibbling towards the heat and hardness between Jin's thighs, and that was when Jin ceased to be still.
"Wait, wait, wait," he stammered, though his body shuddered in opposition to the command. His fingers tightened in Kame's hair, unable to push or pull, merely holding him at the edge of an awful precipice.
Thankfully, Kame stilled. Jin's eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and when he dared to glance down he saw the frustrated spark of impatience in his gaze. Kame's face hovered at the indent of his hip, the tips of his hair brushing the evident bulge in Jin's shorts and he wrenched his sight elsewhere, breathing hard.
"Okay," he said and then shook his head at himself. "Okay, no. No, this isn't... What are you doing?"
"What do you want me to do?" It wasn't a flirty question, but more of a demand. The words were hot on Jin's skin and—all right, he had to move. Without looking, he pushed Kame off and Kame went without fighting, but Jin could still feel the tense lines of his body nearby.
"I don't really want you to do anything," he protested, exercising caution when settling his sights on Kame again now that it was a little bit safer.
Kame's lean form was stretched out on his stomach beside Jin, propped up on his elbows. His shoulders hunched inward and he scowled. "That's not how this works."
"I'm sorry for not reading the handbook," Jin snapped and threw what was left of his caution to the wind, because really, it's not like he even wanted a lapful of demon, either literally or metaphorically.
"You made a contract," Kame emphasized with a clinical detachment incongruous with his guarded posture. "And I'm sorry you didn't mean to, but you did. Your soul, your demon. I have a duty to fulfill to you. If you're not going to bother, let me kill you and let's be done with it."
"Like hell!" Jin shot upright, fisting his hands in the sheets. "The only thing I'm interested in is you not getting your hands on my soul or—" or any other part of me was what Jin wanted to say, but that made him sound like a quailing girl and anyway he wasn't one hundred percent sure it was true.
Kame pushed up onto hands and knees crawled into Jin's space, eyes narrowed and poisonous. "Too. Late." He punctuated the damning words with his open palm on Jin's chest and pushed. It looked like he barely exerted any effort at all, but Jin went down flat on his back like he'd been dropped a few meters high.
"Hold it," he gasped as soon as he sucked more air into his lungs. And Kame did hold, arched like he was being kept back on the tenterhooks of Jin's command. Swift understanding hit Jin like a flood of stage lights, and he stared at Kame as if he could see him clear as day.
He was at a loss for what to do with this kind of power.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing that leapt from his mouth, which from the looks of Kame's soundless snarl did nothing to appease him. Jin swallowed. "I really am. I have no idea what's going on here, and I know it's not right, and... and that's all, I guess. It just isn't right. But don't, um. Don't kill me. That's all I want."
"That it?" Kame wanted to know, still poised in a crouch over Jin. "You don't want revenge, you don't want money, you don't want fame?"
Money and fame would have been nice, but for once Jin thought before he spoke. "I thought you said this wasn't a B-movie."
Kame didn't physically reel back, but his expression did. The feral intensity dialed down a notch, replaced by something grudging, but not so dangerous. "People don't exactly make deals with demons to do their housekeeping for them."
"Yeah, well, I'm too lazy for world domination." Jin grinned with the truth of it. "Doesn't bother me if you do the cooking, though. If you want to. You don't have to, and you don't have to do... this."
Kame looked at him for a long moment, unreadable, and then started to lower. Jin could smell him—skin and a hint of sweat, unremarkably normal and human, save for the faintest trace of something smoky and spark-setting that made him think of lightning scorch marks. They were almost touching, and Jin wondered if Kame wanted to, and whether he was okay or more than okay with that.
Then Kame rolled to the side and flopped onto his back, shoulder lined up innocently next to Jin's. He let out a sigh that briefly filled the room.
Jin tipped his face towards Kame, taking in his profile. "What are you thinking?"
"That you're an idiot," Kame answered promptly.
Jin screwed up his expression, though he wasn't all that surprised. And he'd been called worse.
Before he could think of a comeback, Kame shifted to face him with a look that was trying hard to be direct and instead of tentatively curious. "Is there really nothing you want?"
"I sort of wish..." The thing was, wanting and wishing were different somehow in Jin's mind. Wanting was greedy and desperate, something that was forced on others. Wishing was something you kept to yourself, or didn't expect to come true. "I wish we could have met, you know, like normal. That would have been cool. If you were—never mind. It's stupid. I'm an idiot."
Jin rolled over on his side to glare meaninglessly at the wall. Kame was a demon after all, not a goddamn wish-granting fairy. He couldn't be anything different.
#
The two of them had always talked about forming a band together, but didn't attempt it seriously until they met Ryo in high school. Even then, it was one step forward, two steps back when they bickered over everything. The name of the band changed weekly depending on who was asked. At one point Jin quit on the basis of "musical differences" and declared that he'd become famous on his own, move overseas and live in a luxury condo in LA where he would host wild parties with a veritable harem of supermodels every night.
Instead of a condo and supermodels in LA, however, Jin wound up with a dorm and Shirota Yuu as a university roommate in Tokyo. When he discovered that his new roommate was a drummer of some skill, Jin revived the band idea, and then it was simply easier to join forces with Ryo and Pi again to form Dropkick Friend.
"So who's having a good time tonight?" Jin asked after adjusting the mic stand, pausing to let the dull roar of the crowd wash over him. He grinned, cocksure behind a pair of Aviator sunglasses. "Bullshit, we haven't even started playing yet. Forget 'good,'" he dropped his voice into a growling purr, "we're Dropkick Friend and we'll give you a night you won't forget."
With that, they launched into their opening. Song composition and lyrics were contributed equally by everyone, more or less, and while Ryo and Yamapi sang their share of songs, it was usually Jin at the mic, working the crowd. He didn't think he would be that good of a showman at first, but standing on stage before a keyed up audience gave him a high like nothing else. Mundane things like classes and rent—and less-mundane things like soul contracts—they all fell away like ash from a cigarette. Jin gripped the mic and poured his voice into song.
The energy pulsing in Theatre 7 was amped up to max and they rode it out 'til the encore. Cheering and applause went up all around in a roaring thunder. Finally, backstage, still jittery with adrenaline, Jin polished off a bottle of water and snuck out before Dictator Ryo could start ordering him around with the packing.
The speakers now blared a hit pop song while the stage was cleared and the crowd had fanned out. Jin pushed his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head and made his way towards the bar—tried to, at any rate, since it was slow-going once people began chatting him up. He was perhaps not as amiable towards the fans as he might have been before, nervously checking for esoteric jewelry or tattoos despite common sense scoffing at his paranoia.
Relief waited at the bar in an unexpected form. Leaning against the counter with a Kirin in hand, Kame's gaze flicked over him, barely lingering, before sliding away like in casual indifference.
And just what is that for? Jin hesitated, but not for long. He sidled up and got the attention of the barkeep, jerking his head in Kame's direction. "Same as him."
That brought Kame's eyes back to him again, and this time Jin pinned the look as "appraising." He was definitely familiar with that one, and it rankled a lot less than "dismissive." He gave Kame a once-over of his own, noting the slim outline of denim-clad legs and 'v' of skin where the top two buttons of his black shirt were undone. The burnished copper of his hair gleamed under the theatre's lights, and his pose, the artful drape of it, was like something out of a glossy magazine ad.
"Huh?" Jin realized belatedly that Kame had spoken to him. The beat of his heart kicked up its tempo. "Sorry, repeat that?"
Kame's lips twitched upward at the corners. "I said, you sounded good up there."
"Hey, thanks." Jin flashed a grin, feeling a bit silly over how pleased that made him. To distract himself, he whipped out his lighter and set its bottom corner under the cap of his beer. A little leverage and it popped off.
"Here," Kame offered, holding out his own bottle, and Jin clinked his against it.
"Kanpai!"
He was unfortunately in the middle of a deep swig when Kame asked, offhand, "So what's your name, rock star?"
Jin was too cool to spray. He choked instead. Kame pounded helpfully on his back. "What?!" he demanded, whirling on him in disbelief but Kame only rolled his eyes.
"By 'rock star' I guess I meant 'space cadet.' Are you always this weird or am I just special?"
Jin couldn't believe Kame was calling him the weird one. He jabbed an accusing finger but lacked the right words to say. "I... you..."
The restrained signals of body language finally clued him in. Kame's posture didn't change, but there was a subtle rigidness in his lounge that had been markedly absent before. He raked a hand through his hair, eyes darting away, and the noncommittal line of his mouth was stiffened by tension in his jaw. Annoyance was one thing—Kame was annoyed at him often—this was more like frustration. This was like that night not too long ago that Jin tried not to think about too much and usually failed miserably.
He discreetly pinched his arm to make certain that he wasn't dreaming. Then he cleared his throat, face starting to go warm. "Ask me again."
"Are you always this weird?"
"Not that! My name, ask for my name."
Something very much like relief tinted Kame's demeanor and he resumed the role. "So what's your name?"
"Akanishi Jin." It was beyond silly, but happiness welled within him all the same. He resisted the desire to reach out and touch, to envelop Kame in an adoring hug, because that wouldn't fly during a first meeting. At least not until they were drunker. "You?"
Kame made him wait by taking a sip from his beer, lips soft and round against the bottle. The pink tip of his tongue made a brief appearance, and then he couldn't stall any longer. He drew in a determined breath:
"Kamenashi Kazuya."
#
"I told you not to make so much," Kame returned peevishly from across the table, arms folded over his chest. It was always just the two of them on Tuesdays and Thursdays since Yamapi had a class in the evening. Jin had taken a liking to these nights, time spent quietly or in companionable bickering. He was gearing up for some spiel about slaving away in the kitchen when Kame followed up less pointedly, almost apologetic, "And it's not like I need to eat anyway."
This happened all the time. Jin would start to forget until reminded that Kame wasn't always in his life, and only did things like drink coffee in the morning and pick the things he didn't like out of his food just for the hell of it. "Sorry?" he tried, unsure of what he was supposed to say to that.
Kame shrugged and pushed the curry around on his plate. "It's not like it's a chore. Nutrition just doesn't mean anything to me, and food never makes me feel hungry or full."
Jin attempted to wrap his mind around that. "I can't decide if that's really weird or kind of cool in a way. So theoretically you could eat anything you want and it wouldn't make you sick or gain weight?" No wonder Kame stayed so fit without any obvious effort. Not that Jin made a point to notice. Much.
"Theoretically," he agreed. "Taste counts for something, though."
So maybe Kame wasn't picky just for the hell of it after all. "Wait," Jin said, and his tone made Kame look up. "Does that mean my cooking sucks? Is that it?"
"No, it's fine."
"But you're not eating it so it must not taste good!"
Kame huffed and deliberately scooped up a sizable mouthful.
"Oh, don't force yourself for my sake," Jin said airily, not bothering to conceal his grin when Kame rolled his eyes.
He'd just finished swallowing when a sound at the door diverted both their attentions. It wasn't the thud of a knock, but more of a muffled scrabbling. Kame responded faster than Jin, who sat there puzzling, and moved to investigate. He opened the door and emitted a soft sound of surprise.
"What is it?" Jin tipped his chair back, trying to see beyond Kame's now-squatting form in the doorway.
In response, something growled and shot into the room.
"Shit!" His chair wobbled as a tan-colored bundle on four legs darted under his feet, throwing off his balance to crash ungainly on the floor. A motoring growl sounded by his ear, punctuated by a series of piercing yaps. "Son of a bitch," Jin groaned, staring into beady eyes set under a domed skull, its sail-like ears swept back and jaws snapping. The Chihuahua looked personally affronted by Jin's existence and had no problem at all chewing his nose off.
"Koki, come here. You hungry?" Kame set his plate on the floor and just like that, the dog gave Jin one last dubious look before trotting over to scarf the leftovers.
Jin sat up, glowering as Kame gave the little monster a fond pat on its round head. "Is that thing yours? How did it even get in the building?"
"Hm? Oh, this is Koki. He's a friend."
Jin swore the dog looked smug when it raised its head and licked its chops. "It's not staying here," he said automatically. "Pets aren't allowed."
"He's not a pet," Kame said patiently, retrieving the dish once it had been licked clean and transporting it to the sink. "I think he's just visiting for a few days. He won't cause any trouble." It seemed that he addressed that last statement meaningfully to Koki, but that still didn't make Jin feel any better towards the dog. Which probably wasn't just a dog.
"He better not chew on any of my stuff," Jin allowed.
#
"Aww, he likes you," Yamapi cooed, shoving Jin to get inside. As usual, Koki ignored Pi and rounded once more on Jin.
"They eat dogs in some countries. I could make you worth your weight in yen!"
Yamapi snorted. "He weighs like three kilograms. How much are you planning to make? And I don't know any country that's known for eating demons."
"Well," Kame interjected from where he lounged on the infamous couch, flipping channels. "Our kind is occasionally cannibalistic."
"Ha!" Jin exclaimed as though he'd won. He jabbed a finger at Koki. "I can feed you to Kame!"
Koki cocked his head at Jin, unimpressed. Then he turned around and hopped onto the couch with Kame, braced his front paws on Kame's arm and leaned up to lick his face.
Jin found himself making garbled noises in tremendous and irrational fury until Yamapi smacked the back of his head. Shutting up, Jin hit Yamapi back and then stalked over to the couch. It was easy enough to pick up the Chihuahua despite Koki's snarling attempts to gnaw his hands off, and Jin did not quite toss him like he wanted, but he did relocate him and claimed the spot next to Kame.
Kame observed the sequence with obvious amusement. "It's all right, Koki," he said dryly when the Hellspawn came at Jin's ankles, ready to take a foot and bury it somewhere.
Koki whined. Jin gloated.
"Have you really eaten your own kind before?" Yamapi came around to plop down on the opposite end of the couch. He picked Koki up and settled him in his lap, much to the dog's disgruntlement.
For a moment Kame looked utterly uncomfortable, and Jin was about to say he didn't have to talk about it and Pi, you retard, shut the fuck up, but he shook his head slightly. "No, I—I haven't. It's not common."
"And you're such a glutton normally," Jin drawled, shifting his leg to tap it against Kame's. He stared straight ahead at the TV, but from the corner of his eye he saw the twitch of Kame's smile.
"Consuming another demon is about power more than nutrition. A different sort of hunger."
"Makes sense," Yamapi remarked. He was rubbing Koki's belly, who appeared mortified much to Jin's delight.
"So what's the deal with this bastard?" Jin tried to poke him but had to yank his fingers back before pointy teeth snapped shut on them. He was going to make another attempt just to be annoying when Kame's fingers closed around his own and firmly tugged it away from harassing his friend.
"Shapeshifting isn't rare."
"Can you do it?" Jin peered curiously at Kame, who returned the stare with uncertain eyes.
"Yes. Do you want me to?"
"Yeah!" Yamapi cheered.
"Umm. Hm." He still held Kame's hand loosely in his. When he felt the barest hint of movement, he tightened his grip. "No, not really. You're not bad like this."
"It isn't fair," Yamapi grumbled. "You demons only pay attention to Jin. What's so great about Bakanishi?"
Kame said smoothly, "I can't speak for Koki, but I'm under contract and it's not like I had any choice in the matter."
Jin hardly noticed the growling in his direction. "Neither did I," he muttered, sinking lower in his seat. He released Kame's hand and used it to scratch an itch, sullenly narrowing his field of vision straight ahead.
#
The closest thing to help he'd found was a site that described how to safely summon a demon, and the process sounded similar to what he remembered, but it didn't say anything about reversing or ending the contract.
"You're supposed to be able to find anything on the Internet," Jin bemoaned at the ceiling and spun his chair around.
He jumped in his seat when he saw Koki sitting in the doorway. The Chihuahua was not yap-yapping all over the place at him for once—just the fact that he'd wandered this close to Jin's room was strange in itself.
"Get out of here, shoo!" Jin shut his laptop, wondering how long Koki had been waiting there and how good a dog's eyesight was. They stared at one another until Jin gave up in disgust. "Whatever," he muttered and turned back to his desk.
He heard the door click shut behind him. Sending a glance over his shoulder, Jin jumped again and almost fell out of his chair.
"What the—?!"
The Chihuahua was gone, but the scrawny guy with the close-cropped blond hair and deeply scowling features somehow still resembled one. "Let's skip the niceties, just answer me this: do you or do you not want to follow through with your contract?"
"Gee, that's a tough one," Jin said, exaggeratedly rubbing the back of his neck as he pretended to think. "Damning my immortal soul for all eternity, I'm for it! Seriously, is that the dog brain talking?"
Koki's lips peeled back in a growl, but Jin had been hearing that same rumbling threat for days so despite the change in appearance it failed to terrorize. "Funny, coming from a waste of protoplasm like you. So maybe you don't want help keeping your soul—its dubious worth notwithstanding—out of my friend's clutches."
That much got Jin's attention, but he wasn't that stupid. "And why do you care?"
Koki scoffed, but he didn't avoid answering, "Let's just say I don't want Kame-chan ending up with your soul any more than you do."
Ridiculous though it was, Jin felt mildly offended. "What, is my soul not good enough for him?"
Koki's silence could have meant he agreed, or he thought the question was too dumb to answer, or he was just being mysteriously badass for the hell of it.
Jin wasn't going to get more of an explanation out of him, and truth be told he didn't much care about the details. The Internet had failed to provide—it was time to count his blessings where he could find them. "So? Talk. What's this solution of yours?"
"First we need to see an expert."
"Expert on what?" Jin asked, thinking of Madoka with a strange yawning sensation in the pit of his stomach. A witch, Kame had said. Another witch might know what to do.
"Hard to find one, but I know a guy. An expert on souls."
#
"How much further?" he asked the air, ignored by the people walking on either side of him as they hurried along, holding umbrellas over their heads. A light rainfall had started up and Jin resigned himself to getting wet, tucking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.
Koki couldn't answer his question, trotting a little ways ahead with single-minded determination that would have puzzled anyone paying attention to the little dog. He led Jin along the streets without pausing to heckle people or sniff fire hydrants. No one noticed him, not even below ground when he shuffled into a train car amid a forest of feet. Jin didn't even know why he was a Chihuahua again. Maybe he preferred it. "You're more annoying as a dog," he said once they started on their way, and then Koki tried to take a piss on his foot. Jin felt that proved his point.
Kame hadn't been around when they left—in fact, Jin hadn't seen him all afternoon. It wasn't like they were attached at the hip, but it felt weird to go off without informing him at least. If Kame had a cell phone, he hadn't told Jin the number. Jin thought about leaving a note, but that was weird, too. What would he say? "Gone to break contract. Nothing personal." The only thing worse would be saying so in person, so he hadn't waited.
Though now he wished he'd taken the time to grab a fucking umbrella. The rain was coming down harder, and Jin had no idea how much longer he'd be walking in it. Still, he tried to reason with himself, a cold was negligible compared to bigger things at stake. He just hoped Koki wasn't screwing with him. Demon or no, Kame's friend or no, if Koki was just leading him in circles Jin was going to kick the puny animal like he was scoring the winning goal for the World Cup.
"At least tell me that we're meeting this expert of yours someplace dry," Jin continued to gripe, mostly to himself. "Dry and warm. Fuck."
He didn't know what he was expecting from this so-called expert. Maybe an ancient woman in a little back room with a crystal ball in one hand and a deck of tarot cards in the other.
"Are you kidding me?" Jin's footsteps finally came to a sloshing halt at the central avenue of Yanaka Cemetery. He swiped the droplets of water from across his eyes and squinted up at the skeletal branches of the cherry trees lining the road, dark, crooked spindles against the steely gray of the clouds. They hadn't bloomed yet, but soon the park would be awash in pale petals.
Koki didn't even pause, and Jin had to follow or be left standing there. He was certain that the wretched dog made it difficult on purpose, weaving through the headstones until Jin nearly lost track of him. The vast noise of the rain filled the silence of the cemetery, and there wasn't another person in sight. Just rain-slicked monuments, naked trees and shrubs, and the empty path ahead.
A splash of color popped from the grayscale world; the bright blue, yellow, and red of crisscrossing poles that constructed the playground. The swing set creaked, a thin and high sound breaking the constant shhh of rain, one candy red seat swaying under the weight of a lone body.
Jin thought it was a girl at first, judging by the slender figure and wet sweep of dark hair clinging to a smooth, pale cheek. Normally he'd have gone over and said something without a thought, but gut instinct shivered his skin and it had nothing to do with the cold.
The face that lifted and tipped his way was pretty and serene, but despite the delicate features, the voice that greeted him was not the pitch of a female. "You brought him after all."
Koki appeared—not as a dog anymore—hunching his shoulders and blinking distractedly at the rain before ambling up to the strange young man. "Said I would," he replied gruffly, shooting Jin a sharp look. "C'mere, this is my friend. He's doing me a favor."
The guy rose gracefully to meet Jin as he approached, and something made Jin stop nearly a meter away. It wasn't that he felt dangerous, just altogether strange and unsettling. Jin suspected it wasn't just the trap-like appearance, either. "Hi," he said, attempting to adapt a casual tone like he met up with eerie people in deserted cemeteries all the time. "I hear you're a soul expert or some shit."
A wide grin split his face that made Jin feel like he was missing a joke. "Interesting way to put it, but I suppose that fits. Call me Ueda. And you're Akanishi Jin," Ueda added before Jin could introduce himself properly. "I've heard about your contract with Kame-chan."
Kame had such bizarre friends. Although Jin was friends with the likes of Yamapi and Ryo, so he probably shouldn't point fingers. "Yeah," he agreed weakly. His phone vibrated again in his pocket. It had stopped for a while, and now Jin used it as an excuse to pause the conversation, not caring about being rude. Fishing it out, he shielded it as best he could from the downpour and read the newest message from Pi.
kame wants u 2 call him. i think hes pissed. what did u do bakanishi?
Jin's fingers shook as he shut his phone. From the cold, that was all. Who was the idiot, anyway, when Kame never gave Jin his number? They weren't friends. Not really. They were stuck with each other through no choice of their own.
"So," he began, stuffing his hands out of view once more into the front pockets of his now-sodden hoodie and clenching them tight. "What's the plan?"
Koki rubbed his palms together eagerly. "Well, you see, the problem is that your soul is bond to Kame-chan. According to the contract, when you die your soul automatically goes to him. Ueda here," Koki clapped a hand hard on Ueda's shoulder but the other man didn't buckle in the slightest, "is going to prevent that from happening."
Something didn't line up quite right with that explanation. "How?"
"When a God of Death removes your soul, he can do pretty much whatever he wants with it."
"What?" Jin screeched, his heart making like a rabbit with a jolt of thumpety-thumpety-thumpety. If his soul was a physical thing he'd have been clutching it protectively.
"That's not entirely correct," Ueda was saying to Koki, apparently disinterested in Jin's outburst. "Normally I'd give it to Kame-chan, as the rules state. Goodness knows what the world would be like if we did as we pleased all the time."
"My soul isn't going anywhere!" Jin proclaimed, then turned an accusing finger on Koki. "How is this helping me?"
"Hey, I never said you'd keep your stupid soul. Just that Kame-chan wouldn't keep it."
"Deals with devils," Ueda sighed as if that explained everything.
Jin formed an 'x' with his arms. "No way. No deal. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll figure this out on my own after all."
"I know this isn't an official thing," Koki said, calmly but not very apologetic. He was fast, leg extending to sweep Jin's feet out from under him and then planting one foot on his chest before he could even catch his breath. "But you don't have a choice here."
The weight pressing down on his ribs wasn't crushing, but it was immovable. No amount of pushing and yanking could dislodge it, and Jin's struggling only got him more stuck in the mud that squelched under his back. This kind of strength was unbelievable; he'd hardly known it was like this. That Kame was like this. That one time Kame had pushed him down had been nothing. Then the way he stopped, because Jin said so, that had been everything. Rain spattered and streamed down his face, got in his mouth as he opened it to yell—
"Kame!"
Koki spat curses and clamped a hand over his mouth, but Jin kept yelling anyway. Not for help, and not hoping to be heard by visitors or caretakers of the cemetery. He screamed and called and ordered in a muffled, panicked cacophony of noise, "Kame, get over here! Oh, for—I'm calling you! Kame! Kamenashi fucking Kazuya, I—"
"What is going on here?"
The cold rain sluicing down Jin's face had nothing on that ice-laden demand.
The pressure on Jin lifted and suddenly he could breathe again, but his throat felt raw and abused like he'd just finished a long, rockin' concert from when the name tore its way out. It felt like he'd unleashed a razor-sharp whirlwind with his voice.
"How does he know your name?" Koki still stood over him on one side, Kame on the other. Ueda had backed off, but he was still there, lingering by the brightly-painted slide.
"I gave it to him." Rain dripped from the tips of Kame's hair. He didn't move at all, didn't so much as acknowledge Jin slowly picking himself up at his feet.
Koki spared Jin an angry, incredulous glare. "You just gave—"
Jin sucker punched him. He wasn't sure it would actually connect, but Koki must have been too distracted, or he underestimated a human that much. It wasn't a very heavy punch, but it caught him from the side, and Jin felt better for about two seconds before Kame turned on him with a violently disapproving look.
"Stop," he hissed, but Jin was as far from placated as he could be.
"I'm cold and wet and muddy and almost had my soul sucked out! Fuck this, okay? This, your psycho friends here, fuck it all. I'm going home."
No one stopped him. He gladly left them to it, whatever they had to deal with between them, as long as it didn't involve him or parts of him that were never meant to belong to other people. He worked off the rest of his tantrum on the long, miserable trip back.
#
His skin prickled in gooseflesh when he opened the bathroom door and let the cooler air in. The past few days had conditioned him to check for a growling little dog waiting to ambush his ankles, but Koki was nowhere in sight. Good, because next time he saw a Chihuahua Jin was bagging it with a rock and throwing it into Tokyo Bay.
Thursday night, so no Yamapi. Before bothering to get dressed, Jin wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Asahi from the fridge. There was nothing to eat in there—nothing he didn't have to make himself, anyway—so he surveyed the delivery menus stuck to the door and ordered a pizza. Extra cheese. Ham. Some vegetables he rattled off from the top of his head. Thin crust.
When Jin made his way back to his room, Kame was sitting in the chair facing the door with his arms crossed. He was in dry clothes, but his hair was still wet, damp tips of reddish brown curling on his neck.
Kame, it turned out, held a grudge better than Jin did.
"You're an idiot," he fired off without preamble.
"Couldn't see that one coming," Jin muttered. He picked up a belt from off the floor and used the buckle to open his beer. The cold wash of the first swallow eased down his sore throat.
"How did Koki convince you to go along with that? Did he have to grow a pair of tits?"
Jin almost dropped his beverage and squeezed his eyes shut in horror. He ought to make Kame pay for the therapy needed for that mental image. "Don't even joke about something like that!"
"This is exactly how you keep getting into trouble. You just agree to anything." Kame had noiselessly risen to his feet and was standing in Jin's personal space, tight-lipped and glaring.
"I'm sorry I'm not paranoid like you!"
"You should be!" Kame's eyes widened a fraction at his own outburst before he closed them, drawing in a slow, shaky breath. He pulled himself inward and continued, "After what happened the first time, you should be more careful. There are plenty of things out there interested in poaching souls, and ones like yours stand out."
"Right," Jin mocked with a sourness coating his mouth that the beer didn't wash away. "Because you've already made that investment. Excuse me if I don't celebrate."
Kame grabbed the ends of the towel dangling over Jin's shoulders and yanked him that much closer. The air around them thrummed and tasted of electricity. "You're the dumbass who summoned me, and all you wanted was for me, personally, to not kill you. I could have let Ueda take your soul, and believe me, it wouldn't have been anything like passing quietly in your sleep. But your utter stupidity must be catching because I saved your ungrateful hide instead."
Jin tried to muster up the indignation of being talked down to, and it would have been easier if he couldn't smell the fresh rain on Kame's skin and the spark smoldering underneath. He found that he couldn't say anything, and it was impossible to look Kame in the eye because Jin knew how open his face was, and Kame would see it and know and do something about it. For reasons Jin couldn't articulate, he didn't want that.
The hands fisted in the towel suddenly released and Kame stepped away. Turned his back. Jin wasn't happy with that either, and his noble intentions fell away to selfishness. He unslung the extra towel and flopped it over Kame's head, rubbing at his wet hair.
"Thanks, I guess," Jin said awkwardly. And because he didn't have to be brave in front of Kame's expression, he added, "Sorry."
"Bakanishi," Kame said, muffled with only a hint rancor from under the barrier of cloth, and he let Jin tousle his hair dry.
When the pizza arrived Jin still hadn't put on pants yet, making the delivery man very uncomfortable when he answered the door. Kame didn't warn him or anything, and laughed for what seemed like the first time in days as Jin tried to play it cool while paying the poor guy. Kame picked the green peppers off his slices and piled them onto Jin's as they sat in front of the TV watching a Thursday evening drama, and Jin pretended not to notice when Kame snuck sips from his beer.
#
"Well, well," said a voice from behind him. Jin felt the fine hairs on his arms and back of his neck prickle. His fears were confirmed when a dainty face emerged from the crowd, sporting a wicked grin that showed a mouth of teeth. "Fancy running into you again."
Running was a fine idea.
"Wait," Ueda said, dropping the grin and affecting an expression of tranquility once more. "We should talk."
"My demon told me not to talk to creepy guys who want my soul," Jin replied automatically, and loud enough to garner a few odd looks from the flow of people that broke around them.
Ueda flapped a hand—details, details. "I don't covet your soul in particular. I agreed to help Koki and that was a one-time-only deal. You probably won't see me again until the time comes to pass your soul to Kame-chan."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Jin mock-enthused. "Well, it was great talking to you again. Bye!"
"But," Ueda went on without paying Jin any mind, "if you take Kame-chan for granted again, I might drop by."
Jin wanted to howl at the world: it's not my fault! I didn't want a demon!
Ueda shook his head as if reading his thoughts. "You're clueless. Walk with me, Akanishi Jin."
"I'm not—fine, I might be a little lost here with this kind of weird shit flying at me from all angles, but I'm not taking Kame for granted." Jin trailed doggedly after Ueda, if only to defend himself.
"You're not the worst human he's had to serve," Ueda allowed, then added, "yet."
"I think I'm a decent enough guy! It's not like I'm ordering him to—to off someone for me, or whatever. I don't want that. I really don't."
Ueda gave him a sidelong, appraising look. "Ah," he said with a note of understanding that Jin didn't get at all. "That's why you're going to be either the best or worst thing to happen to him, Akanishi Jin."
Jin hated riddles and word games. "What's with the name? It's creeping me out."
"Maybe you should ask Kame-chan." There was meaning packed into that lightly-spoken suggestion, and Jin recalled the ache of his throat after using Kame's full name. It hadn't exactly been far from his mind all day yesterday, but...
"Don't wanna." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I mean, if I asked, he'd have to answer, even if he didn't want to."
Why that explanation put a pleased look on Ueda's face, Jin didn't know, but at least he deigned to answer, "Names have power, you had to have figured that much out. Normally, the first order someone makes to a demon they've contracted with is to give up its name. That binds the demon more firmly to the master."
"Oh," Jin said, and then a flash of memory behind his eyes—Kame under the club lights, stalling, licking his lips nervously. "Oh."
Ueda let him reel for a moment, serenity tinged with amusement. "Think about it," he advised. "And maybe I won't have to make any surprise visits."
"Yeah," Jin said distractedly, then pulled himself together before he stepped out into the middle of a busy intersection. Ueda hung back, waiting for the crosswalk to clear. "So you're a pretty good friend of his."
Ueda merely shrugged. Total understatement. A guy doesn't threaten to show up at your home and kill you—and mean it—without giving a significant damn about the friend in question. "So is Koki."
"The bastard who wanted to steal my soul from Kame? I know my friendships are weird, but—"
"Koki meant well. His loyalty runs deep." The light changed, and the two of them were swept up in the press of people hurrying to the other side. Ueda stayed close by. "They're both strange for demons. Different. Most of their kind enjoys what they do—they all do at first, or they wouldn't have Fallen. But sometimes a few will regret that choice. Koki feels the weight of it most of all."
"That sucks," Jin guessed. He still found it hard to sympathize with the guy who tricked him. "And—Kame?"
"You should ask him. Most masters wouldn't. They don't care."
"I hate being called that." Jin shuddered, remembering the shock of the first time, waking up to find a stranger in his bed.
"Mh," Ueda hummed in something that wasn't explicit agreement. He patted Jin's shoulder and Jin shuddered for a different reason. Nice talk or not, he was still unfathomably eerie. "I have some business to attend to. Keep in mind what I said, Akanishi Jin."
"I get it. I get it already." He peeled away from Ueda with relief, taking a moment to get his bearings before quickly crossing a smaller street during a break in traffic.
He just got to the opposite curb when he heard the noise behind him. A couple of screams and shrieks, short and surprised, and something else that was difficult to describe. Like a meaty thud accompanied by a bony crunch. The sound echoed hollowly in Jin's gut, and when he turned he couldn't look away. The dark blue suit of a salaryman lay crumpled on the pavement, legs and arms twisted careless like a doll's whose strings had been cut. A splash of red pooled around a misshapen head.
Ueda was nowhere to be seen—except in a flicker of an afterimage, standing over the body, his translucent figure as brief and illusory as a mirage. The wail of sirens sped closer, but the paramedics would be far too late. The man's soul had already been whisked away by a God of Death.
#
Kame chuckled. "Why are you the lead singer again?"
"Shut up. It's in English!" Jin strummed the previous bars again, lips moving around the foreign lines to get the feel back. "And—I'll take what I can get if you want me here."
He'd been practicing for a while, and was surprised yet pleased when Kame joined him in the chorus.
The song was interrupted again, this time by a car horn blaring noisily and repeatedly from outside. "Damnit, I just want to play through the whole thing once!""Say anything, but say what you mean.
When you whisper you want this, your eyes tell the same.
We are gaining speed, I can barely breathe,
'cause I'm caught in suspension."
Jin could have been using a room at school where there was plenty of peace and quiet. But the tiny soundproof boxes on campus didn't have Kame sitting by an open window with the sun on his skin and the breeze in his hair, a wisp of smoke trailing from the end of one of Jin's cigarettes that dangled between his fingers.
"Sounds good, though."
"I want to have it down for our next show." Jin plucked a few notes, but he wasn't that interested in playing anymore. He set the guitar down and scooted closer to Kame, stealing a drag from his cigarette. Smoke scratched familiar along his throat.
Warmth from the sun pooled on the floor, and Jin was content to bask in it, leaning against Kame's chair. The noise of the city buzzed crisply through the window and the lyrics to the song bounced around in his head. Say anything, but say what you mean.
"Kame," he started, and then a weight settled on top of his head. Kame was using him as an armrest.
"Hm?"
"What's it like?"
"What's what like?"
"You know. Um." Jin made a broad motion in the air, not sure if he was trying to connect his train of thought to Kame or understand it himself first. "Being a demon and all that."
"'All that,'" Kame repeated, taunting. Jin heard him sigh, and in the following pause gather himself for a response. "I don't know, it's... okay."
"Wow. Ringing endorsement."
"It's life as I know it. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. What more do you want?"
Jin bumped his shoulder against Kame's leg. "Okay, so... Hell. Should I pack with a forecast of fire and brimstone in mind?"
Kame was silent. Maybe it wasn't very funny. Okay, it definitely wasn't funny, but Jin gave himself points for trying. Then Kame knocked bony knuckles on Jin's skull. "Hey. What's really on your mind?"
Jin let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Geez, I don't know! I just... talk to me. Tell me something about yourself."
"I like romantic candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach under the moonlight."
Jin had actually started to catalogue that seriously for a moment. He punched lightly at Kame's thigh. "Ass," he said, but he felt loose-limbed and mellow. At least until Kame dipped his fingers and swept them over Jin's collarbones, making him erupt in stifled shrieks.
"You are such a girl," Kame laughed while Jin held his hands protectively over his weak spot.
"I'm not the one talking about candles and moonlight!"
Kame's eyes crinkled and his lips curled in a smile around the dwindling cigarette he brought to his mouth. Smoke bloomed and dissipated in the air as he breathed out, then he ground the stub in the ashtray. "I'm happy," he said, matter-of-fact in a way so it didn't come across as slightly deranged. "You wanted to know something, so there."
"You could be happier," Jin ventured. He thought of Ueda's annoyingly cryptic words and the way Kame apologized without saying so whenever the contract was brought up. Even when he was angry about it, he was still sorry.
"That's what it's like. Hell," Kame clarified. "It's different for everyone, but for ones like me, that's what it is. Doesn't matter where we are."
"Wait a minute. Hell is not being happy?" Jin wondered if he had some reassessing to do about his situation.
"It's harder than you think. Demons like me, who've Fallen, have known Paradise. And we'll never get that back." His voice had grown wistful, gentler than Jin had ever heard it. When he stared up at Kame's profile, the angle was perfect he was haloed in sunlight. "I sort of lied before about not being hungry. I'm always starving, never satisfied. That's what being a demon is like."
Jin's hand hovered, then laid down to rest on Kame's knee. Worn denim was soft beneath his fingers. "What will happen to me?"
"For you, it will be different." He saw Kame's expression close, as obvious as any door, and it didn't matter if Jin had the key.
Jin decided he could live without knowing. And Jin was big on satisfaction, on thrills and adrenaline highs that left him sated, on the skyrocketing ups and plummeting downs of his puny mortal life. He pressed his face against Kame's leg, sighing, and then all at once surging up onto his knees with his hands on Kame's shoulders, pulling him into a kiss.
It was the clumsiest kiss Jin's ever given since junior high school, all mashed mouths and odd bumps and gaps of air. Anxious enthusiasm, no technique. It didn't matter. His fingers clutched Kame's shoulders hard enough to bruise and he kissed him like he could pour his overflowing heart into Kame's own chest.
Kame sucked on his lips, his tongue, greedily taking what he offered and it was messy and fumbling and more. It was Kame's hands on his face, palms stroking Jin's cheeks, fingers skimming back through his hair, luxuriating in every touch and texture that lay within his reach. He smelled like smoke, tasted of tobacco, and Jin breathed him in and savored his flavor again and again. Kissed down the hard curve of his jaw, the soft length of his neck.
Kame tipped his head back, a breathy moan escaping into the mild afternoon air. Jin felt his throat vibrate softly with it under his lips. He licked over Kame's pulse, pressed his mouth there where the blood pumped in an imitation of being alive. The rapid-fire beat of it matched his, and that was good enough.
They were in full-view of whoever might peek into the third-story window. Yamapi could come home any moment. Hell, one of Kame's weird friends could make a surprise appearance.
Jin didn't care. He nosed the hollow of Kame's throat, nipped at the extended wings of his collarbones—and felt every ounce of vindication when Kame squirmed at the graze of his teeth. Smiling fiercely, he slipped his hands flat under Kame's t-shirt, rucking it up just enough so he could spread his fingers out across the firm curve of his waist, thumbs stroking his belly.
"Jin," Kame murmured, skin shivering under light touches. Even if he rarely held a grudge, that didn't mean Jin didn't remember things. And he remembered, very well, the feel of Kame pressed against his stomach.
Now it was Jin between Kame's legs, kneeling in the light instead of lying in the dark, and he feathered kisses in a haphazard path to the line of his pants. "Is this all right?" he asked, he wasn't sure why, and Kame made a surprised, airy laughing sound that made something curl warm and content in Jin's chest.
"Is it?" Kame echoed back, hands curving behind Jin's head and just brushing the nape of his neck. Jin knew of the strength that was wielded in those hands, and their distinctly male shape. There was no softness clinging to Kame, just planes of lean muscle, the hips under his touch narrow and bony. No perfumed scent, no manicured nails scraping delicately fragile. Just—Kame. Sun-warm, electric-shiver Kame with his blunt, hard nails making indentations where his fingertips dragged across Jin's shoulders.
Jin rubbed his cheek against the inside of Kame's thigh and traveled upward. Clever assault with teeth and tongue popped the button of his jeans, and then he bit down on the zipper and dragged it undone with a crawling rasp. That much was familiar. The ridge of thinly-clothed heat straining outward was not—at least, not from this angle, and the corner of Jin's mouth quirked. As far as he knew, Kame didn't have anything strange or different.
He spread open the flaps of Kame's jeans, hooked two fingers in the waistband of his underwear and tugged them down, brushing the backs of his knuckles up along the darkened underside of his cock. Kame made a tight, stuttered sound, and he bunched handholds in the fabric of Jin's shirt, even now minding his strength and taking care of where he grabbed.
Jin had less reason to be conscientious, immediately curling a loose fist around Kame and testing the feel of him. Velvet-soft skin stretched and slid under the movement of his dry palm, awkward at first until his wrist found the most comfortable angle. Hot, hard weight rested in the circle of his fingers. He found that if the guitar callous on the pad of his finger rubbed just right, Kame swore under his breath and pulled at Jin's shirt. In the back of Jin's mind that recalled high school locker rooms he couldn't help but compare, and Kame was a shade lighter, had less girth, more curve.
Closer, Jin wanted, and bent his head towards Kame's heady scent, breath puffing out, and swiped his tongue over the rounded crown. Tasted skin, mostly, a little bit of sweat, and a lingering muskiness. He kissed his way down, and licked back up from root to tip, wetter now, and he collected more of Kame's taste on his tongue.
Jin gazed up the length of Kame's body, slouched as it was, from the twitch and flutter of muscles along his abdomen to the rise and fall of his chest, the blatant arch of his neck. His head was thrown back, lips parted, and Jin was the one who moaned, so pleased—so very pleased that he could make Kame look like that: open, defenseless.
One of his hands wrapped around the base of Kame's cock, the other drifted up, tracing the sharp cut of his hip, circling his navel, and it didn't matter where he touched as long as it was skin-on-skin. Then Jin took Kame in his mouth.
Kame's knees squeezed around Jin, caging him on either side in clear command. Stay. Stay right where you are. Jin was amiable to that, and proved so by sucking on the head of his cock. He'd had fingers in his mouth before, his own or someone else's, but this was heavier, hotter, in a way more satisfying, and he went for more. Tonguing the ridge and the thick, pulsing vein below caused Kame's breath to hitch. Jin took in as much as he could, and even after thinking that was the limit he found he could take just a little bit more.
It was not the best blowjob in the world, and Jin distantly cultivated a newfound respect for the girls who'd gone down on him in the past. But Kame didn't complain when teeth bumped against his shaft, or when Jin paused and withdrew to take ragged breaths in between determined licks across the leaking tip. The taste was strong in his mouth now, more bitter, not pleasant but not unbearable. In any case, it didn't deter his enthusiasm.
At some point Kame started to mumble brokenly, "Yes, yes, good..." and Jin hummed his agreement around slick hardness. He felt the cool stir of a breeze on the heated swath of skin on his lower back where his shirt had been pulled up, and his own erection ached between his legs, so hard that he fumbled open the front of his pants and sunk his hand inside to grind against himself.
Multitasking was not one of Jin's strengths. Fortunately for him, stroking himself and sucking Kame off didn't require the same focus as singing and playing. It was enough to hollow his cheeks around the cock in his mouth, fingers slippery at the base when he remembered to ripple them, and fuck into clenched heat of his other fist. Kame cupped the back of his neck and base of his skull, and that was even better, having Kame's hands on him somehow, petting through his hair and guiding his head. The bump against the back of Jin's throat was uncomfortable, but he made a low, wanting sound around the flesh sliding past his lips.
"Jin." No one had said his name quite like that before, breathed out slow and quiet like it was something beautiful and wondrous. Jin rolled his eyes up to see Kame watching him with dark, wanton desire, and in that moment he was the center of Kame's universe, the only thing he wanted and hungered for above all else.
Jin buckled with the crash that fell upon him, giving himself over and coming hard, fast, and messy inside his hand. He was still shuddering from the pulsing shocks of it when Kame squeezed the base of his neck tight, like he was going to leave a handprint there, choking half a warning before Jin's tongue met with a hot, pungent burst.
He gagged a little and withdrew out of reflex, getting a smear down his chin when Kame's softening cock was released from his lips. There was no place to spit without being majorly gross, so Jin resigned himself to the somewhat less-gross option of swallowing thickly.
"Whoa," he said past his grimace, and his voice sounded slightly hoarse. A hand twisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him up as Kame bent down to lap at the spot on his chin and kiss him. It was a much better kiss than the one before, languid and smooth with the assurance of neither of them going anywhere. Jin's knees were going to commit mutiny whenever he got around to standing, and his jaw was feeling sore, but every ache and ounce of him was so fucking satisfied.
Kame tugged at him some more, and Jin couldn't figure out why until his wrist was grabbed and his sticky hand drawn in. His breath stuttered and fingers twitched under the warm, wet strokes of Kame's tongue. It was almost methodical, more like the drowsy, contented washing of a cat than a filthy, seductive gesture.
Jin rotated his wrist until they were palm to palm, fingers tangling. He pulled and Kame slid down with him, on top of him, lying in a boneless sprawl on the floor. Kame's breath tickled across his collarbones, and beyond the red-gold tint of his hair Jin could see a patch of sky outlined in the window.
"So," he husked, shuttering his eyelids until all he could see was a faint glow behind them, and he slung an arm around Kame's relaxed, blanketing weight. "What were you saying about being happy?"
"Mh," Kame said interpretively into Jin's chest. Pressed so close, he felt every inhale, exhale, and yes, like this.
#
The background noise of the crowded coffee shop washed over him. Jin waited for his drink, sitting in a wayward chair that wasn't quite integrated with the other sets around the tables and jiggling his leg. They had another gig lined up next week, always something to look forward to. He almost had the new song ready.
"Akanishi!" the barista called.
"Look, I'm on my way over." Jin switched the phone to his other ear and picked up his iced mocha, tearing the plastic wrap of a straw and plunging it through the lid when the harried barista forgot. "I'll be there in—"
Startled cries flew up around him when the cup slipped from his hand and splashed on the floor, ice cubes skittering wildly underfoot.
"Never mind, something came up!" he said instead and ended the call.
Not caring that it was rude, he pushed past the people inside the shop and raced out the door. He didn't have to run far, catching up quickly and yanking with thoughtless, automatic intensity on a slender, white arm.
Dark, heavily lined eyes turned on him in a glare that mellowed out with recognition. "Yes?" Madoka inquired, politely unconcerned.
"You!" was all Jin managed to say on such short notice.
Madoka dropped her eyes pointedly to where he grasped her arm, but Jin didn't release her, even though he didn't exactly know what he wanted from her yet. He'd reacted spontaneously to her appearance, just a glimpse through the window, like he'd finally found the light switch in a dark room but was having second thoughts about getting a clear look at his surroundings.
"You," he repeated, moderating his tone this time and trying not to grab her too roughly. She was a witch, she could take care of herself, but nobody else knew that and people were already giving him some disapproving looks. "I need to talk to you."
Bored, maybe even slightly annoyed, she let her gaze drift elsewhere. "We have nothing to talk about."
"Then refer me to someone who knows about demon contracts, because I've got some questions."
He felt the shiver that traveled along her arm, and her attention snapped into focus on him like a solo stage light. "Interesting," she said in a low, rumbling purr, eyes narrowing with a smile.
Though he'd sworn to never do so again, Jin followed her home. It was different this time—she couldn't seem to catch his eye the same way she'd done that night, and he could tell she wasn't too pleased about that. Her excitement overrode that detail though, an inconvenience maybe, and he thought this time he might have the upper hand.
Madoka's new apartment was decorated the same as her old one, strange but not overtly occult—though Jin eyed the carpet covering the floor and refrained from stepping on it. The roomed smelled faintly of spiced incense.
"The spell—it worked after all?" She kneeled gracefully on the floor and motioned for him to do the same. He did, settling more than an arm's length away. He didn't see the knife anywhere, but he hadn't noticed it until it was waving in front of him before, either.
"Oh, yeah." No details. Jin hated gossip to begin with, but when it involved Kame... he didn't give a damn about her curiosity, this was going to be a one-way street. "Look, all I want to know is how to save my soul."
"Tell me more," she said automatically, then smiled for his benefit. "It would be easier if I understood what happened. How did you find out?"
Jin shifted through the last couple of weeks for the bare facts. "He showed up a week later. Looks totally normal, but he's crazy-strong." Crazy-beautiful in a way no woman had been, with laughing eyes squinted nearly shut when he makes fun of Jin, and the way he rivets Jin's attention without even trying.
Madoka leaned forward. "And he obeys you?"
That again. He should have expected it to come up. "Yes," Jin allowed carefully.
"Strange." Her smile took on an edge of teeth in candid amusement. Jin couldn't say he was happy about the fact she tried to screw him over in the first place, but water under the bridge and all that. More importantly, he didn't know where to find any other witches. "I don't suppose he explained why?"
"No." Jin still thought it was obvious. "But if it was my soul being offered, wouldn't it make sense?"
Madoka scoffed and rummaged through a cardboard box that she dragged out from under her bed. Jin tensed, but all she produced was a worn book. Not a huge, leather-bond tome, but more like a journal. She flipped to a dog-eared page. "No, because I'm not inept. Plenty of summonings have been modified similarly, and this one in particular has succeeded before."
"That's all very fascinating and reassuring, but about my problem..."
More pages turned. "I'll be honest, lovely. I've never heard of someone getting out of a soul trade."
"At least not in a way that's any good for them," Jin muttered bitterly, but he wasn't going to explain that story to Madoka's clearly attentive expression either. "So, what, I'm just fucked?"
"Hmm." Either she thought it added to her mysterious charm or there really was something worth reading in that book. "I'll admit—I'm good, and I'm clever, but I'm not yet wise. And I do like a challenge." Her nails tapped the open pages with a flourish, and when she raised her face her eyes were wide and animated. "Let's try a spell."
Jin didn't know why his knee-jerk reaction was hell, no. She was a witch for crying out loud, of course the answer would be a spell. But—all right, he could play this smart. For once. "What kind of spell are we talking about here? The kind where I need to sacrifice a body part?"
"It's safe for you." Her head tilted and the waves of her hair flowed across her shoulder as she assessed him, and it was more than a casual checking out, also lacking the hungry searching quality when she'd decided that his soul would make for good fodder.
He found that he couldn't really appreciate it. "Okay," he said, diverting his attention to the book and making a passing effort to comprehend it. The words were a chaotic mess of English in faded, elegant pen strokes, and more recent Japanese notes.
Madoka was digging through her box again, pulling out what looked like junk except she handled everything with the utmost care, the way a jeweler handled precious stones or a fanatic handled rare collector's cards. She placed an assortment of items on the floor: a ruddy metal bowl, stripped twigs of wood, little bundles of aromatic herbs, and—weirdest of all—a tied lock of fine, dark hair.
She didn't seem to mind when Jin dragged the book closer and bent his head down to try and decipher the writing. The flowing English script was impossible, but Japanese seemed to be miniature biographies about people who'd lived as far back as the early Tokugawa shogunate. Jin gave the lock of hair a nervous look.
"Another summoning spell," Madoka explained, coaxing a fire in the bowl from the twigs and bits of dried leaves. They released a powerfully sharp scent despite their withered state. "But for spirits only. No demons, no deals. I may not know enough, but we can try an ancestor's wisdom."
"Kokkuri 2.0," Jin laughed, a little shakily. He remembered some girls playing the superstitious game in high school. Yamapi and Ryo were complete monsters and once dragged him into it just because it freaked him the fuck out.
His voice quieted and his heart pounded louder when Madoka's lips moved around the stark Latin syllables. She dangled the lock of hair over the licking flames and let it drop. The aroma of the herbs flooded the air, earthy and fresh, instead of the burnt stench that was expected.
The fire flashed white-hot, and through squinting, watery eyes Jin could barely make out the blurry, etched strokes of a name. Then it faded, and Jin almost thought it hadn't worked, when he blinked away the spots dancing across his vision and noticed the pale, translucent figure sitting opposite from him.
Male, young, he sat immobilized like his image was a still projection, but then his head shifted left to right, taking in the flesh-and-blood woman and man sitting around the now-smoking bowl, and his long, solemn face suddenly cracked into a wide, toothy grin that made his eyes shrink into crescents.
"Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguchi desu!"
There was a hollow period of silence.
"Right," Jin said, drawing his legs up so he could press his face into his knees and slump. "I'm fucked."
Madoka thought too highly of herself to appear flabbergasted, but a muscle twitched on her face before she smoothed it out and explained in ritualistic speech why she had called upon the spirit. He listened attentively, boyish and cheerful, apparently not much put out by the fact that he was, well, dead. But who knew how long he'd had to get used to it. He was dressed in nondescript khakis and a t-shirt, the colors washed-out like the rest of him.
"What kind of demon is it?" He inquired, and Madoka looked to Jin.
"He," Jin felt the need to emphasize, "is, um, Fallen?" That was the term he kept hearing, anyway. Taguchi and Madoka both nodded, so it must have been correct.
"Powerful," Madoka commented with a smile that made Jin nervous.
"Smart," Taguchi added more thoughtfully. "And you can't kill them, not for good. Even if you banished him, the contract would remain in effect."
"I don't want to—get rid of him, kinda," Jin hurried to say, putting a splash of surprise on the other's faces. "It's just, I think we'd both be better off without being tangled up in a deal we never wanted to make."
"Demons love dealing with souls," Madoka stated with an air of authority.
Taguchi nodded. "Leading others to damnation is in their nature, and they can't resist bargaining for a good soul. They're, ah, persuasive, too." He sounded apologetic in a way that made Jin want to put a fist through his intangible face.
"Not all of them are like that," Jin insisted. When they continued to look doubtful he drew the Ace out of his sleeve. "Or are Gods of Death prone to lying?"
Madoka's jaw didn't drop like he'd hoped, but her eyes flashed—not in anger, and she almost seemed to fight down a smile. Taguchi was suitably impressed. "No," he replied, "they're not. Furthermore, there aren't many humans who've met one and lived."
"I'm just lucky like that." Jin rolled his eyes while he said it.
"Still, very interesting!" That bright smile lit up the room again, then dialed down a notch when he added, "But a bit out of my range of experience. A demon that doesn't like to deal is a strange creature indeed."
"But he will deal," Madoka said with a glint in her eye as she cast a sidelong glance at Jin.
"That's the only way to get out of a contract with a demon. Make a new one. Offer something else." Taguchi shrugged. "With the dumber ones you can trick them, but the Fallen are a whole different story."
"Then we have our answer."
"No, wait," Jin began, but Madoka was speaking over him in a flow of foreign commands and Taguchi was waving as his image became even more indistinct.
"Glad to help!"
"What help?" Jin demanded, but he addressed empty air. He switched his glare to Madoka. "How does that help?"
"Exactly as he said: we offer something else." She leaned in close, and the fire that had gone out seemed to have been transferred to her flashing gaze. "Don't worry, lovely, I know just the thing."
#
"I was careful this time! Besides, nothing bad happened." He thought Kame might react this way, so he'd waited until it was late and just the two of them, wrapping around Kame on the couch like a reassuring human blanket.
Kame elbowed him in the ribs, but it wasn't enough to dislodge Jin. Stung a bit, though. "She already used you once. Come on, Jin."
"Yeah, it's probably a trap." He wasn't that dumb for Christ's sake. "But still worth trying, right? She's too spell-happy to make it a totally empty promise. I know you want out, too."
"There's no way out," Kame countered darkly, and more than a little bitter. "You know she's just going to sacrifice some other unknowing soul, right? Do you really want that?"
"You wouldn't accept that." Sudden stillness in his arms. "...But—you—"
Kame swiveled around, pinning Jin by the shoulders the way a parent did when trying to explain something of grave importance to a child, but his fingers dug in tight and the lines of his body were taut in restraint. "I am what I am. Maybe I'm not always proud of the fact, but that witch of yours is right. I'll make the trade. I did for you, and others before you."
"But it makes you miserable!"
"Did it ever occur to you that that's the point?"
"That's fucking retarded. How about not beating yourself up?" He balled his hand into a fist and thumped it, lightly, on Kame's head. Then his fingers unfurled and slid through the soft hair like they couldn't help it. "Fine, I'm a puny human who doesn't know shit. But don't you want to... go back? 'Cause what goes up comes down and vice-versa?"
Kame let his head drop forward, bumping against Jin's so their foreheads touched. His eyes were closed. "I know. But I don't know if I want that."
"How is it even a choice? If you asked me whether I wanted Eternal Torment or Paradise..."
"It's always about choice. Why do you think I Fell in the first place? I chose. And look, I'm still here, so I haven't changed my mind."
"You're just stupidly complicated," Jin complained, taking Kame's face in his hands and kissing him before he could refute the statement.
#
He dragged his feet on the way to Madoka's, reluctant to the point where Kame had to stop, thin his lips in disapproval, and take up Jin's hand like a haggard parent with a wailing toddler. He even sniped, "Stop being childish."
"If we get there and she has some guy chained up or caged or something, I'm calling the fucking cops."
"It's a shame we can't all have your imagination."
Madoka's apartment was on the fifth floor. The elevator was out, or so said the sheet of paper on the floor that Kame picked up after Jin had pressed the button three times.
Their footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell. "Are you sure?" Jin asked miserably over the steady boom-boom of what felt like his own death march.
"Don't," Kame warned with a jerky twitch of his head, almost looking back but stopping just in time.
"Don't what?" Jin challenged. He stood on the step below Kame. His arms went around Kame's body and enveloped him close, feeling the warmth of his back through his clothes. His chin rested on the shelf of Kame's shoulder.
Kame's jaw brushed Jin's cheek, and quickly, almost by accident, he graced a furtive kiss to Jin's temple. Jin still felt the mild puff of his breath on his skin when Kame pried himself free.
Madoka opened her door for them with eerie premonition before Jin had worked up the nerve to knock. "Welcome," she greeted, pleasant and serene.
There was not, in fact, a sacrificial prisoner being held inside, but that didn't make Jin any happier. "So here we are," he said lamely.
"Have a seat."
"If it's all right with you," Kame began with a courtesy Jin couldn't recall him using before, "I'd rather not step into that sealing circle you have under there."
Jin's eyes went to the threadbare swath of rug Madoka sat comfortably upon, but she merely lifted her shoulders in a shrug and flipped back the corner. He saw a familiar streak of white paint. "It's a protective circle actually—for myself. I don't blame you for being suspicious, though. Rather, I hoped for it."
From her lips came a single word of command, followed by a crackle and a flash so close that Jin felt the heat flare on his skin. His eyes watered from the brightness and he felt that he'd been struck by lightning—or just nearly missed. Blinking away the spots swimming across his vision, he almost collapsed in relief to see Kame still standing, only, now the air around him sparked and shimmered.
Unconcerned, Kame tipped his head up. The white of the paint had blended into the ceiling, but now the circle and whorls of writing and symbols were visible, faintly glowing. "Don't touch," he warned when Jin took a step closer to the barrier. Then to Madoka: "This isn't necessary, but," a mocking half-smile, "I don't blame you for being worried."
"I don't like this," Jin stated for the record. The barrier—it was more like a veil, hung from ceiling to floor—hummed soft and continuous.
"There's just one thing I'm curious about," Madoka said lightly. She was surrounded in her own veil, but a paler, gentle moonglow as opposed to the electric threads flickering around Kame. "Why didn't my summoning spell work? No matter how I scrutinize it, my performance was fine."
"I've wondered about it myself," Kame admitted. "I think you can blame him." The faint smile he turned on Jin was equally exasperated and amused. "He can barely handle his own lyrics sometimes—"
"Hey!"
"—a delicate spell for summoning a demon is asking for a lot. The incantation must be precise. You're lucky there was no backlash."
Madoka wore the expression of someone who had unexpectedly bitten into an umeboshi. "I see. Well. At least it was through no fault of my own." Jin would beg to differ: he was a victim, damnit, but before he could speak for himself she composed herself again. "But it succeeded in bringing you over, so the difficult part is out of the way. Let's make a new contract."
The veil prevented Jin from edging closer to Kame, and he could feel its low hum reverberate warningly when he got too near. Meanwhile, Kame made a show of searching the room with a broad, sweeping gaze. "I don't see any other available souls, unless you mean to offer your own." His dust-dry tone indicated the likelihood of that happening.
"I wasn't sure if you would accept another soul. Is that what you really want?"
Kame remained silent.
The smile on Madoka's face unfurled like a victory banner. "I could hardly believe it when I heard, but it seems that he told the truth about you. Then how about this: you serve me instead—"
"No—" Jin began.
"—and in exchange, his soul goes free. Jin gets to keep his soul, and the demon that doesn't want to damn another doesn't have to. That's exactly what you want, isn't it?"
"Except Kame isn't serving anyone else!" Jin interrupted, trampling over Kame's intended response. He glared through the sparks of the veil where Kame matched him with narrow-eyed defiance.
"Jin, shut up, I—"
"Kamenashi Kazuya, I forbid it."
The room shook and a sizzling crack sounded, filling the air with a smoke-and-metal scent. Tiny blue-white forks of lightning crawled over the portion of the barrier that Kame had hit. He hissed through his teeth, but not so much because of the blood dripping sluggishly from his fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"
Reflex made Jin swallow, but his throat felt like sandpaper and his words rasped. "You're not a fucking slave. These contracts are bullshit."
Kame's hand tightened into a fist like he was going to hit the wall again, but he only squeezed it until his knuckles went white under the red smears. "But it's fine if you make my decisions for me, is that it?"
"No! I mean—"
Madoka's laughter pierced the tension. She held a hand over her mouth, but the chuckles rolled past it and the light reflected in her dark eyes was aflame with merriment. "So selfish, lovely! Your soul or your demon, you can't keep them both."
"No deal," Jin snapped. "Let him go."
"But I insist." She spoke a command, heralding another flash and thunder crack. The shimmering veil around Kame was sucked back up into the seal, taking him along with it like gravity in reverse until he was pinned to the circle with enough pressure to make him gasp for breath. "I can't kill him," she remarked, safe behind her protection, face tilted up to regard the demon held fast to the seal. "I could banish him, send him speedily back to Hell where he would stay for a while—longer than your lifetime—but that wouldn't benefit any of us, now would it?"
"Don't," Jin said, and wanted it to be a threat but it turned into a plea when the crushing pressure within the circle forced blood to paint Kame's mouth.
"Agree to my terms."
"You...!" He looked up to Kame, not that it was easy. Madoka was keeping him flattened to the ceiling, arms and legs awkwardly bent, and the flecks of red he coughed up made Jin's eyes go wide with horror. He'd choke on his own blood but not die from it.
Yes, okay, all right, Jin was prepared to say.
Madoka waited, cool and composed where she sat with her hands on her knees while spasms shook Kame's twisted form, and the words failed on Jin's tongue.
"No," he said, more of a raw croak than an articulated word. "No. No fucking way. I don't... It's okay if he hates me for it, and I may be a selfish asshole, but you know what's not okay? You. Doing that to him. You bitch."
"How sweet," she drawled, unaffected with good reason. She was still untouchable, still in control. "Then you don't mind me keeping this up before banishing him?"
"What's a few minutes, maybe even hours, compared to eternity?" Jin shot back with more nerve than he felt. Here he was making Kame's decisions for him again, and bad ones at that, but the only way he'd agree was over Jin's own dead body. "And if you banish him I'll just find him again. See if I fucking don't. Because Kamenashi Kazuya is my demon."
He needed that blistering surge of power, to exclaim it loud and fiery the way he'd shout and sing himself hoarse during an encore, revving the audience up to go out with a bang so they'd know how much he loved every minute of it. So Kame would know.
"You make a good point," complimented a mild voice. It came from the balcony where a slight man leaned in the partially-open doorway. He wore a polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"What a show-off," added another voice, growling and familiar, and a hand shot up to grip the railing. Koki scrabbled over the edge soon after and threw the sliding door the rest of the way open.
Jin never thought he'd be so relieved to see that bastard's face again.
"Stay back," Madoka ordered, but Koki only took a menacing step closer. "I'll banish him!"
"I'll banish you." He smirked and circled the protective light that surrounded Madoka, slow and predatory at first, and then he made a lunge. It looked like hitting a wall; the light flared up from the contact, but it didn't result in any sparks or sizzling flesh. He hit again in the same spot, and this time Jin could hear a delicate, hairline crack. The protective circle had been meant to withhold against a normal human, to keep Jin helpless against her, but against a demon's strength it was no match.
She hurriedly poured more power into the spell. Self-preservation won out, and her hold on Kame weakened. Jin was just close enough to catch him when he fell.
"Kame!"
Kame coughed and spat a glob of blood onto the floor. "Stop—quit shaking me, you idiot." But all Jin wanted to do was touch him all over and make sure he was still in one piece. Did hospitals treat demons? "Nakamaru, nice timing," Kame said tiredly over Jin's shoulder.
Nakamaru's face scrunched up in displeasure. "We hurried when we felt the activated seal. I hope no one noticed the two crazies scaling the building."
A shattering crash announced the defeat of Madoka's barrier.
"Let's go," Nakamaru suggested quickly.
Jin hesitated even as he tightened his hold around Kame. Madoka was curled up and—praying, he realized, she was desperately praying.
"It's all right," Kame said close to Jin's ear, and his voice still sounded wet and thick. "Let's go."
#
"I don't need to see a doctor, Jin, and stop hovering!" Kame smacked Jin's hand away and accepted the bottle of water Nakamaru bought along with the towel from a nearby combini. He sloshed some water around in his mouth first and rinsed the last traces of blood out before taking a measured swallow.
They sat under a tree in a small park—had found a bench at first, then sent Nakamaru off to the combini, but Kame's appearance didn't exactly set the mothers and children at ease. It had taken a while for Nakamaru to find them again, and he'd arrived with a disgruntled, long-suffering expression that Kame rewarded with a grateful smile.
"You demons sure know how to stick together," Jin commented, twisting the towel around in his hands and trying to think non-jealous thoughts.
Kame and Nakamaru shared an odd look. "Actually..."
Nakamaru shook his head. "I'm not a demon."
"He's an angel," Kame clarified, and carefully did not meet Jin's incredulous stare.
"Is that... allowed?"
He was spared from what was probably going to be a pithy remark by Koki's arrival. In his smug Chihuahua form. He got sidetracked by the children, happily scampering among them with little yap-yap-yaps and a furiously wagging tail. When he made it over to their tree he flopped down and put his head on Kame's leg. Whatever good feelings Jin had accumulated for the dog drained out in an instant.
"Thanks," Kame said into the air.
"I was in the area." Nakamaru cleared his throat awkwardly. "Actually, I was looking for you. Both of you." He nodded when Jin pointed at himself. "I just meant to tell you, there's another way."
Jin groaned. "I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't worth it. After all the trouble we've gotten into..."
"That you got us into," Kame corrected waspishly. He grabbed Koki's ruff when he flicked his tail in wicked amusement. "I haven't forgotten your part in it, either."
Nakamaru rolled his eyes. "Well, if it interests you at all, demon contracts only hold with demons. There's no penalty if a contracted demon sort of... switches teams."
"I told you!" Jin suddenly exclaimed, grabbing Kame excitedly by the arm. "What did I tell you? Nobody listens to me."
Kame put up with the shaking for a moment and then pushed Jin off. "And I told you, it's not that easy."
"No," Jin said, holding up a hand to forestall an argument. "I have a goal now. A lifetime goal. Kame, I'm going to save your soul." Maybe it was just as ambitious and ridiculous as becoming famous and filthy rich overseas, but about a million times better. If asked, Jin would choose living in a cardboard box with Kame over a luxury condo with supermodels.
"Sounds good to me," Nakamaru put in.
Koki didn't say anything, but he didn't snarl at Jin either.
"Whatever," Kame murmured, looking away. "You moron."
Nakamaru stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. "If you think about it, it's only fair. You wanted to save his soul back there, too. This way is less stupid. Come on, Koki, if you keep causing commotions in the mortal world someone's going to put you on a very short leash."
The Chihuahua grumbled in displeasure, but stiffly removed himself from Kame's lap and trotted off with the other man.
"See you around."
Jin watched them blend into the crowd, angel and demon, as ordinary as the next guy or dog strolling through the park. It was a crazy world he lived in. "I don't know about you," he said, "but your friends beat my friends in weirdness. And that's saying something."
Kame snorted. "Live a couple centuries and you'll find strange people, too."
Jin didn't think he could top an angel that shopped at combinis, a God of Death that rode the train, and a Chihuahua that thought he was Cerberus.
"Koki didn't really kill her, you know." Kame played with the cap of his water bottle. "Nakamaru wouldn't have let him."
Jin nodded, relieved to at least not have that on his conscience. Whatever his conscience was worth. "Um. You're not... mad at me, are you?"
"For what?" Kame asked blandly. "You mean, letting me be tortured while you stood around talking about what an awesome greedy bastard you are?"
"I didn't mean it like that! Ow." Jin rubbed the spot on his forehead where Kame had flicked the plastic cap. It bounced off and landed in his lap. "I just. You deserve better than that. A lot better." He picked up the cap and lobbed it in the direction of a trash can, but it dropped short.
"Litterer," Kame accused without bite. He drank down his remaining water and whipped the bottle through the air with the accuracy of a tracking missile.
"Freakin' show-off."
"You, too." He covered Jin's mouth before the vehement denial spilled out. "I mean, you deserve better, too. You have a good soul, for all that you're a dumbass. Like you said, in a choice between Heaven or Hell... it's not even a choice."
Jin pulled Kame's hand away, but held onto it. "It's always about choice. And changing your mind."
"That's so indecisive."
"Fine, I'm indecisive! People live for a long time. Eternity is even longer. I can do what I want, as long as it's what I want."
"Then..." Kame curled his fingers around Jin's, smooth and comfortable. Lasting. "What do you want?"
Jin thought about it—deep thoughts, future thoughts, what he was going to do after college and whether the band would stick together, if he'd try to make it on his own, if he'd do the smart thing and actually try to get a real job and be a different kind of failure. He thought, and said, "Move over a bit."
Kame scooted around, making enough room for Jin to turn sideways and lie back with his head pillowed on Kame's lap. It wasn't soft like a girl's, but he didn't mind. It was a warm spring day and the temperature was just right in the shade, and Kame's fingers still twined loosely with his.
"This is fine. This is all for now."
Epilogue
"He's still not answering his phone! Wait, here's his voicemail... Ryo, you mega-douche, we're setting up the stage now. If you're not here in ten—no, five, we're kicking you out of the band. This is a unanimous vote." Jin shut his phone and gnashed his teeth. "Where the hell is he?!"
"Who cares, we need a bassist." Yamapi turned to Kame. "I don't suppose that's included in your bag of tricks?"
"I can play guitar, but I've never tried bass."
"And he's not fucking psychic! Stop bothering my demon." Jin pressed Ryo's speed dial button again.
"Should someone inform him that 'demon' isn't synonymous with 'boyfriend'?" Shirota wondered aloud.
"Ryo, I swear to God—"
"You!" Ryo snarled, standing in the doorway with a loud crack as the door bounced off the wall. He marched inside, ignored Jin's tirade, and grabbed a fistful of Kame's shirt. Jin's ranting switched subjects.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HANDS OFF!"
"Can I help you?" Kame asked with raised eyebrows.
Ryo swung them both around to fling an arm out at the young man standing behind him. "That! What the fuck is that?"
Kame took a good, long look. The man in question merely shrugged. Kame turned back to Ryo and said very seriously, "That is going to do you a whole lot of good."
Yamapi, naturally, was the first to accost the stranger. "Cool! Are we all going to get our own demons?"
"I'm actually—"
"NOTHING," Ryo shouted, red-faced. "HE'S NOBODY."
"—his guardian angel."
Pin-dropping silence.
"Oh, buddy," Jin sighed and clapped a sympathetic hand on the self-proclaimed guardian angel's shoulder. "Have you got your work cut out for you."